You have dreamed of this moment your whole life. The summit of Everest is a mere 80 meters away. Your body is in pain, but the reward for all your hard work is soon to pay off. “I thought you had the rope!” With those 5 words, the dream ends, the hard work will not pay off. You do not get to reach the summit. Someone dropped the ball.
In 2010, I was at an event in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle (Mexico) where Karla Wheelock spoke about that moment on May 19th, 1998. That failure turned into a valuable life lesson.
Karla assumed the other team members packed the rope and so did they. She realized that one’s actions, or lack thereof affects those around you. She could have blamed someone else for forgetting the rope, but in the end, she recognized that she should have checked it herself.
How easy it is to blame others for our failures. We blame our upbringing, our situation, our boss, our colleagues, the universe…there is no lack of targets for blame.
Karla says that reaching the summit is not the goal, that’s only half the goal. Going up and returning safely is the ultimate goal.
Reaching the summit is not the goal, that’s only half the goal. – Karla Wheelock
To succeed at reaching the summit of our goals, we cannot do it alone. We need a team to help us along the way, we need the right tools and we need the obsession to make it, despite any obstacle. When climbing Everest, a Sherpa is needed to guide you through the steep and dangerous parts of the mountain. By relying on their experience, a mountaineer can avoid many pitfalls and dangers. In business, there are many ways to be helped by a Sherpa. You can hire a business coach who will work one-on-one to train you and help you achieve your goals. Even with a Sherpa, your best chance of success is being in a team. Your team all has the same goal, to reach the summit. You can have the best boots in the world, the best ice pick, the best crampons, but these are only tools. These help, but teamwork, the right tools along with a Sherpa will be your ultimate chance of success.
When it comes to teams, one often thinks of their staff. While it is true that you want your staff to be a team, but as a business leader, you need peers. Your staff are those that support your efforts from base camp. They are there to assist you, but they aren’t climbing that mountain alongside you. Those attached to the tether are your peers and their success if your success.
Where can you find the perfect team & Sherpa to help you?
Ever since I starting participating in Mastermind groups, I noticed that I was climbing higher then I ever had alone. To have peers attached to you in a such a way as your success is of utmost importance to them is a game changer. When you add to that working with a business Sherpa, you discover that attaining any summit is possible.
A Sherpa will also stop you from ascending in some situations. Yes, there might be times where we feel we need to climb, but they are aware of our limitations and weather conditions that might make that attempt futile or worse yet, dangerous. They will guide you up to a higher base camp, then back down again till they feel you are ready for your summit attempt. I have had business coaches stop me before starting a project that they felt I was not ready yet. It is disappointing at the moment, but because I was made to wait, the summit became even clearer for me.
On May 27th, 1999, a year after her first attempt failed, Karla became the first Latin American woman to reach the summit of Everest. Karla had the right team, the right equipment and the right Sherpa. She took responsibility to make sure that the team had all it needed for success and she had the rope this time.
The VARMastermind will soon be open for registration. The rope is dangling before your eyes. Will you grab hold of it?
P.S. The VAR Mastermind Inner Circle Group is now open. For less then a dollar a day, access a group of your peers, along with AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Randal Wark.