The Mountain Without a Top
“It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves,” Sir Edmond Hillary famously said after the first successful ascent of Mt. Everest in 1953. I got thinking about this after covering Mike Sarraille’s Everest fundraising effort. Whether we’re climbing a mountain, founding a company or starting a family, Hillary has it right. It’s ourselves we set out to conquer, going ever deeper into our true potential. Potential that we, ourselves, usually only can catch glimpses of before realizing it.
Mount Everest, in the Himalayan Mountain Range, located in Nepal and Tibet, is considered the highest mountain on Earth. Reaching 29,029 feet, Mt. Everest can be summited but once you reach it, you’ve reached it. Of course, it’s on my bucket list. Climbing Everest is often thought of as one of the greatest physical feats in the world. Decidedly different though is our growth as human beings. As Hillary once put it, “I will come again and conquer you because as a mountain you can’t grow…. But as a human, I can.”
The mountains of what we can achieve have no top. They’re never-ending climbs throughout which we can continually keep growing. Forever putting one foot in front of the other – in large and small ways -- over and over again. Growing a family. Growing a business. Growing a movement. There’s always further you can go.
Innovation, transformation, significant positive gain… they’re not something that you can do. They’re simply the result of continuing to climb. You know that feeling of just wanting to get somewhere? I know it well. You’ll never arrive for more than a moment, if at all. Even if you do summit something (and we should definitely celebrate those wins) there’s always another mountain to climb. There’s power in taking one step at a time as a way of living life -- not only in order to get somewhere.
We all know (and probably have felt) that the discomfort of growth can be paralyzing. It can leave you never wanting to go near a situation, a person or a topic ever again. And at the same time, that’s exactly what’s necessary. Instead of fighting the fear, holding back the grief, pretending that the anger isn’t there, we can take a page out of Hillary’s book: “I have been seriously afraid at times but have used my fear as a stimulating factor rather than allowing it to paralyze me.”
Working with the fear, understanding the fear, going into the fear because what you’re looking for is on the other side: the money, the relationships, the joy is all there in spades.
So what is it that you want to accomplish? What is on your list of things that you want to achieve?
I’ll be there to support.
Not just me, the entire #NoMatterWhat Community who are out to accomplish great things for their businesses, their communities and themselves. I wouldn’t be doing it without them and you shouldn’t either.
Don’t worry. You don’t have to be built for growth. Never was there a baby born where the doctor held up the infant announcing, “We have a courageous one here!” We all enter the world as helpless babies. Growth, courage and determination are skills we can develop but it’s an intentional choice. A choice you make to go beyond your current situation, your conditions or circumstances to something beyond. As Hillary once said, “People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.” One foot in front of the other, ever climbing the mountain of growth that has no top.