Personal Strength on Mt. Everest

A late January weekend and one WHOLE day spent in front of the TV! Seems like a waste, but we tuned in Everest: Beyond the Limit(three season’s worth!) – and it wasworth it. This Discovery series had everything: stimulating, edge-of-the-seat examples of leadership, teamwork, individuality, compassion, perseverance, fortitude, failure, astonishing success, humility, courage, self-confidence, gratitude, effort, tolerance, commitment, responsibility, patience, decisiveness and more.

Discovery filmed teams making the Mt. Everest summit approach from the famous south side, but also from the north side of the mountain. These people invested months – and a great deal of money – in the dream/obsession/goal of summiting the world’s tallest peak. Their reasons for taking this on were different, the people themselves were very different, but each was determined to make it. One man was 71 year old, others live daily with physical disabilities, one man was raising money for a cause close to his heart, most were “regular” folks who had determined this was something they had to accomplish!

While summiting Mt. Everest wouldn’t be my particular dream at any age, it’s always mightily inspiring to watch others working toward something they really want – what they’re willing to contribute, how they’re willing to devote themselves and how they endure unspeakable hardships. Each person also learns something about him/herself through this process; after all, you’re facing yourself in some grueling situations, it’s life and death, so how do you behave?

I could stop here; just watching the series impressed me so much I woke this morning reliving some of the climbers experiences. But I also found myself thinking about the expedition leaders – these were the experienced climbers whose job was to “see the big picture” and manage communications, weather forecasting, coordination of sub-teams, guides and Sherpas. The leaders didn’t actually make the climb – they’d done that many times, but they oversaw all aspects of their teams’ experience; in fact their leadership was vital.

Climbing Mt. Everest has changed dramatically from the phenomenal feat accomplished by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953 – today there are hundreds of climbers in any one short season and those who plan to survive usually use a commercial outfitter who provides the radio communication, climbing guides, indispensible Sherpas, safety ropes, ladders and weather forecasting from a base camp. As I said, the leader is below the climbers to see the big picture – lots of tension, nerves and finding a balance between “allowing” a team to continue or recalling a team or members for any number of reasons.

The leader is in charge, he’s there to provide expert advise, but after all, he’s not on the climb and cannot force climbers to do as he recommends.

As I thought about all the strengths we saw exhibited in this series, I mentally tallied the Personal Strengths ProStarCoach has built into it - strengths any one us can work to improve whether we ever climb Mt Everest of just deal with the daily challenges life throws our way. We all need the strengths I listed earlier: leadership, teamwork, individuality, compassion, perseverance, fortitude, failure, humility, courage, self-confidence, gratitude, effort, tolerance, commitment, responsibility, patience, decisiveness (and more!) and that’s the beauty of ProStar – it’s an online development system that structures exercises and provides resources for each of us to select and work on our personal growth – check it out here and use the 15 day FREE pass to explore the system. You  never know what challenge you’ll decide to take on in this life – get yourself prepared!