Just wrapping up our 2nd weekend of training with
our new Soldiers to Summits crew and as expected, I walk away with a profound
sense of admiration and a great deal of respect for this year’s group of men
and women. I can quickly tell that, even more than with our inaugural 2010 group,
this assortment of soldiers and marines has reminded me that although I am the
guide… one of the supposed experts in our endeavor… I am truly the one that is learning and
expanding through my participation in this project. Each of them has dealt with
a tremendous amount of adversity and is attempting to stand back up in both the
physical and emotional sense. As I have
engaged with them throughout both of our training weekends I am reminded how
resilience lives and breathes in these dynamic and thought provoking
individuals.
This round of training was primarily geared toward the
physical and technical training that will be required to ascend our ultimate
goal this December of the 18,000 ft volcano, Cotopaxi in Ecuador. Two full days were spent up in the cold at
the base of St Mary’s Glacier (approximately 11,000 ft) both dialing in crampon
and ice axe work as well as collectively scaling a nearby 13,800 ft peak. The cold and altitude were a constant reminder
for the team, that we are preparing for a mission that will require each of
them to dig down for an objective that is, at times, somewhat uncomfortable.
And although none of them have any experience in the realms of climbing and
high altitude, they each know that anything worth doing is going to require
some suffering along the way.
One of our discussions on Day 2 revolved around adversity.
This has always been one of the most compelling themes that I reference in all
of my keynotes and teachings. I have learned much about how I personally deal with
adversity in the 20 years that I’ve been guiding my blind buddy Erik on
mountains, rock faces and adventure races around the world. Together we have been
kicked around on multiple occasions…consistently being required to find ways of
dealing with ass whoopings. Erik has always been a beacon of how to use
adversity as fuel…turning a clear, life-numbing event into a catalyst for
success. I have learned much from him on how to be an “alchemist” with turning
challenging objectives into summits of success.
Our facilitator that day posed to the group a hypothetical
question as he was wrapping up the topic of adversity. He asked each member of
the group whether they would, if given the chance, ingest a pill that would
guarantee a life void of adversity. Take the pill and you will never again feel
pain or inconvenience. No more red
lights, hairs in your pasta or flat tires. No more cancer, trauma or mortgage
defaults.
On the outset it seems a no brainer…who wouldn’t want to
walk through life never having to deal with the daily bullshit that we all
encounter. You would be squeaky
clean…permanent vacation. Easy Street.
Now clearly this exercise is to prompt the participant to delve
into the fact that adversity is a good thing. After some contemplative thinking and group
discussion, one would say, “No, I wouldn’t take that pill. I need adversity in
my life to make me strong.” We are prompted to conclude that without some
hardcore adversities along our paths we would become complacent and listless.
I’m confident that up to that point in his career, our
facilitator had received this same answer in all occasions up to now…until he
ran into this group.
The first person to speak up against the accepted paradigm
was an amazing young man named Kevin. We all listened to him lay out exactly
why he would choose to take the pill. He clearly and succinctly explained how
he had experienced enough adversity in his short life and how, if given the
chance, he would swallow that pill down in a second and apologize for being
late. “I don’t need anymore adversity to
get strong. I’ve been through enough and I’m good with sailing on the rest of
the way without pain and sorrow.”
A few more folks spoke up in this same fashion and those that didn’t say so in the big group setting volunteered the same response to me later in the weekend. It was unanimous amongst the group that the “No Adversity Pill” would be a big hit amongst this crew.
What I concluded that day was that in some cases, enough is
enough. We can all agree that the
adversities in our lives help to weave our thread count into the characters we
are. How we handle the daily grind challenges as well as the life changing,
monumental throw-downs is what defines us as individuals. But perhaps there is
a point where we have experienced plenty of hardships to provide us the fuel we
need to combat complacency. I doubt there is a limit on what we can take…but
perhaps there is a limit on what we need to be great.
On our final night, we sat around a campfire and swapped some
of our favorite quotes. All of them were
meaningful and thought provoking, however one stood out to me and I’m still
blown away by its timeliness and relevance. John Masters is one of our 2012 S2S
class and his Teddy Roosevelt quote is the embodiment of our mission with S2S
from the beginning.
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who
points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have
done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose
face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and
comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or
shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who
spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the
triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he
fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold
and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
