Will The Real Civilized Culture Please Stand Up

Just returning from a month of globetrotting to various remote corners of the world, mixing mostly work with a little bit of play. I’m grateful to all of the good people that I was fortunate enough to share time with scampering around some wonderfully inspiring alpine settings.  I never tire of witnessing my clients/friends embrace the beauty and challenge of movement through mountainous terrain and interfacing with the hardy local folks.

This month was truly another wonderful collection of vivid memories and images of local villages and homes speckled on the flanks of mountains and hills on 2 different continents. The simple life that appears before us as we tramp through some of the more secluded regions seems so rudimentary to most of us… with their lack of running water, cell phones and grocery stores. It’s easy to look across the valley at one of the thatch roofed homes with sheep and goats milling about and feel a bit of despondency for the inhabitants at how tough their life must be.  

“It must be so hard to live in such a primal way. Bless their hearts.”

And then, if you’re lucky, you have a face-to-face encounter with one of the locals. You see the wide smiles and note the sense of comfort in their eyes. You feel that they need very little to be happy. Food, shelter and family. Undoubtedly they experience pain and sorrow due to disease, crop failure and lack of health care, but they exude this sense of being satisfied with what they have in front of them.

On the second leg of my work month I was in Peru with a wonderful group of Gold Star women (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_flag) that are the living, breathing definition of resiliency. Recounting the characteristics of these amazing women and their fortitude is another story entirely.  One of these women has been sponsoring a Peruvian child for several years and decided she would try to meet the child and his family while visiting the Cusco region on our adventure. After many phone calls and much effort from her and the sponsor agency, the meeting was arranged. The rest of the group was invited to watch and listen in as the meeting took place. At one point during the meeting it was conveyed to our group that this was the first time this family had left their hillside village. The first time they had been transported by vehicle. The first time any of them had ever been inside a building or seen Americans (or white people for that matter). This beautiful family of 5 handled this “strange” encounter with dignity and calmness. I can’t imagine how overwhelming it must have been to have a group of 12 Americans sitting across from them in a hotel lobby, smiling and asking questions about their lives. The children walked 3 miles each way to school everyday… rain, snow or sun. They lived modestly and trusted that the earth and Pachamama would provide all they needed to survive.  These families value the opportunity to go to school and aren’t afraid to work for it while we complain if the bus is late to pick up our kids or our plane is delayed an hour (try walking from LA to Chicago the next time your plane is late).

Unbeknownst to them, the world went on bustling and careening around them.

On this same Peruvian trip I was required to medically evac one of the participants from 13,500 ft due to a very significant medical event. After a fairly touch and go 24 hours, complete with early morning horseback rides and hospital visits, I finally tucked her into a hotel room in Cusco and retreated to my own room for some much needed rest. Not sure why, but I was inclined to turn on CNN just to see what was happening in the world.

Innocence is best served in the dark.

“500 Palestinians are now confirmed dead in Gaza”

“Israeli soldier taken hostage and tortured”

“50 combatants killed while battling over an airstrip in Tripoli, Lybia”

“Ukrainians place blame of downed commercial airliner squarely on Russia”

“Another commercial airplane disappears over Algiers”

“Female correspondent sexually assaulted by mob”

The news cycle played out. Then as it began to repeat… I had had enough. It was all just vitriolic pain.  Every word contentious and coming from a place of anger and hate. Our “civilized” world was in complete disarray with no end in sight.

I reflected back to that sweet, wonderfully naïve Quechan family that would not even be able to relate to all the pain that their fellow humans were inflicting on each other. They were, at that moment, just lying down with the sunset, awaiting another day of planting, harvesting and grazing. Nothing more.

As these travesties against humanity take place, these families go about their business just as they have for thousands of years, oblivious to the pain, sorrow and violence that is taking place around the world.

I’m not suggesting that western society should disavow our technology and cultural advancements and resort to a more “underdeveloped” way of life … nor am I suggesting that I would trade my comfy life with my campesino friends. I would simply ask each of us, me included, to reflect on the simple nature of life and how we can become more civil with each other.  Our needs are fundamental… food, water, shelter and love. If we could live more simply and allow others to achieve their basic needs, the world be a much more “civilized” place.

Climb High

Jeff

The Water That Binds

Just before I boarded my flight back home from another successful climb up Kilimanjaro, I got a texted photo from my wife Merry Beth of our son Jace stomping around in what looked like a few inches of standing water in our driveway.

“Been raining for 3 days now. Our grass is loving it and so is Jace. Safe travels honey.” Merry Beth had no idea the impact this deluge of water from the sky would have on our home and our state of Colorado. No one did.

My 14^th Kilimanjaro expedition was just a pleasure as I guided up a wonderful group of women, most of which were from New Jersey.  They all performed well and in spite of my mild reservations on spending 2 weeks with a group of “Yankee gals”, they blew me away with their kindness, humor and fortitude. I was honored to stand on top of Africa with all 12 of them after a long hard summit night. I would return home with a smile on my face and sense of satisfaction assisting these good people in achieving a life long goal.

Then the real climb began….

I awoke Thursday morning in Miami where I was scheduled to deliver a keynote speech to a group of financial advisors the next day. My first night in a comfy bed in 2 weeks provided me the kind of early morning where I continuously kept rolling over and finding deep sleep…over and over again. Until my phone rang and I saw that my wife was calling. Wait, it’s 6am there…an unusually early hour for my morning allergic wife.

“Honey, we’ve got 2 feet of water in our downstairs and it’s rising fast.”

“Not sure I heard you right…. Did you say 2ft of standing water inside our house?”

“Yes. And it’s raining hard. And I’m scared.”

Helplessness. That was my initial emotion. Then fear and concern. Then… it was time to problem solve and assure MB that we would figure this out.

Before I could even send out the help signal flare, my phone began blowing up with texts and calls from my friends that were headed over to help MB with the house.  Friends who knew I was thousands of miles away and unable to take care of my family. The cavalry was on its way.

I heard multiple times from dozens of people…

“We’ve got this.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Tell me what you need.”

“I’m on the way over to your house.”

As the morning unfolded I began receiving photos of a dozen of our friends hauling furniture to higher ground, crawling around in the muck to access soggy boxes filled with random keepsakes and artifacts as well as making calls to our extended network to get the mitigation of water underway quickly.

Throughout the day I continued to hear stories of neighbors installing sump pumps in my house to relieve the volume of water even though their own homes were still filling. Tales of friends taking 90 minutes to drive across town to our house in the middle of the night to deliver pumps and hoses… trying to find roads that weren’t washed away.  I received photo after photo of random shit from my hippy days being saved by the salvage team. I found it so poetically beautiful that many of my old “hippy friends” were finding my old hippy flotsam and jetsam saturated in the crawl space. They put their energy and love into ensuring that hundreds of old Grateful Dead ticket stubs and photos from days gone past were given a chance to dry out and perhaps be saved. The true find of the day was perhaps the most beautifully absurd… my friend Avery comes upon a ziplock bag containing a 2 ft ponytail that, perhaps in an effort to never let go of the long haired hippy that I was in my 20s, I still kept in a box, deep in the crawl space. And now…I get to keep it for another 20 years, thanks to Avery.

I returned home the next night to a house in shambles and a wife that had been strong until she saw me and finally let out all of the tension… sobbing on my shoulder.  She had been so strong the past 48 hours…not sleeping, vigilantly monitoring the house and showing our 8-year-old son how to be strong in the face of adversity.  I held her as the tension and stress of 2 days poured onto my neck from her eyes.

The smell of mold and mildew hit me first. Worse than any locker room you’ve ever stepped foot in.

My furniture and belongings piled all over the garage…pools of water surrounding stacks of soggy boxes. My Dad’s antique dresser dripping water from its drawers. All the furniture stacked high with the wood wilting with water. My son’s childrens books, lying soaked on the cement with all the pages stuck together. All of my medical school textbooks soaked from cover to cover.

Then it was time to step inside…

The living room was filled with mattresses, tables, photos, clothes, guitars and gear. Not any available floor space left. The downstairs was a maze of fans, hoses, dehumidifiers, extension cords and soggy carpet. The water heater was ruined as well as the washer/dryer and HVAC unit. The toilet was off its flange in an attempt to allow the water to flow down the sewage hole. The tub was filled with a layer of brown muck.

Ugly.

As most of the country knows now, Boulder County was crushed with biblical rain last week…. “The 500 Year Flood” hit us. Over 200 folks are still missing. Countless homes were lost. Thousands of basements were flooded and property damaged. Colorado got beat up…bad. Clearly it will take years to rebuild our roads and the communities and lives they lead up to.

But I have seen something beautiful through the clouds. Something stronger than the power of a swollen river or a flooded home.

I have seen love and compassion. I have seen consideration and kindness. Well beyond my house and its efforts, the stories of heroism abound throughout the Front Range. Daring helicopter rescues and life threatening rescue missions. Tales of taking folks in who have lost it all.

In the end we will replace the dry wall, carpet, appliances, furniture and gear. These are just “things” that have only material value. We are viewing all of the lost items as a mandated “Spring cleaning” from the universe. Time to get rid of all the shit you don’t need. A solid exercise for us all.

What I can never replace is the community that I witnessed rally in an effort to help out a friend. I am grateful and proud of our local folks. They are rock-star-heroes and I will seek out opportunities to repay the favor every chance I get.

Now we dry out and move on.

Endless gratitude to my wonderful community of friends… Keith Berger, Mike Z, Terry Stonich, Avery Stonich, Jamie Young , Finn Ingalls, Marci Zakreski, Kelly Garrison, Matt McQueen, Mary McQueen, Paul Lugar, Jerry Kress, Raeanne Vincelette, David Fowler, John Hatch, Kelly Salence, next door Dan and the countless others that offered assistance to MB and I over that 48 hour period and beyond.

Servant Leadership...With a Cappuccino

Heading home after a wonderful couple of days in the Great Northwest feeling stimulated and content from an engaging visit with the Starbucks team. Whenever I return from Washington or Oregon there seems to be this warm and compelling emotion that cool shit is going down up there…like a secret that the rest of us are just not let in on. It’s rugged, hip and proud up there. My kinda place.

When one thinks of a truly global brand that is recognizable both in it’s logo, product and atmosphere… a brand that has succeeded in demanding a universal standardization for all of its employees to follow in order to achieve a destination for community and fellowship within it’s walls... Starbucks has to be in the forefront of any list. In my travels all over the world there is one thing for certain… when I encounter the ubiquitous Starbucks store (essentially guaranteed at some point in any journey), the soy chai ice coffee I order will taste just as delicious in Chengdu, China as it will in Boulder, CO.  You know what you’re getting both with the coffee as well as the warm coffee bean smell and soft music that fills the building.

It goes without saying that in order to pull this off there must be a solid quarterback making the calls for the team. I was aware of Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz and his creation and guidance of the global icon over the years. I was only slightly familiar with the fact that he gave up his role as CEO at the turn of the millennium and coincidentally or not, Starbucks lost it’s unique character as well as a large portion of it’s share value. I had heard that he had returned to his role as master executive in mid decade and the ship had been recently righted. I really knew nothing more than this on the Starbucks saga and was quite oblivious to the mystique that surrounded its founder and leader.

Once I arrived in Seattle to provide a keynote to the Supply Chain team, I was alerted that Howard had requested a meeting with me in his office with a couple of his trusted leaders. I was honored and thrilled to meet such a legend of brand development but didn’t really think much about it as I prepared my keynote and breakout sessions for the team. So I thought it somewhat comical when, the night before the meeting, my Starbucks host asked me “Have you thought about what you are going to talk to Howard about tomorrow?” I chuckled a bit and said no, which prompted a very visible nervous twitch in my hosts manner as she was the one that set up the meeting and knew her “time with Howard” reputation would be deeply influenced by the success or failure of this unknown dirtbag, redneck climber dude and his ability to be engaging with one of the worlds leading executives. A bit of a roll of the dice for sure.

The next morning as I strolled down the hall towards the CEO’s office I see this tall, gangly fellow in khakis and a casual button down shirt walking towards us with a gracious and inviting smile. This guy looked happy and affable but not exactly how I would draw up the master chef of a global entity that had $22 billion in sales last year.

“Hi there Jeff, I’m Howard.”

And with that simply greeting, I immediately got it. This guy surely had more important tasks to tend to that morning but he found time to carve out 30 minutes for me in his office and he had done the research to know my name and my bio. He wanted to get to know who this guy was that was coming to potentially influence his most important commodity…his team.

He was inquisitive, required a lot of eye contact and focused on listening to me speak… even when I constantly tried to circle it back and inquire about him and his story. He wanted to know about my background, what drove me to climbing and adventuring around the globe. He was interested in my family, how old my son was. He wanted to know what components of leadership that I felt were the most critical. He asked how my life experiences had crafted my message. He asked and he listened.

You could tell that Starbucks, it’s employees and what the entire brand represents is critical to him. He lives it.

I have been blessed over the years to meet and spend time with some truly transformational individuals who, upon meeting them, you get the sense that they are paradigm shifting, world churning folks… Tom Brokaw, Dave Matthews, George W Bush (disliked yes, transformational and charismatic, also yes), Colin Powell, Sir Edmund Hillary, Tom Robbins (my favorite author), George Bodenheimer (ESPN CEO) and Phakchock Rinpoche (2^nd in line to the Dalai Lama) amongst others. Each of these individuals ooze charisma and clearly have that not-easily-quantifiable skill of leading and influencing the masses.

I have also met and spent time with countless executives that, although they carry the prestige and power of a big title and paycheck that comes with it, don’t incite enthusiasm and a “willingness to go to battle” from their team members. They wear their fine Italian suit and slicked back hair so as to look the part but seem to wield very little real influence except for that of fear.

After 30 minutes with Howard, I understood why the Starbucks team regards him as somewhat of a messiah. He lives for them. He asks them to join his family and represent his love child. He feels strongly that Starbucks represents diversity and community.  He has a history of telling his shareholders that there are more important issues than the bottom line…as he succinctly told a conservative, anti-gay-marriage stakeholder at a meeting last year. “Take your investment elsewhere if you don’t value diversity and inclusion” is essentially what he encouraged the narrow minded suit and tie douche. A testimony to the company’s ethos driven home.

The 30 minutes I spent with Howard that day wasn’t really about content and discussing how either one of us facilitates or conducts ourselves when leading teams. I walked away from that encounter understanding the value that a revered leader places on human interaction and dialogue. So much of our interface these days takes place in the buffered and sterile digital world. We are losing the face-to-face encounters that define our relationships and build trust. I for one am making an effort to do more face to facing instead of type to typing.

As I was leaving the Starbucks headquarters I recognized one of Howards assistants strolling my way trying to catch my attention. He handed me over Howards most recent booked titled Onward: How Starbucks Fought For It’s Life Without Losing It’s Soul.  Inside the front cover was a sincere personal note from Howard that he clearly compiled based on our conversation. He was listening.

As I have poured over the book…which is the perfect balance with the other book I’m currently reading, Greg Allman’s, My Cross To Bear (these two guys have lead very different lives by the way)… I have already dog-eared and underlined multiple pages and paragraphs that are very synergistic with my style, message and life approach.

A few of the jewels:

“There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.

This is the kind of passionate conviction that sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn’t dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold.

“Life is a sum of all your choices,” wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures and hopefully inspire others along the way.”

“Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible. Care more than others think wise.”

“People want guidance, not rhetoric. They need to know what the plan of action is, and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and authority to act on it.”

“In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we're made of.”

That meeting inspired to go on to deliver a very impassioned keynote to the Supply Chain team. Once the smoke settled from that event I was given the opportunity to facilitate a breakout session for the SCO leadership team based on…you guessed it, servant leadership. Providing key characteristics of servant leadership to the team in order for them to enhance the way they interact with their various teams.

The day was a home run.

Leading teams is a unique and subjective process that can be achieved through countless styles and approaches. Some are effective. Some are not. Some influence partners and teammates through inspiration and buy-in. Others coerce subordinates through fear and manipulation.

I can tell you that my approach and style have been profoundly impacted by a brief, simple 30-minute meeting I had a few days ago with a guy who listens and deeply cares about the people around him.

That... and a really well brewed cappuccino.

Climb High

Jeff

Lava Flowing From The Cauldron

As I cruised around the Ecuadorian landscape last month I was constantly reminded of how new land is formed repeatedly as the earth oozes its molten hot magma (insert Dr Evil accent here) from the subsurface caldron below.  Fresh fields of black lava rock are visible throughout the vibrant and relatively “young” islands of the Galapagos. Massive “lava tubes” and ridges make for scrambling fun around the interior's curtain of volcanoes.  It is a Geology 101 classroom that illustrates how the earth redefines itself on a regular rate… sometimes violently, sometimes subtly.

It’s been a couple weeks now since we wrapped up the 2^nd iteration of Soldiers to Summits. Our objective was, in part, to summit the photogenic 19,347ft Ecuadorian volcano, Cotopaxi.  However, as with most mountain climbing expeditions, this experience was far less about standing on top of the summit but more about the beauty and struggle that happened prior to even stepping foot on the flanks of the mountain.

Looking at this expedition in the rear-view mirror now, I feel a bit like each of us at some point on the expedition took on the form of that newly spewed lava, occasionally blowing from the top of the cauldron in a dramatic and painful way… other times simmering and oozing slowly in a controlled and even keeled way. The end result is new earth… a new person laid over the former one.

How many times on this carousel we call life are we given the opportunity to redefine who we are? To shed the layer of unwanted skin and embrace the new garden-fresh self that lies beneath?  I would dare to guess that every one of us at some point in our lives would embrace the thought of starting with a new quiver of arrows or perhaps losing a few bad behaviors.

It’s typically a painful process when that old skin is shed... leaving that fresh, nerve-rich layer vulnerable and unprotected. Sometimes the proverbial band-aid will provide protection and comfort for a limited time as the healing takes place but we all know it’s only a patch and just hides what really needs to heal.

Soldiers to Summits was originally established with the idea of providing a venue for healing. We strive to provide a positive and nurturing atmosphere where an individual can peel back that layer of dead skin, expose themselves and allow the new terrain to grow and flourish.  As the program continues to “find itself” in how we can best serve our servicemen and women, it also has to go through this same “lava flow” process hand in hand with all who are associated with the program. We don’t have it totally right just yet, but reflecting back on our recent journey I am proud to say I was able to create some “new skin” in my own life through this expedition. I also watched with great satisfaction and respect as several band-aids were pulled off of some our veterans… some painfully, some with more caress. 

Growth is not pain free. Makin changes is not for sissies. I think the earth and it’s metamorphic process is a powerful example of how to handle it. Understanding that with the build up of pressure, there has to be an outlet. New lava has to flow. Sometimes that volcano will blow it’s top and shit will absolutely go down. Other times the slow moving magma will be just as effective at covering and creating new layers. Whichever pace that it happens, we are left trying to interpret our new skin and how to use it to make the world a better place. The new terrain is ours to walk on. Perhaps at first we just might want to tread lightly.

Climb High

Jeff