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Never Too Late

by Walt | Nov 16, 2023 | Success | 4 Comments

Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

No quote has troubled me more over the years than this one from Saint-Exupery’s Wind, Sand and Stars. Its clear message is that the passage of time eclipses the deepest yearnings of our hearts.

I think Saint-Exupery is wrong. I think we always yearn. I think our dreams always burn within us. The problem is that we don’t act.

My mentor, Galen Rowell, once wrote, “One of the most shocking realizations of adult life is that most of us are not fulfilling the closest-held dreams of our youth. Instead of pursuing dreams that were once integral parts of our personalities, we end up in one way or another fulfilling someone else’s idea about who and what we should be, usually at the expense of our creative urges.”

It is this realization that discourages, that breeds bitterness. It is this realization that dulls the spirit, that frustrates the soul.

But this realization that we are off course need not harden; it can be harnessed; it can propel us to fulfill what we know to be our heart’s deepest desire. With Wisdom, we can use it to drive us forward.

Time is a thief. But it need not steal those hopes and aspirations that form the core of who we were always meant to be. Our dreams define us. It is our essential Purpose to achieve them.

One of the most common themes I hear after talks I give on holding fast to dreams is this: I’m too old; it’s too late.

That’s bullshit.

Too Old, Too Late is a story told to mask fear, to hide insecurity, to explain resistance, and to excuse inaction.

History is replete with geniuses and giants in business, industry, art, entertainment, and athletics who were not “young” when they started out, whose talents and passions were ignited and came to fruition over the long arc of their lives. Here are but a few examples: Beverly Sills who eked out a singing career until age 40 when she became an operatic star; Colonel Sanders who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken in his 60s; Charles Darwin who toiled with his research and didn’t publish his first book on evolution until age 50; David Oreck who didn’t get started in his now world-famous business until he was 40; Grandma Moses who painted in her 70s; Julia Child who did not appear on television until she was 50; Rodney Dangerfield who only finally made it as a comic in his 40s; Bahadur Sherchan who holds the record as the oldest man to climb Mt. Everest at age 77; and Sister Madonna Budner who still competes in Ironman triathlons at age 81.

There will always be other priorities, other responsibilities, and other things that “require” our attention. We are endlessly capable of explaining to ourselves why now is not the “right” time to listen to the still small voice that calls to us in the night, that echoes in the recesses of our hearts.

But what do we tell ourselves at the end of our lives?

How old will you be if you don’t start now?

Our resolves may flag. Our spirits may falter. But the clay of our lives does not harden. It is always ours to form.

Always.

Dreams deferred are dreams denied. Do what you’ve always dreamed of doing.

Do it now.

That Lying Lizard

by Walt | Nov 9, 2023 | Success | 6 Comments

“It’s steeper near the top,” Seth Godin writes in his chapter on Resistance.

This is not always true. I’ve crested many a summit ridge after a steep and arduous ascent to find a short, gentle walk to the top.

But I think I know what Godin means. So often, the deeper we move into a big project, whether it be a work-related start-up, a creative endeavor, an athletic goal, or a high mountain summit, the scarier it gets. This is especially true if we have a lot of skin in the game, a lot at risk, a lot on the line, our livelihood at stake. And if we have “burned the boats” and foreclosed a means of escape, sheer terror can set in.

The truth is this: the greater the fear, the higher the resistance; the starker the terror, the greater the temptation to turn around, give up, and go back.

The English theologian Thomas Fuller said, “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.” Fuller wasn’t a climber. But he knew what he was talking about. Up high in the mountains, it is the darkest hour. And the coldest one too! It’s that hour when the feet feel like cement blocks; the hands like meat hanging on a hook. Fatigue is high. Morale is low.

It’s that hour when I am most vulnerable. When the warmth of my tent beckons, when thoughts of my sleeping bag call to me. It is that hour when I most feel the fear.

It is our lizard brain, as Godin calls it, that fuels that fear. Our lizard brain says: Abandon the fight; engage the flight; take the easy way out.

I wish I had a simple solution for this. But I don’t. I fight the lizard on every project, every run, every summit morning. The lizard always wants me to turn back. It always wants comfort. It always wants safety. It never wants change.

The only advice that I can offer is this: hold fast to the vision of success, hold fast to the vision of the dream. Take one step at a time. Don’t look down. Don’t look back.

Often the first step is the hardest. As momentum builds, our adrenaline kicks in and carries us through.

But deep in those projects that take weeks, months, or years, it is easy to get lost and disoriented, disheartened and discouraged. In the darkness of those pre-dawn hours, the lizard screams. It’s then that we need faith in ourselves. And a partner or coach who encourages and empowers us; and fellow travelers on the Journey to cheer us on.

Susan Jeffers says feel the fear and do it anyway. Tony Robbins says that the difference between success and failure can be just 2mm, perhaps a hundredth of a second.

Don’t stop. Push through. Stay the course.

The lizard brain says turn back: back to comfort, back to safety, back to what you know. The lizard brain says it will always be cold, it will always be dark.

The lizard lies.

The dawn always comes.

And oh the summit is so good.

Darkness My Old Friend

by Walt | Nov 2, 2023 | Success | 2 Comments

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

— Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

We’ll turn the clocks back in just a few days.

The shadows here in New England will begin to fall by mid-afternoon.

I’ll rail against it.

Some find the dark cozy and embracing. They relish the long evenings in front of the fire. They embrace the dark.

I hate it.

I love the Alaska Range in the summer: the long endless days and the midnight sun. I’d jump from a bridge if I lived there in the winter.

Of course, many folks have taken care of this by moving to places like Southern California, or Belize. And there are many more who embrace the changing seasons with greater equanimity than I.

But the seasons of change can be another matter altogether.

Most all of us get used to our routines. Constancy is safe. Secure.

We like predictability.

Anything that disrupts the status quo is, well, disruptive.

We fight change. I do. Yet change is really the only constant. It is the rhythm of things. High tide and low; ’til death do us part, or sooner; daytime and night; in sickness and in health; drought and flood; in good times and in bad; carry days and rest days; generativity and the dark night of the soul.

The legendary Jim Rohn taught so eloquently on the seasons of life: The seasons always come, Rohn said. “You cannot change the seasons but you can change yourself.”

Winters always come. And there are all kinds of them, Rohn said. “There are economic winters, when the financial wolves are at the door; there are physical winters, when our health is shot; there are personal winters when our heart is smashed to pieces.”

Use winter to get stronger, wiser, better. Get ready for the Spring, Rohn said. It always follows winter.

“Opportunity follows difficulty.” Take advantage of the Spring. Till the earth. Plant.

In the Summer, nourish and protect. “Every garden must be defended in the summer,” Rohn taught. The garden of values – social, political, marital commercial- the garden of ideas, the garden of all that is good. Be on watch over your garden in the summer.

Reap what you have sown in the fall. Take responsibility for what you did not sow, for what you did not protect. But celebrate the harvest. “Learn to welcome the fall without apology or complaint,” Rohn said.

Embrace the seasons of our lives. Know them. Use them.

Why do we fight so what is so?

To be with change, to be in its flow; to experience the shifting sands with open hands and open hearts. To have the courage to accept and say: “and this too.” Cherish this challenge. It is all we really have.

The seeds of new life blow on the cold winds of November. Winter will come. But so will Spring. It is the rhythm of things.

To live fully, deeply into each season of our lives: this is what we are called to do.

Every year we have been witness to it: how the world descends

into a rich mash, in order that it may resume. And therefore who would cry out

to the petals on the ground to stay, knowing as we must, how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be? I don’t say it’s easy, but what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world be true? So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east, and the ponds be cold and black and the sweets of the year be doomed.

— Mary Oliver

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Want some support through a season of change? Let’s talk. Email me: [email protected]

And stop by for a visit at: https://summit-success.com/

Your Halloween Costume

by Walt | Oct 26, 2023 | Success | 0 Comments

What are you gonna be for Halloween? Who are you going to dress up as?

Masks and costumes. Parties and planning. Fervor, festivities, and fever pitch.

Bigger than Christmas it seems.

What is it about Halloween that so excites, that so sparks the imagination?

Yes, fun for sure. The chance to let loose, hideout, switch it up. The possibility of being someone new, something new, someone different from who you are in the hum-drum of each day.

And the truth is that a lot of folks are worn down by the hum-drum of each. They want new, better, different. Just not the same. For god’s sake, not the same.

So, who do you want to be?

More important: Who are you already… really?

Are you your job? Your role in a relationship? Your hobby, pursuit, passion?

I am an executive coach, high-altitude mountaineer, blue-water sailor, adventure photographer, husband, father, business owner….

But is that who I am… really?

If you have a job and lose that job… who are you?
If you have a marriage and the marriage unravels, who are you?
If you have kids and they grow up and move away, who are you?
If you’re an athlete and you’re injured, who are you?
Who are you when your friend betrays you? When your parent dies? When your business fails?
Who are you in the face of success, failure, and change?

Who are you… really?

Your identity. The very core of who you are. What a struggle that can be. Especially for success and achievement junkies… I know a few… They’re the folks who come to coaching… (As for myself, on the advice of counsel, I can neither admit nor deny any of the heretofore!)

When you’re not doing, achieving, accomplishing… who are you?

(Yeah, I hate that question.)

Ann and I traveled to Nepal last year… a completely different culture… a completely different pace… If stress and adrenaline are your fuel, you won’t find much there. And without that fuel, we ask, … who are we?

The Buddhists teach: Nothing to do, nothing to be, nothing to have.

Really. WTF? What then?

One of my very favorite stories from the Torah is when Moses comes upon the burning bush. God speaks to Moses from the bush, telling Moses what he needs to be about. Moses, looking for a bit of borrowed cred, asks God for God’s name. God says, “I am who I am.” Tell those Israelites that “I am” sent you.

Maybe there’s a clue here. Maybe when you define yourself with a title, give yourself a label, or tie an object to who you think you are, you make yourself small, and limit your (divine) potential.

Maybe, at the end of it all, one more billable hour booked, one more product sold, one more article published, one more email sent, one more race run, one more mountain climbed, won’t really matter.

Maybe it’s ok just to be.

And damn, what an interesting (and unusual) costume that might be!

Happy Halloween.

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When you’re ready to reclaim the you that’s really you, let’s talk. Email me: [email protected]

And stop by for a visit: https://summit-success.com/

You Want This Superpower

by Walt | Oct 19, 2023 | Success | 0 Comments

In a world saturated with noise, distractions, and the constant pull of technology, the act of genuinely listening has become a rare art. Mark Nepo, in his insightful book 7,000 Ways to Listen, offers a profound perspective on the essence of listening. He states, “To listen is to continually give up all expectation and to give our attention, completely and freshly, to what is before us, not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean. In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.”

These words aren’t merely about the auditory act of listening; they delve into the depth of human connection and the transformative power that arises when we truly tune into another person’s world.

Giving Up Expectation

To start, let’s unpack the idea of “giving up all expectations.” In many of our interactions, we come with a preconceived notion, a set idea, or an agenda. We listen, waiting for a pause to interject our thoughts, or perhaps, searching for points that validate our existing beliefs. True listening, however, requires an open slate. It demands that we set aside our biases and genuinely absorb what the other person is conveying.

Full Attention to the Present

When Nepo mentions giving our “attention, completely and freshly,” he emphasizes the importance of being present. In the age of multitasking, it’s common to split our attention. You might be having a conversation while checking your phone or thinking about the next item on your to-do list. Authentic listening is about being fully there, immersed in the moment, and allowing the words to resonate with every fiber of your being.

Embracing Vulnerability

The aspect of “not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean” touches on vulnerability. It’s about stepping into a conversation with an open heart, ready to be surprised, moved, or even challenged by what you might discover. It’s about embracing the unknown and trusting the journey of connection.

Willingness to Change

Lastly, the most potent part of Nepo’s quote lies in the idea of being willing “to be changed by what we hear.” It’s a courageous act to allow another’s words to have such power. It means acknowledging that every interaction has the potential to teach us something, shift our perspective, or enrich our understanding. To truly listen is to recognize the growth that comes from these shared moments of connection.

Conclusion

In our roles as leaders, colleagues, friends, and family, it’s essential to reflect on how we listen. Are we merely hearing words, or are we diving deep, allowing these conversations to shape and mold us?

Every interaction offers an opportunity to connect, learn, and evolve. As we navigate our professional and personal worlds, let’s take a cue from Nepo’s wisdom and strive to listen—not just with our ears but with our hearts and minds, ready to be transformed by the symphony of human experiences around us.

Real listening is a superpower. You want it.