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My profile in Professional Speaker Magazine, the official magazine of the National Speakers Association, just came out in the December, 2006, edition.
I was featured as part of the "Welcome Home" series, which features a new member of NSA each month with a focus on members whose story is unique.
I am honored to have been featured in the magazine - they did a great job! Click here to read the article!
(Note: The following is an article from my latest MountainWorld Productions Newsletter, which I send out via email quarterly. You can read back issues online at my website, or subscribe to receive the newsletter as it comes out.)
On
September 26, at 10:02 AM, I stood on top of Gurla Mandhata
with 5 of my teammates: Sherpas Panuru, Mingma Chhiring, and
Karma Rita, and climbers Kirk Allen and Stuart Sloat. In
reaching the 25,502 foot (7728 meter) summit of this remote
peak in western Tibet, we became the first American team to
do so and only the 13th team to climb the peak,
ever.
Clear in all of our minds, however, was that we were not alone on the summit. Our efforts and successes on that day were only possible because of the efforts, sacrifices, and dedication of the rest of our team. David Golden was down at Basecamp, manning the radios during our ascent. David had summit ambitions, and gave a huge effort, but due to the vagaries of high altitude was unable to accompany us to the top. Cynthia Dodson was below as well, a constant supporter throughout our expedition. And, of course, Pemba and Bal Bahadur, our cooks, who kept us healthy and happy – if not a bit portly! – during the entire expedition. (It pains me to admit it, but Pemba actually made us sushi…yes, sushi!…twice on our expedition, and both times above 15,000 feet!)
There
were other teammates as well: the staff of Great Escapes,
our Nepali outfitter; Eric Simonson and International
Mountain Guides who planned all the logistics; Pirjo DeHart,
our fastidious travel agent; and, of course, our spouses,
friends, and families who supported us in countless ways.
Without the dedication, hard work, and efforts of all of these people, our dream of climbing Gurla Mandhata would never have been realized. And that is the beauty and challenge, the proverbial double-edged sword, of teamwork.
On a mountain, as in life, few of us have all the skills necessary to reach our loftiest goals entirely on our own. Instead, we rely on a disparate group of people with disparate skills all brought to one collective table to pursue a common goal…We rely on a team. The effectiveness - or lack thereof - of our team can mean the difference between success and failure. And in the mountains is that the stakes are high: Succeed, and you live to climb another day. Fail, and you become a trail marker on the slopes of your mountain.
For a team to function well, to have a prayer of reaching its goals, each member must be committed, 100%, to the end goal. There can be no selfishness, no looking out for #1 at the expense of the common goal. I have been reminded of this on more than one occasion.
On
Gurla Mandhata, after reaching the top, we returned all the
way to 17,000 foot
Advanced Basecamp that evening. The next
day, although clear and crisp, was nuking: jet-stream winds
racked the mountain, flattening tents at ABC and whipping
plumes of snow from the upper-reaches of the peak. It
literally sounded like a freight train was rumbling along
the high ridges. Had we tried for the summit on that day we
would have been shut down by the wind at best, frostbitten
and in mortal danger at worst.
Similarly, on my first Everest expedition – the 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition – we managed to discover the remains of pioneer climber George Leigh Mallory at 27,000 feet on the morning of May 1st. The following morning, the first wisps of the monsoon reached the peak, releasing 6 inches of snow along the way. Mallory’s body was completely obscured, covered by a fresh blanket of white.
In both cases, a 24 hour delay, one selfish act by any member of the team, one person looking out for their own best interest instead of the interest of the team and its goals, and our accomplishments would never have been possible. Twenty-four hours. One selfish act. One lapse in team dedication. And all the hard work, planning, and effort would be wasted.
We certainly need a team to accomplish our lofty goals, to realize our biggest dreams. We cannot go it alone. But, to succeed, we must choose our team wisely: they must be dedicated, strong, and absolutely committed to the end goal. Only then can we begin to climb to the top.
© 2006 Jake Norton/MountainWorld Productions. All Rights Reserved.
I went to see Ed Viesturs at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver last night. Ed was there to promote his new book, No Shortcuts to the Top, which details his quest (called Endeavor 8000) to climb the fourteen 8000 meter (26,000+ foot) peaks without supplemental oxygen. He finished his quest with an ascent of Annapurna in 2005.
It was a great slideshow, and reminded me yet again of the importance of having dreams, of having goals and ambitions, in one's life. Ed grew up in the flatlands of Rockford, Illinois - not exactly a mountaineer's paradise. But, he developed a dream of climbing, held fast to it, and, lo and behold, he accomplished it. The road was certainly far from easy. He failed a lot. He struggled. But, he also learned, grew, and eventually reached the top.
As with my childhood - growing up in the mountaineering bastion of Massachusetts - and my dream
from age 8 of climbing Everest, Ed certainly had his naysayers. There must have been people who said it was impossible, it couldn't be done, a kid from Rockford would not be able to go and climb Everest. But, Ed stuck to his dream, his vision, and made it a reality.
All of us must do this: Create a dream for ourselves. Set ever higher goals in life, shoot for ever loftier summits. The road will be challenging, the path at times insecure. We may fail. We may not always reach the top on the first go round. But, if we keep our dream alive, if we push onward with tenacious spirit and a healthy dose of fear and conservatism, we can reach the summits of our dreams.
As James Lane Allen wrote:
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
Read more of my thoughts on goals, dreams, and ambitions in my first two newsletters, here and here.
On Tuesday, the Nepalese government and the Maoist insurgency, led by Prachanda, came to a monumental meeting of the minds with the Maoists agreeing to lay down their arms in exchange for a legitimate position in the interim parliament. Read the Reuters story here. (In the photo on the left, a Maoist regional commander plays carrom with locals in the village of Hilsa in remote Humla of west Nepal. Read about my interactions with the Maoists on my Gurla Mandhata blog.)
This is great news for Nepal, which has been crippled by outright civil war for several years and a stubborn Maoist insurgency for the past sixteen. The conflict came to a head this past spring when the people led a revolt against King Gyanendra, who had seized absolute control of the tiny Himalayan country. Their protests - and the government's violent suppression - led to Gyanendra realizing he was up against a wall and had to begin talks in earnest with both his people and the Maoist leaders.
It is very encouraging to see Nepal move ahead and to have hope of peace returning to this region of the Himalaya. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for better times for all Nepalis.
While leading the IMG Gurla Mandhata Expedition this autumn, I read Laurence Gonzales' new book Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. It is a great book, which delves in detail into the mental, physical, and psychological aspects of survival. I was completely engrossed by it, fascinated page after page at the similarities his stories and examples had not only with my life and climbing experiences, but also by those I have heard others recount.
As always, I read with a pen in hand, avidly jotting notations and thoughts in the margin. I wanted to share one with you here as it resonates with something I discuss in detail in my keynotes:
It is not a lack of fear that separates elite performers from the rest of us. They're afraid, too, but they're not overwhelmed by it. They manage fear. They use it to focus on taking correct action. Mike Tyson's trainer, Cus D'Amato, said, "Fear is like fire. It can cook for you. It can heat your house. Or it can burn you down."
This is exactly the point I cover in my discussion of fear in Climb Your Everest. Fear is a double-edged sword, capable of either overwhelming and paralyzing us, or focusing all our energies and strength on the job at hand, on ensuring success. It is our choice.
Read more about my experiences dealing with fear - and using it to my advantage - here.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, my work is in a new book published by the American Himalayan Foundation and National Geographic Books, alongside such contributions and thoughts by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, President Jimmy Carter, Sir Edmund Hillary, and many others.
To launch the books in various regions around the country, we have planned two events to be held in Colorado in December. They are open to the public, and notable climbers, photographers, and Himalayan aficionados will be in attendance. So, please, stop on by, learn about the Himalaya, and support a great cause!!
Here are the specifics:
December 7, 2006
American Mountaineering Center's Foss Auditorium (map)
710 Tenth Street
Golden, CO 80401
Tickets $12.00
Click here for more information!
December 8, 2006
First United Methodist Church (map)
1421 Spruce Street
Boulder, CO 80302
Tickets $15.00
Click here for more information!
Guest presenters at both events to include:
Hope to see you there!
