Mountain Climbing

I am working as a "communications coach" for a couple of presenters at my company's annual leadership conference. Mostly that means that on top of whatever other reponsibilities I have, I will now add a series of 4 hour meetings to my week (thank goodness for wireless networks) and help an executive (or 2 in my case) bring their thoughts to "life" with power point, video production, wordsmithing, design assistance, etc. It makes for a long couple of weeks. The conference begins on Tuesday morning...it is Thursday and I have just received the 3rd "brand new concept" from my presenter. I don't have any words of response to this.

But enough of my complaining...because really, the above paragraph was just to serve as a segue into what I really wanted to talk about. And I didn't even get to the part that was going to segue into the segue. So, here we go again.

My presenter is working on the "inspirational" portion of his speech (oh dear) and he is using a metaphor he got out of a recent business book (oh dear II). It's all about looking at your business like a mountain and employees like climbers. What follows is an exerpt from the speech: "Permit me to explain what I mean by daily commitment with a comparison to climbing. A book entitled The Adversity Challenge separated climbers into three different categories. First are “quitters.” Quitters plan to reach the peak. They’ve got all the right equipment, the desire and the skill. But, they are not prepared to conquer the impediments along the way to success. They go part way – and then quit.

"The second group are “campers.” Campers work hard, apply themselves, and overcome enough obstacles that they feel at ease planting their tent stakes and settling in – they’ve done enough, have attained a certain level of achievement and are comfortable camping out in their comfort zone.

“Climbers” are the rare breed who continue to grow, strive, push, battle, focus, and improve – every day – until they reach the peak and know they have given it their absolute all. No achievement other than the ultimate achievement will do.

"According to a poll of more than 150,000 leaders across all industries worldwide, nearly 80% of the workforce is camping. I am challenging you to climb."

OK...do you feel inspired, you pathetic quitter/camper??? Are you ready to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to help Steelcase succeed????

This cheesy "inspirational moment" couldn't help but cause me to reflect on other ways that mountains have been used lately as a metaphor in my life. And I thought of two.

At our Bible study last night we were talking about when Paul and Silas were imprisoned and how their prison cell became a place of ministry. Which led to a conversation about trusting God's will in both the good and bad times. We agreed that our "mountain top" experiences rarely led to a time of spiritual growth. When life is easy and times are good, it's easy to lose the imperative to pray and grow...I mean, what are we praying for or growing towards? If everything is going great then what would we need to ask of God or get from Him?

It's usually the "valley" experiences that drive us toward a desperate call to God. We question why, we ask for answers, for faith, for endurance, for wisdom to face the challenges we are experiencing.

When I look back over the landscape of my personal history, I have experienced the most spiritual growth, was the most dependent on God and ultimately gained the most from valley experiences. The mountain top is where I want to be -- but it's in the valley that I am closest to God.

My friend Sharon put it another way. She read a book that talked about the comparative beauty and majesty of plains and mountains. We all want to be in the plains...consistent, almost blah in its predictability...life is good in the plains. But, the mountains -- unpredictable, buffeted by winds and weather, carved out by the beating of water and the shifting earth -- have the greater majesty.

And just like literal mountains, when hard times leave their marks on us, when the unpredictability of weather and the ground moving beneath us changes us, it makes us more beautiful, more majestic, more awesome.

I don't generally veer into this type of reflection here -- but when my presenter started talking about mountains like a "successories" poster (http://www.successories.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/home.home/successories_country/USA/home.cfm?CMP=KNC-GOOG&gclid=CNjhp83SjYoCFSoIFQodmlXNRQ) it actually inspired me in a totally different way.

So, does that make me a climber, a camper or a quitter?