PEAK JOURNEYS YIELD BEAUTIFUL LESSONS

When you aim high, do you mainly focus on reaching the top? And when you get there, do you know where you’re headed next?

The adage advising that the journey is more important than the destination is mainly about paying attention to what you find along the way. Avid mountain climbers often take it a step further, with lessons learned that not only enhance their peak experiences but also inform their next journeys.

Whether you plan to climb an actual mountain or a virtual one, the journey can yield more wisdom and more beauty than you can possibly imagine. And that’s important to consider when you start out. If you approach a new school, job, endeavor, or relationship with a heightened awareness about path and all that you encounter as you advance, you’ll always come out ahead.

We are sharing insights from two mountaineers, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and Activate Brain & Body CEO Martin Pazzani. Both relate their mountain climbing experiences to their business journeys, but they can be applied to any venture or adventure.

MARTIN PAZZANI

Martin Pazzani is always seeking another summit. A serial entrepreneur and CEO, Pazzani has applied lessons and skills learned along the way of his many mountain climbing expeditions to business and life in general.

Pazzani has reached the summits of major mountains on all seven continents. Notably, he was the 146th human being to stand on the summit of the very remote Vinson Massif, the highest point in Antarctica. He has climbed the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc five times each.

After at least 100,000,000 uphill steps taken in over fifty years of climbing, Pazzani is sharing his unique wisdom in a new book, The Mountains Made Me An Entrepreneur, scheduled for publication in early 2019.

Pazzani is particularly interested in how his journeys affect his mind as well as his body. He connects with the beauty of nature along the way, noting its positive impact.

"An appreciation of beauty is hardwired into our brains, and is an antidote to the stresses and tensions of the modern world. For me, the highest form of this is to be in nature, in a remote place, and at high altitude.

“The natural beauty I experience in the mountains recharges my batteries which get run down by city life, ringing cell phones, pinging texts, and a nonstop flood of bits, bytes, tweets, and email. Disconnecting from it all, pushing myself to the extremes of physical exertion, and exploring the wild places of the world is what enables me to be an entrepreneur, to keep thinking and innovating, and to have the energy to persist at difficult challenges.

As much as I love the yin of competing in the business world, what I love even more is the yang of regeneration and the intense experiences offered by the beauty of my time in the mountains. The mountains made me. “

Pazzani is currently embarked on a mission to climb all forty-eight 4000-foot peaks in New Hampshire as he trains to climb Mt. Everest in 2020.

If you want to see Pazzani’s lessons in action, check out his companies. Master Distillers handles sales and marketing for T1 Tequila Uno (named 2016's Best Craft Tequila), Tears of Llorona tequila, Mezcal Sacrificio, Varan Mezcal Coffee Liqueur, among others.

Act!vate Brain & Body, is re-inventing fitness as upstream preventive healthcare for the baby boomer generation.

Check out The Mountains Made Me Instagram and website.

YVON CHOUINARD

Early in Yvon Chouinard’s mountain climbing journey, in an effort to both save money and customize his experience, he taught himself blacksmithing, then designed and made his own climbing tools. He improved a key tool, the ice ax, so well, that it became the basis for the modern ice ax, primarily used today. Eventually started a business that designed, manufactured and distributed rock climbing equipment.

Chouinard was also a pioneer in corporate social responsibility. In 2001, he and fellow outdoors enthusiast Craig Mathews, owner of West Yellowstone's Blue Ribbon Flies, founded One Percent for the Planet, an alliance of businesses that contribute at least 1% of their net annual sales to environmental organizations.

Yvon Chouinard's book, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, is full of gems about journeys.

Focus on the movements:

“I’ve been a student of Zen philosophy for many years. In Zen archery, for example, you forget about the goal — hitting the bull’s-eye — and instead focus on all the individual movements involved in shooting an arrow. You practice instead your stance, reaching back and smoothly pulling an arrow out of the quiver, notching it on the string, controlling your breathing, and letting the arrow release itself. If you’ve perfected all the elements, you can’t help but hit the center of the target.

The same philosophy is true for climbing mountains. If you focus on the process of climbing, you’ll end up on the summit. As it turns out, the perfect place I’ve found to apply this Zen philosophy is in the business world.”

How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top:

“Climbing mountains is another process that serves as an example for both business and life. Many people don't understand that how you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top. You can solo climb Everest without using oxygen, or you can pay guides and Sherpas to carry your loads, put ladders across crevasses, lay in six thousand feet of fixed ropes, and have one Sherpa pulling and one pushing you. You just dial “10,000 Feet” on your oxygen bottle, and up you go.

“Typical high-powered, rich plastic surgeons and CEOs who attempt to climb Everest this way are so fixated on the target, the summit, that they compromise on the process. The goal of climbing big, dangerous mountains should be to attain some sort of spiritual and personal growth, but this won’t happen if you compromise away the entire process.”

Read more about Beautiful Graduations in A Journey to Celebrate Graduations: Camino De Santiago, A Journey to Celebrate Graduations: Camino De Santiago, Tiny Lights Make Big Impact & Change Worlds and What’s Next for Arts & Design Grads?

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Photo by Thomas Shahan. “Mt. Jefferson from Triangulation Peak.”
2. Image: by Martin Pazzani. On Mount Shinn. California.
3. Image: by Martin Pazzani. Summit of Mount Vinson. Antarctica.
4. Image: by Martin Pazzani. Summit of the Matterhorn. Switzerland.
5. Image: by Martin Pazzani. Aiguille Du Midi. Chamonix, France.
6. Image: by Martin Pazzani. Selfie in front of snow-capped mountains of New Hampshire.
7. Image: by Martin Pazzani. The Matterhorn. Switzerland.
8. Image: by Martin Pazzani. Untitled.
9. Photo by Paxson Woelber. “Climbing Ptarmigan Peak. Chugach Mountains, Alaska.”
10. Image by Tom Hilton. “Climbing to Cartridge Pass.” Kings Canyon National Park, California.
11. Image by Jonathan Fox. “Eagle Lake Buttress.”  Lake Tahoe, California.
12. Image: by Martin Pazzani. Bend at Mount Hood. Oregon.
13. Image: by Trygve Selmer Top of the world. Ofotfjorden, Norway.
14. Image: by Martin Pazzani. Untitled.
15. Image: by Daniel Sallai “On top of the World!” Cape Raoul, Tasmania.
16. Image: by Martin Pazzani. Cotopaxi Summit. Ecuador.
17. Image: by Martin Pazzani. Mount Vinson Headwall. Antarctica.
18. Image: by mebrett. “Top of the world.” Fairy Glen. Isle of Skye. Scotland.