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The First Step To Strategic Leadership Looking Down 5,700 feet

Transcript

Welcome to another episode of The do good work podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about leadership, strategic leadership at 5700 feet above the ground. Now if it's 700 feets not a lot, but let me tell you a story about myself. What I learned, we were hiking in Zion National Park, angels landing. So moral of the story and that the simple like this podcast could have been like 30 seconds long. strategic leadership begins with self awareness. 

But let me tell you a little bit more about self awareness and how to apply it tactically in the real world, as well as how you can apply this tactically in your business, your leadership style, what you're doing with your team right now. So we were in Zion National Park, early February, early February, and we went we decided to go hike, Angel's landing. So it was a crew of us around six and my fiancee was part of that. So friends, we just went out hiked Angel's landing, and the hike you know, you elevate like 1600 feet. So you start like at seven o'clock in the morning. And then like an hour, hour and a half, you you reach the peak. And that's the peak though that's where the real hike begins. Because that's like where the whole fanatic of the actual Angel's landing experiences. I didn't know what it was. But once you're at the peak, you know, like you're 5700 feet 5056 around that, but once you get to the top, there's a section where you can actually go on, hold on to chains, and go to a cliffside and have an experience and see the beauty of Zion national from like the hike that everyone's done. Granted, it is a little dangerous, right? That's why they have chains to hold on to so our crew decided to go and try it. 

Not everyone was willing to go try but I was part of the Hey, let me see if I can do this. My fiance though. You know, when they say better half like this is better half coming in at five foot two. You know, she's definitely a little fearless. It's kind of scary. But we were going out there right? And I'm afraid of heights. Okay, so I'm afraid of heights. We're going up there. We're holding on to the chains. It's not too bad, right? You're doing some rock climbing, you know, the the facade of the of the rock or the wall, whatever you want to call it. And there we go there but then I did the three things you're not supposed to do. When you're like, climbing, I guess you're not supposed to stand up. You're not supposed to look down and you're not supposed to freak out. But I did those three things exactly at that same time. So we were up, like the high a little peak of a wall, we had a good across, I'm holding on to the chain. My hands are of course, shaking and cold and sweating because, you know, naturally afraid of heights, right? So, but then I stand up. I looked down like whoa, you don't know how high 5700 feet is until you're looking down. It's just you and 5700 feet. And then the thing that freaked me out the most was the wind, because it was nothing behind me nothing in front of me. It was just me standing and then the wind blowing. And that's when I knew this was not for me. Right? So it was crazy. So I mean, I can tell you this whole fancy title or what it did or whatever. 

I wimped out on it. Yeah, I didn't want to do it right. But So half of our crew wanted to keep going while the other half is like, you know what, this isn't for us. But I will be honest with you. I did have some very, I guess what you would say synergies thinking in regards to why I decided not to go on and why I didn't feel that I was prepared at that moment. to contrast, you know, typically on my Saturdays, I wake up early, and I do endurance workouts, and I needed to build up over time to be able to endure the type of workouts that I do now, right? So I needed to start with one hour or 30 minutes, one hour, one hour and a half 234, etc, right? So I could be able to take on harder workouts are more disciplined workouts, but I couldn't go from zero to 100 just in one week. Same thing here with Angel's landing. I knew that if I wanted to take this whole, like trail across, I thought it was a 20 minute loop. Apparently it was two hours for them, just so you know. But if I wanted to take this whole trail across, like after going the whole experience, I wasn't mentally prepared for that. Right? And then what are my costs. Like, if I'm doing the endurance workouts, my costs are literally blacking out and safely falling on the ground or failing at a pushup. I like the 300 push up and then falling to the ground. Yeah, my face might get hurt, but who cares, right? I'm falling safely on the ground. Here. My mental stability wasn't okay. And I my physical body wasn't reacting appropriately so I, you know, any false move, I could slip fall and you know, I, the chances are not very high of falling, but you still can fall right? That's it says literally proceed at your own risk. They have signs all the way up there. So, the moral of the story is, I knew that I wasn't ready at that moment to proceed because, you know, I just didn't I just didn't think it was worth it. I wasn't mentally ready, because I never trained for that I never trained to be face to face with like legit fear of falling. And also like with the stamina that it takes to, to face that fear over time plus the physical strength right and some kids Do it. So I'm not trying to say this is the most hardest thing in the world. For me, obviously, it was a little difficult. But you know, you see kids doing it like 18 year olds are like, yeah, I think even 14 year olds rather. But anyways, that's another story for you. 

But the half the other half of our crew, you know, I learned an interesting lesson from them as well, because they were still scared while they did it, they completed it, but just so you know, they completed the two hours, but they were still scared. So what the interesting thing when they told us a story of how it went, they were telling us that you know what, we were still scared. But you know, before we turned around, we talked, they met with us a little group with a group of three, they met together and like, you know what, let's make it to that, that, that rock, right? So they scramble, they went they held on to the chain, and they made it to that rock, and they're like, oh, that wasn't so bad. Let's make it to the other rock. They scrambled hold on to the chain, you know, making sure that they're okay. And they're like, okay, that wasn't too bad. And let's try it to that one and then to that one, and they kept going, that's how they progress. You know, they were still afraid. But they also like, you know, let's try a little bit more. Let's try 10% more 10% more 10% more, I think That was even intelligent as well, strategically, when you're facing obstacles, you're facing a new challenge. Just try it don't go like the whole hundred and 10%. Day one, they just go 10% 10% and keep going and keep attacking it because they succeeded, right? And they came back saying, hey, it was scary. There was some parts where there was no chain, you're like, Whoa, a little scary. But they still made it. And they did it successfully. Right? So they were able to conquer a fear that clearly myself, it's like, oh, the other half wasn't able to overcome at that time. And this is another key lesson too, is it's not failure. It's not failure, because you weren't ready. Because not I now have the self awareness of what I need to train if I want to face that challenge again, and meet it successfully. 

So self awareness doesn't mean that Oh, I'm just going to mentally think that I can do this and it's going to be excellent, because I'm just thinking and it's gonna happen. Well, sometimes you're going to be faced with real obstacles, realistic obstacles, that are physical and as well as mental And it's up to you to really have the strategic mindset of saying, am I capable of doing this? And it's not accepting defeat. If you say at this moment, we are not capable. Same thing with your team. Let's say your team is a team of 510 to 15, whatever it is, right, a small team, but you have to take on work that requires a team of 25. And you have to really analyze what are the opportunity costs? Is this healthy for my team? Is this the right time for my team? Is this okay for me to say no, not accepting defeat, but seeing the areas that I need to work on in order to meet this challenge or future challenges at the same or higher level of exertion of extent of the challenge that arises. So those are my lessons at 5700 feet up in the air? If you ever go to angels landing and you did that, please comment below, let me know I'd love to see your photos, and we'll see you next time.