What I Learned About Entrepreneurship on Bridge Mountain

At the first moment I hit the trail, I recognized my legs felt like lead weights due to previous activity in the week. My love of the trail gave me no pause and I five finger shoe’d my way onward pushing myself as hard as I could to keep a normal pace.

Six miles later, I hit the top of the first ascent where the trail forked off to Bridge Mountain and I was confronted with this sign:

1.2 miles? I felt like this was already over and it was only noon. I happily jogged to the end of the trail in a few minutes but the landscape turned into sandstone and became harder to traverse.

Besides feeling like I just stepped onto another planet, I wasn’t the least bit concerned about the terrain. Walking onward I met a fellow hiker who looked upset. He stopped and explained he’d just descended into a big dip between our current location and the summit. He was a bit scared and in a hurry to get back to his car. He said it was impossible for him to get to Bridge Mountain because his boots couldn’t grip the slippery sandstone. He said, “I’d shake your hand if you get up there!”. I payed little attention to him and moved on.

As an entrepreneur you face doubters. If you don’t form a habit of ignoring them you’ll never be able to accomplish anything that breaks the mold of the ordinary and expected.

My goal for the day was to summit the mountain. I assumed it would be trivial. As I moved deeper through all the sandstone features I had a harder time locating the cairns that marked the path.

I’d never been here and everything was new to me. I didn’t research this place or use my phone to make it easier on me. I showed up with an entrepreneurial attitude to just dive in and figure it out. At points it took me an annoying amount of time to figure out the proper way forward and every cairn was an Easter egg hunt. I couldn’t see the way ahead while steeped in the lower elevations among the gigantic terrain features and made mistakes.

There are no roadmaps when manifesting novel ideas. Simulating that reality by avoiding the easy answers transformed an ordinary outdoor adventure into a Pareto efficiency of exercise and discovery.

Black Arrows

I started to become fatigued and wasn’t giving the landscape my proper attention. I lazily followed a black arrow -> without thinking about it. I looked where it pointed and said to myself, “This must be why that hiker was so scared, it’s straight down!”. I’m a featherweight and had good shoes for it so I tightened up my gear and went down. It turned out to be a tricky descent with only a small crack to hold onto. As the crack narrowed my foot slipped and I slid down about 12 feet with nothing but a sheer drop to my death or serious injury waiting below. I was able to slow my sliding enough to catch the bottom of the crack with my hand and stop myself but I found myself in a bad spot.

Sometimes you take bad advice and hit an obstacle. You can take honest measure of yourself by how you face that challenge and get back on the right path. Stay persistent and focus on where you’re going.

I have no climbing experience but could tell that I could only traverse across laterally. I used my Vibram toe shoes to full effect and was able to grip well enough to leave the safety of the crack in the wall. I used my fingertips to edge my way across one gentle step at a time. Looking down I felt a fear of heights for the first time in my life. I had to calm myself and focus on what I needed to do and avoid a fatal mistake. Without the risk of falling I knew I could do it. I just needed to push that risk out of my mind. After I got safely across I was at a stable point where I could descend down to a ledge and walk ahead. Before I went down I snapped this photo looking to my right showing where I had come from:

I call that photo “Don’t Follow Black Arrows!”. I can now be sure of the fact that the Army taught me to follow directions without much regard for possible danger.

Everything is easier when there are no risks. Sometimes the only way to succeed is to push the idea of failure out of your mind.

Pressing Onward

After truly believing I could’ve died I was a bit put off. I decided to ignore it and press on to look for a path to the summit. Only more vigilant this time. I’m a strong believer in getting back on the horse as soon as possible to suffocate fear before it becomes a wild fire in the mind.

After you overcome a challenge in life you have to get back to business. Don’t let the battle wounds limit you. Transmute them into lessons that strengthen you and march on.

After some more scrambling I come to the point the hiker must’ve turned around. I took a picture of it:

How do I Reach my Goal?

I studied all the upward and lateral lines I could see ahead and wondered how I’m supposed to reach my goal? Nothing appeared easy. I wondered how in the world anyone just runs this trail to the summit. Clearly this was a much harder 1.2 miles than I assumed. That sign needs to be updated.

Assuming you know the future can open you up to weakness and reduced vigilance.

As you’re reading this I know it’s impossible to grasp the heights I’m being exposed to unless you get out on the mountain trails. On all sides of everything in that photo above all you can see are steep drops in elevation. I felt vulnerable as the wind pushed against my body and as if I were walking a tight rope. I snapped a photo of what I could see looking on the right side:

Again, I have zero climbing experience, I’m merely persistent. I set a goal in the morning to get to the summit and that’s what I intend to do.

The only people who fail are the ones who quit. You must learn from your setbacks, make adjustments and keep moving. There are no excuses. Tell the doubter in your mind to go pound sand.

Searching for a Path

As I approached the base of Bridge Mountain I felt like the summit represented my business goal. A concrete mental image of what I want and a definite path to reach it. Now I’m here and there is no obvious way forward. I’m forced to explore every possible approach and learn new skills on the spot or turn around and go home.

In the idea phase things are deceivingly simple. When you put your idea to the test and bring it into reality the path to success has to be discovered. Be relentless and learn what you need to figure it out.

I started climbing around everywhere in the lower areas to begin validating ideas and assumptions on how to reach the summit. I kept finding the same cairns over and over going in circles at this point. No path looked doable for my skill level. Everything seemed very complex, dangerous, and required climbing equipment. Yet my intuition kept tugging me back to the only area that looked reasonable, a crack that ran up the left side:

Initially, I thought it was the only way. I wanted to be triple sure that normal people were going that way which is why I searched everywhere for the next cairn. Unfortunately I had no security of a cairn to indicate the path I chose was correct so I made the best decision I could and committed.

When doing something new in life you don’t have confirmation from others that it’s going to work out but you do it anyway. Don’t believe you need a sense of security to be successful and embrace the unknown.

Overcoming Fear

I’d already seen I’m not so good going down things and was concerned if I went the wrong way up I’d fall coming back down. I decided to try anyway and as I climbed up I was learning a lot of new things. I learned how to grip the rocks better and check my footing. The fear kept trying me but I constantly rejected it. As I climbed, the view below and on both sides was a bit shocking. “If I don’t do this right I could be in some real trouble.”, I said to myself. This was the most critical point for me during my adventure and a light bulb went off over my head:

I made the conscious decision to focus exclusively on the immediate challenges. If I opened my gaze and brought the steep depths into my view I couldn’t concentrate on my hands and feet. I realized that I’d done that a lot as an entrepreneur, getting into stagnant periods and frozen stiff by the vastness of my long term vision.

I continued the climb with ease after adjusting my attitude and at the top was a wonderful cairn confirming I made the right decision (positive feedback).

Embracing Failure

After I got up there, yet again, I couldn’t find the next cairn. I looked all over the place. I even took yet another chance with a lateral traversal across these immense sheets of sandstone that decline at about 65 degrees. Holding onto the top, I side stepped across and remained focused and push out the threat of immediate death that awaited anyone who slides down. Getting around to the other side I found no cairns (negative feedback) and was thankful people aren’t supposed to take this most ridiculous path. Then I went back again, determined to figure this out.

Now I’ve become fatigued to the point that even a stubborn guy like me must admit. I just stood by the last cairn I could find looking above and all around me. I could see three possible summit points and they are all really close, maybe 40 feet higher. I don’t even know where the summit is! How can I achieve my goal when it’s not clearly defined? Without knowing where to go I decided not to climb anymore because I didn’t know if I would ascend something that I couldn’t safely come back down from and wasn’t willing to try up to three times and burn out.

If your goal isn’t clearly defined then you won’t get to it. You’ve set yourself up for failure at the beginning; it’s easier to do than you think.

I had to acknowledge that I’d done my best and overcame a lot for someone with no experience climbing. I turned around and made the descent and learned how to do it much safer than the first time.

As an entrepreneur I’ve experienced a lot of failures. However, I’ve never become accustomed to failure or accepted it. It never becomes easy and it always stings. This time it stung less because I knew I truly did my best and the physical barriers I hit couldn’t be ignored like the mental or abstract ones with a business goal.

One Step at a Time

After I turned around I still faced a lot of climbing that I was not accustomed to. Making the decision to go beyond my capabilities forced me to learn quickly and adapt to the situation. Once I got past all the risky stuff and reached a safe location I text my wife “This is a tough hike”. It was my first time doing that. I was now back at this sign again:

That short little 1.2 miles took me around 3 hours because I didn’t have the right knowledge.

As an entrepreneur you must constantly learn new things and prepare for everything you can. I failed to summit not because I didn’t have the capability. I failed because I didn’t have the simple knowledge of where to go or the experience to figure it out. A little knowledge can be the difference between life and death or failure and success.

In addition to being surprised by the failed effort I realized all the unexpected climbing completely drained me. I felt like going to sleep. A sharp headache set in and I started to feel nauseous. My entire body was fatigued but my legs were destroyed considering all the leg work I did in the gym days prior. I took it one step at a time and just wanted to get down the trail back to the dirt road to walk back to the car.

With about 7 miles in front of me I prepared to baby-step back feeling broken down by the mountain, sun and lack of energy. However, my spirit can’t be broken and I marched onward one step at a time; only taking breaks to vomit off to the side. Anytime I wanted to feel sorry for myself I thought of Jocko Willink and realized this was all nothing compared to what I’ve learned from his podcast.

When I finally reached the car in another 4.5 hours I felt completely fine and the sun was just setting. The entire experience was just another grand lesson to make me stronger.

As an entrepreneur you can’t let defeat stop you. It can slow you down but you must march on. Every failure is a lesson to guide your next effort. Never surrender or never feel sorry for yourself. Draw strength from your untouchable spirit when you are at your weakest. When all you feel is pain, summon the force of all your will and focus it entirely on a positive outlook of the future.

Conclusion

Entrepreneurship is risky business and most of us endure a lot of failure. As a lover of trail running, I gave no thought to the idea I could fail to summit an 6,955 foot sandstone mountain. On a Saturday morning I spontaneously decided to go for a run in Red Rock Canyon which is a stone’s throw from my house. Little did I know I would face numerous challenges and a brush with death.

I constantly related the physical challenges I faced to my entrepreneurial experiences. Through that relation I was able to clearly see errors in my thinking and approaches. By projecting abstract thought processes onto the physical situations I encountered, the laws of physics were able to correct me.