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I just read an interesting story about people who dream about climbing Mount Everest. For you who like me have to look it up: Mount Everest is ‘…Earth’s highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation of 8,848.86 m was most recently established in 2020 by the Nepali and Chinese authorities’
Lots of experienced and inexperienced mountain climbers attempt the climb, and many die in the process. Why?
The story says…
The story says that the cause of the many deaths is people who are too eager, too focused, too hellbent to get to the top… so single focused, that when they run out of oxygen, they stop and block the whole line of climbers, much like as if you stopped in the middle of the highway, causing a pileup of cars.
Simply getting to the side of the road and waiting to recover, allowing others to pass safely is the solution. But when you are singlemindedly focusing on YOUR climb, you cause death and mayhem. I bet you weren’t prepared to hear this… 🙁
Your whole cone of vision is occupied by YOUR climb… and no one and nothing else matters.
Many people preach focus, singular focus, if you want to be an achiever, but the Mount Everest story says that it is a bad idea… causing you to not be able to achieve what you attempt to achieve, because you cannot step aside to take a breather, to readjust your focus when you run out of juice.
A disproportionate number of my followers want to be achievers and are not.
They experience themselves as dabblers, but when I go back in time and recount their attempts at achievement, I see a different story. The story of the failed climber on the highest mountain of Earth.
When something is too important, then funny things happen…
…your entire identity is put at display, and you cannot see that you could climb the mountain in phases… just like you eat an elephant: one step at a time.
Also, which mountain to climb becomes increasingly important: you think you can only climb one mountain… and so you procrastinate… which means, in essence: you never choose any mountain to climb, and there you are, 20-30-40 years later with no achievements under your belt, still living with family: you have never amounted to much…
So what can you do? What do people who actually achieve something do?
The most important thing to do is to be able to see the forest for the trees: to see the context in the partial action. To not see the ‘climb’ as a singular tour de force, but see it as something that every phase of it, every skill of it, every aspect of it can be learned and practiced, and achieved individually.
I am learning to write better articles by following a course by Psychotactics and Sean D’Souza.
According to the course, each article, each good article, has many elements that can be practiced and mastered individually.
I am now practicing the first 50 words, FFW, and not worry about the rest.
I can see what I am not doing… and I am OK with that. I am only practicing having one focus word, in this article any variation of achievement, and make sure that I have a headline, a story, and that I reconnect that focus word in the end.
I am far from being good at it. It is a mini Mount Everest for me. When I’ll get good at it, it will be an achievement… and I can move to another element of a good article… maybe the first line? I’ll cross that bridge when i get there.
People who try to pull off a whole article, i.e. try to climb the mountain without ever practicing the parts, are going to die or quit… and thus become non-achievers.
The second most important thing is…
…and for one of my students it is the biggest stumbling block, is hoping to find the correct mountain to climb.
But the correct mountain will only show up when you are ready for it.
This student of mine has totaled his car, and he is now not able to make a living by driving for Uber, as he did before.
He has no experience in any other kind of work, and suddenly he needs to make a living.
I suggested that he takes a job that trains him in some aspect of what he may consider an attractive mountain to climb.
When I first decided that I wanted to be a publisher, I took a job, for a month, with a printer first, then a took a job for a month with a typesetter next, and then I took a job selling print advertising for a small weekly rag.
There I volunteered to write dining reviews for restaurants that advertised in the magazine. I volunteered to design all the display ads. I volunteered to lay out the magazine every Friday…
In less than a year I had enough experience to start my own magazine…
I am a fast learner… so it didn’t take me long.
If he doesn’t start now, five years from now he will be at the same place, but he will be five years older.
If he takes a job that doesn’t train him in any skill connected to the big mountain, driving a taxi won’t… then again: in five years he will have no skills and he will be five years older.
And directly connected to the Mount Everest story and the reason people die:
If you don’t know when to step aside… you won’t make it to the top.
What I mean is this: I didn’t have to get good at printing. I didn’t have to get good at typesetting. I didn’t have to get good at writing articles, designing ads, selling advertising, and the rest 35 years ago. I just had to get good enough… That is like stepping aside on the mountain…
Because the sum total of all those skills resulted in a real achievement, I had a wildly successful magazine that made me a living for 11 years, starting with the first issue.
It became the foundation of the next achievement, a wildly successful website, for the next 11 years. Then to the business I am in now… after that.
But it all started with me not being hellbent in climbing the big mountain without skills… and become roadkill.
I have read somewhere that 90% of all magazines ever published never go beyond the first issue… just like probably 90% of the people who attempt to climb Mount Everest never reach the peak.
So what do you do now that I have taken the wind out of your sail, lol?
You may want to use the seven boulders exercise I teach in https://yourvibration.com/23760/seven-boulders/
Or if you are not a self-starter, ask for a one-on-one consult with me…
Your most important stumbling block will be your personality
Your most important stumbling block will be your personality, the identity you invented to compensate for your non-achieving way of being. Unless that is changed, you will not likely be able to suddenly become an achiever.
This Saturday I’ll have a short but meaty workshop scheduled just for you.
It’s called ‘Personality’ because that is what we’ll work on so we can change your future. We’ll find what you made up, and we’ll look how to change it so you can finally be in the game of achievers…
I won’t have time to advise you fully on your path… for that you need a consulting session. But I’ll muscletest for you if your first, and maybe even your second change will take you in the direction you want: of becoming an achiever.
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