Strategic Foresight & leadership for sustainable growth | Enterprise wide transformation | Curiosity | Commercial Excellence
We have summitted our first mountain of 2024 - before sunrise on the 1st of January! 👊 I’m sure it won’t be the last or the largest mountain - physically or metaphorically, that we climb this year, as a group, or as individuals, but it was a great way to start the year together. When I first thought of climbing a mountain before sunrise on New Years Day - and whether there was a blog in it - I had thought of it from a personal and individual perspective, but the first rule I applied to it, Stating and Sharing your goal, led inadvertently to recruiting others (my children) who also thought it a great idea! This really made it a far more enjoyable feat, and led to unexpected learnings that I would not have otherwise got by doing it alone (my 8 year old might be the alpinist in our family after all!). Setting a “deadline/timeframe”, with regards to goals is something I believe strongly in, and really creates a discipline around preparing for it, and while there wasn’t a great amount of detail in setting the first of January as the day to do it - it was a date and something I could plan around. Likewise with the mountain choice itself - apart from the fact that I have looked at it from my kitchen for years, and wondered what the summit looks like, there was no great reason to do it! Other lessons that were applied and learned: Don’t burn out too quickly! “Pole, Pole” - Swahili for slowly, is something I learned a long time ago when climbing Kilimanjaro, and was something I was able to share with my children on this climb, and applies to many goals in business. Setting out too quickly can be detrimental, despite the surge of adrenaline we often get, The path is long, and consistent application is usually the best way of achieving. Work as a team, while this was a relatively simple mountain, with most of the “team” between 8 and 12 years of age, we needed to share the load, determine who was the lead at different stages, who carried the most (no prizes for guessing correctly!). Celebration - it doesn’t need to be great! A cup of tea from a flask and a cookie time cookie really was sufficient, and the children are talking about the accomplishment of summiting rather than any “ incentive” for doing it, as they really set that as their reason. There’s always another mountain - Later that evening I was mountain biking with my eldest son from the peak of a local ski field when he noted how small “our” mountain suddenly looked when compared with some of the other peaks in the wider area, which we could now see from up on high. Achieving and conquering a “mountain” inevitably leads to wanting to target the next one! “You don’t have to be a hero to accomplish great things - - to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.” Sir Ed Hillary Good luck to all of you with your own mountains that you will attempt, sometimes fail at the first attempt, but ultimately, I’m sure, conquer in 2024. #goals
and what incentive do your kids have to join you that early? I am interested.
Happy new year Hefin and crew! I’m sure next time if you distribute the load evenly between the 3 kids you could just carry the cookies! 😆
It's a fantastic way to kickstart the new year 👏👏👏
Lovely post Hef, that landscape looks straight out of LOTRs! Give me a shout next time you are in the UK, it would be really good to catch up.
Love this! Happy New Year Hefin!
Happy New Year Hefin!!
“Araf deg mae mynd ymhell” ~ what an amazing experience for your small people crew! Taking the time to ‘play’ + bond is so precious.
What a great start for 2024... All the very best Hefin ...
Love it!
Customer Experience Manager at Philips Healthcare Australia and New Zealand
8moNow you're talking 😉