paris dice

Mountain or Well?

when i look back upon the things i’ve embarked upon to create change in the world, one thing stands out: the journey always took much longer than projected. if that journey was something akin to climbing a big mountain, i spent more time navigating the approach to the base of the mountain than summiting the peak, if you will. i rarely if ever planned for this “flat” part of the trip. the mountain peak is so seductive, so sexy — it’s where you want to end up, so you focus on what it will take to scale the verticals. but as it turns out, it’s the long walk to the base of the mountain that’s the hardest part. it’s about perseverance more than strength.

innovating something, be it a stand alone product or a massively interconnected system, involves many more days of getting to the peak than it does scaling the peak. this is because there are so many pitfalls along the way — so it always feels like you’re climbing something. climbing a mountain face or a well, it feels the same: steep, slippery, and difficult. as it turns out, a lot of that climbing happens because you’ve stumbled into a crevasse or a well, and you have to find your way out before you can get back to your mission of walking to the mountain. it can’t be helped; if you’re innovating, by definition you’re venturing out through the dark unknown, so of course you’ll stumble and fall and have to pick yourself up.

while there were lots of hard points, in any difficult project i’ve done there was also more joy and camaraderie to be had along the way than I ever dared hope for.  this is key.  whether it’s orville and wilbur figuring out how to make man fly, or it’s you tweaking the messaging on a web site in the middle of the night, you need the help of friends and colleagues. not only can they help pull you out of a crevasse, but they can help you see that you weren’t yet on the mountain. and that you need to keep walking. 

understanding the difference between a mountain and a well?  priceless.

- metacool on climbing mountains and wells | via ninakix [emphasis mine] | via texturism

I need to remember all of this.