Face your mountain

Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo

The highest mountain in Zimbabwe is Mount Nyangani standing at a height of 2 592 metres. The mountain is located within the Nyanga National Park, about 110 kilometres northwest of Mutare. For mountain climbers, you have not climbed a mountain until you stand at its summit.

While at the summit it is not a time to be complacent but an opportunity to celebrate briefly and set your sights on climbing another more challenging one. Mount Nyangani’s summit is made up of a small outcrop of 40 metres of rock jutting above the stony surrounding area. The remainder of the peak is a broad moor of rolling hills and plateau. The edges of this plateau make up the imposing and steep east and west sides.

The weather on the mountain is highly unpredictable and never to be underestimated. It can easily become foggy, or it could rain, and sometimes the sun smiles through the clouds briefly before disappearing and giving way to a chilly unannounced breeze. No one climbing a mountain should ever underrate the challenge of the mountain or the conditions of the climb. A valley mindset could be a liability on top of a mountain. To mountain climbers, an average mountain is always a snare because it induces complacency.

People in all time have always been fascinated by mountains. The bigger the mountain the greater the challenge. The higher the challenge the more the myths surrounding the mountain. Mount Nyangani is not an exception. It has many myths around it and over the years a number of people have regrettably disappeared as they tried to conquer the mountain. Some of them have never been found and their story no one knows.

No mountain is like any other. The mountain does not care about your resume, it sets its own tests. You cannot use the experience of the past mountain climbs as proof that your climb will be without incident. It is not so much that we climb a mountain that matters but what happens in us as we climb. No one who climbs any mountain successfully fails to have a story to tell.

We all face mountains. A mountain is any huge, seemingly impossible and imposing challenge. The challenge may have the lore of swallowing lives and the threat of danger. Mountains do not tolerate complacency. When facing a mountain you are usually confronted by more questions than you have answers. Mountains bring questions, sometimes hard and embarrassing ones.

Mountains cannot be cheated. When you get questions wrestle with the questions and the brutal facts. Mountains call for brutal honesty because any misstep could mean a lost life. Mountains hate rhetoric questions and empty leadership antics. In climbing any mountain you do not look for answers to questions that have already been answered. Nothing wastes resources when climbing a mountain than doing something that does not need to be done.

Mountains are to be respected because they have a profound transformative ability. Mountains are fearful and should always be climbed with utmost respect. Let your fear drive you to take action, take precautions and get rid of all complacency.  It is when we face huge insurmountable problems that we sometime wake up from self-deceptions and biased thinking.  You are always the product of the mountains that you have faced and overcome. You are not really facing a real and challenging mountain if you have the luxury of petty fights, and pedestrian  complaints.

Mountains bring new questions that beg for new answers. Mountain challenges bring to the fore boundaries of your knowledge, limitations of your strategy and in insufficiency of your resources. Mountains bring to light issues that you have avoided in the past. Mountains make you confront reality and at times that reality is brutal. Mountains challenge you to measure what matters, mindset, values and logic.

Todd Skinner, a professional mountain climber, gives advice on the mindset of a mountaineer and how you measure progress. This is so useful and could be applied to any mountain. Skinner says: “Always measure your progress and your resources from the summit instead of the base. You arrive at the base of a mountain with a stock of resources, many of which are fixed. You must allocate those resources according to what is ahead, always referencing how to get where you’re going with what you have. The success of a day’s action must be measured in metres from the destination, not miles from where you began.”

Mountains force you to grow, to think and to learn. Whatever you do not know about the mountain, the mountain will teach you. Face your mountain and you will grow quickly. A mountain teaches you differently from anything else that you know. You do not climb a mountain using credentials of the past. When facing a mountain you know that your greatest asset is your ability to learn, fast.

Eric Hoffer, a self-taught lifelong learner, once said: “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” Mountain conditions can change quickly and you need to be able to adjust quickly to the ever changing new normals.

Nothing in a mountain is to be feared except fear itself. The mountain you face in your arena, usually has a similar mirror-mountain in your head. You can never blame a mountain for being a mountain. It is too busy to listen. How you think about the mountain is more important than the mountain itself.

Climbing any mountain, you have to think. You cannot rely on others to think for you because you face real challenges, known and unknown. In climbing a mountain you will meet unexpected challenges. Your asset is the ability to think and not just blindly copy how others have climbed other mountains. No mountain is ever the same. The mind behind the mountain is more important than the mountain itself.

The biggest threat when climbing any mountain is the habits you nurse at the base or in the valley. Climbing a mountain is a new experience and you cannot use the rear view mirror to gun for the summit. Until habits change, crises will always keep surfacing like waves. You cannot change mountain problems that you behave yourself into.

Everyone has a mountain within them. Deal with your mountain and do not wish it away. Whenever you run away from your mountain you are avoiding growth. If you are not afraid to confront your mountain, it is likely that you have chosen too easy a mountain. Face your mountain and if necessary, do it afraid.

Mountains help us change and raise our game. A mountain forces you to think and do what matters for you to climb ahead. The mountain climber does not have the luxury to think like a person of the valley. Popular thinking will not serve you when facing a mountain that no one has climbed before. The best guide book for climbing a novel mountain is likely the one you will write.

Let us continue this mountain conversation on Twitter:@MiltonKamwendo.

Committed to your greatness

Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and growth mentor. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com.