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Twenty years ago, I guided an international team of climbers and for 12 minutes on June 4, 2005, we stood on the summit of Mt. Everest. 1,743 people had stood there before me, and 5,377 have gone there since that day. It was an achievement that tested my skills and experience, but was in a certain sense almost a disappointment. I had thought that a moment on the peak would leave me somehow enlightened or changed forever. But that was not the case, I went home the same defective man who had left 3 months before. There is no instant wisdom, sometime it takes decades to unpack.
Climbing Everest changed me in ways I’m still uncovering. Here’s what that mountain taught me—lessons I carry every day:
1. You’re only as strong as your team. No one summits alone. Trust, humility, and shared grit get you farther than ego ever will.
2. The weather turns fast. So can life. Conditions change in an instant—up there and down here. Stay alert, stay flexible, agile.
3. Respect matters more than conquest. Everest isn’t something you “beat.” You earn the privilege to be on her slopes. Same goes for any big goal.
4. Fear is part of the process. You don’t eliminate fear—you learn to move with it, not against it. Avoiding situations that generate fear is avoiding opportunities to learn and grow.
5. The summit is fleeting, you can’t live there. It’s only yours to enjoy for a few moments. It’s the journey, the grind, the failures, and the people beside you that really matter.
I didn’t just climb a mountain. I climbed into a different version of myself. 20 years later, I’m still climbing—just in different ways.
