Climbing Everest
Being Proactive in the Midst of Struggle
Standing on his tiptoes, the little boy could just see the top of his father’s bookshelf. He scanned the books. One title caught his eye. Annapurna, by Maurice Herzog, sat scrunched in with the other texts. Knitting his eyebrows together, the boy studied the word. What on Earth was an Annapurna? He opened the book, curious to find out.
Immediately, the story captured him. Annapurna wasn’t a strange word. It was the name of a mountain. The book described in detail the daring expedition to the top of the tallest[1] mountain in the world. He was transported from his seat on the couch in the housing projects of the Bronx to the snow-covered surface of Annapurna. The sound of sirens was replaced with the biting whistle of adventure. The book was over too soon.
In his mind, he contrasted the tall, artificial skyscrapers of New York City with the soaring, natural peaks of the Himalayans. It seemed alien to him. The boy imagined himself staring up at that wind-battered peak and mentally preparing for a long trek into the history books. However, his dream deflated as reality jolted him back to his little apartment. After all, he was a little boy in the middle of the city. When was he ever going to travel to the Himalayans?
Guests’ advice on Aiming for the Moon often falls into one of seven categories. One of these categories is “Be Proactive.” Being proactive is a combination of creativity, curiosity, and grit. Curiosity and creativity develop the dream, and grit grinds you to the destination. It’s about dreaming. And then, hustling.
A few years apart from the beginning of our first story, another young man was anxiously awaiting his turn to be called into the movie audition. As a child, the man had been a frequent face on Broadway.
At last, they called his name, and he hurried to the room. The crew gave him a script, and he performed.
After he was finished, the director looked him in the eye and said, “You have to learn how to act.”
The world fell out from under him.
She paused in thought for a moment. “Oh, let me amend that. You need to learn how to act for the camera. You’ve been on a stage so long. You’re way too big, way too over the top. I suggest you go do some plays and cut your teeth and learn how to bring it all in.”
In tears, the man slowly trudged out of the building as the world lurched around him. What was he going to do now?
In the hustle, you are constantly figuring things out. As Steve Rice, a podcaster and high school entrepreneurship teacher, told me in our interview with him, “Don’t worry about the destination, just take the next step.” The hustle is a sprint at the dead of night with only a headlight. Only far in the distance, can you imagine the glorious, shining peak of success. The path to your destination is more often than not pitch-black. All you can do to avoid crashing is to take the next visible step.
The urge to travel the world never left the young reader of Annapurna. Eventually, he made a call to a climbing school in New Hampshire. As the years went by, the boy, now a man, graduated medical school and became the expedition doctor for countless numbers of fellow explorers. After each step, another would emerge from the inky blackness, a little closer to the target.
Dr. Ken Kamler has been on several trips to Everest now. On his fourth, a storm stranded a group of climbers near the summit. They were trapped by the furious, ice hurricane and bitter temperature. Dr. Kamler prepared his medical equipment as some of the best mountaineers from his group attempted to rescue the survivors. Tragically, many of victims and rescuers froze before they could reach safety. But, for those who managed to find their way to Camp 3, Dr. Kamler was ready to treat with the little supplies he had.
Presently, he writes and speaks about his time treating the victims of the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster, as well as everything else he has learned throughout his career. Dr. Kamler has traveled all over the world just as he had dreamed as that little boy in the Bronx. Though he has never had the chance to summit, he has climbed up to the highest camps on Everest where his medical training as been quite useful.
In the final minutes of our conversation together, Dr. Ken Kamler smiled as he concluded, “The barrier [to becoming an explorer and mountaineer] was only in my mind. Once I realized that [my mind] was the only real barrier, I quit climbing lessons and did it. And, I think that’s a good lesson. Because most barriers, I think, are in your mind. If you think about getting something done that you really want to do, you can probably do it.” He chuckled a little as he thought about his next line. “Everyone should have their own Everest. Everyone should have some goal that is seemingly impossible or close to it...It doesn’t have to be a mountain. It doesn’t have to be anything physical. You should take on something you think is maybe beyond you...There’s a good chance that you do it. And, even if you don’t succeed, you will find qualities within yourself, strengths that you never knew you had, when you pursue a goal like that.”
The young man left the theater and began training. He did three plays in a year at a small theater which led him to a large, theater company, that eventually opened the door for him to win an Obie (Off-Broadway Theater Award) for a play. He just kept taking the next visible step.
One year later, he got a call. The same world-shattering director was calling him back to re-audition. He was reading for the same part. The movie, Taps, had been canceled, and they were recasting before their next attempt. He had a second shot.
When they called his name, he performed. And, he performed perfectly. When he finished, there was silence in the room. He probably looked around expectantly. He probably wrung his hands a little and held his breath expectantly.
The director leaned forward. “What did you do?” She looked curiously at him. This was a stark contrast from his last performance.
“I did what you told me to do.”
“Well, now I’m telling you to come back at 3:00 today and read with the star of the movie, and the studio, and the producers. Will you do that?”
He grinned. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”
Giancarlo Esposito laughed at the climax of his story, a clear nostalgia for that glorious moment in his eyes. Now, the actor who played Gus Fring in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian, and many other well-known characters was sitting in our Zoom meeting discussing the beginning of his career. He was a 4x Emmy nominee.
“Dedication, commitment, and sacrifice. Those are the things that are going to get young people, or any people, where you want to go. And, that can never be left out. That’s got to be at the start.” He was grinning as he elaborated. “What you do today, determines your tomorrow. I have no doubt about this in my mind. If you have a desire and want to do something…” His face shifted. This was no laughing matter. “…and, [if] you take ten minutes a day to put your attention there, either writing it down, talking about it, creating a plan, whatever that is, that becomes systematic. You’re then creating your own future. You’re then voicing your own future. And, that has no choice but to come for you...There’s going to be hard days, rough days, up-days, down-days, days that go completely freakin’ sideways, but in the end, if you keep your focus, you’ll get to where you need to go...You have to do something to get something...When you make a decision about your life, and you want to have something happen, it’s not just going to just fall into your lap, you have to take steps to make it happen. And, guess what? You can, because I did. And, it wasn’t easy.”
This was no laughing matter because this was his story.
Anyone can think big. What separates Dr. Ken Kamler, the explorer, and Giancarlo Esposito, the actor, is that they did big too. They took the circumstances they were given and worked to change them. They overcame the mental, emotional, and physical obstacles before them. Their sprints were curvy, sometimes even loopy, but through the determination just to move one more foot forward and focus on the goal ahead, they reached their peaks. Where does that leave us as teenagers? Life is knocking on our doors. We can just faintly see the peak of our goals through the fog of unknown. According to Dr. Kamler, “Don’t be afraid to take on an Everest.”
[1]At the time, it was the tallest mountain ever climbed. No one had succeeded at Everest yet.