The first blind man to summit Everest, Erik Weihenmayer, lives in Golden, Colorado, just a few miles from my house. Fifteen years ago this past May 25th, he reached the summit, then made his way down. He just wrote about this experience and had something so profound to say about it that I wanted to share a quote:

"...our team leader and guide, Pasquale “PV” Scaturro, sat me down and said, “Don’t make Everest the greatest thing you ever do.” 

"When you come home from Everest there’s a lot of fanfare. I was the grand poo-bah at our town parade in Golden. You get a lot of attention. But the whole time, I was thinking about PV’s words and trying to figure out what he meant. Soon after my return, PV and I went climbing together in Clear Creek Canyon. He was belaying me, and I asked him about what he’d told me. He said, “The biggest problem with Everest is that you finish and you get all your awards and pictures, and you put them up in your room, and then that room sort of becomes a museum—or, at its worst, a mausoleum”—where your life dies afterward. He was telling me not to stop living just because I reached the top of the world."

Erik has since done many, many more good things to his legacy and his life, ensuring that his trophy room isn't a mausoleum. However, this is a powerful gauntlet. Each of us has had a time in our lives which feels like the pinnacle. Our Everest, as it were. When we were in high school, or college, the homecoming king or queen, the day we got married or when our first child was born. Perhaps we too accomplished something amazing. Got a patent, made a million.

Often we post proof of those halcyon days so that we can relive them or at least be reminded of what we once were. Pop stars have written bittersweet lyrics about the guy at the corner bar who was once the football star. Not long ago a guy on Match argued with me that he'd climbed Everest...back in his twenties. He was in his sixties and hadn't done much of anything since- the perfect example of PV's warning. What happens after your Everest? Well, that depends on you.

I'd posit that we all need regular reminders of what we are made of, what we can do, and what we can offer the world. Each decade and shift in our life circumstances create a different set of demands wherein we can ask that question in a new way. Based on who I am now, what would challenge me? What might be my "Everest" this year, this decade? In this iteration of me? Sometimes that new challenge might well be getting yourself back in shape to be able to play with your kids. It might be getting yourself out of debt. Stopping a debilitating habit. Sometimes we don't get trophies for the toughest mountains we have to climb, and only those closest to us know how hard we've worked.

Over the past few years, I've gathered some certificates that prove that I've surmounted this or that mountain, tracked gorillas, whatever. They're stacked against the wall on the floor, in favor of some nice art. They're meaningless. What isn't meaningless is the floor to ceiling wall of intention, full of photos of kayaking, biking, horses, hiking, exercising, work I need to do, all in my future. Such walls of intention work. Every time I see a word or phrase that inspires, challenges, it goes up.

If a blind man can climb Everest and realize that he's got a great deal more yet to do, it's a good question to ponder. I believe we all wish to live meaningful lives. To do so, then the pinnacles of our past can't define us.

What's your next Everest?

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Julia Hubbel CPSD

Owner, The Hubbel Group and WordFood Inc.