Bloody Fingers, Rock Climbing & How They Apply to Your Small Business
We were not naturally designed for rock climbing. The flesh on our fingers is soft, warm, welcoming; designated for touch and communication, not for climbing on brutally jagged rock faces–worn hard and craggy from wind and rain since the beginning of time.
A new climber faces the reality of her climbing ability very quickly, nearly instantaneously, from the moment she reaches out for that initial, piercing hand hold. The pain associated with placing all of ones weight onto their soft, warm finger pads is immediate and, at first, nearly unbearable. Never before have you had to literally hang from a hard rock face by the tips of your fingers and toes.
If you choose to begin climbing, you will leave some blood on the rock, and you will go home missing several (or all!) of your hand and finger pads. It is painful, and it’s an introduction into climbing that most new climbers refuse to re-live.
Before you begin climbing, ask yourself these questions:
- Am I willing to invest a months worth of time into climbing in pain, with bloody fingers, with worn out forearms, with missing palm pads and with cramped feet? If yes, climb on! If no, do you really want to invest that initial time, energy and flesh(!) into something that you are going to quit (or regret) the next day?
- Do I want to be a great climber? I can see what other dedicated climbers are doing on the rocks already–do I want to be able to join them? If yes, please proceed! If no, than why bother? If you don’t want to be a great climber (if you only want to climb every-once-and-a-while) than all you will ever gain are bloody fingers.
- Do I want the respect of my fellow climbers, or do I just want to take up space? Expert climbers can easily judge who is serious about becoming a great climber and who is just out there for the “experience”. They will respect (and genuinely help!) those who are serious and engaged in climbing. They will disregard those that they believe are only there to put some fresh flesh on the rock.
If we are going to become great at anything, it is going to require an initial pain investment. The pain or challenge may not come immediately, but eventually, it will come. Are you willing to push through the pain, “lose some finger flesh”, and move forward into success? If you are going to start becoming someone who does something great, than start, and push through the challenges. If you don’t want to become that person in that arena of greatness, then please don’t even start. It’s not worth the pain.
Find an arena where you authentically want to become great and pursue it despite the challenges and pain. How do you see yourself getting bloody fingers?
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{Socially Capable}
Sometimes I think we’d RATHER have our fingertips bloodied all at once!…The art of the start is a longer more strenuous battle I think. It does help to attribute a physical feat to the challenge though -good analogies.
Nathan Maggard
There’s a lot of truth in this blog. I can think of a few times when I have started learning a skill and then walking away from it after a short time of strugle. Many times though, I think we just need a little push, but not necessarily words of encouragement. Allow me to clarify. The realization of a specific passion in our own lives is just as important as the realization of a specific passion in the life of someone else. There have been times when an individual has seen something in me–a skill, a desire, and love–and have taken the initiative to inform me of my own passion. While this doesn’t always produce a response which parallels with his/her suggestion, it does force me to reexamine my life, to ask those meaningful questions: Why am I doning what I’m doing? Do I really want to go where this path is taking me? Am I wasting my time doing something I will never really have a passion for or commitment to and, therefore, will never do well? I think sometimes we get to a certain point where we put so much energy and focus into a single goal or plan that we miss what’s going on around us. We become so consumed with “where I’m going” that don’t realize the many areas of life in which we could do more good and perhaps even enjoy. It is because of this blindness, which just about everyone experiences at least once in his life, that the importance of the communication I mentioned before is also important simply because at times we don’t realize that we hate the situation we are currently in and that we could be great if the dirrection of our pusuit was altered.