FULL SPEED AHEAD, Vince Poscente
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Full Speed Ahead eBrief


Vol.3.94

Winning Expectations

by Vince Poscente
Author of The Ant and the Elephant, Invinceable Principles and The Age of Speed

It’s been quite a July. First climbing the Himalayas. Next, the Dalai Lama. Then the crown jewel of the National Speakers Association annual convention – the opening keynote. Three trophies in my display case it seems.

 

Explorer Jeff Salz, calls nature, “The lazy man’s teacher.” It provides a venue for learning that unfolds with every step. Each day in hiking towards progressive heights of rarified air forces the body to be entirely preoccupied. Meanwhile, the mind is thoroughly engaged with the importance of each measured step. Pure awareness dances like the Northern Lights - in and out of this soul scrubbing experience. Joy and bliss infuse with exhaustion as one climbs.

 

Our team’s goal was to supercede the 17,600 foot Pin Parvati Pass. Then we would climb higher to an unsummited – unnamed peak. Due to a combination of hot weather and unexpected trials we discovered the safe window for our second objective had closed. Unstable snow and team safety meant the virgin peak would chaste for the time being. We climbed through the pass feeling empty handed but safely intact.

 

The days that followed had an adventure at every turn. We listened to the Dalai Lama who included in his talk, “Don’t go back and tell everyone that you were with the Dalai Lama,” as if he was some Certificate of Achievement to be held up for others to admire. (Enough said ;-) Via dirt roads we drove to 1,000 year old monasteries, were visitors in mud homes 15,000 feet above sea level, traversed across the plateaus 18 miles from the Tibetan border and even came across sea-bed fossils scattered along rows and rows of Himalayan teeth piercing an impossibly blue sky.

 

Three days after returning from India I was confidently introduced by my 10 year-old daughter, Alex, before 1,100 peers in the speaking business. This honor and privilege was not lost on me as I took my colleagues through a four-year journey from recreational skier to the Olympics. By design, I set up them up to believe that I had won the gold. Yet fate’s different plan unfolded - I placed 15th.

 

In other countries, when I show the final run, the audience normally claps for the effort. Yet typically in the United States, when the video ends, the audience is silent. Almost without exception, when I speak in the USA, finding out I haven’t won has the spectators looking back in disbelief. “You didn’t win?” is the unspoken chorus. Curious but fitting in a nation described by Malcolm Gladwell as “an individualistic culture” where achievement is cultivated and coveted. In the only country in the world that doesn’t have government backed healthcare (auspiciously on the 40th anniversary of putting a man on the moon) the import of one person winning is alive and well.

 

Looking back at my July - there’s no trophy. No medal. No signed publicity 8x10 with the 14th Dalai Lama.

 

Thankfully, what remains is a tranquil knowing. The path taken was full of adventure, love of nature (human and otherwise) and a continued quest for new heights.

 

Until next week it’s full speed ahead,

 

 

 

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© 2010 Vince Poscente. All Rights Reserved.