The obstacles that you encounter at Tough Mudder can be exciting, scary, dangerous, and flat out insane (see any of the electroshock obstacles) all at the same time. One of the signature obstacles that you will see on every course is Everest. Everest is billed as a quarter-pipe that you will have to sprint up and enlist the help of other competitors to pull you over this beastly summit. To make matters more difficult, Everest is always coated in mud and grease. This combination which will likely send you right back from where you came. Check out my epic fail on this event in my first ever attempt.
There are numerous leadership lessons that you can learn from this obstacle which we have now faced four times and will be seeing again soon in Miami. Here are three to get us started. I'm quite sure DC and Patrick will have their own thoughts on these.
Vision - The first thing you do when you reach the obstacle is to make eye contact with someone at the top of the ramp. Although we have just started to be able to get up without assistance you always need someone on standby. Once you have initiated the eye contact, you know have a clear path to the top.
Leaders must know where they are trying to go and help others navigate the path.
Team - One of our fellow mudders who will likely join us for some events in 2013 had some troubles with the obstacle which required the help of many (including two Tough Mudder staff members). He was able to reach our hands on the first attempt but that was where the progress stopped. We were not able to pull him up and he was unable to provide much assistance. At this point several people ran over to help and with the support of others we were able to haul him up. Exhausted but victorious....This was one of my favorite moments on the course since it took all of us to help. You can see us waiting for his arrival in the picture below.
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Vision is important but it will ultimately require a team of committed people to accomplish the goal.
Learning from Failure - You've already seen my epic fail during my first attempt. I learned several things through that failure and by watching others suffer a similar fate. The first thing that I learned was that speed will be your best friend and a lack of it will be your downfall. The other interesting piece was that people made the mistake of jumping before they reached the top. You can actually run all the way up the ramp if you ignore the vertical piece of the ramp and keep running. Once again speed will be the key. Many people jump as the ramp becomes vertical and the fall short. Those fails not only help you learn a better way to complete the obstacle they also make for hysterical bloopers.
Failure is only fatal if you don't learn something in the process.
Learning from failure is typically the key to moving any initiative forward.
I always look forward to this obstacle for several reasons. The first is that it typically means the end of the race is near and the celebration with your team can begin. The second reason has to do with the interactions you have with teammates and fellow mudders. We have all written about how we are drawn to these challenges because of the camaraderie. Camaraderie abounds throughout the course but it all comes together at Everest.
I look forward to reaching the top of Everest many more times in 2013 and learning more lessons about myself and our team.
Very inspiring. Thanks Brian:)
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