Often times it is the fear of failure that keeps us from taking the leap, whether that’s taking a chance with a new relationship, starting a new business, or taking an idea from mind to market.
Ten years ago, I attended a self-improvement, week-long seminar in the mountains of northern California. Part of the outdoor exercises to learn to get over your fears was to climb an old, fifty-foot-high wooden telephone pole equipped with metal brackets as footholds.
The objective was to reach the highest point of the pole, stand on the very top with nothing to hold onto, stand there for a full minute while the pole swayed side-to-side in the wind, and then leap out and grab the steel bar of a trapeze ten feet out.
Having spent my youth climbing trees and leaping off riverbank cliffs thirty feet above the water, I thought the challenge was no big deal.
But as I watched others climb to the top of the pole and then stop just short of that last step, I began to wonder if it was as easy as it looked. What I realized is that as one reaches the top of the pole, there is nothing to grab a hold of to pull yourself up, so you have to step up that last 14 inches with sheer muscle and grit and then quickly bring your other foot up for balance.
I watched as one, and then another climber got stuck on making that last step onto the top of the pole. One woman sat on the last rung before reaching the top for over an hour trying to muster up the courage to take that last step. Shouts of encouragement echoed from below. Still, she couldn’t make herself move. Finally, she climbed back down the pole, defeated.
Several others did the same thing, only to fail and climb back down.
Then it was my turn.
Geared up in a hard hat and harness attached to a wire as a safety device, I started climbing. The first part was easy until I was about mid-way up. Then I felt the pole begin to sway in the wind. The further up I went, the more it rocked back and forth.
Gripping the metal rungs even harder, I kept climbing.
Finally, I was on the last rung… the place where others had been, yet had not taken that last step. I vowed I would not do that. I sat with my foot on the last rung for about a minute, and then I counted to three. 1…2…3… and made myself lift my left foot up onto the top of the pole. I was almost there.
I paused. I realized I would have to use every ounce of muscle and grit to finish the climb and get my other foot onto the top of the pole. With nothing to hold onto it was just me up there… depending on just me.
At that moment it also occurred to me that the worst thing that could happen is that I fall and have to climb back up and try it again.
So, I put all of my weight on my left foot and lifted my right onto the top of the swaying pole. I stood there amazed that I didn’t fall. I basked in the glory of it all for a few minutes, taking in the glorious landscape that I could see for miles around me.
“Waaaaaaah hooooooo!!” I shouted.
And then I took the big leap for the trapeze bar.
Oh, what a feeling of success that was!
Don’t be that person that climbs back down. Don’t sit there clinging to the foot pegs deciding if you’re going to take the last step. While you have the momentum of climbing up rung by rung, keep going! That last step is part of the momentum you already have. Take it! Do it! 1, 2, 3, now!
Then you’ll be standing on the very top spreading your arms out wide, taking in the incredible beauty of having made it and shouting, “Waaaaaaah hooooooo!!”