Succeed or fail - its the journey that we're left with

 

"The actual achievement doesn't really change your life like you think it might when your building up to it, but what your left with is the journey that got you to that point.  And if you have this big journey where you had to figure a lot of stuff out, you had to plan and it was more immersive and then you were somewhere beautiful for a long time and then had to work really hard and overcome some kind of mental barrier, your left with so much more of a story or memory and experience, and that's what I find is most important" - Marc-André Leclerc (The Alpinist)

I almost fell off my treadmill a few times while simultaneously running and watching "The Alpinist" on Netflix last night.  The drone and GoPro captured scenery spun in front of me as Mar-André hung from the tip of an icepick hundreds and even thousands of feet above solid ground.  It was mesmerizing in a lot of ways; the type of documentary that makes you wonder what it would be like to do something really and truly adventurous.  

We can't all pack up and move to Alaska or Nepal to climb the tallest mountains in the world, and most of us wouldn't want to even if given the chance.  But we all have challenges in front of us - things we'd like to do but haven't for one reason or the other.  Coaching, changing jobs,  an ultra marathon, self induced sabbatical, hike the Appalachian Trail, learn how to cook something spectacular, anything.  That's how the quote from Marc-André hit me, in just the right way.

It's not the first time I've heard something that sounds similar - "It doesn't matter if you win or loose, but how you play the game" for example - but I was reminded in a very visual way how hard work and discipline stacks on itself and prepares us for something more.  Want to run a marathon? You have to start by running a few miles, and then a few more, building up your body's muscle memory and ability to recover.  Want to learn a new skill, like cooking or martial arts.  You can fake your way to a certain extent but if you really want to Learn you'll start by mastering the basics, and the basics are the foundation that every great performer of their craft stand on.  

I've spent the better part of the last 24 hours thinking about how I enable my daughters to appreciate the journey.  I can see it in their struggles to learn something new - that desire to instantly be good at it and discouragement when it's harder than they expected.  I find this to be one of the greatest lessons or skills I would like to help my daughters develop; to embrace the challenge of the foundational basics, knowing that mastering them is the key that unlocks the ability to do the truly incredible