The wind on Guadalupe Peak was ferocious and threatened to blow me off the side of the cliff. A wind advisory was in effect and search and rescue staff were posted at two points along the trail just in case that possibility became a reality.

The views were stunning as I made my way up and I paused regularly to take it all in. I was far enough south that there wasn’t any snow at the top, but it was chilly. As the wind tried to relieve me of my cap, I had to stop and secure it to my backpack. I could just see me grabbing for it as it blew off my head and then tumbling down the mountain after it. It was not a pretty image.

Along the last mile or so I encountered a couple sitting with a man who was waiting for search and rescue. He had terrible cramps and I reassured him that I had just seen the man they were waiting for not too far behind. 

My reassurance must have felt hollow because I had to do the same for myself shortly after when the wind once again picked up and I flattened myself on the side of the mountain to keep from being blown off. The thought of turning around crossed my mind, but I was determined to get to the top. If I set my sights on making it to the pinnacle, then I always make sure I get there.

Well, almost always.

One would think that the Guadalupe Peak hike was one of the most treacherous and one that would surely make me accede to fear before getting to the top. No, that attempted ascent was a week prior as I held on for dear life suspended hundreds of feet above the water in the middle of the ocean.

I knew what Eminem must have felt like on the stage. I did have a group of people watching me, but it wasn’t a mic that I was clutching. My palms were indeed sweaty, my knees weakened by vertigo, and my arms were getting heavy. Thankfully I was spared the vomit on the sweater part.

As my kids and a bunch of strangers watched I looked up and then gave up. 

And then I fell.

My pride slipped away as I made my slow motion free fall into the abyss. 

It was a whole six feet (probably less if I’m being completely honest) and the resistance from the cable connected to my harness made it seem a lot farther. As I took off the safety gear and climbing shoes as a man defeated, I scoffed at the six or so year-old who shimmied up the adjacent climbing wall and made it to the top in less time than it took me to grab the first handhold. 

Little brat.

After I polished my bruised ego a bit with excuses aimed toward my kids who undoubtedly thought their dad was a dunce, my 13 year-old daughter went up like it was nothing. She was followed by my son who kept climbing and kept climbing until he did something that was utterly confounding to me: he rang the bell.

“What the . . .!?” I hadn’t even noticed that there was a bell. 

When I was hiking up Guadalupe Peak and all of the other mountains I have ascended in my life, I followed a pattern. I looked about three feet in front of me so I don’t trip on a rock or root, I looked about 30 feet in front of me to ensure that I stay on the actual trail, and then I looked toward the summit to see my overall goal.

My kids give me guff because I’m that guy who, before going on a roller coaster — which I do not enjoy at all — will turn to my kids with some bit of historical wisdom wrapped in warning in the hopes that they will change their minds and make the suggestion that perhaps being flung upside down and around curves at ridiculous speeds isn’t the safest and best use of our time. 

Said stories usually sound something like, “Did you know that in Belgium in 1976 a roller coaster derailed and hurled a bunch of kids into the side of a mountain where they met a gruesome death? This sort of thing happens all the time. I’m pretty sure it happened here too not that long ago.” As I turn back to my kids in line behind me to save them from potential demise, no sooner than my mouth is open, they give me that look that says, “Stop Dad. Just stop.” 

It never works.

I tried to give the same speech to get out of climbing the wall too and that didn’t work either. I just got the look. 

As I made my way toward the summit in North Texas, I reflected on what I should have done on the climbing wall. First, I should have tested the tension of the cable, which I did in my laughable free fall. Needless to say, it held. Then, I should have taken a look along the path up instead of just at the soaring heights of the apex. If I would have, I would have noticed the bells that are placed strategically every 20 feet or so and not been so focused on the overall height. I could have concentrated on one bell at a time and made my way up in manageable and well-calculated segments.

The climbing wall taught me a lesson that I already knew when it comes to leadership, but that I didn’t have the sense at the time to translate. Most things look daunting and insurmountable when viewed as a whole, but when broken down into smaller pieces, we can usually envision ourselves getting to the finish line. Each checkpoint gives us the opportunity to make the necessary little adjustments and grow at each juncture. This is always better than getting to the end and realizing that there is so much that needs to be changed. Or even worse — not getting to the end at all.

So, lesson learned, I think. 

In my defense though I actually do know a guy whose son-in-law had his equipment fail on him when he had made it near the top of a climbing wall. He had a Humpty Dumpty-like fall and broke numerous bones including both of his wrists. All of this less than a week before his wedding. So, while I won’t be doing the wedding thing anytime soon, perhaps it was a good idea that I didn’t keep going just to suffer multiple shattered bones and have to be taken to a hospital by helicopter in some unknown location far away from home.

Besides, whose dumb idea was it to put a climbing wall on a cruise ship anyway?