Agoraphobia, Big Things, and Leaning in

I was at the top of Blackcomb with Cam and his wife, enjoying some pastries.  I could already feel it coming on.  The sense of dread, tension in my forearms, listening and talking with them but internally thinking about how I saw no easy trails down from the peak.

I can cite echoes of this same feeling on most of my favorite ski hills, when I went to the continental divide, and various other times in life.  There’s something about profoundly large open spaces, heights, and situations that offer no simple escape that combine to strike fear in my heart.  I can remember my knees shaking and my entire body pulling against me taking the few steps up next to the sign at Loveland pass but doing it and having the picture to prove it.  This is what I did my whole life, lowering my shoulder and going into these fears.

Blackcomb was different.  I started my way down a switchback trail on my snowboard and felt my heart beating, I had my Apple watch on – 140 bpm before I’d even begun exerting myself.  I sat down, hiked up the 200 yards or so and walked up to the ski patrol shack.  I’d never even spoken to ski patrol in my life, now I had them monitor me and ultimately put me on a ski-do in bring me down to mid-mountain where I could ride the rest of the way down comfortably.

I realize this feels tangential to consulting and capital investment, but the moral is important.  I had pushed through the fear dozens of times before, and never resolved the issue.  I took that ski-do down and felt glorious relief from the situation and was able to separate the narrative (I’m a big boy and can do this) from the experience (my body telling me not to).  There are places and times where help doing something hard is useful.  There are parts of ourselves that aren’t resolved by pushing through them, but rather take reflection or help to resolve.

The definition of “Big Things” is different for everyone.  The act of asking for help isn’t failure, it’s filling a gap that we haven’t yet filled for ourselves or choose not to.  In the two years since we started Cross/Section, we’ve seen a wide spectrum of gaps and problems, personal and corporate, where we could put someone on the proverbial ski-do and get them to the next place where they can ride.

I urge you to take a moment, it need not be more than 3-5 quiet minutes to look inside and find a fear or sense of inability, share it here.  We all benefit from holding our challenges in our hands and inspecting to see if they are for us to conquer or others to assist with.  Use the sense of your own gaps when interviewing your next hire, considering an adventure, or raising your family.  And reach out if you need a quick ski-do down the hill so you can unlock that next part of your journey.