A few weeks ago I attended and presented at Canada’s leading conference for career practitioners, Cannexus. One of the workshops that I attended was led by Rob Shea and Senator David M. Wells – it focused on the connection between mountain climbing and career development. To say the least, I learned many career lessons from climbing mountains.

This topic, not unlike Mt. Everest, has been fairly well explored from a leadership perspective. Business thinkers and entrepreneurial gurus have investigated the relationship between mountaineering and climbing the corporate ladder with themes such as risk taking, leading teams and personal resilience. Such ideas resonate with me because I really enjoy camping, hiking and people realizing their professional potential. I like that Professor Shea and Senator Wells extended the mountain climbing metaphor beyond leadership to a more holistic understanding of career development – every day we’re climbing mountains at work and in our lives. There is much to learn about our professional skills and attributes from the stories we create when climbing mountains, too.

Every year I go on a hiking trip with friends; Kurt, Stewart, Phil, Nathan, Godfrey, and I have “bagged peaks” and sauntered through sprawling alpine meadows as a fun way to deepen our friendships, change our perspectives, and teaches us professional lessons (even if we don’t realize it at the time).

Here are 10 career lessons from our amateur, but very capable, hiking team.

Be prepared

Whether you are carefully packing the right food, clothes and, in my case, incredible sun-protection or applying for a job, the most prepared people have the most success on literal and professional mountains. As a professional, if you know the most and practice something perfectly you will always have chance at success. When you’re hiking, well, it’s better to bring a tarp and not need it than to need a tarp and not have it. Same goes for long underwear.

Honour your environment

The professional landscape is always changing. And weather on mountaintops can turn from breathtaking to terrifying in moments. Uncertain forecast? Maybe save the summit for another day.  Tired legs? Maybe don’t stumble out along the spine of a ridge for that extra-awesome sunset photo. Questions about the dress code? Maybe ask your boss for clarification before busting out the flip flops on Friday. By being consistently mindful of your surroundings, respecting workplace culture, and understanding the realities of the professional landscape you will make more informed decisions.

Go with a team

My best advice is that you summit your professional mountain with a community. Career successes and failures are made better and easier when we share them with friends and mentors. I love everything about hiking with my friends – organizing meals and gear, laughing as we drive to the trailhead, sharing the load as things get steeper, sharing the view at the top, and recounting our hijinks on the ride home are all things in which I take much pleasure. Just like I do when I discuss a problem with a mentor or thank my team for absolutely awesome work.

Know your role

Our camping team is made up of individuals who are all good at different things. Some guys are good at purifying water or preparing a tasty backcountry meal. Others make excellent Sherpas. Then there are the great navigators. By maximizing these talents, you ensure your experience will be efficient. Same goes in the workplace. Remember, we all have different talents and the best team is able to utilize all their team members effectively to get the job done.

Stretch yourself with the experience

It is important to understand your limitations and how to stretch your abilities towards/around/beyond what is hard or makes you uncomfortable. Too often we focus on formal learning opportunities – “I want to learn to climb a mountain, so I’ll take a course on it!” – and not actually experiences to develop our talents and better understand our interests. For example, when we hiked Frosty Mountain in Manning Park last summer the way that I stretched was by asking someone to take the tent from my backpack. Being vulnerable isn’t something that I’m good at, so I did some personal stretching because the experience was kicking my ass and I needed help! No course could’ve taught me this.

Plan to adapt

Things will always change. You need to change with them. On the trail last year we were given vague instructions about how close we were to the final summit. One friendly stranger told us we’d cross through a meadow, than some shrubbery and finally come to a “tough” ascent. Naturally each time we passed through a meadow, our minds immediately guessed we were almost at the top. Turned out we were wrong (three or four times) and our plan had to change (each time) because it started getting pretty dark. The career lesson learned here was the importance of patience. You may think you’re almost there (like being in line for your dream job) but you may spare yourself some disappointment by getting to expectant about it.

Celebrate the view

Seriously. Do this. Take time to relish your professional successes. Understand what you did to achieve a goal. Focus on how you solved a complex problem. Smile about how well you got work done through other people because of your awesome powers of motivation and human centered design. After all, not everyone can summit the career mountaintop.

Reflect

One of my mentors has been known to say this: “Experiences are inevitable. Learning is not.” In order to make meaning of your career development – or lack thereof – one must maximize the art of reflection and really understand what experiences teach us and what we learn from them. When I’m hiking I like to reflect by filtering water or recounting the journey through conversations illuminated by flickering smoky orange campfire light.

Don’t die on the descent

One of the things that I learned from Rob and David is that the majority of deaths from mountain climbing happen on the descent. Basically, we become less focused once we’ve reached the summit. Achieving an opportunity – be it a job, promotion or project-win – is no reason to become complacent or cocky. Whether navigating precarious switchbacks or negotiations in the boardroom, always be surefooted.

Tell a great story

During his presentation Rob layered Mark Savickas’s Narrative Theory over the tales of mountain summits. Basically, Savickas contends that our many “life themes” become apparent as we tell our life stories. We construct our careers by imposing meaning on what we do in our work and life. From awesome preparation to trusting teammates to celebrating success, there are certainly many personal and professional lessons to be learned from climbing mountains.

The stories that we construct about climbing natural or professional mountains reveal as much to our audiences – colleagues, clients and friends – as they do to ourselves.

I hope you enjoyed this story. We sure did.