3 things I learned when I fell down a cliff
So this is me around the same age when I fell down a cliff.
I know what you’re thinking. “The Paul Dunk I know is way to methodical, cautious and guarded to be near a cliff’s edge.” *cough*
I was in the Boys Brigade and we were going on a hike because as you all know, I am an avid lover of nature, the outdoors and small forest dwelling animals. Well, I was on a hike in the Boys Brigade. The rest of that sentence was utter nonsense, and I promise to ease up on the sarcasm for the rest of this story.
When we arrived at a steep cliff close to the site where we would build a fire and have lunch, one of the leaders yells, “The first one down gets to eat first!” He had me at “first”. All the boys started running in single file, down the winding path to the bottom.
I took one look at the follow-the-leader approach and realized that the path was only wide enough for one of us, so the “winner” was pretty much already determined. The rest of the boys had no hopes of possibly winning, unless they tossed the kid in front of them over the edge – which I’m guessing might have costed them a badge or patch of some kind.
I decided to go straight down the side of the cliff face. Was it risky? Of course. Was I scared? Not at first. Did I reach the bottom first? You betcha. I “won” alright. I also won a bonus piggy back all the way back to the car because I could no longer walk. Here’s 3 things I learned…
1. All reward carries risk.
As I started running down the cliff face, it took all of 5 seconds for me to learn a life altering physics lesson. I couldn’t keep up with my feet. I ended up going head-over heels the entire way down. Nothing was broken, but I battered, bruised and cut every part of me. I ate my lunch triumphantly covered in mud and scrapes. Such is life. Risk taking is a part of leadership. If you are a “follow-in-single-file” kind of leader, you increase the odds of a safe arrival. However, if you completely risk averse, you better hope there’s some lunch left when you arrive. When you limit behaviour, you limit results. The greatest rewards come at the greatest risks. This is not foolish reckless abandonment – but rather calculating your risk. I knew I could fall, I was willing to risk it. I did fall, and boy did it cost me. Risk taking and recklessness are not synonymous. Ask yourself, “am I willing to pay the price if this goes badly?” Great leaders understand that the greatest risk is to take none.
2. Speed Kills
The risk I took going down the side of the cliff was not the issue here. My desire to do it as fast as humanly possible, was. The rest of the brigade was taking the safest, most predictable route to the bottom. In retrospect, I could have taken my time, scaled the side of the cliff and arrived 1st with minor bumps and scrapes. The source of my pain was not the route I chose – it was the speed I applied to it. There’s an old saying – “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, come with me.” Great leaders can evaluate when speed will serve you and when it will kill you. If you have the Need for Speed like I do, employ strategists to speak into your life. If you are a strategist, employ some risk takers so you don’t drag your team into process hell.
3. Failure isn’t final – what if failure was learning?
You don’t learn much without being willing to stretch, grow … scale the cliff instead of taking the path. As we sat around eating our lunch together, the campsite was a buzz with conversation. Everyone was giving their rendition of watching me fall down the side of the cliff. I was embarrassed. We never did find my one shoe which flew off into the bushes while I was upside down in the air at one point. Imagine if we could get over our embarrassment and learn … imagine if when you failed it wasn’t final. What if failure was learning? How exciting – you get to wake up the next day and try again. After all, if my goal in life was to play it safe and take no risks, this blog entry might go something like this:
When I was a kid, my friends and I walked down a path in single file and we all ate our lunch at the bottom. It was so awesome. Be inspired everyone.
