Leo Bertari describes hiking with his daughters near Crested Butte and how they lost energy fixating on the distant summit. When they stopped to look back at how far they'd climbed, they felt renewed. Leaders need to celebrate progress made, not just chase the final goal.
Hi, this is Leo Bertari with the What Anyone Can Do Minute. Today I want to talk about keeping your eye on the prize and why it isn't always the best advice. When you're leading a team and you're constantly just focused on that goal, it can be really exhausting, right? So the perfect metaphor for that, I think, is a trip my daughters and I took up a mountain in Crested Butte. We're climbing the mountain something they wanted to do was to climb to the top of the summit and look at the tremendous views that are there. So as they were climbing, they kept looking at that peak, looking at that peak, and they were physically and emotionally exhausted to the point where they were ready to quit. I finally said, look, tell you what, let's take stock of where we are and let's climb for another 10 minutes and we'll see how you feel. And so we climbed for another 10 minutes. They looked at the peak and they said, Dad, it's no closer than it was 10 minutes ago. I said, look behind you. They were astonished at the progress they made. So be thinking, don't always just keep your eye on the prize. Make sure you look behind you and celebrate that tremendous progress you're making, and that's what's going to power you to the top.
