Ep. 171 – Climbing mountains and entrepreneurial success – The 5th and newest part – Some of the most amazing mountains’ stories you heard - REACH OR MISS

Hi, my Reachers.

Last year we started a new amazing series of the Reach Or Miss mountains project; Today I want to share with you the 5th and last (for the coming mounts) episode where successful entrepreneurs share their mountains stories.

Listen to these incredible mountain stories I heard from the successful entrepreneurs I interviewed on my podcast.

You can then listen to the full interview with each of them and hear about the visions, the struggles, and how these entrepreneurs reached their success.

From the entrepreneur that climbed Big Bend National Park, the tallest mountain in Texas, when they realized they lost the way back and there was literally nothing below them.

To the entrepreneur that went for three weeks of backpacking and climbing the Sierra Nevada mountains at the age of 16,

To the entrepreneur who isn’t a big mountain climber, but loves Miley Cyrus song “The Climb” or ‘There will always be another mountain. And it says, “There’s always gonna be another mountain. I’m always gonna wanna make it move.”

To the entrepreneur who lives in Portland, Oregon and climbed the mountain around it: “I have never done a hike where there wasn’t at least one step that I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this?’

To the entrepreneur that keep setting new goals and climbing the mountains of life on the metaphorical level, because he believes that we’ve been programmed by our creator to want to make a difference and to want to have something bigger than ourselves to live for.

I hope these mountain stories will encourage you to find out what should you – as an entrepreneur looking for your breakthrough to success – take from their stories to help find the necessary steps to reach your peak?

Many successful entrepreneurs climb mountains, while others use mountains as a metaphor to describe what is necessary to conquer the peak – including the fatiguing yet rewarding journey to the top. Still other entrepreneurs use mountains as an analogy for a significant goal they wish to achieve – such as becoming a billion-dollar-market-cap company. (See Mellissah Smith’s mountain story.)

For many years, I’ve compared the act of taking possession of your potential customers’ minds and of building awareness, likability, and trust of a leading brand to the act of climbing the highest mountains.

You climb step by step to the peak, reach your position as a market leader and a leading brand, and then start climbing a new mountain with a new product line or another brand.

The idea of mountains as representations of a strong position in the market is mentioned by Al Ries and Jack Trout in the excellent book, Marketing Warfare.

“In military warfare, mountains and higher altitude areas represent strong positions and often are used to present a strong defense. In marketing warfare, the question is one of who holds the mountains in the consumer's mind.”

So, at some point after the launch of my podcast for entrepreneurs, I started to ask the successful entrepreneurs I interviewed about their habits or dreams of climbing one of the highest mountains in the world.

Listen to these new inspiring mountains’ stories, find which entrepreneurs and stories you identify with most, and review your entrepreneurial objectives, market overview, and plan. By making your business as strong as possible, you will be able to quickly and easily achieve entrepreneurial success.

Amy Vernon Headshot Amy Vernon: “Listen to your customers and talk to them, though that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do everything they say”

Amy Vernon was Internationally recognized as an influential voice in the realm of community, audience, and content, she has worked in media, cybersecurity, blockchain, and marketing technology.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark named her as one of 5 women bloggers to follow, and PeerIndex named her the 15th most influential woman in tech on Twitter.

Amy’s Mountain

I might have the most unique mountain story for you. When I was much younger, my now-husband and I were moving out of Florida to outside of Phoenix. We took a couple of weeks to drive around the country and hike. We camped at Big Bend National Park in Texas. The tallest mountain in Texas is in Big Bend and we decided to climb it. It’s a high mountain but the road was nice. When we got to the top, we realized that it was not the final top—there was a huge boulder in front of us. But we could see a path, and we saw a few people going down, so we climbed it. And it was totally worth it. The top was amazing. It was all rock but with small flowers growing out of it. The thing I will never forget was all these butterflies. It was incredibly surreal. We sat there for a while.
We started to go down and suddenly we realized that it wasn’t the side we had climbed up and there was literally nothing below us. Nothing. To this day, all I can tell you is that we made it back down but I don’t remember anything from the moment we realized there was nothing below us to when we were back at the car.
That definitely was the most serene and calm experience of my life—and then, 10 minutes later, it was the most terrifying experience of my life as well.

[caption id="attachment_6085" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Emory Peak Big Bend National Park Emory Peak – Big Bend National Park[/caption]

You can listen to the full episode with Amy Vernon here:

Amy Vernon’s “Listen to your customers and talk to them, though that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do everything they say”

Bob Burg Headshot Bob Burg – “shifting your business context from getting – to giving, is the most financially profitable”

Bob is the author of a number of books on sales, marketing and influence, with total book sales of well over a million copies. His book, The Go-Giver, coauthored with John David Mann, itself has sold over 925,000 copies and it has been translated into 28 languages.

Bob’s Mountain

On the physical level, I can genuinely tell you that I have never climbed a mountain, and I can just as genuinely tell you that I don’t plan to climb a mountain.
On the metaphorical level, I can tell you that I have climbed many mountains, as I’m sure many of us have. I guess I will climb more mountains because I think that’s part of life. I think we are continually climbing mountains; we are setting new goals and we have desires that we continue to have because I believe that we’ve been programmed by our creator to want to make a difference and to want to have something bigger than ourselves to live for.
So, I see life as a series of hills and some mountains along the way.

You can listen to the full episode with Bob Burg here:

Bob Burg – “shifting your business context from getting – to giving, is the most financially profitable”

Shama Hyder: “It’s lonely at the top only if you were also lonely at the bottom”

Shama Hyder is a trailblazing, award-winning entrepreneur who has built a global audience and is known for helping brands succeed in the digital age.

Shama is a visionary strategist for the digital age, a web and TV personality, a bestselling author, and the award-winning CEO of Zen Media – a global marketing and digital PR firm. She has been named the “Zen Master of Marketing” by Entrepreneur Magazine and the “Millennial Master of the Universe” by FastCompany.com.

Shama has also been honored at both the White House and The United Nations as one of the top 100 young entrepreneurs in the country.

Shama’s Mountain

I don’t think that I’m a big mountain climber, but one of my favorite songs has to do with mountains. It’s called “The Climb” or ‘There will always be another mountain by Miley Cyrus. And it says, “There’s always gonna be another mountain. I’m always gonna wanna make it move.” And that’s so true. As an entrepreneur, whatever you do, I think it’s so important to enjoy the journey.
If you feel like that when you’ll get more, you’ll be happier you’re not kidding yourself.
You know, there is an adage – It’s lonely at the top, I think that’s true but only if you were also lonely at the bottom.
I’m constantly looking for what my next goal, my next challenge.
For me, it’s always about realizing that the bar is going to keep moving and asking myself if I am also fully enjoying the journey.

[caption id="attachment_5238" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Shama Hyder Mountain - The Climb by Miley Cyrus The Climb by Miley Cyrus (Official Music Video)[/caption]

You can listen to the full episode with Shama Hyder here:

Shama Hyder: “It’s lonely at the top only if you were also lonely at the bottom”

Jesse Krieger - with Books Jesse Krieger sits squarely at the intersection of publishing and promotion – having signed two publishing deals on two different continents and navigated the world of becoming a best-selling author twice.

Jesse was featured on over 50 media outlets for his best-selling book Lifestyle Entrepreneur.

Jesse’s Mountain

When I was 16, I went on a special program that included three weeks of backpacking and hiking to the Sierra Nevada mountains. After the first 10 days, we were pretty deep into the mountains. Then we started summiting these 14,000-foot peaks.
It’s amazing to climb such a high mountain and get to the top. You see the perspective change from looking down at the world. It’s a totally different feeling from looking at the mountain from the ground. There is something very empowering in reaching the top of such a high mountain. I never forgot the feelings of that summer of living in nature and summiting.

[caption id="attachment_6419" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Mount Whitney at the Sierra Nevada Mountains[/caption]

You can listen to the full episode with Jesse Krieger here:

Jesse Krieger: “First, let’s normalize failures. The number of things that I’ve started and didn’t work is astronomical.”

Kasey Jones key success factor: “one of my biggest advantages is that I have zero professional training or education in marketing.

Kasey is the founder of A Better Jones and a passionate advocate for underrepresented sales professionals, Kasey also cofounded The Other Side of Sales, a podcast and resource committed to evolving the culture of B2B sales.

Sales Hacker has named her one of the 35 Most Influential Women in Sales and a Sales Influencer to watch for 2019.”

Kasey’s Mountain

I live in Portland, Oregon and we are surrounded by mountains. I love this question because I think about it a lot, particularly as it relates to being an entrepreneur.
When I was in my mid-20s, I dated a guy who was super into hiking and mountain climbing. He got me very into it. I have never done a hike where there wasn’t at least one step that I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this?’
But I just kept going. And sometimes it’s miserable and it’s so hard, and you’re exhausted and your eyes are burning, but you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And you keep doing it and all of a sudden, you get to the top, and you see something that not many people have ever seen. Almost no one is going to see it on that day and in that week. It’s one of the most beautiful and rewarding experiences there is.
That, to me, is the entrepreneurial journey. There are going to be so many moments when you think, ‘What the hell am I doing? Why did I do that? Why don’t I quit and find a job like a sane person?’
But you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s the staying committed to it that is the biggest difference between the people who make it and those who don’t.

[caption id="attachment_6107" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Mount Hood – Portland, Oregon[/caption]

You can listen to the full episode with Kasey Jones here:

Kasey Jones key success factor: “one of my biggest advantages is that I have zero professional training or education in marketing.”

Lance Tyson Headshot A born entrepreneur and self-starter, Lance Tyson is an authority in the sales world with a passion for developing strong business leaders.

After a fifteen-year run, Lance sold his interest in Dale Carnegie in order to form a new company, Tyson Group. The focus of Tyson Group is to diagnose your sales team and propose solutions that deliver results that make sense for your organization and needs. We aren’t just a company that provides training—we are a partner that provides solutions

Lance’s Mountain

Currently, my sons are at home, which is a good thing, and we have a lot of discussions. We’ve been talking about what life looks like, what’s the difference you can make, where do you want to be—conversations like that. I shared with them that, before they were born, my father had two families. He had seven kids with his first wife and then he married a very young woman. I’m the oldest of three kids from his second wife.
When he passed, I was asked to give a eulogy. And on my desk, there is a picture of a man standing next to a tree, looking at a mountain. It reminds me of the quote I shared in my eulogy. My dad reminded me that there is always another mountain. It’s the essence of achievement.
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena… who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” (Theodore Roosevelt)

You can listen to the full episode with Lance Tyson here:

Lance Tyson – “People buy emotionally but justify it logically. Entrepreneurs sell thanks to their enthusiasm, but they need to find the logical reasons for people to buy.”

Jeremy Goldman “You can’t get your whole satisfaction from getting to the top – the satisfaction needs to be the whole journey”

Futurist Jeremy Goldman has been working with companies looking to take their operations online and inject “social” into their processes for over a decade.

Under Jeremy’s leadership, companies like Kiehl’s, TEMPTU or the luxury division he helped Unilever to found, have had tremendous success and won the highest Awards and publications’ mentions.

Jeremy’s Mountain

My brain takes me back to yesterday. I was walking through a very hilly part of Atlanta when I got a call from my creative director, who is now the CEO of the company I sold. He was hearing my heavy breath and I realized, I’m so bad with the hill. But then I thought that there was an analogy there: It’s the discomfort and the passing through it that really make the journey worthwhile.
In short, I haven’t gotten up the mountain. I would be a big ball of sweat if I ever did. Even a hill makes me breathe like I’m 30 years older than I am, but I think that building a startup is really the same process of fighting through the discomfort. You can’t really get your whole satisfaction from getting to the top of the mountain, the satisfaction needs to be the whole journey.

You can listen to the full episode with Jeremy Goldman here:

Jeremy Goldman – You can’t get your whole satisfaction from getting to the top – the satisfaction needs to be the whole journey

Jonathan Slain a financial expert, had to borrow a quarter of a million from his mother-in-law. Today he owns the site RECESSION.COM.

Jonathan Slain’s book, “Rock the Recession: How Successful Leaders Prepare For, Thrive During, and Create Wealth After Downturns” came out in September 2019 and is a #1 Amazon Best Seller.

Jonathan was Valedictorian of his graduating class and had the highest GPA ever in the history of Shaker Heights High School, where he was also voted “Next Bill Gates and Least Likely to Lose his Virginity.”

Jonathan’s Mountain

I love this question! I pick Mount Fuji. For my wife and me, Tokyo and Japan are among our favorite places on earth. We haven’t climbed Fuji but we talk about it—about how we will get back and get closer and closer to the mountain. It brings a smile to my face. I think that next year, with the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the mountain will be a beautiful backdrop.
My current mentor told me that this whole idea of climbing the mountain, knowing what your goal is, is that you just need to look at every opportunity: every email you get, every phone call you answer, every minute of every day. If it’s not moving you up the mountain, the only option is that it will take you down the mountain.
That’s how I feel about everything I do. If it’s not a step up the mountain, it’s a step in the wrong direction.

[caption id="attachment_5748" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Jonathan Slain Japan Jonathan and his wife in Japan.[/caption]

You can listen to the full episode with Jonathan Slain here:

Jonathan Slain a financial expert, had to borrow a quarter of a million from his mother-in-law. Today he owns the site RECESSION.COM

“Epilog…”

I hope you enjoyed this episode.

If you didn’t listen to the previous “Mountain Episodes” you can find them here

Now you can choose whether and what you would like to do next as a reaction to this episode.

As I see it you have 4 options.

First, you can of course do nothing that has to do with this show, go to do whatever you want or planned or just switch to the next podcast.

Second, you can enjoy the stories, be inspired and take the courage and massive strength needed to take your entrepreneurship to a much higher level than you did in the last few months.

Third, you can choose one or more of the inspiring successful interviewees, their stories you love best, or choose me, to connect, ask questions, find what else you can learn from them (they all have plenty of free very professional content on their sites) or even find out if they can be your mentor if they give that service.

And last, but not least, you can download my free guide for the 7 elements of Entrepreneurial Business Success that will help you make the best plan for the coming months and reach your goals of 2020.

Until next time… Bye, Bye.

Hayut.

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