The Last Six Miles: Not Strength but Will

Sir Edmund Hillary died early this month. He was a childhood hero of mine, one of the first to summit Mt. Everest in 1953 with Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa. After tackling Everest, Hillary went on to other startling achievements, such as reaching the South Pole in 1958, the first successful overland attempt since Robert Scott’s fatal trip of 1912. His passing started me thinking about the amazing things that human beings can accomplish if they set their minds to it.

Over the years I have had several friends who have attempted to accomplish prodigious feats of athletic or intellectual skill. Their accomplishments may not have been on the order of Hillary and Norgay. But to me they were equally dramatic: Running the 26.2 mile marathon, sailing across the Atlantic, memorizing the Kings and Queens of England, helliskiing in British Columbia, almost climbing K-2 in the Himalayas (28,251 feet), reciting “pi” to 256 decimal places, successfully climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa (19,300 feet). Until recently I admired all of these feats (performed by different people, of course!) with the detached bemusement of an indulgent uncle, pausing over a picture on a mantelpiece here or reading a long letter in the comfort of an armchair there.

Then recently my family and I decided to attempt our own adventure: trekking four days through the Andes to reach Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas. We had never done anything as ambitious – or as insane! We flew to Cusco, the Incan capital, which sits at 10,000 feet. After a couple days of acclimatizing, we set out into the mountains, hiking almost 25 miles, much of it on vertical stone trails set in the mountain over 600 years ago. At one point we climbed a pass at 14,000 feet, climbed down a couple thousand feet and then returned to another pass at 13,000 feet.

For our teenage sons it was a day in the park. For my wife and me it was the most demanding athletic challenge we had ever faced. Physically, we were perfectly fit and had no muscle aches going up or down. But in the thin oxygen at that altitude we found ourselves gasping for breath. Frequently we stopped and questioned whether we could go on. After a minute of deep breathing and slowing heart rates, we resumed, telling ourselves again and again that there was no option: We had to go on. And we could go on, as had centuries of Incans and other Andean natives before us.

We dismissed our hardship to age. Then we heard from one of the 32-year old members of our tour party who had run four marathons. “This was like the last 6 miles of a marathon,” she told us. “You train for 20 miles and then you hit the wall. The last six miles you have to dig deep down into yourself, where you find not strength but will.”

“Not strength but will.” As I sit here looking at the screensaver on my computer -- a picture of my family standing in front of Machu Picchu – I am reminded of both the exhilaration and the pain of that journey. For the first time in my life I feel I can relate to Hillary and Norgay trudging those last few hundred feet to the summit. Or to our marathon friend in those last six miles. Each step must have been agony. But there was no option.

Many times in business we face obstacles that seem insurmountable. In our business we are faced daily with demands for overwhelming amounts of information. After all, energy is a 24/7 business. Electricity is dispatched and balanced every 5 minutes. Our customers are located at thousands of different load pockets and pipeline delivery points around the country. Our supply must be constantly balanced against the instantaneous needs of our clients. The weather is unpredictable and differs in every one of our 38 different market areas. And all of this data needs to be rolled up, captured, reconciled, billed accurately, and reported to our customers, our bankers, our shareholders.

These are intimidating requirements. We have built the infrastructure and have the muscle to succeed. Nevertheless, at times when we launch a new product, or enter a new territory, or pursue new customers, we ask ourselves, “Is it worth it? Can we do one more thing? Aren’t we working hard enough? Wouldn’t it be easier to sit back in our armchairs and watch others on the bloody edge of change and growth?”

“Not strength but will.” Our friend said it all. In our business, as on the summit of Mt. Everest, it is the will to succeed as much as the strength to do so that helps us meet our goals. And when we accomplish our objectives, we feel more relief and satisfaction than pride. Hillary said at the end of his life that he never felt like a “hero,” just a guy doing a job nobody else would do. Not a bad legacy to leave behind, whether climbing mountains or serving the needs of customers.