One of the lesser known aspects of mountaineering, at least with the general public, is all the work that climbers put into finding sponsors to help them accomplish their goals and allow them to go on the expeditions. Most of us don’t have all the money we need to self fund our own adventures, so if we’re going to achieve our goals, we often need a little help. That’s part of the topic in todays Step to the Summit, which discusses overcoming rejection.
Expedition Hanesbrands team leader Jaime Clarke talks about the process, and how he and his team had to get use to hearing the word “no” a lot. He describes how he had to learn to not take that answer personally, and to not be discouraged by the rejections. Instead, he focused on learning something from those rejections, figuring out why the potential sponsors passed on the opportunity, and working to correct that in the future. If you’re going to achieve your gaol, whether it is climbing Everest or inventing some new product, you’ll have to overcome the rejections, and learn to keep moving forward towards your end point.
This is a good lesson in today’s economic climate. Sponsorships are certainly at a premium at the moment, which is making it difficult for expeditions to get any kind of funding. But things are improving, the future looks bright, and sooner or later, those “no” answers will turn to “yes”.
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