Between Rocks and Deadlines
Some people meditate. Some people journal. I hang off cliffs and hope my grip doesn’t give out. Climbing has a way of stripping you down to the basics — one hold, one move, one decision at a time. Turns out, that’s not too different from how I approach work.
I’ve spent more than 20 years in rooms full of men, trying to make sense of strategies, deadlines, and politics that feel like overhanging routes with no obvious holds. You don’t get handed the easy path. You calculate, commit, and trust yourself to stick the move.
Focus Beats Flailing
On the wall, panic makes you waste energy. Flailing burns you out faster than the route itself. At work, same rule. When the project scope shifts for the third time or an RFP drops in your lap at 4 p.m. on a Friday, the instinct is to thrash. Send a million emails, spin in meetings, chase every possible solution.
Climbing taught me the opposite. Pause. Breathe. Find the next hold. Make one move that matters. Then repeat. Projects, like climbs, get solved one decision at a time — not by flailing for every option at once.
The Fall Is Feedback
Falling is part of climbing. If you never fall, you’re not pushing yourself. But falling doesn’t mean failure — it means data. You learn which grip can’t carry your weight, or that your foot placement was sloppy. Same with deadlines. Miss one? That’s painful, but it’s also feedback.
The trick is not letting the fall wreck your head. In MMA, I learned that if you take a hit and keep replaying it in your mind, you’ll take another one right away. In climbing, if you fixate on the slip, you’ll blow the next move. At work, if you obsess over the miss, you’ll miss the next opportunity. Reset. Refocus. Try again.
Trusting Your Holds — and Your People
Climbing isn’t just about you. Even when you’re the one on the wall, your belayer literally has your life in their hands. That kind of trust runs deep. I’ve had to learn the same thing with teams. You can’t micromanage every hold for everyone else. Sometimes you have to let go, trust the people holding the rope, and make your move.
This doesn’t mean blind faith. It means calculated trust. Just like I double-check my knot before leaving the ground, I make sure roles, expectations, and goals are clear before I let a team run. After that? I have to climb and let them belay.
Rocks. Deadlines. Same Energy.
Climbing isn’t an escape from work. It’s training for it. It’s how I practice discipline, precision, and mental grit. When I’m hanging off a wall with pumped arms and a racing brain, it feels an awful lot like the last hour before a proposal deadline. Both require focus, patience, and the ability to stay calm when you’d rather scream.
So yeah, “between rocks and deadlines” pretty much sums it up. The routes change, the projects change, but the skills carry over: keep your focus, treat failure as feedback, and trust the people holding your rope.
Closing Grip
I’m not pretending climbing makes me some enlightened monk. Half the time it makes me question my life choices. But it does remind me of this: whether it’s a five-pitch trad route or a five-day sprint to deliver a solution, the only way forward is one move at a time.
And in case you’re wondering: no, there are no easy holds.
