We are taking a slight turn in our blog and want to bring to you a real life story about an international amateur mountain climber and how he conquered fear. It’s longer than our usual post, but we hope you enjoy it and find benefit in it.
Fear shows up in many forms. Sometimes it causes a perceived public failure. And sometimes the courage to confront fear and overcome it can result in a very public success.
Dr. Tim Warren is a chiropractor in Warwick, Rhode Island. He reached the summit of Mt. Everest in 2008. He was the first Rhode Islander to summit Everest. But he did it on his second attempt. Not bad considering that Dr. Warren comes from a state where the highest peak is 812 feet.
Dr. Warren is an amateur mountain climber, although amateur only in the sense that he doesn’t do it for a living. His passion and avocation is climbing mountains. He tells an interesting story about his first climbing experience. He and a friend were climbing Mount Katahdin in Maine. When they reached the Knife Edge (a place on the mountain where the drop is 1,200 feet on both sides), Dr. Warren said he “became paralyzed and I wanted to stop.” They stopped and rested. While resting a cub scout pack passed them laughing and joking around and seemingly having fun as they climbed without hesitation. It was at this point that Dr Warren realized that it wasn’t a physical limitation he was experiencing (he was a tri-athlete and a marathon runner), it was a mental and emotional thing. It was fear; fear crosses thoughts and feelings.
He worked to overcome his fear, trained rigorously and went on to climb the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, Mt. Rainier in Washington, Mt. McKinley in Alaska and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa. He then told himself he had one more climb to make – Mt. Everest, the highest peak in the world at 29,029 feet.
He again trained and in 2007 attempted to summit Mount Everest. It was big news in Rhode Island. He fell short and due to illness failed to summit. He was disappointed even though he climbed his personal best of 24,000 feet. When we talked with him, he told us that in addition to being a physical battle, it was an emotional battle. He admitted to us that one of the reasons he failed to summit, if not the major contributing reason, was that his limiting thinking and negative emotions kept getting in the way.
In his tent at night he would say things such as “I don’t belong here; Who do I think I am to climb Everest; I’m not the same caliber as these other climbers.” And his mind began taking over, the fear monster was growing and he came back to Rhode Island 5,029 feet short of his goal. Personal best or not, Dr. Warren said it just was not good enough and recommitted himself to attempt the summit again in 2008.
This time he did not only train physically, he trained mentally. Positive affirmations and focused intention became a daily ritual. He revealed:
My positive affirmations really came into play. I wouldn’t buy into those feelings of not being a good enough climber or not being strong enough to climb Everest. And it got me over the hump.
It worked. On May 23, 2008, Dr. Tim Warren stood on top of the world.
We all have fears. It’s what we do about those fears that will determine whether we live our dream or get overshadowed by the monster that still sleeps under our bed and resides in our head.
Copyright 2009 Kubica and LaForest
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider sharing it!
