They say no books have ever been written about the view from the top of Mount Everest. Because the story isn’t up there – it’s in the climb.
That line stuck with me.
For most of my career, I was obsessed with summits: hitting revenue milestones, landing big clients, shipping products, selling a company. The numbers changed, but the feeling didn’t – each time I reached a goal, I just moved the bar higher.
Eventually, I realized I was playing the same game as Sisyphus – the guy from Greek mythology, doomed to push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down, again and again.
No finish line, no rest, no peace.
That’s when it hit me: the point isn’t the summit. It’s learning to enjoy the climb.
My Climb
For years, my entire operating system was goal-driven. I thought in milestones, numbers, and targets.
- Launching the first 100 courses
- Signing up the first 1,000 customers
- Making the first $1,000,000
Every time I hit one of those goals, it felt incredible – for about five minutes. Then I’d reset the target higher. The climb never ended, the summit kept moving, and I didn’t realize I was quietly signing up for a lifetime of pushing the same damn boulder uphill.
In the founder world, especially in groups like Vistage and EO, where I spent years, the unspoken rule was simple:
Grow or sell.
If you weren’t chasing exponential growth or prepping for an exit, you were considered stagnant. Still standing? That meant you were weak. Or worse – complacent.
But I started questioning that dogma. Was constant growth really the only definition of success? What about building something right-sized? A business that ran smoothly, grew organically, kept customers happy, paid its bills, and didn’t give me a heart attack before 40?
That shift was a turning point for me. I realized the endless chase for “more” was an illusion and that true success might just live in the space between hustle and peace.
The Shift – Enjoying the Ride
Once I saw the pattern, I couldn’t unsee it. I realized I didn’t actually need another summit. I needed a new relationship with the climb itself.
These days, I run my businesses differently. There’s no frantic push for growth-at-all-costs, no obsession with valuations or vanity metrics. I run lean, calm, and deliberate. I focus on building things that matter: solving problems people actually want solved.
When something we build lands with a customer – when they send that one-line email that says “This saved me hours” or “Finally, something that actually works” – that hits deeper than any quarterly target ever did.
I get joy out of seeing systems work smoothly, teams happy and motivated, customers served well. That’s the payoff.
Because when you finally stop sprinting toward the next summit, you start noticing how much you were missing along the way: the view, the air, the people who climb beside you.
The business doesn’t own me anymore. I own it. And I enjoy it because it’s built to serve my life, not the other way around.
And to be clear: this isn’t permission to coast. I still have goals, targets, and big ambitions. But I no longer chase them for their own sake. I hustle with intent, not insecurity, driven by purpose, not pressure.
The journey matters more than the summit.
The Message – What Founders Get Wrong
I recently had a founder reach out asking for advice. His company, he said, was “in trouble.”
When I asked what was going on, he told me: “We missed our revenue goal, We only grew 9% instead of 15%.”
I just stared at the message for a second, then laughed. He was in full-blown crisis mode, losing sleep, questioning everything… while I would’ve popped champagne and sent the team home early for a long weekend.
Same situation. Different perspective.
This is where most founders lose the plot – they turn success into suffering. They confuse progress with failure simply because it didn’t match an arbitrary target they made up six months ago in a spreadsheet.
I’ve been that guy – obsessing over growth curves, KPIs, and projections that ultimately meant nothing. It’s a trap disguised as ambition.
Here’s the truth: no one writes books about the view from the top of Mount Everest. They write about the climb, the frostbite, the fear, the perseverance. That’s where the meaning is.
So, if you’re building, chasing, grinding… don’t forget:
The goal isn’t to get to the top.
The goal is to still love the climb once you’re there.
The View That Really Matters
These days, I don’t measure success by how high I’ve climbed, but by how it feels to keep climbing. Am I challenged? Engaged? Curious? Peaceful? If the answer’s yes, that’s success.
I’ve reached plenty of summits in my life – big exits, major milestones, personal goals that once felt impossible. And every single time, after the initial rush, I looked around and realized: there’s no music up here. No parade. No confetti. Just the same mountain wind and the next peak in the distance.
That’s when it hit me: the magic was never at the top. It was in the building, the learning, the experimenting, the failing, and the trying again. That’s where life actually happens.
So now, I choose to climb differently. No panic. No pressure. Just purpose, presence, and perspective.
There may be no books written about the view from the top of Mount Everest, but there are thousands written about the courage it takes to keep climbing.
And that’s the story worth living.
