Shared Endurance

It’s not about you

The Climb

Last March, my youngest son and I spent a month in Nepal; trekking and spending time in Kathmandu and Pokhara.

One of the biggest days on the trek was crossing Thorong La Pass. We started from Thorong Phedi, which sits at about 4,540 meters (15k feet), and climbed to 5,416 meters (18k feet).

On paper, it’s just under 3,000 feet of climbing. Not insignificant, but not overwhelming either. Except for the altitude.

At that elevation, there’s roughly half the oxygen you’re used to. Everything is more difficult, including breathing, recovery, even thinking. What would normally feel like a solid weekend day hike feels like a lot more.

Plus, we left around 4am, in the cold and the dark in order to get across the pass before the typical afternoon wind really starts blowing.

When the Day Changed

A couple of hours in, Mack started to feel the early signs of altitude sickness, including nausea and headaches. And it happened at a point where turning around wasn’t really the better option; it was shorter to keep going up and over than it was to go back.

So our questions changed. Up until then, I kept asking myself: How am I feeling? Is my pace ok? How much longer?

But once Mack started to feel it, it wasn’t about me anymore. The question became how do we get through this together?

We slowed down. We paid closer attention to our breathing, hydration, and pace. Every step became more a lot more intentional. Progress wasn’t about covering distance; it was about making sure that we were going to make it at all.

We made it over the pass that day. Not because we pushed harder, but because we adjusted our approach.

The Leadership Parallel

Similar challenges show up in our leadership roles more often than we realize. A team member going through a difficult time. Or the team going through a messy growth phase. Or a prolonged period of uncertainty. In those cases, making progress isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about staying together and adjusting in a way that allows the team to keep moving forward.

When things are going well, it’s easy to focus on speed, efficiency and momentum. We tend to think about how to move faster, how to get more done.

But the real challenge happens when someone on the team is struggling, or when conditions change.

That’s when leadership needs to adapt and move the focus moves from pace to progress. Or from focusing on outcomes to focusing on the conditions that make progress possible at all. From individual performance to shared endurance.

In these cases, the instinct to push harder is exactly the wrong approach.

The Real Work

The teams that sustain progress over time aren’t the ones that move the fastest on their best days. They’re the ones that also know how to adjust when conditions get more difficult. They know how to stay together, recalibrate, and keep moving forward in a way that supports continuous progress in lieu of a faster pace.

That’s what builds trust and resilience. And over time, its also what allows a team to take on challenges that would otherwise be out of reach.