When risk is real and danger high, the challenge becomes one of moment-to-moment risk management, seeking the right balance between risk and reward, danger and delivery. How can we be dedicated in pursuit of our goals, despite daunting hardships? How can we lead teams and organizations through critical times?
Danger and risk are words very real to Reinhold Messner. In Moving Mountains, Messner, one of the greatest risk managers, provides a unique and personal look at the principles that guide successful individuals and organizations alike. He shares insights gained through unique moments of introspection obtained in literal life and death situations, which serve as valuable instruments for contemplation and motivation.
Like most great athletes, entertainers, business executives, and entrepreneurs, Reinhold Messner is driven by dreams and guided by visions. Real adventure, according to Messner, means seizing opportunities, testing our strengths against the unknown, and discovering our own unique potential. Those who venture nothing gain nothing. My expeditions have enabled me to draw closer to myself, to see into myself more clearly. The higher I climb, the deeper I see within myself, explains Messner.
Learning from Messner's grandiose visions and extreme expeditionssuch as his solo ascent of Mount Everest without an oxygen mask, the crossing of the Antarctic without technological support, the climbing of all 14 of the 8,000-meter mountains in the world, and the lengthwise crossing of the Takla Makanwe see why Moving Mountains is a source of inspiration for adventure seekers and business executives alike.
Reinhold Messner on Leadership:
Leadership is all about action. You can move your mountains, if you discover, track, and express your own unique potential. Record your ideas and incorporate them to give motivation for action. Your mental energy grows with clear thought and positive feelings, just as physical strength and endurance grow with training. So, put your convictions to a test. Exchange experiences in discussions with specialists; test your ideas in small steps. Self-understanding wants to come out of you like a shout of joyso risk the primal scream (but not in the office or a train station) and rejoice about the change that is taking place in you. Several similar ticks encourage you to solve impossible problems. Thinking as a totality of concrete connections precedes action. Decision follows recognition of right and wrong. Your own right and wrong requires the courage to say yes and no. The more challenging the game, the less often it is won.
Reinhold Messner on Risk:
Mountaineering is capable of expression through the management of risk. The bigger the risk, the more difficult it is to do what is rightand what is right is that which permits us to survive. Coming home safely is all that matters. So here again, the question becomes: Have the possibilitiesthe products of mountain, experience, equipment, know-howbecome so great that we are running blindly into a trap? Are we too human with our longings and our ambition?
Reinhold Messner on Success:
The retroactive giving of meaning is a typical consequence of real success. At the start, there exists an idea; then there are detours, setbacks, opposition, experiments, and risks. Only through tests, accidents, and persistence does the one right solution come outand future success become clear.
About the Author:
The worlds most famous mountaineer, Reinhold Messner, was born in South Tyrol, Italy on September 17, 1944. In 1978, he and Peter Habeler accomplished the impossible, climbing Everest without oxygen. In that same year he pioneered a new route and climbed Nanga Parbat alone. Two years later, he succeeded in a solo expedition to the summit of Everest, and established his place as one of the worlds greatest mountaineers. Messner then set his sights on being the first to climb all 14 of the worlds 8,000-meter peaks, which he accomplished on October 16, 1986. After achieving that goal, he went on to set and achieve others, including climbing the tallest mountain on all seven continents, and being the first man to cross the Antarctic continent on foot. When not off on an adventure, Messner lives in Juval Castle in South Tyrol where he runs an art museum and an organic farm. He also pursues his other careers as a writer, photographer, member of the European Parliament, and preservationist of wilderness areas.
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