Upward Bound Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits

Hitting the Wall: Learning that Vertical Limits Aren't JIM COLLINS In 1999, Nick Sagar reached the end of his rope. He had a dream: to climb The Crew, a route at the upper end of the rock-climbing difficulty scale in Rifle State Park, Colorado. In his twenties, Sagar had given his life over to the monomaniacal dedication required to climb 5.14 routes (the highest rating possible on the Yosemite Decimal System), living off a few dollars of sponsorship money with his wife, Heather, munching donated energy bars and living out of a truck parked at the crags for months at a time. Then Sagar saw the dream crumble before his eyes. During a rest day while preparing for his next attempt, he got the bad news: His sponsorship from a climbing gear companymoney he desperately needed to survive while working on the routefailed to come through. Out of money, he had no choice but to abandon his quest for The Crew and head home, seeking work. Sagar knew that he would likely never again be fit enough to ascend the route; never again would he have an entire year to do nothing but live in Rifle Park and train all day every day, like an Olympic decathlete in the year before the games. The loss of sponsorship virtually guaranteed that he would never reach his goal. Sagar removed the gear he'd fixed on the route months earlier. Tears streaming down his face, he packed up his equipment and walked back to camp. He and Heather said good-bye to their friends and drove toward the exit, defeated. But then a lone figure stepped into the middle of the road, holding something in his hand. "That's Herman," said Nick. "What the heck is he doing?" Herman Gollner, a dedicated climber in his mid-fifties, had watched Sagar's quest with quiet admiration. When he heard about Sagar's situation, he drove back to his home in Aspen, visited his bank, and made a withdrawal. Now, here stood Herman, with a handful of cash, flagging down Sagar's truck. "Here, take this," he said, thrusting the cash at Nick. "You must finish The Crew." "No . . . I couldn't possibly . . . no," Nick stammered. "You must take it," asserted Herman, in his Austrian accent. "You are so close. You may never have a chance again. I am older nownever again to climb at the topbut you . . . maybe I can help you. Please, take it." The Sagars reluctantly accepted the cash, and Nick returned to the route for another attempt. This was his Olympic Gold Medal attempt, his shot to come through. He launched into the upper section of the wall, feeling strong, knowing he could do it. But just before the top, he heard a sickening sounda little crackle under his foot and the skitter of his climbing shoe against stone. He had broken a key foothold! Like one of those movie scenes in which the hero grasps for something in a dream, only to watch it disappear from his outstretched fingertips as he wakes, Sagar watched the top of the route suddenly fly up out of his grasp as gravity pulled his body off the rock and into midair. The rope snapped tight, and he knew he'd just expended his best effort ever. And now, without the key foothold, the route would be even more difficult. "I almost wanted to quit," he said. "But Herman and all my friends believed in me. I couldn't let them down." Foothold or not, Sagar was determined to do the route, working on it through the autumn months and into early winter. Finally, on the last possible day of the season, with snow falling all about, Sagar made a final attempt. The overhanging rock shielded his hand holds from snow, but that was the only relief from the weather. Despite subfreUseem, Michael is the author of 'Upward Bound Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits', published 2003 under ISBN 9781400050482 and ISBN 1400050480.