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Akbar Kassam

From Quitter to Climber

By 29029 Everesting

October 13^th, 2023

“What am I doing with my life?”

It was 2022, and I was coming to the realization that it didn’t really feel like I was living.

I was just cruising through life. Relaxing. Living pretty cush. I was comfortable.

What was I missing? Something to push myself…

I registered for 29029 Snowbasin.

The morning of the event, I started climbing, and almost instantly, imposter syndrome set in.

I didn’t belong here. This wasn’t for me. I couldn’t achieve anything here.

A constant stream of negative thoughts ran through my head.

By the time the sun started to set, I quit.

And I left.

I booked the first flight out of Utah and I left. I didn’t say bye to anybody - I just left.

I had done just 4 ascents of the 13.

The worst part? It wasn’t even failure - that would have been okay - but instead, I had quit on myself.

I had given up and given into the negativity.

Two days later, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized something: that was the worst mistake I’d ever made. I had sent a message to myself that it was okay to quit.

But it wasn’t okay.

Failure was okay - that meant putting yourself out there and stretching your limits.

But failure isn’t what I experienced in Snowbasin. I had quit before even giving myself the chance to fail.

You quit on yourself, and that’s not going to happen again.

It felt like a slap in the face to know I had given up, and I was going to do everything in my power to make it right.

When registration for 2023 opened up, I signed up for Whistler.

I wanted to redeem myself. I wanted to prove to myself that I wouldn’t quit. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something hard.

For added accountability, I hired Coach Brent for a 6-month training plan. I wasn’t leaving anything to chance!

Partway into the training, Coach Brent told me I was to go to Stone Mountain. I’d been there before and hiked it dozens of times, but only ever once.

“No, not once - I want you to do it 4 times. Try!” Brent told me.

This was one of the first glimpses I had of the new me that 29029 would unveil.

If you had asked me before I started training whether I’d ever hike Stone Mountain 4 times in a row, I’d have said “No way!”

But with a little encouragement from Coach Brent, that’s exactly what I did!

Before I knew it, the start line at Whistler was upon me.

I had but one goal: don’t quit.

Sure, the Red Hat would be nice, but all that mattered to me this time around was not quitting.

Failure was okay. Running out of time was okay. Not reaching the Red Hat was okay. As long as I didn’t quit.

It was time to prove to myself that I could go further, deeper, and harder than I’d ever gone before.

The ascent trail was beautiful! We hiked through epic forests and up to amazing scenery, immersed in nature the entire time.

It certainly wasn’t easy, but I felt pretty good!

Right up until the last half-mile. The trail got dramatically steeper for the final push into the alpine and across the summit.

An older version of me might have quit right there.

But not this version of me.

Not this time.

I continued climbing, checking off one ascent at a time.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, it became clear I wasn’t going to get the Red Hat.

There was nothing external to keep striving for.

The Red Bib was out of reach.

The Red Hat was out of reach.

I could just quit.

But I had a goal, and this time, I was going to see it through.

This time, I felt a fire inside me, and I was going to let it fuel me.

I kept climbing. While 8 ascents might have been out of reach, I knew I could make it to 6 - but only if I kept gutting it out.

Where Friday was full of sunshine and amazing weather, Saturday was the opposite.

It started with fog.

Then mist.

Then rain.

Then sleet.

And finally, blizzardy snow!

As if the mountain wasn’t hard enough, God was throwing all the stops at me. My 5th and 6th ascents wouldn’t come easy.

Yet, I continued on. And with 9 minutes to spare, I crossed the summit for the 6th time.

Coach Brent was there, waiting. His first words to me?

"That's why you don't quit."

It was such an achievement. I had come here with a goal, and I had achieved it. I didn’t quit on myself. I kept climbing, even when the Red Hat was out of reach.

I had proved my mettle to myself.

On the flight home after the event, I had time to reflect. It was such an impactful experience, and I wanted to share some of my insights with my daughter when I saw her again, so I wrote down some of what I learned on the mountain.

I want to share those lessons with you as well:

1 - Nothing is impossible.

As long as you put the work in, your dreams can come true. If there is a wish, you will fulfill it - but you really have to want it. I could have never imagined waking up at 4 am, putting a headlamp on, and doing some sort of training before work. But I knew if I wanted the result at Whistler, I needed to put in the work.

2 - Get a game plan

If you write down your goals and put together a plan to get there, you can do almost anything. Hold yourself accountable, stick to the plan, and you’ll get to where you want to be.

On my way to Whistler, Coach Brent told me to write down every reason I had failed in Snowbasin. It hurt my ego to reflect, but the next step he had me do was to come up with a plan to avoid each of those reasons this time.

3 - Failure is inevitable on the way to success

Nobody is an overnight success. To achieve something great, you have to go through the process of failure. It’s part of the path, so instead of getting down on yourself after something fails, learn from it, adapt, and use that next time.

I wouldn’t have been able to climb 6 ascents in Whistler without having learned about myself at Snowbasin. But because I had that experience, I was able to improve the distance I covered and vertical feet climbed by over 300%. That improvement came because of failure!

4 - Your circle - your tribe - is more important than you realize

If you hang around people who want to achieve epic things, you’ll be more likely to achieve epic things too. Before 29029, I didn’t have a single friend who would be willing to join me to hike Stone Mountain 4 times. Now, I’m part of a massive community that not only would hike a mountain 4 times, they’d get up before the sun to climb a mountain enough times to equal Everest!

5 - Ask for help

Don’t let pride stand in the way of asking for help. If you ask, people will provide, especially once you’ve found your tribe. You can achieve good things alone - but you can achieve great things with the help of others.