One Step Beyond: Rediscovering the Adventure Attitude - Softcover

Alan Hobson

9780919381063: One Step Beyond: Rediscovering the Adventure Attitude

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0919381065 ISBN 13: 9780919381063

Publisher: Climb Back Inc, 1993

This is a book about achievers, by achievers, for achievers! The Adventure Attitude described in its pages is essential in every field of endeavour as we struggle to climb the "mountain" of change in our own lives. Now you can learn from some of the world's most inspiring people. By applying the Adventure Attitude, you will climb to your own summit of success.

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About the Author:

Mt. Everest Climber, Summiteer, and cancer survivor, Alan Hobson, is fast developing into one of North America's most inspirational figures. A former journalist, winner of the prestigious William Randolph Hearst Award for Excellence in News Writing, and the author of six books on adventure and achievement, he touches audiences worldwide with his riveting speaking presentations about life, death, tenacity and triumph. Drawing on his past experiences as a former nine-time "All-American" gymnast, veteran of three expeditions to Mt. Everest, as well as the recent challenge of a massive medical mountain he calls his own "Inner Everest," Alan builds bridges between Everest, life-threatening illness and the Everests we all face every day. He has appeared on many national television talk shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In his lifetime, Alan has been a marathon runner, hang glider pitor, white water kayaker, white water rafter, ice climber, rock climber, parachutist, luger and bobsleigh participant. His latest passions are mountain biking and scuba diving. But his greatest achievement to date, he asserts, is surviving leukemia (cancer of the blood). His overriding message is simple: "We CAN overcome, we WILL overcome." In fact, CAN/WILL (tm) has become his trademark. "My life mission is to inspire others to go after their dreams," he says, "and in so doing, touch the boundlessness of their true potential." Alan is a full-time professional speaker who makes between 40 and 60 presentations a year worldwide.

Alan is happily married to his business partner, Cecilia. They live in Canmore, Alberta, Canada, in their favourite playground, the majestic Canadian Rocky Mountains, just east of Banff, Alberta.

Review:

Enter any bookstore and a bedazzling array of new releases on the psychology of "success" and "leadership" strikes the eye. The sheer number testifies to widespread uncertainty in the face of rapidly-changing times. Following the bow of supply and demand, guides to success are responding to a general craving for direction in an age swamped we too much information, too many possibilities, and not enough genuine leadership.

What sets One Step Beyond:Rediscovering the Adventure Attitude above the typical battery of advice? Unlike so many others chasing this lucrative trend, who slouch over a desk dreaming up the 10 secrets of success, the voices in this book arise out of hard won, authentic experience. From the summit of Mount Everest to the polar ice of the arctic, One Step Beyond redefines peak performance from a place where success has been tested.

Based on the philosophies of John Amatt, climber and expedition manager of the 1982 Canadian expedition to Mt Everest, One Step Beyond is about attitude. The "Adventure Attitude". "Adventure isn't hanging from a rope off the side of a mountain," says Amatt. "Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day-to-day obstacles of life - facing new challenges, seizing new opportunities, testing our resources against the unknown, and, in the process, discovering our own unique potential. It is not, surprisingly, about extraordinary physical prowess, nor about gifted athletes. It is about ordinary individuals with this attitude.

Twelve years after Everest, Amatt inspires corporations the world over through his use of the mountain as a metaphor for challenges that can intimidate. He now understands that a boardroom full of prospective clients can have as foreboding an aspect as a slab of rock or a stretch of lonely ocean. A mountain is just a mountain until someone sees it as a challenge. Similarly, a boardroom is just a boardroom until it is approached as a site of risk-taking and adventure.

Writer Alan Hobson gives voice to Amatt's approach by profiling five individuals who embody the Adventure Attitude: Laurie Skreslet, the first Canadian to reach the summit of Mt. Everest exemplifies "the calibre of courage". John Hughes, the first to intentionally sail the waters around Cape Horn with a makeshift mast, typifies "the power of persistence". Mike Beedell demonstrates "the capacity of curiosity" in his voyage through the Northwest Passage. Sharon Wood symbolizes "the triumph of teamwork", as the first North American woman to ascend Mt Everest. And Laurie Dexter, who traversed the North Pole, skiing from the USSR to Canada, portrays "the excellence in endurance". Needless to say, One Step Beyond, like a good clip, keeps you hanging.

Hobson surprises, however, by highlighting the fallible nature of each adventurer. He certainly does not paint picture perfect successes, plastic portraits of Type A personalities. Again, it is the energy generated by attitude that fuels their sometimes staggering achievements. The five adventurers are in agreement "The way I perceive my environment", says Sharon Wood, "is the only thing that makes me different - nothing else".

The Adventure Attitude is meticulous, intelligent and aware, it does not compromise itself with an undisciplined drive to possess either social status or wealth. This alone is enough to set One Step Beyond apart from most guides to success. The Adventure Attitude is an 'itch' that compels individuals to depart again and again from the comfort and security associated with traditional standards of success.

Such comfort and security has lulled many companies into coasting on the old and tired engines of their past successes. Yet within today's information and technological super-highways, companies who rest on former achievements will be left behind.

Sailor John Hughes articulates the need to steer beyond out-dated definitions of success: "As a whole people in our society have moved away from testing their mettle to measuring everything by accepted standards: the size of your house, the number of cars you drive, your income, etc... Unfortunately, we tend to be a little more concerned with how we think other people view us than how we view ourselves".

One Step Beyond is a celebration of the individual, both as the solo navigator of personal challenges and as an essential resource in team efforts. The spark that makes an ordinary venture into an adventure is the element of risk. Hobson's profiles demonstrate that risk if weighed, scrutinized, and acted on with unflinching resolve, can reward with immeasurable self-confidence. Confidence feeds an ever expanding circle of accomplishment, and is as vital an investment as good old fashioned capital.

Risk in the world of One Step Beyond, holds life and death in the balance. Before Laurie Skreslet stood on the summit of Everest, four climbers were killed in avalanches on the mountain. The book describes how the tragic accidents affected expedition morale, and how men like Skreslet and John Amatt had to pause and re-evaluate both team strategy and summit lust. Mike Beedell's own brush with death reiterates the level of commitment that can characterize adventure: having penetrated the heart of the high arctic the route out had to be as exactingly negotiated as the route in.

The epic sweep of all five stories makes One Step Beyond as dramatic as the ancient tale of Jason and the Argonauts sailing through the clashing rocks. On both a corporate and personal level, readers will be impressed with how the book liberates the sense of achievement from a traditional emphasis on the final product. It is not the golden fleece that maters, but the quest itself. As we hurtle toward the year 2000, we may be grateful for One Step Beyond deeper contribution to the psychology of leadership. -- Nicole Shukin-Simpson

The author, Alan Hobson, is a combination of a maniacal researcher and a gripping writer. I started reading the book and simply could not put it down. Each adventurer that Alan covers is written in a way that you can feel the wind in your hair or the surge of adrenaline that the profiled

subject must have felt. Alan Hobson brings words to life in a non-fiction book in a class of it's own. (I read a book every week or two... this book is in the top ten I have ever read!!!) -- A Reader

The words jumped off the page. In a nutshell, they explained not only the futility of the Calgary Flames last year but the failure of many teams and athletes to achieve what they can.

In this fascinating book One Step Beyond by Calgary writer Alan Hobson, former National Football League great O.J. Simpson has this to say: "The day you take responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making excuses, that's the day you start to the top."

Adds John Hughes, a Canadian who sailed single-handedly around the world: "Don't pretend that other things are stopping you from reaching your goals. They only stop you if you let them."

Sound like something we all heard from the Flames last campaign? If it wasn't officiating, it was the players' strike. If it wasn't the coaching change, it was the Doug Gilmour turmoil. There was always an excuse - the players never looked in the mirror as they should have.

Here's some advice for newly appointed coach Dave King and general manager Doug Risebrough - drop a copy of Hobson's book in each player's locker.

The Subtitle of the book is Rediscovering the Adventure Attitude and its 360 pages describe how achievers can climb any high mountain.

There are in-depth profiles of five Canadians who have achieved extraordinary success: Calgary's Laurie Skreslet, the first Canadian to climb Mount Everest; Sharon Wood of Canmore, the first North American woman to climb Everest; Hughes of Halifax; Ottawa's Mike Beedell, who traversed the Northwest passage using wind power alone; and Laurie Dexter of Fort Smith, N.W.T. who skied over the frozen Arctic Ocean.

All their stories deal with overcoming tremendous obstacles, of commitment, desire, courage, perseverance and dedication.

But the overriding message in the book is quite simple. "Personal success and happiness is largely a matter of what we do in our minds," writes Hobson. "The mind, and what we choose to put in it, determines greatness. Our grey matter is what matters."

"It's not some arbitrary set of circumstances, fluke or chance that molds great people. Great people are the product of what's in their heads and hearts."

In two short paragraphs, Hobson explains what separates underachievers from champions in both sport and personal life in general.

The book is also based on the original ideas of Canmore's John Amatt, an adventurer and internationally acclaimed professional speaker.

I won't spoil the surprise for readers but the book also pinpoints nine key attitudes that the five achievers have in common.

It's fascinating material and an inspiration for any athlete or aspiring athlete. As a would-be marathon runner, I couldn't put the book down.

Here's one of my favorite passages. "I learned once more the incredible potential for the human spirit to endure all kinds of duress and still come out smiling and ready to take on greater achievements," says Beedell.

"All the horizons, the feeling of finishing and 'Wow, look what we've accomplished!' If you looked at the whole picture at once and what was involved it would completely exhaust you. But when you take it one step at a time, when you take one increment and work away at it, you can achieve great goals."

The key is taking that first step or having the courage to take that first step. -- Calgary Herald, June 1992

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