Last week, Samantha Upkes and I spent a few days on the Minnesota North Shore of Lake Superior.
24 inches of fresh snow.
Beautiful. Quiet. Restorative.
Also humbling.
I tried cross-country skiing for the first time. Within minutes I realized: this is much harder than it looks… and I’m not naturally good at it.
There’s no hiding on cross-country skis. If your technique is off, you know it. If your conditioning isn’t there, it shows. I fell. I flailed. I questioned my life choices.
But I kept going.
The next day, sore from skiing, we tackled a steep snowshoe hike. Burning legs. Heavy lungs. And once I stopped fighting it, something shifted.
I started enjoying it.
Not because it got easier — but because I leaned into the challenge.
Scaling a business is similar.
Most leaders want downhill skiing: fast, smooth growth. What they often get is cross-country skiing: slow progress, awkward starts, long stretches of hard effort.
The leaders who win aren’t the ones who never fall.
They’re the ones who stay with it long enough to find their rhythm.
Growth isn’t glamorous. It’s disciplined. It requires endurance.
Push through the awkward stages. Build strength. Learn to enjoy the climb.
That’s where real progress happens.
– Keith
