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The Power of a Challenge

Featured / Chris Peake / 5 Comments

Every now and again I like to self-prescribe a running challenge that takes me out of my ordinary day-to-day and pushes me out my comfort zone.

My wife thinks I’m nuts and I definitely don’t disagree. To my defense, I’m not even close to the caliber of crazy that some of my running friends are. I’m just trying to keep up most times. 😊

I just completed my latest challenge this past weekend.

The Black Mountain Challenge

The Mountain

Black Mountain is my local go-to trail in the Las Vegas Valley. It’s the most prominent peak on the south side of Henderson (look southeast from The Strip), standing at about 5,092 feet. Starting at the Shadow Canyon Access Point parking lot, the round trip distance is about 7 miles with a climb of about 2,000 feet.

My Black Mountain Art. You can find more illustrations in “My Art Portfolio” in the Menu.

The Goals and Milestones

A seven week challenge. The goal was to summit Black Mountain once in the first week and by week seven, summit the dang thing seven times in a week!

It looked like this upon completion:

I suitably named the challenge, “The Black Mountain Challenge”. Original, right?! 😂

The Experience

Needless to say, this challenge was a big undertaking. I certainly had my share of ups and downs, but that was completely expected. Whenever you face a challenge that helps you grow mentally and physically, you have to expect the unexpected and embrace the fact that things won’t always feel and be easy.

Ultimately, I successfully finished the challenge and that ALWAYS feels good, but it’s the lessons learned and the memories that resurfaced that’s the reason behind WHY I do these challenges in the first place.

If you’re interested, check out my runs and photos (and follow me) on Strava!

The Lessons

It was during this challenge that I originally came up with the idea to integrate my passion for art and running with my experiences in life and business. I collected a significant number of thoughts along the way and I’m excited to share my stories and reflections with you in the days and weeks to come!

For now, here are my ten key takeaways from The Black Mountain Challenge.

1. Commit, Then Show Up

Getting started is often the hardest part, but committing and showing up at the starting line is the half the battle. You have to trust the process and know that your preparation, hard work, determination and grit won’t fail to push you past your ordinary self.

2. Doing Is Better Than Not Doing

“Deciding” and “Planning” is very different from “Doing”. “Doing” is what separates you from everyone else.

3. Have Gratitude For The Journey

Achieving a goal and seeing results is amazing, but it’s the journey that is everything and it’s the journey that we should always remember most.

4. Look At Old Things With New Eyes

Just because you’ve seen or done something a million times, doesn’t mean there isn’t room to see that somethin’ somethin’ from a new or different perspective. Seeing something with your eyes is far different from seeing something with your mind.

5. Compartmentalize Your Thoughts & Activities

Compartmentalizing is a valuable tool in every aspect of life. You’ll be a lot more successful if you break things down into bite-sized morsels and completing them as you go than you’ll be trying to think about, or accomplish, everything all at once.

6. Be Comfortable With The Uncomfortable

Learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable will give you a jumpstart to overcome any challenge. It’s all about mindset. Life isn’t gonna throw you a bunch of gimmes you can hit out of the park every time. To grow, you need to challenge yourself and falling flat on your face every now and again is part of the path forward.

7. Celebrate The Small Wins

Completing small next actions lead to small wins. A collection of small wins helps build the momentum you need to create bigger and more meaningful wins. Make sure you take the time to celebrate the small wins and never, ever forget to have fun along the way.

8. Take Care Of Yourself

Self-care is vital, especially if you’re doing something difficult and worth doing. Make sure you prioritize feeding and resting both your body and mind. Sometimes this simple act requires a little more effort.

9. Go The Extra Mile

Going the extra mile is a key differentiator. Over-delivering speaks volumes about who you are, what you’re willing to do to deliver, and what you’re capable of doing.

10. Don’t Forget The Importance Of Community

There are a lot of people cheering you on and want to see you succeed, just as there is always someone there when you need help or support. You’ll be amazed how much a simple smile or a thumb’s up on social media means to someone. Remember, it goes both ways. 😊

I’m looking forward to sharing my reflections about each points in future blogs.

As always, thank you for sharing the journey with me.

Gratitude. 🙏

cp

Featured

Finally Taking The Leap

Featured / Chris Peake / Leave a comment

Friends and colleagues, for years, have been telling me I should write a book. In the career I stepped away from, communication, specifically writing internal blogs and company-wide emails was a vital part of my responsibilities. For the longest time, however, I shied away from writing for a public audience for a ridiculous reason – the fear of rejection and the feeling that I just wasn’t good enough. Just a few days ago, I faced this fear head on. While I’m not writing a book any time soon, I decided that I needed to start somewhere. That somewhere is this blog.

The Backstory

Just a few weeks back, I had the idea to integrate the love I have for running with the passion I have for art. I excitedly created a few vintage illustrations of Las Vegas Valley trails I enjoy. It turned out to be a really great decision. Not only have a connected back to my art in a meaningful way, but the integration of the two has helped me connect with myself on a deeper level, helping me see new perspectives I wasn’t necessarily tapping into before.

In retrospect of my three months away from work, I illustrated the things I felt I connected with on a deeper level. The flowers represent my three kids and my wife, while the five hearts in the upper left-hand corner is family itself. Everything else, i think is self-explanatory 😊

Soon after those early creations, on a run of course, I had another idea…

What if, through the lens of a runner and artist, I created the opportunity to share as many reflections, learnings, and experiences from my life and work as I could?

What if I was able to offer leaders fresh perspectives on doing business? What if I could better prepare them for the future of work, where business will undoubtedly become harder and more complex?

What if I could help people raise the bar in their workplaces or workspaces? What if I could I inspire them to become better versions of themselves, both at work and in their personal lives?

What if I could help companies create better, more human-focused and customer-obsessed organizations?

What if I just started to do something about it instead of just thinking or talking about it?

I’m not exactly sure if this will end up being a good idea in the long-term, especially since there are already so many resources companies and leaders can tap into, but I couldn’t resist moving my idea and unique perspectives forward. At the very least, I would be happy with having a pretty damn good archive of experiences and who knows? Maybe I will eventually write/illustrate that book and maybe, just maybe, help a person or two along the way.

Thank you for being here and being one of the first to support me in this new journey. I hit “publish” on my own public-facing blog for the first time ever and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. 😊

Gratitude. 🙏

Check out “My Why” to learn more about this idea and my motivations behind it.

cp

Remembering Tony Hsieh

/ Chris Peake / 1 Comment
Tony passed away on November 27, 2020 but he’s forever in my heart and mind

The first time I met Tony Hsieh was two weeks before Thanksgiving in 2003. I was interviewing for a Merchandising role in Zappos’ 1000 Van Ness building in San Francisco. In a room of eight Zappos leaders, he simply introduced himself as “a guy that works at the desk across from Fred’s (Fred Mossler)” as he pointed through the conference room window and across the office. It wasn’t until after my interview that I found out that he was CEO of Zappos. Ha!

In my early years of Zappos, I had a relationship with Tony like anyone had with him really. We only really engaged at parties and get-togethers, around the office corridors for some Core Values jabber, and chitchats over Grey Goose shots where we mostly talked about our love for McDonald’s, random challenges and sentimental quotes. In my first seven years, he never butted in my business. Heck, he never even asked me about the business – he had hired the right people to do that and could spend his time working on more important things to help grow Zappos.

It wasn’t until I moved to the Operations and Tech Teams in 2011 to help with the customer experience that I formed a “business relationship” with the man. One of the areas I was tasked to oversee was Zappos VIP and VIP is what Tony cared most about (after company culture, of course). It was his baby and his MO was, if you were a customer of Zappos, you were a VIP. Period. Nothing else mattered. His focus was ALWAYS on the customer. It was relentless. He would do anything to deliver the best service and experience to the customer; to save the customer time; to consistently outdo the Zappos promise and to be the world’s most customer-centric company.

We got even closer when he asked me to move to the Holacracy team at the end of 2013. He believed that self-organization and self-management was the key to Zappos’ future growth. He cared about engaging the employee in a much more important and authentic way. He cared about the future of work and how companies would operate in years to come. He cared about evolution and creating a more dynamic, more responsive company, one that can stand the test of time.

He cared about being the company that could show the world how it could be done.

I connected closely with the things he cared about at Zappos: employees, customers, and culture. I saw utmost value in his path forward. Him and I would bond greatly over creating a new paradigm and a new way to do things for years to come. It was one of our love languages, you can say.

Our 1:1 conversations almost always started with curiosity – questions to get to know each other better, even though it had been years. He always knew that just because you knew someone, it didn’t mean you knew them all the way through. He authentically cared and our talks were always meaningful, each one ending with at least one connection point more than we did the time before, and we would always use them as jumping off points for our next catch-up.

We had built a comfort with each other that was trusted, respected and appreciated between us both. It was a friendship that surpassed my wildest expectations, one that I never took for granted and always took the time to let him know.

While things always seemed to be good between us, we didn’t always see eye-to-eye on things. Actually, most of the time it seemed we were debating about most everything. Making “management science” and self-organization, especially creating our own homegrown version of it, “a thing” was never easy. To say the least, It was probably the most difficult project I ever worked on, inside the walls of Zappos or out. I know it took a toll on both of us.

At the end of June 2020, I went to visit Tony in Park City for a few days. Although things were very different with and about him, it was good to spend a bulk of my time in his presence. We had the opportunity to hike Park City Mountain together. All the way up the mountain, we reminisced about older, simpler and more happy times at Zappos – the parties, the work we did, of marathon and 8,000 meter training days, of its people, friends and family who we loved and admired. I took it all in, every second of it.

On my last day with him, I had a terrible feeling I wouldn’t see him again. As I hugged him good-bye, I really did squeeze as hard as I could, for as long he would let me. I will never forget it.

Tony was…

  • generous and selfless; he always cared about the happiness of others, even over his own
  • compassionate and caring, even if he seemed like a robot to most
  • curious, creative, and brilliant; he was a master of seeing things from a new, different, and clever perspective
  • courageous and a visionary, but humble, in every sense of the word
  • never complacent and a risk-taker; he always believed that good was the enemy of great
  • a dear friend, mentor, confidante, amazing human being, and a great hand-hugger

Tony, my friend, I am forever grateful. I love you and you are missed. You made me better. I will never forget you and everything that you meant and done for me, and so many others. Rest In Peace.