Pole Pole [Poh-lae Poh-lae] - 3rd Quarter 2023

This past August my girlfriend and I took on one of the biggest challenges either of us has ever attempted in our lives by climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. I will confess that this particular quest was not on my personal “bucket list” but nevertheless captivated me by means of my parter’s own passion for the project. Thus, we set out to Tanzania to see some of the world’s most incredible wildlife on a rugged Safari and of course the tour’s main event in summiting a mountain roughly 5,000 ft higher than any elevation I have ever found myself other than a pressurized airplane. 

At the very beginning of this epic walking tour, I found our guides to be leading us at a pace that we both found obnoxiously slow…the sort of feeling you get when stuck behind someone not matching your normal walking speed and the urge to run them over like a bulldozer (just me?). As if reading our minds, our guides informed us that for the next week our only job was to walk and to walk at a speed that would conserve energy for the hike’s most crucial moment when approaching the very top. They called this method “Pole, Pole” which is Swahili and roughly translates to “slowly; in an unhurried way”. While we obliged, we fought this strategy internally for at least the first two days. We justified to ourselves that walking this dreadfully slow was actually HARDER than our regular strides from a rhythm standpoint. I recall a certain point towards the end of day 2 of 7 where I had a profound moment in realizing that these guides had actually led many people prior to ourselves up this behemoth piece of volcanic rock. And not only had they led those people up successfully, but additionally the very small detail that my lady friend and I had in fact never before climbed this mountain. Perhaps it was time to let the guides do their job and for us to rely on their counsel. I never doubted them again. 

By day 3 both she and I began to feel our steps and breaths fall into a trance-like pattern where we felt and thought nothing except slowly putting each foot in front of the other. There was no more anxiety as to what uncertainty and discomfort the future held (PLENTY), nor was there any regret about how we could have better prepared for this undertaking (Bluetooth speaker would’ve been nice). We simply stayed in the present moment; our only true reality for the remaining climb. It was under this meditative spell of slow, steady steps in our mud-caked boots that I drew the unanticipated and yet inevitable parallel between what we were doing with our “pole, pole” steps toward this mountain top and what it truly means to build substantial wealth over one’s lifetime. I suppose our brains never completely turn off from how they’re wired.

There was so obvious a universal principle at work that is at once very unappealing to the impulsive nature of us human beings and yet so powerful once it is embraced. Wealth is not created in big, fell swoops for the majority of working people but rather small, disciplined steps that never stray from the direction of reaching the summit that is true financial independence. Building up a million dollars is not an easy task for someone making five figures a year, but mathematically speaking, it is entirely attainable over the course of one’s working career. “The Tortoise and The Hare” tells a similar tale…slow and steady wins the race. But in this case, the race is only against ourselves, and the finish line can look downright daunting, just as it did for us when staring up at the tantalizing but jagged mountain top from its base. But onwards we marched at a pace that neither tired our legs to a pulp nor one that was without its mental and emotional challenges. I would love to tell you I never had doubts about reaching the summit when my head became so dizzy that I could’ve sworn I was under light anesthesia. I’d also like to believe that I had the mental fortitude to never question my own physical limitations, but alas, no. It was the guides who kept me strong at my weakest moments and who I must credit with the overall success of the summiting saga. We had the motivation, but they had the wisdom. That coupling of forces formed an alliance just strong enough to conquer such an undertaking as Mt. Kilimanjaro. 

At the risk of insulting the reader’s ability to infer the theme of this story, I urge everyone to lean on their advisor when the climb gets too daunting, when circumstances make your head dizzy and you start to doubt your OWN wealth-building plan; whether because the outside economic climate is temporarily made up of “thin air” or you’ve begun to doubt your own abilities. Those moments WILL happen and it’s important that you know who else is vested in your financial success. I look forward to us talking soon and until that time, I beckon you…pole, pole.

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