From motivational posters to Hollywood films, the image of the solitary climber struggling to conquer an unforgiving peak represents the threshold of physical and mental endurance. While most climbers would probably agree that nothing beats a sheer cliff for pushing the mind and body to the extreme. Everest alumnus John Amatt believes that climbing also demonstrates what a team can accomplish by working together.

Compared to other people," Amatt says, "every individual has certain strengths and certain limitations. That is certainly true of me. When we strive for life's ultimate goals - for me, that was climbing Everest - it's almost essential that we get help from other people. Only one person has climbed Everest alone, and that was only after gaining

In his book, Straight to the Top and Beyond, Amatt describes in compelling detail the challenge he, some fellow Canadian adventurers, and a group of Nepalese Sherpas faced in staging their 1982 assault on Mount Everest. While the Canadian climbers were all experienced mountaineers, they nonetheless needed help from the local Sherpas who were more accustomed to surviving in the rarefied air of the Himalayan mountains. In looking back on this experience, Amatt believes that without a superhuman dedication to the team goal and trust that they could rely on one another in life and death situations, their effort would not have succeeded. But as he explains, few of life's ultimate goals, whether in sports, business, or professional life, are ever realized without a group of people working together.

When you take on the ultimate goal," he says, "you almost assuredly need the support of other people. That isn't to say that one individual alone isn't capable of climbing Everest - or winning a championship, building a successful business, etc. - but those individuals are few and far between. If you're an average kind of guy like me, you have to acknowledge that you have limitations and that you can only offset those limitations with the help of other people."

The story of our Everest climb was clearly a story of a group of men from Canada who had climbing ability, but we weren't able to adapt to the changing environment as well as the native Sherpa people who live at 12,000 feet year-round. So recognizing our limitations, we built a team where the strengths of the Sherpas offset our limitations, where our climbing strengths coupled with their adaptive strengths to make it possible to go to the summit."

And that's why I believe it's so important to analyze yourself and those around you to recognize everyone's strengths and weaknesses and build teams where people strength's all help build toward that ultimate goal. Once you've done that, you're halfway to conquering your own Everest, whatever it may be."