It’s not about you; it's all about them

Many moments in our lives it's all about oneself. When you are born and being taken care of, we get all the attention. We get all the help and we get most things done for us. As time moves forward, it is common for that to flip. It’s about your family, friends or your customers
At IF, it's not about us, it's about our customers. It’s our responsibility to care for our customers during the hour and if we go away it really becomes all about their Success and Victory.
This past weekend, we guided our customers through the west coast trail. We all trekked the 77km trail in the mud and rain. It was an interesting hike through a pioneer type trail. Originally we were going to attempt to hike the 75km over 2days - the first day we were going to hike to 43km and if we felt good, we were planning to get right to 53km leaving an easy 22km 'walk in the park' to the end.
We woke up on the Thursday morning to rain. It wasn't hammering down, but it was enough to warrant rain paints and a hat! The first few hours we were trying to keep dry and clean. Climbing around the puddles and over the mud. After we got to the first river crossing, we gave in to the conditions and ended up almost waist deep in cold water. From then on it was full on. Rain, mud and dirt. Our first night was spent setting up camp in the rain and dark. No dinner, only the pitter-patter of rain drops on our tent to keep us up for half the night. We woke up to the rain and it took us 2hrs to pack up and get ourselves on the trail. We spend all day hiking hard and even jogging the flat sections. We had now realized that this was a huge hike and honestly dreaded the notion of camping another night.After close to 10hrs of straight trekking, we came to 62km and made the decision to camp. The group was divided and some of us could have gone on, but there were some that were very tired and sore (we were a team and needed to keep our team safe) Thankfully, by this time, the sun was out and we had found a beautiful beach set in a protected cove that we made home for the night. We were able to dry our gear and heat-up water for our backpacker’s meals.
The last day we were up early and hiking by 6ish. The terrain had become very unforgiving and the last 12km took us just over 6hrs. I personally was so happy to take my pack off. Carrying additional gear for others and not having my poles for the previous days hiking had taken a real toll on my knees. I was feeling a 9/10 pain intensity that I would be reminded of every step I took.
Now, in general, the west coast trail is not that tough. It’s 75km long yes, but at consistent pace and structured breaks it is quite possible to accomplish this hike in 2days. We on the other hand started off a little slow and when we did manage to get up to a good pace, different skill sets within the group held us back.
Before we left, we agreed that I would be at the back of the pack. Making sure everyone was in the group and I was also there for mental and physical support. As is stands, this trip was a little slow going and the biggest lesson we can learn if during a travel destination is that we must challenge ourselves and push through our own adversity in order to maintain our focus of 'all about them' and even when it seems impossible, realize that we are in a position to experience a different kind of victory. We are usually in control of our challenge (for the most part) but when we have little or no control, the outcome can become a huge victory for ourselves, but from a completely different path.

Regardless, the tune 'challenge, adversity and victory' can be experienced on so many different levels. We must also be appreciative to experience this personal growth - no matter what the formula was to create it.