It’s the journey that counts. More than the destination.

The journey of discovering places, but above all of discovering ourselves, our own mindset, and the discovery of “us” as a team. The journey of growth and movement of individual and team limits. And the journey of fun beyond fatigue, commitment, and consistency. A journey with a thousand faces and opportunities, to live in the fullness of great challenges, that when I’m old I will proudly recount to my grandkids.

In the mountains, every place – every point - offers a unique view. Prospective and perception change with every step. The feeling of the walk recreates itself with every instant that passes, and even within ourselves we can feel landscapes relentlessly changing. We find ourselves riding the giant wave of metaphors, in the depths of change in work, organisation, and social dynamics. With every walk and excursion (with every outing – for me the main metaphor of the journey), we try to find the road that teaches us to interpret the world, a way to educate ourselves on how to face the many elements that characterise our life and our work, to manage compositions of elements that often seem incompatible. We don’t want to reach a peak without first learning to recognise where it is. We want to learn to take measures, to calculate distances, and to move together in the uncertainty of the predictions and calculations that come before the journey. We want to make compatible what isn’t, we want to learn to live with all the elements that make up our daily life, as we walk out the door, as we face change. Activation and patience, urgency and suspense, routines and variations, stability and mobility, sprints and crossings… we’ve always known that all these things go together. But now we are learning of new ways, always newer, to experience them and to get through them.

The mountains are a new world to me, so I choose to face it with a spirit of discovery: of an unexplored environment, of new bonds with my colleagues, and also of my limits. It’s the will to enjoy the landscape from the top, experiencing that absurd feeling of fatigue and euphoria that happens only when you feel like you’ve won a prize.

I don’t consider myself a sea person or a mountain person. I don’t consider myself a place person.

Though, walking through the clouds and rocks I come to realize that meanings find space, that thoughts find time. With each step, I realise that I’m at the highest point that my legs have every brought me. Not by myself, alone, but as part of a team. Lungs of humanity. I enjoy the journey, the breath, and I can’t wait to get there.

Whatever the challenge is, I love welcoming it. Like a kid, I can’t immediately see difficulties or limits; at first instance, enthusiasm and energy rule. The same happened with this project, that was made clear and shared from the very beginning but that I didn’t understand fully until I touched it.

The first outing was very revealing in this sense.

It represented a starting point for getting to know the mountains, the altitude, the group and, above all, myself.

That day I didn’t make it to the top, though I made it further than I thought. I managed to go beyond being unaware, beyond the objective, beyond my limit. I reached a different and unexpected destination. And I discovered that “beyond” also thanks to those who were beside me. Today, the will to reach the peak is still abundant, while the awareness of the work and commitment necessary is even more so. The wish to do it with this team is what really motivates me.

Every step is the first step. The boots adapt to new terrain every time; the legs accept the challenge every time. Or they refuse it. I stop, I go again. Hiking in the mountains is a constant dialogue with yourself and with your body, that is “accompanied” towards the next step, along the path, and up for the climb. Towards the top.

Hiking in the mountains is learning and listening; the signals of fatigue, the joy of colder air, the cheerfulness of jokes made by our companions. The breath that opens again, once arrived at the top.

I want to climb the Mont Blanc to prove to myself that I can achieve a goal as difficult as this.

In every climb, there seem to be three phases: the climb and “suffering” with the team, the pride of making it to the top and enjoying the view, and then the joy of going back down together.

When I imagine reaching the top with my coworkers and friends, I get goose bumps. It’s a personal challenge that I want to experience with my team.  

[+] I’m discovering a new mountain, step by step. The mountain, for me, for 50 years represented a place where I could practice my greatest athletic passions. A white mountain, seen from the top, whose incline represents the main source of pleasure: the descent.

Now, with the M4810 project, I’m discovering, step by step, a new mountain. A colourful mountain, seen from the bottom, whose incline represents the main source of the challenge: the climb.

Two fascinating perspectives.

The confrontation with the new one is the discovery of our resources and prejudices on our own possibilities. The preparation to go beyond, sharing a common objective – and, moreover, a common way to be - with my team: this, for me, is M4810!

This trip will influence our way of being and of doing, and it will condition every one of our future decisions. In the mountains every moment counts, and you count in every moment. Preparing ourselves to face this journey means finding the right individual conditions to build a truly PREPARED AND TRAINED team to guide our organization in favourable, unfavourable, and complex situations.

Hanging from a chain at 3100 metres in height, I see the world from above. I try to take a picture of everything in my head so that I can share it with others as soon as we catch our breath… I can’t do it! So, I’ll do it in my heart! Step by step, look at your journey. Don’t be afraid of the distance – you’ll make it. Dose your energy based on the time that it takes. The challenge is understanding in advance what you’ll be facing. “Here” and “Now” are the names of our legs, as Viola would say. “Angelo, will we get there?” “Yes, of course!” “Lara, I had no doubt!” “Thanks for the faith Giulia, I did, though…”

I’ll leave the comparisons to work to my colleagues: for now, I’ll just bask in my emotions!

My – our - life is always on the run, always moving from one place to the next. I decided to change in the mountains.

To go slow and to enjoy the journey, the people, the silence and the breaths, the flowers, the landscape, the joy of helping each other without a rush, the small steps, one behind the other, that without force and in harmony can bring you anywhere.

The distance between the sea that lives in my heart and the peak that guides my eyes doesn’t scare me. Then there is the step, the hand, the soul. This other is me. Together we fill the space that I can’t on my own. The journey is not a solitary one – it can’t be. There’s not a step that doesn’t leave a mark and that doesn’t long for another’s footprint. The path is beaten in unison.

Going to the mountains, to me, means overcoming myself. It’s a journey that goes beyond the boundaries of the mind even before those of the body. Climbing means going deep inside myself, in tight contact with resistances and with my limits. Each outing is a challenge of its own that becomes beautiful and meaningful when experienced with colleagues. I never would have thought that I’d be part of such an ambitious goal.

The mountains, this ancestral home… Every time that I walk in the mountains my heart beats to a different rhythm, my breath gets deeper, my eyes get filled with colour and wonder, my thoughts are lifted higher… and I feel complete.

The mountains push us to measure ourselves against our own certainties and fears, with our beautiful human fragility. When facing the mountains, we are naked like in the very beginning, and for this reason it’s home like nowhere else.

From the mountains I learned: from Whymper, that courage and vigour don’t matter without prudence; from Levinas, that never like in the mountains would I feel absolutely held on to; from Terray, that we conquer the useless; from De Luca, that a peak that is reached is the border between the finite and the limitless; from Corona, that from the peak you can’t go anywhere, you can only get down; form Goethe, that the mountains are mute teachers for silent disciples; from Bonatti, that those who jump higher see further, and those who see further, dream bigger; from Casarotto, that in our backpacks we carry only ourselves, through good or bad; from Cassin, that a light backpack (and heart) makes for a quick climber; from Baxter Jones, that in the mountains you must be healthy, you must be friends, and you must reach the top: in this precise order; from Messner, that on the peak you shouldn’t leave anything if only your footprints, that the wind will soon take away.

This beautiful gift that the company is giving us is a unique opportunity. Doing something together, experimenting with our own limits outside of the work environment - sharing it enriches us personally and collectively. Bringing people closer to the austere magic of the mountains is not easy - but it can be done.

“Walking” is something I really like, following the beat of my heart with my steps, looking around and “seeing” the path fills me with emotion. I found a beautiful Spanish poem that I’d like to dedicate to you:

Caminante, son tus huellas

el camino y nada más;

caminante, no hay camino,

se hace camino al andar.

Al andar se hace camino

y al volver la vista atrás

se ve la senda que nunca

se ha de volver a pisar.

Caminante no hay camino

sino estrellas en la mar

Trips change you, trips enrich you, trips surprise you…

For me M4810 is an extraordinary trip that came unexpectedly and that surprises me with every outing.

It’s a discovery of personal limits that I didn’t know I could overcome. It’s a new awareness of thoughts and emotions that I didn’t know I had, and a human experience that – in sharing – turns my travel partners into new friends. Their souls exhibit their true selves simply and naturally.

The thin rope that unites us in this climb is helping us build a memory so extraordinarily unique that it burns all resistance and pushes us to move forward together, always a step further up.

I’ve seen the sky in colours I couldn’t even describe and walls of rock that were never too hard for mountain flowers; I listened to the wind and traced distant slopes with my fingers; I dreamed… I dreamed of reaching another peak to fill my lungs with life and gratitude while my feet, for the first time, were walking a crest of over 300 metres. M4810 is a gift for which I am thankful, because I know I would never have undertaken it on my own.

The mountains in my legs, the Dolomites in my heart, this could be the slogan that summarises the passion that I’ve had since I was a kid. I was four years old when my parents brought me to one of the most fascinating places in the Alps: from then on I never stopped going to the mountains, in every season, every year without exception; to live it fully, to smell its scents, to be fascinated by its colours, to learn of new routes that I can discover, to understand the culture and traditions of the people that inhabit them, to try to share with others these emotions, efforts, and pleasures.

Having the possibility to face such an ambitious challenge in the work environment is a valuable opportunity. The mountains, besides being an important and real school of life, provide an unmissable occasion to develop abilities and habits to bring back to our work lives. Finding a new destination, thoroughly studying the map to reach it, understanding the context it exists in, planning the trip or the climb, training constantly, challenging ourselves to reach more relevant goals, instilling the passion for a common objective in other people… these are factors that the mountain environment allows us to experience in a real, strong, and … natural way.  

Climbing is a new experience for me, I like the idea that my partners on this journey are the same people that I chose to develop a big project with! When I’m in the mountains everything becomes more authentic, sensations are amplified, and the feeling of being united with my colleagues is stronger.

I’ve never thought of the mountains as my environment of choice. But when Methodos proposed the ascent to the top it seemed like a natural choice to me. I want to be able to tell my sons that I succeeded in the challenge; I want to remind myself that there is no limit to will power; I want to meet the gaze of my climbing partners and be able to say, together, “We did it.”

M4810, for me, is meditation in movement - a form of rediscovery and expression of our potential in which I rediscover myself every time as part of something greater. The ascent of the team, regardless of the summit we choose, always has the same direction. But at every outing we are those who change.

I love nature and I have a deep respect for the mountains, for their beauty and their hidden dangers, and it’s beautiful getting to share everything with my colleagues. Walking slowly, exploring new environments, places that can only be reached on foot. Discovering that you can do everything thanks to your own physical and mental strength, but above all with the support of friends that walk by your side towards the same objective. I want to enjoy the trail, the sun, the flowers, the nature: appreciating the journey I won’t even feel the effort, and looking back I’ll realise that I’ve already reached my goal.

For me M4810 is energy, it is continuous discovery, it is strength and complicity.

It is that hand that helps you when you are in difficulty, it is that rope that connects you to your companions when you face new paths, it is the carabiner that gives you security and firmly unites you to your group.

It is the look of those who reassure you, it is shared effort, it is the desire to always take one more step and overcome one's personal and shared challenges.

It is that look towards the top, it is that force that is released throughout the body to reach, together, the goal.

It is the cold wind that caresses your cheeks, it is the sun that warms, it is the deafening silence of nature that welcomes you, it is the crunch of snow and earth at our constant pace.

M4810 is the strength of my group, of my companions, who together face this challenge step by step.

From the mountains I learned respect, to welcome and listen to fatigue, I found the strength and the will to clear my mind to commit myself to reach the goal.