Helping Professionals Take Leaps of Faith

What climbing a 30-foot telephone pole, balancing on top and leaping to a suspended trapeze have to do with business may not be readily apparent to those with their feet planted firmly on the ground.

But according to those at Arete Adventures, the willingness to try has everything to do with making people better and more capable leaders.

For years, the Ojai-based company has been leading business professionals to places they never dreamed of in hopes of helping them look past self-imposed limitations and opening their minds to newer ways of doing business.

“Corporate America is a different place than it was 10 or 20 years ago,” said Arete Adventures owner Pam Nichols. “It’s getting harder to survive out there, and I think [business executives] are starting to understand that all the rigid rules and the foundations of business aren’t working the way they used to. . . . They need new strategies, which means they need people to think differently.”

Nichols started Arete Adventures six years ago after taking up rock climbing as a hobby.

At the time, she was working as a commercial real estate broker and found the lessons she learned on the face of a rock wall--courage, confidence and ingenuity--were ones she could use to be a more effective professional.

She started Arete Adventures, which in Greek means to strive, to teach others similar lessons through outdoor and contemplative seminars that mix communications and problem-solving exercises with physical and mental challenges, such as climbing the telephone pole.

She operated on a part-time basis for three years before going full-time, and now she said she is finding almost as much success as she can handle.

She hopes to expand the business, but not to a point where the goal of her mission is diluted.

On average, Nichols and her support team take business groups out three times a week for a seminar tailored to the group’s particular goals.

“What we stress is that this is the beginning of a very long process,” Nichols said. “It’s not just a one-day thing--that’s just the beginning of a commitment that could take years to complete.”

The seminars combine a variety of exercises aimed at getting participants to communicate and learn from one another as well as from themselves.

The first half of the day is usually spent getting people to open up to each other and identifying the limitations that are holding them back from the kind of personal and professional success they hope to achieve.

That is followed by problem-solving and communication exercises, and finally by the challenge course. The latter involves what Nichols calls “moving people from their comfort zone” or, more accurately, forcing people to confront their fears by scaring the wits out of them.

For some, the process is arduous and results in torrents of tears and confessions of self-doubt that has kept them from realizing their full potential.

On a recent weekday, Nichols took a group of Southern California professionals to the Calamigos Ranch near Agoura Hills for a daylong leadership and personal development seminar.

The group members had a variety of reasons for being there.

Karen Bonnett, a 33-year-old West Los Angeles resident, is starting her own consulting firm. She paid the $270-per-visit fee to develop more self-confidence in the face of challenge and uncertainty.

Dick Grier, an Ojai contractor, was there because his 50th birthday loomed.

He wanted to prove to himself that age is arbitrary and that vitality is something one need not put on the shelf once a certain age is reached.

And Dezireen Austin, a 32-year-old Simi Valley resident who works at the Westlake Inn, said she wanted to be the kind of person who steps up to challenges rather than shying away from them.

There were, however, several minutes late in the day when it looked as if Austin might shy from the challenge before her.

Earlier, she had said that any activity that puts her high above the ground wasn’t something she was willing to do.

Yet there she was, strapped into a harness and straddling the telephone pole, trying to muster the nerve to stand.

“Oh God, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know,” she said, as she looked down at the ground. “I need a bigger pole.”

But with encouragement from other group members, Austin took a deep breath and stood. Then, after counting to three, she jumped toward the trapeze.

She missed, but that wasn’t important.

What was important, Arete Adventures teaches, was that she bottled her fear and went for it.

“There have been a lot of times when there has been a challenge before me and I can either opt to step up or down,” Austin said afterward. “I’ve often opted to step down, but I don’t think that will be as easy for me to do now. . . . I will opt to go up and complete the challenge because it’s in me to do it.”

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