Its all about envisioning what you need to do.

You look up at the mountain you have to climb. You rely on your past experiences and consider your options. You plan your next steps. You execute. Then, after an exhausting day of running your startup, you pack your bags and head to the climbing gym.

It occurred to me while I was laying on my back looking up at the rainbow wall of holds that rock climbing is the perfect corollary to starting a company.

There is RARELY a day that I head to the gym that I feel like I’m making progress. A workout is filled with minor setbacks, and I’m always upset that I wasn’t able to achieve what I would like to in that session.

But over time when I look back, its remarkable what one can achieve.

Rock climbing resembles the founder experience more so than any other sport. An eager novice can come in and use brute force to reach a minor milestone. But its only with years of experience that one acquires the skill and knowledge to look up at a problem, break it apart, and achieve.

Climbing is equal part mental and physical. Those that rely on one without growing the other reach a plateau. To truly become an expert it takes years of commitment, training, and trial & error to figure out what works where.

And the funny thing is, that’s basically entrepreneurship in a nut shell. There are now shortcuts. It takes years of hard work and screw ups to learn what works and what doesn’t. While we all love the movie synopsis, the truth is its not until you look back (or down) do you realize what you’ve acheived.