Of course there’s not much risk, as long as you’re not the slowest runner.”
As Paul chuckled at his little joke, I looked at the folks around me and sized up their running skills. I decided I would in no way be fastest, but I’d probably be two up from the slowest.
“There’s actually little risk,” Paul continued. “The dogs’ barking tends to keep bears away. On the ice, only eighteen deaths from polar bears have ever been reported.”
At first I felt comforted by such a low number, but then considered the ridiculously low number of humans who ever go on the polar ice. The probability of dying from a bear attack was considerably higher than dying in a traffic accident less than ten miles from your home. As Paul talked for a few minutes about bears, I imagined trying to fight off two of them—an eight-hundred-pound female and an eleven-hundred-pound male. Then I imagined myself being eaten.
What about falling into the ocean?
David Golibersuch was quick with an answer based on his statistical analysis of past Arctic treks: “Roughly one in four people who travel to the far north go for a swim.”
A shiver shimmied up my spine. Craig’s face showed the same fear. I did the math: eleven people on the trip meant that Craig and I would probably both go for a swim. Or, I’d go swimming two or three times.
Paul sensed our apprehension. He said, “Don’t worry. At the end of this week we’ll all go for an icy swim. You’ll learn what it’s like and how to get out.”
I looked for a sign that he was kidding. He offered none. I asked if he’d ever fallen in.
“Nope,” he said with a big, unabashed grin.
So how would he know what it’s like to fall in at 30 below with no lodge nearby offering warmth and dry clothes?
The topic chilled the conversation. Bill jumped in with a positive spin, talking about why this trip excited him. He said it was the first expedition he’d been on with a mission that went beyond personal achievement. He talked about how this level of expedition was about man against nature; about how all the great challenges had been faced; about how the only option was to add another level of craziness—to be the first to climb a mountain without a jacket, without oxygen, aboard a pogo stick, or on a unicycle.
Paul then asked me to discuss the Great Aspirations! charity. He had told me previously, that in order to use the trip as a publicity tool for my charity, I’d need to get the approval of the team. I explained to the group that during the fall of 1997, I came across an article about Dr. Russ Quaglia, Director of the National Center for Student Aspirations at the University of Maine, my alma mater. After fifteen years of research, Dr. Quaglia had developed a set of principles on how to build student aspirations. Russ’s primary work was with schools.
After meeting him I proposed the creation of a charity that would translate and publish his work to parents. The result was a nonprofit charity called Great Aspirations! The charity’s purpose was to create and publish ideas that could help parents help their kids. We accomplished this through a national newspaper column distributed by Universal Press Syndicate and through the free distribution of audiotapes and CDs to parents.
I explained that the program came from a no-whining-allowed perspective. It was based on a commonsense approach and principles that really work. I went on to explain some of the data behind the program:
Working with at-risk fourth and fifth graders, kids whose previous academic performances were far below average, we were able to affect an overall increase in these kids’ grades by some 50 percent and an increase of 80 percent of their grades by a full letter grade. On average, their national test scores increased some 150 percent. Discipline problems virtually disappeared, and all said they were actually excited about learning.
A separate field study with a group of Cincinnati third graders found that discipline problems declined 72 percent, absentees declined 25 percent, and tardiness declined 54 percent. Moreover, report card evaluations showed an increase in all the standard measures of “good student citizenship.” Once the Aspiration principles were put into place, our test group demonstrated better self-control, more cooperation with others, respect and consideration for others, and the ability to follow directions. At the same time, their ability to focus on tasks doubled. And some 81 percent of these students get strong ratings in terms of completing all their assignments.
By this point in my presentation I seemed to be getting interest, but I wasn’t sure. So I went for the jugular. I reviewed research my team had conducted with Johnson & Johnson that found a near one-to-one relationship between a child’s self-image and that of his parents. That means that, for every parent with a low self-image, there’s at least one child with an equally low self-image. If they even try, are they as likely to try their best? Or are they going to be conditioned to failing? Will they see opportunity as something to seize or shy away from? It’s a bleak picture.
And there’s more. While reviewing research about childhood growth, we made another discovery. There’s a high correlation between a child’s grades in the third grade and the eleventh grade. That means that by the time kids are eight years old, they’ve developed an academic pattern that is likely to carry throughout their school years, unless something comes along to change it. It’s a structure that rigidly defines who’s smart and who’s dumb, who falls into the neat little slots of “A” students, “D” students, and so on. That means by the age of eight, most of us have it set in our minds where we fall on that letter grade scale.
After clarifying the urgency of the issue, I explained how our expedition fit with the four Great Aspirations! principles.
Belonging: For an expedition to be successful it’s critical to develop a sense of teamwork, community, and belonging. Paul Schurke is a master at taking groups of strangers and crafting them into a team. Equally important is that each team member’s individual strengths, weaknesses, and personality be recognized, appreciated, and integrated into the whole.
Excitement: The feeling of going to places few have seen fuels the heart and soul of each team member with the spirit of true adventure. A trip to the North Pole sparks fun, excitement, curiosity, and creativity.
Accomplishment: A feeling of optimism, overt goal setting, and healthy risk taking fuels a feeling of accomplishment. Each day we face good and bad situations. By working together as a team, we can achieve what none of us could do by ourselves.
Leadership: Paul Schurke is the trip leader. His unique blend of knowledge, skill, common sense, and quiet confidence inspires people to do what they would never consider doing. For this expedition to be successful, each member of the team will need to develop and exhibit his or her own leadership.
My proposition was to use our North Pole expedition as a publicity stunt to gain awareness of the free educational materials at the www.aspirations.com Web site. The vision was to use the North Pole, the land of Santa, to engage children and parents to come together through our journey.
The trip became the Great Aspirations! Expedition.
To make this happen, I would ask my Eureka! Ranch clients for sponsorships to fund a national public relations effort for the trip and to fund further publishing and support of organizations that help ignite the Great Aspirations! principles.
To build awareness of the expedition, we’d use the Great Aspirations! newspaper column, and my colleague and friend David Wecker, our base camp commander, would post stories about our expedition on the Scripps Howard newswire.
On the trip, we planned to use the then-new Iridium satellite network of phones and text pagers to communicate. I would call David each night, and he would write a story, which would be published as “North Pole Telegram” each night on the Web site. Family, friends, and children around the world could send each of us text messages on our individual pagers. In addition, each day a special family activity or “Great Event” (as I called