The new way to do well in business.

By Jamie Shapiro.

I was working in a warehouse in Park Royal, lifting boxes all day for minimum wage when I started bouldering. I was angry with myself, and I was angry with others because I felt like I had been left behind. My friends had all earned their degrees and secured their high paying jobs and they were all moving into flats and getting girlfriends. I was a failure.

Now, I’m not saying that working in a warehouse makes you a failure. What makes you a failure is not achieving what you set out to achieve; and I had a different vision of what my life would be.

I had always wanted to write. It started out with stories and poems when I was a kid and morphed into journalism when I became an adult. I’d trained at a college but due to some very unpleasant circumstances, I was forced to leave.

I took a job at the warehouse and just sort of accepted it. I had been trodden on and I was just so exhausted I didn’t have the motivation to keep trying. So, I sort of burrowed myself into the concrete of the Park Royal industrial estate and said to myself that this was it.

Then one night, as I sat in my old banger, stuck in traffic up the A40, smoking a wafer-thin rollup out the window, I saw a text message. I was stationery, so I picked up my phone from the dashboard and read it.

‘Come bouldering next Tuesday.’ It read.

My first thought was, ‘What the hell is bouldering?’

Bouldering is a form of climbing which focuses on low-height, tricky manoeuvres, as opposed to harness-climbing which is high-rise with a rope around your waste; the form of climbing which most people imagine.

I thought I’d give it a go.

The centre I went to in Bermondsey was a maze of rooms, multicoloured grips covering 16ft high angular walls. I found out that the different colours represented different levels of difficulty from 1 to 12.

The rules of the game were simple. If you’re on level 1, which was white, you can only hold on to the white grips. You must start on the bottom two and when you reach the top, you touch the highest grip with both hands, then you come down and just like that, you’re on level 2.

I went in, arrogant and still somewhat angry and eyed up level 1. ‘Too easy’ I thought and went straight to level 4. My body shape is a bit like a monkey, and I climbed a lot of trees growing up, so I felt like I had a natural ability. I shot up to the top of level 4 and put both hands on the final grip, then jumped down like a rockstar dropping the mic at the end of a show.

It was time for level 5. With the same fervour, I grabbed hold of the first 2 grips and as I pulled myself up, I realised how hard they were to hold onto. There was nothing to grasp. There was nothing to curl my fingers round. They were smooth and unwelcoming. I fell back and landed on the mat.

I got up, tried again, and fell again.

One more time, straight back on the mat.

I lay there in a state of acceptance. I realised I would have to move back to level 4, strengthen up, practice different manoeuvres. Get better.

And then I started to realise why I had been at the warehouse for so long, and why I had given up on my goals.

I hadn’t been able to deal with failure, so I chose the easy path.

That was my first lesson of many as I started bouldering.

Over the next six months, through dedication and perseverance, I worked my way up to level 9. At the same time, I left the warehouse and worked hard to finish my journalism qualification.

I had knockbacks in bouldering and in work. Sprained ankles, low grades, missed grips, and rejections, but I kept pushing forward. I could deal with failure now and I was not giving up.

I spoke to Max, a 29-year-old developer from London and keen boulderer. I wanted to find out how bouldering had helped him in his career.

‘There’s nothing unexpected for me at work. Even though the variety is huge. Maybe bouldering is about achieving an emotional equilibrium with all the adrenaline. I also like the sense of hard-earned progress. You’re at your limit and the wall is always throwing increasing complications your way. It’s satisfying to flash a grade you previously couldn’t touch.’

Another boulderer, Rhys, a 22-year-old games programmer spoke to me about how the sport had changed his outlook at work.

‘It was the people at the wall as much as the wall itself which helped me. The support they give you, the plaudits when you achieve a hard climb. It’s that feeling, that self-actualisation which echoed out into my working life.’

It was obvious to me that bouldering made a significant difference to peoples working lives. For me, it allowed me to come to terms with failure and then push forward. For Max, it gave him training on ‘hard earned progress’, for Rhys it gave him a sense of accreditation which he knew he could transfer.

And it wasn’t just these two boulderers. Everybody at the climbing centre seemed to have a story about how their careers have gone from strength to strength since starting bouldering.

I wanted to find out what the psychology behind this was. How could a simple activity have such an impact on such a diverse range of people?

I spoke to Katie, 32, trainee psychotherapist and psychology graduate.

‘I teach my clients about the importance of mindfulness and grounding. People come to me with a vast array of problems but the one thing that remains constant is they don’t feel ‘enough’. Help comes in a different form for everyone, but its’s always based around the principle that they need to reconnect to get better. Reconnection comes in many mediums, art, mediation, bouldering.

When a person is on the wall, ten foot in the air, they are not thinking about all the things outside of their control. All they are thinking about is how to hold on to the next grip. They’re connected to the wall. What they learn bouldering can easily be transferred into working life.

I suspect bouldering is an especially effective form of therapy for career driven people. Its easy to transfer mental training such as focus and perseverance into the world of business. Just like art is probably the better therapy for creative types because it teaches attention to detail and patience.’

No wonder people who boulder do well in work. The skills you equip yourself with translate directly into the skills you need in business.

Thankfully, it seems as though our city is catching on to the idea. With more climbing centres than ever before, you are spoilt for choice. From the labyrinths of Bermondsey’s Arch to the floors of Stoke Newington’s Castle, there is a centre for everyone’s vibe. Just type in ‘climbing centre’ on Google and you can find the right one for you.

So, what are you waiting for? If you want to turn your life around, start bouldering today.

Now, if you have read my articles before, I know what you are thinking. ‘Jamie is always exaggerating.’ However, this time, it’s different. If it wasn’t for bouldering, I wouldn’t be writing this article at all, or any of the others. The lessons it taught me are the reason I am where I am.

And if I had never started; if I had never replied to that text message that day sitting in my car in the traffic on the A40, I would still be stacking boxes at that old warehouse today.