Brandon has a unique approach to his team building sessions. His passion for helping people challenge themselves is refreshing and will serve both managers and employees alike. I would highly recommend Brandon if you want to your staff to think beyond the obvious and become more creative and critical thinkers.

-Mark, Team Building Participant

As I reflected more today on the article I read this morning on News and Observer (If There’s a Mountain Climb It), I began thinking about how climbing helped me to start my business. (Granted, my business revolves around climbing….which definitely helps!)

I wanted to share, over the next few days, what some of the lessons I learned from climbing are.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I read an article on UsaToday.com about the importance of “playing” during these difficult and stressful financial times. The author, Janice Lloyd, spends time reviewing Stuart Brown’s new book Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul. ( See the article here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-03-23-play-stress_N.htm)

Stuart Brown is a proponent of making sure that everyone, adults especially, take time to “play” and do things that are enjoyable and invigorating for them. Without doing this, it doesn’t just lead to boredom, but rather depression and discontentment.

Getting away from cell phones and computers and enjoying the outdoors is the best way to do this. Of course, leisure activities such as video game playing is still relaxing, but until you take action to get away from all things that can distract you, you won’t truly be refreshed.

I often find that when I get away from all the daily responsibilities and demands of running my company, I come back with a renewed vision and determination for Ascent Adventure Consultants success. Often, it can be easy to think, “There’s no way that I can get away….I will miss opportunities.” However, the opposite is true. If you don’t get away every once in a while, you will miss opportunities because you will get burnt out and discouraged.

This coincides with some of the postings we have done last year: Escaping the Normal Routine of Life

Visit our website today to: Take time to play and enjoy life! We only get one life…so make the most of it! Climb some cliffs, hike some mountains, or whatever else you may enjoy!

It is hard to find hope in these times of uncertainty.  What feels like an almost constant stream of bad news can cause anyone to have doubt about the future.  Or you may be a person who fears change even in the most stable of times.    If either of the statements sounds true, you may be suffering from learned helplessness.  The good news here is that there are tools for overcoming learned helplessness.  This blog entry will define learned helplessness. Future entries will give you tools for dealing with it.
Learned helplessness is the condition in which a person has learned to believe that they are helpless in a particular situation. They believe that they have no control and that whatever they do is futile. As a result, the person will stay passive in the face of an unpleasant, harmful or damaging situation, even when they actually have the power to change their circumstances.
Many people will suffer from learned helplessness at some time in their lives.  One example would be you have a talk with your manager where he or she appears angry at a trivial subject.    You are puzzled by the exchange, feeling there is nothing you can do about it.  Learned helplessness can occur in far more serious situations.  A study shows that most people in a disaster situation will do nothing until instructed to do so.  A person can learn to be helpless through the observation of another person encountering uncontrollable events even if the observer has not countered it themselves.
Learned helplessness can be a minor issue that occasionally keeps you from making decisions confidently.  Or it can be a significant problem that is keeping you from realizing your professional or personal potential.  So how does knowing about learned helplessness assist you?  The answer is found in the concept of your Explanatory style.  We will explore this concept in a future entry.

You can read about someone’s experience with Learned Helplessness by clicking here and visiting their blog.

This post was authored by Danny McCracken, a guide and trainer for Ascent Adventure Consultants.

I read a great posting today at the Create Learning Teambuilding Blog. The authors point is an excellent one. With today’s instability in business and with the uncertainty of jobs, it creates instability in business, and companies need teambuilding now more than ever. Here is his posting:

Most of today’s organizations function in a team setting. These may be cross

functional or functional internal teams, client service teams made from internal
and external service providers, or other member compositions. Stability is
an essential component to the success of these teams. Why? Because teams go
through many stages before they become high performing — namely: forming,
storming, norming and finally, performing. Stabilty makes teams more
efficient and effective at doing their jobs.

In today’s recessionary, lay-off laden environment, stability is simply not a
reality. Does this mean organizations are going to suffer from less efficient
and less effective teams? Most likely. Now, more than ever, organizational
leadership must prioritize team building amongst it’s highest goals or risk
suffering an even greater setback from the loss of team members and the
environment of uncertainty we are in.

-Teambuilding Western New York Blog

I would also like to add a few points to this:

1. Teambuilding can also boost morale and can increase employee commitment and confidence in their company. I believe that by managers and business owners making the decision to have teambuilding programs conducted for their teams, that employees will be able to renew confidence and commitment in these times of uncertainty, thereby increasing productivity and success.
2. Business never is successful when everyone is just out for their own gain. In this economic downturn, people tend to fend for themselves, which means businesses NEED to pull their teams together.
3. Teambuilding is FUN! If nothing else, companies should conduct teambuilding programs just to escape from the normal stresses of life!

Check out our teambuilding programs, at www.ascentadventure.com

We got a great mention in the Dancing Elephants Achievement Group Newsletter this morning:

Every year starts anew and how great is that? We get to start off with a clean slate, learn from our mistakes and take new chances.

This year was no different. We have teamed up with Brandon Hensinger with Ascent Adventure Consultants, LLC and developed a series of training sessions called, “Ultimate Sales Training”. While we actually teamed up with Brandon last year, we had a successful launch last week with “Cold Calling for People That Hate to Cold Call”. It was fantastic! I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in this mixture of classroom and experiential training. The sales training from Tim was exemplary (as always) and Brandon had us smiling and laughing at ourselves as we learned where our pre-conceived notions took us.”

-Deidre Hughey

An updated Mission Statement from Ascent

The mission of Ascent Adventure Consulants LLC is to provide individuals and businesses with a dynamic way to break free from their normal routine and everyday experiences and accomplish something that seems out of reach, by offering professionally guided rock climbing and mountaineering adventures, as well as customizable corporate training and teambuilding programs. We are committed to guiding every individual on an incredible adventure and to equipping every business with the tools it needs to achieve its goals.

We have a YouTube Page!

YouTube – ascentadventure’s Channel.

Hey everybody! I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday!

Ascent Adventure Consultants has some REALLY exciting things planned for 2009. One of them is the plan for the blog. We will be following a weekly schedule, having each day be dedicated to a different topic. What are those topics, you ask? Here they are:

1. Mondays- Trip Reports
2. Tuesdays- Fitness and Training Tips
3. Wednesdays- Business and Corporate Training Advice
4. Thursday- Climbing Techniques and Tools
5. Friday- Environmental Issues and Advice
6. Saturdays- Miscellaneous Items that We Want to Write About!

So make sure to check back to read what interests you!

Over at the “Facilitator’s Corner Blog” at OutdoorEd.com, Jim Grout of High 5 Adventure wrote an posting about how the outdoor adventure and experiential education industry has more and more regulations imposed upon it every year. He was encouraging professionals in the industry to remember “that the essence of what we do as adventure educators is to provide people with a powerful learning experience that is engaging, challenging, thought provoking, and fun.”

It is so important to remember that the reason Ascent Adventure Consultants exists is to provide this very type of experience for all of our participants on adventures and training courses. As soon as we lose this focus, our courses will be less meaningful and effective. Our commitment to all of our clients is to continue to provide engaging, challenging, thought provoking, and fun adventures and training programs. It is through this type of adventure and guiding that lives are changed.