IS THAT THE SOUND OF WATER?

Our recent horse pack trip to the Grand Canyon seemed ruined. The river we planned to drink from had so much silt it looked like chocolate milk and quickly clogged our water filters. We enviously looked at our horses, who could quench their thirst. Our only option seemed to be to give up and head back to the trailhead.

Just when all seemed lost, one of my sons, quoting the movie Apollo 13, exclaimed - "Failure is not an option." As a group, we became determined to find water, and no one in our group became discouraged. We started brainstorming solutions, `and someone had the idea to search for rainwater in pools on the rock plateaus above the canyon floor where we had been riding for the past two days. We explored until we finally rode up a gully and heard the tantalizing sound of water dripping from the rocks above. Now we just had to find a way to get to it. The video shows the magic moment of discovery and my son's effort to lift my tired carcass up the cliff face to the thirst-quenching pools above.

Our plight was not life-threatening, however, someone who did face a life-and-death struggle was Ernest Shackleton, the renowned British explorer of the Antarctic, who kept his entire crew alive for over a year while shipwrecked there. He stated, "The quality I look for most is optimism: especially in the face of apparent defeat. Optimism is true moral courage." Great leaders exude optimism and surround themselves with teammates who do the same. As a result, they can overcome any obstacle, even getting water from a stone.