Living a Big Life in Small Increments
This fall, I had the incredible privilege of photographing Kaye Foster.
Kaye has had an incredible journey professionally and personally. Kaye reflected on two of her many life lessons:
1. You need to go slow to go far.
2. Life often requires more mental strength and toughness, rather than physical brute force.
Kaye moved to California to build an oncology company with a group of extraordinary people, and when the company was acquired, Kaye and two others decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to mark the occasion.
“I trained and prepared for a year,” Kaye shared. “But you can’t really train for oxygen deprivation, perhaps the biggest risk. I expected the physicality of the climb, but really the challenge was the mental aspect of the climb.”
When the time came, the two colleagues were unable to climb. “I showed up alone and climbed Kilimanjaro with three strangers. The ascent from 15,000 to 20,000 feet is really where you experience oxygen deprivation. It’s disorienting and incredibly challenging. It wasn’t about physicality anymore—I really had to lean into my mental strength to complete the climb.”
“Before this, my training and mindset were all about speed and sense of urgency. Our climbing guides gave us a mantra to meditate and focus on – “pole, pole” which in swahili means “slower than slow”. During this stretch, we had to go extremely slow in order to go far. Now, I go through life in such a different way. i am probably more focused on training my mind than training my body, spending time meditating and listening deeply”
Kaye continued, “It’s not brute force that sustains you over time. That is a short-term approach. The real solution to sustaining anything over time is mental; it takes more focused energy to ‘play the long game.’ I like to say that I live a big life in small increments, breaking down long term goals into small milestones that allow me to stay present and focused without being overwhelmed.”