I watched Society of the Snow and couldn't stop thinking about it.
It's the true story of the 1972 Uruguayan plane crash in the Andes. A rugby team, their friends and family, stranded on a glacier for 72 days. Freezing cold. Almost no food. No rescue coming.
It's not an easy watch. But it's an important one. Here's what stuck with me.
They never gave up
These weren't superheroes. No special training. No survival skills. Just regular people dropped into the worst situation imaginable.
And they refused to quit.
Every day they had every reason to stop. They kept going anyway. Two of them eventually climbed out of the mountains on foot to find help.
It made me think about my own problems. A bad month. A lost client. A deal that falls through. How often do we call something "impossible" when it's really just hard? Next to what they went through, most of our challenges are small. Keep going.
- A bad month
- A lost client
- A deal that falls through
- 72 days on a glacier
- Freezing cold
- Almost no food
- No rescue coming
Survival forces hard choices
The film doesn't romanticize any of it. It shows the brutal decisions the survivors had to make just to stay alive.
When survival is on the line, right and wrong stop being simple.
It's uncomfortable to watch. It made me ask myself a real question: how far would I go to protect the people I care about? I don't think any of us really know until we're there. What I do know is that pressure shows you who you are. Not who you think you are.
The fittest aren't the strongest
"Survival of the fittest" wasn't a theory on that mountain. It was daily life.
But here's the thing. The ones who made it weren't necessarily the strongest. They were the ones who adapted. Who made the tough calls when they had to. Who worked together instead of falling apart.
That's true in business too. The strongest company doesn't always win. The one that adapts fastest does.
So what do I take from it?
Life will throw things at you that you can't plan for. You won't have all the answers.
But you can face it head-on. You can refuse to quit. You can make the hard call when it needs making. And you can adapt instead of breaking.
Watch the film. Then ask yourself: what are you giving up on too early?