I’m in the airport in Salt Lake City waiting for my flight to NSAA West. Regional shows are lighter on marketers attending and marketing content, but over the next 47 hours I’ll participate in a couple of sessions.

The first is about crisis communications. I’m moderating a panel that will discuss how to address hot issues and challenging circumstances like too much snow or dangerous driving conditions or parking frustrations or whatever.

The other is a panel about the perception of skiing out there in the world of non-skiers. The latter is the one that’s currently on my brain, and it reminds me of a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately:

“We like to say skiing is easy, but is it? We like to say skiing is safe, but is it? We like to say there’s nothing to be scared of, but is there?”

On the surface, yeah, skiing is easier than some things, but there’s something about somewhat difficult things that is inspiring. It’s motivating. It gets people to want to prove they can do it.

Humans don’t commit to running around the block twice, they commit to running marathons.

A Tweet
All of this thinking that, to be fair, I probably do too much of, reminds me of a tweet I saved recently that’s led to even more thinking as of late.

https://twitter.com/rach_wraith/status/1214982626110590976

Notice what Rachael says here. In the words of a non-marketer, non-industry person, she’s telling us that is indeed scary. It’s kinda hard.

But, that’s also why it was so awesome for her when it finally clicked.

The Message
We have trouble agreeing on much as a full industry, but just agree with me to consider something for a second.

That maybe, just maybe, there’s a place for admitting that skiing is kinda hard. Not impossible, not dangerous, not anxiety inducing, just something that takes some practice and a bit of grid. Something that takes some perseverance. And something that takes someONE who is awesome enough to try non-easy things and be above-average enough to succeed.

Folks usually don’t aspire to “so easy anyone can do it” things. But if it takes just enough self-belief?

Maybe that’d be different. Maybe.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.