Pursue Balance: Providing Leadership in Personal Transformation and Environmental Stewardship
Kit Deslauriers
In 2006 Kit became the first person to ski the 7 Summits (the highest point on each of the 7 continents) and the first woman to ski from the summit of Mt. Everest. While the 7 summits was a special project for Kit, her whole adult life has revolved around gathering the skills to make ski descents anywhere she chooses. This lifestyle choice means that her resume includes big mountain ski descents in Siberia, New Zealand, and Bolivia as well as being the 2004 and 2005 Women’s Freeskiing World Champion. Kit now lives at the base of the ski area in Jackson Hole and has been awarded titles by industry publications including Outside Magazine naming her to one of the top 25 athletes of the year in 2004 and Skiing Magazine calling her one of the top 11 skiers of the year in 2007.
Beyond the statistics of her ski career, lays the importance of the story behind Kit’s realization that she wanted to create the non-profit Pursue Balance. The most simple version of the story is that people want to know how Kit has been able to accomplish what she has and she would like to share that knowledge as she continues to explore it herself. Kit credits a strong connection to the earth as well as physical and spiritual pursuits for her success. A few years ago, a very special person came into Kit’s life and wanted to financially support her endeavors since professional ski mountaineering and freeskiing competitions are hardly lucrative. This concept of individual empowerment was the final piece of the puzzle that Kit needed to follow through with her 7 summits project.
The idea of Pursue Balance began to take shape in Kit’s mind during the summer of 2006 as a possible platform for creating a nonprofit with the goal of helping other people pursue their life in balance. The climax was in September 2006, during the trek to Everest Base Camp when Kit and her team met with a Buddhist lama to receive the customary blessing for Everest climbers and this Lama Geishe asked the rhetorical question of everyone in the room “Why do you wish to climb Chomolungma (Mt Everest)?” His answer to the group was, “You must have the kindness of other beings at the root of your reason for only then will you find continued success.” At this moment Kit realized that once completing the climb and ski, she would return home to create Pursue Balance.
