Goal Strategist.
CEOs, Boards, and Athletes work with Adam to achieve their difficult and audacious goals.
Download The Heartbeat Adam's signature framework for building elite teams and a culture of accountability.
Trusted By
“Before engaging Adam, we were stuck and spinning. His approach allowed us to create a transformational opportunity for the company."
— Brian Solano, CEO and Board Member
"What sets Adam apart is his skill in sparking creativity, leading to fresh ideas and solutions that I hadn't considered before."
— Andreas Deptolla, Chief Technology Officer at Atari
About Adam
Have Fun. Try Hard. Do Big Things.
Adam Stack is a former professional rock climber who summited some of the world’s most difficult mountains and managed to stay alive.
After climbing, he led growth at two startups that each surpassed one million users before successful acquisitions.
Curious why some ambitious goals succeed while most fail, Adam spent five years conducting The Great Project Study, examining 298 of the world’s most audacious goals.
From that research emerged a set of simple tools and frameworks he uses to help teams achieve difficult goals.
Today, ambitious CEOs, boards, and athletes engage Adam to apply those lessons to their goals.
For Adam, life is simply better when you are working toward a difficult goal.
The Research
298 of the world’s most audacious goals. Most failed. A few succeeded. What did the the few differently?
From that study emerged three profoundly simple questions I use to prepare teams for difficult goals.
Is the goal based on understating or do you have a Wishful Hairy Audacious Guess (WHAG)?
1.
2.
Who owns each part of the map and where are the gaps?
3.
Do you have a culture that rises to the goal and rejects the tyranny of shrinking goals to fit?
“Adam subscribes to the philosophy that you pick a big goal and structure your life to make it happen. At this, Stack is relentless.”
— Chris Weidner, Sports Commentator and Journalist
The Climbs
I'm no longer at the peak of the climbing world — it's not an old man's game. I wish it was, but it's not. So it goes. I still use climbing as a laboratory for testing new goal frameworks because nothing clarifies your thinking like exposure.
The Grand Teton Traverse, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 17 hours — Partner: Tommy Caldwell
Cirque of the Towers, Wind River, Wyoming, 16 hours — Partner: Tim Kemple 
El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite, California 20 hours — Partner: Tommy Caldwell
Special Thanks
Everyone working on big goal needs a friend who sets a high bar to shoot for.
Special thanks to Jim Collins, my climbing partner and author of Good to Great. When lost in my mountain of research, his choice words and questions helped me see clearly.