In October 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, carrying the Uruguayan rugby team, crashed into the Andes Mountains, leaving 16 people to survive for 72 days among the highest peaks of Argentina and Chile.  Nando Parrado was one of the survivors. After spending two months trapped in the mountains with the other crash survivors, he, along with Roberto Canessa, climbed through the Andes mountains over a 10 day period to find help. Below is what this experience taught Nando about leadership.  
I hope that my story helps you cope with adversity. In adversity, leaders often must take things one day at a time, keep hope alive, and make miracles of their own. 
This harrowing experience taught me to look forward, never backward, because I can’t modify the past. Many times I’ve asked myself why did I have to go through something so extreme? Why did I invite my mother and sister to go with me, only to die in the plane crash? I realized these questions will never be answered, no matter how hard I search for them. 
I learned that most of our lives will be dictated by our own decisions and actions. I followed my heart and intuition when I was faced with the most horrible and hard circumstances I could imagine, and I still do that every day. 
This experience taught me much about leadership. The teamwork that occurred in an extreme survival environment showed me that there’s a different type of leadership. Leaders emerged because of their actions and work, not because they were appointed leadership positions. They were compassionate, and the collaboration grew to levels where we were giving our lives for one another. I have tried to be the same type leader with my companies, and it has worked. I give people my best, and they give me their best. My people are my companies, not the other way around. 
In 2001/02, we went through a hard economic crisis. This crisis directly impacted my business. The situation was so overwhelming that we didn’t know what to do, except that we had to do something. We started by cutting corners. I cut out all of the insurance on the company’s assets. If we were broke, what was the importance of insurance? At one point, we even stopped buying office supplies. I also renegotiated salaries with all of my staff and employees. We took it step by step, not knowing if we would survive. Thankfully, we were staying active. Many companies that were paralyzed by the economy did not survive. 

When I was faced with this business crisis, I asked myself: How much would I have given 30 years ago to be in a situation where I was refinancing with banks, negotiating new employee salaries, and making incredibly fast decisions that could make me go broke? 
During that time, I would have signed any paper given to me by the devil to be alive and have to go through a bad business storm, instead of being condemned to die a most horrible death. These were business decisions, whereas in the mountains, all of the answers were measured in terms of my own life or death. To make decisions where the outcome would only relate to business gave me perspective. And then I just took it one day at a time. Three years after this huge business crisis, I was in the black again. 
In business, I like to think I deal with issues, not adversity. Sometimes things do not go in the direction that I want them to go. Yet, I keep moving on regardless. I do not see failing as being unsuccessful. When adversity comes, I look at the situation and determine the best course of action. I try to sail through the storm, always going forward--one step at a time. I think the essential thing is to not stop, but to always move forward. 
I’ve redefined the meaning of the word impossible. For me, the only insurmountable thing is death. All other things can be dealt with. You can go around them, change them, leave them, push them, change directions, change jobs. You always have options. 
If you face any insurmountable odds in a financial crisis, business crisis, relationship crisis, health crisis, you can dive inside yourself and search for your own version of a miracle.       
Nando Parrado is author of Miracle in the Andes. Visit www.parrado.com.