Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 270 - 7 Jumps, 7 Continents, 7 Lessons for Business and Life

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

The 777 Expedition was an amazing journey, with 7 successful jumps on 7 continents in just over 6 days! For the members of the team, the impact was immediate and powerful.   After being home for just over a week and finally having some time to think and process, I realized there were very powerful lessons to learn or reinforce from each continent. These lessons can apply to everyone, in both their personal and professional lives.   Antarctica - Chile - Miami - Barcelona - Cairo - UAE - Australia

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome back. Hope you're ready for episode number 270. But before that, what brand makes these episodes possible? That's right, Black Riffel Coffee. Now, I'm on their website right now, and there's some time-sensitive things that you might be interested in. The first one, it's in their rotating banner, is the coat of the West. What is that?

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day that I get to be involved with, go to black rifle coffee.com and go to town. Now, for the episode today, if you listen to Friday's episode, I gave you a little teaser as to what's coming. This episode is for me an ability to kind of come to a close on the Triple Seven Expedition. and pass forward or pass along some lessons learned that I either discovered on the journey or had reinforced. And how about we just get into it? Here we go. Episode number 270, the triple seven, seven continents, seven jumps, seven lessons learned. Here we go. What's going on, everybody? Like I said in the intro, like I said last Friday, today's episode is going to be a little bit

different. And I actually personally kind of need it to be a little bit because I want to be able to put a nice bow on the expedition that we just finished, the triple seven, as we were calling it, even though it ended up being seven jumps, seven continents in six days, which is not really a good way to say double seven plus a six, but I digress. It was really impactful for me in a variety of ways. Emotionally, for one, I talked about that on one of the episodes when I was still on the road and that was quite surprising for me but I thought about this while we were on the trip and I've thought about it since and had conversations with people who were on the trip as well doing something that is impactful for me is great and I recommend that everybody go out

and search for and do things that are impactful for them but it's really limited in the size and scope and scale if it only impacts you and I look back at what we were able to accomplish and what it took to accomplish those things. And it really solidified for me lessons learned along the way. And I realized as I was kind of thinking back about the journey, there was a very specific, or actually multiple, but one that would kind of come to the top of the pile, lesson learned that you could apply in your personal life or your business life

for every single one of the continents. And it will allow me to kind of talk through the continent, talk through potential situations that either occurred or could have occurred our decision-making process, how we thought through issues that came up and how we worked through them to execute as a team and overall, and in the end, accomplished exactly what we had set out to accomplish and pass those along. And my hope is that whether you are early in your business career, maybe you're not even in business right now.

Maybe you're just an employee, but you're thinking about yourself or in the future or even just your headspace as a leader, as a member of a family in a relationship. The seven points that I'll bring up, and there's going to be more than seven, because a couple continents, they dovetail into each other quite nicely or multiple things like sub lessons learned, that it'll help you. Because if it can help somebody else, it allows me to, like I said, put a bow on it for myself, but then continue to pass those lessons on for it. Because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. You know, Mike and I started a company called Legacy Expeditions. Legacy is not about me and it's not about Mike and it's not about the people that we do these things with. It's about memorializing and remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice, so we have the ability to do that.

But our job is to pass their story along. Just like it's our job, I see it personally, to pass these lessons along so that these things that we do can become something bigger than just ourselves. And I think that makes sense, very long-winded intro into a small point that I was trying to make. But let's get into this. Let's talk about the seven continents where we did seven jumps. and at a minimum seven lessons that I learned along the way. And I have my notebook out here in front of me, so I'll be referencing that a little bit.

But let's kick it off with Antarctica. And this is actually good because it'll give me a chance to discuss why we chose the route that we did. Because there was a variety of routes that we took a look at. And we ended up going, all of them were starting in Antarctica for one simple reason. The weather is extremely hard to predict. It is the most volatile. I think it will have the most swings from great jumping weather to really. poor like you're fighting for survival weather. Visibility wins, all of it. And it's also

extremely difficult to get to. For us to actually get to Antarctica, we flew to Punta Arranias, which is at the very, well, not the very, but very far south in South America. You can go farther than that. And some people, maybe if you're in the overlanding world or the motorbiking world, you may have heard of Tierra del Fuego. It's when people go like ride to the southernmost tip. Not very far from that as well. But then you have to actually get from there. You have to get there first, which for me was a callousel to Dallas, Dallas to Santiago, to Punta, Arranias.

Of course, there was a delay in there due to the holiday weather because I left, I think, on the 28th or 29th of December. It was a true shit show, if you will. So challenging to get to where you would even launch from, and then once you get to Antarctica or even getting there, we landed on a blue ice runway just outside of the Union Glacier camp, which is running. by ALE, Antarctic, Logistics and Expeditions. Fantastic organization. And what was it, two Mondays ago? No, it was last Monday.

I had Mike McDowell on, one of the partners. Fantastic episode. My God, he's one of the most interesting men I've ever met, so you can go back and look at that. Point in saying all of that is, it was the long pole in the tent when it was going to come to complexity and difficulty and variability with weather.

So we had to start there. But in that planning process, knowing that it was going to potentially shift, we booked all of our remaining tickets and travel based on an estimate of when we were going to leave Antarctica. And we knew very well that if we got pushed days beyond our initial estimate, the cascading effects from that could be incredible. So we had a full team in place behind the scenes. We had a direct contact at American Airlines, which is the airline and the airline

network that we used to fly all over the world. And thankfully, and luckily, and then that's exactly the correct term for it. Luckily, we didn't have to use any of those things because we actually left on the exact day that we planned. We were able to keep our flights. However, if that had not been the case, the people behind the scenes would have been putting out fires with fly swatters. They would have been turning and burning the candle at both ends to try to put things together. And I'm really glad that they didn't have to do that. and I'm very fortunate that we were able to execute as planned, but we didn't know.

And that's why we started with Antarctica. Now, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and I thought going into the trip that it was going to be the most memorable jump for me, it certainly was the most difficult jump to access that I've ever done as far as location, and the visuals were stunning. There was a mountain range just outside of the door of the aircraft as we exited. We were basically in free fall right over the top of the camp we were staying at. you could see Mount Vincent just a sea of white and it was amazing but I tell you what when I get to the Cairo jump and talk about that I'm sorry Antarctica you got a little bit

outdone by Cairo the visuals were just a little bit better but it was the most difficult jump that I've ever actually had to put the work in to get to and as far as things that I was planning for and the lesson that I took from Antarctica there's two of them here The first one, and I know everybody has heard this, but I think it's good to reinforce it, is it's better to have something and not need it than need something and not have it. I took a massive Osio roller bag that was completely full of about three different systems and probably eight different potential layers of equipment, specifically just for the skydive. I wasn't even worried about hanging out at the Union Glacier Camp or going out on the daily expeditions. I was totally and utterly consumed with trying to figure out what I would need to wear for this skydye portion itself. And the reports that we were getting was anywhere up to negative 50 at altitude.

You have to add wind chill to that all the way down. We had looked at gloves. There were a variety of gloves that I had taken all the way up to a heated glove, an electrically heated glove, which is what I ended up using. But the point of all this, you know, because it had so many variables or because it could have had so many variables, I had to plan for worst case scenario. And I think from a planning perspective, if you leave that out of your planning process, you're setting yourself up for failure.

I'm not saying all of your plans have to be catastrophic in their scope. But if you're not looking at the extremes at least a little bit in planning for that and developing contingencies for that, there is a higher likelihood that you could bump up against it and potentially fail. Now, we didn't have that happen, but I tell you what, it was great to have all of that gear. And it was also a little bit of a pain in the ass because we had to lug that gear all the way to Antarctica and we weren't able to shed it until we got to Florida. And we were able to pass it off to some of the support staff that was working with us. Up until that point, it was an utter pain in the ass. But I can only imagine if the weather has,

had been different and I had needed those things that I didn't end up using and I didn't have them. So look at your planning and even if it's a little bit of extra work and it's something that sits in the corner that you don't use, you're going to be so much better off than having something turned towards catastrophic and trying to put together a solution, a Band-Aid solution on the fly and not having the tools that you need. So just put that in your back pocket. with that and this ties into having the gear that we took with us if you're ever given the opportunity to take a practice rep on whatever it is that you're about to do give a speech a business pitch uh fuck make a sandwich for somebody whatever it may be take the practice rep and when you practice that rep make sure that you are using everything that you are going to use on game day right i played water polo and baseball when I was growing up.

And it would make no sense to bring my waterpullo gear up to baseball practice and try to use it playing baseball. Nor would it make any sense to bring my baseball gear to the pool and try to swim around in a set of metal cleats with my catchers gear on. Like that just wouldn't make any sense. All of the gear that I took with me to Antarctica I had jumped with in some shape or form. So I was familiar with the benefit that it could bring to me, but also with the limitations that may come from it. And I'm going to talk really broadly about this and be as polite as I can. another group of jumpers that was with us in Antarctica. And I will say this before I say anything else. I'm not the end-all be-all authority when it comes to jumping. I've been jumping for over

two decades at this point. I have my own opinion about things. I'm definitely no better than an average jumper over that time. I haven't been consistently like just cranking it every single year. I have some experience that other jumpers may not have based on the military side of the house, but I'm not an overall authority. In my opinion, though, what I witnessed happened there, was an extremely close call, and I will leave it at that. That close call, though, was directly tied to equipment being brought into an equation that had never been practiced with before. So we got the chance when we got there, I think it was the day after we got to Antarctica. There was a weather window that was beautiful, and we took that opportunity to go do a practice

jump. And if we needed to, that could have started the timer force on the record attempt, which would have been fine, because the previous record before the one that we just said, I think it was just over seven months. So it's not like it was going to matter if it was 11 days. But we all took, and all of us had jumped with this gear before, but we all put on everything that we thought that we were going to need. And we jumped it. And I tell you what, almost everybody on the ground was like, holy shit.

I was overdressed. I was sweating. Myself personally, I kept the same gloves on the outside, but shed two layers on the inside. Because I'm sitting on an aircraft thinking I was going to be freezing to death on the way up. And the way that they had loaded it, We were actually a little bit farther away from the door. So I was getting less of that wind coming into the aircraft, chilling me.

And I was sweating at altitude, which is just not awesome in an Arctic environment. So we took an opportunity to test run all of our gear before actual game day. And any time you are given the opportunity to do that, do it in your personal and professional life. And if you're prepping for something, and let's say it's going to require you to wear gloves. And you live in an environment where you don't need to wear. wear gloves, but you know you're training for something that we're going to call game day that will require that. Put the gloves on in your training process so that the day of you're not introducing a new piece of gear and finding yourself in a situation where you're going to have a close call

that might take your life. So better to have and not need than to need and not have and always take practice reps in your full complete load out before you go out the door and you try to do something that is going to be pushing you right up to the limits or your threshold of what you are capable of doing. That's the lessons that I learned from Antarctica. Now from Antarctica, the travel, once we left Antarctica, we were largely, and I'll talk about when we, the one flight where this didn't happen, we were based off of the civilian flight schedule. So we got back to Punta Rainius, and I think we had about four hours just kind of sitting there in the airport and a couple of us repacked parachutes in the terminal because we, you know, to go back to

Antarctica again and about being lucky. The day that our flight was scheduled to leave Antarctica, we had a beautiful weather window. And we had established a great rapport with Mike and his staff at ALE. And I cannot thank them enough for them bending over backwards and allowing us to push the jump that we did that officially started our clock until like the last minute before we went out and got on the 757 at the Blue Ice Runway. It was phenomenal. They didn't have to do that, and they did it because they knew that the impact and important it would have for us, and I just can't thank them enough.

So we get to Punterranias, and we're back on a civilian flight schedule, and we go Punta Aranias to Santiago, and then we drive to the DZ in Chile. And for the life of me sitting here right now, I can't remember the name of it, but it was, what a spectacular place. They housed us, they fed us. They had food ready to go in the morning, because most of us had been up. all night. It was awesome. You know, rigging staff ready to go. They had packers for the people who needed the packers. And we were able to knock out a jump. They made us one of the best

barbecues that I've ever had. And the lesson that I'll talk about in this one, and everything went correct at Chile. So this is more of a decision that we had along the way because we had two options. The original plan is that we were going to go from the airport and the drive was about an hour. It was between an hour and an hour and a half, probably closer to the hour side. And our plan was originally, we were going to spend the entire day at the DZ because they had a bunk room there. We knew that they were going to feed us. And that's not a bad plan. But what we realized on the ground, after some people had passed through Santiago, is that there was actually a holiday in hotel that is walking distance from the domestic terminal and the international terminal. And when I say

holiday in, it's not like a holiday in in the U.S. This was a ridiculous hotel. that had like very good food and the rooms were spectacular. It was like, honestly, it was more like a high-end Marriott. But we realized that there was an opportunity for us to get guys some rest. We were obviously still at the very beginning of the journey, but we had gone and flown overnight, arrived very early in the morning, had lugged all of these bags that we had from Antarctica.

We had to go from the luggage area into a van that took us to another van. So we were offloading and onloading. gear it was a shit show and our group had been split up on a flight so a second portion of the group showed up like an hour later and again the initial plan we were just going to go spend the day at the dz the other option that presented itself we realized is that we could go do the jump at the dz and then get back to the airport and get guys some rest at the hotel and the lesson learned here and the important thing here is when it comes to your planning process and your execution sack every odd in your favor possible now again santiago and chili it went off without a hitch we encountered

no issues whatsoever so probably both of those could have worked but what i was thinking in the back of my mind was this say we dedicate ourselves to going to the drop zone and spending our time there and we leave with you know a commensurate amount of time to get back to the airport before our international flight because our next flight was going to be santiago to miami florida what do we do if the large sprinter van, I think it was a sprinter van, it may not have been, that all of our gear and all of our people are in has a mechanical issue at the drop zone for sitting there all day long. I mean, I am a moron, and I have definitely let the light, left the lights on on vehicles. I have drained the batteries in vehicles before. And if I'm capable of doing it, I assume that

most other people are as well. So what the hell would we do if we actually got there and all of a sudden there was a mechanical issue with the vehicle? What if we get there and there's like some catastrophic wreck on the road back from the drop zone to Santiago. And we're sitting in traffic that can't be cleared for hours as we miss our international flight. And again, what are the odds of that happening? I'd say super low. And this touches a little bit on, you know, circle of influence versus circle of concern.

I can be concerned about those things happening. I can't control them. But what I can control is whether or not I'm even going to play in that world. And the decision we made was instead of. staying at the drop zone, even though the odds of those things happening were infinitesimely small, I would say, we could reduce them to zero, or I should say a better description would be is we could reduce the impact of either of those things happening to zero by once we executed the jump and having one of the best barbecues that I've ever had in my life, we went right back to the airport

because from there, regardless of what had happened, the only thing that could hold us up at this point would be a mechanical issue from an airplane because we literally walked with all of our luggage over to the international terminal. So in your planning process, stack all of the odds in your favor that you can. Sometimes you'll be able to control things like this and other times you can't. But if you can control it and if you can take the odds or the impact of something to zero, then do it, regardless of how small that odd is. And what ended up happening is, you know, the bunk room was very nice at the drop zone,

but the hotel room at holiday was a way better. So what we ended up happening is people were better fed. They had better rest. And we were all together as a team. We met up and walked across into the international terminal. And boom, we were off on our way to Miami. And that was the biggest lesson, even though nothing happened that was wrong. And we probably would have been successful either way.

From a planning perspective, we put more of our odds in our favor by focusing on. what we could influence versus what we would be concerned about. And I think that's important for everybody to remember. All right. So we go from there. We overnight flight to Miami. And we landed in Miami. I don't even know what time it was.

The sun was up. It was just coming up. So it was early in the morning. My main goal at that time was getting some caffeine, as I think most people on the team felt the same way. And then our phones just kind of started exploding with the notice that the FAA Notam system had just crashed. You know, perfect timing.

why would it not be like that as the middle, we were on our third stop of a seven-stop expedition. And what ended up happening from that is what I consider to be the strength of the special operations community. And that is contingency planning at its finest. So we kind of split up and when we got to the airport,

because we had multiple vehicles and we still at this point had an ungodly amount of gear because I'm still hiking through airports with my Osjo bag full of like 17 layers of down and helmets and goggles like holy shit i just want to get rid of this thing so we get into different vehicles and we go up to cluiston uh i believe it was skydive space space land up in cluiston and we all get there and there were some donors there there there was people there from uh folds of honor there was a couple people who had heard that we were going to be in the area i think

i had made some social posts so they were there as well to kind of just say hi and and support and that was amazing and while we were there actually i take that back while we were driving. I was driving in a van. I don't think I was co-located with Mike at the time. I got an email from American Airlines saying that your flight to Cairo has been canceled. So the no-tail-system system being down was one thing. Our flights being canceled was another. So we get there and one, we still got to knock out the jump and we know that we're going to do that. That was the very easy portion of that. But when I say contingency planning at its finest, what I mean is, is we got people together and we started looking for viable solutions. And in this particular situation, you know, what we needed was was air travel. And it was,

is there any way to do this commercially? And the answer to that seemed to be no. Is there any way to do this privately? And the answer to that was, well, we don't know. So what did we do? We reached out to our network of people that could interface into that world or had experience into that world. And at this place like Glenn, you know, our Canadian leader, he knew the right people. And he was able to to the right people and start to get some of the answers. Now, this should not come as a shock to anybody, but there is a hefty, hefty price tag associated with flying private. And I did fly private for a while as a pilot up front, which was fun.

But the beauty of that was I never had to stroke the check for the people that were riding in the back. I was basically flying on their dime. So it was very interesting to be on the other side of this and have this conversation. The beauty of this, though, is that we were very rapidly. able to determine, yes, it was possible. What was the cost going to be? And then the question from that became, how could we aggregate this cost and afford this?

And in that moment, people started stepping forward, whether it be business connections or individuals on site on the team and basically agreeing to paying X portion, like, hey, I'm in for this much or, you know, this person is in for that much. And we were rapidly within a matter of under five minutes. I actually think it was under two minutes. We were able to allocate that amount of money for the flight and execute on actually locking the aircraft in, which is a pretty long process. And we were doing this last minute. So for people who have never flown private, it's not like private jets are just sitting around waiting.

They have a crew that's dedicated to them. You're going to have to allocate the crew. First off, you're going to have to notify through a charter company. Hey, is there even a crew available for this particular aircraft? Okay, yes. Can they make it? Can they do this trip? And there's a lot of mechanics behind the scenes that have to happen.

But we were able to make this decision quick enough that it gave that system and mechanism time to slowly spin into place. So by the time that we were done with the jump that went off without a hitch, I will say it was one of the less scenic jumps that we had done. It's just very flat up there. I mean, I love you, Florida. I love the fact that you guys ride around in motorcycles with your helmets like strapped to the back of the bike and flip-flops. Like, I get it, live your life. but that particular jump as far as the remaining six was the least scenic. And I don't know if I should apologize for that or just be honest about it.

So I'm sorry that I'm being honest. There you go. I cover both bases. Jump was great. While we were prepping for the jump after this decision had been made, that mechanism was taking its time to get into place. And the lesson learned from this comes from a conversation we had right before we went up and jumped. And this was when we got the notification.

that we had been rebooked on American Airlines, but it wasn't direct to Cairo like it was going to be from Miami. First, we were going to go through JFK, and then I believe we had a second stop along the way. The lesson from this is this. At some point, you have to make a decision and you have to execute. Paralysis by analysis is an absolute thing. And if we had been paralyzed for hours,

trying to go back and forth on whether or not they know that, is the juice worth to squeeze on being able to do this? we actually going to be able to come up with the money. We could have absolutely been paralyzed in that decision-making process for long enough that we wouldn't even been able to source a private solution. And sometimes after you make an interim decision, other options will start presenting themselves. And you have to be able to determine whether or not those other options are actually valuable enough to change your plan.

because at some point, and again, this is the underlying lesson that I have in front of me, you have to make a decision and you have to execute. We had made a decision that we were going to execute on the private aircraft for that one particular leg, which is all that we did. Every other flight that we did was an economy class seat. And I got a lot of pictures of Glenn with his knees up against the seat in front of him. It was awesome for me to see and probably shitty for him to be in that seat. But we get the notification.

Hey, you guys have been rebooked. And at first glance, that may seem like, okay, cool, what we need to do is we need to turn off this private flight because we're going to save all of this cost and we're still going to be able to execute on our goals. But the reality is, is if you took a look at what that journey would have entailed, it would have interrupted everything else in our planning process because we actually wouldn't have gotten to Barcelona until two hours later. Because guess what? When the FAA system goes down and all aircraft are grounded for hours, just because they turn it back on and rebook you doesn't mean that that system is going to be running smoothly. And by system, I no longer mean no-TAM system. I mean the airport system. Because we had to send two guys back.

There was no room on the jet for them. So we were going to send two guys to execute that travel that American Airlines had rebooked us on. And what ended up happening? One, there was about a five-hour line at the airport. so they missed that initial flight that we had been rebooked for and two they got delayed on the way there we ended up meeting them in cairo that's the next time that we saw them and if we had taken that decision because it looked at the surface level okay maybe this is a good thing to do even though we had already decided on a course of action if we had waffled and gone with the other one we would

have failed in the goal that we set for ourselves so as a leader or as somebody who isn't a decision-making point you have to at some point in time make a decision and then execute. I'm not saying you ignore other opportunities that come to you after you have made that decision. But if they do not create a substantially greater value proposition, don't lose your focus and don't lose track of what it is that you're trying to do because they can actually suck, you know, success right out of your grasp by, you know, looking at something and not giving

it the time to actually assess the, you know, the pros versus. cons of that deviating from that better decision and execution that you've already taken movement on and you actually end up taking a step backwards as opposed to a step forward. So paralysis by analysis is a very real thing. At some point, you have to make a decision and then you have to execute on that decision. So we continue on from Miami to Barcelona. It's most delicious Montana tap water ever. Barcelona. I am going to underline or what I have underline in the lesson here is risk versus reward.

And there are two bullet points underneath this. The bullet point number one is this. No plan is ever going to be 100% perfect. And the second bullet point is this. No plan will ever be without risk. The question actually is, can you tolerate the risk? So Barcelona was wild. Like I said, I've had the opportunity to fly internationally as a pilot on a private aircraft. So I was very familiar with what it was going to be like once we got on the bird, took off and landed, especially clearing customs in foreign countries. If you've never cleared customs in foreign countries, actually even in the U.S., for that matter, it can be a line of people that can be measured in hundreds of meters long, if not miles. The private world is a very different world. So we pulled up into a terminal in Barcelona that was away from the main terminal, and I think it took all 12 of us that were on board a minute to clear customs because there's a dedicated customs officer at the FBO or fixed-based operation.

There was a bus waiting for us there because we had pre-coordinated with the drop zone that we were going to. We got our gear. We got off. And we get to Barcelona. Very easy drive. I mean, we're just sitting in the back of the bus, kind of getting gear ready. and we get there, we get our, we walk up, we get our DZ brief, we get geared up, we're getting ready to go, and cloud cover rolled in. And by cloud cover, I mean cloud cover. It was very difficult

to see up and it was very difficult to see down. Now, in the U.S., and in many other countries, they would prohibit you from exiting an aircraft into cloud cover. Well, you know what? We weren't in the U.S. and we weren't in a country that had a rule against that. And actually where we were, we had the ability if we chose to to exit on a GPS spot from the pilot. Now, for people who only jumped in the U.S. or have never experienced this type of an exit into, I mean, we used to do GPS spots all the time in the military. It's not like you're sitting on the back of a ramp overseas, like doing a terrain study under night. Vision Gog was like, oh, here's the valley we're trying to go into. No, you're tracking yourself on a map. You get to a

a GPS plot and you go when the light turns green or however you have it structured. So it's not like it's unheard of, but it's uncommon for most people who have jumped in the U.S. And that's okay because we weren't in the U.S. Now, the second bullet point of risk versus reward. No plan will ever be without risk. It's whether or not you can tolerate it. What can you do to reduce risk? Well, you can do things like we did leading up to this expedition.

We had two one week long training camps. where we went through a variety of scenarios. One, it was a currency exercise to get people more jumps, a competency exercise to increase their level of skill, the level and depth of their skill. We did exits from a lower altitude. We did group exits. We did individual exits.

And my point of bringing all that up is the prep work that you do before you launch on something like this is what is going to determine your success or failure, in my opinion, and in my experience. So what we had in our back pocket in this situation was the knowledge that we had to some degree already trained for this type of jumping experience. We had talked very specifically about jumping an ATAC system and just go on to Google if you want to know what that is. I'm not going to break it down here. Broadly, it's a navigational system that you can use.

We had talked about jumping with ATAC. I know that we had GPSs for each individual. And we also had the level of currency and competency. So we sat down and we talked to all of the jumpers. Hey guys, this is what we're going to be able to do. It was a porter aircraft and we were able to get everybody in the bird, probably the tightest fit I've ever been in when it comes to a bird for takeoff and then also exit. I basically just like wiggled myself out the door.

I was the first one to go out. But everybody had a level of comfort with what we were going to be able to do and need to do to accomplish this particular mission at this particular jump site. I covered a little bit of stuff as far as entering clouds and things that you can do to hold your position and reduce the risk of encountering other jumpers under canopy. We also talked on the flight up to altitude. Here's the base of the clouds. Here's the top of the clouds.

Here's how long you could expect to be into the clouds. And we made sure that everybody had a level of comfort. We spaced out the jumpers as well to make sure that we were putting more of the things that we could control the odds into our favor. But we hadn't planned on any of that when it came to the jump at Barcelona. But like I said at the beginning, risk versus reward. What was the first bullet point? No plan is ever going to be 100% perfect.

And it's not about reducing all of the risk. It's about determining, analyzing, assessing, and then putting in mitigating controls, like, you know, spreading out the experience of the jumpers, doing a much more robust brief when it comes to the DZ and talking a lot more about the other. areas you can land if when you pass through the cloud, you don't see the actual drop zone itself. So you put in, you know, control measures and then can you tolerate what is left? You will go right back up to my previous bullet point from Miami if you don't realize those two bullet points, that your plan will never be 100% perfect and you can never reduce risk to zero. What you'll end up with is paralysis by analysis.

So what the bullet point for me in Barcelona comes down to is risk versus reward. is the risk that we are going to take. And for me, the risk in Barcelona, I considered it to be zero. I'm not worried about my ability to jump in an environment like that. I spend my time concerned about the other people

that I am on the trip with who have less jump experience. So it's more about others. You know, what can I do to reduce the risk for others? And let's make sure that we do all of those things. Okay, I've done everything I can. And we sat as a group.

Hey, this is what we're trying to accomplish. Oh, and oh, by the way, Barcelona was the drop zone, even from a planning phase where we were going to have the least amount of time available to sit on the ground. So it wasn't a matter of us sitting there and saying, hey, we can wait for three hours and wait for this low cloud layer to clear because if we had done that, we would have missed our flight to Cairo. So instead, we sat down. We knew that there was risk. We analyzed the risk. We balanced it against the reward and the reward scale was higher.

So we executed, changed our brief up, changed our jump profile up. We fell back to the training that we had done before, which, again, not to beat a dead horse, but this is important. It's the things that you do before that are going to determine your success on target or in real life. We fell back onto those things. We rebief those things. We got in the aircraft. We executed. Was it perfect?

No. It wasn't perfect. Did anybody get hurt? Absolutely not. Was everybody safe? Yes. absolutely. Was it a bespoke jumping experience for those who had less experience? Yes, it absolutely was. Would it have been illegal in the United States? I have no idea. Would the USPA have been upset with us?

They probably would have. But what does the U.S. stand for in U.S.PA again? United States. And that's not where we were. So risk versus reward is the lesson that I left, Barcelona. From Barcelona, we went to Cairo. And so along the way, in the prep and training process for all this, the lead up for the last. last 18 months. We've been introduced some amazing people who wanted to do nothing but help. And there was a small crew of guys that used to do weather modeling for the TF160th. And they hopped on board and were providing us fantastic weather modeling for the entire trip. And once we got out of Antarctica, the Barcelona weather, you know, again, a model versus what what looks like on the ground can be different things. Barcelona weather did never seem to be that troubling from a briefing

perspective, but Cairo, there was a window there, it was like, son of a bitch, we're going to get cloud cover at Cairo probably during the exact time that you guys are going to be wanting to jump. Now, the beauty of Cairo is we would have had a little bit of time to wait because our flights, yeah, we went overnight to UAE from there. But my bullet point for Cairo before I get into the jump there is this. The truth on the ground trumps all predictions and models. So we were getting modeling updates from the people supporting us with the weather models. And again, it was fantastic. But predictions and models are not always what you're going to see when you pick your hat outside and actually survey the terrain or the weather or the sky above you in real life. And that's so true in the business world as well, or even in personal goals that I've had. Okay, here's the model. Here's what I'm going to do.

and these are the things that I'm going to do and this is what's going to happen. And then you look outside or you try to execute your plan and you're like, shit, my model doesn't work. And that's why the truth on the ground has to trump predictions and models. Do not try to force the real world to adapt to your plan is what I'm trying to say. You need to develop a plan that's reactive to the real world. You just can't, the real world's not in your control, but your plan is. So develop a flexible and malleable plan. spend a lot of your time looking at contingencies.

So we were getting the modeling for the weather in Cairo, but we also had great points of contact on the ground, and we were bouncing them off of each other. The most Egyptian name ever. Our point of contact was named Mustafa. I loved it. It's like, fuck yeah. Of course we have a dude named Mustafa.

I love this. What was he saying? He's like, hey, guys, the weather's going to be okay. And this is the time I think that we're going to need to get the aircraft there, and this is going to be the perfect time for you guys to jump. and we bounced the two and then the day of we had the opportunity to peek our head outside and guess what happened beautiful weather and we executed on the plan from Mustafa regardless of what the modeling had said on the weather and the modeling in this case on the weather was far less severe than the realities if we had waited

i don't know what necessarily could have or would have happened but by listening to the individual that had the beta on the ground, we were able to execute our plan as briefed and not be overly concerned with a potential or a model. Now, let's say that the modeling had said the weather was going to be great, and we had peeked our head outside, and it was the exact opposite. Or in the lead-up to this, you know,

the modeling say it's going to be great, and the locals on the ground are like, listen, man, these are localized weather systems. We've seen this time and time again, and this is what it's going to end up looking like. Well, then we could have changed. changed our plan. And in that situation, I probably would have gone with the local guidance, especially if you could sit there and they know the localized weather patterns. Models are

great, right? But I can't force the real world to do anything. The only thing that I can do is shape and manipulate my plan around what the real world throws into me. And that was a lesson that comes from Cairo. And this is, again, a perfect lesson for both business and your personal life. Planning is amazing. Hypothesizing is amazing. But don't confuse what you want to happen with what actually is happening. Make decisions on the most accurate information you have. And if you have a model or you have on the ground truth, you have to go with the on the ground truth, regardless of it's your plan or you're the one who made the model. And that's, and that's the risk. People who make robust plans and they make these models, they are, I guess the best word would be bias.

And they don't necessarily need to be or want to be biased. But because they had such a heavy hand in the development of it, you wanted to be correct. You're like, oh, this is my plan. This is the way I wanted to go. And that's a recipe for disaster when the real world says, no, that's not the way that's going to be. And it's cool that you put all that time and planning in. But here's the reality on the ground. And if you try to force this plan into the real world or try to make the real world do

your plan is saying then stand by i've seen this happen and fail catastrophically in both my personal and professional life the truth on the ground trumps all predictions and models and that was my biggest takeaway from cairo now the jump itself holy shit that picture where uh the four people jumping it is uh fred williams glen kowen mike shrelli and myself the juan and in right now i'm sorry i'm blanking on your last name he jumped out with us and was able to line up all three of the pyramids inside of the negative space in between our bodies. Like that, that picture is like an all-time picture.

That sucker's getting framed and put up at the house for sure or somewhere, maybe stuck in the corner. I don't know. But that was the coolest jump that I've ever done in 24 years of jumping. I didn't think it was going to be. It didn't, you know, the takeoff. It was a caravan, a very common skydiving aircraft. So it was like a common plane to get into,

not that extraordinary climbed altitude. Pretty weird seeing pyramids off on the horizon. But like getting out over the top of the pyramids and fly my canopy around near the pyramids, like, Jesus, like get out of here. I don't know how I'm ever going to top that. And I actually said this to Logan and Jericho a couple times on the trip because they have a few hundred jumps. It's like, hey, guys, you're screwed.

You are starting your jumping career with like these iconic locations. Good luck topping this for the rest of the time that you do this. So, all right. From there we went to UAE. And there's going to be a documentary made around the expedition that we did. And I don't know if it's going to be a continuous narrative throughout or whether or not they are going to separate each one of these countries into a chapter. But if they were to separate it into a chapter, the title of this chapter would be shit show. Anything that could have been planned around or discussed that could have changed when we would have changed when we were.

got onto the ground, kind of did. It was, it was a little bit wild. So originally we were briefed that we were going to be jumping into an area called the Corniche, which is a beachfront area. I was going to say downtown UA, but I'll be honest with you, I could find it on Google Maps. I don't know where it is in comparison to like if it is actually in their downtown, if it's a notable area or not. But it was going to be on the beach. And the imagery that we had used to look at, it looked like it was a wide open beach. And there's a, there's a secondary, bullet point here that I'm actually going to start with. And this is for somebody who is a leader or makes decisions or is responsible for making decisions based off of or gathering information.

And here's the lesson. Never, never, ever, ever skip a leader's reconnaissance if you have the opportunity. If you have the ability to go and look at the real world situation, environment, topography, geography, wind of where you are going to go and you can see it with your own eyes, do not ever skip it. Because potentially we were going to skip this and go get guys some rest at a hotel.

But we realized that was the wrong call. We had to, at the risk of having people being a little bit more tired, have everybody on the team walk the ground where we were going to land. And what happened when we did that? the satellite imagery that we were provided was incorrect there was additional structures there and of course they were upwind which creates wind disturbance and turbulence issues it made it a much more tight landing zone and if we had not done that leader's reconnaissance and somebody had injured themselves landed off dizi had an issue of any kind it would have 100% been our fault so do not ever miss an opportunity to go see with your own eyes the reality on the ground.

Now, the overall, though, lesson that I learned from UAE is this. Not that I learned, but the overall lesson that needs to be reinforced. Never lose sight of your mission. We were briefed that we were going to go to the Corniche. We were going to take off from a drop zone that had, from my understanding, like a co-ownership between the UAE military but also partially civilian-owned. I don't understand how the layout was. But there was a military officer that was going to determine whether or not the jump at the Corniche was actually going to happen.

And we were briefed that it was going to play out in a particular way. And what I'll say is it didn't go that way. And we were immediately as soon as we got to the drop zone. And I mean within the first 60 seconds of being inside of that building, the plan started changing. And it started changing by people that were not in our group. And it got to a point where people that were not in our group were attempting to tell us what we were going to do, how we were going to do it, and who was going to do it. And at that point, I decided that it was time for me to tell those people that they can fuck right off. And I didn't actually say it in those terms, but I would say as far as pushback and ass chewings go, I gave him like a six.

C, maybe a C plus. Meaning I, or maybe I was like, I gave him a five, a five out of ten. But I had some choice words and I found myself getting emotionally involved and pissed at the individual. Mostly because it was an individual who had no understanding of jumping at all trying to tell me who was going to do what, how they were going to do it and when. And that at this point, again, there was some fatigue involved. in this, there was some sleep deprivation, there was some frustration involved.

So that particular person got a peace of my mind. And the risk there is that I could become emotionally involved in that. And I could start chewing asses left, right and center. And I could have taken it to a place where they could have shut us down. But shortly after my first engagement with this particular individual, to his great credit, Glenn Cowan, the Canadian, won't be the best description of him. Maple syrup. Maple syrup.

Came over and he just put his arm around me. He goes, hey, man, don't forget what our mission is. And I was like, fuck, you know what? You're totally right. Because it wasn't about me chewing that person out. It was about us making sure we could get the jump done. So we could continue on in our journey. So I changed attack a little bit.

What they wanted us to do was absolutely not going to happen. and I'm again speak about it broadly because I don't know what's going to come out of this in the documentary. And I'm trying to tread lightly as opposed to giving both barrels in an environment where I'm the only one who has a microphone and the other side of this equation doesn't have the opportunity to rebuff if they wanted to, anything that I have to say. But we kind of re-rallied. We figured out a different plan on site. And we just jumped at the DZ. And it was getting super windy. We went out at like just over 8,000 feet because there was a little bit of a cloud there.

there as well too but nick was able to do his tandem that he wanted to do we were able to get our jump in that was actually the place where we joke we broke the six continent record um which nobody even really knew about might kind of sprung that on us uh at the tail end as we all came together on the on the landing zone but it would have been really easy for me to get emotionally involved and just start twisting off on people losing side of the mission and focusing only on how i felt in my frustration and totally screwing everybody else in the mission that we were trying to accomplish. And as a leader, or just in general, you know, as a husband, as a father, as somebody in a relationship, don't lose sight of your mission.

Remember what it is that you are trying to accomplish. And, you know, at the end of the day, emotions don't impact outcome in a positive manner. I was absolutely starting to get spun up based off what the individual was saying. and quite frankly just the audacity of somebody trying to step in and speak from an authoritative perspective on something they knew nothing about. But that frustration doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I get angry about that. It doesn't matter if I want to scream at the person or backhand slap them as hard as I can. If I'd done any of those things, it would have just put the mission at risk.

And that's key to remember. Never lose sight of your mission because that has to be the precedence and the priority at all times. And so I owe Glenn a beer for that one. I don't think I would have twisted off on anybody. I probably would have let it end right there. But at the same time, that reminder, everybody needs them from time to time to include myself. From there, we got the fuck out of UAE as fast as humanly possible. And we went to Perth, Australia.

And I think, yeah, we got to spend a night in a hotel, like, I don't know, five or six hours, something like that. We got in pretty late into Perth. Went out to the DZ. Of course, the winds are already cranking. And, you know, I think one of the first things that people were, paying attention to is that there was a kangaroo out there. People were kind of losing, by people, I mean the people on our trip, the Australians didn't give a shit that there was a kangaroo out there near the runway.

Because I think they're like a nuisance animal out there. I don't know. They're certainly less interested in them than we were. But there was a rue out there. And I didn't get to see him box anybody or box another kangaroo. So, you know, missed opportunity, but perhaps I can go back. But we get out there and it's windy. And the winds were forecasted that they were going to get windier.

and the lesson that I learned from this jump and what I want people to take away, and this comes to, you know, both planning and execution, but more along the lines of execution, I would say. Don't let perfect get in the way of good. And this goes back to never lose sight of your mission. So we get chalked up. The Australians have an organization called APF, the Australian Parachute Federation. I apologize if that's not the correct acronym, but I believe that's what it is.

And they're pretty restrictive. And that's okay. I have no issue with that. And I mean that, you know, a lot of paperwork up front. Nick had to sit down. He's a tandem master examiner, but he had to sit down and go through a verbal, I don't want to say test, but a review with one of their examiners. And they're just making sure that people are, you know, trained, capable, current, competent to do whatever it is that they're asking them to do in their country. I totally get it.

No issue with that whatsoever. It takes time, though, which is okay. I'd rather have it take time if you're going to do something like that that's meaningful. So we get going, we get into the aircraft, and we take off. And not only do we have pretty high winds, I'd say over, you know, probably right at or just over 20 knots on the ground, cloud cover starts coming in. And it was brief that we could go up to, I think it was over 14,000 feet because the DZ was pretty close to sea level. And again, you know, the altitudes you can jump at in the U.S., you're going to get like 13.5, you know, AGL, generally, above ground level. you know there's agl which is above the ground level and there's msl mean sea level so if you're

going to jump at in let's say you're going to jump here in calispo and i'll say it's 3,000 feet if you go to 13 aGL you're actually at 16 MSL not every country not every jump organization gives a shit about that stuff there's you know in the u.s at a certain level you need to have oxygen at a certain level you can't go above it unless you have supplemental oxygen in australia they're like hey man you guys want to go like 145 15 000 it's like hell yes we do because that's more time and free fall, which is awesome. So we're taking off and we're climbing up, and he's kind of testing the winds and doing a circular pattern as we are climbing,

and the cloud cover is getting closer and closer and closer. And there was a member of the APF that was on board the aircraft, and at some point, as we were circling, you know, he made a comment about the clouds. And I said, hey, I can see the clouds too. Let's get this aircraft over the top of the drop zone right now and get the fuck out of it. So we can get this done and we can get the clock stopped. And that was what we needed to do.

Did the clouds end up rolling in? I don't think they ever actually ended up socking in. But if they had continued to move in that direction, there was a real chance that they could have socked in before we were able to jump. So if I was looking for that perfect 15,000 foot free fall for over a minute because we can get amazing video. And I let that get in the way of what we could have gotten, which I think we got out of like 13, which is normal for a skydiving operation. We would have been screwed.

And I don't know what we would have done because it was my understanding that the cloud sat there for the rest of the day. So sometimes you need to take what you can get. Waiting does not always equal greater results. You know, sometimes good is good enough. Would it have been better to have 15,000 feet? I mean, I guess it would have given people more freefall time. But waiting at that additional time, climbing to altitude also could have totally derailed everything that we were trying to do and maybe even set us back in additional 24 hours, if not more. Don't let perfect get in the way of good, because sometimes good is good enough.

And this is, you know, when it comes to your planning as well or executing plans, here's our desired end state. What if you can get 95% of your desired end state? What if the choice is 95% of your desired end state or zero? Which one would you take? I'm taking 95. I would take 80% of a desired end state over zero. right i prefer to be a hundred but i'm not going to let the hundred blind me i'll take as close to that

as i can get before things start trending in the wrong direction and that is what i was left with in perth and that was all seven continents and again i'll go through the lessons real quick in arctic better to have and not need than to need and not have and always take practice reps when you can get them chilly stack the odds in your favor right what can you control circle of influence versus circle of concern. Strip out all the things that you'd be concerned about and control the things that you can. Miami, at some point,

you have to make a decision and you have to execute. Be careful of, you know, shiny objects after you've made that decision. If you're going to deviate from your plan, make sure the juice is worth to squeeze. Barcelona is all about risk versus reward. No plan's ever going to be 100% perfect and no plans ever going to be without risk.

It's more about whether or not you can tolerate that risk. Cairo, truth on the ground, Trumps all predictions and models. Pretty straightforward. UAE, never lose side of your mission and never, ever, ever skip an opportunity as a leader to go get the reality, the truth on the ground with your own eyes. And then Perth. Don't let Perth get in the way of the good. Get what you can get.

And sometimes that's what's all you're going to be able to get. So take that opportunity and waiting does not always equal greater results. Sometimes, I'm not going to say often, waiting too long. And then you're like, oh, I wish I could have taken that 80% because now I get 40. Now I get 30. Now I get 20. And I've been in that situation and it sucks. So hopefully something in here, whether you're in the business world, in the personal world, whatever it may be, get something out of this.

Even those experiences that I had and writing this out and going over this, it's helped me in my week. Thinking about stuff with the opening of the coffee shop coming up this week, the soft opening, I should say grand opening is still February 25th. but they're impactful. I knew all of those lessons before. It's more about reinforcing them and seeing them through a different lens. And it was really cool to see all of them come out through a different continent,

through a different experience. And that's all I got. And now I'm going to go back to business as usual, if you will. Got a podcast scheduled for tomorrow. This comes out on Monday, which is tomorrow. I got something coming down on Tuesday

and then we're right back to our normal business. So that's it. That's my bow on the triple seven. And until the next expert, tradition and journey that's all the lessons learned i have see you guys on whenever i see you