Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Passion, Risk, and Managing Stress | Snowboarder, Jeremy Jones

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

This week’s conversation is with Jeremy Jones, an accomplished filmmaker, entrepreneur, environmentalist and snowboarding pioneer.Jeremy is widely regarded as one of the most legendary big mountain riders and explorers of all time.Named a National Geographic “Adventurer of the Year” and ten times voted “Best Big Mountain Rider of the Year” by Snowboarder Magazine, Jeremy has starred in over a hundred snowboard movies and videos worldwide, including his highly acclaimed, foot-powered snowboarding trilogy Deeper, Further and Higher.He is the founder and CEO of award-winning Jones Snowboards, dedicated to the development of the highest quality backcountry snowboards and accessories.In 2007, Jeremy founded Protect Our Winters, a global cause uniting the winter sports community against climate change and was recognized in as a Champion of Change by President Barack Obama.In this conversation we discuss passion, risk, and managing stress.For Jeremy it comes down to understanding what the end goal is but not getting caught up in it._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Man, I go on this trip and I blow it. I'm not coming home, you know, which is real in the line of stress is not coming home is at the top of that list but um ironically it's amazing it's been amazing to me the thought of starting protect our winners the fear that was tied to that so the starting a snowboard company the fear that's tied to that and so it's interesting to have the how much these societal fears were actually weighing down more than these, you know, in the mountain fears. And I

guess I've, I've learned that when I'm like, man, I'm like, like, I've never done this before. I'm out of my comfort zone. Those instead of running from that, which maybe I would have in the past, I'm like, Ooh, this is when the good stuff happens, but it's not about being reckless. It's Ooh, this is when the good stuff happens. Let's stack the deck as much in my favor as we can to have success in that. And then that's where you go in with fine detail and okay welcome back or welcome to the finding mastery podcast i'm michael gervais and by trade and training a sport and performance psychologist as well as the co-founder of compete to create and if you haven't checked out compete to create i, I encourage you to do so. You know, we've got a incredible online program that is basically the essence of training the mind. And we've used good science and we've also used the innovations from my partner, head coach Pete Carroll, to be able to create something that is what we think is really special to be able to condition and train the mind.

So I hope you check that out. CompeteToCre create.net forward slash finding mastery. And the whole idea behind this podcast, behind these conversations is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery and to better understand what they're searching for. We want to understand their psychological framework. How do they organize their inner life? What is it that they do to make sense of the world around them? That's essentially a psychological framework. And then what are the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft? Finding Mastery is brought to you by

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a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now, this week's conversation is with Jeremy Jones. And you'll know him from, he's a pioneer in snowboarding, but he's also an accomplished filmmaker and entrepreneur and an environmentalist. And he's widely regarded as one of the most legendary big mountain riders

and explorers of our modern time. I mean, what he's doing is outrageous. It's wonderful. I'm so stoked to introduce him to you, if you're not familiar with him mean, what he's doing is outrageous. It's wonderful. I'm so stoked to introduce him to you if you're not familiar with him already. And he's named the National Geographic Adventure of the Year and 10 times voted Best Big Mountain Rider of the Year by Snowboarder Magazine. Jeremy has starred in over 100 snowboard movies and videos worldwide, including his highly acclaimed Foot Powder snowboarding trilogy, deeper, further, and higher. And again, if you haven't been exposed to that and you, I mean, you watch this and your heart will just climb right up into your throat, the stuff that he's doing. And, you know, the kind

of the purpose of it is what drives this conversation about getting into the edge, about doing things for the purity of doing them. And so we'll get into the environmental piece of that in a minute, but he's the founder and CEO of the award-winning Jones Snowboards and dedicated development of the highest quality backcountry snowboards and accessories, right? Like he's in it. And in 2007, he founded Protect Our Winners. Here's the environmentalist piece. And it's a global cause uniting the winter sports community against climate change. And he was even recognized in the Champion of Change by President Barack Obama. In this conversation, we roll up our sleeves around

passion and risk and managing stress. And what are the mechanics of living with purpose? How to even find that is part of this conversation. And he's got it. He's done it. He's done the work and he's literally a living ambassador for all of those things. Environmentalism, passion, purpose, mastery of inner self and consequential environments. For me, these are the men and women that really are shifting how we understand version whatever of humanity. And so for Jeremy, it comes down to understanding what the end goal is, but not getting caught up in that, right? It's that tender balance between having a really crisp vision about you know, about what the future could and can look like, and then backing into a process, a way of living. How, how am I

going to live? Not necessarily what am I going to do? That's important. But how am I going to do the what? And on that note, one quick little last thing here. If you haven't had the chance to check it out yet, I hope that you will check out our sleeves to understand how to live with passion and purpose and be a bit disruptive in the process for all the right reasons, you're going to love Decoding Disruptors as well. So it's decodingdisruptors.com. So punch over there. It's a video series. I think you're going to really like that as well. Okay. With that, let us jump right into this week's conversation with Jeremy Jones. Jeremy, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing?

I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. And our mutual friend, Pete Moran, introduced us a while back. And I've been watching what you've been doing and inspired by what you're doing in the back country and for the planet for a long time. And, you know, I just want to say out front, like, thank you for what you've given as a gift to me and in return to this community without even meeting you. So I just want to say thank you out front. Well, I appreciate that. That means a lot. Yeah. Okay. So you spent your life in the back country, figuring out how to live well and, you know, perform at some global standards, you know, and global leading in your industry. So

where did it start for you? Where did the fascination with, um, snow and mountains and maybe, maybe it's not where it started, but where did that origin story begin for you? Um, well, I grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, um, big, you know, deep roots in Massachusetts. Um, and my grandfather, um, fell in love with Vermont, which then my parents kind of in their adult life fell in love with skiing in Vermont. They brought us up there so they could kind of go ski and we'd go to the mountain and we'd meet at lunch. And we just had full free reign on that. And my brothers and I just, we fell in love with sliding on snow really more. You know, we were very active kids, but it was Research, which I've done the majority of my films with. They've celebrated, I think, 23 years in the business.

And so we definitely just followed that deep love that we felt at an early age at the ski resort and um and made it our life so sometimes like i think about how people start off on a path and you know there's a couple ways to think about it there's a little bit of that belligerent west coast meets you know um i'm sorry west coast but like western country meets eastern dog dogma where it's like the parents saying you're gonna do this and and i'm imagining that's not the case just knowing the action sport world that that's not the case but what was it like like your parent family structure that's i don't know inspired or supported both you guys to follow this mountain path? Well, I can say early on, um, it was, I'd say, uh, reluctant support, um, from my parents, uh, meaning where I grew up, it was, um, you know, you do well in school, you get a good college and you get a good job.

And, um, for me to just say college isn't in the cards. Um, you know, when I was, by the time I was 16, I'm like, I'm not, I'm not wasting the 40 bucks to apply to a college that I'm not going to and money on SAT tests. And, and I just, um, you know, I had no backup plan, which I think is a super helpful when getting through hard times because I was by no means I was talented enough to just kind of stay in that top 15, top 10 in North America, top 30 in the world, um, to just make enough money to feed myself and make it to the next contest. Um, but I, you know, and I understand my, especially my mother's, um, cause being a parent now, just like, sorry, mom, no backup plan. I'm going to make this work. And I mean, when I started snowboarding, there was no such thing as making a living snowboarding. There was no such thing as a snowboard industry, um, uh, you know, with team managers and movie

companies and magazines and all that stuff. And, uh, but it was just this, this feeling that I felt and I'm on snow that I'd never felt anywhere else. And I just knew that one way or another, I was going to figure out how to be at the best mountains in the world and on the best days on my snowboard. Was that the mission? Be on the mountain, best days of the year, best days of the month, week, whatever. Was that the mission in life? Or did you have, or like there's mission and there's vision and they're thinly sliced, but, um, I don't want to. Yeah, that was definitely the vision. And I remember my brothers and I,

um, cause my dad worked really hard, uh, when I was in, in, you know, coming up through as a kid and through high school. And he was, I just saw how hard he worked. So we could go up to the mountain every weekend and go skiing. And he carried a lot of stress. And're like we're out on the mountain and we started seeing these like the best skiers on the mountains and and started you know trying to get on the chairlift with them and asking them what they did and how often they skied and they'd you know they'd be like yeah i ski every day i'm a bartender at night i paint houses in the summer and we're like, that's what we're doing. Like these guys have figured it out. Why, you know, why not live at the, at the ski town and figure out how to, um, you know, and work at night and you can ski every day. And so just seeing

these alternative paths, um, really opened our eyes and then just putting like passion first. And it was like my original goal. Sure. Like any kid is like, I'm going to want to be a pro. Um, but if that didn't fail, I, regardless, I knew it was like, I'm going to be on the mountain every day. Okay. Because there's a different like ski bum, right? Literally that term is something that's made it into pop culture. And those are the folks that you see that are a bit burnout, but maybe have a good lifestyle, maybe quietly suffer a little bit. Some of them because it's hard living and they, they bought the dream. But you know what? It's hard when you only are making $17,000 a year and living as an adult in a three-bedroom place with roommates. I'm painting the bad picture, right? It's interesting now because my brother is now in his 50s. and my brother really – I have two older brothers.

They really led the way. I just kind of backfilled behind them. And they now – they've lost friends to suicide, to depression, to – because here it is where they shaped their whole life around being on that mountain every day first tram and as their body starts getting beat up as um you know they maybe like the really hardcore ones are like i don't have time for girlfriends. They get, you know, they're going to get in the way of me riding that mountain all day, every day. And they really never, like, grabbed enough of, say, I don't know, stuff to build on later in life when maybe your body's not working as well. Yeah. Okay, so I grew up at burnout beach in California

and it earned its reputation and its name because people kind of don't really get out of there. And you know, I've got, there's a small pack of us, let's call it six of us. And, um, we're surfing every day, surfing as much as we could. And one of them is in and out of jail. Another one, um, we lost him, meaning that he's so far into drugs that, um, last we heard he had a warthog inside of his blood that the CIA planted to monitor his thoughts, you know, so methamphetamine got a hold of him and then uh another one has a solid uh nine to five job but like um hasn't lived up to like a joy potential nor an intelligence potential um and struggles with passion a little bit so like there's a thing about cultures from a young age and they look at me like jervais what how how did you like figure out how to have a like a lifestyle where you have joy and happiness and interest and passion and so I'm looking at you and thinking like what what is the difference between you and your friends or some of your brother's friends like what what is that difference

between the dirtbags in climbing that um and Alex, who, you know, has built this beautiful lifestyle around it. Yeah, it's a question I ask a lot. I think, um, first and foremost, um, family is, and as you know, we grew up tight with, we have big families back East. So that family element has been, we value a lot. And then my immediate, you know, my brothers and my parents were all very close. Even as maybe my parents didn't totally agree with our life's decisions, there was always that unconditional love there. So I think the urge to create a family is, I think, very helpful. And then that entrepreneurial mindset that I think my dad subtly instilled in us where we went and just kind of figured out through really hard work, we can figure out how to make a lifestyle

out of our passion. And that took a long time. It did not look like this amazing, like no brainer, awesome path for years. I mean, I would say it wasn't until I was in my 30s, my brother's same, where my parents, you know, when that question of like, what are the boys up to where they weren't cringing, you know, through our early to mid twenties, that was a question they didn't want to answer. Cause it's like, Oh, you know, brother Todd has moved up in the world. He's no longer sleeping on the couch. He's got his own bedroom now. I'm really excited for them. And, but I think they saw passion in our eyes. And I think my dad was just like, man, just follow that. Like, I see it on your face. You guys are healthy and you're full of life and figure out how to make a living doing it. Okay. So let me, let me circle around this

word passion for a minute. And do you think that, let's talk about you, but maybe in context of your brothers as well, because it sounds like those relationships are important. But do you think that you would live with passion for life? Or can you only be alive because you're in the world of snow and mountains? Well, I definitely like outdoor, um, is important. So I also surfing is a big passion of mine. So that daily dose of, um, something outside, I think that I could have, uh, potentially ended up at the ocean and been really satisfied but that again it would have been a healthy dose of um of surfing in my lifestyle and because that's really at the at the root of everything I do I have my hands on a lot of different stuff but I I always say I I

didn't start a snowboard company not to snowboard, so don't expect to see me in that office nine to five. I've made it a real point to daily make sure I get outside and grab a piece of life every day because it's fragile. Okay. So let's say for whatever, for whatever reasons we could fill in some catastrophic storyline, but you're not able to go outside and that would, that'd be bad. Let's say it's really, really bad. Okay. And would you, would you decay and die as slowly or rapidly maybe? Or would you, do you have a different mechanism in you? That's like, wow. Okay. Fuck it. Like I know what passion is and I'm going to figure out how to be passionate

in this condition or this circumstance or this, whatever, you know, environment that I'm in now. Well, all I can say is, you know, I've had injuries that have kept me, you know, where I've been laid up and, um, and so I can, you know, I mean, that's really hard to, um, totally answer that, but I would say like, okay, you know, in my mind, it would be like time to take a deep dive and meditation, something I've always wanted to do. I still have my mind and let's see how deep I can go on that path. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team,

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in the surf community. This is an easy dialogue, which is like, oh, I'd be a mess. Like I'm a mess when there's no waves. I don't know what to do with myself and fill in the blanks, right? Like in other words, I hear in that storyline that I don't know how to be alive without an external environment just right. And where you just went was something a little different, which is like, no, I'm going to go, I'm going to explore and I'm going to go explore the internal if that's the thing I have left, or if that's the thing that presents itself. So, and this goes up to me, Jeremy, to this higher order conversation about passion. And I'm looking at my friends who are like, I'm in my mid forties and

they're, many of them struggle with it. And it's because they are relying on their external world to dictate their internal world. And if they love guitar and can't play the guitar professionally, then they have, and that's the thing that brings them passion. Then they live passion less. And I think that you're reinforcing for me this rearrangement, which is like, no, that's wrong. The internal is where passion is cultivated. And if you get to find an environment that supports it, great. But what if that environment goes away? And who knows? Don't get me wrong like if i'm like don't get my nature hit um and i'm on a city tour then that's hard but i can also i've learned like i can go find some trees and walk through them and um or sit underneath them and i've worked hard at trying to get more out of less. And, um, so I, and then another

example would be, um, I mean, I love to read. I like to write. I like art. Um, I love playing games. So we get caught in these, it's common if we're, um, especially in Alaska, where we'll be pinned for 5, 7, 8, 10 days, tent bound. And I'm at peace with that. I'm like, wow, this is a great opportunity to do a deep dive on chess, books, sleep, reading, writing. That's it. I get, I totally get it. So yeah, I think that this is a cornerstone that is not in place for many people, which is the fact that I'm going to live life passionately as opposed to I need something to be passionate

about. And I'm still struggling with the wording about it a little bit but okay this is this is I'm stoked that we're talking about this and not because I was looking for an answer but there's something in here that I think is really important well it's like you know living in impassioned life um and I for me now you I, I can't snowboard how I once snowboarded, but there's certain areas of snowboarding that I've gotten better at. And so I kind of just keep trending in that zone cause I love breaking new ground. But, um, but I think that I, I do really try to always be learning on on all fronts whether it's business um you know health meditation

um what have you just try to learn and surround myself from people that i can learn from and and always trying to evolve so on that kind of learning environment or learning value people and events can dramatically influence our path and can you talk about a person or an event that was a cornerstone for the man that you are today you know i gain a lot from the people that i surround myself with i'm very um'm constantly like, especially people older than me. I, uh, that are living a life that I, um, want to live, you know, say in 10 years. And it's, I'm asked a lot of questions, observe. I try to surround myself, um, with these kind of life seeker eater uppers that, you know, that really live a jazzed life. And what's interesting is, you know, I was thinking just on in terms of friends, like in many ways,

you know, someone could say like, you know what, I got enough friends and I don't, I haven't, you know, I got my crew and I'm good. And, um, and I'm like, yeah, you know, I, I could agree with that statement. And then I started realizing, I'm like, man, not that I ever lose friends. Um, cause I could see a buddy I haven't seen in 10 years and feel like, you know, and, or if they called and said, Hey, I'm in town and, you know, it's really easy for me to connect and once a friend, always a friend, but it has, um, my friends continue to evolve, um, who I'm sitting around that dinner table with. Uh, and I think that that's just another example of like, you know, that learning and, and surrounding yourself with uh people that i've become inspired

by what do you think your friends would say about you and to a double part like what would you want to say to all of your friends oh i don't i don't know what it's tough to say what my friends would say but i did have a friend come up to me the other day and be like, you are living the life you were meant to live, which was a great compliment. And with my friends, I would just say thanks for the inspiration. I just find that I get so much inspiration and joy from being around my friends. And, and communication and relationships, it's a skill. And if relationships are important to you, that's and I'm not saying that like aggressively, like knowing that to do that with you. So I don't know, is it like intense eye contact? Is it, you know, light surface banter that, and every once in a while you slip in something meaningful? Is it, you have to, you know, use alcohol to have emotional stuff? Like what, what is your way that you connect with folks? And I'm trying to just, those examples,

you know, are not ones I'm employing. I'm just trying to create space in the question. Well, so much of the time I spend, um, with my friends is outside on a bike, on a skin track, on a chairlift. Which I think is a really, uh, you get your mind going, you, it's this great way to catch up with a friend that's on a skin track or a single track or out in the water or what have you. And I think it's a, you know, a lot of times

I lean on my friends a lot, meaning I'm always chewing on some big decision and and I will um I think naturally purposely be like oh I'm going on a bike ride with this person they are perfect to help me work through this issue um and then I would say they lean on me as well to you know they know my skill set so it's very common like for me to see some a friend and be like it might be me going we need to get on a bike ride together because i i need to talk to you or vice versa like we got to connect man i'm working through this and let's talk about it on the trail. Okay. So, all right. So sometimes I'll come home from a surf trip or whatever or just surfing and my wife will say,

what did you guys talk about? Like, oh, how is such and such? You know, like you haven't seen him for a while. How is he? I was like, you know, I think good. What did you guys talk about? And I'll say, you know, we know we're surfing like we're just kind of sitting out there with each other totally right and like we're staring at the sun and trying to

compete to get waves and hooting and hollering when something happens it's fun but we're not actually looking at each other's eyes and having a deep conversation it's more shoulder to shoulder and looking in the same direction. So there's a surface nature to that, but there's also something that's like a shared experience that, I don't know, you know, it pays a thousandfold. So I'm wondering, like, that's what I'm trying to get at because I know what it's like to go surf and ski with folks.

And sometimes there's moments of intensity, but usually time it's not that. Definitely. surf and ski and with folks and sometimes there's moments of intensity but usually time it's not that definitely yeah i mean you're stand on a mountain on top and and yeah definitely a lot of silence um yeah yeah which is fine and comfortable with silence with friends and i see you as being deep right because your commitments you make in business to help support the planet health. And so I might be wrong. You might say, dude, I'm a shallow dude. And like, but I, I like feel like when I watch your stuff, that there's a depth in there. And can you course correct that for me? Cause I don't want to have the wrong understanding uh of kind of how you operate there yeah i mean i don't i mean i love a good laugh um like anyone um but i i do um so i think there's also, um, it's like, I, I think there's, I see hanging out with people as,

um, you know, opportunities to have these conversations that we can both learn from. And I try to, um, you know, get the most out of that, but I'm also, so again, you know get the most out of that but i'm also so again you know especially when you're climbing a mountain um or like you said surfing like you know it's a there is long periods of silence broken up with you know potentially some some more deep thoughts and then and another i mean a lot of like especially depending on the chaos of say what's going on and work and just general life is it's common for me to be in the mountains and be like, oh my or, you know, a mountain feature or what have you, and like where we've really become swallowed up by the environment. Yeah. I think that I had that same thought as you were talking, which is like my most intimate relationship in life is with my wife. And I probably don't sit like, let's say in an hour time, let's say that you and one of your

friends are surfing. And in that hour time, there's probably, I don't know, eight moments where you're like, Holy, Oh my, like, look at that. Like, did you see like, man, I'm brought to my knees type of like where you and your friend also know that there's a lot of other shit going on in life. But then you have these six minutes or six moments, let's say, of like, wow. And now take that hour that you're hanging with your wife and doing whatever. Or for me, I probably don't get those six moments of like, wow, isn't this car ride amazing? And I'm not trying to make light of it. I'm just marking this difference when you're in a context

like that environment really does support moments of wow. To have those is, and just to share those, actually does a lot. Yeah, and I think just a level of appreciation of if you are out in nature by whatever means, life ain't that bad. I appreciate that. And on the other side of that, nature is cruel and harsh and swift, and there's rules. And you have to understand the language that is unique. I think there's two

languages that you have that inspire me. One language is the language of the mountain, the language of nature. And it's not written anywhere, but you have to learn it. And the second language is the language of world leading thinking and doing. And so there is a separate language that is available to everybody, but there's a common language that happens for those that are on the frontier. And I'm talking about like performance or human expression frontier, as opposed to the frontier, which you also live in physically. So in that vein, what is the consequential dark side, the side of your life that is hard? And I'm setting up the environments are swift and harsh that you live in, but what is the emotional, psychological hard parts of being the best, if not one of,

or one of the, if not the best in the world at what you do? So when it comes to the, say, snowboarding side of things, a lot of what I'm focused on is kind of going really deep into the mountains, self-supported, everything I need on my back. So there's just the kind of physical pain of carrying 50, 60 pounds on your back through these mountains and then living in the snow, waking up in the dark, putting on wet boots and just that side of, of things. Um, then there's the component of, we are in this uncontrolled environment where one bad call can erase a lifetime of good calls. Um, so the stakes couldn't be higher. Um, so the, I'd say that that, um, but it, you know, again, it's like tough to, you know, I would say that's hard, but, um, it's more that there's some physical pain in there and there's, um, which from a distance doesn't look like much is going on, but's a lot going on with with that i like how you said that conversation with the mountain because that's exactly what it is and you need to put yourself in uh the right headspace to be able to um listen to the mountains and

have this open dialogue with the mountains and and i think I why I really like um camping underneath the serious mountains that I climb and ride and really getting to know them and the more serious they are the more I want to be out there totally disconnected and just learning the move the moods of the mountain and understanding when I can move forward or if I need to go back. I love what you just said. And I'll tell you what, like, okay, I'm like serious. I'm like, like my family jokes, like, you know, I'm pretty freaking serious and I don't want to always be serious, you know, like, but I love this thing that you just said, which is you took my concept about the language and the narrative, you know, and made it about something that you're blowing me away because I'm serious and I like serious environments. I like consequence, you know, intense environments.

And I think it's because I'm trying to sort that thing out a little bit. The bigger, the more serious the mountain to your language, the more engaged you are, the more interested you are. I love that because it makes so much sense to me. And I think that at a younger age, that was true for me. Was that true for you at a younger age too? Or has that changed? Well, I think at a younger age, it was just always like, I want to get better. It's all about getting evolution. And quite frankly, I've been going into winter every year since I was 12, going, where are the areas you can improve? And to improve, you put in a ton of time, and then that real improvement comes late in the winter when you've built this base and you've worked towards this improvement phase. And it really happens a couple days a year where there's definitive, wow, I just took my snowboard to a place that's never gone before. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years,

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That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. What comes to mind when you think about the single most difficult time in your life? Like, do you have a, an experience there that I can help understand? Well, loss. To be around loss in the mountains, to be losing friends who pass away in the mountains. And then I lost a friend, for example. I was at the start of a trip, a three-week trip, one of the most ambitious trips I've had in the mountains and in eastern alaska range and some big mountains and a snowpack i knew nothing about and the day before we're flying out uh we get wind that uh six people had passed away um i knew two of them and um the last thing i want to do at that time is go into the mountains it's like let's get the

hell out of here and um but to you know that's a that's hard um and then to and then the you know the nature of this trip was you get dropped off on a plane um to some very foreign style mountains, plane leaves you and we're afraid to, to take a step basically. Um, and literally it's like you have all your gear there and just sit there for a while and, um, watch and listen and the mountains are cracking all around you. And it's just like, how are we ever gonna be able to you know and i'm sitting next to this monstrous objective the biggest objective i've ever saddled up to and going i i can't even look at it and turning the other way and looking at these smaller mountains going let's figure these things out and this is so far out of our wheelhouse right now.

And so many things need to be figured out that we shouldn't even put any brain power towards it. Is this from your newest experience roadless? Or is this something different? No, this was a peak and higher. I named this peak Timlin after my buddy joe timlin who had passed away but that you know that was just a low point in the you know and then another example would be um i remember when shane mcconkey passed away and same deal he was very close friend really close with his wife and his daughter they when that happened she moved in with us for a couple weeks

and i had to go back i had a crew on a glacier in alaska camping and i had to go back and i'm driving to the airport just bawling my eyes out going this is fucked like the lab I cannot believe I am leaving my family and Shane's family right now to go snowboarding but this whole trip this whole film is based around me and I got to get back out there um and if it wasn't based around me I would have never gone on both of those trips that was situation um so I guess those were days that um um, I really didn't like my job. And then the injury side of things, um, is tough. I mean, I really try to embrace injuries and own them, but, um, I, you know, I dealt with, um, back issues for a long time that I thought was going to end my career. And so that, you know, I think if I went back to my journals at that time, there's probably some deep stuff in them.

Let me go back one about the, the, the selfish nature and the conflict that you had, right? I, I'm, I put the word selfish in there. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I re I recognize it in me. And that's my that's like my my real struggle is that I'm pushing out on the frontier. And then I want to come back like a better human for my family. And sometimes I come back and I'm exhausted and agitated and irritated. And I know I'm going to be better, but I'm missing moments. Like with the most important people in my life, I'm missing moments. And so, so I find like this narrative in me about the selfishness and I'd love, I love if you could, um, not, not say you've got it worked out or anything like that, but like, how do you manage the selfishness of your life? Yeah. And I think selfishness is a

valid word. Um, and I guess there's a couple of things. One, I think that it's important for my kids to see me live an impassioned life, have goals, strive for them, um, get out of my comfort zone, you know, really try to excel in my life and not just... I say all the same things. That's how I justify it. I know. I'm saying the same thing. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to sell that.

I bet you if my daughter was here, she'd roll her eyes and be like, yeah, we've heard that before. Get over it. How old is she? How old is your daughter my daughter's 14 and she's got her act together better than i do and she just yeah she sees she sees through me better than anyone um other than maybe my wife um but the other side of things is i do believe i mean i do feel um it's tough when i get back from these trips is um the bigger and more kind of radical and out there the trips the more severe the the post-traumatic stoke disorder is um where i find myself just kind of blankly staring at walls. But I do think that it is this full reset.

A good trip is a full reset and alignment of what's important in life. There's a contentness to it that is definitely the most content i am is when i get back and um it's one of those things where i could come back after a really big mission and um you know my car is broken into and just be like oh whatever man i just had 10 incredible days in the mountains and that person was in a worse state than i was and let's's see if it starts. Oh, yeah, great. It starts. Cool. Let's go.

Do you have a spiritual framework that you're working from? Well, we jokingly and not jokingly have this deep devotion to the Church of the Seven-Day Recreationalist. Okay. this deep devotion to the church of the seven-day recreationalist meaning like we recognize or I recognize and many of my friends that there is this deep power source of connecting with nature that you know, is where all the thoughts are being, um, made, you know, in the grounding and the healing. And, and I think if you look at say the, the ethos and goals of a traditional church of community building, clarity, um, peace, healing, celebration, all these words a pastor would use at a traditional church, which I grew up as a Catholic as a kid, and I think we get that in nature is there okay so let's do like the very kind of structured question is there a god or no god i don't know i don't have an answer to that um and i'd like to think

that like i have a really open mind i don't ever I mean, I have friends that are super religious, um, you know, like toe the Bible incredibly tight. I, you know, I have Buddha friend, you know, um, I have, you know, that I have friends that have, you know, all sorts of different religions and I'm at, I'm fine with it. If that's, you know, what's working for them. And I've seen it be incredibly effective, um, say a more traditional religion on some friends and I totally support them in that path. Um, I just feel like I do, I'm a happy person with, and I'm at peace, and I'm kind of one who embraces all ideas. I'm open to all ideas. That's my problem with the more formalized religion who maybe scorns different beliefs.

That, that's a non-starter for me. I could never sign up to a religion that, you know, doesn't, um, you know, support, um, a total, you know, multiple different lifestyles and what have you. But, uh, so, so I just leave it at, uh, where I'm at right now is I just leave it at, you know, live a, live a, um, positive life, be kind to others, embrace a lot of those Catholic ethos, you know, kind to your neighbors type deal. Um, and it's tough for me. I can't say what happens after in afterlife. Yeah, there you go. Okay. So it sounds like you put some work into it and you, you come up with like, I'm not really sure. Yeah, I'm open to it, you know, and I don't, but I'm not,

yeah, I'm not, it's, it's tough for me to say, I mean mean the really organized traditional religion stuff is you know if if i i had a friend i did a long drive with that for hours he talked and it was great i got to learn a ton about um even you know which i already knew quite a bit about but the bible and the church but it was like you know this anti-abortion i'm like by the he's like, so what do you think? You know, because I was asking him, I was non-confrontational. And at the end, I'm like, you know what, dude, I can't, I cannot look at someone who is gay as evil. And I'm not, you know, I can't go there with the abortion stuff. And I can't go there with these different rules. I can't go there with the abortion stuff and I can't go there with these different rules. I can't go there that Muslims are these horrible people or someone who worships a different God is bad.

Like the formalities of that stuff, I just can't go there. I'm too inclusive. And it's like I want to surround myself with happy, positive people. and I'm not going to look down on someone's way of life and belief system negatively unless they're bringing negativity into the world. And then I have a lot of empathy with the people that attack me, um, and understand what creates these, um, attackers, um, that sit and, you know, just troll and do that side of, of life that I'm like, you know, for a while caught me off guard, but wait, wait, wait, you've got folks that are trolling you about your nonprofit. God. Yeah. Yeah. Whoa. Wait a minute.

So we're talking about the same nonprofit, you know, protect our winners, protect our winners. Are you kidding me? And, and yeah, we actually, we're, we're doing a study on it right now. And, you know, we've recognized that we have, you know, we have bots and we think that we have some other paid trolls. But regardless of if there's bots or what have you, absolutely. Yeah. Wait, wait. Go on my, I don't even, I can't read them, but I can tell, you know, there's, I post on climate, there's 500 comments and you know, 200 of those are on the world's worst person in the world. And 300 of them are the lovely, um, people that defend me. And I can't bring that into my life and fight those

fights. And there's too many of them. And'd you do? Okay, what's the website? Well, I know the website, ProtectOurWinners.com. Well, go to my, if you go to my Instagram, Jeremy Jones, and say, scroll down, you'll see there's a Greta Thunberg post.

You know, click on that. If you're online right now, click on that thing and start scrolling in. It's a down there um that i stay away from or any of the climate march stuff anything on climate is um is met with um aggressive attacks from people that don't believe there's a climate change happening and yes your your narrative is not backed you've got bad science that whatever whatever and yeah stick to snowboarding um it's a she's a left wing you know or you it's a left wing conspiracy theory it's snowing right now my favorite one um what about last winter that was awesome and i i will occasionally

i'll comment right when i post before the war really starts and i can handle a couple better and then i'll just get out of control i'm like i gotta get off of this thing but my favorite is you know i hope that i spend the rest of my life defending awesome winters, that nothing would make me more happy than having awesome winters and people going, climate change isn't real. But sadly, it's not trending that way. It's not trending. Before the call, I was talking to you about this ultra I did to raise awareness to reconnect back to Mother Nature. And in particular for me, it was the ocean. And so I did a deep dive in some of the research that the best I could around what was happening to the oceans. And there's alarmist on both sides, you know, it's total, it's total

BS. And then you got some research that I was reading and I'm talking about real research. I'm not talking about like. Yeah. Peer reviewed research. Yeah. Simple science. Are you with science or you're not with science? Yeah. Thank you. Science, peer reviewed science. And the alarm on that side was like, we only have a handful of years to get some non-reversible stuff in place.

I was like, Oh my God. So I'm sure you're snapping into some of that stuff that I was reading as well. So can you teach for just a minute? So I love to use this moment for you to teach about what people can do to help protect winners and why winners are so important from your narrative, from your understanding. Could you teach us? Yeah. Well, I mean,

winter, I'd say where it's snowing, how much it's snowing, what those snow levels are, what the glaciers are doing, those are our kind of canaries in the coal mine. So, say, if the Arctic ice is melting at a rapid rate, that's a bad thing. Um, myself as whose life is resolved, it revolves around winter whose life is, um, my literally my connection to snow is, um, you know, I make very, um, it, I need to have such an intimate relationship with snow or else I wouldn't be here today i would have passed away in an avalanche a long time ago um so i've seen these changes um to winter and we need to and then what that means to someone who could care less about gliding on snow because what we learned real quick was man the least of our problems is that the ski area can't um the lifts don't spin even though it represents um it's a way bigger industry than the extraction industry um represents a ton of jobs but the reality is this snowpack for drinking

water and glaciers for drinking water is or um, or not just drinking water for, for all of water for growing crops is significant, you know, is critical. It's like that these mountains are, um, so you, well, the Sierra, for example, um, California gets 60% of its water from snow. And that's for the crops that are um you know the grow crops for nationally and you know for obviously for drinking water and so you take that um snow away which we're starting to see go away that's a that's a really bad thing let alone the ocean um you know the whole ocean side of things and and the dying of and, and the dying of the oceans and the heating of the oceans and the ocean rise and the bigger storms and, and just those kind of

catastrophic events that are becoming more frequent. Um, the migration that's going to happen, um, that's already happening, um, of mass migrations of people that can't live where they are either because of crops or because of ocean rise. And then we're seeing those at our borders. Um, you know, the, the, nobody's immune to the effects of climate. And what, what are you guys doing in particular? You're raising awareness. So you're writing and contributing to awareness, raising stuff. And if folks wanted to support you, like what would they be supporting? And like, so where we're quite frankly, where I, yeah, there's a where, you know, we're past this awareness campaign deal.

We're in the action mode and so pretty quickly i mean when i started the organization in 2007 i just i surrounded myself with the you know the best scientists the best people in this field industry leaders um and we quickly realized that changing light bulbs and reusable um water bottles and kind of these personal steps, which I totally support and are great. And, you know, what you should examine, what you're eating and personal carbon footprint is all, you know, we should do what we can on that front. But we learned really quickly that to get the CO2 reduction that we need on a national and global level, we need action from our elected officials. We need policy change. We are trying to replace climate deniers who are currently running our country with climate champions to do that. We don't spend time on climate deniers.

We can win with the sideliners. The biggest political party in the U.S. is the non-voter party. It represents the same size as the Democratic and Republican Party combined. They're traditionally, these 18 to 35-year-olds are getting, they're not good voters, meaning they don't vote at all. They're getting outvoted by the 70 and up crowd. And understandably, the country is led by this kind of old path that is a dead end street. And but there is an X factor now, which is that we are seeing the youths are the youth is in the streets and they're marching. And and so particularly, you know, as we move into this 2020 election we focus on what we consider purple states meaning where a couple thousand votes in key districts can be the

difference between a climate champion or a climate denier in regions that we have a strong following in, and that's about seven states for 2020. Yeah, that's what's up. That was so clear. Obviously, you've put in the work. Like, yeah. Okay. So we got a problem with like the current policy and some of the stuff Trump has been doing has been, I'm watching from the sidelines going, what in the good earth? Like, what backroom deals are being made that we're not supporting? And listen, I, honestly, I don't know all the nuances. It looks to me, you don't need to know the nuance you need to know, you know, and, and mind you, there is not a single climate denier in Congress, which, you know, the Senate is majority ruled by climate deniers. Our president is climate deniers.

There's not a single elected official in our U.S. government that does not take money from the fossil fuel industry. And so they're working for them and they have a very sophisticated climate denial plan that's been going on since the 80s. And that's where, when I say I have empathy for my adversaries, um, they're, you know, they, the majority fit the same bill, the same age group, white males, um, that are, you know, are, have been targeted for since the 80s. Um, and so we see them understandably, um, they're motivated, they motivated, they're fired up, and they're coming after us. And so be it. It is what it is. What can the Finding Mastery community do? We need to recognize that we have the most important election of our time and need to find out who their climate champions are and do everything they can to get them in office, which means knocking on doors, canvassing, obviously voting. if they um you know it's pretty clear where these tight races are going to be especially if they're in um these critical zones or they have relatives in these uh kind of purple zones is getting getting out the vote um we need we need a revolution on election day in 2020 and we got

to send a clear message and Are you compiling that resource? And I don't know if you're... Yeah, I guess in general, I guess the short answer is get plugged in to protectourwinners.org. You get plugged into our ecosystem and we are constantly informing our supporters. And just to be clear, I would say, you know, it's sad that it's a political issue. It's been very effective for the fossil fuel industry to make it a political issue, because as you know, that's it's quite the quagmire. And it's, you know, it's just it complicates things that, you know, that we acting on climate pisses off half the country. And they've been taught to be pissed off on action on climate. But protect our winners.

I mean, if you're a hero on climate, we're with you. And so we are always looking for what we call unicorns, which are Republicans that support real action on climate. And there's a couple out there. And we hope that this election sends a strong message that, and for the first time, that a climate denier loses their job because of their stance on climate. It's never happened. But this election, we're hoping that it does. Because once that happens, I think there'll be pretty significant ripple effects. Because there is a lot of Republicans that want action on climate. But in the past, it's been a kind of political suicide for them. And they'd be out of job. And they do not want to be out of job. That's what's up okay so let me flip back if like if you had the chance to ask one person who is a

complete master at craft and or self who would that person be and what would you ask them them hmm god that's a tough it's a tough thing because I you asked me this like question of what is mastery mm-hmm and I think that that's a really hard answer because I don't think, I think a true master would never, you know, is always working on stuff. You know, there's, I don't know if there's such a thing as like, I've mastered this. We're good. I got it covered. Yep. I support that thought too.

Yeah. I, and no, there's only been one or two people in the hundreds of conversations we've had I got it covered. Yep. I support that thought too. Yeah. There's only been one or two people in the hundreds of conversations we've had that says, oh, it's marked by this type of outcome. And everyone else is like, I'm not really sure, but I know it's a path of figuring things out and trying to get better. But let's stay with this other question part, which is like, let's not do the person, but what would you want to ask them? Um, I would want to, it would be tough to ask them one question, you know, I think like Alex Honnold is a great example of for a moment in time where he mentally and physically took a human body to a place that, um, previously thought was certain death. Um, so understanding, um, and I met Alex and, and, you know, I, I would love for Alex to peel back the, the, um, kind of the canned guard that he has. And don't get me wrong.

I've heard him say wonderful things, but to like really understand the, um, the headspace that, that went into it and and and i do i mean i've done i've i've saddled up to things where you know where i've been on the edge of life and death and kind of tickled it and played with it and da da da da so i'd like i can understand to some extent what he would say on that but um i think he took it so deep that there's probably more there. Okay. So I had the conversation with him on Finding Mastery and we had, we had a call before we actually put the recorders on and it was like, let's go for it.

That, that was his language. Let's just like, and then we got there and I, I, it was one of my hardest interviews because, um, I couldn't get under the surface. Yeah.

That's been my, my experience with that. And I don't, I'm not, I don't mean that at all in a negative way, but yeah, like I don't, and maybe the surface needs to be there for him to be able to do what he does. But yeah, um, he kind of like brushes it under, you know, it just kind of like plays it off as like, dude, one,

one move at a time. And there's something to be said for that or what have you. But, you know, I, I do think it's intriguing with that. I think the Tommy Caldwell, for some reason I'm getting into climbing,

but yeah, I think his intuitiveness with the Dawn Wall, where even his dad was like, dude, you're wasting the prime of your life. Maybe it's time for a new objective. I really admire that. I think totally switching gears in your world with these quarterbacks um tom brady russell wilson um understanding the sharpness that is needed for them to go and the decision making and all the attention and everything that goes behind that like really peeling back the layers on a you know a quarterback um would be interesting would you have insight on that yeah right yeah there's a definite process there and they definitely have to be switched on

no no doubt about it and yeah things fall apart quickly okay so when you went when you're talking about routines though what did you mean do you mean the routine prior to an event or the routines of a day? Routines of getting – what's the routine for, say, Tom Brady or Alex Honnold or what have you? What's the hour before? What's the day before? How do you just get yourself in that um that right headspace because i know when i'm there and i i mean i have my process but um okay come on what is it what is it let's go let's go the day before you want to do the day before

yeah i mean the day for me it's not it's more the trailhead. I would say I consider it walking through a portal into and recognize, okay, I'm going into a new place here. Um, and so that's more on the daily going into the mountains and then, um, really become switched on and like, what are the things I'm looking for? What are like, what are the hazards today? What are the potential blind spots today? What are the, and then when I say get into a more serious scenario where I'm say camped out on a line, I'm going through, um, thinking about all the possible things that could kill me i'm thinking like how can i reduce those possible things that can kill me uh which means a lot of that can be like oh man if we move

this hiking track um 10 feet over this way and get on this then that can take that out of the equation and then you try to you you know, avoid these, um, potential hazards as much as possible. And then going into it with, I always have like, what are the things that I, I go into it thinking we have 20, um, you know, hypothetical 20 no's that need to be turned into yeses. I have a couple things that I'm like, all right, you know, there's a good chance you're going to get eight hours into your day. You're going to be 20 minutes from the top and you're going to hit this certain type of snow and you're going to have to turn around and let's plan on that. That is a high likelihood. And so when I get to

that spot and I'm like, oh my God, that's actually safe. I thought this was probably going to turn me around. Now it's not. Wow. Let's keep moving forward. Let's keep moving forward. And so when I get on the top of these things, it's a, oh my word, this is, um, I can't believe all these things fell into place for me to climb up this thing. And here I am standing on top of it now. Hallelujah. Okay. Really cool thought.

How would you finish this thought? I think about all the things that could potentially kill me so that. So that I don't make those mistakes and I see my kids at the end of the day. Okay, that's clear. But that's a really powerful process for all humans. What are the real dangers in life? Let me examine them. Let me not get intimidated by the examination.

And let me not get traumatized by the exploration. But let me truly objectively examine it and then create a plan accordingly. Totally. And when we're at the base of these big daunting mountains, a lot of times it's in the dark because we need, you know, we got to do the timing. We want to hike these things in the dark and kind of top out around sunrise. So you're in this thing, you're making, you know, noises and da that goes into before the climb is like yeah what are the things that need to happen for us to reach the top of this thing and then but without even looking at the top it's like breaking it down to like i gotta figure out how to make this move over this crevasse or what have you, or it's like breaking it down from section

to section, um, and move to move. And then collectively that ends up, you know, and all that stuff works out, you're on the top, but the top is never thought about until we're stepping on it. So it's, but it starts with like a vision or an idea. Like I want to go to that place in my life. And then you do an inventory of all the danger that could get in the way, all the threats to it. And then you plan accordingly. And when you reach those threats, you've got a plan in place. And then it's almost like you get to revel and celebrate like, Oh, look, the work planned off and the conditions are favorable. Let's keep going. And does that sound right? Like, could that be a prescription in some way for people to be and create bold, ambitious objectives in their life and to, you know, flourish. Yeah. I think that if you, the end goal can be so daunting

that let's talk about like, just for example, starting protector winners, the, you know, I was just like, man, let's, you know, one step at a time and never getting, um, and with, and I do this a lot with business too is it's just like just i you know yeah you know what the end goal is but it's so overwhelming and that really we need full attention on step one and then we need full attention on step two and then we need full attention on step three and um things can and you know adjust step three instead of um, things can, and, you know, adjust step three, instead of going right, you're going left for step four and you're making these adjustments along the way. And then there's the pre, um, you know, for example, I did one of the more serious, uh,

climbs in my life and, and, you know, and I'm looking at that thing for weeks out and going what is what you know what's it going to take for me to go and put my life on the line on this thing and i'm like laying out the like perfect set of weather ingredients and snow conditions that would allow me to to walk up this massive mountain with nowhere to hide that a small avalanche you know would probably kill me and which sounds like why would you even do that and then but here we are it's like a month out yeah it's still in play two weeks out it's still in play a week out it's still month out. Yeah, it's still in play. Two weeks out, it's still in play. A week out, it's still in play.

Three days out, it's still in play. Meaning like, wow, this stuff is really, the weather's doing exactly what we wanted to. We had this recipe that we were looking for. We got that recipe. We set out on the climb. And then we inch our way up going okay is this still feeling good they're still feeling good and then walk up this really serious mountain that on meant you know maybe it's 300 and uh or you know not even say as far as winter goes it's like 90 of the time um or you know a particular line the really complex lines those windows could be open for a couple hours or a couple days every couple years at best

how do you know when they're open and when do you know when they close there it is like that's the that's the level of detail planning that you got to get to right yeah so it's not cavalier right right and then it's like this knowledge but it's this headspace and then not getting caught up in the end goal because i've i've made those mistakes like tomorrow and so we'd never i really make it clear with everyone i'm with it's always we're gonna go look up look at this line we're gonna go start up this line it's never hey what are you doing tomorrow oh i'm going to climb the grand teton tomorrow i would never say that we're gonna go attempt the grand we're gonna take a close look at it and if we're lucky we're gonna end up on top of it. I love it.

Super thoughtful of the real need to alter a course. And so it's not this bullish. And maybe you can do it in business, but it doesn't happen when you understand the nature in language, right? That you can't just, you're not going to bully her. Well, and so if you're three quarters of the way up and it's not feeling right, that discussion amongst friends of like, I think we got to turn around is much easier because it's been on the front of our brain. And we've known the whole time that this was a real possibility. It's cool. Yeah, it's really cool.

Okay. Man, I've loved this conversation. And so I love the honesty and the clarity that you have and the structure that you have in your life for success. It's no doubt to me that Protect Our Winners, why that's working. It's no doubt to me that your business, jonesnowboards.com, like folks that want to support your business, I would imagine that's

working, but we haven't even gotten to that, where people can go and buy gear that you've created and branded and stamped. And so your clarity of thought, your appreciation for risk, your ability to manage around it, and the deep dive inside of relationships all make sense. And so, you know, what did I miss to try to understand as a way that we can pay forward some of the insights that you have? Well, I've appreciated this conversation as well um and thank you for the opportunity um but one thing that is really i just want to put out there is um you know yes i have a lot of you know i've got some great things and it sounds like I got everything figured out, but if my wife was here or my kids were here, I can forget where I parked the car. My closet's a mess. I lose credit cards like the chewing gum. I mean, you know, there's, I am not, um, I am a work in progress. Um, I have, um, you know, I'd say those fine detail sides of life, um, out, you know, the, the day in and day out of keeping your cars registered and all that side of things. Um, that is not a, uh, strong suit of mine. So I, I guess my point

is I just want people to know, you know, it can sound like, um, I've got all this stuff figured out and you know, it's a, we're all, you know, when I'm at the bus stop, for example, and I've really enjoyed having kids because, um, I've got to meet a bunch of everyday parents, um, and that I wouldn't normally meet. And I've gotten to make a lot of new friends that are, you know, maybe not that the prior was just people in the outdoor community and what have you, but it's like, you know, we're all just trying to be good parents good husbands put some food on the table keep the house clean and um and so i think that there's just a i think that if someone spent time with me they would not be like i'm just a regular person, I guess, uh, who has, you know, made some good moves

and figured some stuff out and have a way of doing my stuff that seems to be working, but it's, you know, I barely graduated high school. I, and I, and the only reason I bring this up is like, I don't, I just want people to, um, understand, you know, ideally be relatable to me and not think that I was gifted with this like super high Q and crazy, crazy athletic talent. Cause I, I can't tell you how many times I've been in the mountains with people that are better snowboarders than me. It's all the time. Um, and so I guess just people, it is, and I love what you do where it's like, you don't need to be, Tom Brady's a great example. No one who's calling him a master and it's through this hard work and focus and breaking goals down to small steps that lead to big achievements.

I love it. You know, one of the things as you're humbly describing the other side of the public celebrations of your talent and your businesses and your efforts, you know, you've got the messy side of it, right? And I'm nodding my head going, yeah, yeah, I like this too. And like, okay. And then one of the things that, and this is hopefully maybe a last question, because I want to honor your time here is that you work in stressful environments in the back country in very serious conditions. And stress is one of the challenges to humanity right now. So if we could take a moment and like if you could help me understand, us understand how you manage acute stress and how you manage chronic stress? Well, so there's that in front of my face mountain stress

that if it's a, you know, where one bad call raised a lifetime of good calls and it's really simple. It's a screaming yes or it's a no. And that just, it's got to feel right. How do you get to make sure that it feel and there's a lot of steps that like when do you know the window opens when do you know it closes it starts before you get to the trailhead it starts with the conversation with the mountain getting yourself in headspace. The life stress that, mind you, often keeps me up more than the, man, I go on this trip

and I blow it. I'm not coming home, which is real in the line of stress is not coming home is at the top of that list. But ironically, it's amazing. it's been amazing to me the thought of starting protect our winners the fear that was tied to that so the starting a snowboard company the fear that's tied to that and so it's interesting to have the how much these societal fears were actually waving down more than these you know in the in the mountain, um, fears. And I guess I've, I've learned that when I'm like, man, I'm like, like, I've never done this before. I'm out of my comfort zone. Um, those instead of running from that, which maybe I would have in the past, I'm like, Ooh, this is when the good stuff happens.

Um, and then, but it's not about being reckless. It's Ooh, this is when the good stuff happens. Let's stack the deck as much in my favor as we can to have success in that. And then that's where you go in with fine detail and try to stack that deck for success. Very cool, brother. Appreciate you. And you said earlier that you're not meditating or using mindfulness, or did I misread that? No, I do. I do.

I would say I do casual mindfulness and I've been playing around with it. And so meaning I'm not doing a formalized 20 minutes a day type deal, but I've been getting into grabbing pieces of mindfulness throughout the day. And I think as I read mindfulness, there's absolutely a level of this walking meditation through the mountains, which is a form of mindfulness. But as far as that deep dive into the brain, I continue to play with that. And is that a big part of what are you, where are you at with that? Yeah, I've been practicing for 20 years. And I think that it is, you know, some days, some months, some years, it's intense and structured and purposeful. And some phases, it's making sure that it's just part of the rhythm. And that's the practice.

And sometimes it's like fits and bits. And, you know, but I think that for me, the process of mindfulness is really about two things. It's about increasing awareness and then allowing to live in the present moment more often without judgment and critique, which provides a stitching of moments, which provides insights and wisdom. And without awareness, I think we're just stuck. And so this is an accelerant to, to find a sense of, um, the first order condition is to be aware, right. And then have the skills to navigate. And so that's where it sits for me. And it's like, it's been this really wonderfully difficult, um, experience and training process to increase awareness, is the gift you know it's like an amazing gift and so but i you got to earn it and um it's there's there's no freebies what method that you adhere to yeah like i you know i would there's uh

zazen there is transcendental there is fill in the blank lots of forms that people have created and mine is there's two basic types if you strip them all back there's two basics one is single point focus which you're just focusing relentlessly on one thing at a time, at a moment, you know, and when your mind wanders, you come back to that one thing, whether it's a breath, the Kung Fu candle, you know, flickering candle or a mantra or whatever. It's just the one thing that you're working on. And then there's...

So sorry, would you actually like potentially just stare at a candle? Well, that could be one that's not part of my practice, but that's exactly it. Right. Is you're just naturally observing the flickering candle. Then what will happen is your mind will say, why am I doing this? There's so much I got to do. Is this really doing anything? Oh, my eyes hurt from keeping them open.

And all of that is noise from the signal and the signal is the flickering candle right which is the present moment experience of the one thing and so it does train your mind to refocus that's the work the work is refocusing so it could be a flickering candle dot on the wall mantra sound you know ohm whatever or a breath you know there's four parts to every breath just following that that that rhythm and then the other part is contemplative which is just watching the thought stream and emotion stream and just following that and staying with that stream as opposed to doing the laundry list of to-dos and worrying about a b and c C, but just following like,

Oh, that's what worry feels like. Oh, these are the, these are the things I am worrying about and, or frustrated by or pleased with or whatever. And so I like to do totally, uh, on two separate sides of the coin. I like, yeah. Yeah. So I bounce back and forth and I stitch all of them together with gratitude work, which is just like opening that loving kindness, like thank you, you know, to humans and to the planet. I love it. Yeah. If you send me any info on that, I mean, I have it.

I've done the mantra stuff. Yeah. I really it. Yeah, if you send me any info on that. I mean, I have it. I've done the mantra stuff. Yeah. I really like. I love looking at the sun with my eyes closed and doing mantra stuff. It's like such an uplifting, like getting that vitamin D through your eyelids. But so, no, I, especially when I'm dealing with jet lag and stuff, instead of like just sitting in bed and going, I should be asleep. I'm like, this is a great time to, to, that's really cool. Yeah. And so one of the things,

like if you just did the basic breathing work, which is if you just made it uber simple and your exhale be longer than your inhale. Yeah. Right. And yeah. And you just did that. And each time, let's say you're on the exhale and you start thinking about, I should be asleep. You go, ah, there you are. Okay. And you just come back to finishing the exhale or starting over on the next inhale and all of your essence, just like when you're, you know, on a 40 foot spine in the back country and uncharted spaces that all of your essence is on picking that first turn or second, whatever. You know, like you see the line, you're committed to it. Like it's that same thing.

And you're just doing it on a pillow. And do you, how long do you, like what, how does your practice range? Like from time? Yeah. If my first teacher, what's up, Walt? If he was here, he'd say, Mike, don't tell him. Okay. I like that.

All the respect, Walt. Yeah, right. No, but what he would say is, the way he would respond to me is he'd say just start jeremy just commit to it and if it's 30 seconds cool if it's 30 minutes rad anywhere in between just commit like that's what he'd get into that zen mode and then me more practical mode i'd say you know i shoot for eight minutes minimum of a day yeah and and because that's good science there's good science around that if i can get it up to 20 great but you know what when i can get if i can get two minutes in eight minutes minimum of a day. Yeah. And cause that's good science. There's good science around that. If I can get it up to 20,

great. But you know what, when I can get, if I can get two minutes in and that's all I got today, I'm in it, but I'm committing to it. Yep. Yeah.

So that's how I think. That's kind of where I, when I say casually committed to meditation, it's like grabbing slivers of time of, you know, two to six minutes. like oh wow i'm waiting i got six minutes to kill i'm gonna focus on breath or a mantra or what have you so yeah and i've had that where i felt like my brain all like almost like muscle release um i don't know how to explain it where like just

let's go and it's i'm like that's it and then it will fleetingly go away and i'm like fuck and i'm assuming that good meditators can be like sit in that space for long periods of time which would be insane well you know it's it's like this that if you went to the gym and you did some stuff, you know, you kind of get that pump or that soreness or that activation. And then if you didn't do it, if you only went to the gym for eight minutes, you're not going to feel a whole lot after the 15 minutes that you leave the gym. Right. But if you went every day and you really got after it, that glow lasts. Yeah. And it becomes something from a state to a trait.

And that's the big time work. But that's the gold dust. The gold is being able to focus in the present moment better because you have increased awareness of what is actually happening in the present moment now. I love it. Well, I wrote all this down. So thank you for that. Yeah, good, man. All right. Listen, I can't wait for our paths across some point down the path. And I'm going to activate our team to figure out how to support protectourwinners.org. And so let's circle back up on that. But otherwise, thank you for this conversation,

what you've done for the planet and people and inspiring the turns that you've done in the backcountry, which is so fun to watch, and the lifestyle that you've led. So thank you for that. And where can people find you? I guess the probably simplest would be just Instagram at Jeremy Jones. And yeah, or through, you know, the JonesSnowboards.com, ProtectOurWinners.org.

Awesome. Yeah, I'm out there. Awesome. Jeremy, thank you. You're welcome. Hopefully we meet in person and appreciate the opportunity appreciate you take care all right bye-bye okay bye all right thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us our team loves creating this podcast and sharing

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