KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Climbing Everest, Die Trying with Bo Parfet

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Good morning. Good morning. It's Randy Bird and I am super, super excited to bring you this guest today. You see his name there, Bo Parfet. Bo is a man, a myth, a legend. He is the most unassuming guy, but listen to this, climbed Mount Everest, not only Mount Everest, but all seven summits. We're going to talk about that today, but I met him in Puerto Rico at just a casual dinner with some of my best friends, Brent and Kathy. and he's the most unassuming guy until he said, yeah, I climbed Everest and actually I've summited all seven. And I just was like, what? And when you look at him, he looks athletic, but not that kind of athletic. So anyway, I'm going to bring Bo on the call in just one minute, but just a real quick opening. One of a hundred Americans to climb Everest and summit all

seven summits published two books, Principles of Life, and Die Trying that I just got done reading amazing. He's a member of the fabled Explorers Club. I'll have him explain that to you. Presidential Volunteer Award. He's from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is part of DLP Capital. We'll let him talk about that a little bit, strategic growth opportunities partner. He holds an MBA from Northwest, also Kellogg School of College, Kellogg School of Management. But back to, more importantly, he's a little crazy. He's climbing the seven. He's climbing the tallest mountains on the planet. But with that, Bo, please come in, join us in the room. I'm excited to have you on Tuesday Titans Live. Bo, how are you doing? Hey, Coach Randy Bird,

I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Man, I am so excited. I honest, you know, I've had a couple weeks since we put this on the calendar. I've been, I've been just going through die trying, dying to get through this book and really try to understand your life. And I just finished it this morning. Actually, I had one chapter to read left. I kind of and jumped around a little bit. But I wanted to do you a service by reading your book and understanding your journey before having you on my podcast. And I found myself not being able to put it down, especially in certain chapters. Everest attempt once, Everest attempt twice. Your whole family went with you the second time. It gives me goosebumps to talk about that. But as we get started,

let's do this. I think it's good for the audience to understand what's going on in the brain of a guy that is interested in climbing the seven summits of the world, the seven highest mountains, and traveling the world to do it, sometimes at great, great risk. Like we'll talk about getting through some of the minds that you did and stuff. But walk us through the journey anywhere you want to go, Bo. In the beginning, when did you first find out this was for you? Hey, Coach Randy, excited to be here. So I think it starts when I was a kid.

So I had, I was pretty dyslexic when I was a kid. I had a speech impediment. And, you know, I had some other, other challenges at home. And not like, not unlike many people who are listening, right? We all have our challenges. So I don't want to make it sound like mine. We're better or worse. They're just, we're all have our own different challenges.

But I do remember when I was in second grade, I was struggling. I was really struggling. and it was a parent teacher conference. And my teacher said to my two parents, hey, Bo is really dyslexic. There's no way he's going to graduate high school. And I remember thinking, I mean, I just, I heard that for the first time.

And I'd love to tell you, Coach Randy, that I went home and said, hey, I'm going to prove my teacher wrong. Well, that's not what I did. I went home and I cried my eyes out because I thought there was something wrong with me. And I just, I kept working. I kept kind of grinding away. And then now it's seventh grade, another parent teacher conference. And my teacher at this point tells my parents, hey, I've got some good news.

Bo's going to graduate high school, but not college. And I just remember thinking, well, that's progress. But dang it, you know, is this college so elusive? So I started to, things started to click for me a little bit in high school. I practiced a lot in math. and I got pretty good at math and then I built off that. So fast forward, I do have two master's degrees. So, you know, hey, hey, I was able to push through.

But I started climbing at Colorado State University where I went for undergrad. And I wasn't even, my feet weren't even on the ground for 24 hours. And I had climbed two peaks. And I just loved the feeling of it. I love the accomplishment. and just taking little slivers in life of where I started to excel, whether it was math or climbing, made the other struggles in my life more palatable, if that makes sense. Wow.

I mean, masters, one thing, two masters and all these other Kellogg School and all these other things. Were you driven by education? Were you driven to a certain plateau of that because of a passion of yours in that business sector, what was it that drove you to go to those levels when you didn't think you'd get out of high school effectively? So for anyone listening, whether you have a physical disability or it's dyslexia or it's a mental, here's the good news.

The good news is, and I don't know the exact number, Coach Brandy, but there's about, say, 30 to 40 different ways a human being can absorb information. You can learn. Well, traditional school basically teaches one or two of them, right? Just read something, memorize it, you know, take some notes. But what if you don't fall into that bucket? So the fun of the struggle and what turned out to later be the fun of it, it was to figure out how I learn.

And I think that if anyone's listening to go, man, school really wasn't for me, that's okay. But learning, I guarantee you is for you, right? We just have to figure out how we learn. And then once I figured that out, school became a lot easier for me and getting to master's degrees was a welcome challenge. I love it. I remember you talking about your dyslexia and they changed the way they were giving you the test, letting you do audible, let you do different ways to do. And all of a sudden you started excelling, right? So they tapped into your possibility. It's interesting. You say math, I was very young. I was in all the way up to, I think about fourth grade.

I had no math skills, couldn't do anything, and just could not get it. And I had that one teacher that taught me something that made sense to me. And it was just a system of 100, which we use pretty easily now. But that system was 100, breaking everything into 10 and hundreds and so on. I'm like incredibly quick with math now. In 30 years in construction, I could do fractions and all these things just because my brain thinks differently when it comes to math. And it blows people away.

They think I'm brilliant in math. And I was actually, I couldn't get it. I just, I didn't have the capacity to put map together until that one teacher and, you know, goosebumps to this day when I talk about it, it changed everything, right? I didn't graduate high school. I went all the way through high school, but didn't have enough credits, spelled history, hate history. Now I love history, right?

It's just an age thing, I think. Yeah. I literally devour history now. And back then, I just, I couldn't be bothered with what happened in the past. It's just an immature thing. when when I look at your journey, how much struggle you had, I mean, you were fighting your way through school, you were rebelling and doing a lot of, you know, adolescent things, right? We have similar pasts in that area. I was pure. Same thing. But when was it that you really found the passion?

Was it Colorado when you went and climbed those first couple of peaks? And you were like, this is for me. This is a, I get this piece of you that is like being alone and being challenged individually is what fuels you. Is that accurate? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I was lucky enough, so two times in my childhood, my dad took us out west to go skiing. Went to Colorado and Montana. And I remember, you know, growing up in Michigan, and a lot of people ask me, what's it like growing up in Michigan or the upper Midwest? I go, well, we have three months of, or we have nine months of winter and three months of bad sledding. So we went out skiing twice in my youth. And I remember seeing the mountains for the first time, Coach Randy. And I just couldn't believe that the earth could

look that way. I didn't, I was like, these are really, you know, I just, I couldn't believe it because Michigan's so flat, right? So I started asking my dad right away, oh my gosh, there's, I was a kid, right? There are houses here. People live here. People have a job here. Could I go to school? here, could we move here? You know, and I just remember I was, I was pretty much hooked within, you know, minutes of just seeing the mountains out of the window from the airplane. And I knew that I wanted to go to college in a mountainous area. So I was pretty much hooked from mountains right away. And some people say that about fishing or scuba diving, you know, or other activities. For me, it happened to be mountain climbing. Yeah, that's a good point. I witnessed that scuba diving. You know,

that first time on the bottom. It was just like, this is a whole other world. And I've always enjoyed the mountains, but in reading your book, it is, you're literally hanging your life from a rope many times. You're hiking in areas, you know, it talked about the top of the mountains coming again. They're two foot wide and you have 2,000 foot on either side. And I mean, that's a real thing, right?

That is, that's a real thing. And I've been on a peak like that hunting up in Idaho that my body wouldn't work. just my, you know, it was this wide, but my functions just my body would not work. Your legs, your arms, they just don't want to communicate and work with your brain. What is it like to be? I mean, I'm going to get into some of the seven summits, but what's it like to be on top of the world? I mean, what is that experience if you can let us know? So I love, I love this question.

And for it's similar to when you, see you're just something you know a child born or something that is magical and spiritual so i remember you know it was i think it was a roughly about an eight year goal to do the seven summits and i'm sitting on the top of mount everest and looking out at this beautiful view and every part of my body was tingling and it was i was crying one minute laughing the next and And just I couldn't get enough of the view. I had my oxygen off for 45 minutes. I was up there by myself.

And I just, I just had a lovely time. And I just, it was such a, like that, where you delay gratification? You know what I mean? You just delay, delay. And it was, it was 45 minutes of bliss. But then I knew this, Coach Randy. I knew that I was only halfway. The summit is only halfway.

and 80% of the accidents happen on the way down. So very quickly, my excitement turned into, you know, 100% serious as can be because a lot can go wrong as I started to head down. That's amazing that 80% of the accidents happen on the way down after reaching that pinnacle of life, right? And you talked about how there's literally hundreds of bodies, you know, on the trek to the top of Everest. and at many different levels.

And I guess that's just because of the nature of trying to remove them from that mountain, right? They just, that becomes the final resting place. And I mean, for some, I would imagine that could be a pinnacle of a place to end your life and, you know, be on top of the world effectively. But I know they didn't set out to be there. They didn't set up with that in mind. You know, when you, Everest is to me. when you think of, and I'm an uneducated mountaineer, right?

So when I think of this, I think Everest is being the grandmaster, being the largest and greatest and biggest, and it's the most recognizable. But in reading your book, it sounds like Everest, you can tackle with a side water cooler, an axe pick, and a good pair of boots is what it sounded like. And I'm making a little bit of fun of that because it's so monumental. And then, but when we talk about some of the other technical mountains, it's really not that technical. It's just high. Is that accurate? Compared to, so I've climbed K2, which is in Pakistan, and P2 and Everest are different sports. So for the people that don't know, K2 is called Savage Mountain.

It's the second tallest mountain on earth. And it has about a one out of four death rate. and Everest, I think, has one out of 10 or one out of 12 death rate. Wow. So there are some technical bits on Everest for sure, but nothing like K2. And it is high and it is long for sure. You know, you mentioned something I want to touch on. A lot of people ask me and they probably ask you, Coach Randy Bird, is, man, how do I find that?

You mentioned scuba diving, right? and how you just love it. And, you know, I think the two most important moments of your life are the moment you're born and the moment you know why. And some people don't know their why yet. And some people have more than one why. And that's all okay. And for those listening, if you don't know your why yet, that's okay.

Go try a bunch of things. Right. And when you figure out something that just inspires you and, you know, you want to jump out to bed every morning and do it. Just dig into that with, you know, with with all your energy and fortitude. I love that. I want to expand on that. You wrote the book Die Trying. And you're talking almost about a rebirth, it sounds like, not in a biblical way, but in a spiritual way that, you know, moving from being born to understanding why you're born, right? How do you talk to people that are struggling with that.

I mean, you had some real struggles in your life that led you to seeking big things. And again, totally with respect, you look mild mannered. You look like Superman until you pill off your jacket and you've got a big ass on your chest. And I mean that when I read this book. It's just you are doing inhuman things in a belief system at least. So physically you've got to be in shape. And I read that many times you were ill-prepared, overweight, you did some of this stuff where you're just going, this can't be true, right? And so I'm reading this going,

this guy can't, it can't be true. This guy is bad shit crazy. But when you think about it, it's the mental fortitude. And one of the things that rode down is you're a mental evangelist, you know, daredevil, mountaineer, all that makes it sound sexy. But when you, when I break this down, and I mean this with the deepest respect, the mental fortitude is a majority. of what we're overcoming when we're doing these inhuman things, right? Yep. And just the preparation and there's many pieces that go into it. And it sounds like you started preparing more as you went through your journey,

you know, showing up and you had, you climbed, was it Everest with two different boots on? Matter of fact, it's on the front page of your book. I was looking at and I'm like, that's kind of odd how he's got two different color boots on. I was like, it's probably just ski fashion, you know. but no, you had not only the wrong boots, but the wrong size. And you just continued to climb Everest with that. Is that accurate? Yes.

All right. Any normal? I'm just, I'm going to be laid out there. Any normal person that would have been, okay, God, you got wrong size boots? I know that I shouldn't be here at this moment, right? Yeah. But you're going to put three pair of socks on and just go, it's just Everest. You know, it's, it's funny.

The two boots story is really funny. And I wonder that, like when things start to go wrong on a big expedition, is, are there signs? And sometimes there are, right? And sometimes, you know, they're not. And try to read those signs is a lot of fun and a lot of challenging. I think Coach Randy is what you're, it's a great question. So people, we're touching on how do you look, I'm a normal person, right?

I can't duck a basketball. I wasn't the best athlete. Right. And then how do you go do these amazing things in life? And I'm not alone, right? So I think to unpack this, I think what it, there was a conversation I had when I was working at J.P. Morgan. So I was in New York City, working 100 hours a week. Now it's 50, 60 pounds overweight. And I'd worked seven months straight. So that's every day, including Saturday, Sunday for seven months. And I went to my boss and I said, hey, I want to take a week off and go climb Kilimanjaro. And, you know, that was my big idea. And he looked at me and then he looked down at my big belly.

And then he looked back up at me and he goes, well, Bo, well, it makes you think you can make it. And I kind of like, you know, we're trying to like cover up my back. Hurricane Valley covered up. Yeah, covered up. And I said, well, I don't know. I'm going to give it my best shot. And he goes, he goes, Bo.

let me tell you something. He goes, do you want to have more energy than you can possibly imagine? And I said, yes. He goes, right now you're thinking about climbing this mountain for yourself. I said, yeah. He goes, if you can climb the mountain for something bigger than yourself, then you're going to have more energy than you can possibly. And he said, go think about that and come back to me. So I went back and I thought about it for a couple weeks. And then I came back and he, he he was onto something and he tapped into this this energy reservoir that we all have but he just figured out away so what was cool about it is we um we i basically figured out that we could send we could create a doctor we could raise money and create a doctor um and they find kids in shanty

towns in africa they test them for aptitude and for six thousand doctor sorry for six thousand we could create a doctor. Okay? We could pay for them to go to medical school. So, well, why $6,000? I couldn't believe how cheap it was. So we ultimately end up doing two of them, and I've done more sense. But so long story short, and for people listening, I also talk about how to create

these delicious layering in your life. I call it layering cake. And I talk about it. And I actually bring in cake. layers on it and give it to people that share. Oh, wow. But when you start to add in these layers to your life, you just build on them. And next thing you know, you look back and you've done these really cool things. So an example would be Kilimanjaro. Well, one layer was I got to go to Kilimanjaro and get in shape. Okay, great. I needed to get in shape. I was, I was an overweight person.

Number two, I needed to do something bigger than myself because it connected me more with the world. it gave me more meaning in my life. And to this day, I'm very passionate about education, still am. So we've, these two doctors now that we've put through, again, there's more now. But all the doctors that we've helped create and fund, Coach Randy Bird, they've saved over 10,000 lives. That's what I was going to say. The impact is of just a couple people have now impacted thousands and now tens of thousands. Isn't that amazing? And to this, day. They continue their saving lives every day. So how cool is that? That part's amazing. And when you talk about that, I mean, the medical scholarships, you know, 12 grand for a couple doctors, especially in the

world we live in, it's amazing how much impact you can have by just being purposeful about what you're focusing on and what you're wanting to do. And, you know, I'm in my 50s now. And it wasn't until the last decade that I really got purposeful about helping others. I always felt like I had some kind of passion in my belly about helping others. But it wasn't until, you know, the last decade or even maybe half of that that I really was focused on it and watching people do it at a high level like Brent and Kathy are friends. So when you and Brett and Kathy are awesome, by the way, if you're listening, we think you're terrific people. Yeah, they are and they will listen. And so, you know, I'd like to go maybe a little rapid fire with you and ask some questions.

I'm absolutely intrigued. And as a coach, I'm always looking into the mental game, the warfare game of mental where we're really bombarded by things every day that are negative. And it's everything from conversations to social media, to the news, to the world. It just depends what you want to focus on, right? What you focus on expands. And you talked about layering.

I do stacking. similar, identical probably, stacking these things up because if you stack more, then it outweighs the negativity. And I'm human like everybody else. I've had tragedy in my life. I've had things that got me to a place to where I didn't understand, questioned why. You know, why am I here? Why, why this life? And for me, coaching has been the difference maker for me because when you're coaching and inspiring and lifting other people, you're coaching yourself as well. So it's been my greatest, you know, self-help motivational tool, but my big, big thing is getting into the minds of of great people, great athletes, great business, people, entrepreneurs, you're all of that.

And how can we shape somebody for the future when they may be, I believe it's a lack of hope, a lack of future, you know, when people get either depressed or get into a place of not seeing opportunity in front of them. What advice would you give them to really find that passion in themselves and find the top of a mountain? That's a good question. And it's a lot to unpack there. It is. So, you know, to rapid fire, it could be, if you don't have a mentor, I think finding a mentor is very important. Finding a coach is very important. Finding a group of friends. you know, that are passionate about what you're passionate about, right? And that's okay. And some people, you know, and it could be family or friends, either one's fine. One cheerleaders, though.

Yeah, absolutely. Not deal breakers, deal killers. Yep. Positive people, right? So positivity, positivity. You know, I'd get the negative people out of your life as fast as you can. Yeah. You know, that's one for sure. You know, goal setting is a big one. is absolutely a big one for sure. And I'm thinking of others off the top of my head. What come to your mind? Jump in here. Yeah, I think it's, I believe it's self-identity is the big problem I see nowadays,

and I suffered from it as well. Because as we get more public and as we get, you know, social media, everything is out in the open. You really get judgmental. And I think people are too judgmental of themselves. and that creates a component of they think it's safety, but they're afraid of risk and risk is the reward. And I'm getting goosebumps saying this because I just,

I went back to your book and I'm like, I could get emotional at the risk that you were taking, but it was for a bigger purpose and your life literally hanging in the balance and losing friends on these, you know, expeditions. And for me, it's, I believe it's, negativity is number one. And as soon as we could start removing the negativity and start rewinding the narrative for them of what what the future looks like, you start getting optimism and hope and these other things come up. I had three really close suicides in my life.

So these are times that, you know, you self-reflect. And then I really think that if people find their why and don't get into the judgment of others, that's when they find magic. because when you are in judgment, worried about the judgment of others within reason, right? You can't be reckless and do something. You know, I can go online today and I could lose all my positions because I could say things that are, you know, not worthy of me being in a position like I am. So it comes with some, it comes with the word of caution. But when you really find that passion of yours and then you can go with it,

people will start showing up in your life that are going to support you. And people will start showing up in your life. that are in the way as well. And this sounds rude, but a friend of mine that I really admire looked at, I was talking to him about this subject. And he said, there's a lot of people in your life that are booster rockets. They have one role, which is to get you into the sub atmosphere, the stratosphere, but they're not meant to go to the moon with you. They're meant to help boost you into that orbit. And you can't live without it like a rocket. Doesn't mean that it's any less valuable. it just means it was a timely relationship.

And sometimes we have to leave those relationships to be able to go to the next level. And man, that hit me because I was like, wow, I could identify those relationships that I had to lose along the way to get to the next level. 100%. And just to add to this rich discussion, I think diet and exercise is important.

Winston Churchill said, if you're going through hell, keep going. Yeah, quit digging. So life is not, life is a challenge. and life is full of hard things. And, you know, I think I love that quote. If you're going through hell, keep going. I think the morning practice is important.

And you said to no judgment, there's a lot of people out there where, you know, finding God or reconnecting with God, God is what's right for them. And that's okay. That's wonderful. Absolutely. I was going to read this in the beginning. And I feel compelled to read it now. But it's deep in the book.

But the climber is not. love with the idea of getting himself killed. He is in love with the idea of embracing life and living it to its fullest. It is for this reason that we as climbers embrace the mountains and climb in the first place for on the other side of fear is freedom. Italian climber Walter Bonatti. That got me. That's like on page 176. And I was like, that got me because that is, you know, the path of this, right? So a couple of rapid fires, what's your favorite mountain on the planet? Like if the rewards have been had, the seven summits have been had, you just are going for pure enjoyment. Where would it be?

For pure enjoyment? Yeah, top of a mountain. Or does pure enjoyment go with that? You know, I would answer it two ways. If it would just be, my favorite mountain on Earth is K2. It's a beautiful pyramid. It's a pyramid peak. It's deep in the caracorum in the Himalaya.

I love that mountain. And then the second one would be with my family. I live in Boulder, Colorado, and there's a mountain called Mount Sinitas, which is not far from my front door. It takes about 45 minutes to hike up with my family. Wow. My wife and my two boys to climb up that mountain is very special. and that would that's that's if i had to pick one i would pick that i'd pick mount sinitas how about that i love it and i remember your family going on everest try to and taken all the way up to base

camp and some of the stories that went along with that that had to be special incredibly special absolutely what is the uh the most frightened or scared you've ever been on a mountain there's there's been a bunch um you know i fell under crevasse on mount cook in new zealand that was pretty terrifying on Mount Everest, just the number of kind of dead bodies and the Kumbu Icefall collapsing, you know, minutes before or after we went through a section. Yeah.

And if we were two minutes slower, we'd be killed. Wow. And that's just the hand of God, Mother Nature. That's nothing about what you're doing. It's just timing, right? Yep. Mount McKinley or Donali and Alaska. It was a harrowing peak.

There's a lot of, there's definitely been a lot of close calls for sure, hard to pick one. Well, I highly recommend this book, Die Trying, if anybody's interested in mountaineering. And I was going to lead to the next question. What's a great mountain for somebody to start on? If they're, you know, a serious mountaineer, they've climbed some local peaks and things. What's the first of the seven that you would pick for them to get the experience? So I think that I think Kilimanjaro is a beautiful mountain. It's you go through like five different kind of climatic zone.

I remember that. That really impressed me through the different zones that you go through. Yep. Start in the jungle with monkeys, you know, and then you end at the top with a glacier. And the glacier may not be here that much longer. So Kilmanjaro is one. And if you're going to go to Africa and maybe tack on a couple days to see a safari, so Kilimanjaro is sensational.

I love it. Well, Brent and Kathy, we're just in Africa. I don't think they claim Kilimanjaro, but they should have. They sent me lots of pictures of lions and stuff. I don't know if you got those. Yeah, the pictures are amazing so far. Amazing, amazing. I've got probably 20 notes in here, but in the value of time,

I really want to kind of wrap this piece up with you. It's been inspiring. it's made me want to climb. I was in Alaska and the Coast Guard and went through cold weather, cold weather survival school and all that stuff. I really don't want to get cold anymore. So it's going to be, I'm probably going to stick to ocean level, you know, activities and water skiing.

But when you look at the journey that you've been in since about 2005 or seven, right? I think that's when you really first experienced that failing ROTC climbing that first mountain, which is batshit. crazy again, excuse my language. You were climbing without ropes because they couldn't take, you know, they couldn't take you under the care or else it'd be a liability issue. And you're just free climbing out there with all these guys. And that was your really your hook, if you will, right? That was your first time. What do you do when you get down? What do you do when you get, you know, disappointed, depressed, feeling a hopelessness or anything? It could be

personal, could be life or whatever. What do you do? What do you do? You know, disappointed, you're depressed, um, feeling a hopelessness or anything. what do you do to dig in to realize that you know you're a superman effectively but we're all human great question uh sleep is very important sleep for me is huge sometimes i just need a really good night sleep could be i mean i mean it could be eight to 10 hours is that right okay if i need 11 if you're listening out there and you need 11 for a couple days go go get 11 um hydration is huge yeah um meditation is huge. And then, you know, I flipped this switch recently. And I just learned this, Coach Bird, about a couple years ago, is I used to, like, you know,

when you do wind sprints, if anyone's listening, you know, you have to do sprints for training it sometimes. Yeah. And I remember going, okay, I'm going to do 20 rinse. And I would, and I would, I'd be like on number three. And I'd go, oh, my gosh, I have 17 left. Oh, man, this is, this really, my heart is laboring. and I've switched it to, oh man, I only have 17 left.

That stinks, you know, I'm having so much fun doing this. I've just switched my mindset. Reprogram. And when I'm reprogram or when I'm climbing for years and years, decades, I'd go, gosh, my left quad is killing me. And I'd get all stressed out about my left quad. Is it going to seize up? Is it going to cramp up?

Is it going to prevent me from getting the summit? And now I've switched my mindset to go, well, thank you. I'm so glad my left quad is is getting sore or tired because it's telling me to use other muscles. So now I'm going to use my hamstrings more, give that quad a rest, or I can use my glutes or my calves. And then when those get tired, I just keep rotating the muscles. And it's more of a thank you or a gratitude for that left quad getting hurt because it's telling me that I need to switch and use other muscles. So it's a mindset shift to to embrace the suck. Have you ever heard someone say that? Embrace the pain. Absolutely. And it's really not that bad once you do it. And it sounds like

if you haven't tried it. If you haven't experienced it, I think a lot of us sometimes need to experience things before we believe it, right? Believe it and I will see it or see it and I will believe it. It sounds a little hocus, pocus at times, but it's absolutely true. What we focus on expands and, you know, the energy of the universe, all that stuff. comes in a play. And I'm not burning, burning sage and sitting by crystals, but a thousand percent believe that we have the capacity within the six inches between our ears to change all that. And history has proven it. History has proven it with explorers and mountaineers and everything. People living, you know, timeframes that they should not have been able to physically live

because of the mental strength. What books are you reading right now? What lights up bow? So I love The Obstacles Away by Ryan Holiday. I love grit by Angela Dunworth. There's actually a grit for kids out there if you're listening. There's a good thing that you can have your kids do and learn about grit. Anything on Teddy Roosevelt, I'm a big fan of. And then my boss just recently wrote this book. I have it on the screen here called Building an Elite Organization by Don Wenner.

and this is a managerial operating system on how you can grow and scale your business exponentially. And they don't, you know, I have two master's degrees. They didn't teach this in school. This is a fabulous book. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention I'm an executive at DLP Capital. We're an impact company. And what impact means is you can solve a problem, you know, some of the biggest problems in the world and you can make a financial return at the same time. and for us, we're trying to solve the workforce housing crisis in America and make a,

you know, a very strong return at the same time. So I've, I've just, I'm trying to integrate everything I'm doing in my life for impact. And that comes from passion right there. And all of a sudden, it's not work, right? When you're helping others, you don't work a day in your life and it really changes things. Where can they get a hold of you if they want to talk to you about that invest or partner or any other things? How can they get a hold of you? Yep. If you want to touch base with me, email is Bo, B-O-B-O-B-Parfit at dLP capital.com. Awesome. And any closing thoughts. It's been an amazing time having you here.

I've really, really enjoyed reading your book. I've enjoyed getting to know you. I am honored and blessed that you're here sharing your story. We could go on for hours. I guarantee you. It could easily go on for hours. But I want people to be able to look you up and understand you and get your book and really dive into that. And I believe you're going to inspire a lot of young climbers and a lot of young mountaineers as well in that. But any closing thoughts? Any closing words you'd like people to know about you or otherwise, Bo? Absolutely. The thing, the one takeaway that's coming to mind right now, and I'm just going to say it. So we talked about before about negativity. Yeah. And unfortunately, today's media is mostly, you know, they're just trying to say.

sell ink or sell clicks, right? So they're financially incentivized to, you know, make the most money, you know, newspapers, ink, clicks. So many of the things that they focus on are negative. Okay. So for anyone listening, you have a story that will uplift and inspire the world. Everyone has one. It could be a two-page white paper. It could be a book. It could be a talk you give. It could be a blog. But someone will read that and it will change their life. And that's what I encourage everyone to do is to tell their story in whatever way they want to. And I'll give one quick example. You know, I wrote this book Die Trying.

It's about mountain climbing, right? It's about overcoming challenges. My co-author and my publicist said, Bo, you're lucky if anyone reads it besides your kids. Right? So I went on this little small book tour and kind of went around the country. I think I think we did 15 cities. And about six months later, I get this email, Coach Bird. And this email was from a woman that said, hey, and she used, I could tell she created a different,

she made it clear that she didn't want me to know who she was and you'll know why at a second. She said, you know, I heard you speak. And you talked about the cliff of change. You talked about how it's more painful to stand on the cliff of change than it is to jump off that cliff. it's less painful to jump and go chase your dream, go chase your why, than it is to just sit there on the edge and pain. And she said, I want you to know, for the last 20 years, I've been mentally and physically abused by my husband. And I'm a nurse. And I've always wanted to be a doctor, but he said I was not smart enough and too stupid.

And so after hearing you speak, it's been quite a bit of time since I heard you speak. again, she's being very vague to protect herself. She said, I've taken the MCAT, I'm enrolled in medical school, I divorced him, I've moved away from him, and I'm chasing my lion. I'm chasing my dream. And Coach Byrd, I mean, now I'm in full tears as I'm reading this. So who would have thought that that, you know, and if it worked with humility here, if it weren't for my book, it would have been somebody else's book, right?

but maybe, you know, the more good stories or inspirational stories that we have out there, the better. So the takeaway is write your story, tell your story, do whatever you need to do. I love that and I want to humanize it for a minute. There had to be a time where you're like, I don't know if this is going to work and I don't know if I should do a 15 city tour. You're human, right? We all have those things that are 200,000-year-old primal protection mechanisms. we just have to fight them. And that's what I got out of your book, from front to back. I got that.

You just fought those primal instincts of quitting and not good enough and all these things. And that's what makes you stand out. You're definitely a Titan. Thank you for being on Tuesday Titans. It's been an amazing time. When we leave this, you have a choice, right? Bo, I think you're going to impact people for quite a while with your book and your story. but you, the listener has the same ability to impact other like Bo just said, right?

Get out of the drunk monkey. Get out of the I'm not good enough. Get out of somebody else's narrative that's holding you back and live large, live extreme, and climb your mountain. Coach Byrd, I love it. I am so grateful to spend time with you and your audience and your community. And then I'll share this with my community. And hopefully we inspire someone to improve someone's life. I love it, brother. I believe that to be true. I believe that. All it takes is one. Thank you for being here. I appreciate your brother. Have a great day. And again, thank you so much for the interview. And again, last time, die trying. Go get the book. All right. Thanks, Coach Byrd. Lots of love to you and your family. Thanks for having me. Thank you, brother. Back at you. Thanks, ma'am.