Modern Wisdom - #509 - Colin O'Brady - The Man Who Walked Across Antarctica

Episode Date: August 6, 2022

Colin O'Brady is a 10-time world record breaking explorer and one of the world's best endurance athletes. The things we believe can act like a glass ceiling. It's an imaginary limit that we place on what we can achieve in life because of our age or experience or money or self trust. Colin is a man who has annihilated his way through that glass ceiling and is here to show us what's on the other side. Expect to learn what it's like to have to drag a 375lb sled 1000 miles across the Antarctic, why having a British Special Forces Soldier breathing down your neck can help you move faster, why the chasm of comfortable complacency is a place we all can fall into, what it feels like to get third degree burns over a third over your body in Thailand, how to rid yourself of limiting beliefs and much more... Sponsors: Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 20% discount on the highest quality CBD Products from Pure Sport at https://bit.ly/cbdwisdom (use code: MW20) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and Free Shipping from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Buy The 12 Minute Mile - https://amzn.to/3vCrHV4 Check out Colin's project - https://12hourwalk.com/  Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's happening people? Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Colin O'Brady. He's a ten time world record-breaking explorer and one of the world's best endurance athletes. The things that we believe can act like a glass ceiling. It's an imaginary limit that we place on what we can achieve in life because of our age, your experience, or money, your self-trust. Colin is a man who has annihilated his way through that glass ceiling and is here to show us what's on the other side. Expect to learn what it's like to have to drag a £375 sled a thousand miles across the Antarctic, why having a British Special Force's soldier breathing down your neck can help you

move faster, why the chasm of comfortable complacency is a place we can all fall into, what it feels like to get third degree burns over a third of your body in Thailand, how to rid yourself of limiting beliefs, and much more. Don't forget that you might be listening but not subscribed, and if that is you, go and press the subscribe button. It's the only way that you can ensure that you will never miss an episode every Monday, Thursday and Saturday when they get uploaded, and it supports the show, and it makes me very happy.

I thank you. But now, ladies and gentlemen Brady, welcome to the show. Great to be here with you, Chris. Thanks for having me. How connected did you feel to the discovery of Shackleton's ship endurance when they found it a few months ago? Oh man, that was like a kid on Christmas, so waking up to that news. I remember I got The New York Times alert and then my phone started blowing up because

so many people know how, you know, fondly I think of Antarctica, but specifically, Shackleton. Shackleton has been a hero among heroes in my mind and consciousness. You know, the endurance is his story of that survival is one of my old time favorite books I've read, you know, like obscure texts of his journals and things like that. So honestly, I will say this though, I'm not generally a huge skeptic. But when they said they were going on this expedition to find that, I was like, how could they possibly find

they're like, how are they going to find this? You know, like I've, I've wrote a book across Drake Pass, I've been in these waters, I was like, how could they possibly find, how are they gonna find this? I've wrote a book across Drake Pass, I've been in these waters, I've been in it, and I'm like, I'm like, no, but honestly, I was happy to be proven wrong because it was unbelievable to see those photos and how preserved the boat was. Oh my gosh. Have you got any idea how they actually managed to find it?

Because the Antarctic is pretty big, presumably the GPS coordinates that they had from whatever it was 1914, 1915 or something and they departed. They wouldn't have been particularly sophisticated. So have you got any idea how they knew where to look? Honestly, that is the part that I should probably look deeper into it because I'm fast needed to know the answer to that question. I have no idea, particularly because the Wettel, and in that section over there, I mean,

they were on sea ice and it melted and it sunk, and I've literally been in a robot in these waters with 40-foot swells, and so I've been bashed around just in the course of a couple of weeks, and you know, 100 years you think it's gonna move around at the bottom of the ocean. And I think even they were from the reports

that had read pretty surprising, they found it, but how well preserved it was. Like, it's just the water is so cold that there was not as many natural predators and things that they would have in a warmer environment of corals and barnacles and things that would normally kind of decay. So like, it was like, I practically frozen in time,

I mean, it's wild. Dude, it's so good. Given the fact that you've spent so much time in the Antarctic, did it give you a different sort of appreciation for what Shackleton and those guys did? Was there any extra insights? You know, if you're reading Alfred Lansing's book, which is my favorite description of the Shackleton crossing,

you know, you read that and it's such an intense story learning about how they were first, they had to kill the dogs and then they're having to look for seals and then they leave some of them in behind and they strap all of the ballast that they can to one of the ships. But you've got to see this yourself first hand. Did that add some richness to the story? Um, I mean completely. I will say this. I, you know, I am proud of my solo crossing in Antarctica and the various expeditions uh, been in Antarctica four times and several expeditions down there. But walking across solo, Poland, what I was doing is I was trying

to become the first person history to cross an Artica solo, unsupported, which means no resupplies of food or fuel along the way. So taking all your gear with you, and then man-hauling, which is also a shackled to him, and then we're doing it. No kites, no motors, nothing propelling. You just mono, imano, kind of in the most primitive form. But I will say I, you know, 54 days alone, I made it across, obviously proud of that, whatever. There was not a day that went by. In fact, there

wasn't often many hours that went by where I would laugh and I'd be like, but man, you got GPS out here, you got Gore-Tex, you've got like these boots that are molded to your feet, and I would think about Shackleton and those guys and be like, just to get to Antarctica, they had to take a year to sail a boat down there, and then they're like, oh, it's winter. So we better sit here for six months on the sea ice

in the whole of our ship, basically, because it's so cold outside with oil lamps. And then when they're walking around, they'll seal skin and pelts and things like that. And I was like, man, like there's just a different breed of human 100 plus years ago. And so like I said, mostly what all I have is, I can't even put it into words,

the level of gratitude, respect, and just like bad ass or that those guys were having experienced the life and death intense stakes of Antarctica, but still through a lens of like, well, I've seen satellite images of where I'm going, and I do have a sad, easy, and this is completely, this is completely, completely,

completely, completely, yeah, if I'm talking to you. Totally, totally, totally, no, it's incredible. And it's incredible the courage that those guys had to literally go explore things, you know, we can't really do this anymore. I suppose space is this next frontier for that. But on our planet, it's pretty hard to just be like,

oh, I'm taking a boat here. I don't know. I might be back in a few years. Don't worry about me. You know, I mean, that's like adventure. It's true. It's pure, it's pure form. Given the fact that Shackleton's one of the heroes of yours

and you've done a bunch of high mountain crossings within short periods of time and stuff like that. How much of a freak is Nim's perjure? At dude, Nim's is an impressive guy in a lot of ways, no doubt about it. I've been fortunate to be in the mountains with him on some bigger expeditions. I was on K2 in the winter in 2021 and then also on Everest, my second time on Everest, he was guiding over there and our camps were nearby each other. And so yeah, we spent a lot of time together, not only up on the mountains,

but also having some fun in base camp and throw him back some beers. Yeah, I mean, look, his record, what he did with 14 peaks in the film is amazing. It's really special. And more and more and even more importantly, or certainly as equally as importantly, as the team he's surrounded himself with are incredible.

I mean, NIMS is an incredible climber. But guys like Mingma David, Sherpa, Mingma Tensing, I mean, these guys are just also just incredible world world class. And I'm so happy. He's been, his spotlight is shining so brightly, and it's wonderful, particularly for the country of Nepal. I've been in the Himalayas plenty, and a lot,

if not all, expeditions in the Himalayas, basically quite literally right on the back of the Shrpur communities. And it's been far too long that it's been like that, and those communities haven't gotten their shine. And so for him to have the impact that he's having and be able to uplift those voices and now for these Nepalese guys who,

in my opinion, are the best climbers in the world to not be working for other people or Western climbers or Europeans to be like, hey, like we're doing our own badass records. Look at us, it's amazing. And so yeah, he's impressive. And his whole team and those guys, grateful to know those guys, because it's really special. Special humans in so many ways. Dude, he was telling me about how he used to run to school

every single night, and then he'd run home and train in the gym and he'd sleep for a couple of hours and then get up. So all of that stuff, like the physical stuff's pretty impressive. The most impressive thing that I think is his ability to drink. Like the fact that he did basically a heavy night in between that three peaks within the space of 48 hours or something is... He's a wild man, that's for sure. But you know, it's like, you see people high performing in all sorts of different ways. You know, I've learned this over time and been around lots of world record holders, Olympians,

but also billionaires and entrepreneurs and whatever. And you're like, yeah, the only way you get to the top of that is like, yes, you're good at the thing that you're good at, but you're also usually just a wild human being in a lot of different eccentricities that makes you that way. So he certainly has that in spades. Do you know the B.A. mile? Have you heard of this? The B.A.I.L. have you heard of this? The B.M.I.L, yes, I'm familiar with this.

Yeah, so it's a record. People do four laps of a 400 meter track and they have to down a pint of beer at the start of each lap. And one of my friends in the UK for a while held the record, he held the world record for the B.M.I.L. And I feel like that's the next stage for endurance racing. That is, it's how hard you can go the night before. It's not just about climbing Everest or whatever,

like that's been done. It's like the 14 death zone peaks on a hangover. 15 shots to the face and then. Yeah, and then you've got to go and call it. Well, I'm curious. What was your buddies, what was his time? And it was like four something, obviously. Yeah, so I think it was like a 4.45 maybe.

Wow. But you'll see the way that they do it when they come back and they grab the drink. They're already speed walking along. Right. And then the pace, because it's a. You have to do it out of a can, too, right? It's a can of beers, isn't that right?

Not sure about that. I think the rules are a can of beer, which I was always like, that just as you know, it's just harder to chug out of a can. I wonder if you're allowed to shotgun it. Take it from the top. Shotgun it and just go. That would help.

That would help for sure. That might be classed as a performance enhancer, I'm not sure. But so going back to what it is that you're doing at the moment and this idea of sort of taking hold of life, I think, and doing extreme things that make you feel like you're alive. There's this quote from Henry David Thoreau that says, the massive men lead lives of quiet desperation? What's that mean to you? Yeah, you know, I open the book with that quote for a reason, which is, unfortunately,

I think in our modern society, people, a lot of people, are kind of stuck. And I take it a little bit further, which is, I kind of think of life, an experience of life on the scale of one to ten. So one being kind of our lowest, low moment. So we know what that's like, heartbreak. You know, when I was younger, I was burning a fire. I was told I would never walk again normally. You know, adversity, you'll pull in a sled across an article.

You're going to hit a lot of one moment, Shackleton and his team. And they had some ones trying to survive and get out of the mess that they found themselves in, right? We know what ones are. We try to avoid them. And tens, we also know what tens are, right? Like tens are, you know, falling in love,

having a massive achievement, selling your company, having amazing sex, you know, I don't know, what a skiing, perfect powder, you know, whatever, whatever that is for you, right? We know these tens. We want the tens. Tens are amazing. Who wouldn't want those tens?

But I've come to realize that every time that I experience a 10, it's not in spite of my ones, but it's because of my ones. Every time I've gone to these peak moments, it's actually because I've been willing to risk or willing to take on the possibility of this low downside moment. However, when you, that the road quote, the Mass-A-Manly Lives of Quiet Desperation, you know, apply that to modern terms or this thinking is, I find that most people are kind of stuck

in what I call the zone of comfortable complacency between four and six, like just kind of like, it's fine. You know, I have this job, I don't love it, I don't hate it, I go every day, I show up like five, five, five, five, or been in a relationship for a while, it's not toxic, it's not abusive, it's not horrible, but I'm just kind of cohabitating, and it's just like, fine, five, five, five.

And I'm like, why are so many people stuck there? Or as thorough, 100 plus years ago said, this quiet desperation, what is that? and I think it actually comes from people trying to hedge so much against avoiding this discomfort or avoiding this pain or avoiding taking any risk it's just easier again particularly in a modern society wherever a phone where you can just order food and look at your social media and binge out on Netflix and get that dopamine hit here there you know up up and again it's like, okay.

So, but if you take, if you're hedging so hard against those ones, what I've found is you actually also take the sevens, eights, the nines, the tens off of the table. And so I open the book there, not as a saying, well, let me just be depressing. We all live these lives are quiet desperation. Sorry, you're shit out of luck. It's actually to say, wake up, wake up.

Like, you don't have to be like this. You don't, and I opened the book with a story about meeting an 80 year old guy who was a billionaire who pulled me aside and said, I've made more money than you can possibly imagine. But he actually, in his own way, sure in a nicer apartment or on his private jet or whatever than the rest of us,

he even said to me, I missed it man, I'm 80. And I just kept doing what other people wanted me to do. And I'm 80 and I don't have time to go back and summit my actual Mount Everest. The life that I wanted to live full of purpose and desire. Because even him at the highest peak arc of quote-unquote success was vulnerable sharing with me and saying, hey, I kind of missed the point. And so this book in a lot of ways is a call to action to wake people up, to shake them out of this, you know, this life of quiet desperation. And ultimately, as the throat quote is often misquoted,

if people say, and die with your song still inside of them, that's actually if the Rowan never said that, but most people think he did. It's to sing that song, to figure out what your passion about diving to that deep fulfillment. And the 12-hour walk is a one-day prescription and an invitation to invest one day, conquer your mind, and unlock your best life. And I'm sure we'll talk more about exactly what that means. But I'm passionate about spreading that message. And I know a lot of the conversations you have with the Craz, with incredible people on the show feel very similarly through their own lenses. There's an idea that I learned about last week called the Region Beta Paradox.

So imagine that you have a rule. You always walk whenever you're traveling a mile or less and you always drive whenever you're going a mile or more. If you follow that rule, you will paradoxically travel two miles faster than you travel one mile. The important insight here is that if you only take action when things cross a certain threshold of badness, sometimes better things can feel worse than worse things. Look around and you'll find a lot of people stuck in region beta, the guy that stays with

his just okay job instead of ditching it for the chance of something better, the couple who break up should break up what can't bring themselves to do it. The friend who refuses to get a new apartment because the current one only has some black mold. All of these people would actually be better off if their situations were worse because they'd leave their jobs, partners, and apartments and be glad they did. That only regret would not be leaving sooner. Oh man, yeah, I've been getting goose bumps man, you got to send me the link to that. That is epic. I've read a, this is kind of a funny tangent, but it's apropos for this.

I read an article, I think it came out a few years ago in the Wall Street Journal and then the New York Times or someone reposted it, I forget exactly what it was, but it was about a guy who went to Harvard Business School and And he went back to his reunion. 20-year reunion. So he's in his early 40s and mid 40s, something like that, middle age guy. And he goes back to Harvard Business School. And everyone's there.

Of course, Harvard Business School graduates, I didn't work at this much fun, made this money, did this thing, whatever. And he goes, look, this is anecdotal. So I'm not a scientist, this is anecdotal. But what I found was that in my classmates, there was a reverse correlation between who graduated at the top of their class and who was the most happy 20 years later. And he breaks it down further as to say why? And he goes, the people that graduated at the top of the Harvard Business School class had all of these opportunities.

And it was like, Hey, here's this $500,000 a year job that's a pathway to the million dollar a year job to the best of that. It's like almost impossible to say no to. It's just like, it's too good. It's like, that's what you made it. Top of Harvard Business School class, you take the top job. And he graduated in the lower 20% of his Harvard Business School class. No, granted, this guy's acknowledging, privilege, he's got a Harvard Business School degree,

there's still a lot of doors open to him. But the big banking, consulting, the like sort of a list jobs were taken up by his classmates who outranked him. And he found in this story that the people at the bottom 20% of the class, 20 years later, were actually happier. Just talking around, they weren't divorced.

They were more satisfied with their life. They had deeper fulfillment. And the question is why, and it's really similar in a different context of what you're saying, what you just shared, is that they were forced to actually, for one second, think and actually choose. Meaning it wasn't just laid out for them. It wasn't like, well, dude, you got to take the top job because it blew a blow. And those people, again, still with a Harvard Business School

degree, so caveat there. But they had this point where like, I got to make a choice about this. It's the guy in the Black Molden's apartment where someone's like, yo, you actually have to leave this apartment. You have to go find a different way, right? It's not just like the easiest next thing

to continue on the hamster wheel. So whether that hamster wheel is the Harvard Business School pathway to millions of dollars at a hedge fund or you know, apply that to any sort of methodology, it's so interesting, right? We don't take these inflection points and we also hedge against that momentary discomfort. I like it. It's a funny. I like it. You're sitting in your kitchen and you or your spouse says, I want a kitchen remodel. I want a new kitchen remodel. But we don't love it, you could snap your fingers

and be like, new appliances, new floor, new backsplash, all the fancy things that happen. But we also know that doesn't happen. What actually happens in a kitchen remodel is you rip your kitchen apart, you don't have plumbing, you've got no stove for a month, it sucks, man. Like it sucks. Meaning you have to actually, to your point

about what you just shared, be less comfortable, you have to be worse off for a period of time to actually have the better new result with the newer kitchen, et cetera. So that's a silly metaphor, but I think about it. So I love that seriously, man. You guys send me that link. I have free. Dude, Regent Beta paradox. It's a serious thing. Regent Beta paradox. Yes. So what you've got, you've got the zone of comfortable complacency. To me, it actually seems more like a chasm. So I think that you end up in an area that's very difficult to get out of

because you just move backwards and forwards four to six, four to six. There's a concept called the Overton window, which you might be familiar about, which is the total amount of acceptable speech that we have, right? So from the worst thing to the worst thing on two different extremes, and then the Overton window is within that, what is, what is societally acceptable, right? Typically what's acceptable. And I've been saying for three or four years that I think that we exist, our life experience is kind of like an overton window. And we've brought the constraints in on the lowest low and the highest high that were prepared to go to. And most people go from air conditioned house to heated seat

car to whatever whatever and it's exactly the same man. I think that a lot of people would do far better facing some adversity and it's strange to think that worst situations can be better than better situations sometimes and I think as well that I asked Jocco this, and I wasn't sure whether he agreed, but I wondered whether or not perfect childhoods can create suboptimal adults about the fact that not going through sufficient adversity at some point in life can actually make you more fragile as you grow up.

I don't think that it's necessarily a hard and fast rule. I'm sure that there's people that have amazing childhoods and grow up to be complete killers when they get up, but I do think that there's a little bit of something there. And you've got this other concept called the possible mindset as well. So how does that relate to the zone of comfortable complacency? Yeah, no, you know, it brings me back, you know, thinking through my life, I didn't grow up with a lot of resources as a kid.

My parents are super young when they have me. But my mom definitely dared me to dream, you know, kind of like, hey, you know, figure out how to make your way in the world. You know, you can do anything you set your mind to. You know, definitely a lot of positivity, but not a lot of resources as a kid. Divorce parents certainly had my fair share of ups and downs as a kid. But a huge turning point in my life, I'm 22 years old, I graduated from college

and instead of getting a normal job, and again, even though it could probably have more secure future, I decided to take a backpack and a surfboard and I scraped together a few thousand bucks from painting houses and buy one way ticket because I just want to experience a little bit of the world and have that opportunity growing up.

And I get out there, it's a great experience. My first layover, because I had such a cheap student fair, I ended up on this random layover and I met my wife on that layover who I've now been together for 15 years. I think I was a win right out of the gate. But, you know, Hitchhike threw New Zealand, slept on floors, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, saved up my money to have a few beers at the other night. But it was cheap, cheap, cheap, world travel. I found myself on this small island in rural Thailand, and 22 years old, some guys were jumping and flaming jump rope down the street, or down the beach. I thought, gee, that looks like fun.

And obviously not the greatest idea in the world. And in an instant, my life changed. I'm jumping the rope. The rope sprayed with caracene. I trip on it, the excess caracene sprays my body, lites my body completely on fire to my neck. And I have to jump into the ocean to extinguish the flames, but not before about, I don't know,

25% of my body is burned, predominant in my legs and feet. And I'm in the middle of nowhere in Thailand. I, there's no ambulance, I get a moat-ped ride down a dirt path to a one-room nursing station. There's a cat running around my bed and across my chest and this makes you, I mean, it's a bad, bad, bad center circumstance is all around.

And the worst thing about it, second and third degree burns all across my legs and feet. The doctor walks in one day, about four to five days in and he goes, hey, Colin, I hate to tell you this, but you'll probably never walk again normally. The way that your ligaments have been burned and your ankles and your knees, you're probably never gonna regain full mobility. Now, the

it's obviously a terrible diagnosis. I've been an active kid at Swimmering College, etc. I think it's a terrible diagnosis for anybody. My identity is wrapped up in being able-bodied and physical at its young age as a young man. But thankfully there's a hair went to this story. We'll get back to that possible mindset and it really wraps around what you're saying is my mother comes in to Thailand. She finds me on the fourth of fifth day in the middle of freaking rural Thailand, nowhere, finally finds me.

And she tells me now that she was crying with the doctors pleading in the hallways. My son, I'm so afraid like, how are we going to get him out of this? You know, please tell me good news. But she actually never showed me that sadness. She never showed me that fear. She never showed me her own anxiety. Instead, she came into my hospital room every single day going with this huge air positivity being like, Colin, yeah, you screwed up. Let's not mince words. You're an idiot. You shouldn't jump that flaming jump rope.

But your life's not over. What do you want to do when you get out of here? Let's set a goal. Look to the future. What do you want to do? And she's, again, I didn't call it that at the time, but I now call it this possible mindset. She's daring me to dream with limitless possibilities.

Forget about this circumstance. What do you want to do when you get out of here? Close your eyes, picture anything. So I close my eyes and she sees me smile. She goes, what'd you see? And I said, well, it's my sound ridiculous, but I just saw myself crossing the finish line of a triathlon.

And she could have easily been like, yeah, I said set a goal, but like the legs and the bandages and the wheelchair, like I need to raise up a little more realistic. But instead, she's like, great, you're gonna do that. In fact, you should start training right now, and she yells over, she goes, hey, Doc, hey, Doc, my son's training for a triathlon,

bring him in some weight. So I have this picture of me in a Thai hospital, bandaged from the waist down, lifting 10 pound dumbbells, and the doctor's looking at me like, this stupid ass American kid's never gonna walk and he's just nox of sense into him. But it's fixed in my mind,

because my mother opened my mind up again, and fast forward to this, several months I'm in the Thai hospital, I get released, I'm carried on and off the plane, I'm in a wheelchair when I get home, I literally have to learn how to walk one step at a time. It's an arduous process. My legs are atropeed to the size of my wrist.

I mean, I'm in a bad state. But 18 months after being burned in this fire, I moved to Chicago, I take a job, to commodity trading, I sign up for the Chicago Trap lawn, and I moved to Chicago, I take a job to commodity trading I sign up for the Chicago Traft 1 and I complete the race I crossed the finish line But to come my complete and utter surprise when I crossed that finish line I actually haven't just completed the race, but I actually won I placed first that of nearly 5,000 participants on the day now One easy moral the story is like well it turns out you're a superhuman freak

and you're amazing at sports and whatever. Like, that's not the point of the story. Where my mind went immediately was, what would have happened had my mom not forced me to look towards the future and set this measurable goal? Had instilled what I call this possible mindset inside of me, right? I definitely wouldn't be sitting here with 10 world records.

I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. I set all of those world records with those same legs after being burnt. So your entire point about adversity is, look, I wouldn't wish that burn accident on my worst enemy. I wouldn't, but I'd also be blind to the fact that that adversity taught me one of life's greatest lessons,

something that I can take with me through resilience, through hard times, through that calibration of going, yeah, that's a one, that's a one, but that opened up that doorway to the tense. Dude, unbelievable. What was the, so going from burn to running the triathlon, what was the most difficult part of that recovery? Because I always think about this. In any movie where the young kid in school wants to learn MMA so that he can beat up the bully and he can get the heart

chick and become like homecoming friends or whatever it's called. Like during that, the progression from zero to hero is a montage. At most, it's a 20-minute sequence and maybe he gets kicked out of the gym by the coach because he did something wrong. But that is the period in which people make the most change. That is the bit that as far as I can see is actually the one where that inflection point becomes reality. So talk to me about that.

I'm only laughing, man, because you're a kindred spirit, bro. Like my brain, I think about stuff. Storytelling this, like I like that so many things I thought about very so I love it. I love your vibe. It wasn't a montage, although you could play it that way. Tententent, the music is playing, it's building. You know, the hardest part honestly,

was the initial momentum to get over that inertia of being in that wheelchair, to be honest. And it sounds silly, but it's those first couple of steps. I remember, I get back to Portland, where I'm from, Portland, Oregon, where I grew up in my mother's kitchen. I'm sitting in this wheelchair, and she says to me, she goes, okay, Colin,

now I know we've even, you know, kind of talking shit about this traffic on goal in the hospital and, you know, joking around with the doctors and whatever, but like, today's, today your goal is to actually take your first step. And she grabbed this wooden chair from our kitchen table and placed it one step in front of my wheelchair, and she says, you need to figure out how to get

out of your wheelchair today and take that first step into that chair in front of you. And I remember looking down, my legs are still bandaged. They're still literally like blood, the way that burns heal. You're still like a lot of blood seeping out and stuff like that. So you got to change the cause all the time. It's a horrible injury to have. And my legs are like I said, they're like a skinny as my wrist practically.

And it took me three hours that day, literally three hours, staring at that wooden chair, sitting next to my wheel chair to get up and take that first step. In terms of the medical reason why that was difficult is that the skin was healing so tight over the course of my ligaments and over the course of my back and my knees and my ankles, that the flexibility and the mobility was there. So taking a step actually felt like you were ripping brand new skin, which

is just counterintuitive to your brand and super painful. But to me, where that applies more broadly than me and a wheelchair specifically, and certainly my book to 12 hour walk is really this exploration of how we can all overcome limiting beliefs wherever we find ourselves in our life and our proverbial wheelchair trying to set out on on a goal, right? We set these big goals. We set these big goals. You know this feeling like you you you drink a bunch of beers with your buddy on a Saturday night, you're like, yo, we're gonna train for this marathon and we're gonna like do the training program. And the next six months, we're gonna be a fittest we've ever been. Whatever. And then you wake up with a hangover and you call your buddy and you're like, yeah, man, like I'm out. Like I had a few too many

beers last night, but like let's be honest, I'm out. Like I had a few too many beers last night, but like, let's be honest, I'm not gonna fucking run a marathon, right? What I mean by that is the momentum, like the beginning steps is where we so often quit on ourselves because that negative mindset, as we talk about, I talk about in the 12 hour walk,

this limiting belief, they overcome you. You're not strong enough. What if you fail? You don't have enough money, you don't have enough time, et cetera. When I was walking across Antarctica, my solo crossing, the first day, I started crying, man. I started crying because I could barely pull my sled.

I had 1,000 miles to go and I couldn't even like, really, they've crossed the first quarter mile and in my first book, The Impossible First, there's a chapter it's called Frozen Tears because when you cry and it's minus 30, minus 40 degrees outside, Antarctica doesn't take it easy on you. Just freezes the tears of your face.

You feel like a real pathetic loser in that moment. And I joke around, I woke up that first day in my tent, and I'm like, I go, guess who was there? And people are like, wait, I thought you were alone, were you talking about me? No, no, no, I was alone. But inside of my tent was the five other versions of myself staring back at me going, calling, you, no, I was alone. But inside of my tent was the five other versions of myself

staring back at me going, calling, you're an idiot. You just told the New York Times you're gonna do this thing. You don't even make it a day. You're a failure. You're horrible. We know this feeling, right? We beat up on ourselves and our own minds. And so I think more often than not,

you know, the question was about the burn accident, but again, applied more broadly. It's like, you can set that massive goal in the some moment of inspiration or excitement or whatever. But so often, quite literally, in my case, taking the first steps, believing in yourself to make incremental progress, because the summit, the triathlon finish line, the summit of Everest might be a million steps, quite literally, between where you are and there. And you're going, these first three steps, they don't matter, but they do, because they create momentum to the next steps and the next steps

and the next steps after that. How can people remind themselves of the patience that they need? Yeah, I think that I always encourage, but I love to ask this question, what's your efforts? My childhood dream was to climb Everest and so it's a framing question and it's easy. I ask it to eight, nine, 10 year olds in the school classrooms that I do public speaking for. I ask it to adults and whatever, and fancy businesses.

It applies across age groups and demographics. But it's just a question of like, let's set a big goal. What's your goal? Again, that possible mindset. Let's dream with full purpose and passion. But then, and that's kind of the fun part. Everyone's like, Oh, one day I want to have a million dollars. I want a private jet. I want to have the thing. I want to have the credit, whatever. You know, people have

different answers that question. I want to start the family. But then where I very quickly, and again, I'm a dreamer. So I love those big dreams. But I also want to ground that in reality. And I say to people, I'm like, Okay, great. You've got the big goal. You've got the North Star. Now let's get down to real business. What can you do today? Today. What can you actually do today?

And again, it's kind of silly, but in my own life, I literally dreamed about climbing Mount Everest for my whole life. I finally summit for the first time in 2016. I'm up there on the summit. And I look down, and what do I see? It's obviously a bunch of ice and rocks, but I literally see a small little pebble. And I'm like, huh, and I reach down,

I pick up the small tiny little pebble and I put it in my pocket. And for years, I carried around my pocket with me. And I carried around as a reminder that even Mount Everest, the biggest mountain in the world and for me, my childhood dream, is actually just a bunch of tiny pebbles, a bunch of small rocks stacked on top of each house. There are millions of steps leading to the summit. And so for me, again, I encourage

people set the big goal, dare to dream greatly. But then go to the micro micro micro level. You know, what is your wheelchair to wooden chair moment? What is the one more tiny little rock that you can stack? Because, you know, you've talked to so many successful people. I've been fortunate to be around many in my life as well. And what you really, the through line is a lot, almost always, almost always. It comes back to consistency over time, more so than this sudden, like one off burst of, you know know creativity or something. It's that burst of creativity, but it's then that action to get over that inertia, to create

momentum and then just keep chipping away, stacking those rocks. Dude, I had Jaco on the show a couple of weeks ago and he said, discipline eats motivation for breakfast. You don't rise to the level of your motivation, you fall to the level of your discipline. And there's this quote going back to what you just said there about not wanting to wish on anybody, even your worst enemy, the pain that you went through with that stuff, but also kind of being very appreciative of it. This quote from Nietzsche, and it's in the will to power, and he says, to those human beings who are of any concern to me, I wish suffering desolation,

sickness, ill treatment, indignities, I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished, I have no pity for them because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not, that one in dures. The fact that all of those things are the difficulty and by getting through them, those are the things that prove you on the other side. Yeah, I mean, look, I've never heard that quote, it's great.

It's, how I say this, I think it's even, Nietzsche wrote that many, many, many years ago and I think it's obviously been true through human history but I think it's even, you know, Nietzsche wrote that, you know, many, many, many years ago, and I think it's obviously been true through human history, but I think it's actually even more true now than it ever has been. And that's because, you know, again, going back, you know, however many thousand years we were hunter-gatherers society, right? There was actually things that, you know, literally fight or flight, you know, the saber-toothed tiger might get you, you know, there was some level of having to endure to your point. Then, of course, over time, we've created more and more and more modern conveniences.

I love my modern conveniences. I love that you and I can sit here and have this conversation and scale ideas and impact with things like the internet. It's like it's not to vilify that. But it's also to say we have to become more intentional and excuse me intentional about creating that suffering. Even at the, obviously there's food insecurity in many places, but even at pretty low level of income, there's cheap, accessible food, at a grocery store, fast food, et cetera, on a lot of corners.

So it's not like we're like hunting and gathering anymore, although our DNA is still programmed for that level of survival. And when you put on that auto-pilot, I think that our spirit dies a little bit. For me, the 12-hour walk, the book itself is about limiting belief. The book itself brings you through all sorts of high energy stories of rowing a boat across the street passage and climbing Everest and losing friends and climbing accidents and overcoming adversity, etc. But at its core, it's a call to action for this exact purpose, for this exact quote of what you're saying, which is to say, I am inviting people to actually walk out their front door, turn their phone

on airplane mode and go for a 12 hour walk by themselves. But it's through that lens, and again, I'll double back on the origin story of that and you know, kind of why that methodology, et cetera, but you know, skipping ahead for a second, which is to that point, it's not suffering, like go light yourself on fire in a beach in Thailand, you're gonna learn a good lesson,

but it's to that person who's living that five, that five, that five, that comfort zone, that, and I like how you talk about that chasm almost. This chasm that you can't get out of, right? It's to say, it's to say, man, like you got to shake it up. You got to try something different. If you stare at your phone every single day for the last 364 days, try a day without that. Not because I'm telling you not to use your phone, but just take a break, move your body in a different way, try a day without that, not because I'm telling you not to use your phone, but just take a break. Move your body in a different way. Try something different that implicit your feet, your legs will get tired at the end of

12 hours. Your mind might get exhausted because you're not used to being alone in your thoughts because you can distract yourself with dopamine hits from your social media whenever you want. But that to Nietzsche is saying right there is to say like, but that is how you're going to learn. You're going to learn when you have that adversity, that suffering, that challenge. Are you familiar with the concept of type two fun?

No. Okay, I think you're gonna love this. So type one fun is, this is not something I made up, by the way, but type one fun is like, you know, there's the fun. Dancing with your friends, party and drink at beers, you know, there's the fun. Dancing with your friends, party and drink at beers, you know, whatever, just fun. Skying powder, surfing a beautiful wave, you know,

whatever you're into, you know, that's fun. Just fun, man, that's fun, straight up. Type two fun is when you're doing it and mountain climbing is classically type two fun, but there's all sorts of different things. So it's starting a business, so, you know, if there's million things like this, when you're doing it in the moment, so let's just say

you're climbing a mountain and the wind is blowing in the face. You're exhausted and you're starving. Maybe you're a little bit scared because it drops off thousands of feet right beside you. Like in the moment, you're like, you're looking over at your buddy and you're like, bro, like, why are we doing this? This is fucked, man. Like, this is terrible, right? But then a week later, you're at the bar with your buddy and you're like, bro, remember when we were out on that mountain, that was so epic, man, if we were like out there, we were living and we were this. Type two funds not necessarily fun when you're having it, when it's happening, right? But it is epic and fun upon reflection. And what I think that is,

is the psyche in the moment is kind of trying to protect you, right? This is this animalistic instinct of to protect yourself from this discomfort or whatever. But the payoff is in the future you're like, oh, I learned something from that. Oh, I felt alive. Ooh, I was like really living. And so for me, type two fun is epic. Now type three fun is not fun when it's happening and it's not fun to reflect on later So that's to be actually avoided at all costs, but the type two fun That's that middle ground between just hedonistic pleasure and actually, you know the grit and challenge of something that is awesome to reflect on with nostalgia If you're going to the Antarctic

Who do you need to speak to? Is there a is there a gatekeeper? Somehow is there a person that you need to have a chat with before you can start walking across it? Yeah, so the short answer is yes. It's a pretty protective place, although it's always a funny conversation. I've been on Joe Rogan's podcast a couple of times and he loves to stoke a good conspiracy theory. He's always like, so how the flatters? Then all of a sudden the comments go crazy

and everyone's messaging me about flatt earth and all this stuff. So as far as I know, the earth is not flat. I didn't see the edge. I didn't see any trenches or whatever down there. But a part of that big theory, I guess, from all the people that have heckled me on the internet about the flat earth, is that it's like Antarctica is just like place that no one can go to in its government control. That's not entirely true, of course. However, it is a very protective place. And that's what makes Antarctica amazing. It's not an autonomous, of course. However, it is a very protected place.

And that's what makes Antarctica amazing. It's not an autonomous region of any country. There's 12 signatory countries, the United States being one of them, who have sort of the protecting scientific rights of Antarctica. And that's why there's no mineral drilling or anything like that.

And that actually can change. And in 2041, that can change, but I think that we will renew that treaty. And hopefully all the countries agree. But the short answer is, is there's this treaty called IATO, which stands for the International Antarctic something, something treaty. But I forget what all the letters stand for. But IATO is basically this group of people that you have to contact to be able to be there because you can't just like go cruise around Antarctica if you're not doing the most important things,

which really is just preserving it, is not messing up the landscape, is not changing it. Again, probably two in the weeds, but when I rode a boat to Antarctica, there's even different things about the exterior of Antarctica and the ocean part of Antarctica because there's so different things about the exterior of Antarctica and the ocean part of Antarctica because there's so much sea life there versus the interior of Antarctica when I walked across is actually a whole different but it's all governed by Aedo.

Long story short in terms of logistics and this is kind of funny is that they're basically is one guy with one plan or I should say company, but basically it's up one single plane of this company called ALE, which governs almost all of an expedition context of most of the continent. And so when I was crossing in Artica, as I think you might know, I was trying to be there solo, trying to be the first, but it turned out

there was another Brit who announced his project about a week before I was getting ready to depart. This guy named Captain Lewis Rudd, this badass special forces, very experienced polar explorer. And both of us have been planning our expeditions autonomously of each other without announcing it to the world. And then I take an interview with the New York Times, he takes an interview with a telegraph and they come out on the same day and it's like, I'm going to be the first.

And I'm like, wait, there's another guy. Like, this is like a race now. And the funny is part of it to go back to your question about the little logistics of going to Antarctica. Of course, we both call the same one guy with the one plane to take us to the edge of the continent. There's only one weather window, the Antarctic summer, that's long enough for you to be able to do this expedition.

So before we know it, I found myself on a cargo plane shoulder to shoulder sitting next to the Special Forces British badass getting dropped off to not what I know. My whole mind I visualize it's going to be this hard thousand-mile journey across Antarctica. I never once visualized it was a head-to-head mono-emano race with one of the most badass humans I've ever met in my life and were dropped off on the ice like ready? Go. So anyways, the logistics make that funny. It's not as if there's all these different ways to get there and to and from there and a million, you know, it's like a it's not like United Airlines, Delta Airlines, America. You know, it's not like it's not the choices. It's like a very specific region, window,

logistics, and a lot of paperwork, of course, just like all these things are. Presumably, one of the biggest decisions that you need to make when you're walking across is how much you pack versus how hard it is to pull that, that power, I guess, resources to wait differential. Yeah, so no one had completed this crossing in the style that we were attempting to do it,

which is a solo. So people have crossed Antarctica's solo in a few different ways, but not in what's called unsupported. So unsupported is no resupplies of food or fuel. People have actually done solo unsupported, but aided, aided by kites or dogs or other things propelling them. So we were doing solo unsupported and fully human powered. By the exact, to your point, that unsupported nature of that is kind of the crux of this,

which is, of course, there's not a lot of infrastructure in Antarctica, but there's enough infrastructure that you could get a plane to drop you off a depot of food, you know, 300 miles into the journey, 600 miles into the journey. Or we're both crossing through the South Pole, and there's a scientific research station there, an American base, you know, it's base, it's only a small amount of people there, but you could probably arrange some logistics to pop inside, have a coffee, resupply your food or whatever,

and that would obviously negate the unsupported nature of it. So when I went there, there was some buildings, I hadn't seen anyone in 40 days, and I just was like, well, it looks like a warm building in there, that'd be nice, but obviously, you know,

it can't even take a cup of coffee from a scientist who wants to come wave to me, to maintain that unsupported nature of this. But yeah, the math equation, the math equation is what played on people's minds of why this may or may not have been possible. I called my project the Impossible First, and it's also named my first book because people for a long time were like, this thing's impossible. A long lineage of British explorers, actually, I mean mean Shackleton was one of the first people to say

let's try to cross the entire continent. That's what he was doing on the endurance expedition. Obviously they got way laid and a whole other adventure ensued as we both know from the Alfred Lansing book. But it kind of you know it's been in the curiosity of people's minds of the full crossing of the continent. Henry Worsley, a very famous British explorer, attempted the crossing in 2015, and he made it 71 days in, only 100 miles from the finish line. Ultimately got sick, fell ill, and ultimately died, super sad.

Another super renowned British explorer who have a ton of respect for this guy named Ben Saunders the year before Captain Lew and I attempted. He was out there for 50 some days, and then ran low on food and supplies and had to be evacuated from this. And that is because exactly what you said, which is you'd love to have a thousand pounds of food

and gorge yourself. You're burning 10,000 calories a day, walking and trying to survive and in temperature it's minus 40 degrees. 10,000 calories a day. If you brought 10,000 calories a day for 60, 70, 80 days, however long you think it's gonna take you, that's a thousand pounds, you know, that's a thousand pounds before you know it, like you're not going anywhere on the first day,

you're not going to be able to pull your sled. So I loaded up my sled with as much as I possibly thought I could carry, which was 375 pounds. Now, hence the frozen tiers on day one and day two because it turns out point of 375 pounds sled is at the very limit of possibility for me as well. So much so that I called my wife on the first day for my satellite phone. I said to her in the midst of my tears on day one, I said, well, babe, I think we named our project the right thing. Like this is for sure impossible. Definitely, I can't even, you know, make it the first day. But I chipped away at it. But you're your question is a stupe, which is it's this math equation between how much you can carry, how much you can drag, et cetera, and the amount of time

you need to be out there. Both Captain Lew and I lost a ton of weight. I was eating 7,000 calories per day, but I was burning 10,000. So I'm on a 3,000 calorie deficit from day one. I know by the end, my hips were sticking out, my ribs were sticking out. My body was completely beat up, fully, fully, fully declined. So yeah, I mean, it is a rough situation. And you know, people wrote, there's a quote that I pulled from Wired Magazine before I

started. It says, it is straight up impossible to take enough calories to cross Antarctica in this form because you run the spreadsheet and the math. It's kind of like, uh, kilojoules in, energy output, this amount of days, this amount of weight, like it just doesn't, it's, I mean, I was on my literal last bite of food when I made the crossing after 54 days. Like I was, I was, I didn't have,

I didn't have, I definitely didn't have a week more in me of food or supplies. I mean, I was on the limit. So. I suppose as well that the pace that you move at is also determined by that too. If you move a little bit quicker, that's going to be more hard on your body, but it also means that you have fewer days, which means less food, but it also means more energy requirement per day because you're using more energy to move yourself more quickly.

A hundred percent and I say it says it all seriousness, I literally didn't change my underwear for 54 days because I didn't bring an extra pair of anything because I wanted 100 more calories of food. And my sled was more important to me than the nastyness of being in your own same clothes for two months. But that's 100% true of just trying to figure that out. The 12 hour walk, the name, the origin of that is actually because I luke my ass in the first, first week. And then I caught up to him on day six of this anortic expedition. I finally caught up to him. And I thought he, I

actually thought I'd never see him again. I thought he was going to smoke me, but I was fortunate to catch up to him. And at that point, at that 10 hours, is the maximal amount of time that I can put my slid. It's the maximum amount of time I can put my sled. There's no way I can pull it any further. And then I catch up to Lou. And we have this like kind of funny exchange. He walks up to me and he's like, all chipper. He's like, Hey, good morning, mate. You know, I've got a bit of a suggestion for you. I'm like, this is like a special force is train killer. Like this dude's not just like being nice to me out here Like there's no freaking way and so I said, Lou, I wish you no ill will we both know the stakes out here

You could die out here like whatever but Let this be the last time we speak. I'm pretty certain you're not just like giving me like friendly chipper advice And I remember he we all have to wear a face mask on right because we can't have any exposed skin He lifts his face mask up for 10 seconds. It just stares me in the eye. He's just kinda like, okay, suit yourself. And I was like, that's right, we're done talking. I'll see you later.

We're both carrying 300 pounds of slides. So it's like, I'll see you later. And I was like, tortoises, like one step. And we're going in the same direction. So we're like, right next to each other. For like an hour, two hours, five hours, you're still right, negative. If you saw if you're like a video camera on both of us,

you'd be like, these two dudes are middle of nowhere, pretend like the other one's not there. They're walking shoulder for shoulder, like marching in like slow motion, next to each other. I will see you later. It's like saying goodbye to somebody and then leaving out of the building

in the same direction, isn't it? Totally, just awkward. It's just like, this is the most awkward of awkward. And so in my mind, I'm like, okay, 10 hours. I'll make it to 10 hours. He's gonna stop before then. There's no way he's going that long. I don't know how long his days are with this.

Eight hours goes by, he's still right next to me. Nine hours goes by, he's still right next to me. 10 hours goes by, he's still right next to me. 10 and a half hours goes by, so I'm like, this guy's like breathed lentiless. And I'm exos, I mean, I'm literally out of my daily food ration, I'm spent, this guy is like breath-lentless. And I'm exos, I mean, I'm literally out of my daily food ration, I'm spent for the day. 11 hours goes by and he finally reaches down

and pulls his tent out of his sled. And I'm like, thank God, but I don't wanna like, I don't wanna, I wanna pretend, I'm totally pretending that I'm like, that I'm all good, that I can just keep walking forever. You know, it's a psychological game. And so I say to myself, I'm going one more hour. And so I gain another like mile on him and I get my first

Truly in the race is 12 hours. And then that night my wife says me she's like spreadsheeting all this stuff back home like how many calories I ate for so many miles I'm going and like kind of trying to solve stuff and I talked to her my satellite phone and she goes, I've been waiting for an Opportunity time to tell you this. And I guess this is the moment to tell you. But unless you start, unless that 12 hour day becomes your normal day and you don't take any breaks, like you don't take a day off whatever, like you're not even going to come close. I'm still not sure that's going to get you there, but I can tell you right now, 10 hours is not going to cut it. So if you thought that was hard, like I need you to repeat that 50 more times.

And honestly, my limiting belief in that moment was telling me I couldn't go any further, but I recalibrated 12, I can do it once, I can do it twice, I can do it three times, and I kept that up. And honestly, I've said this a little, we both acknowledged this. I was first and he finished a few days behind me. But we've both acknowledged to each other two things. One, it's due to the map. If I had gone 10 hours and said to 12 hours over 50 some next days, that's 100 hours less that I would have traveled. I would have made it nowhere near the finish.

I mean, it would have been hundreds of miles away from finishing. Because you would have run out of food? I would have run out of food. Because you're going to kind of, I had a daily ration like set up. So it wasn't like I was like, I would have eaten my daily ration

and then I would have quickly realized it wasn't going to make it far enough. But the second thing is just kind of an interesting human thing about competition and how we can, in a strange way uplift each other, which is, I've said to him, he said to me, he goes, man, I don't think either of us would have made it across had the other one not been there,

which is like, I never saw him again and actually waited for him at the finish line for a few days but I never saw him after the day six. But every day, four hours, I would look over my shoulder like he was gonna like pop up out of nowhere. Like I was like, this guy's, he's coming for me. He's coming for me. He's coming for me.

There'd be a 50, 60 mile per hour headwind. And I think to myself, like, yo, this is the day to take this off. It's minus 70 wind shear. Like you're gonna get lost in this whiteout. Like don't go out there. But then I think to myself, but what if Captain Luke goes? If he goes and he passes me, like, you know,

and so it forced me to keep going, right? That competition, that intensity of that. So do you think you'd have made it, had it not been for him being there as well? That's sort of my point. Like him being there uplifted my game for sure. It made me, it made me, it forced me to recalibrate what I thought my limits were 100% you know, in this moment. And it made me get out of my tent on days would have been so easy to be like, no one else is out there. No one's like racing. You think to yourself, well, I can eat a little bit less food, but I could just sleep in my tent for the day and just rest or something like that.

But in the end, that would have caught up with me. But I never took a rest day and never took a single day off for 54 days straight, pulling the sled across there. I'm thinking about this mediator of limiting beliefs, right? The story that we tell ourselves about who we are or what we do or what our capabilities are. It seems like after practical restrictions, like money and the ability to not fly or defeat gravity and the requirement to sleep and stuff like that. Limiting beliefs really are the main rate limiting step between where you are and you reaching

your potential because there's not really anything else in between it. It's like, look, it's other than genuine practical restrictions. And most of those practical restrictions probably are filtered through your limiting beliefs as well. Like, I can only do 10 hours, actually, no, you can't, you can do 12. Limiting beliefs kind of place a glass ceiling on a pretend glass ceiling on what we achieve in life.

And it's a case of trying to move that up so that we have more capacity. Oh, 100%. I couldn't agree more. It think it's in the reason that in the book, and obviously people use that phrase limiting belief, but the reason that I use that frame, you could call it excuses, you could call it doubts,

and there's a lot of different words that you can use for that. But I prefer limiting belief for a specific reason, which is their beliefs, They're just that. They're not limiting truth. These are not limiting facts. You name the couple of the facts, right? The humans can't fly just with whapping their arms or something like that.

But those are maybe a couple of truths. But in our minds, what are holding us back? These obstacles, there's beliefs. And beliefs can be reoriented. For you written, we can write the new story of what we're telling ourselves. And that is when you step into that possible mindset. And that ultimately through through restoring telling it is what the 12 hour walk is about. What's the kind of origin of that, you know, taking that from the 12 hours of walking in Antarctica to sort of applying the the

thought behind this book or the origin of it is when I got to the end of this crossing my body was beat up man. I mean beat up like I said I was skinny. I was I mean I was afraid. I was exhausted. But strangely through the solitude, through the silence, through the conviction, through the as Joko says the discipline I'm getting out of my tent no matter what my mind got stronger. I got sharper. I had more clarity than ever before and that tapped me into fulfillment, passion, curiosity, creativity. I was lit up, man, from the inside, even though the external view of my body was just like, I mean, my wife was like, you know, looked like I was like a drug addict for like 10 years or something like that. Like, you know, it's just like so frail.

But anyways, she, I get back from that and I find this place in my mind of just deep positivity and deep strength and I think, great, like I have it. Man, I've got it. I can take this with me for the rest of my life. And in some ways, that's true. However, a couple years after this Antarctica crossing, got a bunch of big stuff planned, you know, touring around my New York Times best-selling book, all this stuff, whatever. Boom. COVID hits. Everything gets canceled. My next expedition canceled. My book to her canceled. And look, my silly life being canceled is at least of the world's problems in this moment, right? We were all disrupted in this time, but also not just disrupted. There's bad stuff happening, right? So I find myself, as many of us did, I'm locked

in my house with my wife and my dog were on the Oregon coast and the small cabin. And that mindset of strength and fulfillment and courage and positivity that I found in Antarctica was gone. And that was, that was a, you know, I'm doom scrolling the news. I'm getting, you know, every bad hit off the internet of this and I'm starting to worry about my grandparents and the borders are closing and the people that get my life that could get this sickness. And what does this all mean? Right? That uncertainty at that moment. I obviously we know a lot more now than we did then, but March April of 2020,

like it was a strange time for, you know, all of humanity, I think. And that wasn't that definitely I wasn't impervious to that. And I found myself just in a downward spiral, negativity, fear, doubt, limiting belief, whatever you want to call that. My wife looks over at me downward spiral, negativity, fear, doubt, limiting belief, whatever you want to call that. My wife looks over at me one day and she's like, Hey, you know, you haven't changed out of your pajamas in three days. You've been sitting on the couch. It's like just literally reading a headline headline. This person died. This is happening. That, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

that just spinning, spinning, spinning. And so I was like, you know, thank for, for calling I attention to that. But okay, I got to get myself out of this font, right? I was like, when was the last time I felt so tapped in like this? And I was like, you know, thank for calling my attention to that, but okay, I gotta get myself out of this font, right? I was like, when was the last time I felt so tapped in like this? And I was like, strangely enough, it was actually when I was walking across an article, silence, stillness, solitude, quiet in my mind. Maybe I can get back to that.

So I said to my wife, I said at Jen, I say, look, hey, I'm gonna go for a long walk tomorrow alone. You know, one of the few things you could do during a lockdown is just be outside alone for a period of time, depending on where you were in the world. I said, don't worry, I'll probably be back around dinner. I don't know, 12 hours, something like that. I used to watch, I was like, oh, I'm getting have fun. I walk out my front door, 20 minutes in my phone buzzes in my pocket. I reach for my phone instinctively, I look down, my buddy's texting me, I'm going to text him back and I'm like, what am I doing?

Like, I'm just like out here on this walk, I'm gonna stare at my phone texting my buddy and like, what am I gonna get on a Zoom call next? Like, hold on a second, like, you don't need this. Just today, so I put my phone in airplane mode and I keep walking. 12 hours, I take breaks, I rest, but I'm out there for 12 hours alone in the stillness and silence, no music, no podcast, nothing. And I get back to my front door, 12 hours later, my dog jumps up on me, and my wife looks over at me

and she goes, you're back. And I'm like, yeah, I told you I was gonna come back around 10 or 10 or time, whatever. She goes, no, no, no, you're back, you're back. Like, you could just see it in my spirit that I was back. And I was like, yeah, I feel better than I felt in a long time, really needed that. Now I thought, look, I'm the guy who walked across an article,

walked around solo, he's done all these like whatever epic and endurance challenges, blah, blah, blah. Maybe this is just a me thing. But during COVID, all sorts of friends of mine would call me, you know, family members, colleagues, et cetera, and be like, yo, I'm struggling with this. I'm trapped in my house.

I'm stuck in my, you know, my, my job, just I just lost my job at this, I that. And so I just suggested this 12-hour walk, this might sound crazy, but take the 12-hour that. And so I just suggested this 12 hour walk, Felix. This might sound crazy, but take the 12 hour walk. And that can look like anything, you know, young people, old people, fit people, not so fit people, I said, the walk is 12 hours in silence. Take as many breaks as you want. I don't care if you go for one mile or for 50 miles,

my 77 year old mother-in-law, she did her walk by walking one time around her block and then sitting on her porch for an hour and then walking another time around the block, but she maintained the silence and solitude training her mind throughout this entire 12 hours. And again, we talked about this a little bit, but it's a little bit challenging. It's challenging. It's outside of your comfort zone. It forces you to do something different.

But what I have found is that despite maybe hour five, your legs get tired, hour seven, your mind's exhausted. Like, I wish I could have a podcast to distract me, don't get me wrong, I love a good podcast, I usually listen to music podcasts, et cetera. But taking that one day that's just to shake that up, that difference, every person I have known to get back to their front door after that 12-hour walk

is lit up, they're refreshed, they're re-bruded, they have more creativity, more curiosity, they've been working on this problem in their own life And they uncover it. Whatever limiting beliefs are coming up for them. They're battling back through them And in fact the 12 hour walk I always say it starts right now in this moment because if you're listening to this podcast You're hearing this for the first time what ends up happening is you're either this call on a Brady guy man This guy's bullshit. I'm never gonna do this walk This is stupid that Whatever the point being,

why I say that it starts right now is that the 12 hour walk, of course, when you pick that date, you put it on your calendar, you take the walk, that's the experience. But right now, you're bargaining with yourself in your mind. You can't help it by listening to this right now. Something is coming up in your mind. You either going, yeah, I'm gonna do that or,

I love to do that, but I don't have enough time. I don't have enough money. What if I fail? My feet are gonna be hurt. I'm gonna be this. or I love to do that, but I don't have enough time. I don't have enough money. What if I fail? My feet are going to be hurt. I'm going to be this. And here's the thing, whatever limiting beliefs if they're coming up for you and you're hearing this for the first time, I'm holding up a mirror to you because these actually are the same limiting beliefs.

I'm certain that are looping on your brain dozens and dozens and dozens of time that are actually as you said, Chris, putting the glass ceiling on your own hopes and your dreams and beliefs. But here's the thing, the invitation for the 12-hour walk that anyone can do on any day is for you to actually say to your limiting beliefs, your own interior dialogue. Oh, I don't have enough time. I'm going to make the time. And then you do the 12-hour walk, and then that limiting belief comes up for you a week

later. You go, oh, hello, limiting belief. I see you there. But I remember last time I pushed that aside I can overcome that I can prove that I can actually optimize my time Well, I'm willing to seek a little bit of discomfort to get those tens and that's really the beauty and the juice and for me Man, I'm so excited about this book. I'm more than anything. I'm excited about just sharing this methodology That is free accessible to every single person because they're ripple effect in people's lives and that positivity.

If that's the world I want to live in, I want to live in a world where people are lit up, not surrounded by the massive men leading lives of quiet desperation, but the massive men and women who are lit up to take on life and to summit the Everest, whatever that Everest looks like for them in their own lives. Dude, that's fucking go. I love it. It's so, so good. Am I right in thinking that you've made an app as well?

And is there a day that people are supposed to, you can do it with if you want to do it with a bunch of other people around the world? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those are all true. It's funny. I did make an app. It's funny.

I'm saying turn off your phone, put on an airplane mode, but I built an app for you. I did build an app because here's the thing. People start going like, well, if I put my phone on airplane mode, I'm not going to be able to look at maps and I'm going to get lost and I'm going to fray, I'm not going to find my way back home, whatever. It's great. I built you a map and it does two things.

It puts your phone into airplane mode. So you got that covered, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, text, no one in this stuff. But the GPS tracks you. GPS is some people know and don't know, actually actually can track you with your phone and airplane mode. So it draws a line, you can see where you've been. It's basically Google Maps, you can scroll in and out inside the 12 hour walk app. And then the other thing it does is it's a clock, man.

It counts down from 12 hours. So you can look down and say, okay, I've been seven miles, I got five hours left to go, whatever that is. So I've basically taken care of the two things that I think you need your phone for. And I tell people, put your phone in your pocket on airplane mode, but have it with you for safety, of course. And there's a lot of FAQs on the website, 12-hour walk.

You can sign up any single day to do the walk. Obviously read the book, the book is kind of an essential companion that is not just a dense textbook about walking and it'll light you up about all sorts of stories that I think you'll really enjoy, but how we can all conquer our minds. But on the website, you can sign up. You pick a day.

Because here's the thing, you and I both know this Chris actually picking a day, putting it in your calendar, committing to something is a lot different than saying, hey, I'm going to do this thing one day, one day becomes next year, next two years, either just can kick that down the can. So it's free. I don't get a dollar for every person doing the walk, but I'm asking you to commit because I'm your accountability partner. I'm going to send you emails and say, okay, you're a week out, you're five days out, here's a few tips and tricks, et cetera. So come and sign up. And then to take that one step further, again, this is evergreen, do it on any day that

you wish, but on September 10th of this year, I'm inviting global mass participation, which is to say, you're doing it by yourself, you're doing it out your front door, and just a note, ambient city noise out your front door. If you're a Manhattan or you're an officer, whatever, that doesn't negate your silence. Your silence is your own. If cars are driving past, people walking past you on the street totally fine. Your silence is your own commitment to, you know, maintaining your solitude and your own own brain. But on September 10th, I'm going to do the walk, all sorts of people are doing the walk. Chris, I love for you to join the walk on that day if you're up for it. But basically, it's to say, we're doing this alone together.

And we're going to do some meetups and some Zoom calls and some integrations of that with that community of people that are picking that day. But it's just to say, if you need that accountability. But if you also need accountability, there's a million other ways that you're listening to this. And it's after September 10th is to say, look, you got that group text in your, you know, pocket with your five college buddies like hit them all up pick a day Just put it on your counter your mother your sister your best friend pick a couple people you're all doing it by yourself But you have that accountability. We pick this day. Okay, it's 6 a.m. You on your front porch Yeah, man, I'm on my front porch. You about to start the walk. Yeah, I'm about to start my walk

All right phone on airplane mode see in 12 hours Maybe you meet up for dinner that night and talk about your experience So it's just the power of collective accountability. Ultimately, the 12-hour walk is to be done alone, but to be in participation of community, of community of like-minded people that are trying to cultivate a possible mindset, trying to unlock their best life.

And so it's not a call to action to become a hermit and to sleep in a cave by yourself afterwards. It's a call to action to say, take a deep dive in your mind because you're going to be a better friend, a better community person, a better colleague, more lit up throughout your life, and then to integrate that in community.

So sign up any day, September 10th, I'll be doing it with you. So if that works for you, put that on your calendar, check out the book. I know you're going to love it. Dude, I fucking love your energy. It's so good, so inspiring. What's the website that people should go to?

Where can they get the app? When's the book out? Books out on August 2nd. So I don't know when this is coming out, but it's coming out just a few days, probably out by the time this goes live. Pick up the book. The website is 12hourwalk.com.

So everything you need is there. Also inside the book are a number of QR codes that actually bring you to archival video content from the story. So I tell you a story about rowing a boat across Drake passage. I'm lightening up with words. And then it's like, oh, you want to actually see a video

of me getting my ass kicked and middle of the ocean. Well, scan this QR code and check it out. So there's a whole sort of interactive component to all that. The app also should be live in both the app store and Google Play right around the time of book launches The last last little tweaks are making to it, but it's ready to go and excited to you know Have everyone participate in the walk come join the movement and come say hello to me on social as well

I'm at Colin O'Brady pretty active on Instagram. So come say hello share your store with me and Can't wait to see you out there on the walk. Colin, I appreciate the fuck out of you, man. Thank you. Thanks, man.