The Rich Roll Podcast - Colin O’Brady & Jenna Besaw On Possible Mindsets, K2 Perils & 12-Hours Walks

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

World-record setting adventure athlete and New York Times bestselling author Colin O’Brady returns for his fifth appearance on the podcast (RRP 207, 235, 439 & 519), this time alongside wife and partner in all things Jenna Besaw —the powerful engine behind everything they have accomplished together. Today we discuss what global exploration has taught Colin & Jenna about mindset. We talk about the transformative power of an all-day walk, the subject of Colin's new book, 'The 12-Hour Walk'. Packed with actionable takeaways ad incredible stories, this is a long one, but I implore you to stick around for the final hour— a harrowing first-person account of the trauma and tragedy of death on K2. Watch: YouTube. Read: Show notes Peace + Plants, Rich

I wake up to her just screaming and her head is in the upside mountain where the debris and the avalanche plume is hitting her tent and so her head is like pinned under the edge of this tent and she's like just screaming and I sit up and I'm like,

oh my God, it's an avalanche and I pull her head, basically it was kind of like wedged. It pushes the tent fabric off of me, like it pushes all the snow and whatever was on the outside, pulls me out and I am like shaking like a leaf.

Like, I have no idea really what's happened, and Colin says it's been an avalanche, and I was just terrified. I mean, frankly, the worst feeling you could possibly imagine. I mean, when the tent was covering my face, I was like, oh, this is it. This is the thing that I didn't want to have happen. You get buried alive.

Yeah. It was a bad scene. I mean, it wasn't good. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today, returning for his fifth appearance on the podcast, if you can believe it, is adventure athlete Colin O'Brady, along with his wife and partner in all things, Jenna Besaw, joining for her first appearance on the show. Long-time listeners are well acquainted with Colin's long list of accomplishments as a 10-time world record-breaking explorer and expert on mindset, high performance, and empowering others to reimagine

the limits of human possibility. Collins' feats include the world's first solo, unsupported, and fully human-powered crossing of Antarctica. He set speed records for the Explorer's Grand Slam and the Seven Summits, as well as the first human powered ocean row across Drake Passage. Colin is a mainstay on the public speaking circuit. His feats have been featured in every prominent media outlet across the world. He is a co-founder of the 29029 Everesting series of endurance events that you've heard me talk about here many times. And his first book, The Impossible First, was a New York Times bestseller.

But none of this happens without Jenna. She is the engine behind everything they have accomplished together, which is why I'm so excited to introduce her to all of you today. A few more important things to add before we launch into this expedition, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

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that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care,

especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself,

I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. So Colin has a new book out. It's entitled The 12-Hour Walk, which is based on this idea that Colin had during the 2020 COVID lockdown when everything stopped. And like a lot of us, he found himself lacking purpose, lacking direction. And essentially on a whim, he decides to just go out on a walk,

no phone, no direction, no destination in mind, and ends up returning 12 hours later, a different person. And kind of inspired by this experience to invite others to experience this transformative affair endeavor as a personal means of empowerment. So today we talk about that, of course, including his 12-hour walk movement, which is this thing that he's doing

that invites all of us to join him on September 10 to do our own 12-hour walk, which you can learn more about at 12hourwalk.com. We also discussed Colin and Jenna's more recent expedition to Everest with friend of the pod, Mike Posner. We talk about the trauma and grief incident to Colin's absolutely harrowing experience on K2. And most importantly, Jenna's role and perspective in everything and all of it. In addition to just incredible stories throughout it all, you're gonna find actionable insights on things like tackling limiting beliefs,

adopting what Colin and Jenna call the possible mindset and reframing the limits of your own potential. So let's do it. This is me, Colin O'Brady and Jenna Basar. Well, it's great to see you guys. I'm really happy to do this with you. And Jenna is here today. I can't wait to talk to Jenna,

who said no to the Today Show how many times? Refuses to be interviewed. But you're gonna talk today because I've heard enough of this dude over here. He's been on the podcast too many times. So it's gonna be all about Jenna today. Oh gosh. Jenna's got the best story.

Too much pressure. We'll riff and have some fun. Yeah, I mean, let's start with that. I mean, what is it I'm interested in, we've all heard about Colin's adventures. There's too many to even keep track of, all these world records and death defying, expeditions, et cetera.

But you're the engine behind the whole thing, right? You're the one who keeps it on track, who's doing the boring kind of unheralded hero work. And I'm just curious about like how you keep it all together and what the mechanics of all of that are about for you, because it doesn't happen without, I mean, Colin's always saying like, it's Jenna, it's Jenna, can't do this without Jenna,

but we've never heard from you. Yeah, well, I really appreciate being here. Thanks for inviting me. It's great to see you. I'm glad to have you here. You know, it started so long ago, Colin and I have been together in a relationship for a long time,

and then business has kind of just organically evolved for us in partnership. And for me, it's really this beautiful kind of song and dance that we get to share where Colin is pursuing some of his greatest passions and I get to be in full support, but in full creator mode with him. So it's not just me, I'm standing behind the scenes, helping him create what he wants to. It's really kind of a choreographed dance, if you will, where we get to show our strengths and kind of participate in creating together. Right.

And what happens when you get those sat calls and he's in peril. You're gonna go right in. Not a second. Right. Yeah, man, it's been, I mean, it's been a learning process, right? not a second yeah man it's been I mean it's been a learning process right

like we've grown up together and we've experienced a lot together both super high highs and some pretty dark intense expedition moments and you know the sat phone calls I always answer with

an open heart but the biggest amount of trepidation right because I never know if it's going to be all's well, we're doing great, or if it's going to be a tragic. Jenna has definitely walked me off some cliffs out there, you know, on the edge, you know, one that comes to mind, I remember calling you from Antarctica somewhere around day 40 of the solo crossing. Jenna, there was two people I talked to on the Antarctica crossing, by the way, from Antarctica somewhere around day 40 of Solo Crossing. Jenna, there was two people I talked to

on the Antarctica crossing, by the way, and it's that phone. Well, I guess if we count Paul Simon. Paul Simon was one. Paul Simon was one of them. But there was Jenna, my nightly check in from there. And also Adam Skolnick. Oh, that's right.

Yeah. Skolnick, his tentacles. His tentacles reach everywhere. I know, I completely forgot about that cause he was doing crazy reporting on that. I mean, those New York Times pieces were epic. I think there was eight New York Times pieces that he shot and Jenna was running the PR with him.

Adam has such a special place in my heart. He talked about me being Collins Rock. Like Adam was my rock during that whole thing. I mean, I talked to him every day, multiple times a day just cause he was reporting on it, but he just became such a close friend. He definitely always is interesting. He does such a good job of the integrity of a journalist.

Like, hey, I'm a journalist and I'm reporting the facts. This is journalism. But also he's like, I also understand that like you're not talking to anyone. Like Jenna's not talking, like the two of them only people talking to me during that crossing. So it's a very unique sort of position.

And like, I mean, I think I only talked to him two times or something to give interviews, but you guys were kind of- I was relaying a lot of information to him because I would talk to Colin in really brief snippets, right? Those crackly satellite phone calls. So it's not like, oh, we're just having this really easy,

you know, mellow, chill conversation. But in that, I would have to distill down some pieces to send over to Adam so that he could accurately report on the crossing, yeah. But I think to me, like what I was thinking of is there's so many moments, but one that really comes to mind that combines, I think a lot of things was,

I get to the South Pole on day 40 on that crossing and Jen, I have this great, I kind of have this euphoric, you thought I was on drugs, just like, you know, dopamine rush of like, oh my God, I'm here. It's beautiful. It's sunny.

It's all this stuff. And like, Jenna can hear it in my voice. She kind of lets me be in La La Land by myself, like for that day. Before she drops the bomb. And then the next day she says, hey, we got to talk for real. I couldn't, in that moment,

I had such a huge piece of information to share with him that I really needed him to execute on. But he was just in such a blissful place, which wasn't always the case, of course, right? He had a lot of down days and down moments. And I was just like, I can't drop this on him yet. So let him enjoy it. One day won't crush what I'm about to tell him.

And I'll never forget. She's like, so now we need to talk for real. And she's like, you don't have enough. I'm running the spreadsheet. So Jenna's not only dreaming up these projects together, she's building them together. We're in the weeds. That's why I say it's a shame.

It's my name on the world records because it is both of ours completely from, you know, origin all the way through execution. Let's be clear. I did not walk across an article. So no, the record should be in Colin's name. Yeah, but these things don't happen in a vacuum. But for you to be not just my wife, the love of my life,

we've been together for 15 years, it's been an incredible journey. But then for you to actually have to say, hey, Colin, you do not have enough food in your sled. You do not have enough calories in your sled. I know you're starving out there. I've been telling you, my hips are sticking out. My ribs are sticking out.

I'm exhausted. He told me he had to take out a sewing kit and stitch in every few days a little less fabric because his pants were falling down essentially. So I'm like running this in my mind while also looking at the spreadsheets. And I'm like, oh no, this is- Calories are running.

This is not gonna work. And you know that I'm burning 10,000. I'm eating 7,000. And you call me and you say, there's no way you're gonna finish this unless you go down'm burning 10,000, I'm eating 7,000 and you call me and you say, there's no way you're gonna finish this unless you go down to roughly 5,000. And I don't know, it's always interesting.

I'm curious, now Rich and I are both reviewing you, so. Yeah, but is that also part of the, I mean, the new book, which we're gonna get into, kind of opens with this story about how you have to tell him he can't, you're doing 10 hour days in Antarctica. Yeah. And you have this moment where you feel like

you can't push any further or harder and you're neck and neck with Rudd and Jenna, you're like, you're gonna have to do extra hours. It was that part of the calorie conversation or was that something different? He had already started to do the extra hours by this point in the story. By this point in the story.

By this point, you take it back. Oh yeah, if you take it back to the very beginning. I mean, to Colin's credit, he definitely went out there thinking, I think I can do this crossing. But I would say you didn't have like the best plan. Like he really didn't. Not to throw you under the bus, babe,

but like Colin's plan was like, yeah, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna walk like about 10 hours a day and we're just gonna like see how it goes. And I was like, that's the plan. Like, that's the plan. And pretty quickly we needed to come up with an actual, like legitimate spreadsheetable plan that could calculate not only hours and miles walked, but calories, right? Calories were the, the linchpin in this whole thing. Obviously, of course it came down to the sled that he was pulling, how much weight was in it whole thing. Obviously, of course, it came down to the sled

that he was pulling, how much weight was in it, how many calories he was burning, like all of the pieces that went into this calculation. And so, I mean, it was a nightmare to begin with, really. When Collin was like, I have to walk further and longer each day in order to make this happen. And you're gonna run out of calories.

I mean, we figured it out pretty quickly, but- But I was definitely in that moment for sure. In that moment, particularly as I'm getting my butt kicked by Rudd in the first week, I'm calling Jenna, I'm crying. I'm calling Jenna, I can't do this. I mean, every limiting belief is in my mind. I can't pull my sled. It's not gonna work.

I can't go far enough. I'm getting my butt kicked. I told the press that I'm gonna do this big thing and it's gonna be to work. I can't go far enough. I'm getting my butt kicked. I told the press that I'm going to do this big thing and it's going to be an epic failure. And he was in a rough spot the first week. Yeah. I mean, not only with the food we're talking about on day 40, we take probably back to day five of that. And we write about this in the new book, The 12 Hour Walk of you being like, you're trying to help me problem solve. Like you've been, I've, you know, I've said this to you, of course, not on a podcast, but I'll say it again now, which is to me, the balance of the strength

that you've shown, the love that you've shown me has certainly gotten me to the finish line, but also the poise, like how hard it would be in those moments to just be like, okay, it's too hard, whatever. Like you're asking me and you're telling me like, well, can you go a little bit further? Can't, I'm just saying, I can't go any further.

His responses were not delicate, let me tell you that. I approached. You have to be a psychologist to like, when's the right moment to tell him he's gonna have to go further on less calories each day. Right. Yeah. And then it's an interesting thing, right? Because you're saying this too, that it's not, I guess the one thing it was like,

your business partner or like your coach or something like this, but like. Totally, I mean, this is my husband, the person that I care and love the most in the world, right? And I'm having to find his edge, press on it, see how he reacts and responds, assess that, make minor detail, little adjustments along the way and hope, hope and pray that it's all gonna work out, right?

Right, and if it doesn't, the stakes are high. Really high. Yeah. Yeah. And meanwhile, behind the scenes, just to, I wanna get a, you know, glean a sense of like the scale of what's required to pull something like this off. Like my only frame of reference was doing Epic Five,

which is like nothing compared to the scale of the expeditions that you're doing. And in that case, like Jason did almost all of it. Like I just showed up for the ride with that. But in this case, it requires a lot of money and intense pre, like pre, it's like making a movie. Like you have pre-production and you gotta make these spreadsheets

and you gotta figure out what's gonna be on the sled. It can't be too heavy, it can't be too light. How are we gonna make sure there's enough calories? How are we gonna make sure that he has backup gear if stuff goes wrong, because stuff always goes wrong. Like who's paying for this? How is this all coming together? Like, I think it's crazy.

It's like without a team of like 12 people working, you know, around the clock. No, and we've really always kind of been a lean and mean team. To me, the moment that I come back to always around this is in 2014. So I was racing triathlon professionally at the time. Jenna had come out on the road with me full time for a couple of years, was kind of starting to step into management, think about helping sponsor it. It was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sleeping on people's floors. Like this wasn't was kind of starting to step into management, think about helping sponsor. It was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sleeping on people's floors.

Like this wasn't glamorous. In fact, Jenna was like, I need to have a real career. And I was like, no, let's do the ITU circuit. I did, I was like, well, maybe I should get a real job and help support. You're like, Colin, that is not my Everest. Yeah, exactly. She's like, it's cool that you're into this, but whatever.

But it was beautiful in the fact that you've always been adventurous. So we were like, well, at least we can go to all these countries. And again, like we had no money. So we were basically homestays, people basically opening their homes to us, letting them sleep, giving us food,

things like that for training camp. It's a grind. It's a major grind. And so we lived that. And then we were racing it in South America in the fall of 2014. We went to climb Ecuador's three volcanoes. There's a bunch of volcanoes there,

but there's three, the three tallest ones, Cayambe, Cotopaxi, and Chimborazo. And I had always like loved climbing some mountains, but Jenna had done a little bit of that, but not much. I want to teach her more about- But to be fair, I am not an expedition oriented person. Like I grew up single mom, only child. She did not take me camping.

This is not something that I was at all privy to until I met Colin. Did you play sports in high school and stuff? I did, but tennis and I was a skier and I mostly was a ballet dancer. And so that was, I mean, I wasn't really, I mean, I guess tennis you would consider a team sport because there was a team of us,

but I was a singles player. You know, like I wasn't in team sports. You're not like a thrill-seeking, snowboarding, rock climbing type of person. And when I met Jenna, I met Jenna when we were 20. She was 20 and she was in college at that point. You weren't playing sports anymore. I mean, it was like a part of your childhood.

But we were, so I said, let's go climb these mountains in Ecuador. And Colin wanted to do this in the off season. So this was Colin's like vacation away from sports was to go out and climb these massive mountains. And I was like, okay, in what world is this a vacation? But like, okay, I'm in, let's do it. The year before that.

We bookend it with a nice hotel and spa. Exactly, right? Unfortunately, we couldn't afford much of a nice hotel at that point either. But we go there, because the year before I had been racing in Africa, we had been together racing in Africa, Zimbabwe, and we went and climbed Kilimanjaro together.

And you climb Kilimanjaro and you're like, wow, that was cool. So we said next year, let's do something else like this. And you know, how old were we at this point? I was 20 or 26, 27. I was 30, maybe 29, something like that. Yeah, 29, I was 29. Br 29, something like that. Yeah, 29, I was 29. Brought a diamond ring up there in my pocket,

summit of Cayambe, this beautiful sunny day, asked Jenna to marry me. And we're on the summit of this beautiful glaciated peak, almost 19,000 feet in Ecuador, a mountain called Cayambe. And we had this moment that again, at the time, obviously I thought getting engaged would be a really special moment, but I didn't necessarily know this would be

such a ripple effect moment throughout our life, which comes back to how do we have the money to do this? How do we figure this out? All this kind of stuff, which was, we sat there on this mountain top and we just looked at each other and this kind of blissed out, like, oh my God, we're gonna get married.

I love you so much moment. But just like, what do we wanna do with our life? Like just have it, like just like an in the moment brainstorm of like, let do we wanna do with our life? Like just have it, like just like an in the moment brainstorm of like, let's dream without limits. And in the new book, The 12-Hour Walk, one of the framing principles, literally the first page is something that I define,

I call it a possible mindset, which I define, I have dictionary definition right in the front, it's my own dictionary definition, right? Which says, an empowered way of thinking that unlocks a life of limitless possibilities. And so on this mountaintop, as we're getting engaged, we look at each other and kind of do this, you know, just on the fly exercise of like, if there were no limits, if money wasn't an issue,

if we had the resources, if we had the network, if we had this, that, the other thing, like, what would we want to do in this moment? Let's dream without limits. And I remember that conversation so vividly, and maybe it was because we were surrounded by mountains or whatnot, but we dreamed up what became our first, you know, collective world record project, which was the Explorers Grand Slam. I said, my childhood dream has always been to climb Mount Everest.

We started riffing on things that included Everest, which was like the seven summits world record, the Explorers Grand Slam, the seven summits plus North and South Pole. And then both of us said the triathlon lifestyle, although we loved it, mostly, there was things we didn't like about it, but it was lacking in impact.

It was lacking in having sort of legs beyond. It felt very self-serving, right? You show up at a race, you fly to this race, you've trained for this race, you fly to this race, you show up, you race, it's over. Sponsors maybe are happy or not. Yeah, you came first to 50th. Yeah, if you're gonna make the Olympic team,

that is one thing. Yeah. Like if that's your, you know, apex mountain for that. But short of that, you know, it just becomes like this washing machine lifestyle, right? And look, I love it. I mean, I respected all my friends in that community. Obviously he was trying to make the Olympics.

I came up short. Great friends of mine made that next Olympics. Joe Malloy was a dear friend of both Jen and I. We traveled the world with him. He's an amazing guy. Those guys make the Olympics. I came up short, great friends of mine made that next Olympics. Joe Malloy, who's a dear friend of both Jen and I, we traveled the world with Gary, I mean, he's an amazing guy. Those guys in the Olympics that year, dear friends, we train with them a ton, but there was a limit to that. And so in this mountain, that same mountain, we said like, let's start this,

maybe we can like have impact millions of kids with nonprofit or something like that. And it's funny to look at that moment now, because like we on that mountaintop had no, we had no money, literally no money. We had no background, no idea how to start a nonprofit, knew nothing about press or media or PR or digital scale or social was somewhat new-ish at the time in the way that we think about it now. But that possible mindset, that limitless possibility has allowed us in this naive

moment of being engaged to dream. Right. Absolutely. All right, but like real talk for a second. Are you sure Jenna, that Colin didn't bully you into this? Cause it sounds like this is his dream, right? Like where do you, like what's your, you know? Cause this isn't bred into your DNA in the way that it is for Colin. Yeah, no, I mean,

Everest certainly was not a childhood dream of mine. I mean, literally not even close. I don't think I'd read anything about it other than I knew that it was the tallest mountain in the world. Like that was it. And so the challenge to climb the mountains wasn't my interest, right? I mean, I was like, cool, you want to do that? Great. At least you want to do that because that's your thing. But for me, it really was about the impact, right? We kind of started batting ideas around like what's important to us and kids have always been really important to me. I just think they're, you know, the next generation, there really is who's going to take the reins from us as we continue to build this world.

And there just seemed like, you know, a great combination of Colin's love of sports and my interest in impact. And how could we do that in a sustainable way that felt like something that had, you know, legs that we could talk about in the world. That was interesting. I'll also say that's a hundred, I love the question because it's fair, it's totally fair. But Jenna was like, let's climb these mountains. Like that's clearly me driving there.

But I think that what was interesting during the time when Jenna was observing the triathlon world, the scene, from helping me with sponsors, which was like, by the way, like a free bike helmet here or there, a pair of sunglasses. It wasn't like, she kept being like, and again, it's funny because now I think of you as such an amazing marketer, such a talented PR person. But at that time you didn't have that, but you had these instincts. Like you kept looking at,

you were like, I don't understand why that guy isn't having more impact or this person's not reaching more people or that, wow. Like we'd be, you know, sitting on the other side of the world with an athlete. We hear stories from these athletes and I'd be like, why does no one know that story? Like someone should know that story. That makes you so much more interesting

than you can just swim, bike and run, right? There are beautiful stories of people out there that I was like, oh, this is what people need to know about these people. So you had this like, and, this is what people need to know about these people. So you had this like, and Jenna has one of the strongest intuitions of anyone I've ever met, but you certainly had this, it's so funny looking back now,

you've built these very successful media campaigns, billions of media impressions, whatever, through like just your hard work and diligence and figuring it out. You hadn't done any of that at the time, but you're looking at this, you're going, there's something in these stories. There's something in the way to like transmute this

into impact. Like you felt that thing in the ether. Yeah, I wouldn't say it was a calling, but it felt very organic for me. I was like, I just, oh, I get this. I feel this, I can help relay it. Right, right, right, right. That first project was a canvas to paint on

and make, I mean, we continue to make mistakes, but certainly in the early days of like, so how do you actually get sponsors and raise money? I mean, I literally didn't know what the difference between marketing and PR was at that time. Like, I'm like, I don't know what the difference between those two things are. I mean, they go hand in hand. There's a difference? They go hand in hand, but like, truly, I was like, Google, what is the difference between marketing and PR? And how do we do this? How do we tell the story?

How do we reach people and kind of just- And when you're putting these expeditions together, like what is the value proposition for the person that you're trying to get money from, right? Like, is it a brand awareness thing or is it the impact that they can be involved with? Because like I said earlier, like these things cost a lot of money to put together.

You're asking people to like, we need like dollar X, which is a high dollar item. No, I mean, it's a perfect question. So the, again, not trying to shamelessly plug the new book, but it really does bring it up. The book is framed around limited beliefs. Tell me the title again, Colin. The book is called the 12 hour walk. But no, it's framed new book, but it really does bring it up. The book is framed around limited beliefs. Tell me the title again, Colin? The book is called The 12 Hour Walk.

But no, it's framed around, I love it, I love it. We have, by the way, Colin knows the difference between marketing and PR at this point. All right, go ahead. Rich and I have the same editor. 10 year anniversary of finding old trick. Congratulations, by the way, man, that's amazing.

And Rick Horgan, shout out to Rick Horgan, who edited my previous book and this book. He did a wonderful job on my book, I love Rick. and Rick Horgan shout out to Rick Horgan who edited my previous book and this book and Rich's book he did a wonderful job on my book I love Rick Rick is quite a guy the smartest people

I've ever met quite literally he knows every word literally every word that exists every email he's like just comes up with new words

I'm like I have to look up some of these words he's a genius but he's done right by you and I that's for sure but no

the book is framed around common and limiting beliefs we all have. 10 common and limiting beliefs, each one I break down a story from adventure, a genomized life, and then speak directly to the reader about how we can overcome these limiting beliefs. And we'll get to the larger call to action there.

But one of the most common and limiting beliefs, and that's why we're talking about this right now, and it's not why you brought it up, but I pulled my Instagram audience and said, a couple of years ago, like what is stopping you from living your best life? What is, I just want to know, like what were people thinking about?

And I thought I might get hundreds of different responses, but it turned out that I got like the five same responses hundreds of times. And really 75% of them were, I don't have enough money. If I had X amount of dollars, I would be doing this, but I'm not because I don't have that money. And it was the exact same problem that Jenna and I had sitting on the mountaintop dreaming about this. It was like, well, it's Florida's Grand Slam, quick Google, you can figure out going to the North Pole,

South Pole, Everest, whatever. You're running a tally of half a million dollars pretty quickly. Like it's, and that's not making any money. That's just like, that's covering costs. Like just purely covering costs. And it would have been super easy to let us stop. I mean, I think that that's the moment where like, you have a good business idea, right? You're hanging out with your buddy at the bar.

Hey, we're gonna do an Ironman triathlon. We're gonna race a marathon. You're having a beer with your buddy on a Sunday and a Saturday night. And you wake up on Monday morning and you call your buddy and you're like, yeah, like about that idea. Yeah. You know, like, yeah, like, you know, that was bullshit. Right. And I think easily we could have got home from that trip in Ecuador. You know, the,

the echo of the excitement of being engaged as young people in 2014 would have worn off and been like, okay, but like, so like real jobs, like what's your college degree? And you know, what are we gonna do? But I know you've talked about a lot on the show, Rich, I think there's a big difference between belief in abundance and the belief in scarcity, right? Like just that belief.

And I was actually listening to you and Skolnick chop it up on the 10 year anniversary pod of Finding Ultra. You'll have to say the line, but you said something like when you're living in your truth, the universe conspires. What's the line for you? When your heart is true, the universe will conspire to support you.

I mean, I think, yeah, to kind of drill down to brass tacks on that, what I hear in your story and I've experienced this myself is that on some level you have to believe it's possible and you don't have to completely buy into that. You can have rational skepticism like, wow, that's gonna be really hard. I don't know if I can do that, but what can I do right now?

I don't have any money, but I can go do this. And I think the more little kind of steps you take in the direction of that thing that you dream about or aspire to have in your life, there is energy that kind of coalesces around that. And then the next step will be revealed. I think a lot of people just sit around and they wanna see how the path is gonna unfold

all the way to the end or the destination. And it doesn't work that way. Like you have to, with each step, you get a little bit more confidence and you get a little bit more evidence. And, I can't like pick Ironman. Like Ironman's expensive. Yeah.

Well, I wanna do an Ironman. I don't have any money and I don't own a bike, but, you know, I borrowed my friend's bike and I rode for a while. And then, you know, after doing that for three or four months, this other friend of mine had an extra bike and he said he'd sell it to me for like, you know,

20% of what it's worth. And you just, you kind of make it work. And then the more that you do that, the more the universe kind of opens up to you and things happen. And that sounds perhaps a bit too ephemeral or mystical and maybe even privileged, but I've seen it happen in my life.

This is certainly the path that you guys have taken. Totally. Things occur when you just keep pushing forward incrementally. A hundred percent. And I think that it comes also back to, you're gonna get, like your buddy didn't sell you the bike on the first time you thought about having a bike.

That might be like when you're thinking about how to get a bike for three months and that finally comes around. Meaning like you didn't like give up on your dream to have a bike after the first person was like- You gotta earn the dream. Totally. I love that. Through diligence and work ethic, right?

And the more kind of sweat equity you put into it, the more opportunities you're creating for yourself. 100%. And it doesn't lay out linearly or on the timeline that you would prefer, right? But it eventually- The person you least expect to open a door for you is the one who does.

And I mean, two full ones. To me, there's amazing, Jenna helped me tell this story, but we were six, eight months into trying to raise money for the Explorers Grand Slam project and had raised very little. A triathlon sponsor of mine had, a guy, high net worth guy named Brian Galloper, who had helped me out for some other stuff,

said, I'll help you once you show me you can have some proper sponsors. Like, I'm not just gonna write your check. So show me a Nike sponsorship, show me like a real quote unquote sponsorship, and then I can maybe Matt, you know, help you guys out. So that was a big thing, only if we could prove ourselves basically.

Right, but it's like, here's a little shred of hope. Like, okay, there's a crack here. Like now I have something to work with. But then six, eight months down the road, we still had raised basically $0. And we finally by, you know, friend of a friend of a friend had introduced us to someone at Columbia Sportswear

who had introduced us up the chain at Columbia Sportswear after five people said no. And we actually get a meeting with Tim Boyle, who's the CEO of Columbia Sportswear based in Portland. And they also own Mountain Hardware and Sorrel and a bunch of the Boyle, who's the CEO of Columbia Sportswear based in Portland. And they also own Mountain Hardware and Sorrel and a bunch of the other, like, you know, whatever climbing brands. And we're like, oh my God, this is our big shot.

Like, this is our big shot. We prep for the meeting. Jen and I are like, did we like read his mom's book about the starting of the company? I mean, we do all the things. We like buy their clothes to go to the office in, of course. That we couldn't afford. And we walk in and he sits down and he looks at us. The first thing he sees, he's kind of like, who are you guys? And you realize we've been prepping for this meeting.

And this is like two minutes in between something actually important that he's taking. And we're like, oh shoot. And we're like, we're ready with this whole pre we're thinking he's gonna give us the time of day to like do the whole presentation and we're like oh we have this like website with like a video on it and like whatever and we like play it for him and you can just see his eyes just kind of like glaze over and he's like cool cool like uh hey good luck with that like good job you guys good luck with that and we're like being ushered out the door. And Jenna is just a complete savage. Like I was like, well, I was like, I was like, this can't be it. Like, this cannot be the end of the road for this because, you know, in looking through all the different sponsorship opportunities, I was, you know, when you just can feel something is right. I'm like, this is the one we cannot let

this slip through the cracks. And I just pivoted and said like, Mr. Boyle, like Colin, here's a local guy from Portland. You haven't even heard his whole story. Give me five minutes to tell you what you need to know here. And I just truly from the heart, and I am not one to just like raise my hand and speak up and like jump into the middle of something. And it just came out so organically and so naturally.

I shared exactly what we were trying to do, how much money we were trying to raise. And I think he just- This was for the Explorers Grand Slam. This was for the Explorers Grand Slam, yeah. We had never done anything before. We literally had no money. We had nothing.

And Jenna, she's being humble. Jenna is generally a, really a natural introvert. And just, I don't know, you're not one to just be like, but in that moment to be like, actually, excuse me, Mr. Boyle. Like he was like, what? Like, I just thought it's like, who's this girl, 27 year old girl sitting in the corner.

She's like, excuse me, Mr. Boyle, actually, I think there's a little more. And it's like to this like, you know, high powered CEO. And she kind of sits him back down in his chair and just goes like, goes in and is like, there's more here. So I think it's a combination of that belief in abundance, which is to even get that meeting. It was like, no, no, no, yes.

Meet a guy at a coffee shop who could introduce you to here, there, and both of us like doing that. But also in the moment, like you're in this moment and you're like, okay, I could just- These inflection points where you know you have to crush it. Yeah. And the guy's saying no, he's literally saying no.

And Jenna's just like, I was even like- I think both of us really live by this quote, a closed mouth is never fed. And it was like, I hadn't even had the chance to ask for what we wanted before getting shut down. And I was like, oh no, this is the moment where you have to speak up and you have to say, at least if you get a no, you get a no, right?

Right. But it was a really beautiful exchange and ultimately led to our like first legitimate, like real sponsorship. Right. So what did you say specifically that turned the tide? It's a good question. I mean, I wasn't recorded, so I don't know exactly, you know, specifically what I said, but I really, I was like, Columbia wants this and needs this. Like, I can see this for you guys as a brand. This is critical to what you're trying to use as a campaign. And they were doing-

They were tested tough. Tested tough, yeah. And again, this was years ago. And it's just like everything that the project was sharing out in the world was exactly the same talking points as this campaign. And I think I just kind of, you know, gave a little bit of-

From my standpoint, she just locked in. It was just like, I'm not taking it. He was just like, whoa, she's not taking no for an answer. Okay. Well, it sounds to me like- It's like an ad about an experience. It was like a vibe shift from, hey, we need this for us to,

here's how we can fulfill your need, which is to extend your brand awareness on this messaging that's completely on point with what you're trying to do. And not for nothing, you're not really doing a very good job on it right now. And in a really unique way. Exactly, like I was like, what we are bringing, you're not gonna get anywhere else.

Like this is, Colin can bring this, we can bring this as a team and like you want this. Not in like a, you know, crazy way, but just in a very complete honest way. And I think he saw that. I think he finally saw the passion and was willing to take a risk on us. Yeah. I mean, that was a huge turning point, but it certainly was not, it wasn't going to pay for the balance of what we were doing. It was just to be like, oh, you know, a domino had fallen, like, whoa, Columbia Sporting

Project, that allowed us sort of the ability to kind of go out in the world. But then we were still a lot, a lot of dollars short, you know, of raising money for this first project. And, you know, basically just kept knocking on doors. And I think, you know, my mom said this to me for a long time. I don't know if it's her quote, I'm probably not, but she says, you know, luck comes to those who are prepared. And, you know, getting our first project off the ground was the two of us waking up every single day with our mind flooded with doubt, right? Like our mind flooded with all these doubts,

like, oh, this isn't gonna work, this isn't gonna this, but then getting up and doing it. I mean, I'd be curious for you, like, we're talking about, you know, being on Kauai, starting the podcast, like there must've been all sorts of moments, like when you're like, I'm doing this podcast, but a pod what?

How do I even download that? Like, it's that same moment, right? What was that for you? Like when you're like getting your thing like going? Well, the difference is like, it was just a fun, creative thing. Like I didn't do it because I was driving towards some vision of what it could be.

It just felt like a cool, creative outlet that I enjoyed. And it organically built from that. And then at some point when it kind of kicked in and I was like, oh, people are really digging this. Like, how can I turn this into something more than what it is currently? And that's been a journey of just gradual iteration. Like there was no big, you know, crazy spike

or viral moment. It's just like showing up for it every single day. Just like you're training for a race, like putting in the hours and the miles. And yeah, it's like, we're in this amazing studio, but yeah, it started in a warehouse in Kauai with a very humble kind of approach to what we were doing. And it was really out of like, but my heart was true.

Like I was doing it for the joy of doing it, not because like, oh, I can turn this into like a job. And the consistency and the passion. And I think that it's interesting when we reflect on our first project and that moment with Tim Boyle, Jenna fully turned the tides on, even me who've been known to be resilient and persistent. Like I was like, well, I guess that's it.

Like I was ready to walk out of that room before Jenna really stepped in. But same for us, like that first project was born from, can we just do this? Can we like break even and just have the, like the honor of being able to attempt this? Not like, can we do this and turn it into a books and speaking and this, and it was like, literally, can we do this and have this nonprofit that like helps some people like just from that pure place of the why. And I think that the, I mean, I talk about it in the 12 hour walk when I talk about the money chapter,

which is obviously something that's big topic for everyone, myself included, was like, we have this why of wanting to do this. And there was a financial requirement for doing it, but the persistence, the passion wasn't like, oh, so let's raise this money so we can quote unquote get rich or have like a nicer car or a nicer thing.

It was like, we just wanna do this to have the impact, the passion, the perseverance, the adventure, the curiosity of doing said thing. And I think in that moment, in that Tim Boyle moment, and certainly there's so many other inflection points in our life where things have gone wrong and we've re-writed it, whatever, but that passion, that desire, like the love of the game.

Like I just like wanting to do this. Our heart being true, the way you said it Rich in your book, I think it's part and parcel of that. Yeah, I think there's this misplaced idea that people wanna be like, they see you on stage at some Ted event or whatever, and they're like, I wanna be like, they see you on stage at some Ted event or whatever. And they're like, I wanna be a public speaker. And they chase that.

But what they're missing is you have to go out and do the thing that lights you up to be unique and interesting. You have to go live a certain type of life so that when you get on a stage, you have actually something to say that has resonance. Totally. So it's a little bit backwards, I think. So you go on and you do on a stage, you have actually something to say that has resonance. Totally. So it's a little bit backwards, I think.

So you go on and you do all of the, I mean, how many times have you been on the show? Like four times or something like that. We've gone through like all of the nitty gritty of like the expeditions. Well, you reached out to me, you're like, hey, I wanna come back on that. I was like, bro, you've been on so many times.

Okay, I got you, you got a book. Like what else are we gonna talk about? Sweet to hear the full concept though. I was like, bro, you've been on so many times. Okay, I got you, you got a book. Like what else are we gonna talk about? Sweet to hear the full concept though. It's like Jenna's gotta come. But so we don't need to like anybody who's enjoying this can go back and there's plenty of conversations, you know, around the Antarctica expedition,

the seven summits, et cetera. And I encourage everybody to go check those out. We'll put links in the show notes, but let's kind of get to the new book, which I think is really interesting in that it provides you this opportunity to share lessons that you've learned from these various expeditions,

but to do it in a context where there's some actionable takeaways from people. And it's all wrapped around this idea of the 12 hour walk. So explain how you had this kind of epiphany around this experience that you could share and create community around. Totally, yeah, no, it is really exciting for me and we'll get into what the details of it are,

but it's fun to now have written this book and have it be coming out. That's really at its core, a call to action for people to get involved, not to observe me doing an expedition or something like that, which I think, you know, I love, don't get me wrong, I love documentaries about other people doing stuff. They light me up, but this is a direct, you know, me speaking to the reader essentially throughout the entirety of this book and the call to action around taking your own

12 hour walk. But the really, the origin story for me was during COVID. So literally I was looking, the last time I was on the pod, I have a picture of you and I on March 8th, 2020, and I'm at your house and we've done kind of a two-part follow-up to after the Drake passage and all that we did, you know, did two-part episode and March 8th, 2020, it's crazy. Like I'm at your house. So the lockdown date was like,

when did the NBA call off? The 11th? The 11th. So three days later, I have this vivid memory of standing with you, the microphones are off, we're saying goodbye and giving you a hug. And you said to me, you said, "'Julian and I got this trip planned to Italy in May."

Like, cause Italy was first hit, right? Do you think that's gonna, like, what's your take on like, you think that's gonna happen? And I was like, I literally, I remember, I remember giving you a hug and being like, bro, May, it's March 8th, man. Right. By May, it's gonna be completely fine.

Yeah. It was just such an interesting, three days later. It was so weird how it went from like, well, there's this thing kind of going around, but I just remember when it was two things that happened. The NBA called off their game and I was like, holy shit. And then Tom Hanks tested positive in Australia. And I was like, everybody come home.

Yes. I'm gonna go to the market and stock up on canned goods. And you know, that was the start of it. Totally, so I, and the reason, of course it's funny though, those headlines that you just say, actually in the chapter 12, the last chapter of this book,

I opened with those, a newsflash, those March 11th with those headlines, Tom Hanks, NBA canceled the season because also Jenna and I had planned to climb Mount Everest together that spring. And we talked about that. That was like- Exactly, it was coming up. Right around the corner. And those of about that. That was like- Exactly, it was coming up.

Right around the corner. And those of course derailed that entire thing. But also, context for us in our life, I had just completed the Drake passage row a couple months before that. And then my first book, "'The Impossible First' came out on January 14th. And I had been in the kind of beginnings of posts,

book tour, the books out, super humbled and honored to hit the New York Times bestsellers list, boom, COVID, everything's canceled, speeches, the rest of the book tour, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's the least of the world's problems, but that was just on our personal life, what was going on. Like we had this kind of whole thing mapped out, Jen and I were going to Everest and it was just like,

just like everyone else, just life instantly derailed. And it's funny to think back, you and I, I'm like, I had this kind of whole thing mapped out. Jen and I were going to Everest and it was just like, just like everyone else, just life instantly, you know, derailed, right? And it's funny to think back, you and I, I'm like, I remember thinking, hugging you and like maybe even touching your face as we're saying goodbye. And I was like, in Rich's house, like, huh, that's not like a thing that happened to you for a long time.

Crazy, I know. But so then we end up going, I was pretty afraid in those first few weeks of COVID, not afraid for my own safety necessarily, but like just the societal breakdown of like that moment of like, are they gonna close this? And are they gonna close the borders? And are they closing state borders?

And like all this kind of stuff. And Jenna and I live in Jackson Hole. My whole family basically is in Oregon, five sisters, parents, et cetera. Jenna's parents are back East, but we have a big concentration of family in Oregon where I grew up and we've lived a long time. And so it was kind of like, I would feel more comfortable

if we were like within the state border of Oregon. We didn't feel like we could go be with my parents, you know, based on their age and all this sort of stuff of like still keeping our distance. But my family has a cabin on the Oregon coast, on a really small little coastal town, 300 people population, Manzanita, Oregon. And so-

Good way to ride out the apocalypse. Yeah, exactly. You're like, well. We're like in the middle of nowhere. The rules there were- Which town? Manzanita, it's like a small beach town on the Oregon coast, like south of Cannon Beach,

north of Newport, I don't know if it's the Oregon coast at all, but beautiful, beautiful, beautiful spot. I do. That's where I did like my fifth step when I was in treatment, at Cannon Beach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just north. 10 miles south of there.

It's close, like really close to there. Anyways, and the rule in Oregon was they're closing all the beaches, all the state parks, but you could be in a beach town if you were a homeowner of that, be a resident or whatever. Like, so you can drive out from Portland and walk around the beach, but if you were there,owner of that, be a resident or whatever. So you can drive out from Portland and walk around the beach,

but if you were there, you could be there. That's what like the lockdown rules were in those first couple months. So me, Jenna and our dog, Jack, went out. Loaded up. Loaded up our car in Wyoming, drove out. I went to Costco and bought like 100 pounds of rice. Yeah.

Colin is like literally, I've never seen- I still have cans of chili. Yes, yes. That I bought like on March 12th or whatever. Exactly. Yeah, 2020. Colin like really, I really haven't seen you that scared,

scared in different ways, but in that like kind of materialistic gathering hoarding. Yeah. Even Jenna was like, it's a little more low key about it. But anyways, we ended up in Oregon coast and we kind of had had this whole plan. I mean, Jenna was like, it's a little low key about it. But anyways, we ended up in Oregon coast and we kind of had had this whole plan. I mean, Jenna had trained,

Jenna said, I want to climb Everest, which was really cool. We can talk about that. It's incredible. But she, without, you know, she just said not a big background that a year before that, I want to climb Everest. So we've been training for that.

We do the Drake passage road, book tour, all these kinds of things. We kind of had mapped out like a pretty 2020 year. We're doing this big documentary with discovery and there's all of a sudden just cancel, all these kind of things. We kind of had mapped out like a pretty 2020 year. We're doing this big documentary with Discovery and there's all of a sudden just canceled, canceled, canceled, canceled. So we find ourselves sitting in the Oregon coast, just kind of staring at each other a little bit.

I mean, I think a lot of people have that moment of just kind of like, what are we doing now? And I'm like in my house, you know, and like this. And so in that moment, I'll be honest I'll be honest, you know, my, my mental health definitely suffered, um, was not, was not feeling good. You know, days would go by where I'd be like, get up in my pajamas and it'd be like 8 PM. I'd be like still in my pajamas and be like, I guess we're just going back to sleep. And I love the Oregon coast.

It's a special place, but it's, you know, it's rainy and dreary and it's Pacific Northwest in the spring, you know, kill me now. And yeah, it's not this LA 73 and Sony every day. And I'm sitting there and I think to myself, when was the last time that I felt like really deeply at peace? Like when was the last time just in my body and soul where I felt just calm and like comfortable? And it hadn't even been in the previous year before COVID. You know, it was great to write that first book and get all the attention off the Antarctic crossing was really, you know, humbling,

but it also came with a lot of feel like elevated pressure and intensity and different stresses and all of that. And then boom, we did this rowing project, which was successful, was awesome, but it's exciting, but stressful. And so there was a last time that I really thought of myself feeling comfortable and calm in that moment was during my Antarctica crossing, like by myself alone, walking around out there. And as you know, cause you lived at Rich, you were in New York city right after my Antarctica crossing. And it

was the first time I was really asked any questions by, you know, hotel lobby. So serendipitous, it was so special. Yeah, for those listening, Rich and I would come, I come to New York City after the Antarctica crossing, we run into each other at the hotel lobby in basically Midtown Manhattan. Right, you were on your,

well, what I remember about that is it was winter and it was like- Kind of sleeting out a little bit and you just finished Antarctica and you were headed over to CNN. Yep. And we were like really close to Columbus Circle. Yeah.

And we were laughing because they said, do you want us to send a car? Like you couldn't walk from, it was like four blocks from the hotel. So we had to brave, we had to brave the main streets of Manhattan. But in that moment, and you came to my friend's house a couple of days later,

I think after that, where his friends gathered and just asking me questions about Antarctica and what was the resonant from that moment that ends up being the last chapter of that book. And still is to this day, is one of the most beautiful moments of my life. Just this resonance of infinite love, this sort of beauty and creativity of that moment.

And sitting there in COVID, I was kind of brought back to that moment of going like, wow, when I had nothing, when I was alone in COVID, I was kind of brought back to that moment of going like, wow, when I had nothing, when I was alone in Antarctica, walking for days, starving, hungry, under this like incredible stress externally, I actually found this deep place of like peace and contentment.

And so I say to Jenna, I kind of held like, I'm like, I'm going out tomorrow. And she was like, okay. And I was like, I'm going on a walk. She was like, yeah, we walk every day. And I was like, no, no, no. All day, 12 hours, like I used to do in Antarctica by myself. Like I'm headed out, you know, onto the Oregon coast.

And the one, one of my favorite things about the Oregon coast is that the beaches are these just long, you know, basically desolate flat beaches that are great for walking. And so I walk out, I go walk out my door. I don't have like a specific plan other than to basically stay out all day. And remember my phone buzzed in the first, 30 minutes like it does, someone texting me or some notification or something like that.

And I like do my, the knee jerk thing, pick it up and look at it. And I'm like, what am I doing? And so I throw the phone into airplane mode and walk for the rest of the day. And I walk for basically 12 hours, conjuring what I had done in Antarctica and tapped back into very quickly, just the flow, the meditative bliss, the silence, the stillness in my own brain, my own psyche without sort of the external inputs of noise or sound or even, you know, music or podcasts or anything of just like the silence, like of my own brain. And I came back and I don't know what your memory of this, Jenna, but just, I remember just feeling more calm and at ease than I had felt in a really long time.

Yeah. He just had this, like kind of the spark was back in his eye, which it had completely gone away, you know, and him setting out that day, I had heard it in his voice, you know, when you know your partner really well. And I'm like, oh, he's onto something, like something is about to have a change. And him coming back in and walking back through the door that day, I mean, he was changed. He was just different.

He was more calm, more fulfilled. You just felt like happy again. Yeah. And I think, you know, in that moment, when in that COVID moment, a couple months in the pandemic, when everyone's, you know, me and billions of other people on the planet trying to figure out what the heck's going on, you know, in that moment, in that COVID moment, couple months in the pandemic, when everyone's, you know, me and billions of other people on the planet

is trying to figure out what the heck's going on, you know, the isolation, something that I thought I was really familiar with, but it was weird to be isolated in the context of modern society, I guess. Yeah, it is that weird thing of like, I got this. Like, I know how to be alone. Like, I'm the guy who walks across an article alone.

Like, what do I have to worry about? And then four months later, you're like, yeah, this isn't so good. No. And so what came from that, I mean, that was the initial spark, but ultimately it was kind of like, wow, I've done several 10 day silent Vipassana meditations.

I've walked across Antarctica by myself completely alone. Like I've done these things that are pretty intense out there, solo adventures. But all of a sudden I walk out my front door and I basically get the same sort of experience in terms of just in the internal experience of just a reset, a quieting of the mind, a calmness, an inner strength, et cetera. And so it just kind of the spark of this thesis was, is this me being able to tap into my experiences that I've gone to the extreme ends of the earth to kind of conjure within my own psyche? Or is this something that's likely could be a prescription for any person at any moment of time? And I've been thinking about writing another book, but I thought to myself, as proud as I am of The Impossible First, that's a memoir about my life.

That's me, just like Finding Ultra is about your life. It's an incredible thing. Finding Ultra, love the book, incredible story. It's you talking about your life. It's a memoir about my life. That's me, just like the Finding Ultra is about your life. It's an incredible, I mean, Finding Ultra, love the book, incredible story. It's you talking about your life. It's me talking about my life. And there's implicit things that are guiding principles of sharing sort of other things people can take from that. But I became more interested in the idea of, is there a book that I can write that takes my experiences,

but they can actually give somebody something actionable and something tangible to take home themselves. Not just like, well, unless I go to the summit of Everest with my wife or I go to cross Antarctica solar, if I wrote a book or this, I'm not gonna be able to have this feeling. So like, that's just not me.

And so when I did this 12 hour walk thing, I was like, wow, like this was amazing. It conjured all the things that I'm trying to like conjure my own self that like knock me out of this kind of low moment. And could this apply to other people? So I very quickly kind of drafted some test subject, Jenna included, and said-

Jenna, I'm gonna need you to go out and walk for 12 hours. I was like, what in the? And, you know, from that, the 12 hour walk, which yes, it's a book now, but it's also what I'm really thinking about more than anything is this global movement. My goal is to inspire 10 million people

to take a 12-hour walk. And the book breaks it down and goes through all these limiting beliefs and it'll entertain you from all these stories from our life, et cetera. But at its core, I mean, Rick Horgan probably be happy me saying this, but like, it is simple.

Like walk out your front door, put your phone on airplane mode, take a day by yourself and look, 12 hours might sound far and long, but this is not an endurance challenge. This is meant to meet you exactly where you're at. Like if you, if you walk one mile or if you walk 50 miles, like it doesn't matter. Take as many breaks as you want. Like, this is not like something you're wielding up to. This is something for you to take a day. Cause although of course there's a physical element to it, ultimately this is you training your mind and taking that day on plug. I mean, I love to ask you Rich, what for you, you're, you know, somebody who's endurance sport athlete who have done some incredible things,

meditation practice, all the things you've done. But once like in the last five years, say what's the longest that you have spent by yourself with no external inputs? And what I'll define that, which is sleeping doesn't count of course. The second someone's in a room with you talking to you, that clock resets. Every time you look at your phone, the clock resets.

Every time you've got music on or podcasts on or whatever, the clock resets. Like, I'm curious, like what's the longest period of time you've spent? I mean, I'll tell you it ain't 12 hours. You know, the only thing that comes to mind was a portion of like 29, 029, you know, when we were there together

and I woke up really early one morning and kind of went up and did a couple spins by myself. Yeah. And maybe that was a couple hours. Yeah. And that's probably where I've maxed out. Jenna and I were in the tent adjacent to you and I think we kept you up at night.

Jenna came back late, we were being loud or something like that. I couldn't sleep. And then you guys got home. Yeah, you guys came back really late and were in the tent next to me and woke me up. And I was like, fuck it, I'm awake. I'm just gonna go back up on the mountain in the dark,

you know, which was fine. And I enjoyed that. Then you finished before us, but then we're like, Rich, you gotta do a victory lap with us. Yeah, and then I got shit for like, like I snuck out and like, you know, sandbagged everybody. Like that was not the intention. Trust me, I wish I could have slept in.

Yeah. But yeah, the point being that, you know, I haven't, you know, even as somebody who loves all of these things and appreciates the value that they bring, like my life's busy and I got, you know, lots of moving pieces around me and I haven't carved out the time

to do something like that. But I think the beauty in all of it is the simplicity of it and how easy it is to understand and the fact that it's taking the core of the aspirational and making it entirely accessible. Even if you walk a mile and sit on a rock for most of the day or whatever, you're still engaging in this process.

It's a no cost affair and it's not demanding physically or it's not necessarily demanding physically. It's really a walkabout. It's a compressed, silent, meditative practice in which you're compelled to confront yourself without devices to distract you or entertain you. Totally. Yep, exactly.

And I think it was, what's fun and interesting about that concept and why I'm really excited about it is I'm not here to vilify social media, like being like, don't ever be on social media. Don't ever check your phone in life. I'm just saying like, hey, like- For this day. Take a day, take one day. I mean, the sub tele book is invest one day, conquer your mind, unlock your in life. I'm just saying like, hey, like- For this day. Take a day, take one day.

I mean, the subtitle of the book is invest one day, conquer your mind, unlock your best life. I think we can have, I know if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling depressed, if you're having a tough time, if you're not feeling even stuck or depressed, but you're just like wanna reset or you're pondering a career change or a shift or anything's going on in your mind.

Like it is so easy in the middle of our day to day with all of our responsibilities to not take the time to kind of look inward. And one of the chapters on this book that I'm really passionate about is around intuition. And that's through the frame of my K2 expedition, which we haven't spoken about. Yeah, I wanna talk to you about that.

We'll talk about some point, but when you know, you know, like you know the answer. Like it's amazing how we actually, in a lot of the big decisions in our life, know the answer. But we don't give ourselves the time to reflect on the, oh, there's this to-do list or there's pros and cons or whatever. But 12-hour walk opens up possibility for that as well.

And so, you know what I mean? To me, what's so fun about this is I love being the athlete in the arena. Again, like I said, proud of those things. But this is saying like, you know, my next Mount Everest is for everyone listening, for everyone to be a part of this, to be involved in this. You can do the 12 hour walk any single day.

We've actually created an app funny enough for this sort of thing that basically puts your phone in airplane mode and counts down, but also keeps maps open so you don't get lost, you know, which is helpful. But also on September 10th, we have a larger sort of call to action, which is let's all do- You're gonna go out

and do it, everybody's gonna do it together. Everyone's gonna do it on that day. Individually, but together. So Goggins has the four by 48, and you got the 12 by one. Yeah, the 12 by one. I like it. So Rich, what are you doing on September 10th?

I know, September 10th. I actually already put it on my calendar. Amazing. So I already have it blocked off to do it. There's a possibility I might be out of town doing something, but I'm not sure, in which case I'll do it beforehand. Amazing.

But yeah, I already made a point of making sure it's there. I love it. Which I think is cool. One of the things that, well, I love it, and I'm really it's there. I love it. Which I think is cool. One of the things that I love it, and I'm really curious to hear your feedback on it. The people that we've had, you know, test doing this, it's been amazing.

People, you know, all different ages, you know, all the way up to people in late 70s have done this, to friends of ours, contemporary friends of ours, younger, you know, people who have never done anything, you know, never done a 5K, never a 10K, you know, not like non-athletes, like really a wide cross section of people. And just the original initial feedback has been amazing.

People crying, people having these breakthroughs. But one of the things I found the most interesting about committing to do it, like if you're listening to this and you're thinking like, am I gonna do that or am I not gonna do that? Is the limiting beliefs that pop up in your mind when thinking about doing this. Like literally, you haven't even done it yet, but like you're listening to this, you're driving your car right now,

you're listening to this podcast and you're like, yeah, but like, I'm a busy guy. And like, where am I going to find the time? Right. Or I hate being uncomfortable. You know, I just don't like being uncomfortable. If I'm on my feet that long, that's just not going to feel that good. You know, your listeners, I think are more like kind of step outside of their comfort zone folks, but that's a pretty common experience of People just kind of wanting to not push a little bit or I'm not strong enough, right? I'm not a runner, I'm not a walker. Those limiting beliefs are popping up around

why not to schedule the 12 hour walk. And in kind of diving deep and writing this book, what I realized is whatever limiting beliefs are coming up for you, myself included, when I try to put this on my own calendar, cause I'm now doing this somewhat regularly, I realized those are the same limiting beliefs are coming up for you, myself included when I try to put this on my own calendar, because I'm now doing this somewhat regularly, I realize those are the same limiting beliefs that are also holding me back from unlocking my best life

or doing the things that I want to do. So if right now the first excuse is I don't have enough time it's likely that you're also saying that limiting belief to yourself in a number of other buckets in your own life that are holding you back. So I think it's an interesting, the 12 hour walk, the experience of the one day is incredibly powerful

to get through it. Not least of which, because to get to the point of saying, yep, it's on my calendar, September 10th, I'm doing it. You actually have to fight against the mirror of your own limiting beliefs to get there. But on the other side of it, I mentioned it before, you unlock what I call the possible mindset. All of a sudden you're like, whoa, if I can do that,

if I can commit to that, if I can push through that, if I can spend that day alone with myself, what else can I do? What else can I unlock? What other pieces, what other limiting beliefs can I shed and get past? And so for that reason, I think it's really valuable as well, not just even the 12 hours,

but the experience of getting to the start line, so to speak, as you well know. The difference being between something like this and a marathon, like if you are gonna do a marathon, you gotta register, you pay the fee, maybe you gotta fly to the city, you gotta book the hotels. And so there's that external kind of pressure,

like, well, I spent all this money, like I have to see this through. But with this, it's like, yeah, I didn't like, I can just back out of this. Like no one's gonna give a shit. Until we get that FOMO going on, you know, until we get, but yeah, no, a hundred percent. And that's where it's intentionally,

it's intentionally clean in terms of like, it's simple. It's like, yo, this costs no money. People immediately go to, well, when I'm on vacation and I'm in this beautiful place and I this, whatever. And like, if you wanna wait to that, fine. Well, that's like a mood follows action thing. You're waiting for the world to, you know, create the perfect circumstance as opposed to just saying,

well, tomorrow's as good as any other day because I don't have to go to work. So I'm just gonna do it. And I actually have found with the people that we've tested doing it, people walking out their front door actually have in a lot of ways an even more profound experience.

Allie Rogers, who I know you and I both done a lot of work with over the years, so she'd create a bunch of amazing video edits. So inside of this book, there's a bunch of QR codes that you can scan and kind of brings you to these videos. Right, each chapter is sort of a prescriptive, kind of ends with some prescriptive stuff based on stories that you tell about your experiences.

And then the QR code leads you to like these videos that are like, there are some pretty intense videos there, like footage from you at your lower moments on the base camp and all that kind of crazy shit. But the, so Allie was also one of the original test subjects of this and she walked out her front door in Minneapolis in December, middle of winter in December, you know, and does a 12 hour walk.

And it was awesome to hear her reflections. I don't think she would mind me sharing this here, but of her being like, I walked past the house of my old friend from when I was 10 and realized, oh, this memory came up or this memory from childhood or kind of an old grievance with a certain thing, like the echoes that you have in and around your hometown or your front door, your local community. It's interesting, both on a positive and negative, but it's a very grounding part of your life, particularly when you have the stillness of your own mind. When I was

walking across Antarctica, memories would come back to me and they'd replay in these visceral details. And so again, you can do the 12-hour walk anywhere, but I really do encourage people to do it right out their front door. Not like I'm saving it up to be on the vacation, to be here, to be there. It's like, yo, like no more excuses. Like Saturday, you're going to be home. You don't have to work that day, figure out childcare, and you walk out your front door. Because it also then, as you go about your day-to-day life, the following day, the following week, the following month,

you have this imprint from the walk where you're like, oh, I remember on hour seven, when I was on the corner of, you know, fifth and main, or, you know, wherever that is in your hometown, going like, huh. And it can bring you back to that place of feeling empowered and strong, which I think is a really cool by-product

of doing it out your front door as well. So Jenna, what was your experience of doing the walk? Yeah, so Colin comes up with this idea and I'm test subject number one. We were spending time in Moab at the time. So- After the Oregon coast. Yeah, after the Oregon coast.

So November, 2020 is when I took my first 12 hour walk. And just like Colin said, I, it took me weeks to come up with the right, the right day to schedule it because I was like, I don't have time on this day. And this is too distracting. Oh, but my ankle kind of hurts. Like, should I let that heal a little bit? And finally you were just like, Jenna, that's not the point. The point is put the day on the calendar, commit to it and walk out the front door. And I was like, okay, I can't remember the exact date, but it was November something, 2020. And I had been staring at this ridgeline that was kind of outside of the house. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to like wander up that

road and see where, see where I go. And I spent literally six hours walking up this meandering ridgeline and just so in awe of the beauty that was surrounding me. I don't know if you've been to Moab before, but it's a pretty stunning place with the red rocks. And I mean, for me, it was a complete sense of clarity, actually around family. That's just kind of what kept coming up

and resonating for me. And we're looking forward to becoming parents at some point soon and taking on that next big adventure, which I know you're very familiar with. Very cool. But even more so, my parents, they're aging. My dad turned 85 this year

and my mom will be 78 in a few months. She probably wouldn't want me to say that, but. I'm sure she's listening. Oh yeah. She listens to everything we do. So she will be rich. And I just really had this kind of clear centered understanding of,

I don't have that much more time left with them. And I think as a result of that, I came home with just this deep resonance of, I need to spend more time with my family. We've chosen to live in Jackson Hole. And like Colin mentioned, his family lives in Oregon and my family is on the East Coast. And so the Christmas after that,

we gathered 15 family members for Christmas in Jackson Hole. And it was so special and just a really beautiful reminder, both to not only gather for big holiday events, but small ones. And I just think, you know, I had come up with all the excuses of why I couldn't make the trip out east

or why, you know, it was just harder to fit in, but knowing like that deep knowing after taking the walk and on the walk being like, oh, this is what's really important for me. So the walk catalyzed that awareness that allowed you to kind of create that reality. Yeah, that's really cool. I also like that it's,

this whole thing is in contrast to the impulse of somebody like you, who's always thinking, what's the crazier thing and the bigger thing that I can do? And it's like, you've done all this stuff. How long can you chase that notion of like, the next thing that I'm gonna do has to be bigger and more impressive. And just to bring it back to something relatable

and very doable in a kind of sharing way. Totally, and I think as I've gone around and done a lot of public speeches and met all sorts of people in different contexts and things like that. And, you know, certainly people love to ask me questions about my, you know, world records and different feats and things like that. And don't get me wrong, I'm happy to tell those stories and share that. I've certainly learned so much. And in the book, you know, tell those stories in vivid, rich detail, you know, edge of the seat kind of storytelling stuff to apply these lessons. But I'm fascinated by humans. I'm fascinated by

stories. And I think that too often people think, oh, well, you have this story, so I don't want to share my story because it's not important or it's not as big or grandiose or something like that. And that couldn't be farther than my orientation in the world. Like I'm fascinated by every single person I'm sitting across, every single story that's being shared. And I think we all are walking through this life, just trying to figure it out. Good days, bad days, everything in between. And so to me, what I'm so excited about with the 12 hour walk is, of course, I get off the stage, I'm just speaking engagement. And I just told somebody about how I was the first person to cross Antarctica and supported, no kites, no docking or whatever,

make this crossing that no one had done yet. And the first thing is like, well, this is so unrelatable. Like, that's cool, man, like crazy, inspiring, but like, I'm probably never gonna go down Antarctica and let them walk across it. Other than my pal Lou Rudd, who I do still stay in touch with, love that guy. Oh, that's good to hear.

But in this context, what's fun is to have a common frame. I'm excited for this book to come out and for people to participate in this and sit across from people and ask the same question that you just asked Jenna. Like I'm excited next time I see you to be like, Rich, what was your experience with the 12-hour walk? What was your experience with the 12-hour walk? And just to hear the difference of all the

different things, the good, the bad, the emotions, the processing, the ripple effect of decisions made in those moments, even just in the small test group of people we've had do it over the course of the year or so of building this book, people have been like, oh my God, I thought about this and I took these actions and now I am doing X with my life or I've made this shift or I've made this change. And so from that standpoint, I'm super fascinated because I love the idea of mindset. I love the idea that we all have this, I love to say the most important muscle any of us have is the six inches between our ears. We all have that. We all have this mental capacity, young, old, depending on your circumstance, We have this ability to flex and develop this. And to me, it's exciting to being

really not just a book, but to launching an idea, a movement of sorts into the world that people can have a shared common experience around, which is individual, which is solo, but also the collective whole, which is why again, September 10th, it's like, Hey, we're doing this. You're doing this alone from your front door. I'm going to be walking. You're going to be walking. We're not going to be walking together alone together, but there's like, hey, we're doing this. You're doing this alone from your front door. I'm gonna be walking, you're gonna be walking. We're not gonna be walking together alone together, but there's that common experience, that accountability to how can we all grow from this? What can we learn?

What are our own unique experiences from that? So for me, that piece was exciting. I was laughing before when you were talking about walking up and down that road. When you did it, you told me, tell what was like a guide trip? I mean, I was on the same road. So I left the front door, walked out onto, you know, like a small street. There's a wide shoulder and, you know, it was

dawn when I left and I'm walking up this large hill actually. And a car drives by, you know, a few cars passed me on the way. And then six hours later, I'm at the top. I have some water or whatever, turn around, walk back down. And it's like probably dusk, like it's getting late. The sun is definitely setting and I've been out there. Obviously I'm sweaty and whatever it was Moab and warm. And this car comes down the road and is like slowing down next to me. And I'm like, Oh, what is this? The guy rolls down his window and he's like, Hey, I'm not trying to like distract you or interrupt you, but like, were you walking on this road this morning? Do you need a ride?

And I was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. I actually set out to walk all day for 12 hours. And he was a little taken aback, but was like, oh my God, that is so cool hours. And he was a little taken aback, but was like, oh my God, that is so cool. And then he just kept like cheering for me, like, you know, for a little ways down the road, but it was a really cool-

But Moab's a place where people go to have a long walk. Exactly, exactly. But it was a great kind of like community moment where people were clearly noticing, I mean, several cars have passed, so I'm sure other people noticed that I was out there for a long time, but that they, you know they stopped to take a minute,

understand what I was doing and just have the graciousness to be like, are you okay? Do you need anything? Right, right. Yeah. And if something goes terribly wrong, are you allowed to take your phone off airplane mode?

Yeah, so the whole point of having your phone, exactly. To be clear, this is a liability. The lawyer is asking me the liability question. You know, in the back of the book, there's a liability. The lawyer is asking me the liability question. In the back of the book, there's a list of FAQs. And then that also links off to the website, which has even more FAQs, which is, again, it's completely free at the same time, but I encourage people to actually sign up so I can share more information with you, which is emails from me, basically being able to have a little bit of a dialogue.

And one of them, of course, is around safety. It's like, bring a headlamp, wear bright clothes. If you're walking on a street without sidewalks, walk in the direction of a dialogue. And one of them of course is around safety. It's like bring a headlamp, wear bright clothes. If you're walking on a street without sidewalks, walk in the direction of the traffic, so left side, if you're in right side driving country, et cetera, but the phone. Hold on, here's my idea. Yeah, let's hear it.

This is, you should build us into it. If, I don't care what happens, but if you have to take your phone off airplane mode, the clock goes back to minute one. That's right. Yeah, you gotta keep going. You heard it here first. Like I said, we built an app, 12-hour walk app,

that basically puts your phone on airplane mode, gives you a few prompts and things to set some intentions as you set off. And effectively, it's a counter and a Google Maps interface inside of the app. Again, so you can, because I don't want people to have to be like clicking on their phone and turning it back on off.

So the GPS actually works with your phone off. So, you you can, because I don't want people to have to be like clicking on their phone and turning it back on off. So the GPS actually works with your phone off. So, you know, the blue dot will move around. You can zoom in and out of the map. So we've solved that problem for you guys.

So there's really no excuses, but I don't know, I should plug into my app and tell the dev guy to say, if the airplane mode gets triggered off and there's a phone call, maybe it immediately

shuts the app down. It's like, yeah, like the whole, your whole phone. It's like, reach your eye the whole, your whole phone. It's like, reach, do not pass code. My mom did the walk. She kept her phone in airplane mode the entire time, but she did from her front door.

She lives in Hood River, Oregon. And she did a point to point though. So she said, I want to walk in one direction to see just mentally it's better to do it that way because then you know you can't turn around. Right, I will say my turnaround, I was like, oh man. Yeah, and you would have walked, I mean, I would have walked downhill.

Downhill beats the legs up. But yeah, so she had arranged with my stepdad, hey, I'm gonna not get my phone on this time, but I'm gonna turn it on at this time and give you a call and share my position with you, which is, you know, she ended up where out in the Dalles or something like that, knowing that area, it's like, you know, she walked, I don't know,

25, 30 miles or something like that. But, and that's, and that even that's kind of a fun thing for her, she loved the walk in so many ways. And she also lives, you know, in this semi rural part of Oregon. And she's like, so she's like, like she drive into the Costco which is the next town over and hood river, or excuse me, the Dalles.

And she's like, oh, this is the 30 minute drive in my car. But like, I walked here and beyond this. Like, she's like very like, you know, proud of that in her early sixties. It was like, heck yeah, you did. Like that's super cool. So people interpret it a lot of different ways, but the single direction is definitely something

that I think people will do as well. And I say that in the book, I say, look, you don't have to plan your route ahead of time. Just like life, you choose a destination, but like put on the walking shoes, step out your front door. So the book opens, the introduction of the book is this story that feels like it's right out

of an episode of Billions, you know? And so I'm interested in, maybe you could tell that story and why you chose that anecdote to contextualize this narrative. Yeah, yeah. So again, early 2020, you chose that anecdote to contextualize this narrative. Yeah. Yeah, so again, early 2020, right before the pandemic, kind of in that era of the book tour of the impossible first, speaking engagements,

things like that, coming back from the row, I was invited to give a speech to a bunch of Wall Street bankers. And they had invited me to, I think the audience was 500 people or something like that. But the night before they said, hey, we'd love to have you over to this dinner, just kind of like a smaller, more intimate group to kind of meet you in a small context. There's only going to be eight people there or something like that. And I was like, great.

And so I'm in Manhattan, New York City. I've gotten to know Manhattan over the years, but I was a public school kid from Portland, Oregon, raised in a lower middle class part of the city. New York's always been kind of like big bright lights, big pump and fast city for me. And I've always, I don't know if you have this experience, you grew up on the East Coast, but like doorman, like being like, like having like a doorman is like always like kind of like, I don't know, it feels this experience, you grew up on the East Coast, but like doorman, like being like, like having like a doorman is like always like,

kind of like, I don't know, it feels like having like a chaperone or like somebody like an overlord or something like that, even though I know it's like a nice fancy thing to have in New York. But actually funny enough, wearing the exact same thing that I'm wearing right now, which I very common outfit for me,

black t-shirt, you know, low top Jordans. I walked through into this, you know, lobby of this very, very fancy Upper East Side apartment. And I get this look from the dorm, excuse me, sir. Like, where are you going? What, you know, why, why are you coming in here? Like whatever. And I was like, oh, like I'm, I'm invited to this thing. And the guy from Never Forget, the doorman's like, looks at me and he was like, no, you're not. Like, just like, and he says to me, if you, I'll never forget, he says to me, if you're with catering, you need to take the service elevator. He's just like super,

just like straight to the heart, like you don't belong here. And I was kind of like, oh, I think I'm in the right place. It's this apartment, the name, whatever. Realize I'm in the right place. And he sends me up and I'm in this, you know, fancy elevator. And I've only seen this a handful of times, but it's one of those fancy elevators that like actually goes directly into the penthouse. And then you open into, yeah, it's not like a lobby or like a floor. It's like the elevator goes like into the foyer of this person's like insane New York City apartment. And that was the case. So doors open, boom, I'm in this penthouse apartment and there's, you know, a group of guys and they're all, you know, 65, I just guess, you know, mid sixties to later in life. And, you know, we sit down for dinner

and, you know, these guys are suited and booted, you know, custom tailor suits, the Patek Philippe Rolex watch, you know. Lots of big watches. Yeah, big watches and the whole deal. And I'm sitting here with a t-shirt and jeans and, you know, low top Jordans, you know, just being myself really.

And we have a dinner, you know, the host was super generous, introduces me, everyone kind of introduces themselves. And, you know, these being myself really. And we have a dinner. You know, the host was super generous, introduces me, everyone kind of introduces themselves. And, you know, these guys are all, you know, I'm speaking to 500 Wall Street guys who are all, you know, doing great, I guess, in the Wall Street scene. But these are the, you know, the fund managers or the CEO of this or that or the other thing. And, you know, we have a conversation. You start talking about different expeditions. I share with them, you know, certain, you know, stories of Antarctica and, you know, we have a conversation. You start talking about different expeditions. I share with them, you know, certain stories of Antarctica and, you know, they're curious about Everest and

have you seen dead bodies on Everest, this kind of stuff. And, you know, something I've been asking people for years now, starting with school kids, and I've asked it to thousands and thousands of people now as I stopped the room at one point and I say, you guys have been asking me all these questions. It's a great conversation. But like, I want to know more about you guys. Like, what's your, what's your Everest? Like, what did you dream about when you were a kid? Was it this? Like, was it being right where you are? You guys have obviously been wildly successful. Like, what is your Everest? And I expected there to be sort of this like raucous response of like, oh yeah, like I set out to buy this or, you know, own this or do this, you know, all these things. And you guys were clearly like the quote unquote American dream of the pinnacle of success.

And there was sort of just this awkward, like, kind of like they're all kind of looking at each other and like no one says anything. And it was just like a, it was a noticeable moment of just kind of like, huh? Like I get it. Like I asked little kids this question and I get kids raising their hands. You know, I want to be the first person,, my Everest to be the first person in my family to graduate from college or my Mount Everest is make sure the snow leopards are off the endangered species list.

Of course, I don't expect that from a group of 65, 70 year old, you know, really successful bankers, but I did expect sort of some passion around, you know, what their Everest was in their lives. Anyway, so after this sort of awkward moment, the conversation kind of continues on and we finish up the dinner and I'm getting ready to go and getting ready to get back in this elevator and go home for the night and go to give the speech the next day. And this guy,

the oldest gentleman at the table, if I had to guess, maybe 75, something like that, walks over to me and I'm about to get in the elevator and he kind of grabs me by the shoulder and he says, hey, Colin, can I speak to you privately for a second? And just kind of pulls me away from the rest of the group. Super sincere, soft-spoken guy, just like the rest of them, obviously very successful in his career. And he kind of pulls me aside and he says like,

you asked us an important question there and I'm embarrassed to say that like, none of us really gave you an answer, myself included. And he's like, ever since you asked that, I had asked it maybe, you know, an hour before that, you know, before dessert or whatever in this conversation. Like, he's like, I just been sitting here thinking about this.

And like, I don't know if I have an answer. And he was kind of stumbling over his words, but in essence, he says to me like, I don't know if I have an answer. And he was kind of stumbling over his words, but in essence, he says to me, like, I've made more money than you could possibly imagine in my life. But he paints this picture and he goes, but I used to go to the summer camp in the, I think it was the Catskills.

And I used to sit on this rowboat at summer camp when I was, you know was in my early adolescence. And he goes, there's not a day that goes by where my mind doesn't drift back to this moment on this boat at summer camp, the simplicity of these days. And he kind of leaves it hanging there. And we have a little bit more of a dialogue and I read it more succinctly in the book. I'm probably gonna write it more succinctly in the book. But in essence, he's saying to me, without saying it like, kind of like, I don't know, I've had all this quote, unquote, external success,

made all this money, but I'm not that fulfilled is essentially what he was saying to me. It's like he never took the time to actually ask himself the question, what his Everest was. He started off on a path and just kind of let the river take him there. Or the Everest was the financial success

and the power that comes with that, only to discover that it didn't provide the fulfillment that those simple memories seem to serve for him. Yeah, and so it certainly, that moment has stood out for me so significantly in my life, you know, over the years, a couple of years since then. And certainly in the essence of this 12-hour walk, you know, I asked the reader directly to answer that question for themselves after sharing this story, which is, what is your Everest? You're

taking this walk, like, what's your Everest? Frame it, like, think about, like, what is something you're trying to, this isn't necessarily about achievement. It's not like, oh, I want X amount of dollars. It's like, you know, family, friends, relationships, career, health. I mean, it can be anything, but kind of having that moment, you know, conjuring that possible mindset like Jen and I did on that mountaintop. What do we want the remainder of our days to be like? Whether you're 80 years old and you're, you know, have most of your life in the rear view mirror, most likely, or you're, you know, 20 years old, like, but just having a moment to ask that question. And I think what really stuck out to me and particularly, you know, where I, where I come from, my background, et cetera, is it's very easy to, you know, as you said,

it's like an episode out of billions, like to imagine the room with the hundred millionaire billionaire guys and be like, well, they did it. Like they're, this is like success and happiness or whatever. I don't know if happiness is the right word, but just like, they did it. Like they crushed life. They, they won the game, you know, essentially. And to have this sincerity of this guy, just basically be like, kind of really vulnerable with me in a quiet moment of being like, man, like I have all this, but there's something more. And so it framed for me this idea, which is whether you're that guy

or you're any number of other archetypes or people living this thing we call life, which is meaning you can be stuck, challenged, depressed, having a hard moment, fulfilled, unfulfilled, hoping to have more, hoping to have less, whatever. But if you don't take that moment to check in with yourself, if you don't ask, there's no right answer to the question, what's my Everest? There's literally no right answer. The only wrong answer is not asking the question, not taking the time to actually answer the question, but more importantly, take action towards that. And it's not a, the book, the 12-Hour Walk itself

isn't a manifesto of blow up everything in your life and make every change tomorrow. If that's the significant sweeping change that you need to make in this moment, great. Like that's your path. But it's also just a check-in of just saying like, hey, like, man, like, I mean, it reminds me a little bit of, I'm not gonna try to project too much on you,

but you in your late 30s, early 40s with your law career and not being as fit as you were as a swimmer in this, just going like, wait, like what? Like, is this my life? Like, and you obviously found this whole other vocation calling beautiful path since then, but not without actually having the guts, the gall to say, wait a second, gotta raise my hand.

Well, there was an inflection point for that, but the endurance piece was really a version of the 12 hour walk. It's all that time spent alone where you're wrestling with those questions and you're living in the experience of trying to figure it out. And it's not about the answer as much as it is about like

the willingness to like grapple with it. You know, like what could it be? What would be good? I don't know, like being honest with yourself and trying to figure out like what a better path would, you know, could look like. A hundred percent. And that's where I think what's so interesting

and what I think is powerful about the prescription of the 12 hour walk for lack of a better word is we're all different. We're all thinking about different things. This idea of this 12 hour walk is meeting you at a specific moment in time in your life. Like I don't have the answer. This book is chocked full of prescriptive advice saying,

hey, this is how I overcame. I have myself, Colin and Brady have dealt with all of these limiting beliefs. And let me tell you, I mean, I throw you into all these stories where I am deeply fearing failure. I'm deeply fearing criticism. I'm deeply actually failing,

or feeling like money's not abundant. Like I am experiencing all these limiting beliefs and I share stories in a rich way that to get, you know, gets you kind of interested in the storytelling of that. But I zoom out from it and go, and my advice on getting through that is X, Y, and Z. I think it's powerful. I think it's strong advice, but at its core, I'm actually saying, but you actually have the answer for yourself. I'm not going to try to pretend like I understand, or I am, you know, some omniscient God-like presence that understands every single person's circumstance or point of view. I'm just saying you can definitely gain something in your circumstance by taking this day alone in your thoughts, walking and being in your body and

mind the same way that you were as an endurance athlete, you know, in this inflection point in your life, the same way I was walking across Antarctica, but realizing any person listening to this is like, yo, I can walk out my front door and tap into this sort of inner knowing about this and actually overcome these limiting beliefs and make, make, even if it's a, you know, to, to summon James Clear, a 1% difference every single day is, is, is all that, you know, it's, you know, it's multiplied over time is compound interest in your life of shifting, making those change towards your best life. And so I think the 12-hour walk, I know the 12-hour walk can be a huge catalyst for positive change. And I'm just excited to share it with so many people. Well, I want to change gears here.

Let's talk about K2. I mean, it's been an interesting year and a half for you guys in terms of expeditions and challenges and loss. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, K2, I mean, it's ultimately a sad story, but came from also a really beautiful place and something that, you know,

Jenna and I were able to share part of that journey in the physical space together, which was really beautiful. We, you know, coming out of COVID, thinking about expeditions, et cetera, mountain, you know, Jenna had trained for a year to climb Everest in the fall of 20, excuse me, in the spring of 2020 from the Chinese side,

we had flights to China on April 4th, 2020. I wanna hear from Jenna. Not a great place. Jenna's been quiet over there. Talk about, yeah, like getting your head around that. Yeah, I mean, obviously we'll dovetail back into K2, but yeah, I mean, I really had raised my hand and said like, can I climb Everest?

Do you think we can do this? Do you think we can do this? Do you think I can do this? And Colin was like, I think if you train for it, sure. Totally think you can do it. And so we were living in Jackson Hole and I really did put my head down and I trained. I mean, I climbed up Snow King every day. I did HIIT workouts, which is, you know,

I'm not like the most like go to the gym kind of person, but I did, like I did it. And obviously Collin was very much so overseeing that. And sure enough, you know, the time was passing and it had been a year and it was March of 2020. And we were meant to fly to China to climb Everest together from the North side. And obviously that got shut down very quickly.

And in the aftermath of that, of course, I was really upset at the time. I was like, oh man, like I finally set my own personal goal, right? Not a calling goal. I set my own goal and it just, it didn't work out. It didn't pan out. And so I think just the defeat of that was,

I mean, it was, it shook me enough to say like, I'm not gonna, that goal, I'm just gonna let it go. Like it wasn't meant to be, I guess. And so I- Kind of in that same moment where we described with the Oregon coast, where I'm kind of, that goal, I'm just gonna let it go. Like it wasn't meant to be, I guess. And so I- Kind of in that same moment where we described me at the Oregon coast where I'm kind of struggling with my own, you know, desire, passion.

The 12 hour walk is boring. Same thing for you. You just were like, I'm done. Like, I'm not, I was like, we could push the training another year or whatever. And Jenna was just like- I was like, no. I'm like this-

It's like there's way bigger problems in the world. There's way too much going on. Like, I don't need to hold onto that. It wasn't a childhood dream of mine. It really was, you know, kind of watching Colin in the world. There's way too much going on. Like, I don't need to hold onto that. It wasn't a childhood dream of mine. It really was, you know, kind of watching Colin in the mountains and experiencing that firsthand and knowing friends. And I was like, just kind of like question mark,

like, oh, maybe I could do it too. And then after kind of that year, I was just like, I'm gonna take my name out of the hat on that one. And then, so then later in that year, you know, the Himalayas, both the Chinese and Nepalese side were completely closed. The other part of the world where between China and Nepal, you know,

the 14, 8,000 meter peaks are to the 14 tallest mountains, you know, in the world. The other region of the world is the Karakoram in Pakistan. So there's five of the 14 tallest mountains in the world are in Pakistan, including K2, which is the second tallest mountain in the world. in the world are in Pakistan, including K2, which is the second tallest mountain in the world. A little bit shorter than Everest, not a lot, but significantly more dangerous, significantly more challenging technically. And the 14, 8,000 meter peaks,

have you seen 14 peak, the NIMS movie? I haven't watched it yet. I can't believe I still haven't gotten around there because everyone says it's unbelievable. Yeah, it's great. And NAMS is a part of this story as well on K2, but basically the 14, 8,000 meter peaks for catching people who haven't seen that movie

or don't know the context of that, those are the 14 tallest mountains in the world. And 8,000 meters is roughly 26,000 feet. And that is sort of what's known as the death zone, the altitude above where the human body is slowly dying. Even with supplemental oxygen, you really can't survive up there for very long. And the mountains have all been climbed in summer.

They've all been climbed solo. They've all been climbed, you know, kind of lots of different ways, but only 13 out of the 14 of them have been climbed in winter. So winter, of course, being much more challenging than summer, the days are shorter, the temperatures are ridiculously cold.

Instead of minus 30 or minus 40, you're looking at minus 70, minus 80, you're looking at ridiculous winds, short days. So maybe only, you know, seven, eight hours of daylight with 16 hours of dark, dark, cold night. And K2, although had been attempted going back to the 80s of some of the best climbers in the world have attempted it over time,

had still never been climbed in winter. And so, you know, several public, you know, big publications had written about this winter K2 climb as sort of the last great prize in high altitude mountaineering. And again, people have tried this, even recently people have tried this and really not come close. It's not like people have been just below the summit people have tried this and really not come close.

It's not like people have been just below the summit, but it's like really been this sort of very out of reach kind of project. And I guess dovetailing off my personality or other things I've attempted, people having that out there, that carrot out there was definitely interesting to me. And it was also interesting timing,

which ends up playing significantly into this entire story of K2, which is that people, since all these mountains have been closed for the better part of 2020, all these professional mountaineers around the world had been kind of stuck at home on the bench, right? And all of a sudden Pakistan announces,

Pakistan will be open to international climbing tourism, you know, this winter, right? Everybody rushes in. And all of a sudden like, you know, K2 and winter, tons of winters, no one would be attempting it. And when someone did attempt, there might be like three guys over there or like a group of Polish national team,

you know, 10 guys went over there in 2017. I might get the date wrong by a little bit, but it's not like there was like lots of teams attempting this. Like if there ever was a team, it's not like there was like lots of teams attempting this. Like if there ever was a team, it's like a small team or one person, like whatever. And all of a sudden there were, God, how many like, I mean, not crazy number,

but like 15 plus, like somewhere between like maybe 15 or 20 of the top climbers from around the world, from all around the world and a strong Nepalese contingent. But like guys from all over the world, from South America, from Europe, from all these different places. And what ended up ultimately happening for large part was this guy named Dawa, who's a Sherpa, really renowned climber, had the world record for the youngest person to climb the 14,000 meter peaks. And he's like a businessman now, runs like a logistics company. He basically realized all

these people were kind of chomping at the bit to do this. And he was like, well, how about I set up the logistics to do this? And everyone kind of comes under the same permit, meaning you're going to climb independently from one another once you're on the mountain. But like, it's hard to get to K2 in general, let alone in the middle of winter. You're talking about, you know, 200 Balti porters carrying for, you know, a hundred miles on the longest glacier in the world, the Baltero Glacier, and really insane track to get in there, lots of logistics and complicated. So long story short, most of us colluded and basically went under this one singular permit logistically, but still with the idea of climbing independently.

So I went over there with my climbing partner, dear friend, long time friend and climbing partner, a guy by the name of Dr. John, who I've known for years, who if you follow Mike Posner on Instagram. He was Posner's guy. Yeah, and so we, I was friends with Posner, I introduced Posner to Dr. John, they became dear friends

and practically brothers at this point. And Dr. John helped train Posner for Everest, which was super cool. And then in that vein, I really wanted and Jenna wanted to come to K2 and to come to K2 Base Camp. Obviously not climb the mountain, but like come to the base camp.

The track in the K2, I'd never been to Karakoram, but it's one of those places, at least for me, that for forever I'd have like, oh, you think the Himalayas are amazing? You think the Alps are amazing? Like wait till you see the Karakoram. Like it's just on another level.

And so we realized that we could trek in together, particularly if Posner came as well, because then Posner and Jenna could- Could exit together. Could exit together in the middle of winter. So anyways, again, on a tangent there, but basically we all check in the four of us, me, Dr. John, Posner and Jenna all track into K2 Basecamp.

And this is Christmas, New Year's Eve, 2020, going into 2021. And this was part of Posner's training for Everest. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So John said, hey, this is a great training for you at high altitude, you've never been in an expedition environment, you'll meet some of the like the best climbers in the world

and just be able to kind of riff with them. And you know, Posner's got infectious personality and been on the pod a couple of times and dear friend of ours and just amazing human. So, you know, he's singing songs and, you know, hanging out with- All those videos of him entertaining the Sherpas. It's unbelievable.

As a quick aside, so we go and climb, we get to Gatry Base Camp, only spend a couple of days there. And then John and I go up the mountain and we'll get into the climb itself. But it's a funny aside, which is then Jenna and Posner leave. Pose and I and one other guy leave

with a bunch of Balti porters who are bringing stuff out. And I mean, it's winter. This is the coldest environment I have ever been in. This was not like Chicago cold in the middle of winter, like frigid. I mean, I have not been to the center of Antarctica. Yeah, I mean, just really like bone chilling cold. I'll never forget it.

Face cams at 16,000 feet. And it's a week. It's a week each way. It's a week each way. It's a long trek. Yeah. And so Pose and I and another guy named Jerry are trekking out. And again, it's not like it's set up like, oh, there's huts along the way or anything. There's like makeshift little tents and there's maybe six Balti porters with us as well, who are like cooking up over, you know, a little kerosene. We called it fire in a can. Like it was really primitive on the way out. And, you know, it's high altitude. People are coughing a little bit and we're not really thinking so much of it because it's so cold. We're just trying to stay warm and keep moving. And Pose and I got so sick. And as you can imagine what time of year this is,

winter, but also like in the middle of COVID. Before vaccines. Before vaccines. And technically we didn't test positive for COVID, but we, I mean, again, who knows what the vaccine testing was like at that time, but we definitely got COVID. I mean, we were so sick,

like ended up in this tiny little town of Skardu. The planes weren't flying. We couldn't go anywhere. No electricity, cinder block out. Jenna gets stuck basically in the middle of winter in Pakistan with Posner in a tent, first of all, for a week and then in a cinder block sort of hotel, but with no, like they're in their sleeping bags

and down coats inside of a building, like with COVID, seeing their breath for another, what, seven to 10 days in Skardu, Pakistan. So anyways, Jenna and Posner leave. I think they're making a quick exit. Clearly it takes them a couple of weeks. And Jenna, you know, we've had some amazing experience with Posner over the years, but I think Jenna, you know, in a tent with Posner in a snowstorm in Pakistan, these two like know each other, like they live side by side in it together with COVID. But we end up, so basically the way high altitude mountaineering works in short is you climb up and down the route several times, you get acclimatized at higher camps and you come back down the mountain to rest.

But because it's Pakistan in the middle of winter, we're climbing K2 in winter, like the moments to climb are few and far between. Like we're just getting hammered in base camp by this ridiculously cold weather. And there might be like a day or a day and a half on the horizon where you're like, okay, we're going to go stock camp one or stock camp two. Like this is our moment. There's not like lots of days where you can move. So there's a lot of being hunkered down these tents. a lot of being hunkered down these tents. So again, we kind of collectively, logistically,

everyone sort of decides to collude in the sense that like, instead of like every person putting their own section of rope or own this or that, like each part of the route that's going to be open, we know we're going to collectively use the same fixed rope. So if a rope gets put there, people are going to use it, et cetera, which makes a lot more sense than basically a dozen separate parties on the exact same ridiculous and dangerous route. How does that mesh with like the etiquette and unspoken rules around like what it means to summit? Yeah, so I mean, at this point, like that's pretty standard, particularly on like,

I'm on, certainly on, you know, an Everest expedition now, there's, you know, people, so many people over there at this point where it's like, it's pretty hard, at least in the standard route to not do it that way. It'd be really complex otherwise. People kind of do it slightly differently, a little bit of more independence or whatever, but it's hard there.

Most people pay into the same pool and this for Everest specifically. But on K2, there was a funny story from years previous where there was a Russian expedition, a Polish expedition, and they're very competitive with one another. And they literally were putting ropes, two feet beside the other rope. Like this is the Russian rope and this is the Polish rope.

And like, don't touch my rope kind of thing. But we, you know, very quickly that was like not a thing. And it was actually amazing. Like there really was a deep sense of general comradery on this expedition between the different teams, the different climbers, even though truly there was just world-class climbers over there, people that I widely admire

from around the world and I didn't know what the vibe was gonna be like. And like, it was welcoming. Like it was, we're sharing cook tents, we're having cups of tea, we're shooting the shit during the storms, like hanging out basically. And so Nims, who's obviously famous

from the 14 peaks, you know, world record that he set in 2017, 18, 18, 18. 18th century. Yeah, 2018. And he brings his same crew of guys that worked with him that, you know, that he hired to help him out with the other project. Some of the most incredible climbers in the world,

you know, Mingma David Sherpa, you know, Mingma Tenzing, like so many of them, these guys are just like, I mean, such amazing humans, but also just incredible climbers. Yeah, and so they're all over there and mad respect to them. They were pre-acclimatized when they got there. They got there a few days before us on the track,

but were acclimatized from being at the high altitude in Nepal. And then they just pushed really hard in the first couple of weeks. We all thought like this exhibition is gonna take two or three months for sure. We get there, the, you know, pose in generally the 1st of January

and on January 12th, I think it is, John and I are going up on a rotation up the mountain to get to camp one, maybe sleep a night at camp two. And I'm up at camp one. John's a little bit behind me and I'm sitting down there with Nims and just the two of us. Some of his guys are behind him. You know, he's waiting, you know, this group of them going up and we're shooting the shit and they got a lot of stuff with them. And I'm like, kind of like, you guys, what's up, man? Like you guys going over the summit? And he's kind of like, nah, we're just, you know, we're trying to get,

maybe we'll see if we can get up to camp three, camp four, you know, like kind of like playing it, playing it cool. But like, he's like, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. And, you know, honestly there's, there's been, you know, this is a shame that always gets this way. There's been some criticism. Oh, they didn't tell people what they were doing or this, that, and the other thing. But like my take on that, their whole situation is like mad respect. Like they pushed it, they were there, they were there early, there was a small weather window

and they took some significant risk. And ultimately there was a couple other Nepalese teams that they colluded with, Mingma Ji, who's a world-class amazing climber. But these guys, of course, they have historically, the Nepalese Sherpa, NIMS isn't a Sherpa, but the rest of them are Sherpas, they have historically been a part

of other people's expeditions. So the Europeans get all this glory. They're always behind the person. And it's amazing, and NIMS has had hugely positive influence on this, which is allowing there to be more access to Nepalese funded expeditions that aren't part of a European

or Western portion of the expeditions. And like I said, those guys that I named before, you know, Ming Min Tenzing, you know, Ming Min David, like these guys, like these guys are just world-class, world-class climbers. Like the Bentiming, there's nobody better than those guys straight up. And they went for it.

And on January 16th, a team of 10 Nepalese, so six on NIMS' team, three on Mingma Jin's team, and one on a separate team, Sona Sherpa, they all made the summit of K2 and claimed that, quote unquote, the last great prize in mountaineering. And it was- That made headlines across the world. Yeah, I think Skolnick wrote a, I think Skolnick wrote a New York Times piece on it.

It was amazing, like really, truly incredible. And the way they did it was after all these years of people spending 90 days over there and getting nowhere, like these dudes were there for three weeks and they got the weather, but they went for it and they pushed it and they made it to the top. And like, they were singing the Nepalese national anthem, carrying the flag on the summit.

Like it's a proud moment. And it's crazy to think in all the history of high altitude mountaineering, there had never been a Nepalese only first ascent of a mountain. And so for these guys to claim this really iconic ascent and will forever be in the history books was amazing. Now-

But they got shit for not communicating a purpose responsibly or something? It seems like there's a lot of this in this world. Unfortunately, and it just, it really, that's why to me, I just lean into the positive. We could deconstruct the whole thing of, did they tell the other people about the route after and we can get into some of their stuff you want.

But like at the end of the day, like they got to the summit, January 16th, 2021, 10 Nepalese summited K2 and became the world first in this ridiculously dangerous, obscenely hard climb. And in the middle of dead of winter, like they did it. No one can ever take that away from them. And like, I'm certainly not gonna sit here and cast stones.

Like they did an incredible job. Now, John and I are on the mountain at this point as we had spent a night at camp two acclimatizing. We were in no position to, if we wanted to, we were not ready to go for the summit. We needed a couple more weeks to acclimatize, get our body, get our camps higher stock, et cetera. And we're descending down the mountain.

So this route is ridiculously steep. It's a mix of ice and rock and snow. And it's just, it's basically 8,000 feet straight up what's called the Abruzzi Spur. So you're based on this direct ridge line. So you can almost see not the summit, but you can see way high up on the route. Is that where you're in that video that I saw

that's with one of the QR codes where you're going up and it's just like a sheer face and you have the ropes. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And one of the things that was, again, we all took this risk on, which was collectively there was some new ropes placed on this route, but there's obviously old ropes from years past, but years past, no one had been K2 in winter

since a year and a half, or excuse me, year and a half before that in summer. And so a lot of the sections, because it was so complicated and so cold and so difficult to fix ropes, we actually clipped into old ropes, which is like a kind of cardinal sin in the world of pile tube mountaineering,

because these ropes get beat up over time and they're frayed and whatever, was so difficult to fix the route that there was a lot of clipping into old ropes that may or may not, I mean, there was a lot of risk being taken. And, you know, when I think back on it, I think sometimes I think, what the heck was I thinking? But, you know, eyes wide open, we took that risk on. And so John and I are descending down that day, again, not trying to weight the ropes with all of our weight. We're actually usually would just like zip down on a rappel, like ongoing down. Cause you trust your full weight to the anchors,

the ropes. We're actually like down climbing. We're clipped into the ropes, but we're down climbing. So just to not like if a rope were to break or something like that, we might still be able to catch ourselves kind of, if that makes sense, moving more slowly. And we can see some friends up above in the route. There's a Spanish guy, Sergio Mangote, his climbing partner, JP Moore, Tamara Lungers, you know, they're above us, but you can, you can see so much on the route. And we finally descend back to what's called advanced base camp. So that's where the fixed ropes ends. And it's about a three mile walk back to base camp. And we, we don't know if the, we actually haven't heard yet that the Nepalese has summited and John and I there's, we're all decided since we're colluding to be on an open radio channel.

And so all the different teams just like, we'll have a radio channel that we can all communicate instead of being all different channels. Including the Nepalese? Yeah, everyone. Although obviously sometimes John and I would switch to our own just if we weren't trying to like crosstalk everyone,

but there was a central channel that everyone could be on. And we would hear like talking between, if we could reach anyone basically. But it's really common if you're really high and the wind is blowing and the batteries die. So not everyone is always just in perfect radio communication.

Right, but we had that. But John and I, for whatever reason, we said, we get back down to base camp. There's been a lot of chatter on the radio throughout that whole day. We just decided let's turn our radios off just to like enjoy the peace and calm of this three mile glacier walk back to camp.

So we get back into camp. And as we're walking back, that takes a couple hours. We get back down to camp. Again, we had seen the climbers up above us when we were going. We get back down to camp. And all of a sudden, there's all these banging of pots and pans,

like a celebration. And NIMS's base camp manager, the Nepalese team base camp manager's like, they summited, they summited. They're up there right now. It's 5 p.m. at night. Like they did it. And John and I like look at each other.

And again, like for me, like people always ask, you must've been so frustrated. You're trying to get this world first, whatever. Like, honestly, of course, there's some general competition and we all wanted to be the first or whatever, but like there was no better people to get the summit. These were the guys that are the most deserving, the most talented, the best, like they deserve it.

So we were just like, wow, heck yeah. Like, wow, they pulled it off and in style. Like, let's just hope they get down safe, you know? And so like, this is momentary high of like, they did it. The Nepalese summit, banging pots and pans. And then literally one minute later, there's a Pakistani military official there. It's called a liaison officer.

Who's kind of like overseeing base camp to make sure like no one's like polluting the area. It's also in a military, you're in a military zone that you're right on the Afghanistan border. You're on some kind of like intense sort of border areas. And so it was just kind of like making sure nothing weird's going on.

He just literally lives in base camp and just kind of like hangs out and he steps out of his tent and he's like, Sergi just fell, he's dead. And we were like, like literally like in one minute, like the Nepalese summited, Sergi just fell,, he's dead. And we were like, like literally like in one minute, like the Nepalese summited, Sergei just fell like he's dead. And John and I were like, no, that can't be. Like we just saw him.

He was just right up above us. Like that was a couple hours ago, whatever. And it turns out just a few minutes after John and I had turned off our radio to walk back just above us, no one knows exactly what happened, whether it was a rope that broke or more than likely he was climbing a section unroped and slipped. But Sergi Mangote

was literally one of the best, best climbers in the world. Hit this moment, he was seven mountains into setting the speed record of the 14, 8,000 meter peaks like NIMS, but with no supplemental oxygen. Truly, truly a world-class guy. And just an amazing guy. Literally our tents were right beside each other in base camp. I'd see him every single morning, chat with him. And just in an instant, like the, both of the triumph of K2

and the just the unrelenting danger of K2, boom, in sharp focus and he's dead. It bears noting that in summer there's been, I'm gonna get the numbers exactly right, but you know, 350-ish successful summits of this mountain, but it's claimed 85 lives, again, give or take those numbers. But essentially there's a 25% fatality rate on K2 summits per that, and that's in summer.

And we're over there in winter. How does that mesh with Everest? Oh, Everest is like 2% or something like that, 3%. So, I mean, Everest is very dangerous. That's a huge difference. But it's, I mean, Everest is very dangerous. But it's, I mean, K2 is widely considered the most dangerous mountain in the world in the best of circumstances. But it was a crazy thing

because like the Nepalese on a summit push at the top of the mountain are there and they're safe. And Sergio Mangote, again, also one of the best climbers in the world, basically back to base camp. Makes us, you know, it's just, it's boom, small error, boom, he falls. The juxtaposition of those two things

and the fact that you had just seen him. Yeah, I mean, we had just been right there. And so obviously that hit all of us heavy. And there was just this, there was this interesting dual energy in base camp at this moment, the Nepalese success, rightfully so, was such a big deal globally, but particularly in Central Asia at this moment, the Nepalese success, rightfully so, was such a big deal globally, but particularly in Central Asia, in Pakistan, in Nepal, et cetera, that they were, as they

should have been, treated like kings. The head of the Pakistani military shows up in a helicopter to fly them out of there and to throw celebrations for them at the military palace or whatever. These 10 Nepalese are getting, you know, festivals in the streets of Kathmandu, you know, it's an incredible celebration. I will never forget the same moment that that helicopter landed with the Pakistani military general.

I helped carry Sergi's body, which was wrapped up in a sleeping bag into a helicopter right beside it. And so there was just this like dual thing happening in this moment. The dark and the light. Yeah, it was really intense. And I've had proximity to some other deaths and things

on Everest and some other places I've climbed, but a little bit further detached, like not like people that was like, oh, there was a guy in another team where someone passed on this day. Or when I summited in 2016, my first ever sascent, people had died that day, but not anybody who I had ever known.

You know, I'd seen a dead body, like frozen, but it had been up there for 10 years. But this was like, this is a guy I was hanging out with, like just the other day and like, boom, like gone. And there was definitely a question in that moment, is this expedition over? Like the 401st is gone and Sergi just died. Like, but we'd only been there for three weeks

and we'd all planned to be there for three months, like the whole winter basically. And so I remember talking to Jenna. What was your memory of that moment? I mean, it was just, it was, because the media was obviously showing, showcasing so much about the celebration and the accomplishment, which of course should have been like the focus, right? It was a hard reality because I'm sitting there, you know, knowing

how gut-wrenching, I mean, I met Sergi, I had many teas with him and meals and conversations throughout our time in base camp. And it was just like a hugely positive, humble, gentle, kind, loving family man. I mean, really he was, that's what he talked about his wife and his kids. And it was just, it was hard. It was the first time. I mean, certainly the first person I ever knew personally

that had passed away on a mountain. And so, you know, and Colin's trying to figure out with Dr. John, should they stay? Should they not? There was definitely moments where I wanted to raise my hand and be like, just come home. Like, what are you doing?

Like, just come home. Like, we're good. And was that conversation when you were hacking it up with Posner and the cinder block, ice box or was it later when you kind of got further down? It was later, yeah, we were back home. Just a couple of days. Yeah.

Something like you guys got home on the 13th or 14th. And then this happened on the 16th. So she had just gotten home. Like it's taking her two weeks, yeah. Yeah. It hadn't been long. Like you had basically just got back home, but you were definitely home.

I remember talking to you, you were at home when I called you on that one, I was just crying so hard. It had to be like, yeah, like what am I doing? Yeah, like Sergi's dead and Jen's like, are you sure? I'm like, we're sure. Like he's dead. Like, you know, it was just like, and yeah. I remember something that sticks with me from that moment is like I said, his tent was right beside mine

in base camp, literally right next to each other. And I just remember waking up that morning and like that tent's being packed down and that's gone, his body's there. It's just like this very like final, I know he had three kids at home.. So we do decide to stay. I mean, and ultimately like go back and forth about that decision, but it was like, we came here, the expectation was to be here for months. It's been three weeks. The Nepalese crushed it so fast. Like it was just like, had it been the end of

February or something like that, and we'd all been there for two months and we were strung out and like all this kind of stuff and this happened, it had been like, this is over. Someone just died. These guys summited this peak, but like, wasn't like that. Like it was like, well, you know, like emotionally, we'd all just like had planned to be there. We had supplies to be there for a longer period of time.

And so we were like, and if nothing else, they just proved it was possible. Like they, you're right. Like there's something about that. Again, it's were like, and if nothing else, they just proved it was possible. Like they, you're right. Like there's something about that. Again, it's not like, you know, if your ego can let go of the world first, like, and again, like for me, it's like, well, I just want to challenge myself against this mountain. So it's like, and they just showed the whole world, like it actually can be done. They just did it. And there's hypothetically some ropes up there now. And like, there's a way to do this. So like John and I decide to stay.

A couple people left, but the majority of people stayed, including JP Moore, who was Sergi's climbing partner. So Sergi's climbing partner was a Chilean guy by the name of JP Moore, incredible guy. And I remember giving him a hug as we were loading that body in the helicopter. And I just assumed he was getting on the helicopter. Like he was gonna go home.

And he's like, I think I'm gonna stay. I'm gonna summit this mountain for Sergi. And, you know, JP was also one of the, as was Sergi, one of the purest climbers in the high altitude mountaineering world, which is they were climbing with, they were sharing the ropes with everyone else. But other than that, they weren't using no porter support.

No one else was carrying anything for them ever, even on the lower part of the mountain. He was using no supplemental oxygen, like the purest of pure. And he had done Everest Lhotse without supplemental oxygen, right? Yeah, he had a record for Everest Lhotse of supplemental oxygen.

He has this incredible climb of Annapurna without supplemental oxygen, which is that and K2 are like kind of in parody for ridiculously stupidly dangerous risk taking mountains. And what ends up happening is after this, there's a two or three week long storm and we get like really hunkered down in base camp, like can't move kind of thing,

like just getting blasted day in and day out. You just sit in these tents for like 12 hours, just sit there freezing all day long, like drinking tea. Just like literally. And what ended up happening is that JP decides to team up with this- I'm not no part of this.

Really uncomfortable. It's extremely uncomfortable. And there's, you know, every morning the ice is like caked in the inside of your tent from your breath freezing it. And then you sit up in this ice, it's minus 30 and the ice just drops on your head inside of your like, and that's a base camp. So the base camp of K2 in winter was the equivalent temperature, minus 30, minus 40 of what the summit of Everest normally is on a summit day in the summer. So that's, that's just, and so you usually you're tapping

into that for a few hours on a summit push or something like that. This is day in, day out at base camp, let alone looking at like, we're seeing weather forecasts like, oh, 150 mile per hour winds, minus 120 wind chill, stuff like that. We're like watching the weather. It's just like- The icicle. Yeah, it's like, that's a no-go. That's a no-go. We see it start trending back towards, oh, it's only minus 70. We might be able to go for it. And it's now it's early February. And we had done some, actually spent a ton of time. Me, Dr. John has spent a ton of time with JP because we actually kind of combined into one dining tent during this long wait when he, when Sergey had passed away.

And so we had spent a lot of time with him over those couple of weeks. And a bunch of the other climbers were in a different dining tent. Not that we didn't see people. We spent like a ton of time, like, you know, 15 hours a day in this tent with JP and this woman Tamara who her climbing partner had left. And so the two of them decided to team up to climb in Sergi's honor. So the weather window is approaching and the same thing, of course, everyone's looking at the same weather.

So everyone's thinking like, well, if we're gonna go, this is it. Again, not climbing together, not like, oh, we're gonna leave at the same time and this, but it's like pretty obvious. Like I'm gonna go on this day, you're gonna go, this is it. Again, not climbing together, not like, oh, we're gonna leave at the same time and this, but it's like pretty obvious. Like I'm gonna go on this day, you're gonna go on this day. Like that's the way it's gonna work out.

And a couple of climbers who didn't feel as physically strong left on February 2nd to go to camp one for the night. But John and I decided to kind of save our energy and to leave on the morning of February 3rd and climb directly to camp two. So there's usually four camps on Cape 2 above advanced base camp.

But we all, including following the Nepalese lead, they didn't use a Camp 4. So they summited from Camp 3, meaning way longer summit push. And we're like, well, this weather window is so short. It's middle of winter. This is probably too hard to set up Camp 4. So let's use their blueprint now

and only use where Camp 3 is and then try to do a long push from there. So we're analyzing all the weather and John and I think, okay, let's climb directly to camp two, sleep there on the 3rd of February, go to camp three on the 4th, and then the morning of the 5th was supposed to be like this clearing window.

And like I said, clearing as in it's minus 60 with 15 mile per hour winds for like half a day before just 100 mile per hour winds again. half a day before just, you know, 100 mile per hour winds again. Three push to summit. Yeah, exactly. And so we're leaving, in the middle of the night, we're climbing. I remember right after we leave base camp,

a couple of climbers pass us, a guy named Ali Sabpara, who's like the Michael Jordan of Pakistan. He's like just a legendary climber in Pakistan. He has a first ascent of Nanga Parbat in winter, which is one of the first winter ascents that he did. And an Icelandic guy named John Snorri and his son, Sajid, they pass us on a lower mountain. And John and I are just kind of plodding away.

And we get up just above advanced base camp. We're just clipped into the ropes. We're only like maybe 200 feet really up onto the route. It's like starting to get steep, but it's the very beginning of the route. And Dr. John looks over at me. He's been climbing in front of me. I've been behind him by, I don't know, 10 feet or something like that. And he looks back at me and he's just, he's got a tear in his eyes and he's like, I'm turning around, man. And I was like, what? Like what? And he's like, I'm just, there's just like an intuition that if I, he says to me straight point blank, he says, if I keep going, I feel I'm going to die up there. Like I need to turn around.

And it was a very arresting moment, of course, but John and I actually, Jenna facilitated a conversation in Moab actually, because we had been in Moab where we had been living for that period of time. And you, what do you, you said to us, you said, let's have- Yeah, so John lives in Colorado and he came out to Moab to visit. And this was at the time when Colin was thinking about doing this project. And I really wanted Colin to climb with someone

who he felt really comfortable with, who he knew, who is familiar with as a climbing partner, that they could both entrust in each other and trust in each other's individual decision-making. And so the first person that popped in my mind was Dr. John. So Dr. John came out and kind of just sat down with Colin and John and just said, Hey, like, I want to hear from both of you individually, how you're thinking about this, John, if you're interested, how we would go about making decisions. And, and it was a beautiful conversation around, you know, around, if either one of them at any point in time felt like it wasn't the right decision to keep going,

they could leave the expedition, no harm, no foul. And it would be on the other person to decide if they wanted to choose to keep going. And one of the things that was important that you said to us is Jenna said, Jenna like really sit us both down and said, let's have all of the conversations about all the scenarios right now at sea level,

not in the heat of the moment. And whatever decision we decide here, whatever happens up on the mountain, we're gonna know that we thought about this with completely lucid, clear minds. And I could remind them from sea level what the decision was. And then there's sort of the intellectual exercise

of doing that versus the reality of being in that moment. And the pressure and the stakes. And you thinking, well, you're just afraid right now, we can push through. Like, what is the difference between that gut instinct that's telling you this is wrong, I need to back out versus like, well, this is a little scary, but like, let's just keep going and overcome that fear.

Totally, and I that fear. Totally. And how do you know where that line is? Knowing that where that line is, and we both knew how dangerous this mountain was long, even before surgery passed, we were like, this is a massive risk just going over there. Like we're risking our lives, like for sure. And there've been a lot of rock fall.

Like I've been hit and we both gotten hit by rocks. Another climber gotten hit in the head by the rocks and split open like a huge, like gash on his face. Like there's rocks, like literally it sounds like- Dude, it's all bad. Yeah, it's just a bad, like it's literally flying past our head. We'd be like, we'd yell, we'd jump out of the way

and like a drone flying past our head, like a rock. Like, and that would happen 50 times a day, kind of thing. I mean, there's rocks. I mean, it's just, it was very dangerous. And so when John looked at me with this tear in his eyes, I went right back to this moment in Moab, where it was like, we looked at each other as brothers and said, this is not the moment on this mountain to say,

come on, man, suck it up, like whatever. It was just like, it was heart wrenching. And you mentioned there's like, at the end of the chapter on this in the book, the QR code, I have a little video clip of this moment that I filmed. It's pretty powerful. And video. I'm crying. But he says to me, just very, he says, Colin, like, dude, I've been watching you for the

last six weeks. Like you're on form right now. He's just like, you're climbing. He's like, objectively, friend to friend, like you're climbing very well right now. If you feel like you can go emotionally, like you're ready, like you can do this. So he wasn't really, was not trying to get me to back off. He was just saying like, something's not right for me, man, but I'm watching you. And like, you seem like you can do this. Like you, if you want to go for it, like go for it. Like I support you like a hundred percent, like go for it. And it's so cold. It's so freaking cold. You stand still for five minutes and your fingers and toes start to freeze. So it's not like, Hey, let's sit here and discuss this for an hour. It's like within one, you know, within a few minutes,

John's headed back down and I've decided to keep climbing up because you can't stand there and like debate it for into the ground. And I'm alone on the mountain. Everyone else had left before. So I'm the lowest person on the mountain at this point. And we, John and I had been climbing with two Sherpas, Lhaka Temba and Ming Temba.

And they had been a little bit higher on the mountain. So I got on the radio with them and I said, hey, John's turning around. I'm still gonna come up. They're like, okay, we're near camp two. We'll wait for you here. And we'll see you up here when you get there. And so I end up in camp two,

sharing a tent with Ming Temba and Lakpa Temba who had been high in the mountain. And I get into bed, it's camp two, sharing a tent with Ming Temba and Lakpa Temba who had been high in the mountain. And, you know, I get into bed, it's camp two that night and tired and afraid and all the things, but also kind of like, okay, like I am feeling good. Like I'm feeling great. So I wake up the following morning and leave camp two. And I'm chatting with Ming Temba and Lakpa Temba. And I'm just like, all right, well, let's all meet up at camp three. I'm thinking we're going to like, you know, climb together or whatever. But like, you know, I'm just going to head off now.

And so I start climbing. And the next six hours, like quite honestly, between camp two and camp three is the most dangerous part. And that are arguably the most dangerous part of the entire route. It's this part called the Black Pyramid. There's another part called the bottleneck near the summit. That's also very dangerous. But the Black Pyramid is probably

the most technically complicated part of the mountain. It's called mixed climbing. So it's tons of rock, exposed rock, huge exposure, seven, 8,000 feet, ice, snow, rock fall. It's just a complex kind of section and very, very steep and direct given how high you are. You're at 23,000, 24,000 feet at this point. And I had the best day of climbing in my entire life. Like just purely flow state tapped in, just feeling it. Like I just like everything felt effortless. I felt smooth. I felt strong.

And I end up kind of just getting into my own rhythm. I passed JP and Tamara who had been a little bit higher where they were camping. And I end up being all alone in the black pyramid by myself climbing up on K2 in winter. And there's no one else above me on the mountain. So I'm completely alone up there and I'm feeling great, honestly. I don't, I actually can't remember a time on a mountain anyways. I can remember a time in Antarctica tapping into the same sort of essence, but like on a mountain that's like, just like, just felt in rhythm. The fear wasn't there. You know, following the, some of the fixed routes that had been fixed ropes that had been laid as well as some of these older ropes could put into,

but just like was, was in it and end up like way high up on the mountain approaching where I think camp three is, but I've never been to camp three before at this point. Camp two is my highest on the acclimatization. So I was on a new part of the mountain that I hadn't seen before. And all of a sudden the fixed rope that had been placed with anchors, all of a sudden it just disappears. Like it's buried into the, under the ground and someone's think, oh, it's snow drift. I need to try to dig it out or something like that. But I can't find like where the next section of the route goes.

And there's crevasses everywhere. And when you're alone and you're not roped together, you're not on a fixed rope, like being alone on a glacier is super dangerous for the express reason of like, usually a rope to a partner. So if you were to fall into a crevasse, someone else can like pull you out.

To walking around on a crevasse part of a mountain, any mountain, let alone 23,000, 24,000 feet on K2 in winter by yourself is just like a fucking terrible idea. Like it's all time bad idea. And so I kind of like, what should I do? What should I do? I don't think I can sit here for that long because it's so cold,

but I don't really have anything else I can do. And so I just sit down. I sit down and I think, okay, I've got my radio. I've got my stat phone. Like, let me try to get in contact. John's back in base camp at this point. So I pull up my radio to call Dr. John. And all of a sudden the wind hits my radio. Boom, it goes blank. Radio's dead. Oh shit. And then I send this text or I have this. So I have my sat phone. I try to get on my sat phone and to call Jenna and sat phone, same thing in the wind, it's dead. And the last thing I have is this little, it's called a Garmin inReach, which can

like send these like, just like basic text message, like type of thing. And I get this cryptic text and it says, I'm all alone up here. I don't know where anyone is. And I was planning to send like five follow-ups to that. That goes out to Jenna and then it dies. I'm like, okay, like where do you think you are? Pick up your radio, call John,

call anyone. No replies. No replies. So I'm like freaking out. Oh my God. Like what is happening? i have no idea where i mean i can see so different than everest the satellite tracker actually tracks pretty accurately on k2 for whatever reason i don't know if it's the the mountains in the way or something but the

the tracker was pinging all over the place so i was like i actually don't even know where he is and she can it looks like i might be over here. I might be over there. Now I'm not responding. The last text she gets from me is, she can see because it geolocates when you send a text out, it like gives you a lat launch position. So she can see that position,

but it's me like somewhere ish on the route saying, I'm all alone. I don't know where anyone is. I'm this like. And maybe this is a dumb question, but why didn't you for that particular push have somebody join you? Like, why were you,

why'd you make the decision to try to do that alone? So like I said, like when I left camp- That seems crazy. Yeah, I left camp and, you know, I've been like chatting with Ming Temba and Lakhpatemba and was like, all right, let's all leave. And they're like, oh, we're just gonna, like, they were just like, oh yeah,

we're coming in 10 minutes. Like, it was just like, it was one of those things where it's like looking back, obviously like there was some communication. So you just thought you would be this like loose group that were near each other the whole time. Yeah, and it's like such challenging terrain that you think like, I might take a break,

this person's gonna catch up, JP's higher, like people are out, like, you know what I mean? You just kind of assumed that that was what was gonna happen. And so rather than like all stand around in the cold, it's so cold. So standing around and waiting for five or 10 minutes, if someone's like, oh, I still need to grab this

for my backpack, whatever. It's like, oh, I should just start walking to get myself warmed up. So it's that, that's why the decision, that decision was made. And again, I just, I had a good day. Like I climbed well, I was climbing in flow and people were a little slower than me or whatever

on that day. And there's plenty of days where I wasn't the fastest, but that day I was the fastest. And so I ended up just, you know, getting even more alone basically. And so that happens. And I sit there for an hour and a half on my backpack, trying to think what to do.

And I finally see a climber in the distance approaching in a bright yellow suit. And I'm thinking, oh, that's Ming Temba, great. So I waited another like half hour. Everyone's moving so slow. You know, you can see somebody for a long time before they approach because it's like every step is so hard earned.

And finally a figure is approaching and I realized like, oh, it's not Ming Temba, it's JP. And I'm thinking like, oh, okay, it's JP. I wonder where Tamara is because he had been climbing with her before and I had passed him. He's, you know, he's, again, pure, no supplemental oxygen, nothing. And he approaches me and we have this big, warm embrace. And I'm like,

what's going on? Like, where's Tamara? Like, how are you feeling? He's like, usually, I mean, he literally is the strongest climber I've ever met in my entire life. And he's like, my feet are pretty cold, man. But like, I think we were looking back, she, she thinks she's going to turn back and I'm going to keep going. And I'm like, well, like camp three is somewhere right by here, but I don't know where it is. And he'd never been on this part of K2 before, neither of us, this was new for both of us.

And he's like, well, I guess we need to climb this section unroped. Like we need to like climb this unroped or maybe we can figure something out. But he was just like super determined and a credit where credit's due. Like I was kind of stopping my tracks, having another partner's like,

well, we could rope together. We could do something here that's a little bit, you know, basically a little bit safer, but it was like, all right, like we're gonna be stepping on the edge. And, you know, again, to fast forward the story, but basically me, him, and then Lakwatem and Ming Temba caught up to us

not that long after that. And a Slovenian guy named Tomas Rotar, all of us over the next 30 minutes or an hour, something like that, time's a little bit wishy-washy in my brain on that moment, climb through this section unroped and through these glaciers to reach, which is just consequential.

I mean, it's high consequence. Every step is like high consequence. If you slip there, no rope, like you're flying on 8,000 feet, like falling or crevassed, you're, you're in a bad spot. But we think camp three is pretty close. And it turns out it's only about a hundred vertical feet from where we've been. So like we get up over this next little sort of plateau and it's like, oh wow. Like that's where it was. So I was sitting just below camp two

for like, or camp three for several hours at this point. But now the sun's going down. Now it's getting dark. And my whole point was like, I want to get to camp three, get inside my tent, melt some water. I'm going to put on dry socks and really just resting for like three or four hours. And then we're going to climb through the night from camp three, all the way to the summit push. It's a way station.

It's not like camp three set up, have a nice long sleep or anything like that. It's just like a reset. It's almost like a, think about it, like an aid station or something like that. And like an ultra event, like you're like, I'm going to be here for a few hours, make sure all my gear is tightened up.

I have the bare bones that I need and that's where we're going to go. So we get inside our tent, JP has this tiny little, like basically a one man tent. You can barely fit two people inside of it there. We have a three man tent, still very small. We get inside and the sun's setting and we're thinking, well, other climbers, some of the people weren't quite as strong.

They must have turned around. They must have turned around because it's dark now. And we're trying to summit that night and we're coming from camp three. We're thinking like, well, they must have turned around. The one other person that was there at this point was Ali Sabpara, this Pakistani guy that I mentioned before. And he had been climbing this Icelandic guy. And he goes, my son and John Snorri, they're not far behind. And we're thinking these guys were super strong too.

So we're like, okay, they're coming. But the must surely, these 10 other people that have been climbing some point in the Black Pyramid when it got dark have turned around. Like this is, they're turned around for sure. And then as we're trying to get the stove lit and trying to get things going,

I start hearing voices outside. And I'm like, what? Wow, are the people arriving crazy? Like they're still pushing for it. Like I was just like really surprised because it just seemed like the margin of error at this point had like got expired kind of, if you were still out there climbing. And then I hear this kind of this rustling and people being like, shit, shit. What? Do you have the tent? Do I? Look in your bag. Look at my bag. It turned out about 10 people arrived and there was confusion over who was carrying

their various tents. And it turns out they have no tents. It's dark. There were 24,000 feet on K2 in winter. And there's 10 people now outside with no tents. Oh my God. How does that happen? I mean, do a post-mortem.

And like I said, it's just like not really in this, like I really, I haven't talked about, I wrote a chapter about this on the book, but in the year plus after this, like I've really not spoken publicly much about this whole situation because it's just been such a heartbreaker for me. I think I'm finally ready to kind of talk

about it a little bit more, but they made a mistake. I mean, there's point fingers at a million different people but the long story short is they arrived at camp three with no tents, no tents. So a guy pops his head into my tent and he's like, he's like, hey man, like we're out here. Like we have no tents, like, can we come inside? And like, well, of course I'm not gonna like let these guys like freeze like out there in this tent like by themselves

and so i let um as many people as can fit into my tent before i know it there's seven people inside of my tent seven people in a three-man tent three-man tents really a two-man tent like and like yeah they're very liberal with how many people can get in these tents especially without the gear yeah so you have this huge gear, backpacks, like ice ax, I mean the whole deal. And now all of a sudden there's seven people inside my tent and I am in like a fetal position. And I can't even get down to my boots

to unzip my boots to put on dry socks. We're having a hard time. Like there's not enough stoves, not enough water. Like it's just like the wheels are like falling off. And then the other tent across from me was Ali Sabhar's tent. He had been in my tent waiting from John Snorri, but their tent had arrived and the same thing happened.

So now there's our two tents. And that was like a two person tent, right? So JP's was even smaller. There's three tents now. There's JP's like tiny, tiny, tiny. Like it's like a basically like a mummy sack little tent. And Tamara ends up coming and joining him. Then there's this other tent,

the two three-man tents basically. Now each of them have six, seven people like inside of them. I'd have to think really hard to get the exact, but seven-ish, seven. There's almost eight in mine. Cause there's like seven in mine. They're like one guy sitting in the vestibule on the snow, but at least a little bit out of the wind. Like it's like dire situation. And I get on the radio and I warm my radio back up inside my tent on the stove. I warm the battery back up and I can get it working again. And I call down to John and explain the situation. And John, I mean, I love that guy.

He's one of my, you know, he's my soul, soul, soul family. But he has this like calm demeanor. Like he's just a very calm, optimistic, positive guy. And he, I'm like, I'm like, bro, this is fucked. Like, this is a bad situation. He's like, Colin, I know you're going through a tough spot. But like, he's just like really trying to calm me down. Like doing it, he's like,

you still have a shot to go for the summit. Like the weather's gonna hold, but you need to leave soon. Like, and I'm like, I don't think you know how bad this is. Then I went on the open channel on the radio and I said, this is a bad situation. Like people are gonna die out here. I think people are gonna die out here. I'm saying this, I know that everyone like can hear me. Like people are gonna die out here. I think people are gonna die out here. I'm saying this.

I know that everyone like can hear me. Like people are up here without tents. Like, I'm like, this is a bad, like a bad deal. And please tell me you called Jenna. Yeah. Leaving Jenna hanging with that text message. Well, I didn't hear from him right away, but I did reach out to John.

So John was back in base camp and I was like, John, you gotta get some information. Like I'm at the end of the road right now. Like this is not good. I need some calm. And luckily he is exactly as Colin described, like very calming and very reassuring. And he had heard from Colin on the radio.

So I still hadn't heard from Colin at this point until just after this. Yeah, and so I reached out to Jenna on the sat phone in this moment as well. So I got that guy back and going. And like I said, I had been yelling and through this radio, like I was like, this is a bad deal.

It was a weird thing because it's like, of course there's not a 1% of me that was like, leave these guys outside. You know, they messed up. Like, of course, I mean, that's just like, that's just like common human ethic. Like, of course you need to be coming inside, but it's also clear, it's very obvious

that eight people crammed in my tent before I'm trying to put a summit push together for K2 in winter is like the worst case scenario in terms of my own preparation. Like no rest, no sleep, no, not proper hydration, not like all the things that I had like planned to do were like very difficult. Yeah, things are not lining up optimally.

No. And so I, you know, I called to Jenna. I mean, I called to Jenna and I don't know, interesting to hear. Tell me, tell me what you remember from that moment. Yeah, I mean, he sounded distressed, like quite distressed and I asked him where he was. So I actually at this point

knew that he was at camp three in a tent. But my memory, I just remember you saying, I mean, you were upset, crying. And you just said, I am trying to make a decision on if I should continue going up or not, or if I should call it and stop here. And, you know, Colin calls me in, in a lot of critical moments on Everest and different situations and asked me for my opinion. And in this specific instance, I really didn't have a good read on the situation. Like that, that last cryptic text message was less I'd heard from him. I couldn't communicate fluidly with anyone on the mountain. And I, I really didn't have like a gut feeling. I couldn't communicate fluidly with anyone on the mountain. And I really didn't have like a gut feeling. I was just, I felt kind of like removed from the

situation, which in other situations, I felt very connected and very intuitively tapped in. And this, I just, I didn't really know. And so I, I mean, I think I said, Colin, I don't have a good read on this one. And I trust you and I need you to make this decision. And now's the time, like the time had been ticking on and I knew what the projected departure time was if he was gonna actually make a summit attempt and it was ticking on and it was beyond the time at which you needed to have gone.

You were basically saying, remember you said, trust your intuition, but you also said, but whatever you need to do, you actually need to make a decision right now. Like you're gonna miss, you're gonna walk into a storm if you like don't leave soon, basically. Yeah, and I think in more of like a heightened way,

I was like, make the decision now, like make the call. Like I need you to actually make this call. Like I can't see what you're seeing right now. But one thing that's interesting reflecting and just when you said we've had these other intense moments, there's like five other calls that like went into my head. Like the first day in Antarctica, that moment I recovered with the food, my first Everest descent, when I got caught out in a massive storm, like I've called

Jenna from some really rough spots. And most of the time, if not every other time, she has helped me prompt, like reminded me, like, you're the guy who does hard things. Like you can do this, like go inside of yourself, tap into your inner strength. I mean, she has pushed me prompt, like reminded me, like you're the guy who does hard things. Like you can do this, like go inside of yourself, tap into your inner strength, power. She has pushed me in environments that are implicitly risky and challenging. Like she hasn't been like the- No, I definitely am not the one who always says-

Had you ever told him like, no, you need to pull the plug, like definitively, like that's my gut? That's a good question. Or was it always a dig deeper? I actually think it's mostly been, you can do this, I believe in you. Or problem solve.

Like, hey, if you're gonna do this, let's talk about the, like, let's think about that, right? So it's funny, you know, I've shared those other, not this story, but other stories, people on the other, like, oh, my partner would have told me to just come home.

Yeah. You know, crazy. Like, why are you even up there in the first place? You didn't sleep. Yeah. It's really dangerous. And you're not gonna do what everyone else does, which is then take another break at camp two.

You're gonna push straight through. Like, this doesn't sound like a bad deal, you know? But Jenna was like, I remember just saying like, I don't have a read on this, but you gotta make a call, stress your intuition. So then there's two tents, everyone's crammed in there. So I can talk to everyone in there, but there's also the other tent,

like we just verbally, we can talk to each other because they're right next to each other. And I'm kind of thinking like, what's everyone doing? Kind of taking the temperature check of everyone. And there's a collective, like we're going for it. For the most part, there was a couple of people, I don't know, but like most people were like, oh yeah, this is fine.

This isn't that big of a deal. We weren't really gonna sleep here anyways. Like just all the justifications why this with no tents at camp three, like wasn't really- Still made sense. That significant in K2 in winter. And, you know, a lot of people were like,

oh, well, you know, I always thought this was, I thought this was a little bit of an interesting calculus, but a lot of people were like, oh, well, you know, I always thought this was, I thought this was a little bit of an interesting calculus, but a lot of people were like, well, the Nepalese took this long to summit from here. I think it was 15 or 16 hours or something like that. And they're gauging their time based off this. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking Mingma David Sherpa is the strongest human being I have ever met. And it took him 16 hours. Like I would never put myself in that category, let alone meet some of these other people. Like maybe someone like a JP,

but he's climbing without supplemental oxygen or something like that. You're just going like, people are like, oh, so, you know, 15, 16 hours, we're still within the thing. And I'm like, okay, but you know, it's interesting calculus, but there was a collective, we're going for it.

And Ali Sapara, someone who, again, I've really admired from a long time from afar and then became friends on this trip, he'd summited Nanga Parbat in winter at first ascent. I was talking with him, I was like, what's your guys' call? I kind of was tuning everyone else out, but this guy dialed, dialed of all dialed, has made a first ascent in winter in Pakistan. What's your read on this? And he was like, dude, we're going. Like, we are for sure going. Colin, climb with us.

Like, we're gonna make the summit, man. Like, you got here before all of us. You're climbing so strong. Like, let's go. Like, let's go. And he's just saying this. He's like a most cheery, optimistic, smiling, like joy-filled human.

And even in this intense moment, like his joy was infectious. Like, just kind of like, he's like this, I know this feels bad, but you know, the expeditions, they always get hard at some point. And this is the moment where you got to kind of like push through. And I end up closing my eyes. I'm going like, okay, I got to make this decision. I got to make it soon, but I got to check in with myself. And I'm lying in a fetal position, basically crammed in the edge of my tent. I closed my eyes and I don't really know how long I closed the eyes for, but it was a significant period of time released from memory.

And I just went deep inside of myself and my intuition, my gut voice was loud and clear. It was like, you gotta get home to Jenna and Jack. Jack's my dog. You gotta get home to Jenna and Jack. I just like feeling that mantra was kind of building up inside of me. I was like, whoa, like my voice is telling me to turn around.

And before I expressed that out loud to anybody else, I did, I kind of went through the check in my brain, which was like, okay, but now play this out. If you're quitting right now and these guys are going, now imagine them getting to the summit, being successful. And we're all going to be back down in base camp like three days later. It was an ego check. And you're the only one pulling out as opposed to a split in the group. Right. Like going like, I literally did this. I like actually visualized in this kind of meditative,

whatever deep moment, looking inward moment, I looked inside on something. I was like, well, of course you want everyone to be safe here. You want everyone to succeed. I'm not, I'm not, it's not my personality to like cheer against somebody's like, whatever, especially the stakes being so high. So I'm like, okay, so picture that they go, you weren't whatever badass enough to leave the tent. You turn around and two days later, these guys make the summit to, you know, all this global acclaim in the mountaineering community for this amazing second ascent of K2 in winter and all this kind of stuff. And like, you were right there, you were climbing well,

your body's strong, you can do it. John, your climbing partner's telling you you can do it. Yeah, exactly. Simple as that. And still, I'll be honest, I was, I felt, and I haven't felt this way really in this high stakes situation. I felt at peace. Like I really, like that, I was, I felt, and I haven't felt this way really in this high stakes with situation, I felt at peace. Like I really, like that, I just,

there was actually this full relaxation of my muscles and my being in this fetal position where I just went like, ah, like I feel like I could breathe for the first time. I was like, I'm not going. And I say to the other guys there, I say to Ali, I say, I'm not going. And no one tried, no, like, you know, there've been a little bit of like, come on to Ali, I said, I'm not going. And no one tried, no, like, you know,

there've been a little bit of like, come on, man, like, let's go, whatever. But once they knew, like, I was like, I'm not going. And they were like, all right, like, we're leaving. Like, we're going. And then you got to get back down by yourself without anyone else. Yeah, so the following, I said,

but I'm gonna stay here till morning because it's February 5th morning, supposed to be great weather. So like, I'm not going to try to move at night. You people are going to leave, this tent's going to be more empty. Loc Batemba, who I had been climbing with still says to me, well, like I want to climb, even though him and I were supposed to be, you know, he was helping support my climb. He asked me, he said, well, do you mind if I still go? And I was like, dude, like, of course, like he actually made the summit was gonna be the only person to have ever summited K2 four times.

He'd summited three times before in summer. He watched his, you know, fellow Nepalese just summit in winter and all this. And he was like, he was still motivated and people were going, like people were like, we're going. And I was like, I'm not going. And it was a long night. It was a hard night.

People left and a bunch of masks broke actually in the next few hours. People that were using supplemental oxygen, not everyone, but a bunch, including Lakhpatemba, oxygen masks. From the cold? Failed from the cold. Because I mean, again, this is a temperature that like no one's ever really climbing in. It's not like this stuff's not,

you know, you think it's tested to minus 40, but it's different than minus 70 or whatever, who knows. But several people's including Sajid Sabpara, who is Ali Sabpara's 21 year old son, he had a failure of his oxygen mask. And so a bunch of people had to turn around in the next three or so, three to five hours because of some technical difficulties. And some people started getting too cold and some had to turn around in the next three or so, three to five hours because of some technical difficulties.

And some people started getting too cold and some people did turn around. But the strongest amongst the group, which was JP, Ali Sabharra and John Snorri, kept climbing. They kept climbing towards the summit. And so the sun comes up, I don't know exactly what time, sunrise, 7 a.m., 8 a.m., something like that. And I finally get outside of my tent.

Some people have returned, different stories, whatever, but people had gone for it. There's some people with some like little bits of frostbite and things like that, but you know, not everyone had kept going for the summit. And they'd said, well, those three are still up there. Weather might be turning. I don't know when we last saw them.

Maybe they're turning around, it's unclear, but like they're still going for it. And then, so I remember like, well, I was like, well, I'm going back down and I talked to some other folks and wish them well. And I talked to my friend, the Bulgarian climber Atanas, and he had gone out that night and he had gotten tripped up and he turned around and I said,

well, I'll see you back down at base camp. Like, you know, what a crazy thing we all just experienced. The weather's pretty good right now. Let's all get down safely, clip every rope, and I'll see you in base camp. And we'll have a tea and a beer maybe, or something like that. And just like, kind of relive what a crazy moment this was,

but just kind of like, safe, positive vibes. Count our blessings. Yeah, kind of count our blessings. And it was actually a really beautiful moment. There's like such a clear calm. It was like one fewest clear, because it's a summit push moment. So it was clear calm.

I took these pictures with Atanas standing there and I decide and I start climbing down and I'm climbing down similar sequence, the way I'd climbed up in front of other people. I left camp before everyone else. And so I'm climbing down by myself and I get back down towards camp two and I hear a bunch of like chatter like on the radio,

but it's in, so Urdu and the Sherpa Nepalese language, they actually were able to understand one another, even though it's different, obviously language and dialects, they can communicate pretty well. But the staff in the base camp was mostly Pakistani and then up on the mountain is mostly Nepalese, the mix of both, but mostly. And I hear a bunch of chatter, obviously I can't like

understand it and understand any of it. And I get back down to camp two, I'm waiting for a little bit and I hear a bunch of chatter, obviously I can't like understand it and understand any of it. And I get back down to camp two, I'm waiting for a little bit and I see Mingtenba and he looks at me and he's like, oh, something's very wrong, something's like happened. And he says, Atanas just fell. And I was like, really? I was just with him.

He's like, I think so, but I'm not sure. There's a lot of crosstalk on the radio. It's a little bit unclear, but we're hearing something's not right. He's like, get down safe. And I'm like, now I'm like so locked in. I'm actually starting to say out loud to myself. I'm like, I've got to get home to Jenna and Jack. I've got to get home to Jenna. I'm like saying it out loud of every single rope I'm clipping. And now I'm down to this lower part of the mountain between camp two and advanced base camp, where you can see all the way down the route and I'm alone and I'm descending.

And I'm trying to, again, kind of down climb cause I'm on some of these old frayed ropes and my nerves are just completely shot at this point. I'm just saying, focus, focus. I actually, in my head, I remember telling myself, he must have misheard. Antanas didn't fall. He must have misheard.

I'm like, I told myself that just full denial. Antanas was not doing a summit push. He was going from three to two. Exactly, he was descending just after me. Like I had left camp just with him before that. He had been coming, everyone at that point is now coming down. There's the three that are still up on the mountain,

but everyone else is like, it's over. Their summit push, they've tried, or they haven't, you know, whatever. And they're coming down now. A lot of those people went, but the masks failed or whatever. And now people are coming back down the mountain. And I remember just telling myself, I must've misheard that.

Like there's no, that didn't happen. Like just a full, I'm just in denial. I mean, just in full denial retrospectively. And I get back down to camp one and I called John on the radio and I say to him, I'm at camp one. I'm gonna descend the last section to advanced base camp. And that's the section Sergey had fallen and died.

And he was like, just be careful. But his voice was like, just calm, dead calm, like not alarm. Like if he had known something, I was like, oh, yeah, it must've been a mistake because like he's not saying anything to me. Like everything's fine. He was like, hey man, like you're probably really hungry.

Like I'll walk out on the glacier between advanced base camp and like bring you like, you know, some warm water and some soup or something like that. Like just get down in this next section by yourself and like, I'll be there to like walk back to base camp with you. And I'm descending about halfway

about around the spot actually where John had turned around before halfway between advanced base camp and camp one. All of a sudden I hear these helicopter rotors. I'm like helicopter, that's not usually a great time like in these mountains in this moment in time. And I'm looking up, I'm looking up, up, up, I'm looking everywhere up for a helicopter

because you look up for a helicopter. And I realized it's nowhere to be found. But then I looked down the route and there's a helicopter hovering just off the ground, several hundred feet below me. And I look at there and I see a splayed out body on the ground, just backpack sprawled to the side, body on the ground in a really unnatural position.

And I look up and I can just see where his body has fallen from way up on the route all the way back down. Oh, it had fallen from, oh my God. He fell, the route is so direct that you fall from camp three, around camp three, you literally end up at the bottom of the ropes, right where I'm climbing towards. And I looked down a little bit further

and there's actually his mitten is on the route right in front of me and I pick it up. How did you not see him fall past you then? It's just where I was on camp two, there's like some sort of like cliff edges where you can't see the whole route. But then when you get back to camp two, it opens up onto this big icy face.

It's like, it's easy for me to picture in my mind, probably hard to picture as a description. It's so possible he was just looking at the ropes versus looking. Yeah, like when he came. So, but then in that moment, like it was all, it's like, there's no denying this. I'm walking at a dead body on the ground right below me

where I'm climbing towards and his mitten, I had just been with him and I was just really breaking down obviously, but I was like, I gotta get home to Jenna and Jack. I gotta get home to Jenna and Jack because this last part is super, super consequential still. And then I got myself back down off of the ropes and I'm still alone.

And I recorded a little bit of this just so I could remember this intense moment, but just a really, really big breakdown, obviously for me and just crying. And I couldn't believe it, what had happened. And it was horrible. And what's playing out horrifically on the other side of this is that John, Dr. John,

even though he's talking to me calmly on the radio, Atanas' girlfriend, Sheni, had actually been in base camp, just like Jenna. She had been in base camp with us and she had stayed on for the entirety of the expedition. And my mind immediately went there because I'm picturing like it's such a parallel experience. Like my wife, Jenna, has just been with me in base camp. Sheni had come to support him. Yeah.

It makes me emotional, like really emotional because she was such a beautiful supporter and he was just so lively and funny. And like, of course my heart just like completely went out to her, like imagining what it would have been like for me to be there and have the same news. It's just, oh, just like unimaginable. And he didn't fall trying to push to the summit. It was like, okay, we're pulling the plug

on the dangerous part. Let's just get turning around. You realize like there is no safe and peace to any of this. And John, I mean, John has just been a hero in my life in so many ways, but he, in this moment, experienced maybe some of the most intense trauma that any of us experienced on this mountain, even though he wasn't on the mountain,

which is he being the only person in base camp at this point, you know, English native, English speaker at this point, he hears over the radio and he's talking with the cook staff and the liaison officer and understanding this accident happened. He's checking his tracker and sees that Ahtanas' satellite tracker

went, goes from slowly going down to like just a straight line all the way down to the bottom of this mountain. It's like pretty clear that he's checking his tracker and sees that Atenas's satellite tracker went, goes from slowly going down to like just a straight line all the way down to the bottom of this mountain. It's like pretty clear that he's fallen really far. And so he has to go in and tell Sheni and say, hey, Sheni, Atenas fell and he's likely dead. And so he was with her, even when he was talking to the radio,

he was with her for about four hours while they were retrieving the body. And then he- He makes the choice to not tell you because he's like, I just need Colin to be calm and get back down. Exactly. Exactly, and then when he- And he's also communicating with me.

So John is holding this like really intense space for these partners of Colin. And of course, Atanasu has passed away. And then he did walk out and meet me on the glacier. And I just kind of fell into his arms, like crying. And I'm like, I'm so glad we're both safe. Like, you know, I'm like kind of confused cause he hasn't said anything.

I'm like, you heard about Atanas, right? And he's like, yes, like, of course, I just didn't want to tell you. And he's like, and furthermore, of course, I just didn't want to tell you. And he's like, and furthermore, they grabbed the body from the bottom of the mountain where I saw the helicopter, they took his body. And then it's really hard to get helicopters in and out. In Nepal, there's more helicopters.

You can like get them more easily, but in Pakistan, it's all controlled by the military airspace. So the helicopters will only come in like a really, basically every body retrieval or like a really basically body retrieval or like a really heightened like circumstance. You can't just be like, oh, tomorrow, let me call a helicopter.

In Nepal, you can do that. In Pakistan, you can't do that. And so not only did he have to tell Shani, but he actually had to get Shani, pack up all of her stuff. And with Atanas' body inside of the helicopter, he had to say, hey, Shani, I need you to get inside of the helicopter, he had to say, hey, Shani, I need you to get inside of this helicopter

because otherwise you have to walk out for seven days. It's just brutal. And so that's the space he's holding. And it's just, I mean, so still hard for me to talk about, but it was a huge tragedy. And that's not even the biggest tragedy of this whole thing, which is, again, it's been a long story at this point, so I won't belabor it. But long story short, no one, you know, it's getting into the evening, the later evening, and I'm back in base camp. And then three or four hours later, other people kind of start filtering back off the mountain. Everyone's so exhausted and tired from this push and all that stuff. And everyone's like, has anyone heard from JP?

Has anyone heard from Ali? Has everyone heard from John? And Ali's son is waiting at camp three. Everyone's abandoned camp three at this point are coming down because the weather's coming in just like expected. It's the following afternoon evening. The weather's kicking up.

It's getting dark again. No one's heard from him. No one's heard from them. Sajid, this 21 year old, whose dad is like this famous world-class climber, taking him under his wing, taking his son out to these mountains. Hasn't heard from him.

We're hearing on the radio, I'm staying here, I'm waiting for him, staying here, I'm waiting for him. And long story short, JP, Ali and John Snorri never returned that night. And they also died pushing for this mountain on the summit push. And it's still, their bodies were found six months later

in the summer season. But there's still unclear what happened. They were all spread apart. It looks like they froze. Doesn't look like it was a fall. Unclear if they made it to the summit or didn't make it to the summit. But the net result

is, you know, 15 or so people went over there to attempt to climb K2 in winter and five didn't come back. Altanah, Sergi, JP, John and Ali, between the five of them, they had 15 kids. And it's, I mean, like I said, it's been a year and a half and it's, I mean, like I said, it's been a year and a half and it's still hard to really fathom and really think about the tragedy and the loss. And also there's, you know, I've done some therapy, I've done some work to kind of process a lot of this.

And one thing that was interesting for me that was kind of put into my mind by someone who I was working with was to kind of go through this. I went some visualizations back into that tent, back in that decision-making process and, you know, following my intuition and all of this, which certainly saved my life, was understanding the difference between trauma and grief. I guess I've kind of put them in the same bucket in my mind. in my mind, but fortunately, I don't know if fortunately is not even the right word, but just the truth of my mental health at this point is that the trauma, the sort of PTSD,

the waking up in the middle of the night afraid is not prevalent in my experience in recovering from assimilating this into my life. But the grief is immense. I find myself crying and deep sadness around losing you know, losing these incredible, incredible friends and people who I just admired

and people who were just right there in that moment. And then certainly replaying back that, the shenny moment of that with imagining Jenna being that person, imagining that being, you know, our story and how close that could have been. But how is that not traumatic? Of course it's traumatic. Yeah, yeah, I don't mean-

Especially the more that you could foresee how it could have been you. And then also traumatic for you, Jenna, to be a participant and sort of an observer of all of this. Like how does that, with a year and a half of perspective on this, like how does that shape how you think about these things and assess risk?

Like, do you really need to keep doing this? You know, is there more to be learned from pushing to the next peak? Or is it time to assimilate what you've already learned and, you know, find a different way to grow and share? Yeah, I mean, for me, I don't know if Colin's ever showed this on podcast before, but when I was 17,

I lost my high school boyfriend in a motorcycle accident. And that was an earth shattering experience for me. You know, the person you're in love with, and yes, I was young, but in love with, and think you're doing life with, to just all of a sudden be ripped from your life and heart is devastating, dramatic, all of the hard words. And then to be in a relationship with another risk taker. Right. What's going on there?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I probably chose it in my own way. But I think, you know, more so I think Colin and I, well, I'll say, you know, I compartmentalize for sure. I've definitely gotten good at that and coping mechanism, call it whatever you want. But I do think that there's been a level of learning and trust and talking about intuition and gut that has certainly begun to play more heavily in decision-making. And I also sometimes lean on the probably wishful thinking

of that loss happened to me once in my life, surely the universe is not gonna teach me that lesson again, which I know is a compartmentalizing methodology. That's like, did you ever read the world according to Garp? So it's like the plane hits the house and you're like, we're good now. Nothing like that's ever gonna happen again.

Like I'll buy the house. Exactly. I mean, I will say, and we can talk about this after, but we did choose shortly after that creating a family and thinking about some other goals that we have that aren't so risk oriented. But yeah, I mean, I'd love to hear you. I mean, I wanna clarify what I was saying about trauma before, not to say the entire experience was deeply traumatic

and there's deep like trauma in there. I was trying to express was that I haven't had that kind of PTSD kind of shiver from this experience that I know is experienced by many people who experience trauma in all sorts of ways. But the trauma and certainly the sadness and the grief is deeply prevalent and very much still on the surface in my day-to-day life. But also what Jenna said is interesting. And there is a chapter in the book about this. So I'll give away the whole story.

Certainly probably not time for tell a whole nother long story. But two months later, we went back, we went to Nepal and Posner was on that expedition, which he talked about at length on your podcast and the frightening things we experienced and this avalanche we all get hit by. And I was there with Jenna and Jenna made the decision on your podcast and the frightening things we experienced and this avalanche we all get hit by.

And I was there with Jenna and Jenna made the decision to kind of surprise the heck out of all of us and actually attempt to climb Everest herself. And so two months later, after this K2 experience, we find ourselves back on a mountain, back at 8,000 meters, back climbing. And now I'm doing so with the person that's the most important person to me

on the entire planet, which is Jenna. And I'll let you read that in the book to get the whole story there. It's a powerful story and it's one of the most impressive things I've experienced alongside of Jenna and her courage and her strength. But there's also a piece of it that's to me about twofold.

If that experience in K2 had been my last time climbing, I think that'd be really hard for me because it would have been like, wow, I took this all the way up to the edge and then that was it. And I just like walked away from it at that point. Do I need to go back and try to climb K2 in winter? Probably not.

But I'm also glad that that's not the last expedition I went on. Not the last memory. The last memory that I have is standing on top of the world with my wife, like, and having this incredibly triumphant moment and carrying the flags of the five guys who passed and honoring them up there on those mountains.

I think for me, as a sort of a closing thought anyways on this story, when people have asked me a lot, like, are you afraid of dying? Are you afraid of dying? Are you trying to die? Do you have a death wish? Like you're sort of a risk taker,

you know, whatever way someone frames that question. And I've thought a lot about that. And I think my candid response to that is, the last thing I wanna do is die. My launcher, I wanna get back home to Jenna and Jack. Hopefully soon we'll have a family and there's Jenna, Jack, and a little new soul in our family.

And I think that will of course have its own lasting shift and impact. And I embrace that moment when that moment comes. But my biggest fear is not living, right? Like my biggest fear is actually not living. And I've come to think of the world of, I think of sort of human experience, our experience in life on the scale of one to 10,

10 being like the highest highs that we experience and one being the lowest lows. And I think too often, we are often stuck in four to six and like this zone of comfortable complacency and this zone of like, eh, like good enough, right? Like go to a job, it's fine, but I don't love it. Like have this relationship with my partner, it's fine, but it's not, it doesn't like light me.

I just like, it just stuck sort of in the middle. And I think in our modern society, it's so easy to live between four and six. It really is. Like there's enough modern conveniences that generally have a lot of people have access to, not every person, but a lot of people have access to certain things that allow people to be, you know, some level of comfort.

And when I think back on my tents, all of my tents, you know, even from my expeditions, from my personal life, from business successes, whatever, they're all built on the back of ones. Like getting the sponsorship, like we talked about at the top of this conversation for our first expedition was such an amazing moment when we finally broke through and got it, not just Columbia with the other sort of businesses that we got involved, whatever, but it was because of

the thousand doors that slammed in our face, like before that, right? Getting to the other side of Antarctica alone was this deeply personal, insightful journey and ultimately a 10 when I completed this crossing and set this record, blah, blah, blah, but not because there weren't so many ones along the way. And so when I think about that, I think about, like I said, I don't wanna die, but I'm more afraid of not living,

not afraid of living a life between only four and six. And do we need to be in four and six sometimes? Of course, we need to recover there. We need to build from there. We need to be stable. It's not like I'm just trying to have only peak experiences on the pendulum swing of life. But I do think the full tapestry of life

is a beautiful thing. And even when I think back on that K2 expedition, it's such a horrible tragedy. And it tears me apart inside every single day. And I also, in some strange way, I'm glad that I went on that expedition. Yeah, and the 10s have to be earned by the willingness to grapple with the ones, right?

For sure. You don't get the 10s without the ones. Or at least accepting the risk or the possibility the ones, right? For sure. You don't get the tens without the ones. Or at least accepting the risk or the possibility of them, right? The like putting your heart and soul into something that you deeply care about knowing, hey, this might not work, I might fail at this, but like I'm out here trying.

Right, that feels like a great place to end this podcast and we're inching up to like three hours at this point, but we can't just like slide over the fact that like jenna summited everest you know we had this like expansive 90 minute story about k2 and then at the end be like oh by the way like like so i have to hear about that experience and what that was like. And if it measured up to your expectations of what it would be like, like my only experience of what that might be like is from having these types of conversations

or watching documentaries or whatever. And I have an idea, but what was the reality of like that? Yeah, so a little bit of background just to lay the foundation. I, like I said before, was not into mountaineering, do not really even consider myself an athlete, certainly had not like dove into the literature

or watched all the movies or dreamed about it as a child. And so, again, it's been an interesting evolution because I remember when Colin climbed in 2016 for the Explorers Grand Slam World Record Project, I, of course, was supportive of him doing it, but I was like, this is crazy. Do you really need to climb Everest? Like that's such a risk-taking venture.

Like, I don't know if you really need to do that. But then of course I saw him be successful and have known many friends now to have summited over the years and taken that on. And it started to become a curiosity for me. Like, am I capable? Can I do this? Is this something that even if it's not my big dream in the world, is it something that I could actually take on and overcome? And so we set out to climb from the North side and that was very specific, which is the Chinese side. I was terrified of the Khumbu Icefall,

which is on the South side, on the Nepalese side. And I was like, there is no way that I'm climbing through the Khumbu Icefall. I mean, Colin can attest, like I just was vehemently against climbing through the icefall. It just seemed like Russian roulette and it just wasn't of interest to me.

So our planned expedition had been on the North side from China, of course, in 2020. That got canceled. Then fast forward to 2021. Again, I had called this off. This K2 expedition happened and I was even more like mountains, come on. This is like ridiculous.

Why, you know, this is, I'm not willing to die out there. I knew that in my heart. Like I'm not willing to put my life at risk. I'm out. And after K2 and Colin said, you know, I need to get back out there I need to do this for my soul I said okay what do you want to do and he had said well I would like to go back over to Everest and try this Everest Lhotse double world record project and I said okay I'll go I'll go to base camp because I really was interested in seeing the culture obviously experiencing the

mountains and being over there with him. I don't know why coming off the K2 experience, but like in my mind, I was like, I think I need to be there. So we went and we decided, and he was gonna climb from the Nepalese side, obviously to do the Everest Lhotse was from Nepal. So we go over there,

have a beautiful expedition into base camp. I mean, it was just stunning. Posner's there singing with his guitar. Yeah, it was so special. Yeah, sharing those videos is crazy. Like really special. And Dr. John was there obviously, who had just been on K2 with Colin.

So it kind of felt cathartic. And it felt like, how long were you there? Like, I was like, how long is, how many concerts is Posner playing there? Like, is he just living there now? We were there for 10 weeks. Yeah, it was a long time. There was a long expedition

and there was some really weird weather that like slowed things down. And like it ended, it's usually six to eight weeks when I did it on the sports grandstand was three. COVID was also still an issue in the beginning. So things were delayed. It was a long expedition. Yeah, it was very long.

And you know, this was April through May of 2021. So last year, and I'm like, you know, getting comfortable there, like settling into base camp, like understanding what this means, like witnessing everyone's different energy on like why they want to go and how they want to do it. And just kind of absorbing the environment, which was really cool for me. But again, I was like, I'm not planning on climbing, especially because of the ice fall. So the Khumbu ice fall, base camp is nestled basically at the foot of the Khumbu ice fall. So it's literally the feature you can see

like right in front of you. It's like this broken glacier with moving ice and snow. 15 Sherpas died in an avalanche there in 2014. And it like creaks and groans. So people think about the summit, but it's like this really intense, very, and it's when Jenna says Russian roulette, it's because the ice is moving around so much

that it's unpredictable and the route breaks and moves all the time. So there literally is this sort of feeling of like, what is the route? Kind of like you can't control it and the route moves and shifts and like there's these ladders. It's just, it's like a part of the feature on the mountain.

It just seems sketchy, honestly. Like I was always like, I don't know. Like I don't need to do sketchy. Like I can do like clear cut and like push my endurance, but like that just felt like a risk I wasn't willing to take. So then Colin does a rotation up the mountain for his project, comes back, everything's great. Weather comes in,

everyone kind of gets grounded at base camp for a while. And a lot of people are moving on the mountain. This is what early May-ish. And I was on an adjacent mountain permit. So I could be at base camp. I was on a Nupse permit and the route to Everest and to Nupse is the same up to camp two. And I knew that, but I was like, again, I don't really want to climb through the icefall. But at one point, Colin had said to me, you know, we're just having our hundredth tee in base camp and just shooting the shit. And Colin says, well, why don't you just come up?

Like in base camp, you can't actually see the summit of Everest cause it's blocked by all the mountains around us. You, I mean, of course it's beautiful. Yeah, but you can actually see the summit. And Colin, you know, I've seen photos from 2016, photos and all these stories of Colin climbing previously. And Colin's like,

why don't you come up into the Western Coombe, Come up to camp two. Your permit allows you to climb to camp two. You should come. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I don't want to do that. And over the days passing, sitting there being restless, I don't know if you said something specific, but I was like, okay, like, okay, I think I'll go. And keep in mind, I had done a trekking expedition to Lobache East prior to this. So I had some acclimatization. Obviously I'd been living at base camp, which is what, 17,000 feet.

And I actually felt really strong. Like I never had a headache, never was stomach sick. Like I felt good. But you weren't training specifically for Everest. That was not the plan. No, no, no. Which is like, it's kind of nuts that you're starting to think about doing this thing But you weren't training specifically for Everest. That was not the plan. Which is like, it's kind of nuts that you're starting to think about doing this thing

that you didn't even mentally prepare to do. Which now looking back was definitely the best way for me to do it, 100%. Was the incremental successes and kind of just put the carrot a little further out versus saying like, oh, this is this big thing for you. But Colin convinced me in some way to say that. But you were not, to be clear,

her permit only allowed her to go to camp two and she wasn't saying, oh, now I'm gonna summit. It was like, hey, let's go get you up to 21,000 feet. You'll experience some of Everest. You'll be able to see the route, like, you know, this kind of stuff. But yeah, I mean, look, like I wouldn't necessarily recommend someone like climb,

you know, Jenna's put. Jenna had put in the training in terms of the technical perspiciency, the things she had the year before. So that sort of stuff, we had trained her up to be prepared to climb, got canceled. But then the last year, the fitness, she was like, I'm not training.

And I'll be the first one to attest to that. She didn't train. She wasn't training for this. I just gave up on it, yeah. And then you got up to camp too. Yeah. So I, it was a tearful decision though, for me, because like I had said before, like I was not super excited about going through the icefall and I was honestly like afraid, like very, very afraid of it. And it was one of those moments where I was like, oh, this is one of

these limiting beliefs that I can choose to try to overcome right now, or I can sit in base camp and be comfortable and see what happens. And it really was a decision to say, let's go up there and see what happens. cause I was so frightened going through the ice fall. I mean, Colin can probably attest. It was actually a pretty quick transit from base camp up to camp one and we did push on to camp two in a single push, which isn't common. Yeah, it was like, she's being very, like I been around a lot of elite athletes and all the things in my life, whatever,

like Jenna showed some like deep, like badassery strength that was like just another level. Like her times going up the mountain, like through from camp to camp, like, you know, was on parody, if not faster than most people who have been like training for years for this, who are like fit men, like whatever.

And like, I have, it's interesting, like having lived with Jenna over time, 15 years, all the things we've done, like I've seen this side of Jenna before in these like, just like kind of like random spurt, like moments of just kind of like when she fixes her mind on like something, like, it's just like this like deep, like most of the time you're like, eh, I'm good.

Like whatever. But then like when it's locked in, it's like- This latent endurance. I store it all up. I store it all up so that I can like let it out. Like even Posner was like me, Posner trained super hard for 18 months, really dedicated.

Crazy fit. Exactly. And like, you know, there was a couple of times when like Jenna was like going like faster times than him on certain sections of the mountain. He was like, what is like, what is happening? Adrenaline, I guess. Adrenaline and fear.

But yeah, I mean, obviously my memory anyways was I went up higher on the mountain to a climb and I was at camp four and Jenna's permit stopped at camp two. So she was there for a couple of days by herself. Then I came back down. And I just remember Jenna just having this like look on her eyes.

I could see the mountain for the first time. Just enchanted. I was, I was like, oh my God, there it is. Like, that's like the Holy grail for so many people. And it wasn't necessarily like the achievement that I was looking at. It was, it honestly is one of the most beautiful, stunning places you will ever see.

It is incredible to see the magnificence with your own eyes out there. I mean, you are just tiny little thing in these big, huge behemoth mountains. So, all right, so I'm just trying to understand. So at some point you lock in on this idea of trying to summit, but you got this permit problem. Exactly, so I have this like twinkle in my eye

at this point and I didn't even really fully realize it, but Colin is of course reflecting it back to me as my mirror. And I think I say something like one day, maybe I'll summit Mount Everest from camp two. And because I'm thinking like, well, I have this permit issue. Obviously it's not even a thing. I haven't packed for it.

I again have lost the training on it. And so we climb back down to base camp and you could tell the pyramid story. Well, first of all, when we were packing for Everest, Jenna's 8,000 meter suits, it's like a full down suit that you wear at the summit. The lower mountain, you can get away without having the full, full down suit, but definitely above camp two, you need like this full suit, same thing I was wearing K2, whatever. And I had said to Jenna in our garage back home, and I'm unpacking my K2 stuff, getting it forever. So I was like, well, do you want to just like bring it?

Like just in case, like, you know, if it gets cold or like just kind of like, you know, in the back of my mind. And she was just like adamantly like, why would I pack my down suit? Like I'm not climbing. And so she left it at home.

So you don't need that. Because she had bought, she, of course, we got her all the stuff the year previous for this climb. So she didn't bring any. I mean, she brought the boots and like, but most of the part didn't like have the stuff. And so she's like, one day, one day. And I was like, one day, like,

I don't know that like we're coming back here. Like, yeah. And even you were kind of like, I don't know if I'm ever coming back here. Yeah, we're sort of families. There's like other pieces, like other priorities. And it was like, but you're here and you're like doing amazingly well.

I think part of this thing is Jenna's limiting beliefs, but also the power and having proximity to something. I think that there's something that's so in life. Jenna and I sometimes call this life demystified. If you see like the story I told before. You're around all these other people that are doing it. It's suddenly that impossible thing suddenly seems totally accessible.

Right. Yeah. You know, like any one of these people on Mount Everest at any time at their own dinner party on the respective corners of the world are like the person, the man or woman who like summited Everest. But now you're sitting there

with like a couple hundred people and John who's summited a couple of times. I've summited a couple of times. Posner's there. Like, it's like, I took Posner up his very first mountain, Mount Hood, a couple of years before. And like, Jenna's watched him train

and they're really good friends. Like, you know, it's just like, there's something that like shifts. It's like, you know, I actually write in the book in a different context. I write, you know, hang out with five millionaires. You're likely to be the six. Hang out with five criminals.

You're likely to be the six. It's sort of like you are, you can assimilate. I mean, this is an extreme case of this, but I think you just sort of like, you were like, huh? Yeah. Like maybe I can do this or maybe I want to do this. I was like enchanted, I really was. I was like, oh, like I'm interested to see

if there is a next step to take here. The flip side of this, of course, being a terrible tragic disaster where something goes horribly wrong. And you're like, why did I let her go up the mountain? She didn't train for it. So I mean, that's, you know. So I will, I will. So I'll say the permits are real quick and then we'll get to the summit push. Long story short, we asked some people in base camp, can we pull

this off? And like, can we get a permit? It was solely for next year. It was like a permit for next year. Cause he's like on the mountain. Like how would that even work? And it's May 25th now. Cause we're stuck in the storm and it's getting late. Usually the mountain is shut down by May 20th. Like everyone has climbed by then, but there's this weird weather that like shuts the mountain down for a couple of weeks, really kind of unseasonable.

And we're looking at a summit date on June 1st. Summoning Everest in June is like almost never happens. Like literally almost never, never happens. It's just way too late in the season. The lower mountain starts to melt. And sure enough, I asked some, some actually Dawa, the same guy who had run some logistics on K2.

We had gone and talked to him. And a couple of days later, we're in our camp or base camp and there's a helicopter. And as we can hear a helicopter outside of our tent at six o'clock in the morning, and we hear a guy get out of the, there's a helipad,

like kind of near where we are in base camp. And the guy's like, Miss Jenna, Miss Jenna. And there's like a Nepalese voice yelling, Miss Jenna. We like poke our head out of the side of the tent. And there's a guy carrying a briefcase. What's got like, it's like with the tape of the Ministry of Tourism of Nepal. And he's like, Jenna's like, I'm Jenna.

And he's like, he cuts open this like this tape off his briefcase and opens it. And he's like, here's your Everest permit. How does that happen? Like, obviously we had to pay, it's a, here's your Everest permit. How does that happen? Like, obviously we had to pay a significant amount of money and whatever, but like basically some favor, not favors, it wasn't like we like broke any laws

or anything like that, but just like last minute to the right person at the right moment, like, hey, this person's here. I think it might have been the last Everest permit ever issued in a season ever. And we leave the next day. Or issued on the mountain. On the mountain, right.

What happens if you try to summit without a permit? Oh, I think it's really bad. Really bad, yeah. I think you're like banned from Nepal for 10 years and a huge fine. You can't come into the mountain. It's like, yeah, it's not something you want to do. Yeah, no. And anyways, you share your perspective,

but we basically went back up and as Posner attested when he came here in camp two. There was a horrible, horrible incident. I mean, it was something that I had always worried about because when you're in base camp, you hear all these avalanches falling around you all the time. And obviously there was a devastating avalanche disaster

in 20, what was that? 15 or 16? 15 was that, yeah, 15 was the earthquake. Yeah, and then 16 was the, all the Sherpas dying in the icefall. 14. 14 and 15, sorry, my dates are wrong. And I don't know, I just like, even in these environments,

I'm like, I don't wanna die in an avalanche. I don't wanna die at all, but I definitely don't wanna die in an avalanche. And it's nerve wracking. I mean, you're hearing these thunderous noises as you're walking around out there and you feel very small and insignificant. And being back at camp two,

I actually felt like I was in a comfortable position. I was like, I feel good. I've been here before. I'm familiar with the environment. I understand how things work at camp two. And we go to bed and it had been very stormy. I mean, there was ton of snowfall, but again, I was like, felt like I was in routine at camp two. And we go to bed and it had been very stormy. I mean, there was a ton of snowfall, but again, I was like, it felt like I was like in routine at camp two. And we went to bed that night

relatively early, probably like 10 o'clock and midnight rolls around. And there is just like a, what sounds like a massive freight train barreling down. And of course it happened so quickly, but it was definitely the most frightening experience of my life. I've never been in a situation where I actually felt like I was going to die. This huge, strong wind blew into the valley, into the Western Coombe, through our camp, through the camp next to us. And it was essentially the plume of an avalanche and all the debris came down. And of course, I didn't understand what was going on at the time, but it was so cold up there. I mean, we were in my fold down suit, in my sleeping bag, like I had probably this much of my skin showing and I had tucked myself underneath this other layer.

And it was the one time that Colin and I had gone to bed head to toe because usually we would just sleep next to each other normal head to head and this avalanche comes down this thunderous noise and I all of a sudden like can't really breathe and it feels like there's an extra layer on top of my head and so I'm like yelling and shouting but I can't move I'm like pinned in my sleeping bag and yeah I wake up to her just screaming and her head is because her head is in the upside mountain but I can't move. I'm like pinned in my sleeping bag. And- Yeah, I wake up to her just screaming

and her head is in the upside mountain where the debris and the avalanche plume is hitting her tent. And so her head is like pinned under the edge of this tent. And she's like just screaming. And I sit up and I'm like, oh my God, it's an avalanche. And I pull her head.

Basically it was kind of like wedged. I feel like it pushes the tent fabric off of me. Like it pushes all the snow and whatever was on the outside, pulls me out. And I am like shaking like wedged. It pushes the tent fabric off of me. Like it pushes all the snow and whatever was on the outside pulls me out. And I am like shaking like a leaf. Like I have no idea really what's happened. And Colin says it's been an avalanche and I'm just terrified.

I mean, frankly, the worst feeling you could possibly imagine. I mean, when the tent was covering my face, I was like, oh, this is it. This is the thing that I didn't wanna have happen. And now I'm experiencing it. You get buried alive. Yeah.

And Dr. John are in the adjacent, you know, a couple of tents beside of us. And I get out after that, cause after it passes and kind of like regroup and talk to folks. And to be honest, I was at that moment was like pretty like, well, like we're definitely like kind of going back down. Dining tents were down.

The camp next to us, thank God no one was there. They'd gone higher on the mountain. Those tents were completely flattened. Like it was a bad scene. I mean, it wasn't good. And yeah. So how do you make this decision? So like, I don't know.

It doesn't make any sense, Rich. This is all like insane. You understand that, right? Yes. I said to Jenna, so I said in the morning, I said, all right, so we'll just eat some breakfast and like, we'll get out of here. And I'll never forget this comment from Jenna. She's like, yeah, camp two fucking sucks. Let's get out of here. And I'm like, yeah, well this, eat breakfast, then we'll climb back down one more time to the Kumbaya spa and we'll go home. She was like, down? I said, camp two sucks. Let's get out of here and go up.

I was like, if it's safe to go up, let's go up. You have to remember, I'm like replaying all the things that I didn't want to have happen. I think I'm going to die in the Khumbu Icefall. I just got hit by an avalanche. Like, I'm like, well, I guess if it's safe to climb, let's go up. That seems like the, for whatever reason, safest decision. And yeah, I mean, in the end, it all ended up working out. I mean, we climbed to Camp 3, spent a night there, climbed to Camp 4, spent some time in the death zone, and ultimately made a summit push. And it was, I mean, the most beautiful, majestic,

like insanely rewarding thing to actually stand on the summit in the top of the world with, with, I mean, it was pretty special. The, you said something before, which that, that definitely triggered my biggest emotion on this entire thing, which is I have taken a lot of these risks, obviously I'm on my own and through Jenna's sort of deep support and partnership and camaraderie, but I've been the one in harm's way for the most part. Right now you're responsible for her wellbeing and it's incumbent upon you when she says, what do you mean we're going down? We're going up for you to be like,

are you sure about that? Like, maybe that's not such a good idea. And when you get above camp four and the death zone, the summit push essentially in, I had an experience in 2016 where I was coming back down the mountain, a woman that wasn't climbing with her, but I knew had fallen down on the ground, her oxygen mask wasn't working and she couldn't get up. And people had said to me, "'Up high on the mountain,

"'you can't like pick somebody up or carry them.'" But I always had intellectualized that of like, that seems like an exaggeration. Like surely if someone's in really bad shape, you're not just gonna like let them lie on the ground and die, like you could do something. And I remember in 2016, seeing this woman who, you know, again, acquaintance of mine lying on the ground

and like thinking to myself, like, can I pick her up right now? You know, we're at South Summit, 28,700 feet or whatever it is. And being like, no, like I like, and I got down on the ground and I was like, you gotta get up and like talking to her and like trying to get her back up.

We ultimately got her oxygen mask back on and she got her up moving again. But it was this moment where I was like, you got to get up and like talking to her and like trying to get her back up. We ultimately got her oxygen mask back on and she got her up moving again. But there was this moment where I was like, I can't do anything to help this person. Literally me, my full strength coming down the mountain, there's nothing I can do to like, I can't carry this person back down. And so I remember feeling that feeling. And when we're leaving camp four with Jenna and like being like, whoa, like I have actually been up here before. and I have just been in an environment where people died around me on K2. And now I'm here in this situation where it's like my role to like protect Jenna, but also being like, hey, Jenna, like up in the death zone, like if something

goes wrong, like obviously I'll do everything I possibly can to make sure to save you or whatever if something went wrong. But like, really, if I'm being honest, there's not a whole lot either of us can do to help each other if something goes really wrong. And we actually have, we know a husband and wife couple where the woman passed away on the mountain in 2016 and the husband survived. So I don't know, man. I would say summoning Mount Everest with Jenna

was of all my expeditions, obviously there's no world record or blah, blah, blah associated with Jenna and I summoning. I think we're the fifth couple, married couple or something like that. Um, was the most beautiful, incredible experience to share in like the highest 10 of all 10s, you know, to have that moment together, but the vulnerability and the intensity of holding that space for Jenna on that climb pushed my limits beyond what I kind of expected and also gave me a renewed, not that I haven't had the highest level of respect for what Jenna has done for me over the years, but

an even deeper reverence for what it's like to be Jenna and get the phone call from the K210 or the Antarctica this or the text message that says I'm alone and then have no response. And like having held that space so often for me and to have the flip side of that, to be out there with you and feel that vulnerability and the lack of being able to control the situation and yeah, the stakes. And not for nothing to do it without really actually properly training. This is a cherry on top. And without that, I mean, yes, you had the technical training the year prior and had the fitness then. Yeah, it was surprising. But

to do it in maybe whimsical is too strong of a word, but in a less than entirely responsible way is impressive. Also perhaps a little bit unhinged maybe. I'm glad it all worked out and it's inspiring, but I'm pretty good here at sea level. And I can get my head around the 12 hour walk and we'll keep it at that. Yeah, let's join us for 12 hour walk on September 10th.

We'll get Skolnick to do it too. Skolnick will get, I'm sure he'll be down with it. Yeah, cool, so the book comes out August. Book is out August 2nd. Second, available everywhere. And then 12hourwalk.com is where you can get information about the community piece. Yeah, 12hourwalk.com, come check it out.

You can sign up there, stay in touch with us. We're, like I said, our next Everest is to inspire 10 million people to take the 12 hour walk. So join us, join us for the walk. You can do it any day, but September 10th is gonna be a big walk alone together kind of day to be accountable and excited to have you and hopefully Skolnick join us on this adventure.

You can find Colin at Colin O'Brady on all the social stuff and Jenna, how do people find you? I'm not the best at social stuff, but at Jenna Biesel. You throw some stuff up there. Yeah, cool. All right, I love you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Awesome. Peace. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive,

as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment. Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering

by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg and Grayson Wilder. Graphic and social media assets

courtesy of Jessica Miranda, Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and AJ Akpodiete. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis.

Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.