We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP162: Atlanta Hawks Owner Jesse Itzler, Mt. Everest, & Colin O'Brady (Business Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. About two and a half months ago, we had Jesse Itzler on our show. Jesse is an owner of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team, and he was the founder of Marquis Jet, which was sold to Warren Buffett's NetJets. He's written the best-selling book, Living with a Seal, and he's even run 100 miles within 24 hours. During our last interview with Jesse, he kind of gave me an opportunity of a lifetime when he invited me to his next big endurance challenge that was like nothing I'd ever. heard of. Jesse rented Stratton Mountain in Vermont and decided to climb it enough time so he

Starting point is 00:00:36 could travel from sea level up to 29,029 feet. This is the same elevation as Mount Everest. So I was afforded this awesome opportunity to participate in this grueling event. And at the event, I got the chance to meet some of the most fascinating people in business. For example, Jesse's wife, Sarah Blakely, who's the billionaire founder of Spanx. She also participated in the event, along with 150 other people that were equally hardcore and equally fascinating in their own right. So this interview is broken down into two parts. The first part is an interview with Jesse, where we both talk about what the event was

Starting point is 00:01:13 like and what we both learned from going through this grueling weekend. The second part of the interview, I talked to one of the most astounding people I've ever had the pleasure of interviewing. His story is so captivating and moving that you'll probably have a hard time believing that this is even real. The name of the second guest is Colin O'Bradie, and I'm really excited for you guys to hear that interview. So if you're ready, let's dive into this. You are listening to The Investors Podcast, where we study the financial markets and read the books that influence self-made billionaires the most. We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected.

Starting point is 00:01:56 All right. So, so excited to have Jesse Itzler back here with us. And Jesse, all I can say is, wow. Because this was crazy. This was just unbelievable. The whole experience was unbelievable. It was painful. It was exciting.

Starting point is 00:02:25 It was fun. It was all of every word you could possibly punch into this thing. That's what this was. And I just, I got a fact. Thank you. Up front, I've got to thank you for allowing me to participate in this. This was incredible. Well, I'm so glad you came. It was great, you know, bumping into you, mid-mountain. I think it was like Summit 6. And I needed a jolt. And there you were. Came up behind. You're like, hey, Jesse, it's Preston. I was like, no way. Because I didn't see you. I didn't see you for the first couple of hours. Yeah. I got off to a late start. So I got up there. Like, I arrived right before. 2 p.m. on Friday. And so like I was, and you were making fun of all these people kind of coming up

Starting point is 00:03:08 with like the long pants and the long shirt. They were like all bundled up and you're like, where are you all going? Like, are you guys climbing a mountain today? Are you like, and I was one of those people. I was all bundled up. And so I'm like kind of hiding behind everybody as you're like poking everyone as they're coming up there for your announcement. Well, it was, it was kind of, you sort of stood out because you were dressed like you were going to Alaska. I know. So like, That was like the first like inclination that like I needed to get my head in the right place because I was not in the right place when I showed up. So yeah, everyone got a start.

Starting point is 00:03:40 They started to run up the mountain. I ran back to my tent and started shedding clothes and like just getting mentally prepared for this. Eventually caught up with you a few summits later. But yeah, oh man, it was something else. It was great. It was great. Well, the format of the event is if you're not together initially, the mountain's so big that

Starting point is 00:04:01 there were some people I didn't see until Sunday just because of the way that, you know, if I was a half mile ahead of them or a half mile behind, there was no way that we would ever connect if we both kept going. So it was good to bump into you and get the chat. Yeah, it was awesome. I kind of like that because almost every two or three summits, you're kind of with a different crowd of people and you're networking, you're learning. I mean, everyone there was, I mean, these people were hardcore, first of all. And then almost everybody I met was a CEO of this, a CEO. And so it was such an opportunity. And I, that's why I'm just so appreciative because everyone that I had a chance to talk to was just so giving with their time and like sharing just amazing information. And it was

Starting point is 00:04:46 just really fun. I mean, we talked about so many books with these people. That's the thing that I thought was really cool as well. Well, you know, I didn't, I don't look at the weekend as a race. It wasn't a race. There were no awards given. It was a personal challenge. And, you know, we set this up to be an investment in yourself. You know, I think the goal of this weekend was for everybody that came to get something out of it way bigger than just completing or not completing a challenge. It was really just, you know, a three-day investment in yourself to learn something about

Starting point is 00:05:20 yourself that you didn't know you had in you and create a memory that you could apply this lesson or the lessons learned to all the different areas of your life, especially business. And I think we accomplished that. I guess let's start off with this, Jesse. So where do you get an idea for something like this? Like, how does this come about? Because whenever I was on the mountain, I was talking to a gentleman, Mike Sheehan, which I'm sure you know who Mike is.

Starting point is 00:05:45 And Mike told me, he goes, man, Jesse's had the idea for this for like a decade. And I was like, no way. Is that true, first of all? And then talk to us about like how you think through. such a, like this is just a neat idea. This is really cool stuff. Well, I think I think my superpower is I'm an idea guy. You know, everybody is something that they're, that they like to put a flag in the ground and say, this is what I'm good at. And I just, most of my ideas are bad, but I have a lot of ideas. And I'm always, after I finish marathons or 10Ks, 5Ks, or race or this and that, you know,

Starting point is 00:06:19 it's always like what's next. And people always ask me, do you want to climb Everest? Why don't you go climb Everest. You ran 100 miles. You've done this. Go climb Everest. And I'm like, I really can't go to Everest right now. You know, it's expensive. It's a long trip. I got four kids. There's altitude. There's training. It's crazy dangerous. It's dangerous. It's dangerous. So I just said to myself, well, why don't I bring part of the element of Everest, the height, the largest, you know, the largest summit height mountain in the world to the United States. And that's sort of how it came into my head. And then, and that's sort of what happened. Then it just built, it built from that initial idea. So people that I was telling this to, like I was talking to my

Starting point is 00:07:02 parents about this. And they're just like, oh, yeah, 29,000 feet. That's really high. And like, in my own mind, it's, it's really high. But then I was trying to put it in terms that people can understand. And so this is like, this is like climb in the Empire State Building, something like 35 times. Like, imagine yourself going into the stairwell. of the Empire State Building and then running that stairwell 35 times and doing it in a weekend. The magnitude of it didn't really hit me until I was flying home. And we, the light illuminated telling us that we were at 10,000 feet. And I looked down and I was like, I couldn't believe how far up in the air we were.

Starting point is 00:07:43 And I'm like, this is only 10,000 feet. And we kept climbing. And on the visual, on the airplane, you could see how high you were. And when we got to 29,000 feet, I looked down and I said, no way. There's no possible way that this is what we just did. Yeah. It's hot. You know, you put it into that context because I never thought of it from that vantage point.

Starting point is 00:08:06 It is flipping high. It's high and it's steep and it's slippery and it's windy and it's sunny and it's cold and it's everything. Well, talk about your first summit up because I know the first time I went up the mountain, I know what I was thinking. And I'm curious what was going through your head after you did the very first summit. Well, as the curator of the event, about three quarters of the way up, I said to myself, I probably should have walked up this mountain before I threw this challenge out. Because I was like, man, this is really hard.

Starting point is 00:08:38 I looked down at my watch. And I'm like, I've been out here for 45 minutes. Yeah. Like this is going to be 17 times and basically almost, you know, an hour plus the commuter. down. Like, this is going to be a 22-hour event. Yeah. Wiggle your thumb for 22 hours. Your thumb will fall off. Well, so it's a long time.

Starting point is 00:09:00 It's a long time. And that's where I kind of made my air because, you know, the mileage was being broadcast at 1.1 miles per summit. So I was wearing my Apple Watch. And, you know, it's keeping track of my steps. It's keeping track of the mileage and doing its calculation and whatever. And so like I'm, you know, and I just got done running a 28 mile or a month before. And, you know, I was, I'm thinking, how long am I going to be on my feet? You know, that's where you can really kind of gauge your pain is like, how long am I on my feet? And so when I was like, oh, it's just 1.1 miles up, you know, I can knock that out probably 30 minutes, 25 minutes or something.

Starting point is 00:09:40 So this shouldn't be too bad. Like, I can do this. And like you said, it was way longer than what I had expected this. the time to be. And so then I looked at my watch after the first time up. And it was saying something like 2.1, 2.2 miles, which was double what I was thinking it was going to be. And most of that's because of a little bit of a switchback. You're not walking in a straight line. Like you're kind of like zigzagging as you're going up just trying to get up. And some of the parts on this mountain were super steep. Like I saw a guy going up on all fours at one point.

Starting point is 00:10:12 Me too. Yeah. My wife said to me, you know, I think you might have undersold the difficulty. and, you know, she said, maybe for the next one you might want to think about doing it on a mountain where it's not as hard. And I said, absolutely not. No, absolutely not. You know, I wanted, listen, you can go run a 5K or a marathon, and that's an event. It's an event. It's like a weekend thing and it's great. But I wanted something that had a permanent imprint on everybody that did it. And the only way to get there, the only way to really get the benefit is for it to be a struggle. And if it's not a struggle or a point where you don't want to quit or you want to just be like, this is ridiculous or you're not mad at me, then I failed. And no, seriously, then the fee isn't worth it because the fee that you pay that everybody paid has to go beyond just the weekend. It has to be either a memory, a series of lessons that are applicable forward. And that doesn't happen unless it's hard. So I said to my wife, listen, no way.

Starting point is 00:11:16 No way. This is the exact challenge. Doable if you were willing to go through the pain and willing to do the map and willing to plan and willing to sacrifice and get in early if you had to get extra summits. Stay out late if you're going slow and finish it. And if you don't, then there's a lesson learned. And if you do, you know, there's going to be a lot gained. You know, I love this point because there was a quote and I think you were the one that came up with this quote. You said, you can't learn about grit from a book.

Starting point is 00:11:47 you have to get out there and do it. I speak a lot. So I get to hear a lot of speakers before I go on or after I go on. And, you know, there's a lot of people and inspiration and motivation out there, books, speakers, movies. And you leave fired up for five minutes. And then you go back and your kids are crying or the bills have to be paid or this and that. And that motivation goes away. And the only way, in my opinion, you can get lessons that you can apply.

Starting point is 00:12:15 that you can apply, but you have to put it into real life situation. So, you know, you have to go out and actually do something that's challenging. And it doesn't have to be physical, you know. It could be staying and returning emails when everyone else is at the bar and you want to be at the bar and you're sacrificing and you're challenged because, you know, you're conflicted between comfort and goal. And to me, the only way that you can really, really, you know, hit a nerve and have have a permanent mark is by going and trying to do something.

Starting point is 00:12:50 I just recently read Nassim Taleb's book Anti-Fragile. And the basic premise, and we decided not to do the book on the show, but the basic premise of the book is a person who's anti-fragile, they actually get stronger and more robust whenever they are disrupted or whenever they are put in an environment that rattles them. They actually get stronger through that. And whenever I think about this event, it's hardening a person. It's showing you what grit is truly about. And whenever you come out of this event, a person then approaches the next hardship in their life with this mindset like, hey, so what?

Starting point is 00:13:29 I did this thing over here, which was like really flipping hard. And so this, I can get through this right here. And you can't, like you said, you can't read about that in a book. You have to experience it. You have to do the hard thing so you get hardened, right? I mean, think about a boxer. If you and I read or watched a video on how to box and read every book about boxing and watched every fight ever for 10 years,

Starting point is 00:13:53 and then we got in a ring, like until we get punched or deal with the speed or, you know, the adrenaline and the fear and everything that can substitute boxer for entrepreneur, anything, until you're in that situation, all that study, listening, learning, watching, you know, it's not really going to mean anything. So that's sort of what I was getting at. Yeah. So let's talk about what was the thing that you were most surprised with during the event? Like was there something that stuck out?

Starting point is 00:14:25 What was the one thing that you'd walk away and just say? I was really surprised by this thing. I was really surprised at how many people kept going. And regardless of body shape, body type, age experience, there were some people that stood out in my mind that completely shocked me. And they just kept going. And I kept saying to myself, this is just a weekend event.

Starting point is 00:14:52 There's not even a award at the end of it. I'm not giving out any trophies. Why are these people on the mountain at 3 a.m. in this windstorm? You know? And the answer is they wanted to finish their goal no matter what. And those are the people I want to hire tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:15:15 Yeah. Brad. Never seen anything like it. Brad is a fellow that did two times double Everest. He double Everest did. He did 58,000 feet of climbing. And it was time restricted. So you couldn't go around the clock.

Starting point is 00:15:32 So he had to put in so many hours. And he had to go at such a fast pace. When I was done with 17, man, I was done. I was done. I'm still done. I want to put this in context for people with Brad. So Brad's the guy that did it twice. He started at 2 p.m. on Friday with all of us.

Starting point is 00:15:52 He went the entire night. He completed all 17 by the morning. So like me, after I've done 17 at call it 5.30, 6 o'clock in the morning, I'm toast. I mean, you're going to bed at that point, right? But no, not Brad. Brad stayed on the mountain. He kept climbing it past 17. He went clear until 5 p.m.

Starting point is 00:16:11 the next day. So now he's over 24 hours and all he's doing is climbing a mountain for over 24 hours to 5 p.m. the next day. And then he finally stopped because that was the time constrict. The mountain shut down at 5 p.m. on Saturday. You had it open the whole night from Friday into Saturday. Then you shut it down at 5 p.m. on Saturday. And that's when Brad finally slept. It's, unless you're even there, it's impossible to put it in context of how challenging. I found this to be very, very challenging. And the challenge is, it's the physical, but it's also the time just to be present and focused on a goal for 20-something hours. It's really, really difficult, you know? Listen, we live in a world where our minds

Starting point is 00:16:54 constantly wander, ADD, we're floating around, we're multitasking, we're getting distracted. How many times in your life have you actually spent an entire weekend is what he did on one thing? And like before the race, I don't know if you were there, press it for this, but I said a couple of words to everybody, some safety briefings, but also I was encouraging everybody just on some thoughts on how to finish. And one of the things that I said is for this weekend, this is your job. Everything else in your life stops right now and resumes again on Monday,

Starting point is 00:17:30 but right now this is your job to get up and down the darn mountain until you're done. And when you think you have no more, keep chipping away. Just chip away, chip away, chip away. Like any big task, right? I mean, you start a business. You have a bazillion things on your to-do list. Chip away. Knock one down.

Starting point is 00:17:49 Go to the next one. Chip away, chip away. And that's exactly what Brad did. He put everything aside for the weekend. And I don't think he'd be like, he would pass me like, good luck and keep going. Like, you and I would talk about the economy. We talk about like business proposals. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:07 You know, we were talking about, you were talking about your salt pills. He was just like, good luck, got to go. He was on a mission. And that those are the kind of things that stood out to me the most during the race. And there were, you know, probably a dozen plus examples of people with that same determination. I mean, he looked like a tornado going past me. I was going up. And, I mean, he just went past me like, I was standing still.

Starting point is 00:18:31 And I'm just like, who the hell is this guy? This is crazy and consistent. Look, he's a guy that has very little endurance experience. I mean, he's done a long bike ride, but it's not like he's a professional ultra-marathoner or anything. He is just a guy that said, I am not putting any limitations on this weekend. I'm leaving it all out there. He was doing it for himself. He definitely wasn't doing it to impress anybody.

Starting point is 00:18:57 He had set an internal goal for himself that he was going to knock out 34 from the instant he was there the mountain. And I guess this was this was something I really took away from this, Jesse. This is something that I learned really. It was so obvious that this was the learning lesson for me coming away from this mountain was the first time people went up. People had adjusted their expectations of themselves. People had people that said, I'm going to knock out 17 no matter what, whether my hands are bleeding and my feet are bleeding and anything. Like, I'm going to do 17 no matter what. There was people that came away with that mindset after the first hill. There was other people that were like, I don't even know if I can do one more of these.

Starting point is 00:19:39 Exactly. And then there was people that were like, I'm still going to knock out 34. Yeah. And that mindset was something that I guess I need to ask you, what do you think drives that mindset? How can a person hone that skill of just being rock hard in their mindset and being relentless and persistent in getting what they want? I mean, he channeled it from somewhere. And I think it's almost like a, I'll call it an underdog mentality where, you know, when you're the underdog and you want to like prove everybody wrong and you want to work harder and no matter what you're not going to stop because maybe you've been bullied, maybe you've been ridiculed, maybe you're, I don't know, whatever you're channeling it from, he had that

Starting point is 00:20:24 mentality that and that's what it takes. But, you know, a lot of times we get comfortable and we lose that edge. We lose that underdog. You know, I remember what it was like as a kid when people didn't think I would make the basketball team or they didn't think that I could ever do this or start your own business. You went to business school. What are you talking about? You're not even an entrepreneur. You're not even that smart.

Starting point is 00:20:48 You know, all those thoughts come into play when you have to make a decision to stop or to keep going. and I call it the underdog mentality because that's really what I would think about when I was an underdog. I'm like, you know what? I'm leaving this meeting with the deal, with the sale. I am going to finish this race despite what people think. I'm going to create this event, even though I've never done an event, all those kind of thoughts. And I think that's what he had. He had like, I don't care.

Starting point is 00:21:18 There are no obstacles. I'm an underdog. No one thinks I can do 34. And he did. I didn't. I didn't either. I said not a chance in hell. I said, Brad, I love you. I want to see you do it. You're out of your marbles. It's not going to happen. There's not enough time. And quite honestly, I don't think you're strong enough. I said that to myself. And he probably sensed it. He said, all right, I'm an underdog. No one thinks I'm going to do it. Here we go. I mean, he did 10 summits on the last day. And you shut down the mountain at 2 p.m. he was sprinting when he got at the gondola when i got up the gondola after each one it was like it was like i was celebrating my wedding man i was like taking my time i was signing autographs you know

Starting point is 00:22:06 not really not literally i'm just saying in my own head yeah you know and taking my time he was sprinting he would brand the board which was our indication that you completed a lap you know he would he would brand that he completed the lap he would drop the the iron and boom he'd start flying up the And it was clockwork. I would go to my tent, you know, make like two emails, get some hot water to warm up. Take me 37 minutes and I come back and there he is off the gondola, flying back up the hill. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. All right.

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Starting point is 00:26:39 That's Shopify.com slash WSB. All right. Back to the show. Jesse, having read your book, Living with a Seal, I was at a book. expecting Sarah to not participate in this? Because in the book, Sarah kind of saw your antics with David and like what you were doing, like kind of from a distance like, you're just crazy. This is nuts. And I wasn't expecting her to be there. I was maybe expecting her to be there, but not be climbing the mountain. So I was very impressed. Are you wearing off on Sarah? Is that what's

Starting point is 00:27:12 happening here? Like, what's happening? Well, Sarah likes a good challenge. She had just come back from a trip, a 10-day trip to Africa with Richard Branson, where they had done four days of cycling and hiking, extreme cycling and hiking. And if you know Richard Branson, his version of extreme is like extreme 2x. And she had just flown back. She was home for a day. And I said to her, I was like, Sarah, you know, it's great that you're coming to support me and everybody that's doing this. And I think it's just to me amazing that you're there. Just get comfortable at the campfire and enjoy yourself. She's like, what are you talking about? I'm going to do it. And I was kind of laugh, chuckled to myself and I'm like, okay, how much are you going to do? And she's like,

Starting point is 00:27:58 I'm going to try to do the whole thing. And she actually got to 12, which was 11, 11 summits was the equivalent of Kilimanjaro, climbing Kilimanjaro. And for Sarah, she just clocked out. She just, she just didn't have enough time. She wasn't moving as quickly as she didn't do the math right. but it wasn't lack of effort or lack of will. You know, it's funny you said she didn't do the math right. So Friday night, I had done five summits on on at the end of Friday. I was smoked. I went in, had a bowl of chili.

Starting point is 00:28:30 I sit down at the table and who comes and sits right next to me, but Sarah. And so I'm sitting there and I was talking to one of my friends and I said, you know, the math tells me that I've got to have a big day tomorrow or else I'm not going to finish. and so Sarah looked at me she goes, what's the math? She goes, run that math past me. And so I started saying the numbers of like what I thought I, you know, I was shooting for 10 on Saturday. I didn't get there, but I got eight on Saturday. And if I didn't get that far, I mean, I was, I was hosed.

Starting point is 00:29:05 Like I wasn't going to make it on Sunday. And, you know, it's funny because she, I think was, she was really, she was shooting for it. And for anybody that doesn't know what 12 summits on this mountain are like, that is, you're really kicking butt if you did 12 because this thing was a beast. Without question. And it's funny. The math is so funny. I didn't even think about the math until like hours and hours into the race.

Starting point is 00:29:30 And all of a sudden I turned to, I was with a group of five guys. And I just turned to him. I'm like, guys, this is based, this is arithmetic. Yeah. It's no longer a hike. It's arithmetic. If we don't finish seven or, eight summits today?

Starting point is 00:29:45 What happens if we twist our ankle? What happens if the gondola stops running because of the wind and it takes longer than you know, you cannot play from behind here. You got to play from ahead and you got to get some summits under your belt. And they were

Starting point is 00:30:01 like, you're right. I'm like, so we got to, and the challenge, Preston, what's amazing about this is, I'm like, let's do three more. They're like, all right, we'll do three more. And then you're like, well, like three is going to take five hours to do. And then you're like, then you do the math and you're like, well, it's 11 at night. If we do three more, you know, we're done at 4 a.m. So then you're adjust it. You're like, all right, well,

Starting point is 00:30:22 let's do like two. And then you're like, well, that's too much left for the next day. So it became a math problem. It was a math problem. And, and, you know, I was fully expecting to be done on Saturday. I wanted to enjoy the band on Saturday night. And so I was like, I was really trying to get there. And at the end of Friday night, I realized that was not happening. It was just not going to happen. Jesse, let's transition to the showcase interview here. I want you to kind of introduce a little bit. Don't give away too much, but talk to people a little bit about Colin O'Brady,

Starting point is 00:30:58 who I interview here in the next segment, because I was just honored to be on the mountain with him after hearing what this guy has done. It is absolutely astounding. I mean, if you use all the adjectives, humble, unassuming, gracious, everything, I didn't really, I didn't know Colin. I knew a little bit about his story, but I met him on the mountain too. And I met him at around 11 p.m. pitch dark. I was going so slowly. And I feel this headlamp, you know, beaming on the back of my neck. And I turn around and he introduces himself.

Starting point is 00:31:38 And I'm like, Colin, like, I looked on the board. You're like in first place or something. You're like a first top three guy. What are you doing here, like talking to me? And he slowed down and he joined us for the rest of the next basically 30 minutes, slowed his pace down and shared his story. And when he shared his story, I was like, this is absolutely unbelievable, inspiring, I mean, motivating, sad.

Starting point is 00:32:10 everything. And it was just an honor. I mean, I can't think of a lot of people that I'd even really rather be on the mountain than him. And I didn't even know him. And afterwards, I went and I watched one of his speeches online. And it was, it made me cry, literally. And he's, so I'm glad you have him on the show. You know, we hear about the headliners, the guys that have a million people following them and the guys that, you know, are loud on social media and, you know, try to tell the world how to live their life and this kind of thing. And that's great to an extent. And then you have guys like Colin who hold world record world, seven billion people in the world, number one, record holders that have lived through incredible tragedy and just an unbelievable experience

Starting point is 00:33:06 that you don't even know about. And then they come into your world and you're like, wow, there's just so many interesting people that I don't even know about, you know? And it just makes you realize how many stories and how many people are out there that have done incredible things. And then it makes you think to yourself,

Starting point is 00:33:27 you know, why can't I? You know, why can't I do something incredible in my life? And it doesn't have to be Summit Mount Everest. You find your own version of Incredible. And that was my takeaway from Colin. You know, he entered his field late in life. He wasn't trained at birth to do what he did. And I don't want to ruin his story.

Starting point is 00:33:50 He figured it out late, late and became the best in the world. And it just gives everybody hope as you go through your own journey of like, well, again, it's not too late. It's not too late to be the best in the world at something. And I think your audience will really enjoy them. I know they will. Yeah. Thanks, Jesse.

Starting point is 00:34:11 And thanks for the opportunity to meet people like Colin and to just go through this experience where I can really learn a lot about myself. I really hope that some of the stories we are sharing with the audience, they can be motivated, maybe to go out and do something similar or whatever that Everest is in their life that they're trying to overcome to think about maybe some of the comments of what we learned and what we took away from trying to tackle this heel and they can apply to their own life. because there was so much learning happening over the weekend that I'm just so thankful that you were able to give me the opportunity to do it. So I really appreciate it, Jesse. Thank you. It's my pleasure. All right. So, man, am I excited to share this interview with Colin O' Brady?

Starting point is 00:34:54 Colin's here with me right now. And Colin, I got to tell you a quick story before we start our discussion here because you might not realize this. But climbing this mountain for me was very, very difficult. This was not easy. I think for everyone. I mean, this thing was such a grind. And, you know, I've done a lot of things in the military and have done a lot of sucky things in my life. But if I had to say something that was just pure suck, like this thing is way up there.

Starting point is 00:35:25 It might even be the highest for me. For you, it's obviously not. But, and we'll get into that. So I want to tell this story about the first time I met Colin O. Brady. So we get there on Friday. The event starts on Friday. And it starts at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. And Jesse's making the announcements.

Starting point is 00:35:46 You know, I'm still trying to shed all my clothes off. And it's like, boom, everyone's running up the hill. And so I'm there going up the hill. Well, later that night, you know, it's getting dark. I'm a moron. I didn't set my head lamp. I had done like the lowest setting. I didn't even bump it up, you know, to the highest setting, like an idiot.

Starting point is 00:36:04 I get up to the top of the mountain. I want to say it's probably 9.30, 10 o'clock at night, something like that. And it's starting to get a little windy. It's getting cold. And cold for me and cold for you is two different definitions. And y'all are going to hear why his definition of cold is so much different than mine. But we get up to the top and we have, and we're riding down. So we're taking the car down.

Starting point is 00:36:29 I get into the car and it's dark. You can't really see anything. And I asked the people, you know, we get in the car. We're just kind of having some side chat about how much this mountain sucks and how much of a steeper hill it was than I kind of anticipated before I got there. Well, I asked this question in the car. I said, hey, so how many you guys trying to complete tonight? Because I'm pretty much on my last run. Like, I'm getting ready to go to bed.

Starting point is 00:36:55 I did five. And I was smoked. I was exhausted. And I had Saturday and Sunday to Sunday morning to still knock it out. And everyone's kind of like, oh, you know, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And then there's one person sitting kind of up in the front of the car. And he goes, I'm going to do 17 tonight.

Starting point is 00:37:10 And I literally just started laughing. I was like, yeah, right. You know, like that's even possible, you know. And he was, and this person was dead serious. He was like, he said it without even hesitation, not like, I think I'm going to do 17. It was, yeah, I'm going to knock out 17 tonight. And because that's how many times we had to do it to do the, the total amount to Everest, 29,000, 29 feet. And I just thought to myself on the car right down, there's no way that guy's serious, but I don't want to be the dummy in the car that ask him, are you serious?

Starting point is 00:37:45 And so that was you. That was you, my friend. And so before we go into the rest of the Everest event, I want to, I want you to take us back. Okay. Take us back. How many years ago? Was this 10 years ago that you had your accident? Yeah. So, yeah. So long before you and I ended up in a car in the middle of the night on Stratton, Vermont, trying to climb it all through the night, which I, unfortunately, I did stay up through the night and finish, knock, finish out the 17th one around 5.45 a.m. or something like that. But it was a long night to say the least, climbing up and down that thing. Colin, I came out of 530, okay? because I was like, I'm going to get a good jump start in the morning. I came out at 5.30, and I was like, let's see if this guy did 17.

Starting point is 00:38:34 I go over to the board, and you had the brand, you had the brand like this mountain into 17 slots. And sure enough, I go over and I look at this flipping board. And right next to Colin O'Brady, there is 17 marks on this flipping board. And I looked at, I just looked up at the sky like, who the hell is this guy? because I didn't know who you were before this. So go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt. Keep going.

Starting point is 00:39:00 No, no, no. So, yeah, so long before all this climbing and crazy things that I've done in the last 10 years, taking it back to the sort of origin story for me was I had just graduated from college, thought I was going to be a finance guy. So I had an econ, econ degree. And kind of grabbed a surfboard in a backpack and thought I wanted to see a little bit of the world. I'd been, instead of, I was actually a house painter in the summer is all growing up. So I was consistently socking away a couple thousand dollars each summer.

Starting point is 00:39:25 with this idea. When I graduate from college, I want to take a trip around the world. Nothing, I mean, I didn't certainly have money to do anything fancy, but just, you know, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and living in hostels and hitchhiking around and just kind of, you know, spreading my wings a little bit. And amazing trip up until when I found myself on a beach in rural Thailand. And for those of you who have been to Thailand, you might know this, but fire dancing and things like that are somewhat common. And of course, because I was, you know, 22 years old and seemingly invincible at the time, I thought that jumping a flaming jump rope sounded like a great idea. So I participated in that activity, which changed my life honestly

Starting point is 00:40:02 an instant. The rope wrapped around my legs, splashed excess kerosene in my body, lit me on fire completely to my neck. And I was able to jump into the ocean to extinguish the flames, which certainly saved my life without a doubt, but not before about 25% of my body was severely burned predominantly my legs and feet. And I was in the middle of a tiny little island in the Gulf of Thailand. So the ambulance was a moped ride down a dirt path. The hospital was a one-room shack and they couldn't really move me until they finally moved me in the back of a pickup truck and a little boat to what they called the Better Hospital. And the Better Hospital, I underwent eight surgeries, eight days in a row where I'd come out from the hospital room or the surgery

Starting point is 00:40:43 room and there'd literally be a cat running around my bed and across my chest in the ICU. So it kind paints a picture of the worst place one would want to end up certainly with this kind of injury where infection can honestly kill you. Like, I'm hearing this story and like, if this happened to me, you know, and it's not like you didn't have a lot to look forward to. I mean, you went to an incredible college. You had so much going for you. And then to, and I've been to Thailand, and I've seen exactly what you're describing.

Starting point is 00:41:15 You see so many people go up there. everyone's having a good time. No one has what you just described happened, you know. And it's just like everything is shattered at this point. I couldn't imagine what was going through your head. Yeah, absolutely. Just devastation, right? Complete devastation. And like you said, I think that's no matter what phase of life you're in, just having this type of thing happened to you is horrible. But of course, I'm 22 years old, kind of thinking I'm embarking on the next chapter of adulthood in my life. I'd been a lifelong athlete. I was a swimmer in college, which was, you know, what, what, what,

Starting point is 00:41:47 kind of got me to be able to go to a university like that after a lot of hard work as a kid. And here I am, sort of what I think of my whole life in front of me. And all of a sudden, boom, this accident happens and to make matters worth, the doctors are coming in every day. And they're saying, like, hey, kid, you're pretty much not going to walk again normally after this with how badly your legs are burned with the ligament damage, the scar tissue over the ankles and knees. Like, you know, you'll be lucky to kind of be hobbling around.

Starting point is 00:42:11 And so just being told that was just a devastating diagnosis, to say the least. and the physical pain mixed with that emotional trauma, mixed with being a million miles from home, was just overtaking me. And honestly, I can just remember sitting in that hospital bed just being like, I want to give up. Like, my life is over. You know, I don't, you know, just the darkest phase

Starting point is 00:42:30 that I can, you know, ever remember in my life. And then, you know, enter my mother, who really is the part of hero of this story, for sure. She, you know, flew over to Thailand and sat by my bedside. And I certainly know now that she was just as afraid as I was being a parent and seeing her kid in this way. But she's always been someone that's instilled this values of dreaming big, setting goals, looking forward the future, you know, working towards things. And, you know, I've a lot of things I've achieved my life have become of because of her ethos.

Starting point is 00:42:58 And she was unrelenting in that in this hospital. When the doctor was saying you're never walking again, she came in smiling being like, Colin, let's set a goal. Let's look towards the future. What do you want to do when you get out of here? And I literally was looking at her like, mom, you're stop trying to cheer me up. Like, let's not call this what this is. Like, this is devastating. And she really just kept in on me.

Starting point is 00:43:16 and kind of forced me to pick something, some anchor point in the future, which actually, looping back to the 29029, the event itself is amazing. But I think what we found of the people on the mountains is having that goal, having that linear pursuit. There's just something powerful about that, whether that's business, sports, you know, or it doesn't matter. In this case, for me, it was sports. So I said, hey, I want to one day complete a triathlon. So I'd been a swimmer in college, as I mentioned, but I'd never biked or run competitively. And certainly looking down at my legs, it seemed pretty unrealistic to do any of those activities ever again. And I said, you know, an able-body person would be able to swim and bike and run and finish a traffle on. So for the next

Starting point is 00:43:54 18 months, that was my goal. Literally, you know, three months in a Thai hospital, flown back to Portland, Oregon, where I grew up, still hadn't taken a single step, carried on and off the plane, placed in a wheelchair when I got home, and really learned how to walk one step at a time. Again, enter my mother. I mentioned this a little bit. In the TED talk I recently gave, it's a important moment in my life. My mom said, great, great kid, you've got this big triathlon goal. Well, today you need to figure out how to take one step. And she actually took a chair from our kitchen table, placed it one step in front of my wheelchair and said, figure out today how to get out of your wheelchair and take one step into that chair. And although it might sound,

Starting point is 00:44:32 you know, tiny or insignificant, but having the courage to take that first step turned into the next day, the chair was five steps away, the next day it was 10. And as tried as it might sound, literally step by step, I got a little bit stronger up until the sort of punchline of this chapter of my life is I arrived 18 months later to compete in the Chicago Trafflon because I had taken a job on commodities trading in Chicago trying to get my life kind of back on track. And so I trained with Chicago Trathlon as best I could learning how to walk again. And I show up to compete. I finished the race, which was this was 18 months after my accident, certainly a joyous moment for me. And there was one last surprise in store, which is I didn't just finish the race, but I actually

Starting point is 00:45:12 won the entire Chicago Traffleon beating about 4,000 5,000 other participants on the day in my first ever race. So it was a very surreal moment to say the least. Dude, this is absolutely nuts. To go from

Starting point is 00:45:27 18 months, you're saying, and they're carrying you on and off the plane three months after the accident, you're in a wheelchair, and you turn around in what would be 15 months from just taking, taken one step a day to literally winning a triathlon in the city of Chicago.

Starting point is 00:45:48 That is nuts. Absolutely insane. Yeah. It's absolutely wild. And it was certainly, you know, in a lot of ways, it changed my life. I became a professional triathlet right after that. Quit my job and got some support of actually some of the guys in the financial industry there, particularly a guy by the name of Brian Gelber, who was my first, you know, sponsor, moved to us.

Starting point is 00:46:12 Australia, became for training as a professional athlete, which was kind of always a lifelong dream of mine. But yeah, no, it was crazy. But really what it made me realize was, and it's become a larger theme, as I'm sure we'll get into with other things I've done in my life, was this moment of facing this extreme obstacle and realizing that in this moment, it would have been so easy for me to give up. Like, I wanted to give up. I wanted to say, my life's over, there's nothing to do, the doctors are right, I'll never walk again, I'll be hobbling around the rest of my life. And, you know, I'm so grateful. from my mother and what she was able to instill in me in that moment and realizing moving forward,

Starting point is 00:46:47 like, look, I don't think of myself as some, like, superhuman genetic freak or something like that. Like, I'm a regular guy. You met me. Like, I'm like, like, normal build, like, you know, regular person. I think that really it's about mindset. I think that in that moment, I was, you know, forced to choose a measurable goal and move forwards. And I went into that with my whole heart and my whole soul to overcome this obstacle.

Starting point is 00:47:09 And I believe as humans, we have this untapped potential with inside of all of us, reservoirs of it, that we can unlock when we choose the positive mindset, which is certainly been something that I absolutely preach, but that it was just, that's how I learned it in such an intense environment. I hope that not everyone has to learn it that way, but it was a valuable lesson that has carried me forward to many things in my life. You know, I recently read an article. Bill Gates posted as like an op-ed.

Starting point is 00:47:40 And he was talking about the thing that Warren Buffett taught him. And what he was saying, that what it was that taught him more than anything else was a positive mindset. He said before I had met Warren, I just didn't necessarily have such a positive mindset, but after I got to know him and I studied him, and he says a lot of people might have the opinion that the reason he has a positive mindset is because he's the richest person in the world.

Starting point is 00:48:05 But Gates said, I think people have that in reverse. I think he's the richest person in the world because he has such a positive mindset. And they actually have it out of order. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, go ahead. Well, let's keep going here. So you accomplished this milestone.

Starting point is 00:48:20 And I love how your mom was so instrumental in placing that idea, you know, and planning that idea into your mind. Like you have to have some type of milestone that you're going to try to achieve here. And then you did it. And you just not only did you did it, but you knocked it out of the ballpark. So what's the next, so you achieved this, then what was the next goal? Yeah, so for me, for the next five or six years, I competed as a professional triathlet, which was an incredible period of my life.

Starting point is 00:48:47 Like I said, it was, you know, living out the my boyhood fantasy of being a professional athlete was amazing, a huge pivot from what I thought was going to be the career in finance through my 20s. And I ended up racing in 25 countries, six different continents, living all over the world, having my fair share of success on the race core as of course setbacks. There's not like I won every race I ever competed in, but I had some great success as a professional athlete. And interestingly enough, coming off a win in 2014 at a half Iron Man event, I just had this kind of overcome moment of like, this has been an amazing chapter.

Starting point is 00:49:19 And although I had sponsorship to continue me into the future of triathlon racing, I felt like, I want to do something bigger. I'm ready to set my next huge, audacious goal with a combined purpose of doing something greater than myself. So I set myself the goal to become the world record or the fastest person to ever complete the explorers Grand Slam. And I'll break down what that means in a second, which means to climb the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents, as well as complete expeditions to both the north and south pole. And about fewer than 50 people in history have ever completed the entire Grand Slam, most so have done so in five or ten years, you know, climbing an Everest or a Denali and coming back and training for the next one next year. Now, I was aiming to do it the fastest. So basically all nine of those expeditions, without any stopping, without any breaks in between, climbing one mountain, coming down, flying to the next.

Starting point is 00:50:09 And then the larger purpose was I coined a name called Beyond 7-2, which is the name of my nonprofit, which is all focused around inspiring kids to get outside, move their bodies, set goals, live active and healthy lives. And so built that into the fabric of this project and using the media to leverage sort of a positive impact in the community, which is where triathlon at that time kind of felt a little bit self-serving. Like I was winning or losing on the race course but didn't have this larger purpose. So I was really excited to push my body in an incredibly intense way, but also have sort of a larger meeting baked into the entire fabric of the project.

Starting point is 00:50:45 Unbelievable. So you set this goal. This is the Explores Grand Slam. And you're climbing Everest. You're climbing Kilmajaro. You're climbing Denali. All these mountains that are like the tallest. in every single continent.

Starting point is 00:51:00 And you're also going to the North and South Pole. Yep. And you're trying to do it. And what did you think you could do the time in? What was your goal? So the record time that I was trying to break was 197 days. And, you know, skipping forward to the beginning, I didn't know how much faster I could do it. I thought that I had a shot at it.

Starting point is 00:51:18 And, of course, you know, there's a great entrepreneurial detour that we could take here, which is I set myself this goal, but I had no funding. I needed, you know, half a million dollars just to play. pull off this project. That's me not making. I was trying to make any money, just like the hard cost of doing this project cost that. I had no financial support. That's certainly not a check that I can write. A brand where I'm a kid that grew up painting houses and like pretty blue-collar background in that way. So there's not a check that I could write. I also have never found a non-profit. I've never run a media campaign. I've never done any of these things. But it was like,

Starting point is 00:51:50 I have this idea. I have this goal. And then there was a growth mindset of being like, okay, great. Well, now let's figure it out. Yeah. And, you know, the first hundred 50 people that I probably asked to support me financially or anyways were like, you're crazy, who are you? You're not a professional mountaineer. Why do you think you can do this? Like, and in 2014, there was a bad avalanche on Everest that unfortunately killed 16 Sherpas. And then 2015, there was a huge earthquake in Nepal that devastated the entire country. So no one had actually even climbed Everest in 2014 or 2015. And this was 2016 when I was trying to do this. And people were saying, wait a second. So no one's even climbed one of those mountains in 2014, 15.

Starting point is 00:52:29 You're saying you think you're going to climb Everest as well as eight other peaks back to back. If you're like, yeah, I don't really think we can support that. It doesn't seem like a high probability that's going to work out. But there was just this, you know, like I said, full heart, dedicated passion. I'm going to figure this out some way, somehow how to pull this project off. So there was a year, a year and a half in the planning before I even took the first step. But I began the project in January of 2016 in Antarctica and rolled. on for 139 days straight from there with many ups and downs, which I can tell many stories about,

Starting point is 00:53:05 but that would be a whole other days worth of podcast. But finished on Donali, 139 days later, having set actually two new world records for the Explores Grand Slam as well as the speed record for the seven summits. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up. And customers now expect proof of security just to do business. That's why VANTA is a game changer. VANTA automates your compliance process and brings compliance, risk, and customer trust together on one AI-powered platform. So whether you're prepping for a SOC or running an enterprise GRC program, VANTA keeps you secure and keeps your deals moving. Instead of chasing spreadsheets and screenshots, VANTA gives you

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Starting point is 00:56:40 Back to the show. All right. So take us, the one I'm sure everyone wants to hear about is Mount Everest. So walk us through kind of like the challenges. You know, from what I understand, the oxygen part just makes you feel like your face is going to explode from the people that I've talked to that I've never talked to a person other than you that's actually gone clear to the top. I've talked to some other people that have gone up to various base camps. And they said that the oxygen is just unbearable. It's something you can't even describe.

Starting point is 00:57:09 Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. I joke around that on the summit day, and I was using supplementary oxygen on the summit day, but anything above 26,000 feet is known as the death zone, which is aptly nated. because literally the human body above that altitude, even with supplementary oxygen, can't survive for very long at all. You're actually slowly dying physiologically as you're up there. And I joke is if you're taking one step every 15 seconds or even one step every 30 seconds, like you're Usain Bolt on the summit ridge of Everest. Like you're flying past people.

Starting point is 00:57:42 Really? A lot of people are taking one step and collecting themselves for a minute, two minutes, three minutes, just to take another step. I mean, that's how a part is on your fight. One, literally. I mean, like, I know it sounds ridiculous to say, and I had that described me before it's up there. And then I got there and I was like, yeah, people weren't exaggerating. Like, it's crazy.

Starting point is 00:57:58 So it's a really intense. And for me, so I was, Everest actually came eighth out of the nine expedition. So before I got to Everest, I had actually already been going for over 100 days just before to begin the Everest expedition. And from the altitude perspective, your body acclimatizes to higher altitude, of course, over time. And so I had been on previous high altitude mountains. However, the expedition that fell right before Everest just due to timing and weather and whatnot was the North Pole, which of course is sea ice floating in the middle of the ocean, like as close as sea level. You're literally walking around on frozen ocean. So I came from a month at the North Pole at sea level, not acclimatized at all. I was the last person to arrive to Everest Base Camp about a month behind schedule for the Norma Summit window. And rather than having the customary eight weeks to climb out, I only had three, including all the climatization. So by the time I got up on the Everest Summit Ridge, it was brutal. And my first trip up actually into the death zone at 26,000 feet, I was climbing with just myself

Starting point is 00:58:54 and a Sherpa by the name of Pessambodi. I did most of this project, either climbing completely alone or I would have a friend of mine come meet me, but not like guided or anything like that. And we went up there and we actually got caught in a huge storm above the death zone and had to retreat into our tents and spend a full night out in a really brutal, scary set of circumstances and then retreat back down the mountain. And so when I actually eventually did make it to the summit a few days later, it was on my second attempt and having to fight not just the physical fatigue of having been near the summit and having to retreat, but the emotional trauma of like, oh my God, I've seen how bad this can go up here. And if you read, you know, I'm sure some

Starting point is 00:59:30 people have read Into Thaneer, John Krocow or other books about Everest, the death zone, as well as Camp 4, the South Call, like this is a historic place infamous for a lot of lives have been lost there. And so knowing that background and then seeing the power of Mother Nature, what it actually feels like to be out there. So I'm like, oh, this is the place I've read about where people die. Like, it was a very intense environment to be in and just, like I said, each step you're earning it all. What was the temperature? And what was the wind that you experience as far as, was it 30 miles per hour wind? Like, I'm sure it was stronger than that. Yeah. So the average temperature on the summit day, I think, was somewhere around minus 20 or minus 30 ambient temperature. But with wind, it was, you know,

Starting point is 01:00:15 as much as minus 50, minus 60 degree wind chill. And when you're moving that slow, obviously, it's very hard to keep your body warm as well as when you're not getting oxygen in there. So that really is one of the biggest challenges is keeping your body warm, which is, of course, why you hear about a lot of people, you know, losing fingers and toes or getting frostbite and whatnot. So for me, as successful as it would have been to climb Mount Everest, you know, success really looked like coming back from this project with, you know, all my fingers,

Starting point is 01:00:39 all my toes. I know it's like to be physically, you know, hindered after my burning. accident and certainly didn't want to have that happen again. But, you know, it's intense and about several people, not people who I were climbing with, but several people who climbed to the summit the same day I did were evacuated the next day because of severe frostbite injuries because it was actually quite a windy and cold evening up there for sure. So we're going to have pictures of Colin on top of Mount Everest in our show notes. Along with all the other things that you're doing, we're going to try to pull that from your embedded Instagram posts and stuff.

Starting point is 01:01:18 We're going to try to put that into the show notes so people can see some of these pictures. They are mind-blowing, these pictures. I'm curious because you brought this up. The North Pole, how far did you have to trek? So, like, what makes it part of the Grand Slam? Like, you know, I'm thinking somebody just takes a helicopter, you fly out there and you land on the North Pole. So how far did you have to go to make this count? So the rules, and again, I didn't create these rules, but the rules are of governing.

Starting point is 01:01:43 this record state that you have to travel by your own human power at least one degree of latitude. So I crossed the last, what's called known at the last degree of latitude to reach both the north and south poles, which is roughly 69 nautical miles. And so completely self-sufficiently. So you're walking, I was using cross-country skis with skins, what's flat ground, and you're dragging about 150 pounds sled behind you, which has all your food, all your fuel, tent, stove, you know, all that kind of stuff, day by day for the polar region. So, um, that all-tying. I'm dying because I keep thinking back to like me in the car with you and like complaining about,

Starting point is 01:02:20 oh, it was a little cold. It was like 60 degrees or 50 degrees and a little windy. And I'm in this car with this guy that's done all this stuff and you don't know. It's, it really is a lesson on you just don't know what somebody else has gone through. You know, you're sitting next to a person that has done. just such amazing things. And all you know is that, like when you said, I'm going to knock out 17 tonight, I'm thinking, yeah, right, this guy's nuts. You know, but you don't know the other person's vantage point until you step into their body and in their shoes and you live life through

Starting point is 01:02:54 what they've seen. Well, for me, you know, I love the essence of this 29029 challenge that we all did together. And I loved how Jesse set the tone for it, you know, beginning the event by saying, hey this isn't a race this is you against you and although you know me going 17 laps in a row and you know going over the course the weekend to me like both of those achievements are just as valid and just as incredible and to me that's why I love to do these things with groups of people because it's not about oh I did it better than you or I did it faster I'm stronger or this like I'm also human man like it was cold for me up there in the middle of that Vermont because like I'm not wearing a down suit like I'm wearing up on Everest but like the cold there in the South

Starting point is 01:03:33 pull was insane. I show a photo of this in my TED talk, and I've seen it, where I say, you know, I didn't know what minus 40 felt like until I got out to the South Pole because I never been somewhere that cold. And the best way I can describe it to people is I took a cup of boiling water and I threw it into the air and it literally instantly turns into ice, like ice fireworks in the air, which prays for some really cool photos actually. But it's wild to feel that. But that said, just because I've been on the Everest Summit Ridge, hiking a up a mountain in Vermont that is super steep and muddy and the middle of the night and lonely at times it's not like I'm like oh like that's nothing to me I'm just like the super bad now you know like so

Starting point is 01:04:14 that is all all a valid challenge and I'm putting an incredible part of the journey as well oh it was it was not easy it was it was a grind it was a grind but I mean relative to some of the stuff we're talking about it's it's a little different um I I'm just curious because I you just can't talk to people that have been to the South Pole or the North Pole. So my question is this when you got there and are you doing this by yourself or did you have a team that was kind of around you and assessing you and making sure that you were okay? Yeah. So I was more or less by myself. So there was no one that was consistently with me throughout this entire project. I did bring in a couple people for key sort of moments. For example, on Denali, my last mountain, an old friend of mine by the name of

Starting point is 01:05:01 Tucker Cunningham came and joined me for that stretch of the journey. He's a great climber and we're a good friend, so he was there when I actually finished the project. In Everest, I climbed with a Sherpa who I'd met climbing in Nepal before, so it was his seventh summit of Everest when we made the summit, and so he was a great strong climbing partner. And then on the poles, I went with one of the, you know, top polar explorers from the United States with me there. So, but then a couple of them, I was completely by myself, completely alone and out there. So it was a little bit of mix of everything. And then my fiance, Jenna, was really running the show behind the scenes back home.

Starting point is 01:05:38 So with all the stuff we were doing with our nonprofit and various things, yeah. So I want you to tell this story because this story is just hilarious. So you just completed Everest. You literally just got back down to your, to your base. camp at what, 26,000 feet? Is that where you're at? So I'm camp four at 26,000 feet. Yes, you're way still up there on the mountain.

Starting point is 01:06:01 Yeah, you're just, you're out of it, I'm sure. And you just did this, you know, ridiculously hard climb. And whenever I've seen the pictures of like that last little bit as you got up to Everest, I mean, it looks like you're going to fall like a couple miles if you fall off this thing. Yeah, literally it's crazy. The last little stretch is called the Corners Traverse and the Hillary's Step was a famous feature on the mountain. You're looking down either.

Starting point is 01:06:23 side of you, it's like, you know, a mild drop off on either side. And you're walking on this tiny little balanced beam of snow essentially across this. So coming down on the mountain, you know, I've, like I said, I try to set the summit twice. Then I finally get the summit and I'm coming back down. I've got one last mountain to climb to finish the world record. And I get back to my tent at 26,000 feet where most people stop sleep a night and then climb, Kim, can you climbing back down over the next couple of days, pull up my satellite phone, called Jenna, tell her the news.

Starting point is 01:06:49 And she's kind of been, I mean, she's been a huge part of the success of this project, working all the logistics and craziness in the background. You know, I'm just climbing the mountains, but there's a million moving parts that you can probably imagine the project like this. And she says, so Colin, how are you feeling? I'm like, yeah, I'm feeling good. I mean, I'm exhausted. I'm so happy I'm back in my town.

Starting point is 01:07:07 I'm exhausted. I did it. But yeah, she says, well, I need you to put your boots back on right now. And I'm like, what? What are you talking about? She's like, I need you to put your boots back on because it just so happens if you can get to the summit of Denali in the next week, you can set not one, but two world records. And I'm like, I'm on the summit of that. What are you talking about? That's the other side of the world.

Starting point is 01:07:30 And Denali normally takes three weeks to climb. What are you talking about? And at this point, I was about two months ahead of schedule for the Explorer's Grand Slam. But I had a shot at setting the seven summits record, which is the mountains exclusive of the polls, even though I had been to the polls in that same period of time. And so I am competitive and intriguing. I'm like, well, okay, fine. Like, humor me for a second. What's that going to be involved in that? She goes, Well, put your boots back on right now. Climb all the way back down to base camp, which is at 17,000 feet. So another 9,000 feet blow where I am through, like, huge crevasse fields and all this sort of stuff.

Starting point is 01:07:58 There's going to be a helicopter waiting that I've arranged. It's going to take you to Kathmandu, but you don't have enough time to stay in a hotel in Kathmandu, take a shower or anything. It's going to take you straight to the airport, and there's an evening flight that's going to take you to Dubai, Seattle, to Anchorage. And by the time you get to Anchorage, you'll have about three days to climb to Nali, best case scenario. But if you do it, you'll set not one but two road records. So what do you think? And I was just like, but, but I know better than to not listen to her. So I put my boots back on.

Starting point is 01:08:24 I walked back down the mountain. It sounds like you married the right person here, Colin. So I want to put some context on this. So people might not understand Denali. You know, Donali's up in Alaska. And I have some stats here in front of me. It is 20,322 feet. 20,000 feet.

Starting point is 01:08:45 And you climbed this in how many days? Yeah, like I said, normally it's climbed in about three weeks, and even that it's got only about a 30% success rate, even people that spend three plus weeks on the mountain because the weather's so bad, it's a really challenging mountain to climb. And unlike Everest or some of these other mountains, there's no porters or Sherpas. You really have to be self-sufficient completely on the mountain. And I ended up summoning it in three days. But the crazy thing was the day before we were supposed to go for the summit, and we were climbing from way lower down on the mountain. So usually there's a couple camps that you keep going higher, but we were having to skip those camps. me and Tucker, my climbing partner, and then a huge storm rolled in, like massive, massive storm rolled in. We're talking 60, 70 mile per hour winds that night, and we're still, you know, best case scenario, 12 hours below the summit. And so we decided, I said to Tucker, you know, again, this is a powerful lesson for me, which I love, I love this Henry Ford quote. Some people say it was Confucius Henry Ford. I don't know. But it's he who says he can and he who says he can't are both usually right. And so I said to Tucker, can you climb for 50s.

Starting point is 01:09:47 15 minutes. And he was like, bro, I'm here for you, man. Like, if you want to go and see if you make it, like, let's go. So let's, we put all on our gear. And we're leaving camp and there's a couple of other random tents from other climbers. A guy on Zips's tent and looks at his head. And he goes, oh, you guys bailing off this mountain. We heard the storm's going to last like 10 days. Like, yeah, we're thinking about bailing out of here as well. And we're like, no, we're going for the summit. And the guy's like, get back in your tent. Like, no one's climbing today. Like, this is ridiculous. But we're like, we're just going to see how it goes. And so, literally, Literally, we climb 15 minutes, check, Tucker and I check in, how your fingers, how your toes,

Starting point is 01:10:21 how you feel? I'm good. Want to go another 15 minutes? Another 15 minutes. Another half hour. You can see where this is going. An hour turns into two, turns into the three. And we find ourselves on the summit of Denali.

Starting point is 01:10:31 And it meant that I set not one, but I was just a day ahead of setting the second world record. So it came home a two-time world record holder. And no one on the entire mountain of Denali, no one else climbed at all that day. So not a single person even moved from their camp. and we went up and summit it and came back down in a pretty intense windstorm. But I don't know. It's always interesting when you're up there.

Starting point is 01:10:54 You talk about managing risk. You talk about that in business and whatnot. But it's always this moment of, you know, I was thinking to myself and kind of this mantra of this must be what it takes to do something extraordinary is to have to push through these perceived obstacles. But of course, in the mountains, your margin for error with your health and, you know, your body, life and death in a lot of ways is very slight. So you're always kind of checking in like, am I doing something too risky or not?

Starting point is 01:11:18 And in this case, I think we were pushing just right on the edge of that envelope. And it turned out well for us. And I'm proud of the accomplishment. But it didn't come easy. And there's a, there's a video clip of me arriving to the summit of Denali the moment I actually have set these two records that I've been working, you know, multiple years for Ultimate at this point, but 139 days straight. And you would think it would be like this joyous smile on my face. But it's just kind of this look of like utter, fatigue, exhaustion and like, frost bit, and not actually frostbitten, but like snow coming off. I don't know. I'm just,

Starting point is 01:11:49 I'm out of it. And I had stood on the summit of Everest just six and a half days before that. So it was a crazy week in my life and then crazy conclusion to the entire Explorers Grand Slam expedition. Do you think you could have done Donnelly that fast if you hadn't just come off of Everest? I would think that because you were spent so much time at such a high elevation, you were probably like rocket fuel going up at 20. Yeah, so unlike what I said coming from the North Pole to Everest, where I was coming from sea level to Everest, which was really challenging. The one benefit certainly was that I was pre-aclimatizedized. The altitude on Denali wasn't. It's crazy to say that 20,000 feet doesn't seem like that high, but when you've just been at 29,000 feet, you're like, oh, that's like nothing.

Starting point is 01:12:30 That's like a whole mountain hood shorter than that. And fortunately for me, Tucker had actually been over on Denali about a week ahead of time, not thinking that he were going to have to go as fast as we pushed, but thinking, oh, Colin's going to come acclimatize. I should probably get my body acclimatized a little bit ahead of him. So he was actually in position to be able to move quick as well, which is a testament to just also, like I said, all the things in the background with Jenna and various other people supporting this with the logistics because the planning and things really paid off in the end or something like this. So real fast, what was the most memorable? Taking the Everest part out of it, of all these different summits that you did, both of the polls,

Starting point is 01:13:12 What would you say is the one thing that was just really unique or was just a really cool story from all of it that you could tell us? Yeah. Yeah. You know, two things come to mind when you ask that question. I have this video clip of myself. Again, I filmed a lot of this myself. So I reflect on some of these video clips that I have. But there's this moment when I actually step off the plane in Antarctica.

Starting point is 01:13:33 And it's a moment where my first expedition is beginning. And I have just so blown away by the landscape as I'm looking around. it's just like another planet, just white. I've described it before, it's like standing inside the belly of a ping pong ball. It's just this surreal environment as you look around it. And it was this amazing feeling of, oh, I actually get to do this now because I had been working so hard in the planning

Starting point is 01:13:58 and convincing people to support this project and the sort of, like I said, the entrepreneurial spirit behind building this whole campaign, that it was this great moment of like, oh. And that sounds crazy that the first step. It's like there's all this ridiculousness in front of me. And of course, I know that's like the pain and trauma that's going to happen and the hardship that's going to go through this. But it was like, yes, like I get to do this.

Starting point is 01:14:17 And whoa, where am I right now? And then the other place is, that is pretty incredible as well, is actually the North Pole that stands out. I mean, hiking across literally a frozen ocean where ice is drifting underneath you is wild. Like we'd set up camp at night, go to sleep, and then we'd check our GPS in the morning. We either have a big smile on our face or a frown because we'd actually been drifting like, oh, great, we drifted a mile closer to the pole in the middle of the night. damn it, we, you know, we shifted the wrong way. So that's just a crazy environment with these huge icebergs essentially and big flows of ice cracking into each other.

Starting point is 01:14:51 So we're, you know, actually carrying our sleds over 10 foot walls of ice where ice have kind of compacted and built. It's just like in terms of landscape, it's just one of those things that's like you can't even believe it exists until you're there. It's just a wild, wild place. And so to have the opportunity for me to experience places like that and the wild unknown and was just such an incredibly fortunate experience. I'm so grateful to be able to have experienced that.

Starting point is 01:15:17 Unbelievable. So this is what I want people to really hear out of all of this. Your message is a message of mindset. And talk to us about what you've learned through this entire journey because what happened to you back in Thailand was probably the biggest blessing in your life. Although you didn't realize it at the time, it was the deepest, darkest thing that could ever happen to you. But when you look back at everything that's unfolded since, you probably would have never done any of this without that event, correct?

Starting point is 01:15:48 Absolutely. You know, people ask me sometimes, if you go back in a time machine, would you still jump that flaming rope? And of course, I know the pain and trauma that it caused me and my family and all this sort of stuff. But I'd be lying to say that it also taught me, you know, simultaneously one of life's greatest lessons, which is resilience and perseverance and getting through hard times. Because unfortunately in life, and I hope that nobody out there is, you know, goes to the example. exact same accident as me, but as we all go through life, we inevitably face setbacks and traumas of some kind. And really, what I've realized over time is it's up to us how we're going to react to those things. In that hospital room, I could have gone down that deep darks downward spiral,

Starting point is 01:16:27 which I wanted to, but my mother pulled me out of it and showed me another way. And what I've realized is this amazing ability that we have in our own minds to shift towards that positive mindset and keep taking steps forwards one step at a time. And yeah, sometimes, I mean, I'm obviously a big believer in setting this audacious goal. Like I was just saying like, hey, I'm going to climb the tallest mountain in the world and this. Like I'm not a professional mountaineer and I don't have funding, but like I'm going to do it. Like sounded ridiculous. But then what did I do? I said, okay, well, what can I do today to figure that? Which might be a con of my computer and Google, what are the tallest seven mountains? You know, like literally the first

Starting point is 01:17:02 baby steps. The same example of great, kid, kid, you want to race a trough one? You're in a wheelchair, you need to figure out how to take one step today. And so something that I really is a huge part of my life that I also tell us is I actually symbolically, I carry around a small rock with me, which is actually a rock from the summit of Mount Everest. And the reason that I carry that around with me as a totem now is it's a daily reminder for me that even Mount Everest, even the biggest mountain in the world, ultimately can be broken down to its smallest component parts, a bunch of small rocks stacked on top of each other. And a lot of ways many steps leading to the summit. And so for me, living by that and shifting a mindset towards

Starting point is 01:17:42 the positive when facing obstacles, when facing setbacks, when facing, when setting audacious goals, that is how we get there. We set the goal. That's the North Star. I know you guys focus a lot on billionaires and the way people accumulate wealth. Like, a lot of those people had amazingly huge ideas that were industry-shattering ideas that probably most people said, that's crazy, that's not going to work, here's all the million reasons why. But they're like, nope, I believe in myself and not only I believe in myself, I'm going to wake up every day and take that one smaller step or stack that one tinier little rock. And eventually, after, you know, thousands, if not millions of rocks are stacked on top of each other, I'm going to reach the summit of, you know, whatever your

Starting point is 01:18:21 Mount Everest is. And so so much of that comes from having that positive mindset, believing in yourself, and really realizing that setbacks are inevitable. Obstacles are inevitable. But it's how we choose to react to them is what makes all the difference in the long run. Couldn't have said it any better. I want everyone, so we have a ton of people listening to the show, a lot of people in finance. Please tell people about your nonprofit, where they can go to donate. Because I know there's a lot of people listening to this that would love to help you and your wife out with your incredible nonprofit. So tell them everything about it. We'll have the link in the show notes so people can go there and donate. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm,

Starting point is 01:19:04 I'm the best way to track me down, I'm pretty active on social. I'm at Colin O'Brady, just my name, as well as our nonprofit is called Beyond 7-2, so the 7 for the summits and the two for the polls is what we named it. So beyond 72.com is the website, got a lot of information on the work that we do in schools and with kids and everything like that. So all the information is on there, as well as I'm sure in the show notes, you'll probably link my TED Talk and very other media that kind of tells a story. different format and whatnot. So yeah, definitely please. We love hearing from people,

Starting point is 01:19:40 reach out, just love and support, and all of that means the world to us. And really, like I said, my larger purpose for doing all these things is not to just pat myself on the back and say, oh, great, I've done some amazing things. But it's really to be a catalyst of inspiration for others to tackle hard things. Because I think as humans, we have so much inside of all of us and can achieve great things. And it's really, I've been inspired by so many people over time and mentors and different stories. And the power of storytelling is just so rich and valuable. So I love the opportunity.

Starting point is 01:20:12 And thank you, Preston, for giving me the opportunity to share this story today. This is so inspirational for people because everyone's got these goals out there. And they're hearing this story and are thinking, hey, if this guy can go do that kind of stuff, I can surely do this goal that I have on my plate that I'm looking to accomplish. So, Colin, thank you. I'm just honored to have met you and to just share a little time with you on the mountain and then today as well. So thank you for your time, Colin. Absolutely.

Starting point is 01:20:39 My pleasure. Thanks for having me. So I really hope you guys enjoyed this week's episode. I know this was very different than the typical show that we do, but some of the topics are really important for long-term business success that we were talking about. And after recording the show, I asked Jesse if he plans on doing something like this again in the future. and he replied with absolutely yes in his email to me. So if you're listening to this episode and feeling motivated to get a little grittier in your life, Jesse's website for this event is 29029.com.

Starting point is 01:21:11 That's 290 spelled out, Z-E-R-O-29.com. We'll have a link to Jesse's website in our show notes. And if you're feeling like you want to do this in 2018, there's a link on his website where you can sign up, enter your email and name, and information so that you can learn more about the event, and that way they have your name and they can contact you. All right. So that's all we have for you guys this episode.

Starting point is 01:21:36 Thanks so much for joining us, and we'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening to TIP. To access the show notes, courses, or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. To get your questions played on the show, go to AsktheInvesters.com and win a free subscription to any of our courses on TIP Academy. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making investment decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the TIP Network.

Starting point is 01:22:05 Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP162: Atlanta Hawks Owner Jesse Itzler, Mt. Everest, & Colin O'Brady (Business Podcast)

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