The Climb Out of Pain is Taller Than Everest with Nat Geo photographer Cory Richards PART 1

So you are officially the first guest who, when I said, would you like a drink, a cup of tea, a glass of water, you said, I'd love a scotch. Yeah. And, and so you, you're preparing yourself what this conversation might be. And you are actually drinking. I am. Very nice. It's actually not scotch, it's a very nice local whiskey. It's, but it's, but let's be clear, you know, you didn't pour it. No, I didn't pour a tumbler of it. It wasn't like, it wasn't like drunk history. No, it's not drunk history. What happens after you reach the top? There's only one place to go. Corey Richards has literally reached the top of the world. As a National Geographic photographer and filmmaker, he climbed Mount Everest without oxygen. He's also the first American to climb an 8,000 meter or 26,000 foot peak during the winter. You may know him from the iconic cover of National Geographic. The one with the selfie he took after he survived an avalanche. But there's a twist. After all that success, Corey did not find peace. Instead, he found chaos. Corey's journey is about more than conquering mountains. It was raw, vulnerable, and deeply moving in ways I did not expect. In fact, we talked for so long that we decided to cut his episode into two. It's about conquering mental health, identity, and purpose. And what happens when we mistake our biggest goals for our true purpose? This is a bit of optimism. Speaking of whiskey, you put in a tobacco thing. Yeah. You got a glass of whiskey. I've got all the technologies. You got all the things. All the crutches. All the crutches, all the pathologies. People think that like, oh, he's just totally, you know, he's gotten rid of all this. I mean, I think that's one of the points of this is that the crutches aren't necessarily bad so long as you see them as for what they are. Like, I'm self-soothing. My nervous system is a wreck right now, you know? And like, so long as it doesn't go down this like highly destructive path, I think giving yourself some grace around that is actually probably far more beneficial. We're jumping right in. I think you're 100% right. And I think the crutches are not the unhealthy thing. It's that some of the crutches are unhealthy, right? Because maybe you smoked, but now you just chew gum. Right, right. Okay, so, or maybe you did X, you know, you did something very unhealthy, and now you just go to the gym every day. Right, right. You know, you go for a run every day. Like, they're all forms, they can all be forms of crutches. Right. And so I think you're right. I think we confuse, crutches are good. Yeah. Not all crutches are good. Not all crutches are good, but also like, to be fair, substances in moderate doses are also not terrible. Yeah, totally enjoyable. Yeah, they're totally enjoyable. It's just having your value system or barometer set to be like, okay, well, you know, am I in a storm now, or am I just kind of like, am I just riding the edge of the weather? Okay, so that's a perfect preview now. So let's go backwards. Yeah, let's go backwards. Why do you have crutches? Why is your nervous system shot? Didn't you like, survive an avalanche? Oh my God, I love it. It's so funny. I did survive an avalanche, so I can tell the story. I mean, it's great. I mean, sure, let's go for it. Yeah, yeah, let's hear it. Everybody wants that story, so let's do it. It's like, unfortunately, you're like Aretha Franklin. Like, you have to sing respect. You gotta play the hits. Right, like, so, well, and it's a very important, it's like a very interesting point of the story, because, so I went to climb this mountain called Gashubram II, which is a mountain, it's the 13th highest mountain in the world. It's in Pakistan, and just to give people some context, you know, I can run through this, because people need to know. There are 14 mountains in the world that are higher than 8,000 meters. And one is in India, eight are on the border of Nepal and Tibet, and then five are in Pakistan. After they were all climbed in the early 80s, the Polish, who are some of the best climbers in the world, were just like, all right, so those were hard, now let's just make it harder. Let's go climb all of them in the winter. And so, all of the nine south of Pakistan had been climbed by the winter of 2010, 11. And I got invited by a- Which is surprisingly late. Yeah. Like only the past sort of, you know, 10, 15 years. Yeah, exactly. None of the ones in Pakistan had been climbed. Wow. And so, I got invited by a guy named Simone Moro, who's an Italian climber, and another guy, Dennis Arupko. Dennis didn't invite me, but Dennis became a very good, he's Russian, and you would just sit there and be like, but Simone, why we bring stupid American boy? Not, bro, I'm standing right next to you, you know, like. He's like, yes, Corey, be quiet, men talking, you know, and I was 29 at the time. And by the way, Simone has this voice that is just epic. He's, and I'm not exaggerating. He talk like this the whole time. Very, very funny man. I tell this story of sitting in the tent with him, and he's like, I mean, I've told this story a lot, but it's hysterical, it's worth repeating. He's like, Corey, you must come to Italy, most beautiful beaches in the world. And I'm like, bro, what? And he's like, most beautiful beaches ever seen. And I'm like, what are you, and he's like, and I was like, oh, he's talking about beaches. Like, beaches, all right, yeah, yeah, okay, cool. The beaches, I'll come see the beaches, you know, I'll come to the Amalfi or whatever. It's just most beautiful beaches in the world. So anyway, we're in the middle of Pakistan in winter. 26 years, 16 expeditions have tried and failed to climb one of these mountains in the winter. People have died, whatever. I didn't really know that. These were just like my heroes, so I was like, yeah, of course I'll go. And I wasn't even planning on going to the summit necessarily. They just wanted sort of, I was on the North Face team at the time. And so we end up climbing it. Like, we get this very, very narrow weather window. We leave the tent, it's minus 51 centigrade in the tent in the morning, or I guess at night, 11 o'clock. We climb through the night on February 2nd and we get to the top. And up there, it's about minus 80. And the weather window. Centigrade. So it's colder than that Fahrenheit at that point. Yeah, so you're like, and there's really no way to calculate it other than like, it's colder than it was a lot and there's a lot more wind. So we get to the top, the weather window starts to close and we get hit by this incredible storm on the way down. And we make it back to our tent that night, just barely. We make it down to Camp One the next day. You're in this huge glacial valley, big, big glacier with huge crevasses. And on either side, there are these big mountains. Now they have three feet of snow on them and the wind's been blowing. So it's created a very hazardous situation. And we're just left the tent and you have to go sort of in this flat area and very low cloud ceiling. And I hear this like, crack. And I'm just, I'm like, I know what that is. And it's an avalanche. And I look over my shoulder, I see it coming. I say run, but there's no way to run. I mean, you're in waist deep snow. And with heavy backpacks on and the avalanche just hit us and pushed us. We were mostly taken by the air blast because we were on very flat ground, which is also very, very powerful. And the air blast is the wind that the snow is pushing. Yeah, yeah. So it just picks us up and throws us 500 feet. And of course, in my mind, I'm like, okay, I'm dying. Everything's like I'm dying. And long story short, we all ended up on top. I would say miraculously. We got thrown over these big crevasses and there's ice chunks everywhere around. And I immediately after, as soon as I could get my camera out, I turned it on and I took this video of me crying, just like sobbing, because I think there was this sort of dissociation. I was trying to get away from the experience. So I put a camera between me and it. So there's always been this barrier. It's very interesting about photography is that there's always literally a barrier between you and what's happening. You're not present. You're witnessing. And then about an hour later, I took this other photo of me because I could just feel my face and it's just me looking at the camera and I've got all this ice all over my beard and just I look shell-shocked and very confused. And that photo became arguably my most famous photo ever. Cover of National Geographic. It got put on the cover of National Geographic. This whole trip opened the door to National Geographic, opened the door to the skyrocketing of my career. And at the same time, because of complex post-traumatic stress, all of the stuff that happened in childhood, I experienced a profound and prolonged episode of PTSD. And that was really the beginning of starting to dive in really deep to the mental health journey. But it took really up until I was about 41. So just two years ago, it took over a decade for me to start to learn the language. Then I could talk about it. Then I was hiding behind it. Then I was sort of using it as a faux shield of vulnerability, but I hadn't really internalized it. And then finally the embodiment came, right? But it was also, so I look at the photo, it's also kind of what fractured my life in that it elevated me to a place where I could hide behind the external. And there was this, talk about no values, right? Because now I'm in survival mode, which is what PTSD is. So I'm constantly just trying to survive and sustain while living this high-stimulation external life and being eaten inside in my internal life and using all of these coping mechanisms to try to calm that down. So that's where the problem drinking comes in. That's where the sex addiction comes in. And then you start hiding these secrets and you're harboring all this deep shame. Secrets are the termites of intimacy and love. The more secrets you hold, the more it will erode and fall apart. And eventually the tension between what you're projecting and who you are will become so great that you collapse. What kind of kid were you? I was volatile, meaning that I was a moody kid. And just as a piece of the backstory, my mom took me to see a psychologist when I was one, right? So there's this very deep story of mental health that comes on the scene pretty much immediately. I don't know. Were you the first kid? I was the second. So my brother, who factors very heavily into this story, also, he was just more self-assured and more sturdy, but that also kind of made him an island. We had a really marvelous early childhood. My parents were, they were awesome. Where'd you grow up? Salt Lake City. Where'd you grow up? All over the place. But my formative years were in New Jersey, outside of New York City. What exit? Two off of Main Avenue. Okay. Yeah, so I mean, we started skiing when we were two. We started climbing when we were five. And the whole early childhood development piece, at least externally, was really beautiful. And we spent a lot of time outdoors. Both my parents were in education. And yet, there were some things going on that laid the groundwork very much for what I encountered later, which was a very tumultuous adolescence, which we'll get to in just a second. But my mom had postpartum depression with both of us, which, if you look at the psychological machinations of early childhood development, has a profound impact, specifically in attachment styles and how we relate to our parents and getting our emotional needs met and finding coping mechanisms to navigate that disconnect. And my mom also worked full-time, so my dad was kind of our primary caregiver because he was a schoolteacher. So we formed this very tight bond with dad early on. And my mother did nothing wrong. There's no blame here at all. It's just the way it was. And then, as we got into our adolescence, and both of us were smart kids, right? So we were accelerated learners. Both of us went to high school two years early. And both of us were kind of smashing, getting good grades. And then there was this development of violence and it was very rageful. And you were in the family? Between my brother and I. Okay. And mostly aimed at me, which, for the longest time, I was like, oh, poor me, look, my brother kicked the ---- out of me. You know, brothers fight. It's normal. But this was different. It was very rage-fueled. And so, to the point of like, child protective services being called, right? Like, it was dark. Right, more than just boys fighting. It was more than brothers fighting. And so that had a deep impact on me, as it did on him. But I was like, oh, he beat me up. And that was the story for a long time. And then, really, in reflection, looking back on it, I was like, well, yes, and, I learned that if he beat me up, I got a lot of attention. So then I started feeding into my own cycle of violence or abuse, if you wanna call it that. And again, there's no, I don't blame my brother in any way, shape, or form. It was just the dynamic that was there. And so my grades went from straight A's to dropping out, basically. I got put on medication. I got hospitalized. How old were you at this time? I was like 13 when I got hospitalized the first time. What was the diagnosis? Well, it became bipolar II. Okay. And I got put in this long-term inpatient, outpatient care facility. It was over eight months. I ran away three times. That's where I got put on my bipolar medication, which sort of sedated me. It impacted your personality? I mean, I was just dull, glassy-eyed, and sort of sleeping all day. When we had school time at this facility, I'd go under the table and just, they'd be like, do your schoolwork. And I was kinda like, no. You know, and there's nothing they can do. They can keep extracting privileges, but ultimately, when you learn that the rules are arbitrary, And have no teeth. And have no teeth, right? Like, you just do whatever you want. That was part of it. So, I ran away three times. Every time I'd come back. The second time was, I was out for quite a while before they found me. And there was a really dark experience that happened where I ended up staying at this guy's house, squatting. I was 15 at the time. And he was 19, and he was gay. And, you know, some people would qualify what happened as rape. Others would just say sexual abuse. And I write about it in more of a like, it was complicated. It was complicated because there was my own curiosity. And yet, there was this profound power dynamic where I was staying in a stranger's home. And so, it was as if I was trying to find something there. It was also sort of some sense of artificial safety, right? For sure. You're left, you're in a home. You're lonely, you're with a person. Yeah. You're projecting a lot of need on somebody. Exactly. And we know, like, yes, we think of a 19 year old as an adult and a 15 year old as a child. But really, we're both children. And so, I think it was a search for belonging on my part, too. Because I really didn't feel like I belonged anywhere. They didn't want me at home. So, that almost definitely had a profound psychological impact on me. Especially as it relates to sex and sexuality, which I'm sure we'll get to later. I can pour you another drink. Yeah. When do I start crying? And then, the third time I ran away, my dad, who was very big on agency, was like, all right, but you can't be at home. And so. This is when you were 15. I was 15. Did your parents just not know what to do? They tried everything. Yeah. They tried everything. And that's why there's no blame. I mean, like, what do you do? At some point, there is a threshold that gets crossed. And. This is outside the borders of, you know, normal child rearing. Right, right. And so, I ran away, and then I ended up being on the street, mostly kept off the street, but, you know, I'd stay with friends. But I do say I was homeless, because I didn't have a home. And there were times where I was squatting, or in the park, or whatever. And then, finally, I got taken in by some family friends in Idaho, and I stayed there for eight months. I got my GED when I was 16. I was like, was this all I was supposed to learn in high school? You know, it's just like, this is ridiculous, how surface that tested. But anyway, I'm happy we have that system to provide people with a good enough diploma, which is what GED stands for. So. And then, I ended up in the hospital again. When I came home, my brother got, and I got in a huge blowout. I mean, it took three minutes. And we were on the front lawn, and I, you know. Now remember, that sense of my mind being out of control, when these violent eruptions would happen, my brain would speed up to a place where I just, it was like, there was like energy in me that had to move. And I didn't know what to do, and I remember I stood up, and I just kicked out the windows in the car that I was driving at the time. And I drove up to my mom's office, and I said, I need to go back to the hospital. And it was at that time, finally, where my parents were like, Cory, what do you need? And it actually gave me a sense of agency. And I ended up living with my aunt and uncle in Seattle. So now, I was 17. Got three jobs, because that's what bipolar people do. It's all or nothing, right? And then, that's where I found. It's all and nothing. Yeah, all and nothing, which is, yeah, wow, great point. But that's where I kind of rediscovered climbing. I mean, we had been so indoctrinated with it. Like, that's what my dad read to us as children, was climbing books. And so, I had sort of, I had always kept an identity of being an outdoors person. And my uncle took half of every paycheck as rent, and then at the end, he was like, look, I'm gonna give you all this money back if you choose an experience to spend it on. And I chose to go climbing. And right before I went on that trip, I asked my mom if I could borrow her old camera. So she, that was that. And that was sort of the entree, and that is not resolution by any means, but that's the very abridged version. And so, where'd you go climbing? Where did you go for your adventure? It's really interesting because through all that time, my parents were still very supportive. It wasn't as if they checked out. Yeah, yeah. They just, it was like the guiding arm from a distance. So actually, I think their system ended up really working. Because you didn't feel alone. I felt alone. I felt very isolated, but I didn't feel outside of, totally outside of the bounds of safety. It still brought up questions of belonging, and it still brought up questions of value, and do I matter, but it wasn't like, there was a container for me. So what did that climb do for you? Well, so all that to say, I called a whole bunch of my dad's old climbing partners, like old guys, they're like in their 60s at that point, and I was like, do you guys wanna go climbing, and go to this place called the Roof Gorge in the Alaska range, and they're like, yeah. So we just did very, very easy stuff, but it just changed, it was as if photography was a way to tether myself to this world that I felt like I could see but never touch, and climbing was, in some ways, an expression of what was happening inside of me. And so marrying those two, being an artistic kid, always gravitating towards art, that was the only place that my brain shut the **** up, it was like a perfect match. And it also gave me some level of motivation to keep a job, take care of myself. So what was your job? Did you become a photographer? Eventually, yeah. I mean, I started calling myself a photographer at 18, but I don't think I made money until I was like 24. I mean, did you always know you were gonna write? No, I was never a writer. Yeah. I was never a writer. I knew I could write because I did well on essays in college, but I'd never written anything long form. I think the longest thing I ever wrote was probably like, I purposely didn't wanna do a thesis because I didn't wanna write 100 pages. It just sounded like too much work. So what was the first long form? The book that I wrote. Start with what? Start with why? Because I had to. Yeah. Because I had a contract that said I had to. Isn't it scary? Nobody knew that I could. I didn't know that I could. It's actually interesting. A lot of the men's work I do is actually, this guy Kenny Kane, who lives here, started our men's group based on a lot of the start with why principles and just cause, right? Whereas. Oh, very cool. Yeah, so it actually works. It's really interesting that I'm here with you because it's so much of, the idea that the just cause, part of it would be, there's an assumption that the internal emotional lives of men is incredibly challenging and the space for that expression is incredibly limited, right? And the why would be to basically create a safe space where men can be seen and heard in a context that is both gentle and hard, where it creates accountability. So you can see, it was all modeled after that in some ways. It was really cool. That's neat. I love finding out, you know, work goes off and it does its own thing once you're in the world and you never know where it's gonna go. Yeah. It's lovely to hear, thank you. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's amazing. So at what point did you, I'm very curious when you decided you were gonna be, quote unquote, a climber. Yeah. Like, A, is that a career? Is like, I'm a professional climber. Does that mean sponsors and things? Yeah, yeah. So as I started climbing more and more and certainly taking pictures more and more, and you could go to bigger and bigger places, bigger mountain ranges, and the climbs get harder, they get more severe, and by virtue of that, obviously you get better and then you get sponsorship dollars. And so. And how do they, what is, I'm just, I'm. No, no, no. And I'll tell you why I have a strange relationship, a strange point of view about climbing in a moment, but which is, and like, how do, what is the value to them of giving you sponsorship dollars? Like, they need to get some value from that as companies, is like photographs of you standing on peaks in their gear kind of thing? Basically, I mean, it's marketing value, right? You're basically a glorified raincoat salesman. Okay, so you're, okay. Yeah, and. So you wear their stuff, you take a picture of yourself, you give them the pictures, that's what they want. So they want you to be a successful climber. They want you to be a successful climber and they also want you to do the harder and bigger and more extreme. And by virtue of that, the more dangerous. Right, colder, more rugged, because obviously it's good for the clothes. Right, exactly. So you naturally push that envelope further and further and further. And then, you know, they get more sort of like cool cred. Right. Like, look what our athletes did. Right. You know, whose athletes. Big logos. Yeah, yeah, logo, we call it LPSI, logos per square inch. You want it to maximize your LPSI, you know. I've got a bank logo here, a camera logo here. Like a race car driver. Yeah, exactly, exactly. In a space suit, in a down space suit, yeah. It's really. So you're now a legit professional climber. Yeah. So what did you get out of it, other than money? I mean, money fuels the sport, right? Because it's an expensive sport. It requires time and tickets and gear and, you know. Infrastructure. Infrastructure and planning and all of this stuff where if you had a day job, you could only do less technical, less difficult things. In general. It's a hobbyist versus a professional. Yeah, yeah. So, but I understand that as a job, but did you, what did you get out of it? Like, what was the reason you wanted to go climb the mountain? Hmm. Is it like Edmund Hillary, because it was there? No, I've always hated that answer. I think it's so lazy, but like, look, I love Ed Hillary, right? Like, climbed Everest. And Tenzing Moga. I'd like to give them both credit. I think Tenzing technically probably did it first. He probably did a few times. Yeah, yeah. So, what I got out of climbing was a sense of purpose, a sense of fulfillment, and a sense of expression. I also got a deep sense of validation, where the more notoriety I got, the more I could mistake external validation for love. Because it felt good. It feels good. Just like getting attention when you were a kid. Of course. And the other thing that's so interesting about it is that so often people with chaotic childhoods, violent childhoods, traumatic childhoods, gravitate towards very high-risk endeavors, because their minds are uniquely adapted to it. We don't have any future forecasting. So it's like, you know, hold my beer, I'm gonna try something, you know? And, hey man, watch this. Terrible for life, fantastic for extreme sports. Exactly. And so you can see there is some maladaptation there, for sure. It very, like, it works. It works. No future forecasting, which means it limits the fear, because you limit the ability to even conceive of what could go wrong. Well, yeah, because if you raise, like, I don't know what's coming next, well, okay, so I don't know what's coming next. So I went on a trek with a bunch of people in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Okay, yeah. One of my boots got some water in it as we got higher, it got a lot colder, and I was like, you know, I could see the, it wasn't that high, it was right over there, and I was like, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna wait here for you guys, you know? They're like, but don't you wanna make it to the top? I'm like, I'm good. They're like, but don't you want the picture? Don't you want the view? I'm like, I'm pretty sure it's the same view. Yeah, yeah. And it's just a little bit higher. I'm gonna sit here, I'm good. And I, while I was sitting, waiting for them to come back down, sort of thought about, it's such a strange thing that the reason they wanted to go to the peak was to tell other people that they made it to the peak, or they wanted the photograph to show that they made it to the peak. And it's a very selfish pursuit, because no one derives any value whatsoever, other than you, getting to say I did, or show somebody else I did, right? Maybe this is my asshole-ish point of view. Well, you're an asshole, but I don't think that's an asshole point of view. I mean, one must make the distinction. And like, Olympic athletes, not team sports, but individual sports, you know? When you talk to Olympic athletes, the medal contenders, you know? And you ask them, why did you do it? They're like, well, I wanna inspire the children. It's like, not a single vision board has pictures of inspired children, you know? All the vision boards are them standing on podiums with gold medals around their necks. And it's one of the reasons, I think, that when their careers come to an end, and like, Michael Phelps becomes the most medaled Olympian in history, immediately, depression. Andre Agassi becomes the most celebrated tennis player in history, immediately, depression. Because they confuse purpose with a goal. The thrill is the dopamine hit. And it's an extreme dopamine hit, because it's difficult to climb a difficult mountain that if you actually make it to the peak, that surge of dopamine is, I'm sure, overwhelmingly wonderful, magical, intoxicating, beautiful. But it goes away, which is why you have to climb another mountain, right? And it's not like love that's sustained. And this is why I have sort of a cynical view of these things, and find them relatively selfish. Because no one derives any benefit from that dopamine hit other than you. And if you are inspiring children, it was a lucky strike extra. I could not agree more with you. I've always said climbing is inherently selfish. I don't think that that means it's, that it's sort of sidecar impacts aren't positive for people. Sure, absolutely. And so there's- But they're not the intention. They're not the intention. Nobody's- It's not a service-oriented activity. Not at all, you're not in service. And it's so funny, it always bugged me that sort of the Everest expeditions that would go and be like, I'm climbing Everest to raise money for cancer. I think that's great, but that's not why you're climbing Everest. You wanna climb Everest, and it's a way, in some ways, to make yourself feel better about the selfishness that you know is there. Or, if I'm gonna do this, might as well raise some money for charity. For sure, sure. Either one works. It's a yes and. It's a yes and, right. It's always a yes and. So again, I think there's this really beautiful component that it does have this extended impact. And at the same time, I'll just speak for myself, it was never, and even my career with National Geographic, it was never about policy change. It was never about necessarily telling other people's stories, and it's kind of embarrassing to say that. It was always about me, because I felt like, look, look at what I can do, and validate me. I'm very proud of the policy change that came out of some of those stories. I'm very proud of the conservation that came out of some of those stories, but that's not what it was. And so I 100% agree with you. And later in this sort of trajectory of life, I had the same realization that you did. And I often say that my rock bottom was the summit of Everest, because I realized there's literally no place else I can go. There's nowhere higher. There's nowhere else I can go to get away from myself. Did you climb with it without oxygen? The first time without. Second time, I put it on right below the summit. Why would you go to, what is it, 27,000 feet? 2935. 2935, I mean, that's a cruising altitude for an aircraft. Why the hell would you do, like, I don't want them to turn off the oxygen in flight. No. Why, what motivates you to? There's all the poetic reasons, which are, you know, seeing how far you can go. Man versus self. Yeah, man versus self, climb the mountain without to climb the mountain within. You know, there's all of that, which, by the way, doesn't work. Then there's the reality that, like, you know that in doing it that way, it's way more visibility. I climbed Everest, amazing. I climbed it without oxygen. Wow. Right, like, and I think it is a triumph of human physiology. For sure, without a doubt. And on the other side of that, there's the reality that you're just doing it to see how hard you can go. Again, nothing wrong with that, but just call it what it is. So let's now be less cynical, right? Yeah, yeah. So did it help you? Yes, and. Right, because struggling with things, and then you did something that is objectively very difficult, that objectively, I mean, there's dead bodies still on the mountain. All over. All over the place, and they can't go get them. Yeah. What does that do for you? Do you come down saying, I'm a better person, I'm a stronger person, I think I have the skills. I'll give a silly analogy, right? So a friend of mine was a runner. I wasn't a runner, but I started running because it was fun to run with my friend. Yeah, yeah. And then start running longer and longer distances, and eventually I ran my first marathon. I would not have been able to write a book if I hadn't run a marathon, because. Interesting. Because I am one of those people who likes to be an instant expert, and you can't just run a marathon tomorrow. You have no choice. You have to train. Yeah, yeah. And that experience gave me the mental foundation to write a book, because I couldn't just sit down and write a book. It would take months, and you work your way up to it like a marathon, and I'm grateful to the marathon for giving me the strength to write a book. And I'm curious if climbing Everest without oxygen the first time gave you the strength to dot, dot, dot. It's such a good question, because I never thought of it in those terms, right? Like that would, for me to go back and paint it that way would be sort of a revisionist history. Doesn't mean it's not true. But you do know, I was only aware of that after I wrote, in the writing of the book. Right, right. So you may have only learned the lesson years later. Yeah. Like I wouldn't be doing this now. Yeah. If I hadn't done that. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, that's how I felt. Even just, by the way, conquering life. You know, boy, this is difficult, but I did that, so this is easy. So I can do it, you know? Like, life is savage, dude. Life is so metal. You know, I think, yes, there was some of that, where doing these things allowed me a certain degree of endurance to withstand other things. Primarily, I would say, some of the mental health challenges. So physical pain, your body destroying itself, eating itself, because that's, I think people forget that, that yes, your body can adapt to altitude, but it's still eating itself. It's dying. Yeah. It's actively dying. So you're on the clock. You're literally racing time. Pushing through that level of fear or apprehension to then accomplish that goal, of course, gives you some level, some new level of what you're capable of. And it expands your degree of tolerance for discomfort, in a way. At least physical discomfort, which can be transmuted into emotional, mental, whatever. For better and for worse. You can stay in a bad relationship for too long, because you can, because you have the skills, or you can muscle through difficult situations to find resolution in a relationship, because you have the skills of not abandoning. Self-abandonment, right? Like, wow, let's get into that. But I think, also, it was such an expression of trying to outrun myself at the same time. Because, look, I'm utilizing all the skill sets that I learned in my childhood development, which is hypervigilance, managing chaos. It's a healthy expression of that, and at the same time, it is a complete avoidance of what's driving it. It's such an interesting paradox, right? Which is the thing that is a healthy expression of whatever pain, trauma, is also the thing that's- Can kill you. Is also amplifying the pain and trauma. I find that beautiful and horrible at the same time, which makes perfect sense. The thing you're trying to get away from is the very thing that's allowing you to do the thing that's also giving you the sense of, I wanna keep doing this, I wanna keep living, even at its most basic form, right? Our wounds become our weapons, in both positive and negative ways. You see that all the time in relationships. The way somebody is wounded is generally how they end up showing up for their partner. So if there's an extreme sense of abandonment in somebody's life, and that's their primary trauma, it's not uncommon for that person to abandon the other person, or choke it out by sort of anxious attachment. So I'm gonna ask this question multiple times. Please. Are you a better version of yourself because of climbing Mount Everest for the first time or that oxygen? No, I'm a more knowledgeable person. It doesn't make me better. Tell me the difference. I think that a better person would be somebody who is capable of embodying and assimilating to the lessons that they learned on that journey, right? A more knowledgeable person takes the lessons, contextualizes them, lives upstairs in their head, and just keeps doing the same ----. So ultimately, yes, right? Because now I can reflect on it. But at the time, no, not at all. But I'll go with yes. Because of now. Because of now, fair enough, all right. Shit, you got me. You got me back. I have to acknowledge myself? Shit, I don't like that. It's uncomfortable, I need to leave. Do you have more whiskey? No. I mean, it's interesting, though, like when you, I guess I could ask the same question. Was the, are you a better person for having, two questions. Did you write the book for other people? Or did you start writing it for yourself just because it had to come out? The answer's yes. I had this idea. I was sharing it with friends. Friends asked me to share it with their friends. People would then invite me to share it with audiences. And somebody said, you really need to write this down. And so I realized that because I had something that was so powerful for me, and had a positive and powerful impact in my life, and was having a positive and powerful impact in my friends' lives, was having a positive and powerful impact in other people's lives, it became a responsibility. So whether I wanted to write the book or not, I learned this lesson more powerfully with the second book, Believe or Not. Because that one, I quit in the middle. I couldn't do it. Why? So Leaders Eat Last was the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. It took two years of my life and cost me two relationships. I was not fun, I wasn't happy. It was stressful. I would like a beautiful mind. I would write dry erase in my bathroom on all the tiles. So if I had an idea in the shower, I'd quickly jump out and write it on the tile. If I was brushing my teeth, I'd stand there and read. Literally, you'd walk into my bathroom and the tiles were filled with these crazy ideas. And I couldn't understand why all the social scientists, because all I did was take the biology of the chemicals, dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin, cortisol, and overlay them on corporate culture and said, let's see what happens. And I was calling scientists to understand oxytocin, dopamine, like asking them. And I couldn't understand why none of them had not written this book. It seemed so obvious. They're the experts. Because it was organizationally a nightmare because every chapter could have been a book. And start with why it was about, I don't know, something like 68,000 words. And when I was writing Leaders Eat Last, I was just getting started and I wrote 150,000 words. It just kept going and going. And it was organizationally a nightmare. And I was sitting at my desk. It was probably at least a year, maybe over a year in. Probably lost at least one relationship by now. And I couldn't do it. I gave up. And so I got up from my desk. It was about eight o'clock at night and I went for a walk. I was in New York City. I just went for a walk and I went to plan my quitting. I literally would go through the checklist of quitting. And I would have to tell my publisher, I'm unable to do this. I'll have to give them back the advance because technically I'm in breach of contract. So I'm going through that checklist. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna lose money. I'm gonna be humiliated because I already had some notoriety from the first book and everybody was looking forward to the second book. And I have to publicly announce after telling everybody I'm writing another book that I'm not gonna write another. So I'm gonna be publicly humiliated. I have to tell my friend. Just going through the checklist and preparing myself for the burden of quitting. And for whatever reason, I picked up the phone and called a friend of mine who happened to be in the Air Force Special Forces at the time. Call sign Johnny Quest. Johnny Quest. Yeah, he's a good guy. He looks like Johnny Quest. And he's a pilot for United now. And I don't even think I said hello. He picked up the phone and I said, what do you do when you can't complete the mission? What do you do when you can't complete the mission? I just asked him. And as is his nature, he started telling me a story. And he told me a story of how he was in Afghanistan. He was a helicopter pilot at the time. And they had a mission that all the intelligence said it was a suicide mission. Like the ground to air defenses were so extreme. And it wasn't like a kill Hitler mission. Like you're gonna kill Hitler. We're all gonna die, but you're gonna kill Hitler. It's not one of those. It's like you're all gonna die and we won't accomplish the mission. It was a just pointless suicide mission. And it was obvious to everybody who was a part of it. But they were ordered to go do this mission. And they were prepping their helicopter. And his wingman says to him, what do we do? Like we've got wives, we've got kids. Like do we refuse to go? Like what do we do? And my friend turned to me and said, this is what we signed up for. We go. Clearly the mission was scrubbed at the last minute. And so he said to me, he told me this story and then he says to me, is this book more or less powerful than Start With Why? I said, the lessons that I'm learning in the research are impacting me as much if not more than Start With Why. He says, okay, I'm gonna tell you a funny story. He says, before I met you, I was disillusioned with the Air Force and I wanted to quit. I found this kooky little book called Start With Why and it re-inspired me to take myself on as a leader. And I am who I am today and part because of your book. Maybe you're telling me that you're learning things that are more powerful. And he said, this is what you signed up for. You have no choice. Now, the underlying message was, and I will be here with you. And that's the most important part. It wasn't like, do you have to do, it wasn't like this stupid grit. There's also knowing when to quit, right? It wasn't a grit message. It was a you are not alone message. This is what we do. This is what we signed up for, he told his wingman, not what you signed up for. And this is what my friend was telling me, which is go and I will be with you. And I went back and finished the book. Do you think, just, I've been playing with this idea recently about the difference between, because I'm writing a children's book now. Which is harder than people think. Much, much harder. What's the difference between giving up and letting go? And do you think that you actually let go, which allowed you to continue? There's schools of thought that says you never quit. And there's schools of thought that says you have to know when to quit. And who's right? And your dichotomy of letting go versus quitting I think is a good one. In my mind, it's a very simple test. Is the sacrifice worth it? And if the answer is yes, you keep going. If the answer is no, you stop. And so I'm doing some, I've done many things that I hate that play to all of my weaknesses that cause me stress and sleepless nights and broken relationships and all of those things. But if I'm really honest with myself and I look at what I'm trying to accomplish and what I'm trying to do in the world, and if I ask myself, is the sacrifice worth it? And the answer is yes, you just keep going. But there are also things that I've done that become excruciating and the sacrifice no longer feels worth it and I'm happy to walk away. And so to me, is the sacrifice worth it? That's interesting. And it's a very simple test. Does it feel right? And it helps you get away with people expecting it and all of that is noise. Is the sacrifice worth what you're trying to accomplish? Whether it's selfish or selfless is up to you. I'm trying to become a millionaire, the sacrifice is worth it. Whatever your standard is, I don't care. But that to me is the reason to keep going or not keep going which is why I like letting go versus quitting. Well, because I think, I actually honestly think resilience is not about holding on. Resilience is about letting go. Say more. When we hold on, that is usually a place of survival, right? Oh, like gritting your teeth. Gritting your teeth. We're in survival mode, I gotta hold on, I gotta hold on. This is interesting. And survival is interesting because it's reaction-based and reaction is not value-based, right? When people are in survival mode, values are out the window, look what people do. Right, more to the flies. Right, exactly, so resilience is about letting go in that you have to step into discomfort, you have to step into discovery through discomfort, you have to let go of your certainty because certainty kills curiosity, right? And you have to be willing to adapt to something that is foreign. And so it's all about letting go. Letting go is a tool of resilience. It underwrites it, right? And because resilience is response-based versus reaction-based, it's endurance-based, it's curiosity-based, it's underwritten by values. So it guides you to a net positive evolution as a response to challenging circumstances. That's very interesting. And it also now puts a very high burden on all of us that you have to know your values. Right. Without values, your capacity for resilience goes down. It goes, well, I mean, think about our culture in terms of mental health, which I really do believe is a crisis, right? Part of that is because we are living in our sympathetic nervous systems, which is fight, flight, or freeze, which is survival-based. So our whole culture is not acting out of a resilience mindset or a response mindset. Or values. It's a reaction mindset. It's a reaction mindset, so we have no values. So we cannibalize each other in the pursuit of survival because that's our most base instinct. And in doing so, our act for survival and the lack of values drives us deeper into conflict, which keeps us further from survival. Coming up on part two. Sometimes I sit in my car and I scream as loud as I ******* can and just cry because it just hurts so ******* much. So I'm in the place of just profound discomfort. And every day, as I start to make up new stories about my lack of value or why she left or what the other guy has or whatever it is or what my ex is doing now or how I've, whatever. Anytime I start to come up with a story, it's like there's an elbow block of something so deep in me that says, uh-uh. You're trying to create certainty, which is a grasp for comfort, which you know is not what you need because it will erase your agency.