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Voice of the Mountains: The Responsibility to Remain with Mark Twight (part two)
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In this concluding conversation, Mark Twight takes Steve into the harrowing heart of the 1988 Nanga Parbat expedition—four climbers clipped to a single ice screw, buried under avalanche debris for thirty minutes on the world's largest mountain wall. The vivid recounting reveals how total commitment to an ideal can blind climbers to approaching storms, yet paradoxically, that same commitment becomes the forge where transformation happens.
The conversation traces Mark's evolution from elite alpinist to founder of Gym Jones, where training fighters, military operators, and eventually Hollywood's Spartans became his vehicle for service. What began as "grad school for himself" shifted into duty—a way to repay the society that had given him freedom to pursue his obsessions. Through years training actors for films like 300 and Wonder Woman, Mark applied the same all-or-nothing intensity that defined his climbing, discovering that accountability to a creative partner mirrors the trust demanded on a mountain face.
When Steve asks about the through-line connecting all versions of Mark—the nihilistic Dr. Doom, the alpinist, the trainer, the writer—Mark distills it simply: chasing human potential, first for himself, then wanting it for others. The episode closes with Mark reading Bukowski's "No Leaders, Please"—a meditation on reinvention that has meant different things across different chapters of his life, now a celebration of constant growth rather than a confrontational manifesto.
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Transcript
Mark Twight's Philosophy and Life Shift
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to part two of my conversation with Mr. Mark Twight. During our conversation, there was something deeply moving in hearing my friend, man who once embraced consequence so fully,
00:00:13
Speaker
Now, describe his life in terms of attention and craft. He's not seeking anonymity in the way one seeks to escape. He's seeking precision and presence and artistry. He's treating his photography like a prayer.
00:00:26
Speaker
He's treating his writing like an excavation of his soul. And he explores his own strength in terms of understanding his own limits and his love.
00:00:38
Speaker
The mountains taught me this too, though I learned it the hard way my own way, as we each have to do. And think we all learned this while clinging to identities long after they stopped serving us.
00:00:50
Speaker
Mark used exposure and reinvention, and he made art out of the experience rather than the spectacle. And he watched his own shadow shift with time and realized that his self is not a fixed summit, but rather terrain forever unfinished.
00:01:07
Speaker
And isn't this one of the most profound ideas an artist can help us understand?
00:01:14
Speaker
Let's get into part two of my incredible conversation my dear friend, Mark Dwight.
00:01:29
Speaker
If you're enjoying the show and want to take the next step in your training, join our newsletter and receive a free four-week sample training plan. Head on over to uphillathlete.com slash let's go. And once you sign up, you'll instantly get a link to try out some of our most popular training plans.
00:01:46
Speaker
It's a great way to get a feel for how we train our athletes for big mountain goals. Check it out at uphillathlete.com slash let's go. That's uphillathlete.com slash L-E-T-S-G-O.
Nangar Parbat Experience and Survival
00:02:01
Speaker
I feel like would be remiss if we didn't touch on Nangar Parbat because it's a place where we both had, i would say, life-changing experiences.
00:02:13
Speaker
There's a particular moment I would like you to take us and you've written about it and you've told me about the story. I've heard it from Barry as well, but tell Barry Blanchard, but take me to four guys hanging on one ice crew the middle of a descent of the RuPaul face.
00:02:35
Speaker
hit by an avalanche, there's, I mean, what, four guys? That's, let's say, 800 pounds of static force plus the weight of the snow pounding on you for half an hour. Take take us to that experience.
00:02:57
Speaker
Man, we fucked up.
00:03:01
Speaker
in a And I a joke um when I say that, but we e us at us at a point on, i mean, it's the largest,
00:03:16
Speaker
Largest mountain wall in the world. i just be Yeah. The biggest relief. And I don't, is it 13,000, 14? fourteen I mean, it really cont depends on where you start the measurement from, but you know, if you go from the Bergstrom to the summit, it's, uh, uh, for it's, uh, I used to know this for like meters, I think. Yeah, whatever that is metric system, Jesus.
00:03:42
Speaker
um But when you know having gone there, this was and like a case where of you know our collective imagination surpassing um what we might have imagined as individuals.
00:04:02
Speaker
And I was you know carried away by um the absolute optimism of Barry Blanchard and Ward Robinson and Kevin Doyle.
00:04:14
Speaker
And not certainty of the outcome, but think I doubted less on that route
00:04:24
Speaker
i think i doubted less ah on on that root uh than i ever had before partially because of their influence and and how good they were how much they had done how you know just the the collective experience despite the fact that we're all fairly young you know i don't think any of us were over 30 uh ah We were all highly dedicated to the craft of alpinism. Yeah.
00:04:59
Speaker
And so to to launch on the face that had only been climbed once and it had taken three months and had been sieged and, you know, ropes fixed and up and down and up and down and supplying camps and that kind of thing. um To go up there with five days of fuel or five days of food and seven days of fuel. Yeah.
00:05:18
Speaker
in in that timeframe, you know, that it did it's um it's a leap of imagination that I, to it of a distance that I don't think I ever got to again.
00:05:33
Speaker
um Because it was three months to five days or seven days. Yeah. It's also, you know, what, there's, so 71, I think, when that happened. 70.
00:05:46
Speaker
1970 okay so it's 18 years you know distant so yeah gout shit should have progressed um and it had in some cases and not in others but uh this going up the face you know of these notes of like yeah we climbed you know 2500 feet the first day 3500 feet the next we put you know we did 4 000 foot day somewhere in that you know and it just like look we climbed ourselves into this, um, position where it would not take much to change the, um you know, outcome. And,
00:06:26
Speaker
ah when this storm happened, you know, we initially we say we were surprised by it, but you know, then you develop the film and all the photos show that this had been, you know, ah bru you know, coming in for a at least all of that day and maybe the afternoon before, but so focused, so
00:06:52
Speaker
completely committed to the manifestation of an ideal, we didn't notice and also had no idea, you know, but plus, you know, Barry and Ward and Kevin, they'd all had the experience where a storm came in and they just sat it out.
00:07:11
Speaker
um And so it wasn't going to be a big deal. We'll just dig a snow cave and it'll, you know, it'll last as long as it lasts. Good thing that we could not get a snow cave.
00:07:23
Speaker
um So at this point, I think we're around 1,200 feet from below the summit of Nagabharvat. And... and ah The climbing is really up in up in that Merkle Gully. Messner said it was as hard as the North Face of the Matterhorn.
00:07:39
Speaker
um I didn't believe that until we got there. You know, i just thought it was embellishment, but not a man known for his embellishment, turns out. And ah and so when like the first lightning hit and and there was virtually no separation between the lightning and the thunder,
00:08:02
Speaker
So if you were gonna count 1,000, 2,000, there's none of that. It was coincident with, and this, um I wasn't wearing a helmet at the time, but I'd have a baseball cap and had a metal button in the center of it where all the pieces of fabric come together. And at some point before the first lightning, there was sort of a um St. Elmo's fire going around. and i was And we weren't seeing it yet, but I was feeling it. I was getting like,
00:08:30
Speaker
this Now they people consciously you know electrocute their you know send electricity electric impulses into their brain to change their you know they emotional state. And so apparently I was doing that at the time with this... Advanced therapy. This buzzing. like i just kept ah feeling this like getting like just in my head. but i and i just first you know You're not that smart when you're that high.
00:08:58
Speaker
in altitude and there it's you know 25 000 something like that uh little bit more and i for some reason i thought i was getting stung by bees yeah and tracks uh and just in terms of like what the what it's like to be at 25 000 plus feet yeah i mean it's nothing hungry and dehydrated and exhausted and on top Yeah. And so that this, then the lightning happens and it starts precipitating and snowing and there's a, and we're, we are at that point in the bowl above all the narrow, the, the, if you think of it as a funnel, you know, we had climbed through the narrow tube of the funnel and we were up into the catchment area and the snow wasn't deep enough to dig a snow cave.
00:09:48
Speaker
um Barry and Kevin tried. couple of different spots there was no way to dig in it's too steep to you know put the tents up they're not you know it everything counseled descent because it just kept snowing harder and harder and harder the spindrift avalanches or the spindrift that's coming down you know it's ankle deep and then it's knee deep and then we're like oh man this is going to get really really bad and we have eight pitches to repel to get out of here um Before we can, you know, before there will be safe terrain off on the Merkle Icefield to the climbers right. yeah
00:10:24
Speaker
Get out of the way. We need to fucking move. We don't have enough gear to, you know, back everything up. You know, we're obviously not going to, you know, put an ice crew clip a carabiner to it and put the ropes, you know, into a non-locking carabiner as the anchor. And so it at I think it was the third rappel down, maybe a bit, maybe more.
00:10:46
Speaker
um You know, by this point, stuff is running, you know, consistently running sort of waist deep. So you're not really able to see the terrain that you're putting screws in you're putting, you know, trying to put your ice tools into or whatever. and ah And we were, I had a friend in Seattle who had it made all our runners for us, all of our slings.
00:11:15
Speaker
Bartacked all the 916 inch webbing and apparently five bat Bartacks was good enough, but he gave me one lucky sling which had seven Bartacks. And you know ostensibly that makes it stronger, probably insignificant, but still seven, it's fucking cool number.
00:11:32
Speaker
And that was, so we had pounded a snarg and girth hitched this runner through the ah through the eye of the snarg. And you know that's not a, it's not a sharp piece of metal, but it's not rounded like a carabiner is. and And we were all clipped in with our tethers to that particular sling when we heard the noise, this thunder accumulating from from coming down. and we're like, oh, shit, this is no longer just the constant flow. Now there's a big thing. And it and it you know hit us hard enough that everybody was swept off and hanging on this sling.
00:12:09
Speaker
and um And I remember myself, I was like, I need to get an ice tool. you know i I was trying to swing my tool into the ice that I knew was there near the screw so that there would be at least another piece I don't, and this is total survival shit because there's there's there's no rational reason to do this um because if if the sling that we're all on breaks, then i guess I save me.
00:12:33
Speaker
Maybe. Maybe. You know. For a would For a second. You know, could be could be that. And we all were, you know, facing down, um like like looking down with our hoods up so that, you know, ah we could still breathe, you know. And there's obviously a little bit of a venturi effect with all that and just getting, snow's getting so packed in.
00:12:56
Speaker
ah to the open part of the hood. You know, you didn't want to, you know, I was like hyperventilating, but sometimes breathing in you smell snow. and And it went on. And like, I don't know if i any of us have an accurate, you know, went it was forever is how long it went on.
00:13:16
Speaker
which could, could have been four minutes. It could have been, but as you said, 30, I don't think it was 30. Um, but, it it but it doesn't matter because 30 seconds was too, would have been too much, you know, in a way of just, of just getting, being there, getting pummeled and, and living with, um,
00:13:41
Speaker
our relationship with mortality. Like I am gonna fucking die. I'm about to fucking die. This is how it happens. I'm going to die. And okay, then ah now it's going on long enough. I can i can start to parse how.
00:13:54
Speaker
it's gonna happen, you know? Is the screw gonna rip and we're all gonna be connected by this sling with the ropes hanging below us and we're gonna get wrapped into this giant rutabaga and like tumble down the face all tied together and wrapped up in the rope? Or is the sling gonna break and we're gonna be like four individual Sputniks going off into you know space of some kind? And I had all of this happening.
00:14:18
Speaker
in my head, a but you know, as it's going on and it is fucking loud. There's like, I don't think anybody shouted. anything, but maybe, it was just, we were, you know, the, the, the, the noise of that amount of snow hitting us was so loud that, you know, we couldn't hear the shout, you know, and, and very slowly tape started to taper and,
00:14:51
Speaker
ah
00:14:54
Speaker
and then it's,
00:14:57
Speaker
done it wasn't It wasn't like, yeah, it went from our heads down to our chest to our waist to the, you know, it didn't, it was like that. It just, all of a sudden the train left the station and it was quiet, wind obviously,
00:15:13
Speaker
um and I think every one of us was absolutely surprised that we were still attached to the mountain. And then, you know, we turned and looked at Ward, who had not put his head down.
00:15:32
Speaker
He was looking up the entire time. So his one piece suit was fucking full. ah he was His hood is packed with snow, it's down in his chest, it's down his back.
00:15:47
Speaker
Everywhere that snow could be forced by high pressure inside his clothing, um snow was there. And he had, later, ah he admitted, he said, I was just gonna unclip and get it over with.
00:16:07
Speaker
Like some at some point, partway through, he was like, I don't see us getting out of here and i'm and I don't wanna wait. And ah at at that I was like,
00:16:19
Speaker
i I want to say there was a sense like a relief that we were still attached to the face. And I don't know if that's the correct word because yeah, we weren't tumbling down the face to our, to, you know, to be dead.
00:16:37
Speaker
ah But we were still had four repels at least to get out of there. And the like, holy shit, this is going to happen again. it's still snowing.
00:16:50
Speaker
to Snow is still accumulating in the catchment zone and it's gonna build up to the point again where it releases again and we need to be fucking gone by the time that happens. And so the pressure to do everything absolutely right in ah the quickest time possible um
00:17:12
Speaker
was it was intense. I mean, the like the focus was so sharp and narrow And all the way until the last repel, we were as on as i think any of us had ever been and as precise and as
00:17:36
Speaker
correct in movement as the situation demanded. and And then we we didn't lose control.
00:17:48
Speaker
ah Once we got to the bottom of the Merkle Gully, um we gave it up.
00:17:58
Speaker
And I want to say that when you get to the bottom of the Merkle Gully, you're still 7,000 meters on the biggest mountain wall in the world. Like you weren't down. You weren't off the face. You were just out of this gully. You're out of the immediate danger of yes and people who aren't familiar with the topography. it's Yeah, so you gave it up. So tell me.
00:18:19
Speaker
So, so or or actually what I really want to know is what those four minutes or 30 whatever it was, what did that do to you?
00:18:34
Speaker
That's the better question for sure.
00:18:41
Speaker
Well, it bonded the four of us you know in a way. unlike anything could. And
00:18:58
Speaker
i think, I don't know if I have an answer to what that, those four minutes did to me because those four minutes can't be separated from the previous five days and from the next two days.
00:19:16
Speaker
I would have to, you know, okay, that is the defining moment there where it was nine sixteenths of an inch away from, you know, going one way or the other to having of to to being yet another, you know, the, I think at that point, 56, in 1990, 1988, when we were there, i think people had been killed And I wrote later a poem called 60 because it sure seemed like we were just gonna be another, you know. Another four names on that list. Another four names on that list, you know, with a name pounded out into a fucking metal, you know, aluminum camp plate, you know, and stuck on a rock somewhere at that meadow. um
00:20:09
Speaker
And by someone who would come later because there was no one there. you know It's not like ah there's there's no one else in that valley at all except our cook, our Sirdar and local sheep herders. But the um
00:20:33
Speaker
my sense of what it did to me was to make me
00:20:42
Speaker
to give me the level of paranoia that kept me alive for the next 12 years while I was acting actively climbing of, um,
00:20:56
Speaker
and and And also never wanting to be in that situation again. And I started, you know, and I called it, you know, my Alpine style dartings in and out of the mountains that, you know, manifested two years later really in, you know,
00:21:13
Speaker
in Tajikistan, we were in when we were in the Pamirs and the puerers and my partner Ace and I went up on peak Korzhnevska and a Russian team went up um to a different route, but on the same face and the weather turned and Ace and I just split.
00:21:28
Speaker
Cause that's what you do when you're like, you get like you we don you don't have the resources to hang out, but those guys couldn't afford to fail. ah not only the organizational structure of mountaineering and that sort of thing and the whole, you know, program in the, ah it was still the Soviet Union at that, you know, it's 1990, so was falling apart, but, or coming apart, but um but they they couldn't afford to fail, so they stayed, they sat out the storm and, you know, for two days, I think, and then, yeah,
00:22:00
Speaker
and And they couldn't understand my you know how we were doing things and I couldn't understand how they were doing things. There was like just ah such a big cultural difference. But um that, I think what happened in Nagaparva just proved to me that like, okay, mobility is always the answer.
00:22:17
Speaker
Like you fucking never sit down and wait. and Because ah right there sitting down to wait is abdicating what little control you have already. It may be the best choice at some point, but I think not. i don't i I don't have an accurate answer to that, what did those four minutes do.
00:22:50
Speaker
But I'm not gonna not think about it now. Excellent.
00:22:58
Speaker
Well, I mean, i do think you answered. and And do think all of those things are true. And I do think that
00:23:10
Speaker
the
00:23:16
Speaker
i do I do think that this is this the answer of mobility is the i mean it's the and it's the fundamental concept that underwrites alpinism and this sort of e ethos that you know or at least we practiced alpinism in in the mountains.
00:23:38
Speaker
and and i And I think it's just basically grounded in common sense. Like the less time you're up in the dangerous area, the less lower your chance, lower your risk is to these objective hazards, like getting wiped out by a big avalanche or or having a storm start while you're there and then yeah those kinds of things. and and And I think that that also connects to you know mobility, which connects to fitness.
00:24:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And this is like a ah huge ah theme. And I think that, you know, that's another area where, you know, you and I have both explored a lot around personally and professionally and how to expand that. And you made a statement earlier that you were using fitness as a way to access the like...
00:24:30
Speaker
the change in, I forgot your words, but like attitude or the mentality of of people to expand their understandings of of what is possible.
00:24:42
Speaker
And i think there's a virtuous cycle where the improved fitness in a practical sense does expand your what's what's possible.
00:24:54
Speaker
And therefore your imagination. And therefore your imagination. So I think there's ah there' is a cycle there when I want to go to, you know, fast forward now, as you said, like 12 years, and we' we're skipping around a bit in history, but in, was it 2000 when we climbed And then shortly thereafter, you stepped back from climbing, and a whatever you want to call it, professionally, full-time, high-level, chooser. Yeah, favorite.
00:25:28
Speaker
Adjective there. But you know you you had talked earlier about how the climbing put your back against the wall so that you had to be pulled forward into a better version of yourself.
Jim Jones: Alpinism Lessons in Training
00:25:45
Speaker
And one of the things that, I mean, we shared in this to a certain extent, but you created, and you originally called it your forge in the original Jim Jones, which was in in Salt Lake, and you used it to start to do do training just for yourself and a couple of friends, and then it it it organically grew into something much bigger.
00:26:10
Speaker
But that forge was very different than the forge of 25,000 foot on the RuPaul face in ah in a bad storm. was Was Jim Jones an attempt to recreate a forge that you could...
00:26:32
Speaker
like manage the and keep safe, but to achieve the same ends. And was it for yourself or was it for others?
00:26:54
Speaker
For a, um, I mean, it was an interesting time in it in you know my sort of evolution and or growth as a human being.
00:27:11
Speaker
quit climbing, you know, on a high level, certain routes professionally. um But still at that point, you know, involved in the industry. I mean, it was selling.
00:27:25
Speaker
So I was a middleman for a climbing gear company. Yes, Gravel North America. Yeah, exactly. And we started, you know, and there was, and I could see Gravel as being ah a mechanism to communic communicate or transmit ideals that I had learned and tried to express in the mountains. um One of the things that, you know, if if if alpinism is, um it it takes place in a very chaotic environment and um and there's the things that will happen in the mountains that cannot be controlled, but what can be controlled is everything that one, we as individuals can control, which has to do with ourselves. So it is fitness, it is the nutrition aspect, it is, um developing um our systems to be almost automatic with behavior of, and remember you remember early on, at some point in our relationship, you were like, hey, when you're gonna build an equalized anchor, you need to visualize it first. I was like, oh shit. I remember that. it
00:28:27
Speaker
Like in bright light for me, you know it wasn't just like, oh but this one here, Okay, and then over there, there's another thing and maybe I can da da da da. No, I need, I can look around, assess the situation and then build what I visualized. um And so controlling the things that you can control, I mean, fitness was a huge part of it. yeah and And the gym, and I had started, my,
00:28:53
Speaker
physical training relationship in order to perform better or control, you know, and go longer, et cetera, in the mountains with Steve Ilg, who's author of The Outdoor Athlete originally. The original book. Oh yeah. And, and ah you know, it turns out a pretty amazing man all around, which I was, you know, unable to appreciate at the time. It took, you know, some, a couple of decades, but yeah.
00:29:22
Speaker
there and then so I worked with him for a while. It got a little bit, you know, the the path that he was on was a bit more woo-woo than, you know, and and spiritual than I was ready to embrace at that time. I needed data. I needed, you know, and I said I needed wires and, you know, but readouts or something at the end. um And then, you know, Jeff Wigand, you know, helped me a lot and he was in, had a professional relationship with Ben Tabachnik who was the strength and conditioning coach for the um Soviet national track team back in the day and wrote a ah pretty amazing treatise that was translated into English.
00:30:01
Speaker
It's really hard to find a copy of his book, but I do happen to have one if you want to look at it. Absolutely. um And ah so this was, i don't, there weren't a lot of people that were using, you know, what I would call artificial training in order to put themselves in better condition.
00:30:19
Speaker
at the time and so i studied a lot i practiced a lot my friend a guy who was a client was a nationally ranked olympic lifter uh ed pope and he had you know steered me down the road of like teaching me the clean and jerk and um which is not something one learns on their own necessarily and uh uh So I had this you know relationship starting from the mid-90s with physical training and after um and in in and relationship with Bill Vaughn and ah you know other people to learn about the nutrition. i mean
00:31:00
Speaker
Bill Vaughn being the founder of Goo Energy. Yeah, it was actually what ah the fat one of the co-inventors of the power bar. Right. Originally. Originally the power bar guy. Yeah. yeah And then decided you needed to a gel instead, which and gels – apart from honey, didn't exist, you know, in the way that... Yeah, that's like the the main staple now, I mean, in in every sport, like whether it's... And it's just... Yeah, anyway. Yeah. Very prescient individual i hope who's no longer with us, I believe. that is That's correct, yeah. um and
00:31:35
Speaker
it And, you know, it's just like, okay, what are the... What ah a fascinating thing that I learned from him is we were we were trying to figure out a way, um okay, what food sources to use to actually stimulate appetite so we would consume enough calories to keep going nonstop for 24 hours or longer.
00:31:55
Speaker
Then I get into a fitness business later where I'm trying to get people to eat things to suppress their appetite. because they're over, you know, they're, you know, they want to look like Spartans or that's the, that's the mission.
00:32:12
Speaker
I ended up um initially with the gym. I got a kid. I want to say that his name was Scott Parker. ah Real young kids saw a presentation of mine at Neptune in Boulder. And he had just come back from a, one of the original CrossFit seminars. And this was late in 2003. Yeah.
00:32:32
Speaker
And he said, the guy who runs it, um he's looking for people, ah you know, for opinion leaders or experts in different sports to get involved with this to see if what he has come up with is appropriate for that particular sport, et cetera.
00:32:47
Speaker
So November of 2003, I go on out to um Santa Cruz. I spend the weekend there. or get my ass handed to me to the point where I'm like, I think we should have a soloing on loose rock competition now because, i you know, very specific type of intensity that I had never practiced. Yeah. and did if, if, if,
00:33:15
Speaker
You are in the mountains behaving with that level of intensity. You're about to die. Yeah, it's not something i wanted to practice. ah and um And so after that, I came back and in the space, where in the building where we had Gravel North America, there was a space, there was some, you know, there's a squat rack in there that that Steve Denkers had traded for a pair of skis because he was a ski manufacturer.
00:33:37
Speaker
And there was a lat pull machine. There, you know, we built, he let us build ah a climbing wall in there. and we were off sort of to the races in ah in a sense of like i want to try and apply what he's doing and see if it will help for climbing and so and in the beginning it was you know mostly rock climbers um tom whore jeff webb uh would be too and then um
00:34:09
Speaker
And then some people who were more, Jim Howe was another one, early guy. ah And so i was kind of practicing these ideas on them and that it just developed into with a thing. Then it was it's easy to train climbers because there's an actual consequence to improved fitness or a consequence to a lack of fitness.
00:34:34
Speaker
and ah And then Lisa the time, she was training in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school where there happened to be a bunch of MMA guys. And she asked me if I'd train them. And because there's one kid who had a fight coming up and you know he gassed out in his previous fights and like, okay, we'll do, you know, help that. There was a successful outcome. And then a couple of the, it a outcome.
00:34:59
Speaker
main students in this brazilian jiu-jitsu school uh johnny and james i basically undertook i took them under my wing and trained them four days a week uh for free for a year and a half as they were willing to do whatever i prescribed and i will i need to experiment experiment and learn and see how things applied this uh and And again, it was it was it's an easy thing when, you know especially let's just say in an MMA situation, man, you gas out, you get knocked out.
00:35:36
Speaker
So if there's a consequence and you can control you know your condition going into the situation that is consequential, um then you do it. you know You practice your technique, you develop your fitness to the to the extent you ah um where be
00:35:53
Speaker
it there is a it is more likely to have a positive outcome. That you're, okay, youre you can make it through three rounds, which is all that was happening in the local fights in Salt Lake at the time, maximum was three rounds or two rounds, I think, or three two minute three three minute rounds or three two minute rounds if it was mi tai.
00:36:12
Speaker
And
00:36:15
Speaker
and so those people are motivated. And so it's easy to train them
00:36:21
Speaker
All of that developed into working with clients who might, you know, where the consequences aren't the same. And then it becomes a whole question of
00:36:37
Speaker
manipulating psychology. But initially, you know, it was question I would say that Jim Jones was for me in the sense that I wanted to learn
Evolving Jim Jones: Military to Hollywood
00:36:47
Speaker
things. And if I got the right people in the right situation and offered to you know train them for free, if they would just do what I said, then it's grad school um for me in a way. And yeah,
00:37:05
Speaker
And, but then, you know, I see the some of these outcomes, but not only in the for the fighters or the Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners or the climbers or the military guys that ah and that I was also training at the time.
00:37:20
Speaker
um I realized like, wow, this is, that this, what I have you know, and I can teach, can help these people, you know, either do their recreational activity better um with a higher degree of success and survivability, or, you know, do they in the military context, do their jobs well enough that they can come home to their families.
00:37:45
Speaker
And so it morphed from being, you know, a bit, you know, ah self-interested to recognizing that I can, this is an actual so service, you know, a thing, a transmission of knowledge that I can provide and share, which,
00:38:05
Speaker
which is for them. And and that that would be the long answer to to that question of, you know, for me or for them. yeah But I also needed something to immerse myself in because it's still in a period where i am I was going climbing and I was, you know, teaching and guiding military clients in the mountains because it's post 9-11 and everything going on in Afghanistan needed, ah you know, someone expert in that area.
00:38:35
Speaker
those situations, um i ah it it kept me from having to look too strongly at what I was missing.
00:38:48
Speaker
um by not being in the mountains, you know, and not, you know, having the same experiences. Because when you're in a teaching guiding mode, it's very different than, you know, being hanging off a runner with three of your best friends. yeah And, ah but I did realize like, okay, I've, at at some point in that development, I understood that I had these,
00:39:15
Speaker
I had taken advantage of tremendous opportunity in my life that I had done nothing for. I was born in a particular country in a set of economic circumstances with a particular passport and that sort of thing that allowed me to do whatever the fuck I wanted.
00:39:29
Speaker
and the freedom to choose and the freedom to travel. And I'd never ah you know i never earned that necessarily. And training especially training the military guys, honestly, I mean, one of the first, the earliest offsite trips where that happened, you were there. you you and Rollo in Boulder in October of 99.
00:39:54
Speaker
And- um remember it well. Yeah, i I remember fucking doing my ankle in real well on day two. um Which you didn't let on at the time. how or i maybe we didn't know how bad it was. but Yeah. and but But being able to, and then so I started treating ah all of the military relationship with military and intelligence communities as you know as duty, as my way of but um repaying uh the society that gave that allowed me to do everything that i had done up to that point yeah and then it was it at that point it really was for them yeah yeah and it is for you in the sense that you're you're assaging the original sin of guilt yeah that it did that is i mean like you're you're
00:40:50
Speaker
assertion you know that you yeah you had freedoms that you took had taken for granted yeah and that you know many people do take for granted that you know aren't necessarily free and yeah we just we just take them take them for granted and i think that's yeah And one of my takeaways from even that October 99 trip, but even but I think I learned more and more over the subsequent trips that I was able to do with you and and those the military guys, was the the the a lot of these guys come came from pretty tough circumstances. Yeah.
00:41:33
Speaker
yeah you know I grew up in a pretty, don't very stable, middle-class nuclear family with collegeucated parents two college-educated parents, yeah one of whom was a college professor. so like i you know And some of these guys, they they you know they didn't they they didn't come from that. They came from very, very different places. And they had exercised their you know their minds and their bodies and their talents and their determination and their grit. to get into a certain position.
00:42:06
Speaker
But that's ah that's pretty hard, tough road to hoe to get to that. Oh, yeah. and and and It made me appreciate that. And all of the relationships that we had with military units, they're all top of the food chain groups. So it's even harder to get, it's one thing to go from, hey, it's either prisoner of the military. And then they join the military. And how does that person work?
00:42:32
Speaker
ah you know, reach that level? What, you know, specific set of circumstances did they find themselves in structure-wise that allowed them to flourish in such a way? Yeah.
00:42:46
Speaker
And you you know again, generally all volunteer. I mean, by the time they reach that, first they're volunteer for service. or Right. um And then there's a volunteer you volunteer for the selection. You're opting in you know over and over and over again.
00:43:04
Speaker
um you know Things aren't just happening to you. Yeah, you don't just sit back. and A lot of agency involved.
00:43:16
Speaker
And I think, you know, for me, the arc of this story of you going from, let's you know, the Nangar Parbat to working with, you know, these special forces intelligence community.
00:43:30
Speaker
and ah and as you rightly pointed out, it was post 9-11. So that like people were having to ah go into terrain that you and I know how to operate in. It like, A bunch of loose, scrambly, third, fourth, low, fifth class mountains that are really steep and all the things that go along with that.
00:43:49
Speaker
and And the arc of that story... Like kind of is feels very neat. But then, you know I have to call you out on this. Oh, yeah. you know Next thing I know, you're in Bulgaria with with a bunch of Hollywood actors trying to turn them into like the the physical representation of a Spartan and have them have like – you know, big muscles in the right place and look ripped in a certain way. Much more of a, like, ah like it's an aesthetic. It's not a survival. Exactly.
00:44:26
Speaker
outcome that you're trying to achieve and and we you know we teased you mercilessly about this and and again and i understand like why you do it i'm sure hollywood paid well but like what what i'm what i'm curious is about is like how do you how do you hold these two worlds in the same experience the same life
00:44:54
Speaker
I mean, so ah you know Zach. You worked on a couple of- Zach Snyder. Zach Snyder. And now at the time I met him and that you introduced me to him, he was like a- He's a commercial director. Completely unknown guy, or maybe not completely in that world, but he was a he was a guy direct directing car commercials. Yeah, yeah. Now he's a very well-known- Director of gigantic fucking movies. um Yeah. And this so the ah And incredible guy.
00:45:26
Speaker
Absolutely amazing human being. And every, you know, I ended up by the end of that trajectory, I did, you know, did nine different big Hollywood movies.
00:45:38
Speaker
And the ones that, and the majority, there were, well, three of the nine were with directors other than Zach. Every experience with Zach was fucking amazing. Yeah.
00:45:51
Speaker
And, ah you know, the level of trust that he and I had in each other, level of support that he gave me to do what I, you know, wanted to do, um it was extraordinary.
00:46:03
Speaker
the the The three that I, did the the of the other three, Um, one was a movie that was directed by Guy Ritchie. Same thing, partially because a he plays chess, but B, um, he's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner. So he fucking knew and they would, you know, he'd call it at the end of every day because, Hey, at five o'clock we're done because I got shit to practice and I got to do, you know, I got to work with the kettlebell. I got to do all, you know, all this other stuff.
00:46:32
Speaker
So that was a good experience. And there were two others that I was not into, at all. And, uh, and So, so Zach got me into it. He, he had seen the Jim Jones website ah that we had put up and it was all black and white and people were doing, you know, at at that time. um so this is sort of, you know, we put the website up in early 2005, think.
00:47:02
Speaker
And um and there were some videos, there were some photographs, you know, and people were like trying the workouts that we were listing and getting utterly decimated by it because, you know, by that point I'd had like a year and a half or two years of practicing this kind of thing and getting, being able to take people into really deep water.
00:47:21
Speaker
in a gym setting where it was okay to fail, but you will be socially, there would there will be social consequences, which is which i realize I learned quite rapidly could be you know ah just as motivating as actual physical consequences.
00:47:42
Speaker
ah Zach knew what we were doing. He he had convinced, so he'd already done one movie, the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and they ah had convinced the studio to to do the 300 movie, to basically take that, and he and Kurt John's ad wrote the script um based on Frank Miller's graphic novel of about 300.
00:48:06
Speaker
And ah it's like, man, oh well, i want ah these guys need to look a certain way. The costume is leather underpants and a red cape. So, you know, their their bodies are their costumes. That is the wardrobe department.
00:48:18
Speaker
And he... and he ah
00:48:26
Speaker
his, one of the stunt coordinators and martial artists named Damon Caro, who's been friends with Zack forever and worked on a bunch of movies. It was, so it was him and Chad Stahelski who were doing all of the fight training for it. And Damon called me up and I had known him because through Kurt,
00:48:43
Speaker
um who They both trained at the InnoSanto Academy. And ah Damon Collin asked me if I was interested in training these actors, and I refused. i was like, that's bullshit. You know, Hollywood sucks. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:48:58
Speaker
Then Lisa said, if you don't say yes to that, I'm changing the locks, and we're getting divorced. Because she saw this Albertino's... g is in the you know trying not to die and ah and she realized and an incredible opportunity. And she was absolutely right. And it was an incredible opportunity with a shockingly um wonderful group of people. And so I ended up, I went to California and met the main actor. And so I was going,
00:49:34
Speaker
Salt Lake, you know, for three days or four days a week there back to to Los Angeles, then back home, then back out, then back home, then a two week stint where we got where I got all the US stunt team together and introduce introduced them to the fitness that we were going to do and how we were going to manage their diets and how we were going to get them to look at a certain way.
00:49:54
Speaker
And then we moved the whole show to to Montreal where we were for 12 weeks. Another month of prep followed by an eight-week shoot and that, you know, all the stunt team from Canada and all of the actors were there in Montreal.
00:50:12
Speaker
And I thought somehow that I could train, i could manage the training and all of that and stay healthy myself ah on my own.
00:50:24
Speaker
And it turned out I had 36 clients. and needed help, kid that I had been forming in the gym, who had separated from the Navy, and I'd hired him to drive our gym from Salt Lake to Montreal. if We you know supplied the gym and everything for the whole process, because I needed to have control. and So I convinced them to um basically let him be my assistant. And he he got a fucking serious crash course in the whole process. And just...
00:51:03
Speaker
and i just I somehow all of everything that I knew about training, everything that I had learned about diet and fitness, everything that I had figured out in the mountains and, and in my previous experience at Jim Jones about setting up these very difficult challenges um that were attended by extreme social consequences.
00:51:29
Speaker
Plus there's, ah again, it's like, I meet everybody, you know, starting one day, I can't remember exactly when it was, but was very early on. was like, everybody trains with their shirt off. and And so you are going to be, you know, you're either gonna do the work and you're gonna come through and you're gonna look like a Spartan or you're gonna be the dude with the muffin top and you will be remembered, but not for what you want.
00:51:55
Speaker
And it was pretty easy to motivate. I mean, it it like training men in that in those circumstances, especially when it's an aesthetic sort of outcome, you know, not exclusively, but pretty generally, fear and shame, super easy to manipulate dudes. I mean, there's – um And, you know, somebody came in, one of the producers came in at some point and, you know, we're, you know, because we have like winners and losers and we have, you know, there there were there were some pretty serious physical penties penalties for failing to hit certain standards that we would impose on people. And this producer came in and she's like, wait, you call people losers?
00:52:34
Speaker
And, ah you you know, i'm I'm just thinking like, oh man, the social circumstances that you're coming from are very different than what's happening in here and where I'm coming from. And yeah, we call people losers and we call it to their face and we give we give group punishment, we dole out group fucking punishment, you know, for not achieving this the standard. And so in the end, there were, you know, i as much as i was highly critical of a purely aesthetic outcome for physical training. Because, you know, hey, a lot of times, you know, it's for, especially for males, it's like, I wanna look good naked, I wanna get laid, you know, whatever, whoever the target audience is for my physical condition. And, um
00:53:20
Speaker
And that that's easy to kind of criticize and poo-poo and, you know, but then it's just like, wow, if you, and, you know, Zach led from the front on that. He was, you know, you know my training day with all the clients started at 8 a.m. He was in the gym every day at 7.
00:53:37
Speaker
And so people would come, you know, the client the actors would come in and they'd see his work out what he did that morning written on the board. I couldn't have had a better ally. And then he also set up the circumstances that where he basically told everyone, like, if you don't, um you know, do what Twight says, you're out of a job.
00:53:57
Speaker
So there were financial circumstances, there's social circumstances, there's consequences, there financial consequences, a career, potentially career nullifying you know consequences. And so it was very, because of that pressure, it seems like, oh, it's Hollywood and it's shallow and it's empty and it's bullshit.
00:54:14
Speaker
But I- Stakes were high. Stakes were high. And virtually everyone involved in that process, and I say virtually to exclude one particular person, but virtually everyone involved in that process overcame themselves, like stepped up stayed stayed with it. And, you know, five years later, i saw Vincent Regan who played the captain. I ran into him when I was on a job in South Africa.
00:54:43
Speaker
And he's just like, dude, you fucking you saved my life. You utterly, and i I saw him and he had, like I had taken him from 210 pounds to 170 during the original 300 in an eight week period. He was like one of the best, most dedicated clients.
00:54:59
Speaker
And I'd see him five years later and he's like sitting at 175, 180.
00:55:04
Speaker
never gave up his um physical practice throughout that time. And I was like, fuck. Yeah. You know, so there are moments like that that I'm really, that I am really proud of. yeah And, you know, there's other situations where, you know, a couple of other people that we failed with um because we couldn't, you know, I can be fairly chameleon in my relationships, you know, in that situation, because that is the job, you know.
00:55:34
Speaker
ah I don't need to be anything but the person who can get the work done, especially when it's like, okay, this is super high stakes. You're going to be on, and I would, you know, kind of set up these situations, but, you know, if I think to ah to 2014 basically going, you're going to Tel Aviv and you're going to be there for, you know, four months, right?
00:56:00
Speaker
And then you're gonna come to where principal filming is happening and you're gonna bring the actress and she's gonna look like fucking Wonder Woman when you get there. And that level of responsibility and pressure of that outcome, this will be the first time that Wonder Woman is ever seen on the big screen.
00:56:17
Speaker
um you know there Yeah, there was a TV show, but this is like this is different. these are now These are big fucking superhero movies. And it i mean, the,
00:56:29
Speaker
ah certainly the pressure i felt was very serious yeah and it's not necessarily the studio or you know it's like i would never you know my main goal on all of those that that series of movies was to not you know to be the person that zach thought i was to do whatever it would take to not let him down yeah And that is that is very much like a climbing partnership. Yeah, absolutely.
00:57:03
Speaker
yeah And you know I was ready to say, ask you if you felt like you had betrayed the mountains in like going into this, but when you put it in these terms, like yeah, it's accountability.
Accountability in Craft and Partnerships
00:57:22
Speaker
Yeah. And it's a continuation in ah in a way of like, okay, I dedicate myself to a particular craft.
00:57:33
Speaker
I don't know everything I need to know to to do it to the to at the at the level and you know with the outcomes that I want. So I need to go to school. I need to learn. I need to practice. I need to study. Study. i need to you know And it's like, oh yeah, alpinism, you know and I wrote about it. you know the like I cut off everything that might hold me back. Well, those movies, yeah.
00:58:01
Speaker
it's kind of similar, you know, it's 300. I was, you know, gone for the pretty much four months from home. You know, I'm married. i have a home. i have a dog. I, you know, all of these things.
00:58:14
Speaker
I go away to do the work. I, you know, finished. And after 300, told Zach, this is great, I really appreciate the opportunity and i hope we did a good job and don't ever fucking call me about this again because the people that you work with in this industry and I see how they behave, I do not want any need more of that to get on me.
00:58:37
Speaker
And so that job was 2005 to the end of January 2006.
00:58:42
Speaker
and ah And the next job I did was in 2000. I was not in the film business for five years until he called again, called Lisa.
00:58:54
Speaker
knew what you would say. Yes. I mean, exactly. He knew that if he called me that I i would just, and so he called and said, I need, have this job.
00:59:07
Speaker
I need Mark to do it. I need to know how to ask him. so that there's only one answer that he gives me and that answer will be yes. And Lisa taught him how to puppet master me into saying yes. And, and it worked and, you know, but then that job, it's like, okay, I'm on, you know I'm away from home in Los Angeles for three months and then we're in Illinois for two and then British Columbia. I mean, it was a, um,
00:59:37
Speaker
It was 11 months basically away from home for that job in various locations. And then I was, then we finished that. I was home for three weeks. um I left again that time just for a week and then came home and then that's 2012. And then I was in Paris for two months, Bulgaria for four months. And then I'm home for a month and then home a month.
01:00:07
Speaker
Fuck, I'm in, I guess, trying to think here. Yeah, then I'm in Detroit for a short amount of time, Tel Aviv for four months, and then and then Michigan for another four, think June, in july August, September, or six.
01:00:28
Speaker
and you know so And then immediately after that, um I go to London and then Italy. And you know it's just like, yeah, of course you're gonna get divorced.
01:00:38
Speaker
yeah You know, yeah yeah it's there's there's no way around, you know, that that I was, again, still willing to, I didn't know I was sacrificing necessarily, but I was still willing to do whatever it took to become as good as I could possibly become myself.
01:00:58
Speaker
And going back to our earlier thread about, you know, kind of partnership in business and in climbing and how, you know, the the menu of choices that we learned were, the lexicon, as you put it, more poetically, was limited. i think, again, like your your playbook was, i go all in, i exclude everything extraneous, and i and I put my back against the wall.
01:01:24
Speaker
And I pay later. And I pay later. And that's what you know. Yeah. and um
01:01:36
Speaker
And i did I learned and I did good work. And that and you know was that worth it? I still think so. Even if there's a bad end on a number of fronts um with business and with marriage and that.
01:01:56
Speaker
but i i think i would like to settle in on the i only know how to do this in the way that i have practiced doing it through my entire climbing career which was the all or nothing part yeah yeah
01:02:14
Speaker
that's a um
01:02:21
Speaker
a tough one to sit with in this moment of realizing like, oh yeah, i
01:02:31
Speaker
maybe that that it's entirely possible that it was not a conscious choice in how I handled those that work. oh Of course.
01:02:45
Speaker
you You once said, look you know after a demanding workout, you know going to going to the forge, you had like this window of 20 or 30 minutes where you could inject ideas or- or or Yeah, where where a person has been placed in a very susceptible condition yeah to um yeah whatever input might arrive.
01:03:13
Speaker
What is it that you actually want to teach people in that when they're in that position?
01:03:22
Speaker
Honestly, that's going vary by individual, you know, in way. But generally, I would... and but generally like what i would What I learned from training people in the gym for you know a lot of lot of time and you know different, watch people help them through different trajectories, different sports, different circumstances, et cetera, is the
01:03:59
Speaker
self-limiting behavior that we all engage in. and I think a lot of what was happening in the gym for me was like teaching, you know, was trying to teach people what I was trying to learn myself, which is to get out of their own way.
01:04:20
Speaker
And think, is
01:04:25
Speaker
i I think a lot of that sort of that 20 minute or 30 minute window, whatever that, you know, in the, in the post workout receptivity, when potentially, you know, ego is not in the conversation at um, where a person, as I said, is very receptive and what is,
01:04:50
Speaker
ah
01:04:54
Speaker
I think it's leading them to see, you know, in that 20 minute window, if I'm trying to transmit some information, or you know, get something into them unresisted, it's basically leading them to see themselves accurately.
01:05:07
Speaker
Cause as soon as, you know, if you're talking with someone about themselves and their condition, you know, if even if they're coming as, and they're saying, I am a student, you are the teacher and I am here to learn and listen.
01:05:22
Speaker
um whether by whether the topic itself the subject you know the knowledge being transmitted of like hey you're a lazy piece of shit okay that person's not willing to learn anymore in that moment um because all of a sudden the barrier you know you know the the language the the the wall the armor went up immediately and and so understanding okay that that once again, a limited lexicon, ah man, I need to, I need them to be in the most receptive condition possible so that I can use the limited lexicon that I have for the best effect. And, ah
01:06:07
Speaker
Because it's it's it's really hard to adapt to um the circumstances of a particular individual, especially if it's, you know, like on a movie job where I might be training a person, you know, five or six days a week.
01:06:22
Speaker
I might be with him all the time. So, I'm watching them go through this process where they're affected by all of the stress being put upon them of living. You know, one of the gals on the Man of Steel movie, I mean, she's,
01:06:36
Speaker
She's acting in English, which is her second language. She's from Berlin. She's away from home for eight months, pretty much on her own the whole time. So she's got a different level ah like a baseline level of experience.
01:06:52
Speaker
stress and uncertainty coming in. and then and that was my first time really trying to um manage the psychology of a woman in that you know in these circumstances.
01:07:07
Speaker
um Not totally proud of the outcome of that one, but I learned. um But trying to get a person, strip them, you know, in the, in the um The Slovak Direct article I wrote about, you know, how we stripped ourselves down to the point where there was no longer any prejudice, where the the eye that got us to start the route disappeared.
01:07:32
Speaker
And, you know, we were just, and had become antenna to whatever was happening. That's exactly what I was trying to read you know try to create in those gym circumstances is to um maybe put a person in intoircum into a situation where they couldn't um evade their true self yeah um or leading them to see um themselves in a much, in a clear and accurate way.
01:08:08
Speaker
And I think that's, and so in in that moment, you know, they're they're very receptive, but they're what as a coach or a trainer, you know, depending on the relationship with the person, you have to be super careful.
01:08:21
Speaker
Yeah. Because especially if it's a situation where, um okay, I'm the older experienced in a you know person being looked at as a father figure almost by a male or female, it doesn't matter.
01:08:42
Speaker
The responsibility is huge. With great power comes great responsibility. Yeah. And and really difficult to... um to to understand the the those circumstances and behave appropriately within them while being under similar pressure.
01:09:02
Speaker
Right, right. But I like that idea where, you know, I mean, and I do think that that's a lot of what climbing is about is, you know, stripping away the the ego, the filters, the like all the constructs that we, the all the whole construct of i as you put it to just become antenna to what is happening around us. So there's just like very direct, like feedback loop between reality and action yeah and agency a reality agency in action.
01:09:35
Speaker
I think that that's super important. And I think that the same happens in climbing as you, as you said, And my question also was going to be with regards to that, like, how worried are you about what you convey during that window? And you sort of answered my question that you are concerned because it is, it is like, it could go either way, right? Like you can, you can, you can do great good or you, and you can do great harm.
01:10:05
Speaker
My answer to that question would be all of the worry. Yeah. I would have it, you know, mean, ultra as, you know, as a, uh, decent level of maybe unhealthy level of paranoia in the mountains and the same, you know, in these circumstances on the one hand to, you know, not let down who the person who put their trust in me. Um, and then also to be very careful about,
01:10:31
Speaker
ah
01:10:34
Speaker
how certain words are heard or how the you know the relationship is going. And I would say with one client, I was basically with her one-on-one for nine months.
01:10:46
Speaker
And ah
01:10:51
Speaker
and then the next job we worked on, she had a different trainer. you know we had We had exhausted the um explored and then exhausted the limits of a personal relationship and under those circumstances.
01:11:08
Speaker
And um and you know with the success of that first job, you know she changed also her stature in the in the business changed and she wanted certain can you know other concessions and I was...
01:11:24
Speaker
You know, I'm not that i'm not that guy who's really going to accommodate, you know, people looking for concessions in how I do the work that I'm doing. And so it's just like, well...
01:11:39
Speaker
for the you know the the greater good in terms of the outcome, ah this individual needs to be with somebody else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we we aren't you know really resonating. we're not our Our language is different now you know based on our relationships and and that sort of, based on the relationship that we created over a certain period of time.
01:12:04
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I've experienced that as well with athletes I've worked with. And I i see it sometimes as
01:12:16
Speaker
as the, I hate to say fault because I don't want to put blame, but a good portion portion of the time, i think it's that the athletes themselves are just resistant to...
01:12:31
Speaker
like And it's always shame. always feel like it's such a shame because after like a year yeah of working with somebody, you know them so well and you're you're able to turn the dials much more precisely and effectively to get where you want them to go, where they want to go with their fitness.
01:12:52
Speaker
And then to sort of throw that away in a sense and start over with somebody who doesn't have that nine months or year of experience is...
01:13:02
Speaker
it always makes me a little upset, a little emotional, like just, you know, and disappointed. um And it's not to say that, you know, i think I think that there are times where it's right to switch coaches or, you know, and there's, with the right, with the right chemistry, there's a very long ways you can, people can go together. Yeah. But I think it's, I think the, that, that right chemistry is more rare than we obviously wouldn't more rare than we would like it to be yeah but i i think it is you know the the if if i think of some athletes that i've worked with for a long time um and and you know even if we're not together you know working together now because i don't do that anymore or whatever but the ones that i've worked together with for a long time and then maintained a relationship with
01:13:55
Speaker
When either they stopped doing the the sport or I bowed out of, you know, that, of the relationship, um it's, it's few because it's, ah but in a, in a, in you know, if a relationship is going on for that long, it is, it's, it has evolved beyond the transactional.
01:14:16
Speaker
to a point of you know mutual respect and care and friendship. And yes, then to change like, oh, I don't wanna, all I hear is Steve's voice in my head and maybe if I heard, if it was someone else's voice,
01:14:33
Speaker
then maybe, you know, and I don't know where the responsibility on those on this is. I mean, I always tried to take it on myself and just so that I could change and improve. Yeah.
01:14:46
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's everyone's responsibility. that and Yeah. Okay. Point. one of the One of the things that, you know, you've been through personally that we haven't talked about is sort of the and I think a lot of us have experienced this either directly or indirectly, is just the the changes in your body as you've gotten older. And you've also had a bunch of injuries, whether you know you now have a ah fused ankle and you've had a bunch of other orthopedic and surgeries.
01:15:21
Speaker
And, you know, I think that we've, you know, both with you, but also with some of our other mutual friends, transitioning from someone who identifies as an athlete or identifies whose identity is tied up in movement yeah of any kind, and then to lose some component or some fluency in that movement is a really difficult
01:15:46
Speaker
path to walk. And I think that from the outside, people often think like they want the magic bullet. Tell me the thing that in five minutes will me give me peace with the fact that I can't move my ankle the way I used to or something like that. And and I think that the reality is is quite a lot uglier and messier maybe is a better word. think messier is accurate. And it's just, it's it's it's a really hard thing. and the in And it just kind of speaks to being being an athlete and being a human is oftentimes kind of messy and how is is that you see it what is that cycle between seeing it as a loss and seeing it as a liberation
01:16:35
Speaker
um life i i mean seeing it and i mean i i don't know if if there um
01:16:49
Speaker
you know, there there is a tremendous sense of loss. yeah And it's and it's it's ah it's a loss of identity. it's ah It's a reduction in the scope of the map of opportunity, um you know, in life.
01:17:01
Speaker
And ah and took, it has taken a long time. yeah And especially when you know In the tail end of 2021, I did away with the last cartilage in my left hip, the right when had already been replaced. and And then in the left hip, you know it went I so it was overzealous in an activity. and you know it was going to it was coming sooner or later. It just happened on a particular day after
01:17:34
Speaker
Yeah. Overdoing it, let's say. and to And then, you know, scheduling the surgery, but popping hot for COVID.
01:17:46
Speaker
Then with IHC in Salt Lake, they're basically, ah you can't come into one of our medical facilities for seven weeks. You have to test negative before you can come in.
01:17:56
Speaker
I'm like, the reason I'm positive is because I just got over it, you know, and it's that that that was demonstrated. And he said, no, it's policy and this is how it's gonna happen. so and that made me basically realize, okay, I needed to have the hip replaced and the ankle fused. I wanted to do it all in the same calendar year, so I hit my maximum out of pocket for my insurance.
01:18:18
Speaker
So waiting the seven or eight weeks on the hip meant that I would have to, I could do the hip at the tail end of 2021, but then I would have to wait till the next year. And so I'd get max out of pocket and you know in December and then max out of pocket again in January.
01:18:33
Speaker
i was like, no, i'll I'll wait. And so the next basically two and a half months, um I could barely walk around.
01:18:44
Speaker
And I was in tremendous pain. long time to be in pain. It was real. I mean, and Blair was so helpful and caring and accommodating and and patient was impatient and with great empathy.
01:19:03
Speaker
and
01:19:07
Speaker
That was really bad. And so i went down to a place of, you know, okay, I'm never going to, you know, everything's gone now. I can't, you know, do any of the things that I used to, you know, that used to help me, you know, stay alive. Right.
01:19:25
Speaker
And... To slowly come back from that, I mean happily that the hip that hip replacement went super easy. i mean i was um I was in and out in one day and on crutches for basically two days only and then a cane for another two days and then I was walking. I mean it was that was amazing.
01:19:47
Speaker
Ankle fusion, totally different story. It's non-weight bearing for 12 weeks to start. um And ah during which time I re-tore the rotator cuff in my left shoulder. So I'd already had two reconstructions on that and um and a crutch slipped and then stopped all of a sudden and just, yeah.
01:20:10
Speaker
did something, i still have not had that fixed because I couldn't confront yet another surgery at that point. and um And then you know the or the orthopedic hubris is apparent in the statement of, yeah, after your ankle's fused, you're back to normal activity in probably two years.
01:20:29
Speaker
probably two years You know, which i'm like, okay, that's great. That's because that's gonna mean a year for me because I'm gonna do everything right. And I'm not, ah you know, ah i'm an outlier. I'm not average, yeah. And I'm not average. and then But then getting back to, you know, normal activity, my normal activity also, you know, what I expect of myself is also different. Yeah. And then the the reality is that it basically took three years. Yeah.
01:20:58
Speaker
And... And to to learn things, like there's you know there's certain things that I won't do in the mountains now because i'm I don't trust my balance. Because it doesn't work in this, you know, that whole leg doesn't work in the same way anymore.
01:21:12
Speaker
and um And, you know, and then the more time you spend away from anything, then the there's a loss of reflexive balance. ah responsive reaction to certain things. And so like, okay, well, I'm not i'm not in the ground.
01:21:30
Speaker
What is it that I can do? And if i resolve if I resolve my ah issue of identity tied to an activity,
01:21:43
Speaker
this is where the liberation came from. It's not the the the physical, you know, oh, I made whole, you know, i'm now I'm bionic and I can do this stuff. No, it's just, it's it's being okay with doing what I am able to do with who I'm able to do it with.
01:22:01
Speaker
And that is, i think that's where the liberation came from for me really was like, well, you know, cause Blair at some point, you know, it's seeing in that period when I could barely walk of like, she said,
01:22:18
Speaker
i i could, I had, I couldn't allow myself any hope for you to be able to move again, seeing how bad it was.
01:22:31
Speaker
And now, know, that we can go out and,
01:22:38
Speaker
yeah did the little VK uphill competition here this year and we can go out and hike and we can ride our gravel bikes and you know we can do physical things together that she said, yeah, I thought it was might be over.
01:22:54
Speaker
and that you know again it's accepting that oh yeah what climbing do i do well if i go ice climbing i like it when the rope comes from above and if i go you know and i go to the rock gym where it's yeah where i can have the most amount of control at least over what happens with my ankle and how i you know kind of do things and just let go and it's fine and ah It is, you know, recognizing, ah accepting the
01:23:31
Speaker
title, I guess, or a description as an elder. in And I'll say, you know, elder in the climbing community. You know, maybe it's an elder in the fitness community, but that's, ah you know, just, it's a such a transient and volatile zone that I don't really think about that. But in the climbing community, as soon as I accept myself as an elder, not so, you know, I haven't let myself get too far out of shape and um and that sort of thing. So, and even if I don't do the activity, I'm And turns out I know a little bit about it and I can communicate about it. know a lot about it, yeah. and
01:24:10
Speaker
And so that is really what changed is accepting you know who I am now.
01:24:21
Speaker
Is it like this is, this is i i got away with it, you know some of it. Somehow I got here. Yeah. And that, you know, there is the abs the the freeing condition that, you know orthopedic interventions were absolutely necessary to arrive at that. but Yeah, yeah.
01:24:46
Speaker
That's interesting. Well, I'm glad that you were able to find that sort of self-compassion to arrive to arrive here
01:24:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's a...
01:25:07
Speaker
I would say, I guess that's accurate in in in the description of like not being mad at myself for failing to you know that's what i be be a physical specimen and ah you know or whatever. And and honestly, you know when you mentioned her you know the start of sort of this this question of, you know hey, when identity is tied to physical movement in some way and And we use physical activity, varying degrees of duration and or intensity to excavate ourselves internally. if that is no long, you know if that isn't available, well, maybe it isn't necessary anymore. um
01:25:46
Speaker
the The fact, i mean, any of it, like if i talk about climbing and quitting climbing, like, I i was,
01:25:57
Speaker
A trajectory to sort of a more comfortable position in life was possible because I volunteered out of climbing. hu If I was someone from whom tick climbing was taken instead in that same year after that route, whatever, it would have been completely different.
01:26:19
Speaker
If it was an involuntary quitting, don't know how I would be able live through that.
01:26:33
Speaker
But choosing it and then having to say that, yeah, there's a there is a tremendous void in life right now that I made. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
01:26:46
Speaker
That's a different set of circumstances. Yeah. and And. Because it's familiar terrain. You're like, yeah, i put my back against the wall again and I can do this.
01:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, and it's gonna be, but it's also gonna be, you know if I say that I basically climbing was my profession for 20 years and then you know and then I spent the next 20 getting over that, you know or recovering from it or in rehab from it. um It's a bit of a joke, but it's also you know it's also kind of not.
01:27:18
Speaker
And I have real you know compassion for a lot of you know i'm ah friends in military that it um separated after 20 years or 30 years or you know some of them who just stayed in because It's what they know, you know, and and and what what made them.
01:27:37
Speaker
Yeah. And to get out and there's no... And they're often quite young. They go in at 18, they're out 20 years later and they're only 38. I mean, they have a lot of life left. thats yeah it's ah It's a big to big empty space to look ah look at, to stare at. Yeah. Yeah, I hear that and I i completely agree.
01:27:59
Speaker
That's it's quite... And I think that this goes back to you know leadership. not that we Not that you created the path, but that you've walked the path.
01:28:12
Speaker
And it's important, I think, for whether it's elder climbers or maybe elders in the military community to to to demonstrate by actually doing it themselves, because that's the only real form of leadership. Yeah.
01:28:31
Speaker
That, yeah, there's ah there's a way. And this is my interpretation of the way. And I'm going to go through this this thing and find a lot of fulfillment and interest and fill my cup over here. And you can too. like it' you'll You'll figure it out. yeah and And to communicate, like you know've I've been telling people...
01:28:51
Speaker
you know, here it is. My, my big transition happened when I was 39, 40, where I had my accident on Mount Temple. And then in a way, like you said, it was kind of, let's say taken away from me a little bit, yeah but in a way it was also like such a,
01:29:10
Speaker
it wasn't that subtle. It was, it was really obvious. And that was a ledge that you hit. And, and I think that that, it still took 10 years.
01:29:24
Speaker
Yeah. Right. mean, it still took 10 years to kind of work through that. Do you feel like worked through? a do. And i think the hardest piece was,
01:29:40
Speaker
And again, I think I used the back against the wall lexicon because after turned 50 and just... and just like ending a whole bunch of sponsorships that were, I ended on my, like, it was my idea to end them. Okay. yeah And, and mean, everyone thought I was insane. Like, why would you turn down that much, you know, six figures yeah when you added it all together?
01:30:08
Speaker
i was like pretty good living. And I, But I also, like, I was just like, I don't want to just be doing the same thing. And it just feels it feels inauthentic.
01:30:20
Speaker
And as long as I feel inauthentic, I can't show up and do a good job because I'm just going through the motions. And if i if I'm doing that and I'm not giving my best, like...
01:30:32
Speaker
I just don't want to live like that. Oh, yeah. And so, yeah, it's money, and but i I know how to work hard, and I'll figure it out. One thing, okay, at the initiation when we started talking about the Hollywood work that I did, and one of the things is i I'm sure you were rewarded handsomely, you know and it pays really well, and and I wanted to interject then. I'm like, yeah, if it was about the money, then I would still be doing it.
01:31:00
Speaker
You know, if that was if that was the objective, and and I see you just basically said the same thing, it you know, people identify with ah the income as a, you know,
01:31:16
Speaker
a totem of success yeah sure and, and, um and, a and a and a motivation. Like I want to earn blah, blah, blah. If you don't, if, if you know, you are going to show up part way because you're not fully committed anymore. I mean, I, I applaud you um as difficult as that,
01:31:43
Speaker
I'm sure it was. um but You absolutely put, you took, you put your money where your mouth is. you took the money out of your mouth and said, look, I don't want to live inauthentically because the money was never the point. That that allowed me,
01:32:02
Speaker
to express and do. so And I was done expressing and doing in that way. And there were other people who could use it. I was part of, you know, I don't know that they got it because I had no agency over that. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah.
01:32:20
Speaker
I mean, and and that's, I think there is, and that's not an altruistic thing, you know, it's just like, no, these are the circumstances of this industry, you know, there's a finite amount of support for people and good on you for,
01:32:37
Speaker
Yeah, I was, you know i' am still that you know, financially was not the right move. ah i But like no accountant would, but like spiritually and morally and for me it was the right thing, absolutely. Yeah. And one of the things that I think, you know, you have demonstrated and some of our heroes have demonstrated and, you know, I think of Walter Bonatti, it comes to mind, you know, it just –
01:33:10
Speaker
It takes a lot of courage to have conviction
01:33:15
Speaker
knowing full well that we might not be right. Yeah. Right. Like, I mean, and you have to, you know, we have to accept, and I think much of life is like this, that you have to accept that you're making a decision within complete information and you're going to do the best you can. And in hindsight, it's something that's going to be wrong with it because you will have had, you will have gained some new knowledge, you know, post decision, but you you can only, you only know what you know at the time and You know, you have to you have to execute and and do it and see what you can do.
Chasing Human Potential and Self-Reinvention
01:33:52
Speaker
And you have to live with yourself. You know, you got to wake up every day. and Yeah. You know. And I think it's it's just so interesting. There's like so many interesting things to do in life. You know, and there's so many there's so much to learn about. And our world is so dynamic right now, as we've talked about on the side. I mean, just like so much is changing so fast.
01:34:14
Speaker
And the way to succeed is not to just like sit back and let it happen to you. oh yeah It never is in times of change. So, you know, you have to lean in and and figure it out. the There's all these different sort of versions of Mark that we've sort of covered today, you know, whether it was the the high energy kid, the nihilistic Dr. Doom, the, you know, the alpinist that walked away after 25 years of, you know, a bunch of hard climbing, to the writer who has this incredibly vulnerable, powerful, you know, I think one of the things that makes your voice unique is the
01:35:01
Speaker
It's you're vulnerable without being weak. If that makes sense, you're vulnerable and like expressing immense power through that vulnerability. And I think that that um is ah is is a real unique ah gift in writing and your voice. And, you know, you've had this whole career through, you know, Jim Jones training Spartans and all of the things.
01:35:29
Speaker
What is the through through line? What is the through line through all of these versions?
01:35:43
Speaker
it's I think it's a... um
01:35:47
Speaker
wanting in the beginning was wanting myself to recognize and the and accept and chase my own human potential.
01:36:01
Speaker
And like, and then wanting that for others and being in whatever the the the medium the mechanism the activity has been like man i there was a there's a time you know i have an inherent laziness that i inherited and there's a ah you know, a natural tendency, I think, in human beings to, you know, to settle for less than their full, ah you know, ability, or it it regardless of what that might be. And it's, and,
01:36:42
Speaker
and conditioning to, you know, especially now in a particular era where we are um base virtually assaulted by different possible experiences that other people have and and maybe seeing those experiences and and being sort of tricked into wanting them.
01:37:09
Speaker
um and it And it might not be in what those experiences and those activities and achievements are might not, might have been, you know, we see an example of them and that might have been that person's maximum potential.
01:37:28
Speaker
It might not be ours. We might, it is entirely possible that we can go you know beyond that. But if we drop anchor on this particular premise or accomplishment, then we are anchored.
01:37:43
Speaker
And i think the through line of it is, man, when you can, as a human being, you can do and absolutely everything.
01:37:55
Speaker
amazing things and have and and and have incredible experiences. If you, well, a first you have to find what you're here for.
01:38:08
Speaker
That's a whole thing in and of its own. But it's, you know, full commitment, you know, 100% commitment of all available sort of resources to this particular thing. You can and will, you know, go really far. That could be fatherhood.
01:38:27
Speaker
You know, it it it could be a sporting activity. It could, you know, it could be art. It could be literature. It could be business. It doesn't, you know, that's, it's human beings doing human being stuff. So it's really all the same, but it is this unreserved commitment to it, being willing to fail that will,
01:38:49
Speaker
um
01:38:53
Speaker
you know, I think I want to, I would want for anyone to look back and um not wish they had done something that they didn't do. Yeah. And um I wrote something about that, a very small sentence about that.
01:39:19
Speaker
So, you know, be seize every opportunity that you have because the worst thing is gonna be, you know, find yourself later in life unable to you know to to take that opportunity, but still being alive to wish you had. Yeah.
01:39:37
Speaker
And i yeah, I think we settle for less and sell ourselves short almost in a strange um habit.
01:39:56
Speaker
And if there was a through line for me from through any of that, it would be, you know, don't settle.
01:40:10
Speaker
as as You know, unless it's appropriate. Unless it's what you much you want, because there are trade-offs.
01:40:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. How does Mark Twight want to be remembered?
01:40:49
Speaker
I don't know. ah I could, so you know, clip of I left it better than I found it.
Poetry and the Philosophy of Self-Reinvention
01:40:54
Speaker
um But what is At moment, want to...
01:41:01
Speaker
i've
01:41:05
Speaker
think i want to um
01:41:13
Speaker
I guess if to if I want some aspect to be remembered, then it would have to do with a Bukowski poem.
01:41:30
Speaker
ah which I can't remember the title of right now, but you know over and over again, reinvent yourself, reinvent yourself, reinvent yourself. Obviously, we'll never restart.
01:41:42
Speaker
go to zero and restart Everything that we choose to do in our lives um it has to sit on all of the previous experience. You know use can it can't be erased.
01:41:59
Speaker
um but i feel i think we're really fortunate to live in an era where we can, you know, if we just speak in the context of career that we could have three or five or more different sort of career type experiences or different periods in life where we focused on
01:42:27
Speaker
different things. And it's, and not necessarily that like, I was a thrill seek, you know, in my twenties, I was a thrill seeking youth person. and And in my thirties, I, you know, got married and I started a family and then, in you know, and then in my forties I had a midlife crisis. And so I bought this, you know, I decided to, you know,
01:42:47
Speaker
that I wanted to be in NASCAR. And so I did, you know, or would whatever, not formulaic in that way, but to be open to the things. And as you had said a couple of times since we've been together, you know, there's so much to do in life.
01:43:04
Speaker
And to, and we are in a moment now, and I think it, I think people younger than us are more open to with the idea of not being constrained into, you know, a particular pipeline of, of living.
01:43:18
Speaker
um Whereas, you know, I think people who are, I would say that my age, that it was more of a thing to you know start down a path and stay on the path and to you know follow the recipe.
01:43:33
Speaker
And
01:43:37
Speaker
only it just takes one, you know that saying yes to the to one particular off-ramp, then you who knows what beautiful field that might lead to. That's a good way to put it.
01:43:55
Speaker
Would you be willing to find and read this poem to us that you alluded to? um Which one? The Bukowski one?
01:44:09
Speaker
I'm pretty sure I can
01:44:16
Speaker
think. Let me see. It's got to be in...
01:44:30
Speaker
Maybe take a drink of water before you do. What? you're Yeah, a little frothy. Yeah.
01:44:56
Speaker
I've got a paraphrased version, so let us go to the goggles.
01:46:03
Speaker
So it is a poem by Charles Bukowski called No Leaders, Please.
Materialism vs. Personal Growth
01:46:10
Speaker
Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself. Don't swim in the same slew. Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself and stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.
01:46:21
Speaker
Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself. Change your tone and shape so often that they can never categorize you. Reinvigorate yourself and accept what is, but only on the terms that you have invented and reinvented.
01:46:36
Speaker
Be self-taught and reinvent your life because you must. It is your life and its history and the present belong only to you.
01:46:51
Speaker
love that. And
01:46:56
Speaker
celebration of constant growth and change. Yeah. I guess. And writing your own history and taking agency in your own story. Yeah. Yeah.
01:47:08
Speaker
which you know that that poem has meant different things in different periods you know of life, obviously. it's And sometimes it's you know it's been really confrontational and fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. And then it's just like, wow, if I want to experience the all of the richness of life that's available, then I'm gonna need to ah be someone different.
01:47:44
Speaker
Yeah, because you can't just go to the outcome. You have to go through the process. To quote our friend Jack Tackle, it turns out.
01:47:57
Speaker
Which, it's a, and that in itself is almost, Now, if I think of a a society largely driven by the desire to acquire, you know, an acquisitive society, especially in, as I had written about quite a bit earlier this year, talking about the Himalayan, you know, sort of scene and lines of people on peaks of like, I want, you know, it's the,
01:48:28
Speaker
acquisition is not, you know, the the acquisition is not the experience. And to be thinking of how naked and vulnerable we made ourselves on the sides of those mountains in order to experience ourselves And to juxtapose that or contrast that with, and and i can't I can only imagine what it
01:49:01
Speaker
um is like to be in the tent with your oxygen bottle and you know your Sherpa looking after you. Like, what is that experience of climb? I I don't wanna know necessarily, but I'm kinda curious. You know, what is, the same thing.
01:49:19
Speaker
it's the same thing m we're We did the same activity, you know, we're doing the same activity. How could it be so fucking different?
01:49:36
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I think that this is ah one a question that I've asked three or four times this year in this season of Voice of the Mountains to various people is like, when did it, when exactly did it become all about money?
01:49:55
Speaker
Like, when did that happen? You know, and it happened sometime and in our lifetimes, like in our adult lifetimes, I feel like there was a shift and, know, I think that there, I know, i mean, we both know people and that there is a, there is a ah large movement of people that want to move beyond that or not go in that direction and and have it be about the process and the experience and,
01:50:26
Speaker
first and foremost, and the becoming. Yeah. You know, i mean, these these sound like very quaint terms, but what they actually are just referring to some really dirty, hard work most of the time that isn't particularly glamorous and yeah isn't particularly fun and isn't particularly easy.
01:50:45
Speaker
And yet that's the that's where the real gold is, right? It's like in that, the...
01:50:54
Speaker
in that process. And I know that you believe that and I believe that. And I think that it's what I'm pausing is like, how do we how do we like preach that? like How do we get that out there? like how do you know How do you compete against you know, the advertising budget of a, I don't know, Rolex or Mercedes.
01:51:17
Speaker
i mean, Mercedes, I think is a little different. A car is a tool. and ah i mean, Rolex is a watch. But,
01:51:27
Speaker
How do you compete against that? You know, and I mean, even if you look at this, you know, you and I both attempted in our own ways to adapt to the new media that people consume. Yeah. And it's not long form books for the most part anymore. It's social media and all that that goes into that. And,
01:51:47
Speaker
it's you know, you're competing against all these brands. Like but Instagram is just full of, you know, it's TikTok now and it's attention and it's brand tons of brands, including mine.
01:52:01
Speaker
Because it's part of like what you have to do now. Yeah. and it drowns out authentic voices of people who are living living and talking about really authentic ways of becoming better versions of themselves that I think that I don't know how to.
Capitalism and its Dual Nature
01:52:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
01:52:22
Speaker
there's no There's no, you know, I think I really don't, and I don't want to sound like a socialist because i I strongly believe that capitalism is the absolute best thing that humanity has invented. I mean, it has lots of negatives, but look at what it has done for us in the last 200 years. I mean, just like yeah look at where we're sitting and how we're living. and I mean, but, and, I should say, and, that it, it,
01:52:50
Speaker
One of the things that i learned from the Chouinards of my time at Patagonia was a couple things. One time I remember very clearly, like we were at a event in Jackson Hole actually, and the organizer tried to give Yvonne the, or maybe it was in Banff, the swag bag. You know, you get the thing and it's got like, I don't know, t-shirts and water bottles and all this stuff. And And his his thing was this like, he wouldn't like let them put it in his hands. He was like, no, thank you. I have enough.
01:53:21
Speaker
And I remember thinking, oh, man, that is that is so cool. And how they used capitalism, and they, i mean, Yvonne and Melinda and their whole team of people around them, yeah to do something really powerful and good.
01:53:39
Speaker
Maybe not exactly what I would have done if I had been in there, positioned sure but then
01:53:49
Speaker
not and And maybe I would have done exactly what they did. what they did I don't know because I haven't been in that position. But i just I still think that there's like a way. And this is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in uphill athlete because I just think that the way that you actually change the world and move mountains is you you know through the lever arm of cash flow and revenue and...
01:54:16
Speaker
creating value for other human beings that they're willing to exchange hard-earned money for. And then you can do more for them with that. And it turns into this virtuous cycle, hopefully. yeah And maybe we can also ah you know tell more stories that are the right stories.
01:54:39
Speaker
I think it's a of
01:54:49
Speaker
It's yeah, it's not gonna continue. If there isn't positive feedback, and sometimes the positive feedback is financial reward because everyone has to sort of go to the bank. Without that, there isn't sometimes a motivation to continue at you know at a certain point.
01:55:07
Speaker
And that, um like, well, I've kept true to my ideals. I haven't been able to communicate them well, or I didn't, you know, did for a variety of reasons that are not necessarily important in and of themselves that he was like, I'm burned out now.
01:55:26
Speaker
and But having a financial reward that allows you to keep doing it and because of, you know ah that reward is viewed positively in society. you know That thing, I feel like, it yes, it is necessary to turn some of these things into a business. It can't just be 100% and income.
01:55:50
Speaker
you know output and no in income um and And if you're one thing I think that is that the advantageous about a uphill athlete in terms of shifting consciousness for people is that they're they're coming to the organization, to the service that you're offering, to the relationships that you're offering,
01:56:14
Speaker
um understanding that they're volunteering for hard work. If they want to achieve a particular outcome that they've imagined or result that they've imagined, then they will have to work for it. They want to work in the most efficient way. So they're going to talk, you know, it's like hiring a guide. And so I want to do this. I don't want to, I'm not hiring the guy to give me a shortcut. I'm hiring the, you know, the guy, the coach, the trainer so that I don't have to reinvent the wheel.
01:56:44
Speaker
And because they already know more than I do, they've demonstrated that. And so they you know there are people who are volunteering for hard work and and willingly exchanging their hard-earned money you know in order to do that work, which is beautiful.
01:57:01
Speaker
it and And to me, that's a way that you change things. Yvonne and Melinda, they had a different view how you know using that love you know Hey, for the environment, of A million is not as much as 1% of a billion. Yeah.
01:57:20
Speaker
It starts going to be a pretty big number. You know, it starts to be a... But you don't go to a billion in the first year. Apparently, that is
Reflections on 'Refuge' and Personal Growth
01:57:26
Speaker
the case. Yeah. And I... i As far as, you know okay, how do you compete with these things? i I don't know.
01:57:38
Speaker
you know it's It's really easy to to see that, you know to to to observe society in sort of the direction and the momentum that ah that it has right now and get bummed out and be depressed and feel like, man, it's kind of futile.
01:57:53
Speaker
you know to depending on the scale that you're interested in leveraging or levering against. And I
01:58:06
Speaker
and i do get depressed sometimes. you know And and and with this you know you asked about you know when did it change? When did it become all about the money? And and then it then it ah that I don't know the when of, but there's you know one way that I see it manifesting is that when people...
01:58:23
Speaker
you know, aspire to have, they if they think that acquiring the trappings of success or the symbols of success, the totems of it means that they are successful. Mm-hmm.
01:58:40
Speaker
which is not it. It's not true, especially if they've gone into financial or, know, some sort of spiritual debt in order to acquire the appearance of the trapping of the symbol of, and, but the, uh,
01:59:00
Speaker
The pressure that you know we all experience every day of an advanced consumerism algorithm, man, i you got to be pretty sturdy to stand up to that.
01:59:22
Speaker
Yeah. And and the the tens, if not hundreds of thousands hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people hard at work every day deploying that machine.
01:59:33
Speaker
oh yeah. and And refining it. And and and refining it in learning. And i think and know there's examples of it that don't need to be discussed.
01:59:46
Speaker
I... i
01:59:51
Speaker
I am, you know, it's, there was an old cartoon that I always appreciated. It was ah some kind of a rodent standing in a field and the big eagle or raptor coming down that's just about to fucking grab it and take off with it and eat it. And, you know, that little rodent flipping off the raptor and underneath it says, you know, last desperate act of defiance or something like that. And I kind of feel sometimes that that's where we're at is that this rapacious machinery is, um, is dehumanizing human beings.
02:00:32
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, that's the power of movement is it humanizes human beings. Yeah. And if, and if it's, and if art and a whole bunch of other, there's a bunch of other ways to humanize people.
02:00:48
Speaker
Yeah. i But I think movement is it is important in the sense that it is you know it's a it is a a physical thing and we can absolutely change our own internal state you know using a by a applying varying degrees of intensity or duration to that movement or environment, location. It's...
02:01:10
Speaker
Man, you disengage from a screen of some kind or the artificial environment and go out and interact with actual nature.
02:01:22
Speaker
Yeah. Assuming that's accessible to you. Yes. Yeah.
02:01:29
Speaker
Yeah.
02:01:32
Speaker
Yeah.
02:01:36
Speaker
We started... Hours ago now. Yes, we, yes. My favorite thing is we were, you know, but I've ah worked on this thesis about the relationship between humility and hubris.
02:01:55
Speaker
And how they are both necessary for, you know, the accomplishment of all things and living things. And I really appreciate the hubris we expressed earlier, thinking we were going to record two different podcasts today. Yes. Thanks for calling that out. Yeah, we'll just do the first one. It'll be super easy to go real quick. The cameras are going to work just fine. Everything's going to be fine.
02:02:18
Speaker
And then we'll just, ah I don't know. We'll just go for a walk. Go for a walk. And then we'll come back and we'll just do it again. But as different people. You know, or. or Yeah. It's like changing the bed sheets.
02:02:32
Speaker
Yes. i' I'm refreshed. Yes, exactly. We started hours ago with asking whether you had found your place of satisfaction in the valley. Yeah.
02:02:45
Speaker
And I think what we discovered is the question might be wrong that, because I don't think the valley and the mountain are different places. I think that they're, there are different person places on the, on the path of life.
02:03:03
Speaker
Yeah. And one isn't really above the other or below the other. Like we, like the allegory to try to project. And it's, it's much more, i mean, maybe it's not a perfectly linear path for sure not, but,
02:03:25
Speaker
I think it's the same work. It's just a different place. And a different worker. And a different worker, a changed worker. A changed worker.
02:03:35
Speaker
And you know i i was hoping you weren't gonna throw my quote at me where I, i so you know at some point two years after Refuge came out and I you know just came out and said, Refuge was a lie. you know was my It was my therapy session. And then also try it you know a means of trying to convince myself that I actually was comfortable in the Valley. or comfortable with she didn't do enough research to find that quote otherwise i absolutely would have and you know that i wasn't comfortable with the the changing nature of the worker the you know the the changing environment and you know still trying to uh uh
02:04:22
Speaker
apply the attitude and the energy that was appropriate for climbing to activities that are not climbing. yeah And obviously I can't you know change my own nature or my own personal sort of integrity in that regard, but um I feel like refuge was,
02:04:44
Speaker
ah
02:04:47
Speaker
like I could make it, complete but ah if I made it now, And I started working on it in the end of 2016. It took two years sort of to make, as all books generally do.
02:05:01
Speaker
Um, uh, if I did it now, it would be different and it would be, and and I, and it would be more honest in a way, or it would be an accurate sort of representation. Whereas this, i felt like I was like, yeah, this is, i am controlling my descent and traverse.
02:05:25
Speaker
ah And, and steering it like it didn't, I don't know that it, um,
02:05:35
Speaker
I don't think it happened...
02:05:39
Speaker
of its own volition. It wasn't an art piece that came into being um sort of on its own without my conscious steering and i say an influence. Yeah, I understand that. yeah that's Yeah, I've often thought about books in the sense of pregnancy and gestation. It had to come out.
02:06:00
Speaker
yeah I couldn't keep it. like it it Gestation was done and it was being born and I just was... the mother and delivered it, but I didn't control when when it came or what it looked like. just was this yeah organic process.
02:06:19
Speaker
and And you're saying that was a little bit of a mechanized... I think there was a bit more, it you know, in the moment, it didn't seem like that. i felt like it was the path. yeah this is And it was you. And it was. yeah um it was a path, but it wasn't the end point on the path because the changed human had not caught up.
02:06:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting you say that because i when i when I first got it, I immediately went through it and I was kind of like,
02:06:54
Speaker
ah And I was afraid to say anything to you. You know, I mean, I've obviously poured your a lot of amazing work and blood, sweat, and tears into it.
02:07:06
Speaker
And i was like I felt like it was a little forced. Thank you for saying it now, even if you couldn't, I couldn't have heard it then. So it wouldn't it matter if you said it or not. And I would have been mad at you, but for seeing me accurately when I couldn't see myself accurately. And I think one of the responsibilities of true friends is to say things like that, but also in a compassionate way that can be heard. Yeah. Which may mean that it needs, that it gets said two years later to yeah or however long. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe you're right. Yeah. Fair. You know, um, there
02:07:43
Speaker
ah honesty can be cruel too and in in a moment, but um well, happily i can hear it now.
02:07:54
Speaker
and And I think, you know and i look at it and like, I'm proud of it because it was- It's beautiful. It's hard work and it's a beautiful piece and and ah um
02:08:10
Speaker
inaccurate, you know, or Yeah, that's really trying to, you know, it and it's part of the, uh,
02:08:23
Speaker
you know, one of Rene DeMalle's piece there where he talks about, you you can't stay on a mountain. mean, you gotta. Gotta come down. Gotta come down, but you can bring down with you what, you know, you've learned, saw, felt, but you don't get
Gratitude and Friendship
02:08:40
Speaker
to stay. And that was um a real,
02:08:44
Speaker
I mean, a real struggle. and And through that, you know the the process of making that book, I was i was in a time of life where I was forcing a lot of things. And even um and at at some point,
02:08:58
Speaker
um
02:09:02
Speaker
talking about Refuge in a presentation that I did about it at the Banff Book and Film Festival, um And and one of one of my, let's say, you know, good friends, he would say we're good mates, um you know, from time in the film business is Russell Crowe, who is,
02:09:32
Speaker
also someone who's partially responsible for my continued existence at a time when that was sort of in doubt. and And we stayed in touch and and he listened to the presentation and he has a copy of Refuge and and he he said, you know in his inimitable way, he said, you almost got there. Oh.
02:09:57
Speaker
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
02:10:03
Speaker
Ruthless, brutal honesty and also the truth. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Because you could see it. What a wonderful way to say it. Yeah.
02:10:14
Speaker
Because it's saying it with acknowledging how far you went. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really hard to do. It's really, really hard to do.
02:10:26
Speaker
And he appreciates that too as an artist. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So much.
02:10:33
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Mark... Yeah, thank you. i don't know if that really so is enough to say, but thank you for all the days we had together in the mountains, on the skis, in the gym, around the over coffee.
02:10:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's been, and and it's i'm I'm super grateful for all our years of friendship and that we're able to continue to have this friendship and evolve as, what was our term? Growing, different, changing people.
02:11:14
Speaker
Changed worker. Yeah, changed worker. And just thank you for all that you've taught me. It's really meant a lot to me. and Thank you for saying the things out loud that most people aren't willing to say.
02:11:34
Speaker
You're, you're welcome. And, uh, and I, I feel the same. I'm thank you for those days and for, uh,
02:11:53
Speaker
our continued friendship despite not seeing each other or communicating through, mean, it was
02:12:02
Speaker
pretty amazing hug in the airport last night. Yeah. Yeah. And, and then I'm also, you know, I would do two things in that regard. Thank you for all that you have taught me the example you've set.
02:12:20
Speaker
and for helping keep me honest
02:12:27
Speaker
in all of the pursuits for, you know, mocking when it was appropriate, admonishing when that was appropriate, and um and praising and loving when that's appropriate.
02:12:44
Speaker
I'm glad we're friends. am as well.
02:12:58
Speaker
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02:13:15
Speaker
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02:13:26
Speaker
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