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Uphill Athlete Book Club: Cory Richards, The Color of Everything
5.3k Plays2 months ago
Cory Richards returns to the Uphill Athlete podcast for an in-depth conversation with Steve. The two discuss Cory’s book, The Color of Everything currently available by book or audiobook. The memoir delves into Cory's life from childhood to his career as a photographer, climber, mental health advocate among many other pieces of his identity. Steve and Cory discuss the book’s exploration of various psychological challenges like bipolar disorder, addiction, and narcissism and how they serve not only to highlight individual struggles but also to reflect on the universal nature of storytelling in shaping our identities. Tune in for a wonderful discussion on a powerful story.
Check out Cory's book on amazon and all other major platforms. Visit us at uphillathlete.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to the uphill athlete podcast. My name is Steve House, and I'll be your host today. I have a very special guest with us today. Mr. Corey Richards.
Corey Richards' Book and Writing Discussion
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome Corey. What's happening? and Thanks for having me back. I love it. Yeah. Well, today we are are going to do an episode devoted to your new book.
00:00:34
Speaker
one of two books you have coming out this year, by the way. Yeah. The Color of Everything is the book we're talking about today. And I just want to say like, I loved this book, Cory. Like I didn't, you know, when you hear your friends wrote a book. Yeah.
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah. Sometimes it's a little like, Ooh, you know, it's like, ah, yeah. You don't, you don't, you kind of don't want to read it. Cause if it sucks, you don't want to have to like carry that knowledge and be like, yeah, good job. And in your head, you're like, this was terrible. Right. You don't have to do that. The book was amazing. The book is amazing. Uh, I don't, I didn't know that you could write. Like I knew that you could climb and I knew you could take pictures and do all these other things. And I know you have a,
00:01:19
Speaker
incredible creative mind, but I didn't know that you had such a way with words. And one of the things that I particularly liked, and I do it in my own writing, so maybe that's why, is how you interweave um like this sort of vivid, very very visual storytelling of really bringing us into the scene you're in as as you write.
Career Transition and Mental Health
00:01:48
Speaker
with reflection and and's sort of a more of a cerebral narrative. i love I really love that stuff. Thanks, man. It's it's funny. i you know it's the writing i didn't ah you know I took one creative writing class once, and it um but something that I remember being told is like,
00:02:08
Speaker
you know People focus too much on good writing, just tell a story. And and in the same breath, they were kind of lying in the same breath. They were saying, if you can if you can cross that bridge of being descriptive and also internal, that's that's sort of the line you want to walk. you know And so I don't know that I ever really consciously thought about it when I was writing. It just, that's the way it came out, so to speak. Yeah. So tell me and tell the audience what the color of everything is about.
00:02:39
Speaker
Well, um, you know, when I quit climbing and walked away, when I walked away from climbing, uh, and, and photography on dollar Gary, um, in 2021, we were.
00:02:53
Speaker
trying to, you know, we had an idea for a new route on the Northwest Ridge um and sort of Northwest face, Northwest Ridge of dollar Gary, because the Everest season had been canceled and we had been trying to do a new route on Everest. We had tried in 2019 and then COVID happened. um And so I had what's known as a mixed bipolar episode. I have bipolar two and,
00:03:20
Speaker
And what that means is that ah you are experiencing, in my case, hypomania, which is one level below mania and also sort of catastrophic depression all at the same time. So your mind is a mess in those moments. It's incredibly loud and it's hard to make sense of everything. So one thing that I was clear on is that I had sort of run my course with my climbing and photography career. it was and And that, you know,
00:03:48
Speaker
In hindsight, people could say, well, was that just a bipolar talking? I think it's a reasonable question, but I think in the moment it was very true and it served me well to walk
Exploring Themes in 'The Color of Everything'
00:03:57
Speaker
away. But the reason I bring that up is because it was after that where I had sort of abandoned really abruptly these two massive pieces of my identity that I, you know, I needed some sort of creative outlet and I started to write. And then I started to think maybe there's something more to unravel here. So I just kind of went back to my childhood.
00:04:18
Speaker
and started there. um And you know I had a good grasp on it ah about my life you know through the lens of psychology, but then I really started to learn. And I think I just was trying to get it out. So that is what the book is about. It's a memoir, but I always describe it like an onion. The outer layer is my life story. um The next layer in is an exploration of the brain and psychology and approaches everything from bipolar disorder to postpartum depression, alcoholism, addiction, um narcissism, all of these things. But then the central nugget of it is really that we are, you know, consciousness itself is story and um that's what it means to be conscious is to tell stories and that our stories oftentimes expire and we keep telling the same ones and they form these identities and then those identities can hold us captive. So that's that's what it's about in short.
00:05:11
Speaker
Yeah. And let's put it, I want to come back to this idea of stories expiring and transmutating into identity and that, but first answer me this question, who is this book for? Who will read this book? Well, it's funny. I, you know, I always kind of really pushed back on my editors.
00:05:36
Speaker
Because people wanted me to write an adventure memoir, at least that's what they thought it was going to be. And from the very beginning, I was like, this is not about climbing. It's not about adventure. I don't want it to be about that. Of course, we'll use that as a vehicle, but really, and it's so cliche to say this, but the book is, is, is for anybody and everybody who has lived, because it's really about the complexity of exactly that. And.
00:06:02
Speaker
ah you know I think when I started writing it, I was writing it for me. I was writing to get something out and then there was this beautiful sort of evolution where all of a sudden I had let it go and I and i started to see that I was writing it for other people so that hopefully, and I don't want to give myself too high praise here or set too high a bar or be self-aggrandizing in any way, but hopefully that people who read it, whether they've gone into the mountains or done anything like that at all, might be able to feel seen through somebody else's life story. So that's that that's the that's the highest goal. But I mean, for the climbing and the photography, people like who love that stuff, even if they're not climbing, yeah, it's a great book for that. But for people who love psychology and the exploration of it, it's a great book for that, but also it's
00:06:51
Speaker
you know I really hope it's about finding our way out of this moment in society where we're rewarding victimhood and we can all sort of step into our own fullness and start questioning our stories and hopefully change them if they're not serving us anymore. I love that answer. and I think there's a couple of things.
00:07:12
Speaker
One is, have you said that you want people to be able to see themselves? And isn't that the hallmark of every good story, right? Where we see ourselves in
Understanding the Book's Title
00:07:21
Speaker
the story. And as I read your book, I certainly saw, I mean, of course, we're we're we've been good friends for a very long time. Of course, I saw myself and identified with much of your story. i i I knew a lot of your story, though I certainly didn't know all of it. And i and you make a great cameo in the book too.
00:07:41
Speaker
And I make a small cameo. But it's not about that. It's about, like, it's about anyone being human and seeing their themselves in another story. And that identifying with that helps us peel back the layers of our own onion, of our own meaning. Yeah. Own stories that we tell ourselves. Our own Russian doll. Our own Russian doll is you right. I liked that. Yeah. Who, um, not who, excuse me.
00:08:12
Speaker
what is your What does the title of the book mean? Explain to us the color of everything. It's a beautiful turn of phrase. And I i loved the passage, which comes right at the end. And I was waiting for it for, I don't know, however, 300 pages. I knew it was coming. And I was just anticipating that and it was so beautiful how you unfolded it. And you don't have to reveal the whole moment or this whole story. but What is the meaning of the color of everything? You know, I don't mind, it doesn't give it away to sort of describe the scene. yeah at all yeah At the end of the book, i'm i'm you know i've I've really gone into unraveling storytelling and the stories I've been telling myself myself. And I start to see that when I create hard confines, hard binaries in my storytelling, I am this, you are that, you know, right, wrong, all of it.
00:09:12
Speaker
I necessarily create otherness. And in otherness, I necessarily create conflict. and Now, binary thinking is part of the human condition. we We need it. And at the same time, I started to see that nothing is actually black or white. And I was you know sitting there and I was looking out at the ocean and it was it was sort of a phenomenal, that the colors were all muted.
00:09:38
Speaker
But I was looking out and that I could not distinguish the horizon. So the sky and the sea had become just a, like, it's a seamless wash of gray. And it, you know, it was like, and I questioned, is there an end in the beginning? Is there a binary in life? And it's sort of like, there is no black and white. Everything in life is experienced in shades of gray, every single thing.
00:10:03
Speaker
And, and that was the sort of the title it's gray is the color of everything. And I, but also the book is about all the colors of life too. So it's, it sort of has a double meaning, but it's to say that it's not as neat and tidy as we think. And that's not the point of life. And the more we can step into that middle, as uncomfortable as it might be, the more softness, compassion we can have for ourselves and for each other, you know, when we kind of let go of the idea of black and white.
00:10:30
Speaker
Yeah. and you And I love, I also love like, this is so funny. If you take every color in a paint set and you just dump them all in equal portions onto an easel and you mix them up, what do you get? You get middle gray. You know, it's like, it's. It is also physically the case that it's the color of everything. Yeah. You totally had me in that scene of standing there on that beach with you.
00:10:52
Speaker
And i've I mean, I've seen those sunsets you know in the Pacific at various times in my life. So i I really connected with it. and I really felt so that that moment
Overcoming Victim Narratives
00:11:04
Speaker
with you. I'm happy you were there because you were there. Like seriously, I don't want to get too woo woo. You were there. You know, everybody that I've had in my life is there and they always are. hard yeah They're always there.
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah. I don't think that's too woo woo. I mean, I think that, I think it's not too Venice, California. ah Yeah. ah You know, yeah, I think it's important. And I think it's one of the things that we don't say often enough that, that you were there or you are with me or I, I, I, you know, our, our friends, even those that we've gone separate ways from.
00:11:48
Speaker
are still part of us, they're still still with us. They've changed us. you know Absolutely. They've changed us cellularly and they do, I really believe this, they do live with us in the same way we carry you know like an epigenetic code passed down through generations. When we come into contact with anybody, they change us, they change our brain chemistry, they change how we think, they change our cells and our bodies, we react to them through biofeedback. They literally are with us at all times.
00:12:19
Speaker
So one of the things that you know we've talked about is this idea, and you know this is a book about, this is a story, first of all, and it's a book about so many different aspects of being human. It's so it's a book about childhood, it's a book about brotherhood, it's a book about being a son, it's a book about you know, being a student. It's a book about being, you know, starting at the lowest rung of the ladder. It's a book about being a homeless person. It's a book about being a, you know, but bipolar two diagnosed human. It's a book about going to, um, I don't even know what you call it this. What was the, I forgot the name now that sort of, um, it wasn't rehab.
00:13:16
Speaker
the rehab kind of place. It was like, what was it called? Lifeline. life Lifeline for youth. yeah Yeah, lifeline for you. Like, I don't know what. that and kind of institution is sort of mental health institution, or is that the right word? Mental health rehab? it was ah So i there was mental health, you know I was in the psychiatric ward, and then I was twice, and then I was in that. you know it is it's it's yeah It would be called a behavioral rehab, but it was based on the 12 steps, yeah. Okay. So behavioral rehab, I mean,
00:13:47
Speaker
I could go on, right? Yeah. A book about climbing timing Everest without supplemental oxygen. A book about attempting new routes in the Himalaya. A book about paddling a thousand miles on the coast. In Africa. ah Oh yeah. And in Australia. yeah Australia, I was going to say. But also Africa down the, what's up the Congo, I forgot. Oh, the Kuito, yeah. Yeah. The story is just, I mean, it's a book about so many things. It's incredible all the experiences you've packed into your
00:14:17
Speaker
life. And it's a book about story. Like ultimately, that's the thread for me that kept coming through. And we've already talked about it a little bit. But one of the things that I think that really connects to this Color of Everything idea is the story of victimhood. And you wrote that you started writing this book, actually, from the mentality of someone who was a victim.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and this is, this is what is so interesting. And I think connects to so much of what I see going on around me, like in my, in my work as a coach, for example, like people are like, I want to climb Everest. I'm like, you don't want to climb Everest. And what, if you want to climb Everest, I'm not your coach. If you want to become the person that can climb Everest, then I'm your coach. Right. And so like,
00:15:12
Speaker
you be That's beautiful. You became a totally different person through writing this book and you exited the story of your victimness. yeah word Talk to me about the story of being a victim.
00:15:29
Speaker
Well, i I mean, like, yeah, I say it in the book, I started writing from a place of victimhood and I think our culture, I said it earlier, but I think it's worth repeating. We're in a place right now where our culture seems to be rewarding victimhood because it's comfortable um and it's safe. and And so when people learn that they are a victim of something, and by the way, we are victims of things, you know, we are victims of horrific violence, war,
00:15:59
Speaker
assault, rape, ah yeah yeah we are people are victimized. um there's But what happens and what has happened is we've sort of ventured into this new world where we where we understand psychology more and more in a much broader cultural context and people have learned the words.
00:16:21
Speaker
And they've learned the language is that there seems to be, and I was very much a part of this, the there there's a tendency to get stuck in the story of this happened to me. And once we understand, once I understood my trauma,
00:16:37
Speaker
I try to bring it back to my experience because I'm not a clinician, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a therapist. So i just when I'm speaking, if I'm speaking plural, I really should be talking from my experience. But what I noticed is that I had assimilated and learned the language of psychology and I had attached myself to my story of trauma. And that gave me sort of a permission to stay in victimhood, look at what happened to me.
00:17:06
Speaker
And in doing so, I could um i could garner sympathy. um It made me stand out. It made me special, right? It made me feel like I was somehow special. ah And in writing the book, I started to see, well, A, I'm not special because of my trauma.
00:17:31
Speaker
And I don't believe that people are. I believe what makes us special, first of all, we are special innately because we are here and the opportunity and the chance and the probability that we are here living is incredibly rare. ah And that is in and of itself special.
00:17:51
Speaker
um I don't believe anymore that that these, you know in the same way that like I feel like sometimes the story of addiction, well, look at me, I'm special. I've got this big burden. I've got this big problem. It doesn't make you special. It gives you something to navigate. It gives you something to to to traverse. It gives you a mountain to climb, but that doesn't make you special. In the same way that climbing Everest doesn't make you special.
00:18:17
Speaker
It's something you did. It's something that you do. And it's a process. And the goal there, again, is is is, like you said, becoming the person that can do it. And in the same way, that's what's special. And that's the next step after we learn about our trauma, after I learned about my trauma. And it took years to do this, was to step out of that story.
00:18:40
Speaker
um and And for so long, I had the words, I had the words, so it's so confusing, but I i hadn't actually made that fundamental cellular shift within myself, which is to say that, i'm not i yes, this happened.
00:18:56
Speaker
But I am not a victim any longer. I am not a survivor. I have survived. But even being a survivor, and I've said this a number of times, but even being a survivor keeps us in some ways changed to that story of trauma. And at some point for me, it's the letting go of all of it and just saying it happened.
00:19:19
Speaker
I think that, sorry to interrupt, but I think that one of the things that's so interesting, I mean, we could talk about it sort of extemporaneously and it all sounds very wise and good, but we've both been there. And when you're in it, when you are being the victim, like you, it's impossible to see that that's how you're behaving. It's so hard. In my experience, it's so hard. And so it takes a process ah to of moving out of it. And I and you would you wrote psychology can be an invitation out of victimhood, not into it. But psychology is an invitation out of victimhood, not into it. And I thought that was really good because so much of the time I think that in social media, I think plays a role in this, where there's all this all this stuff going around. And again, these are stories people are telling and then
00:20:18
Speaker
people identify them because they see themselves in the stories of these creators or whatever we call them. And they're like, Oh yeah, that's me. I'm a victim. Like, and and they start using these words and they're a survivor and all this. And I think it's so one of the things I thought was so brave about your, your story is how it's a story about leaving that behind.
00:20:47
Speaker
And, you know, you had, you know, you were diagnosed with bipolar two and you're what, 15, 14. Yeah. 14. I mean, like, if anybody's handed like a hall pass to be a victim for the rest of their life, it's a 14 year old kid. Like that's child, you're a child being told this and going through all this. And, and yet through, through all this, uh, all these journeys, like, you know,
00:21:16
Speaker
there was so many points, especially early in the book, like when you were going through those early years, ah you know, end of your adolescence, early twenties, where I was like, I know he makes it, but I got to keep reading to find out if he makes it out of here because it's like, you know, you're, you know, homeless and then you've get this job and then you get fired and then this happened. Like, and it's like, whoa, this is just insane. So why winning, but where the story really,
00:21:47
Speaker
take shape for me is towards the end where, you know, after Dholagiri, where you, where you start to have these realizations.
Meditation and Mental Health
00:21:55
Speaker
Um, and one of the things I wanted to talk about with you, and I didn't realize we had this in common was you went and did a 10 day Vipassana sitting, uh, which I have done as well. Mine was long time ago and I never repeated it.
00:22:11
Speaker
I have lots of excuses for what I never. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Me too. But but it was it was hugely transformational for me and it gave this, and why don't you explain to the audience that aren't familiar with what a Propulsionary Retreat is, just a quick Yeah. coverance So Vipassana is a Pali word, which was the the language of the Indian subcontinent that um probably Buddha spoke and and basically it translates to clear sight or clear seeing. There's a number of different translations, but the idea is that it's a basic, very basic meditation practice where
00:22:52
Speaker
you sit in silence and follow your breath, which is so much of what meditation does. Vipassana is basically a retreat. A Vipassana retreat can be three days, seven days, ten days. It can be a month. But you go someplace and you sit in silence. You do not talk. um And you wake up, you know, and in the case of the retreat I went to or the sort of Hermitage I went to was, um you know, we wake up at 4.30 in the morning and we brush our teeth. And it's so odd because you're surrounded by other people, but nobody's talking. And so you really hear everything that's happening. You hear the gargling sounds. You hear people brushing their teeth. You hear all the farting. it Like it's so wild. And then you go into the hall and you sit and you meditate for an hour. And then.
00:23:41
Speaker
And then you get up and you silently walk down and eat breakfast together in silence. And this goes on and on and on. So you end up meditating for eight to 10 hours a day, these long days, and then you sleep in, in obviously in silence. And, and it's, it's so amazing how loud our minds are when we're not talking.
00:24:03
Speaker
and how much we want to attach to things and how frustrating it is not to be able to express through words. And also for me, what I realized is how much bullshit I say, you know, not to say that like we just spend so much time speaking and it's I don't know if it was, I don't know this quote and I'm going to murder it, but it's, and it's an old one. It might be loud too or something, but it's, ah you know, those who know, um,
00:24:30
Speaker
don't speak and those who don't speak know essentially something like that, you know, it made me realize how how loud I was in the world. a And then I wanted to be quieter. And that, you know, again, words are the the the sort of the bedrock of story. We string them together and create shit. yeah And when you don't have words, you're sort of left to eat what the fuck, you know? Yeah.
00:24:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, for me, one of the big takeaways from it was the the discipline piece and the it allowed me to train. I'm already a little ADHD, so you give me like a thing to that focus on for a long period of time like that and you you build that muscle. that had a huge That played a huge role in my climbing career. I'm convinced because it allowed me to focus and turn all the noise off. And it also made enabled me to make certain decisions, um which were sometimes controversial. Like, for example, you know, there was a huge fan of my life where I didn't watch a movie.
00:25:42
Speaker
because after that I went and watched a movie and then I realized these lines were playing back to me in my head and things like that. And I was like, nope, I don't want that in my head. So I just stopped watching movies. Things like that, there's a bunch of little choices like that that really changed how I showed up in the world. Less so now. I think you're much more disciplined than I am. Just in general, I look at your career and the way you treated things.
00:26:12
Speaker
You know, I was always impressed by the level of discipline that you had towards climbing. Um, it was something I never could get, you know, I could do it in spurts, but then it would fall away. You know, I was always impressed by that. Well, we have different minds, right? And yeah and is I mean, we can talk about that in a minute, but that's like, that's more the natural state of my mind is to.
00:26:35
Speaker
see the simplicity, cut things away, move things out that I don't want to have, like, you know, watching movies or whatever. Like, I even stopped drinking coffee because, ah you know, like lots of little things like that, that now, of course, i you know, I wasn't drinking alcohol. Like now I do like all those things. I watch movies, I have beer, I
Embracing Complexity and Authenticity
00:26:55
Speaker
drink coffee. yeah but But, you know,
00:26:58
Speaker
that's because those things don't take away from what I'm trying to do in this phase of my life. Whereas those things did take away from what I was trying to do in an earlier part of my life. And I had very few resources, right? Like I had to be super, super careful. Like I have no i have no real innate talent. I had very little, you know, I was i was I pushed back on that a little bit, but yeah. I mean, the numbers don't lie, right? Like, I've done all the physiological testing. Like, I'm pretty average in all those ways. I see. Your innate talent is your mind and your ability to distill. And the way you could move through the mountains was and is, you know, exceptional. That is the talent, you know? Yeah, but that was more mental than physical. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And you wrote,
00:27:47
Speaker
um I spent most of my life trying to escape my own story of madness. I've chased the horizon, confusing it for a perfect future where everything will make sense. I feared being myself because I learned early on that my mind was a dangerous thing. But in the pursuit of an idyllic version of me, I've missed the joy of being myself. Chasing the horizon is never wrong so long as we understand that from another perspective we're already there. I chose to live madly to outrun madness itself. I thought that my redemption
00:28:17
Speaker
I thought that by rebellion, doing more, being better and being different, I might be able to out-climb, out-explore, out-create the disquiet of my mind. But what if the noise and madness were the gift? Yeah. But, you know, mic drop right there for me. But I also wanted to read that passage because, you know, you go to the start line of any ultra,
00:28:41
Speaker
or base camp of any eight thousand meter peak. And like all the people would identify right with this. Like everybody is sort of, you know, out climbing, out exploring, you know, the disquiet of their mind. I mean, it's, it's often you talk to people and it's like, why do you love climbing? Well, it's like, it's the place where my mind goes quiet. Yeah. And time stops. Why do you love skiing? Because, you know,
00:29:11
Speaker
and And we have other words for it. Like I i enter a flow stay of, you know, and I think it's important for our community to have these conversations because, you know, not that I want to like get dramatic and say we have an epidemic of mental health illness, mental health issues or something like that. I just want people to know that it's okay that they struggle with this stuff and they,
00:29:39
Speaker
I struggle with it. You certainly struggled with it. Probably everybody else on that starting line or in that base camp is struggling with it in some way, whether they want to admit it or not. And and and if they don't want to admit it, that's also fine. But that's just, I think it's more like some version of this is more the norm than not. And we can show up for ourselves and be who we truly are and be like, Hey yeah,
00:30:09
Speaker
I'm sorry, I'm in a bad mood today at breakfast. I'm not trying to throw you guys off. This is kind of me. you know Sometimes I get really depressed and the weather's been bad and I'm feeling down and and just own yourself. And then on the other side, allow people to be like, okay, thing being able to, as we say, hold space for that, which I hate that term. I wish we had better words for that, but be not take it on as an insult or an offense or but And also say, OK, man, like that's cool. like Thanks for telling us. um And not try to fix it. And not try. Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean by old space. Just hear it. Not try to fix it. Accept the person. Continue to accept the person for who they are. Recognize that we all have ups and downs. And if we can do that for one another in this community, you know that that's huge. Because we're all.
00:31:05
Speaker
doing this. We're all, you're right. You're in this community. You see these, you see, um and they're become these, we tell a story about why we're doing it, right? And we sort of build, in some ways, I think, false narratives. And we sort of overlay the,
00:31:23
Speaker
I would overlay um sort of a grandiose story of why I was doing it. It's something very poetic story of it ah and without what and sort of skirt the reality, which was I don't really know what else to do and I'm a little bit freaked out when I'm not doing this stuff. so this is the only but like I'm going to keep going as fast and as hard as I can because this is what I know. And ironically, high stress is what I am most comfortable with. But the but the big invitation became, well, why are you so uncomfortable? or why why are
00:32:02
Speaker
Let's look into the stress. Let's look into why stress works for you. And that's when that was sort of the 180, when I'm hightailing it forward all the time. And then all of a sudden the slow down, you're slowing down and you stop and you go, oh shit, I need to to look behind me.
00:32:20
Speaker
Because it's always right there. I was never gonna outrun the stress of it all. I was gonna outrun it right into my grave. And in that way, again, we build this idea of ourselves. And I love that passage you wrote because I really do think I miss the joy of being myself. I really miss the joy. The passage I read, yes. Yeah, the passage you read, yeah.
00:32:50
Speaker
So, um, but yeah, it's, it's strange because I do think again, it's the thing we see it in our relationships to romantic relationships. We don't need to fix it. Sometimes when somebody's upset.
00:33:03
Speaker
know I heard something once and I try to enact it. when When my girlfriend is upset, I like to say, do you need a hug? Do you need an ear? Or do you need a solution? And she gets to choose. And the and so she if she wants me to try to help her navigate it, that's the solution. If she wants me to just listen,
00:33:24
Speaker
That's, that's what she needs. If she just wants me to hold her, that's what she gets, you know, and I'm not perfect at it, but that's what you don't try to fix it. You know, I don't, I just, for, for a moment, I just need to feel what it feels like. I also, again, but back to the victim thing, I don't want to stay there, but in order to move away from it, I've learned that I need to really feel it first, whatever it happens to be. Then I can move through it, but the toxic positivity bullshit just does not fly with me.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. You wrote also another passage I want to read you wrote and then ties into victimhood. You wrote, I don't I don't deny victimhood, but it's only useful to emancipate ourselves from the pain of trauma. If we stay in the story too long, it becomes a cage. I was a victim for far too long. ah The story of my life, brain and heart I choose now is this.
00:34:25
Speaker
I'm skipping ahead just a little bit. It's fine. I have a beautiful mind that is unique and wildly creative. I can attest to that. It can be a bit test temperamental at times. I can also attest to that. It developed to survive and in survival I've thrived. it's driven me to make beautiful It's driven me to make beautiful things and see the world. I'm not powerless to my sensitivity. My sensitivity gives me power.
00:34:53
Speaker
I embrace my mind even when it's messy. More and more, my heart guides the ship. It's not a story of unrealistic expectations of happiness or perfection. If I'm mindful, my polarity can be my depth. It has given me more middle to explore." like So talking about like holding space, I mean, you're holding space for yourself, but in doing so, Corey, you're holding it for all of us and for everyone who reads this. So I just want to thank you for that.
00:35:21
Speaker
I would actually like to invite you to read a little bit. And you told me you selected a particular passage. You want to tell us about that? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, and this goes back, I just selected this because, I mean, at the end of the day, we, you know, on this podcast and I hope it reaches far beyond the mountain community, but it's based in the mountain community. And I certainly don't want people to think that in any way I have anything negative to say about it. I mean, this, this community gave me my life, you know, but.
00:35:52
Speaker
In 2016, I called you and I had, you know, I hadn't really not been climbing much. I was still considered quote unquote professional athlete, but if people could pull back the curtain, they would see that I was not a professional athlete in any stretch at that point. So I called you because Adrian Ballinger had reached out and said, Hey, you know, i do you want to go try to climb Everest without oxygen? And, um,
00:36:17
Speaker
And I was like, well, there's only one person that is going to train me for that and it's Steve. ah And so we had three months and then, and this comes right at the end and there's some reference to some earlier things that happened in the book, but it's, um, I also, it it leads us to kind of a nice point about this accomplishment concept.
Reflections from Everest and Personal Growth
00:36:37
Speaker
Um, but, um, yeah, let's see here. Um, so I've, I've,
00:36:47
Speaker
i'm I'm Adrian has turned around. It's summit day on Everest. It's dark. I'm alone. Um, this is on the North side there. There I think are two, three, maybe four other teams on the route that day. It's not like the pictures you see, it's not some lineup of skittles. So I'm completely alone in the middle of the night, no oxygen. And this is, I think, it you know, maybe four or five minutes here. Um,
00:37:17
Speaker
I am alone. I have no oxygen and no backup and no safety net other than my body and an honest accounting of myself. There are five other climbers somewhere on the route, but I can't see or hear them. My life is apprehended in the confluence of breath and wind.
00:37:33
Speaker
an hour An hour later, I approach the legs of a lifeless body hanging upside down in a tangle of rope. Tufts of loose feathers push through the torn suit, fluttering. I think of Marco and Daria and Peru and the little girl who pushed me and my camera further into this life. I think of all the friends and people I've known who are no longer and lose count because my brain is too slow.
00:37:55
Speaker
I think of all the bodies I've seen on this climb and all the others in various states of decomposition and wonder again at matter changing form. Sometimes they have faces. Sometimes they have mustaches and beards and eyelashes. Sometimes they're hooded and hidden as if they're sleeping. Other times they have fingernails and their exposed flesh is yellow and black. Their skin is freeze dried against bones that stick through, mummified after they took off their mittens in their final delirious moments.
00:38:24
Speaker
Their body and brain became confused and lied, telling them that they were warm and safe to shelter them from an opposite truth. Hormones and chemicals saturated their minds, creating a definitive hallucination to comfort them as they took their last breaths. This is the agreement you make with High Mountains. Here, the slivers here the sliver of space that separates life and death is immediate, implicit, and yet totally incomprehensible.
00:38:51
Speaker
My fingertips scream from cold as I unclip myself from the rope, reaching over the body and connecting myself to the line on the other side. I take a single step and walk further into life than the body behind ever made it. When the sun finally rises, the summit pyramid is washed in fluorescent pastels and my pinky doesn't tingle anymore. I take out my phone and try to film, annoyed at the intrusion, but the battery dies from cold and I'm relieved that the final steps will be just for me.
00:39:19
Speaker
I don't know how much time passes between this and the moment I sit down on the summit. An hour, two? When I take the final step, there is nothing and no one, and literally everything on earth is below me. I reach as high as I can and touch space. There is no place left to go.
00:39:38
Speaker
In some fundamental way, I've exhausted the search outside of myself for anything that might make me whole, but I can't see this now. For seven minutes, I sit in silence and my awkward mind is literally the highest point on the planet. You know, it's like I said, it's not a book about climbing, but I think that moment was so, so much of it was about trying to find something that made me matter. And that's all tied to the stuff in childhood.
00:40:06
Speaker
And I think that was a moment where I was like, shit, I can't, I can't go any other, I can keep doing this over and over and over again, but I'm not going to find anything different. It's kind of like doing drugs, you know, sure. You get something out of it if a couple of times, you know, hallucinogenics, like I, or psychedelics, right? And then, but then all of a sudden you're like, I'm just getting the same information over and over again. So now I need to go and take that information, put it to work. It was kind of like, Oh fuck, all the work is below me actually.
00:40:36
Speaker
I thought I was going to find something up here, but it's not here. Yeah, it was our it's patient. and It will wait for you no matter how far you go. Yeah, I'm right here. I'm right here. you know it's It's so funny to think of that as like the the highest point on the planet without oxygen could be rock bottom. Right.
00:40:54
Speaker
And everybody heralds it. I mean, I see people build careers off of climbing Everest with oxygen, you know, and it's like, right and good for them. Like I, that's great. That's great. I just find it, I, I, I, I'm, it's dubious to me. The story is dubious. Yeah. I mean, this again, I think the value of the story is that which others find themselves in it. So, yeah you know, when you're telling a heroic story, people And you can become identifiable to people. They will, they will go along on your journey. And then, you know, of course you can tell them something on the end of that if you want. Right. but and sell them supplement Yeah. These are sort of the, this is sort of the splintering of, you know, the mountains in the sense that, you know, a hundred years ago, just not very long, like, you know, Everest was, was
00:41:55
Speaker
uncharted, it was an adventure, it was unmapped, it was all of these things. You know, unfortunately, unfortunately, I don't know, but we, you know, because of the age we live in, that's all gone. There's no sort of proverbial white spaces on the maps anymore. So we're sort of relegated to, maybe not relegated, that's perhaps the wrong word, that's a judgmental word, but whatever it is, nevertheless, we are left with having to make sense of it on our own because we so still are drawn to do these things. People are going to climb Everest every single year for as long as there's people. And it doesn't matter that it's been done one time before, 10 million times before people will continue to do that. And they will continue to tell stories about it. And this is,
00:42:51
Speaker
This is the, this is the core of your book, right? Like is, is the story that you tell yourself accurate? Is it, is it is it well and accurate might not even be the right word is what is the story in the blank? What is, yeah what, what is the story period? what What, what is it? What is the story you're telling yourself? Like, because in this book you tell countless stories about yourself.
00:43:21
Speaker
of yourself. And it's you in real time, as we read, telling yourself these stories. So that's where, as I said, you know, at the beginning, you're, you're moving between these descriptions and the this inner dialogue. And it's as the descriptions change, the dialogue, the the inner thinking and and realizations, of course, change.
00:43:49
Speaker
and of course mature as you move through your life, but at the end of the day, there's the stories are sort of repeating themselves in all these different sort of forms or or themes, whether it's someone who's like a homeless teenager or a man on the summit of Everest without supplemental oxygen all alone. I mean, what, what an incredible moment. Like who, I mean, how many of us get to experience that alone? First of all, climbing Everest without supplemental oxygen, hardly anybody does, but second of all, to be there alone for a few, you know, I mean, yeah um it was, it was wild. I mean, I was just, I, that, I feel like that is one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given was
00:44:33
Speaker
that I was completely alone and and nobody was, I mean, there were a couple, um, there were a couple of climbers on the, on the final snow slope, but they were well out of earshot and there were two, two of them. And ah right as I was getting to the summit, I passed, I wish I knew her name. It's wonderful Norwegian climber. And she was coming down.
00:44:54
Speaker
But then there was just nobody and and it was so sweet and also so, I don't want to say sad, that but there was a sense of melancholy that a sense of solitude. I don't want to say isolation, i mean it was but it was solitude. and And in that quiet, I think I was offered an opportunity to start to hear something that I really didn't want to hear. And again, i'm I want to be very clear. I'm telling a story about this. This is the story I've created. So I go back and I check myself on it a lot. And I'm like, okay, is this... Is this is this real? is this Is this honest to you? And that's what i I guess that's what I want more than anything is that we just stop and pause and we go, okay, this is all a
Changing Personal Narratives and Acceptance
00:45:41
Speaker
story. what is it Is it honest is it is it or is it holding me captive? And I think for me in the book, like you said, there's so many stories I tell, but they they start repeating themselves because ultimately it's about unlearning a story of brokenness from a young age.
00:45:59
Speaker
And, and sort of, you know, telling stories that reinforce that or reinforce that otherness. And then, and then starting to go, well, wait, the broken, the brokenness is bullshit. You know, that's a story. It's I'm not fucking broken. I'm alive. I'm breathing. There's nothing broken about that. It's just the way my mind works, you know?
Book Information and Closing Remarks
00:46:23
Speaker
Yeah, you you wrote, resolution is the work of words and the mind. Acceptance is the work of silence and the heart and the space where all healing takes place. Nothing was ever broken to begin with. Broken was just another story. We all are unbreakable. and And this is, you know, yeah.
00:46:49
Speaker
I just want to encourage people to go and buy your book. I listened to the audio book as well. I read it some time ago and then I got the audio book and listened to it while I was driving a bit yesterday to kind of refresh some things for this discussion. And it's really great because you read it and your voice is really good. You're a great narrator of your story. I mean, you're the best. you're probably I can't imagine um literally can't imagine somebody else reading your story. It just wouldn't work for me. Nevertheless, yeah you know how can people find you? How can they find your book? um What would you like to know?
00:47:31
Speaker
You know, here's the thing, writing a book, as you well know, is a labor of love. And then you set it free and the world gets to decide. And it really doesn't belong to me anymore. um It belongs to everybody else. And and I think that's true of all art. But i if you want to if you want to find it, it's, you know, Amazon is, you know, you can find it in your local bookstore. And I encourage people to do that. But Amazon can You can get it anywhere. um And also, I will say this, this you know i don't want to be I don't want to be gross here, but like if you like it if you like it, the best thing that you can do to support, and this is true of any book, not just mine, the best thing you can do to support writers is to buy it for somebody else.
00:48:15
Speaker
and give it to them. That is truly the greatest gift you can give to any writer is if you like the book, buy it for somebody else. um And then we have another one coming out, which is going to be really fun um this fall, but I'll sort of keep that under wraps for now, but it's a photo book. So yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing that as well. Yeah. um Yeah. And the other thing I would add is that the other thing that people can do for authors and is write a review. Yeah.
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah, I had a review. it that's That's also really powerful. Unless you hated it. Don't write that review. No. Yeah. um Write an honest review if you like it. But honest, write an honest review. Yeah, I think that um you know the the the truth finds its way in the balance of the reviews. you know There's going to be hundreds of your reviews of this book, I'm sure. so And some of them are going to be bad. you know yeah and so what like i mean And good. like Yeah, it's not for, not everybody's going to love it. Not everybody loves the Mona Lisa either, but that doesn't deny it. That doesn't mean it's not good. Yeah. So also how can, how can they find you and find where you may be speaking or doing book events? Um, the best place again, and and I sort of loathe to say this in some ways, Instagram, um, which is just at Corey Richards, C O R Y there's no E. Um,
00:49:43
Speaker
And also on my website, there's there's sort of a schedule and and there's some fun stuff to look at on there. But yeah, Instagram is is is ah mostly where I put all that information out. So yeah, it's just at Corey Richards. um And there's book fun book content on there and I still post pictures, but it's really funny. I've lost a lot of followers. Since I started doing book content, I've lost like 50,000 followers. It's hysterical.
00:50:09
Speaker
Oh, which is great. I mean, that's fine. I just, I think it's more of a funny thing to see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, does people want you to stay the same? They're like, Oh no, you're a Nat Geo photographer, climber guy, stay there, stay in your lane. You know, I don't want this. new I don't want you to evolve. I went through this when I stopped climbing professionally too. Like I was just like, I think I made a post like, Hey, this is going to be like dad content and like weekend warrior content. And I'm going to talk about. a pilasti to my business and yeah, I'm sorry, not sorry. Really not sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And people are like, oh, well, I want you to be like, you're like, I can't climb North Twin for the rest of my life. Eat a bag of dicks. All right. You know what I mean? People try so hard to stay the same. Yeah. you know Well, keep evolving. It was a beautiful evolution to witness through this amazing book that you've written and I'm sure it'll
00:51:08
Speaker
I'm sure it will speak to a lot of people and it's a great thing that you've done in releasing this into the world. As you say, it's more like birthing something, I think, writing a book. It's more of a gestation and a birth than anything else. Yeah. I mean, I hope that, you know, I really hope that people resonate with it. So anyway, um I'm really, thanks for having me. And we'll put some links to the in the show notes to to Corey's website and other places. And we'll also the new book when it, when it gets out, that'll be a harder one to do a podcast about us. It's a photo book, but maybe yeah can squeeze one yeah there's so many amazing mountain books coming out this year. I love it. So thank you, Corey. And awesome. Thank you everyone. This is in the uphill athlete books podcast. I've been your host, Steve house, please.
00:52:05
Speaker
like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and like books. Leave us a review and remember to go gently.