Latest / Caught on the Mike... / "Climbing Beyond Limits" with climber Sean Swarner

Transcript

"Climbing Beyond Limits" with climber Sean Swarner · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Warning due to some language and subject matter.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It said that what doesn't challenge you doesn't change you.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's a word we use in the modern lexicon for such a transformation.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Neuroplasticity.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Combined ability to change and adapt as a result of personal experience.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: My next guess is proof positive of this very phenomenon.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's climbed the highest mountains on all seven continents, including Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro, and he has key to both the North Pole and the South Pole, completing what is known as the Explorer's Grand Clan.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: He also completed the Hawaii Iron Man Triathlon, all while being a two-time cancer survivor with only one fully functional lung.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Joining me today is John Swarner, and I'm excited to hear his story firsthand.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: John Swarner, welcome to Caught on the Mike, man.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I am super excited to have you.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be here, man.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate the opportunity.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Usually I kind of give this, well, we're not going to waste any time.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's jump right into it.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: But first and foremost, I want to tell you, I do a lot of my intros post-production, but for some reason I was somewhat inspired to do yours pre-production.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I cover all the bases in the intro.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is your story is so compelling to me that I don't think I said enough in the intro, even though I feel like I hit most of the beats.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, tell our listeners all about yourself.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: As you're sitting there like talking, I was thinking, all right, maybe I could go with this and just be like, my name's Sean Swarner and just drop it.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um people are gonna be like, who?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, where do I begin?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: So let's let's just let's just go back to eighth grade.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I was diagnosed with advanced stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then we'll pause there and then also jump forward.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just kind of go back and forth.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: I've never done this before.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: So let's let's just see if we can keep up.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Jump forward to the fact that I'm the only person in the world who's ever climbed Mount Everest, skied, uh, climbed the highest mountain on every continent, skied to both the north and south poles, and completed the Hawaii Iron Man triathlon.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: After two terminal cancers, a prognosis of three months to live, 14 days to live.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: I was in a coma for a year of my life.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was read my last rights, and I did it all with only one functioning lung.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Bouncing back to eighth grade and the the first cancer.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, initially it was it was a knee injury.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: The doctors thought that you know there was something just going on with my knee.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I went into the hospital and they did a uh a little x-ray or something, whatever they did.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I was 13 at the time, I really didn't pay attention.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I was just like, oh, cool, I'm in the hospital, I'm gonna get a lot of attention from from the you know, the cheerleaders and stuff like that.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like I'm gonna milk this for all it's worth, man.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh eventually they diagnosed me with advanced stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: And there are only four stages of the cancer, and then the next one is depending on your beliefs, the great unknown, the great beyond, or you know, the the great upstairs, where the the big guy and are we're we're pretty close now.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I went through about a year and a half of chemotherapy, and then I was in remission for about a year, but there there is, I remember very, very vividly uh waking up one morning and kind of sitting at the edge of my bed.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I I knew it was gonna happen.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: I knew the um uh the chemotherapy was gonna make me lose my hair and everything else.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember waking up and and looking off to my my left side where my head was resting on the pillow where I was sleeping that whole all night, and it was it was literally it was it was covered in hair, like it looked like a ragged dog slept on it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I ran to the bath and looking in the mirror, trying to maybe comb it over or or do something, and I was I was freaking out because you know I'm 13 years old.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh every everything at that point in your life is it's like a popularity contest.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I wanted to be with in with the in-crowd, just like everybody else.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I went to the bathroom.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: I I knew it was inevitable, I knew it was gonna happen sooner or later.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know it was gonna happen all at once.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I every every time I brought my hands down from from washing my head, they were they were just covered in hair.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember collapsing to the the bottom of the shower floor on my hands and knees, just weeping, you know, and and pulling chunks of hair out of the drain so the water could go down.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was just it was the one of the most intense moments I've ever had in my life.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just like a I don't want to say it was kind of like when an alcoholic has a moment of clarity, right?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: But that's what it was like for me, but with life, you know, and I was having it at 13 years old because I was thinking of what my friends were doing getting ready for school the same morning.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they were worried about the latest hairstyles, they're worried about what they were gonna wear, they were worried about, you know, if someone was gonna put a tack on their seat going to school before they sat down, you know, and you'd sit on the tack.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that had happened too.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: I I was literally worried about fighting for my life.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And there were nights I went to bed not knowing if I was gonna wake up the next morning or not.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this was the this was the first cancer.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: This was the first one.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I was super fortunate because I was so young.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't really understand what cancer meant and what it was, right?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that whole adage of of ignorance is bliss.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, you know, I was I was my body was was taking it as well as it could be as well as it could have.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was 60 pounds, 70 pounds overweight because of the steroids.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then all of a sudden, one day the doctor's like, all right, well, you're in remission.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, that's fantastic.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I went back to being normal, if if there is a normal for a teenager, I suppose.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then I went back to school, I was back with my friends, and then I was going in for a regular checkup for the first cancer.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is about a year later, when they found, and one day they found a tumor and an x-ray the size of a golf ball.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: They did a needle biopsy where they took a needle, you know, about eight inches long, threaded it through my ribs to aspirate part of the tumor.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they removed a lymph node from my neck, they put in a Hickman catheter, which is like a permanent IV, they cracked open my ribs, removed the tumor, put in a drainage tube, and started a chemotherapy less than 24 hours.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, what type of cancer was this?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is the second cancer, correct?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: So the second one was actually a new primary cancer.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Completely unrelated to the first one.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And no one's, to my knowledge, still to this day, no one's ever had Hodgkin's and Askin sarcoma.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's what the second one's called.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's also um it's also known as primitive neuroectodermal fibroma or peanut primitive neuroectodermal tumor.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it was such an aggressive tumor.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's when they they they gave me 14 days to live.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I remember laying in the hospital bed and a man of the cloth comes in and goes, He he read me my last right.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then that's uh that's one of those things where you had to grow up in a very short period of time, right?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like I said, my friends were worried about stuff in my mind that I thought was just petty.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when I watched your movie and I saw the story unfold after that 14 days was up, how did you beat that cancer, that specific cancer?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that that second cancer is also when they put me to medically induced coma.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I went through I went through three months of intense chemo, one month of radiation therapy, and then 10 more months of chemotherapy.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: And my um, I don't know if if you know how a lot of uh chemotherapy sessions work, but for me, I was in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you know, inpatient hospital.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then I would be released so my body could rebuild itself, you know, to to manufacture more red blood cells and hemoglobin and and take care of itself.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of times what could potentially happen is the cancer doesn't kill you, the chemotherapy does, the medicine does, or or the common cold because you of your compromised immune system.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: So they had to let me out to recover, and then I went back in, say Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: That would be one cycle.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I had X number of cycles for three months, and then I was out for radiation therapy every day, every weekday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, where I just laid in this stale room with my arms out, you know, kind of like out to my side, like I'm flying, I suppose.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And they lined me up and they just zapped my body, my right lung with gamma radiation, essentially.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then that I remember that month, but then again, going back in for the next 10 months, it was back on that same cycle.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: So every time I was put in the hospital, the doctors, because the treatments were so harsh, they gave me something to be in that quote unquote medically medically induced coma.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember that.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, I don't remember being 16.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So from that point, when did life kind of resume to its new normal, if you will?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I think my new normal is beginning every morning, every morning I wake up.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a beautiful way of thinking of things.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, because I I never know what what the next day holds for me.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I I wake up every morning, I tell myself there's nothing I can do about yesterday, the past is gone.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Tomorrow may never come.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: So no matter no matter what happens today, today's the best day ever.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's fantastic.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: What makes you feel inspired or like your best self having experienced that?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, I think it's it's people who are going through rough times.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I know what it's like.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: I know what it's like to go through uncertain times.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: I know what it's like to literally go to bed not knowing if I'm waking up the next morning.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: So if if people can continue pushing through uncertain times, if people who are battling cancer can continue one more day, you know, one more breath.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's truly inspiring.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely it is.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So fast forward, was Everest the first summit you decided to conquer?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I appreciate you fast forwarding through my college years because it was just that was that was just a very expensive party.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: I was like Belushi from Animal House and in that.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think kind of tying it into the into the experience that you had as a kid with cancer.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, your why and your purpose in life changed over time.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it it always does.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like your values change like from your 18 to when you're 40 or 30 or 20.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: They what value what you value most in life is constantly changing, I think.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go with the college years.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: What were you going to college for?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I start off molecular bio.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I I wanted to to cure cure cancer by splicing genes, and it's it's very difficult to pass organic chemistry and immunology if you don't open a book and study.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you have every distraction in the world around you.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm assuming this was the this was the 90s when you were in college.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep, yep, yep.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I get that all too well.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it was a great time.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: I had a blast.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was a I was also a uh a two-sport athlete going through college, but I eventually, you know, I thought to myself, all right, well, what the hell am I gonna do with my future?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I never in my teen years developed even a concept of the future.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and the thing is, is a lot of people look at their life as phases, right?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I refer to it as seasons.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can have 16 seasons, you can have three.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Always seems to me that those seasons are landmarked by life-changing events.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was your college experience that it inspired this an explorer's mindset in you.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Am I off base there?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: I I actually I think the the the cancer kind of spawned that that exploration thing, but it it it definitely was encouraged by, you know, I don't want to say finding beer.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Beer found me.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think I had I like I said I had a wonderful time in college, and I I I switched, I switched to psychology after, you know, not doing so well in in immunology and organic chemistry.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I I think I've I've always had that uh that outdoor exploration type thing.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Because even even when I went to um I moved, I went to school, born and raised in Ohio, little town Ohio, went to a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania called Westminster College, sure.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, kind of north of Newcastle, 45 minutes north of Pittsburgh.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I I'd packed up my my Honda Civic at the time with like my entire life savings, my whole everything I owned in my entire life into a Honda Civic and drove down to Jacksonville, Florida, and I worked three jobs, three or four jobs while going to grad school and trying to get my doctor too.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh when did you find time to sleep?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I well, I I didn't, but one of one of them actually um I I I I think I continued my uh my my party lifestyle in Jacksonville because I was one of the head bartenders at one of the largest uh uh clubs in Jacksonville Beach, which was just again, that was just a blast.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you show up at 8 p.m.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: and then you leave at 4 a.m.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my dad always told me, Don't burn the candle at both ends.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I think my candle's gone.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I get that all too well, man.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was a musician, so I'd be playing gigs up until one or two in the morning, bars would close, I'd be waiting around in the bar to get paid, and then I would be at my day job at 6 or 7 a.m.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: the next morning.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like sleep, what's that?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just live off a drip of coffee.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's it's not worth it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then and then again, you know, as you say with your seasons, you know, your values change.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: You realize it's not worth it.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you're in Jacksonville, you're working multiple jobs.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: I I I dropped out of school, never, never got my my uh master's or my doctorate, uh, because it was the first time that I actually looked back at my life and I finally stared at myself in the mirror.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I encourage everybody to do this, you know, just ask yourself, who are you?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's I mean, it's a deep question, or or it's it's a it's as deep of a question as you want it to be.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can just say, Oh, I'm Sean Swanner and end it at that.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: But like, who are who are you really?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like what what makes you tick?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: What makes you different?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you here?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, just asking those purposeful questions.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I kept doing that, and that's when I dropped out of school because I realized that I I couldn't be the psycho-oncologist that I wanted to be.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to be a psychologist for cancer patients because, as we all know, it's it's not an individual disease, right?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like everybody gets pulled through it, your family, friends, everybody's involved.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I couldn't help somebody else until I helped myself, right?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I pictured myself being in uh you know my office working with a patient or something or the family, and the patient consoling me while I'm crying and was like, What's wrong with you?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I couldn't do that.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's when I decided, okay, well, you know, I've I've been given the uh a gift of of the mind-body connection.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I've I've always thought that whatever I I believe I can do fully, I can accomplish.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, a perfect example is one year after I was in remission, I actually won my high school's league track meet 800-meter run.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I continued forward and I decided, all right, well, let's let's try to find the highest platform that we can to reach as many people as possible.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I figured, okay, well, the highest platform in the world, kind of tongue in cheek, saying logically is Mount Everest.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that's when I decided, all right, well, let's use that as a platform to scream hope.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's amazing.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, about what year was that, whenever you did uh you started on that journey?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: That that was in 2001.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then when when I was living in Jacksonville, I was obvious, obviously doing some research on mountaineering and climbing.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the highest point in Florida is the top of the Four Seasons Hotel, which probably is in Miami, so it's probably not great training ground for mountaineering.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I moved we moved to Colorado, where I live now, and I literally went up and down the peaks here every every once a week at least, you know, every week.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the biggest one when I moved to Estes Park is something called Long Long's Peak, and it's uh 18 miles round trip, 14,256 feet.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: I did that once a week with 100 pounds of rocks in my backpack.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's insane! So, how did you adjust to the altitude sickness?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's a that's a real thing for people that aren't acclimated to it, isn't it?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: Abs absolutely, and and the crazy thing was when I finally got over to Everest and I was at Everest base camp, you know, 17,600 feet that had been the highest I'd have ever been.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: The highest I've been was the highest mountain here in Colorado, which is let's just round it up and say 14 and a half thousand feet.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Everest is twice that, right?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: For crying out loud.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So so how long have you lived in Colorado then?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Since I moved out here.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: So since I've been here now for 20 years.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, that's that's a lot of my family's rooted in Colorado.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Shoot, I got a Colorado shirt on, man.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I saw that.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of training up the peaks in Colorado just to kind of get your body acclimated to it.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking backpacks filled full of rocks.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: What other kind of training exercises did you have to do to get used to that?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was a lot of reading and a lot of of I don't want to say trial and error, but thankfully it was, and it was a lot less error and more trial.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't want to hurt myself because trial and error mountaineer, you could die.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and especially with only one fully functioning lung, that's a challenge in and of itself just for every day.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: But to go up in a place where the the air density is changing, it's that's gotta be huge.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, absolutely, and and I I I kind of see it as like anything in life.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: When I when I got into the mountaineering, I thought, okay, well, it has to be something I enjoy.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because if I don't if I don't like it, then what's what what the hell's the point?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we uh our our family tries to make two trips out to Colorado a year.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Usually we end up in in Manitou Springs, and this is where I was going with this.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: So uh have you spent a lot of time on the Manitou Incline then?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: I I have done done that a number of times, yeah.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so have you have you ever tried running it?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard of people running it, so is that even possible?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I chicken out every time I go out there, just just for full full clarity.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm sure there are crazy people who can do it, but I mean it's it's not like you're you know, it's uh it's not Hussein bolt speed going up, it's like a slow, sluggish shuffle, I would say.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, it's not a run, but they call it running.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: And if if you're creating that movement and that that motion, then yeah, I mean, I it's it's crazy what some people are capable of.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think Apollo Ono actually owns the record uh for fastest time going up it.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I know Terrence Bud Crawford, the boxer.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm actually, you know, I'm going back because I'm I'm curious to see what the speed record is going up there, just so people know what what the Manitou Incline is.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's um just so people know, it's a 2000 vertical ascent, 2000-foot vertical outdoor staircase.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some person did it all every day for a year.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll have to come back and do it.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: The known fastest time, but you basically you you go up higher than the Empire State Building, and I think it's at like a 40-some degree angle.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it's it's insane.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: The unsupported, okay.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: So the fastest unsupported time is 17 minutes and 45 seconds.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow, and does it say who hold holds that record?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a guy named Joseph Gray.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it starts at 6,600 feet and it gains 2,000 feet in roughly a mile.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so now circling back.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: You so you trained, you prepped, you conquered Everest.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: What was next after Everest?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: What was next was actually a mountain I've I've done 20 times now, Kilimajaro.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I um I thought Kilimajaro was next after I read up a little bit.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: So Everest, Kilimajaro in Africa, Elbrus in Europe.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um then I want to say Aconcagua, South America, uh Australia was Kosyascu, and then Antarctica was Vincent, and then North America was uh Denali.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Is that all of them?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think yeah, I think so.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: One, two, three, three, four, five, six, seven.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's it.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then you did the South Pole after that.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Went to the Antarctica again, do the South Pole, and then went to the North Pole.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: North Pole was 2017.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, a couple years a few years ago now.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: I was getting ready a few years ago.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So and then you fit a triathlon in there, an Iron Man in there at some point in time too, right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I didn't qualify for it.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'll put I'll put that out there.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was a media spot for the uh the world championship Iron Man Triathlon in Hawaii.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh after everything that I've I've done, I honestly I I I found it fun.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, I enjoyed it.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I and actually I was gonna ask that, you know, public speaking events, engagements.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Podcasts.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you've written a book, uh, Keep Climbing How I Beat Cancer and Reach the Top of the World.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: You got the movie True North, the Sean Swarner story.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a new web program, www.thesummitchallenge.com.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do for fun, man?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Remember?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let's back up.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: We're still on the beer thing.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, not that far back.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Remember when I said if you have to enjoy what you do?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love this stuff.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: I love, I love putting together the program.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: The program's to help people step out of their comfort zone and essentially into greatness, you know, using their personal core values.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's um, I would say it's the next step, it's it's almost like the next evolution in the self-empowerment industry because it's not a do this and this, and then this is the result.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's somebody telling you, hey, this is what worked for me.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's I'm not you.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: This actually has a structure, but you fit it together based on what you value most.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, that's amazing.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you're kind of you're trying to key into a person's neuroplasticity.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly the first it's a series of they're called seven challenges.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: And the first one is called the bookend challenge based on neuroplasticity, where they're actually reprogramming the their left prefrontal cortex to develop more synaptic connections and be more optimistic.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: In layman's terms for our listeners, what what is neuroplasticity?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess we could go back to the beer drinking stories because that's also neuroplasticity.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's essentially, and correct me if I'm wrong, because you sounds like you know a lot about it.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's basically the idea and the concept that your brain is malleable and you can actually create more synaptic connections to learn things.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: So a perfect example.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: When you learn a new language, you build synaptic connections.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's neuroplasticity.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: When you're going through something traumatic, it instantly changes your life.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's a new connection.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's neuroplasticity.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: When you wake up and you're constantly telling yourself, oh, here we go.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: When you wake up and you either go through social media before you go to the bathroom or while you're going to the bathroom, it's one of the two.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody does it.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And you're you're constantly consuming negative news on whatever platform you're looking at.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: You're developing more synaptic connections in your right prefrontal cortex.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: However, you can change that, and this is through neuroplasticity, to build more connections in your left prefrontal cortex, which is associated with more uh openness, more positive mindset, more optimistic mindset.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it's basically changing how your brain can potentially function.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: And through science, they've proven it's true.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of people that have done amazing things that demonstrate this time and time and time again.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: That said, who are some of your heroes?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Who are some of the people that you follow and glean inspiration from?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's there's one guy who because I also have a charity called the Cancer Climber Association.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I said I've been over to Kilimo Drawer 20 times, but it's because I lead a group up every year.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and what Cancer Climber Association does is it grants a survivor a trip.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we started off with Mount Whitney, and this guy's name is Zach, and he's probably one of my heroes because he went through I can't tell you how many brain surgeries.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh his dad took him up uh Mount Whitney, and we were there helping him.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he started off on like four arm crutches, you know, in well, he started off in a wheelchair, then he worked his way up to forearm crutches, then he worked his way up to a cane, and he he got his way, he got him himself through college and everything else, and now he's just doing absolutely fantastic.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: So looking at what he's been through, you know, it's it's unbelievable.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and people just like him.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I meet people wherever I go, you know, sitting on the plane, hey, what do you do?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I I kind of give them the short spiel, and if they want to talk, they continue.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: If they don't want to talk, we all go to sleep.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but the people who do tell me things, I'll I'll get their number because everybody seems it seems like everybody knows someone touched by cancer.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't tell you how many stories of of uh triumph that I hear.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's unbelievable.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh I can't even stomach it to some extent, you know.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I being fully transparent, I I am one of those, and I know it's a it's a byproduct of our society as Americans, that we struggle with the whole concept of mortality.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And going through something like cancer, you're faced with this almost every single moment.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and you you brought up a really good point early on where you were talking about how it doesn't only impact the person that has the cancer, it impacts everybody around them.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have I have a very close family member that uh his past career was a funeral director.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a discussion about mortality one time and about you know why it's important to have funerals because it's it's not just it's not for you, it's for the people around you, you know, so they can figure out a way to grieve.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: For me personally, it's it's something that I struggle with, and I admit outwardly that I I struggle with that mindset.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I I am always enamored with somebody that has a story such as yours and people that have been touched by cancer.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So there's my long-winded rant.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: No, it going through what I've been through and what other other survivors have been through doesn't mean that we've uh properly dealt with end-of-life issues.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it just means that we've faced them.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: It does, it doesn't mean that we're still not it doesn't it doesn't mean that we're not afraid of them.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do I do I want to die?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, God no.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Am I afraid of it?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'd I I I'm afraid of the process, you know, but it's something that, and maybe it's a cultural thing, you know.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: Here in the States, people don't talk about it.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, look at Mexico, they have Dia de los Muertos, you know, they have the day of the dead.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's it's there.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: People accept it and they know that it's there.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: In the states, we just it's just like you you brush under the carpet, you just don't talk about it.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe if it if it became more of a uh a culturally accepted thing to talk about and not just necessarily morbid, because I think when in in the states at least, and I'm just ranting right now too, you know, in the states, maybe it's that people are so afraid of not being able to accomplish things before they die because so many people they get to an age and like, oh my God, you know, yeah, I I regret that I didn't do this, I didn't do that.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: In other cultures, it's not that instant gratification.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's hey, you know what?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: You I look back in the day and I'm I'm thankful to have everything I do have.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Where I was going with that was, you know, confronting that mortality um is one side of the coin, where the other side of the coin is you figured out how to celebrate your life and challenging yourself and then adding a purpose to challenging yourself.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because another element of your movie that I really enjoyed was the uh the flags, the flags that you took to the top of the summits, the flags that you took to the north pole.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Tell tell our listeners a little bit about that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: But without giving too much of the movie away, you know, on Amazon, it's well, it's kind of like the the movie The Titanic.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know what?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know it's six.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm I make it to the North Pole.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, with Marty gets back in time and the Daniel LaRusso wins the tournament and karate kid, bro.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know what happens.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, with with Everest, the first mountain, um, we had an idea as a fundraiser for take names of people touched by cancer on a flag.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to take that to the top of the world.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it had names of people who unfortunately who passed away, people who were in remission and people who are currently battling.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: And while I was there, I remember writing names on it because I was calling my mom and my dad on my satellite phone because my brother was at base camp with me.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: And there were some people who were on who are printed on the flag who actually passed away while I was there on the map.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, in I had to write in memory of, you know, and and it was it was super emotional.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: And even thinking about it now, you know, brings back emotions.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: But at the bottom it said, dedicated to all those affected by cancer in this small world, keep climbing.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I took that flag to the top of the world and left it there.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then on every other continent, the highest point on every other continent, I had this a similar flag with different names on there.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we we kind of covered the globe, and then at the South Pole do the same thing, and then at the North Pole, we had a flag with with thousands and thousands of people's names on there.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, though, they're they're not just names, they're people, right?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it it's and it's people who've who've lost their lives to something that's absolutely tragic, and they left they potentially left family members behind to mourn.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do you wish you knew when you started out on that journey that you know now?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: I wish I knew how cold it was at the North Pole.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was really freaking cold.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just just like everything.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and this kind of takes me to my my grandma, and I'll get back to the the question.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: My grandma's 98 years old.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: And every time I get to spend with her is a gift.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I I always ask her, you know, if you could go back 50, 60 years and talk to yourself, what would you say?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the first time that somebody asked me that question.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: What would I say to myself?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: And not 50, 60 years ago if I wasn't alive, but kind of the the same thing.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: Just hey, everything is gonna be okay.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the most important thing that you've learned in your life?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's gonna be okay.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Same answer, same answer.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Brilliant, I love it.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: No, my I would say the the most important thing that I've learned in life is that we are all we all fail sometimes, but the people who succeed are the ones who keep getting up, and we are all in a and I I mean all capital letters, A L L.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: We are all capable of more.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: I agree, I agree.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: What doesn't challenge you doesn't change you.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's next now?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, well, I just got married.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, congratulations.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've been told that that's potentially more difficult than climbing Everest, but so far it's pretty easy.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's good.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody you like, I'm assuming.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that always helps, right?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: That definitely helps.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: So the the the big one is is getting the challenge out there, the summitchallenge.com.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then if I can get the support around it, meaning financial support or corporate support or whatever, in January of 2022, I want to run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's ambitious.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I I tilted the hat to that one, my friend.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh 4:30 in the morning, I'm up, I'm at the gym by 5 a.m.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: kind of everyday kind of guy.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I ruin it with my diet by midday, but you know, I at least get up and do the damn thing, right?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, I I just like the Manitou Incline, I get asked to do these little you know, halves all the time, and I just can't pull the trigger.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: So to do seven of them, if if you've never done the marathon, it's just a half marathon times two.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, there you go.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta work on that own my own neuroplasticity and when it comes down to this.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: It like when you finish what when you when you do it when you sign up for the full marathon and you're halfway through, just think to yourself, sweet, okay, another half marathon, done.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, short short of uh qualifying for the the Hawaii Iron Man triathlon or participating in that.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Have you I have, yeah.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: I've run New York the New York City a few times, um, ran Boston, uh Casino Niagara Marathon.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've run a f handful, yeah.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, man.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, awesome, awesome.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm assuming that this will also be in tribute, uh, like your other conquests.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: One of my goals is on each continent, minus Antarctica, is to get either one or a group of survivors to run with.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's awesome!
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it'd be really cool.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, any any final words, my friend?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, when you get to Colorado, man, look me up.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's do the incline.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's what I'm gonna do.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm gonna do.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Next time I go to Manitou Springs, I'm gonna message you and I'm gonna be like, meet me in Manitou, get my ass up this mountain.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: If if I'm training for kilometro hour, yes, if if we went right now, we'd we'd probably be at the same level.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: I need to go when you're unprepared.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: That way we can we can go up this thing and suffer together.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, right?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Misery loves company, right?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey man, thank you once again, Sean, for doing the podcast.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure talking to you.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it, man.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Very grateful.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want to once again take this opportunity to thank Sean for being on the show today.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great honor to interview him.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can find more about Sean by going to www.summitchallenge.com.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: And his movie, True North, The Sean's Corner Story, is available on Amazon Prime, free to rent right now.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, I'm always looking for new and exciting guests.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you know somebody or you might be that somebody that would be a good fit for this show, please drop me an email, caughtonthemic at gmail.com.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And while you're at it, give our podcast a five-star review on your favorite podcast app.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Also, if you get a second, share and like some of our social media.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're available on Instagram, Facebook, and now even on TikTok.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Caught on the Mike with Michael Clark.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.