Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 201. Sasha DiGiulian, Pro Climber

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201. Sasha DiGiulian, Pro Climber · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The rock doesn't really care if you succeed on it
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: or not, Like the mountains are so much bigger than us,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and we can just show up and be as prepared
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: as possible and mitigate our risks as much as possible
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: so that we're in control of our safety to the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: extent that we can be.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, Emily, A body here coming to you from
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: the Age Studio. You are listening to episode two hundred
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: and one of Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast where I
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: connect with everyone from your favorite athletes to top experts
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and industry CEOs about their highest highs, toughest moments, and
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: everything in between. We all go through hurdles in life,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: and my goal through these discussions is to empower you
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: to better navigate yours and move with intention so that
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: you can stride towards your own big potential and of
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: course have some fun along the way. For episode two
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: oh one, I am chatting of pro climber Sasha to Julian.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: We dive right in to this discussion with a conversation
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: about being transparent about your goals. Plus she also tells
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: me about falling in love at first sight with climbing
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: from six years old, Sasha has been a climbing phenom.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: She's also taken quite the unconventional route in her career,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: going to college at Columbia in New York while simultaneously
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: making a big name for herself in the industry. We
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: also chat about navigating bullying and disordered eating, which Sasha
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: says is rampant in climbing since it's a gravity based sport.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: This really brings me back to the conversation I had
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: last year with climbing pro Kai Lightner, and we talked
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: about injury and how Sasha navigated hip surgery during the
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: pandemic that left her feeling isolated and alone and really
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: really struggling through, as she.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Puts it, some dark times. So grateful for this combo.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Sasha and I have been trying to make this happen
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: for a really long time, as one can imagine, when
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: someone is off and on expeditions all the time, it
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: makes sinking up to pod a little bit difficult. But
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: grateful that we got it on the books, that this
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: episode is now in the feed, and happy to bring
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: it to you. A huge, huge, thank you, so much
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: love to all the hurdlers that came out in Los
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Angeles over the weekend. To say that it was a
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: joy to spend some time with you would be the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: biggest understatement ever. Next up, some news coming asap. I
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: promised about Boston, but do meet a favor. If you're
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: going to be in Boston, you may want to think
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: about holding some time for me, either Thursday evening April
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: fourteenth or Saturday, April sixteen at five pm. I promise
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: when I have the details to offer you, you will
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: be the first people to know. Make sure you're following
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: along with Hurdle over on socials at Hurdle podcast, I
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: am over at Emily a body and if you aren't
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: doing so yet, subscribe to the weekly Hurdle newsletter. Stay
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: in the loop with what's going on with the show.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Where my head's at yet, my favorite gear and podcast
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: and music and book picks and so much more. The
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: link to do that is in the show notes. And
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: with that, let's get to hurdling.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Today.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting down with Sasha did Julian. She is a
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: pro climber, pro and world champion climber.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: How you doing today, Sasha.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: I'm doing so well. Emily, thanks for asking how are
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: you doing?
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: I'm so good. I'm so excited to sit down with you.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Feel like this has been forever, like Sandlot's style, forever
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: in the making.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: Our stars are finally aligned.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Well again, I'm so excited that we were able to
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: make the stars align.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I'm going to jump into this with you, like on
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: the quick. Is that cool with you?
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: Let's go?
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Okay, So you.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Wrote a post on medium not all that long ago,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: and in the post you wrote this sentence, I'd rather
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: speak about my smaller goals than my bigger ones because
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: it feels less risky of letting others down if I fail.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I think about this all the time. Can we can
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: we talk about this a little bit because do we
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: actually think, like, genuinely if we take a step back,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: that other people are that invested in care that much
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: that if we quote unquote fail, they're going to be like, oh,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: that person is such like a waste of space.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: It's such a good point. And first of all, thanks
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: for reading my baby me, Paige. I missed writing and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I'm just going to
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: start a blog.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I totally agree with that question, though, like do people
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: actually even remember? Because I think that we're all pretty
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: self absorbed in our own orbit to.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: An extent that I don't know.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Sometimes when you put a goal out there, it feels
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: more real than when you don't put it out there,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: that there's an accountability that can really help you in
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: achieving it. And so it's kind of like, once you
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: can get past that hurdle unintended for this podcast and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: just let your circle in on what your goal is,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: then I have found that I try harder, Like I
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: feel more accountable.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: Whether or not people actually care or not.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, and I don't know why it can
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: feel so intimidating to be like, I want to go
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: climb the hardest climb ever achieved by a woman, or
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: something like that, like because there is a side of
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: it that I temper away from because of fear of
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: feeling arrogant, of fear of not necessarily being able to
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: uphold that goal, or what if my intentions change and
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: then someone judges me because I've changed paths and I'm
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: not still charting forward on that, And then I'll start
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: asking It's like, do you want to open the bag
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: of questions or not? Yeah? And I guess it's just
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: weighing whether it's worth it or not for that extra accountability.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, now I hear that.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a really big runner, and I remember
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: before Chicago Marathon twenty nineteen, I put out what felt
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: like a really impossible goal. But what I really knew
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: deep in my gut is that my goal was even
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: faster than the goal that I shared with the world.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: So I hear you, Like, sometimes I feel like we
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: kind of temper what we're willing to let other people
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: in on because we're scared of that, Like we're scared
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: of quote unquote failing publicly. But sometimes I don't know, lately,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of like go big, fail big, Like what's
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: the worst thing that can happen.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: That's such an interesting point though, It's like you set
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: your goal out there, it was almost like you took
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a dip into the shallow end rather than letting everyone
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: in the deep end with you. And there must be
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: some psychology behind it, Like there is also in climbing,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: like we have a really precious community where you're almost like,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: if you're a woman, especially, you're damned if you do
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and damned if you don't. Because as soon as you
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: start setting these big, audacious goals and saying what you're
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: going to go and achieve. You're pegged as like maybe
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: arrogant or whatever. And then as soon as you're not
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: saying like what you want to achieve or not, or
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: like taking time off from climbing, it's like, well, what
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Isashy joy and done lately?
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: And it's like, well, it's been a month.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So I think that there is just this tug and
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: pull in society in general that I experience in climbing,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: and that could be like a whole other subject, but
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I relate it to goals and letting yourself be vulnerable,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: because when you don't have this space to be vulnerable
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: in the world that you're orbiting, then it's really hard
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to want to be vulnerable.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: In more of my digging into Sasha's digital presence, I
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: saw that you wrote the sentence on your website. If
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I were to believe in love at first site, climbing
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: would be the supportive evidence. So give us some insight
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: into your love at first site with climbing, which correct
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong, but I know that I'm not
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: started at six years old.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I love that you dug up that quote. I don't
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: even remember it that well, but it sounds just like me,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: so I believe it. My brother had a birthday party
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: at a climbing gym and Alexandria, Virginia, at this place
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: called Sport Rock, which still exists. It's a right off
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Eisenhower for those of you in northern Virginia. And he
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: was a hockey player. Were like Irish twins, like he's
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a year older than me, and it was his whole
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: hockey team and me and I was just so fiercely
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: competitive with my older brother Charlie, and to the point
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that like he wasn't competing, but I always was.
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: I just remember a.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Not that this should be like a stepping stone for passion,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: but I was better than the boys, and I was
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  Speaker 1: like sweet found my sport, but I was like in control.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And I distinctly remember that because at the time I
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: was a figure skater too, and that was kind of
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: like the path that my mom thought for me was
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: my brother played ice hockey and I figure skated and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: did ballet, and then at the birthday party, like it
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  Speaker 1: was kind of like climbing, if you want to succeed
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: upward on the wall, then it's up to you.
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: And that the.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Level of intricacy of like what I thought of climbing
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  Speaker 1: didn't necessarily dawn on me as a six year old.
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  Speaker 1: I just loved it and I wanted to go back,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and so I joined like their junior team program, which
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: was this program that met each Wednesday and Saturday and
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Wednesdays after school Saturday mornings. And then about eight to
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: twelve months into doing this little program with like kids
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: around the Tri State area, I walked in on a
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning with my mom and there is this youth
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: regional championship taking place. And I had like never known
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of climbing as a sport. Frankly, like I knew of
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: it as my hobby and this thing that I loved
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: to do. And then my mom kind of like convinced
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the organizers to let me compete because I hadn't done
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: any of like the qualifying regional events to qualify for
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: like youth regionals. And I competed in the eleven and
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: under category. I was seven, and I won my category,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: which you know, at the time was far far less
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: competitive than it is these days, like there are so
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: many kids who climb these days.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: I'm granted this was.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Over twenty years ago, but yeah, that was like the
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: spawning of my competitive career as a climber.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: No big deal, just like showing up on the spot
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: and becoming like, you know, the one.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: To take it all.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: In eleven and under.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: And the yeah, but still like give yourself some credit.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: This is a big deal.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And I mean that moment spawned what would become, like
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: to this day, a lasting love affair with this sport.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: So obviously pre eleven and under, starting from the get
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: go and excelling.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: But when did you truly feel.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: As though, Okay, this isn't just something that I like
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: to do, this is something that I'm really really good at.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, that's a great question.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: And the love affairs gone through ups and downs like
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: any good relationship. When I was eleven, I won my
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: first Youth Continental Championship in Mexico City, and that was
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: my first like big international win. The year prior to that,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I had made the youth national team, which had qualified
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: me to compete in the Continental championships. And right after
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: that I had my first like sponsor, which was this
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: climbing endemic company called mad Rock. And I remember that
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: my parents, like my whole family, didn't climb, and I
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: was constantly kind of in this like tug and pull
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: of like proving myself and feeling this need to prove myself,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: even though I don't know if that was like an
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: actual need or just like in my mind. But when
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I was in Toronto visiting my family and it was
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: like I think it was like passover or something.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: My whole mom said, the family is Jewish, I was like, I'm.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: A professional climber now, and like granted my first sponsorship,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Like it was it was just product that I was
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: given as a twelve year old, and then I was
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: given I negotiated the entire thing. I never let to
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: this day my parents like aware of any contract I've every.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Wait at twelve.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but there wasn't much negotiation.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: It was like I was like this product budget, Okay,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: well how about one thousand.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: Dollars for first place? You know, these competitions.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Is that regal?
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, climbing isn't all It wasn't a collegiate sport.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Now it's not part of the collegiate league either. It's
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: like a it has a collegiate series, but it won't
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: prevent you from so yeah, I mean as a climber.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: I was really at.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: This like new frontier though of like climbing becoming more
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: of this like sport that you could make a living from.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And as a twelve year old, I was very far
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: from making a living in climbing.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: But I was taking myself really seriously, I.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Mean, as you should.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: It's really exciting at age twelve when someone's like, we're
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: gonna give you all this stuff just to do something
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: that you already love to do.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it was like I just wanted to be
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: a part of the community so badly because I always
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: felt in school like this other, like it was this
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: no one at my school climbed, and it was climbing
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: was really like a new sport. Whenever I said I climbed,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: people would be like, what's that, and then I'd like
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: explain it. And so I never talked about climbing growing up,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Like at school, I did other sports too, like field
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: hockey and track and field and stuff like that, and
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: if people ask me about climbing, I would change the subject.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I just I didn't like talking about you know, as
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: like an adolescent girl, like the last thing you want
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: is something that makes you feel like a total and
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that's kind of like what climbing felt like. But then
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: once I left school and I was in this climbing community,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: it felt like home and I had all these friends
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that it felt like this this connected language and this
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: shared passion that my climbing friends kind of became my
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: much closer community.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: Than my school friends.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: My journey with climbing to now it's like funny because
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I'm like so proud to talk about it and like
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: my mission ultimately and climbing is just get more people
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: to go out and try it. Because I'm obviously biased,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: but I think it's been a really empowering journey for me.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: That I like, I remember a couple of.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Years ago, I went back and I spoke at my
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: high school and we had what was called like it was.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: Crossroads or something.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: It was where like all the seniors hung out and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: if you were a cool junior, you could like go in,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: but like as a high schooler, I would like circumvent
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the circumference, like like I would not touch my foot
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: on the rug of crossroads when I was not ready,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Like I was just like I don't know, And then
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I was like standing in the middle of crossroads talking
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and I was like this is really really ironic.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well you mentioned you mentioned the the not wanting
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: to feel like a total other, and it's interesting that
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: you said that because there have been moments within the
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: climbing community where you have voice that you have felt
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: like a total other, specifically when it comes to your
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: looks and a little bit about how you're built.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: So talk to us.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: And this is usually a question that I say for
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the end of the show, but I do feel like
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I want to bring it up now to lean us
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: into this discussion. So someone comes to your Instagram page
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: and they see a pro climber with something like four
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five thousand followers and growing. But when
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: you look in the mirror, what is it that you
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: see looking back at you.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I've wrestled
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: with imposter syndrome through most of my career, feeling like
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I don't necessarily look the part of a climber. I've
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: been told since I was a really young kid, like, oh,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: you're a rock climber.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: That's surprising, you.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Don't look like a climber, And it's I think I
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: got to the point of like, well, what does a
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: climber look like because.
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: I, you know, have these accolades.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I've had multiple national championship titles, world championship title, all
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: these outdoor achievements. Yet I'm still told I don't look
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: like a climber, so let's like consider what that looks like.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I've gone through a lot within the climbing community.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: My success has been attributed to me being an attractive
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: blonde girl, which I'm like, if only that were the cays,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: like that would be pretty easy and also open the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: floodgates to a lot of people much much prettier than me.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: But I guess like also weight and the disordered eating
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and being singled out online by cyber bullies from people
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: who are total keyboard trolls to people who are actually
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: other colleagues and professional athletes in my sport, and from
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: when I was when I was eighteen, I went through
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: my own kind of experience with disordered eating and fitting
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: into this World Cup circuit of what it did look
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: like to be a competitive climber was being incredibly rale,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: thin and meticulous about everything that you eat. And I
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: think that a lot of sports can kind of relate
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: to that as gravity related. But climbing, like literally, what
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: you weigh is what you pull up the wall. And
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I think it took me a long time to realize
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: that the stronger you are than the more capacity you
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: have to pull the weight, and the long term progression
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: is going to be that much stronger if you just
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: like put in the work to training. But when I
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: was in high school, I kind of like unintentionally started
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: losing weight when I was really kicking up training towards
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: this world championship goal, and I started succeeding even more,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: and I started coming into more of this limelight, and
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: with this limelight online in the climbing community came hate.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: And it was like this new level of hate that
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I had never experienced because up until that point, for
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the first I guess over a decade in my career,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I was like growing up in the sport and I
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: was like always collecting people's opinions of My mom, for instance,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: was like such a dedicated support system and she dressed
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: nicely like I wasn't like some like heiress to any
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: sort of fortune at all, and I was paying a
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: lot of my own climbing trip myself. But my mom
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: was like people would make fun of her even and
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: call her Gucci mom and stuff like that, and she
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: was like, I didn't actually own a single piece of
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Gucci for the rector. I think we were always kind
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: of judged as outsiders in that regard, which is kind
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: of ironic because climbing was my safe space away from
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: being an outsider in like middle school, high school. But
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: it was also this place that I never really did
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: fit in because I was this city kid who loved
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: this outdoor origin sport and I was trying to find
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: my place in climbing too. That yeah, when I started
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: succeeding at a higher level in climbing, I would see
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: like comments online like bet she doesn't even get her.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: Period, ha ha ha, and like.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Just skeletor I bet I could climb that hard if
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I was still light, And it was just totally negated
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: everything that I was dedicating my life two to like
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: six am before school hitting the gym and then being
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: at school and then leaving school and going straight to
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the climbing gym for practice. So I was working really
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: hard and it was like a blow to the gut
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: to be just everything you put into this sport is
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: like related to what you weigh and then contrarily, as
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I went through puberty and as my body kind of changed,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I was then judged for being like not super real thin,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: and then like even another pro climber May was like,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: who had been at the front of calling me anarexic
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was like the first lead the charge of making fun
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of me being fat. And here's like, okay, maybe I
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: weighed like one hundred and fifteen pounds, not ninety five,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: and I'm being targeted as.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: Being overweight in my sport publicly online.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: And so I think when you have disordered eating and
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: this happened to me when I was in my late
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: teens early twenties, it doesn't just go away. And right now,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: like I'm really really passionate about nutrition and learning what's
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: the optimal status for me, and working with trainers and
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: something that's new to climbing ish is like more cross training.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: And historically people have always just said to improve at climbing,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you just climb. And I was even at the gym
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the other day and there was this younger girl who
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: joined me and my friend who were doing a core workout,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and she was like, are you guys sure that doing
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: this helps you improve climbing? And I was like, tell
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: me one sport where cross training.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: Doesn't have an additive value. And so it's just.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Been interesting because that's been like at the foundation of
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: why I'm starting this company that's nutrition bar company called
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: send Bars is because I've always made my own bars
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and been really into nutrition but also been let down
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: by like what's available for healthy on the go on
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: expedits and stuff like that. I want to learn and
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: grow in this arena because it's really been a journey
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: for me with my own like confidence in climbing and
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: that pertains to like wait and what you eat and yeah,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: being judged for wearing makeup, being judged for having I
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: don't have style, for attempting style, you know, and like
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: things like that, Like it's anything that I've done, I've
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: felt like I've been criticized.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: And it's not by everyone.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: It's just like you hear if there's ninety nine percent
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: of positivity fed back to you, you're going to hear
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: that one percent of negativity and that sticks, and it Like,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I think it's a fallacy to think that you know,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: words can't hurt and that you're too big to care,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: because I mean me growing and climbing and becoming more
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: quote unquote famous in this industry. I've been ripped apart
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and I've had to grow some pretty callous skin around it.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: When you, I would say, and you reference that it's
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: kind of like a lifelong journey. But when you look
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: back at the time when you really learned how to
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: get over the hurdle of disordered eating, what would you
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: credit was the thing or maybe the person that really
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: helped you get over that hurdle.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I started my first year at Columbia and I had
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: come off the heels of climbing for a year without
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: being in school. I deferred my acceptance for a year.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I had won the World Championships that year and really
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: focused on some big like outdoor single pitch climbing achievements,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and then I went to this event that was an
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: invitational competition. I ruptured my a two polium my ring finger,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: which is like right here, and my entire palm just
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: like spasmed out and I couldn't close my hand. And
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: so for a normal non climber, it's just a finger injury,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: but for a climber, it's kind of a really big,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: devastating moment that you have to take two to three
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: months off. That was in August, and I started at
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Columbia in September. I guess I missed my orientation week
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: because I was I was climbing. That event bled into
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: orientation week. But then I remember in high school I
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: had such an atypical experience at school. My high school
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: boyfriend was another pro climber who was Norwegian, who, like
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I would just go off and climb with him every day.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: And so for college, I was pretty disengaged at high
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: school and all I wanted to do was climb and
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: get straight in so I could get through it and
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: satisfy my parents and just graduate and move on with life.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: And so college I was like, I'm really excited to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: have a college experience and like to engage with what
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: that might look like. Of course, it never was like
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: that typical because I through college I was traveling, like
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Thursday evenings, I would fly to like Europe or Asia
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: or wherever, and I would come back Monday night.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: But for the.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: First semester at least, I had this finger injury, and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I just I guess it was like exposure to normalcy.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: My entire community up until college was I mean, I
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: can't think of many female climbers that I was surrounded
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: by and looked up to that didn't have eating disorders,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: which is wild to think about, and I hope it's
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: changing everything. Like I lived with this woman in Austria
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and Innsbruck when we were competing on the World Cup
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: circuit and she weighed her oatmeal and weighed everything on
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: a scale, and so I did too, And it's just
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: like habitually, like that became the norm for me. And
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: when I was in college, like people were going to
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Magnolia Bakery and getting like banana bread pudding and I
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: was like.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: What is that? This is godly.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: And I think just like letting my body be still,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: it adjusted and there was like a period of time
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: where my body and hormones were all catching up to me,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: like I had a very delayed.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Puberty and stuff like that.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And so my body changed and then I had to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: kind of relearn how to climb with my new body,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and instead of pushing against it to revert to my
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: pre pubescent body, I had to accept cross training and
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: learning more about how to strengthen my body and be
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: like a woman who climbed rather than like a young.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Girl who climbed.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to give some love
• 27:48
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• 27:50
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• 27:52
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• 28:03
  Speaker 2: This year, one of my big goals is to change that,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: to really focus on a more plant based style of eating.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: And that's why I am keeping my freezer stocked with
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• 30:00
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• 30:02
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  Speaker 2: and use the code Hurdle one five for fifteen percent
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  Speaker 2: off any membership today. How do you navigate the negative
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: voice inside your head? Because you mentioned before even how
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: easy it is to let that one negative comment be
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: the thing that jumps off the page in a sea
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: of hundreds and hundreds of positive sentiments. So for you
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: and your inner voice, how have you learned to become
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: a little bit more of your own hype woman instead
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: of letting that naysayer inside take over.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, at the end of the day, I think there's
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: a couple things there the community that I surround myself.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Now I'm much much more particular about people that I
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: consider my friends, and not in a ruthless way, but
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I'm really affected by energies. And if I don't get
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: a good positive energy from someone that feels supportive and
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: collaborative and encouraging.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: Then I'll consider them an acquaintance.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: But I'll definitely be very protective with my space. So
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: my core, like my core community, has definitely shrunk to
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: the point that I feel like everyone who I consider
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: a friend is like a very genuine got your back,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: will share the common enemies, stand up for me, I'll stand.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: Up for you, like loyalty is very important.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: But then on the performative side, like for me, really
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: feeling confident about what I'm doing, like I'm putting my
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: best foot forward, I'm putting my head down, I'm grinding.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I know that everything I do is my personal best
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and what comes out of that is going to be.
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: What I can put out.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: And when my dad was alive, he always said, like
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: when he would drop me off at the airport if
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I was going off on a climbing expedition or something,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: and he'd be like, have fun, be safe, and do
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: your best. And so that mantra has really like stuck
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: with me and been my guiding light for how I
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: approach what I do in my every day but also
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: like when I go off on these dangerous expeditions, it's like,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I guess, be safe could be number one, or I
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: could be safety thread, like whatever way you want to
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: look at it, But being safe and having fun is
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: really important, and then doing your best because at the
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: end of the day, like the rock doesn't really care
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: if you succeed on it or not, Like the mountains
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: are so much bigger than us, and we can just
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: show up and be as prepared as possible and mitigate
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: our risks as much as possible so that we're in
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: control of our safety to the extent that we can
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: be and show up.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: I love that idea, the idea that, like the rock
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: doesn't care how you show up, it's just that you
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: show up at all. And I certainly share those sentiments
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: when it comes to the run. It's like you can
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: be having the worst day or the best day, but
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: the run is always going to be there for you,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: And the same goes for you in your sports.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: So to hear it in that light is just it's
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: really beautiful.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I love the fact that sports are so transcendent through
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: life and also what that sport is because there's such
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a connective tissue there to your mentality as an athlete
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: and as just anyone who is really passionate about what
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: you do. But I don't know if like the negative
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: voice ever goes away, because I have good days and
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I have bad days. And on the bad days, if
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I have a busy schedule, I just try and like
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: maybe throw on some makeup and dress like I care
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and not like hide it. But I think that the
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: way that you show up, whether you're in a good
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: mental space or not, can kind of help dictate how
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: you handle it. And this last like two years, I
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: went through double hip reconstruction, and so I did have
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of time with myself and reevaluating priorities and everything.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: I think that my mental game had to become a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: lot stronger and more confident because I was stuck with
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: myself like most of the world. I mean through COVID
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: it was like its own thing too, but there were
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: basically six months where I couldn't do absolutely anything.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, two things to double click on here. The first
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: thing to double click on is I'm totally with you
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: on sometimes you just need to put yourself together to
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: have a day. Even putting yourself together to have a day,
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: is you walking like twelve feet into your office or
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: your desk that's strategically placed in the corner. I definitely
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: had my fair share of days like that over the
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: past two years.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: And then man, a double hip reconstruction.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: So many people listening to this show have been sidelined
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: with injury before themselves. Talk to us about how you
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: mentally handled what was I'm sure a severely isolating experience.
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Man, it was dark.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it was pretty dark, but I found light for
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: sure and purpose in a new way. I for the
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: like two to three years, probably three years, but mounting
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: up to the last two years before twenty twenty, i'd
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: really bad hip, like chronic pain, and I didn't know
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: what was going on, and I saw like a whole
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: array of physical therapists ranging from it being a tight
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: so as to it being in my head. And in
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: February of twenty twenty, right before going on an expedition
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: to this place in Mexico to go and climb this
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: three thousand foot first female ascent on Elgigonte, which is
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: this gigantic monolith, I Finally I couldn't sleep at night.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Like there's like two months where everything id just like compounded,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and I was like my femurhead felt like it was
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: like popping out of the socket. And so I got
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: an memor I found out I had hip displasion, and
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I was either faced with a hip replacement, which would
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: be essentially career ending because you can't be a professional climber.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: You can climb, but you can't be a professional climber
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: with a hip replacement from a mobility side, but also
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: from a safety side of the remoteness of my expeditions,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: and yeah, for obvious reasons. And then there was this
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: double po surgery which could happen on both sides of
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: like essentially, the surgeon would go in, cut my pelvic
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: bone in four places, shape down the femur head, adjust
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: the pelvic bone over the new femerhead, the newly shaped
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: down the femerhead, sent it down with six six inch screws,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: and then I had to basically I couldn't even have
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: like a ninety degree angle of my hips for two
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: months and no weight bearing or anything, and then do
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: it all again on the other side. And so there
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: was a total of five surgeries throughout this process, and
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: I think that for me, I had never taken off
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: more than six weeks from climbing for an injury. Maybe
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: with my finger injury. It was actually one of the
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: worst injuries that I had had prior to that.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: And so I had to figure out what I was
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: going to do.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I had always had this passion for, as I mentioned earlier,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: like making my own bars, and I had wanted to
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: start this nutrition bar company, and so that was something
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: that I kind of embraced had on and was like,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: if life has a way of working out for a
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: reason and telling me something, now is the time to
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: do it. And so I started embarking on that journey.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I started writing my book because I studied nonfiction creative
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: writing at Columbia and I'd always wanted to write a book,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: but it never felt like the right inflection point. And
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: I still, you know, wrestle with like I'm not done
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: with my career and this isn't like an autobiography, but
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: it's time to have a coming of age memoir that
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: just kind of dives into where I'm at now. And
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: it felt like a good time to do that. And
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: writing has always been an outlet for me just to
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: process through my thoughts, and ninety nine percent of the
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: writing that I do is like just in journals that
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: will never be seen, and then really focusing in on
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: what I could control, like from the nutrition aspect to
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: the PT like I was, I mean, my PT exercises
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I would do like three to five times a day,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and I was just like very very committed to what
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: does my body need and going back to like wrestling
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: with disordered eating and my relationship with food. The injury
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: actually set me up for success in that way because
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: I started seeing my body as this incredibly resourceful, like
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: remarkable thing that I could like literally knit myself back together,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: having like had my abs taken out twice, no three times,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: they're cut out because in three different surgeries, and then
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: just like seeing that my body could come back and
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: like just be normal. Like my expectation of my body
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: was just to walk again. And it was, like you
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: kind of similar to our goal setting discussion at the
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: top of this talk, like some days it was just
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: like being able to put on a stock, which like
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do for a long time, Like even my
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: fiance had to like carry me to the bathroom it's
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: one way to get really close to someone go through
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: massive injury, and I think focusing on what you can control.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like an expedition. Like when you're on
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: an expedition, there are so many variables that you can't
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: control and so much risk that you need to mitigate
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: over what's rational fear, what's irrational fear? What are our
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: conditions we're facing, How can we handle this, how do
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: we best prepare our packs so that we're set up
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: for success? And then all the training and kind of
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: like under the hood work that goes in prior and
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: so I started to just kind of process this injury
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: as a part of that.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: It was like, this is going to be my next climb.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: It's going to be like.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Just grueling and uncomfortable and all these things, but at
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, I have to make the summit.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: And that that was different because obviously, like with an expedition,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: you can't make the summit.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: You can return, but through a recovery, like.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: You have a one track mind, Like you're like, I'm
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: getting through this, But yeah, it got dark in the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: way that physical exercise is the way that I deal
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: with with like my mental anxiety and just process through
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: thoughts and emotions and feeling pent up like in a
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: cage for so long, basically nine months. It was pretty
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: mentally challenging, and it took a toll on my like
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: fortitude as just like seeing life as this optimistic thing.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: And some days I woke up and I was like
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: I don't even see the point, Like I can't wait
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: for the day to be done, And so dealing with
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: those thoughts and stuff like working with therapists and a
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: sports psychologist.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: I definitely leaned on my network.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: For instance, like Red Bull really stepped up in a
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: really big way for me through this injury because the
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: company provided me with nutritionness and a sports psychologist and
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: all these kind of like tools for me to work
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: with that could I could kind of like grow as
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: a human through the process.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: What a moment to take a step back and look
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: at the network of people around you who want you
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: to succeed and be like, Wow, how lucky am I
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: that I have these people, these resources, this stuff. Although,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: like you're saying, in the darkness, sometimes it's really really
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: difficult to take that perspective.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was redefining my identity for twenty three years
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: of my life, I had been a climber and that's
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: what my profession has been and still is. And to
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: be like, well, I'm I can't even be a normal human.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: I can't even walk, and understanding that that's just like
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: a current season and not your forever. But I mean
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: now I just I take everything with so much more gratitude.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: We forget it, Like I remember the days when I
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: was like I would do anything to walk, and now
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I walk around and like have a bad
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: day at the gym and I'm like, damn it, I suck,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: and then remembering like, no, I'm so grateful to be
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: here and to be like able to be challenging my
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: body again and to be like doing like sports in general.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: That that's when I look at my body and think like,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: how could I have ever starved?
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: You like you have like been there for me.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: You you built yourself back up like all these things
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: so that I just appreciate myself better.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I want to be conscious of your time.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to start to wind us down here.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Earlier I asked you what you see when you look
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: in the mirror, and we didn't quite get to that answer.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: So talk to us, talk to me about Sasha.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: When you look in the mirror, what is it that
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: you see staring back at you?
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: I know I deflected you.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: I heard.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I see someone who works really, really hard and who's
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: is committed to finding out what's possible. I guess I
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: look in the mirror and I'm like, how did we
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: get here? Not that I'm like at some like pinnacle
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: of success or anything. I'm just like, how did we
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: get to this point that you get to do everything
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: that you love every single day and you're you're paid
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: to do this passion. And that's where I'm just like,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: let's keep going, Like, let's keep pushing and working hard
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: and showing up and finding out.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: And that's like such a good takeaway though, is that
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: you don't like work hard and get to this point
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: where you've accomplished some of your goals and you're like.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, cool, like I did it.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: We're good now. That is really when the work really begins.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't you agree.
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: Totally?
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I Mean, it's like the point at what you can
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: recognize how much you want to work and work hard.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's like it's a special realization because you
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: start appreciating the grind.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure, and not to like, you know,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: glorify hustle culture, but more so just to be like,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: if you're willing to put in the work, that won't
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: guarantee without a doubt that you will succeed. But that's
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: a lot closer to getting to success than the person
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: that's just sitting on the couch wondering what if.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that the hustle is
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: a big thing, like for my confidence and everything around,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: like whether I feel this impostor syndrome of what I
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: think a lot of particularly woman go through, because there's
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: no end of people saying questioning whether you deserve what
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: you have. If you can stand on the legs of
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: your hustle and know that you really tried hard, then
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: there's kind of like I always kind of wrestle with
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: this idea of like finding balance because I don't necessarily
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: know if like I find balance in my life. I
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: think I like manage the chaos and and I balance
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: my priorities, and I don't know if I have like
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: a balanced lifestyle, but I love it, like I love
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: being busy and being in the thick of it, and
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: I do definitely value like taking care of your mental
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: health and taking time to rest, more so than ever
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: after going through this last two years. But I think
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: that it has to be coupled with the hustle, and
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: it has to be coupled with like just going full on,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: like trying and going into the unknown and challenging your
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: comfort zones.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: So all of that, it's just kind of all has
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: to be there.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: If you reflect quickly thinking about your current state and
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: the hustle and perhaps at times that lack of balance,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: what could be one thing that you could add to
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: your routine that you're not doing just yet that may
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: help you get to a closer definition of balance.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I meditated a lot through my recovery process, and it
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: was almost like I dropped that off when I was
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: healthy again because my training schedule was back and I
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: started traveling again and all this stuff. So meditation and
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: visualization has definitely been like a very helpful tool for
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: me to add to my toolkit, and I shouldn't abandon it.
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: When the going's good.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: And I'm a big bath person, I do epps and
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: salts and baking powder.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, baking powder.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: I always mix the two up, but one of them
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: activates the EPs and salts, baking powder. I'm all about that,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: So making more time for baths would be a very recharging.
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: Aspect that I could add back it.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: We love that.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: It's like you abandon the run warm up when your
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: injuries go away. So I hear that, Okay, Sasha, final
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: question right now, you have an opportunity to offer yourself
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: a piece of advice looking back during that nine month
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: period when you could not do the thing that you love,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: the longest time away from your sports since you started
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: six years old. What piece of advice do you offer
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: yourself going through that hurdle moment now looking back on it.
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: Be kind to yourself.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: I think that when I was going through just being
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: totally flattened, it was hard for me to really appreciate
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the motions of what was what was just necessary, and
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: I would be pretty critical of my body and feel useless.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: And now looking back, it was actually my body was
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: working really, really hard and I could have appreciated it more.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: And I think that like the way that we talk
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: to ourselves. Yeah, I've like seen the little like quotes
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: and stuff on Instagram. I like, talk to your body
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: like you would talk to your best friend. That's really
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: hard for me. It's really hard for me to do that,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: but it's something that's always in the back of my
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: mind that's like I need to do a better job
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: at and I would definitely want to have been more
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: kind to my body when it was like literally broken
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: up into two halves.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: Into two halves. Well, I'm so grateful for your perspective.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: There's so many more things that I feel like you
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: and I could talk about, and maybe we'll have to
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: do a part two of this at some point, But
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you, Sasha. Let the hurdlers know how they
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: can follow along with you, how they can keep up
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: with you.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: Give us the details.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I really appreciate you having me here,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: and likewise, I have so many questions for you. You're
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: such an inspirational woman. My Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, it's all
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: the same. It's just at sashaty Jolian, so you can
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: find me there.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily a Body and at Hurdle Podcast
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Another Hurdle Conquered.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time.