Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 305. Here To Climb: Sasha DiGiulian On How She Sets Goals, Riding The Injury Rollercoaster & Her New Documentary
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: If you're at a place that you don't want to be,
- 0:03Speaker 1: you can always change that. And that's the beauty of life.
- 0:07Speaker 1: It's not stagnant.
- 0:23Speaker 2: What's going on everyone, Emily Abadi Here, You are listening
- 0:26Speaker 2: to episode three hundred and five of Hurdle, a wellness
- 0:30Speaker 2: focused podcast where I talk to inspirational people about everything
- 0:34Speaker 2: from their highest hies and toughest moments to essential tips
- 0:38Speaker 2: on how to live a healthier, happier, more motivated life.
- 0:42Speaker 2: We all go through our fair share of hurdles. My
- 0:45Speaker 2: goal through these discussions is to empower you to better
- 0:48Speaker 2: navigate yours and move with intention so that you can
- 0:51Speaker 2: stride towards your own big potential and of course have
- 0:55Speaker 2: some fun along the way. For today's conversation, and I
- 1:00Speaker 2: could not be more elated to be able to sit
- 1:03Speaker 2: down with the one and only Sasha de Julian. She
- 1:07Speaker 2: is a professional climber, and her documentary premieers tomorrow on HBO.
- 1:13Speaker 2: The movie called Here to Climb, capturing gosh the last
- 1:18Speaker 2: four plus years of Sasha's story, but really encapsulating thirty
- 1:23Speaker 2: plus years of her life, a journey toward an evolving
- 1:28Speaker 2: career which has been nothing short of Stellar thus Far.
- 1:33Speaker 2: I had the privilege of hosting the world premiere of
- 1:36Speaker 2: Sasha's film in Denver last week, and so it was
- 1:40Speaker 2: an honor for me to sit down with her in
- 1:42Speaker 2: my own studio in Brooklyn this week. In today's episode,
- 1:47Speaker 2: Sasha and I talk a lot about goal setting and
- 1:51Speaker 2: what goes hand in hand with going after things that
- 1:54Speaker 2: scare you. Sasha talks to me about her process. She
- 1:58Speaker 2: talks to me about how she chooses the goals that
- 2:00Speaker 2: she sets, and she gets really vulnerable about how she
- 2:04Speaker 2: navigates what happens when she has to pivot. Of course,
- 2:09Speaker 2: there are things that many of us set out to do,
- 2:11Speaker 2: and along the journey toward our big and exciting goals,
- 2:15Speaker 2: maybe we realize that those goals don't service anymore. Maybe
- 2:18Speaker 2: we get into a situation where there are things that
- 2:20Speaker 2: are beyond our control and we cannot go after those
- 2:23Speaker 2: initial goals. And in those moments, it is really hard,
- 2:28Speaker 2: it's really frustrating, and it's understandable that you get upset.
- 2:31Speaker 2: But it's how you deal with the pivot that makes
- 2:34Speaker 2: all of the difference. And again, that is exactly what
- 2:37Speaker 2: Sasha and I are talking about today. She also shares
- 2:41Speaker 2: about what she's excited about right now outside of the
- 2:43Speaker 2: premiere of this documentary, and what she plans to do next,
- 2:47Speaker 2: what is coming down the pipe for her in the future,
- 2:50Speaker 2: and the projects that excite her on the workfront, especially
- 2:54Speaker 2: with her nutrition bar company Send Bars. I feel so
- 2:57Speaker 2: lucky to have been a part of this major for
- 3:00Speaker 2: Sasha and so excited to bring this conversation to the
- 3:05Speaker 2: feed again. Her documentary, out tomorrow on HBO Max, is
- 3:10Speaker 2: called Here to Climb, an HBO sports documentary put together
- 3:15Speaker 2: by Red Bull Media House Production and association.
- 3:18Speaker 3: With Breakthrough Films.
- 3:20Speaker 2: It is absolutely phenomenal, inspiring, motivating. Her story is one
- 3:26Speaker 2: of resilience and determination. I can guarantee it is worth
- 3:30Speaker 2: the watch. Make sure you're following along with Hurdle over
- 3:34Speaker 2: on social It's at Hurdle Podcast. I myself am over
- 3:37Speaker 2: at Emily a body to the hurdlers that came out
- 3:40Speaker 2: IRL this week in New York. It was so stellar
- 3:43Speaker 2: to be able to spend some time with you on
- 3:45Speaker 2: the ground. I look forward to hosting many more events
- 3:48Speaker 2: throughout the summer. Stay tuned to those Instagram profiles for
- 3:53Speaker 2: all of the announcements, and if you're not yet subscribed
- 3:56Speaker 2: to the weekly Hurdle newsletter. You can catch them there too,
- 3:59Speaker 2: as well as so much of the same inspiration, motivation
- 4:02Speaker 2: stuff you love from the show directly in your inbox
- 4:05Speaker 2: every single Friday. The length to subscribe is in the
- 4:09Speaker 2: show notes. With that, let's get to it. Let's get
- 4:13Speaker 2: to hurdling.
- 4:22Speaker 3: Today.
- 4:22Speaker 2: I'm sitting down with Sasha Dijulian. She's a pro climber.
- 4:26Speaker 2: She's also celebrating the upcoming release of her documentary Here
- 4:31Speaker 2: to Climb.
- 4:31Speaker 4: How we doing We're doing great. Thank you so much
- 4:34Speaker 4: for having me back.
- 4:35Speaker 2: Oh my god, of course. And you're back in New York,
- 4:37Speaker 2: which makes me so happy. We were just in Denver
- 4:40Speaker 2: for the release of the documentary, the premiere of the documentary.
- 4:44Speaker 3: How do you feel?
- 4:45Speaker 4: It feels great to be back in New York.
- 4:48Speaker 1: I lived here for five years and so coming back
- 4:50Speaker 1: always feels like coming home and in essence, but the
- 4:53Speaker 1: film premiere was such a blast. It was even made
- 4:57Speaker 1: better because you were hosting it. To share the stage
- 5:01Speaker 1: with you.
- 5:01Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt very honored to be part of that
- 5:04Speaker 2: moment for you. And also it must be so wild
- 5:08Speaker 2: to see so much of your life condensed into I
- 5:12Speaker 2: think the film runtime is something like maybe eighty two
- 5:15Speaker 2: or ninety two minutes, ninety two minutes of your life.
- 5:18Speaker 4: It's a lot of me to watch.
- 5:19Speaker 3: Yeah, talk to me about that, like, how did that
- 5:23Speaker 3: feel for you?
- 5:24Speaker 4: Yeah?
- 5:24Speaker 1: Well, so we were filming the documentary for over four years,
- 5:29Speaker 1: and then there's also a lot of archival content built
- 5:32Speaker 1: into it as well, and in the process, it was
- 5:36Speaker 1: a very vulnerable time in my life and some of
- 5:39Speaker 1: my darkest moments during that stretch of time were captured
- 5:44Speaker 1: on camera, and so seeing it played back and presented,
- 5:49Speaker 1: I think that the crew that worked on it, I
- 5:51Speaker 1: mean I owe them so many things, Like they poured
- 5:56Speaker 1: so many hours of their time and restless nights thinking
- 5:59Speaker 1: about the film and putting it together. But it felt
- 6:03Speaker 1: very rewarding to watch the film.
- 6:07Speaker 2: Yeah, rewarding in the sense that you felt as though
- 6:11Speaker 2: beyond in the moment, that your hard work was paying
- 6:13Speaker 2: off that when you can look back at it now,
- 6:15Speaker 2: you just feel a different type of appreciation.
- 6:18Speaker 1: I think that it's hard for me in my day
- 6:21Speaker 1: to day life to really grasp what exactly I'm doing
- 6:27Speaker 1: and if it's making any sort of impact, because I'm
- 6:30Speaker 1: just living my life and to see this compilation of
- 6:36Speaker 1: essentially like going through hurdles of life and overcoming them.
- 6:43Speaker 1: I felt like the film does a really good job
- 6:48Speaker 1: of demonstrating that we all go through these massive obstacles
- 6:52Speaker 1: and how we overcome them really defines us. But I mean,
- 6:57Speaker 1: I don't even love listening to my own voice. I
- 7:00Speaker 1: think that, like, watching the film is hard in a
- 7:03Speaker 1: way because I'll always be very critical.
- 7:05Speaker 3: Yeah, myself entirely understandable.
- 7:07Speaker 2: I mean, I've been podcasting for six seven years now
- 7:10Speaker 2: and I still have to get used to the sound
- 7:11Speaker 2: of my own voice, and I hear it all all
- 7:14Speaker 2: the time, all too much, all of the time. For
- 7:16Speaker 2: you in the film, I would say there are probably
- 7:20Speaker 2: two really big hurdles that we see you go through.
- 7:23Speaker 2: One is the climb that you go on in Africa
- 7:26Speaker 2: that you ultimately have to pull out of. And then
- 7:28Speaker 2: the other hurdle is that massive injury cycle that you
- 7:31Speaker 2: went through dealing with your hips. Two very difficult moments
- 7:35Speaker 2: for very different reasons. Let's start first and foremost with
- 7:39Speaker 2: the hurdle of the climb in Africa. So for those
- 7:42Speaker 2: that are not up to speed, what was the task
- 7:45Speaker 2: at hand?
- 7:46Speaker 1: Yeah, So coming off of my success of climbing three
- 7:49Speaker 1: of Canada's hardest big walls with a team of support
- 7:54Speaker 1: that I put together, I really felt empowered and I
- 7:57Speaker 1: was like, my success doesn't need to be attributed to
- 8:02Speaker 1: a male being present. And so often in my athletic
- 8:07Speaker 1: career and climbing I would do the same physical feats
- 8:10Speaker 1: as the male climbing partner that I was with. Yet
- 8:14Speaker 1: part of that attribution of why I succeeded on the
- 8:17Speaker 1: climbs was relegated to that fact that there was a man,
- 8:22Speaker 1: So maybe I didn't hold as much of my weight
- 8:25Speaker 1: as I did, which was never the case. And so
- 8:29Speaker 1: my success on what was called the Trilogy project really
- 8:33Speaker 1: carried into me crafting together a team of all female
- 8:38Speaker 1: climbers and filmmakers to go to Africa and capture this climb.
- 8:43Speaker 1: And so there was about six months of preparation that
- 8:46Speaker 1: I put into whar it's really bringing this project to life.
- 8:51Speaker 1: I couldn't get a company behind supporting it, so I
- 8:54Speaker 1: actually self financed the whole expedition myself, and that was
- 8:57Speaker 1: the first to me too, and I learned a lot
- 9:01Speaker 1: through this whole process, and a lot that I learned
- 9:07Speaker 1: was that putting together the right team matters so much,
- 9:12Speaker 1: and that was one of the biggest hurdles that went
- 9:16Speaker 1: wrong actually on this expedition. That then really informed the
- 9:21Speaker 1: way that even I built my team at Sendbars, because
- 9:24Speaker 1: we're an all female team full of these incredible women,
- 9:29Speaker 1: and I think that that energy and the way that
- 9:32Speaker 1: you're communicating with your climbing partners matters so much in
- 9:36Speaker 1: these very high consequence situations. And what we were faced with,
- 9:42Speaker 1: which was probably the biggest hurdle on the expedition, was
- 9:45Speaker 1: terrible weather, which when you go into any climb, it's
- 9:50Speaker 1: really hard because you're preparing for all of these unknowns,
- 9:54Speaker 1: and there is an infinite amount of unknowns that are
- 9:57Speaker 1: going to go sideways every whe way.
- 10:01Speaker 4: It's really hard to control for that.
- 10:02Speaker 1: The best way that I can do it, it's like
- 10:04Speaker 1: really mapping out where the risk lies, what the different
- 10:10Speaker 1: situations that we may come across are, what our plan
- 10:13Speaker 1: of action for when things go sideways is. So yeah,
- 10:18Speaker 1: with Satome, a lot went wrong. Actually, yeah, a lot
- 10:23Speaker 1: went wrong.
- 10:23Speaker 2: And it's frustrating when you feel as though you do
- 10:27Speaker 2: everything that you can to prepare for a situation, but inevitably,
- 10:30Speaker 2: like you said, there's just so much that's out of
- 10:33Speaker 2: your control, and so for you as these things arose,
- 10:38Speaker 2: how did it feel for you to have to pivot
- 10:41Speaker 2: in a way that wasn't desirable for you.
- 10:45Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had a really great chance to reflect on
- 10:53Speaker 1: what went right and what went wrong on that expedition,
- 10:58Speaker 1: and I was really upset by it for a while
- 11:05Speaker 1: in that I felt like the outcome could have been different.
- 11:11Speaker 1: But where I find a lot of confidence is knowing
- 11:15Speaker 1: that it's okay when things go sideways and it's necessary
- 11:21Speaker 1: to pivot. And the number one thing when you're out
- 11:26Speaker 1: in the wild pushing something that has consequences that are
- 11:31Speaker 1: real is listening to where everyone's.
- 11:34Speaker 4: At and the.
- 11:39Speaker 1: Bottom line of someone's tolerance for risk. It's almost like
- 11:44Speaker 1: in a chain, you're only so strong as your weakest link.
- 11:48Speaker 1: And not to say you know someone's risk tolerance is
- 11:51Speaker 1: like the weakest link or anything like that, but to
- 11:54Speaker 1: equate it on that level of just being I can't
- 11:58Speaker 1: push people outside of their comfort zones. They have to
- 12:00Speaker 1: be comfortable pushing themselves out of that, and in weighing risk,
- 12:06Speaker 1: that's just another.
- 12:08Speaker 2: Factor, especially when that like when the expedition is bigger
- 12:12Speaker 2: than you right, Like, it's not just you on the wall,
- 12:14Speaker 2: and so you have to think about what's going on
- 12:17Speaker 2: with the entire team or the greater teams so that
- 12:19Speaker 2: you can figure out and navigate for the ultimate goal
- 12:22Speaker 2: right for you. In this specific expedition, you faced a
- 12:26Speaker 2: really difficult decision of having to pivot and then ultimately
- 12:30Speaker 2: not going after the initial goal that you set for yourself.
- 12:33Speaker 2: I want to dive into that a little bit and
- 12:36Speaker 2: talk about a first and foremost, how you goal set,
- 12:41Speaker 2: So how maybe in this case, did you choose this
- 12:44Speaker 2: specific expedition And then overall, when you are thinking about
- 12:49Speaker 2: the things that excite you, the things that you want
- 12:50Speaker 2: to go after, how do you decide what makes the
- 12:53Speaker 2: most sense for you?
- 12:54Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 12:54Speaker 1: Absolutely, So for goal setting, that's a big question and
- 12:58Speaker 1: it has a multist answer. I would say each year,
- 13:03Speaker 1: I kind of look at what is it in climbing
- 13:07Speaker 1: that I want to go and experience that's going to
- 13:10Speaker 1: challenge me and be something new and exciting and adventurous.
- 13:15Speaker 1: So the way that Sautome came about was it was
- 13:20Speaker 1: the largest volcanic plug in the world in this location
- 13:24Speaker 1: that I've never traveled to, and I've traveled to over
- 13:27Speaker 1: fifty different countries at this point to pursue my sport,
- 13:30Speaker 1: and a part of it that I really love is
- 13:32Speaker 1: that I get to know new locations, new cultures, new
- 13:36Speaker 1: experiences through travel, and so that thrill of the unknown
- 13:42Speaker 1: is really what inspired me. Then there was this climb
- 13:46Speaker 1: that was incredibly challenging that hadn't been done by women before,
- 13:50Speaker 1: so I was like that fills this box of like
- 13:54Speaker 1: the physical challenge, and then the organizational challenge that excited
- 13:58Speaker 1: me too was like putting together all of these crazy
- 14:01Speaker 1: logistics of bringing it together because you have the climbing team,
- 14:06Speaker 1: but then what you don't see in the film too,
- 14:08Speaker 1: is like all the people behind and kind of like
- 14:10Speaker 1: on the rope so to speak, of capturing it and
- 14:14Speaker 1: helping with transportation logistics and all of that.
- 14:18Speaker 4: It's a team that you're managing.
- 14:20Speaker 1: So in setting those goals, I think that those are
- 14:23Speaker 1: some of the factors that go into it. And then
- 14:27Speaker 1: you have this unknown rock surface that you're climbing. So
- 14:31Speaker 1: when it comes down to training and preparing for it,
- 14:34Speaker 1: I can only so much as surmise, like what is
- 14:38Speaker 1: the terrain that I need to be physically and mentally
- 14:41Speaker 1: prepared to tackle and how can I take this controlled
- 14:45Speaker 1: environment and translate it to an absolutely uncontrolled sequence of events.
- 14:50Speaker 2: Yeah, in goal setting, I mean, obviously here we're talking
- 14:53Speaker 2: about rock climbing, but so much bigger than this. There
- 14:57Speaker 2: are going to be things that are unknown and all
- 15:00Speaker 2: you can do is the best you can with what
- 15:02Speaker 2: you have, which is why so often you'll hear experts
- 15:05Speaker 2: talk about smart goal setting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, realistic
- 15:09Speaker 2: time bound knowing that for you when it comes to
- 15:13Speaker 2: broader goal setting, do you find that you stick to
- 15:17Speaker 2: a framework like that or do you like to kind
- 15:20Speaker 2: of think bigger than maybe what is realistic.
- 15:23Speaker 1: Smart goals are part of my love language definitely, because
- 15:27Speaker 1: I think that having these like huge, audacious goals need
- 15:32Speaker 1: to be kept on track. And the only way for
- 15:34Speaker 1: me to keep on track of those big goals is
- 15:38Speaker 1: by having small goals along the way. And that actually
- 15:41Speaker 1: played a very large role in my recovery from five
- 15:46Speaker 1: major hip surgeries. Was I'm learning how to walk five
- 15:51Speaker 1: times over and I'm doing all of these tiny, tiny
- 15:55Speaker 1: physical achievements that need to add up to something. But
- 15:59Speaker 1: the idea you have climbing this like crazy cliff is
- 16:03Speaker 1: so far away. So where do I start? Where do
- 16:06Speaker 1: I whittle it down? And I actually like to equate
- 16:09Speaker 1: it to my current goal, which is actually a climb
- 16:12Speaker 1: on l Capy ten in Yosemite, where and it applies
- 16:16Speaker 1: to any wall that I've climbed. You've got like this
- 16:18Speaker 1: three thousand foot cliff and you can't look at it
- 16:22Speaker 1: and think and I say this to my son team
- 16:24Speaker 1: often too, because you can't look at a cliff and say, like,
- 16:27Speaker 1: I want to be on top of it. You have
- 16:29Speaker 1: to take this three thousand foot canvas and break it
- 16:32Speaker 1: down into pitches, which in climbing we call them pitches.
- 16:34Speaker 1: It's a single rope length and that could be like
- 16:37Speaker 1: one hundred feet at a time, and then even more so,
- 16:40Speaker 1: you have to break it down to like the very
- 16:43Speaker 1: minutia of like two feet at a time, because that's
- 16:47Speaker 1: where you're solving these sequences and figuring out where my
- 16:51Speaker 1: right hand can leverage off a credit card sized little
- 16:56Speaker 1: tiny divot in the wall to move up whards. So
- 16:59Speaker 1: you're really breaking down and whittling down this like massive
- 17:02Speaker 1: process into the most tangible, sizable chunks that you can accomplish.
- 17:07Speaker 1: And I think that that relates a lot to goal
- 17:09Speaker 1: setting as well as approach in general.
- 17:12Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it totally does, and by also taking the
- 17:16Speaker 2: time to recognize and celebrate when you make that credit
- 17:20Speaker 2: card sized hold. Right, you have to find the moments
- 17:23Speaker 2: and relish in your small victories because if you don't,
- 17:28Speaker 2: then you're losing out on the process.
- 17:31Speaker 3: Right. I think again, you look at.
- 17:33Speaker 2: This tall mountain, this tall service, and you're like, I
- 17:36Speaker 2: want to be at the top of it. But if
- 17:38Speaker 2: you don't enjoy the journey, then the destination will not
- 17:41Speaker 2: mean as much, and it might not even be something
- 17:43Speaker 2: that you feel as is as big of accomplishment.
- 17:46Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 17:47Speaker 1: Absolutely, Like the celebration of success I think is just
- 17:52Speaker 1: as important as the critique of failure. And both are
- 17:56Speaker 1: informative and we grow from both. And that's why I
- 17:59Speaker 1: think that now that the dust has settled, back to
- 18:02Speaker 1: your original question, because I went on a myriad of tangents,
- 18:08Speaker 1: I learned a lot from that I had failure, and
- 18:11Speaker 1: I think that failure is the point of growth as
- 18:14Speaker 1: well as success can be. But when I think back
- 18:17Speaker 1: to some of my competition days, like I remember so
- 18:21Speaker 1: viscerally some of the moments where like I thought I
- 18:24Speaker 1: had it in the bag and I thought I was
- 18:25Speaker 1: going to win, and then you're just like totally gut
- 18:28Speaker 1: punched because you slip, and that's the outcome. You don't win,
- 18:33Speaker 1: And it's it's a human aspect of the experience too.
- 18:37Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 18:38Speaker 2: I don't know the truth or reality to this, but
- 18:40Speaker 2: I remember someone once told me that women specifically really
- 18:45Speaker 2: commemorate or remember their experiences by the ending of them.
- 18:49Speaker 2: So let's say I go and pr a marathon and
- 18:53Speaker 2: I have the best day, but at the end of
- 18:55Speaker 2: the marathon, maybe even after I've crossed the finish lines,
- 18:58Speaker 2: like something awful happen bins I don't know, like maybe
- 19:02Speaker 2: I break my elbow or I trip and like completely
- 19:05Speaker 2: wipe out and like really hurt myself. I will always
- 19:08Speaker 2: think of that day with like a tinge of like,
- 19:11Speaker 2: oh that day, man, right when I had this like
- 19:14Speaker 2: major accomplishment earlier in the day. So again, that goes
- 19:18Speaker 2: back to this concept of like enjoying the journey and
- 19:20Speaker 2: savoring it while you're in it, because you only get
- 19:23Speaker 2: to make these things happen once. You only get these
- 19:25Speaker 2: experiences once. Even if you go and run the same
- 19:29Speaker 2: route or climb the same route every time, you climb
- 19:32Speaker 2: that route or run that distance, it's gonna feel different,
- 19:34Speaker 2: it's gonna look different, and it's up to you to
- 19:37Speaker 2: make those memories as you have them or savor them anyway.
- 19:40Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
- 19:41Speaker 1: I actually think that I connect with that in a
- 19:45Speaker 1: way of the memories that you create on the expedition
- 19:48Speaker 1: outside of climbs too, like and in training, right, like
- 19:53Speaker 1: the way that you finish off a training day is
- 19:57Speaker 1: going to be polished out by how you fuel yourself
- 20:01Speaker 1: after it, And if you did a pr on a marathon, like,
- 20:05Speaker 1: what was that meal that you had right after and
- 20:08Speaker 1: how did it serve you for the next day's recovery. Like,
- 20:11Speaker 1: all of these things really tied together very neatly. And
- 20:15Speaker 1: it also is a good thing to remember in the
- 20:20Speaker 1: process too, Like I can get so wrapped up into
- 20:23Speaker 1: my own self inflicted pressure and analysis over what I
- 20:27Speaker 1: would have done differently, but I also think that reflecting
- 20:31Speaker 1: on what went well is very important.
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- 22:02Speaker 3: Let's get back to it.
- 22:09Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about the emotions that come
- 22:13Speaker 2: with something not going as you'd hoped before we pivot
- 22:17Speaker 2: and talk about the hip surgery. So for you again,
- 22:20Speaker 2: this climb in Africa, it didn't go as you'd hoped,
- 22:23Speaker 2: and you had to come back down to earth literally
- 22:27Speaker 2: and decide how you wanted to proceed, how you wanted
- 22:31Speaker 2: to handle what happened next. Talk to me about how
- 22:34Speaker 2: you navigate the moments that don't go as you'd hoped.
- 22:38Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say.
- 22:42Speaker 1: Reflecting on my behavior is the best thing that I've
- 22:47Speaker 1: found I can do, because it's the most additive. I
- 22:50Speaker 1: can only control the way that I interact with the
- 22:54Speaker 1: people around me. And so what I learned from that
- 22:57Speaker 1: was polishing up on my communication and my ability to
- 23:03Speaker 1: understand and be more empathetic to my climbing partners with
- 23:06Speaker 1: something that I hope and like to think that I
- 23:10Speaker 1: grew from in that situation. And then also you know,
- 23:15Speaker 1: being okay with turning around and savoring that aspect of Like,
- 23:21Speaker 1: we learned these valuable lessons, and this is what I'm
- 23:26Speaker 1: going to remember as a carry into this next.
- 23:28Speaker 2: Expedition, right, Like taking the time to allow your experiences
- 23:32Speaker 2: to inform what you do next. Something I've been thinking
- 23:35Speaker 2: a lot lately is this concept of like taking the
- 23:38Speaker 2: time to digest right, because you can think about an experience,
- 23:41Speaker 2: but it's very different when you sit down and actually
- 23:45Speaker 2: journal on how something felt, what you learned from it,
- 23:48Speaker 2: and like truly the process of digestion. I think it's
- 23:52Speaker 2: something that a lot of us refrain from because we're
- 23:55Speaker 2: scared of the feelings that it's going to bring up, right,
- 23:57Speaker 2: especially in this case or in a case where something
- 24:00Speaker 2: doesn't go as you'd hoped. It's like, oh, I have
- 24:02Speaker 2: to feel sad again, or I have to feel bummed again,
- 24:04Speaker 2: or I have to feel angry again, And we don't
- 24:06Speaker 2: want to experience that, But it's up to us to
- 24:09Speaker 2: experience that, to have the opportunity to experience that so
- 24:14Speaker 2: that we can then move forward with that learned information.
- 24:18Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 24:19Speaker 1: I actually got a lot of space to process my
- 24:26Speaker 1: emotions and thoughts around my expeditions, my experiences through college
- 24:35Speaker 1: while balancing my career as a professional athlete, all in
- 24:40Speaker 1: the process of writing my book, because I needed to
- 24:46Speaker 1: go back to turnover stones that I hadn't even reflected
- 24:50Speaker 1: on and for so much of my life, it's been go,
- 24:54Speaker 1: go go, and I compartmentalize a lot, and the film
- 25:00Speaker 1: does a good job of touching this, and I think
- 25:04Speaker 1: that it actually leaves me reflecting on how I should
- 25:08Speaker 1: take more space and time to think about my.
- 25:12Speaker 4: World as it moves fast. But when I was.
- 25:16Speaker 1: Writing my book, I got to go back into these
- 25:22Speaker 1: thoughts and these memories and dive so deep into them,
- 25:27Speaker 1: and it was like this cathartic live therapy session. Because
- 25:31Speaker 1: I have done a lot of both sports psychology, training
- 25:35Speaker 1: and therapy separate from everything else, but sitting with my
- 25:40Speaker 1: emotions and reliving memories has really foundational patterns of the
- 25:47Speaker 1: way that I interact with others, but also informed me
- 25:52Speaker 1: as I set out new goals of how I could
- 25:55Speaker 1: react and interact with people better. Just learning yourself better totally.
- 26:00Speaker 2: What's also interesting is you wrote that book during a
- 26:05Speaker 2: time that some may have made the whether it be
- 26:10Speaker 2: conscious or unconscious, decision not to be productive with Your
- 26:14Speaker 2: book was largely written while you were down and out
- 26:17Speaker 2: from injury, and so you looked at this time period,
- 26:21Speaker 2: which was foundationally difficult for you, as an opportunity to
- 26:26Speaker 2: flex a different muscle, to do something differently. So now
- 26:29Speaker 2: let's circle back to this injury you underwent. You said
- 26:34Speaker 2: five total surgeries on your hips. Talk to us about
- 26:38Speaker 2: the why for that.
- 26:39Speaker 1: Yeah, I had hip displasia, which is congenital, and it
- 26:47Speaker 1: became worse and worse over the grind of twenty plus
- 26:50Speaker 1: years of climbing, and I had really bad chronic hit
- 26:55Speaker 1: pain for about three years preceding when I actually went
- 26:59Speaker 1: in and had surgery.
- 27:00Speaker 4: I got to.
- 27:01Speaker 1: The point where my femur head was essentially popping out
- 27:05Speaker 1: of the socket on both sides, and I had incredible
- 27:08Speaker 1: weakness and instability in my hips to the point that
- 27:11Speaker 1: I couldn't really approach the climbs that I needed to
- 27:14Speaker 1: hyke to get to, and my lower body was failing me.
- 27:18Speaker 1: And I didn't know why until I went in to
- 27:22Speaker 1: get a courterzone shot because I was going on a
- 27:25Speaker 1: trip and I was like, you know, I have this
- 27:28Speaker 1: massive goal that's climbing oriented in Mexico, which the film
- 27:33Speaker 1: centers around in the second half, and I need to
- 27:39Speaker 1: be able to stomach the pain, so this will help.
- 27:42Speaker 1: And the surgeon that I was lined up with to
- 27:46Speaker 1: get the courtzone shot from needed an memri to know
- 27:49Speaker 1: what he was working with and that's when I found
- 27:51Speaker 1: out that I was on the brink of needing total
- 27:54Speaker 1: hip replacement. And the problem is, as a professional athlete,
- 27:59Speaker 1: no female professional climber had ever undergone a double po
- 28:04Speaker 1: which is what I had. And that's essentially where both
- 28:08Speaker 1: sides of my hips are, the pelvic buns broken into
- 28:11Speaker 1: four pieces, the fever head is shaved down, there's essentially
- 28:15Speaker 1: a deeper socket that's created for my femurhead to sit into,
- 28:20Speaker 1: and then all of the shredded labram and surrounding ligaments
- 28:24Speaker 1: are knit back together. And so I went in with
- 28:28Speaker 1: the assumption of what I was told that I'd never
- 28:32Speaker 1: be able to climb to the level that I did before,
- 28:36Speaker 1: and so my whole world felt uncertain, and it was
- 28:40Speaker 1: also I was looking down the barrel of nine months
- 28:43Speaker 1: off of sport in general, and as an athlete from
- 28:48Speaker 1: a young age, movement is so ingrained into how I operate,
- 28:53Speaker 1: how I control anxiety, how I have mental clarity.
- 28:58Speaker 4: It's just such a part.
- 28:59Speaker 1: Of my life that having that my identity being on
- 29:05Speaker 1: the line, but also my physical existence being so warped
- 29:10Speaker 1: and turned upside down, created this necessity to find purpose,
- 29:15Speaker 1: and this necessity to like channel some sort of light
- 29:19Speaker 1: at the end of the tunnel, and that came in
- 29:22Speaker 1: the form of I'd gone to Columbia and studied nonfiction,
- 29:25Speaker 1: creative writing for undergrad and business management.
- 29:29Speaker 4: So I use that time to.
- 29:31Speaker 1: Build Send Bars, which is my nutrition bar company, and
- 29:35Speaker 1: to write my book because having that sense of purpose
- 29:39Speaker 1: was a necessity in my life to get through a
- 29:42Speaker 1: really challenging hurdle.
- 29:44Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, a.
- 29:48Speaker 2: Going through injury for anyone is devastating because your sidelined
- 29:53Speaker 2: from the thing that brings you so much joy, going
- 29:57Speaker 2: through injury as a professional athlete, and not knowing if
- 30:01Speaker 2: you'll ever be able to do the thing that not
- 30:04Speaker 2: only brings you so much joy but then also has
- 30:07Speaker 2: been your profession for so long. I can't even imagine.
- 30:11Speaker 2: You know how difficult that must have been for you.
- 30:14Speaker 2: But b to then hear that you had the foresight
- 30:19Speaker 2: to say to yourself, I know what I need to
- 30:22Speaker 2: do during this time to help me mentally stay afloat.
- 30:25Speaker 2: That's so admirable and it's something that frankly, I think
- 30:30Speaker 2: a lot of people are maybe without because we go
- 30:35Speaker 2: through these things that are understandably so difficult and it's
- 30:39Speaker 2: hard to think rationally. It's hard to think what can
- 30:44Speaker 2: I do with this time? Why is this happening for me?
- 30:49Speaker 2: When it feels anything but a gift? And my question then,
- 30:56Speaker 2: after summarizing, is why do you think that you had
- 31:00Speaker 2: that foresight? What do you think it is about you?
- 31:03Speaker 2: Is it a characteristic? Is it how you were raised?
- 31:06Speaker 2: What enabled you to see past what was happening right
- 31:11Speaker 2: in front of you.
- 31:14Speaker 1: I think that my response was probably a human response,
- 31:20Speaker 1: and we all have it in ourselves. It comes down
- 31:24Speaker 1: to controlling the variables that we have and that we
- 31:29Speaker 1: can control. And I have to believe that there's some
- 31:35Speaker 1: sort of rhyme or reason to the universe and why
- 31:37Speaker 1: things happen.
- 31:39Speaker 4: And I really find confidence in.
- 31:44Speaker 1: Being grateful for the situations that I'm dealt because I
- 31:49Speaker 1: have a lot of privilege, and I've been given this
- 31:51Speaker 1: platform and I've been given this career. So acting on
- 31:56Speaker 1: the opportunities that I'm given is one side to look
- 31:59Speaker 1: at it, But then acting on the challenges that I'm
- 32:03Speaker 1: faced with as a privilege as well is just the
- 32:07Speaker 1: mindset that is what I've adapted to, because it's kind
- 32:13Speaker 1: of that fight or flight, and I just choose to fight.
- 32:18Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, and again what a way to look at it.
- 32:21Speaker 2: What a perspective, right, And that's something also, just like
- 32:25Speaker 2: when you want a muscle to get stronger, you have
- 32:27Speaker 2: to give it resistance, like your will got stronger because
- 32:30Speaker 2: it was also given resistance and you chose in your
- 32:34Speaker 2: words to fight. Now, what would you say was the
- 32:38Speaker 2: most difficult part of that nine month year long recovery process.
- 32:43Speaker 1: Yeah, The surgeries were actually two year span, and the
- 32:50Speaker 1: most difficult part was probably between the second and the
- 32:55Speaker 1: third and fourth surgeries because I had to do my
- 32:59Speaker 1: left side first, and I couldn't do both sides of
- 33:04Speaker 1: my hips together because I, first of all wouldn't have
- 33:09Speaker 1: been able to move at all, and I needed my
- 33:13Speaker 1: right side to support my left side. But as soon
- 33:16Speaker 1: as my left side could like take a step outside
- 33:21Speaker 1: of a wheelchair crutches, I had to go in to
- 33:24Speaker 1: the second set of operations on my right side and
- 33:27Speaker 1: do it all over again. And the set of surgeries
- 33:32Speaker 1: were actually worse than I had imagined.
- 33:35Speaker 4: In the process, my.
- 33:36Speaker 1: Abs were cut out, and you know, I have these
- 33:40Speaker 1: massive cuts that are happening on both sides my body
- 33:45Speaker 1: to hold and isolate the sciatic nerve to avoid paralysis
- 33:49Speaker 1: in the process. They're all ten hour open hip surgeries.
- 33:54Speaker 1: So I'm asleep, but when I wake up, I can't
- 33:58Speaker 1: even sit in ninety degrees for three months, and so
- 34:04Speaker 1: knowing what I was about to endure again going into
- 34:08Speaker 1: the right side was really mental because I had gotten.
- 34:12Speaker 4: Through this massive hurdle of the left side and.
- 34:16Speaker 1: I knew I knew more of the barrel that I
- 34:19Speaker 1: was looking down, and I knew it was really grim.
- 34:22Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 34:22Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you navigate like a day to day
- 34:25Speaker 2: without the ninety Like, were you just constantly horizontal or
- 34:29Speaker 2: how did that go for you?
- 34:31Speaker 1: I was pretty horizontal. I was in a chase lounger
- 34:36Speaker 1: during the day and I'd have like a pillow in
- 34:39Speaker 1: my laptop. And when you're super injured, your body is
- 34:45Speaker 1: fighting really hard for you. And it gave me a
- 34:47Speaker 1: lot of appreciation for what our bodies are capable of.
- 34:51Speaker 1: I come from a background in climbing and in competition climbing,
- 34:55Speaker 1: which the film really focuses in all as well of
- 35:01Speaker 1: disordered eating and a bad relationship with my body. And
- 35:08Speaker 1: when you're so broken and you see your body fight
- 35:11Speaker 1: so hard for you to knit back together, I gained
- 35:15Speaker 1: a deeper appreciation and gratitude.
- 35:18Speaker 4: For what my body was capable of. But all to say,
- 35:22Speaker 4: I was very tired through.
- 35:24Speaker 1: A lot of it because internally everything was knitting back
- 35:28Speaker 1: together and trying to like build, and so I really
- 35:33Speaker 1: focused on nutrition because that was another, you know, variable
- 35:37Speaker 1: I could control doing my PTE, even though some days
- 35:41Speaker 1: it was just like wiggle my toes. So as an athlete,
- 35:45Speaker 1: going from maybe six to eight hours of training a
- 35:48Speaker 1: day to wiggling your toes three times a day, it's
- 35:51Speaker 1: a stark realization of how far down you really are
- 35:57Speaker 1: and how much work you have to put in to
- 35:59Speaker 1: get back to where you were.
- 36:00Speaker 4: Yeah, understandable.
- 36:02Speaker 2: In the film, you talked about what many climber's experience,
- 36:05Speaker 2: which is this thought process that when there is less weight,
- 36:09Speaker 2: it's easier to get up the wall. As you were
- 36:12Speaker 2: down and out and you were horizontal and you were
- 36:15Speaker 2: doing your toe pt knowing that you have a history
- 36:18Speaker 2: of disordered eating, talk to me a little bit about
- 36:21Speaker 2: your headspace of navigating how it felt in your body
- 36:25Speaker 2: to go from that six to eight hours of training
- 36:27Speaker 2: today to now being completely stationary.
- 36:30Speaker 1: It was horrible at times because mentally I am very
- 36:38Speaker 1: self critical, and I still am. I don't think that
- 36:41Speaker 1: you ever just snap out of a background of body dysmorphia,
- 36:47Speaker 1: and that's actually an aspect that's always been hard for me,
- 36:51Speaker 1: and I can't deny that it's something that I put
- 36:55Speaker 1: as a focal point that I work on every day.
- 36:59Speaker 4: But where I started to look at.
- 37:02Speaker 1: Nutrition and food was what can I get out of
- 37:06Speaker 1: what I'm putting into my body that's going to help
- 37:09Speaker 1: me with my recovery. And so I did work with
- 37:13Speaker 1: a nutritionists actually through Red Bulls High Performance Center, which
- 37:17Speaker 1: was amazing because I learned about all of these different
- 37:22Speaker 1: superfoods that I could incorporate into my daily smoothies and
- 37:28Speaker 1: lunch and dinner. And I was actually in a place
- 37:31Speaker 1: that was in a very controlled environment versus my normal
- 37:34Speaker 1: day to day is actually very sporadic and it's full
- 37:38Speaker 1: of uncertainty even around like am I gonna sit down
- 37:42Speaker 1: for lunch?
- 37:43Speaker 4: Because that's a rare thing for me.
- 37:46Speaker 1: So I think that it was some of the same
- 37:49Speaker 1: of just knowing what could be additive to the overall
- 37:54Speaker 1: progression of.
- 37:55Speaker 4: Where I needed to get.
- 37:56Speaker 1: But I remember distinctly there was a day and I
- 38:00Speaker 1: stepped on the scale, and I actually don't like having skals.
- 38:04Speaker 1: I don't like them because it's just a number and
- 38:07Speaker 1: it's going to fluctuate, but it really affects me mentally.
- 38:11Speaker 4: But I stepped on.
- 38:12Speaker 1: This scale and it was like a week after one
- 38:15Speaker 1: of my surgeries, and so I'm still like bloated and
- 38:18Speaker 1: retaining water and I see this number that I've never
- 38:21Speaker 1: seen before, and I'm like, this scale is obviously broken.
- 38:26Speaker 1: And I have my my now husband step on the
- 38:29Speaker 1: scale because I'm like Eric, like tell me this scale
- 38:32Speaker 1: is broken, like you step on it.
- 38:33Speaker 4: And he's like I really don't want to.
- 38:35Speaker 1: He's like between a rock and a hard place, and
- 38:37Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, no, you have to because like I'm
- 38:40Speaker 1: like ninety nine percent sure that the scale is broken,
- 38:43Speaker 1: but if you step on it, you can confirm this
- 38:45Speaker 1: one percent.
- 38:45Speaker 4: And then of course you know this is a poor guy.
- 38:48Speaker 3: This poor guy you put him in the first situation.
- 38:52Speaker 5: So like being the team blairy is just steps on
- 38:55Speaker 5: the scale and she's like, I don't know what you
- 38:57Speaker 5: want me to say. So my reality is said like
- 39:01Speaker 5: I'm not in shape, duh, Like I've just gone through
- 39:07Speaker 5: these massive surgeries. I don't know what sort of like
- 39:10Speaker 5: situation I created for myself in my mind, but accepting
- 39:16Speaker 5: the reality of where I was at was also important
- 39:19Speaker 5: and being okay with it, Like you can't always be
- 39:24Speaker 5: at your one hundred percent fittest shape, and I'm not
- 39:29Speaker 5: on a regular basis either, Like there's times where you
- 39:32Speaker 5: perform and there's times that you don't perform.
- 39:34Speaker 4: And being okay with who.
- 39:36Speaker 1: You are outside of the physical is something that I
- 39:40Speaker 1: actually got to work on during this time of being
- 39:43Speaker 1: down and out, as Taylor Swift would say, down bad.
- 39:48Speaker 1: But it also was a nugget that I continue to
- 39:51Speaker 1: work on.
- 39:52Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's so interesting because in that moment
- 39:55Speaker 2: stepping on the scale was you confirming what you already knew.
- 39:58Speaker 2: And as an annoying as that can be, that in
- 40:01Speaker 2: this case and number is the thing that gives us
- 40:04Speaker 2: this clarity. What I've come to learn is that you
- 40:08Speaker 2: never regret having clarity. That doesn't mean that getting clarity
- 40:13Speaker 2: is easy or learning something that again isn't how you'd
- 40:17Speaker 2: hoped it could be would be easy, or that it's
- 40:20Speaker 2: not frustrating or doesn't make you angry. If you have
- 40:24Speaker 2: a hard conversation with someone that you're seeing and they're like,
- 40:27Speaker 2: I don't want to date you anymore.
- 40:28Speaker 3: That's going to be sad, that's going to be heart wrenching.
- 40:31Speaker 2: But what it does provide for you is clarity because
- 40:34Speaker 2: that redirection then puts you in the direction that you
- 40:36Speaker 2: need to go. And so I can really sympathize and
- 40:40Speaker 2: understand with the difficulties that go hand in hand with
- 40:43Speaker 2: staring down at a number and being greeted with a
- 40:45Speaker 2: fate and being in a situation that you don't want
- 40:47Speaker 2: to be in, but then knowing and having the wisdom
- 40:49Speaker 2: and the foresight.
- 40:50Speaker 3: To say, Okay, this is how it is now.
- 40:53Speaker 2: This does not define me, but it does empower me
- 40:56Speaker 2: to figure out what I want.
- 40:57Speaker 3: To do next.
- 40:59Speaker 1: If you're at a place that you don't want to be,
- 41:03Speaker 1: you can always change that.
- 41:06Speaker 4: And that's the beauty of life. It's not stagnant.
- 41:10Speaker 1: And it's an important reminder for myself every day you
- 41:17Speaker 1: can be happy but also want to make changes.
- 41:21Speaker 3: M hm.
- 41:22Speaker 2: Yes, I totally agree with that, and I think that
- 41:25Speaker 2: it is human nature to like want to linger in
- 41:29Speaker 2: situations that make you feel happy, but that doesn't always
- 41:33Speaker 2: mean that there's not more to do. Right, and this
- 41:35Speaker 2: circles back to our conversation of enjoying the journey, because
- 41:39Speaker 2: you can be happy along your journey and you can
- 41:41Speaker 2: be like, I don't really need to go after this
- 41:43Speaker 2: like goal that I had originally set. But that's up
- 41:46Speaker 2: to you to then really dig into the why, right,
- 41:48Speaker 2: Because if you were, why is that you learned along
- 41:52Speaker 2: your journey that like, maybe point B is better than
- 41:55Speaker 2: point A, then good for you stick with point B.
- 41:58Speaker 2: That doesn't mean you're not any less because you decided
- 42:02Speaker 2: that something serves you more than something else could. Right,
- 42:05Speaker 2: It's just up to you to articulate and be intuitive
- 42:08Speaker 2: and then as we talked about, digest what's happening as
- 42:11Speaker 2: you go to then make those decisions for yourself.
- 42:15Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 42:15Speaker 1: Absolutely, we don't know until we put ourselves out there
- 42:20Speaker 1: and continue to find out. And that's also always changing,
- 42:23Speaker 1: like what we want what I want today could change tomorrow.
- 42:29Speaker 1: But goals have always been this guiding direction for me,
- 42:33Speaker 1: and that's what I've gotten out of climbing, but also
- 42:36Speaker 1: now gotten out of other aspects of my life too,
- 42:39Speaker 1: And that's where I think that that rounded out the
- 42:43Speaker 1: full me perspective is so important for me to really
- 42:48Speaker 1: dive deeper into is whether it's professional or business or
- 42:53Speaker 1: physically oriented to my climbing goals. Goals have given me
- 42:58Speaker 1: a sense of purpose and a sense of how I
- 43:02Speaker 1: show up and.
- 43:04Speaker 4: My bandwidth and my boundaries.
- 43:07Speaker 1: But also you get these unparalleled senses of joy and
- 43:12Speaker 1: satisfaction when you achieve a goal, and then you also
- 43:16Speaker 1: get these gut wrenching feelings of disappointment that are human
- 43:21Speaker 1: too when you don't necessarily land on that goal.
- 43:24Speaker 2: Yeah, so for you right now, you mentioned the excitement
- 43:27Speaker 2: that you have around a goal set in Yosemite, But
- 43:30Speaker 2: beyond that bigger picture, what else excites you right now?
- 43:33Speaker 4: Right now?
- 43:34Speaker 1: It's been really exciting to build my company, and a
- 43:37Speaker 1: lot of it came from a lot of the lessons
- 43:40Speaker 1: that I learned along the way and my surgeries.
- 43:44Speaker 4: But I always made my own bars.
- 43:47Speaker 1: I couldn't find anything on the market that I wanted
- 43:50Speaker 1: to eat because everything that was healthy for you in
- 43:55Speaker 1: the nutrition bar category tastes like paint, and any that
- 44:00Speaker 1: tastes remotely good was full of chemicals and preservatives and sugars.
- 44:05Speaker 1: And so I'm on this mission to create clean, healthy
- 44:09Speaker 1: food that's well sourced and tastes great, and that's really
- 44:14Speaker 1: the incubation period of what Send bars is and why
- 44:18Speaker 1: I launched it.
- 44:19Speaker 2: I had the privilege of meeting both of your female
- 44:22Speaker 2: co founders at the premiere in Denver. Talk to me
- 44:25Speaker 2: a little bit about what it's like to work with friends,
- 44:29Speaker 2: because I think that for some it can be very
- 44:32Speaker 2: helpful and very successful, but for others it could be
- 44:35Speaker 2: really challenging. And you know there are certain situations that
- 44:38Speaker 2: it can be both. But talk to me a little
- 44:40Speaker 2: bit about what your experience has been.
- 44:42Speaker 1: My experience in building Send and the team that we
- 44:45Speaker 1: have actually came from the successes and failures of me
- 44:51Speaker 1: putting together expedition teams. And I had this really awesome
- 44:57Speaker 1: experience that paralleled one of the expeditions that I led
- 45:01Speaker 1: called Ryu, which I did in picast Europa and Europe,
- 45:06Speaker 1: and that was with Matilda Studreland and Brett Harrington and
- 45:09Speaker 1: we set out to climb the hardest big wall achieved
- 45:12Speaker 1: by woman. And when I relate that experience to building
- 45:16Speaker 1: Send and going on this massive mission, so to speak,
- 45:21Speaker 1: with a set of friends as well in this pursuit
- 45:25Speaker 1: that has a different set of consequences, I think that
- 45:31Speaker 1: communication is number one, Like there needs to be clear
- 45:35Speaker 1: and candid communication.
- 45:37Speaker 4: Setting out and being candid with goals.
- 45:40Speaker 1: Is really important, whether it's in an expedition space or
- 45:44Speaker 1: in a business space. Being on the same page and
- 45:47Speaker 1: being okay when you're on a different page, but arriving
- 45:51Speaker 1: to why you're on different pages and carrying each other
- 45:54Speaker 1: out is something that I didn't do necessarily well in Satome,
- 45:59Speaker 1: and I did well in Ryu on that expedition, and
- 46:02Speaker 1: then I feel confident in sendbars and of course like
- 46:06Speaker 1: we're always going to be pivoting and learning as things
- 46:10Speaker 1: invariably are going to change. But also I think that
- 46:16Speaker 1: the aspect of setting goals, having that blinder so to speak,
- 46:23Speaker 1: in the direction of arriving there, but also being malleable
- 46:28Speaker 1: and open to how things may change is important too.
- 46:33Speaker 1: And so yeah, Chelsea, one of my co founders, has
- 46:37Speaker 1: always been one of my best friends, and going into
- 46:41Speaker 1: forming the company, I knew that she was an incredible
- 46:44Speaker 1: aspect of the company, as as Arianne. But something that
- 46:48Speaker 1: we confronted head on at the beginning was how can
- 46:51Speaker 1: we not let our friendship be affected by this. That's impossible,
- 46:56Speaker 1: but you can also set boundaries and you can also
- 47:01Speaker 1: dictate the direction of which you are treating each other
- 47:06Speaker 1: at work so that there are never broken bridges, so
- 47:09Speaker 1: to speak when it comes to the personal side.
- 47:12Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I feel like easier said than done, right,
- 47:15Speaker 2: especially it's human nature to feel, and there are going
- 47:19Speaker 2: to be moments that make you feel some kind of way,
- 47:21Speaker 2: and it's hard not to let those moments infiltrate the
- 47:24Speaker 2: friendships or infiltrate the business. And so all you can do, then,
- 47:28Speaker 2: knowing that to be true, is take it all as
- 47:31Speaker 2: information and try to evolve as time goes on, because
- 47:34Speaker 2: I'm sure at the beginning perhaps there were moments where
- 47:38Speaker 2: maybe those boundaries were a little less clear versus now
- 47:42Speaker 2: being a certain amount of time in it feels different.
- 47:47Speaker 4: Absolutely, and things are always changing.
- 47:50Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that, you know, there's that saying
- 47:54Speaker 1: that there's a few constants in life, and that's you know,
- 47:58Speaker 1: change is one of them.
- 47:59Speaker 2: Yeah, Change is a constant, and it's how you decide
- 48:02Speaker 2: to deal with change, just like we were talking about
- 48:04Speaker 2: pivoting on your expeditions and pivoting in life, how you
- 48:07Speaker 2: deal with change as it comes to you.
- 48:10Speaker 3: It helps you.
- 48:10Speaker 2: Move forward, absolutely speaking, and moving forward. This episode coming
- 48:15Speaker 2: out the day before the launch of your film on Max.
- 48:19Speaker 3: Where will you be on the eighteen?
- 48:21Speaker 4: I will be in La.
- 48:23Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
- 48:24Speaker 1: I had another screening, okay, and I'm really excited about
- 48:28Speaker 1: it because I'm actually going to bring Moose Chaga my
- 48:32Speaker 1: bernadoodle out to it.
- 48:34Speaker 2: I mean, obviously the bernadoodle needs to be at another screening.
- 48:38Speaker 3: How could he not. Moose is a boy.
- 48:40Speaker 4: Moose is a boy.
- 48:41Speaker 3: You never know.
- 48:42Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a friend who has a dog named King,
- 48:44Speaker 2: which is a girl. So I'm just saying.
- 48:46Speaker 4: I like that.
- 48:47Speaker 2: I know, it's fun. Yeah, it's fun. Well, obviously your
- 48:51Speaker 2: bernadodle needs to be at the screening. Well, we'll see
- 48:55Speaker 2: if he's allowed inside. How big he is Moose, he's
- 48:57Speaker 2: ninety five pounds.
- 48:58Speaker 3: I was flying with Moose.
- 49:02Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I have to buy them a seat.
- 49:05Speaker 1: But it's like select airlines, like I can fly JSX
- 49:09Speaker 1: from Boulder to LA which is very pet friendly.
- 49:13Speaker 3: Oh buddy, Oh my god. Well that's so exciting.
- 49:16Speaker 2: And then beyond that, as you said, your other excitement
- 49:19Speaker 2: really revolves around building the company. Right now, you have
- 49:22Speaker 2: this expedition. Is there some sort of a timeline on
- 49:24Speaker 2: the Yosemite.
- 49:25Speaker 4: It's a great question. And a question I'd love to answer.
- 49:30Speaker 1: I think that on the side of goals, I have
- 49:35Speaker 1: a lot of goals in climbing, and I have a
- 49:38Speaker 1: lot of smart goals, which are as you beautifully outline,
- 49:42Speaker 1: just like those smaller, closer to attainable goals that will
- 49:47Speaker 1: will percolate through the summer and the fall. In my
- 49:51Speaker 1: winter and challenges excite me and finding out new things
- 49:57Speaker 1: that I may.
- 49:57Speaker 4: Be capable of excites me.
- 50:00Speaker 1: But for Yosemite, I'm in that figuring it out stage. Yeah,
- 50:05Speaker 1: And I'll be there for a good portion of the
- 50:08Speaker 1: fall figuring it out.
- 50:10Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 50:11Speaker 2: Isn't that fun to have, like the liberty to be like,
- 50:14Speaker 2: you know what I'm gonna do this fall. I'm just
- 50:15Speaker 2: gonna figure some stuff out in Yosemite.
- 50:18Speaker 1: I think that we don't give enough stock to being
- 50:23Speaker 1: in phases of figuring it out enough because I certainly
- 50:30Speaker 1: don't have it all figured out. Yeah, And I don't
- 50:34Speaker 1: know too many people who are, like, you know, I'm
- 50:37Speaker 1: at a point in my life where I've got it
- 50:39Speaker 1: all figured out. Because as soon as you say that, like,
- 50:42Speaker 1: something invariably is going to change, and something that I
- 50:46Speaker 1: think that the movie as well does a good job
- 50:49Speaker 1: of is showing the fragility of life. And I've lost
- 50:55Speaker 1: several very impactful people that I love in my life
- 51:00Speaker 1: life suddenly, including my dad. And when I lost him,
- 51:06Speaker 1: I also gained a lot of light and a lot
- 51:12Speaker 1: of appreciation for the day to day because as much
- 51:18Speaker 1: as we're trying to be in that moment of figured
- 51:21Speaker 1: it all out, there's always an uncertainty and a fragility
- 51:27Speaker 1: to whether tomorrow is certain.
- 51:29Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for sharing that, And I again, you have
- 51:34Speaker 2: to put a stress on here that there's just so
- 51:36Speaker 2: much power in the perspective, right, Like, I'm sure at
- 51:39Speaker 2: first it didn't feel that light, It didn't feel like
- 51:43Speaker 2: an opportunity. It felt like, oh, why is this happening?
- 51:46Speaker 2: Why is it happening to me? How am I supposed
- 51:48Speaker 2: to move on? All of those understandable and natural human
- 51:52Speaker 2: feelings and emotions. But now as you look at these
- 51:55Speaker 2: difficult losses that you've had in your life, including the
- 51:58Speaker 2: loss of your father, to be able to reflect and
- 52:01Speaker 2: look at it with a certain lens, with a different perspective,
- 52:06Speaker 2: that's a choice, and it's not an easy choice to
- 52:08Speaker 2: make all the time, but it's a choice that you've
- 52:10Speaker 2: decided to make.
- 52:11Speaker 1: Yeah, and hindsight's always going to be well, I can't
- 52:16Speaker 1: even say hindsight twenty twenty because there's chapters in life
- 52:22Speaker 1: that are going to be really, really difficult, and that
- 52:27Speaker 1: continues to be a difficult chapter for me. I don't
- 52:30Speaker 1: think that you lose someone and you look at it
- 52:34Speaker 1: as this positive thing, and I probably frame that wrong,
- 52:39Speaker 1: you know. I just know that I can't bring people
- 52:44Speaker 1: that I've lost back, and so I have to find
- 52:49Speaker 1: the positive in difficult situations.
- 52:53Speaker 2: Yeah, I hear that, and it's really beautiful to have
- 52:55Speaker 2: that perspective. As we wind down here the film Obvious,
- 53:00Speaker 2: four plus years in the making, thirty plus years of
- 53:03Speaker 2: archival footage, when you think about the next chapter of
- 53:08Speaker 2: your life, if you were again in thirty years to
- 53:11Speaker 2: take a holistic look at what's been going on, what
- 53:15Speaker 2: do you think the next chapter is really going to
- 53:18Speaker 2: be about?
- 53:20Speaker 4: Right now?
- 53:21Speaker 1: I think the next chapter is going to be about
- 53:25Speaker 1: taking what I've learned from this first chapter and really
- 53:30Speaker 1: being able to translate them into an elevated new way
- 53:36Speaker 1: of thinking, interacting, and executing.
- 53:41Speaker 4: That's my hope.
- 53:42Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that the beauty of you know,
- 53:48Speaker 1: getting older, having new things marry together with old things
- 53:54Speaker 1: is that it leads to this space of creativity, and
- 54:00Speaker 1: it's a challenging question to answer. I don't know what
- 54:04Speaker 1: I'll be doing in ten years, and I'm.
- 54:06Speaker 4: Okay with that.
- 54:07Speaker 1: But what I do, what I do find appreciation in it.
- 54:12Speaker 1: And what's given me a lot of strength as I
- 54:15Speaker 1: share this very vulnerable perspective into my life is the
- 54:21Speaker 1: confidence that I have with the people that I surround
- 54:24Speaker 1: myself with, because that's what has so much meaning to
- 54:30Speaker 1: me and love and support and that cushion to fall on.
- 54:36Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love in the film when your husband says,
- 54:40Speaker 2: like she's very aware of the fact that, like, you
- 54:42Speaker 2: only get to do this, at least competitively for so long,
- 54:47Speaker 2: Yet instead of looking at that as a limiting factor,
- 54:50Speaker 2: you're like, okay, so then what's the next challenge?
- 54:53Speaker 3: Like what's next for me?
- 54:54Speaker 2: And I think that's like a really admirable and exciting
- 54:58Speaker 2: perspective to have.
- 55:00Speaker 1: Climbing's been a big, big part of this first chapter,
- 55:05Speaker 1: and I would say that climbing will always be a
- 55:08Speaker 1: very big part of my identity, but I'm excited to
- 55:12Speaker 1: build out and continue to build out what that identity looks.
- 55:15Speaker 2: Like, well, I'm so happy that I've been able to
- 55:19Speaker 2: be a part of this chapter of the story for you.
- 55:22Speaker 2: I'm excited to keep following along and obviously so amped
- 55:25Speaker 2: to watch Here to Climb when it premiers on Max
- 55:28Speaker 2: on the eighteenth. For those that don't follow along with
- 55:31Speaker 2: you just yet, remind us how do they do so?
- 55:33Speaker 2: How do they keep up with you? Give us the details? Yeah, absolutely.
- 55:37Speaker 2: My social is pretty pretty straightforward. It's just my name
- 55:40Speaker 2: at Sasha dy.
- 55:41Speaker 1: Julian and then our bar company is at send Bars.
- 55:47Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily Abodi at Hurdle Podcast Another Hurdle conquered.
- 55:52Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time.