0:06

If you didn't need the money, would you

0:09

still show up to your job? I'm

0:11

John Weems. I've spent half of my

0:13

career in the corporate world and the other half

0:15

in full time spiritual guidance as a pastor,

0:18

I respect people of all views unless they're

0:20

totally closed minded a-holes. I

0:22

am not here to tell you what to believe. I

0:25

am here to encourage you to think beyond

0:27

the check. Welcome to this podcast

0:29

where we talk about work, life and the

0:31

meaning of our time here. You'll

0:33

hear from a wide range of business people from

0:36

multiple backgrounds. Most

0:39

of my guests pursue their passions from a combination

0:42

of offices, coffee shops and

0:44

airports, but today I have the honor of meeting, today's

0:46

guest in a much less conventional work environment--Diablo

0:49

Rock Gym in Concord, California.

0:54

Hans Florine is most famous for his pursuits and

0:56

on of the most beautiful and truly awesome venues

0:58

ever on Yosemite's El

1:00

Capitan, which he has climbed more than 150

1:02

times, including several world speed

1:05

records on the famous nose route. Hans,

1:07

thank you for joining me today.

1:08

Hey, well thanks for the plug for Diablo Rock

1:10

Gym.

1:13

So some of our listeners have been

1:15

fortunate enough to already find their big why

1:18

or their "precious" as you and your book co-author

1:21

say, while others are still searching.

1:24

When asked why in the world you would climb El

1:27

Cap so many times your response has been,

1:30

"I'm not sure that's the right question. So how about this

1:32

one? Why on earth would anyone take a

1:34

job they don't care about for 261

1:37

days a year, every year. Or this

1:39

one? Why would someone who has a choice

1:41

settled for good enough instead of going after?

1:44

Great. So let's just start

1:46

big deep questions right from the top. How did you

1:49

develop your mindset of pursuing greatness?

1:52

I'll say it didn't come like immediately.

1:54

You know, I, I went to college

1:58

at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and like, what are you

2:00

going to study? You know, when you're 18, people ask you,

2:02

what are you going to study? What are you going to be? I'm like, I don't know,

2:04

so I took business because I figured what

2:07

ever I end up doing, I'll probably

2:09

need business, you know? Then you graduated

2:11

from college and like, well now what are

2:13

you going to do? What shouldn't you know by now? What's

2:15

great, what, what's your passion? And

2:18

you know, frankly, I've tried lots of different sports

2:20

from tennis to soccer track and field

2:22

and I did well in track and field,

2:24

but it, you know, it's great actually

2:26

standing up on a podium and people cheering

2:29

you on and stuff and I've always been an athlete

2:31

and a competitor to a great degree and I

2:33

discovered climbing while I was in

2:36

in college days in the dormitory and

2:39

I started really liking that. The whole idea of having

2:41

this quiver of tools and you can

2:43

go up all this wild

2:45

terrain outside and adventure and I thought this

2:47

was really neat, but then I think

2:50

what, why I became a passion

2:52

for me or something that I could excel

2:54

greatly at was that I realized

2:56

this sport or this recreation was becoming

2:59

a sport. And here I was involved with it.

3:01

At this critical time where a recreation

3:04

had become a sport or was becoming

3:07

a sport. And I'm like, oh, I'm a competitor. I

3:09

like this. So, you know, frankly,

3:11

a lot of young man ego things

3:13

like, 'I'm going to climb harder than

3:15

someone else or I'm going to stand on

3:17

the podium at the X-games or

3:20

um, the national championships. That's pretty

3:22

neat, you know? Um, I found I could

3:24

go to Europe and compete

3:27

against the very best in the world that I, you know, I joke

3:29

I won a $3 million lira

3:31

in Italy one time which

3:34

amounted to about $1,100. But for

3:36

a young man in Europe in the early nineties,

3:38

that got me through like three more months of travel.

3:40

So, you know, these

3:42

things may seem shallow, but like recognition

3:45

by your peers that you're excelling at something

3:47

is sometimes enough to keep you along the path.

3:50

And that competition climbing really

3:52

kinda did keep me along the path of, okay, you know, community

3:55

recognition, people around the world

3:57

would recognize, hey, you did something and you're somebody

3:59

and that's the Mecca that, you know,

4:01

the, the center of the universe for climbing

4:04

world. And I would have people invite

4:06

me into their homes and France and Germany because

4:08

I held the speed record on the nose route

4:11

on El Capitan and Yosemite. And that to me

4:13

was just so

4:15

memorable that all these decades

4:17

that I've held the record, I kept getting it back because

4:19

I, you know, internally felt like

4:21

I'm recognized my peers. Um,

4:24

my, my industry, my community

4:26

respects me. Yeah.

4:29

So you'd mentioned briefly

4:31

that you were okay at track.

4:33

I think a little more than ok as an all American

4:35

pole vaulter, correct? So was that,

4:38

was that kind of your first taste of greatness or was

4:40

there something even earlier?

4:41

I think that was, I mean I had a

4:44

coach, Coach Henderson

4:46

and you know, he had this thing, that attitude

4:49

was more powerful than anything else. And you

4:51

know, it's tough working

4:53

out day in, day out. But like, and

4:56

track and field is thought of more as an individual

4:58

sport and, but he's one of

5:00

the track coaches that got

5:02

everyone together so much. For I guess

5:04

team enthusiasm one year we all shaved

5:07

our heads, well, you know, nine

5:09

out of 10 of the male athletes shaved heads and

5:11

to get some guys in high school

5:13

to shave their heads is pretty impressive. I mean

5:16

I thought and we'd all wear the same

5:18

tee shirts that would say attitude and it was, we

5:21

all individually performed at our best

5:23

on the meets where we did that as opposed

5:25

to just trying hard on our

5:28

own, you know, in each person probably had their

5:30

own reason to do well. Some of them went on to the

5:32

Olympics. Um, others were after,

5:34

you know, a metal in a given competition

5:36

or something. But as a team, we

5:39

went onto the national in

5:41

our division. So it

5:43

was interesting to see everyone's individual

5:46

scores went up because

5:48

there was just all this camaraderie amongst

5:50

us pushing us all together.

5:53

Now, for those of our listeners who are learning

5:56

about climbing, definitely go to YouTube.

5:58

You can see plenty of amazing videos

6:00

of bonds. Check out his

6:02

book on Amazon, On the Nose, which is now available

6:04

in audio. Definitely learn more as

6:06

your interest is piqued here. Talk a little bit

6:08

about climbing that sometimes team

6:11

aspect when you're climbing with someone you

6:13

know versus individual. How do you

6:17

approach the two? Is it a preference? What should

6:19

people know?

6:19

Awesome question. Because when you think

6:22

about going out climbing, well you have to have

6:24

a partner, right? So in some ways it's team, but the

6:26

whole aspect of competition climbing, it's

6:29

just you and the

6:31

wall so that it's not, you know, beating up

6:33

somebody else or um, it's always, you

6:36

quote against the wall. Um,

6:38

so it is very individual, but yet the

6:41

majority of climbing I do is with

6:43

a partner. The record

6:45

on the nose is set with a partner.

6:50

You have a partner. Um, it's, it's very rare

6:53

that you're going to have a solo climber. I mean, we have Alex

6:55

Honnold kind of out there without a rope

6:59

as the Tiger Woods of our sport brining rock climbing to

7:01

the mainstream because he's just done all these incredible

7:03

feats. But um, for

7:05

me, the physical movement of climbing

7:08

because they've involves the tip of your toes, the tip of your fingers.

7:10

It's a wonderful exercise in

7:12

and of itself, but there's all these problem solving

7:15

things. When you go to Yosemite, you're

7:17

going up a thousand or 3000

7:19

foot cliff, you're climbing a crack and

7:21

it ends and it's blank. Granite above you. You've

7:24

got to swing over left or right, and

7:26

you have to figure out logistics. How am I going

7:28

to swing over there, climb

7:30

up and Oh, well now I've left gear back right

7:32

into the thing.

7:33

These might seem like simple little

7:35

mathematical or whatever, pragmatic

7:37

things, but climbing involves a

7:39

ton of thinking out, problem solving.

7:41

You know, this one I explained is, you

7:44

know, just rope management from

7:46

one to another. But then what if there's a 50 pound

7:48

haul bag you've got to bring up? How do you leave it down below?

7:51

How do you bring your partner across and

7:53

then there's just the simple fact of like,

7:55

you're in a climbing gym and you're climbing 10 feet

7:57

and you don't know how to reach that hold up left.

8:00

And I joked that invariably women

8:02

always out climb men their first time

8:04

in the gym because they tend to look all

8:06

around them for solutions. Whereas men look

8:08

at their biceps and try to just pull harder. Climbing

8:11

is very finesseful. You have to problem solve

8:14

and find out where your weaknesses are.

8:16

Is there an undercling over there? Do I lift my leg

8:18

up? Do I twist my body left or right? So,

8:21

uh, strangely enough we

8:23

have a lot of um,

8:25

Phd, professors from

8:27

Berkeley climbing at our Berkeley Ironworks Gym.

8:29

I'm kind of classic

8:31

old guys with the long gray beard. Um,

8:33

but there's a lot of very cognitive science

8:36

folks that climb because I think it just really engages

8:38

your mind to do all this problem solving.

8:41

Whereas weight lifting or going on a treadmill

8:44

just doesn't cut it really. So you can just

8:46

do a bunch of curls and it's a lot more

8:48

to it than that. Yeah. Well let's

8:50

as, as many are kind of thinking through

8:52

work and I'm sure some are envious that

8:54

you have made, you know, your,

8:56

your passion, your life in such a profound

8:59

way. Looks like a little bit about growing

9:01

up.

9:02

You were a military brat as you've shared. Talk

9:04

a little bit about how that shaped you.

9:06

Well, you know, people go, was

9:08

that was hard to move every three years or four years

9:11

and lose, lose your friends? Right. And I'm like,

9:13

I didn't know that all kids did

9:15

that. Didn't do that. Right. I just assumed everybody

9:17

moves every four years. So I'm like, wasn't it hard for

9:19

you being in the same place all the

9:22

time? So I didn't think that as a burden

9:24

or a hardship, I just thought it was like, oh, I get

9:27

to find a new neighborhood,

9:29

meet new friends, trying new

9:32

school.

9:34

You'd mentioned, you know, like coming out of college people

9:36

say, well what are you going to do? What are you going to do as a,

9:38

you know, as a kiddo is a young one. How

9:40

did you view work based on what you saw

9:42

through your parents and you know, kind of the world around you?

9:44

Yeah, I'll say that my parents were both

9:46

sort of Protestant work

9:49

ethic. I mean, my father would go away.

9:51

He was a doctor in the military of veterinarian

9:54

science and um, he

9:56

would go in the morning, come back in the evening, go

9:59

away in the morning, and then as we got

10:01

older, my mom would take on what job

10:03

she could. She worked for a real estate

10:05

company for property

10:08

management company. She'd work wherever she could and

10:11

um, you know, there was no idle time

10:13

sort of thing. So I thought that's what you do is

10:16

your. Yet my parents found time to take

10:18

us camping, take us on trips to see

10:20

national monuments, take us to know

10:23

memorials. We lived on the east coast quite a

10:25

bit so often. It was a civil

10:27

war and a whatever type

10:29

memorials. And of course Washington DC. We were

10:31

regular at museums and stuff. So that was,

10:34

um, between camping, you know, on beaches

10:36

and parks and museums

10:38

that my parents did a good job at showing us things

10:41

outside of regular school. Um,

10:44

and so I thought, hey, you know, that's, that

10:46

will be my course. I'll go get a degree, I'll

10:48

work in the environment one

10:50

way or another or, and I will

10:52

work 40 hours a week and I will take vacation with

10:54

my family. That was kind of my vision.

10:58

Right.

10:59

Do you have any early memories of a dream

11:02

job? Even as

11:04

a really young one?

11:05

I wouldn't say so much a dream job

11:07

as that. Um, I never was

11:10

much of a, I mean I watch

11:12

some sports where maybe in high school but mostly

11:14

I just prefer doing

11:17

as opposed to watching, but you know, you'd get

11:19

into this phase where you'd watch football and things

11:21

and I particularly member one time, like I

11:24

think it was a Nascar thing where they coming up

11:26

and interviewing someone and the person had

11:28

STP logo on their

11:31

thing and uh, and Duracell

11:33

and like probably 12

11:36

different companies sponsoring that

11:38

person. And I'm like, why are

11:40

they sponsoring this person that drives a

11:43

car? Right. And I thought, what could

11:45

I do someday? Can I be a pole vaulter that

11:47

gets all these logos of power bar

11:50

or Clif Bar or whatever?

11:52

Um, well my sport ever

11:54

be that big where, you know, and I've got

11:56

for some reason I felt like what

11:58

could I do in climbing to make it

12:01

so that that's a possibility for somebody because

12:03

I didn't think in my lifetime it would happen. So,

12:06

um, I took over the Executive Director position

12:08

for the national governing body for competitions

12:10

for climbing. And I worked really

12:12

hard bringing all these sponsors in from

12:15

Petzl and PMI to Bluewater

12:18

Ropes to Black Diamond.

12:21

And sure enough, five years later I was in

12:23

the X-games and I had this jacket

12:25

on that had like six logos

12:27

on it and I was just like, I have arrived and

12:30

I didn't think it would happen in my lifetime.

12:32

And STP didn't sponsor you?

12:34

STP did not. I haven't gotten into

12:36

it yet. No.

12:37

Well, you know, maybe they're just figuring it out.

12:40

What was your first paid job?

12:42

First paid job was picking weeds.

12:44

Yep. I remember the minimum wage was $3

12:47

and thirty five cents an hour on my

12:49

hands and knees walking through a business, you know, crawling

12:51

through a business park, pulling weeds in between bushes.

12:54

Yeah. And so when you, when you did finish

12:57

it at Cal Poly

12:59

and went down the Yuppie route for a while, what did that look

13:01

like? What did you do?

13:03

Well, interestingly, I interviewed

13:06

with three companies. One of them was at

13:08

Foster Farms, chicken ranch

13:10

up in Turlock and they were going to let me

13:13

manage a chicken farm

13:15

because Cal Poly is a big ag school, but I was in the

13:17

business section and then my

13:19

other offer was from a manufacturing

13:22

facility in downtown Los Angeles.

13:23

Parker Seals, they make high tech fuel

13:25

door seals for jets. They make the space shuttle

13:27

battery and they make low tech seals

13:29

for oil drain

13:32

plugs. Right. And they needed somebody

13:34

to kind of keep the line moving, the sales going and like

13:36

that seems more exciting Downtown L.A. So I'll

13:38

just took the job, what's the offer

13:40

for pay? I'm like, I don't care. I just go

13:43

and you know, um, and

13:45

that was 50,

13:47

60 hours a week because

13:49

I was learning new stuff and that

13:52

I think there is when I realized like

13:56

somebody who comes straight out of high school

13:58

that just understands like it's

14:01

okay not to know what

14:04

you're supposed to do, but you're gonna learn and you're going

14:06

to learn fast, um, that

14:10

in college you really supposed to show that you can

14:12

learn, you learn how to learn. Right? And

14:14

there was so much stuff I didn't know and

14:16

they were asking me to do in this Yuppie

14:19

job, you know, go and schedule

14:21

all the machines and these workers for

14:23

them, like I don't know how to do that.

14:25

And this was the age of the first

14:27

PC computers. Right. And like there was a computer

14:29

department doing IBM

14:31

Punch cards. I'm trying to figure out where product was

14:34

and I was totally confused. Right. We had

14:36

never done this in college. So. And I

14:39

was working. I was working till

14:41

9:00 PM at night trying to figure out what I

14:43

was supposed to do and I was really fortunate that

14:46

I had two or three other people who

14:48

had graduated from Cal Poly the year before and

14:50

saw like, yep, I was just like you

14:52

last year when I got hired. So I

14:55

had a lot of people kind of shepherd me along state. It's okay.

14:57

It's okay. You don't know, you're gonna know

14:59

you're going to figure it out. Um, I

15:02

think that's really important is to get in over

15:04

your head sometimes. Um, there's

15:07

a lot of quotes like from I think Mario Andretti,

15:09

if you're an, if you're under control, you're going too

15:11

slow. He needed to be a little bit

15:13

out of your comfort zone, you know, all the

15:15

time.

15:17

So in those, those first couple years at,

15:19

at Parker seals,

15:21

what was your relationship with money like? What was your financial

15:24

philosophy?

15:26

I was pretty frugal. I'm

15:28

coming in from a Protestant work ethic and I had paid off

15:30

everything I owed for school within,

15:33

I think within like three or four months of working

15:36

because I didn't have a fancy car or

15:38

mortgage payment. I didn't have a house

15:40

payment. I had the cheapest

15:42

apartment I could find within walking distance of where I

15:45

worked. Um, so

15:47

my relationship was

15:50

to stock away money till when you need it or

15:52

until you have a vision, how to spend it

15:55

on yourself, invest in

15:57

yourself because it's kind of the

15:59

universal power. I don't think of

16:02

something as like money's evil, but money is

16:04

power and whether you want to be

16:07

mother Theresa and use that power to

16:09

help kids in Africa

16:11

or you want to be, I don't

16:13

know, someone who drives around Ferrari's and Maserati's.

16:15

I don't know that those are the two extremes there, but

16:18

like you will need it. And so I didn't know

16:20

what I wanted to do with money but I knew

16:22

that like buying a fancy bike, buying

16:24

a fancy car, all that wasn't going to make

16:26

me happy at the moment. So I just lived

16:29

frugally and, and piled

16:31

it up.

16:33

Where was climbing in your life

16:35

in the Parker Seals days?

16:37

It's interesting because I, um, I learned

16:39

climbing while

16:42

I was in college and I felt an obligation

16:44

to finish track and field. I love

16:47

he competition and the, and the rivalry

16:49

and the, the camaraderie

16:51

of it. And then I realized I needed

16:54

something to replace that with and

16:56

climbing was it. But I

16:58

also felt like I owe it to

17:00

this new company that I've,

17:02

you know, signed a deal

17:04

with that I've got to give it my best

17:06

and I was, I was working 50 and 60

17:09

hours a week, but I would be climbing Tuesday,

17:11

Thursdays after work for three hours and I'd

17:13

go to Joshua Tree National

17:15

Park from Friday at

17:18

6:00 PM until Sunday at midnight every

17:20

weekend or you know, 40 weekends a year,

17:23

um, and come back red eyed

17:26

and tired Monday morning. My boss be

17:28

like, boy, you had a hell of a weekend. And everyone thought I was a partier

17:30

but I was just climbing my brains out. Right. Um,

17:33

but I showed up because that was my

17:36

upbringing as you show up for work and you know,

17:39

you don't call in sick on a Friday so you can

17:41

have a three day weekend that's not part of

17:43

my purview.

17:45

So as you share in your book and again, I encourage

17:48

everyone to read it or listen,

17:52

you're working hard. You're

17:55

called in by your boss and your boss's boss.

17:58

What happens?

17:59

So, yeah, I have

18:01

now worked uh, almost two years

18:03

with them and I, I'm realizing like, Gosh,

18:05

I'm, I'm climbing. They had the

18:07

very first ever US National competitions and

18:10

I got invited. I went and did well there.

18:13

Now having World Cup competitions and I'm

18:15

going to everything I can and luckily

18:17

I'm a Yuppie so I can afford to fly to

18:19

Boulder and do this competition and fly to Seattle

18:21

and do these competitions I think

18:24

in, wow. I'm in my mid twenties. There's this

18:26

new sport arriving, but I'm just not

18:28

spending enough time climbing to

18:31

do it. What if I just quit

18:33

work? Like some people quit work

18:35

and go travel the world. You know what if, what

18:37

if I just quit work, I don't know any money, how

18:41

do I tell my boss because my boss loves me.

18:43

I'm doing really good work. I've got a raise four months

18:45

ago and it's

18:48

becoming springtime, which for climbers is

18:51

pretty important. So here it is February. And

18:54

I'm like, gosh, I got to tell my boss I really want

18:56

to quit so I can go do the spring

18:59

season. And out of the blue he invites me into

19:01

the conference room and his

19:03

boss is there and they say, Hans, you've been

19:05

totally kicking butt. We know you work hard and

19:07

you've learned all these new skills. We want to give

19:09

you a raise with this new position, blah, blah, blah. Like

19:11

a significant raise. And I'm

19:14

like, oh, I don't,

19:16

I haven't probably sat there

19:18

silent for a long time. And then I

19:20

just broke it to them that I really want to.

19:22

I really want to quit and

19:25

just go on the road. Rock climbing.

19:26

And there was a book

19:29

that was influential in your life at that time?

19:31

Atlas Shrugged,

19:33

is that right? Yeah. Yeah. What, what

19:35

role did that play in your decision making?

19:37

Um, I think

19:39

it's that even when

19:43

the status quo or the majority of

19:46

people believe that you

19:48

should do X, Y, Z,

19:52

they may not be right, you know, just

19:55

because

19:58

it's hard to put it. I mean, Atlas Shrug

20:00

is such a gigantic novel. It has so many

20:02

concepts about things,

20:05

um, political

20:08

statements, economic statements about capitalism

20:10

being all great and everything. Um,

20:12

and I've, I've turned my view from it, but

20:15

the main fact of it is you can

20:17

be right for you

20:19

and it's not right for the rest

20:22

of the people around you. And that's okay.

20:24

That's probably the number one rule I got

20:26

out of it or message

20:29

is that what's right for me to quit my job

20:31

and go climbing isn't right for everybody

20:34

and I'm just going to have to have the will

20:37

and the confidence in myself that, that

20:39

purpose, if you want to call it, is

20:42

enough for me and I should pursue it.

20:44

Yeah.

20:45

For some of our younger listeners who may not

20:48

be familiar with the term Yuppie, maybe already Googled

20:50

it by now, better young, upwardly

20:52

mobile professionals.

20:54

So you are now literally upwardly

20:56

mobile in a totally different direction. You've, you've

20:58

left Parker seals in

21:02

your book. One of the things, the first line

21:04

of the first chapter a

21:06

says, I was pretty sure I was about

21:09

to die. How

21:11

does pursuing a passion with, with such inherent

21:14

risk influence your

21:16

daily life when you're not climbing?

21:20

Uh, I'd say that when we call

21:22

it the business, like I call it, like

21:24

eating the frog, like, Oh God, I know

21:26

I have to fire this person today. Don't

21:29

wait to the end of the day because then you're just, you're

21:31

stressed and worried about it for all eight hours

21:33

of the day until the end. Fire them in the morning.

21:36

Right? The same thing. Like if you've

21:38

got, you're going to do a big climb,

21:41

you're in Patagonia and the hardest part,

21:44

you've got to face it. It's, it's, it's places

21:47

position somewhere on that route if you will. And

21:50

to sit there and worry about it all the time up

21:52

into it, it's just, you realize

21:54

that's stresses may make a mistake earlier

21:57

on in climbing. You don't

21:59

often get to choose when to confront the frog

22:01

or the worst part of something.

22:04

You're constantly on

22:06

edge ready for it because you know, there's a lot of

22:09

tough consequences in climbing, especially

22:12

if you're an urbanist and on crazy

22:14

terrain. Um, and

22:17

so I've realized like our business,

22:19

I'll write down my five highest goals that

22:21

I've got to attack today. And I'm like, oh,

22:23

that's the one I don't want to call her and tell

22:25

her that she's fired or whatever

22:27

it might be, or I don't want to do a sales call because

22:29

I'm afraid of rejection. Right. You know, what? Get

22:32

the sales call the way early in the morning, get rejected

22:34

and then move on. You know, the more I

22:37

counsel a lot of people on sales and like,

22:39

you know, the only thing better than getting rejected

22:42

is getting rejected 10 times because the 11th

22:44

rejection is way easier than the first.

22:46

Right. Very true. Yeah.

22:49

So you dealing with adversity is

22:52

nothing new to you. I'm sure some of

22:54

our guests who are just getting to know you

22:56

may have looked you up and presently one of the first

22:58

things that will, will pop up is notice

23:01

that you had a serious fall just in, in May

23:03

of 2018. So just to just five

23:05

months ago. Having had

23:08

that experience, let's talk a

23:11

little about perseverance. How do you process

23:13

adversity you've faced and how are you doing at the moment?

23:16

Uh, so this fall I fell

23:18

in the middle of El Cap. It's a 3000 foot

23:20

granite wall. I fell 15 feet, but that was

23:22

enough to break my right heel and my

23:24

left leg at the tib fib. So I was

23:26

completely incapacitated, couldn't use

23:28

my legs. And um,

23:31

I had a partner Abe Shreve. He's

23:35

an incredible business coach, so happens

23:37

an incredible climber and he

23:39

was out of sight when I fell and he

23:42

comes around the corner and sees that I'm on my phone

23:44

because what are you doing on your phone? I'm

23:46

like, well, I'm calling the rangers nine slash 11

23:48

and it's why you doing that? And

23:51

I'm like, oh, I broke both my legs just called

23:55

dead pan is all heck and you know, we talk

23:57

about this thing me and I was like, well, what do you do in

23:59

crisis? Either you laugh or you cry

24:01

or your panic or

24:04

you, you're calm, cool.

24:06

Collected. I was probably in shock

24:08

and just, um, and

24:11

just was probably thinking out,

24:15

I've thought about what to do in these situations

24:17

before I've helped others in this situation before.

24:19

And what's the number one thing

24:22

you know, that's important to do here is stop,

24:24

think and, you know, proceed with

24:26

what the best knowledge you have is. Um,

24:29

at one point during the, the

24:31

rescue, well we hadn't been rescued yet, but

24:33

it was an hour in and we're waiting and

24:36

there's now the wind's blowing really

24:38

hard and I can't help a boy. I'm

24:40

organized ropes and stuff and

24:43

he's got to get this huge tangle

24:45

undone. Other the ropes. And I'm like, well, I

24:47

can't move very well if I tap my foot,

24:49

I go to a pain level, 10 out of 10.

24:52

How about I shoot a video for social media?

24:55

And Abe gives me this look like, what

24:57

are you talking about? I'm like, well dude, I can't

24:59

help you. So let me show you

25:01

that social media video. It'd be like

25:04

a story on instagram. He's like, don't do it.

25:06

Hans. And I'm like, God, I'm not doing anything

25:08

that'd be helpful. So I proceeded to shoot

25:10

this silly video. And um,

25:13

I think he, he really

25:16

concise. He said, you know what, you did Hans

25:18

up there, you know, this was days there, you did

25:20

what you could, you didn't focus

25:22

on what you can't do. Yes. You can't

25:24

climb up because your feet are broken. Yes. You

25:26

can't repel down because your feet

25:29

are broken. You focused on what you could do. You

25:31

let me lower you down to the next ledge, you know,

25:33

and you shot a video for social media.

25:35

Maybe that wasn't super productive, but, um,

25:38

we did what we could, you know, people.

25:40

So my focus in business like,

25:42

oh, I didn't get that loan. Okay, you didn't get the

25:44

loan. So what can you do? Can

25:46

you apply for new loan? Can you look for money somewhere

25:48

else? Can you finance a different way? You

25:50

know, you're always looking for solutions. And I think

25:52

I learned in spades,

25:55

you know, and Abe had to describe it

25:57

to me. Like what you did is you

25:59

did what you can do. You didn't focus for

26:01

one millisecond on what you couldn't do.

26:04

Like in one of the interviews you said that

26:06

at that time it felt like you were watching your

26:08

life through another lens or another

26:11

perspective to where you been

26:13

conscious of that at the time or just

26:15

being in shock.

26:16

You were just think I wasn't conscious at the time.

26:18

It was just like, I'm not going to cry.

26:20

I'm, yeah, I'm in physical pain that

26:23

I've never felt before. But I

26:25

probably did shed a tear or two there. But once,

26:28

you know, I've, you just don't

26:30

have the physical ability to whale crying

26:33

and crying for five or 10 hours, however

26:35

long it took to get rescued. But, um,

26:39

after the fight I thought I'm getting

26:41

my metal tested. Um,

26:46

I've joked that I'm kind of like Job this

26:48

year is I'm going through an amicable divorce with

26:50

my wife, broke my legs,

26:52

my kids are leaving the house because they're going to

26:54

college and it turns out that there

26:56

was a fire at in Yosemite this year that was

26:58

burning around my house. I'm just like, next will be

27:00

the locusts, right? And be really

27:02

getting tested. And I'm like, I'm just going to sit and watch

27:04

from afar here and see how

27:07

Hans does, how has his character going to handle

27:09

all these things thrown at them?

27:10

Yeah. Just loosen your grip and yeah.

27:13

See what happens. Wow. Now,

27:15

as we shared in the beginning of every episode,

27:18

our listeners represent a broad range

27:20

of spiritual views and our intention isn't to

27:23

push any particular one. In your

27:25

book, you wrote that if climbing, were

27:27

a religion sending the nose

27:29

would be like getting baptized, which is a very,

27:32

very powerful language. Can

27:34

you describe a little bit about your

27:36

own spirituality in climbing

27:38

in life? Maybe some of the, the spiritual

27:40

frameworks you were exposed to growing up.

27:43

Yeah. I mentioned earlier I was a military

27:46

brat, so I was brought up in Christian schools

27:48

every other place.

27:50

I know the Bible pretty well. Um,

27:53

but it so happened the last place we landed

27:55

in California, the public schools were really good,

27:58

so I didn't have it church upbringing

28:00

in high school and beyond. Um,

28:04

but I, I'd go back to like why

28:06

I think climbing,

28:09

if it were a religion, I think finding

28:11

something that you're passionate about and then some people

28:13

I can see a lot of my friends and climbing, they

28:15

have a group called solid rock that are climbers

28:18

for Christ and I

28:20

find them to be pretty darn happy people

28:22

because they found something in addition

28:24

to rock climb and they found Christ

28:26

that is good for them

28:29

or a rock that they can count on.

28:31

Right? Um, I've found

28:33

that I can count on climbing

28:35

and many of the people in

28:37

climbing as a Go

28:40

to. A

28:42

great example is

28:44

you get up at 3:00 AM in the morning

28:47

and you feel like, can I just go back to bed right

28:49

now? And, and I realized like every time

28:52

I've gone and done a three hour workout before

28:54

I do my eight hour job at an

28:56

architect engineering firm or wherever I'm working at the time,

28:59

I feel way better. Um,

29:01

you know, sometimes you go out drinking, it

29:03

feels great with your friends, but you know, the

29:05

next morning it's not gonna feel good so

29:07

you can pass on drinking with friends, but

29:10

working out maybe it's hard a

29:12

little bit here and there or training for some goal

29:15

or the actual performance of a climbing activity.

29:18

But afterwards, I always feel

29:21

part of it's physical, they endorphins and you. But

29:23

a lot of it's the sense

29:26

of accomplishment. And um,

29:28

it's tough for climbers to feel purposeful

29:31

because it's pretty ridiculous

29:33

what we do. We climb a vertical wall,

29:35

you know, I mean, nobody's putting

29:38

shoes on kids and bad neighborhoods.

29:40

We're not saving lives in Ethiopia, but you're

29:43

focusing on what you do and when you're happy about

29:45

what you're doing and you're not harming

29:47

others. Golden rule, you know, I'll do

29:49

it. I've found

29:52

that, uh, I focused so strongly on

29:54

trying to perform my best at climbing

29:56

the nose of El cap or climbing some

29:58

sport route that people have come up to me and just

30:00

said, you know, you really inspired me to try

30:02

my best at whatever they were doing. We've

30:05

mentioned that I've had people come up to me

30:07

and said, I went and did the Peace Corps for two years.

30:09

I've done Doctors Without Borders for the

30:12

last season because you just kind of opened my eyes to

30:14

try really hard at something that

30:17

I love when we have a saying here

30:19

at the Diablo Rock Gym, "Do Hard

30:21

Things." What we mean by that is,

30:23

you know, the easy things are

30:25

usually not that rewarding. Getting up

30:27

at three is not easy, but

30:29

how you feel afterwards is pretty awesome.

30:32

Well, it sounds like getting up at three

30:34

and, and you know, exercising, climbing, everything

30:36

you do is spiritual. Are there any other spiritual

30:39

practices that you have found to be

30:41

helpful now or through the years?

30:45

Oof, I'd have a lot of friends in Berkeley.

30:48

Um, and I, I mentioned that because to me that just

30:50

brings up a, I dunno, hippiness

30:52

a little bit and very liberal views

30:54

and everything from Chinese

30:57

medicine to, to meditating

31:00

Eastern influenced perhaps

31:02

to some degree. And um, I've tried

31:04

meditating a number of times and

31:07

um, I haven't been coached, I'd say expertly

31:10

at it, but I, I find that it's, it's

31:12

good to find a routine.

31:15

Um, something as simple as before bed,

31:17

you know, uh, think of something

31:19

you did good today, that last

31:21

day I think of something, not that you did bad,

31:23

but something you could have improved on. And

31:25

then think of some else you did good. I always

31:27

like to start with something good and something bad. So

31:30

I think simple little practices that

31:32

simple. Think of something good you did that day so you're

31:34

appreciative of how well you acted.

31:37

I think of something you could improve on. And then think

31:39

of a second thing he did well. Simple

31:42

things like that get

31:45

give you a structure that you will, I

31:47

feel that it's important to have a mental

31:50

part of your life, a spiritual part of your

31:52

life where you're trying to improve, trying to

31:54

be the best you can.

31:55

Yeah. So on the

31:57

climbing front and, and sort of the spiritual

31:59

crossover, some through the

32:01

years of have criticized you for bringing competition

32:05

to an activity that many have described

32:07

as zen or spiritual for them.

32:10

What is your perspective? How does it all blend

32:12

together?

32:12

So I was in college, never knew

32:14

anything about climbing person to approach

32:16

people, hey, anybody want to go out?

32:19

Climbed with a guy happened to be a named Alan. He

32:21

was, in my opinion, the classic blue

32:24

Jean Cutoff torn ragged

32:28

tee-shirt, smoked illegal drugs at that time.

32:31

Um, and he climbed

32:34

because people told him you're not supposed to do that.

32:37

And perhaps because of the nature

32:39

scenery I took to them, but um,

32:42

I wanted to try it because there's all these

32:45

cool, you know, nuts and tools and

32:47

webbing and rope and you get to

32:51

go over terrain. Like I said before that you can't

32:54

go, you get to conquer terrain, you get to use your

32:56

physical skills in your mental skills to try this quiver of

32:59

tools to get through things. But quickly

33:01

I found that like wow,

33:03

athletically they're starting to rate these

33:06

these problems and things and

33:10

now there is a sport and by

33:12

seven, eight years into it, they were making it a sport,

33:14

a competition, and I was

33:17

finding climbers that were much better than me.

33:19

I'd see them at Joshua Tree, I'd see them in Yosemite.

33:21

I'd see them at Rifle Colorado all

33:23

out climbing me and when it got

33:25

to competition day, I

33:27

would get higher on the Walden them and

33:30

it was confusing to me and it

33:32

was really frustrating for them because they could

33:34

see me on an easy route on

33:36

the weekend and rifle or the

33:38

week before or Joshua tree and then they

33:41

were utterly frustrated that I was beating

33:43

them at comp and I think it was that

33:46

I had had a long history of being told

33:48

what to do. Track and field. You Ready? Set,

33:50

go. Gun goes off or whistle

33:53

blows done for the quarter or whatever. And

33:55

a lot of climbers had been like my original

33:58

mentor. They did it because

34:00

people told him not to or they the

34:02

love of nature, which is, there's nothing wrong with that

34:05

at all, but they weren't there for the

34:07

competitive lay

34:09

it all on the line. And so the

34:12

folks that are early on, I think

34:14

that we're thinking I'd sold out

34:17

the sport. I think that they

34:19

now see that there's just such a huge

34:21

embrace of all these kids that

34:23

are coming into the program mostly for

34:25

competition. Um, but

34:28

kids like being rewarded for

34:30

their ability, their innocent about. And I know adults

34:33

do too. And then

34:35

I think the biggest thing I can point to is

34:37

that when I took over as the director of

34:39

the competition thing, I

34:41

listed everyone that competed and

34:43

I put them in order from first to I

34:46

think at one point we had a list out to 450

34:49

people. And I had a call

34:51

from. Somebody said, you got my score

34:53

wrong at a local and Alabama. I

34:55

should be ranked 187th

34:58

in the US, not 193rd.

35:01

And I'm like, people just want recognition

35:05

their names in print, like on a list,

35:07

right? And, um, I, I, that

35:09

would just crystallize it to me. They just want recognition,

35:12

you know, and I

35:14

think that it's just as important to onsite

35:16

at 13. See out in a

35:19

crag somewhere in Colorado with

35:22

only two people watching. That's

35:26

an achievement. But to do it when

35:28

you're told, when you walked to the base of an artificial

35:31

root in a gym or at a artificial

35:33

wall on a stadium in Vail, Colorado

35:36

or wherever, those competitions are going

35:38

to be held when there's a crowd of 300

35:41

people. And that is an exceptional

35:43

skill to grace under

35:45

pressure. Can you perform the sermon

35:47

on the mount right there? Everyone needs to

35:49

hear it. You know, Ken, you clot

35:52

onsite at 13. See, now

35:55

you've got to start in 40 seconds and time

35:57

is ticking. You know, it's, uh,

36:00

I, I like it more than

36:02

the onsite out

36:04

at the crag by yourself. Peaceful because it's,

36:07

it puts more pressure on it, tests you more than

36:09

and I like to be tested on

36:12

so our listeners can appreciate how

36:14

fast your clients are compared

36:16

to kind of where history began. Sort of walk

36:18

us through the first people who

36:20

climbed El Capitan to, to you what kind of

36:23

Delta are we talking? So in

36:25

the fifties they'd see a sheer face

36:27

of half dome cut.

36:29

The half dome right in the sheer face was 1900

36:32

feet tall, which is the height

36:34

of most skyscrapers that are very high

36:36

now. They thought you couldn't climb that.

36:38

Well, Royal Robbins, Mike

36:40

Sherrick and Jerry Falwell climbed it in five

36:42

days, right? Unheard of guy

36:45

anymore. And Hardy and walked around the back half dome, congratulate

36:47

him, known to say I can do something better.

36:50

So he went in the face of El

36:52

Cap, which after five days of work he

36:54

got maybe

36:56

500 feet up on a 3000 foot face.

36:58

We kind of failed after five days, but he

37:00

spent 45 days spread out

37:03

over 18 months and finally

37:05

topped out on this wall. Took 12

37:07

day push, which is coming

37:09

up actually this November, the 60 year anniversary.

37:12

So naturally once that 30,000

37:14

foot wall was shown to be claimable, the

37:16

second ascent, three years later, only

37:18

took seven days. Right. They knew they could do

37:20

it, so they just sat on it, went up thirty

37:24

cent, took three and a half days because the mental barrier had been broken

37:27

by the late seventies team climate

37:29

in a single day, which was kind of amazing

37:31

because this is a grade six route. Well,

37:34

when I first climate in Yosemite, um,

37:37

I would never think to climb el Cap. I'm

37:39

even a very good climbers. I was, I

37:42

couldn't tackle something like that. I

37:44

failed my first time trying to do it in

37:46

1989. I climbed it in two and a half days

37:49

and I asked the best big wall climber in

37:51

the world, Steve Snyder, if he would climb it with

37:53

me for the record. And we did it in eight hours the

37:55

following year. So I went from two and a half days

37:58

to eight hours, which was pretty amazing how

38:01

quickly the record got broken. A

38:04

few weeks later by some locals, the next year I did it in

38:06

six hours, quickly it got broken again.

38:08

The next year I did it, I teamed up with someone who

38:11

had broken with another person,

38:13

Peter Croft. We did it in under five

38:15

hours. Right. So

38:17

as the decades have gone on, it's gone

38:19

down to three hours and two and a

38:21

half hours. And then just recently, uh, Alex

38:24

and Tommy, Tommy

38:26

Caldwell and Alex honnold climbed it in just

38:28

under two hours, an hour and 58 minutes.

38:30

This is amazing because today,

38:33

this season, this

38:35

year in the fall, the average climbing party

38:37

will take three days to climb the route. That

38:39

means competent climbers that can do it, will

38:41

take three days to do the route. So

38:45

I've got to see it go from, you know,

38:47

10 hours in my time

38:49

of climbing to two hours.

38:52

I mean, that's unheard of to think of like a

38:54

marathon going from 10 hours to two hours, which

38:56

is what the record is on marathon right now,

38:58

just over two hours. Right. What's

39:01

what's still on your list was what

39:03

are some goals you still have to achieve?

39:07

Well, I'm 54. I'm in

39:10

the Alpine mountaineering world. Lots of

39:12

people do their best mountaineering in their fifties

39:14

and sixties, but I'm, I'm

39:16

a t shirt and shorts climber. I don't have enough persistence

39:19

and body fat to go up to mountains, big mountains.

39:22

So I'm going to continue to do

39:24

things in sunny, a

39:27

good rock climbing areas that's more, more

39:29

sport and athleticism

39:31

and less risk. Um,

39:34

I'd love to get 'em up

39:36

El cap with my daughter. Um,

39:38

I went up with my son last summer. Um,

39:42

I'd love to keep hosting a

39:45

climbers from the world around you

39:48

that are younger

39:50

because they haven't been to Yosemite and be their host

39:52

and you've sent me and show them your somebody climates. So it's

39:55

so much different than other places. So

39:57

I'd like to be involved in, I

39:59

guess a introducing Yosemite to

40:01

some of the younger upcoming

40:03

climbers. Yeah. Yeah. And

40:06

I, I try to ask all of our guests on.

40:08

So last question, how do you define

40:10

success? I

40:13

think success is really something for people

40:15

that are mature

40:17

and experienced in their world, like I

40:19

don't think a 19 and 20 year old, most

40:22

19 and 20 year olds. They

40:24

have probably moments of happiness and

40:26

maybe moments of feeling rewarded

40:30

but you needed to and

40:32

they, and they are successes, but

40:34

I think you have to have confidence in yourself

40:37

that what you choose is important,

40:40

is um, is

40:43

purposeful and you

40:45

feel happy content reward

40:47

in doing it because I can see

40:49

pictures of me topping out after

40:52

climbing half dome and El Cap and a day

40:55

and I'm completely exhausted, but I have a

40:57

look of contentment in me

40:59

and happiness and I

41:02

really did feel more

41:04

successful, more happy than

41:08

I ever have any other time in my life. And

41:11

when I look at it from an outside persons perspective,

41:14

just like guy, you just

41:16

and climbed up some rocks and walked around

41:18

the forest and stuff like what's so purposeful about

41:20

that? I defined it

41:22

and I believe in it and I

41:26

think everyone's got to develop in themselves

41:28

what's important to them and go after it.

41:31

Push themselves. Excellent. Thank

41:34

you for pushing yourself many

41:36

blessings on your continued recovery from your

41:39

injuries. You get back up there and thanks for joining me

41:41

today. Welcome. Great having

41:43

me here and glad you came to Diablo

41:45

rock chip special. Thanks to my friend

41:47

David [inaudible] for the introduction to haunt.

41:50

I invite you to follow Han's advice to

41:52

do hard things and eat the frog as

41:55

early in the day as possible. Until

41:57

the next episode, keep living beyond

41:59

the check.