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The Matt King Show
032: I Tried The 29029 Everest Challenge and It Changed My Life FOREVER | The Matt King Show
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I have always had a goal to hike Mount Everest. And when I got married, Melissa said, absolutely not. Stumbled on this event called 29029. You have 36 hours to complete this challenge. You have to hike the elevation of Mount Everest within those 36 hours. You hike up the mountain, take the gondola back down. You might as well call this event Hell on a Hill. You are in hell. You for 36 hours. I have learned in my life time and time again that on the other side of pain is oftentimes the greatest thing that you can actually receive or experience in your life. So for me, all I kept telling myself was, on the other side of this event, on the other side of this, Everest is going to be a version of me that I've either forgotten about or have yet to discover. Welcome back to another edition of from the sadd. For those of you who have not seen one of these episodes, this is just me. No guests, no interview, no questions. Just me, a camera, a microphone, and some thoughts. What's rattling around in my brain today? I want to talk about an event Melissa and I just recently completed called 29 029. This is an event that completely blew my mind the first time we ever did it. I have always had a goal to hike Mount Everest. And when I got married, Melissa said, absolutely not. Now, this is interesting because Melissa is usually totally open to whatever I want to do, like ride a bull run 100 miles. She doesn't care. She's like, whatever you want to do, good luck. But when you get hurt, I'm not going to help you. But Everest was her hard, no. She put her foot down, said, absolutely not. You can do basically anything else you want to do from a crazy adventure perspective. But Everest, Hell no, you're not doing that. So step stumbled on this event called 29029, which was founded by Jesse Itzler and Colin O'. Brady. And ironically, it was founded by Jesse for the same exact reason. His wife said, absolutely not. You're not doing Everest. So him and some friends had an idea. They said, why don't we go find a mountain and let's hike up it as many times as we have to until we reach the elevation of Mount Everest. And they did this in Vermont the first time they ever did it. And that, ironically, is the first place I ever did it. So you have 36 hours to complete this challenge. You have to hike the elevation of Mount Everest within those 36 hours. You hike up the mountain, take the gondola back down. They do it five Six, maybe seven times a year across different mountains, both in the United States and in Canada. And each mountain is a different number of ascents based on the elevation gain. So the first time we did it, we were in Stowe, Vermont, it was miserable. So we had this vision or this thought that Vermont in the fall, it's going to be gorgeous, the weather's going to be cool, the leaves are going to be changing color, it's going to be amazing. And all of those assumptions were true, except for the fact that it rained the entire time. Like literally the entire time, poured rain. The mountain was an absolute mess. There was one part where it was so sloshy that you could barely climb up it. People were making stairs by hammering their feet into the mud and then stepping up onto that. But nonetheless, Melissa and I got it done that time. I told myself and I told many others I would never do it again. Got the red hat, I was excited, it was amazing, but it was frickin miserable. I mean you might as well call this event Hell on a Hill because you are in hell for 36 hours. Hiking up, taking the gondola down, hiking up, taking the gondola down. But this year Melissa said, hey, I want to do 29029 again and I want to do the event in Whistler. And oh by the way, that's my birthday weekend. So when she said that, I really had no opportunity or option to say no to going back to 29029, conquering another mountain and doing it again with my wife and having an incredible experience and, and it is incredible. It's amazing to see what this organization does, how they put it on the aid stations that they have throughout the mountain. The event before the event, the event after the event. Like everything that they do is very, very well done and very well thought out. The hiking part, man, that sucks. It absolutely sucks. And the weird part is the first lap, you go out and you're excited and you're wandering up this mountain. In our instance it was about a 2 1/2 ish hour hike up and a 30 minute gondola ride down. We had to do it eight times. So you can assume it was just under 4,000ft of ele elevation gain each time. But you go out in the first lap and you're feeling good, you're at the starting line, you're excited, there's a bunch of people, they do a countdown, there's a motivational speaker. Right before you get started, they hit the horn and everybody's off to the races. Walking Slowly up a mountain for the next 36 hours. The weird part for me is the first lap you feel good. Halfway up the first lap, you kind of look at yourself go like, I could do this all day. This isn't that bad. You get in the gondola to come down from the first one, Everybody's on a high. You're excited, like, oh, that wasn't bad. We only have seven more to go. It took us two and a half hours. But for me, I start calculating things in my mind. So I'm like, okay, if it took us two and a half hours to get up, takes us 30 minutes to get down, I already had our finished time plotted out in my head. Like I just always have to think very far in advance. That's just how I stay focused. I guess you could say by the second lap you're still feeling good. You're like, this is going to be great. Midway on the second lap, your legs start to get maybe a little tired. The heat starts to come on a little bit. You're like, eh, not kind of done with this. Like I could be done hiking it by the third lap, man. By the third lap, everybody is in the suffer zone. At the post event, the one common theme we heard when we were talking to everybody was like, that third lap kicked my ass. I didn't think I was gonna finish that third lap made me want to quit. And it was interesting because our group was no different. We had myself, Melissa, Haley from the team, Kelly from the team. We started off as a group of four. We were going a little bit quicker than, than maybe Kelly wanted to. So she fell back to a different group and hiked with the other group. She too completed it. But Melissa, Haley and I stuck together the entire time. And at lap three and beyond, at different points in each hike, somebody in our group went to a dark place. Mind, body, energy, fluids. Like something was off with every single one of us. At one point in the lap on the third lap, that was when Haley started to get kicked in the teeth. She was struggling, had a terrible headache. She was still hiking, not complaining, but you could just tell she was in a dark place. Melissa was still feeling pretty good. I was still feeling pretty good. And we, we just kind of kept pushing each other when each other fell down. Three laps in, four laps in. After our fifth lap, we're like, all right, we're going to take a nap, we're going to go to bed. So at this point it was about 9 o' clock at night on Friday night. We had to Finish Saturday afternoon at 6pm so we had plenty of time to complete it. We knew we had plenty of time and we made a group decision that, hey, we have the advantage of having a lot of time on our side. Let's go to bed. So all of us went back into the hotel. We got about five, five and a half hours of sleep, and we hit the hill again at about 4:30 in the morning. That 4:30am hike was miserable. You knew you had three laps to go. You knew you had nine hours more ish of hiking. And you also knew that you were sore as can be from the day before. Absolutely dead, totally beat, totally just not wanting to do it again. And hiking is incredible. When you're on a new trail, it's beautiful. There's things to see, the mountains there, there's animals, there's trees. It's awesome. But when you're on the same damn trail for the third time, you don't want to see another rock, you don't want to see another step, you don't want to see another beautiful tree, you don't want to see another cute animal. You're done. You're just toasted. But I have learned in my life time and time again that on the other side of pain is oftentimes, oftentimes the greatest thing that you can actually receive or experience in your life. So for me, all I kept telling myself was on the other side of this event, on the other side of this, Everest is going to be a version of me that I've either forgotten about or have yet to discover. And like, that was what I was pursuing, that was what I was chasing. Six laps, we got it done. Seven laps, we got it done. On the eighth lap, it was our final ascent. We were all kind of giddy again. They do an incredible job. So on the last lap, you put on a red bib. So everybody hiking the mountain knows you're on your last lap. So they're kind of encouraging you, they're cheering you on, they're congratulating you a little prematurely, but they're congratulating you. And at that point in time, we started hiking our last lap around noon. So we had plenty of time. We, we knew we were going to finish. It wasn't a matter of if, it was just a matter of when. But the last lap, you start off feeling great. And us three knuckleheads, we started off feeling great, laughing, talking. We literally took a wrong turn very early in the trail and started going up the mountain the wrong way. So have already done it seven times have already followed the same path seven times. And I think I was leading at the time, so I'll take the blame for it. My dumb ass took a right turn way too soon. And the next thing you know, we were at the woods in a wrong spot. So we had to actually backtrack a little bit, find another way to get back on our trail, and then continue up for our eighth lap. One of the things that really struck me when we were doing this event was how easy it is to quit on yourself or on your goals or on your mission when you're by yourself. If you look at science, if you look at research, people that do things alone have a much higher likelihood of failure or missing the target. And when we were hiking this together, I finally realized why. Because if I was in a dark place, Melissa and Haley were picking me up. If Haley was in a dark place, Melissa and I were picking her up. If Melissa was in a dark place, Haley and I were picking her up. And we were just constantly making sure, from an accountability perspective, but also from like a peer pressure perspective, that everybody continued to move up the mountain. If we had to slow our pace a little, we slowed our pace. If we had to sit at the aid station a little longer, we sat at the aid station a little longer. But collectively, as a group, we made it faster together because we didn't let each other slow down. And most importantly, we didn't let each other quit. And this led me to think, like, what does the research say? What does the science say? So, Jeff, let's pull up what the research actually says about doing things together. And the only research I could really find, honestly, was around group fitness. And if you compare group fitness to what we just accomplished with 29029, they're very similar, right? Like you're doing something hard together as a group that is both mentally exhausting and physically exhausting. And we stumbled on this article that said basically, 95% of those people who start a weight loss program with friends complete the program. 95% of people that start a weight loss program with friends complete the program. And people wonder why things like orangetheory or group fitness classes are so successful. It's because the peer to peer accountability, but also the peer to peer camaraderie through doing something hard makes it exponentially easier and exponentially more fun. And it's very easy to hit snooze. It's very easy to quit on the third lap when the only person you're reporting to is yourself. But if you have to report to your friends or your spouse or people that have become acquaintances in the gym. Now all of a sudden you feel like a pressure, a liability, like, I got to show up for me, I got to show up for them. I don't want to let them down. I'm not going to let myself down. And so doing 29029 with a group, I think is one of the things that made Melissa and I successful both times we've attempted it. Now, the cool part about it is the first time we ever did 29029, only 48% of the people actually completed the hike. Again, the weather was absolutely brutal. It was miserable, and I think it caused a lot of people to just drop out that would have finished it in different conditions. Now, the mountain on that one was also very different. It was much steeper. We had to do that one 17 times, but it only took us about an hour each hike up this one. This one was eight laps, a little under 4,000ft of elevation gain each lap, two and a half to three hours each hike up plus a 30 minute gondola down. And the other crazy thing is, over the duration of this event, we hiked 32 miles. I mean, that's a long time to be on your feet for anybody. And then to do it on a mountain, uphill, I mean, it's, it's tough. But because we were together, I think it made us far more likely to succeed. And it actually made the experience far more enjoyable. And even if you look at Kelly's experience, Kelly found a group that collectively picked each other up and helped each other get it done. Kelly wanted to quit after the third lap, and the girl that she was hiking with wanted to quit after the second lap. But they found each other and they lifted each other up. When one was feeling dark, the other one's like, oh, this is my job. Let me pick her up. When the other one was feeling dark, they switched roles. It's all about finding the right people to do life with. The other thing that hit me from doing 29029 is the power of doing something really freaking hard every year. I learned this a couple years ago. I said, hey, it's amazing to chase goals, it's amazing to pursue financial freedom, it's amazing to pursue opportunities. But let's also pursue something that scares the living out of us and is really hard. And so a couple years ago, I decided to ride a bull. The reason I wanted to ride a bull was because I thought if I'm going to speak on stages If I'm going to negotiate business deals, if I'm going to hire people and fire people and make big business decisions that feel scary, I should put myself in a position where I'm really scared. Like really, really scared and see how I feel. And so I got on the back of the bull and realized that no matter how scared you are, 99% chance you're not going to die. And when you ride a bull and then go back and make a business decision, those business decisions seems exponentially easier. The same exact thing is true of 29029. When you show your mind and your body and your spirit that you can do something really, really hard and succeed at it and enjoy it, it makes everything else in your life easier. It makes the bedtime routine with your kids easier. It makes waking up earlier easier. It makes going to work easier. Because you've already done something that was truly hard. You've also had to teach yourself to not listen to your brain. One of the interesting things we talked about on our hike, in addition to trying to come up with a food for every letter of the Alphabet, which we made it to you, and then we struggled, what did we end up coming up with you like udame noodles or udme noodles or something? We missed that one. We had to look that up when we got done, but we made it all the way to you. But anyways, what we looked at when we were on the hike, one of the things that we were just talking about as a group is just, does the mind quit first or does the body quit first? And I think Haley and Melissa were like, hey, the body quits first. And I'm of the mindset that the mind has to tell the body when to quit. So actually in that scenario, I think our mind wants to quit before our body is truly ready. The mind starts to say, your legs hurt. The mind starts to say you're tired. The mind starts to say, you're thirsty. The mind starts to say, that bed in the hotel is going to be really freaking nice. And after a nap, we can go in the hot tub. The body, I think the body is far more capable than we truly give it credit for. And if you look at ultra marathoners, people that run like the Leadville 200 or do 100 mile, 100 mile ultra runs, like, they prove that, like, the body is truly amazing and it is truly capable to do things that you couldn't even possibly believe. The question is, do you have the mindset that can actually help you achieve those things? And I was hiking just Thinking about, how do I train my mind? How do I train my mind? How do I train my mind? The body is easy to train. We already know how to do that. You go to the gym, you hire a trainer, you run, you lift, you focus on your diet. Like, the body, I think, is much easier to train. The mind. I think the mind is really hard to train. But when you figure out how to train the mind, your life starts to become limitless. Because whatever you set out to achieve, regardless of the stories, regardless of the thoughts you have, you know that you are going to succeed in spite of those, because you've already pushed past that point in other events. So 29 oh, 29 for me was all about getting to that breaking point of my mind and pushing past that. So when I get to that breaking point in my mind in business, or I get to that breaking point in my mind with my kids, I recognize that I have more in the tank than I realize, and I just have to keep going. I just have to keep pushing. So we were hiking up the last lap, having a great grand old time. I just wanted to get the shit done. I was moving as quickly as I could. The girls were kind of enjoying it more. We met some new people along the way. Actually, some GoBundance members jumped in with us along the way. And it was. It was funny to watch how the conversations we had on the trail made the hike go way faster. Even if it was just like, small, stupid talk about how bad the Chicago Bears were. It just made the. It made the hike go so fast. As we got to the top, you came out of these woods and you could see the finish line. But the crazy part was the finish line was still a good amount of ways to go. Like, it was probably still, I would say, at least a half a mile to three quarters of a mile. And it's still uphill. So you know you're close to the finish line, but you still got a way to go. And as we got through those trees, we kind of started to celebrate. We knew we were going to finish. And then we started kind of reflecting on what it looked like to summit. And I sat there and thought about, like, all I've wanted to do as one of my goals is to summit Everest. I can say I've summited the elevation of Everest twice. But how does summiting this mountain compare to summary summiting what Everest truly looks like? So I want to look at what summiting Everest truly looks like. So, Jeff, let's pull up what summiting Everest truly looks like. And let's compare it to the experience I had. First of all, I didn't have a headlamp on. It was the middle of the day. Yeah, smart. Second of all, we didn't have a rope. Third of all, we didn't have that snow gear on. Fourth of all, it wasn't snowing and blowing like that. Fifth of all, our climb was not technical at all. It was walking on a trail, and we definitely didn't have oxygen masks on. I read somewhere recently that there was tens of thousands of people who have attempted to summit Everest, but only around 4,000 people have ever actually summited. I mean, look at that, though, dude. The joy to be on top of the world. And the other amazing part about the people that summit Everest is there's Sherpas. There's people that help these guys summit. Like, their job is literally to help somebody summit Mount Everest. And these Sherpas, I think, are the only reason most of the people finish. They carry the gear, they set up the camps. They make sure they stay on the trail. They help them with the tactical parts and the technical parts. Like, those Sherpas are incredible people. But our Everest, summiting that mountain, nothing like we just saw there. I mean, it was cool. Don't get me wrong. It was neat. They have a great finish line. They got some music. You get a red hat. It was fun. You celebrate. But it wasn't anything like that. It was just the top of a nice ski mountain with a restaurant next to a gondola. However, I will say I was still really freaking proud of myself, of my wife, Melissa, of our friend Hayley. It's not an easy challenge. You're tired, you don't sleep much. You have to face many different elements. For us, fortunately, it was only hot and cold. But the first time we did it, it was hot, cold, rain. So then you're having to deal with wet shoes, wet clothes, wet, wet gear. That makes it hard. But it was just an accomplishment. It's something not a lot of people can say. It's something we can all be very proud of. And it's something that we can use as a lesson to take forward in our life regardless of what we're working on or where we're going. Will I do it again? Man, hell, no. I'm not doing that again. I'm. I'm done. Two. Two is enough. Two is enough. I've got so many other goals, so many other things I want to tackle, and so many other hard obstacles and challenges to put on. My goals, to challenge myself each and every year, like next year, I've already signed up for a hundred mile race, ran a marathon, said I'd never do it again, ran a second marathon, said absolutely not, I'll never do it again. And then technically, I'm not running a marathon. I'm running a hundred miles. And I want to do that just again to see where the breaking point of my mind is and, and how I can learn how to push through it and tell my body that we can do incredible things. There's also some unexpected benefits from doing hard things or doing events like this. Like, for me, one of my most unexpected benefits has been the health journey that I've been on. So the first time we did 29029, I was chunkier, I guess is a word you could say. I wasn't totally obese, but I definitely was not in shape. And I was just a chubby boy that liked peanut butter. Like, I love peanut butter, love sweets. And so when the first time we did 29029 at all the aid stations, I hammered all the peanut butter. I mean, you're talking bananas with peanut butter and M M's. You're talking chips with peanut butter and M M's. You're talking scoops of peanut butter with honey. You're talking peanut butter sandwiches like anything with peanut butter. I was game. But by the 17th lap, man, that peanut butter had some different plans for me. I don't think my body could handle that much peanut butter. 17. The first time we did it, that was a brutal lap. Poor Melissa had to just stand and watch me. Crunched over on my hiking poles, contemplating how to kill myself because it was so freaking miserable. Finished it and I just was puking everywhere. Couldn't stop puking. Threw up the soup, threw up the ramen noodles, threw up all the peanut butter, the bananas, the chocolate chips, the M M's. And so this time I did it. I was committed to not touching the peanut butter and I did not touch the peanut butter, which I'm very proud of as well. But the health journey for me was an unexpected benefit of doing something hard. I mean, Jeff, let's pull up the pictures of what I call Fat Matt. I mean, these pictures were just a little bit chunky. I mean, that's Melissa and I, like, that's me when I thought I was going to lose weight. Definitely didn't. There. That's me with the sunburn and a little bit of chunkiness. I mean, that's a dude that had to roll extra large shorts. So they weren't too long, but the mediums didn't fit. Did 29029 discovered that my addiction to sweets was actually bad for me. Now, probably could have done it in a much more efficient way, but I found that sweets were not good for my body, which I could have read all the data and all the literature I wanted on that. For me, I'm one of those people that has to experience it to believe it. And I experienced it, man. I experienced it bad. So I've kind of laid off the sweets. I've just started to avoid the sweets, change my workout routine a little bit. And literally doing 29029 transformed my entire life from a health perspective. I've lost weight. I've reduced the inflammation inside of my body. I feel better. My workouts are better. I can. I can run longer. I can play longer with the kids. Never in my wildest dreams that I think you would tell me, hey, when you do 29, oh, 29, it's gonna. It's gonna kickstart your health journey. Because I don't train for stuff. If I would have trained for stuff, then, yeah, I would have agreed with that because I would have trained for it. But I don't train for stuff. I just think you just figure it out when you get out there and you don't need to train, which I did both times. But for me, man, that health journey has been incredibly beneficial. What if I told you that the biggest breakthrough in your wealth, your health, or your relationships doesn't come from grinding harder, but from finding the right community? Gobundance is a community of over 800 high performers, entrepreneurs, and investors with a combined net worth of over $5.7 billion. But look, it's not just about the money. We're about building lives of abundance inside of gobundance. We hold each other to a higher standard. It's a brotherhood built around six core pillars that touch on every aspect of life. So what does that actually look like? Look at guys like Diego Corzo, who after joining gobundance, became financially free, built a large real estate portfolio, gave a TEDx talk, and even got invited to the White House. Or John Edwin, who doubled his passive income while also helping his son launch a business at the age of 15. Even Daniel Del Rio, who thought he was at gobundance for business growth, but realized he needed to transform his health. Eight Ironmans later, he's a completely different man. This tribe is built for men who've already found success, but know there's another level for our families, our health, our purpose and our legacy. If you're ready for a tribe that challenges you to achieve a higher standard for yourself, visit gobundance.com tribe that's G-O B U N-A-N-C-E.com T R I B E to apply today. This episode is brought to you by Loletta Birnbaum llc. 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You can also visit their website at www.la u l e t a dot com to learn more about how they can do your business justice. This episode is brought to you by Apex Functional Health, the team behind Age defying health at GoBundance. If you're a high achieving entrepreneur, investor or leader, you know that your health is your greatest asset. But the truth is, traditional medicine isn't built for people like you. It treats symptoms, ignores root causes and keeps you stuck in cycles of fatigue, stress and subpar performance. That's where Apex comes in. They do not do band aids. They engineer elite health transformations for men, women and children looking to optimize their health and be proactive instead of reactive. Apex uses root cause functional medicine, advanced lab testing and cutting edge biohacking tools to help you optimize energy, eliminate the root cause holding you back, and reverse early signs of aging so you can live, feel and perform at your best. APEX helps you take control of your health so you can lead with power, not burnout. Visit apexfunctionalhealth.com to schedule your free strategy. Call and see what's possible. When your body finally works for you, not against you, what's slowing your business down? Is it endless emails? Scheduling headaches? Repetitive tasks that steal your time? My outdesk has your solution. Their experienced global virtual assistants handle the busy work so you can focus on strategy, growth and whatever matters to you most. From administrative support to Marketing and customer service, they've got you covered at a fraction of the cost of hiring in house. Scale smarter, save bigger, get the support you need. Today at my outdesk. You know, there's this metaphor that I think comes with Everest. And it's, you know, when you choose to hike Everest, it's not just like you're going to hike a place. You are making a choice to hike the tallest peak in the world. You're making a choice to prepare your body, your mind, have your affairs in order at home to go put your life on the line and do something epic and do something crazy. Now every single person, I think, has their own version of Everest, has their own mountain that they can choose to climb inside of their lives. For some of us, it's business challenges. For some of us it's addiction. For some of us, it's relationship challenges. But we all have our Everest. We, we all have that thing that we want to do that is really fricking tall that stares at us in the face and says, I dare you. Give it a try. Many people make the choice to never conquer their Everest. Many people make the choice to stay at Base Camp and say, wow, the view is beautiful. But I'm going to keep my addiction. I'm going to keep my safe, steady job. I'm going to keep my sick, unhealthy relationship. I'm going to keep my unhealthy body. And they don't really try to take Everest on. For me, 29029 has taught me whatever your Everest looks like, take it on. Stared in the face, go after it. Because on the other side of your Everest is a life that you could never possibly imagine. And the worst thing that happens when you tackle your own Everest or my own Everest is you're right back to where you started. You're right back in Base Camp. Now if you're doing the real Everest, the worst thing that happens is you die and they bury you on the mountain and you never come home, never to be seen or heard from again. But for most of us, our Everest, it's not about life or death. It's about just having a little bit better life. It's about being a little healthier, a little happier, a little bit more proud, showing our kids what it looks like to persevere. I mean, One of the GoBundance members that did this event with us brought his 21 year old daughter along on the trip and she conquered Everest. She did. 29029 and it was inspiring as hell to watch a father and his daughter go through something hard together, cheer one another on together, and then complete 29029 together. So whatever you're facing, the hard things, they're going to expose the truth, they're going to expose your true identity, they're going to reveal who's truly with you on the journey and they're also going to review, reveal what you're truly capable of. I would just encourage you to stop running from the hard things. Just like I have to do to myself every year when I set my goals. Stop running from the hard things, Lean into it, experience it, embrace it, do it with others. Because again, the data shows us you have a 95% chance of completing a health journey with others. Why wouldn't you stack the deck in your favor? Why wouldn't you stack the odds in your favor and put yourself in a position to win and, and win with people around you that support you, that cheer you on and show yourself what you're truly capable of? For me, 29029 has been that, marathons have been that, bull riding has been that. Now we're on to horse racing, which is one of my big goals right now. And a hundred mile race, now the, a hundred mile race for me isn't a race against other people. It is a race against the clock. For that one, we have 32 hours to finish. But it's a race against myself. It's a race against my mind. Can I get to the finish line before my mind tells me to quit? Or can I get to the finish line before my mind allows me to quit? Because my mind shit at mile three is going to tell me to quit. One of the tricks I learned on doing things like this, these hard things, is to find this, this space inside of you, which really can't be found until about 40 to 60 minutes into the journey. But you have to find a soft, safe, quiet place inside of yourself to just sit throughout the pain, sit throughout the voices, sit throughout the negativity. And if you can find that place, it's way easier to accomplish it because the noises become way quieter, the negative voices become way quieter, the pain starts to get muffled a little bit. And you can find that way to persevere through stuff, whatever your mountain is. Everest 29029. Fighting addiction, quitting alcohol, changing your health journey, improving your relationships, quitting your job, whatever it is. It's so simple. You have the choice of whether or not you're going to conquer it. You have the choice of whether or not you're going to attempt to conquer it. And ultimately you have the choice if you're going to accept the status quo. For me, challenging the status quo is one of my core values. I think we were put on this earth to challenge the status quo, to see what we're truly capable of, to see what's truly possible. For many, the status quo is good enough. And bless them, man, that's amazing. Good for them. I'm glad they're happy. But for me, man, the status quo is just not an option. So 29029. Done. Mountain. Done. Hiking. Done. Hiking. Poles. Trashed. Hiking. Headlamp. Trashed. Although I will need that for the 100 miler, so I better take that back. But I'm done. I conquered that challenge. It's on to the next thing and the next thing again. Riding a racehorse in a race for that one got to be £125 with the saddle. So we're going to have to go on a little bit of a weight cutting diet like I did in wrestling. And then after that it's a hundred mile race. Now, one of the things I've committed to for the hundred mile race, and I'll talk about this as I train, I'm not training. I have made a commitment that in order to train for the 100 mile race, at no time will I ever run more than 10 miles in one sitting. I'm not training for this damn thing. And people think I'm crazy. And I am running a hundred mile race with an Achilles tendon that ruptured twice already. But then they think I'm really crazy when I tell them I'm not training. And they ask me, why aren't you training? Now the answer I give most people is who's got time for training? Allen Iverson said it best practice. We're talking about practice. But for me, in reality, the reason I'm not training is I want to get to that breaking point in my mind a lot quicker. I know it's going to come no matter what, no matter how much I train. It's going to suck, it's going to hurt, it's going to be painful, but I want that breaking point to hit me as quickly as it possibly can. And I want the time from breaking point until the time to completion to be as long as it possibly can. Why would you torture yourself that way? Because I know that that is one of the ways that I can train my mind. And I know that the longer I can train my mind to not let myself quit, the longer I can train my mind to not tell my body to quit. The longer I can go in the gym, the longer I can go in the office, the more deals I can do, the more hard conversations I can have, the more present I can be for my children. And for me, it's all about how do I stop listening to the mind so much, start listening to myself, my intuition, my gut, and not let that mind become a master to the slave that is my body. Keep pushing forward. Keep persevering. Keep doing hard shit. At the end of the day, again, we all got an Everest, and it's staring us right in the face. Yours might not be 29,029ft. Yours might be addiction. Yours might be a W2 you hate. Yours might be a hard conversation with a friend that you've put off for three years. Whatever your Everest is my encouragement. Get off your ass and tackle it. Because on the other side of hard is exactly what you're dreaming of. And hell, it's even better than that. There's this famous quote that I absolutely love, and it says that the magic we seek lies in the work that we're unwilling to do. For most of us, it's that Everest that's staring us right in the face. I enjoyed reflecting on 29029 and what doing hard things has taught me in my life. I hope you found some value in it. I hope you're inspired to go tackle your Everest. And remember, the climb's hard. But the view. The view is worth everything. Chase the view. Chase the life you desire. Do something hard.