131 | Kevin Dahlstrom: 15 Reminders For A Happier Life

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:22:05 Kyle Almost a year ago. On November 24th, 2025, you made a post on X for your 50th 55th birthday. I'm going to read it here. Today I turned 55. I'm the fittest, sharpest and happiest I've ever been. If I'm an outlier, it's not because I'm built different or discovered a secret formula. The truth is far less glamorous. It's a million tiny choices compounded over decades.

00:00:22:06 - 00:00:37:23 Kyle And here are 55 of them. So I read all 55 and a lot of them. Like, really hit hard, man, like I. Like, not only did I resonate with a lot of them because it's like how I view how I like to interact with the world.

00:00:37:23 - 00:00:44:03 Kyle But a lot of them were good reminders, especially like now, like I got, you know, everyone's going through stuff all the time.

00:00:44:04 - 00:00:57:09 Kyle You know, we were constantly evolving and changing and we go through lows and highs. And, you know, lately just my life has been a lot. And so a lot of them were just like some pretty, like honest reminders to kind of look in the mirror kind of situation.

00:00:57:09 - 00:00:59:29 Kyle And I've chosen like 15 of them that really stood out.

00:00:59:29 - 00:01:03:00 Kyle And that's kind of like what I want to talk about today is 15 of

00:01:03:05 - 00:01:20:24 Kyle there's one thing that like, I was really thinking about this. So like, none of these lessons that are put in the 55 or the ones that I'm going to bring up today are really that novel, right? You know, when we go through these, we've heard these before, you know, in, in one version or another.

00:01:20:29 - 00:01:30:01 Kyle So, Kevin, my question to you, like before we dive into these talking points, like if these concepts aren't necessarily super novel,

00:01:30:04 - 00:01:33:28 Kyle why do we as humans still need to be reminded of

00:01:34:00 - 00:01:55:02 Kevin Yeah. Great question. So first of all, for a little context for your listeners, the tweet you're referring to is something I wrote last year on my birthday, and it really was just from the heart. Like in my 55 years on earth, here's the life lessons that I've learned. Because in many ways, my whole life, the story of my life is just a quest for what makes a great life.

00:01:55:04 - 00:02:16:28 Kevin And we'll talk about a lot of it today. And as you point out, a lot of it is I refer to myself sometimes as a master of the obvious. You know, I observe things, and sometimes it is the obvious things that that we miss. And, you know, one thing that I've learned over my life is truly the secret to a great life, I believe, is to do ordinary things for an extraordinary length of time.

00:02:17:01 - 00:02:39:20 Kevin There's a there's an author who I love named Annie Dillard. She's kind of a poet and a writer, and she has this quote that I love, and it seems like a really simple, obvious quote, but there's such depth behind it, she says. Everybody has great days. It's great lives that are hard to come by. And what she means by that is all the things that society tells us make a great life.

00:02:39:22 - 00:03:10:13 Kevin You know, all the things we post on Instagram, look at me, don't actually add up to a great life. It's the ordinary, mundane things that if you do them consistently that add up to a great life. And so that's the basis for a lot of the 55 things. And I guess we'll talk about 15 of them today. That's the idea, is that that's sort of the point that, you know, you build a great life by simply doing things that make life better and equally importantly, not doing things that make life worse.

00:03:10:13 - 00:03:14:14 Kevin And it sounds really simple and easy, but it's much harder, much easier said than done.

00:03:14:19 - 00:03:19:18 Kyle How did you narrow it down and how many did you start with before you posted the 55?

00:03:19:20 - 00:03:43:07 Kevin Oh, gosh. Well, that that post actually took a very long time to write and again is a little bit more context. So I, I pretty much only spend time on social media on X or what used to be known as Twitter, because I happen to like the written word. And it started for me back. Remember the two weeks to flatten the curve, lockdowns of of Covid early on?

00:03:43:08 - 00:04:04:02 Kevin They're like, you know, we need to hold up. For two weeks, I'd been a lurker on Twitter. I think I signed up in 2007 originally. So for a long time, and I've always enjoyed writing. And so during that two week lockdown, I was like, you know what? I'm going to start my writing practice again. I like to write in the morning and I'm going to use Twitter as my accountability mechanism.

00:04:04:02 - 00:04:25:11 Kevin So I'm just going to force myself every day to post something, you know, finish something, post something. And I started doing that. And, you know, it evolved very quickly. It's my favorite time of the day now is in the morning with my coffee before the rest of my family wakes up. I'll sit down and write. But the the huge icing on top is it sort of became its own thing.

00:04:25:11 - 00:04:26:07 Kevin And

00:04:26:13 - 00:04:27:13 Kyle People resonated with

00:04:27:13 - 00:04:48:14 Kevin it resonated. And, you know, over the years, I, you know, when you're writing that much every day, thousands and thousands of posts that that thread you're talking about with the 55 Things I've learned was really like a best hits. So I did like I kind of looked back on all the things I had posted and compiled a list.

00:04:48:14 - 00:05:13:23 Kevin There was probably over 100. And then that post, you know, it's I've never really been like a viral viral post guy. Like I've gained all of my followers like onesie tootsie, but they're they're really high quality followers. That's my first post that's ever gone. I would say like mega viral, it was seen by over 8 million people. I got a DM from CNN they wanted they did want to do a little segment with me, like weird stuff like that.

00:05:13:25 - 00:05:19:01 Kevin So yeah, it was like that post was sort of the culmination of everything I had written up to date.

00:05:19:04 - 00:05:40:07 Kyle I love that, and I love when in this digital age of AI slop and just like brain rot, to see content like yours go viral and be recognized and resonate in that way, like it makes me happy. It makes me have like a better view of society about the world and like what we're trying to do as humans.

00:05:40:07 - 00:05:53:01 Kyle Because sometimes, like media, social media, depending on how you view the world, it can kind of like start to look kind of bleak sometimes, and you kind of start to have like a negative view on the world around you and these kind of things. Like, I love hearing these things.

00:05:53:01 - 00:05:53:14 Kyle So

00:05:53:17 - 00:06:17:19 Kevin Yeah. Well thank you. And just so you know, how I my content is, I literally right in the notes app on my Mac and on my phone. So it's completely bare bones. And that's how I like it. Because the thing about writing, first of all, nothing sharpens thinking like writing. But the other thing that people miss about writing is people think that writers, you know, right.

00:06:17:19 - 00:06:30:19 Kevin And then all the readers get the benefit. It's actually the writer who gets the most benefit out of writing. So I always tell people, like, even if you're not a good writer, everyone should write.

00:06:30:22 - 00:06:50:10 Kevin Yes, I think, well, especially for me, because I am a very iterative writer. So my process is if I have an idea and ideas can happen any time of day. My my wife knows that, you know, we might be out walking together and I whip out my phone and write, jot down an idea. I call it a stub, and then I'll come back and I'll add to it.

00:06:50:10 - 00:07:12:06 Kevin And often it percolates for days or weeks. And so speaking when you deliver it, it's got to be all one coherent thing, right? You don't get a chance to refine it over and over and over. Whereas with writing, I actually get a lot of joy out of the the iterative refinement and the polishing.

00:07:12:08 - 00:07:13:17 Kevin Yeah.

00:07:13:19 - 00:07:46:18 Kevin It is, it is. Well, in fact, I believe that that is the difference is a really good speech is very rehearsed. Right. Because you want to be very precise. There's a lot of people who think they can just, you know, speak off the cuff, but it's never going to be as good as something that's practiced.

00:07:46:21 - 00:07:49:05 Kevin Yeah.

00:07:49:07 - 00:07:51:07 Kevin Right.

00:07:51:09 - 00:08:10:29 Kevin Right. So I don't want to get us too far off the rails, but I have a great piece of advice for anyone who is afraid of public speaking, wants to public speak, whatever, because I've done over a thousand, like, presentations in my career, in my life. And my rule of thumb is that you do need to be very rehearsed.

00:08:10:29 - 00:08:29:06 Kevin In fact, my rule of thumb is rehearse your speech ten times, but it's not for the reason you think you might think. It's so that you can just have it all memorized and not make any mistakes. But that can be very performative. The reason you want to have it dialed is because that gives you the freedom to go off script.

00:08:29:07 - 00:08:56:07 Kevin Now I can go off script knowing I can always come back to the parts I know. And so for me and my my two daughters who are now in college, they know, if you ask them, what's dad's key to public speaking, they'll say, rehearse it ten times and it works. Countless people have tried that, and it works. That rehearsal is the key to then not being performative.

00:08:56:09 - 00:09:11:03 Kevin Yep. There's a speech I give. It is a keynote called How to Build a Kick Ass Life, and I've given it a bunch of times, and every time it's different, but the contents always the same. I could deliver the same one over and over if I wanted to, but that's no fun.

00:09:11:08 - 00:09:15:19 Kyle I like that. That's a great, great perspective. Okay, so are you ready to dive into

00:09:15:21 - 00:09:16:18 Kevin let's do it.

00:09:16:20 - 00:09:33:09 Kyle Number one, have a clear vision for your future. How can you decide which direction to go if you haven't clearly defined the destination? It sounds obvious, but 95% of people haven't defined their ideal end state in detail and in writing.

00:09:33:12 - 00:09:59:25 Kevin well, as part of my own journey, I came up with this exercise eight years ago that I call the ideal end state. And it's not a very sexy name, but I haven't thought of anything better. And it's an incredibly simple but powerful exercise. So literally what you do, you get out, you know, a piece of paper. If you're an old school person, or I use the notes app on my phone and you literally pull it out, if you had no constraints on your life, what would it look like?

00:09:59:26 - 00:10:16:19 Kevin And it's usually 20 or 30 bullets. And be the more descriptive, the better. And to be clear, it's not a bucket list. It's not like I want to visit Tokyo and I want to do this and I want to make $1 million. It's more of a state of being. It's like, who would you be around? How would you spend your time?

00:10:16:21 - 00:10:40:20 Kevin You know, how would it feel? And so there's things on my list like get sunshine almost every day like that. You want you want it to really conjure an image of what that that life looks like. And as I said in the post, it's kind of crazy that if you asked 100 people, have you actually taken the time to write down what your ideal life would look like?

00:10:40:23 - 00:10:58:09 Kevin At least 95 would say no. We all have some vague picture in our mind. But what I found now that I did the exercise myself, I developed it out of my own need when I was kind of rebuilding my life. And then I've now done it with dozens and dozens and dozens of people, from broke college kids to literal billionaires.

00:10:58:12 - 00:11:25:11 Kevin And when you take the time to actually write it down, it hits different. It turns out different than what you imagined in your mind. The most notable thing is that when most people search their heart and write down their ideal in state, it usually doesn't involve the things that society tells us it should involve. Like most people on their ideal end state, it does not say drive a Ferrari and it doesn't say live in a 10,000 square foot house.

00:11:25:11 - 00:11:52:13 Kevin It'll say things like control my time and spend more time with friends and family and travel a little bit more. And so that's powerful in itself. And that like, oh wait, maybe I don't need $10 million to live the life I want. The other thing it's useful for is to identify the gaps in your life. So, you know, as I said earlier, you know, you build a great life by doing things that make your life better and not doing things that might make your life worse.

00:11:52:13 - 00:12:04:27 Kevin Once you've got an ideal instate defined, you do things that move you closer to it, and you do not do things that move you further from it.

00:11:59:17 - 00:12:04:27 Kyle clear vision allows you to make more accurate decisions on a day to day basis towards the goal that you've

00:12:05:00 - 00:12:26:00 Kevin Absolutely. So. So a simple example. My own ideal end state. One of the bullets on there, there's like 25 maybe one of the bullets says control 80% of my time. Well that right away is a litmus test for work opportunities. If if there's a work opportunity that's going to dominate my time, then that probably doesn't fit with my ideal in state.

00:12:26:00 - 00:12:51:19 Kevin And by the way, at 55, I've earned the right to pick my work. Right. So it's not it's not a, you know, it's not a birthright to live any way you want. It can take decades to, to to reach your ideal end state. And it should be aspirational, but it provides an incredible mechanism for deciding, you know, for making big life decisions often.

00:12:51:22 - 00:12:51:27 Kevin

00:12:52:00 - 00:13:08:07 Kevin It's a great question. So when you're younger, it probably changes more often because your values change over time. You've all as a human, when you're my age, it should be pretty fixed. And if you look at my list, which I publish online of the 30 or whatever items on there, I've checked off all but like four, and that's how it should be.

00:13:08:08 - 00:13:31:01 Kevin Like, by the time you get to be my age, you really should be pretty close. In an ideal situation, you're pretty close to your ideal in state. When you're in your 20s, you may have only checked off one out of out of 30. Right? And so and by the way, it's totally fine if it changes. The point is, at any given time, if you feel like you've changed as a person, sit down and and redo the ideal instate exercise.

00:13:31:01 - 00:13:48:29 Kevin By the way, if you have a partner or a spouse, it's the way I recommend doing it is you each do it separately and then get a bottle of wine and come together. It's it's a fun discussion because you really find out if you're on the same page or not. And by the way, you don't have to be on the same page about.

00:13:48:29 - 00:13:53:21 Kevin My wife and I are very, very different, but hopefully there's at least some of it that's shared, right?

00:13:53:25 - 00:14:00:14 Kevin Yeah.

00:14:00:16 - 00:14:25:11 Kyle If we are pursuing one of these things on our life list, and in the pursuit of that, obtaining that final destination seems to get further and further away. How like at what point do we realize that it's something that's either unattainable or like, you know what I

00:14:25:11 - 00:14:28:29 Kevin I mean like, yeah. Unrealistic. Yeah.

00:14:29:05 - 00:14:32:20 Kyle How do you decide between, like, hoping, discipline

00:14:32:27 - 00:14:35:08 Kevin Right. And yeah.

00:14:35:14 - 00:14:57:00 Kevin I think it's a balance. I mean look, we all know we have we all have an innate sense of our limitations and dream big. But do you know. Right. An ideal instate that's achievable. And what's nice again I want to emphasize one other that what what helps with that a little bit is the ideal end state is not about like goals and metrics, right.

00:14:57:02 - 00:15:17:03 Kevin Which may or may not be realistic. It's about how you want to feel on a day to day basis and how you want to spend your time. And you know, the the truth is, if it feels like you're not making progress toward it or if you're drifting further from it, what that means is one of two things. You're either not aligning your actions with your ideal and state.

00:15:17:04 - 00:15:39:26 Kevin Because, look, if I need to move 1 million pound pile of rocks, if I move 1 pound a day, it's going to take a while, but I will eventually get there. So you're either not living in alignment or you got your ideal end state wrong. And that's entirely that's nothing wrong with that. Like, oh, I thought I wanted this kind of life, but actually observing my actions, I really don't.

00:15:39:27 - 00:15:57:27 Kevin I was kidding myself. I, you know, I don't want to, you know, I don't really want to climb 514 because my actions suggest that I would rather drink beer with buddies, and that's fine. Like nothing wrong. Just don't lie to yourself.

00:15:57:29 - 00:16:28:07 Kyle Let's be real for a second. The blueprint for a successful climbing podcast is simple. Interview the most famous climbers in the world. Big names mean big followings, lots of SEO power, and a built in audience that helps boost every episode. But this show, this show has never been about that. From the beginning, I have made it my mission to interview the climbing majority, the people who don't live in the limelight, people quietly putting up roots, building communities and giving back to us in ways that are hardly recognized.

00:16:28:09 - 00:16:43:23 Kyle Well, that's what makes this show special. It also means we have an uphill battle when it comes to growth, and that is where you come in. If you've been psyched on the show. Word of mouth is one of the single most important ways you can help. Support. Share an episode with a friend. Post about us on social media.

00:16:43:24 - 00:16:55:06 Kyle Jump onto Reddit threads and Mountain Project forums and tell people what you've been listening to. You are a part of the majority as well, and it's time to let people know about it.

00:16:55:09 - 00:17:05:24 Kevin Number two, do hard things.

00:17:05:27 - 00:17:11:13 Kevin Yeah.

00:17:11:15 - 00:17:50:10 Kevin Yeah. I mean, that's the whole thing is nobody wants to hear it. And it's it's almost cliche, but it's discipline plus consistency, you know. And we are great at making excuses for why we can't. But the truth is the only thing holding you back is your own fear. Like it turns out you can just do things. You can pretty much do whatever you want within reason, of course, but we're quick to cite all sorts of reasons why we can't move to a better place, why we can't get out of our job, why we have to stay in this toxic relationship, whatever.

00:17:50:10 - 00:18:15:10 Kevin And it's mostly BS, like, you can just pull the plug on a life that you don't like. Now, that doesn't mean it's easy. It's scary, but you actually can do that. And more people need to do that. You know, fear everything you want is on the other side of fear. That's fear is the whole ballgame. When you trace back all these reasons that you can't, it all sort of goes down to fear if you keep asking questions.

00:18:15:10 - 00:18:39:26 Kevin So that is the whole ball game is making bold moves. And I got to hang out with and actually watch a keynote presentation by a climber you may have heard of named Lynn Hill the other day. I'm joking. Everyone's heard of Lin Hill and she she gave her she did an hour long presentation on her life story and shared all these amazing, like old school photos.

00:18:39:26 - 00:19:05:17 Kevin It was incredible talk, but at the end of it, she said something that I think I was the only one who was blown away by this. She said, you know, I'm 65 years old. And one thing I've learned, I've never had a real job, and one thing I've learned over my lifetime is things tend to work out, and that things tend to work out is something most people don't embrace.

00:19:05:19 - 00:19:27:21 Kevin When you make bold moves for the right reason, things do tend to work out. You know the universe is rooting for you, and so you have to make the first move though, right? First, the first the bold move, then the reward. And so yeah, that's the whole ball game.

00:19:27:23 - 00:19:52:06 Kevin Yeah. So I mean, the thing I think that kind of put me on the map, if you will, on X was my story of I worked my way all the way up the corporate ladder, literally to the top was a sea level executive at a multi-billion dollar company making, you know, I'm not saying this to be arrogant, but I was making millions of dollars a year, and right at the height of that, as a made man, I pulled the plug on it.

00:19:52:06 - 00:19:53:08 Kyle Doing what.

00:19:53:10 - 00:19:53:20 Kevin

00:19:53:22 - 00:20:17:25 Kevin I was a marketing executive. So yeah, I started a couple companies and then through mergers and acquisitions and stuff, ended up working for these bigger companies. And I was a brand turnaround specialist. So I did rebrands for public. My claim to fame if you I don't really talk about my my career that much these days, but I am the only person I think as a as a or chief marketing officer to rebrand three public companies.

00:20:17:25 - 00:20:37:20 Kevin So I'm a brand guy. I still love marketing stuff. I love brand stuff. That's what I still do some consulting and advisory work. But what happened was I was the cliche of the guy who made it all the way to the top of the mountain and then looked around and was like, oh, I climbed the wrong mountain. This isn't this is the life that I want at all.

00:20:37:23 - 00:21:07:10 Kevin And so I did something really hard and scary, which is I pulled the plug completely on that life moved my family from Dallas to Boulder, Colorado, with no plan going forward. My wife didn't want to move. My teenage daughters didn't want to move. I wasn't a very popular guy, but but I did have a secret weapon for me at least, that helped me overcome the fear, which is I believe that people rarely will make change to run away from something like we have a huge tolerance for pain.

00:21:07:10 - 00:21:28:26 Kevin We'll stay in a bad situation forever. When people do make changes, usually because they're running to something that's irresistible. And to me, the thing I was running to is this thing called rock climbing that I really, really liked. And I knew that there was a lot more rock climbing in Boulder, Colorado than there was in Dallas, and I knew I was at the time 48, so I wasn't a spring chicken.

00:21:28:28 - 00:21:54:16 Kevin My window of, you know, going climbing a lot was not going to last forever. And so I had something very clear. I knew that I wanted to climb a lot. That's what I knew. So I pulled the plug on the whole thing. And again, you know, it's it's a right that was earned. Like my wife was willing to go along and trust me because I had a pretty darn good track record over 20 plus years of providing for the family, being the family man.

00:21:54:21 - 00:22:18:07 Kevin But and it was the best decision I ever made. And back to this idea of, you know, bold moves are usually rewarded. Fortune favors the bold. Great example of it. Like, did things turn out exactly as I thought they would? No, actually, they turned out much better. It was way better than I could have imagined.

00:22:18:09 - 00:22:37:08 Kevin It was one of those slowly then all at once things so that that that virus was planted in me. The day I stepped into a rock climbing gym in 1998, I was like, something clicked immediately and many climbers had that story. You probably feel the same way. Like, oh, this is what I'm going to do this for the rest of my life.

00:22:37:10 - 00:22:53:16 Kevin And you know, you know how that virus grows over time. It starts to consume your life. And so ultimately, that was the that was the catalyst is I wanted more and more and more of that. And

00:22:53:19 - 00:22:55:20 Kevin So it's years that led up to a moment in time.

00:22:55:20 - 00:23:19:13 Kevin I have a cool story. So, not many people have actually heard this story. And again, I'm not, I'm not. This story is going to sound braggadocio, but I'm just it's a cool story. So in September of 2017, I'm out for an evening run and godforsaken Dallas, Texas concrete jungle. I lived in the burbs in a McMansion, and I get a phone call from the CEO of my company.

00:23:19:13 - 00:23:40:03 Kevin It was with this huge company. We were in the process of selling the company. I was on the deal team and he's like, hey, we've got a meeting with masa tomorrow at his home in in Silicon Valley. I need you to be at DFW Private Terminal tomorrow morning at seven. And masa, he was talking to his master's son, who's a legendary business tycoon, multi-billionaire.

00:23:40:06 - 00:24:04:19 Kevin He had this private equity fund. It was $100 billion private equity fund, the largest one ever created. They were looking to buy companies like ours. So I show up at DFDS Private Terminal the next morning. And I'd flown private before because in the upper echelons of business, you do that. But it turns out what I didn't realize was the jet was just for me that day, because the rest of our team was in New York, and we're flying to San Francisco from New York.

00:24:04:20 - 00:24:25:23 Kevin I had a 14 seat private jet to myself with just the the flight attendant. I had this picture of me in this plane by myself, just smiling like an idiot, you know? But it was a pretty cool, like, I grew up in a pretty challenging environment in a small town in Texas. My first job was bagging groceries at $3.05 an hour at the local Safeway supermarket.

00:24:25:23 - 00:24:45:05 Kevin So it was a long way from there to there. And so we get to California. We meet at this guy Mesa's home, which is at the time was the most expensive home in the US, $150 million. It was nut nut. So like a complete servants everywhere, you know, gold inlay, priceless art we have. I get into this his dining room.

00:24:45:05 - 00:24:59:27 Kevin We're going to have like a 30 seat dining table. We're going to have this meeting. It's like a who's who of Wall Street there. I'm the lead off pitch man, and I finished my little part. I'm looking around the table and here I am like literally, it doesn't get any higher than that in business. That's the pinnacle of business.

00:25:00:00 - 00:25:18:00 Kevin I'm looking around and I was like, I don't want to be here. Like all these guys. I knew a bunch of them. I knew they were not happy people. In fact, a lot of them were just assholes. They had broken families. They weren't healthy. They certainly didn't have a passion like rock climbing. And so the urge I had was to run.

00:25:18:00 - 00:25:39:00 Kevin And so long winded answer your question. But it was a slow process that led up to that moment. I think it was two weeks later I quit. Yeah. It was like it was just an epiphany. That and again, you know, I get a lot of comments like, well, it's easy to do when you're a rich guy. And yes, that is true when you've I did well in my career, gave me the freedom, but that was earned.

00:25:39:00 - 00:25:47:11 Kevin And I can tell you that I know, I don't know a single other person at that level of business who has punched out like that.

00:25:47:11 - 00:25:49:27 Kevin So it's.

00:25:50:00 - 00:26:01:19 Kevin That's right. In some ways it's more scary because you have so much more. All your friends around you are saying, are you insane? Like, do you know what you're walking away from? But again, best decision I ever made.

00:26:01:21 - 00:26:02:02 Kevin

00:26:02:05 - 00:26:06:09 Kevin Quite literally.

00:26:06:12 - 00:26:10:15 Kevin Yeah.

00:26:10:18 - 00:26:33:01 Kevin I'm done, I'm done. Yeah. And ironically, like, even though I did fine, I did well financially, the the bulk of my earning was yet to happen. I mean, I was that peak period and you know, but the thing about it is like we know through climbing that, you know, what's the thing a climber wants more than anything, it's just to have control of their time so they can climb all the time.

00:26:33:02 - 00:26:57:26 Kevin And so it doesn't take tons of millions of dollars to live that lifestyle. And so I, the people I knew from the climbing world, in fact, even today, most of my best friends come from climbing, not business, because we're more values aligned. And, you know, the the happiest people I know are in the climbing world. They have purpose, they're fit.

00:26:57:29 - 00:27:03:15 Kevin They have great, a great community, and they're not. Most of them are not rich.

00:27:03:17 - 00:27:25:29 Kyle To someone listening to this, hearing your story inspired maybe in a in a kind of a of a job themselves and are inspired by this pivot, you know, the unique situation that you were in. You know, you are well off with capital. You have money, you have you know, it's not a financial real risk that someone else would

00:27:26:01 - 00:27:27:10 Kevin I had a safety net.

00:27:27:15 - 00:27:29:23 Kyle net that you earned over

00:27:29:25 - 00:27:31:09 Kevin Many years. Yeah.

00:27:31:16 - 00:27:43:11 Kyle working for someone who might not be in that exact situation, but is inspired to kind of like make a pivot in their life to to what, a turn around from the mountain that they're trying

00:27:43:13 - 00:27:50:22 Kevin Yeah.

00:27:50:24 - 00:27:51:16 Kevin Yeah.

00:27:51:23 - 00:28:14:22 Kevin Number one is do the ideal end state exercise. The first step is always to define what life are you trying to build. Because you can't price that life until you define that life. And that'll give you a sense of sort of like, okay, what kind of cash flow do I need to to live this, this lifestyle? And then don't be afraid to pivot like, you know, where there's a will, there's a way.

00:28:14:23 - 00:28:33:18 Kevin And this is back to that. You know, you know, everything you want is on the other side of fear. If you are in a dead end job, then you may need to pivot. And, you know, pivoting early involves less of a safety net. But you know what? You have the huge advantage. I didn't have, like I had a safety net, but I was 48, right?

00:28:33:21 - 00:28:54:17 Kevin If I'd much rather have been honestly like 30 and made that pivot with less of a safety net, because think of all those years I could have optimized for experience instead of, you know, yeah, climbing the right mountain. So now that all that said, what my caveat to that is everything is earned. And there are seasons of life.

00:28:54:18 - 00:29:16:01 Kevin Like there's there's a season to put your head down and grind. When I meet with a lot of younger, mostly guys who are like, I want the life you've got. And I'm like, great. All it takes is 25 years of hard work seriously. Because, you know, there was a long season where I put my head down and, you know, I was grinding, I was raising a family, whatever.

00:29:16:04 - 00:29:25:18 Kevin Yeah. And so there are seasons. There's a, there's a, there's a price of entry. But to note that price of entry is you have to know what you're trying to enter. Like what kind of life are you trying to build.

00:29:25:18 - 00:29:26:11 Kyle

00:29:26:13 - 00:29:36:11 Kyle The interesting thing was for you is that you didn't have a clear vision of what the other mountain was until after the season was over. It's not like you were like, I'm going to commit, you know, 15 years to this and then I can pivot

00:29:36:13 - 00:29:39:29 Kevin Yes.

00:29:40:01 - 00:29:42:25 Kevin No.

00:29:42:28 - 00:30:05:29 Kevin Totally. My Twitter bio used to say I learned everything the hard way so you don't have to. But it's funny, but it really is true. It's like I learned everything to trial and error. I had zero mentors. All I was surrounded by growing up was people doing bad things and with bad ideas. And there wasn't, you know, in my era of being an adolescent or whatever, there wasn't social media.

00:30:06:00 - 00:30:22:23 Kevin Not that social media is a good influence, but there wasn't anyone to learn from. And so I truly did have to kind of like I thought I was winning for all those years. I was working my way up the ladder, and in some ways I was winning at that game, but I was playing the wrong game.

00:30:22:25 - 00:30:34:18 Kevin Interesting.

00:30:34:21 - 00:30:37:22 Kevin Yeah.

00:30:37:24 - 00:30:42:23 Kevin Had I been more deliberate? Had I heard this podcast at 35,

00:30:42:23 - 00:30:42:29 Kyle Yeah

00:30:42:29 - 00:31:00:28 Kevin maybe I maybe I would have. Yeah. And by the way, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a really important concept here that that seems to resonate with a lot of people, which is the concept of a time billionaire. Have you heard this concept? Okay, so I'll mention it really quickly then.

00:31:01:00 - 00:31:22:29 Kevin Is so 1,000,000,000 seconds is about 30 years. So basically if you're, let's say 50 or younger, you're a time billionaire, you still have 1,000,000,000 seconds to live and that is your most valuable asset. How will you use and invest those billion seconds? And when I say that sometimes people will roll their eyes or like, whatever, dude. Like I'd rather have $1 billion than 1,000,000,000 seconds.

00:31:22:29 - 00:31:43:24 Kevin And I say, not so fast, because you look at someone like Warren Buffett, who's worth $150 billion but is 97 years old, he would gladly trade every penny he has to have 1,000,000,000 seconds left. So you truly are wealthier than Warren Buffett. The question is, how are you going to invest your fabulous riches? Are you going to invest it in singing in an office?

00:31:43:25 - 00:32:00:29 Kevin And maybe, maybe you trade some of your days for sitting in an office and earning money so that you could you can then pursue something you want. Or maybe you decide earlier, like, I want to live a simpler life. And so I'm not going to trade a bunch of my days sitting in an office or doing some dead end job.

00:32:01:01 - 00:32:05:03 Kevin Why do you think?

00:32:05:05 - 00:32:08:16 Kevin Yeah.

00:32:08:18 - 00:32:14:07 Kevin Not value.

00:32:14:10 - 00:32:21:07 Kevin Right?

00:32:21:10 - 00:32:25:19 Kevin Yeah.

00:32:25:22 - 00:32:39:11 Kevin Well, it's it's because when you're young, time seems infinite, right? I mean, do you remember when you were, like, 15 and you couldn't wait to be 16 to get your driver's license or 21 so you could order a beer at.

00:32:39:11 - 00:32:42:04 Kevin The bar?

00:32:42:06 - 00:33:07:10 Kevin Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Because time seems infinite. But go talk to a bunch of people who are like my age or older and ask them if time feels infinite. It doesn't. So you get a reality check. I actually think it like around the age of 50, you start thinking more existential for sure. It's different. And all of a sudden, like all this stupid money and status games that we play seem kind of silly.

00:33:07:11 - 00:33:10:23 Kevin It's like, what am I really doing here?

00:33:10:25 - 00:33:18:07 Kyle don't know if you agree with this, but I feel like as modern

00:33:18:10 - 00:33:29:03 Kevin Yeah.

00:33:29:05 - 00:33:31:12 Kevin Totally. I

00:33:31:15 - 00:33:55:12 Kevin mean, we could do a whole podcast on like the disintegration of the family unit and the impacts that's had on society. And, you know, I don't want to turn this into a political thing, but, you know, I'm a huge I mean, I have two kids and been married for 29 years. I there's nothing better in the world than having a marriage that lasts and having, you know, a close family unit.

00:33:55:12 - 00:34:00:10 Kevin That's it. It's the whole even better than climbing.

00:34:00:12 - 00:34:01:11 Kyle All right, ready for

00:34:01:13 - 00:34:02:01 Kevin Yeah.

00:34:02:07 - 00:34:09:07 Kyle Only take advice from people who embody the traits you want to have. Talk is cheap. Emulate those who have done

00:34:09:10 - 00:34:10:01 Kevin Yeah.

00:34:10:03 - 00:34:30:07 Kevin This is something to be really careful about on social media, because most people who have big followings on social media, the life they portray is not what their real life is. So before you emulate somebody, inspect their whole life like, yeah, they may be really wealthy and they live this jetset lifestyle, but what are their relationships look like?

00:34:30:07 - 00:34:49:21 Kevin What is their marriage look like? What are their relationship with their kids look like? What is their health look like? You know, one thing I observed being I've spent many years in the upper echelons of business, and I'd say the vast majority of people who are at the top level in business are actually pretty miserable people. And that was one of the things that was a huge turnoff for me.

00:34:49:21 - 00:35:14:20 Kevin And then I would meet people in the climbing world who seemed really, really happy. And they didn't have much. They had, you know, not a lot of money in the travel around in a van and climbed and hung out with friends. And that was pretty appealing. So the point there being like, you know, if you're going to if you're going to emulate someone or if you're going to have a mentor, just inspect closely, you know, scrutinize their life and make sure that you want their whole life.

00:35:14:24 - 00:35:30:18 Kyle It's also back to that concept of the ideal end state, right? If you're focused on these tangible things that are appearing or are easily detectable from like outside perspective, and you rather than focusing on that ideal end state where you're talking about more

00:35:30:21 - 00:35:31:11 Kevin Yeah,

00:35:31:11 - 00:35:32:27 Kyle you can't see that from the

00:35:32:29 - 00:35:34:04 Kevin yeah.

00:35:34:07 - 00:35:37:09 Kyle state of being by watching them post on Instagram.

00:35:37:10 - 00:35:39:18 Kyle Like, you have to meet them. You have to see them.

00:35:39:21 - 00:35:41:09 Kevin Yeah.

00:35:41:11 - 00:35:59:24 Kevin And we're really good pattern matchers as human. Like when you meet with somebody, you can tell, you can pick up on their vibe and you can tell whether they're happy and whether they're someone worth emulating you. Like, we're we're actually pretty good. But you know, there's so we're bombarded 24 over seven with this false image of what success looks like.

00:35:59:24 - 00:36:18:09 Kevin And you know, when we say, like, if I told you, you know, that guy Tom, he's really successful, you would immediately think I'm talking about money, because that's exactly how. But when I say success, when I think about success, it's more of like, do they have a great life? Right? Money is obviously you have to. We all have to pay the bills.

00:36:18:09 - 00:36:39:18 Kevin Money is important, but money is one of the least important dimensions. Like you'd rather be super healthy and fit than have a bunch of money. If you had to choose between the two. It is it's it is different. And that's why the ideal instate exercise is so important. It's like what you're really doing is defining your definition of success.

00:36:39:21 - 00:36:56:17 Kyle This particular concept, you know, you kind of like bringing this back to climbing. You had for your 50th birthday, set a goal to climb 5 or 10. Five. 13. Yeah. You know, as someone you'd been climbing since

00:36:56:19 - 00:36:57:23 Kevin Yeah.

00:36:57:26 - 00:37:01:27 Kyle seems like you had kind of like a you did not live a

00:37:01:29 - 00:37:04:23 Kevin Yeah, yeah.

00:37:04:23 - 00:37:09:07 Kyle It wasn't until you actually got out of this

00:37:09:10 - 00:37:10:05 Kevin Write

00:37:10:08 - 00:37:15:27 Kyle And so, you know, climbing 5 or 10, five, 13 is at the age of

00:37:15:29 - 00:37:16:23 Kevin Yeah.

00:37:16:25 - 00:37:16:28 Kevin And

00:37:16:28 - 00:37:20:10 Kyle seems like you ran into a pro climber who told you that you had zero

00:37:20:12 - 00:37:20:24 Kevin Yeah.

00:37:20:25 - 00:37:21:13 Kevin And so

00:37:21:17 - 00:37:27:03 Kyle back to this concept of, you know, emulate people who have done it. This is someone who could probably

00:37:27:05 - 00:37:27:10 Kevin do.

00:37:27:10 - 00:37:28:00 Kevin That right.

00:37:28:01 - 00:37:33:07 Kevin Like how did it.

00:37:33:10 - 00:37:33:19 Kevin It was.

00:37:33:25 - 00:37:56:19 Kevin Exactly the motivation I needed. And by the way, there's a chance that this woman, this pro climber who told me this new new that and. And I think she did know in the back of her mind who she was talking to, because what I was going to say about that is there's an override over all this other stuff that I've talked about, which is only you know who you are, right?

00:37:56:21 - 00:38:16:21 Kevin Nobody else can tell you who you are. I knew I could do it. I knew it would be hard and a big stretch. And just for context, they're the first 20 years of my climbing career. I was a trad dad. I mean, climbed a lot, traveled all over, climbed. But as we all know, like treads, just a different ball game.

00:38:16:21 - 00:38:39:28 Kevin And where I learned to climb. If you're a 511 trad climber, you're a badass. Like, you know, 511 trad. Some of these areas is equivalent to climbing something in the 512 in sport. And so I had a really good base, but I had never even tried anything harder than like 12 B or C. And so when I turned 50, I was like, I'm going to try to send, I'd like to send a 13 a.

00:38:40:00 - 00:39:02:27 Kevin That was my original life goal for sport. And why not just do ten of them? Because I was able to climb basically full time during that period, and I ended up pulling it off on December 9th, I think of that year. Yeah, I sent two right before 213, right before a big snowstorm came in and shut down the Flatirons for the season.

00:39:02:27 - 00:39:39:27 Kevin So yeah, it was pretty cool. I succeeded. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. And, you know, the funny thing was there was no structured plan, no training regimen. I just climbed a ton. I was climbing 3 to 5 times a week. And it turns out I talked about this with Eric Horse. Like just throwing yourself at really hard stuff is a form of training, and I was developing a new skill set around projecting and, you know, pulling like V7 moves, which I'd never even tried a V7 move in my life, but had to do some to send some of these roots or v6 whatever.

00:39:39:27 - 00:39:44:11 Kevin So, so yeah, it was a, it was a journey, but really fulfilling to pull it off.

00:39:44:14 - 00:39:50:19 Kyle a lot of training is specifically built around filling time that you can't spend actually climbing. Right?

00:39:50:22 - 00:39:51:07 Kevin Yeah.

00:39:51:15 - 00:39:57:07 Kyle jobs working on a five. It's like, I can't go out to Red Rock after my job and climb a multi pitch, but I can

00:39:57:10 - 00:39:59:23 Kevin Yeah.

00:39:59:25 - 00:40:00:16 Kevin Yeah I'm sure

00:40:00:16 - 00:40:06:00 Kyle are some like if you're really at a level, you have to specifically train certain modalities to

00:40:06:03 - 00:40:07:09 Kevin Totally.

00:40:07:12 - 00:40:17:06 Kyle yeah, I mean, I think there's so many pro athletes that like that I've spoken with or like very successful climbers that are like, yeah, I don't really train, I just

00:40:17:09 - 00:40:17:23 Kevin Yeah.

00:40:17:24 - 00:40:18:29 Kevin What I like.

00:40:19:01 - 00:40:19:28 Kevin That's not.

00:40:20:00 - 00:40:57:25 Kevin Not a bad life. I mean I've been climbing for a long time and I believe that any reasonably athletic person, if you climb a lot, can climb like 13 A because there are a lot of 13 A's out there that are basically just sustained 12 AB. And but I do believe if you want to get to that next number, grade 14 A, which is still kind of on my list, you do have to get more serious about it, not just with training, but you got to get way more dialed with diet and all the details, especially if you're an older climber, especially if you're the biggest climber at the crag, which I almost always am.

00:40:57:25 - 00:41:05:01 Kevin I'm a very heavy big climber, and so I'm still debating whether I want to actually make that sacrifice to try to.

00:41:05:01 - 00:41:06:18 Kevin Get there.

00:41:06:21 - 00:41:14:23 Kyle recently about this, like to to to climb a certain grade, you have to kind of like adapt yourself as a human

00:41:14:25 - 00:41:15:20 Kevin Yeah.

00:41:15:23 - 00:41:19:06 Kyle requires of you. And like you said, it's like it's not just like, oh, I need to train my fingers.

00:41:19:06 - 00:41:24:03 Kyle It's like, no, you need to you need to live a lifestyle that a 514

00:41:24:05 - 00:41:26:18 Kevin Exactly.

00:41:26:21 - 00:41:32:21 Kevin That is 100% true. And are you willing to live that lifestyle?

00:41:32:23 - 00:41:49:04 Kevin And you know, that year that I, you know, whatever, you know, for the whole year basically climbed 3 to 5 times a week, always on hard stuff. I look back on pictures of me back then I was like, Holy cow, I was in really, really good shape. I want to get back in that shape again, it turns out.

00:41:49:05 - 00:42:06:19 Kevin Who knew, right? If you climb, what, 50 times 200 days out of the year on 513, you get you get in pretty good shape. Plus, in the Flatirons, every one of those sessions is 45 minute uphill hike to get to the base.

00:42:06:22 - 00:42:10:06 Kevin Oh, dude, red rocks.

00:42:10:08 - 00:42:28:18 Kyle We'll get back to talking in just one minute. First, there's something I need to be honest with you about after five years of producing this podcast. There's been a hard truth that I had to realize. It's been a terrible business decision in person. Interviews with professional video and audio quality take a lot of money to produce, and they give back very little.

00:42:28:19 - 00:42:58:12 Kyle For instance, my trip to Washington to interview Noah Kane, Ryan Jenks and Stephen Dimmitt in person literally cost me thousands of dollars out of pocket. Even other big creators in this space have questioned my entire approach, but I'm unwilling to sacrifice the quality that I want to bring to this show. So if you value the production level just as much as I do, value the depth of the conversations that we have on this show, or just have had an episode that's really stuck with you, there is a real way you can help become a Patreon member.

00:42:58:13 - 00:43:09:17 Kyle You'll help offset the real costs that it takes to produce this show. You'll unlock the ad free version of every episode and get access to exclusive content. If any of this resonates with you. Click the link in the show notes,

00:43:09:17 - 00:43:13:02 Kyle Thanks for listening. And now back to the show.

00:43:13:05 - 00:43:13:22 Kyle We.

00:43:13:25 - 00:43:19:27 Kyle You know, I've broached this kind of thought concept a lot in this show. Is just the four words to describe what

00:43:20:00 - 00:43:22:20 Kevin Yes, dude.

00:43:22:20 - 00:43:36:13 Kevin I really enjoyed that. You kind of challenged me with that the other day when we talked. And I'm going to pull up my notes because I wrote it down. I took that challenge as like, what's my why? And for and say it in.

00:43:36:13 - 00:43:39:08 Kevin Forwards, right?

00:43:39:09 - 00:43:48:23 Kevin You gave me a list which I thought was good and I rank ordered them initially. And then I was like, wait, are those really mine? So I came up with four different ones that are related. So let me.

00:43:48:24 - 00:43:48:29 Kevin Run.

00:43:48:29 - 00:43:49:26 Kevin Through.

00:43:49:29 - 00:44:18:17 Kevin In order of importance. So number one is community, which is a little different than relationships. You said relationships. I think community is like the aggregate of relationships. So I, I made a note that I, I often say that I came for the climbing, I stayed for the community. That really is the thing. I mean, I'm sure you would agree is like at the end of the day, hanging out with a good friend in, you know, Oak Creek Canyon, climbing a great route is as good as it gets.

00:44:18:17 - 00:44:30:23 Kevin And it's the it's the people you're around that make it awesome knowing and being known in the community. So communities number one for me. And by the way, I might have ordered this list differently ten years ago, but this is today.

00:44:30:25 - 00:44:32:07 Kevin Yeah.

00:44:32:09 - 00:44:51:24 Kevin Number two is connection, which is similar to your spirituality. But to me it's like connection to nature, connection to God, connection to my true self. I feel most myself when I'm on the rock and I often joke my wife hates it when I say this, but the Flatirons are my church and I kind of do mean that. Like I'm joking, but I sort of do.

00:44:51:25 - 00:44:52:19 Kevin Mean it.

00:44:52:26 - 00:45:20:17 Kevin Quite literally. So connection. The third one is mastery, which I define as the lifelong pursuit of a craft. And whatever your craft is. And what I learned actually that year, my 50th year, when I sent those 13, it really forced me to embrace the process because, you know, I sent ten routes out of 200 climbing days, and each day was 2 or 3 burns.

00:45:20:21 - 00:45:44:06 Kevin So let's say I made 600 burns and had success ten times. Right? And so it's mostly failure. I had to learn to now, actually, that's my favorite part of climbing is like the figuring out of beta the the dialing in. So that's mastery. That's number three. So community connection mastery. And then fourth kind of off script a little bit on this one is is freedom.

00:45:44:08 - 00:46:01:23 Kevin And I think for me climbing is the thing that I always did just for the simple joy of it. Like I don't do it because I have to. I don't do it because I feel obligated or because someone else wanted me to do it. It's purely for me. And it's like, and I'm sure many climbers will resonate with this.

00:46:01:24 - 00:46:27:26 Kevin It's like my refuge from the stress of day to day life. And the thing I love about climbing, you know, there's a French climber and author named Lionel Touré, and he wrote a book in the title was conquistadors of the useless. And I thought, that's my favorite description of because climbing is simultaneously completely pointless. But also, any climber knows it's probably the most profound thing we do.

00:46:27:29 - 00:46:28:18 Kevin It is a weird

00:46:28:25 - 00:46:33:02 Kevin thing.

00:46:33:05 - 00:46:33:22 Kevin Yes.

00:46:33:22 - 00:46:43:06 Kyle and whenever it goes viral because it reaches a bunch of non climbers, people just cannot understand why why

00:46:43:08 - 00:46:43:19 Kevin yeah.

00:46:43:19 - 00:46:44:11 Kyle I'm up there.

00:46:44:11 - 00:46:45:00 Kevin Yes.

00:46:45:02 - 00:46:55:27 Kyle know, like there's no idea. And it's like because it's useless. Like. And I think it's also the risk risk aspect of it too right. Like back in the day like risk was justifiable.

00:46:56:00 - 00:46:59:09 Kevin Right?

00:46:59:12 - 00:47:04:00 Kevin Right.

00:47:04:02 - 00:47:04:22 Kevin Right,

00:47:04:25 - 00:47:11:26 Kyle can power my city. It's like I'm going up to climb a route and risking my life so that I can have spiritual

00:47:11:29 - 00:47:13:26 Kevin Yes. Yeah.

00:47:13:26 - 00:47:15:11 Kyle there's no benefit to our community in a

00:47:15:17 - 00:47:36:24 Kevin Well I think that when, when non climbers see your videos, they're seeing the surface activity. Just like when they see soloing a building they're seeing they don't understand what's in our heads and the experience that we're having. Like when I see you, you know, leading the 512 pitch on on Cloud Tower and placing those little cams, I know exactly what that feels like.

00:47:36:25 - 00:47:49:12 Kevin Right. And that's when you when you send that pitch, having run out eight feet above those tiny cams, you reach that jug at the end of the crux sequence. That's what we're there for.

00:47:49:14 - 00:48:02:25 Kyle yeah. It's so interesting, man. I also liked your choice of word of mastery, and I always, whenever that word comes up, I always ask the question of whether it's attainable or not. But in the way you defined it, you you defined it as something

00:48:02:26 - 00:48:08:02 Kevin The correct.

00:48:08:05 - 00:48:11:11 Kevin Pursuit of the craft.

00:48:11:13 - 00:48:19:09 Kyle it's like it's literally you just like pursuit of the craft. Mastery is not attainable. It

00:48:19:12 - 00:48:43:18 Kevin There's a great saying that comes from the sport of cycling. I used to be a cyclist when I lived in the flatlands of Texas, and because cycling is the ultimate suffer sport, and the saying is that it never gets easier, you only go faster. And that's so true of everything in life, like you expect. Like if I just get to this, if I could just climb 513, climbing will get easier and I'll feel like I've mastered it.

00:48:43:18 - 00:49:05:11 Kevin But guess what happens when you climb 513? The ceiling raises and there's an infinite number of. Now it opens up a whole. I remember climbing at Red rocks, and my original goal in climbing was to just be a competent 510 trad leader. And because I was like, if you can climb 510 red rocks, you can spend a lifetime climbing at Red rocks and never run out of routes.

00:49:05:13 - 00:49:25:27 Kevin But then you get to 510 and you climb a bunch, and then you send your first 511 trad route and you're like, oh, now I can climb levitation 29, which I saw in the guidebook long time ago, and I thought that was never even on the menu. And now that opens up a whole other world of climbing. And of course, that process never ends.

00:49:26:00 - 00:49:31:18 Kyle this is actually a great segue. So, like, how do we stay grateful and hungry at the same

00:49:31:20 - 00:49:32:15 Kevin Yeah.

00:49:32:18 - 00:49:42:05 Kyle we have an abundance mindset while still having discipline and passion for more? How do we dance with these two seemingly opposing

00:49:42:07 - 00:49:43:02 Kevin Yeah, well.

00:49:43:02 - 00:50:03:11 Kevin It ties everything we've been talking about together because it's really about embracing the process. Like, the ideal instate is sort of the same way. Like in a way, like fleeting or feeling like feelings are fleeting. Like, you define this state the way I want to feel in an ideal world on every day. And of course, you can't feel that way every day.

00:50:03:11 - 00:50:26:25 Kevin Nothing's ever like something shit always goes wrong, right? But it's the pursuit of it that and embracing that. Look, look, I'm the most. I'm the, I'm the probably the the most achiever wired person you'll ever meet or one of them. And I've just learned in the past few years to like embrace the process a little bit. And climbing has really been instrumental in teaching me that.

00:50:26:25 - 00:50:48:11 Kevin But that's the whole thing is like the that the process, the struggle is the reward. That's the whole thing. Like if you just view it as I'm just struggling, struggling, struggling, you're missing out on the entire reward because guess what? When you get to that goal, whatever it is, it's not going to feel like you think it will.

00:50:48:13 - 00:50:50:05 Kevin Yeah. It's yeah.

00:50:50:06 - 00:50:54:15 Kevin It's it's a kind of a bitter paradox.

00:50:54:18 - 00:50:59:17 Kyle You had said that there is a toxic side to performance climbing.

00:50:59:24 - 00:51:02:15 Kevin Yeah.

00:51:02:18 - 00:51:03:14 Kevin Well.

00:51:03:17 - 00:51:24:18 Kevin And this is like, first of all, I love Boulder. I, you know, it's my happy place. I feel at home there. I pinch myself every day. But there is like a dark side to Boulder in Boulder sort of embodies a little bit of that toxic side, which is Boulder is very performance oriented, and that's what makes it great.

00:51:24:18 - 00:51:45:19 Kevin And that's what also can make it a little bit toxic, is everybody there is chasing hard and they're going hard like, you know, you'll show up and if you're projecting a 13 B, you might be like, you know, that's the warm up route for the rest of the people at the crag. And everybody's always going hard, pushing the limits, pushing the limits.

00:51:45:19 - 00:52:06:12 Kevin And what can happen is you lose sight of the whole reason we climb. We actually joke. Some of my partners and I joke in Boulder, we'll get on like, let's say we'll go climb just a classic route like Yellow Spur in El Dorado Canyon. It's a wonderful route. You have a beautiful day. We look at each other, we go like, did you know that climbing can actually be fun?

00:52:06:14 - 00:52:24:19 Kevin It really can. And, you know, so what happens is if you become too performance oriented, you sort of lose sight of the whole reason you love climbing, which is just the act of climbing. And it was Alex Low that said, the best climber is the one having the most fun. And it really is true, is it's easy to lose sight of that.

00:52:24:19 - 00:52:46:13 Kevin And I'm trying to after going hard for the past eight years on performance, I've had a great time. But I'm trying to I'm sort of pivoting myself right now. I mean, that was actually one of the reasons I came here with my buddy this week was to just go climb some fun routes in the canyons, and it turns out it really is fun.

00:52:46:16 - 00:53:02:00 Kyle Yeah. I have personally never gotten swept up into the performance. Kind of like bubble yet. And for me, it's always been like adventure. Like, I want to. I want to try hard. Like, you know, I'm climbing 512 tread. But I don't have this, like, obsession where I'm like, I need to find out, like what my human potential

00:53:02:02 - 00:53:02:28 Kevin Right.

00:53:03:01 - 00:53:03:05 Kyle that.

00:53:03:06 - 00:53:06:12 Kyle And maybe that's just directly linked to the fact that I have, like, no time

00:53:06:13 - 00:53:06:23 Kevin Well.

00:53:06:23 - 00:53:22:22 Kevin Also, I think again, it's a very specific thing to Boulder because Boulder is a very small, tight knit community and everybody is going hard. Vegas is a different vibe. I think people are kind of do. It's more of like a do your own thing vibe. Like you have the guys up at 5G wall.

00:53:22:23 - 00:53:24:05 Kevin Go.

00:53:24:07 - 00:53:28:19 Kevin So much rock and so much variety.

00:53:28:22 - 00:53:36:02 Kevin Yeah. And so like, you know, if you like the Canyons, then that's a different thing than the crew that's up at 5G wall every.

00:53:36:04 - 00:53:37:00 Kevin Day, right?

00:53:37:05 - 00:53:48:14 Kyle you're you're understanding of of Boulder. It's I'm running into

00:53:48:17 - 00:53:53:23 Kyle like, being surrounded by people that are, like,

00:53:53:25 - 00:53:55:00 Kevin Yes.

00:53:55:02 - 00:54:11:06 Kyle How has that shaped, like, how you view yourself as a climber? Because I could imagine that by comparison, it's like, you know, it's hard to feel proud of a certain thing that you've done because like, you know, some kid just flashed your or warmed

00:54:11:08 - 00:54:13:11 Kevin Totally.

00:54:13:13 - 00:54:23:21 Kyle maybe that's like a younger man's game of like, you know, comparison chasing or like self-worth in terms of our performance. Like being surrounded by

00:54:23:24 - 00:54:24:13 Kevin Yeah.

00:54:24:14 - 00:54:45:11 Kevin Comparison is the thief of joy, is the saying. And there's definitely some of that. I mean, I think some of it is just kind of knowing who you are. Like, I don't have any delusions that I'm going to go, you know, be the next Adam Ondra at 55 years old or whoever the best climber is now. But it is like on one hand, it raises your game.

00:54:45:13 - 00:55:05:18 Kevin On the other hand it can be demoralizing. So like I climb with a guy named Stefan Griebel a lot in Boulder who's a very well known kind of local legend. He's world class at everything. It's annoying as hell. And, you know, we'll go out and project, you know, like we did this 13 see in the Flatirons a while back.

00:55:05:18 - 00:55:23:06 Kevin And, you know, he sends it annoyingly quickly, and then I'm left without a partner and I have to go find another partner, and, you know, so there's. And you do feel like, you know, you're climbing, like I'm climbing the hardest route I've ever attempted. And yet I feel like a complete loser sometimes, because why can't I send it that quickly?

00:55:23:08 - 00:55:47:09 Kevin And that's the thing about Boulder that's kind of unique is like, there's a great saying in Boulder. It's number one in the world, number three in Boulder. And it kind of is true. Like no matter who you are or how good you think you are, whether it's cycling, trail running, you know, climbing, whatever, there's someone better than you.

00:55:47:09 - 00:56:18:17 Kevin And yeah, it's humbling. It's motivating. But that is sort of that, like, I feel like I'm kind of at the end of that game, like there's nothing. It's fine. Like I enjoyed that performance game and going hard and I think I keep it in check, you know? Well, like the way I am and you know, I think we're all different and how we're wired like like let's say I'm really close to sending a project and I'm like, I fall one move from the chains, I will yell the biggest F-bomb you've ever heard in your life.

00:56:18:17 - 00:56:33:14 Kevin It'll echo through the canyon and then 10s later. I'm fine. It's like it's. I keep it in perspective. Maybe. Maybe some of that's age and experience, so you can't let it define who you are, right? The performance aspect?

00:56:33:17 - 00:56:34:18 Kevin Yeah.

00:56:34:20 - 00:56:47:01 Kyle Be ruthless with your time. Money comes and goes. Time only goes. Audit your calendar. Ruthlessly cut the trivial. Double down on the meaningful and spend your hours like your life depends on it. Because it

00:56:47:04 - 00:56:48:00 Kevin Yeah.

00:56:48:02 - 00:57:19:06 Kevin Back to our earlier discussion of the time billionaire when we can make this one quick because that really is your most valuable asset. And again, there's seasons of life. But the idea is not to give up control of your time until you're 65 and then all of a sudden have infinite control when you're 65. The idea is to think of it more like a sliding scale, where slowly and deliberately earn little bits of control, so that by the time maybe you're 3540, you have a pretty good bit of control.

00:57:19:06 - 00:57:32:13 Kevin Whether that means, you know, having a remote work job, you know, W-2 job, whether it means doing your own thing, being a gig worker, whatever. Like be super deliberate about constructing your life so that you do have control over time.

00:57:32:16 - 00:57:38:11 Kevin What are some of the.

00:57:38:13 - 00:58:06:08 Kevin Well, I think the the ruthless about saying no. Most of us have a tendency to just overcommit to things and we may get to this later. I can't remember, but if that was one of the 15 you selected. But I'm a big advocate of minimalism, and minimalism isn't what most people think of it as. Like when I say minimalism, people think I'm talking about living a monk like existence and denying yourself of all joy.

00:58:06:10 - 00:58:25:25 Kevin And it's actually the opposite of that. So minimalism, what it is, is simply getting really clear on what brings you true joy and what does not eliminating things from your life that do not bring you true joy, so that you can gorge on the things that bring you joy. And we end up filling our calendars in our time with all sorts of stuff that doesn't really bring us joy.

00:58:25:25 - 00:58:42:14 Kevin And it's not necessary. And, you know, so a lot of it's just the pruning process and being hardcore about it, like telling people, no, get really good at saying no to things.

00:58:42:17 - 00:58:46:06 Kevin Yeah.

00:58:46:08 - 00:58:48:24 Kevin I used.

00:58:48:26 - 00:58:50:29 Kevin Yeah. So I.

00:58:50:29 - 00:59:19:25 Kevin Got a great example of this. So one of my, one of my really good friends, he has a friend who's like super, super wealthy, right. That friend invited my friend Mike to. He picked him up in his private jet and they flew to LA or somewhere and picked up this new Aston Martin supercar. Right. It was a beautiful car and they got to drive around in it all day, and it was like a whole day experience.

00:59:19:25 - 00:59:41:21 Kevin And I told my friend Mike, I was like, you couldn't pay me to do that. Like is intoxicating as that sounds to most people. Like that is not how I want to spend a day. That's a that's a hard no for me if I get invited. So that's just one example of like, yeah, on the surface, it's easy to say no to something cool like that, but is that I'd rather go climbing at Red rocks, you know?

00:59:41:24 - 00:59:42:25 Kyle Yeah.

00:59:42:27 - 00:59:58:29 Kyle There's this concept I was thinking a little bit of like. And maybe this is all linked back to just, like, being clear with your vision of your life. It might be the answer to a lot of these questions. It just can be like, it can be easy to say I'm too busy, but like, is that the question? Like, is that really true?

00:59:59:05 - 01:00:20:25 Kyle You know, like maybe part of life is like realizing maybe part of the secret is like realizing that we have more time than we actually think. You know, like, back to kind of like our habits. Like maybe looking at your life, like, where am I wasting time? You know, maybe I would have time for more opportunities if I cut out these certain habits that are kind of, like noisy and taking time away from

01:00:20:27 - 01:00:21:14 Kevin Yeah.

01:00:21:15 - 01:00:42:20 Kevin I had a very I opening experience around this idea of busyness. So when I was still in Dallas, I had a mentor named Dave, and he actually had a big impact on on my reboot. He was an older guy. And one day I met with him for coffee, and he was one of those guys where I knew a lot about his whole life, and he was a guy worth emulating.

01:00:42:20 - 01:00:58:09 Kevin So I listened intently to everything he said as we sat down for coffee. And, you know, it was a standard like, hey, how you doing? And I was like, oh man, you know, got young kids. I got this job. I'm trying to do all this other stuff. I'm just busy all the time. I was like, how about you, Dave?

01:00:58:09 - 01:01:16:26 Kevin He's like, I'm not busy at all. And I was like, oh, it hit me hard because here's a guy who was more financially successful than me, had a great family life, was super fit and by all accounts just had a great life. And he was not busy at all. And it was because he said no, a hell of a lot.

01:01:16:29 - 01:01:24:20 Kevin Like Dave had no problem because he said it to me many times. He had no problem saying no.

01:01:24:23 - 01:01:48:03 Kyle How would you like? I guess like the Aston Martin was a great example. Like maybe something more relatable to maybe my audience. Like things that we can say no to that we maybe feel obligated to do. Like, are there some examples where it's like, we have these ideas of obligations in our mind that we feel like we need to spend our time doing these things, but it's.

01:01:48:03 - 01:01:49:00 Kyle Like, yeah.

01:01:49:03 - 01:01:50:11 Kyle Do we

01:01:50:13 - 01:01:51:29 Kevin yeah, well.

01:01:52:01 - 01:02:15:06 Kevin Here's a controversial one that'll stir up. Everybody can relate to it. It might stir up some comments, which is like, you know, I'm just riffing off what's coming to my mind now. But but you know, on my ideal instate, one of the line items says be top 0.1% fit for my age group. Right. Well, if you're going to say that and you mean it, then your actions have to align.

01:02:15:07 - 01:02:36:17 Kevin So I get invited all the time to go out with to have beers with the guys and look to be clear, like, I will do that occasionally, but that's an exception for me. Most of the time it's a hard no, because number one, that forces me to stay out later than I want to. I end up drinking 2 or 3 or 4 or 8 beers, and which I know my age.

01:02:36:17 - 01:02:57:22 Kevin I feel that for like 3 or 4 days and it pulls me. It takes me further away from my ideal in-state, not closer to it. And so that is like I really enjoy having beers with the guys, by the way. Literally tomorrow night I'm going to see Metallica at The Sphere. I'll have a few drinks with the guys, but that's like a once a year thing for me.

01:02:57:22 - 01:03:11:02 Kevin And so, you know, again, get clear on what, because it's fun to go out and have beers with the guys. But what brings me joy is being fit and feeling really great when I go to the crag.

01:03:11:05 - 01:03:30:05 Kyle You have another one here. I'll skip forward, he says. Stop drinking. Even in moderation, people find all sorts of ways to justify drinking, but there's no escaping the simple fact that alcohol is a toxin and it limits your potential. How have you? What has your relationship with alcohol been and like how? What was your journey towards this realization slash

01:03:30:07 - 01:03:30:19 Kevin Yeah.

01:03:30:20 - 01:03:54:18 Kevin So I come from a family of addicts and my sister passed away from alcoholism. So it's a near and dear to my heart. That's not the reason I don't drink. You know, I never felt that kind of addiction to alcohol. But I, like anybody, drank casually. And what I found was, especially as I got older, it's true. Like there's no other way to spin it than alcohol is a toxin and it can.

01:03:54:19 - 01:04:14:14 Kevin It's a good social lubricant. Whatever. I've built my life now that if I need a social lubricant, I go out for a hike or a climb. That's just. I've been. I've got the ability to build my life around that. And another thing I found is it's actually easier to be a teetotaler with alcohol than to be a casual drinker, because teetotaler.

01:04:14:22 - 01:04:38:14 Kevin Teetotaler means like an absolute abstinence. So it's easier to say I never drink ever than to drink casually, because now you've taken the decision off the table. You know, when you're a casual drinker, you know you always have this debate in your mind. Well, maybe I'll just have one beer and then one leads to two or whatever. And if you just set it in your mind that I don't drink like you literally just tell people I don't.

01:04:38:16 - 01:04:45:07 Kevin You want to be here? No, I don't drink. It's you're done. Right. And so that nights you know that that cognitive load is off the table.

01:04:45:07 - 01:04:46:09 Kevin For you.

01:04:46:12 - 01:04:52:27 Kyle Was there any sort of, like, specific moment in your life where you kind of like, was there a pivotal point, or

01:04:53:00 - 01:05:05:29 Kevin Over time, just noticing that, you know, it impacted my life, like, just in very subtle ways because I was like, never a heavy drinker, but I'm not even willing to sacrifice a little bit these days.

01:05:06:01 - 01:05:12:13 Kyle On the other side of that decision, as you started to cut back, what were some of the things that you realized, like getting back? What were some

01:05:12:15 - 01:05:13:04 Kevin Yeah.

01:05:13:04 - 01:05:16:19 Kyle didn't know were holding you back, but then you saw on the other side of the.

01:05:16:19 - 01:05:17:13 Kyle Lens.

01:05:17:15 - 01:05:45:02 Kevin I'm a creature of habit and I like routine. And so like, for example, my morning routine is sacrosanct. Like I usually get up at like five, 530. I emptied the dishwasher as my warm up. I do a little mobility routine. I prepare my coffee, and then I write for, you know, sometimes as much as two two hours. I'd like that morning routine so much that there's almost nothing that is worth giving that up.

01:05:45:02 - 01:06:00:00 Kevin And if I go out and have, you know, beers with the guys, like tomorrow night when I go see Metallica and have a few drinks and see the show, I'm probably not going to get up at five the next morning and do my routine right, and I'm willing to do that a couple times a year. But I just like my routine.

01:06:00:00 - 01:06:12:20 Kevin I like my life so much that I don't want anything to compromise it.

01:06:12:23 - 01:06:15:07 Kevin Yeah, exactly.

01:06:15:07 - 01:06:37:13 Kevin I just don't think there's any better way to sharpen your thinking than and, you know, stay sharp than writing. And, you know, the thing is, when you're when you write, you know, you're not writing so that others can get benefit, you get most of the benefit of writing. And and my process is most of what I write doesn't even get published.

01:06:37:14 - 01:06:44:12 Kevin Maybe 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 things I write gets published, but it all serves a purpose.

01:06:44:14 - 01:06:45:07 Kevin Yeah.

01:06:45:08 - 01:07:09:02 Kevin Yeah. And I have an email list to but and my I'm one of the reasons I love morning routines and everybody's is different is that it guarantees a good start to the day. You know, when the morning when the day. Huge believer in that, like when I finished my routine. My mind is sharp. I've had my coffee, so I feel good.

01:07:09:02 - 01:07:16:23 Kevin I'm ready to eat and start the day, and you're just got a good momentum going in going into your day.

01:07:16:25 - 01:07:19:23 Kyle Do you have a structure to your writing or is it

01:07:19:25 - 01:07:42:12 Kevin Very structured. So I it starts with ideas. So writing is a lens through which you just kind of live your life. There's a there's a quote that I love. It says writers are never bored because you're always looking. I think artists, you know, your partner is an artist. I'm sure she's the same way, like always looking for inspiration and everything can be inspiration.

01:07:42:12 - 01:08:03:22 Kevin And so you're living life through that lens. What I'll do is my process starts with just writing down an idea. It might be just one line, and I've got thousands and thousands in my notes app on my iPhone. Most of them never see the light of day. Then I'll come back the next morning and I'll look at it and I'll say, is there something here to be expanded on from the previous idea?

01:08:03:22 - 01:08:29:20 Kevin Or maybe from four days ago? I'll be. And so I'll write it and then it'll iterate. And I kind of know when I'm satisfied with what I've written. Then I decide if it's worthy of publishing or not. And, you know, I write, you know, it's a medium form, you know, medium format content. So few hundred words. I like the practice of being concise, economy of words.

01:08:29:20 - 01:08:50:06 Kevin So I don't know, I love it. Well, I've been a writer my whole life, like I did writing competitions. I remember in sixth grade, but I kind of went away from it. And then when the pandemic started, during the lockdown phase of the pandemic, I was spending a lot of time. I've always been a lurker on X or Twitter.

01:08:50:07 - 01:09:00:21 Kevin It was called Twitter back then and I was like, you know what, I like writing? Why don't I just use this as my accountability for writing? And one thing leads to another.

01:09:00:24 - 01:09:17:06 Kyle Quick favor. If you've been enjoying the show, please head on over to Apple Podcasts to leave us a review. Not an Apple listener? You can leave a review on the show's website. Reviews help more than you'd know, and they take less time than it takes for your partner to put you on belay. So what are you waiting for?

01:09:17:08 - 01:09:21:03 Kyle Go on, start typing.

01:09:21:05 - 01:09:36:02 Kyle Back to this topic of time. One thing I think is interesting is like I brought up the topic of certain things that are stealing more time than we think. And I think one of those things could be

01:09:36:04 - 01:09:47:06 Kyle Like, how do you feel about the concept of health and taking care of your health, creating more time for you to then try to live your version of the life that you're trying to live?

01:09:47:09 - 01:09:48:06 Kevin Yeah, I mean.

01:09:48:06 - 01:09:49:03 Kevin It.

01:09:49:05 - 01:10:09:27 Kevin Without a doubt should be everyone's absolute number one priority. Without your health, you have nothing. You've probably heard the saying, healthy man has a thousand wishes, a sick man only one. Like when you're when you're healthy, you sort of take it for granted and you're like complaining about all this shit going on in your life, and then you get a serious health scare and you're like, oh, shit.

01:10:09:29 - 01:10:31:04 Kevin All that stuff I was worried about doesn't matter at all. All that matters is my health and being here for my family. And so, you know, the decisions you make today in your 20s and 30s, 40s will determine largely what kind of health you have in your 50s. And it's never 50, 60, 70.

01:10:31:05 - 01:10:32:19 Kevin It's.

01:10:32:22 - 01:10:41:22 Kyle decades, like your decisions two decades affect the health? Not obviously they will, but like, there's like a definitely like a time gap between you pay dearly for the

01:10:41:24 - 01:10:42:11 Kevin Yeah.

01:10:42:12 - 01:11:05:08 Kevin And it's that's the harsh truth. It's never too late. But if you have if you aspire to have supreme fitness, it's like if you want to be top 0.1% fit, then that doesn't happen overnight. Like you can't start, you can't live a terrible lifestyle until you're 45 and then pivot because you're just not going to even have the build.

01:11:05:12 - 01:11:27:28 Kevin Like you can tell guys. And this is unpopular stuff to say, by the way. But, you know, you look at guys my age, you can tell who is a lifelong athlete and who maybe got fit later in life. They just don't look the same. Don't move. This certainly don't move. And that really you nailed it. Like the whole ball game is how you can move.

01:11:28:00 - 01:11:47:05 Kevin There's a great saying I love. I forget who coined it, but your age is your ability to move. Your age is not a number. There are guys in their late 30s who move like they're 70, and there are 70 year olds who move like they're 35. And so because that's the whole thing is like, what can you do?

01:11:47:08 - 01:11:49:13 Kevin Really defines whether you're old or not.

01:11:49:17 - 01:12:06:20 Kyle This is probably like crazy bro science. But there's also I've heard podcasts and stuff talk about like kind of like what you're saying, like your physical capabilities as a human. Not only is it like this conceptual thing of how old you are because of your abilities physically, but I think it's also directly connected to like your cognitive function

01:12:06:22 - 01:12:07:05 Kevin 100.

01:12:07:05 - 01:12:08:21 Kevin Percent

01:12:08:23 - 01:12:12:01 Kyle bodies health is

01:12:12:03 - 01:12:13:01 Kevin By the way.

01:12:13:07 - 01:12:29:05 Kevin The reason one of the many reasons climbing is the king of sports is because of the mind body connection. There's actually been studies done where they took Parkinson's patients and had them do rock climbing like top rope, and it had a profound impact.

01:12:29:08 - 01:12:30:05 Kevin Oh, that's really.

01:12:30:08 - 01:12:30:23 Kevin Top rope.

01:12:30:23 - 01:12:32:01 Kevin Not lead.

01:12:32:03 - 01:12:59:10 Kevin But it is sick and and but that mind body connection is huge. You don't we take for granted when we're climbing. How many thousands of times in a day you're making mind body connections, very precise movement. It's like dance on a wall. We all know this. And now you're you're strategizing on gear. You're you're. And I also think, like, I'm 55 and I don't have to wear reading glasses, and I'm the only person I know this age.

01:12:59:11 - 01:13:08:23 Kevin And my, my, my bro science idea is that you're constantly looking near, far, near, far. And it's like lifting weights for your eyes.

01:13:08:26 - 01:13:09:17 Kevin So.

01:13:09:21 - 01:13:18:06 Kevin I think climbing is an incredible anti-aging sport. And as we know climbing is also incredibly low impact. You know.

01:13:18:07 - 01:13:19:16 Kevin I mean yeah.

01:13:19:17 - 01:13:23:24 Kevin And until it's really high impact, which we've both learned the hard way.

01:13:23:27 - 01:13:25:07 Kyle

01:13:25:09 - 01:13:26:21 Kyle More on this health stuff.

01:13:26:23 - 01:13:45:15 Kyle This is another quote of yours. If you're over 35, find a good functional longevity medicine doctor and start tracking your hormones. Modern life is hell on the endocrine system, and restoring healthy hormone levels can change your life. As we get older, we either accept a slow decline in performance or we do something about it. Choose the

01:13:45:18 - 01:13:46:07 Kevin Yeah.

01:13:46:12 - 01:14:04:03 Kevin So this is you know, we could do a whole podcast on this, but I'll keep it. I'll give you the short version on this. I mean, I've been obsessed with optimizing health my whole life. I was just always interested in it for some reason because I wasn't athlete when I was younger. You know, I was a bio hacker before that word even existed.

01:14:04:03 - 01:14:29:13 Kevin I was doing all like red light therapy, hyperbaric oxygen, all this stuff like 20 years ago when it was really fringe. And so this is something I've invested thousands and thousands of hours into. And, you know, we've got it's no secret that we've got a health epidemic happening in this, this country. You know, rates of chronic illness are skyrocketing, obesity like 60% and still rising.

01:14:29:15 - 01:15:02:28 Kevin And and there's a number of factors, right. It's like we're sedentary. We don't get sunlight. There's, you know, microplastics in our balls. You know, whatever it might be, we can list out all the factors. But the fact remains, like we're seeing all these problems, autoimmune disease. And one of the stats that applies to men, especially as we get older, is that's kind of I opening is the average testosterone level for men has gone down 50%.

01:15:03:00 - 01:15:26:03 Kevin This is for the average of men of all ages, has declined 50% in the last generation. That's a shocking. So the average I hope I get this right. The average 25 year old today has the testosterone of a 65 year old man a generation ago. Right. And so the and by the way, we can have we can go down a whole tangent on this.

01:15:26:03 - 01:16:01:20 Kevin But the impact on society is massive just culturally. And so men are quite literally list less male than they used to be. My generation Gen X is really the last one that sort of had sort of normal hormone levels. And so anyway, I have tracked my blood work, not not just hormones, but a lot of stuff for 15 plus years, every six months, just because that's, you know, tracking your blood levels and changes in your blood levels of a variety of markers are actually more indicative of a problem than absolute values.

01:16:01:20 - 01:16:24:16 Kevin And when I got to my mid 40s, one marker that I saw declining very rapidly was testosterone. And it correlated with the classic symptoms of like fatigue, worse workouts, you know, like didn't feel a sharp mentally whatever. And I for many years fought it like I did all the things like dialed the diet, the lifting, the sun, exposure supplements, all the things.

01:16:24:16 - 01:16:47:14 Kevin And then when I got to my early 50s, my levels just kind of fell off a cliff. And this is what kind of informed my opinion that at some point in life and it may be at 45, it may be at 50, maybe at 55, 60, you're either going to accept a slow decline in performance or maybe a rapid decline in performance, or you're going to do something about it.

01:16:47:16 - 01:17:08:08 Kevin And so my doctor convinced me to try very low dose testosterone. And almost overnight it was life changing. It gave me a second lease on life. And to be clear, there's a lot of myths and misinformation out there about hormones, in particular for both men and women. But what I'm talking about is very low levels to just get yourself into the normal, healthy range, right?

01:17:08:09 - 01:17:34:09 Kevin Not steroid, what you call bodybuilder type steroid programs. In fact, as a climber, you don't want to put on a lot of muscle. I'm already a big climber anyway, you know? And the benefits are, you know, incredible and aren't the ones that most people think about. So the biggest benefits I saw, number one was cognitive. Like, it's like that movie limitless, where your brain just feels so sharp again.

01:17:34:12 - 01:17:57:18 Kevin Immune. Like I used to get, you know, a cold or two a year. Now I basically never get sick. You know, there is better workout. Recovery is the biggest aspect. So go climb hard all day. From a climbing standpoint, it's kind of a wash because you do. I do run about like 8 pounds heavier, maybe slightly stronger, but that's not really in your fingers.

01:17:57:18 - 01:18:19:20 Kevin And so it's probably a wash in climbing in fact maybe even a slight net negative. But look, I'm climbing is only one part of my life. I'm trying to optimize for health. And so meat for me is a 55 year old health obsessed person. It's the only intervention I use. Like I take very few, even supplements. I do testosterone microdosing and that's the only thing I do.

01:18:19:20 - 01:18:24:29 Kevin And I feel I feel honestly as good as I did in my 30s,

01:18:25:02 - 01:18:28:14 Kyle I was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

01:18:28:16 - 01:18:30:11 Kyle For years ago.

01:18:30:13 - 01:19:06:13 Kyle Three years ago. Stage one A caught it super early. No no no metastasis.

01:19:06:16 - 01:19:15:10 Kyle suffering, we're really good at just being in the trenches. And I as a person like just can't

01:19:15:12 - 01:19:20:25 Kevin And so.

01:19:20:27 - 01:19:24:24 Kevin Yeah, we got.

01:19:24:26 - 01:19:27:20 Kevin Right. You lost.

01:19:27:20 - 01:19:28:20 Kevin Half your factory.

01:19:28:26 - 01:19:32:15 Kyle Yeah I lost half factory and I'm convinced I was actually

01:19:32:17 - 01:19:33:26 Kevin okay.

01:19:33:29 - 01:19:44:06 Kyle yeah super low the no one would take me seriously. None of the clinics would actually prescribe me anything because I had to

01:19:44:08 - 01:19:44:19 Kevin Yeah.

01:19:44:20 - 01:19:51:04 Kevin Long story short.

01:19:51:07 - 01:19:54:12 Kevin Night and day.

01:19:54:14 - 01:19:55:00 Kevin Yeah.

01:19:55:05 - 01:20:06:01 Kyle And so my brother, he has been going through like similar cognitive stuff and I was like, just get your get your shit checked, like, get your blood work done. I'm

01:20:06:03 - 01:20:06:14 Kevin Right.

01:20:06:16 - 01:20:09:27 Kevin Just find out your numbers.

01:20:09:29 - 01:20:11:21 Kevin 100.

01:20:11:24 - 01:20:12:19 Kyle super low.

01:20:12:19 - 01:20:13:19 Kevin That's like a woman.

01:20:13:19 - 01:20:16:27 Kevin Women's level. Yeah, yeah.

01:20:17:00 - 01:20:17:05 Kyle buddy

01:20:17:05 - 01:20:26:08 Kyle same thing I asked him. I was like, he was like, I'm struggling, you know, SSRIs, like, you know, a lot of stuff going on in his life. And I'm like, just get your check, get your numbers

01:20:26:11 - 01:20:26:19 Kevin Well.

01:20:26:19 - 01:20:48:11 Kevin It's it's it's an epidemic even among young men. And by the way, you mentioned SSRIs. I have to to mention that I believe because I've seen this with many, many men, almost all men who have depression. It's really low tea. And you should not be on SSRIs until you have your hormones checked and try. If your levels are low, try it.

01:20:48:17 - 01:21:17:08 Kevin Almost every guy I know who was on SSRIs found out they had low tea, started to got off the SSRIs immediately, and they they. Feel in some cases years. And that's a whole that's a whole thing, as you probably know on its own is like getting off the SSRIs. It's terrible transition and but but yeah it's and for some reason like kudos to you for talking about it because for some strange reason it's like taboo.

01:21:17:08 - 01:21:22:24 Kyle That's the thing. Like even even me suggesting like the fact that he might have low

01:21:22:26 - 01:21:25:17 Kevin Yes.

01:21:25:19 - 01:21:25:29 Kevin Yeah.

01:21:26:04 - 01:21:30:08 Kyle triggers that like defensive, like, well, I'm a man. Like, how could you say that? I have low.

01:21:30:13 - 01:21:47:18 Kevin ped like performance enhancing drugs. It's the it's the cheating. But that's why I always have to clarify for people, it's like there's a huge difference between properly administered TRT and performance enhancing protocols. Yes. What people would call steroids.

01:21:47:20 - 01:21:48:22 Kyle TRT or steroids.

01:21:48:25 - 01:22:03:10 Kevin So for example, I keep my, for simplicity's sake, my total T level in the upper third of the normal lab range for a healthy male, which is going to be 700 to 1000.

01:22:03:12 - 01:22:22:25 Kevin It's kind of where I bounce around. And that's what I had. I literally have blood work for years. That shows I was in that range until about my early 40s, and then it fell down. And I mean, my never went lower than like, let's say 280. And that felt miserable. So I can at 100.

01:22:22:28 - 01:22:29:20 Kyle you'll go to like a provider or a peak and you'll, they'll, you'll be at 280 and you'll be like, oh you're

01:22:29:23 - 01:22:30:06 Kevin Yes.

01:22:30:06 - 01:22:45:13 Kyle you know, like, no, like at least in the modern medicine system that I ran into here in Vegas, no one will take you seriously. Like, even my urologist who performed a surgery was, like, so against even the idea of considering, like,

01:22:45:15 - 01:22:48:19 Kevin They give testosterone blockers, it's crazy.

01:22:48:21 - 01:22:50:11 Kevin Crazy.

01:22:50:13 - 01:22:50:23 Kevin And by.

01:22:50:23 - 01:22:51:18 Kevin The way.

01:22:51:20 - 01:23:05:03 Kyle might cut this out of the podcast, but but, like, I can't go fix my testosterone at a, at a, at a doctor that I pay insurance for. But I could probably go in and get a sex change without without a question.

01:23:05:06 - 01:23:08:11 Kevin Well, yeah, that's a whole that's a whole topic. And it's. And itself. Yeah.

01:23:08:11 - 01:23:13:19 Kyle Like there is some sort of like endemic, like suppression

01:23:13:21 - 01:23:38:03 Kevin Yeah. Well and honestly a lot of two things. So number one, a lot of that comes from outdated myths. So the link between testosterone and cancer was completely debunked. And but but a lot of urologists in particular are. Super the prostate stuff. But here's the worst part for women, if you ever want to go down that rabbit hole, look up the Women's Health Initiative.

01:23:38:05 - 01:24:05:13 Kevin There's a a Peter Attia did a great podcast on this women. There was a faulty study done like the 1950s, and there was a concerted effort to basically keep women who are in menopause and menopause from having hormones that are life changing. And so the women's stuff is even worse because women's hormones are more complex guys basically, like if you have low tea, you give them tea and they feel pretty damn good.

01:24:05:14 - 01:24:22:21 Kevin Women's more complicated. That's right. There's three different hormones you have to deal with. And it's a delicate balance. And but the the effects are massive.

01:24:22:24 - 01:24:44:07 Kevin Oh. Women like whatever symptoms we have from low t women's symptoms when their hormones are out of whack are ten times worse. Suicidal depression. I mean, we see a lot of this out there. And then what do they give them? SSRIs, which compounds the situation. It's bad. So yeah I'm that's why you know like I said, it's awesome that you talk about this.

01:24:44:07 - 01:25:00:13 Kevin And I talk about it openly because it's a lot of guys are suffering needlessly. Back to this idea of guys in particular have a high tolerance for suffering. They will literally go a decade feeling miserable and just sort of accept it.

01:25:00:15 - 01:25:00:25 Kyle yeah.

01:25:00:26 - 01:25:02:28 Kyle I mean, there's a whole there's a

01:25:03:01 - 01:25:03:17 Kevin whole thing.

01:25:03:20 - 01:25:10:04 Kyle like, yeah, not accepting circumstances and like taking action to, to like have agency over your, your

01:25:10:07 - 01:25:28:25 Kevin Yeah. I mean, that really is the whole theme of what we talked about today's agency, like you have your, your, the wheel is in your hands. And the limitations that you use as excuses aren't real. And you have a lot of you have way more control over your life than most people like to admit.

01:25:28:28 - 01:25:30:26 Kyle Let's talk about BPC 157.

01:25:30:29 - 01:25:31:20 Kevin Yeah.

01:25:31:24 - 01:25:35:02 Kyle I'm a huge fan. I use it regularly.

01:25:35:04 - 01:25:35:22 Kevin Yeah,

01:25:36:00 - 01:25:40:09 Kyle And yeah, I at this point, it's all

01:25:40:12 - 01:25:50:21 Kyle what you and Eric talked about, I think the one big thing to caveat this, and to put a disclaimer on, is that you shouldn't be buying peptides from China, like just go to a compounding

01:25:50:24 - 01:25:51:11 Kevin Yeah.

01:25:51:16 - 01:25:55:01 Kyle where you're getting it from, get it from a provider.

01:25:55:03 - 01:25:58:15 Kyle That's kind of like that should just be the

01:25:58:18 - 01:26:00:12 Kevin Yes.

01:26:00:14 - 01:26:01:05 Kevin Yes.

01:26:01:05 - 01:26:08:09 Kyle But yeah, like anecdotally on my side, like especially after after Nyad, I just did

01:26:08:12 - 01:26:08:24 Kevin

01:26:08:26 - 01:26:09:12 Kevin Nice.

01:26:09:18 - 01:26:12:16 Kyle like I had like a really

01:26:12:19 - 01:26:13:14 Kevin Oh.

01:26:13:16 - 01:26:21:03 Kyle I had like tendon tightness like jump on that and just recovery is so fast.

01:26:21:09 - 01:26:23:18 Kyle It's wild.

01:26:23:20 - 01:26:52:05 Kevin Like you said it's anecdotal right now the studies are are happening. There is a point at which anecdotal evidence becomes overwhelming. And the thing about BPC 157 in particular is like the downside risk is essentially zero. And the upside risk is side potential is massive again, if you source it properly. Unfortunately, the FDA was poised to approve BPC 157 to be on the green list for compounding pharmacies.

01:26:52:05 - 01:27:17:06 Kevin They did not do that. So it's still in a gray area. So it's actually quite hard to find a doctor who can prescribe through a compounding pharmacy. My doctor does if I get mine out of a pharmacy in Texas, I had a major arm surgery, which we didn't talk about, but I had a climbing accident back in in February and Mexico, my first serious accident in climbing in 30 years had to have a tricep reconstruction.

01:27:17:06 - 01:27:44:03 Kevin I used BPC 157 immediately after surgery and the recovery. My my surgeon was like, this is a breathtaking recovery, especially for someone your age. I basically don't have a scar from it. They had to remove the staples early because my skin was healing around the staples. And so, you know, again, anecdotally works. And again, the it's an asymmetric bet where the downside risk is.

01:27:44:03 - 01:28:08:07 Kevin So now that's not true with all peptides but with like the well known the well understood ones BPC 157 TB 500. There's a few others. Yeah all that stuff. It literally tens of thousands of guys have tried it. And the because most of these are naturally occurring peptides. Yeah. So the body makes these already. The downside risk is in most cases negligible.

01:28:08:08 - 01:28:16:08 Kyle Yeah. There's also a lot of supporting anecdotal evidence of BBC 157 helping

01:28:16:11 - 01:28:25:13 Kevin Totally.

01:28:25:15 - 01:28:29:12 Kyle God did give me sympathy for people that have chronic

01:28:29:14 - 01:28:30:09 Kevin The worst.

01:28:30:15 - 01:28:32:27 Kyle the

01:28:33:00 - 01:28:34:17 Kyle possible thing you could go through.

01:28:34:18 - 01:28:35:19 Kyle Well, okay, that's

01:28:35:21 - 01:28:36:01 Kevin Yeah.

01:28:36:02 - 01:28:38:25 Kevin Very bad thing.

01:28:38:27 - 01:28:39:14 Kevin Always.

01:28:39:15 - 01:28:42:26 Kevin Yeah.

01:28:42:29 - 01:28:44:28 Kevin Your body's inflamed.

01:28:45:01 - 01:28:47:08 Kyle painful not having regular

01:28:47:11 - 01:28:48:15 Kevin Yeah.

01:28:48:18 - 01:28:57:23 Kyle a mess. And so after that I had like a period of time that was like kind of like an irregular and like something I needed to fix.

01:28:57:23 - 01:29:03:21 Kyle And yeah, BBC 157 was part of my recovery protocol there. And then also fiber.

01:29:03:24 - 01:29:25:22 Kevin Yeah. Well BBC 157 that is what it does. It basically repairs the gut. It turns out it also repairs lots of different lots of other soft tissues. But you can take BP for the gut in particular. You can actually take it orally. Have you tried CFPB? CFPB is just as good for gut stuff and it's really good for inflammation.

01:29:25:22 - 01:29:44:09 Kevin So like if you as you get older you'll find that like general inflammation becomes a bigger problem. And a lot of it does originate from the gut. CFPB is a great step. The BBC 157 TB 500 and CFPB are like an incredible stack. Yeah yeah.

01:29:44:09 - 01:30:00:06 Kyle Yeah it's amazing. You know it's funny like you can you can look at the future through so many different lenses. And like this is one of the lenses that is like so inspiring and like the future of health that we have access to moving forward is going to be

01:30:00:08 - 01:30:13:28 Kevin It's the it's the most exciting frontier in medicine by the way GLP ones are are peptides. You know the weight loss drugs. So which pros and cons to those I wouldn't recommend it unless you really need it. But it's a peptide.

01:30:14:01 - 01:30:31:07 Kyle yeah. More on this health stuff I guess. More into the mind. You have another another one here. Limit bad habits, including unhealthy thought patterns. We all have them. Practice avoidance and find substitutes. Get professional help if needed.

01:30:31:10 - 01:30:32:10 Kyle Yeah.

01:30:32:12 - 01:30:32:25 Kevin

01:30:32:27 - 01:31:05:06 Kevin Well the I have a belief that whatever you believe you're right. Because, you know, not just because beliefs inform your actions which inform outcomes. I think there's a quantum physical thing happening as well. The energy that you're putting into the world manifests. And so choose your beliefs very carefully. And the thing is, you know, the problem with being a pessimist is even if you're right, it's a miserable way to live.

01:31:05:06 - 01:31:27:23 Kevin So why would you choose to be a pessimist? So and this is a huge problem today. And you know, I'm not a big believer in talk therapy, to be honest. Like, you know, that's a whole other topic. But I think there's a lot to be said for controlling your thoughts, like choosing your thoughts very, very carefully because they do manifest.

01:31:27:25 - 01:31:28:18 Kyle

01:31:28:20 - 01:31:32:09 Kyle Neuroscientists. Big prolific guy runs a podcast, Andrew

01:31:32:11 - 01:31:32:27 Kevin Yeah.

01:31:33:01 - 01:31:41:05 Kyle He just did a podcast recently and he said, like, part of living a happy life is having control over your

01:31:41:07 - 01:31:41:19 Kevin Because.

01:31:41:19 - 01:31:47:04 Kyle you just let that run rampant, like your brain is going to create a pretty nasty existence by itself.

01:31:47:07 - 01:31:47:21 Kevin Yes.

01:31:47:24 - 01:31:59:17 Kyle our job is to have that free prefrontal cortex, like taking the information and then re like not accepting everything we have to take control over, like what our brain is feeding

01:31:59:19 - 01:32:21:29 Kevin Absolutely. And it's it's a practice that you can develop over time. It's like anything you learn to get better at it and, you know, choose not to think negative thoughts and choose to think positive thoughts. Try it for 30 days. By the way, another really powerful technique that anybody can do. And it sounds hokey, but I challenge you to try it and then tell me after 30 days it doesn't work.

01:32:22:03 - 01:32:50:02 Kevin It's just literally saying positive words, just basically affirmations, right? It's an old tactic, but tape it to your bathroom mirror, whatever kind of mantra you want, say it over and over. By the way, if you want to have an incredible relationship with your partner or spouse, try. Try every morning. Just saying, I have the best partner in the world and tell them that and watch how your life changes in 30 days.

01:32:50:09 - 01:32:51:20 Kevin Powerful.

01:32:51:22 - 01:33:16:28 Kyle How can we become more aware of negative thought patterns? Because I think sometimes we can get caught up in not being present. You know, you you get you look back sometimes and you're like, where the hell did that week go? Where was my mind? Like, how have you? I guess, you know, a lot of this is just kind of circling back into the same things, but like being more present and being more aware of, like the thought patterns that we actually have.

01:33:17:00 - 01:33:18:11 Kyle Do you have like, certain

01:33:18:13 - 01:33:38:27 Kevin Well, it certainly doesn't help that when we doom scroll, we're just bombarded with negative stuff. And it's it's sneaky and and subversive negative stuff. Like some of it is even like, here's a beautiful girl. And you know, for women, it's like, well, that's the ideal. I need to look like that. Or for men, it's like, oh, why does my girlfriend look like that or whatever?

01:33:39:02 - 01:34:03:29 Kevin Like on the surface it's not overtly negative, but it creates these negative thought patterns. And I think it's literally what you said. It's just a matter of having the presence and awareness to catch those things. And, you know, maybe that becomes the mantra, right? Is like you start by just saying, am I present? Am I am I having negative thoughts or positive thoughts like, just check in every hour?

01:34:04:01 - 01:34:05:15 Kevin Yes.

01:34:05:18 - 01:34:31:10 Kevin Yes. Yeah. Are you here? Yeah. No. I mean, you know, my friend Mike has this whole riff, he goes on where he talks about how, you know, the past is gone. The future is a fairy tale. Literally all you have is right now. So why would you choose to make yourself miserable right now? Like, if you're living in the future of the past, you're not present and you're missing out on the now, which is all you have.

01:34:31:16 - 01:34:35:13 Kyle I heard living in the past creates depression, and living in the future

01:34:35:15 - 01:34:43:18 Kevin Exactly. Yeah, and we spend way too much time in both of those, for sure.

01:34:43:20 - 01:34:44:12 Kevin It is.

01:34:44:17 - 01:34:50:25 Kyle like it's the only thing we have, but somehow our brains, like, are choosing to live and everything else possible.

01:34:50:27 - 01:35:09:15 Kevin Well, actually, the one of the main reasons I initially fell in love with climbing was it was the only thing I found that would force me into the present. When you're climbing, you're when you're leading, you know, a trade route. Your entire world is the six foot panel of rock right in front of you, nothing else. And that.

01:35:09:17 - 01:35:32:03 Kevin So I did a bunch of other sports before that, and that wasn't the case. So like running, cycling, tennis, whatever. None of those things forced me to the present. Like like climbing. Climbing demands absolutely everything of you. And and so I love that feeling, like, you know, for a little bit of time during the day, you're forced to live in the present.

01:35:32:03 - 01:35:34:01 Kevin And I think that becomes something to build upon.

01:35:34:07 - 01:35:48:27 Kyle Yeah. I mean, I think this is connected to so much of like PTSD treatment, drug addiction, like being able to like the fact that it requires so much of your cognitive function that it pulls you out of all of those

01:35:49:00 - 01:35:49:27 Kevin Right?

01:35:50:00 - 01:35:52:15 Kyle you. Like, that is such a therapy,

01:35:52:18 - 01:35:53:16 Kevin It is.

01:35:53:19 - 01:35:55:05 Kyle to see how effective it's

01:35:55:07 - 01:36:16:21 Kevin That and plant medicine, like, I think there's all these avenues to explore now, you know, the one and this is a controversial take, but the one I recommend the least is talk therapy. You know, the simple truth is, you know, I'm an observer and I've been around for a long time, and I've never met someone who was in talk therapy for ten years and thought, man, they really have their stuff together.

01:36:16:21 - 01:36:22:09 Kevin It's actually more the opposite. It's like, man, they seem really screwed up.

01:36:22:12 - 01:36:44:25 Kevin Exactly. But but I know lots of people who just choose to chose to take control of their life and walk away from a bad situation who are in a great place now. So I'm an example of that. Well, I had a pretty rough upbringing, and, you know, I was, you know, in some ways, like the one in my family to escape.

01:36:44:25 - 01:37:02:18 Kevin And, you know, it wasn't therapy that that got me to the place I am now. Like, I have a pinch me life. It was just choosing that I'm going to focus on my future and not my past. It was that simple.

01:37:02:20 - 01:37:31:03 Kevin Yeah, I get asked that question a lot, especially by people who know the details of my situation, my upbringing, and, you know, some of it was, I think I was sharp enough as a young kid to recognize that I didn't. I wanted a different path than my parents had. And part of it was, you know, a big turning point for me was getting a scholarship to college, like when I kind of left, you know, at the age of 17, 18, whatever it was, and never looked back.

01:37:31:06 - 01:37:34:16 Kevin So getting physically away from that environment.

01:37:34:23 - 01:37:42:03 Kyle would have had to already been making steps to leave to have gotten to that point, to then be able to escape with the scholarship.

01:37:42:06 - 01:37:43:25 Kevin Yeah.

01:37:43:27 - 01:38:09:29 Kevin Yeah, totally. No, I think I had an innate sense of right and wrong. And before I even, you know, now I can put it into words. But I was basically practicing what we started this whole podcast with, which is do things that make your life better, don't do things that make it worse. Like, for example, it never made sense to me that you would want to compromise your health because I want to have the best life I possibly can.

01:38:10:00 - 01:38:32:23 Kevin And if I don't have like your body is your vessel for experiencing life. So like let's say you're massively over BC massively obese. Like that's a terrible way, terrible vessel to live life through. And so that just had a logical, you know, I've kind of an engineer's mind and logically speaking, that never made sense to me. I had a very strong internal sense of what was right and what was wrong.

01:38:32:23 - 01:38:37:12 Kevin And I wanted a good life, not a bad life. And I saw a lot of bad life.

01:38:37:15 - 01:38:51:00 Kyle You had said you didn't have any climbing mentors. Did you have any mentors in this area of your life in terms of how you view the world, whether that be in person or through a book or an article? Like, did you have anybody that was like, that is

01:38:51:00 - 01:38:51:25 Kevin is.

01:38:51:27 - 01:39:20:00 Kevin No. And when I say I learned everything the hard way, that's what I mean is like, that's why I didn't sort of have my awakening until my mid 40s, you know, I learned everything the hard way and did everything wrong. Now, you know, I had a form of success, you know, way before that, like the classical, like successful in my career and, you know, had a great wife and two kids and all those things.

01:39:20:01 - 01:39:38:27 Kevin But my marriage was not great. I was not happy in my career. I was disconnected from my kids. And so that's why I had to make a dramatic change. I didn't have the luxury at 45 or 48. It wasn't like, okay, over the next ten years, I'm going to slowly transition and fix all these things. I had to, like make a pretty dramatic change.

01:39:38:27 - 01:39:58:07 Kevin Whereas, you know, someone who's your age, you actually have the luxury of like, I'm going to call my shot. I'm going to define my ideal in state, and I'm going to take ten years to get there, 15 years to get there. You don't have to like, pull the plug overnight like I did.

01:39:58:09 - 01:40:07:14 Kevin Yeah. How old are you? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're at that. You're at that age where the clock does start ticking. For sure.

01:40:07:16 - 01:40:24:03 Kyle Did you know that Spotify and Apple podcast ratings helped the show reach more viewers? So if you like the show. Take 10s to leave the show five stars. If you're on YouTube. Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe to make sure you get notified about the most recent episodes. And now back to the show.

01:40:24:05 - 01:40:38:25 Kyle The goal is not to retire and do nothing. It's to build a great day to day life that you don't need to escape. A life of leisure is a slow death. Happiness is not possible without a little struggle. Uncertainty and skin in the game. This one particularly.

01:40:38:25 - 01:40:48:03 Kyle I know we've talked a lot about kind of like this general topic. I think that hearing the words like

01:40:48:05 - 01:40:51:05 Kevin Right. Yeah.

01:40:51:07 - 01:40:57:17 Kyle that one hit hard for me. I think there are moments that I exist where I

01:40:57:19 - 01:40:59:09 Kevin Yeah.

01:40:59:11 - 01:41:07:18 Kyle And. Yeah, it's. And sometimes, like, it's it's not necessarily that my life is bad.

01:41:07:18 - 01:41:15:09 Kyle This isn't like a woe is me thing. It's more like the process. The grind is just

01:41:15:11 - 01:41:28:10 Kyle like sandpaper on that journey to freedom, right? Because, you know, if you're whatever your end goal is, there are sacrifices to be made along the way. And sometimes the sacrifices can be can be

01:41:28:12 - 01:41:29:18 Kevin Yep.

01:41:29:21 - 01:41:33:27 Kyle when you've got this clear vision of what you want.

01:41:33:29 - 01:41:42:16 Kyle Yeah. Like, what are your thoughts on this? And like, how do we how do we properly maintain happiness while going through the grind phase?

01:41:42:18 - 01:42:11:07 Kevin Yeah I mean it's a it's a journey. And you know first of all as context if you think about it. And again I often say like I'm a master of the obvious, I'm saying stuff that if you think about it. Most people will realize we've been sold a scam in the retirement paradigm. If you think about it like the idea that you work some job you probably don't like that much for, you know what?

01:42:11:09 - 01:42:33:03 Kevin From age 22 to 65. So that's 45 years. And then all of a sudden one day you completely stopped doing everything and watch TV all day. Yeah, it's kind of insane to me. A much better model is to, as I said, build a life. You don't need to or want to escape. That doesn't mean it's a perfect life.

01:42:33:03 - 01:42:56:05 Kevin But, you know, a great life continues to involve skin in the game and struggle. And I believe all humans need to do some form of work, which I'll talk more about. But it's back to this sliding scale idea where, like when you first start your life as an adult, let's say you're 20, you have very little resources and you have no control over anything.

01:42:56:06 - 01:43:20:12 Kevin You're getting swept by the current and that's okay. That's a season of life. But the goal is to slowly, bit by bit, gain control over your life, by building financial security, by building a skill set, by taking control of your time in small bits. And that happens slowly, slowly, slowly, so that by the time you're, let's say, 50 or you're my age, 55, you've controlled most of your life.

01:43:20:12 - 01:43:44:04 Kevin And like I do, and I'm not retired, nor do I want to be retired, I still do work. But, you know, on the work front, that as good as it gets is choosing your work. Like doing work that's pretty, pretty aligned that you actually care about, that leverages your skills, that doesn't. So you don't get the Sunday Skerries when you have to go to the office the next day.

01:43:44:06 - 01:44:03:09 Kevin You know, that's a privilege that's earned. And so, you know, I have on my ideal estate, it says control 80% of my time. And people always say, well, why wouldn't that be 100% of your time? Why would you want to control 100% of your time? And the reason is because controlling 100% of your time is dangerous. A life of leisure is very dangerous.

01:44:03:09 - 01:44:21:16 Kevin It's not fulfilling. I've tried it a couple of times in my life and so you need to have skin in the game. You need to be on the hook for some things. I will put myself intentionally on the hook for some stuff, like some work projects and stuff, because that keeps you sharp. And you know, I think humans are wired to work.

01:44:21:17 - 01:44:43:06 Kevin I mean, if you think back to how we lived before the world was even industrialized, your whole life was like work just to survive. And you have to maintain some component of it, that of that. But as good as it gets is like, you know, doing that, having work that you choose and control, but controlling most of your time otherwise so that you can spend it doing the things that truly bring you joy.

01:44:43:12 - 01:44:43:20 Kevin So

01:44:43:20 - 01:45:08:01 Kyle in this process, you said, you know, earning your freedom is like something you work towards. Like during that process when you don't have 80% control and you are you are trading time for money or you are living portion of your life that's unaligned. Like, what are some things that we can do to help soften that blow, like maintain a bit more positivity and happiness

01:45:08:04 - 01:45:39:18 Kevin Yeah, well, I think having a path to get like first of all, you know, we're starting I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but defining that ideal end state so you actually know what you're striving for. And usually that what that reveals is like you're not that far from doing it. Like what? Actually a great story that's relevant here is like, you know, in all my years in the, the, the upper echelons of business, really, no one comes to mind who I would look at and say they built a great life.

01:45:39:23 - 01:46:04:07 Kevin But we have a mutual friend who never came anywhere near the upper echelons of business, who has built a great life as Thomas. Right. So he's a climber guide. And when I met Thomas many years ago, we met randomly on Mountain Project and climbed here at Red rocks as I got to know him. You know, he's ex-military. He's a climbing guide.

01:46:04:07 - 01:46:32:03 Kevin He will tell you he's never made six figures in his life. He he just told me today that for a long period of time, he lived on $20,000 a year. But he designed his life. That was deliberate. He designed his life. He knew he was never going to be a big corporate executive like me. So he embraced that and said, I better build a really simple life if I want to be spending a lot of my time traveling the world, climbing, working on cars, whatever.

01:46:32:10 - 01:46:57:23 Kevin And so he was deliberate. I have a ton of respect for people like that. And Thomas got there pretty. Is his life perfect? No. Like, does Thomas wish he was a multi-millionaire? Probably. But he wouldn't sacrifice his life for it because he's already got a pretty good life. And so that's the hope that, you know, if you're a climber and you're exposed to this community, you've seen you've got your own examples of, you know, people like that.

01:46:57:23 - 01:47:18:04 Kevin I know people like that. We see the examples of people who have kind of figured it out, and that gives you hope because, you know, you can kind of borrow pieces from what I say, from what people, other people who you admire are doing and what they say, and put together your own version of success. And you can actually get there pretty quickly.

01:47:18:04 - 01:47:36:24 Kevin But it takes you have to get clear on what it is, and then it does take some courage, you know?

01:47:36:27 - 01:48:01:28 Kevin The why? Yeah, well, there's a great exercise. I have called to what end? And when I sit down with a young guy, let's say, and I'll say, what's your goal in life or whatever, like where do you want to be? He's like, I want to be worth $10 million. And I'll say, to what end? And then he'll say, well, I want to be able to quit my job.

01:48:01:28 - 01:48:20:24 Kevin To what end? So that I'm free to do the things that I really enjoy. To what end, you know, so that I can just feel at peace a little bit. And then now we're getting to something that's the feeling you want. And what you find is you ask a follow up question, which is why can't you do that tomorrow?

01:48:21:01 - 01:48:25:24 Kevin Like that feeling of peace? Why don't you just start experiencing it tomorrow? Whatever's keeping you from.

01:48:25:24 - 01:48:26:05 Kevin It,

01:48:26:05 - 01:48:29:22 Kyle set yourself. You set the goal behind all these

01:48:29:24 - 01:48:30:14 Kevin Yes.

01:48:30:17 - 01:48:33:01 Kyle where it's like something that might be attainable

01:48:33:04 - 01:48:58:16 Kevin Exactly. And by the way, that exercise led me to revise my ideal instate exercise. So now I have people go through the exercise, and when they've defined their ideal in state, I ask a follow up question, which is what's the radical plan to get there? Like, what if I said, how can you get there next month? And even if you don't make those radical moves because it typically does involve like really radical moves, it may not be smart.

01:48:58:16 - 01:49:15:19 Kevin It at least gets the brain going in that direction of like, wait, this doesn't have to be a 20 year plan. What if it was a five year plan? You know? And so it's a very powerful exercise because it goes it all goes back to what I said early on is like, fear is the thing holding us back.

01:49:15:21 - 01:49:28:07 Kevin It's not your your your asshole boss. It's not your low bank account balance. It's really just the the courage to go and build the life you want. That's it.

01:49:28:10 - 01:49:39:00 Kyle cool. A little bit on finances. So you this is just curiosity. Learn about fire. It's a great framework for financial

01:49:39:03 - 01:50:04:22 Kevin Do you know what fire is? Okay. Fire I'm going to give you. This could be a whole episode in itself, but fire stands for financial Independence. Retire early. It's a financial framework that has become popular as a way to basically do what I just talked about, which is, you know, become free, financially free, much sooner than the traditional financial retirement paradigm would suggest.

01:50:04:23 - 01:50:27:00 Kevin If you want to learn more about it, Google Mr. Money Mustache it's a funny name, but he's got a blog that is great. He's kind of one of the leading voices. And actually 15 years ago, or between 10 and 15 years ago, a climber told me about Mr. Money Mustache and I went and read his essay about fire, and it changed the way I think about money, even though I was a finance guy.

01:50:27:00 - 01:50:38:29 Kevin I'm a math guy, and it changed the way I think about money. And the basic principle is that it's based on this thing called the 4% rule, which says.

01:50:39:01 - 01:51:21:00 Kevin You whatever assets you've got, financial assets, you can withdraw 4% of those assets. And and that asset pool will never shrink. A simple way to think about it is whatever you need to live, you need 25 times that, which is the opposite of 4% in assets. So a simple, simple example is like if you need $100,000 a year to live on, then you need $2.5 million in assets to to, to safely be able to withdraw $100,000 a year and have that balance never go down.

01:51:21:00 - 01:51:51:07 Kevin And this has been back tested in the stock market over decades and through good times, through bad times over the long term, it works out. It's called the 4% rule, or the rule of 25 is the inverse of it. And the reason it's eye opening is because what you learn when you actually look at the math is that it's way easier to become financially independent by spending less than making more, because the thought of like, if I want to live a lavish lifestyle and I'm going to spend $250,000 a year, I have to have 25 times that.

01:51:51:07 - 01:52:14:22 Kevin It's like six point something million dollars. And that's just frankly, unrealistic for a lot of people. But if I can live like Thomas on $20,000 a year, then what is that? It's four like 500 grand is the assets you would need, and that's achievable for most people over a long period of time if they're diligent about it. And it's different for everybody.

01:52:14:24 - 01:52:36:05 Kevin But that's the basic idea is, you know, it puts numbers around what it takes to buy your ideal end state. And again, the takeaway is that it's much easier to achieve financial freedom by living a simple life than just trying to go out and make some unrealistic amount of money. That's what keeps people on the hamster wheel forever.

01:52:36:06 - 01:53:03:15 Kevin We're told under the old retirement paradigm that you need X million dollars to, quote unquote, retire. You actually don't. Because the other kind of silver bullet part of fire is if you believe, as I do, that you want to continue working in some form, let's say that you cut your living expenses down where you can live on, you know, five grand a month or even ten grand a month.

01:53:03:17 - 01:53:27:10 Kevin And but you're also just accept the fact that you're always going to do some sort of work. Maybe it's like a side hustle, a part time job, get freelance work, whatever that's going to generate some income, like not a full income, but like three grand a month. The way the math works is that dramatically cuts down the amount of money you have to have in assets and retirement assets to be financially free.

01:53:27:11 - 01:53:48:00 Kevin I'm not sure I did a great job explaining it, but go go read the Mr. Money Mustache article and he clearly explains it. And that was a game changer for me because this is hard for people to believe. But when I was working in the corporate world, we were making seven figure salaries and we felt poor. We felt like we were living paycheck to paycheck because the hamster wheel never ends.

01:53:48:00 - 01:54:06:18 Kevin It just spins faster and faster. And so it was an epiphany for me when I learned about fire, because I was like, oh, I'm basically already there. If I just live a much simpler life, I can be free today. And that's powerful.

01:54:06:21 - 01:54:07:16 Kyle Let's talk about people,

01:54:07:16 - 01:54:09:21 Kevin people in the community.

01:54:09:24 - 01:54:19:12 Kyle Create your inner circle. Carefully surround yourself with people you admire and who challenge you to grow. Remember where the average of our

01:54:19:15 - 01:54:23:01 Kyle is? Another one I've like stating the obvious one, but I'm curious to hear your

01:54:23:04 - 01:54:43:11 Kevin But what humans tend to do is we accumulate more and more and more relationships and never prune them. So, you know, one of my favorite sayings is some some relationships are for life, some are for a season, and some are just for a day. And yet we tend to cling on, to cling to relationships past their expiration date.

01:54:43:11 - 01:55:09:17 Kevin So the classic example is childhood friends. Like I have a crew of friends from where I grew up who are still my friends through my boys. I still have a relationship with them, but at some point I realized, like, it's okay that they're not part of my inner circle. I don't have to have an ever growing. My closest relationships can evolve over time, and and that's about five people, everybody else I can have a relationship with.

01:55:09:17 - 01:55:35:00 Kevin But there's boundaries on that, you know? And so it's very liberating to just accept that it's okay to set boundaries, like it's okay to only talk to your childhood best friend once a year if you're not that aligned anymore. And then you also meet new people who you're very aligned with, and you want them and they they inspire you and challenge you to grow, and you want them to be part of your inner circle.

01:55:35:00 - 01:55:54:17 Kevin And so it's really just a process of being deliberate about curating your relationships. And it always comes back to this idea of like being deliberate about what you're building. You know, your relationships are no different. You have to be deliberate about it. There's your family, there's your inner circle, and there's everybody else and that family and inner circle.

01:55:54:17 - 01:55:57:09 Kevin Those are very small groups of people.

01:55:57:11 - 01:56:13:12 Kyle What do you think about the concept of like, cutting people off versus setting boundaries? I think there is definitely like part of the culture is like, you know, like I'm sitting in my boundaries. It's like instead it's not like putting people in a box. It's just like a

01:56:13:15 - 01:56:15:17 Kevin yeah, yeah. There's like

01:56:15:20 - 01:56:23:22 Kyle there. I mean, obviously there are some circumstances where that's warranted and like, that's the healthiest decision, but maybe like it's a tool that's

01:56:23:24 - 01:56:25:04 Kevin Yep.

01:56:25:06 - 01:56:45:17 Kevin Well, one thing about boundaries and what you're really talking about here is boundaries. Whether it's you go all the way with the boundary, meaning like we can't talk at all. All the way to like, we're going to just keep you at an arm's length. Boundaries are for you, not them. So like and reason I say that is the other person will almost never understand the boundary or agree with the boundary.

01:56:45:18 - 01:57:08:12 Kevin Right? But the boundary is for you and they don't have to understand it or agree with it. And so good example from my life is I've had to set some pretty firm boundaries with my the family I grew up with. Right. And they don't understand it. They think in some ways, like I'm a bad guy because I set these boundaries, but the boundaries are for my own family and my own sanity.

01:57:08:12 - 01:57:32:07 Kevin And so it's really important to set those and maintain those. And, you know, in the case of family, you don't necessarily have the luxury of, you know, you don't get to choose your family, so you don't have the luxury of cutting them off altogether, nor should you. But you can set boundaries. And when you cut someone off completely like to your question, they're probably not going to understand that, but that may be the boundary you need.

01:57:32:07 - 01:57:52:10 Kevin If they're a net negative on your life, you have no obligation to maintain a relationship that's dragging you backwards. It's hard for everybody. That's why I said we end up just accumulating more and more and more relationships, and then you have all these obligations that just aren't serving you anymore.

01:57:52:12 - 01:58:01:04 Kevin How would you curious?

01:58:01:06 - 01:58:35:13 Kevin Yeah, I mean, that would be the biggest change I've made in my personal life over the past, say, five years after I did that big reboot. You know, I built a different life and a lot of my relationships did. I did have to set boundaries on them, walk away from some, and had to rebuild my inner circle. And I think the it's almost like a, you know, almost it's a little crass to say, but it's almost like a sales funnel where you have to meet a lot of people to find, find the few people who you really connect with and admire, and you want to be part of your.

01:58:35:15 - 01:59:00:13 Kevin So you have to put yourself in places where you're meeting the right kind of people. A simple example in my life is I joined this organization with a crazy name called Baby Bathwater Institute, and it's basically like a bunch of people who are sort of like me who who take their career seriously but also want to have a great life.

01:59:00:13 - 01:59:20:22 Kevin And it's just a very in itself. It's a very curated group of like 250 people. It's headquartered in Boulder but has members all over the world. Joining that group is probably the most impactful thing I've done in the past five years, because it put me in the room with 200 other people who I know, like, share my same mindset.

01:59:20:22 - 01:59:41:01 Kevin And of those 200, maybe three become part of my inner circle, right? So if you're just, you know, like it's like, I don't. This is going to sound bad, but it's like almost like a garbage in, garbage out thing. Like if you're not meeting high quality people, you'll never be able to build a high quality inner circle. So you have to be able to go out.

01:59:41:01 - 01:59:54:07 Kevin And again, it's about being deliberate. Go out and put yourself in places where you're going to meet high quality people, and even then, most of them won't become part of your like. You won't connect for whatever reason. So it's.

01:59:54:07 - 02:00:04:09 Kevin How did you find this?

02:00:04:11 - 02:00:32:17 Kevin Yeah, I think affinities are affinity groups are a great source. So like I'd say, my inner circle right now probably is like half from like baby bathwater and related stuff and half from climbing. So you know, climbing is a great way. Like if you're really into climbing like you and I are, you're, you know, part of why we like it is because you meet people who are like minded now.

02:00:32:18 - 02:00:49:24 Kevin But even as I said, within that group, let's say over the years, you meet 100 different climbers, maybe two are going to become really close, close friends. And that's just how it works. I wish there was an easy solution to go find like five perfect people to fit in your inner circle within three weeks. The reality is, it takes years.

02:00:49:24 - 02:01:07:22 Kevin And you know, over the years I've met hundreds of climbers and I have friends all over the world in climbing, but there's like two that are part of my inner circle, you know? And so there's no easy process. It's like dating. It's it's like it really is like the same question, like, how do I find a life partner?

02:01:07:23 - 02:01:15:19 Kevin Yeah. Like I wish there was a great answer for that. But the reality is.

02:01:15:22 - 02:01:21:22 Kevin It is it's that sort of level of seriousness for sure.

02:01:21:24 - 02:01:39:18 Kyle Yeah. I mean, I think for me, my version of like my,

02:01:39:20 - 02:01:41:28 Kevin Right.

02:01:42:00 - 02:01:52:15 Kyle it's great. Like I love the podcast because like, yes, this is for the audience. And I get to share,

02:01:52:17 - 02:02:10:19 Kevin So you're doing exactly what I described in writing. So people think that, like you do a podcast because you want to like, share all this great information. And sure, that's part of the motivation. But you as a podcaster know, like selfishly, you just get to invite people onto your show who you want to talk about or you want to talk to and learn from.

02:02:10:19 - 02:02:29:22 Kevin And so in a way, it's like a selfish endeavor. But it's a great example of agency because the truth is, anyone can start a podcast, right? We don't even need you've got great equipment here. We don't even need this great equipment, like put an iPhone in between the two of you, and it's going to be pretty darn if the contents good people will listen.

02:02:29:22 - 02:02:56:28 Kevin And so, you know, anybody could start a podcast and invite people that they admire to come on. And some of them will probably agree. And then it snowballs from there. Do that for five years and I bet good things are going to happen. But, you know, that's this that's the whole agency and courage and just, you know, doing that and probably through this podcast, you will end up meeting at least one person who will become part of your inner circle.

02:02:57:00 - 02:03:08:23 Kyle Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to like I was talking to another podcaster recently about like, success in podcasting. Like, what does that mean? Right? Like, there is a world where I'd love to have this show

02:03:08:25 - 02:03:09:17 Kevin Yeah. And

02:03:09:19 - 02:03:17:11 Kyle money to not only, like, support my life, but to expand the show. Like I've got a vision to, like, interview people like, travel,

02:03:17:13 - 02:03:18:10 Kevin Right.

02:03:18:12 - 02:03:22:13 Kyle like bring my cinematic experience and like, get

02:03:22:16 - 02:03:23:17 Kevin Right.

02:03:23:19 - 02:03:33:27 Kyle Like there's such a cool vision and I have. And so like that's ultimately the goal. But at the same time, like, you know, part of my question before about like surviving

02:03:33:29 - 02:03:37:14 Kevin Right? Yeah, yeah.

02:03:37:17 - 02:03:41:18 Kyle like, this show has to be tied to

02:03:41:21 - 02:03:44:19 Kevin 100%.

02:03:44:22 - 02:03:47:25 Kevin Right yet.

02:03:47:28 - 02:03:59:26 Kyle It can't work. And it's funny, like whenever I have these, like low moments about the show or if I feel like unmotivated or uninspired, it's usually because I haven't had a conversation with somebody in a long time and like, you know, right.

02:03:59:28 - 02:04:12:15 Kyle Like for this month, I'm doing five interviews and then I'll, I'll be good for three months. And so then I'll take a break and then I'll just be

02:04:12:17 - 02:04:14:09 Kevin Yeah.

02:04:14:11 - 02:04:38:28 Kevin Well and and we talked about this before we started recording. I was telling you that, you know, you approach this as a craft also like I could tell immediately because we did a pre meeting before we recorded. And then you sent me a show outline with your ideas for how the show would go. I can tell you because I've been on between 50 and 100 podcasts, that's pretty rare.

02:04:38:28 - 02:05:03:29 Kevin And so I think the reason that's important is because when you approach it as a craft, your downside is that you just learn a lot and grow a lot as a human. Your upside is that it turns into something down the road. And as as you've probably been told by other podcasters, you know, you, it's slowly then all at once, like it might take 500 episodes.

02:05:03:29 - 02:05:30:07 Kevin Who knows? Alex. Alex Rossi is. So I'm not necessarily a huge fan of like, he's like a grind culture guy. Yeah, but but one thing he says that I really agree with is like, you know, do do something so consistently for such a long period of time that it's unreasonable that you wouldn't be successful. Right? Do it an unreasonable number of times, and you're probably going to find some success.

02:05:30:07 - 02:05:48:00 Kevin And by the way, if you did 1000 episodes of this podcast, the success you find may not be what you expected, which is like it becomes a huge podcast. It might be some weird second order benefit that happens, like serendipity that happens along the way.

02:05:48:03 - 02:05:50:01 Kevin Yeah, that's the way to be.

02:05:50:04 - 02:06:01:15 Kyle I like this concept. You said think globally but act locally. Too many people put their energy into faraway problems that they don't understand and

02:06:01:18 - 02:06:04:29 Kyle their nose. Want to change the world? Start

02:06:05:01 - 02:06:41:01 Kevin Yeah, that's something I believe strongly in. And that's where I think many people have have lost the plot. You know, when I drive through Boulder, where I live and I see protesters on the corner, my first thought is like, you know, are their personal lives a mess? Because if the answer is yes, you probably should start with your personal life and your relationships closest to you and solve those problems at home before you try to, you know, protest a problem across the world that I guarantee you you don't understand the nuances of.

02:06:41:04 - 02:07:02:12 Kevin That's right. And, you know, start with your own family. Like, you know, are there needs taken care of? Are you are you focused on problems at home? Then work out to your block and your neighbors. Then work out to your city. You know, the the global issues, global politics, whether it's Palestine, whatever should be last on your list.

02:07:02:13 - 02:07:25:15 Kevin Like, you know, because. Ironically, the way to impact the world anyway is to start at home and be a shining example of how things should be, you know? So, yeah, I mean that there used to be bumper stickers at the hippies had that literally said, think globally, act locally, like be be the change. Don't complain about the change you want to see.

02:07:25:16 - 02:07:34:01 Kevin Be the change you know you want. People treat it a certain way across the globe. Treat people that way in your neighborhood.

02:07:34:04 - 02:07:55:20 Kyle yeah. It's so true. I I've spoken about this a lot. It's it's really, really important to like. Yeah, fix your own problems, I think. What is the phrase that you you can't help other people until you, like, help yourself. Like, I think there's like, the the mentality of, like, putting yourself first is selfish and you should put others first.

02:07:55:21 - 02:08:01:22 Kyle I believe that, like, you kind of have to put yourself first to then be able to

02:08:01:24 - 02:08:27:00 Kevin 100%. There's a reason on airplanes they tell you to put on your oxygen mask first before you help others is because you can't help others unless you can help yourself. And it always strikes me like the most extreme people about like whether it's on the Trump side or whether it's on the liberal side, the most extreme activists are the most toxic people you'll ever meet, and their lives are a mess.

02:08:27:05 - 02:08:38:13 Kevin And so their prime example of like, start cleaning up your own life and be the be whatever change you want to see in the world. Be a shining example of it. Start there.

02:08:38:16 - 02:08:48:23 Kevin Outside of your family.

02:08:48:25 - 02:09:15:01 Kevin Actually, I was really glad you asked this question because my vehicle. So we talked about like how you do something consistently and it leads to places you never would have anticipated. When I started writing on Twitter, which is now X, you know, it was just an accountability mechanism for myself. I had zero followers and then unexpectedly, it slowly kind of grows.

02:09:15:01 - 02:09:38:10 Kevin And now I have a pretty big following. And more than that, it's a super engaged following and I get dozens of DMs each week. And it's been my policy, and I take it as a serious responsibility to respond to all of them. Most people who have a decent sized audience on social don't respond to DM's, because you do get a lot of junk.

02:09:38:13 - 02:09:58:03 Kevin I don't get so much of that, but I respond to every single one and I get a ton of requests for like help with something. Or can we meet up? Can we talk by phone? And that has become my almost like service project in a way, is I spend a lot of time responding to messages and even meeting with people.

02:09:58:03 - 02:10:23:11 Kevin And I one interesting thing that's just fascinating to me is before I'll meet with somebody, I set some very simple filters in place and you'd be shocked. You'd think everybody would clear these filters, like, I'll have someone who will DM me and they basically like, tell me their life story, and they want advice and they want help. And I usually respond and say, send me, here's my email address.

02:10:23:11 - 02:10:43:12 Kevin Send me an email outline specifically what you'd like to talk about and how I might be able to help you, how you think I might be able to help you. 50% of people don't even send the email, so right away it filters them. Out of the 50% who do email me, if they do a good job of what I asked, which is like laying everything out.

02:10:43:13 - 02:11:07:29 Kevin Usually I can kind of provide some some advice via email and that solves the problem. That's probably 80% of those. So the number who actually end up meeting with is ends up being a tiny number of highly self-selected people. And the irony of that is, I always tell these people when I meet with them that those are, ironically, the people who don't need my advice anyway, because they've they've cleared these gates and they've proven that they're on the ball.

02:11:07:29 - 02:11:26:09 Kevin They already understand their problem. They probably know what they need to do to fix. Usually those people just want affirmation, like you're on the right track. So it's kind of an irony that inspires them. And and those are usually people. By the way, the reason I meet with those people is there's something I can learn from them. Also.

02:11:26:09 - 02:11:49:18 Kevin It's more of a mutual thing. And so that is that has become like that whole my Twitter account basically, or ex account. I still call it Twitter. I can't help myself. It's evolved into something that I never anticipated. And it gets me, you know, I get to do stuff like this where I get to tell my story to, you know, your audience.

02:11:49:18 - 02:12:11:21 Kevin And so that's my answer is like, that is my because I've never been a guy who's like, I'm not going to go down and like help on a construction project on the weekends to build homes for the homeless. And like, that's great work. And people enjoy that. That's just not how I am. But it also at the same time, just giving money feels a little disconnected.

02:12:11:21 - 02:12:18:12 Kevin And I do some of that to this feels like a great medium for me to help people.

02:12:18:15 - 02:12:27:10 Kyle that. Yeah. I think like leaning into your strengths and being able to offer something super unique to like what your skill set is, is,

02:12:27:12 - 02:12:29:06 Kevin Yeah, yeah, it feels aligned.

02:12:29:06 - 02:12:36:22 Kyle there's also like I think I've seen some what's the word.

02:12:36:24 - 02:12:37:11 Kyle philanthropy.

02:12:37:13 - 02:12:44:17 Kevin Oh, yeah.

02:12:44:19 - 02:12:47:07 Kevin Yeah.

02:12:47:10 - 02:12:49:22 Kevin Yeah, it's quid pro quo.

02:12:49:24 - 02:12:53:21 Kevin Yeah.

02:12:53:23 - 02:12:54:05 Kevin

02:12:54:07 - 02:13:17:01 Kevin Well, I'm going to pull up my phone because I'm going to read you my payoff that I get. So I got a message today at 7:28 a.m. from one of my followers. He said, at 43, I've been burning it at all ends, trying to make it. Even with $350,000 plus a year in income, I feel like I'm not enough.

02:13:17:01 - 02:13:36:02 Kevin But you inspire me. It's not about the material things. I need to be outside. I need to be making music. Thank you. Like that's my payoff. I get chills just reading that, you know, real impact on individuals. And I read that one. But, you know, most of these, I'm the only one who knows about it, you know, and that's that's enough for me.

02:13:36:02 - 02:13:40:00 Kevin That's that's the real. That's that's my fuel.

02:13:40:03 - 02:14:00:26 Kyle that wrapping up here. I've got two more. Bernard Shaw famously said, we don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stopped playing. We talked a little bit about this in the form of movement and physical health, but I specifically like your use of the word play or Bernard Shaw's use of the word play.

02:14:00:27 - 02:14:02:19 Kyle How do you define that word?

02:14:02:22 - 02:14:32:22 Kevin Yeah. I mean, well, I always say always working. Always playing. Like I sort of mash everything together and, you know, as good as it gets is choosing the things you play with, like whether it's work or whether it's outdoor stuff. And if you look at like if you find like go into or if you talk to a bunch of older people that say people in their 70s and 80s and you find the ones that still have a twinkle in their eye and still seem kind of young at heart.

02:14:32:23 - 02:14:53:06 Kevin That's usually why they're very playful people. They approach everything as sort of play, they like to have fun, and ultimately that is a big part of life, is just simply doing things that are fun. Being around people you love and enjoy being around, that's sort of the whole ball game. That's how I would define play.

02:14:53:08 - 02:14:57:01 Kevin Yeah, yeah.

02:14:57:04 - 02:15:00:20 Kevin Yeah, I think yeah.

02:15:00:23 - 02:15:13:10 Kevin It is. Yep. Yeah. And it's like it's circular too because you know, doing those things, you know, improves your mental health and then choosing to do more of those things, you know, it becomes like a virtuous cycle.

02:15:13:12 - 02:15:17:28 Kyle Yeah. I've always found climbing is a really great way to interject play into

02:15:18:00 - 02:15:25:14 Kevin For sure.

02:15:25:17 - 02:15:27:24 Kyle like, you know, you're up there. It's super

02:15:27:26 - 02:15:33:01 Kevin Pure joy.

02:15:33:04 - 02:15:36:13 Kevin It really is.

02:15:36:16 - 02:16:00:26 Kevin Yeah. And I unfortunately, I always tell people like I wish for everyone that they could find their version of climbing, but the thing that just really speaks to their soul. Like your experience. Unfortunately, I don't think many people have found that their version of climbing because like I always say, like climbers talk incessantly about climbing. It drives my wife nuts at dinner parties because we're obsessed with it.

02:16:01:01 - 02:16:14:24 Kevin But but honestly, I love listening in on conversations of groups of people who are equally obsessed about something else. You know, because what you're seeing is joy emanating, passion emanating from them. That is the play aspect.

02:16:14:27 - 02:16:38:16 Kyle Yeah, passion. I love that last one. And I got a sneaky one at the end. Reinvent yourself. Every decade over time, we slowly drift off course from our priorities, values and true identity. Take stock and don't be afraid to hit the reset button. Bold, calculated moves made for the right reasons almost always pay off, usually even more than you can imagine.

02:16:38:17 - 02:16:42:14 Kyle And again, I think this is like closing

02:16:42:17 - 02:16:44:12 Kevin Right. Yeah.

02:16:44:17 - 02:16:49:12 Kyle closing off, kind of where we ended.

02:16:49:14 - 02:17:07:25 Kyle We had spoken about in the beginning, creating an idealistic vision for like what your life is. And, you know, now you've said you've come close. You've got like a couple things left. Right. How does that process that we've talked about in

02:17:07:27 - 02:17:30:23 Kevin Yeah. Well so first of all, I would say that if you haven't done a major reboot in ten years, that's something to think about. I think we tend to stagnate and objects at rest tend to stay at rest. And so I do think about about every 8 to 10 years, you probably need a significant change. Now sometimes that may just be a forced something.

02:17:30:25 - 02:18:01:03 Kevin You choose forced reboot which is like the thinking about this earlier, like the first one probably in my life was having kids. Like, whether you like it or not, you're about to get rebooted because kids could not care less about your needs and everything gets reshuffled. So that's like a reboot. And then for me, discovering climbing was sort of like a little mini reboot for me because it sort of changed the trajectory of my life.

02:18:01:06 - 02:18:22:08 Kevin And then my official reboot, which was now eight years ago, was was a big time reboot, and now it's been eight years. So I'm in that window and it does feel like we need another reboot. And what's interesting is my wife and I just became empty nesters, and so we're having a lot of fun talking about what that next reboot looks like.

02:18:22:09 - 02:18:47:17 Kevin And the, the way this you sort of alluded to, like, how does this connect to the ideal end state thing? Do you need a new new instate every ten years? No, it's because getting to your end state, checking off every last box will require some radical changes. So I'm just going to read you some some of my remaining items on my end state, and you'll understand why they require radical change.

02:18:47:17 - 02:19:09:14 Kevin So one of them that I've not checked off is travel 2 to 3 months a year. Some with friends, some with families, like to travel two three months a year. You have to set your life up in a pretty radical way. I'm not set up to do that today, but that's actually what we're talking about. April to December and the mountains, January to March in a sunny, warm place.

02:19:09:20 - 02:19:36:01 Kevin Im not doing that yet. That requires we talked about kind of the Vegas, you know, Vegas and other places, steadily growing my faith. I've not checked that one off. And that requires a big sense of dedication. So, you know, you're going to have to make like some of these, some of the things on your ideal state, you can sort of earn your way slowly to like one of mine is eat an 80% clean diet.

02:19:36:02 - 02:19:47:18 Kevin Like you can get that dialed in slowly, bit by bit as I have over time. But some you have to do is radical change or you just can't do it. And so that's going to force a few reboots.

02:19:47:21 - 02:19:55:11 Kyle Do you have a list of questions or a structured process in which you reevaluate your life when you're trying to think about these

02:19:55:13 - 02:20:05:28 Kevin Yes. In fact we can put in the show notes a link to my ideal instate and it walks you through literally how to do it. Yeah.

02:20:06:00 - 02:20:06:11 Kevin Yeah

02:20:06:11 - 02:20:10:19 Kyle I really like circling back to the beginning. I love the idea of having you

02:20:10:22 - 02:20:12:11 Kevin oh yeah.

02:20:12:13 - 02:20:32:00 Kevin Yeah. When I met your your partner before we started recording and I she's cool, I can tell. And you guys, it'll be really interesting I always like I genuinely enjoy so people will do the exercise and then they'll send …