Pod Insights A Bit of Optimism (PART 2) The Climb Out of Pain is Taller Than Everest with National Geographic photographer Cory Richards About this episode *Please note: At 9:01, Simon and Cory have a discussion about suicide.
What happens after we attain success and glory? Where do you go when there's nowhere left to run from yourself?
In Part 2 of my conversation with Cory Richards, Cory explains why reaching the summit of Everest marked the beginning of a long, painful fall from grace.
After his tumultuous decision to retire from climbing, Cory found himself lost and confused about his true identity. At the same time, he was forced to grapple with multiple life-shattering events at once -- some of his own making.
In this episode, we discuss the difference between identity and purpose, the skills Cory learned to cope with multiple tragedies, and why the more we ignore life’s harshest lessons, the louder they become.
Listen to Part 1 here or watch it on YouTube.
This…is A Bit of Optimism.
For more on Cory Richards and his work, check out:
coryrichards.com
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Please be aware that in this episode, Simon and Cory have a discussion about suicide. Check the show notes below for the time code.
0:08 Speaker 01 I was sitting there and I ended up just sobbing and screaming into my sleeping bag at the top of my lungs because I didn't want the camp staff to hear what was happening. I walked into the cook tent and I was like, I'm done. And they're like, with the expedition? And I was like, no, I'm like done climbing and taking pictures.
0:27 Simon Sinek? In the last episode of A Bit of Optimism, I sat down with Cory Richards. He's the climber and photographer whose selfie after he survived an avalanche made it to the cover of National Geographic. His journey is nothing short of extraordinary. And as powerful as our first episode was, our conversation went even deeper. Cory's story is not just about surviving the mountains. It's about confronting the personal battles that follow, the moments of clarity and chaos that shape who we all are. This is A Bit of Optimism.
1:02 Speaker 01 Our minds do this thing called splitting. When we feel under threat, we get more binary, which you see proliferating in extreme ways across America.
1:09 Simon Sinek? And for good reason, by the way. There's no time for nuance when there's a threat.
1:13 Speaker 01 Right.
1:13 Simon Sinek? Am I going to get eaten or am I not going to get eaten?
1:15 Speaker 01 But there is time for critical thinking.
1:16 Simon Sinek? Right.
1:17 Speaker 01 To be able to slow yourself down and move into a response mindset. And this is, you know, this is something I actually speak about is, is this whole system is something I came up with largely because I was so heartbroken that I was like, how the fuck do I get through this? You know? And basically, if you can master the skill of slowing yourself down, which comes down to learning how to self-regulate, you can make that shift really quickly.
1:47 Simon Sinek? From binary to critical.
1:48 Speaker 01 From binary to critical, out of sympathetic into parasympathetic.
1:52 Simon Sinek? It reminds me of pilots.
1:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:54 Simon Sinek? I mean, if you've ever heard air traffic control tapes.
1:58 Speaker 01 Right.
1:59 Simon Sinek? Of a really bad emergency.
2:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:01 Simon Sinek? On an aircraft.
2:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:03 Simon Sinek? To me, the most extreme one is a very famous plane crash back in Sioux Falls. Sioux Falls or Sioux City, I can't remember. But basically, the plane's full on on fire.
2:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:13 Simon Sinek? The engines are on fire. You know, the plane's on fire. They've lost hydraulics, which is like, literally the worst thing that can happen.
2:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:20 Simon Sinek? And they're controlling the plane with the engines, like left and right with thrust. Right? And there's video footage of it, of the plane coming in for landing on fire. And it hits, it crash lands, it somersaults, and miraculously, half the people survived, including the pilot. But when you go listen to the air traffic control chatter, it's like, uh, we're, uh, we're on fire right now. Uh, gonna make a emergency landing, you know?
2:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:47 Simon Sinek? And you can hear the tension in their voice, but they're calm and they're thinking. And they saved the lives of many because they could think critically. And it's everything you're saying.
2:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:57 Simon Sinek? Which is, in time of tension, they go calm, they self-regulate, they think about the problem.
3:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:03 Simon Sinek? And they have options as opposed to, you know, black and white and panic.
3:06 Speaker 01 Right, right. The key component, I think, of resilience is the jumping off point. And it goes back to my dad is agency. Because if you're looking at, why did this happen? This happened to me. If you're in a place of victimhood, or if you're in a place of blame, you are quite literally backwards looking. There's no forward focus there. You're, you're, I mean.
3:28 Simon Sinek? This happened to me.
3:29 Speaker 01 This happened to me, not this is the current situation.
3:33 Simon Sinek? Right.
3:33 Speaker 01 I can figure out, I can go to my therapist and figure out.
3:36 Simon Sinek? There's a time and place for that.
3:36 Speaker 01 There's a time and place for that. But in those critical moments, it's about taking agency of the situation. I mean, we saw it with the fires. Nine of my friends overnight homeless. I mean, in my whole core men's community, they all lived in the Palisades. And it's a natural response. When we are in threat, when we are in pain, we naturally look for places to, to put blame.
3:57 Simon Sinek? Of course.
3:58 Speaker 01 Right?
3:58 Simon Sinek? Helps us feel better.
3:59 Speaker 01 It helps us feel better.
4:00 Simon Sinek? Sure.
4:00 Speaker 01 It's a outsourcing of pain. The friends who did that.
4:06 Speaker 01 They didn't recover as well as the ones who basically said,
4:10 Simon Sinek? It happened.
4:11 Speaker 01 My house burned down. Now, what do I do? I can figure out the fire hydrants and the reservoirs later. Right now, I need to slow it down to speed up. Slow is fast, and that is a resilience mindset. If you're in, there is an element of survival mode, but you're not outsourcing it.
4:30 Simon Sinek? So go back to your model. It starts with self-regulation.
4:33 Speaker 01 It starts with agency. I mean, yes, self-regulation. But so basically, the sort of four key components are agency is everything. So taking ownership over the situation.
4:43 Simon Sinek? Which is the opposite of victimization.
4:44 Speaker 01 A hundred percent. Agency is everything. Discovery demands discomfort, meaning you have to lean in to the discomfort of the situation and not try to escape it. The third is certainty kills curiosity, meaning as soon as you're certain about something, growth is done. Right? And then adaptation leads to evolution, which is about not trying to remake something, but trying to reimagine something from the ground up. You can take pieces from the past so long as you're not married to it, but you can't remake the past. You just can't functionally.
5:19 Simon Sinek? Can you give me a specific story that you have gone through where you were able to apply those four elements and manage through something that you may have not have been able to in the past?
5:29 Speaker 01 It's a beautiful question because it leads to this moment right here.
5:33 Speaker 01 In 2021, height of COVID, I had been training for a new route on Everest, to climb something that had never been climbed before by anybody, do it without oxygen. And we had tried in 2019 and failed or not gotten to the top. We can get back to failure because I don't believe in it. In the history of the universe, not one single thing has ever failed.
5:57 Speaker 01 So yeah, we'll get back to that. So it's 2021 and we the Everest season from the north side, which is where we were climbing from the Tibetan side gets canceled. And so we have all this money saved. We're, we're making a film about my dying father and, and this climb and, and mental health. And we decided to go to a mountain called Dalagiri, which is the seventh highest mountain in the world. It's sort of like a dry run. And we ended up at base camp and I had not been sleeping well. I had not been eating a lot. I was very emotional. I was teary. We flew to base camp in a helicopter. So we jumped elevations really quick and then we exerted ourselves for three days trying to build a base camp.
6:38 Simon Sinek? Cause there's no infrastructure.
6:40 Speaker 01 There's no infrastructure there, especially that time of year, those seasons. Again, we were trying a new route. So there's this hyper stress going on. And the team went out to sort of recon a way onto the face. Nobody had ever climbed it. I stayed in my tent and my brain started to speed up. And I started to cry uncontrollably. I was trying to read, but I really couldn't make sense of the words. I was reading, I think autobiography of a yogi or something like that. And all I kept coming back to was this word, love, love, love. But then it was, it was countered by this idea of like, sort of grandiosity and dying. I couldn't make sense of it. Later on, it would be, I think reasonably diagnosed
7:24 Speaker 01 as a very extreme mixed bipolar episode, which is where you're experiencing crushing depression and hypomania, in my case, all at the same time. So it's incredibly hard. Anyway, I was sitting there and I ended up just sobbing and screaming into my sleeping bag at the top of my lungs, because I didn't want the camp staff to hear what was happening. Team came back. And I, I, I walked into the cook tent and I was like, I'm, I'm done. And they're like, what do you mean you're done? And I was like, I'm done. And they're like, with the expedition? I mean, dude, hundreds of thousands of dollars, sponsors, like all of it. And I was like, no, I'm, I'm like done climbing and taking pictures.
8:09 Speaker 01 And their jaws dropped. I'm crying, sobbing at the time. And they're like, what are you gonna do? And I'm like, move to LA and make movies. You know, so there was like, there was this amplified grandiosity going on. Next day I get up, I leave, I walk down the valley. I get on a helicopter, I fly back to Kathmandu, I get on a plane, I fly home. And now I'm getting really depressed, you know? There's a sense of freedom in it. I'm like, oh, I freed myself from this, whatever it was. But I get home and then I get this email. My mom texted me really early in the morning and she said, did you get the email from, from Tommy? Who was part of the team? And it was just this scathing interpretation of what had happened, you know?
8:54 Speaker 01 Vast manipulation, hiding behind mental health, like all of these things. And I was so depressed at the time. I was like, well, fuck it, I'll just kill myself. Like I'm done, peace out. Like, and it wasn't the first time I'd had that thought in my life. And so I prepared myself and did all, you know, I like took a shower and pulled out a climbing rope and tied a noose and hung it from the ceiling and got up on the stool. And, and I, and I was, I almost accidentally did it. And anyway, it was, I ended up obviously not dying and, and, and reaching out for help
9:36 Speaker 01 and, and really dove in very deep into, into this, into the mental health world. I knew all the words, I knew all the ideas by that point, but I didn't, I had contextualized it. You know, people who think a lot do that. And they think that the knowledge is the healing and the healing isn't the knowledge at all. It's like wisdom can't be taught, but knowledge can. Wisdom is the embodiment. And I
10:02 Speaker 01 And then I didn't know what I was gonna do. I had built this identity as a photographer and as a climber and National Geographic this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now none of those things existed. And there was this stark reality and a very deep probing of who am I as a human being? If I don't have these anchors and my value can no longer be tied to an external expression, what does that mean for my humanity? So now you see like taking agency over the situation. What is the truth? The truth is not.
10:41 Simon Sinek? Who am I not? Who do others think I am?
10:43 Speaker 01 Exactly. Like, and here's the reality. I now I'm stepping into an unknown future. Then you get into this like, I don't, I'm not climbing anymore. I'm not taking photographs. I'm not working for National Geographic. I'm not, none of these things. So now here I am. These are the hurdles that are impacting me that are from my past. I need to take care of those. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't have limitless money. How am I gonna sort this out? Boom, you've got agency. Then you move into discovery demands endurance. That is a very uncomfortable place to be. You've got financial stresses. You've got long-term life path stresses.
11:25 Speaker 01 You've got identity stresses and I'm sitting there going, this is the most uncomfortable I've ever been. During that time, I went through a very, very toxic and also formative beautiful relationship where, you know, I was dating this gal and I, again, if you really look at it, I had anchored myself to her beauty. I just thought she was the most beautiful thing in the world. And maybe if I'm standing next to her, that can make up for all the other things that I've let go, you know? And then we moved to Thailand and. And then I come to find out that she had actually been, and I write about it in the book. So I feel square talking about this with, she knows, she approved the chapter, but come to
12:10 Speaker 01 find out that she had been escorting during our relationship. So now there's this heartbreak involved in this now, too. And that is a deeply uncomfortable place. So there's loss, there's heartbreak, and I just had to sit in it. And I just had to sit in it and explore it. Then you get to, well, let's get curious about this. What are the stories that I'm telling? Where is my certainty in this? And are those certainties true? And what stories are those certainties driving that are anchoring me in beliefs?
12:39 Simon Sinek? What is my story? Is that story true?
12:40 Speaker 01 Exactly.
12:41 Simon Sinek? Is that story really true?
12:42 Speaker 01 Is that story really? And if it's not true, what does that mean?
12:45 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
12:46 Speaker 01 So now you're in curiosity versus certainty. And out of that came the book because it was the mining of all of this that led me to writing what became the first book. And that starts to be an adaptation, right? What's interesting is, and I've said this before, I did not start writing that book from a place of service at all. I actually started writing from a place of victimhood. Look at all the things that happened to me. And that went back to the curiosity part where I'm like, wait a minute. You know, like the story with my brother. He did all these things. Well, wait a minute. Was it just him? Or were you getting something from this?
13:30 Speaker 01 And as soon as I started asking those questions and being willing to write them out, despite all the discomfort, I started discovering that there was a deeper truth to all of this that allowed me to take more and more and more agency, which allowed me to expand the discomfort, which allowed me to be more curious. And then the words start coming out and it transformed the book from a sob story into an act of service that says, this is my life. You've seen it from this side. Now let me tell you what's going on underneath.
14:02 Simon Sinek? And I hope the lessons I've learned are valuable to you so you don't have to go through what I've gone through.
14:06 Speaker 01 Even if we don't know each other, you are not alone.
14:08 Simon Sinek? You're not the first person to go through that.
14:10 Speaker 01 You're not the first person. It doesn't mean it's not unique and special to you. It feels like it's the only thing.
14:16 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
14:17 Speaker 01 But I just wanted to know.
14:18 Simon Sinek? It turns a vicious cycle into a virtuous one.
14:19 Speaker 01 Exactly. And so just really recently, this, all of this solidified where I was like, oh, it was really about the discovery of values, which came through my men's work. Because it was like, people are like, oh, you've been so resilient in your life. And I'm like, mm mm, I was living in survival, which is why I was doing all of the things that were so dark behind the surface. I was just grabbing for candy, you know?
14:49 Simon Sinek? Okay, so that's where you learned it?
14:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's where I learned it.
14:51 Simon Sinek? Tell me an experience where you were able to apply it consciously. You're like, ah, okay, I've got these four things, I'm gonna do it. Or is it not like that?
15:00 Speaker 01 No, no, no, no. This is where it gets back to us right now. It's 2025.
15:07 Speaker 01 I was in Hawaii with now my ex-partner for the holidays. We get a call from my mom. She says, dad has an internal bleed. He's been sick for five years. You need to come home. It's happening. So we get on a plane, and we land on New Year's Eve. I go see my dad. He bounces back, but it's like, okay, this is coming. We come home on the sixth. The fires happen on the seventh. My entire community gets thrust into triage mode, which amplifies everybody's nervous system. My ex and I break up. She's my best friend at the time. I mean, this is very recent, by the way. This is why it's, I'm like, give me some whiskey. My ex and I break up, and she's been my best friend for over a year. So the thing goes away.
15:54 Speaker 01 Not by design, it was not in any way overlapping, but there was a woman that came into my life at, basically at that exact same moment. And it was the first time in my life that I had a deep internal knowing. I was like, this is, oh, oh, this is like, this is, this is the thing that people talk about. It was like, I felt something in my gut, in my body, that knew. It was like I had found my mirror. I'd found the person.
16:29 Speaker 01 Mom calls again. Now you really gotta come home. I get on a plane. She calls on Saturday morning. I get on a plane. I arrive and Dad is definitely dying. My brother, who I hadn't seen, I think, four years, shows up. It's totally amicable. We're here in this together. We sit on my dad's bed that night with my cousin and his wife. And we were giving my dad like little, drawing the syringe, the little syringe, little shots of Jameson, sort of in between his moments of lucidity. And we're all just laughing and telling stories. And, um, and the next day, we had a conversation just about, hey, you know, like,
17:14 Speaker 01 how long is this gonna last? And the hospice people just said, hey, just make him comfortable, you know? Make him comfortable. And that night, it was clear that he was, he was dying. And, um, we were all exhausted. I went to, to, to lie down for a little bit. My mom went to take out the recycling or something. And when everybody was out of the room, he died. And, I mean, I'm still very much processing that. And then, and then this gal that I was so deeply falling in love with, truly falling in love in a way that I've never imagined is even possible.
17:55 Speaker 01 And she, she said, you know, she was like, look, I'm still talking to some other people. And I said, okay, like, I can handle that. All I need is communication. And she was going out of town and I knew she was gonna go on a date. And I said, just look, this is gonna be hard for me, but like, please just communicate. And she didn't text or communicate for nine or 10 days. And then when we finally communicated again, it was, I'm gonna pursue this other thing. And, um,
18:28 Speaker 01 And then the totality of everything kind of crashed into me. The fires is a backdrop. Even though the relationship needed to end, she was still my best friend. It wasn't like, wasn't bad. Dad dies. The rocket ship of love and the fall to earth of heartbreak. And I was sitting there on an airplane going, any one of these events is, is life altering. And I'm trying to juggle four at the same time.
19:05 Speaker 01 Every day.
19:08 Speaker 01 I wake up now. And. I try to take agency. What do I really know?
19:18 Speaker 01 I know. My dad's dead. I know it hurts.
19:23 Speaker 01 I know I tasted something so sweet. But that's not here anymore. For now, maybe it comes back, maybe it doesn't, doesn't even matter. So I take agency and I sit in the place of discomfort every day. Today's been a terrible one.
19:41 Speaker 01 Terrible. Sometimes I sit in my car and I scream. As loud as I fucking can and just cry because it.
19:50 Speaker 01 It just hurts so fuck much.
19:56 Speaker 01 So I'm in the place of.
19:59 Speaker 01 Just profound discomfort.
20:03 Speaker 01 And every day, as I start to make up new stories about. My lack of value or why she left or what the other guy has or whatever it is or. You know, what my ex is doing now or how I've, whatever. Anytime I start to come up with a story. It's like there's an elbow block of something so deep in me that says, uh-uh. You're trying to create certainty, which is a grasp for comfort, which you know is not what you need. Because it will erase your agency. You're giving all the power away. And so there's the deep curiosity of. Well, now what? You know, now what? And I don't know what the adaptation is.
20:46 Speaker 01 But I know that if I stick to my values, I stay in my integrity, I watch the crutches. I know that what's on the other side of this is profound.
21:00 Speaker 01 And this conversation, in some small or large way, is the adaptation or a piece of it that will lead to the evolution. Anyway.
21:14 Simon Sinek? Thanks, thanks for sharing.
21:16 Speaker 01 Jesus.
21:19 Speaker 01 It's just so, man, it hurts.
21:23 Speaker 01 The whiskey's good.
21:27 Simon Sinek? Who's sitting with you in this, through this?
21:37 Speaker 01 Well, right now, you are. Like, and this is, I think,
21:44 Speaker 01 obviously, this is a more curated environment, but
21:51 Speaker 01 when people sit and don't try to change it, and they just allow you to be sad without silver lining it, without at least this, well, you know, at least they just sit and they say, that's gotta hurt. Those people are the most valuable. They're not trying to change it. Try to change somebody's pain, you are rejecting it. And so I have this group of men here that, I have great female friends too, but this group of men, Treehouse, we talk every day and
22:23 Simon Sinek? You have that.
22:23 Speaker 01 I have that, yeah. Doesn't mean it hurts less.
22:25 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
22:26 Speaker 01 It's just, I know that I have a foundational group of people that will always show up.
22:35 Simon Sinek? The part that needs to be underlined here is that group.
22:39 Speaker 01 Hmm, totally.
22:41 Simon Sinek? As I said about the story from Johnny Quest, which is, he said, "I'm with you."
22:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:46 Simon Sinek? "And then I had the strength to keep going."
22:48 Speaker 01 Right.
22:49 Simon Sinek? Because it's definitely not internal fortitude. I'd already decided I was quitting.
22:53 Speaker 01 Right, right.
22:54 Simon Sinek? You're not looking for anybody to fix anything. You said it's agency.
22:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:57 Simon Sinek? You're not looking for anybody to convince you that everything's fine. Everything is not fine.
23:02 Simon Sinek? And what you're going through is awful. And this is where I think agency is so fascinating. Or the ability to be okay with discomfort and all your four things. The question I would raise is, does any of us have the internal fortitude to do any of those four things alone? Or the only reason you can do those four things is because you have a person or a network that when you say, this is what's happening to me, they simply say to you, yeah, that sucks, and validate the way you feel so that you have the strength of feeling not alone in taking agency, sitting in discomfort, being curious.
23:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:44 Simon Sinek? I wonder if the if the foundation of all those four things is the love that people have of you.
23:50 Simon Sinek? When you almost ended it, who did you call?
23:56 Speaker 01 At that moment, I called my my my then therapist, now friend, dear friend. And I just said, help, just help. I don't know what to do. And then my friend Lori came over and I remember I was in my underwear. I was just laying on the floor and she just laid down on top of me and put her head on the small of my back. I remember very distinctly first feeling her hair.
24:25 Speaker 01 And then feeling that kind of like stickiness because I knew she was crying.
24:31 Simon Sinek? Yeah, yeah, with the salt on salt.
24:32 Speaker 01 The salt on, yeah.
24:33 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
24:35 Speaker 01 And I remember she just said, don't, don't go.
24:39 Speaker 01 And, um, you know, in this situation now, it's never been, um, I haven't gotten to that place because I have this incredible group of people that exemplifies and amplifies love and support. And they can't do anything. They can't do functionally anything.
25:01 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
25:01 Speaker 01 Aside from.
25:02 Simon Sinek? Can't bring your dad back. They can't bring the girl back.
25:04 Speaker 01 They can't.
25:05 Simon Sinek? There's nothing to solve.
25:05 Speaker 01 There's nothing to solve.
25:06 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
25:07 Speaker 01 There's, there's, and so I think your question is, that is something that I would say I am certain of is that we can do fantastic things alone. And ultimately, the road that you take is your own. You have to do the work. You have to do the steps, but those steps are made possible
25:29 Speaker 01 by the community we keep.
25:30 Simon Sinek? There's an irony in all of your story. There's a deep irony in all of it, which is the glory, the individual glory that comes with climbing a mountain and taking a picture from the top. And yet,
25:43 Simon Sinek? somebody else took the picture of you, or somebody else prepped your climbing gear, or somebody else helped get you the sponsor, or, or, and, and, and this team of people so that one person can have glory. And it's the same with those Olympic medalists, which is they stand on the podium with the gold medal and say, look what I did. And yet, the scores of relationships and friends and family and coaches and nutritionists who devoted their lives so that this one person could achieve their dream.
26:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:10 Simon Sinek? And I think the selfishness, what I'm learning, the selfishness is not the desire to climb the mountain or win the gold medal. That's not the selfishness. The selfishness is standing on the top of the mountain or standing on the podium with the gold medal and not saying thank you.
26:22 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's the lack of acknowledgement.
26:25 Simon Sinek? It's the lack of gratitude.
26:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:27 Simon Sinek? Is the selfishness. It's not the drive or the accomplishment or the desire to conquer. All of that I'm realizing is fine.
26:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:34 Simon Sinek? It's that you stupidly thought you did it alone.
26:37 Speaker 01 Well, it's easy to erase it at that time.
26:39 Simon Sinek? You know, look what I did.
26:40 Speaker 01 Look what I did.
26:41 Simon Sinek? Look who I am.
26:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:42 Simon Sinek? You know?
26:43 Speaker 01 Validate me.
26:44 Simon Sinek? Validate me. Tell me how beautiful I am. And your friend came over and laid on top of you and did the most beautiful thing any human being could do for another human being, make them feel not alone.
26:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:56 Simon Sinek? And it literally saved your life.
26:57 Speaker 01 And it saved my life.
27:00 Speaker 01 You know, these multiple things exist at once, right? Like my mom puts me in the hospital.
27:07 Simon Sinek? At a very formative age.
27:08 Speaker 01 At a very formative age, and I feel abandoned, right? That's, so I implant this story of abandonment
27:13 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
27:13 Speaker 01 in my mind. In her mind, the story is, I love this child so much. I want him to be safe. And both those stories are existing concurrently and.
27:22 Simon Sinek? Both are true.
27:23 Speaker 01 And both are true.
27:24 Simon Sinek? And your point about curiosity is such a valuable one, which is as opposed to you did this to me.
27:29 Speaker 01 Right.
27:30 Simon Sinek? Can you tell me why you chose to do that?
27:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:34 Simon Sinek? Not to me.
27:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:36 Simon Sinek? Like, why did you do that?
27:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:38 Simon Sinek? Honey, I love you so desperately. It was the most excruciating thing I've ever done in my life. You think I want to have a hospital take you away from me? Of course I didn't, but I thought it is the only way to help you.
27:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:47 Simon Sinek? To hear the other side.
27:49 Speaker 01 Yeah. But that's the thing. I think that like we look at our culture, right? And if we're curious enough about how the stories that people inherited or have told throughout their lives, based on the circumstances of their upbringing and their environment, there's deep humanity and compassion there. We don't have to agree with the beliefs that they've arrived at.
28:13 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
28:14 Speaker 01 But we, but by being curious about their stories, we invite them into dialogue and it makes us all human. And so in that, you start to, you can, you can form bridges between people that have profoundly polar ideas. But in that conversation, we can find each other.
28:36 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
28:36 Speaker 01 I mean, that's the thing. I think like I've, I've thought a lot about purpose because I think people confuse it. We touched on it earlier.
28:45 Simon Sinek? With accomplishment.
28:45 Speaker 01 People confuse purpose with doing. And purpose is something so much more elemental. So for me, the way I would define my purpose is simply that my purpose is to connect people with a more authentic understanding of themselves. And in doing so, when we come into confrontation with our own paradoxes, our own contradictions, our own hypocrisies, our own messiness, and we start to extend some level of compassion to ourselves, we're, we're almost necessarily forced into the understanding that everybody comes with those same complications. And when we arrive at that point, we're then thrust into compassion by way of empathy.
29:28 Speaker 01 And so if you were to boil purpose down to a single word for me, it would be compassion. I do that through storytelling.
29:37 Simon Sinek? Yeah. You live a very balanced life.
29:41 Speaker 01 Kinda.
29:42 Simon Sinek? No, no, I don't mean that glibly. Like, I think of it like entrepreneurial experience versus like a corporate experience, right? Which is if you live a corporate life, your lows are not going to be that low, but your highs are not going to be that high. It's very balanced. There's nothing wrong with it. It's good. If you choose an entrepreneurial path, your highs are so high, but my God, your lows are so low. But my point is, is you, is nature abhors imbalance, nature abhors a vacuum. You'll always seek equilibrium.
30:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:07 Simon Sinek? And so it's going to find balance.
30:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:09 Simon Sinek? And so if you want to climb Mount Everest, literally, there is nowhere higher you can go.
30:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:16 Simon Sinek? Then you have to accept that the balance of that is go to a place where there's probably nowhere lower you can go.
30:22 Speaker 01 Right, right.
30:24 Simon Sinek? And so you, you live a very balanced life.
30:27 Speaker 01 I like that, yeah.
30:28 Simon Sinek? And it's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's just an is thing.
30:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:32 Simon Sinek? And one of the things that happens in the extremes is the lessons are louder.
30:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:39 Simon Sinek? The lessons are available.
30:41 Speaker 01 Throughout the spectrum.
30:42 Simon Sinek? Throughout the spectrum, but when you go out to the edges, the, the lessons are shouted at you.
30:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:47 Simon Sinek? Rather than explained to you.
30:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's great. That's awesome. Yeah, it's so true.
30:54 Simon Sinek? Beaten into you, you know, as opposed to like sitting down and studying for the test.
30:59 Speaker 01 Oh yeah, I can read through the lines. I can see there. Okay, yeah, yeah.
31:02 Simon Sinek? Have you not learned this yet?
31:04 Speaker 01 Yeah. And so often it's like, no, I haven't. Okay, let's go again, you know, like serve up another.
31:11 Simon Sinek? And I think as a result, the, your embodiment of those lessons, your clarity of those lessons, your four things I think are absolutely brilliant. And I will be writing them down at the end of this and, and keeping them.
31:22 Speaker 01 And writing a book about it?
31:23 Simon Sinek? No, no, keeping them on a card next to me.
31:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:26 Simon Sinek? Because I think they are so profoundly right.
31:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:29 Simon Sinek? And I think the value.
31:33 Simon Sinek? Value people like you offer people like us. Whether you did it by choice or by accident. To live your life at the top of Everest and just one level above hell.
31:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:44 Simon Sinek? Cause it's not bottom, but it's pretty close to it. Or one step before the end.
31:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:49 Simon Sinek? I mean, is probably more accurate.
31:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:52 Simon Sinek? Because the lessons are so loud and so exaggerated and so clear to you and for you. It gives us a clarity that most of us will never have. But the lessons are valuable to all of us. And we will go through trauma and we will go through difficult and we will go through discomfort. Most of us, most people not close to what you've gone through. And so the lessons are there, they're just fuzzier and harder to see.
32:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:15 Simon Sinek? Which is why we go through them over and over again and repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Because it takes many times before we have a self, an epiphany where we're like, ah shit. But because it's so loud.
32:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:27 Simon Sinek? We can hear yours and say, thank you. You know?
32:32 Speaker 01 I really appreciate that because even still, there's, there's days, there's a lot of times where I'm like, I don't know if any of this really.
32:39 Simon Sinek? The selfishness.
32:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
32:41 Simon Sinek? I'll tell you what the selfishness is. If there's a selfishness that goes with your life, it's your choice not to share what you've learned. Because it would be unbelievably selfish to, to keep it to yourself so that you can get over your shit.
32:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:55 Simon Sinek? Oh, good for you.
32:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, good for you. Great job.
32:58 Simon Sinek? Well done. You know, I'm so happy for you, but that would be selfish. And I think the service element is, I learned this, let me tell you about it.
33:07 Speaker 01 It's so, so beautifully put.
33:10 Simon Sinek? And I believe that true purpose.
33:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:12 Simon Sinek? Like, you know, we all have our unique why and our purpose and a lot, but, but the universal truth. The true, true purpose in life is the opportunity to serve those who serve others.
33:22 Speaker 01 I cannot agree more. There is a sort of a list of things that I try to do every day. Right? That just, that are sort of foundational to sort of health and wellbeing. And one of them is service. And that can be as simple, it's reframing our ideas around what service looks like, which is, it doesn't have to be volunteering at the homeless shelter. Right? Like, that's great. But service can be, to your point earlier, calling a friend and listening. Without trying to change anything.
33:50 Simon Sinek? Your men's group who just holds space for you as service. Your friend who came and lay on you and
33:56 Speaker 01 An act of service.
33:57 Simon Sinek? And cried on top of you.
33:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:59 Simon Sinek? Is an act of extreme service.
34:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:01 Simon Sinek? You know, and she didn't try to fix you or change you or solve any problem that was going through your mind.
34:06 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
34:07 Simon Sinek? She simply did the most beautiful thing of make you feel not alone. And your willingness to come here and share things that most people would probably keep to themselves. You know, and some of the things that you've shared. People would keep to themselves.
34:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, for sure.
34:23 Simon Sinek? Shame, embarrassment, whatever the reason.
34:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:25 Simon Sinek? And the courage you have to share the lessons is the most selfless thing I think you can ever do.
34:34 Speaker 01 And the paradox is I had to go do all the things to get it, all the selfish things.
34:37 Simon Sinek? I mean.
34:39 Speaker 01 Or I didn't have to.
34:40 Simon Sinek? No, you chose to.
34:41 Speaker 01 I chose to.
34:42 Simon Sinek? You chose to for good reason.
34:43 Speaker 01 I look back now and I go, wow. You know, the shift in my mind, first and foremost, the realization that I, like we talked, briefly hit on is like, I don't think failure really exists.
34:54 Simon Sinek? Yeah, say more about that.
34:55 Speaker 01 Well, just like.
34:56 Simon Sinek? You said in the history of the world, there's never been a failure.
34:59 Speaker 01 In the history of the universe, there's never been a failure. There's been transitions, there's been change. A company doesn't fail. A company ceases to be profitable or viable in whatever market or economy they're in. All of the learning from the building of that business and the disintegration of that business simply splinters into new building and disintegration. It is, it is literally the Ouroboros, I don't know if I'm saying that right, but it's life eating itself. It's the snake eating its tail. The buy in to this is that.
35:32 Simon Sinek? Or it's the thing that dies and disintegrates and then gives life and then that dies and disintegrates.
35:37 Speaker 01 Exactly.
35:37 Simon Sinek? And it's circle of life stuff.
35:38 Speaker 01 It's the circle of life. So, so there is not, and once you, people say, well, that's a semantic argument and I don't agree. It's a consciousness shift. You can't fail.
35:47 Simon Sinek? It's not, I don't think it's a semantic argument. I think it's finite and infinite games.
35:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:52 Simon Sinek? You know, I think it's, it's, as you said, it's not the end, it's the transition.
35:56 Speaker 01 And the transition is deeply unconscious.
35:58 Simon Sinek? It's not the end of the relationship. It's the transition into something different.
36:01 Speaker 01 Into something different, into a new understanding.
36:03 Simon Sinek? And better or worse is, you know, who knows?
36:05 Speaker 01 Well, better and worse, again, that's so interesting, like.
36:07 Simon Sinek? But I'm saying I'm not, I'm not, yeah, they're all temporary states anyway.
36:11 Speaker 01 Well, it's and their value applications and their stories, right? So there are no good or bad decisions. There are decisions and results. And then depending on the level of comfort that we have in the result.
36:23 Simon Sinek? Yeah.
36:24 Speaker 01 We apply the label or the story, good or bad.
36:27 Simon Sinek? And both are temporary.
36:30 Speaker 01 They're all temporary.
36:30 Simon Sinek? I love when people say, you know, we're the number one, blah, blah, blah. And I always say, for now.
36:33 Speaker 01 For now.
36:34 Simon Sinek? You know, it's like, I'm happy for now.
36:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:36 Simon Sinek? I'm sad for now.
36:37 Speaker 01 The point is not to escape pain.
36:38 Simon Sinek? No.
36:39 Speaker 01 What would life be without pain?
36:40 Simon Sinek? And I think that yours more extreme than mine and ours more extreme or less extreme than others, which is the experiences that I had that led me to start with. Why, for example, I never want to go through those things ever again. But I'm glad they happened. And I'm sure like the experiences that you've shared today, and I know there's others. I don't think you want to relive any of them.
37:00 Speaker 01 No.
37:01 Simon Sinek? But are you glad they happened?
37:04 Speaker 01 I love my brother so much. And I, I remember when I woke up, it was, it was a day. Like, I remember waking up and going, oh, my God. He's my greatest guide, the biggest gift I've ever been given in my entire life is that relationship, that man. In my heart, lay down at his feet and thank him every day. Because had the tapestry of our relationship not been so knotted and intertwined in the way that it was, I wouldn't be the person that I am. And so it's extending that gratitude to all the circumstances of life and being able to see it in its totality
37:48 Speaker 01 and settle into the fact that it's making you who you are. And that is an ever-changing, ever-evolving process that frees you from the bondage of blame and victimhood and prolonged suffering.
38:02 Simon Sinek? I could talk to you for hours. Troy, thanks so much for coming.
38:05 Speaker 01 Thanks for having me. This was
38:06 Simon Sinek? I appreciate it.
38:07 Speaker 01 awesome. Really, really great.
38:09 Simon Sinek? Yeah. I have no desire to climb Mount Everest. I'd like to go to base camp and just sit and look at the beautiful mountain.
38:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:15 Simon Sinek? But that's about it.
38:15 Speaker 01 Let's go. Let's walk to Kalapatar. In fact, you don't even need to go to base camp. Kalapatar is this area where you go up and there's a view. It's the classic view where you get of the three mountains. If you go to base camp, it's dirty, it's crowded, people are sick, and you can't even see Everest.
38:36 Simon Sinek? Yeah, so then I'll go to where we said.
38:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, Kalapatar.
38:39 Simon Sinek? I've always wanted to go to Kalapatar.
38:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. We'll listen to some yak bells and spin some prayer wheels and drink tea.
38:45 Simon Sinek? That sounds good.
38:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's great. It's perfect.
38:48 Simon Sinek? And I can get a sponsorship.
38:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, we can get a sponsor. Who wants to sponsor us right now?
38:51 Simon Sinek? Sponsorship to go to the bottom of the mountain.
38:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
38:54 Simon Sinek? Let's see your high performance, your high performance clothing do with, do with the bottom.
38:58 Speaker 01 We can raise, we can raise some money for cancer research along the way.
39:03 Simon Sinek? And inspire children all over the world.
39:04 Speaker 01 And inspire children all over the world. It'll be fabulous.
39:13 Simon Sinek? If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simoncennec.com for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.
39:32 Simon Sinek? A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbenius, David Ja, and Devin Johnson. Our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Rudesham.
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