Finding Your Summit

In today’s episode of ‘Finding your Summit’ podcast, host Mark Pattison, former NFL Player, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist and Mountaineer who just completed the Seven Summits, does a solo podcast on his reflections and thoughts on his climbing experiences on Mt Everest. He talks about his journey of climbing the summit and various challenges he overcame throughout.

While I am in Nepal preparing for my epic Mt Everest & Lhotse climb, here's a "Rewind" replay of one of my most popular episodes with the legendary Peter Cetera. On this episode I talk with Peter Cetera, American singer, songwriter, bassist, an original member of the legendary rock group Chicago.

While I am in Nepal preparing for my epic Mt Everest & Lhotse climb, here's a "Rewind" replay of one of my most popular episodes with Sean Evangelista. Sean is a former member of the U.S. Navy Seals, an entrepreneur and the owner of “Thirty Seconds Out”, a unique apparel company offering commando-inspired t-shirt and cap designs as well as other military-related items.

While I am in Nepal preparing for my epic Mt Everest & Lhotse climb, here's a "Rewind" replay of one of my most popular episodes with Ed Viesturs. Climbing mountains is an incredible feat that takes incredible people with incredible goals. Ed Viesturs is one of these people who has climbed fourteen 8,000 meter peaks. It took him 18 years and 21 attempts to get to all those summits.

While I am in Nepal preparing for my epic Mt Everest & Lhotse climb, here's a "Rewind" replay of one of my most popular episodes with Jake Olson. In life, there are different things that hit you at different times, but what’s important is how you get back up when this happens. One of the hardest thing that can hit you in life is being diagnosed with retinoblastoma as early as 8 months old. Because of this rare eye cancer, Jake Olson lost his eyes.

McKenzie Johnson: Executive Director of Soulumination, a non-profit organization that takes photos of terminally ill children for their families for free, talks about how she overcame an addiction to alcohol that used to be so strong that she wouldn’t stop drinking until she was black-out drunk on a daily basis.

Oz Sanchez  
What was it like growing up in Oz Sanchez’s version of Los Angeles as a kid? “My parents were first generation immigrants into the States. Despite having no education, no prior experience wanted to raise their family in a typical American Dream. So, never-the-less, they did the best that they could. But there were a lot of stumbles and falls and what not. My dad worked pretty much seven days a week, 12 hours a day, for a large part of his career while we were growing up.”
On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Oz Sanchez who opens up about internal struggles that his mother dealt with. “My mother was a stay-at-home mother. Mother had a lot of childhood trauma. She was severely depressed. I recall she attempted suicide once and I walked in on her while she was bleeding out in the bathtub. I’m somewhere between 8-11 years of age. Much of my childhood, because of this trauma and my mechanisms to survive in this environment, was my blocking out memories all together. So, much of my childhood experience is almost a blank slate unfortunately. But we did the best that we could.”
What You Will Learn:
What was Oz’s relationship with his siblings like? “I have a twin sister and an older brother. My older brother always seemed to have a plan. He executed on that plan. He was gonna get his good grades, go on to college with an alternative path of joining the military, and he did that to the tee. I remember him sharing this with me somewhere when he was 15. He is two years my senior. So I was 12-13. Then myself and my twin sister just kind of go with the flow, product of our environment. Very much one direction to the next was more so to do with who we were hanging out with.” 
Oz describes what his early teen years were like when he was trying to find himself. “We (Oz and his sister) go into using meth when we were 13-14 years of age. We didn’t have a sense of belonging at home, or a community, or a family if you will. So, the brain says, ‘I have to find that somewhere.’ So some of us joined bands. Some of us joined sports. At that age, we sort of joined the gang mentality, and we gravitate towards that. I would say what probably kept me from going off too far on the deep end was that my sort of self-therapeutic mechanism. It was sports, and I leaned into sports. I got into mountain biking really early, I think at 13 years of age.”
What was Oz’s initial introduction to the military? “We grew up in an area where we had an alleyway, me and my brother would skateboard or me and my amigos that we would skateboard with. Around the corner was both the county courthouse and all four branches of military recruiting. So, we were very much imprinted and attracted to the posters and the billboards that were around this recruiting station all of the time. I can remember as far back as being 6-years-old, just always being impressed and being impressed upon by these billboards.” 
How did Oz Sanchez ultimately sign up to become a Marine? “I ended up getting in a situation where we got picked up for looting and I lied to the judge saying I had plans to join the service and if I did any kind of time for looting than I would be ineligible and he doesn’t want to be responsible for ruining my life. Yadda, yadda, yadda. I wasn’t in any way this articulate about it. But he bit off on it. He obviously probably had a better idea what was going on that I did. He said come back here with some documentation and a recruiter possibly, and we will take it from there. So, I went across the street to the recruiter, told him my situation. It is a big sham. I want you to help me out. I don’t want to actually join, and the whole thing backfired in my face, and that is how I ended up in the Marine Corp.”

198: John Waechter: Private Equity Investor and the 58th person to ever climb the Seven Summits, the seven highest mountains of each of the seven continents, shares how he worked his way into this ambitious mountaineering goal and expanded that same preparation and drive into the business world. 
John Waechter  
Today’s guest John Waechter discusses beginning his journey climbing the seven summits in 1993, including meeting Richard Bass who is the first man to ever climb the Seven Summits. “I got to know Dick climbing Kilimanjaro in 1994. He went with us. So, that gave me the inspiration to want to do the seven summits and my mentor, climber Phil Ershler said, ‘You don’t even know if you can go high.’ That actually happened before 1994. But, I read the book, got inspired, and wanted to climb the seven summits. I had only climbed Mount Rainier, and he said you have to find out if you can go high, if your physiology will adapt. So, that is when the journey started, and I got to Mount Elbrus in 1993.” 
On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with John Waechter about why mountains often serve as a symbol for achievement. “There is certainly a reason why the mountains have always served as the grand metaphor for goal setting. It is tangible. Climb your mountain, Emilia’s mountain. Find your Summit, because the summit exists. On any peak, we are going to go, and we are going to do our best to get to the top. So, it is so tangible, and it is easily related, I feel, to what we are trying to accomplish in our everyday lives.”
What You Will Learn:
What inspired him to take on the Seven Summits in the first place? “The mountains are almost easier, aren’t they MP, in that you are going to go 29,000-32,000 feet and when you get there you are going to know it, because there is nowhere else to go. In life’s journeys and endeavors, we have to create the summits. We have to create the steps along the way, basecamps, the camp 1, the camp 2, the camp 3 of our journey. So, I was motivated by the Seven Summits, largely Dick Bass and Phil Ershler, and other climbers like you are saying. I started to get to know all of these climbers climbing Rainier. I set that goal. But I tried it much like I have for much of my life of trying to define what the summit is.”  
How does John Waechter define visualization? “Visualization, I think, is critical because it is not dreaming. There is a distinction in my mind. Dreaming, that is not going to get you off of the couch. In fact, you will probably stay on the couch because that is a good place to dream. You dream, all of us, how can life be better? I want to be this; I want to get there. But it is a dream. It is not tangible, and it becomes frustrating. Visualization, I talk about working backwards. So, what are we visualizing? The attainment.”
John Waechter addresses what it means to face your fears. “It is charging into the fear within that vision of reality. But you do want your goals to stretch almost through your own reality because you haven’t been there yet. But you do believe that with preparation and associating with the right team members and holding onto that vision that step by step, and again, the mountain being a great metaphor, it truly is one step in front of the other and then you are done.” 
What does John Waechter look for in the right teammate? “Hands down, the attribute of a can-do positive attitude. I will take that anywhere. If it is a person on my rope or on my climbing team, that person that wakes up with ‘how are we going to get this done today,’ happy about it, and motivating. I absolutely think that is the most important characteristic in someone you want to associate yourself with.”

Doug Lewis: Owner, President, and Director at ELITEAM and Alpine Analyst at NBC Universal Sports TV talks about his journey from two-time Olympic skier to his impressive career with ELITEAM and NBC.

Doug Lewis

Guest Doug Lewis opens up about what it was that made him want to compete in the Olympics? “I think I can remember when I was 8-years-old. I grew up basically on the slopes of the Middlebury College Snow Bowl. My mom was a ski instructor, and if you had caught me and made me stop as I did laps on the lift, at 8-years-old I said I want to be on the U.S. Ski Team. I want to be in the Olympics. What started as this love, I think it started as a love for skiing instilled by my mom and dad, that combined with my competitiveness.”

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Doug Lewis, Owner, President, and Director at ELITEAM and Alpine Analyst at NBC Universal Sports TV about attending the Green Mountain Valley Ski School. “My parents wanted me to stay at high school, go to college. They are both Middlebury College grads. It was academics, right? My parents, they are like, you can do this for a while. But it was all driven by me. There was Burke Mountain Academy, Green Mountain Valley School, and Stratton. There were three academies. That was the only way that I knew of. I had done my research, that I was going to find my way, get the training I needed to get onto the U.S. Ski Team .”

What You Will Learn:

What were Doug Lewis’ beginnings in training to be a skier? “I was lucky enough to go to the Green Mountain Valley School. It was only an hour away from my house. So, my mom didn’t have to say, good bye good bye. She could see me in an hour. But, it was a boarding school. But every week, all through high school, I had to drive an hour back each week to take my cello lessons, because mom wouldn’t let me quit the cello. The cello is not a very sexy instrument to play in high school. But, she kept me close. But my parents, my mom and dad let me go and pursue it. They supported me. But they were like, you’ve got to drive the train, and I was happy to floor it and drive the train as fast as I could to the U.S. Ski Team.”

Doug Lewis walks us through what was required of him to be chosen for his first Olympic competition in 1984. “The key is to first get to the U.S. Ski team. But that is just the first step. That is not the final step. That is the first step. Then you start training with the best in the U.S. Then you start competing with the best in the world. Then every four years the Olympics come around, and out of the 10-15 down hillers, I was the guy that went straight. I was the speed skier, out of those 10-15 the criteria was you had to have one podium, two top 10s, three top 20s, whatever it is, to qualify for the U.S. ski team. In 1984, at 20 years old, I got those two top 15s and I just remember when they told me I was going to the Olympics, it was a feeling of my chest exploding, my heart exploding with joy, and just this singular focus that it is not over yet. This is again, just another step to being the best in the world.”

What is Doug Lewis’ take on coping with moments of falling short? “With every failure, with every injury, what did I learn? Because that is the key, right? I learned that number 1, I had to manage this risk. I was 110% all the time. I had to manage it. When was I going to pin it? The second thing is I had to have some physical fitness. So, the next year when I got back to that starting gate, I weighed 20 pounds more. Muscle. Mass. Core. Luckily, I have had no lasting physical injuries. But that day was introval in getting me to where I needed to go. Luckily, it was one step back but five steps forward.”

Doug Lewis expresses the power of confidence. “You just got to find your confidence. Believe in yourself and it is so important to know that you deserve to be there. I was in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia on a chairlift and you know, it can be overwhelming. You can lose your confidence. But you just have to believe in yourself, especially during those down times. It is so important.”

How did Doug Lewis’ two experiences in the Olympics, both in Sarajevo and Calgary different? “Totally different. I view my Sarajevo experience as the private Olympics. It was so far away that not a lot of the American media went. There was no media. It was like this family. In 1984, everyone ate in the dining hall. All of the athletes stayed in the Olympic village. Now all of the special athletes and the fantastic athletes are in their own apartments.”

Physical Fitness vs Mindset

What kind of state of mind does an athlete need to be in to go beyond just being physically talented? “The higher you go, it is less about your physical fitness and talent and it is more about what is between your ears. The mental side becomes just what separates anybody. Take for the Olympics for example, I now cover the...

London Papamichael: Private Personal Trainer at Body By London and Strength Coach discusses how he went from losing communication with his father and losing his mother altogether, to becoming a source of strength for his family, finding forgiveness in his heart, and fulfillment in helping others become their very best.