The Nik Hawks Show

This is a short spoken word piece, less than 5 minutes. It came to me the other day in my truck and I recorded the initial effort. Over the following few days I wrote it all down, refined it, pruned it, made it closer to what I was hoping it would be.

It ended up (as of 26Sep2018) in this format.

Enjoy!

-NFH

As you've noticed if you've followed along lately I've seen the stats: I get twice as many downloads for solo shows as I do for interview. It's been 6 episodes since I did a solo show so I've got a bunch of notes from driving around that we have to catch up on; here they are! As always, the Nik Hawks Notes are available for you Deep Divers. For the rest of ya, listen up and write it all down. :) Go to nikhawks.com if you want to contribute, and thanks in advance! This episode covers public speaking, ignorance, the 50 burpees a day challenge, being special, victory, self confidence, a good way to validate when you know what you're doing, bringing up curious children, the savage sitter idea, cryptocurrency tax advice, and the books I'm reading: -Deep Work -Building a Straw Bale House, The Red Feather Construction Method -The Secrets of Champions (yes, you can get it cheaper than Amazon sells it for, this link just turns you on to the right book) -The Invention of Nature (an excellent birthday present from Mom!)

In this episode I interview Barb & Doug Garrott, owners of Orphan Espresso.

B & D first attracted my interest when I went down the coffee rabbithole and discovered the importance of grinding coffee to A) the correct size and B) making sure ALL the grinds were the same size, and not having some large, some small.

Their Pharos has become a part of my morning coffee ritual, in large part because of the feel of the thing; it's like having a factory in your hand!

We talk about how they came into making hand grinders for coffee, what they did before that (I'll give you a hint: At one point they sold an Army dogsled on eBay, and on another job they were outbid for first crack at buying a theodolite), and the joyous peculiarities of their life, from not having anyone available to come out and fix their roof to why Doug was approached by many beautiful young women on their first trip to Taiwan.

Enjoy the show!

There are some folks out there who are a little scary in their pursuit of excellence; they have an intensity about them that is damn near palpable. Randy Leavitt is one of those people.

Randy is known as a climber, one of America's best. With just a little bit of Googling you'll see just how good he is, but this podcast ain't about climbing, it's about the pursuit of excellence.

When I first heard about Randy it was from Greg Crouch, another guest on the Paleo Treats podcast. I had told Greg I was looking for more pursuers of excellence and Greg recommended Randy. When I asked why, Greg simply said, "Four decades of world class performance." Well, that just piqued my interest.

In this show we skip past a bunch of Randy's climbing history (well covered on episode 18 of Chris Kalous' podcast, The Enormocast) and go deeper into the pursuit of excellence.

Randy talks about what made climbing his first love, how got into and out of BASE jumping (went off El Capitan in 1980!), when he found kite surfing and why he waited a couple of years before he actually started doing it.

Randy attributes a lot of his results to being a "delayed gratification-ist", something that most of us, including myself, need to work on developing.

We got into his passion for flying and some of the surprising things he had to learn as a pilot that he feels all climbers should know, along with why he stuck with motor planes and didn't get into sailplanes.

Of course I had to butt in and start yapping about paragliding, but I'd like to think I kept it to a minimum.

I took a couple of questions for this show from listeners, so you'll get to hear a bit about the Jumbo Love story, what goes through Randy's head when he's stepping into a true challenge, and of a clarification of his comparison between the best day climbing and the best day surfing.

Enjoy the show!

There are some folks out there who are a little scary in their pursuit of excellence; they have an intensity about them that is damn near palpable. Randy Leavitt is one of those people.

Best known as a climber, I like to think about Randy as a full-on pursuer of excellence in everything he gets psyched on.

We don't focus on climbing in this show (check out his Enormocast interview for that), but we get deep in his pursuit of excellence.

"If you insulted Mackay you could expect to get in a fistfight."

My good friend and author Greg Crouch comes back on the Paleo Treats podcast to discuss the story of John Mackay, one of the four Bonanza Kings who ran the massive profitable Con. Virginia mine on the Comstock Lode.

Greg talks about how the digital age has transformed writing about historical events, about how writing a book actually happens, and how he developed his writing style.

"I signed the contract for the book in summer of 2014, and it was published in 2018. With 3 months to go on the contract due date and after 3 years of work, I was thinking, I don't know if I can do this!"

Greg is a West Point grad, was a Ranger during the invasion of Panama, a climber putting up first ascents in Patagonia, and an incredibly well read and thoughtful human. He's one of my go to sources when I want to understand the world because he has an uncanny memory that is the result of years and years of reading and the big W word: Work.

Within the first page of reading The Bonanza King you'll see just how much of that work Greg puts in a book. The facts, the background, the perspective, and the connections across a wide swath of that history show the depth and breadth of sheer study he puts in to writing a book.

From Mark Twain's connection to John Mackay all the way to how the Civil War was affected by gold mining in Nevada, and from the development of San Francisco to the laying down of our modern lines of communications, Greg paints an incredible picture of an absolutely remarkable story.

Whether you like rags to riches, stories of hard work, engineering ingenuity, or just reading about a rippingly interesting slice of history, The Bonanza King is as good as you'll get, and with the background of this podcast, that much more enjoyable.

Sit back and dig in to the show!

Cheers, Nik @ PT

Carla Naden talks about her world of edge cases in the larger world of animal rescue and how she's helping to build a community of people who work together to make animal lives better.

From the way she shapes her language to reflect the world she wants to build, to her demonstration by living her principles of what it means to commit fully, Carla is an inspiration for those of us who want to live a life seriously dedicated to our ideals.

If you feel, as I do, that Carla's cause is worth supporting, please head over to the Animal Synergy website and give what you can.

On the surface, the story is straightforward. 2 guys become friends, start a company, decide to donate a percentage to charity.

It's when you dive deep that a story gets interesting. TJ Ferrera and Sean Lake talk about the (way) back story of how they got into BUBS and what shaped them not just as entrepreneurs but as men.

These two guys define smooth operators, top performers, and the wild spirit/driven character blend that I tend to like the most.

Enjoy the listen!

NFH

On the surface, the story is straightforward.  2 guys become friends, start a company, decide to donate a percentage to charity.

It's when you dive deep that a story gets interesting.  TJ Ferrera and Sean Lake talk about the (way) back story of how they got into BUBS and what shaped them not just as entrepreneurs but as men.

These two guys define smooth operators, top performers, and the wild spirit/driven character blend that I tend to like the most.

Enjoy the listen!

NFH

-importance of experts, addressing the last show

Email from Mike in Flagstaff:

"I basically agree with everything you say, but want to push back just a little on your comments about experts. I don't take issue with what you say as far as it goes. But, I do feel the general theme of not needing experts and that a generally competent person can learn what they need to know about any general topic needs a little clarification just because of the current social and political milieu.

We do need experts, and experts do know a lot that one can't easily teach oneself. You don't want a self-taught person who spent a few hours researching things on the internet flying your plane, designing the steering and brakes on your car, or removing your appendix. We need experts managing technology, the economy, diplomacy, and government.

The so-called "death of expertise" brought about by wide social trends and leveraged strongly by the internet has led to the anti-vaccine movement, climate change denial, and a general push-back on the concept of truth.

This is not to say that experts can't be mistaken or do things wrong, and left to themselves they may take things in a non-desirable direction, witness Facebook and the dissemination of fake news. One could argue that an issue with Facebook is that experts in one thing, software engineering, were working in a field in which they were not expert, essentially social engineering, and got into trouble. But when the experts do fuck it up, the people who generally need to fix it are other experts.

Maybe you agree with most of this (or don't); it just wasn't said in the podcast and I feel has relevance on a broader scale and to some of the things I have been thinking about, so I'm putting it out there."

-Using affirmations, how I do it, not specific but general laying out of the state I want to be in the most during the day, setting the default

"I see every obstacle as a gift - as a challenge to be overcome, and in the overcoming to force growth and power that I can use forever again and again. I am willing to see the world in such a way as to always reap the most benefit from it - I choose to perceive my world as an institution dedicated to my excellence. Every challenge, every gift, every human, every animal, plant, physical, mental or emotional I object I encounter is a n opportunity for greatness!"

-What if each day was viewed as your opportunity to be great?

-"Are you light on that wing?" and working hard

-reading Terrence McKenna's True Hallucinations, what we teach in school: food, body, drugs, sex

-crashing my paraglider: Not doing what you know you need to do, how we learn, one from the luck jar

-crypto tanked, loss, understanding luck, risk, money stress

-joy is cheap: great food, warm showers, time in nature

-the pulse circle & connection with humans