Order of Man - 121： No Excuses, No Barriers ｜ Erik Weihenmayer

00:00:00.000 So many of us are so good at making excuses. We've been doing it for so long, it's hard for us to

00:00:05.040 recognize what is truth and what stories we tell ourselves that keep us from having what we truly

00:00:10.100 want. Today, my guest, Eric Weyenmayer, talks with me about climbing the seven tallest peaks

00:00:14.340 on each of the seven continents and kayaking 277 miles down the Colorado River. All of this,

00:00:20.940 and the man is blind. Today, we talk about identifying barriers, attracting great people

00:00:26.540 in your life, using the concept of alchemy as a powerful tool in your life, and how to crush

00:00:32.080 your excuses once and for all. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace

00:00:37.440 your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time,

00:00:43.420 every time. You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life.

00:00:50.640 This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all is said and

00:00:56.160 done, you can call yourself a man. What is going on today, guys? My name is Ryan

00:01:01.520 Mickler, and I am the host and the founder of The Order of Man podcast. If you are new to the show

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00:02:07.640 quick mention of our exclusive brotherhood, The Iron Council. This is something amazing that we've

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00:02:23.820 So if you want to learn more about that, head to orderofman.com slash ironcouncil. Guys,

00:02:28.780 today I have the honor of introducing to you one of the most inspiring men I've ever had the privilege

00:02:33.560 of talking with. His name is Eric Weyenmayer. I was first introduced to him a couple of years ago

00:02:40.240 at a conference that I attended for my financial planning practice. This was another life. At the time,

00:02:46.380 he shared stories of how he lost his ability to see at the age of 13. But more importantly,

00:02:51.500 he talked about how he had overcome that obstacle and became the first man to not only climb Mount

00:02:56.940 Everest, but the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents. And since then, and more recently,

00:03:02.020 Eric's kayaked the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, and that's roughly 270 miles. Guys,

00:03:07.440 I'm telling you, this guy is something special. I knew it when I heard him speak years ago,

00:03:11.840 and I'm honored to have the privilege of talking with him today. Eric, thanks for joining me on

00:03:17.300 the show today. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah. I'm looking forward to having you. I did not tell you this

00:03:21.660 because I wanted to save this. I actually was introduced to you and your work. It must've been

00:03:26.540 three or four years ago. I went to a conference in another life when I was doing financial planning

00:03:31.440 majority of my time, and you were there at that conference and you spoke as the keynote and I was

00:03:36.420 inspired, inspired by your message. So the opportunity to have a conversation with you is exciting for me.

00:03:41.900 That is a good small world, huh? Yeah, it is. It really does connect,

00:03:45.920 especially when you're in this type of work and you get to meet so many inspiring and influential

00:03:50.460 men. It's pretty exciting. Some of the stuff we get to do. There's less degrees of separation with

00:03:54.940 the world. There definitely is. The world is shrinking. It seems like with digital and everything

00:03:58.780 else. Yeah. And we have some mutual friends, so this is good. This is good. Well, I want to lead

00:04:02.820 things off right off the bat. I really want to ask why it is you do what you do because you do some

00:04:08.080 wild stuff, some crazy stuff. And then on top of that, with you being blind is pretty incredible.

00:04:13.460 And I don't think society probably expects that from you. And yet here you are leading the charge.

00:04:19.240 I'd like to know where that comes from. I mean, that's a fantastic question. And it really

00:04:22.960 dives right down into the reason I try to do the things that I do. And that is that I think all of us

00:04:29.220 are born with this sort of internal light, this internal sort of drive. And I think we all are

00:04:35.300 born, quote unquote, climbers. You know, that's what we all want to do. We're all born with that

00:04:39.700 spark. And then we move along in our journey. And along that ascent, sometimes things get in the

00:04:44.520 way. I mean, if you think about it, what's the equation that stops people? Why aren't people out

00:04:48.400 there living these wildest dreams? And it's because we get stopped. We know these barriers like brick

00:04:53.840 walls, they get in our way and they shove us to the sidelines. And then we find ourselves in

00:04:58.460 these places that we didn't want to be. And I have found myself in those places. And I've had

00:05:04.280 the huge fortune of having great people in my life that have helped me get unstuck, that have helped me

00:05:10.640 find my way through those barriers. And that along with some internal that drive that we naturally have

00:05:16.680 and with some ideas of how that process of growth works, equipped with that knowledge, with some

00:05:23.580 insight, I think we all have this great potential to climb and to do great things, whatever that

00:05:29.360 means. It doesn't have to mean kayaking the Grand Canyon, but it's all different for everyone. It's

00:05:35.000 very deeply personal. How do those barriers manifest themselves? I mean, what are some of the things

00:05:40.840 that you have seen through the work that you're doing? And how do those barriers manifest themselves

00:05:45.580 in people's lives? What do those look like? Well, I think it happens in a number of ways. I mean,

00:05:49.660 maybe like a dozen ways that I can think of. I mean, maybe we reach a point of our lives,

00:05:55.620 we plateau. And it does get harder as you get higher up the mountain, things get harder. So

00:06:00.460 like we plateau and we say, you know, to go any higher, that's going to take so much pain and

00:06:05.060 suffering. I'm not willing to go there. Like I'm okay. I'll just, I'll just hang out here. Like

00:06:10.020 this is good enough. Sure. Making enough money. And you know what I mean? I'm like in this sort

00:06:14.500 of safe plateau and I'm okay. So maybe that makes them stop. I think as we get older,

00:06:20.400 maybe cynicism, you know, sort of pours down around our brain like prison bars. And it just,

00:06:26.660 that's, I think a huge thing that kills us. And then maybe sometimes we wake up one day and the

00:06:32.500 world's changed so quickly around us. We're like, God, I just don't know if I have the energy to attack

00:06:36.640 this anymore. Maybe plodding away, brick walls keep getting in our way. They sap our energy,

00:06:42.380 they kill our momentum. You know, we just can't figure out a way through them and we get shoved

00:06:46.820 to the sidelines. And now we're hanging out in these dark places. You know, it's bad personally.

00:06:53.240 It's bad for us personally. But I think more importantly, the worst part is that all our

00:06:58.060 energy and all our, you know, our potential, our life force, it's all lost to the world. So the world

00:07:03.180 loses. Yeah. I mean, this makes sense. And so you're talking about now being able to contribute to

00:07:09.400 the world. How do you do this when you're stuck, right? You don't see a path forward or there's

00:07:13.940 that barrier that has presented itself. How do you continue to move forward? Is it just a matter

00:07:18.600 of setting new goals? Because you climbed Mount Everest, you climbed the seven highest peaks on

00:07:23.720 each continent. And yet here you are continuing to push the boundaries. It's a lot of things. I mean,

00:07:28.640 I try to take a look at the learning process and this is what I call no barriers. You know,

00:07:33.460 looking at this learning process that we're all on, that process of growth and trying to illuminate

00:07:39.940 the pieces along the way, the elements along the way, trying to understand what are those things

00:07:45.820 that we all go through. There's hundreds of them, but like I've tried to identify a couple of those

00:07:51.480 universal pieces that we have to confront, we have to harness and pass through so that we kind of

00:07:58.060 better equip ourselves so that we emerge at the end of that journey, having changed and grown and,

00:08:02.620 you know, in a positive way. And sometimes people go out and if they don't know that process,

00:08:08.800 if they don't understand it, it's so easy to get crushed along the way. And then that's when you're

00:08:14.080 stuck. So if you understand how that growth process works, I think it really is a huge

00:08:18.920 piece of, of arming ourselves for whatever we want to do. So, I mean, there's things that I think

00:08:25.440 that I think about as simple as what kind of people are you surrounding yourself with? If you're lucky

00:08:30.840 like me to have been born with a great family, a great dad that pushed me, that shoved me out the

00:08:35.780 door. That's so I said, go out and, you know, try things and bleed a little bit. If you're lucky,

00:08:41.460 great. But some people aren't lucky in that way. So like a lot of the soldiers, the vets we work with

00:08:46.360 and no barriers, you know, they don't have a rope team. And a rope team is what I call it because,

00:08:52.020 you know, in the mountains, you're actually roped together with the people around you.

00:08:55.640 Sure. Right. So you fall, everyone falls, or if you summit, everyone summits. You know,

00:08:59.700 it's the greatest way to link your fates together. So a lot of the folks that we work with, they,

00:09:04.800 they don't have a rope team. So they have to figure out how do you build that rope team in

00:09:08.320 your life. And there are people that will drag you down. And there are people that will elevate

00:09:12.100 you and you will, they'll make you better. They'll make you feel like you're standing on their

00:09:16.000 shoulders. And you have to be really careful about building that rope team around you. And I think 0.99

00:09:21.500 about that constantly how fortunate I am to have been able to attract the right kind of people into

00:09:26.980 my life that help a blind guy kayak the Grand Canyon or climb Mount Everest or build an organization

00:09:32.360 like No Barriers. That was one of the things that I was really impressed with when I watched your

00:09:36.820 presentation. You had a video where you actually showed walking across a canyon, for lack of a better

00:09:43.660 term, over a ladder. There was one where you jumped off of a cliff into water. And I thought to

00:09:49.860 myself, in addition to how amazing and inspiring that story is, like the level of trust and credibility

00:09:57.200 and brotherhood and camaraderie with the people that you are literally relying on is hard enough,

00:10:02.620 I imagine, when you have sight, let alone when you don't, and you are completely relying upon

00:10:06.600 them. How do you build that level of trust with other people?

00:10:09.780 Well, you said it. I mean, trust is at the heart of every great team, including your family,

00:10:15.100 including everything, every team that you have in your life. So you're constantly trying to

00:10:19.840 build this very fragile thing called trust. And it's easy to lose. It's really sort of shifty.

00:10:26.280 So yeah, I'm just constantly trying to figure out ways that we can establish trust in my life.

00:10:32.000 You know, with my kids, it's so hard as parents to trust your kids, especially as they grow. They,

00:10:38.420 you know, like my son, he has a challenge with telling the truth. You know, he lies to us sometimes.

00:10:43.280 And I'm like, Oh, God, you can't trust this guy. But then you say,

00:10:46.180 you got to keep giving him the opportunities to try to get better to establish that trust in our

00:10:52.900 lives. So I just think it's something we just constantly are vigilant towards in terms of

00:10:57.920 everything and kind of expecting the best out of people until proven otherwise.

00:11:02.740 Yeah, I think it's really easy to be a cynic, right? And think the worst of people or think

00:11:07.220 the worst is going to happen. In fact, I had somebody today say that if you want the work done,

00:11:11.120 you have to do it yourself. And I understand that. But at the same time,

00:11:14.060 there are people out there, if you can find them and build that credibility and show them the way

00:11:19.280 that will surprise you if you allow them, correct?

00:11:23.040 Yeah, I think every team has to work like that. You know, it has to be like,

00:11:26.540 you know, when I was a teacher, and I thought about my classroom, as a blind teacher, I taught sighted

00:11:30.900 kids, and kids would write on the board, and they would pass out papers, and they would fill my guide

00:11:35.420 dog's water dish. And, and they would do so many things. And they knew that if they didn't step up,

00:11:39.860 the team would fall apart, and they were needed. They were needed. And so like, with the way I try

00:11:45.160 to build all my teams is everyone feels needed, everyone understands that they have a win, what's

00:11:50.300 their win, you got to be clear about what that is. It's not like the teams of the past where everyone

00:11:54.580 sacrifices and loses for one or two people. Everyone has to find a way to to win emotionally,

00:12:00.460 in this process. And so, you know, I'm constantly trying to build those kinds of teams,

00:12:05.740 where everyone knows that their stake in this is important. And, wow, I've been so lucky. I mean,

00:12:12.260 like the one of the things I think about is like on Everest, my friend, Jeff Evans, who got up to the

00:12:18.140 fixed lines on the base of the South Summit, it's the steepest part of the climb. And, and there were

00:12:23.300 two fixed lines, one to the left, one to the right, the stuff to the left, the fixed lines were really

00:12:28.400 up this rocky, jumbly terrain. That's really hard for me. It's, you know, a little easier for sighted

00:12:33.580 people. And to the right was fixed lines up the snow, which is way easier for me to navigate snow,

00:12:38.540 just kicking steps. But those lines were buried by monsoons, about a foot of snow crust. So, you know,

00:12:45.380 my buddy looked up and, you know, he loved his team. He loved me so much. He chose those fixed lines

00:12:51.220 to the right, he ripped them out. It was way harder for him. But he loved this team. He loved me.

00:12:57.400 And I built up that credibility and loved him back. So it made it worth it for him. That was a

00:13:03.100 win for him to be a part of one of the reasons why the team got to the top. And I'm telling you,

00:13:07.360 I would not have gotten there without Jeff, and my other partner, Brad ripping those lines out.

00:13:12.460 And I think about, you know, those amazing kinds of teams where people step up for you, it goes beyond

00:13:18.740 the equation of how do we build, you know, strategic teams in our lives, it goes way beyond that. It's,

00:13:23.900 it's love. It's love. It's pure love. And then you have to be able to lay it out there for your

00:13:30.300 teams in that way as well. Is that what you credit that trust to? Or is there something else

00:13:35.200 maybe beyond or in addition to that you've done specifically to build that level of trust and love

00:13:41.500 in him and other people who are on your team?

00:13:44.560 Well, I think it's being loyal to your team. It's just like being transparent, you know,

00:13:48.580 in climbing, we call it taking the sharp end of the rope. It's the idea of leading by example,

00:13:54.840 you know, letting kind of leadership exude through your every decision, your every action.

00:13:59.080 It's like being like your head's like a container of syrup, and you're just pouring it out there for

00:14:03.960 everyone to see like, this is who I am. I'm not playing games with you. I'm not like life is not

00:14:09.520 a chess game. I'm telling you everything. This is who I am. And this is what I want. And this is what

00:14:15.220 I want you to achieve as well. So I think it's just being completely out there like as human

00:14:20.260 beings and saying, hey, I can be vulnerable here. I'm not perfect. But I think if your vision is

00:14:26.020 strong enough, and you're trying to live it as best you can, people notice and they want to be a part

00:14:31.840 of that they want to be a part of great things. You talk about going for your win or knowing exactly

00:14:37.800 what it is that you're after. What is your win look like? What is it that you're after in life?

00:14:42.480 Well, it all depends. I guess I have, you know, when I got married on Kilimanjaro to my wife,

00:14:47.660 Ellie, one of the Tanzanian guides who married us on that mountain, they said your life is like a

00:14:53.240 wheel. And you have to have spokes of those wheels, you know, to support the wheel, you don't want 100

00:14:58.400 spokes, but you don't want one spoke either. So what are those spokes? And so I, I think about those

00:15:03.340 wins for me. I mean, the win is one, my family, you know, a home run is like the health and happiness

00:15:10.120 of my kids and my wife and my brothers and his kids and my father. So I think about, you know,

00:15:17.000 their emotional success. And I think about no more barriers and my outreach in life. And I think about

00:15:22.780 my friendships and then my pursuits, my kayaking and my climbing, you know, training and staying

00:15:28.300 true to those things. I have four spokes and that's it. I just, I know if I honestly try to care about

00:15:34.860 more than that, I'll fail. Yeah. I know that's certainly been true for me. You know, we try to

00:15:39.100 do so many different things and we're bombarded in so many different directions and we become very

00:15:44.260 inefficient. Even with the things like you talk about, the four things that you truly care about,

00:15:48.000 we try to do it all. And we just can't serve in that capacity that the way that we are meant to in

00:15:52.060 the way that we, we need to quite honestly, even struggling to do those four is like almost mission

00:15:56.360 impossible. Sure. Right. How do you do that? How do you make that more efficient in your life?

00:16:01.000 Yeah. I mean, I'm not like a time or efficiency expert or anything like that, but I mean,

00:16:06.260 it's just a struggle, you know, like we try to just have quality time with my family. That's one

00:16:12.600 thing. And trying to be there in the moment, be true to that moment. You know, if I'm going to a

00:16:17.240 soccer game with my kid, really trying to be there, trying to have a great experience with them.

00:16:22.820 And we get away a lot too, you know, like I force my kids and especially in the summer to get away

00:16:28.800 with me and my wife and we'll go kayaking or we'll go rafting. And we just really get a lot

00:16:36.600 of quality time together, you know, away from computers, away from cell phones so that we can

00:16:42.760 kind of continue to strengthen those bonds of family. My son is adopted. We brought him home from

00:16:48.980 Nepal at five years old. So it was a big deal for him to begin to trust the family. And even now,

00:16:56.580 I think at 14, there's still moments where he's like, is this real? You know, like,

00:17:00.820 is this family real? Is this really the thing I can rely on? Or is this just like an empty,

00:17:05.620 is this world sort of empty where you just grab as much as you can and you shut your soul off?

00:17:10.040 So, you know, we're constantly trying to build those bonds of family together through those

00:17:14.240 experiences that we share that tie us together.

00:17:17.820 Yeah. So what other pieces are at stake here? I mean, you talk about teamwork and then you talk

00:17:23.660 about these other pieces that we need to harness in order to overcome these barriers. What are some

00:17:27.620 other components of this?

00:17:29.420 One thing I think about a lot in my life is alchemy. And I've had a lot of people who are

00:17:34.580 able to demonstrate this idea in such a powerful way. You know, like maybe the most easiest way to

00:17:41.120 understand it is maybe by the example of my friend, Mark Wellman, who has always been one of my heroes.

00:17:46.240 Uh, he was, uh, a great climber and he was climbing a peak in the Sierras and he fell and he broke his

00:17:53.100 back. Uh, he became paralyzed from the waist down. And over time he's, you know, decided he wanted to

00:17:59.480 climb again and he built this pull-up bar and this whole system where you could do pull-ups up the

00:18:04.340 rope. He climbed El Capitan, 3000 feet, did 7,000 pull-ups in eight days. He became a, you know,

00:18:11.200 a hero of the, of the nation, you know? And, and I think that's just pure alchemy, you know? All of

00:18:16.780 us and our families and every relationship we have, we will just be completely knocked on our butts.

00:18:21.560 And those are pivotal moments, right? Those are pivotal moments. Do, does that stop us? Like now

00:18:27.740 we're sort of a bit crushed, you know? Life pulverizes us. Do we stop and say, oh my God,

00:18:33.260 I'm not going to climb anymore. I'm not going to, you know, pursue these unsafe things anymore.

00:18:37.420 Or do we use the energy of those moments of that situation kind of like fuel? You know,

00:18:44.060 we envision what it's like breaking through that barrier and it kind of creates an energy that we

00:18:49.140 can ride and it can ride, it can carry us forward to these amazing places. I've seen it over and over

00:18:55.400 and over in my book that I wrote, No Barriers recently. The characters over and over and over

00:19:00.720 ride that storm to these crazy, surprising, unexpected, counterintuitive places that they

00:19:07.900 honestly would have never gone to in any other way. So it's great. It's a great journey. If you're,

00:19:14.240 if you have the courage to ride that storm and, you know, and, and the problem is people sort of like

00:19:19.880 check out, they kind of, they don't want to ride that storm anymore. It's just, you know, the reasons

00:19:24.000 we talked about and, um, but riding that storm is life, you know, being in the current is life and

00:19:29.540 it's not like the movies. It's not like, um, where there's a nice crescendo, you know, arc upward,

00:19:34.880 nice crescendo. Sure. Sure. Tie a bow at the top and everyone eats popcorn and goes home. Life is not

00:19:40.980 like that. Riding that storm is bloody and messy and flailing. It's like, it's almost like riding of,

00:19:48.040 you know, the way of volcanoes spews lava. It's a wild ride. And I think fundamentally people

00:19:53.980 have to say, okay, am I willing to ride that storm through life? And I think it's worth it. I do.

00:20:00.740 What happened specifically for you as you attempted on this journey of kayaking the Grand Canyon? Because

00:20:06.540 I know that there was moments that you literally wanted to quit. You wanted to throw in the towel

00:20:11.000 and yet here you are and you, you didn't do that. What specifically went through your mind in order

00:20:15.380 to continue down this arduous path and journey you're on? I'm not immune to any of these things I'm

00:20:20.000 talking about. In fact, I felt, feel it all deeply, you know, and try to understand it,

00:20:24.760 try to live it. And so many times throughout my process of that six year process of kayaking,

00:20:30.520 you know, training and preparing to kayak the Grand Canyon. I mean, I just wound up on the side

00:20:34.880 of the river with my head in my hands thinking, I just don't see a way through. I just don't know

00:20:39.840 how I can do this. And again, those moments, you know, do you stop or do you sort of just sort of

00:20:46.580 figure out how to keep moving, how to use the energy of the, of that to move forward or sideways

00:20:52.480 or backwards? There were times in my kayaking experience, like I got in way over my head on

00:20:58.720 this one river. When you get into rivers that are massive flows, like this one on the Usu Masenta

00:21:04.220 in Mexico, just a huge flow of water coming down this Canyon, crazy things begin to happen in the

00:21:10.280 river. Like these vortexes, they shoot across the river in these really unexpected ways.

00:21:15.520 And they're like nine feet deep. They're like, imagine like a giant toilet bowl. They suck you

00:21:19.720 down. Really? Interesting. They hold you under the water for a minute or two. They suck your shoes off 1.00

00:21:26.000 your feet. They're so powerful. And I got sucked down a few of these and I just, I could barely get back 0.98

00:21:31.080 in my boat. And I thought, okay, like how do I, okay, I can't move forward. I can't do it. Like

00:21:37.080 I'm so traumatized in a way. So I'm going to move backwards. And it was my friend, Rob Raker, who told

00:21:43.600 me this, let's start over. So I went back to this whitewater center, which is in Charlotte. It's a

00:21:49.160 great place where people can learn how to kayak. It's a man-made channel. And I took a visit down there

00:21:53.780 every month and just rebuilt myself. You see, I'd lost my combat role. I'd lost all my confidence.

00:21:59.060 I just got in over my head. And so I needed to rebuild. I needed to reprogram. Part of it is like

00:22:05.200 creating these sort of new circuits, these new neural pathways in the brain and kind of building

00:22:10.960 things into your nervous system. And I had to do that. So I regained my confidence and my skill

00:22:16.800 and became a way better kayaker than when I had gotten stuck that time. But, you know, I had a choice,

00:22:23.340 right? I could have stopped, but I was committed to this process. So I said, okay, to go forward,

00:22:27.880 I'm going to go backwards. That's okay. You know, me and my family with our kids, like we'll screw up.

00:22:33.460 My kids will screw up. I'll say, let's do a redo. Let's go backwards. And let's try again.

00:22:38.300 Cause we're all human beings. We're all imperfect. Let's, you know, life is sort of like a great dress

00:22:43.620 rehearsal and let's go back and try it again. How do you overcome in addition to some of those

00:22:49.760 obstacles that come up in the way? I'm sure there's tons of people that, that say you can't do this,

00:22:55.380 or you shouldn't do this, or it's dangerous, or you have other obligations or you're crazy or

00:23:00.340 any number of the thousands of things that you probably hear. How do you overcome some of that?

00:23:06.160 Personally, I surround myself with the right rope team. I always have people who are big dreamers,

00:23:10.340 big believers. I mean, yeah, there are people, for instance, on our Everest team who wanted to be a

00:23:15.300 part of our Everest team and they just weren't the right kind of people. Like their energy wasn't right

00:23:20.220 for the team. And then there were people that said, you're going to go kill yourself. Uh, you're 0.93

00:23:25.520 going to kill everyone on the team. You're going to slow everyone down. I mean, so yeah, you always 1.00

00:23:30.200 have those people, right? We have more and more. And I've been lucky to attract the kind of people

00:23:35.080 who say, I want to be a part of big things. I want to be a part of great things. I want to do hard

00:23:40.540 things like, you know, because that's just who I am. I'm energized by those hard things.

00:23:45.240 P.V., our team leader on Everest. He told me that he would have a dream every night,

00:23:50.300 almost every night. And it was us reaching the summit together. And he said it would bring tears

00:23:54.860 to his eyes because he knew if he could help me get to the summit, it would be the hardest thing

00:23:59.260 he'd ever done. And that energized him. And that was great. So yeah, I mean, I think there's always

00:24:03.860 those kinds of people that you can find to surround yourself with.

00:24:09.180 You said something really interesting. You said attracting great people. And I'm really interested

00:24:13.260 to hear your thoughts and how an individual would attract. I have my own thoughts, but I want to

00:24:17.800 know how you think somebody is capable of attracting the right type of people to his quote unquote rope

00:24:23.520 team. I tell my kids, I call it the open heart policy. It's just keeping your heart open. And I think

00:24:30.260 when we do this for me, when I do this, great things happen. Sure. Sometimes bad things happen. And

00:24:35.740 sometimes people come in and take advantage of you, but way more often the right kinds of people

00:24:40.800 and the right kind of opportunities come into your life. But it's all about making sure you

00:24:46.480 don't close off, that you keep your heart open. You trust the world. You trust life. You trust

00:24:52.780 humanity. So I think it's a broader trust and a sort of a gratitude. And when you have that spirit,

00:24:59.760 I think people, especially experts like mentors, you know, people who are great at whatever they do,

00:25:06.740 they notice that they want to help you. They want to take you under their wing and they want

00:25:10.700 to show you everything that they know, that they love about what they do. So I found that it's

00:25:15.900 really just about staying open. And as I said, being an open book, and then these amazing people

00:25:21.220 come into your life and they go, you know what, let me show you how to figure that out,

00:25:25.100 how to break through that barrier. I've been there, I've done it. And then man, bam,

00:25:29.540 you are on the fast track when those people connect with your life.

00:25:34.900 Gentlemen, just a quick pause to talk with you about our elite brotherhood,

00:25:37.820 the iron council. If you are not already familiar with what we're up to inside the iron council,

00:25:42.500 this is a digital band of brothers who are all working to become the best possible versions of

00:25:47.720 themselves. So each month we cover a different topic. This month we're talking about family

00:25:51.740 relationships, but we complete challenges. We work our planning tool, the 12 week battle plan.

00:25:56.500 We hold each other accountable. And generally we just share all the tools and the knowledge and the

00:26:00.300 resources that we need to succeed in our families and our businesses and our lives. Society would have

00:26:05.960 you believe that you need to go at it alone. That couldn't be further from the truth. The reality

00:26:09.960 is that men have a better chance at success when they surround themselves with other high achieving

00:26:15.540 men. And that is what we have created inside the iron council. If you're interested in learning more

00:26:20.880 and in claiming your seat at the table, you can do so at order of man.com slash iron council. Again,

00:26:26.220 that's order of man.com slash iron council. Now let's get back to that conversation with Eric.

00:26:30.800 How did you adopt this open heart policy in your life? And specifically, I'm curious about your

00:26:38.540 thoughts when it came to your blindness, because if I understand correctly, you lost sight or started

00:26:44.040 to lose sight when you're 13. Is that right? Yes. And so I imagine without knowing what that's like,

00:26:50.680 that there was probably a lot of anger towards maybe a creator or life or the world or whatever it

00:26:57.480 may have been. And if I can maybe just think about how I would respond, I would be upset.

00:27:03.260 But it sounds like you maybe have changed your thought process towards that. Walk me through that

00:27:07.760 if you would. Sure. I mean, you go through a loss like that. You go through all those pieces of loss,

00:27:13.560 you know, denial and anger, frustration. I went through all that. And I actually remember sitting in the

00:27:21.060 cafeteria after I'd gone totally blind and sitting in this cafeteria seat by myself at a table. All my

00:27:27.880 friends were like a couple of tables away and they were laughing and joking and having food fights. And

00:27:32.820 and I was so I was so devastated, not one to go blind. That was scary, you know, not to be able to

00:27:40.580 see, but to but to be not in the food fight and to not be in that circle of kids living. And I thought

00:27:47.780 to myself, that's the real fear, right? The fear that we are in this prison in our lives.

00:27:54.100 How awful to be stuck in those prisons that we put ourselves in. Of course, I didn't choose to go

00:28:00.720 blind. So that prison, you know, I didn't choose that. But I was making choices that were putting

00:28:06.080 me in that prison. So I thought to myself, OK, do I want to stay in this prison? No, I don't. And so

00:28:13.100 how do I get out of it to get out of the prison? You got to open your heart. You got to let those

00:28:17.840 bars down or away, push them away. And you got to just like have trust that the world is not the

00:28:24.600 place that's going to, you know, that's out to get you. And it's a mental. At first, it was a mental

00:28:30.060 trick I did in my mind, just saying, like, I'm not going to close myself off. I want it. I want life

00:28:35.100 to be good. And it was about that time that I got this newsletter in Braille of a group taking

00:28:41.840 blind kids rock climbing for the first time. It was this new thing that this rehab center was

00:28:46.880 doing. They were taking blind kids rock climbing. And I read this thing in Braille. And I thought,

00:28:51.960 that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Who would be not? Who would take a blanket rock 1.00

00:28:56.780 climbing? And I signed up and I said, I'm going to I'm going to do this. I'm going to try this. I

00:29:02.640 don't know if I'm going to be good. I might fail, but I think I'll be in good hands. You know,

00:29:06.920 they probably have like instructors that, you know, that won't kill me. So I signed up and I

00:29:12.240 loved it. And 16 years later, I was standing on the summit of Everest. That's so inspiring. And

00:29:17.440 obviously, I followed your work and read the book No Barriers and been at that conference and heard

00:29:22.260 you talk about this. And man, how inspiring it is to see. I think I can't remember if this is a quote

00:29:29.220 from you or somebody else. But what really stood out to me was the quote, what's within you. Let's see,

00:29:35.440 how did it go? What's within you is stronger than what's in your way. And I think that's exactly what

00:29:40.900 you're talking about right now is that we have all of the tools and the gifts and the abilities and

00:29:45.440 strengths that we need to overcome any obstacle that might present itself. We have the basic

00:29:51.900 foundation to grow and nurture all that stuff within us. We may not have it at the time, but we have

00:29:59.500 enough inside of us a spark of something to grow it. And I see that that's another thing I learned

00:30:05.860 through writing the No Barriers book is when I studied these people over and over, when I looked

00:30:12.280 at the people that had come into our programs broken, you know, they were reeling and reacting.

00:30:17.800 And they were bitter because the world was this place that had hurt them. They've gone off on this

00:30:23.860 great adventure and they'd come home broken. And because of that, it's so much easier to turn

00:30:29.180 outward and blame the world, to blame people. You know, humanity is awful people. You can't trust 0.95

00:30:34.760 them. My family was awful. You know, one guy had lost his leg on the military base and on a motorcycle.

00:30:42.560 I think he was drinking at the time. Blame the motorcycle. Blame your parents. That is the path of

00:30:48.220 least resistance. You know, it's so much harder to take the path of most resistance, but the most

00:30:53.840 fruitful path, which is to turn inward and grow that thing inside of us. And when I talk about

00:30:59.680 like vision, which I think is another element of this process of growth, I think you turn inward

00:31:04.300 and you commit to growing whatever that is that you can grow. Because then once you grow it strong

00:31:10.380 enough, that light blazes the trail in front of you. It gives you external vision, but at first is

00:31:15.440 internal. You got to start within. And I think people get it backwards.

00:31:20.860 How do you begin to start that when you are in that pattern of self-destruction and you look around

00:31:25.380 and think the world or everybody else is out to get you? Where do you start to ignite that spark?

00:31:29.600 Is it just trying something crazy like the rock climbing brochure that you found or is there

00:31:33.740 something more to it? Yeah, I think it is a step again to ride that storm. And we've had a lot of

00:31:39.180 people, for instance, like best examples I can think of of people who sign up for our programs,

00:31:44.040 let's say. And, you know, it's a big risk for them. It's a big risk. We had this lady who had

00:31:50.480 gone out. She was in the military and then she was a firefighter and she was up on a ladder fighting a

00:31:56.140 fire. And one of the operators mistakenly withdrew the ladder and her leg got stuck in that ladder and

00:32:02.700 crushed her leg. And she eventually wound up losing her leg. It was a huge step for her to sign up for

00:32:07.900 one of our No Barriers programs and climb a mountain with a team of other veterans. This was, you know,

00:32:13.340 and there were so many questions for her. What if, what if, what if, what if this happens? What if

00:32:17.720 that happens? Like she did not trust the world. She did not trust the team because of this experience

00:32:22.600 that she had had and probably things that happened even before that in her life, you know. And at the

00:32:28.100 end of that journey, she still was like thinking, OK, what did I get out of this? Before she had lost

00:32:33.040 her leg, she had ridden horses and she had really loved horses. And she didn't think after she lost her

00:32:38.100 leg she could ride horses or take care of a horse anymore. How do I carry pails of water and feed? 1.00

00:32:43.340 How do I groom the horse? Sometimes I have blisters on my stump and I can't get out of bed.

00:32:47.980 You know, I'm done. That part of my life is over. After the program, she found this rescue horse.

00:32:53.400 Actually, it found her that she was at this organization and they had this rescue horse that

00:32:58.260 was emaciated. And she said, I think I can do this. And she took this thing in and she feeds it 0.97

00:33:04.940 and she grooms it. She rides him. And for her, getting back into life was understanding that she

00:33:13.060 could do this thing, that she could take care of another living creature, that she had it within

00:33:18.120 her to do this. And so her life has changed because of her commitment to take a step and to choose this

00:33:26.660 open heart policy over that prison that she was in.

00:33:29.800 There's so much anxiety I think that comes with, and you alluded to that yourself and this woman

00:33:35.340 and the other stories that you shared that come with stepping into the unknown, right? And the

00:33:42.420 mantra that you had adopted in your life, which I love by the way, is relax, breathe, be at peace with

00:33:49.800 the river. And I think this is what you're talking about. Explain that to me if you would.

00:33:53.320 That was a mantra that Harlan Taney, my kayaking guide on the Grand Canyon, would constantly tell

00:33:59.420 me because I'd be going into these massive rapids and I would be so petrified, you know, I'd be like

00:34:05.020 dry heaving on the side. Of course, yeah, I imagine. You're about to go into this massive chaos and I

00:34:10.280 can't see it. That was part of it, you know, just like I'm about to go into this thing I can't see.

00:34:14.700 And then for the next two minutes, I am going to have to react and respond. It's game on. And if I

00:34:20.680 don't do it right, I'm going to screw up. I could drown. I could draw my team into a rescue. It's

00:34:25.600 like how so many scary things could happen. And Harlan said, you know, constantly like this river,

00:34:31.720 this canyon, he said, this is my home. I love this place. And you got to stop seeing the rivers,

00:34:38.040 this place that's going to take you and suck you down into, you know, blackness and nothingness. 0.95

00:34:42.280 You got to understand that this river is a welcoming place. You know, yeah, it's a scary place

00:34:47.840 from time to time. It's not this terrible river of doom. And you got to just keep saying,

00:34:54.140 keep your mind still and calm and go into these situations and understand, yeah, you're asserting

00:35:00.780 your influence over the river as much as humanly possible. But then you're riding these forces that

00:35:06.680 are so massive, you just have to let go and you have to be okay with riding those forces.

00:35:12.900 And it's sort of a hard thing to wrap your head around. And you know, what's funny is that I did learn

00:35:17.760 in my life that what I was most afraid of wasn't really drowning. What I was afraid of was letting

00:35:25.800 myself down, of going into these massive situations and, and letting myself down, not responding the

00:35:32.720 way I wanted to and then thinking, okay, I'm not the person that I wanted to be that I based so much

00:35:39.360 of my life on like the illusion of myself of the way I want to be. If I don't live up to that,

00:35:45.500 then I'll sort of shatter my own internal ego. And I realized that was the thing I was most afraid

00:35:51.000 of. I had to let that go as well. And honestly, that was the biggest barrier. It took me years

00:35:56.300 before I figured out that that was what I was most scared of. That's really interesting. Did you,

00:36:00.480 so did you wear a microphone or, or, or a headset? How did you know when you were going to be presented

00:36:05.580 with specific obstacles and which way the river ran? I'd be really curious about that.

00:36:10.180 Yeah, I have these, uh, Bluetooth waterproof headsets and Harlan would be yelling directions

00:36:17.060 and, you know, we'd be in like waves this 20 feet tall, you know, just getting, you know,

00:36:23.460 he's getting knocked over. He's rolling up. Where's Eric? It's like this little crazy video game

00:36:27.800 where there's a little blind, uh, guy that you're trying to control and you're trying to control 0.96

00:36:32.820 yourself getting knocked over and slammed into, you know, boulders and things like that.

00:36:36.920 My friend called it double virtual reality. That's actual reality.

00:36:42.660 That's a good, that's a good explanation.

00:36:45.520 So yeah, I'd had these waterproof radios and so he could communicate. There was a tiny delay,

00:36:50.400 but it was manageable. And he would just, you know, say things like hard left, hard right,

00:36:55.040 small left, small right, charge, which means charge into that rapid, hold your line, which means

00:36:59.900 try to stay straight and true as you can, even though the river is like totally knocking you left and

00:37:05.220 right. And then things like stop paddling, just very basic commands is what we actually wound up

00:37:10.080 on. Man, just incredible and inspiring. Eric, we're, we're bumping up against time. I want to

00:37:15.060 ask you a couple of questions as we wind down and obviously give the guys that are listening a chance

00:37:19.320 to know a little bit more about you and pick up the book if they're interested. Before we get to

00:37:23.560 that though, I do want to ask you, what does it mean to be a man? Well, I tell my son this all the

00:37:29.020 time, you know, a couple of things. I think it's stepping up and being honest, you know,

00:37:33.520 making sure that, you know, we're honest people and that we own things, right? We're not sort of

00:37:39.360 like stepping back and just allowing things to happen. We're stepping up and we're thinking all

00:37:44.060 the time, what can I influence in my life? People give up that ownership so easily. And, you know,

00:37:51.320 they say, oh, it's just impossible. And that's not true. It's not impossible. I mean, you might choose

00:37:56.360 to go in another direction or say it's not worth it, but it's not impossible. And I think being a man

00:38:01.240 is partly stepping up and say, I own this situation. I own it for me and I own it for

00:38:07.480 the people that I love. And I think that's probably the most important thing.

00:38:11.180 Yeah. Powerful. Well, how do we connect with you? How do we pick up the book and maybe even

00:38:15.800 mention the No Barriers organization that you've started as well?

00:38:20.220 Well, the book I think has a really powerful message. You know, I'd written a book in my 20s

00:38:24.500 called Touch the Top of the World. And I wrote a self-help book that was really popular

00:38:28.560 in my 30s called The Adverse Advantage. But in this latest book, I really didn't want to go back

00:38:34.260 to another self-help book because I think people learn through stories. And so I wanted to tell a

00:38:38.180 real story about flailing and bleeding in my own life and how I kind of came across this idea of

00:38:43.640 no barriers in a personal way. And then in terms of the people that I've met who I've studied and

00:38:49.820 seen them in action, you know, I felt like there hadn't been enough focus in the world on these real

00:38:57.780 people that are sitting in those sort of stuck places and then how they work their way all the

00:39:04.360 way to the mountaintop, whatever that looks like in their life. That space in between was so dark.

00:39:10.220 I didn't think anyone had really decoded it before, like in a in a real way, like in a way that's not

00:39:15.700 like sugarcoated or like fictional books or movies, commercialized and everything else.

00:39:20.400 I felt like almost like not to be a little bit jaded myself, but I almost feel like

00:39:24.760 some of that stuff steers you in the wrong direction or teaches you things that aren't

00:39:30.360 really true, you know, and so much of that journey I found to be so counterintuitive to what we're

00:39:35.640 taught. So I was really great. It was like diving beneath the surface of the river to understand

00:39:41.120 how the mind works, how we're motivated, how we're demotivated, why we have certain behaviors and

00:39:48.120 fears and anxieties. All that was so fascinating to dive in there. So anyway, I think the message

00:39:53.640 of the book is really important for people and they can learn about that. You know, they can go

00:39:57.980 to Amazon or they can go to my website, which is touchthetop.com. And in there, there's all sorts

00:40:03.740 of cool videos and all sorts of fun things that people can check out, like Everest journeys and

00:40:09.380 kayaking, the Grand Canyon journeys. And yeah, people can sort of drift through my website for hours.

00:40:15.080 Great. Well, I'm sure that we, uh, we link that up for sure. Eric, I want to let you know,

00:40:19.640 I appreciate you. I appreciate, uh, who you are and how you show up in the world. It's actually

00:40:23.820 very inspiring and incredible to me to see what you're doing and causes me to want to take

00:40:28.280 bigger, not risks necessarily, just bigger moves in my life. And so I got to tell you,

00:40:32.700 I appreciate how you're showing up and want to thank you for taking time to join us today.

00:40:36.940 Well, wonderful. And if this airs before June 1st through the 4th, we have our big No Barriers

00:40:42.020 Summit. And this is our big signature event of the year. We'll have about 1200 people. It's

00:40:47.240 in Squaw Creek. It's a four day experience. And it's this idea of how do we break through

00:40:53.260 the barriers of our lives? And then how do we use our own experiences to elevate the world

00:40:58.360 in some way? And so we bring together this expression of no barriers through art, through

00:41:03.580 music, through amazing innovations that seem more like science fiction, through these really

00:41:09.460 active workshops. I'll be there with my family. We hike mountains. We have adaptive rock climbing

00:41:15.260 and boxing and scuba and all sorts of really, really fun activities all to try to figure out

00:41:21.220 that equation that we've been talking about for the last 40 minutes of what are those ways

00:41:25.240 look like that we break through the barriers in our world? So maybe, uh, people could sign

00:41:29.700 up. It's nobarriersusa.org and they can learn more about our work.

00:41:34.120 Well, Eric, again, thank you for joining me on the show. Again, I appreciate you and how you're

00:41:37.860 showing up and thank you for your time today. All right. Thanks.

00:41:42.460 There it is guys. My conversation with Eric Weyenmaier head to orderofman.com slash one

00:41:47.780 to one is an episode 121 to get the details and the links from this show, as well as a link

00:41:53.720 to Eric's book, no barriers. You will not be disappointed with that read as we wrap up

00:41:57.880 things today. Remember guys, the two things I mentioned to you earlier, our first ever order

00:42:01.760 of man meetup, which you can register for at orderofman.com slash event and our exclusive

00:42:07.420 brotherhood, the iron council, which you can learn more about and claim your seat at the table at

00:42:11.740 orderofman.com slash iron council. I'll look forward to talking with you on Friday for our

00:42:16.420 Friday field notes, but until then take action and become the man you are meant to be.

00:42:21.040 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be

00:42:27.280 more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - July 11, 2017

121： No Excuses, No Barriers ｜ Erik Weihenmayer

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