The Call to Climb Within with James Robbins

What if the life you’ve been working so hard to build isn’t wrong… but incomplete? In this powerful conversation, host Dionne Malush sits down with leadership strategist, keynote speaker, and bestselling author James Robbins to explore the invisible mountains we all face and the quiet inner voice that calls us toward something more. From growing up on a cattle ranch in the Rockies to navigating a personal dark night of the soul, James shares how purpose isn’t something you chase, it’s something you remember. Together, they unpack why so many high-achievers feel stuck despite outward success, how adversity becomes an invitation rather than a punishment, and why the real climb is always an inside job.

This episode is for anyone who feels the tug of a bigger life but isn’t sure what direction to move. You’ll hear a refreshing perspective on purpose versus worthy pursuits, why vulnerability is a leadership superpower, and how to stop waiting until you feel “ready” to step into what’s next. If you’ve been questioning your path, feeling called to pivot, or simply craving deeper alignment, this conversation will meet you right where you are and remind you of one essential truth: you don’t have to have it all figured out, you just have to be willing to climb.

Connect with James here:

Website: https://www.jamesrobbins.com/

https://iwillclimb.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesrobbins97/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/james.r.robbins/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesrobbins97

Transcript

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Opening And James’s Backstory

SPEAKER_00 0:02

What if your greatest mountain wasn't in front of you, but inside you? Today's guest knows what it means to face hard times, not just in business but in life. James Robbins is a leadership strategist, keynote speaker, and best-selling author whose work has transformed over 50,000 leaders across the globe. He's the author of Nine Minutes on Monday and The Call to Climb, a book about courage, calling, and what it really takes to rise again after life knocks you flat. What makes James different isn't just his leadership expertise, it's his honesty about the valleys that come before the mountaintop. And I know I've been in quite a few of them. Raised on the cattle ranch in the Rockies, he'd learned early that growth doesn't happen in comfort, it happens in the climb. So today we're talking about adversity, purpose, and the lessons you only learn when you refuse to quit. Welcome, James. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Dion, fantastic. It's a beautiful autumn day here.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Yeah, it is pretty nice here today, too. We had some rain yesterday for the first time in a very long time, but it's been super great summer here. So good to know. So I always like to start with this one question. What is one thing you would like the audience to know about you that's not in your bio?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Well, you said a lot of things in my bio. So as I said, I grew up in a small cattle ranch. I grew up in the mountains, so they always speak to my soul. And some way or another, I always go back to them, whether it's through writing or uh just physically, but they are such a metaphor for our lives in terms of some of the things that we, the challenges that we face, but also really the the climb, as you mentioned, is an internal one.

The Dark Night That Sparked The Book

SPEAKER_00 1:31

So let's start there because the call to climb, it sounds like it came from a very personal place. What was the hardest climb of your life that inspired that message?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

The call to climb originated out of sort of a time in midlife when I had my own dark night of the soul. I was working this uh very purposeful job. I was working in the not-for-profit industry, and at the same time, I just wasn't happy. And I felt guilty about that because everyone's like, ah, you have such a great job, and I wish I had your job. And I was like, yeah, it's really great. But driving home, I would think, why am I not happy? And like I said, I felt really guilty about that. But I just kept pushing forward. And back then I didn't recognize those nudges from the soul that are trying to get our attention that something's out of alignment because I thought, well, I mean, obviously everyone else thinks I should be doing this, so I should just keep doing it. So I just kept pushing on. And maybe a couple of years of doing that, finally one day I got really sick and not like the flu sick, but I woke up one morning and I I just could hardly move and there was something wrong. I thought, like I had no energy. Like I couldn't, I could hardly stand up. So I went to the doctor, went through all these tests, you know, for lupus and cancer. And after all these tests, they're like, nope, there's nothing wrong with you. And I was like, Well, I I cannot literally live like this. And it really scared me. But that was a moment as well, going, okay, if nothing's wrong with me physically, then something is going on inside, and I have been ignoring this, uh, this, this tug on me. So that was really the beginning. It was about a three-month recovery from that. But it was during that time I discovered the work of Dr. James Hollis. He's a Jungian psychoanalyst. And he wrote a great book called Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life. And in that, he talks about at some point, all of us face an invitation from the soul, a summons from the soul. And the problem is that most of us avoid that appointment. And I avoided it because often, you know, we're we're afraid actually to sit down and find out what our inner life really want to say to us. Because often it's going to tell us something that we're actually quite scared to do.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

I feel like I'm going through that right now as we speak. I'm a little over the midlife now. I'm closer to the other side.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

So You know, it's yeah, I I've learned it's not an age thing that you could. I mean, I think we've we've confused midlife with just that moment where we're starting to wake up from this certain program we've been living. And as uh Dr. Hollis calls it, a collision of selves. There's this other self that comes in that's like, this is there's something else for you to do. There's something bigger for you to do. And if we have the courage to to listen to that summons and follow a more authentic path, you know, like when the path is right, the energy is there. But that doesn't mean that that path is then for the rest of our lives either. We might have another summons at some other point where we're trying to figure out what I should be doing. But all of that turned into the book like 13 years later. I I love that concept of your soul wants to have a conversation with you. And so that's really the genesis of the book. It was my own dark night of the soul and Dr. Hollis's work.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

I love that. Thank you for sharing. So you've trained over 50,000 leaders. That's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Having lived for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Sounds like that's a lot. So, what patterns do you see when people hit their breaking point and what separates those that rise again from those that give up?

Soul Summons And Midlife Meaning

SPEAKER_01 4:45

I think a lot of people, what happens is we we just keep pushing through these deregulated nervous system states, right? Whether that's a a fight or flight state for a while, but then eventually, you know, a freeze or a fawn state where we just we just start to numb out. And it's a little bit like it's a little bit like we're anesthetized and we just go to sleep. And now we're just going through the motions and we're overwhelmed and we're not sure what to do. So we just keep showing up at work every Monday. Or if you're an entrepreneur, uh sometimes it can feel overwhelming because you're thinking the what I'm doing is not working. Maybe I gotta pivot to something else, but I just pivoted, you know, six months ago, and and we have all these like when life just isn't working. And I think what happens is that people will push through for so long. But if you're pushing through on the wrong path, you you can get through it, but you're just gonna have that moment again, maybe a year down the road. So isn't it better to go inward and think maybe I'm actually on the wrong mountain here?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Oh, so deep already. This is so great. Thank you for sharing that. So you grew up on a cattle ranch. I don't think I've ever met anyone that grew up on a cattle ranch. I grew up near a farm, but not cattle ranch. Hard work wasn't optional in your life growing up, correct? I mean, that was part of being on the ranch, correct?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

It was. If you talk to my father, he will tell you I didn't work that hard, but you know, I probably didn't compared to the other neighbor kids. Like they just come home from school and an hour of chores, and but you know, still on the weekends we had to do things. There was always stuff to do. But I was surrounded by that mentality of just work. I mean, people just worked from sunup to sundown, and that's before the internet, obviously, or they would have found a way to work even longer.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

I feel like we work so much, and I just don't I don't stop working. I love it so much that I don't feel like it's working. My husband's like, how can you sit there and do this stuff all day long? I'm like, I because I love it that much. But so those lessons you learned at a young age, how do they prepare you for moments when life tested you later on?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

I think, you know, you you begin to understand whether it's on a farm or on a cattle ranch, that there's so much that you can do, but then there's just a lot that it's like you can't make a crop grow. I mean, you can you can set it up to grow, but there is a certain element of patience. And one of the things I've had to learn over and over is is that idea of patience. Like sometimes in the past, I have felt like, well, if I'm not working, I'm I'm gonna like not make money, which would most people would say, well, yeah, of course you got to work to make money, but not if not actually if you're setting your business up correctly. But I would have like an anxiety of I could start out the morning, really chill. Oh, let's do some meditation. But as time goes on, my anxiety would start to rise. Like, I you got to get to work because if you don't, like it's danger. And it's almost like we use work to control our future. Obviously, it influences. If you don't plant the crop, of course it's not going to grow. But if you've planted the crop, there's an element of you can't make it grow from there on. It's like for those of us who are in coaching, let's say, and you're trying to get clients. Well, you might be putting out content and creating some great stuff. Well, yeah, that's what you should do, right? Plant and water. But at some part, there's a certain return on that investment that you just gotta wait on. And to me, that is the hardest part. It's waiting on the return, right? While we continue to plant for the return that comes tomorrow. So I think there's a patience lesson in there. I don't know that I've always learned that, but that's been one of my things.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

It's definitely not been one of my great things over the years for sure, but I'm more patient now than I've ever been. And there's some kind of joy in that, you know, that overly stressed all the time, panicking, talking fast and going crazy. Like it feels different to sit back and have patience and not be stressed if, you know, a car runs in front of you and you're driving down the road and you're like, oh, get out of my way. Where before I would be so angry I was running late and I'd be I don't like to be late. So I would panic, have a panic attack over it. And it's like so silly. You know, there's just so much more in lights than worrying about that. And there's probably a really good reason why, you know, that car pulled in front of you. So I kind of live in that, but patience has not been one of the greatest assets of who I am for sure. So you've you've taught so many people, and it just I how do you do that? Like, how do you manage 50,000 clients over? I don't even know how old you are, but it doesn't seem like that long. How did you do it?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Well, I'm like 50, I'm 56 and I've been working since I'm 25. So, you know, at some point the math works in your favor. Well, you've got a lot of years when you've got group programs, when you've got uh, you know, big workshops that you've done. So those are not like 50,000

Burnout, Numbness, And Wrong Mountains

SPEAKER_01 9:25

individual coaching clients. Those are, you know, people we work with. Yeah, it adds up over time. I probably I've stood on stage I've close to 3,000 times also. So, you know, just that's the the good thing about time. If if you are consistent, it adds up in anything working out, eating healthy, giving presentations, making content, you're gonna get better and you're gonna have a bigger impact.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

So, what is one of your favorite success stories of your career helping other people?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Honestly, I think it's what I'm doing now. So, you know, I've had my leadership development company for decades, but the new book that came out, The Call to Climb, we created a program that goes with that. And what we're what I'm seeing is that it's just people are waking up to the life that the the potential that they have that they just haven't even touched in in years. And so as we go through the program, because a lot of the climb isn't about uh, okay, let's define some goals and now let's tighten all the screws and let's just grind our way for the next six weeks until you get there. It's them beginning to understand, wait a minute, what what do you want in life? Like what do you really want? What are the breadcrumbs in your life that have pointed a true north that maybe you haven't traveled? And as people go through it, they're starting to have these moments like, hey, I just had this memory. I'd always wanted to be a social worker, but then I chose not to because, you know, my mom didn't want me to. And and they have these moments, these things they've just haven't thought about in so long. And to me, it's it's them waking up to see that their programs have dictated much of their life. And there's a path out of that. They don't have to live according to the programs that they've they've had, and they can they can chart a new course. And I think that when they have that wake-up experience, that's exciting to me.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

So not everyone gets to live in their purpose. And how do you differentiate between all of those thoughts that are going through your head and focusing on what exactly it is? Because I think some people are in confusion of what is my purpose on this earth.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

For sure. I struggled with that for so many years. Like, what's my purpose? What am I supposed to do? And I see it so differently now. So I think that everyone's purpose is this it's to bring the most authentic and honest, courageous version of you to this planet. And that really is your gift to the world. It's also your gift to yourself. And it's not easy work because the ego is going to definitely oppose some of that. But the soul really seeks expression through you, it seeks expansion. It doesn't care what the what the tribe thinks. And yet the ego really cares what the tribe thinks. So that's what I believe everyone's purpose is. Now, typically when people say, Well, I don't know what my purpose is, what they're talking about is what they're supposed to do. Right. So this is a distinction I make that your purpose isn't really to do as much as it is to be. Now, what are you supposed to do? Well, that that's what I would call a worthy pursuit. And there's probably a hundred different worthy pursuits you could do that would be in alignment with your purpose, which is who you are. So when you look at it like that, it takes some of the pressure off trying to find this one thing. Like, am I supposed to go build schools in Africa? Am I supposed to, you know, back to your comment where the idea of like, well, not everyone can live their purpose. I think everyone can live their purpose and should, which is again to bring that essence of them to the world. Now, worthy pursuits, okay, you probably

Ranch Lessons On Work And Patience

SPEAKER_01 12:45

can do a ton of different things. And in the past where I limited that, then it puts so much pressure on like, what's the one thing? It's a little bit like thinking there's one soul mate out there for me for a romantic partner. If you have that mindset, it's gonna put so much pressure on everyone you date. It's gonna put so much pressure on you is to like, is this the one? Should I do this or not? Should I, should I go out with them? Should I not? And if you relax from that a bit and think that life is a bit is actually a lot more untamed than we want to give it credit for and just relax into that, then it becomes more exciting to think of what's a worthy pursuit I could do right now that would be in alignment with my purpose, which is who I am, right? Who I'm becoming.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

So knowing everything you know, you've interviewed a lot of people, you've been on stages, you've been, you know, you've been teaching leaders to become better and find their purpose. What if today everything changed in your life and you no longer were able to do what you're doing? How long would it take you to pick up the pieces and get back to where you are right now because of all that you've learned?

SPEAKER_01 13:50

That's a great question, which I've thought through because in sometimes it's felt like that, like in the pandemic where everything just shuts down. But I'm at the point now where, okay, if something happened and I let's say I couldn't speak on stage anymore or I lost my voice, okay, well, I will find another vehicle to get my message out. And, you know, there's there's always going to be a way. And whatever happens to you in life is gives you the opportunity to continue to evolve. So I'm not saying that would be easy, but this is why you want to get back grounded with who are you? Right? Like, what is your purpose in life? Because if the purpose is a vocation, like let's say someone becomes a pro a motivational speaker and they're on stage and they're like, this is my calling, this is my purpose in life. And then yeah, something happens. That's uh they need throat surgery and it does it goes wrong, and now they have no voice, and now they feel like I've lost my purpose in life. No, you've just lost that avenue, right? You've lost that worthy pursuit that you had that you enjoyed, which is so unfortunate. But it's not your purpose. Again, your purpose is again, who like bringing that version of you to this planet. And it's it's not going to just be in this lane either of a worthy pursuit. It's gonna come out in how you interact with your relationships, how you interact with your community, with your significant family that's around you. All of that is part of that brush we paint with that when we're not here anymore, that people look back and they can they can see the graffiti that our life left.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

I love what you said about purpose versus the worthy pursuit. And I've really never heard anybody say it that way. And just for me, it's like I sat here and thought, oh, that makes so much sense. I'm always looking for that pursuit of the next thing and not the right one, which is who I am and what I want and my purpose. So thank you for that. I think that for myself, it just it's like a light bulb, what just went off in my head. And I've been through a lot too, like everyone. You know, we've had a lot of battle wounds as an entrepreneur, and it's a little different, you know, when you're going through it and you have all these things and people depending on you. So I have a brokerage, we have 215 agents. It's a lot of people depending on me to show up and be my best self all the time. And it's it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of so some days I sit outside and be honest with you, I have a stomachache before I go in. And I've been working at home a lot for the last four or five months because my husband had a liver transplant this year. So I got to see that I can, I don't have to go in there every single day to make the company work. I'm better off to be in my space and my element, and I'm a better person because of it. I'm not stressed out, I'm not freaking out, every little thing's driving me crazy. Why is this not happening? I'm not, I'm not there. And I have to be honest with you, as much as I've been through in the last two years, this time and space that I'm in is super creative. And I'm feeling that. Like this is what I'm meant to be, you know, who I'm meant to be. So that's that was great. And I I appreciate that. So you've had your own limits in your own life, right? So you just talked about a couple of them. What internal voice or belief helps you push through when you're going through your own? Because even as a coach or a trainer of people, you have to have your own limitations or your own, you know, limiting beliefs that happen once in a while. I mean, hopefully you're you don't, but tell me, can you tell me a little about that?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Yeah, my my entire life has been pushing through limiting beliefs and fears and and I still discover them all the time. So a couple of things. One is, you know, a belief that I carried with me for so long was just this belief of um that I'm I'm not enough and I had this huge imposter syndrome. Just follow me. And part of that was when I came out of the not-for-profit and I started teaching leadership in the corporate sector. The fear was, well, what do you know about leadership in the corporate sector? And that had this, you know, that had this paralyzing effect on me. And it wasn't until years later that, you know, as they do the reps and get in these companies and you realize, oh, actually, leading in a not-for-profit was way harder than leading in a corporate setting. Like I learned, I knew so much more than I gave myself credit for. But, you know, then you just get that lesson. Then it's like, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start doing this. And then, you know, a new belief would would just be right there waiting for me. Like, well, what do you know about that? It's like, oh, I gotta go through it again. One of the mantras that I picked up that's got me through a lot is just simply, I believe in me. I believe in me, because I've realized like there were times where I was struggling to build my business and I might go

Consistency, Stages, And Impact

SPEAKER_01 18:20

and work with a company and I would get with the CEO. And then I would think, like, this guy's actually not that intelligent. Like, he's not that smart of a guy. And yeah, he's picking millions. And then I would feel like, what's wrong with me? Right. Or, or this person's like not even that nice, like to their staff. And I'm, you know, I treat my staff way better. Like, but how come I'm not successful and and they are? And I learned so much that the the the world at times doesn't reward talent, it rewards certainty. And when you can just even doubt your doubts about yourself and just show up in a certain state and blow through that smokescreen of fears. And I'll I can share an example that's not too long ago. So, as much as I've been on stage a gazillion times, I had a friend ask me to go and fill in for him and train one of his clients. And I knew his material, so I said, yeah, sure. So I go up to this uh company the night before and I pull out the binder. I'm like, I gotta go over all these PowerPoints. And all of a sudden I could feel the stress. And then I was like, wait a minute, what are you doing? Like, why are you stressed out right now? Like you've done this so many times. And even this stuff, even though you don't fully know this material, like you actually, I to be if I'm honest, I can my stuff is better than the stuff that he wants me to teach. And I'm like, I just trust yourself, James. Like, please, just trust yourself. And I was like, okay, I just shut the binder and I thought, okay, I'll just go there tomorrow and just trust myself. And so I did. And I was not as prepared as I would normally want to feel. But then I realized, like, I just went in and I was just me and I did it and I did fine, did more than fine. And but that lesson doesn't happen unless you have that moment of just trust yourself. I believe in me and let me go do it. And of course it's not gonna be perfect, but it's gonna be me. I'm gonna bring my best effort. So it's not, it's not a lesson about not being prepared, but I'm saying most of my life I've been over prepared because I've not wanted to let people down.

unknown 20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

I feel a lot of what you're saying. And for the last two years, my dad passed away. It's been two years, and it was really heartbreaking for me. I loved him dearly. We were very close. And all of a sudden I spent the last two years learning, training, taking courses, taking classes, certifications. So I'm trying I'm running this company, and in the middle of it, I'm spending 30 hours a week learning. What do you tell someone

Waking Up Potential With The Program

SPEAKER_00 20:40

like me who is feels like you have to learn so much? And I'm always I don't feel like I have enough to to be to train someone and teach them, even though I know more than 90% of the people because I've been doing this for so long. But I I have that fear of how do I teach someone or how do I train them to do it if I don't have all the skills. Can you help me? Can you help me with the Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

No, I relate with that. I relate with that. So a couple of things. Number one is when you can drop, when you can drop the idea that you have to know everything to be the teacher. And I I fell prey to that for so many years, where it was like, well, but I gotta know like everything and I gotta know every answer. And I can't, I can't let them know that I just learned this two months ago, right? Like I can't let them know that, you know, God forbid that they would think that I'm still learning. It's just it's actually quite irrational when you think about it. So when you can sort of reload the reframe it rather as look, I'm I'm just on the journey too. Whoever I'm teaching, there's gonna be things that they do better than me, but right now I'm the instructor in this context. Doesn't you mean I'm the expert, but I'm the teacher right now. Hey, here's what I'm learning. Hey, here's what I've learned. Hey, here's what, here's my experience, right? And that takes the pressure off you that you've you've got to get it completely right. Because again, even when we're teaching, so I have a ton of leadership courses in my in My business, right? So, like uh difficult conversations, how to have difficult conversations, how to hold people accountable. Well, someone else might teach that different. Doesn't mean that my way is the only way in the right way, but it is my way and it works. So let me pass it on to you. And when you take that pressure off yourself that you've got to be totally right, that will help out a lot, I think. And the other thing is, okay, it's one thing, it's one thing to know something, it is another thing to teach because teaching is more about structure. So, how do I take all this knowledge in my head and then and structure it? It's like if you've ever had a friend that is learning English and they ask you questions like, Well, how come I check my email, but I don't see my email when you're and then you're you're trying to explain the difference between checking something and seeing something, and then you realize like, I don't even know how to explain that.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

But somebody who's an ESL teacher, they know how to explain it because they've they understand the structure of teaching. So part of that is it's a skill that you learn, right? Like, how do I teach this more succinctly? Well, you know, you know how you teach it more succinctly, you just got to teach it a bunch of times. And then that's when you start to get better and better at teaching. So teaching is a skill in its own

Purpose Versus Worthy Pursuits

SPEAKER_01 23:10

right, and um we always need great teachers who are willing to improve their craft. So if you think teaching is a skill, I'll get better as I do it. Secondly, I don't need to have all the answers, but I'm gonna pass on my perspective. I'm gonna give them some things to do. And then thirdly, when we remember that teaching is like 10% of the process, the other 20% is coaching, the other 70% is them doing it in like taking what you've said, trying it out, having the experience, right? That's where the that's where learning gets locked in. So it doesn't mean we don't play a a big part, but not as big a part as sometimes we we want to think.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

One of my quote coaches told me that you have to be one week ahead of the audience, and if you could do that, and I and I just can't. Like I'm like, I need to be like the whole thing ahead of the audience, you know. It's just I have so much knowledge in my brain, it's not even funny. But I I feel though right now I'm at that time where I'm starting to prune, push everything back and get focused on the things that are really gonna push the needle forward for myself, for our agents, you know, what do I want to do for them for my last third of my life? Because it's here. And you know, as much as I don't believe it, it's here. So I don't want to spend every day just learning all day long and then have not put anything, anything actionable into play, you know. So that's kind of where I'm at. I mean, that people look at me think, oh, you're so successful, but this is not the end for me. This is not all that there is. So I want to say to you this in your experience, how can leaders use their scars and not hide them to inspire others?

SPEAKER_01 24:42

So this is a lesson it took me a long time to learn that vulnerability, you know, obviously professionally, but vulnerability is uh is a superpower because number one, it it bonds people to you, and that bond is leveraged from a leadership perspective, right? If you want, let's say you have employees, well, when they feel bonded to you, then they are behind you. They are they'll run through a brick wall for you, uh, especially if they believe you care about them, because they that's just so rare today, especially in the workplace. And nothing does that like vulnerability when people can know, you know, something about you. So even when I'm teaching leaders, we have a program on storytelling for leaders, and part of that is what stories do you need to tell your people that tell them something about you? And it could be a moment of failure in your life professionally or whatever it might be. But what happens when we're vulnerable is that it's like we we come down a level so that we're on the same level as our staff or those we're teaching. And in that moment, they feel like, oh, Dion is just like me, which means maybe I can be like her. And it's aspirational as well. So that's one of the things I for years wanted to just present this like, hey, follow me because like I got it all figured out. But as a leader or a business owner, at the end of the day, you're in a sense paid to make the final decision and take responsibility. And the more you can get everyone else to be in on weighing in on stuff and being part of the decision process is great. But at the end of the day, you got to make a decision. So I don't want to get sidetracked off of that. But back to the vulnerable vulnerability thing. For many years, I would one of my main keynotes, I talk about this mountain climb that we did in Bolivia and how we got stuck halfway up. And, you know, like I I wanted to quit. I wanted everyone to quit. And so I tried to do things that would make people want to quit. Like it's it's a terrible story. It's a funny story. People love the story because they expect me to come in and tell this mountaineering story about how we pushed through and we made it to the summit. And then here we are at 20,000 feet stuck, and I'm trying to figure out how can I get this guy to quit so I can go down without looking bad, you know? And because everyone's been in a been there, right? They've they've all been someplace where they think I can't do this anymore, but I don't want to quit. Like, how can I get out? And but even then, like I had a friend of mine tell me, like, hey, you can be even more vulnerable. And I started sharing stories about, you know, like even more like personal failure. And when I did, again, it just it would people would lean in even more because in that moment you you humanize your yourself to everybody. Because people

Resilience When Plans Collapse

SPEAKER_01 27:20

put leaders on a pedestal, speakers on a pedestal, authors on a pedestal, right? And then they meet you. I think one of the best compliments someone can give you is like, hey, you're so down to earth, which means you're on my level.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

That was great. So for someone who's listening right now and they're stuck at the bottom of their own mouth right now, what's the first small step you tell them to take?

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Is to start carve out time for you to go inward. And what I mean by that is if you're just waking up and then charging onto your email and charging into your day, but you're never stopping and thinking, what do I want? Like, what do I want in life? Or what do I want in this next stage of my life? And a lot of people can't answer that question. And sometimes we can't answer that question because we just don't know ourselves well enough. We we know the mask we've put on. We know the socially acceptable version of us that is trucking down the road of life. But what happens is we lose touch with what's what's truly in our heart. And so it's start making space for that. Whether that's meditation, whether that's reflection, whether that's being out in nature and just asking that question, what do I want? Like, what do I really want if if anything was possible? What do I want? If no one was gonna judge it, what would I want to do? And and sometimes the answer isn't, you know, whatever comes to mind. Like, oh, I'd like to just go travel the world, but it's more the desire behind that. Maybe it's to be more free, maybe it's to have more excitement in your life. Sometimes it's about looking at the breadcrumbs throughout our life, whether that's the things that brought us alive as children, right? There are there are threads there when we go back, look at some of our highlight days that are still stuck in our memory. And you start looking at and you're like, oh, wait a minute, that's that shows up in my life now. So that's where I would say to start is you've got to begin to make some space. What we do with our clients come into the call to climb is we get them just doing a 15-minute ritual in the morning where just make space and we give them things to do there. But it's just like, this is just about you. And don't charge out of your tent up the mountain until you've you've gotten quiet. So it takes a while for I think for us to really hear the soul.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

So, how can our listeners find out more about you and get a copy of your book?

SPEAKER_01 29:26

If you would like a copy of the book, go to IwillClimb.com. Iwillclimb.com, and from there you can you can find my leadership website. I'm not gonna give you too much information. So I'll just give you one thing, it's go to IwillClimb.com and uh you can find out about me there.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Makes it easy. Oh, that's a great URL, by the way. It's amazing that it was available. I get so excited when I find something that's out there. So we all know your next breakthrough might be buried in your biggest battle. So keep climbing and keep believing. And always something he said today that's it's just I keep thinking it over and over since we started talking. I believe in me. How awesome is that! Thank you, James. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Thanks, Tion.