Former NFL Player Climbed Mount Everest to Find His True Purpose | Mark Pattison

Welcome to the Legacy All-Stars Podcast. We feature inspirational stories from people who dedicate themselves to helping others. Here is your host, Alan Pavlosky. All right, all right, all right. Welcome back to the Legacy All-Stars Podcast. I'm your host, Alan Pavlosky. Today's guest is someone whose story is about far more than athletic achievement. Mark Pattison spent 8 years as a wide receiver in the NFL, suiting up for the Raiders, Rams, and Saints. But what he chose to do with his life after football is where the real legacy begins. When many would have coasted through past success, Mark has set one of the most audacious goals imaginable, to climb the Seven Summits, the highest peak on every continent. Over the course of a decade, he did exactly that, becoming the first NFL player in history to complete the challenge, capping it with the summit of Mount Everest on May 23rd, 2021. NFL 360 captured that journey in a documentary called Searching for the Summit, which went on to win a Sports Emmy Award for Best Short Documentary in 2022. And there it is. Hold it up, Mark. Proud of you.

There it is.

It's cool. But here's what makes Mark a perfect fit for Legacy All-Stars. It's not just the climbing. It's not the football. It's what he does with his platform. Mark has raised money for causes he believes in, including Higher Ground in Sun Valley, Idaho, a nonprofit that holds deep personal meaning because of his daughter Amelia's journey with epilepsy. He calls it passion with a purpose for Amelia Zevrist. He is a number one Amazon best-selling author of Finding Your Summit, a former senior vice president at Sports Illustrated who led the brand from 17 to number one in the market, a sought-after keynote speaker, and the creator of Seven Summit, a leadership event built to help others find their next mountain. Mark, great to have you. Welcome to the show.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed— I love talking about this stuff, and it's a passion. You know, we're not talking about pouring cement or something like that. We're talking about really personal achievement, elite leadership, mindset, resilience, and, and at the end of the day, trying to either inspire or help others.

Yeah, you know what, the reason I started this show is because after spending 30 years plus in sports and working with athletes, I was most inspired by those that gave of themselves and really moved to help others. And I think The main purpose behind this show is to inspire others to get off the sidelines and make a difference. So with that in mind, let's get started with the questions.

Yeah.

Mark, 8 years in the NFL— Raiders, Rams, Saints— paint a picture for our audience of what life was like the moment football was over and what did that transition feel like?

Yeah, it was tough, man. It was especially tough because like so many things, sports, you're seeing the NIL and all these other things that are happening today. Really, the whole landscape is changing. Back then there were no programs. And so if you dial this back, and I don't think a lot of people think about things like this, but the money isn't what we see today. So you're not like set for life, but that's a whole nother conversation. But when you entered the game of football, which really started back when I was like 7 years old, right? And then, and like you and like so many others, you know, you're just going out in the playground and you're playing with your buddies and you're having a great time. And then one thing leads to another and you keep going up the ladder. And it gets steeper and steeper and steeper. And then once you get into big-time college football, which I was very fortunate to play at kind of a golden era time at the University of Washington, and we went to bowls every year, Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, you know, all kinds of stuff. And then you find your way in the NFL. You're like, that's a long time at like high-octane football, right? And you put all your blood, sweat, and tears into that. And then one day it just ends. And when it ends, it ends. You know, when you're playing, you're relevant. And when you're not, you're not.. And, and so that's what happened to me. Today there's a gal named Tracy Pearlman with the NFL.

Um, yeah, I know Tracy.

Tracy. Yeah. With the NFLPA. And she's done a phenomenal job of really creating these, these program called The Trust. And so The Trust is 10,000+ NFL guys, ex-NFL guys like me who are in the players union, and they've created all these programs. So a program might be a coaching seminar. It might be going to Merrill Lynch and shadowing somebody. It might, somebody wanna be a broadcaster, you go to broadcasting school. So there's all these different things and all these different verticals of these opportunities to actually take somebody's energy and skillset and interest and then chase those down. But going back to your question, that wasn't the way it was back in the day. So this is the whole thing, you know, about many of these things that you just named, you know, running Sports Illustrated. I also started two venture-backed companies and, you know, won the Emmy and just came out with this book called Finding Your Summit. And, you know, it's really about the valleys of how we climb out of those things with faith and resilience. And that was what a big big valley that I had to climb out of. And it took me probably 2 years, and it was tough. And because I had no skill sets, I had no experience in anything other than catching footballs, and that didn't really translate to other corporations. And I had to learn, like, what are you going to bring a value to somebody else that they would want to actually hire you? So it was a tough transition.

Yeah, for sure. You know, most people who decide to reinvent themselves set a reasonable goal. You decided to climb the highest mountain on every continent. Where did that come from? And other than me, who thought you were crazy?

Well, a lot of people not only thought I was crazy but thought it was very selfish, right? And selfish from the standpoint— and I want to just put the context in the timeline of this because this is really, you know, I played football and then I had to figure out life, and they ultimately got married and I had kids. And now this is 15, 20 years later going— actually, 20 years later going from when football ended for me, which was around 30 years old, to now at 50. I'm going through this life transition of my now ex want to be married anymore, which we're on great terms and everything now, but you know, that transition. And so I just really need to find that big, hairy, audacious goal to figure out something that was going to pull me out of this zone. It was a little bit in a different way, like when that— the death of my NFL career, and now I'm going through this major relationship transition where it couldn't be something like, hey Mark, just go run a 10K, or or something, you know, which is, is very doable for anybody, whether you walk it or run it, or even a marathon, which would be difficult for me. But since I'd grown up in the state of Washington, we've got mountains up there. We've got a big one called Mount Rainier. You probably know of it. It's kind of like Mount Shasta down by where you are. And, you know, when I climbed that, and this whole idea came around about, has there ever been NFL player ever tried to climb the Seven Summits? And at the time, the answer is no. And of course, the Seven Summits are the highest peak on each continent. So, you know, between the travel and how you get there and like, how do you pull this thing off and rock climb and glacier climb and get yourself out of a crevasse, which I fell on a couple of times, right? It's all these things. And it just got me excited about life again. And it really did help me pull myself out of this rut that I found myself in around 50 years old.

Yeah. Take us through the decade-long arc of the Seven Summits. Which mountain tested you the most? And not necessarily just physically.

Yeah, I mean, look, each one's got its own thing to it, and each one is unique in terms of where it is. And the globe is set up where our summer is somebody else's winter and vice versa. So there's a whole time of season when you go attack all these. Everyone from a chronological standpoint had its own kind of timeline and its challenge. And I would say that Denali was super physically taxing in the sense that that's up in Alaska now called, I think, Mount McKinley. But it's taxing just because you're pulling your own stuff up there and you're up there for almost 3 weeks. So you're talking about 137 pounds on a sled and on your back, and that's tough. And it's, it's steep. And because you've got the Bering Sea out there, which sits in between the states, Alaska and Russia, you've got this really cold like icy wind and weather that comes down. And the first time I tried to take that on in 2017, we got pushed back. It was actually -90 degrees on the top, and we were 2 camps below that. And, you know, just being buried in a tent for 5 days is hard, and getting all that gear up to this camp at 14,200 feet was a challenge. But I have to say, like, when you wrap it all together, Mount Everest is just a whole nother level. And main reason beyond just being almost 30,000 feet, and there's dead bodies on the mountain, and you're in test zone and you're breathing on oxygen. One thing I don't think a lot of people really understand is that you're there on the mountain living on ice and rock at 17,500 feet for 2 months, right? 2 months at 17,000. I mean, the top of Mount Rainier, this mountain I just referenced in the state of Washington, is 14,500 feet. That's the top. That's where you think, you know, even in— I've been up Mount Whitney a couple times. That's 14,000. I think that's the second highest mountain or it's the first, it's the highest mountain in the lower 48. So anyways, I see you coughing a little bit, and that's one of the things that you also get when you're climbing on Everest. It's something called the Khumbu cough. And so there's all these particles in the air and you're in the death zone and your body is deteriorating and you just come up with these little ailments like this. You know, it's just one of those things, but when you're up there, you don't heal. You get a little cut, you're not going to heal. You've got a little cough or something like that, you're not getting over it. Right? So you gotta manage all these little tiny things that make a big difference. And, you know, we started, and mindset is a part, we can talk about that later, but, you know, we started with 24 people and only 10 of us made it. And, you know, typically when they, that the odds of people making it, not making it, I mean, it's a steep curve of actually trying to get up there.

Yeah. NFL 360 followed you on Everest and turned it into an Emmy Award-winning documentary. Yeah. What was it like having a camera in your face on the world's most dangerous mountain?

Well, tell you what happened is I get a call. This is— timing is everything in life, and I've had a lot of circumstances, and this really speaks to me about when the universe— and you can phrase it however you want— but is ready to like set you free or bring certain gifts to you or things like this. And this was another great example of this, which was in 2020 we were scheduled to go climb Mount Everest. I paid for it, I had an expedition group, and, and as you remember, around March is about the time that you head off to Nepal. The whole world shut down because of COVID and as a result of that, everything got pushed from here to there. So now it's 2021, and prior to that, there's a number of people said, hey Mark, you know, you should do a film on this, you've got this cool stuff going on. And yeah, so I went after that, but I discovered it's like a million dollars to pull that off, right, with getting cameramen and production and all that stuff, which I know nothing about. So I get a call from the NFL in January 2021, and they go, hey Mark, look, we'd love to do a film, a short film on you climbing Mount Everest on your Everest expedition, you know, do you want to do that? And I go, of course. So they flew up a crew over to Sun Valley, Idaho, and we did a lot of filming. There's another guy you probably know, Jim Mora Jr., he's my best friend. So we— there's a lot of filming of us talking, and then climbing mountains around here in Sun Valley, Idaho at 6,000 feet. And that's where I did all my training. But when it came to going over, so now this is January and fast forward a couple months, now we're late March, we're headed over to Nepal. There had been another outbreak of COVID in India and India borders Nepal. And so NFL security was banning any employees for going over to Nepal. So wow. They flew back over to Sun Valley. And they equipped me with all kinds of GoPros. And so I had GoPros here, here, here. So every time I just start off, I just push buttons on my chest and my head and off I go. And so I captured like 10,000 hours of film of which I had no idea what, whatever I was going. But you know, once you push a button, your focus is on the Karas and climbing through the Khumbu Icefall and going across these crazy ladders and all this kind of stuff. And so I didn't have the, I didn't really know. Here's the funny thing about all this is that, so then they put it together and it's this beautiful film and it's a 30-minute documentary. And so in May of 2022, I get a call again from the NFL after it'd come out and it was great. It was amazing. And they go, hey Mark, great news. You've just been nominated for an Emmy. And I'm like, Emmy for what? I had no clue what they were talking about. And they go, you've been nominated for best picture for our film. And also for best cinematography. So all that stuff I took up on, which I had no idea I was taking, you know, I fell into a crevasse and that was all captured and everything else. It's called Searching for the Summit, if anybody wants to know, on YouTube. But I captured all this stuff. I didn't win for best cinematography, but the grand prize, of course, is best picture, which we won.

Yeah, that's amazing. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about what you do for others. And you've raised money for causes including Higher Ground in Sun Valley. Tell us about that organization and how your daughter Amelia's journey with epilepsy shaped your commitment to giving back?

It actually started with the Epilepsy Foundation out of Houston. This is where their base is. And then it shifted to Higher Ground here in Sun Valley. I've also raised money, God, for the Boys and Girls Club out of LA. And I've also went— this was really cool— my second Kilimanjaro trip. Actually, I grabbed Jim Moore along with this, but there's a collection of NFL players and military, ex-military guys with disability. And we, Jim Moore and I, actually raised enough money to build a water well down in Tanzania, which was really rewarding. It was really cool down in the Serengeti. We got to go visit and see what that was like for them and see the joy and the happiness out of just being able to turn on a water faucet, you know, and have water come out. But going back to Somalia, you know, let's start with my daughter. I just did a TED Talk on this, which was really cool. And it's kind of like, what's the blessing and what are the, like, when things like this happen, especially when they happen to you personally. And my daughter was pretty mission critical. She had something called petite mals, which is a form of epilepsy. And so I think a lot of times people people think about people falling and, you know, down and they're on the ground and they're convulsing and having seizures and things like this. And with her, it would be a little bit opposite of that, where she'd have daily seizures that last between 8 and 15 seconds. And it was almost like you just unplug and she was just almost like frozen. But during that time, she really couldn't see or hear. And then you're plugging her back in, she's, you know, so like if a teacher is saying, And, you know, Christopher Columbus is the one who sailed across, and you missed the name of the answer. How difficult learning and those types of things would be, not to mention was super fatiguing. So she was going to the University of Arizona. This has been going on for about 20 years. If she had 10 seizures a day, that was a win. And so I was just at the time, parallel to that, and this was kind of the whole theme of my TikTok, you know, I was starting to get quite a bit of attention again from the NFL, which was crazy. Rather than have it come on me about my climb, I wanted to redirect that light to Amelia and pick a cause, so epilepsy or Higher Ground, to actually shine that light on her to show the journey that she'd been on and then try to raise money so we could help others with awareness and funds go to that cause.

You know, again, this is what this show is all about, is to inspire others to get off the sidelines and do something and take action and help others. You've talked about passion with purpose. How does philanthropy connect to peak performance, and what does service for someone who's trying to find their next mountain?

I think, you know, like, I was thinking about this other day, just in terms of, like, yesterday I would go out, and part of my, like, routine and discipline is getting up at 5:30 in the morning, and I go out the door every single morning. I work out for an hour and a half, and there's a lot of days that I don't feel like doing that, but discipline has to override feelings. Right? But there's never been a time when I've come back and said— I'm going to draw a parallel here— there's never been a time when I've come back and said, God, I wish I wouldn't have done that workout. You're always saying, I'm so glad I did that workout, because you didn't feel like doing it. You got over that, you held yourself accountable, you were disciplined about it, and then you accomplished it, and now you're feeling better about it. Okay, so the same thing about giving back, right? There is no greater joy than not only helping others to raise money to then actually have an event where, and I'm not saying it's everything that I did personally, but because of a sequence of things that happened along the way for Amelia in this 20-year journey that ultimately she's now the last 4 years, she's been seizure-free living in New York City, assisted with meds, right? It was miraculous. And I think there was some element in there, a part of it when I held these different fundraisers here, which by the way, takes a lot of flipping effort. You know, I feel church twice with 300 people. And I had, you know, Jim Moore up on stage with me, Peter Cetera, the Chicago frontman.

Chicago, yeah, of course.

You know, he was up there with me and some other, you know, rock stars that were part of this that helped, you know, bring people into the church. And then I interviewed them like you're doing with me, and then we created this thing. And to have not only people feel great about coming towards the cause and giving, but then actually see the person that we're talking about, my daughter, get up on stage and have her rise up get a little taller, get a little bit more confident, and just admit that she's got this thing that we're all trying to collectively help put our arms around to help her. Also, when I was down— and I mentioned this before— down in the Serengeti with Chris Long, Howie Long's son, and we climbed Kilimanjaro and also raised this money, and we went to these villages, and these people celebrated us like we were the Beatles, the Elvis coming into their village. I mean, they were like, oh my God, are you kidding me? These are, you know, and they were making robes for us and necklace things. And it was just amazing to see their happiness and their joy when they were coming together and somebody else did something for them. And it's like, we're happy to do that. And they're happy that we, you know, we're able to, you know, they've got the saying down there called "water is life." And that's so important because it's so dry. And, you know, the other side of that is that typically these girls would have to walk down to the water 5 miles away with these big buckets on their head and come back. Being attacked and all kinds of messy stuff. It was just really gratifying, satisfying, and so much fun to see other people, you know, by the effort that you do. So kind of like that workout thing I was talking about, there hasn't been a time when I've participated in something like that where I haven't come back and go, God, that felt great. And it was so awesome to be around those people, and they actually inspired me to do more.

You know what's funny? Most people that I talk to on this show that have similar mindsets to you is that they feel like— and this is the way I feel as well— they feel like they get more out of the experience than the people that they are intending to help. And I think if people just realized that there's more to be gained from contributing to the benefit of others than just the satisfaction, but you also gain love, you gain experience, you gain an esteem that you get from this for yourself to make it so that it's so meaningful that You know, it's just amazing how that little thing and that tipping point you could do for others just makes you feel like you're on the top of the world using your summit as an experience.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's been fun too, cuz the gift keeps giving sort of in a way that I'm able to continue to give, but also because I've been able to be in so many places. My first Kilimanjaro, I referred back to the Boys and Girls Club. I raised some money. I didn't even really know what I was doing. It was my first summit. I went down and raised $10,000. It's not the most and it's not the least, but, you know, again, it was just kind of my step, first step into this. And then when I saw Chris Long, you know, he's really taken this whole building water wells all over East Africa to a whole different level, right? Not just one little group. And then when it hit home, and that's when it really, you know, I mean, there's parents out there through. There's kids have had all kinds of issues and, you know, cancer and whatever else, and it affects you. And when it got mission critical for Amelia, there was really no other choice than it just was obvious, like, let's just call this whole thing Amelia's Everest, not Mark's Everest, but Amelia's Everest.

Yeah.

And what can we do towards really bringing— the NFL even donated, it was so cool, right? So it was just really starting to bring them back and It was really a full circle moment for me. And just to see, you know, kind of the whole arc and the people that you meet and just keep problem solving and how you can get there, you know, great things can happen.

Yeah, for sure. Let's shift gears again and go talk about your book, Finding Your Summit. It became a number one Amazon bestseller. What's the core message you want a reader to take away, especially one who feels stuck right now?

Yeah, so You know, there's two types of, I think, speakers or writers or people that come with advice, right? And one is, is they've read all these books and so they're talking about what everybody else has done, right? Overcome certain things. An amazing speaker, amazing game changers, a guy like Tony Robbins, who's, who's somebody, he's not the doer. He's so good at telling, retelling stories of other people. I'm the opposite of that, which is not that I can't tell a good story, but All these things that I talk about in this book are my own experiences, and I've had a lot of them. Like you said, taking SI from 17 to number 1, playing in the NFL, and it was not a smooth ride at all for me. You know, I was, I was—

it never is—

I was drafted, I was cut, I was traded, I was brought back, I was all those things, right? And it's complete— it's so hard to make an NFL team, it's even harder to stay there, right? Because all these new guys are coming in. And climbing the Seven Summits, but, you know, relationships, right? My daughter Amelia, you know, things like that. I've had a lot of different setbacks, so So I have been very, very, very, very fortunate. And I think this is one of the biggest missing components and pieces in business today, which is the leadership piece. We all go to college. Many of us go to college and we learn, you know, how to create spreadsheets and budgets and marketing or social media or whatever your thing is gonna be. But they're never teaching about the leadership component. And I think, you know, not only is it a top-down from leaders like who have gone on to really understand about that, but also bottom up, top down and bottom up of people that once they kind of get going in the system, turning around and helping others, you know, that are below them. And so you get this whole ecosystem going and there's a major lack of that, I think, that's out there. And so fortunately for me, between Don James, who is a Hall of Fame coach, he taught me this pyramid of success, which I've really taken to heart. And it's really just 25 different building blocks on how I got there. And so one of the things I talk about, like I'm talking about tonight, for Harvard is, you know, who created this whole thing was John Wooden. You and I both know who John Wooden is, especially, right? And, and so he was the famous basketball coach, and he won 10 NCAA championships in a row. My coach won a couple of national titles at Washington. He taught me the same system that he took from— and then a guy that's more relevant today is Nick Saban. Nick Saban, the coach of LSU and Alabama, won 7 national titles. That's impossible. So if you put those 3 together, And so when I'm talking about how I've dug myself out multiple times, multiple times, multiple times, we're talking about the exact same system I'm using that these guys have won 20 national championships with. In that case, I'm retelling somebody else's story, but I'm implementing for my own life on what I've done and the flipping thing works. And that's the reason why when you start talking about playing in the NFL, taking SI from 17, number 1 pass ESPN, writing this book, you know, that debuted on number one, How to Overcome Life's Valleys and Peaks with Faith and Resilience, and things like that. They're so different, and I keep ending up back here at the top. It's because I've used the same system and I've worked it. And you have to have the faith and the belief that— and the patience— that if you believe in the system and if you believe in the daily discipline of the things that you're applying, that over time it can get you to or at least put you in the best position to succeed on something else.

Yeah, I mean, in the most simplistic terms, this is something I live by every day. There's the old Zen saying, you know, chop wood, carry water. I mean, ultimately, if you do— if you follow a system and you work it and you don't quit that system, especially a good system like, like the Pyramid of Success, you know, you're going to get there. You just have the patience and the mindset that it's going to happen for you.

I'll tell you a story. Okay. The other thing too, that I'm telling you, it's the only difference between myself and so many others because I can tell you I'm not that talented and I'm not that smart, but I have the absolute relentless mindset to keep going and not quit and not draw excuses and not say, well, tomorrow morning I'll, you know, do double workout or whatever and have this same system and being in this wheel. And that's so part of what— there's a reason. And having a positive attitude, you know, that attitude. There's the one thing that you like, you can't help how tall you are or how fast you can run or, or how smart you might be. But there's one thing you can control is that attitude. And if you show up every day with that great attitude, man, it's infectious. People want to be around it. They can feel it. And great things can happen because you've got a positive mindset about certain things, but you have to also apply that relentless daily discipline of whatever you're trying to accomplish.

Yeah, you know, Mark, you originally planned to launch the Seven Summits this fall, and you and I had this discussion earlier about the fact that it didn't quite play out the way you intended. It was supposed to be a leadership summit built around principles that drove your journey. Who was it originally designed for, and what did you intend people to get out of this, and how did you learn from the experience of it not kind of playing out the way you want it.

Yeah, well, I think what it was intended for is— I've been all over the world, of course, and I've climbed in all these different crazy places, not just the Seven Summits but the Matterhorn and the Eiger and Mont Blanc and Cotopaxi and all these other ones. And I keep seeing a lot of people that are out searching for something else, and there's got to be something more, right? And so I had brought in and got commitments from amazing people, you know, the guy is a Top Gun pilot for the Blue Angels. I got Mary Hemingway and others And at the end of the day, you know, it just didn't quite get there. But it was just, I think that we're all in search a lot of times for, there's gotta be just more than this. Maybe you've been in the same job for, you know, the last 20 years and you know, it works and everything, but you're asking yourself, is this it? Is this all I got? And so, you know, it was originally intended to really help people think a little bit differently and come together. And network and get that social community together and climb and things like that. But it just didn't quite come, you know, together. But through one door shutting, another one usually opens. And so, you know, yeah, so it's just like, so that didn't work. That's cool. You know, this is just another, you know, I, I wouldn't call it a valley, a huge valley or anything, but it's just one of those things that it didn't, we, we couldn't pull it off. So we just pivot now and go in a new direction.

Yeah, that's great. I mean, that's what it's all about though, is resilience and getting feedback, finding new ways to repackage and repurpose. And I think that's really admirable that you find that it didn't work the way you intended, but you're not giving up on the concept of helping others. And that's again what this show is all about, is to celebrate making a difference for others.

Yeah, well, part of that is I'm taking that one step down. I'm starting a coaching business, which I've been indirectly coaching people for a long time, you know, when I had when I was running Sports Illustrated, which I just stepped away 6 months ago and took them to over a billion page views and, you know, are really empowered. If you can imagine, I had over 300 publishers creating content for various teams that we assigned them to. And not one person was on a salary, not one. And what we did is we rev-shared with them. And so for me, it was daily coaching of all these different people and I help make a lot of people a lot of money just because I've spent so much time researching my subject and really understanding what moves the needle on a hot domain like Sports Illustrated, SI.com. And that's exactly what happened. And so I'm going to take that internally and try to help people grow their own businesses that are out there.

Well, speaking of helping and speaking of giving people inspiration, for anyone listening who feels like they've hit a plateau professionally, personally, or otherwise, what's the first real step you'd tell them to take?

Action. Any step. Any step is a good step. And you got to be committed to it. But I think that's one thing. Let's go back to your first question of the day, which is like, okay, you played, you know, all these years in the NFL and then what? And then what was, I felt myself stuck. And there's no more frustrating position than when you feel stuck. And even if you do something that you don't want to do, at least you're taking a step in some direction that's going to make you decide, do you want to keep going? Do you want to stop or do you want to pivot? And that's the biggest thing more than anything, because procrastination is just the killer of just being out there and that go-getter mentality and really help you unlock what's going to be next.

Yeah, that's great. Well, Mark, where can your audience find you and follow your journey and connect with your work?

Yeah, come and reach out to me anytime, but www.markpattisonNFL.com. All my socials are Mark Patterson NFL. Pretty easy to find me. I respond to everybody. Love to help anybody who needs help.

That sounds great. We've come to the end of the show. It's been great talking to you. I want to really thank you. You could have let adversity define you, and instead you used it as a base camp. I really love that kind of aspect of where you've gone. The mountains, the documentary, the foundation work for Amelia, the book— I mean, every chapter of your story is proof that legacy is is built not in the highlight reel but in the climb. It's the journey, as they say, right? Yep. So I know our listeners are going to walk away from this conversation thinking bigger about their own summits. We'll link to the website and the socials and your book and everything in the show notes. I really appreciate you coming on. I'm Alan Pavlosky, and this has been another episode of the Legacy All-Stars Podcast, where we celebrate people who use their success to lift others Thank you for coming, Mark.

Thank you so much.