S2Ep29 - Mark Pattison - Former NFL Player, Speaker, Mountaineer & Sports Illustrated Executive

What is the roadmap to defeat self sabotage, negative thinking and learned helplessness in these unprecedented times? You must get connected, get growing, get certain and Get Attitude. The Get Attitude Podcast. And welcome to the Gap. The Get Attitude Podcast. This is Glenn Bill, international best selling author and keynote speaker and your host of the Gap. Here with you today in season two, highlighting influencers and innovators. I always forget to say the award winning podcast Jason, the award winning podcast just recently won a communicator award for diversity and inclusion. So happy and thankful to the Audio Visual Arts Society who gave that to us. We got a really, really cool guest, Mr. Mark Pattison who scales personally and professional summits and he is the CEO and co founder of the Pattison Group of branding and Merchand company and he has all kinds of very, very cool stories to tell you. He has an NFL documentary coming out literally in the next couple days. Let's go ahead and take a quick peek and listen to what is getting ready to be produced by him really in the next two days. Here we go.

Life after football for me was just a very, very lonely place. I started this journey to climb the Seven Summits was 10 years ago. Everest, you know, is the highest point on earth and it is the pinnacle of achievement for a lot of people. We had a lot more bad weather than normal, solid day. We've been under intense wind storm.

If you make the wrong decision on Mount Everest, your body stays there forever.

I found the mountains because of this tough place I was in. I didn't realize the healing that the mountains and the effect that that would have on.

That is the summit master searching for the summit. And we are honored to be with the one and only Mark Pattison. Welcome Mark to the Get Attitude podcast.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Great to be here.

It's awesome. I've never interviewed anybody that's been to the top of Mount Everest. So we have just made history on the Gap, which is so. Which is so cool. Mark, we always love to start the podcast with our guests to get your personal definition. I almost feel like there's pre Mount Everest Mark Patterson and post Mount Everest Mark Patterson. So maybe what we should do is talk about pre Mount Everest Mark Patterson, what was number one? Who was your best attitude coach and what's your definition of attitude and did it change after the climb?

Yeah, look, there's a long story behind that because I did play in the NFL and I played major college football at the University of Washington and I've started different businesses and just A slight correction from your intro. I'm an executive now at Sports Illustrated, and so each one of these things have had a link. The past, really, 10 years, I've been climbing mountains all over the world. So, of course, the pinnacle of achievement, the highest mountain in the world is Mount Everest. But I actually did the seven summits. There's less than 400 people around the world that have done all seven summits. So I felt like I was in a very elite group now. But each one takes a huge mindset. When you and I were talking before we went live, and you were telling me the whole theme of your podcast of attitude, there's a guy that I was interviewing a couple of years ago. He's a former All Pro Raider linebacker, Jerry Robinson. And the first thing when I ask him, I go, jerry, how are you doing? And he goes, you know what? Every day, I wake up with an attitude of gratitude. And that meant so much to me because that's what it really is. You know, so many people get caught up in their circumstance, and poor me, and poor that. And they get in their own way. And when you can, we can shed that negative weight, and you can have an attitude of gratitude and really zero in on the things that. That you need to zero in on to accomplish great things. Anything can happen. And I'm a great example of that. You asked about great mentors in my life. I had a Hall of Fame coach, Don James, and we can get more into that. But he really taught me about the pyramid of Success and really the blueprint, the roadmap on how you accomplish different things in your life.

Yeah, I love that. And so you are also a very distinguished and veteran podcast host. And tell us a little bit about your podcast and what your focus is on that.

Well, you know, again, this is another one of these things where success leaves clues. And there was a guy who is the one of the announcers for the PAC12 network, and he had come to me and said, hey, I want to do a podcast on you. And so he came over and we did this podcast. And as I was spitting out these words, like I'm doing to you right now, I had this little voice inside my head like, I think you can do this. And so fast forward the clock. He kind of gave me the keys to how to do a podcast, and so launched this thing. And 200, I don't know, 50 episodes later, I have a wonderful podcast called Finding youg Summit. And it's about people overcoming adversity and finding their way. So getting back to that word of attitude, of gratitude, of really putting that perspective in that, you know, while things may go wrong in certain people's life and we all run into bumps, it's what you're going to do about it. I've had the great fortune now of traveling all over the globe attacking these different mountains, and that's been the wonderful thing. And so going down to Tanzania or even Nepal, where the average wage is like $6,000 a year, and there's this correlation behind the people with the least amount are the most happiest in those different cultures. And so, you know, to be and have a podcast, as you know, Glenn, that takes a lot of discipline and chasing people around the block and scheduling and everything else. But every single time I get on, get, have a guest on, it's so uplifting to hear their circumstance and how they work their way out of it.

Yeah, I like that. And so in your video you said, boy, I felt, you know, I. And Again, I'm a 25 year football coach, played at Ball State University, not quite as esteemed as the wonderful Washington Huskies, but yeah, you immerse yourself in this life called football. And you went on to play in the pros. You said you felt lonely. And I can tell you that there are people that are listening to this podcast that are maybe done with a marriage, done with a job, just filed bankruptcy, that are feeling that same type of loneliness. What was your attitude to get out of that? What was the impetus to get out of that? What was your mindset and what would you communicate to those people that may be listening right now who have that empty and that lonely feeling to help them climb that summit out?

Well, yeah, well, you know, it's a great question. When you go back to when you're playing professional sports, the only way, in my opinion, that you can attack being at the highest level at the University of Washington, in the PAC 10, going to the Rose bowl multiple times, Orange bowl, you know, we went to bowl games every single year. And then going on into the NFL and going against Lester Hazen, you gotta, you gotta be cocky and you got to be full of attitude and sass and completely confident that you can do this job because it's so competitive that people are trying to take that away. And then as we were talking about, you asked the question, life happens. And when life happens, you get knocked off your block. And in my case, I was going through a bad relationship for a number of years. She's a wonderful lady and we're good friends now, but she just didn't want to be married anymore. And for me, totally committed. From the very beginning, it was just really hard for me to transition, transition out of that marriage. But things happen, and you got to deal with it. So I was really stuck in this place, this awful place for a couple of years. And I kept asking the question I think a lot of people ask themselves is like, how did I get here? This is literally impossible. I was the last guy that this would ever happen to. Yet it's happening to you. It doesn't matter if it's a divorce or bankruptcy, but stuff happens in your life. And one day I walked around, I don't even know if it was a shift in the stars or the moon or I was hit by a lightning strike or something, but I said, you know what? I'm done with that, man. I'm going to shift that, that, that, that question I keep asking, how did I get here? To what am I going to do about it? And when I said that, it really shifted my mind, my mindset, and I was able to get clarity to go back and really start thinking about what would really give me great joy and happiness and what was going to give me lift. And so I started doing some. Some research. And I'm from Washington, Seattle, and it's very mountainous up there. And so what I discovered and what I wanted to do is try to become the first NFL player to ever climb the Seven Summits, the highest peaks around the world. And so I said, you know what? I'm doing that. And from that moment on, it really gave me the Cape to fly high and get after it. And it gave me a new goal. And with that goal, gave me new energy. With that new energy, gave me a new attitude. And I worked my way out of that bat space I was in and flew off to Tanzania and then flew off to Russia and then flew off to Australia. I mean, you know, every year it was kind of the goal to climb a new mountain. And so, I don't know, it just kind of gave me the lift back under my feet. And over time, I got that confidence back.

Yeah, so many, and this is in the book, you know, that I discuss, is the quality of your life is determined by the quality of questions you ask yourself about your life. And you just went through this. So many people are asking themselves the wrong question that don't empower them, that don't juice them up, that don't give them any hope, that don't give them any drive. Sure sounds like when you changed your question, that that was the flip that switch, which is really profound and smart.

So I also want to throw another thing because this was. This was this classic. So a good friend of mine, his name is Hugh Millen, and he played 10 years in the NFL. He was a quarterback at the University of Washington, my quarterback. And then he went off and we had very similar careers. He played a little bit longer. But when my daughter, who he was speaking to at the time, was about 6 years old and now she's 25. So this is a number of years ago, 15, 20 years ago. And he comes over to the house and he gets right down. She's only so high. And he goes, claudette, let me ask you a riddle. What's the one thing that you're born with that you can 100% control the outcome? And so you can't control how tall, how tall you're going to be and what you look like and what kind of athletes you're going to become and things like that. Those things are set in stone. Your intelligence, things like that. But the answer to the riddle was attitude. And her eyes were spinning around six years old, trying to figure out what he's saying, but that was it. He goes, it's one thing that you control in all of, because you're going to have ups and you're going to have downs and you're going to have adversity and all these other things. But that's the one thing that when everything else clears away, you can step up to the plate and you can either attack that with a smile or you can say, poor me. And so his advice was, you know, have the right attitude.

Yeah, I love it. That is so cool. You said something to me pretty profound that I really want to just explore very quickly that it seems that the economic levels of the people you've met in third world countries as while you were climbing, their happiness was in correlation to how poor they were. And I've done a lot of work with the Timmy Global Health Organization, and you know, they focus on, yeah, these people are poor. But you know what? They smile, they're happy, and they don't have a lot of our problems. Just expand a little bit. Like, what was the realization? What is the attitude of some of the most peaceful or unbelievable people you've met that would cause you to say that? Especially if you got a story.

Yeah, so. So I'm talking to you today here in Sav Valley, Idaho. That's where I live. It's a little small ski town in the middle of Idaho. Okay. But I was just in Seattle, Washington. And you know, it's. It's got pretty destructive up there from the standpoint of having 10 cities and this and that. And so I don't know the exact answer to this, but I don't know if it's a circumstance where people were at a certain level and then like you said, they went bankrupt or they lost their job or something. And so now despair kicks in. So now they're on the streets and they're living that way. But certainly I can speak to the people in Tanzania and I can speak to the people in Nepal, and that is, they don't really have anything to compare it with. We have so much here in the United States, and it's easy to drive down the street and see a big house, you know. And in these villages in the Serengeti, the people of the Maasai tribe, they live in little huts and their floors are all dirt. Their currency is a goat. I mean, think about that. The currency is a goat. So when they go to the market, they're not going to the local grocery store with the refrigeration section and getting a chicken, or they literally are just cutting their head off and eating it right there. So just their whole perspective on where they're coming from is at a totally different level. What they value then is the relationships that they have with other people and the environment and the birds and the giraffes and everything else that are running by that is their value system. Again, up in Nepal, I just got back climbing Mount Everest three months ago, and it's the same type of deal where they just come from these villages at 14,000ft and the only thing they can grow up there is potatoes. They work year round. And so just their whole level of appreciation and gratefulness and what they value is just at a different level than what we seem to value here in the States.

Yeah, that is completely off the radar of, I would guess, 99.9% of Americans. Certainly when you started to experience those relationships and I guess what I would call those rhythms, the attitude rhyth. Did you like, feel at peace? Did you feel different inside? And what was that reckoning like?

I would go back to part of the healing. I climbed seven summits, obviously are seven mountains, but it took me almost 10 years to climb seven summits because of COVID that shut the world down. So I couldn't go in 2020. And then I was on Denali, which is a mountain up in Alaska that we were stopped by minus 80 degree weather. So, you know, there was this gap in time. But in the earlier days, what gave me the most healing was just being in nature and having butterflies and birds chirp and fly by and flutter and seeing trees. I'm looking out the window right now and I see a bunch of aspens, you know, and the way when they flutter, they call quick aspens. They flutter in the, in the wind, you know, they go back and forth. And so I had to get unplugged. I didn't, wasn't in front of my computer. I wasn't sitting in the day to day muck. You know, maybe some other people might call that meditation. But for me that was my meditation by being in the mountains to be really unplugged and being these different places to really see how other people live and get out of my own perspective got really out of my own way.

Wow, that's just so cool. And probably if a doctor could write that on a prescription pad, he should. Getting unplugged would be. That would be very, very cool for sure. Tell me about you mentioned Don James. I always love to know our guests attitude coaches and so I'd love to know what your thought is on what was Don James attitude? I mean look, he's a legend. I know it. You may or may not know this gappers, but this guy was a legend at the University of Washington. We can always learn from people like that. What was the one attitude lesson he gave you that really stuck with you?

Well, again, I'm going to give you a little bit longer answer. I'll keep it short and simple. But you know, it really was this pyramid of success that he had taken from John Wooden. John Wooden of course was a famous basketball coach who won 10 championships, NCAA championships in a row. It was really incredible. But he took and he essentially plugged in his own individual and team goals. And at the very top of that pinnacle, it's called competitive greatness. And competitive greatness really comes to the standpoint of you need to be at your best when your best is required. Required. And if your best is required, that means that all those things that you know, running the stairs, lifting weights, doing well in the classroom, all those individual. Right. That ultimately put you in the place of being in the Rose bowl, which I was able to be in a couple times. You know, these other things, you have to love the process. And that's the difference for me between like my success and those who don't go to these high places is because they quit. And I don't stop. And I don't stop because I know that it's going to make me better. It's going to put me in the best position to win. And I've got example after example after example and even taking that same thing into business. Currently, I'm an executive at Sports Illustrated. Five years ago, we started a technology company and we had nothing. We were trying to go out there and pitch our technology to different companies, this and that. And Today we sit 55 biggest websites. Sports Illustrated is one of 300 that we have now in our club family of brands. But there's a certain kind of rhythm and way that we went through this. And it's literally no different than what I did for when I was playing football and is no different than what I had to do to go and climb these mountains around the world, in particularly with Mount Everest, which I almost lost my life on.

So Gappers. I think the lesson here, the attitude lesson is that many of you are in a process right now. Many of you are in a process of a relationship, of a business, of success, of building a home, could be whatever. And, you know, Mark's attitude lesson from coach was you got to love the process, and you can't get caught up. You can't get beaten down by the process. And it's an attitude. It's the way you dedicate yourself to, the way you think about. About the process that you're in. So I hope, if you're listening today, that no matter how bad, no matter how ugly, no matter how hard that process is, you embrace it and you say, this is what it takes to climb Mount Everest. Any other.

And there's three things, like my three takeaways, if you heard nothing else in that, is number one, stepping into the fear, right? So for me, the fear, I mean, think about going across the center with Ronnie against Ronnie Lott, right? Which I did, and being hit by afraid, it's not a good outcome, and it wasn't for me. But that takes. You got to step into that fear, right? And then the second thing that a lot of people talk about doing things, but then they talk themselves out of. Second thing you have to do once you step into the fear is do that thing with daily discipline, okay? And then it doesn't matter if it's cold, if it's sunny, if you're not feeling great, you need to go every single day something towards that goal. And the third thing is you got to commit. And this is the big thing that. Where people fall off. You know, you see this all the time in December, where it comes to the close of the year and this little thing called a New Year's resolution. So we all make the commitment, you know, that we're going to lose £20 or we're going to run the 10K or we're going to do something and then by March you bail out and you just can't pay. And that's the. I mean, I can say this with certainty that the difference between what I've been able to do and what others, when they don't get to the goal that they want to reach, is just a function of I've done those three things, Step into the fear, daily discipline, and I don't give up.

So let's talk about that. We've interviewed some unbelievable Afghan veterans that have been on the battlefield almost dead. And I know that Mount Everest has claimed the lives of many. And you just stated, I might, I was close to death. Talk to me about, or take us through that day, like, and I'll listen to the story. But like, when you woke up, were you, like, I might die today. You know what I'm saying? So I kind of want to know, like, what were you thinking when you woke up that day? And then take us through the story of what happened.

Yeah. So this is Mount Everest. And the first thing I think people are surprised at just in general is how long you're up there. You know, you're talking about being on the mountain. You, you, you set yourself at Base camp, which is 17, 500ft, which is quite tall, and you're there for essentially two months. And during that time, you're going up and you're going down and you're going up a little higher and you're coming back down. And during this whole process, what you're trying to do is build red blood cells that carry more oxygen around your body. That's number one. And number two is you're waiting for the jet stream to rise. And, and this normally happens on the backside of May, between May 15 and May 30. And there's never a guarantee. Like in our case, there was one day window, because in front of that and behind that, we were caught in a cyclone. So answering your question, when we finally were ready to go, and by the way, Camp 4 in Mount Everest, 26,500ft looks like an absolute war zone. It's torn up, there's stuff everywhere, and it's no place that anybody wants to live. It's actually called the death zone. And so we went to sleep on the night of the 22nd of May, and now this is like seven o' clock and you wake up. The idea was to wake up around 11:30 on the 22nd with the goal of leaving camp around 12:30. So now you're technically on the 23rd of May. And they forgot to wake up our tent. And that's a whole nother story. But, but that's what happened. And so we had about 20 minutes to get ready and that's no way to prepare for anything. And I really hadn't eaten in about three days. And I hadn't eaten because we were locked in a cyclone and we were eating this freeze dried food and it just wasn't going down and sitting well with me. And so I didn't have that much energy. So all of a sudden it's chop chop, get out of bed. We pop out and there's this strong windstorm with going sideways left to right with all kinds of ice particles. And so it went into my left eye and within an hour I went snowblind in my left eye. Oh my. Yeah. And so that was number one. Number two is you can't even begin to imagine how steep it is all the way to the top of Mount Everest from really the whole mountain, but you know, from Camp 4 up to the top and coming back down and with somebody not eating in three days and you have no energy. I struggled. I struggled the whole time that I was there. And so I finally got to the top. And meanwhile, as I was getting to the top, I was stepping over dead bodies. And one of those dead bodies was my tent mate from Antarctica, Don Cash, that we had climbed a mountain down in Antarctica called Mount Benson in 2019. And then he was part of that, that, that big long line that a lot of people saw in 2019. And unfortunately he was a casualty. But it's pretty surreal when you're stepping over somebody that you actually know. But I made it to the top nine hours later and I was just absolutely gassed. And this is a where a lot of people think you'd be, you know, you've got the cameras out and you're, yeah, here you're fired up and you're, you know, like giving some kind of emotional tribute or something. But I was just like, oh my God, now I've got to go all the way back down. And so I was up there about 45 minutes, which is probably too long, but nonetheless I got going and then on my way down I ran out of oxygen. So it was just one thing after another. I was, I was exposed out there a total of 18 hours. Wow. I Thought it would be up there for like 10, 11, 12. And, you know, for somebody that's not eating, I'm surviving on these little hard candies.

Right.

And not drinking as much water as I needed. It just had no energy. And so it was all I could do to get off that mountain.

That is so an amazing story. We are here with Mark Pattison, who's an executive at Sports Illustrated. And you can go to Mark Pattison, NFL.com that is his website. Mark Pattison, NFL and he has for better purposes, I believe it's a 30 for 30 or it's a highly. It's a very well produced video. Is it a 30 minute video? Mark?

Yeah. So the NFL came to me in January and said, hey, we'd love to do a documentary on you. And I said, you know, great. And so they came out a big film crew. And so they weren't allowed to go to Nepal because of the COVID that it hit. So it shut everything down, just security. NFL protocols weren't allowing anybody out of the United States. So they equipped me with GoPros and everything. So I did a lot of the coverage on the mountain, which was hard at times to do to concentrate on that type of thing when you're at your wit's end. Right, right. But now they put it all together. The one thing about the NFL, and you probably know this, and just like ESPN does a wonderful job as well with their 30 30s, is there's such great storytellers. So this isn't a story about me climbing a mountain. It is in a way, but it's really a story about overcoming a tough time, which you talked about, you know, early in the podcast to your listeners. My daughter has epilepsy. And so I dedicated my climb to my daughter Amelia. We actually set up a campaign called Amelia's Everest. And within Amelia's Everest, all proceeds to that go to an organization here in Sun Valley called Higher Ground. And so when this movie finally came out, we said, you know what, let's create an opportunity. Let's pay it forward. And so we're showing it here at the main theater in Sun Valley, Idaho on this Thursday the 23rd at 7pm Mountain time. And all the ticket sales go 100% to higher ground. And we brought in the sponsor, Windermere. What's that?

I was going to say Jason's putting it up on our screen now. We have a lot of live viewers right now, but it is up there. It's on the website. MARK Pattison they're doing good. And there's a couple red bars. If you click, you can watch it and you can donate and you can buy a ticket, correct?

Well, you can buy the ticket and the ticket goes to, again, Higher Ground. And if you were someplace outside of some valley, Idaho, which I'm sure a lot of your viewers are, you can actually live stream it. So they'll send you a link the day. It's like a YouTube type link that when, when the show starts. And not just this 30 minutes, we've also got a country western star that's coming in to, to sing and we've got some highlights coming from Higher Ground. So again, I'm really trying to, not to make this about me. I'm really trying to, you know, how can other I serve and other people serve, you know, others when they've had a little bit of success and they can pay forward.

Yeah, I love that. That's the attitude about it, brother. Talk to us real quick about Higher Ground. What is Higher Ground? If people wanted to support Higher Ground, where would they go to find that?

Yeah, you can find it on my website. Again, I've got all the buttons there. Again, everything goes to them. But, you know, essentially what Higher Ground is is bringing mostly military veterans over to some valley. They also have offices in New York and la, but it's really interactive and empowerment therapy. So it's great always to give to these different organizations that need it and you send your money and that's that. And maybe there's medicines or supplies or something, but in this case, they actually bring these veterans here to some valley and they take them out and they have them whitewater raft, fly fish, mountain bike, snow ski, things like that. And so talk about confidence, being down. And when you have your arms or legs or you've got ptsd, you lose that confidence. So it's by doing these different sports that it's really trying to empower these different athletes so that they can have that can do attitude.

I love that. And so Gappers, if you have a service member in your family and your friend and your chain or whatever, and they could use a boost, they could use a lift, they could use a new perspective. Higher Ground is something that you would want to put them in. We just got done in his podcast. I think you're going to laugh. Rob Jones was right before you ran 31 marathons in 31 days with no legs. He was above the knee, double amputee. He was our last guest. He's actually the guy that's on this week. And Rob's amazing. So what you just said mirrored so much of the goodness that has come out of what he's learned and the fact that you're at higher ground doing that. He would probably. And I'm going to put him in touch with you guys, too. Yeah. He will tell you that it was seeing others doing things that enabled him to become a Paralympic athlete, as well as do 31 marathons in 31 days. So such a. Such a great. I'll get to make sure we put you two together, which is good. Okay. So, Mark, you've been awesome. We always finish our interviews by walking you through your life. Now, we're heavily edited and if you don't, you know, I'm sure you're going to be just fine because you're a professional speaker. I know that you love to do keynotes. I've seen plenty of video on you. So we're just going to roll with this. And we do. We call this knowledge through the decades. And I'm going to ask you what your attitude lesson in your life was at different ages in your life. And the first place we start is birth. Now, I know you probably don't remember being born, but maybe when little Amelia was born, you remember the attitude lesson of new life and of birth. What would you say the attitude lesson of coming out to the world is?

I think for me it was wonderment. I really did live in kind of a Leave it a beaver. My parents were both schoolteachers. We didn't go on any fancy trips, but because there wasn't cell phones, 50,000 TV channels, the Internet, these other things, I spent all my time in a playground playing with my buddies. Football, basketball and baseball.

I love it. Wonderment, as you come out now, both of your folks were teachers. That's pretty cool. I always love to ask this, what about your grandparents? Did you have a special bond with any one of your grandparents? What was their attitude and what did they do?

My grandfather in particular on my mother's side, I was pretty tight with. He owned some hotels and some restaurants in Seattle, and it was a big Washington booster and so exposed me to the University of Washington, taking me to all the games, basketball, football, when I was a little kid, and then later became a horseman. He owned a bunch of horses in the state of Washington and he actually named one of his thoroughbreds after me, called Flanker 19, as a wide receiver. So, I mean, I was very grateful for that.

That's so cool. And we were just talking about Bob Rondo, my brother in law, my sister and him just won the mile, the Seattle Mile, I'm not sure what it's called. Huge race and they're in, they're in the horse business too, so pretty cool stuff. I just love that. What was your grandpa's, his name was.

Les Brainard and your brother in law, Bob Rondo would know him.

Okay, Les Brainard, I'm going to go ahead and bring that up to him. How cool is that? All right, now I want you to think about when you were 10 years old. Put you at around fourth grade. Let me know if you remember who your teacher was. We can give her a shout out. And what was your attitude lesson as a 10 year old?

My teacher at that time was a guy named Willie Pugh. And Willie Pugh had a very funny way of teaching. I was at a little private school that didn't cost very much. And I think, you know, those are kind of getting into the awkward years a little bit. You're starting to figure out girls and, you know, and as you kind of move from fourth grade, obviously once you get into eighth, ninth grade, you're moving into high school. So that kind of whole decade, man, was, was really cool. It was, you know, I had a great high school experience. I had a great junior high experience.

Cool. So if, if you remember being 10, what was the attitude? What attitude did you possess? Was there a lesson? Were you ever bullied? Was there a point when you were 10, you said, I need to change my attitude or check something. What was the lesson there for you? Do you remember any lessons back then?

You know, I was so obsessed with the word play that that was, just dominated my mind all the time. I was a classic gym rat. Right. And so, so anytime I could get into the gym, I could be on the field. Obviously it rained a lot in Seattle and I'd be out there in a T shirt. My mom used to open the door and scream out the back window, dinner. And come off the play field. And that's really. I was never into drugs and alcohol and all those things. It's just work. I pick up a game and it really, I think, has helped fuel that drive, although I didn't need that. So the interesting thing, and maybe this is the next thing you're coming at, but everything was going great, great, great, great, great. Until I hit as a freshman. I was probably 18 years old and I went to the University of Washington and I never really had to work for anything. So it was really the first time I had to make a choice. Now what door do I want to go through? Door A Or door B. I mean literally a change had a profound effect on my life because I was going nowhere. I didn't know, I didn't understand the pyramid of success and what it took to work and I didn body to play in the league and all these things. And so, you know, just the choice of choosing what direction that I want to take my life and I chose the right door and it's had an amazing. And the best thing that ever happened to me is I had to go through about three years of dark times before I ever saw the light. But once the light hit, I was in a position to actually take that on.

I'm going to let you blend 10 and 20. I think you answered 20 for us, which is this thing of choice. But let's go down the rabbit hole just a little bit. When you say dark times, what were the dark times that you were facing? What were the challenges out there? What was your attitude? And then how did you get out of it? Because look at, we all go through dark times. Everybody that's listening here has been through dark times and now is an opportunity. You know, we look at this guy, he went to the NFL, he went to Washington, he's climbing Mount Everest. But you know what? His last wasn't perfect. He had some dark times, he had some self doubt. Just share with us a little bit about what that, what that was and how you got out of it.

Well, it, you know, as a freshman in particular, you know, when you go from really in football, you know, I dominated for that, for that time in that region in that sport. I, you know, was just better than everybody. And it just came. I was the player of the state, you know, I mean it just, it came very easy to me but yet I never really, really worked at it other than being the gym rat. But I didn't know the fundamentals that you need to go through. And so when you're, when you're used to being kind of the star and all of a sudden you're nobody and you're looking out on the field and everybody has been the all whatever. Right, Wherever they came from. Right?

Yes.

And now it becomes the difference of what are you going to do about it and how are you going to separate yourself from the pack. And this is the one interesting lesson that I've learned over life and that is this, is that that by going through and doing the pyramid of success and doing the daily discipline and never giving up and always committing and da da da da da. There was no certainty on the other end. A +B didn't equal C, like just because I did all these things. And typically, if, you know, the recruiting model, you played football at Ball State, you know, if they bring in 25 different people, eight people, the math isn't exactly right. But eight of the guys are starters, they're the stars, eight are backups, and eight are going to fade out of the program. They transfer, they break their leg, they get in the drugs, you know, something happens. And so you do that. If you do the math on all this and you go over four or five years, you have a winning program and that's the way that goes. And so again, just because I was doing all this didn't mean. But then, you know, four years later, I redshirted in there. And four years later we're playing Michigan at home. We find ourselves down by two touchdowns and we come back in the fourth quarter and now it's the final 16 seconds of the game and I'm playing. And you know, to be at your best when your best is required. I had practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced fade routes and in my sleep and on the playground and during practice. And my number got called and I jumped up over this guy and hauled in the touchdown. We won the game. I end up on Sports Illustrated. It was amazing. And so, so that kind of set my course. Like from the coach's standpoint, this guy can handle pressure, but it took me three and a half, four years just to get to that point. And so all the dark times I went through all counted as part of the chits towards what I needed to do and be in the right place at the right time.

And that was at the Big House.

You did that well the next year then that was at in Husky Stadium. And the next year we went back and played the Michigan in the Big House and I went for 73 yards and touched.

I like it. So I think the point of the story gappers on that very simply is you may be in a three year battle, you may only be in two years and two months of that battle, but your day of reckoning is coming. And if you just got to stick with it, that seems to be the message. And it seems to be consistent with what a mountain climber and somebody of your ilk might say. Let's go to age 30. I'd love to know if you remember turning 30. Were you married? Did you have any kids? What was going on with you at 30 and what was your attitude lesson you learned at 30?

Well, I think 30 for a lot of people. Well, for Me, at least, you know, it was. We're transitioning out of the NFL at 29. Now I'm getting married around 30, and we're starting that life. Right. And so now I'm trying to build. I was at my own. This is going back to the original comment that you made in the opening about my branding company. I did have a branding company back in the day, and that went quite well for a number of years. It took me kind of probably two years. I was really disillusioned. And after playing football for such a long time, and then you go off the cliff and now what? Right? And that was a tough transition for me. And again, going back to two years of dark times. That's a long time to have dark times. Right? And so. But I got my juice, my momentum going again. I started this, and then. And then, you know, life started to happen. I had ended up having two girls, and they're amazing. And, you know, you think you're on your way and you're doing this and doing that, and, you know, a number of years later, maybe we're getting in the 40s. I don't want to jump the gun. But that's. That. That's what was happening, you know, during the 30s. It was really that build, build, build phase and having kids.

Yeah, build and reinvent, right? Yeah. And so that was going on, and then, boom, 40 hits. Tell me what's going on and what's your attitude lesson when 40 hits you?

40 was a lot of transition, man. And that was. That was. That was kind of entering into the place, you know, within the marriage, having a lot of bumps and bruises and, you know, where is this going to go? We had moved to Seattle, where I knew everybody. She had known everybody. She wanted to go back to California, which is where we'd moved from, and so went back down there, found a really lonely place. You know, I didn't know anybody. And when you're going through a tough time, there's nobody to turn to and talk to. It can be pretty hollow. And I was also in that place where I don't think I was vulnerable enough to reach out to people and say, you know what? Things aren't perfect, and this marriage is in jeopardy. And that's something that I had learned kind of the hard way of. There's lots of folks out there that are really compassionate, and a lot of those same people were in the same position that I was in, but nobody was willing to really talk about it. And so that was a really valuable lesson to me. But the transition of starting kind of the down road spiral, personally and how is this all going to play out? And that's where when we talked about earlier in the program, you know, how did I get here? How did I get here? And when you answer those questions, you're trying to figure out there's never a good solution because all solutions go down the bad path, right? Well, you got here because you're an idiot or bad here because you're a bad person. And you got here. So that's why I finally figured it out after another two years. Like the only way to go forward is to start thinking about what are you going to do about it and how, you know, what's that roadmap, what look like?

That's so cool. And thanks for sharing that. That's good. And so you're 50, you got to be 50, right? Do you remember your 50th birthday? What were you doing? And what's your attitude lesson of being 50?

It's a really interesting question. I've never actually been asked this question before. I'm 59 now.

I can't ask you about 60. Then you're going to have to come back.

I will come back. But it was probably the worst day of my life, my 50th birthday. My kids, they're that age when they're fluttering off to school and you know, get them up early and maybe my birthday happened on a Tuesday or Wednesday or something like that. It wasn't like a Saturday night or a Saturday or a Sunday where you wake up and you have lots of times of things. So they flurried out and my ex didn't want anything to do with me and she didn't talk to me that day. And so I went through pretty much the whole day with nobody saying happy birthday. This is my 50th, where it's supposed to be a huge celebration, a big marker for you, you. And you know, it's just like I. Can I talk about this a little bit in the film? But I was at such a low point of loneliness and, and bewilderment and I just was. I was a pretty lost period point in my life where I honestly, I didn't know how much longer, you know, like if I was going to actually make naked. Right. And that's a hard thing to say and that's a hard place to be and that's the place I was at. And so, you know, I'm here today and I've got a great attitude and I've had all these wonderful things happen and that. But, I mean, that was like a. A ticking time bomb waiting to go off. And so sometimes the worst thing that you think can actually be out there is the biggest gift that can ever, never fall in your lap. And that's. I look back now, and the greatest gift that my ex now gave me, even though I didn't know it at the time, and she probably didn't know it at the time, was to. Is to leave the marriage. And, you know, I had to resolve it with my kids and everything else. But it's been the greatest blessing of my life. I would have never got into seven summits. I would have never got into podcasts and would have never got into writing a book. I would have never got into having a movie. I would have never got into paying it forward and starting campaigns called Amelia. I've raised now $150,000 right. In these different campaigns that we've done. And to see the joy and see some of these other people going through that pain and be able to relate to that with these folks because of what I've gone through has been, again, a huge blessing that I've been given in my life.

I love that. And gappers. As we walk through Mark's life, from wonderment to play to choice and choosing a direction to building and reinventing himself to not being perfect and being vulnerable to bewilderment and loneliness to where he is today, it's reconciliation and growth. Right. It's every problem in your life is not original. We all share problems. But I do know this, no matter what your problem is, if you're willing to learn and grow through it, it will help you bridge the gap from who you are to who you want to become. And Mark has been so gracious and kind to walk through his life with us and knowledge through the decades to show us what he did, how he did, what the stories were, what the thought process were. And I hope that Mark gave you guys several different ways to bridge the gap in your life. And Mark, we always just like to end the show, Even though you're 59, we're almost 60. But what's your message of hope for our gappers today? What is your message of encouragement? Maybe you have a final story in your keynote, but why don't you leave us with something to think about for the rest of the week, is your podcast plays that will hopefully inspire us. And please make sure that we are looking at higher ground for Mark to support him and get on his website as well.

Yeah, you know, so this is not for sale? It's never been for sale. I'm going to show it to you right here. It's a book that I actually wrote because I was. I actually wrote this book up on Denali, right? You're up there for three weeks. And I was writing all these notes and I just converted this in. But what it is, you know, finding your summit is really metaphorically oracle, right? So in my case, it's literally climbing mountains. But a lot of people climbing a mountain might be in a relationship or a business like you were talking about before. And so I wrote this thing. It's a playbook. It's a playbook on how you accomplish different things in your life. And I'm just reading this off right now, but it's your step by step guide to unleash your potential, achieve your goals, and live your purpose. Right? And the core thing that I tell people and I used to tell my kids every single day when I dropped them off at school, and I'd say this little quote, it takes little more to make a champion.

Love it.

It takes a little more to make a champion. If you think about it, if you want to go the extra difference, if you want to get involved in charity, if you want to go climb a mountain, if you want to learn how to knit, play the guitar, do well in school, you got to go the extra distance and taking shortcuts and all that kind of stuff, it never mounts to a great result. And so if you want to be successful in your life, whatever that means, means, you know, go the extra distance to be a champion and you will have those results.

I love it. It takes a little more. Dot com. You need to get that one done. That's awesome. That's freaking really good. Get to godaddy on that. I like that. Jason, take a look and see. We'll give that to him as a gift. All right. Well, Mark, thank you so much for sharing with us today. You have been awesome. This is Glenn Bill from the Get Attitude podcast. Remember, Gappers go out, you stay positive, and remember, do a little bit more. And we will see you on the next episode of the Gap.

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