CANCER SURVIVOR Reveals How To ACHIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE! | Sean Swarner

But I think the limitation and the limiting factor that most people put on themselves is by subconsciously or unconsciously comparing.

Themselves to someone else.

Well, look, man, I want to jump right into your story, man. You're. I mean, obviously, you're. You've been a huge inspiration all over the world. You've traveled all over the world. You know, I've watched some of your.

Your.

Some of the earlier videos, even with your mom obviously fearing for, you know, your having to end your life early and the battle and given just a few days to live and only to basically do some pretty stinking amazing things, if I might say.

I appreciate it. And, you know, it's weird because I've seen. I have a film on Amazon prime called True north, and I've seen That thing probably 20, 30 times. And every time. I kid you not, man, my mom makes me tear up. I call her up like moms, you know?

Come on. Well, that's what my. That's what a good mom does, right? But, well, look, I wanted. The first thing I wanted to kind of get into is, you know, a lot of folks, you know, so there's all kinds of adversity that people deal with. All right? Some of us will deal with major adversity early on. Some of us will deal with it in the middle of our life. Some will deal with it towards the end of our life. But it seems like at some point, some point in time, we all have to deal with adversity of some kind. Okay, now, yours obviously came pretty hardcore, pretty early on, but I know it's taught you a lot about what people, like, refer to as limitations. You know, I see a lot of people who limit themselves on a consistent basis. And I was curious what your journey has taught you about limitations, because I have a feeling you got some good insights there.

I think I've become comfortable being uncomfortable.

Looking at the two cancers I had given three months to live, 14 days to live.

Bone marrow tests where they drilled into my back of my spine. Basically, my first goal was to crawl from the hospital bed to the bathroom, you know, so I wouldn't soil the sheets. And then I ended up continuing forward, climbing Everest and doing some. Some things that I guess no one ever has done before.

Well, you're still number one in the world at it, so.

But I. I think you get to a point where you. You become comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I think it. For me, it comes down to the fact that I think I'm. I'm more afraid of not living than I am of dying. If that makes sense.

Yeah, man, that's good. Yeah. I mean, I was going to ask, I guess the kind of follow up with that, and I think you just kind of answered it maybe, maybe you can break it down a little further is what do most people get wrong about how they look at limitations and what. I mean, you've obviously traveled all over the world, you've spoken all over the place, you've been all over national news media, all over the place, you know, and I'm sure you've come in contact with thousands upon thousands of people along your journey, many of them with their own stories and stuff like that. What do you think the dividing moment of how they look at limitations versus how, you know, you managed to look at limitations with their life? What do you think?

What do you think the difference is as you're talking? I was thinking about that and I.

Can'T remember, you know, how fast the.

Brain works, you know, boom, boom, boom. And I came up with 10 different things. But the one I want to focus in on, I think is the limitation.

I think obviously everybody, everybody knows limitations.

In the mind, but I think the limitation and the limiting factor that most people put on themselves is by subconsciously or unconsciously comparing themselves to someone else.

And I think it's that, I wouldn't.

Say imposter syndrome, but it's, it's looking at someone else and wanting what that person has and emulating that person and putting that person up on a pedestal as opposed to doing that to yourself. Because it boggles my mind how many people are more concerned about what others think of them than what they think of themselves. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't get that. So I think the limiting belief there is that so many people aren't trying to be their, their own best, you know, they're trying to go after different goals. And if you're going after a proverbial carrot that's dangling in front of your face, you're going after someone else's goals, going after someone else's dreams, emulating after someone else, you lose who you are.

Yeah.

In the process. Yeah. So I think by doing that you're limiting yourself because you're not being true to who you are.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, you potentially, you know, you and I could have a different set of personal core values.

And as soon as I start adopting.

Your personal core values, which it might help me, I mean, that's great. But if I don't know what mine are and they don't and yours don't resonate with me, because there's no judgment. Completely non judgmental.

Yeah.

But the instant I start going after someone else's personal core values without feeding what means most to me, I immediately start limiting myself because I'm not feeding what, what matters most. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that kind of come to mind the top of my head was there is this semblance of judging your starting point or your middle by somebody else's end or somebody else's, you know, because there's gaps. Right. Everybody likes to promote the, you know, on Facebook and all the social media channels, all the wins. Seldom do people, you know, seldom do people celebrate the struggles. I know you and I celebrate the struggles because that's what's defined us, you know, But I also think there's this element of. And you, you said it beautifully. Of you're kind of running the wrong race. You're, you're, you're running somebody else's race and not running your race, which means you're being inauthentic to yourself, which means you're not actually leveraging your strengths, which means you're not going to get to the place you're trying to go because you're so focused on looking over at somebody else. I think it was a picture back in the day of Michael Phelps and he's swimming towards the end of a pool and the guy next to him is like one, you know, one arm length behind him and he's directly staring at micro Phelps. And I want to say that winners focus on. What did it say? Winners focus on the end. And.

Gosh, what was he? Competitors or something focused on the winners or something like that? It was some kind of like, I mean, essentially that's the concept we're talking about, right?

Absolutely.

I think because when I was growing.

Up, I was a swimmer. So that's, that's great. You know, bringing Michael back into the mix.

I was a swimmer for years and years and years and one of the things that my parents taught me at such a young age was I never had to be the best. I had to be my best.

Yeah.

So every time I got in the water, my goal wasn't to beat the next person, the person next to me. My goal was to beat the time that I had last, last time I was in the water. So by doing that, I constantly kept improving myself and eventually the people who were my competitors, they just disappear. Like I still have records from, you know, the late 80s and early 90s.

Yeah.

That hopefully, hopefully will never be broken. But that's because I kept pushing myself and I. I kept raising the bar myself.

Yeah.

Based on me. Not what other people wanted for me or what. What I was chasing when I was chasing after someone else. I was always chasing after myself.

Yeah. You know, it's funny. There's another. There's another concept that I, that I picked that I've been studying on your content, which is great, by the way. Everybody needs to check you more out. Just in general is this concept that, that, that you said so beautifully, and it's called bookending your days. You know, I'd love for you to break down the book into your days, because I think a lot of people not love it.

I want to break that down because I think a lot of people are sleepwalking. They're not living what I would refer to as an awakened or an awoke life. They're just kind of getting up and kind of going through the motions. And when I heard you break down the bookend process or the bookend concept, I was like, that makes total sense. That's taking ownership and accountability. So break it down for about, if you don't mind.

Well, I mean, how many people do you, do you think, wake up in the morning and turn on the news? Most of them. 90% of the population.

Yeah.

And by news, I don't just mean.

Like, you turn on the tv, social media even. And how much of that is negative? 90. 90% of it again?

Well, yeah, because negativity, sales, supposedly.

Exactly. Yeah.

And then the same thing in the evening.

Most people turn on the news before they go to bed. Same thing with their phone. They get on the media in the morning and in the evening, you're essentially bookending your day on negative notes. And if you're not careful, your brain will be programmed, as opposed to you programming your brain.

Yeah.

And what I suggest to people is start your day off with a positive affirmation and end your day with gratitude. So looking back at it, not saying, oh, you know, I regret I didn't do this, I didn't do that. I couldn't do this. You go to bed, write down. And that's what I was, what I was showing you here.

For those of you guys who are listening on the, on the audio version, he's actually really showing his notebook that looks like his daily journey, that actually has his book in front of principle built into it.

Absolutely. And. And from today's date, my morning bookend. Today, today, my value affirmation is I am more valuable than I give myself credit. I determine My own worth.

That's so good. That is so good. So many people allow other people to define their worth.

Exactly. Exactly. So. And then in the evening, I will write down right here, it says, my evening bookend. I am grateful for blank that happened today. And it has to be something today. Not it is overall arcing. You know, I am grateful for my health, my house, my family, whatever. It has to be something that happened that day. I am grateful for blank that happened today. And then from the above, I am most grateful for blank, because blank. What that does is it helps me reaffirm and tap into my personal core values and strengthen what means most to me. So I am starting my day on a good note. I am ending my day on a good note. And over time, what happens is this is scientifically proven. You changed your synaptic connections in your front prefront, in your prefrontal left cortex. Right. To be more positive, more optimistic, more open.

As opposed to more closed, more negative. But over time, it's proven that you can be more optimistic. You can be more open to opportunities as opposed to obstacles.

Yeah. Well, when you think about. I'm just curious. When someone goes to apply this, is the process to kind of state it and kind of take action on it, or is the process to kind of state it, take action, and kind of even meditate on it a little bit? Like, let it. Allow it to kind of feel. How do you. How do. What's the best approach?

Both. It's. Both because it's. It's opening up your mind to, like I said, the opportunities, not the obstacles. And it plants the seed in the morning.

To keep your eyes open for the opportunities throughout the day. So for me, you know, I'm more valuable than I give myself. Blah, blah, blah. I determine my own worth. So I have this on my desk, and whenever I'm responding to emails or whenever I'm having a conversation like this, you know, I look, I just glance at that, and it's a reminder. Yeah, okay, Sean, you're more valuable than you give yourself credit for. So it's a constant reminder of, throughout the day of what my affirmation is. And I do that over and over and over again, day after day, day after day. So, yes, you can meditate on it. You can. You can write it down. Whatever works best for you. So just like learning anything, Some people learn by reading, some people learn by doing. Some people learn by visualizing whatever it might be. Whatever works best for you.

Yeah, I mean, it seems like just allowing yourself to kind of sit in it, so to speak, is it's, in other words, it's not a task, it's an experience.

Exactly. It's a daily morning routine.

Yeah, I love it. And you know, it's funny, I think about all those various. You know, I've had a lot of fantastic people on the show like yourself, and almost all of them have a morning routine of some kind that starts with some meditative slash, prayerful slash, thought provoking pattern. Because you're right, it is a way. If you sit in it, it will program, it will reprogram the negative sides into positive sides and you'll begin to kind of experience that. And it's been my experience a lot of people that get stuck in their limitations or beliefs or lack of belief are spending more times looking kind of staring at the rearview mirror rather than kind of looking at the, at the front view mirror, which I know you're super passionate about as well. You know, when you, when you started thinking about everything that you're doing, you know, you wrote an amazing book called Keep Climbing. Right. What does keep climbing really mean to the average everyday person for those that haven't had a chance to read the book yet?

Well, I guess it's, it's that hope.

That everybody needs that.

An everyday boy from Midwest Ohio and climb the highest mountains on the world. And with one lung.

With one lung, let's not leave that out.

Can reach tremendous goals. So anybody who has self doubt, which we all do, is, it's just, it's proof positive that I forget who it was. Maybe Henry Ford. But whether you think you can or you cannot, you're absolutely right.

Yeah, yeah.

Those, those limiting beliefs and going, going back to the thoughts that the mind has. You know, it's, it's very, very like the analogy of say you take a glass of water. Dirty water represents negative thoughts. Clean water represents positive thoughts. That's just like your brain.

Yeah.

So what would happen, what happens if you take a glass of dirty water, turn on the faucet and just constantly flush in clean water?

Same thing with your mind. Same. Exactly. Same thing with your thoughts. So when you catch yourself saying something negative, and we talk to ourselves more than anybody else throughout the day, but so many people just aren't aware of that internal dialogue and most of the time it's negative. So catch yourself and change it then. There you go. You got a glass of clean water.

Yeah. Well, I mean, what do you think? All right, so obviously getting to where you are, I'm sure you had to, you had to battle negative Self talk over and over and over again, especially when people were saying negative. You know, granted they were doctors or professionals, but they were. They were doing their best to be honest. Right. And in their honesty, they were kind of like speaking over limitations kind of scenario.

At what point or how did you shift from a negative self talk into growing in positive self talk? Because I think. I think the vast majority of the population here in America, right, the Time magazine reporters, roughly 70% of Americans, feel like they're unfulfilled, unhappy, frustrated, alone, isolated, all of that kind of stuff.

Right.

All of those different emotions and feelings. And that was before COVID Before. Right. That means that roughly only 30% of the population is saying, hey, look, I'm living. I'm either on my way to living my best life or I'm actively living my best life. Right. Which means the other 70% are basically battling their mind day in and day out. And I have to think that your primary battle started in your mind like it does for everybody else. And it's a pretty powerful shift to go from one to the other. Was there a defining moment? Was there. Was our catalyst? Was there a time that you kind of had a enough is enough mentality where something shook out?

I know there could be a lot, but I'm just curious.

I think all of them. I would say that there were two main ones. One, the first cancer, I was. You know, everything was going just. Everything was copacetic. It was beautiful.

Yeah.

And then right on the cusp of my teen years is when I got the first cancer. They gave me three months to live. And I remember very vividly being 60, 70 pounds, overweight, bald from head to toe from the chemo, on my hands and knees in the shower, weeping, utterly hopeless.

And I was.

I remember. I very vividly remember pulling chunks of hair out of the drain so the water could go down, because the water was collecting and my hair fell out in that. In that shower. And I was also thinking about what my friends were doing, getting ready for school.

They were worried about, in my mind, petty things, being popular.

Yeah.

Whatever it might be. And I.

Went to bed numerous, numerous nights, not even knowing if I was gonna wake up the next morning. So can you imagine going to bed, fighting, trying not to fall asleep, scared to death to close your eyes, knowing you might not wake up the next morning.

So that's.

That's what I was going through so many nights, night after night. But back in that shower, I decided that I could either fight for my life or give up and die.

Yeah.

And I decided that I didn't want to focus on not dying. I wanted to focus on living.

Yeah.

So as a 13 year old, I decided I didn't. I wanted to be go. I wanted to go after.

Something as.

Opposed to the avoidance of something I didn't want.

So that was a very, very defining moment in my life and I decided that I wanted to fight for it because I was so young, I had so much future ahead of me.

Yeah.

So in my eyes, I didn't really.

See it as two options. I saw it as one option. That's what I was going for. As opposed to not not wanting to die. I wanted to live and I wanted to experience life. I had so much back.

You actively were choosing.

Exactly. I chose to go after life as opposed to avoiding death.

Yeah. Well, that's so good. That's so good. You know, I've got, I've shared on the show, I've got people that I love dearly, one of which is my wife that has a mental. Not a mental, A physical ailment that is, it's chronic. There's no known cure for it and all the things that kind of associated with it. And you know, she's had moments, definitely moments of. I don't understand. I feel like I'm trapped in my own body. I don't even know what to do. I feel like I'm not myself. Like, you know, her sense of purpose and significance and value and other people like her that have, that are. That are in that, in the. What I refer to as in those moments where they're, you know, whether it be metaphorical or literal, where they're on the bathroom floor and they're crawling and they're basically. They're in that moment. Right.

Is there something we could share with them that would help them gain greater perspective of why maybe why the suffering is kind of. I don't sound even know if it's even possible why the suffering might be there, how to position it, how to kind of choose life rather than trying to avoid death. Like I, I'd love if there was some kind of practical principle, some kind of takeaway or some kind of way to help people kind of get to that stage.

Is it.

Do you have any insight into that?

I do. Well, first of all, anybody who's going through anything traumatic, it's real to them. You know, everybody has their, their Everest to climb. It might not be the physical mountain. I mean, someone's Everest might literally be getting off the couch and walking around the block.

Yeah.

You know, whatever that Struggle is. It's real to that person. And you can't. No one can say, oh, I understand.

You don't.

Because everybody has a different reality that they're going through. But I think when people start feeling that way, as soon as they get pulled back to their personal core values, they start feeding those as opposed to the other voice.

You can slowly come out of that. I don't think it's going to be anything that's over like that unless it's something traumatic like me. My life changed overnight with the diagnosis.

Of cancer, a car accident.

I recently had a friend whose son, who's 22 years old, committed suicide. That stuff instantly changes your life.

Yeah.

But if you're trying to build your way back up, it's kind of like that inverted you. You know, you slowly went down there, but the good thing is you can slowly come back out.

Yeah.

It's just being mindful and focusing on.

Your personal core values.

And that's actually in the journal I just showed you at the beginning. I put together.

This is my journal.

I put together a core values list, and I take people through their personal core. A personal core values assessment, you know, so they can actually see what. What matters most to them and start putting energy and feeding that as opposed to feeding what's not good.

What kind of. How does. All right, so I understand that. So I'm a big fan of assessments. I'm a big. I'm a huge fan of self awareness and understanding more about yourself and digging into yourself. I'm one of the biggest believers in the world that I know that it's all about. I love to reflect. I love to, you know, ask questions like, what does it take to change the essence of who I am?

What does it take?

How do I tick this way? How did I, you know, how do I make decisions this way? Like, I'm a big, big. So I love, I love that.

What does understanding your core values at a deep level really do? Because I think people on a surface level would say, my core value. Well, I like honesty or I'm associated with political party or whatever. Like, they're, you know, they're. They're. To me, they're surface level core values. What does discovering the deeper root core values do for someone? And how can someone use that to apply, you know, to maybe take them to another level?

Absolutely. So I have a list of. I think it's 59 or 60 different core values. And on the other side. And I'll send you. I have an online copy of this. I can Send.

Yeah, that'd be awesome. I'll give it to the audience for sure.

Cool.

Make it available.

So let's say, you know, one of my personal core values is family.

Right.

And then I have people fill out on a scale of 1 to 10 how you're actually living that value.

Yeah.

So now I have a representation. And at the time when I first.

Filled this out, I was at a five.

Yeah.

So I look at this and I'm like, holy shit.

Sorry.

It's all good, dude.

I was like, holy shit. If family is one of my top 10 personal core values, it must mean a lot to me.

Yeah.

And yet I'm living it at a five.

So now I know exactly where I can start putting some of my energy throughout the day.

And that stronger energy brings more fulfillment over time.

Exactly.

Because if I have. If I now have a list of everything that matters most to me, I can consciously, mindfully put energy into that to build not only my life, but, according to this, my family's life as well.

Yeah.

So now I have a sense of purpose. So I think when you link those personal core values with a deeper purpose, now you're giving something back to other people and yourself.

I love it. I love it. And at the end of the day, people. People want to have a life of meaning. They want to have a life that. That makes a lot of sense. They want to have. They want to have great relationships. They want to have opportunities, you know? But when it all comes down to it, I've discovered that people really want four things. They want to be seen, they want to be heard. They want to be valued and want to be appreciated. If you can do those things on a consistent basis and experience those things on a consistent basis, inside first, outside second, then I think that most people can find ultimate fulfillment and purpose and passion and find that next gear, so to speak. Find the will to fight, find the will to grind, find the will to level up. And one of the things that I love most about your content is the concept of the seven summits. Like, so break down the seven summits, each one of them, and, like, talk to us a little bit how they apply and how we can apply them.

Well, I was just going to say. Shoot. I lost my train of thought at the boarding station.

No worries.

See, sometimes chemo brain is real. For me, it rarely. Rarely happens. But that thing called chemo brain does happen. I forget what I was going to say.

Anyhow, we'll go. Yeah. Seven summits. So the program called the Summit Challenge, Right. Um, it's.

I honestly think it's the.

The next evolution, the next step in.

The personal growth industry.

Okay.

And I say that because if you look back at the past 50, 60 years, you've always had some guru saying, you do A plus B and you're going to get C. It works for me. I know it's going to work for you.

Yeah.

It's usually some. Some guy who's saying, you know, you do this, this, and this, and you'll make a million dollars in 30 days.

Yeah. The only person who's going to make a million bucks is the guy who you're buying it from.

Yeah.

So that's just not going to work. But it's always been someone who's like this guru, telling you, hey, do this, this, this, and this. But if it doesn't resonate with you, why do you do it? It's not going to work.

Yeah.

And I put this.

I hate to call it a program, but there are a series of modules together.

Yeah.

Because after.

I'm sorry, I said a framework.

There you go. There you go. It's a framework. It's a path, you know, to each person's individual summit. And I put it together because after each keynote presentation, I would have a handful of people come up and they would say, oh, that's a great story, but how did you do it?

Yeah.

You know, how did you crawl from the hospital bed to the bathroom and then climb to 29,000ft? And then I looked at Kilimajar, which is the. In the background. Yeah. It's like I take a group up there every year as a fundraiser for a cancer chair, and the average Success rate is 48%. 52 out of 100 people don't make it. My groups are at 98% success rate.

Holy smokes.

Double.

Well done.

Yeah.

Right. So I'm sitting there thinking for the past couple of years, like, why? How are we so different? And it's because I had been imparting the knowledge that I learned going through the cancers and up and down these mountains, into the individuals who are going on my trips. Yeah. And I think the biggest thing I found out was what motivated each individual is what I used to encourage them to reach the summit. So the very first thing you do in the summit challenge is I take you through a core values assessment. So you know what values, what you value most.

Yeah.

Then the first mountain. So that there are seven different modules, three weeks per module. And a lot of people think, oh, my God. Doing the math, that's 21 weeks. That's a lot of, that's a lot of time.

People would be amazed if they just spent that amount of time focused. How far they would actually get drives me nuts.

But it's, but it literally is five.

To 15 minutes a day. Fill out the journal, bookend your day. That's, that's the first challenge. Reprogram your brain and I walk you through how to do that. And the second challenge is what I, what I call vivid visualization, where I walk people through how to visualize properly, you know, with, with the emotional attachment and everything. So you have to believe it, then you have to see it. Then I walk people through mindfulness, the compound effect. I walk them through the four gales, which are the gremlins, the interpretations, the assumptions and the limiting beliefs. And I help them navigate crevasses and help people walk their true path. So it's not a series of, hey, this is what I'm telling you to do. I'm telling you, hey, this worked for me and I promise it'll work for you. But based on how you want to do it.

Yeah.

So it's, yes, it's 21 weeks long, but there are little bits of information that you start incorporating into your daily life and you're mindful throughout every day to slowly change bad habits and based on your personal core values, into something good to support your future.

I mean, well, it takes time. I mean, this is something that I think everyone needs to hear and I think you and I are both in agreement when we say it in different ways. But if you were honestly setting out to overcome adversity, whatever limitation that might be, maybe it's a marriage, maybe it's finance, maybe it's a business, maybe it's a career. You can either look at it as, oh my gosh, it takes a long time to do this, this is going to take forever. Or you can look at the opposite, which is, if I don't do this, I'm going to keep spinning my wheel for the next five to ten years. It's like a 10x approach. The opposite way than you want, right? And inevitably, people who start off in an emotional core, meaning they are more emotional than logical, it takes time for that emotion to open up the logical to receive the information. And if you're more of a logical minded person, then you can look at the information, you can read the information, you can do the checklist, you could do the exercises, but if you don't feel it, it doesn't stick. And one of the things that I think frustrates me. And I'm agreeing with you. I think the world needs less gurus, more guides. Guides are people who have been there, done that, and actually bear the scars to prove it. Right. They're not. They're not. They're not the over, quote, unquote, overnight successes or the Million dollar man. And 30 days or less. So many times, it's. It's something completely different. There are people who are largely undiscovered in many cases because they've been so busy walking their journey, they're just so focused on helping other people that they. They're not even looking up. Right? And as a result, when people are going to start that journey, it. There's so much of it that it has to come into play where people are actually owning their new identity that they want having someone that can believe in them until they can believe in themselves, which is part of your process, which I love, and then putting that stuff into practice consistently for a time span. I think most people think that personal transformation, personal development, whatever you want to call it, whatever I like to use the word transformation because either you're becoming or you're not, right? People that are in that world, the people that ultimately do receive the transformation, do so because they're consistent and they don't let go. The people who don't get the transformation or don't get the next level historically, are people who give up along the way because they're not pushing, largely because they're not in tune with their core values. They're not in tune with what motivates them. They're not in tune with why it matters. Which is why I love the approach that you've been using all this time to help so many people. How did you, you know, I mean, from a standpoint of, like, visualization, for example. One of the things I love about you, okay, is you're an amazing storyteller, right? You bring in imagery. Your description. I was one of your keynotes that I was. I was loving. You were actually describing the vomit on the floor with all the curly noodles and the carrots and all kinds of stuff in there, right. And the funny thing is, is, you know, it makes us giggle. But when you are able to articulate clearly a story of. Of where you overcome or a story of where you're going with clear imagery, your brain attracts it, it anchors to it, right? How can someone else take. Take their own story, reposition it, bring enough clarity in it to maybe use it to move forward.

I think.

With vivid visualization, like.

How I'm Thinking it's all good. How do I put this?

I mean, do you start with all five senses and be like, okay, well, what can I see? What would it feel? You know, what would it be like to touch this? I mean, does it start there?

Right. So that's actually the second challenge of the summit challenge, where I walk people through vivid visualization. And I was trying to link the. The logical person and the emotional person, because this works for everybody, and it's been scientifically proven where.

I walk them through each little step. And most people who. Who visualize, they picture themselves almost like a dream, you know, but that's. That's not the proper way to do it. You have to see it from your first person point of view.

Yeah.

Okay. That's the first step. The second step is then incorporating your other senses. What does it smell like? Are you touching anything? You know, what does it sound like? So I would visualize myself on top of Everest, and I would hear the styrofoam sound of the snow crunching under my feet. You know, I would feel the radiation on my face. I would hear the wind whipping by. And then the third one, which most people don't even get to, is when you achieve your goal, how does that feel? You know, tap into those emotions, because we're human beings, not human doings. So be in that emotion.

Yeah.

And also know that if you want.

To say you're going at the Ferrari or something like that, it's not the car that makes you feel good. You know, going back to. When you're talking about value and worth, you have to feel worthy to have anything of value.

Yeah, that's so true.

You have to link the mind and body together, because in my mind, they're one.

Yeah.

So if you feel that emotional attachment to the end. And for you, like, for me, getting to the summit of Everest, it was just one of the most joyous moments in my life.

And I couldn't even hear it. Bless you. Thank you.

For whatever you're going after, whatever goal it might be.

If you go to bed every night.

And visualize that not just what it is, you know, not just all that stuff, but how does it make you feel? Because when you get that car, it's not about the stuff. I mean, I've never seen a U haul in a funeral procession, so it's not about collecting stuff. It's about what you're going to do with that stuff. Stuff. So for me, again, going back to one of my personal core values of family, let's just say I'm visualizing, I don't know, a 50 foot yacht. Let's say the yacht's not going to make me happy. Yeah, it'd be great to cruise around the Caribbean with my wife and her family. But that's not what I get out of it. What I get out of it is the satisfaction knowing I'm giving back to my family because they're enjoying the trip.

Yeah. So it's the experience. It's really the experience that you're after, not the things. Why do you think people get sucked into the to the things category? I mean, I mean, it seems like I know far more people that are.

Chasing things than purpose, because that's been drilled into our heads ever since we're a little kid. Social media, commercials, you need this, you need that. Buy this, buy that. Yeah, you buy it. And then all of a sudden, I mean, perfect example for a kid. You buy the kid a toy, what is, what is a younger, A younger one, Younger child, they go play with the box.

My grandson just said that.

That's a perfect example. Little kids, you know, I want that, I want that, I want that. When you get it. Yeah, I don't want it so much. And you go play with something else using your imagination. How many times have you wanted something so badly like, I need that, I need that. You get it. And then three days later, yeah, because we're told over and over again, this is what you need. This is what you need to buy. This is what you have to have as opposed to sitting back, letting that stuff just in one ear out the other and figuring out what you want.

The funny thing is, it seems like the people that do make that shift from what I refer to as a, you know, kind of a thing mindset, meaning, you know, they're, they're chasing the big house because they got to prove something to somebody else or whatever, they're chasing that. And the person who finds ultimate fulfillment and purpose and authenticity, oftentimes, from my experience, and I think from yours as well, the catalyst moment in the shift is ultimately a defining life moment. And many of those defining life moments are incredibly painful. Some would call it the crushing. Right, the wine press, if you will. You are being crushed beyond all human.

Understanding. I know that many of the things that I have been through in my life that produce the, the character and some of the things that I'm now able to use now to help other people in almost every circumstance, in fact, I think in every circumstance, it was produced at the tail end of a crushing. But yet when we go into a crushing, we want to avoid it at all cost. And it seems to me that it makes more sense to do your best to lean into it. What do you think?

I lost your audio for some reason.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, I got you now.

Oh, God.

Okay, cool. No, I said I agree. And I think it's because if you look at. Let's just say anyone in a relationship, deep down, they know it's not going to work, but they still hold on. And I think they do that because even though it's uncomfortable.

It'S something that they know.

Yeah.

You know, they're used to it. Even though it's painful.

I'll back up.

Even though it's painful, it's comfortable because it's something they're familiar with. So they don't break up with whoever it might be, he, she.

They don't do that because they're looking at everything they're going to lose as opposed to everything they could potentially gain.

Yes. Yeah.

And a lot of people don't understand that without challenge, there is no change.

Yeah.

So there has to be that. As you said, that dividing factor.

Right.

There has to be something that changes in you. And maybe that change is the challenge that you're talking about, where you have to lean into it and people just need to have the courage. And maybe it comes down to self worth.

Yeah.

Where people need to realize that they're worth more than that relationship.

They don't deserve to be abused.

In whatever situation it might be.

Yeah. No, I totally agree with that. I mean, my experience has been when it comes to people.

Their ability to.

Actually achieve fulfillment on a consistent basis, and we, you know, we all go through life, so not every day is hunky dory. Not everybody's perfect. But those who could legally say, you know what? I'm enjoying my life. I love my life. I love where I'm at in my life.

In order to get to jump that chasm so many, so many times, it is overcoming that. That lack of self belief, that lack of self worth. I've been able to, more times than not, track it all the way back to a source. You know, I've shared this several times on the podcast before, but my father was loving me.

He didn't.

He didn't realize he was saying something that was harming me. But he said, skagens don't get ahead. They get by.

You know, because his experiences had, you know, had been a catalyst of someone else saying something similar to him before him, before him, before him, all the Way back to Europe, where we find out that my family came to the United States originally as indentured servants serving on a penal colony.

You see what I'm saying? And you know, and to me, that's how generational, kind of like poor belief systems and generational limitations and stuff like that. So many times those beliefs hit us so early that they start at a place where we let them take root and grow into full grown weeds. And, you know, one of the things I love about the work that you've been doing is, is you teach people how to discover those weeds and then rip them out on a consistent basis. So I'm curious, with a little bit of time we've got left, if someone was going to have one step, one practical step that they could take today to begin the journey of climbing their Everest, whatever that is for them, what do you think that first step is.

Going to be before you, before you even take that first step? You have to understand what your personal core values are. Because you have to understand why you're taking that first step. Because if you start going down the wrong path.

Yeah.

You're gonna have to retreat and find a different path.

It's so true.

Yeah. If you're climbing a mountain and you have the, the technical skills to go up the, the 5, 10, let's say the difficult, the difficult section, as opposed to hiking up a different route, you're gonna get lost legitimately on the mountains. You might die, you're not gonna die in life. But you have to understand what your personal core values are. You have to have those as your. Let's just use the analogy of bumper bowling where you toss the bowl down the alley to knock over the pins. The bumpers are the things that pop up so it's impossible to get a gutter. Those are your personal core values keeping you on your personal path. So even before you take that first step, you have to know what means most to you.

I love it, dude. I love spending time with people that have been somewhere and done something and been through an experience where there's no choice but for wisdom to come out. Right. Wisdom is the byproduct of suffering in my, from my perspective. And I find that people like yourself that have huge hearts to serve, man, I, I just love it. Where can everybody actually find more about you and actually learn more? They can actually take the values test themselves with values assessments. They can hopefully start that process and get going on this thing.

That's easy.

Go to Sean swaner.com Sean, like Sean Connery. And then the Warner Brothers, but slap an S on the front. So Sean swanner.com or shoot me an email seanancerclimber.org love it.

Dude, thank you so much for hanging out with me for so long. I really appreciate it man. I can't wait to see more of your career, keep climbing more Everest and see change more lives. Dude, it's been awesome.

I appreciate it. Very grateful for your time.

All right buddy, see you. Take care. What a inspirational story by one heck of an individual. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Sean Sworner. And if you did, I know you're going to love this one right here. It's going to help you a lot. Life's going to be brutal no matter what for the next 10 years. You might as well focus on what you do have. Focus on where you can go and be resourceful as hell because that's where real success.