Funding the Adventurous Life
We all want to live the best life. Today we examine the paradox of how attempting to do just that can result in less happiness after all. For all of us that dream of the greener grass on the other side⏤a full-freedom lifestyle or a better job⏤why do so few find a life of contentment once they’ve hopped the fence?
Continue reading “The Fallacy of Happiness and Meaningful Work”
So last week I quit my job. And now we’re in Sicily. Greetings from the sunny Mediterranean! And sunny it is, a wonderful departure from the snowy and dark northern latitudes where our journey began. We find ourselves this first week in the small town of San Vito Lo Capo, living that peninsula life in northwestern Sicily.
Continue reading “A Winter in Sicily, Part 1: San Vito Lo Capo”
Raise your hand if you want to climb more but work seems to always take up so much time? This notion of balancing work and life is essentially the essence of what we do on this site, and there’s nobody better to discuss this intricate balance than elite-level climber and software engineer Mike Doyle.
Continue reading “Mike Doyle: A Remote-Controlled Climbing Life”
I’m sort of fascinated with the concept of fear. It’s the entire subject of this post, but it’s also something I weave into a lot of my thinking and writing. Steve Bechtel told us how fear affects his clients, noting the powerful, crippling effect of worry, inaction, and ultimately⏤unfulfilled potential. All the best ideas mean nothing when we lay catatonic and hesitant to act on those ideas. It therefore seemed suitable for me to reach out to Hazel Findlay.
Hazel Findlay is a UK-based professional climber known for bold, traditional ascents. To use the American parlance, Hazel steps up to the plate.
Not only has Hazel learned to harness and use fear to propel her climbing career, but she’s begun a coaching career in tandem to mold and shape the fear of others. And speaking of fear, we discuss how her blossoming climbing career nearly came to an early end.
Continue reading “Hazel Findlay: Fear Is Trainable”
This week’s post was written as a guest post for the UK-based Chalkbloc.com. I’ll admit, there’s a bit of controversy here. I love climbing as much as the next guy, but I believe that full pursuit of the sport can leave us a bit unbalanced. Steve Bechtel, in his interview here last week, rightfully points out that no one is really all that balanced. You’ll hear no argument from me, but we might as well try. Financial stability is very simple, but not necessarily easy. Let’s see what it really takes to find the freedom we’ve been longing for.
Continue reading “Full Pursuit of Climbing Isn’t Full Freedom After All”
Steve Bechtel is a Lander, Wyoming-based climber, trainer, author, and business owner. Steve is also a pillar of the Lander outdoors community, a long-time owner of Elemental Performance + Fitness and Climb Strong, a training program specifically tailored to climbers. After following Steve’s work for a number of years, I suspected he might bring his thoughtful approach to climbing and training to other aspects of his life. In this interview, he doesn’t disappoint.
Continue reading “Steve Bechtel: The Importance of Time”
This website certainly should fall more in the “personal finance” category than any sort of typical rock climbing website. But I will remind you that I’ve carried a full-tilt obsession with climbing for over nine years. So good.
My number one goal for nearly a decade has been to be a better climber than yesterday. And in doing so, I’ve kinda/sorta/accidentally wrapped my self-worth into a sticky web of climbing performance, often to my own detriment. But in the last year I’ve found a balance, taken a step back, and incidentally improved my performance. Just dumb luck? I don’t think so.
Continue reading “Obsession and Performance Don’t Always Mix”
I’m very pleased to bring you an interview with one of my favorite climbers, Paige Claassen. Paige is an absolute crusher in the world of sport climbing, having climbed a number of notable nails-hard 5.14+ test-piece routes (Necessary Evil, VRG; Just Do It, Smith Rock), capped with her recent send of Algorithm (5.14c/d) in the Fins, Idaho.
But as usual, this isn’t really a climbing website and we’re not really here to talk about Paige’s climbing (don’t worry, we will a bit).
Continue reading “Paige Claassen: Making a Difference”
This week I’m happy to bring you a conversation with Chelsea Murn, a 28-year-old climber, health coach, and dog-mom from Spokane, Washington.
I don’t exactly remember how, but I stumbled on to Chelsea’s profile on social media (Instagram actually). Over the months I’ve noticed that she has a drive to be more than just a typical psyched climber. She’s working to build a career around her passions of nutrition and health. But Chelsea fully recognizes that doing so requires a careful balancing act with a properly paying day job and her own climbing performance objectives. Many of you out there are trying to navigate that balance.
I also couldn’t help but notice Chelsea’s occasional discussions of money online. As we’ll touch on below, Chelsea is living a life familiar to millions of young (and old) Americans, and she’s taking action to gain the upper hand:
Continue reading “Chelsea Murn: Wellness for All”
This week I’m reposting a guest post previously published over at Collecting Wisdom on the pitfalls of not taking action. The site is now restructured and the guest posts were removed, so I wanted to host this one here. I liked it the first time, and after a re-read, still do. I hope you enjoy.