Climb Archives - Page 9 of 12

May 4, 2020May 4, 2020

Lauren Abernathy: Finding the Balance

Alrighty folks, we’re back on the interview bandwagon! This week I am pleased to bring you an interview with the industrious and energetic Lauren Abernathy. Lauren is a 25-year old professional, fully-obsessed climber, writer, and lover of adventure. And she’s a boss of her money.

At an age when Lauren began optimizing her professional life and learning to save for her freedom, I was trying to free myself from four to three nightly PBR’s.

Grab a cup of coffee, PBR, or whatever and let’s settle into some incredibly important life lessons for those at any point along their journey.

April 27, 2020May 14, 2020

The Hard Truth Book Review

Stuck at home and thinking about climbing? Are you convinced that now is the time to really work on those weaknesses? This week we take a dive into the new book by Kris Hampton of Power Company Climbing, The Hard Truth. Does this book deserve a place in your quarantined home?

April 20, 2020April 20, 2020

The Fallacy of Happiness and Meaningful Work

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?

February 17, 2020July 8, 2020

A Winter in Sicily, Part 1: San Vito Lo Capo

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.

February 3, 2020February 2, 2020

Mike Doyle: A Remote-Controlled Climbing Life

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.

January 6, 2020January 6, 2020

Hazel Findlay: Fear Is Trainable

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.

November 25, 2019November 24, 2019

Full Pursuit of Climbing Isn’t Full Freedom After All

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.

November 18, 2019November 18, 2019

Steve Bechtel: The Importance of Time

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.

October 28, 2019October 28, 2019

Obsession and Performance Don’t Always Mix

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.

September 30, 2019October 1, 2019

Paige Claassen: Making a Difference

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).