00:00.11 nextlevelguypodcast just excited. 00:01.38 stephankesting Still excited, but we're just coming into the period of heavy publicity. So i ah I'm looking forward to this entire book thing being over, hopefully being success, then being over so I can actually focus on things like, you know, it's amazing how you write a book about the outdoors and you basically, you stop doing anything physical because it's so much work, especially trying to do all the other things too, that you end up sitting in front of your computer for a good part of the day so i want to move back to the real world at some point whether that's jiu-jitsu and the outdoors yeah well it's talking and the writing and the video editing and i sound like i'm complaining i'm not it's just the reality it's something i've chosen but it's it's a 00:34.92 nextlevelguypodcast sitting talking 00:45.19 nextlevelguypodcast was when you've spent a whole lifetime exploring it and writing about it and then suddenly yeah it takes that away by you writing in your book but normally i say welcome to the show i'm now saying welcome back for what we discussed was the third time for those few people under a rock who maybe don't recognize the legend that is mr keston how would you describe yourself because you've got quite interesting backstory 00:54.18 stephankesting yeah 01:05.58 stephankesting but 01:13.42 stephankesting Well, that's it always a tricky one because what is your identity formed around? I guess if you go to the employment, jiu-jitsu black belt, I run grapplearts.com. 01:24.90 stephankesting I am a firefighter, a full-time firefighter, and I also really enjoy adventuring and the outdoors. So I guess the reason we're talking this time is because of something I did in the outdoors a few years ago and then wrote a book about But it's it's these different identities that that you try to juggle that are in some ways complementary and in some ways ah you know interfere with each other. Obviously, if you're out in the bush in a canoe, you can't be training jiu-jitsu at the same time. 01:55.72 stephankesting But doing jiu-jitsu and interacting with people actually teaches you how to do things in the outdoors because it teaches you how to stay calm under pressure in calm and difficult situations. 02:08.30 stephankesting And that is something that's transferable across all these different areas, regardless of whether it's firefighting, regardless of whether you're trying to run whitewater or figure out how to deal with a bear that's coming into your camp or trying to weasel your way out of an arm bar that your training partners caught you in. 02:24.71 stephankesting it Being calm and continuing to think is probably the single biggest transferable thing between all those different bifurcated or trifurcated parts of my personality. 02:38.37 nextlevelguypodcast Because there is some amazing depth within you. Because when I look, I knew quite a chunk of your story before I started reading the book. And as I started getting into the phenomenal um and book you've written called Perseverance, it really kind of blew me away by just how much you go into your story and how honest and frank you are about it. 02:59.26 nextlevelguypodcast And by the end, I was thinking, this guy does define perseverance. what Can you we'll go over the boring questions first? Why did you pick Perseverance? what What did it mean to you before this epic trip? 03:12.98 nextlevelguypodcast What you kind understood about it before you went on this amazing adventure? 03:19.14 stephankesting If we're talking about the term perseverance, I guess it's it's very similar to endurance and it means not giving up. And there are so many times in life that really the only way through something is to, the only way to get out of something is to go through it and to keep going. Winston Churchill said, if you're going through hell, keep going. 03:39.75 stephankesting And sometimes that's the way. It doesn't mean you need to pick every single battle. It doesn't mean that sometimes you can't opt out of difficult situations. But sometimes these things are thrust upon us. 03:52.38 stephankesting In the case of the adventure that I did in the book, the genesis of that, sort of a twofold genesis, one was thinking about it for 20 to 30 years, right? That's when I first became aware of the canoe routes in this area, these ancient routes that people had traveled for thousands of years and that were not very much followed to- today. 04:12.66 stephankesting But then the real kick in the ass was dying of kidney failure, And using that to basically put a boot in my butt to get me to go. And the only way through that kidney failure process was to continue and do the process and to try and yeah be as healthy as I could and then go through the transplant surgery, which I got a kidney from my brother. I'm incredibly grateful for that. Thank you, Christophe. 04:41.42 stephankesting and then trying to recover from that. And that's a long process. And you know what you need to do. It's just like being caught on the bottom mountain. You know what the steps are. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but you do know what you have to do. 04:54.87 stephankesting So similarly, recovering from surgery, you know what you need to do. You need to go to your doctors. You need to go and do the blood work. You need to try and get up and get moving. In my case, every surgery I've ever had, the ah sort of central treatment for it has been walking. 05:10.41 stephankesting right Just trying to get up and move as soon as you can. It's kind of interesting how the thinking on that has changed over the last 50 years. you You used to have a surgery or a hip replacement and be in bed for six weeks and now they want you up and walking the same day. 05:23.50 nextlevelguypodcast Yep. 05:24.99 stephankesting So ah sometimes the only way out of something is through it. And so the ability to not stop, whether you're too dumb or too stubborn to stop is an open question sometimes. 05:40.29 stephankesting But the ability to not stop and to keep going is a very powerful one. 05:44.97 nextlevelguypodcast um Do you think that was the sort what gave you that power? Because, you know, I was so keen to have you on because you've persevered in building the business, you persevered in getting your black belt, you know, but you always had that kind of goal at the end of it, that win. 05:58.69 nextlevelguypodcast Do you think that was kind of what motivated you through that dark time? Because it would have collapsed a lot of people. But were you but you sort of doing it because you could see that goal that you could push yourself on, but you knew that it was basically to survive at that point? 06:15.92 nextlevelguypodcast How did you kind of bring yourself out of that funk to push yourself on? 06:20.16 stephankesting oh Yeah. Well, it's always easy in retrospect to say, I always knew i just needed to keep going. Whereas the truth is that reality is a lot messier than that. There are days when you're like, oh God, like this is never going to work. I'm never going to get better. 06:36.63 stephankesting I'm always going to be this screwed up physically and mentally. 06:42.06 nextlevelguypodcast you 06:43.09 stephankesting ah So it's easy in retrospect to paint a single coherent vision. That's not what it looks like at the time. i think some of it was intellectually knowing that having a goal, a difficult goal would motivate me to keep going. It's kind of like people who want to lose weight. 07:05.43 stephankesting They sign up for a 10K race six months from now. And they know that by signing up for something and paying, don't know, the $200 registration fee or whatever it is to go and run the race, they know that'll keep them doing the training. 07:21.81 stephankesting So they're kind of using, they're creating their own carrot at the end of a rope that they're running towards. 07:24.94 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 07:28.76 stephankesting Some people, they go and hire a personal trainer, right? If I'm paying this dude a hundred bucks an hour, then I better go and work out because I'm going to pay him regardless of whether I go. and you know, and on a micro scale, say on that journey, I would use micro incentives, which is like, if I make it to that point over there, it's going to take me about half an hour of paddling into the wind. 07:52.82 stephankesting I get to stop and I get to have, I don't know, a couple squares of chocolate. I get to stop and I get to have a drink of water. I get to stop and I get to put on my earbuds and listen to, you know, half an hour of music. 08:06.92 stephankesting even though my charge on my phone is getting low and it's kind of overcast and I can't recharge it. It's using these sets of goals and incentives to keep you going. 08:17.91 stephankesting So thinking about getting up north and doing this trip or rather exploring this area that I'd wanted to explore since my 20s and I was now in my 50s, that was kind of an incentive to, know, 08:35.96 stephankesting it's kind of ah the light at the end of the tunnel. If I can continue with my various therapies, if I can keep on building my strength and building my endurance, if I can keep on even building my business so that it can survive without me while I'm gone up there, then I get to do this. 08:56.91 stephankesting So, uh, it was kind of chosen and it was also a thing that I wanted to check off my life list, right? where There's nothing like having a near-death experience to remind you that you're going to die, right? 09:09.87 stephankesting Memento mori, remember you're going to die. 09:11.09 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 09:14.47 stephankesting And saying, using that to focus what you really want to get done and what you really want to do. it's a useful thought exercise. I'm definitely not a life coach. I'm definitely not ah psychologist, I'm definitely not a philosopher, but it's a useful exercise anyway to say, if I knew only had couple of years left, what would I really want to do? 09:44.82 stephankesting And what would I really want to experience in that time? And then try and find a way to experience it. Even though you're not, you you you may live longer than two years, right? And if that's really that important to you, that you'd spend a couple of weeks or a couple of months of your last days on this of your of your last days on this earth doing that then why aren't you planning and trying to figure out how to do that now 10:12.31 nextlevelguypodcast Makes a lot of sense because a lot of people, you know, they get to their 60s, 80s, 90s, and they suddenly sit and go, oh, I wish I'd done this. And I think that's the biggest pain in life is regret. 10:19.89 stephankesting hmm 10:23.36 nextlevelguypodcast It's not, you know, we all think it's going to be a loss of a partner or whatever. Sometimes it can be just seen what but your potential, untapped potential. 10:29.28 stephankesting Yeah. 10:32.48 nextlevelguypodcast mean, you got kidney from your awesome brother, ah you know, like he he saved your life, like you mentioned. 10:33.16 stephankesting you 10:39.62 nextlevelguypodcast When you're in that dire need I mean, I was helping my family dig some crofts and put some new walkways over some things and all this kind of stuff. And it suddenly dawned on me, it's like I was knackered doing it. 10:56.93 nextlevelguypodcast And I remember thinking that I was doing it because I knew was helping my family. Do you think in a way you were doing the trip as much for your brother after his generosity? You know, was that a kind of the perseverance motivated you as much to go on the trip finally because you were doing it as part for your brother and this additional awakening, this additional chance of life? 11:19.95 nextlevelguypodcast What did it teach you about, you know, gratitude, unconditional love, taking their chances while we've got them, so to speak? 11:27.64 stephankesting No. Well, I think the answer is yes and no. i When I was young, I had four brothers and a half-sister. Then I lost in fairly quick succession two of those brothers. 11:41.76 stephankesting And these, you know, they died in their, both when they were 21, that age when young men think that they're going to live forever and that nothing can ever happen and that they can take every stupid risk that comes along. 11:53.64 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 11:55.31 stephankesting And so in my mind, somehow this idea of young men dying before their time you know That needed to be remembered and that needed to be memorialized. And in some way, traveling, yeah you resort to your own imagery. You resort to your primal imagery when you're trying to process these big things. 12:19.63 stephankesting And my primal image imagery and something that's been part of my being since I was very young is the wilderness. It's the forest, it's the lakes, it's the rivers, and it's it's the Arctic as well. 12:33.11 stephankesting And in a sense, traveling from one zone to another, traveling from the forest out onto the tundra, that that part really hit me and thinking lot about my own mortality, but also the mortality of my brothers. 12:46.98 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 12:49.93 stephankesting I think the loss of two of my four brothers was inextricably bound with my own mortality and they didn't make it. 13:01.38 stephankesting But I did because of another brother. So, i mean, that was on my mind continuously as I was working. And especially right at the crux of the trip, which is the transition from the trees out into the tundra. 13:18.11 stephankesting Because it's it's the sort of the ah land in between, right? It's the land that, ah to me anyway, represents the transition from from life to death. I'm not sure that resonates with anybody else, but like I said, we all find our own metaphors and we all find our own imagery. 13:37.54 stephankesting And for me, that's the imagery. 13:41.22 nextlevelguypodcast I think it helps a lot of people because it gives them an idea of you don't have to be swallowed by this darkness. You can use it to then inspire, help, do things, you know achieve goals in memory or in support of people. or And just how frank you are in the book, it is amazingly beautifully written. 14:01.18 nextlevelguypodcast And there's so many tidbits throughout it, but it's just the level honesty. And it's not just... I had a divorce. This happened. You know, you actually go into how you stayed strong during that point, how you stayed strong while you were going through the surgery, how you stayed strong when your hand was swollen and you tendonitis in your shoulder, you your rotator calves were killing you and, 14:23.32 nextlevelguypodcast yeah All these sorts of things, and it's you look at a newfound level of respect for you, for how you have achieved so much and just kept going and helping so many people. I like to think of the book as The Matrix, because when I see The Matrix film, them you see it as an action film, but then you can see it as a software versus hardware versus liveware kind of thing. 14:45.99 nextlevelguypodcast you know, sort of allergy, then you can see it as a kind of how we go, how we kill viruses in the system to, but you know, and there's so many different levels you can potentially see it at, but like your book, I could see it as a great book about wildlife and the trip, a great experience thing, a great book about you explaining how we you use your mental strength to achieve your goals. 14:54.74 stephankesting Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 15:09.00 nextlevelguypodcast There's so many levels to your book. How do you think it's helped you writing it? Have you looked back now and had a bit more of a come to terms with things? 15:19.65 nextlevelguypodcast Has it helped you develop your thinking or are you just thinking, hell, I want to go do another journey? 15:27.06 stephankesting I think it did help to process the the journey and to to give it meaning. And by that, I i mean this. When you're out there and you're out there battling your way across a lake or trying to find your way down a river when the wind is blowing you sideways and you're trying to run what would otherwise be easy whitewater that's now turned into really difficult whitewater because in addition to the current pulling you downstream, the wind is blowing you left and right. 15:58.61 stephankesting You're not thinking deep thoughts in the moment. You're thinking, I should put my paddle over there. You're thinking, oh, those rocks are coming up awfully quickly and it looks like there's a shoot to the right. 16:11.31 stephankesting If I eddy out ah over behind this rock, then I'll be able to get a better look at it. And if I can't run that chute, then I can go over to shore. It's very procedural. Just as if we were grappling, I'd be thinking, oh, he's going for a wrist grab. 16:25.64 stephankesting Okay, better script that wrist. I can set him up. I think I can set him up by pretending to go left, preparing to go left, and then I'm going to go right. I'm not thinking about, isn't jujitsu amazing? 16:37.16 stephankesting This is just a metaphor for life. No, I'm thinking, I want to choke him, and I don't want him to choke me. Similarly, it's very, know, I call it procedural. 16:44.30 nextlevelguypodcast No. 16:49.64 stephankesting Maybe there's a better word for it, but it's, what do I have to do next? Similarly, in the bush, most of the time, It's where do I put my paddle? 17:01.17 stephankesting I better watch those clouds coming in because those could turn into thunderstorms. The wind has shifted. The wind has changed in texture. The wind is now becoming more sporadic. 17:13.30 stephankesting The waves are now breaking a little bit more. The shoreline has changed. And your mind just goes in this loop, kind of trying to cover all of the important things that that keep you alive. 17:26.13 stephankesting So you're not... You know you're doing it for more than reason of just doing it. Because you're you're drawn to this, or I was drawn to this. 17:39.20 stephankesting And yeah i was like ah a moth to a flame or iron filings to a magnet. I was being pulled up there, and it was a very dominant image in my brain. And I think at a fundamental level, I understood that it was kind of giving the big min middle finger... 17:57.45 stephankesting to death, right? Not today. 18:01.88 stephankesting But in terms of using it to, know, how process the grief that I felt towards, you know having lost my brothers, the, I guess, the fear that comes up from nearly dying and the fear, you around, say, potentially leaving your kids without a father, 18:27.26 stephankesting ah and then not wanting to leave them without a, yeah not wanting to survive the surgery, but then die on this bloody trip, right? That's another level of, that'd be a fine irony, wouldn't it? 18:39.85 stephankesting So I think the process of writing the book, and it was many, many iterations, right? the The draft one, there were 14 drafts. 18:52.67 stephankesting that i I went through in the course of the finished version that you saw. And I can guarantee you that the first couple of versions were, it was kind of an interesting story. Like here, first I did this, then I did that. 19:08.92 stephankesting And it took a couple of friends of mine who are brutally honest, going, hey you know, it's kind of an interesting story, but you know what? You haven't actually said why you did this crazy trip. like oh I guess that's true. 19:21.60 stephankesting All right. Second draft. and And so it's, you know, anything that's good is always a series of iterations. 19:33.33 stephankesting And it depends on you getting honest feedback from people. I'm going to go back to the jujitsu example. You can't get good at jujitsu without honest feedback from people. 19:43.72 stephankesting And that means people shutting down your crappy guard pass attempt. and crushing you and demonstrating why you shouldn't have done that. Or in a work setting, you know somebody giving you honest feedback as opposed to, oh, that's amazing. You just typed something up or you just asked chat GPT to write something up and it did. And now this is so useful. 20:07.80 stephankesting Feedback from trusted people with whom you're aligned is incredibly valuable. It's also pretty rare because people don't want to hurt your feelings. 20:18.78 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 20:18.91 stephankesting you almost have to ask people, okay, your honest opinion here hurt my feelings if you have to, but tell it to me straight and then being willing to listen. 20:31.85 stephankesting And that's what ends up producing a good product. Okay. 20:36.26 nextlevelguypodcast Because i mean, I really did enjoy it. it it I find it weird at first because i but I'm not really a reader at currently. and But as I kind of got into it, I started feeling myself sometimes I'd be away doing something else and stop and think, oh, why am I going to give up on that? 20:51.83 nextlevelguypodcast And ah suddenly I would remember a teaching that you'd said or a mantra. you know There's all these little like gold nuggets of advice about how to approach problems and how to deal with problems, or i would see and be inspired by something you had written in the book. um it was just sort of and It talks to you on different levels that you need at that point in your life. 21:12.39 nextlevelguypodcast and I think that's why i highly recommend everybody gets a copy of it, because 21:15.86 stephankesting Mm-hmm. 21:17.45 nextlevelguypodcast it's not just as following your story it's as following what you've learned and how we can then apply it to our own life i mean it is beautiful there's all you deal with a lot of the issues etc but you talk in there about your own inspirations how much did your planning before balance against the life that you actually experienced you know Because you talk about like these inspirations, like the guy the Paddle um book. 21:44.99 nextlevelguypodcast You talk about like some of the quotes you've read or your wildlife experience and stuff like that versus how you actually deal with it while you're there. How much did your prep beforehand reflect what you actually experienced? 22:00.96 nextlevelguypodcast Because how much can we prepare for something like that? you know If we go out to the shops, it's a trip, but it's not going to kill you. How much did you know and how do you balance that between what you know, how you can prepare? 22:09.75 stephankesting no 22:13.92 nextlevelguypodcast And holy shit, here's a rapid coming at me. it 22:19.39 stephankesting well i i'm i'm half german so preparation is in my dna there somewhere and it's funny if you look at my desk my desk is a mess 22:23.78 nextlevelguypodcast and 22:32.55 stephankesting There's cables and pens, and i'm not going to show it to you because it'd be embarrassing. but and And I'm the guy who forgets where his keys are, and I look for my wallet at least once a day. 22:44.79 stephankesting So in some levels, I'm a disaster. But when I go into the bush, that does change. Or when I go work at the fire hall, that does change. All of a sudden, yeah that part of my mind clicks in, and the organization and planning becomes really important. 23:00.91 stephankesting I'm not saying it's always perfect, but ah having a plan almost always beats having no plan. And that the difference between success and failure often comes down to planning. 23:14.12 stephankesting And I really enjoy the planning. I mean, I had... ah Checklists of checklists. And I had spreadsheets with many, many different tabs covering for for that trip, covering everything from logistics, like what are the float plane companies that work in this area and what are their numbers and what kind of planes do they have in case I needed an evacuation? 23:38.82 stephankesting What are the medications I'm taking? What are they for? And ah what is the dosages? what's What's the food? There's a different tab for food. And what's the calories for each meal? 23:53.33 stephankesting Because I'm trying to hit a caloric total. And roughly, what's the weight of that? What are the tides going to be doing when I make it down to Hudson Bay? I'm trying to think of other things. 24:06.31 stephankesting Lists of clothing. ah You put that into an Excel spreadsheet because I had everything all in one place. Communications equipment. What are my options? What are the different modes of satellite communication I have? 24:17.71 stephankesting Where do I rent it? Where do I buy it? Where do I borrow it? How much does it cost? Which of these should I choose? Repair kit. What should go in my repair kit? There's a separate tab for repair kit. 24:30.72 stephankesting So having these checklists meant that I was fairly well prepared. Of course, it doesn't prepare you for everything because there's a limit. You can only take, imagine like, just take the example of a repair kit. 24:45.87 stephankesting Ideally, if you had your bag of holding, you would take cinder blocks because maybe you're going need a cinder block. Maybe you're going to need 10 cinder blocks and bags of mortar. 24:57.46 stephankesting And you should probably take a circular saw and an axe and a sawzall would be useful and a whole bunch of hammers because maybe you're going to need to build something. You know, a spare canoe would be useful too. 25:08.66 stephankesting Obviously, that becomes impossible. So now you're trading off size and weight versus 25:17.83 stephankesting completeness, right? Having everything that you might need and doing these trade-offs, especially in a world or in a scenario, we have very tightly constrained size and weight constraints is tricky, but I actually enjoy that. 25:33.95 stephankesting And, you know, some people, they they like to go on vacation and they like to just be spontaneous. Oh, I'm just going to buy tickets for Europe and I'm going to go to Europe. Okay, cool. 25:45.20 stephankesting And I'm sure that's very you know that that's fun and i've there's some room for that as well but the advantage of me anyway planning ahead when i go to europe i want here's i don't know the here the the churches that i want to go visit here are the museums i really want to see whatever here are the restaurants i would really want to eat at if i start planning that out six months ahead of time then i have six months of enjoyment because I can be thinking about this and I can be in some ways involved and I'm getting six months of pre-enjoyment and then I'm getting the trip. 26:23.36 stephankesting So I really enjoy the process of dehydrating my own food. Not only, ah for example, not only does it taste better than the stuff that you buy, probably more healthy, but it allows you to kind of be on that trip for longer. 26:41.14 stephankesting It takes months to prepare, but during those months, I'm still thinking about the trip and all that pre-planning does allow you to navigate through a reasonably dangerous landscape a little bit more safely. 26:47.42 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah, 26:54.87 stephankesting Hmm. 26:56.21 nextlevelguypodcast because they'll say like every plan fails at the first point of contact, but at least... I know what you mean. It's like I buy tickets to a festival, for example. I enjoy more thinking about it than i actually being there. 27:08.02 nextlevelguypodcast because I'm thinking about who I might see and how it might be and what I'm going to f what i'm gonna do with friends. It's almost like the experience itself isn't as exciting, but you live that experience. 27:15.17 stephankesting Mm-hmm. 27:17.47 nextlevelguypodcast And I think that's such a... Because there's a bit in the book where you talk about in Africa, you know, that how they have these rituals. um We won't get people circumcised as part of the journey. You go into great detail about the different... 27:33.01 nextlevelguypodcast parts of entering manhood from, you know, like in these different tribes and different cultures, etc. And I think that really hits home that chapter when you think we don't have a great war. 27:44.57 nextlevelguypodcast We don't have a ah need to go out and save the day. i mean, I was helping my parents do the croft. It made help them because I knew I was helping them. and that was such a bad sense but you know it maybe it pushed me on because i knew i was achieving something that they would struggle with i could do all the heavy lifting the heavy pushing stuff but we don't have a need to go outside if you don't want to you can have your food delivered to your door you can get your taxi to your your work and back you never need to go outside if you want how much of that do you think is why men struggle 28:07.95 stephankesting Mm-hmm. 28:19.53 nextlevelguypodcast You know, like why we need the likes of Jiu Jitsu, why we need to have these kind of trips. Do you think everybody needs to find a trip like this to kind of discover who we are, what we're capable of, to get out of this comfort zone we're in? 28:35.59 stephankesting And I think we're talking about ah so many things. guess a very complex question. 28:41.04 nextlevelguypodcast I have a problem with these. 28:41.48 stephankesting I think 28:46.54 stephankesting i think there are of the rituals of coming of age, coming of age rituals, which used to be very prevalent in many societies, probably all of them, but I'm not an anthropologist and I've not done and you know an inclusive study of this. 29:04.67 stephankesting The truth is that in a pre-industrial world, ah you know and there were there were many of the coming of age rituals were difficult and they involved a chance of injury. 29:19.95 stephankesting whether that was going off to war or whether that was doing a walkabout or getting circumcised as a 16-year-old boy in Africa with no anesthetic, using a piece of broken glass where you're not allowed to display any emotion. 29:36.79 stephankesting ah And for women, honestly, most in a pre-industrial setting, i'm I'm guessing that pregnancy and having your first kid served as that because it's difficult. 29:50.14 stephankesting It's painful. know, in any village, you'd know tons of people who died giving, died during childbirth. I'm not saying that that should be a woman's coming of age ritual now, but I think historically probably it's served as that kind of that marker in the sand of now being. 30:06.43 nextlevelguypodcast yeah these are red-chared womenhoods from you 30:09.99 stephankesting Yeah. Yeah. or perhaps the onset of menstruation. and in some cultures, that was celebrated. i i think we've lost some of that. 30:24.32 stephankesting Now, the good news is there are many ways to recreate that. There's no one way that you have to do it. so It's almost an embarrassment of riches. You could decide to compete at the CrossFit Games. 30:38.83 stephankesting You could on a... go on a yeah know your your gap year and go travel the world. You could join the army. You could go on a canoe trip. 30:53.26 stephankesting There are so many options sometimes leads to you know analysis paralysis. But I think there is value in doing something difficult, where there's a chance of a negative outcome and certainly where success isn't guaranteed. 31:11.89 stephankesting Now that comes with a huge caveat. I don't think that what I did in the Canadian subarctic is for most people, and I'm not recommending it because really to do that and to have a reasonable chance of success and you know to lower your chances of dying, 31:32.51 stephankesting requires a fair skill base. you You could take somebody who's really, I mean, you could take the fittest runner in the world and dump him into a lake. And if he doesn't know how to swim, he's going to drown. 31:47.64 stephankesting It doesn't matter how fit he is. So there's the skill of actually being able to swim. And there's a skill of actually being able to paddle. And there's a skill of actually being able to set up a tent when there's 50 kilometer an hour winds ripping across across the tundra. 32:04.84 stephankesting And there's the skill of knowing how to bear proof of your food. And there's the skill of, you know, how to do an eddy turn ah above a big rapid and then how to pack your gear properly. There's a whole lot of knowledge that I've built up over the years. 32:25.63 stephankesting I'm not saying I'm perfect. But at some point, especially in my early 20s, I definitely made it to black belt level in the outdoor field. Was I world-class black belt? Well, that's a different question, but I had a lot of skills. 32:41.12 stephankesting Then in my 30s and 40s, I think those skills actually atrophied because I was in the midst of raising kids and working and buying houses and going through a divorce and buying other houses and that whole circus. 32:57.94 stephankesting And so my skills atrophy, they kind of lay dormant. So in some ways, you know, this trip was a rediscovery of that and allowing those latent skills to come to the surface. And sometimes that was a rough, that was a rough procedure. It didn't always go as smoothly as I wanted because I tried to prepare as much as I could, but ultimately no amount of preparation can actually simulate doing the the actual thing preparation is good you'd be screwed without preparation but then actually getting out there and doing it is always something a little bit different 33:40.64 nextlevelguypodcast So true, because in the book, you know, when shit hits the fan, you can almost, you know, because it's so well written that we can visualize the situation, we can understand where you are or how much you've gone through it to that point and how you work around it. 33:57.09 nextlevelguypodcast And, know, like you could argue like complacency is the antagonist, antagonist, Stephen, to perseverance, you know, how you fall back to the level of your training, not to rise to the level of your expectations. 34:10.33 nextlevelguypodcast And I love how that in the book you discuss having a notepad where you write out all your problems. that you come to so and it's like you can actually sit with you while you're doing it and go I can see how he then plans and understands and adapts his thinking and fault you know uses your training and how to adapt to that with your experience or your understanding and like how you risk assess in real time it's how did How does that help you in your way of thinking by writing out your problems? 34:41.44 nextlevelguypodcast Do you find that lets you kind of make your internal computer better at thinking through decisions and doing real-time assessments and calculations about what you're going to do for your actions in life? 34:57.69 stephankesting Well, 35:03.68 stephankesting There's the immediate response. If we're kickboxing and you throw a jab-cross combo at my head, i don't have time to write out my problems. 35:14.76 stephankesting I better rely on the training that I have. to try and slip the jab and then use footwork to get out of the way the cross. If I'm paddling a whitewater river and a boat starts flipping one way, i better have that bracing stroke ready to stop the boat from flipping. 35:34.07 stephankesting So there's there's the in the moment decision or problem solving, which is one level of analysis. And this is ultimately why we train and why we, uh, 35:46.78 stephankesting try to get those skills razor sharp because there's immediate problems that immediately need to be solved. If you're driving down the road and somebody swerves in front of you, you hit the brakes, right? 35:56.96 stephankesting You don't make a list of your problems, but If you have to get a new car, right? Your old car breaks down and you're looking at getting a new car. 36:07.83 stephankesting Now, now it's the time for writing out you know what you want. And for me, I really like working on paper and having paper physical checklists and spreadsheets. that That helps me with organizing my thoughts. 36:21.82 stephankesting But interestingly, well use it in the fire department as well. You would think that an emergency like building on fire, people on the front lawn with smoke inhalation and somebody lost, we don't know if they're in the building or not. 36:41.47 stephankesting You'd think that that would be the first class of emergency yeah where you just have to use reflexes. And the answer is yes and no. 36:52.57 stephankesting If you're in command of the situation, if you're the captain or the battalion chief in charge of that scene, you have to, you only have a limited number of resources and you have a limited, and you have a large list of problems. 37:06.65 stephankesting So we actually have of system where we very quickly list the problems. What's the number one priority here? What's the number two priority? 37:18.39 stephankesting So, The way it kind of gets organized is problem, solution, tactic. So what would be a problem? A problem would be people sick on the front lawn with smoke inhalation. 37:30.75 stephankesting A problem would be fire in the building. A problem would be fire spreading to other buildings. A problem would be person lost in the building. Those are the problems. 37:41.91 stephankesting What are the solutions? What are the strategies? Well, the strategy would be give medical aid to the people who are sick, uh, extinguish the fire that's in the building, control the exposure. So it doesn't spread to other buildings and then search for the missing person. 38:02.41 stephankesting What are the tactics? The tactics would be specifically who's doing what Jim and Susan, you guys go give medical aid, uh, engine two, you guys going to put up the fire. 38:16.52 stephankesting Engine three, you guys are going to set up exposure control. Engine four, you guys are going to do a search for the missing person. And then there's some other things that have to happen as well. I'm um simplifying this. 38:31.05 stephankesting But then the most important part that people miss, all right now what we have is a mess of problems and solutions, is we prioritize it. What has to happen first? We have a problems, solutions, tactics, 38:45.08 stephankesting And then we organize what has to happen first. And we only have a limited number of resources. So do we think based on what we see that there's a savable life in there? Because that would change it, right? If there's black smoke coming out of every window, well, the odds of that person being alive are pretty low. 39:05.71 stephankesting It's just smoke in one part of the building. Okay. Now the odds go up. So we, We're going to shuffle the priority of what we deal with first. And if you start thinking about what are my problems and which is the most urgent, and then which do i do i take action on first, that's a very valuable approach. And it doesn't take that long. 39:29.10 stephankesting There's a way to do it in 15 seconds when you're at a fire. Is it going perfect? No. ah You might change it. Yeah, of course. All plans are subject to change. 39:42.29 stephankesting As you already said, no plan of action survives contact with the enemy. That's true. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't have a plan. And if you start without a plan, that's the easiest way to have a complete disaster. 39:54.04 stephankesting So you have a plan and you know it's going to change. 39:58.60 nextlevelguypodcast Because that's the beauty throughout the book is there's all these gems of thinking and ways to deal with it. And I think what I had to write it down where you said, but I loved how there can be that the flip side of life became simple, get up, fight to overcome the day's adversaries and sleep. 40:16.34 nextlevelguypodcast And I thought, that's not just a pair a perfect... analogy for life in today's society. 40:21.56 stephankesting Hmm. Hmm. 40:22.62 nextlevelguypodcast You know, and it's that moment of like, you can do this, you can have the self-reflection, you can you know you can learn how you I need to drill some holes to stop the water, getting in the casing and to get there and destroy my maps. 40:35.50 nextlevelguypodcast My drone wasn't calibrated correctly, so it flew into some trees. And of course, I would have been like thinking about that the whole trip, raging about it. You just went, well, you know, that's no flights. 40:46.34 nextlevelguypodcast I'll just have to send it home. You kind of just dealt with it. But you also explained your thinking and how you kept yourself pushing on, which I think helps so many people reading it. But do you think that ability of, okay, my hand was swollen, my shoulder's killing me, but I'm just going to focus solely on the paddling, looking at my technique, you know do you think that the flip side is zoning in on one task at a time, zoning on the actual motion so you just become centred, forget the noise, and you can focus solely on what you need to do to win or achieve your goal that day? 41:24.81 stephankesting I think that's a very valuable skill, being able to just zone in on one thing. And certainly anyone who works in any kind of creative field, we know how difficult it is to and don try to write ah a thousand words, try to edit a video, edit video, 41:44.78 stephankesting try to i don't paint but i would imagine doing a painting is difficult instagram notification somebody liked your post uh somebody's dropping off a package that is the absolute worst way to get anything done because you're trying to create that ability to focus on just one thing, even for a little while. 42:15.90 stephankesting And so, know, when writing stuff like this, I, there were actually times that I took my computer and went out into my car and closed the door and turned off the, that way I'm away from my wifi. 42:28.91 stephankesting ah had my phone off and I'm kind of hiding out in the car and still sometimes my kids came and found me and ruined my, ruined my ability or my attempt to isolate myself to create that focus. 42:34.22 nextlevelguypodcast yeah 42:41.05 stephankesting At the same time, hyper-focus can be dangerous when you're trying to remain aware of of different things, right? You don't want to be so focused in on, don't know, you're paddling that you're ignoring changes in the wind or that you're ignoring navigation. 43:02.03 stephankesting So there's an immersion in an activity, which is amazing. i just, earlier I said, I don't recommend what I did to the the general population if you don't have the skills or you don't want to go out and acquire the skills. And that's still true, but I think there's a real value to the outdoors to, and that could be as simple as going for a walk on the English hills to doing the Camino de Santiago in Portugal and Spain the 43:36.94 stephankesting very going and however taking a guided sea kayak trip or or whatever. Because I think being in outdoors, in the outdoors, create helps create that immersion in something. And it allows you to sort of run a subroutines, right? 43:55.94 stephankesting I knew that I would do some, I hesitate to use the word healing because I think it's so prone to woo-woo interpretations. 44:06.67 stephankesting But 44:08.98 stephankesting healing and resolving kind of runs in the background by creating being able to focus on something like the experience of being in the outdoors is immersive and it takes your mind off of the day-to-day and yeah your phone isn't going off and things aren't bugging you all the time it's it's one experience and i think that allows deeper subroutines to run in your mind 44:25.34 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 44:34.15 stephankesting and to process stuff that you need to process. So I'm a very strong advocate of the outdoors being a place where you can focus and where you can grow. 44:46.66 stephankesting And it doesn't need to be something crazy. ah For me, maybe it does more. But that's only because my baseline has gotten irrevocably shifted to something insane because of the stuff I used to do when I was young. 45:01.37 nextlevelguypodcast I mean, I love the the little kind of understandings in the book. As you follow along the journey, we can see your you you know you get these aha moments. Because you said, ah movement generally beats meditation, and the ability to quickly take decisive action is probably the single most significant determinant of success in life. 45:20.28 nextlevelguypodcast And I found that sentence just keeps popping up sometimes when I'm thinking about a problem and I go, oh wait, no, i'm I'm just living the problem. I'm not actually going off and dealing with it at this point. 45:31.54 nextlevelguypodcast So I'll try to just take action and then reflect on it, how I can fix how I can improve it. 45:35.99 stephankesting Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 45:36.95 nextlevelguypodcast And I find these sorts of things really help us. You know that nowadays we talk about problems, we discuss them. We very rarely get told okay, go try that. See how that works. 45:47.73 nextlevelguypodcast Come back and let us know. 45:47.95 stephankesting and 45:49.62 nextlevelguypodcast How much of your training, you know because you trained your physology physiology and your same psychology, how much of this did you train yourself cognitively versus how much you trained yourself physically? 46:03.73 nextlevelguypodcast how How on earth do you prepare for something like this and build your mind as much as your body? 46:09.47 stephankesting yeah I think it's the same as any kind of training. You do it in little chunks and pieces. You put yourself into a situation where you're challenged, but the results of screwing up aren't going to be catastrophic. 46:24.65 stephankesting If we were trying to learn MMA fighting and you're taking a raw, I'm a raw beginner. I've never fought before. So I look up who is the best m MMA fighter active today. 46:39.74 stephankesting And I don't know when people are going listening to this. So I'll just say Jim Bob. Jim Bob is a mit monster. So clearly what I need to do to get good at MMA is to schedule a fight with Jim Bob where he's going to try and murder me and I'm going to try and murder him. And that's the best way to learn and MMA, isn't it? 46:56.45 stephankesting Because I'm going against the best in the world. Clearly not. Clearly that'd be insane because the cost of failure would be so high. I would come out of there with a concussion, brain damage, a broken nose, broken teeth, 47:09.82 stephankesting ah maybe dislocated joints and, ah an inability to train and get better. And probably I would give up training altogether. And my skill in MMA would have gone up. Not at all. 47:21.09 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 47:22.59 stephankesting So the ability to overcome it's the little successes that build the big successes. So if in this case of this trip, the, 47:36.90 stephankesting thing that allowed me to run really quite difficult whitewater was over the years running easy whitewater and going and going to relatively easy rivers with friends wearing a wetsuit or a dry suit in a boat that's fully kitted out with airbags so if it flips it's probably not going to get damaged if it flips maybe i can roll back up and doing difficult moves on easy rapids and that develops the decision making process over time similarly It's the drilling and it's the positional sparring in jujitsu. 48:11.13 stephankesting Hey, you just sit on me and mount and I'm going to try and get out. And if you can go for the head and arm choke, please do so. And so we're playing just a small aspect of the game. And if I get out, it's not the end of the world for you. It's not the end of the world for me. 48:25.96 stephankesting We both got a little bit more experience and now we're building. So does that answer your question in terms of how to build this game? but You're talking about the building, the mental state to overcome setbacks. 48:37.80 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah, because you use well you use the mantra, the more you sweat in peace, the more you can avoid bleeding in war. and sorry i 48:47.04 stephankesting Mm-hmm. 48:48.25 nextlevelguypodcast the la Sorry, the less you bleed in war. And I love that approach of like you know as much as you can prepare, but then while you're doing it, you then talk about breaking down your enormous task into general manageable tasks. 49:02.79 nextlevelguypodcast So, you know, you can prepare as much as possible and then you can gonna go, OK, I need to go from here to that rapid, past that rapid. That's all I'm thinking about to do that. I'm going to count the strokes because my shoulder's killing me. I'm going to do this, this and this, or I'm going to set up this line here and just get my food. 49:21.49 nextlevelguypodcast You know, it's like you're literally focused on the next task at hand. Because when you look at the what you did, it's insane. it's it's a yeah It's weeks of travel by yourself through bare country. 49:30.28 stephankesting so Thank you. yeah 49:34.45 nextlevelguypodcast When you see the distance alone that you went, you go, okay, you know. Do you think that was that kind of balance between just taking action and doing it, but also pushing yourself as much as possible so your new baseline comes to here? 49:46.38 stephankesting Sorry, Ian, you've frozen up. 49:50.16 nextlevelguypodcast So if we went out and did our first activity, we'd go to here. 49:51.58 stephankesting Can't hear you. 49:53.16 nextlevelguypodcast Then our next one, we'd go to here. you know It's that of plan as much as you can, go and do it, then come back to it. 49:57.47 stephankesting you're ah still don't hear anything. 50:01.84 nextlevelguypodcast you know how how What have you learned about using these to evolve as people as matches? 50:06.37 stephankesting I'm going message you here. 50:09.04 nextlevelguypodcast Because you just seem to go on a new level each time you come back from a trip. what What have trips taught you about chasing goals, achieving them, but breaking tasks down into manageable chunks in a way? 50:30.33 nextlevelguypodcast Oops. 50:30.68 stephankesting You froze up, Ian. 50:32.63 nextlevelguypodcast you hear me? 50:40.43 nextlevelguypodcast can you hear me? 50:56.01 nextlevelguypodcast Hi, Stefan, can you hear me?