Uphill Athlete Book Club: The Color of Everything with Cory Richards

00:01.48a
Steve House
Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. My name is Steve House and I’ll be your host today. I have a very special guest with us today, Mr.

00:12.80
Cory Richards
What’s happening?

00:10.83
Steve House
Cory Richards.

00:13.81
Cory Richards
Thanks for having me back.

00:11.31
Steve House
Welcome Cory.

00:15.00
Cory Richards
I love it.

00:14.42
Steve House
Hey, yeah. Well, today we are going to do an episode devoted to your new book, one of two books you have coming out this year, by the way.

00:26.54
Cory Richards
Yeah.

00:27.85
Steve House
The color of everything is the book we’re talking about today. And I just want to say like, I loved this book, Cory.

00:38.05
Cory Richards
Thanks.

00:36.81
Steve House
Like I didn’t, you know, when you hear your friends wrote a book, sometimes it’s a little like, ooh, you know, it’s like, ah, yeah, it wasn’t that like, like,

00:42.73
Cory Richards
Yeah. Yeah. You don’t, you don’t, you kind of don’t want to read it because if it sucks, you don’t want to have to carry that knowledge and be like, yeah, good job. And in your head, you’re like, this was terrible. You know.

00:56.41
Steve House
Right. I don’t have to do that. The book was amazing. The book is amazing. Uh, I don’t, I didn’t know that you could write. Like I knew that you could climb it. I knew you could take pictures and do all these other things. And I know you have an incredibly creative mind, but I didn’t know that you had such a way with words. And one of the things that I particularly liked and I do it in my own writing, so maybe that’s why is, uh,

01:21.70
Cory Richards
Get it.

01:22.51
Steve House
how you interweave um like this sort of vivid, very ah very visual storytelling of really bringing us into the scene you’re in as as you write with reflection and sort of a more of a cerebral narrative.

01:45.62
Cory Richards
Thanks, man.

01:43.22
Steve House
I really love that stuff.

01:46.38
Cory Richards
It’s, it’s funny. I, you know, it’s that writing. I didn’t, you know, I took one creative writing class once and it, um, but something that I remember being told is like, you know, people focus too much on good writing. Just tell a story and, and in the same breath, they were kind of lying in the same breath. They were saying, if you can, if you can cross that bridge of being descriptive and also internal, that’s sort of the line you want to walk. You know, and so I don’t know that I ever really consciously thought about it when I was writing. It just, that’s the way it came out, so to speak.

02:22.69
Steve House
Yeah, so tell me and tell the audience what the color of everything is about.

02:29.03
Cory Richards
Well, um, you know, when I quit climbing and walked away, when I walked away from climbing, uh, and, and photography on dollar Gary, um, in 2021, we were trying to, we, you know, we had, an idea for a new route on the Northwest Ridge um and sort of Northwest face, Northwest Ridge of Dallagheri because the Everest season had been canceled and we had been trying to do a new route on Everest. We had tried in 2019 and then COVID happened.

02:59.77
Cory Richards
um And so I had what’s known as a mixed bipolar episode.

03:02.68
Steve House
Okay.

03:06.86
Cory Richards
I have bipolar two. And what that means is that ah you are experiencing, in my case, hypomania, which is one level below mania and also sort of catastrophic depression all at the same time. So your mind is a mess in those moments. It’s incredibly loud and it’s hard to make sense of everything. so One thing that I was clear on is that I had sort of run my course with my climbing and photography career. it was and that you know In hindsight, people could say, well, was that just a bipolar talking? I think it’s a reasonable question, but I think at the moment it was very true and it served me well to walk away. But the reason I bring that up is because it was after that where I had sort of

03:52.19
Cory Richards
abandoned really abruptly these two massive pieces of my identity that I, you know, I needed some sort of creative outlet and I started to write. And then I started to think, wait , maybe there’s something more to unravel here. So I just kind of went back to my childhood and started there. um And, you know, I had a good grasp on it ah about my life, you know, through the lens of psychology, but then I really started to learn and I think I just was trying to get it out. So that is what the book is about. It’s a memoir, but I always describe it like an onion. The outer layer is my life story. um The next layer in is an exploration of the brain and psychology and approaches everything from bipolar disorder to

04:35.31
Cory Richards
postpartum depression, alcoholism, addiction, narcissism, all of these things. But then the central nugget of it is really that we are, you know, consciousness itself is a story. And um that’s what it means to be conscious is to tell stories and that our stories oftentimes expire. And we keep telling the same ones and they form these identities and then those identities can hold us captive. So that’s what it’s about in short.

05:00.88
Steve House
Yeah, and let’s put it, I want to come back to this idea of stories expiring and transmuting into identity and that. But first answer me this question, who is this book for?

05:18.75
Cory Richards
Well, it’s funny, you know, I always kind of really pushed back on my editors because people wanted me to write an adventure memoir.

05:16.39
Steve House
Who will read this book?

05:27.59
Cory Richards
At least that’s what they thought it was going to be. And from the very beginning, I was like, this is not about climbing.

05:29.75
Steve House
a

05:32.60
Cory Richards
It’s not about adventure. I don’t want it to be about that. Of course, we’ll use that as a vehicle, but really, and it’s so cliche to say this, but the book is for anybody and everybody who has lived because it’s really about the complexity of exactly that. and you know I think when I started writing it, I was writing it for me, I was writing to get something out and then there was this beautiful sort of um evolution where all of a sudden I had let it go and i and I started to see that I was writing it for other people so that hopefully, and I don’t want to give myself too high praise here or set too high a bar or be self-aggrandizing in any way,

05:53.57
Steve House
you

06:13.34
Cory Richards
but hopefully that people who read it, whether they’ve gone into the mountains or done anything like that at all, might be able to feel seen through somebody else’s life story. So that’s the highest goal.

06:25.64
Steve House
Hmm.

06:29.21
Cory Richards
But I mean, for climbing and photography, people who love that stuff, even if they’re not climbing, yeah, it’s a great book for that. But for people who love psychology and the exploration of it, it’s a great book for that, but also it’s, you know I really hope it’s about finding our way out of this moment in society where we’re rewarding victimhood and we can all sort of step into our own fullness you know and start questioning our stories and hopefully change them if they’re not serving us anymore.

06:56.04
Steve House
if I love that answer. And I think there’s a couple things. One is how you said that you want people to be able to see themselves. And isn’t that the hallmark of every good story, right? Where we see ourselves in the story. And as I read your book, I certainly saw, I mean, of course, we’re we’re, we’ve been good friends for a very long time. Of course, I saw myself and identified with much of your story. I reckon I knew a lot of your story, though I certainly didn’t know all of it. And

07:28.50
Cory Richards
And you make a great cameo in the book too.

07:27.44
Steve House
I, those, and I make a small cameo, but it’s not about that. It’s about like, it’s about anyone being human and seeing themselves in another story and that identifying with that helps us peel back the layers of our own onion, of our own meaning and our own stories that we tell ourselves.

07:48.00
Cory Richards
Yeah. Our own Russian doll.

07:52.14
Steve House
What our own Russian doll, as you write, I liked that, yep. Who, not who, excuse me. What is your, what does the title of the book mean? Explain to us the color of everything. It’s a beautiful turn of phrase. And I loved the passage, which comes right at the end.

08:17.77
Cory Richards
Yeah.

08:15.48
Steve House
And I was waiting for it for, I don’t know, however many, you know, 300 pages. I knew it was coming and I was just anticipating that and it was so beautiful how you unfolded it. And you don’t have to reveal the whole moment or this whole story, but what is the meaning of the color of everything?

08:33.54
Cory Richards
Well, you know I don’t mind, it doesn’t give it away to sort of describe the scene. you know and at the end At the end of the book, I’ve really gone into

08:40.29
Steve House
That’s true, it doesn’t.

08:47.18
Cory Richards
unraveling storytelling and the stories I’ve been telling myself and I start to see that when I create hard confines, hard binaries in my storytelling, I am this, you are that, you know right, wrong, all of it, I necessarily create otherness. And in otherness, I necessarily create conflict.

09:02.39
Steve House
you

09:08.07
Cory Richards
and Now, binary thinking is part of the human condition. We need it. And at the same time, I started to see that nothing is actually black or white. And I was sitting there and I was looking out at the ocean and it was sort of phenomenal. that the colors were all muted, but I was looking out and that I could not distinguish the horizon. So the sky and the sea had become just a, like it’s a seamless wash of gray. And it, you know, it was like, and I questioned, is there an end in the beginning? Is there a binary in life? And it’s sort of like, there is no black and white. Everything in life is experienced in shades of gray, every single thing.

09:52.52
Cory Richards
And, and that was the sort of the title, it’s gray is the color of everything. And I, but also the book is about all the colors of life too.

09:55.26
Steve House
Thank

09:59.67
Cory Richards
So it’s, it sort of has a double meaning, but it’s to say that it’s not as neat and tidy as we think.

10:01.87
Steve House
you.

10:06.26
Cory Richards
And that’s not the point of life. And the more we can step into that middle, as uncomfortable as it might be, the more softness, compassion we can have for ourselves and for each other, you know, when we kind of let go of the idea of black and white.

10:17.10
Steve House
Mm hmm.

10:20.97
Cory Richards
And I love, I also love like, this is so funny.

10:19.99
Steve House
Yeah. And you totally.

10:23.22
Cory Richards
If you take every color in a paint set and you just dump them all in equal portions onto an easel and you mix them up, what do you get?

10:21.50
Steve House
have

10:31.06
Cory Richards
You get middle gray. You know, it’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s.

10:32.79
Steve House
Yeah. It is also physically the case that it’s the color of everything.

10:37.85
Cory Richards
Yeah. Yeah.

10:37.97
Steve House
You totally had me in that scene of standing there on that beach with you. And I mean, I’ve seen those sunsets you know in the Pacific at various times in my life. So I am really connected with it. I really felt that moment with you.

10:57.01
Cory Richards
I’m happy you were there. Cause you were there. Like seriously, I don’t want to get too woo woo. You were there. You know, everybody that I’ve had in my life is there and they always are.

10:59.15
Steve House
I was there 100%.

11:06.49
Cory Richards
They’re always there.

11:06.20
Steve House
Yeah. Yeah, I don’t think that’s too woo woo.

11:11.72
Cory Richards
It’s not too Venice, California.

11:09.62
Steve House
I mean, I think it’s important. And I think it’s one of the things that we don’t say often enough that, that you were there or you are with me or I, I, you know, our, our friends, even those that we’ve gone separate ways from. are still part of us they’re still

11:42.47
Cory Richards
yeah

11:40.32
Steve House
still with us You know, like, you know, I mean, there’s all kinds of absolutely.

11:43.91
Cory Richards
They’ve changed us, you know, they’ve changed us cellular and they do.

11:46.52
Steve House
Yeah.

11:49.29
Cory Richards
I really believe this. They do live with us in the same way we carry, you know, like an epigenetic code passed down through generations. When we come into contact with anybody, they change us. They change our brain chemistry. They change how we think. They change ourselves and our bodies. We react to them through biofeedback. They literally are with us at all times.

12:06.33
Steve House
Hmm.

12:10.01
Steve House
So one of the things that you know we’ve talked about is this idea. And you this is a book about, this is a story, first of all, and it’s a book about so many different aspects of being human. It’s a book about childhood. It’s a book about brotherhood. It’s a book about being a son. It’s a book about, you know, being a student. It’s a book about being, you know, starting at the lowest rung of the ladder.

12:44.67
Steve House
It’s a book about being a homeless person. It’s a book about being, and you know, bipolar two, diagnosed human. It’s a book about going to, um I don’t even know what you call it this, what was the, I forgot the name now that sort of wasn’t

13:05.75
Cory Richards
rehab.

13:08.99
Cory Richards
It’s called a lifeline.

13:06.50
Steve House
the rehab kind of place.

13:10.60
Cory Richards
Yeah, lifeline for youth.

13:07.99
Steve House
It was like, what was it called?

13:12.27
Cory Richards
Yeah.

13:10.78
Steve House
Lifeline. Yeah. Yeah. Lifeline for you. Like, I don’t know what that kind of institution is, a sort of mental health institution, or is that the right word?

13:19.95
Cory Richards
Yeah. I mean, it was a, it was a, so I, there was mental health, you know, I was in the psychiatric ward and then I was twice and then I was in that, you know, it is, it’s, it’s, yeah it would be called a behavioral rehab, but it was based on the 12 steps.

13:21.48
Steve House
Mental health rehab.

13:34.62
Cory Richards
Yeah.

13:35.32
Steve House
Okay. So behaviorally, I mean, I could go on, right?

13:39.60
Cory Richards
Yeah.

13:39.37
Steve House
A book about climbing, climbing Everest without supplemental oxygen, a book about attempting new routes in the Himalaya, a book about paddling a thousand miles on the coast of, uh, yeah.

13:49.05
Cory Richards
In Africa. Oh yeah. And in Australia. Shit. I forgot about that one.

13:51.83
Steve House
Uh, Australia was going to say, um, but also Africa down the, uh, was that the Congo?

13:58.38
Cory Richards
Oh, the Kuito. Yeah.

13:57.50
Steve House
I forgot. Um, I mean, yeah, the story is just, I mean, it’s a book about so many things. It’s incredible all the experiences you’ve packed into your life. And it’s a book about a story. Like, ultimately, that’s the thread for me that kept coming through.

14:14.91
Cory Richards
Mm hmm.

14:16.35
Steve House
And we’ve already talked about it a little bit. But one of the things that I think that really connects to this Color of Everything idea is the story of victimhood. And you wrote that you started writing this book actually from the mentality of someone who was a victim.

14:36.65
Cory Richards
Yeah.

14:37.24
Steve House
you know and this is what is so interesting and I think connects to so much of what I see going on around me. like in my work as a coach, for example, like people are like, I want to climb Everest. I’m like, you don’t want to climb Everest. And what If you want to climb Everest, I’m not your coach. If you want to become the person that can climb Everest, then I’m your coach. Right?

15:04.23
Cory Richards
That’s beautiful.

15:01.66
Steve House
And so, like, you be be you became a totally different person through writing this book, and you exited the story of your victimness, if that’s a word.

15:14.18
Cory Richards
Yeah.

15:15.91
Steve House
Talk to me about the story of being a victim.

15:20.06
Cory Richards
Well, I mean, like, yeah, I say it in the book. I started writing from a place of victimhood and I think about our culture. I said it earlier, but I think it’s worth repeating. We’re in a place right now where our culture seems to be rewarding victimhood because it’s comfortable um and it’s safe. And so when people learn that they are a victim of something, and by the way, we are victims of things, you know, we are victims of horrific violence, war,

15:45.76
Steve House
Sure.

15:50.12
Cory Richards
assault, rape, ah yeah yeah we are people are victimized. um there’s But what happens and what has happened is we’ve sort of ventured into this new world where we where we understand psychology more and more in a much broader cultural context and people have learned the words and they’ve learned the language is that there seems to be, and I was very much a part of this, the there there’s a tendency to get stuck in the story of this happened to me.

16:15.52
Steve House
Okay.

16:23.42
Cory Richards
And once we understand, once I understand my trauma, I try to bring it back to my experience because I’m not a clinician. I’m not a psychologist. I’m not a therapist. So I just, when I’m speaking, if I’m speaking plural, I really should be talking from my experience. But what I noticed is that I had assimilated and learned the language of psychology, and I had attached myself to my story of trauma. And that gave me sort of a permission to stay in victimhood, look at what happened to me. And in doing so, I could um I could garner sympathy. um It made me stand out. It made me special, right? It made me feel like I was somehow special.

17:13.28
Cory Richards
And in writing the book, I started to see, well, A, I’m not special because of my trauma. And I don’t believe that people are. I believe what makes us special, first of all, we are special innately because we are here and the opportunity and the chance and the probability that we are here living is incredibly rare. ah And that is in and of itself special. um I don’t believe anymore about these, you know in the same way that I feel like sometimes the story of addiction, well, look at me, I’m special.

17:41.55
Steve House
Thank you.

17:52.39
Cory Richards
I’ve got this big burden. I’ve got this big problem. It doesn’t make you special. It gives you something to navigate. It gives you something to do to traverse. It gives you a mountain to climb, but that doesn’t make you special. In the same way that climbing Everest doesn’t make you special. It’s something you did. It’s something that you do. And it’s a process. And the goal there, again, is, like you said, becoming the person that can do it.

18:11.17
Steve House
Mm

18:18.61
Cory Richards
And in the same way, that’s what’s special. And that’s the next step after we learn about our trauma, after I learned about my trauma.

18:19.27
Steve House
hmm.

18:26.50
Cory Richards
And it took years to do this, to step out of that story. ah and for so long, I had the words, I had the words, so it’s so confusing, but I hadn’t actually made that fundamental cellular shift within myself, which is to say that, I’m not I yes, this happened. But I am not a victim any longer. I am not a survivor. I have survived. But even being a survivor, and I’ve said this a number of times, even being a survivor keeps us in some ways changed to that story of trauma.

19:01.73
Cory Richards
And at some point for me, it’s letting go of all of it and just saying, it happened.

19:05.63
Steve House
But I think that, sorry to interrupt, but I think that one of the things that’s so interesting, I mean, we can talk about it sort of extemporaneously.

19:09.99
Cory Richards
Go ahead. No.

19:18.28
Steve House
And it all sounds very wise and good. But we’ve both been there. And when you’re in it, when you are being the victim, like you it’s impossible to see that that’s how you’re

19:32.20
Cory Richards
it’s so hard

19:32.00
Steve House
behaving, at least in my experience, it’s so hard. And so it takes a process of moving out of it. And I would have written, psychology can be an invitation out of victimhood, not into it. But psychology is an invitation out of victimhood, not into it.

19:54.43
Cory Richards
It’s so hard 100%

19:51.73
Steve House
And I thought that was really good because so much of the time I think that, ah and social media, I think, plays a role in this.

20:00.98
Cory Richards
hundred percent

20:00.63
Steve House
where there’s all this stuff going around. And again, these are stories people are telling and then people identify them because they see themselves in the stories of these creators or whatever we call them.

20:11.92
Cory Richards
Mm hmm.

20:14.36
Steve House
And they’re like, oh yeah, that’s me. I’m a victim. like and And they start using these words and they’re a survivor and all this. And I think it’s so one of the things I thought was so brave about your story is how it’s a story about leaving that behind.

20:37.20
Cory Richards
Mm hmm.

20:38.21
Steve House
And, you know, you had, you know, you were diagnosed with bipolar two and you’re what, 15, 14.

20:46.44
Cory Richards
14 yeah, yeah

20:48.08
Steve House
I mean, like if anybody’s handed like a hall pass to be a victim for the rest of their life, it’s a 14 year old kid, like that’s a child, you’re a child being told this and going through all this. And yet through all this, all these journeys, like, you know, there was so many points, especially early in the book, like when you were going through those early years, ah you know, end of your adolescence, early twenties, where I was like, I know he makes it, but I gotta keep reading to find out if he makes it out of here, because it’s like, you know, you’re, you know, homeless, and then you get this job, and then you get fired, and then this happened, like, it’s like,

21:30.42
Steve House
Whoa, this is just insane. So why win? But where the story really takes shape for me is towards the end, where you know after Dallagiri, where you start to have these realizations. And one of the things I wanted to talk about with you, and I didn’t realize we had this in common, was you went and did a 10-day Vipassana sitting, which I have done as well.

21:55.89
Cory Richards
he

21:59.37
Steve House
Mine was a long time ago and I never repeated it. I had lots of excuses for why I never repeated it.

22:05.10
Cory Richards
Right? Yeah, exactly. Me too.

22:08.23
Steve House
But, but it was, it was hugely transformational for me and it gave this, and why don’t you explain to the audience that aren’t familiar with what a Papaccian retreat is, just a quick summary.

22:23.86
Cory Richards
Yeah, so vipassana is a Pali word, which was the language of the Indian subcontinent that um probably Buddha spoke and basically it translates to clear sight or clear seeing. There’s a number of different translations, but the idea is that it’s a basic, very basic meditation practice where You sit in silence and follow your breath, which is so much of what meditation does. Vipassana is basically a retreat. A Vipassana retreat can be three days, seven days, 10 days. It can be a month. But you go someplace and you sit in silence. You do not talk. um And you wake up, you know, and in the case of the retreat I went to or the sort of

23:05.49
Cory Richards
The Hermitage I went to was, um you know, we wake up at 4.30 in the morning and we brush our teeth. And it’s so odd because you’re surrounded by other people, but nobody’s talking.

23:13.12
Steve House
Okay. Okay.

23:18.18
Cory Richards
And so you really hear everything that’s happening. You hear the gurgling sounds. You hear people brushing their teeth. You hear all the farting. It’s so wild. And then you go into the hall and you sit and you meditate for an hour.

23:23.53
Steve House
Okay.

23:30.07
Cory Richards
And then. And then you get up and you silently walk down and eat breakfast together in silence. And this goes on and on and on. So you end up meditating for eight to 10 hours a day, these long days, and then you sleep in, obviously in silence. And, and it’s, it’s so amazing how loud our minds are when we’re not talking. and how much we want to attach to things and how frustrating it is not to be able to express through words.

23:53.51
Steve House
Okay.

24:00.14
Cory Richards
And also for me, what I realized is how much bullshit I say, you know, not to say that like we just spend so much time speaking and it’s, I don’t know if it was, I don’t know this quote and I’m going to murder it, but it’s, and it’s an old one.

24:05.10
Steve House
Mm-hmm.

24:14.25
Cory Richards
It might be Lao Tzu or something, but it’s, uh, you know, those who know, um, don’t speak and those who don’t speak know essentially something like that, you know, and it just made me realize how loud I was in the world.

24:27.89
Steve House
Mm-hmm.

24:30.97
Cory Richards
And then I wanted to be quieter. And that, you know, again, words are the sort of bedrock of the story, we string them together and create shit. And when you don’t have words, you’re sort of left to eat what the fuck, you know,

24:40.84
Steve House
Yeah. you

24:46.57
Steve House
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, one of the big takeaways from it was the, the discipline piece and the, it allowed me to train, I’m already a little ADHD, so you give me like a thing to that i focus on for a long period of time like that and you, you,

24:55.47
Cory Richards
Mhmm.

25:05.41
Cory Richards
Mhmm.

25:10.47
Cory Richards
Mhmm. Mhmm.

25:10.16
Steve House
build that muscle, that had a huge role that played a huge role in my climbing career. I’m convinced because it allowed me to focus and turn all the noise off.

25:17.55
Cory Richards
Mhmm.

25:19.95
Steve House
And it also enabled me to make certain decisions, um which were sometimes controversial. Like, for example, you know there was a huge fan of my life where I didn’t want to watch a movie.

25:33.82
Cory Richards
yeah

25:33.36
Steve House
because you know after that I went and watched a movie and then I realized like these lines were playing back to me in my head and things like that.

25:40.68
Cory Richards
man

25:40.56
Steve House
And I was like, nope, I don’t want that in my head. So I just stopped watching movies. like Things like that, there’s a bunch of little choices like that that really changed how I showed up in the world.

25:52.61
Cory Richards
I think you’re much more disciplined than I am.

25:52.02
Steve House
um Less so now, because it was so…

25:55.36
Cory Richards
you know Like just in general, I think you I look at your career and the way you treated things. I think You know, I was always impressed by the level of discipline that you had towards climbing. Um, it was something I never could get, you know, I could do it in spurts, but then it would fall away. You know, I was always impressed by that. Yeah.

26:16.91
Steve House
Well, we have different minds, right? And is I mean, we can talk about that in a minute, but that’s like, that’s more the natural state of my mind is to see the simplicity, cut things away, move things out that I don’t want to have, like, you know, watching movies or whatever, like I even stopped drinking coffee because, ah you know, like lots of little things like that But now, of course, I you know i wasn’t drinking alcohol. like Now I do like all those things.

26:46.20
Cory Richards
yeah

26:43.81
Steve House
I watch movies. I have beer. I drink coffee. But you know that’s because those things don’t take away from what I’m trying to do in this phase of my life, whereas those things did take away from what I was trying to do in an earlier part of my life. And I had very few resources. right like I had to be super, super careful. like i have no I have no real innate talent.

27:08.33
Cory Richards
Yeah.

27:07.24
Steve House
I had very little…

27:10.22
Cory Richards
I’d push back on that a little bit, but yeah.

27:08.56
Steve House
you know i was funding everything. I mean, the numbers don’t lie, right? Like I’ve, I’ve done all the physiological testing.

27:19.62
Cory Richards
Well, I would say your innate talent is your mind and your ability to distill.

27:17.22
Steve House
Like I’m pretty average in all those ways.

27:24.49
Cory Richards
And the way you could move through the mountains was and is, you know, exceptional. That is the talent. you know

27:33.75
Cory Richards
Yeah, yeah, of course.

27:31.16
Steve House
Yeah. And, but that was more mental than physical.

27:34.67
Cory Richards
Yeah.

27:35.36
Steve House
And you wrote, um I spent most of my life trying to escape my own story of madness. I’ve chased the horizon, confusing it for a perfect future where everything will make sense. I feared being myself because I learned early on that my mind was a dangerous thing. But in the pursuit of an idyllic version of me, I’ve missed the joy of being myself. Chasing the horizon is never wrong so long as we understand that from another perspective we’re already there. I chose to live madly to outrun madness itself.

28:06.79
Steve House
I thought that by rebellion, doing more, being better, and being different, I might be able to out-climb, out-explore, out-create the disquiet of my mind. But what if the noise and madness were the gift?

28:22.21
Cory Richards
Yeah.

28:22.48
Steve House
But, you know, Mike dropped right there for me. but I also wanted to read that passage because, you know, you go to the start line of any ultra or base camp of any eight thousand meter peak and like all the people would identify with this.

28:38.85
Cory Richards
Right.

28:39.63
Steve House
Like everybody is sort of, you know, out climbing, out exploring, you know, the disquiet of their mind. I mean, it’s, it’s often you talk to people and it’s like, why do you love climbing? Well, it’s like, it’s the place where my mind

28:55.49
Cory Richards
distills. Yeah.

28:55.07
Steve House
goes quiet yeah and time stops. Why do you love skiing? Because you know and we have other words for it.

29:06.01
Cory Richards
Right.

29:03.34
Steve House
like I enter a flow state. And I think it’s important for our community to have these conversations because you know not that I want to get dramatic and say we have an epidemic of mental health illness, mental health issues or something like that. I just want people to know

29:27.17
Cory Richards
Yeah I agree.

29:24.94
Steve House
that it’s okay that they struggle with this stuff and that I struggle with it. You certainly struggled with it. Probably everybody else on that starting line or in that base camp is struggling with it in some way, whether they want to admit it or not. And if they don’t want to admit it, that’s also fine. But that’s just, I think it’s more like some version of this is more the norm than not. And we can show up for ourselves and be who we truly are and be like, hey, yeah, I’m sorry. I’m in a bad mood today at breakfast. I’m not trying to throw you guys off. This is kind of me. You know Sometimes I get really depressed and the weather’s been bad and I’m feeling down.

30:11.97
Steve House
and just own yourself. And then on the other side, allow people to be like, okay, things being able to, as we say, hold space for that, which I hate that term. I wish we had better words for that, but do not take it on as an insult or an offense or but just be able to say, okay, man, like that’s cool.

30:28.89
Cory Richards
And also not try to fix it.

30:31.31
Steve House
like Thanks for telling us. um

30:37.24
Cory Richards
That’s the big thing for me.

30:35.42
Steve House
and not try, yeah, exactly. That’s what I mean by old space. Just hear it, not try to fix it, accept the person, continue to accept the person for who they are, and recognize that we all have ups and downs. And if we can do that for one another in this community, you know doubt that’s huge because we’re all doing this in some ways.

30:55.09
Cory Richards
I mean, We’re all, you’re right, you’re in this community, you see these, you see, um and there become these, we tell a story about why we’re doing it, right? And we sort of build, in some ways, I think, false narratives. And we sort of overlay the, we, I would overlay um sort of a grandiose story of why I was doing it. It’s something very poetic story of it ah and without with and sort of skirt the reality, which was

31:29.62
Cory Richards
I don’t really know what else to do and I’m a little bit freaked out when I’m not doing this stuff. So this is the only play I’m going to keep going as fast and as hard as I can because this is what I know.

31:36.77
Steve House
Yeah.

31:41.67
Cory Richards
And ironically, high stress is what I am most comfortable with. But the invitation became, well, why are you so uncomfortable? or why why are

31:47.35
Steve House
fifty

31:52.81
Cory Richards
Let’s look into the stress. Let’s look into why stress works for you.

31:52.91
Steve House
Thanks.

31:57.54
Cory Richards
And that’s when that was sort of the 180. I’m hightailing it forward all the time. And then all of a sudden, the slow down, you’re slowing down and you stop and you go, oh shit, I need to to look behind me. Because it’s always right there. you know and you’re never going to. I was never going to outrun the stress of it all. I was going to outrun it right into my grave. And, you know, and that in that way, you know, again, we build that, you know, this idea of ourselves.

32:28.97
Cory Richards
ah And i and i I mean, I love that passage you wrote, because I really do think I miss the joy of being myself. I really miss joy. Yeah, yeah. The passage you read.

32:36.59
Steve House
The passage I read, yes.

32:39.52
Cory Richards
Yeah. So. um But yeah, it’s strange because I do think, again, it’s the thing we see in our relationships too, romantic relationships.

32:40.99
Steve House
yeah

32:49.37
Cory Richards
We don’t need to fix it. Sometimes when somebody’s upset, you know I heard something once and I try to enact it. When my girlfriend is upset, I like to say, do you need a hug? Do you need an ear? Or do you need a solution? And she gets to choose. And so if she wants me to try to help her navigate it, that’s the solution. If she wants me to just listen, that’s That’s what she needs. If she just wants me to hold her, that’s what she gets.

33:13.58
Steve House
Mm.

33:19.40
Cory Richards
you know And I’m not perfect at it, but that’s what you don’t try to fix it. you know i don’t just for a moment, I just need to feel what it feels like. I also, again, but back to the victim thing, I don’t wanna stay there. But in order to move away from it, I’ve learned that I need to really feel it first, whatever it happens to be. Then I can move through it, that the toxic positivity bullshit just does not fly with me.

33:46.13
Steve House
Yeah, I like that. You wrote, um another passage I want to read, you wrote, and then ties into victimhood. You wrote, i don’t I don’t deny victimhood, but it’s only useful to emancipate ourselves from the pain of trauma. If we stay in the story too long, it becomes a cage. I was a victim for far too long. ah The story of my life, brain, and heart I choose now is this.

34:17.44
Cory Richards
Yeah, yeah, it’s fine.

34:16.12
Steve House
I’m skipping ahead just a little bit. I have a beautiful mind that is unique and wildly creative. I can attest to that. It can be a bit temperamental at times. I can also attest to that. It developed to survive and in survival I’ve thrived. It’s driven me to make beautiful things. It’s driven me to make beautiful things and see the world. I’m not powerless to my sensitivity. My sensitivity gives me power. I embrace my mind even when it’s messy. More and more, my heart guides the ship. It’s not a story of unrealistic expectations of happiness or perfection. If I’m mindful, my polarity can be my depth. It has given me more opportunities to explore.” like So talking about

35:01.56
Steve House
like holding space. I mean, you’re holding space for yourself, but in doing so, Cory, you’re holding it for all of us and for everyone who reads this.

35:11.05
Cory Richards
Thanks, Ben.

35:09.24
Steve House
So I just want to thank you for that. I would actually like to invite you to read a little bit and you told me you selected a particular passage.

35:20.17
Cory Richards
Yeah. Yeah.

35:18.26
Steve House
You want to tell us about that?

35:21.05
Cory Richards
So, I mean, and this goes back, I just selected this because at the end of the day, we, you know, on this podcast and I hope it reaches far beyond the mountain community, but it’s based in the mountain community. And I certainly don’t want people to think that in any way I have anything negative to say about it. I mean, this, this community gave me my life, you know, but. In 2016, I called you and I had, you know, I hadn’t really not been climbing much. I was still considered quite an unquote professional athlete, but if people could pull back the curtain, they would see that I was not a professional athlete by any stretch at that point. So I called you because Adrian Ballinger had reached out and said, Hey, you know, do you want to go try to climb Everest without oxygen? And, um,

36:07.86
Cory Richards
And I was like, well, there’s only one person that is going to train me for that. And it’s Steve. ah And so we had three months and then, and this comes right at the end and there’s some reference to some earlier things that happened in the book, but it’s, um, I also, it leads us to kind of a nice point about this accomplishment concept. Um, but, um, yeah, let’s see here. Um, so I’ve, I’ve, i’m

36:38.65
Cory Richards
Adrian has turned around. It’s summit day on Everest. so It’s dark. I’m alone. Um, this is on the North side there. There I think are two, three, maybe four other teams on the route that day. It’s not like the pictures you see, it’s not some lineup of skittles. So I’m completely alone in the middle of the night, no oxygen. And this is, I think, if you know, maybe four or five minutes here. Um,

37:07.77
Cory Richards
I am alone. I have no oxygen and no backup and no safety net other than my body and an honest accounting of myself. There are five other climbers somewhere on the route, but I can’t see or hear them. My life is apprehended in the confluence of breath and wind. An hour later, I approached the legs of a lifeless body hanging upside down in a tangle of rope. Tufts of loose feathers push through the torn suit, fluttering. I think of Marco and Daria and Peru and the little girl who pushed me and my camera further into this life. I think of all the friends and people I’ve known who are no longer and lose count because my brain is too slow.

37:46.12
Cory Richards
I think of all the bodies I’ve seen on this climb and all the others in various states of decomposition and wonder again at matter changing form. Sometimes they have faces. Sometimes they have mustaches and beards and eyelashes. Sometimes they’re hooded and hidden as if they’re sleeping. Other times they have fingernails and their exposed flesh is yellow and black. Their skin is freeze-dried against bones that stick through, mummified after they took off their mittens in their final delirious moments. Their body and brain became confused and lied, telling them that they were warm and safe to shelter them from an opposite truth.

38:18.32
Steve House
Thank

38:23.06
Cory Richards
Hormones and chemicals saturated their minds, creating a definitive hallucination to comfort them as they took their last breaths.

38:23.54
Steve House
you.

38:30.12
Cory Richards
This is the agreement you make with High Mountains. Here, the slivers here the sliver of space that separates life and death is immediate, implicit, and yet totally incomprehensible. My fingertips scream from cold as I unclip myself from the rope, reaching over the body and connecting myself to the line on the other side. I take a single step and walk further into life than the body behind ever made it. When the sun finally rises, the summit pyramid is washed in fluorescent pastels and my pinky doesn’t tingle anymore. I take out my phone and try to film, annoyed at the intrusion, but the battery dies from the cold and I’m relieved that the final steps will be just for me.

39:10.15
Cory Richards
I don’t know how much time passes between this and the moment I sit down on the summit. An hour, two? When I take the final step, there is nothing and no one, and literally everything on earth is below me. I reach as high as I can and touch space. There is no place left to go. In some fundamental way, I’ve exhausted the search outside of myself for anything that might make me whole, but I can’t see this now. For seven minutes, I sit in silence and my awkward mind is literally the highest point on the planet.

39:49.19
Cory Richards
You know, it’s like I said, it’s not a book about climbing, but I think that moment was so, so much of it was about trying to find something that made me matter. And that’s all tied to the stuff in childhood. And I think that was a moment where I was like, shit, I can’t, I can’t go any other, I can keep doing this over and over and over again, but I’m not going to find anything different. It’s kind of like doing drugs.

40:09.82
Steve House
Hmm. Hmm.

40:14.09
Cory Richards
you know Sure, you get something out of it a couple of times, hallucinogens or psychedelics, right? and then all of a sudden you’re like, I’m just getting the same information over and over again. So now I need to go and take that information, put it to work. It was kind of like, oh fuck, all the work is below me actually. I thought I was going to find something up here, but it’s not here. you know

40:34.08
Steve House
Yeah, it was our patient.

40:37.85
Cory Richards
Yeah.

40:35.99
Steve House
It will wait for you.

40:39.48
Cory Richards
Yeah, I’m right here.

40:37.49
Steve House
No matter how far you go.

40:40.84
Cory Richards
I’m right here. You know, it’s so funny to think of that as like the highest point on the planet without oxygen could be rock bottom.

40:49.34
Cory Richards
And everybody heralds it. I mean, I see people build careers off of climbing Everest with oxygen, you know, and it’s like, and good for them.

40:48.08
Steve House
Right. Right. Hey.

40:56.84
Cory Richards
Like me, that’s great.

40:54.91
Steve House
All right.

40:58.48
Cory Richards
That’s great. I just find it, I’m, it’s dubious to me. The story is dubious.

41:06.10
Steve House
Yeah, I mean, this the again, I think the value of the story is that which others find themselves in.

41:14.92
Cory Richards
Yeah.

41:14.60
Steve House
So, you know, when you’re telling a heroic story of people, and you can become identifiable to people, they will go along on your journey.

41:25.98
Cory Richards
Yeah.

41:25.31
Steve House
And then, you know, of course, you can tell them something on the end of that if you want.

41:29.17
Cory Richards
Right. Sell them some supplements.

41:29.41
Steve House
But I think that

41:33.28
Cory Richards
Yeah.

41:32.39
Steve House
Yeah, these are sort of the, this is sort of the splintering of, you know, the mountains in the sense that, you know, a hundred years ago, just not very long, like, you know, Everest was, was uncharted. It was an adventure. It was unmapped. It was all of these things. You know, unfortunately, unfortunately, I don’t know, but we, you know, because of the age we live in, That’s all gone.

42:03.56
Steve House
There’s no sort of proverbial white spaces on the maps anymore. So we’re sort of relegated to maybe not relegated. That’s perhaps the wrong word. That’s a judgmental word. But whatever it is, nevertheless, we are left with having to make sense of it on our own because we still are drawn to do these things. People are going to climb Everest every single year for as long as there are people.

42:30.32
Cory Richards
Mm hmm.

42:30.64
Steve House
And it doesn’t matter that it’s been done one time before or 10 million times before people will continue to do that.

42:36.72
Cory Richards
Mm hmm.

42:40.18
Steve House
And they will continue to tell stories about it. And this is, this is the, this is the core of your book, right? Like is, is the story that you tell yourself.

42:54.32
Cory Richards
Accurate? Is it? is it is Well, an accurate might not even be the right word. is What is the story you’re crafting?

42:59.39
Steve House
Yeah, fill in the blank.

43:02.20
Cory Richards
Yeah.

43:01.20
Steve House
yeah what is this? What is the story period?

43:07.27
Cory Richards
yeah Yeah.

43:05.31
Steve House
What is it? What is the story you’re telling yourself? because in this book, you tell countless stories about yourself. And it’s you in real time as we read telling ourselves these stories. So that’s where, as I said, you know in the beginning, you’re moving between these descriptions and this inner dialogue, and it’s as the descriptions change, the dialogue, of the inner thinking and realizations, of course, change, and of course mature as you move through your life, but at the end of the day, the stories are sort of repeating themselves in all these different sort of forms or themes, whether it’s

43:53.88
Cory Richards
Mmhmm.

43:58.89
Steve House
someone who’s like a homeless teenager or a man on the summit of Everest without supplemental oxygen all alone. I mean, what, what an incredible moment. Like who, I mean, how many of us get to experience that alone? First of all, climbing Everest without supplemental oxygen, hardly anybody does, but second of all, to be there alone for a few, you know, I mean, amazing.

44:20.22
Cory Richards
Yeah, it was, it was wild. I mean, I was just, I, I, I, I feel like that is one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given was that I was completely alone and and nobody was, I mean, there were a couple, um, there were copper climbers on the, on the final snow slope, but they were.

44:27.87
Steve House
Yeah.

44:30.95
Steve House
That’s amazing.

44:38.04
Cory Richards
Well out of earshot and there are two two of them and ah Right as I was getting to the summit I passed I wish I knew her name. It’s wonderful Norwegian climber and she was coming down but then there was just nobody and it was so sweet and also so I don’t want to say sad there, but there was a sense of melancholy and a sense of solitude.

44:58.22
Steve House
okay

45:03.46
Cory Richards
I don’t want to say isolation, I mean it was but it was solitude. And in that quiet, I think I was offered an opportunity to start to hear something that I really didn’t want to hear. And again, I want to be very clear. I’m telling a story about this. This is the story I’ve created. So I go back and I check myself on it a lot. And I’m like, okay, is this, is this? Is this real? Is this honest to you? And that’s what I guess that’s what I want more than anything is that we just stop and pause and we go, okay, this is all a story. What is it? Is it honest, is it or is it holding me captive? And I think for me in the book, like you said, there’s so many stories I tell, but they start repeating themselves because ultimately it’s about unlearning a story of brokenness from a young age.

45:53.75
Cory Richards
and sort of, you know, telling stories that reinforce that or reinforce that otherness and then and then starting to go, well, wait, the brokenness is bullshit.

45:53.80
Steve House
Hmm.

46:05.82
Cory Richards
You know, that’s a story. it’s I’m not fucking broken. I’m alive. I’m breathing. There’s nothing broken about that. It’s just the way my mind works, you know?

46:17.76
Steve House
Yeah, you wrote, resolution is the work of words and the mind. Acceptance is the work of silence and the heart and the space where all healing takes place. Nothing was ever broken to begin with. Broken was just another story.

46:34.94
Cory Richards
Yeah.

46:34.76
Steve House
We all are unbreakable. And this is, you know, yeah. I just want to encourage people to go and buy your book. I mean, I listened to the audio book as well. I read it some time ago and then I got the audio book and listened to it while I was driving a bit yesterday to kind of refresh some things for this discussion. And it’s really great because you read it and your voices.

47:07.41
Steve House
is really good. You’re a great narrator of your story. I mean, you’re the best. You’re probably, I can’t imagine, I literally can’t imagine somebody else reading your story. It just wouldn’t work for me.

47:19.42
Cory Richards
Yeah.

47:18.91
Steve House
Nevertheless, you know, how can people find you?

47:23.94
Cory Richards
um

47:21.93
Steve House
How can they find your book?

47:24.87
Cory Richards
Well, you know, here’s the thing.

47:23.87
Steve House
What would you like them to do?

47:27.40
Cory Richards
Writing a book, as you well know, is a labor of love. And then you set it free and the world gets to decide. And it really doesn’t belong to me anymore. um It belongs to everybody else. And I think that’s true of all art.

47:37.12
Steve House
That’s so true. That is so true.

47:42.19
Cory Richards
But if you want to find it, it’s, you know, Amazon is, you know, you can find it in your local bookstore. And I encourage people to do that. But Amazon, can you get it anywhere? um And also, I will say this, this you know i don’t want to be I don’t want to be gross here, but like if you like it if you like it, the best thing that you can do to support, and this is true of any book, not just mine, the best thing you can do to support writers is to buy it for somebody else and give it to them. That is truly the greatest gift you can give to any writer, is if you like the book, buy it for somebody else. um

48:17.52
Cory Richards
And then we have another one coming out, which is going to be really fun um this fall. But I’ll sort of keep that under wraps for now. But it’s a photo book. So um Yeah.

48:28.26
Steve House
Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing that as well. um Yeah, and the other thing I would add is that the other thing that people can do for authors is write a review.

48:38.99
Cory Richards
Yeah. Yeah. Write a review.

48:39.93
Steve House
um that that’s also really powerful because ah yeah um but honest write an honest review yeah i think that um you know the the truth finds its way you know and the balance of the reviews you know there’s going to be hundreds of your reviews of this book i’m sure so uh you know one negative review is yeah and so what like i mean and good like

48:42.75
Cory Richards
Unless you hated it. Don’t write that review. No.

48:47.91
Cory Richards
Write an honest review if you like it, you know.

48:58.11
Cory Richards
Yeah.

49:03.99
Cory Richards
And some of them are going to be bad, you know. Oh, yeah.

49:09.51
Steve House
Yeah, it’s not for not everybody’s gonna love it. Not everybody loves the Mona Lisa either, but that doesn’t deny it.

49:15.89
Cory Richards
That doesn’t mean it’s not good. Yeah.

49:16.06
Steve House
It’s great, right? Yeah, so Also, how can they find you and find where you may be speaking or doing book events?

49:26.48
Cory Richards
Um, the best place again, and and I sort of loathe to say this in some ways, Instagram, um, which is just at Cory, Richard C O R Y there’s no E.

49:32.37
Steve House
Yeah

49:36.41
Cory Richards
Um, and also on my website, there’s, there’s sort of a schedule and, and there’s some fun stuff to look at on there, but yeah, Instagram is, is, is. Uh, mostly where I put all that information out. So yeah, it’s just at Cory Richards. Um, and there’s fun book content on there and I still post pictures, but it’s really funny.

49:49.79
Steve House
Okay.

49:55.89
Cory Richards
I’ve lost a lot of followers since I started doing book content. I’ve lost like 50,000 followers. It’s hysterical. Um, which is great. I mean, that’s fine. I just think it’s more of a funny thing to see.

50:03.39
Steve House
Wow.

50:06.22
Steve House
Yeah.

50:09.13
Cory Richards
So. Because people want you to stay the same.

50:09.24
Steve House
Yeah. Yeah.

50:12.76
Cory Richards
They’re like, Oh no, you’re a Nat Geo photographer, climber guy, stay there, stay in your lane.

50:10.16
Steve House
Yeah. No, I mean.

50:17.44
Cory Richards
You know, I don’t want this and I don’t want you to evolve, you know?

50:17.64
Steve House
Yeah, yeah. I went through this when I stopped climbing professionally too. Like I was just like, I think I made a post like, hey, this is going to be like dad content and like weekend warrior content.

50:28.82
Cory Richards
Yeah.

50:30.33
Steve House
And I’m going to talk about a pill athlete of my business. And yeah, I’m sorry, not sorry.

50:37.29
Cory Richards
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And people like, Oh, well, I want you to be like, you’re like, I can’t climb the north twin for the rest of my life.

50:36.74
Steve House
Really not sorry.

50:43.63
Cory Richards
Eat a bag of dicks. All right.

50:44.31
Steve House
Yeah. Yeah.

50:48.10
Cory Richards
You know what I mean? So people try so hard to stay the same, you know?

50:47.56
Steve House
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, think, yeah. Well, keep evolving. It was a beautiful evolution to witness through this amazing book that you’ve written. And I’m sure it’ll, I’m sure it’ll speak to a lot of people.

51:05.99
Cory Richards
Well,

51:05.10
Steve House
And it’s a great thing that you’ve done in releasing this into the world. As you say, like, It’s more like birthing something, I think, writing a book. It’s more of a gestation and a birth than anything else.

51:17.46
Cory Richards
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope that, you know, I really hope that people resonate with it. So anyway, um, I’m really thankful for having me.

51:25.45
Steve House
Well, thank you for your time.

51:29.88
Cory Richards
Yeah.

51:29.72
Steve House
And we’ll put some links to them in the show notes to Cory’s website and other places. And we’ll also have the new book when it gets out. That will be a harder one to do a podcast about as it’s a photo book, but maybe we can squeeze one in.

51:42.39
Cory Richards
Yeah. Yeah.

51:44.85
Steve House
There’s so many amazing mountain books coming out this year.

51:48.40
Cory Richards
Yeah.

51:47.04
Steve House
I love it.

51:50.38
Cory Richards
Awesome.

51:48.41
Steve House
So thank you, Cory. And thank you, everyone. This has been the uphill athlete books podcast. I’ve been your host, Steve House, please. like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and like books. Leave us a review and remember to go gently.

52:09.88
Cory Richards
Yeah. Thanks, dude. That was awesome. All right.

52:12.83
Steve House
ah Yeah, that’s a little, that’s a little Easter egg for those of you that are going to listen to the book or read the book.

52:17.73
Cory Richards
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Take care.

52:18.64
Steve House
All right. Thanks buddy.