Why Dads and Husbands Should Head Outside.

Hey everyone, my name is Danny Dumas and this is the Earn Your Title podcast. Today we're going to start a series on doing hard things and why I think it's important. I'm going to give you some of the things I've done that have really, I can honestly say have changed my life, changed the outlook of what I know is physically possible, is mentally possible. And I'm going to start first with doing hard things outside, outdoor activities. So I'm going to talk about climbing specifically.

but I think you could include hiking and camping and, you know, the outdoor pursuits. I think as men in 2024, it's really easy to be comfortable. It's really easy to, you know, wake up in your climate controlled house, to walk to your climate controlled car, to drive to your office, to sit at a desk for eight hours and to go home and to never really feel any extremes one way or the other. That life is... Not that life is easy, but physically it is.

You know, we're not out, most of us are not out there, you know, sweating for eight hours a day, smashing rocks with hammers to make a living. We're not building railroads. We're not, you know, cutting down forests. We're living easy lives. And I don't think we're meant to. I think we're meant to have challenges. I think we're happier when life is, hard is not the right word, but it's the one I'm going to use. When life is hard, when we,

When we overcome that, right? I think when life is easy, there's nothing to overcome. There's nothing to persevere. Now, you know, putting in 30 years at work, that's an awesome accomplishment, but on a daily basis, maybe you don't feel accomplished. So when I was a young man in my twenties, I had this desire for adventure like everybody does. And one of the ways I explored that was through mountain climbing. And I live in Michigan. So as you, if you're not aware, we do not have mountains.

So I decided, you know, I, I'm going to, I'm going to do this mountain climbing thing. And I signed up for a class. It was a one week class. I went to Mount Baker out in the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. And I spent a week just learning the basics of mountain climbing, you know, walking on ice, walking on snow, using crampons, using, you know, roping up, using harness, camping in the snow. And what was such a great experience.

And as part of that, we had a summit attempt on Mount Baker, which was unsuccessful, which is also a great learning moment with climbing and being outside is that you don't get to decide everything, right? Mother nature has a big say in whether you are or aren't successful. And I think that's important. Understanding that life is more powerful. Nature is more powerful than your ideas that as much as you want to do something, Sometimes there's outside forces that will not let you do that.

And what a great life experience. So we attempted to climb Mount Baker. We were not able to due to some outside forces. But I met two guys. Those two guys, we all had a desire to use these skills that we had just learned. So we booked a trip to Ecuador. And in Ecuador, we climbed several mountains. The big one being Cotopaxi, which is one of the largest active volcanoes in the world. And so we climbed this mountain and I had never been, uh, any higher than like 14 ,000 feet.

Well, this was almost 19 ,000 feet. And what a great experience of feeling terrible. You know, you, you have these, these expeditions where actually Kodopax, we were able to drive up to almost 15 ,000 feet. We walked to 17 ,000 feet, which was the, um, it was the, uh, the base camp. And then we had to climb up to 19 ,000 feet. And just to feel terrible and still continue to do something, I think that's such a life enrichment.

And it's hard and it's supposed to be hard and it's never easy for anybody. And it's this great equalizer. Sometimes you wonder if you're capable. Well, if you succeed, you're capable. And if you're not capable, you won't succeed. You can't cheat your way to the top of a mountain. Everybody has to take the same steps.

It was just a great learning experience. Then we went to go climb the tallest mountain in Ecuador, which is called Chimborazo, and we got weathered out. The storms were terrible. The wind was awful. Visibility was zero, and we failed. And I think that's a great learning experience that you succeed sometimes and you fail other times. After that, me and my friends, we decided to try something bigger, and there's a mountain called Aconcagua. Aconcagua is in Argentina.

It's right outside of Mendoza on the border of Chile and Argentina. And it's the tallest mountain outside the Himalayas. It's almost 23 ,000 feet and it is up there. It's not a technical climb. And this is what I want you to realize. Lots of mountain climbing, lots of these long hikes. you know, if you have zero experience out in the woods, it seems like something that's impossible that you'd have to have years and years of experience.

We hired a guide and most of these are just strenuous walks up a mountain. It's not like for Aconcagua, this big giant mountain. We didn't need crampons. We didn't need ice axes because the route we went on was going to be dry. Um, it's rocky and it's almost always accessible by a extremely well -conditioned person. So we climbed, climbed to the 23 ,000 feet. And again, it took 11 days. Now you don't need 11 days just to go from sea level to 23 ,000 feet.

You could do that and a long day, but because of the altitude, you go up, you out, acclimatize acclimatize, excuse me. Then you come down to a lower altitude sleep and recover. Then you go up a little higher, you go up and down, up and down, up and down. Finally, you make it to the top of the tops of these mountains. And one of the guys we went with didn't make it. He did not make it to the top of the mountain because he, he hadn't prepared mentally. and probably physically.

And it was, um, it was one of the most amazing physical accomplishments I've ever done. I've never felt worse in my entire life. Um, there was one day I got kind of heat sick a little bit. I got dehydrated. The sun's just beating down on you and the atmosphere is not as thick. So the radiation from the sun is really intense. I felt awful and I, I, I did it despite feeling awful. I recovered and I did this.

And I can look back at that moment when I'm having hard times at work, when I'm having emotionally hard moments. And I think I did that. And if you haven't had anything like that in your life, I want you to have that. Now you don't need to go to South America to make that happen. You can, you know, the Colorado, the Rockies, there's all, you know, you in Maine, we just went to Maine the summer last summer.

And I've talked about this on the podcast, but we climb Mount Katahdin, which is only, I don't know, five, 6 ,000 feet. It's the end of the Appalachian Trail I did with my kids and it was such a rewarding experience. They did something hard. They did something that's scary. They did something that's uncomfortable and they succeeded. They did it. And I don't think you can ever, you can't recreate those feelings of accomplishment anywhere else other than outside.

I just don't think that the grandeur of it, the bigness of it. can't be done even on sports teams. And I played sports, I had some winning seasons, I lost state championships. Like I had those experiences. Being outside, doing hard things outside was bigger than that. It was just, it's important. I think you should get out in the woods, in the outdoors and do something. After Aconcagua, we used a guide, we decided, hey, we're gonna do this. We are going to... we're going to do our own thing.

We're not going to get a guide. So we went back to Washington state. We went to Mount Rainier and we climbed Mount Rainier, which is, uh, if you ever been to Seattle, it's the mountain you can see. It's the big mountain and what a great experience. And this was the danger level went up. People die on Mount Rainier. People died on Aconcagua when we were there. Two people or one person died. Another person had to get evacuated by a helicopter. So it's legit. Like there is danger.

And I think as men, we're supposed to do dangerous things. I think when we remove all safety from our lives, we remove a little bit of our manliness. So it is dangerous. So we went to Mount Rainier, we climbed Mount Rainier, we found our own way, we brought our own equipment. We actually almost had failure from the beginning because we all split up what a group of equipment we're going to bring in.

My friend Steven, he forgot the stove, which when you're up at altitude, The only way to get water, you actually don't want to take up gallons of water because it's super heavy. He forgot the stove and I didn't know what we were going to do. We ended up just asking someone who was coming down if we could have theirs and we would send it back to them. I just remember being so relieved when they're like, yeah, sure, here's the stove. And we'd send it back to Texas once we were done. But we did it.

We climbed a mountain by ourselves. And since then, that was, you know, in my early days prior to being married, I've got to do lots of things outside that were hard, arduous, and it was a great experience. It was something that's important. So how do you get into it? So that's what I did. You don't have to do what I did, but I want you to share, I want to share with you, I think some tips that will help you get into the outdoors.

I think fresh air, long trails, a heavy backpack, is character building, it's important, and it's a hard thing that...

We're designed to do so. You don't need to go right to the big massive mountain 23 ,000 feet. Just go take a day trip to a trail and try to walk for five or six miles. Just try to pick the distance you've never walked before and literally just walk a long distance. It's important. It's satisfying. Once you've done that, now, try to find some elevation. You know, for me, Maine is, it wasn't too far away.

And I know there's these mountains that are the Appalachians, you know, if you're on the East coast, the smoky mountains, get out there. You don't need any training. There's the well -marked maps and just go start from the basics. If you decide to go to the big mountains, I do highly encourage you to get training. It is a dangerous pursuit. People obviously die. in the mountains, you need to get training, but you don't need to start there.

You know, you just slowly start pushing yourself, go out to Colorado, hike some 14 ,000 footers, and just stair step your way through these challenges. The equipment that you buy, I do think it's important to have good equipment. For the mountain climbing equipment, I don't think you need to purchase most of it. Most of the places you're gonna go to are... going to be tourist friendly, meaning they want you to come climb and they're going to have equipment that you can rent.

Like I wouldn't, if I had to do it again, I probably wouldn't have bought an ice ax. I wouldn't have bought crampons, but what I would have bought because I live in a cold climate and I did buy was the warm clothing and a good backpack. And if I had to spend some money, I'm going to get good boots. I'm going to buy a quality backpack. I'm going to buy, the nicest sleeping bag I can afford and I did. I bought a Mountain Hardware Expedition bag.

I got it on sale, but this was like a six or $700 sleeping bag, but I've had it for over 20 years. It paid off. When you're going out into the nature, that's not necessarily time to skip on things. You don't want, I don't know, you don't want poor fitting. It doesn't even have to be super expensive, but. I do think you can enjoy it a lot more, but when you come to safety, you kind of have to figure out the right things to do.

So you don't think you need to do the, you know, like a rope, all that, all the technical stuff. You can rent that stuff where you go, but having quality clothing that you can layer, like I wear, against my skin, I wear merino wool all the time, even when I'm not out mountain climbing or hiking or hunting, merino wool base layer. And then, you know, a layering system.

And I kind of like to stick with the same company because I feel like, you know, if you're going to buy, you know, Patagonia, Artteris and Rotherface, they tend to come in systems usually and one fits better. But you know, get on Poshmark and find some new stuff. You know, lots of people buy high quality outdoor equipment and walk to the mall with it. So when they get bored of it, it's more of a fashion statement. You can get some pretty good deals, Facebook marketplace.

It doesn't need to be new, but. do do think it does. I do think it needs to be quality because it makes it safe and it makes it much more enjoyable. So go out and buy the basics. You don't need to buy the technical gear to go mountain climbing and then go get quality instruction. And there is so much, there's so many awesome places in the United States that I haven't been to. But the world is just, you know, the mountains are a special, special place.

I've got to hike in Southern Chile and Patagonia and I just, I can't describe the, how amazing being somewhere where only a few people in the world ever get to go. That is an important feeling. That is an exciting feeling to know that I did this, you know, to get to the top of a mountain with your kids, to look at their face, I think is so important. And I want you guys to get outside and do hard things. And hiking and climbing is something that I think everybody should try once in your life.

Now it might not be for you. Now your outdoor thing might be, to learn how to scuba dive. I don't know how to do that. It might be to learn how to sail, but I think you need to get outside. You need to do something hard outside. And if you need any advice or you're curious about the other steps I might've taken, I want you to reach out to me. As I've mentioned on a lot of these shows, I am looking for guys that want to make a connection and want a little bit of accountability.

So you got a goal to go climb a mountain. Let me be your accountability partner. Let me... you what I did to work out, let me hold you accountable because you do not want to show up to the mountains out of shape. You do not want to show up because it will destroy you.

Of the two other guys I worked with or I climbed with, one of them really failed to get in shape and he failed to climb Aconcagua and he failed to climb all of Mount Rainier because of his physical ability and because he lacked the physical ability, he lacked the mental ability because when you're physically exhausted, it's hard to have courage, it's hard to make good decisions.

So let me help you with that. I want to connect. I'm going to leave my, my contact information in the show notes. So reach out. I really want to have a one -on -one connection. I want to get your six months goal and I want to work with you for a couple of weeks and just really push hard towards that. So do hard things outside. I'm going to have two more of these hard things segments. So I hope you enjoy it. My name is Danny Dumas and this is the earn your title podcast. Bye.