Mark Pattison finally conquers Mount Everest

players to ever scale the Seventh Summits. If you like to hear more about Mark's story, pause here and check out episode seventy one on NFL Players Podcasts entitled Rescheduling Everest Today, Marcus here to discuss the last leg of his Seventh Summit journey, the sin of Mount Everest, and what life has been like ever since. Let's listen in Mark. The last time we had you on the podcast was

May of. You were set to complete your seventh Summit Journey when Mount Everest the highest mountain in the world at twenty nine thousand, thirty two. However, the world got undersieged by COVID. Everything changed. You didn't plan it. You share with us how the pandemic force you to postpone the climb for an entire year. Fast forward to May of, It's goal time. You're on the precipice of as sending lucky number seven. I remember last time on our podcast

you touched on how important visualization is. Take us into your head. It's you and everest now help us to see what you see. Well, and ya, thank you for being on the pod. I really appreciate it. And uh, you know, lots going on since we last talked, And you're right, visualization is so much of it. And until you get up to you know, the death zone camp for five feet, it's just a test of nothing else and just endurance, right, And that's something I didn't quite

factor in in all this. Uh. I think the biggest surprise for everybody's how long you're on that mountain. I was up there for two months. That's a long time to be somewhere at seventeen thousand, five hundred feet. Will start there, working our way up to base camp, which is at that that altitude. Every night going to bed and sub zero temperatures, climbing into a sleeping bag, sleeping on ice, sleeping on rocks, always going into that sleeping

bag with a beanie gloves full park. You know, things on your on your on your legs to keep yourself warm, socks and then climbing up and and you're not eating at the most gormet restaurants up there. In addition to the at uh, this was literally every day we had to avalanches coming down on us. And you know, the

first week, um, it's terrifying. You know, you run out of your tent, like where you're gonna go, where you're gonna hide and and uh, and after about a week of that, it's just you realize there's no place to run, there's no place to hide, and so you just stay in your tent and like if you get hit, you get hit, and that's just the way it is. And then you know, as you as you get into the ice fall, which is called a Kumba ice fall, is a this is now coming right out of every space camp.

It's two thousand feet straight up from seventeen five up to nineteen five to Camp one, and it's it's literally straight up and you're dealing with these gigantic thirtyt ice walls ice columns that are constantly collapsing. I had to go through that thing six times, and um, every single time I went through it, it was a new route. Uh. It was a new route because it's a glacier, and a glacier means it's a frozen river, and because it warms up during the day, all these ice columns and

big rocks and everything else come down on you. And so you know you're navigating through a lot of people get hurt, a lot of people get killed. Um. I fell off a ladder backwards, hit my head. UM. Surprised, lucky that you know, something worse didn't happen. And then and then you know, the just kind of the unknown COVID hit camp up there big time and knocked a lot of expedition parties off. And then we had two cyclones today. So when you and I talked again in

twenty right, we weren't talking about cyclones. We weren't when we were talking about COVID. But I think we all thought it would be over by then, And I wasn't talking about avalanches coming down and ice falls collapsing, and falling off ladders and climbing up sixty ft ice ice ice walls. These are all things that because I didn't have the experience on that mountain, it was just all new for me, and I had to go through that

and mail and get my head around that. But Mark you met Jerry Real and you say you were a surprised. You said, you know about the endurance and those things. You hadn't experienced this mountain but other people had, so I know you did your homework. What was the biggest surprise. It's just it's just a different deal, you know. It's just like you know, we're we're till we're talking ball, you know, in terms of this is what this pod

is about. You know, ex former players coming on and chatting with you, and you know, I I spent a ton of time. I literally saw every YouTube video there was, you know, just see to really scout it out. But until you're in it and you feel that small and you've always seen it and you've seen it in movies, you've seen it on TV shows, and you've seen it

on this YouTube video, it's just a different deal. Just like when you're playing the NFL as a kid, you're watching it on the field until you get out there, right and they blow the whistle and you kick off and run down and you get whacked by somebody like you. It's a different game, right, and like, wow, welcome to the NFL. You know, that's that's the type of thing. So what what did you learn through it? Now looking back telling me this experience. Yes, we headed a football.

It's nothing like until you go on the field. One life lesson have you taken just from this aspect of it what we're talking about, Well, I mean getting back here. I think to me, it ties back into your first question, like you know, you get up there and you're ready to take that on and you know we're we It was very tricky in terms of us even getting into that position. And so what it took is a heck of my mindset, you know, to make sure that this

thing could actually happen. And I had trained um extremely hard, mostly here in some valley Ida who had six thousand feet and going up and down the mountain and going up and down the mountain to train my body. And I had to tap in at the end of the day. I had to tap into all those chips I'd put in the bank. And so having a very strong mental

u mindset of being able to overcome everything. And what happened to me when I set out at twelve thirty in the morning on May days ago was we had a strong wind blown and left right with all these ice particles, and I wasn't wearing the right kind of of of eyewear, and I end up getting snowblind in

the first hour. Okay, so that was number one. Number two is I hadn't been eating really anything in the previous thirty six hours because we thought we'd be summiting around and so I had to run out of food and we're eating this freeze dried stuff that is like sawt ust with hot water on and my system just didn't take well to it. So I was whatever I was putting down, I was coming back up. So I

was running on very little energy. And you just can't underestimate how steep going from twenty six thousand up to nine thousand two feet is and so the entire time it's just a the steepest lab you can possibly manage, and it's just a grind. And I was just not on my game on that particular day. And and where that um a snowblindness really kicked in, which was very difficult, is as you get to the top third of the mountain,

you're going through something called the Hilary step. A lot of famous things have happened up there, and as you're reaching down to try to clip in, uh, your care of beaner, which is attached to your waist on this harness, to a fixed line that is tied to the mountain. Um. That was hard enough because my depth perception. But there's also five other roach land there too from past expeditions that are frayed and cut, and so if you don't tie into the right line, you know, you can find

yourself twelve thousand feet straight down. You're looking at Tibet, you know, down the other side. Not to mention, I'm stepping over dead bodies, you know, and one of which was my tentmate um in Antarctica, Don Cash. And so I was fighting, like all these different elements of going, and I just kept saying, you know, I just keep going,

keep going, don't quit, don't give up. There's so many people out there, like my daughter, both my daughter's but my daughter and Millie who is epilepsy and she's gone through so much and if she doesn't quit, I'm not going to quit. And so it became just a complete battle of trying to get myself off that mountain in one piece. So we know, you prepare it physically. I'm hearing you how you were able to continue to going. You at self talk, How did you practice the mental

point of it? You know, And I really believe this that it goes back to for me. You know, there was no other football player up there, and then I'm in a small club of people have actually pulled this off as being a former NFL guy. But but I really believe it is from my preparation what my coaches taught me back in the day, my Hall of Fame coaches from from Tom Flores, you know, Jim Moore, senior, Don James, my college coach, and others, about what it takes to excel on the field, to keep going to

don't quit no matter what um. And that's really what I had to tap in too. And like I said, I don't think I would have got there if I hadn't prepared my body to go to depths that I didn't know I even had right to pull this up. And the other thing I didn't tell you too, is when you're at twenty six thousand feet plus, it's called the death zone for particular reasons, because you're you're you're you're actually you're you're dying. Your body is going backwards.

And and I had run out of oxygen on the mountain and so this is coming down about five and I literally was gasping for ever trying to get back. And then even once I got back and I got a new tank, uh at, because I spent the night at twenty success from five hundred through a series of mishaps, I ended up spending the entire night with no oxygen and I was hallucinating, I was going through all kinds of stuff. And then I ended up going down the

mountain by myself, which wasn't supposed to happen. And it's the steepest of the steep that you can possibly imagine. So this is where a lot of times people die is when they are coming back down the mountain because you're so fatigued and you're you're not checking in with yourself, you're not clipping in, and people fall over and they just can't make it. And you know, I tell you,

I've never been to that edge before. And there's not many times at least of my life where I was I was saying, today is not the day that Mark dies. I've got to keep going. Today is not the day that Mark dies. And I don't know, I mean, I've never said that to myself, but it happened to me coming down that mountain, so Mark, I was dragging a question point why, a great question? Why? I know a

lot of people, you know. Look, I've always been I've always set some some big goals, you know, And and from from from going and playing at Washington, and and it really taught me to think big, especially when I hit the NFL and Ellen Davis and playing with the Raiders and seeing how big big business works and like you can do. And I kept asking myself like why not me? Why can't I be the guy to be the start Aready went receiver? Why can't I make the NFL?

Why can't I be an executive sports illustrated? Why can't I climb out? Ever? And these other six mountains I got there. I don't know if you remember this, but when we originally talked to I think you asked the question like, how did you get into climbing Wally? You know? And And the reason was because I was going through

a tough time. And look, we all go through rough patches, and and the only thing, after being stuck in this place for a couple of years that I could find myself out of it was put the biggest goal I could possibly think of, and I wanted to do something athletic because I always stayed active. And so I said, can I play in the NFL still? And the answers now and they won't let me back in. And so growing up in Seattle, Washington, I'm sure you played up

there many times. And you've got Mount Raineer out there and all these mountains around and I had, So I had grown up a lot of legends that had had some of the many of these mountains around the world, including the Mount Everest, and I typed in the computers any NFL player ever climbed the seventh Summers I said, I'm gonna be that guy. And it really helped me pull myself out of that dark place and into the

light and through nature just calming me. And and all the gifts have come, um, I mean many many gifts, non financial, but many gifts in terms of what this journey has meant to me. So that's the reason why I got into it. So you're going through a challenging time of your life, and your antidote is to do

something enormously physically challenging. That that was your thoughts. Yeah, it was my thoughts because I I just I had to distract myself as something I could get really excited about, and I had to step into the fear and do something that I had never done before and never done high altitude mountain climbing. I didn't know anything about it.

I didn't even know where to start. And so by putting my energy in that, you know, there's this whole saying that where your where your focus goes, your energy always follows. And so my energy all of a sudden and my focus went towards something I was really excited about, like what was going to happen, And then it just took me into this whole new world and meeting people. And now I've been literally all over the globe. I've been on seven contons. Seven summons represent of the seven

highest peaks. I've been the most extreme conditions. I thought when I originally started this, and the is is that it would be seven summons seven years, but I didn't factor in mother nature and code um. In two thousand and seventeen, I was knocked off Dennelle, which is the highest mountain up in North America and in Alaska, by minus eighty degree weather. And so again it's just like the grit that you've gotta have to come together and

sleeping and being really uncomfortable, um, you know, and suffer. Um. Is this something. I came down and I said, I can't quit this goal. I can't quit this goal. So two eighteen I came back and I was able to summon it. And then just like when we talked in two thousand twenty, I was all set to go, and then the whole world, as you know, shut down one by one. And I put so much into this one goal. Would be like, you're gonna playing the super Bowl, and

now the super Bowl gets canceled? So what are you gonna do? And it's just I reset my mind about a week later and said, you know what, I'm going to create an opportunity out of this disappointment and I'm going to train even harder for what this is gonna be.

And that's what I did. And you know, here I sit now in this place of having just come off Mountain Everest, which you know, I look back on it and I just I pinched myself because I was so much But I just had to do with luck of the weather because we had this cyclone that hit us on the before and after that we came up the mountain. So Mark, when what was the light facing depth? You could have died what what I was? I was. I was just the last person up on that mountain and

I was the last person to come off. I was the only person. I was the last person on that mountain. I was the last person standing on top of that world. It was just me and I had a shirt and my sharp was I couldn't understand the English number one, and so I had a hard time communicating at this I issue that couldn't see and um number two. He was in a big, big time hurry to get back down the mountain because that he had plenty of energy and he was doing great, and I just wasn't happen.

I mean, we all bunk, you know, at certain times, and that's what happened to me. And I was I was a part of a charity program that I'm involved with here in in some valley UM called Higher Ground,

and it's a big, big fundraiser. Got up in front of everybody, and honestly it was like PTSD to a certain expense because I showed this photo of me up on top of the mountain, and then I was talking about what that was like to try to get off the mountain, right, because people said, what's it like when you get out on and you know, you think you'd be up there, like you just scored a touchdown and hands in the air, and I was like, good God,

now I gotta go all the way back down. And I felt the moan out there, and um, you know it, it was very emotional from me, and in front of all these people, you know, I I shed some tears and and and it's like this still this connection between fighting for my daughter um and knowing that she wouldn't quit because she has epilepsy, and my survival of Now I got to figure out how to get all the way down, and you know, I really framed it up because at the end of the day, I actually failed

on my goal. My goal was on that particular day was to climb Mount Everest, come down, calling my tent, and then go back up and climb loads to the fourth highest mountain in the world. And as I was coming down that mountain and I was facing you know, no oxygen, I was sliding on my butt down the mountain, um trying to get back to the base camp. And I was just like if I do that mountain, I will for sure die. And I had to go back to the original goal, which is just you know, everest

is the prize loads thees is to throw in. But I had to, like my ego, had to cough that up and say, you know, there's other things out there. They are more important, like my kids and the girl alm with my my my mom and you know, my friends. And I felt so much love and support out there from all the people that were that we're coming in on Instagram and other places and rooting me on when

I've seen those things, you know, a week before. But I just felt like, you know, that was that and it's just a mad It's just amazing that when you are faced with you, if I lay down right now and I don't keep moving, um, I'm gonna die. I gotta tell you this, this, this this great quote I heard from Martin Luther King that that just really moved me. And he said, um, if you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk,

then crawl. But whatever you do, keep moving. And that is the one thing that I just no matter what I knew, if I laid down and just like let me just take a ten min a nap. You know, I'd never come down that mountain, So I mean it was it was real. It was real, which was hard and coming down that's a great question. They were they were both equal to me because going up was so steep and I had no energy. I mean, I was only I was. I was existing on these small little candies.

That was it going. And I was out there and for eighteen hours. I mean think about like for as football players, you know, we're not durance athletes necessarily. We were going We're sprint guys, right, you know you're a dB I was. I was a receiver, and so it's forty yard desk when you come back and you reaset forty yards and you reset. But eighteen hours for anybody is a long time to be exposed, especially at the

top of the world. And getting up there was just like all I could do, and then getting down just it seemed like it became even harder because I was out there for all that time. And the only fortunate thing for of that day is that the weather had been awful, uh for the month of May except for that day and the day after the cyclone hit it

in and dumped another four feet as snow. So the amount of luck that had to play, Like if the cyclone had hit, and then we would have been back into an in the thin air situation where it was the superstorm that came in. In the condition I was in, I doubt it would have made it off. You doubt you would have made it off. Yeah, I'm thinking of guys who played in the National Football League legends if we would, if our careers would be getting to the top.

I'm hearing some kind of connection to how guys feel when they finished plan going down any point comes to mind as you hear me connect those two just as you were telling a story. That's what was going through my mind. As far as the legend. Yeah, you know,

you're actually you're really insightful. Nobody's asking that question, But I think I want to first say I want to credit trust UM and all the people involved in the NFL for the programs they have developed today, which, as you know, many many years ago, when I came out, there were no programs. You just went off the cliff and UM and so again I was on that cliff right and for two years I was lost, and as

I was coming down that mountain. You know, I felt lost because my shirt would left me and I was the only one up there, you know, coming down, and it's a scary feeling because it is straight down and any mistake you make, it's over. And not just to me just falling over and and and dying like my tentmate from two thousand and nineteen when he died up there. Um. But but just avalanches. Um, you don't clip in and

you trip, you know you're done. There's all these variables that come into it, you know, just the the aralone. You there's something when you get up to that altitude called cerebral which is your brain, adma impulmonary, which is your lungs, a deema. That's where because you're at such high altitude and you have hardly any oxygen, your brain or your lungs swell. And that's why I got so lucky on that particular night. Um, when I spent the night they could. A super came in about ten o'clock

and said, you know, is everything okay? And I said, I ran out of oxygen. He goes, well, we ran out, he can't have any And I'm like, they hadn't, But that's what he told me. And I don't know why he told me that, but that's what he told me. So I spent the entire night. So just the fact that, forget the mountain and everything we've been talking about, just the fact that I survived, you know, another ten hours in my tent with no oxygen was a miracle, you know.

And so going back to your question, I was lost for a couple of years, um and trying to struggle and find a way and find a way and find a way. But what I did find is that you just can't give up. You got to keep going no matter what. And that's what I did, whatever it was twenty plus years ago, and that's what I did, you know, forty five days ago. He was just I can't give up, Ia, just keep going. After you did the challenges you met your earlier and you said because a dark time I

was going through. And once you created these challenges and you begin focusing on these mountains, did it give you clarity to be able to deal with the darkness that precipitated this? Yeah, it sure did. And that's another fantastic question. And it you know, at first you were going through the pain, and how am I going to go forward and and what it was I was going through a

painful divorce. And so I know a lot of guys that are listening to this pod, either a friends or themselves, have gone through this, and so for me it was tough to break up the family and everything. But you know, ultimately I got over that and move forward. And there's this funny little thank called perspective. And as I got traveling around the world and I started getting involved in

in various charities. The first one was with Chris Long and I was in the first class of water Boys, and so I went down to Tanzania and we went into the Serengetti, which is the desert down there, and in Tanzanian visits the people of the Massi tribe and it's just so interesting that, you know, they're one of the poorest countries in the world and they have so little their currency as a goat, yet they're one of

the happiest people I've ever ever been around. And then I just experienced the same thing with in Nepal with all the sharp all they use Napoleon East people, you know,

they make there there. I mean, I think they're lucky if they pull in, you know, six to ten dollars a year totally, and yet they are so happy, and they're so grateful, and every time you say anything to them, they're so you know, there's they're so loving and kind and and you know that the audience can't see this, but I've got these um these cords around the neck, and I was blessed twice by by these holy Lamas that where grant can stay passage and blessings to me

to make it up and down, you know, Mount Everest, and it's just such an enduring thing. So you know, to your question, Yeah, I thought I was in over my head and how could I ever survive this and all this stuff? When I was going through my bad patchman with a little bit of perspective, was going, well, I might be going through a kind of row pass, but I got a way better than a lot of these other people, you know, through the world. Yeah. The other thing I'm hearing what you got in your tight spots.

You were not the only person going up the mountain. It sounds like it was your daughter. It was other people as well that you were thinking about. Tell me about that. I had to as a as a this this, I mean, this was going in both directions, but I could only go like ten steps at a time. So I go, Okay, give me ten steps, and I go ten steps and then I sit through on one knee and rest for another couple of minutes. I go, okay, Amelia wouldn't quit, so I gotta take another ten steps.

So I go another ten steps and then rest on another for another couple of months. I got my other daughter, Claudette. I go, Claudette would never quit. She needs me going on point ten steps and and I just did the same pattern over and over and over and over and over for eighteen hours. And it seems crazy, but I just you know, you you're not talking to anybody. You're all alone out there. I've got a shirt, but who can't communicate in English? And he's just an arrush to

get up and get back down. And so it's just me, like I had to self motivate myself through mentally this mental gymnastics with all these people, and I was going through all the categories, the cousins, the mom that you know, daughters, all these people, and it was just that the supply was endless. And like I said before, it was amazing too to see and feel all the support that I

received mostly on Instagram. Um, I mean people by the hundreds coming into port the journey and whatever I said or however I was saying that it really seems to identify with like this challenge and this this new big challenge and the plight I was going through from not taking showers for you know, a week or two and you know, I never saw myself. I didn't see myself for really for two months, um, in terms of looking in the mirror. Just all those those normal things that

you you you have, you know they'll go away. And so it's just it really meant a lot to me to have all that support. Did at any point you think about quitting, let's just just enough. What's going on with Mark? No, that's it, I'm finished. You never had any thought like that, You know what. I don't go into anything ever with any kind of a I guess, um, having the idea that I'm gonna quit that that's that's impossible to me, you know, like, there isn't anything that

ever going like maybe I'll make it. Maybe. I mean, if you say that to me, it's done. I go into everything with the confidence that I'm going to get it done. And if there's tours, and there's always detours that come in, and I had plenty of detours and obstacles that hit me on that day. We're going to figure out a way to get around it. But whatever

you do, just keep going. And this is serving me well for business, and it served me well for my relationships, and it's certainly worked for and things don't always go you know, it's it's it's rainbows and butterflies. I totally get that, but it's just to me, if you go into these things like half ass, then you're probably gonna get a half ass result. And I saw this in terms of full commitment, and that's really what the that the the response that that you know that comes to mind,

and we had there. You know, there's twenty one in our expedition party that started this and only tenimated at the top, so that's what we're people did not make it. And there was probably three or four in that group that were very, very wealthy individuals that had the ability just saying, no, what this isn't for me. I want to go back and eat New York steak and have a beer and wine and you know which like would

be nor right? I told he get that, but I don't think they were, Like they came into it with a committed right. They came into maybe they're they're eighty percent, maybe they're seventy, but they were committed and so that choice of being able to take a helicopter fly off the mountain was right there for them, which they actually did. And so so yeah, I mean it's all in commitment.

Read again, and Mary, Here's why I asked. Mike Tyson said when he was writing at at his peak, he said, everybody has a game plan untiling you punched in the mouth. That's what made me ask once you went, I know what the plan was, I know what your middle preparation was. I'm talking about once you're blind, Like, I'll find a question, what was it like to be blind? Well, I've never been blind before. I've never experienced that. And I did get punched in the mouth, is Mike Tyson? You know?

And I well a matter of fact, I got punched in the mouth like fifty times, right, And it's haunting and and like gets real, Like even when I pulled into camp in twenty six thousand and five and I'm like, wow, this is barren and this is not a place you want to spend a long time too. I had a dead guy laying in a tent next to me six ft away right, who had died on me twelve from exposure. And it's like, Mark, but you say that like like I had a did guy like like and then you

like move it on. You do know a lot of people are listening when they hear that, that's like, whoa, this is in a graveyard A lot he wasn't. Yeah, well there's a lot of people in the graveyard up there, and it's gone, No, Mark, I'm talking about you. You know, I appreciate. I appreciate your question. What I'm trying to tell you is that as we're sitting here on zoom talking through this, you know, into anybody who's listening. If I were listening, I would say, oh my god, he seriously.

And when you get up there there is there's such a mindset of self preservation because you're hungry, you haven't eaten, you haven't shared in ten days. You know you're you were supposed to be up there. Three days earlier the cyclone hit at Camp three. Our tents were on a forty five degree slow right, we had the avalanche is

coming down on us. Um, you're you're hungry and the only thing you care about is yourself and that's the only way from the time that you get up there, and then you're looking straight up at this daunting like, Okay, this final, this final journey from camp four to the top and back down is going to take everything I got.

And so what what your normal response when you see dead people like my tentmate up on the hillier step and this guy that was laying next to me or tent You know, you have compassion and and you know you feel bad and and and and you kind of go through that and it's just a whole different world when you get up there, and it's just like if you don't pay attention, that's going to be YouTube, right,

And that's how picture it was. Literally when you share that wiment, what I saw was like you are alive and a grade so to speak, because people but you were still alive. And that quote with Dr King, it's like you kept moving no matter what's happened, what you experience, you kept moving. Man. I want to tell you I have a few quick hits on behalf of every legend, all the current players, the league, the owners whoever, Man,

I feel like you did it for us. We are obviously you did all the work, but to have to know that we have a legend that that climbed the seven Summits, kudos man. I got a few quick hits and then we out favorite mountain climb of all time and why I could probably act in Coagua, which is down in Argentina, and uh, that was just fun to be in South America. It was fantastic being Mendoza. Mendoza is like the Napa Valley, so that's where all the

um a lot of the wines come out of. And we just had a great group and I had a great experience and made at the top is the first time I've been to twenty three thou feet with no oxygen, no something mental anything, And uh, it was just a really fantastic time. And it was really a time where I was turning the corner in this dark patch that that I had gone through. Your favorite go to snack when you had high altitude, Well, I would love to have said it was a cheaper, because that's what I

loved you at the time, Right, that didn't happen. Uh, just any kind of bar that will go down. But you know that's the hard thing to do because again there's all these tricks that come into play, and all those bars that you might get a grocery store, they freeze like brick. So the whole trick is how do you keep those things moist so they can actually go down your mouth? Taking on a linebarger across the middle, or taking all elements atop of mountain. Well, listen, I

got hit. I wrote a lot plenty and that was so fun. I think after everything I just went through get by ten Ronnie Lyons. So I'll take Ronnie as he was on the field of forty niners, measure twice cut once are risk it for the biscuit. What does that say to you? Risk it for the biscuit, Risk it for the biscuit? Yeah? Mark, how can people find out more about you and what it is you're doing? It thinks a lot. You can reach me at Mark Pattison,

NFL dot com. I've got on my social channels. It's something I didn't mention the that is this is important that the NFL is doing a film of this whole Everest journal, so that is coming out in early September. They've decided to make it the feat your program on NFL three sixty and hopefully everybody out there can watch and see what I went through. I mean, it's tons of footage. They've interviewed Humillian and former NFL player Jamura, who's my training partner here at Vester, is the world's

greatest mountaineer who lives here in some valley. My daughters are in it, and so it will be I think it's gonna be really exciting. Piece. Well, is there any thing that you've experienced on the seventh Summits that you would like legends to be inspired by that comes to your mind right now? I think the biggest thing for me that I've learned is number one is step into the fear. And we are all fearful of can I do this or can I do that? I think that's a big, big thing, right And then number two is

action creates reactions. So you know, if you don't know which way to go in your stock, which I was um to take a step and and and that step will either lead you in the right direction, or you'll meet somebody will taking a different direction, or at least you'll know that that wasn't the right direction. But whatever you do, we got we were talking about the Martin Luther King, but you gotta keep moving and that's the

biggest key. And then my my quote that I say all the time, I say to my daughter's every day is it takes a little more to make a champion. And you know, I had to train like that and at the end of the day, that's probably what saved my life. Man, Mark, This has been amazing man. Thank you, congratulations. It is an honor. Thank you for sharing your story with us, and the best is yet to come. Thank you so much, Matt. I appreciate all the support from you and the NFL. Oh this has been the NFL

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