What He Learned Climbing the World's Tallest Peaks

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I think today we're losing kind of setting a standard for ourselves and maintaining that standard. And people now are either consciously or I think more often subconsciously looking for a free lunch.
Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look.
The Ryan Han Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers You can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business This is the way Before we get going, everyone, I just want to let you know that I have messed this up five times now, this intro And that is a new record Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous conversation for you today with Matt Dawson, former Naval Academy graduate, graduated from the Wharton School as well, Division I football player, highly successful M&A investment banker, turned extreme sports enthusiast and philanthropist.
Matt took on the challenge of climbing the tallest peak on each of the seven continents. He has skied to the South Pole as well as many other extreme challenges.
And his foundation supports athletes that create the continuation of purpose in people's lives. Matt's an incredible guy with an extraordinary viewpoint on what high performance looks like, what it takes to get there, and we spend not our time in the tactics and strategies of high performance, but in the mentality of high performance.
What did he have to go through to be able to climb some of the tallest mountains in the world? What was going on in his head? How did he deal with the isolation? How did he deal with the pain? What was it that drove him through those moments where every particle in his body was screaming for him to stop? And then how can we, bringing that all the way down to our day-to-day lives? How can we do that with the activities in our lives that we have to deal with? The challenges that come in our lives. How do we overcome those? Those small micro decisions that keep us from becoming the best version of ourselves.
It's an awesome conversation. Matt is an incredible guy.
You are going to love this. He has this quote that I'm going to share with you right now just because it just pulled on me.
Our true selves are revealed in the margins. I love that.
My friends, I give you Matt Dawson. Matt, dude, incredibly excited to have you on the show and just appreciate you taking the time.
Hey, thank you. I've been looking forward to this and, and, uh, I tell you all, all my good friends, all the people that know me, call me Dawson.
So please, you know, call me Dawson. Dawson.
It is. And as you can see on my riverside, those watching on YouTube won't, and certainly the listeners won't, but, uh, most people end up calling me Hanley, so we can just go by last names.
Um, all right. I want to start in what might be considered an odd place, but it was one of the parts of your story that jumped out to me the most.
You are obviously a driven individual, Naval Academy. You're trying to become a pro football player.
You're obviously having a successful career there. And then you get injured.
And it's not just like a little injury that has a set timetable that you're going to be back from. This kind of takes you off the board for a while and forces you to have a long-term recovery and rehab.
And that becomes an excuse for most people. A scenario like that, a life-changing injury to your current moment in time, becomes an excuse for most people.
The vast majority of the people would lean on that injury and say, this is why I can't get ahead. This is why I'm relegated to not achieving this initial dream that I had.
And you didn't do that, right? Maybe not right away, and I'd love for you to explain that, but you have pushed through that and are now doing things physically that most people wouldn't even consider. I'm just so interested in what it was, what your thought process was, what you had to go through, what demons you had to fight to say to yourself, this injury isn't going to define what I'm able to do as a person and the goals that I set for myself.
And, and, and maybe you could talk through that a little bit. Yeah, no, it's certainly it's, it's interesting is that it's interesting to me, the, that, that initial question, I think I just, I appreciate that, you know, it's just kind of taken it in a different direction and, you know, I've had so many injuries.
It's, it's of, you know, kind of figure it out. I think the one you're referring to is the bilateral compartmental syndrome, right? I had the surgery.
And, you know, it's funny is that it played such an important role in my life and continues on literally on a daily basis, even decades later. But it's something that I don't get a chance to really talk, you know, that much about this topic.
So when I started playing football at the U.S. Naval Academy, I was a quarterback.
And then after my plebe year, which is freshman year, is I transferred to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, went to a strong safety. But between those two institutions is I had to have bilateral compartmental release surgery because I had compartmental syndrome in both my lower legs.
And what that is, is around all our muscles, we have a connective protective tissue called fascia. It's basically a bag that supports your muscles.
And in both of my lower legs, because of all the exercise I was doing, all the plyometrics, is the muscles kind of essentially just got so big is that they created all this pressure to where it would shut down my deep nerve and my foot would drop and I couldn't pick it up. Like literally, I literally, you know, now I'm out climbing mountains and doing all this kind of stuff.
I literally could not walk up a flight of stairs without being bent over in pain, almost in tears.

It hurts so bad. And so between Navy and Penn is I had to have surgery and they released the all four compartments in both lower legs to where now does have two compartments instead of four.
Long story short is that I lost probably, you know, 30 percent, 40 percent of my speed and power. I mean, it was just gone.

And as much as my mind and body wanted to go, it was like, hey, explode here and pop there and do this and do that and jump and run. I physically just couldn't do it.
And that led to a significant decline in performance. So I went to UPenn.
And, you know, after just a single season of playing there is I quit the team. And it was because I was going through just some different, you know, mental, emotional stuff at the time, but then my inability to perform just, you know, just stacked on top of that.
And I'm just like, I'm not the person I used to be. I'm not the athlete I used to be.
And it took literally years for me to come back from that. So I ended up only playing two years of college football and then trained on my own for three or four more years in order to finally get my speed and power back.
And it wasn't until like my early 20s, you know, 22, 23, when I was training full time in Dallas, you know, after college to play pro football, that I eventually got that back. And it just, it taught me a level of just patience and perseverance, you know, that just, that when I look back on it, I'm grateful for now because it made me a better person.
It expanded my understanding and appreciation of what this stuff can look like. And sometimes it can turn, you know, into long-term.
But, you know, it's still something i struggle with on a daily basis is i still have you know pitting edema in my legs where i just but the the um uh the fluid retention in both lower legs is still pretty bad and i've had multiple surgical procedures to cauterize veins and and you know move things around and flush things out but it's you i'm out there you know, whatever, a hundred miles a week and climbing all these mountains and this and that, but I'm still having to deal with this stuff on a daily basis. It's, it just, it reminds me is that, you know, sometimes you can work on something and you get it, you know, handled and you get it behind you.
And sometimes it becomes part of your life. And you just have to make that decision of, am I going to allow this to negate my ability to perform or am I going to find some way to work around it or to work with it and still perform to the best of my capabilities? Is there a life philosophy? It could be religion, relationship with God.
It could be stoicism. It could be just a philosophy that you developed on your own.
Because I'm intrigued by people that don't let the obstacles that the universe throws at them stop them from achieving whatever the thing is that they want to do, be it physical, be it something in work, something that are, you know, I played college baseball, Division III,

but had plenty of friends play in different levels,

and so many of them have injuries.

It's the nature of sports, right?

And just staying in the sports and physical frame for a sec,

very few who incurred injuries to the level that you did

that would cost you years of a career in sports,

so few of them come back from that.

I'm not going to them come back from that. Most of them are now dad bod, great guys, just dad bod, kind of overweight, making the same excuses that most people make for just kind of trying to get through life and they never reclaim that physicality or even a portion of the physicality they had.
And for having done this show for as long as I have and talked to amazing people like yourself, there's usually something behind it. And for everyone, it's different.
And I'm just interested in what is that? Was there a quote you held on to, a philosophy? Was there a mentor that you could lean on or someone that helped you work through that? because left on our own, oftentimes we can become, you know, with no, with no, uh, anchor point to, to, to, to grab onto in the storm, we often get blown away. And I'm interested in what that was for you.
Man, I think that that's a, that's a great question. It just, it brings up so many different angles, you know, it just, I mean, I think that that's, that's a question we could spend hours and hours just talking about that single question alone.

And what I really find interesting about that.

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It's drawn in other people or other influences, which I think is critical to understand because none of us do this stuff alone. And even when I'm out saying I'm doing something solo and unsupported, I'm really not unsupported.
You know because there's so many people that have come together to create the opportunity that I now have to pursue. So whether it's that or what you're talking about is we don't do any of this stuff alone.
And I think the way that I look at it is I examine my life not in quantity or not in longevity. I'm looking to be around for for 80 years or 100 years or whatever just to have that that that time under my belt is i look at it more of quality and in performance so i'm much more interested is i'd rather be around a short you Are you tired of endless follow-ups and missed opportunities in your sales process?

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And I don't mean just physical. I mean, you know, physical, emotional, psychological, you know, everything kind of tied together.
If I had to think about it, I'm also very big on quotes is I love when people can just really take things down and make them succinct and just make them resonate with you. I think that's a very special special thing.
And one that I've got that actually my parents gave to me when I was 16 years old, they gave me a plaque. It's actually here in my office is it says that bullshit is only skin deep or beauty is only skin deep, but bullshit goes clear to the bone.
And it's a very simple thing. It's kind of crude, I admit.
But it just reminds me is that we have the decision at every single point whether we're going to just kind of skip across the surface of something and just maybe get it done and maybe it it looks good or it sounds good or it presents well, or it's good enough. But we all know deep down, if we gave it our true, earnest, honest effort.
And that's just, I've looked at this thing literally every single day, almost since I was 16 years old. And that's something I'm constantly asking myself.
I'm like, am I just being, you know, beautiful here, you know, in a, in a, in a, you know, theoretical sense, or am I, you know, BS in myself right now in this performance? And it just, I try to set that standard of whatever, whatever it is, you know, whatever, however I perform, it's just in that honest effort where I'm satisfied where the outcome is not as important

to me, but it's the quality of the, of the input, you know, and the, uh, uh, you know, that I'm

putting into it. Yeah.
That's a, so I have two, uh, young boys, uh, 10 and eight and both play

sports and do different things at school. And, you know, that, that message that you just related

to me, I think is one that seemingly feels like it's being lost today, especially in youth sports. You know, I, I bang them over the head with outcome doesn't matter.
It's attitude and effort. Outcome, outcome is a, is a derivative of your attitude and effort.
Like you, you have to be there. You have to be present and work as hard as you can and be proud of your performance.
You know, I, you know, I, I say them all the time. I'm your dad.
I'm going to be proud of you regardless. You know what I mean? I'm going to love you regardless.
But you've got to walk off that field proud or you're going to have something inside you that feels a little off, right? It's attitude and effort, attitude and effort. And we've become so outcome-driven that, you know, that's where you get like these Instagram channels where people are renting sports cars and doing all the cliche nonsensical things to show a life that doesn't actually exist because that's what they think that outcome is what they really want to present, not what it actually takes to get to that place.
And it's why I like, especially with individuals like you've done incredible things and we're going to talk about those incredible things in a minute, but like so few people do the shit that you do. Right.
And I'm, and I love trying to dig into like that, that idea of what, what do you hold onto? And, and, and I guess my question coming out of what you just said is even high achievers have moments where they find themselves in that, you know, that, spot, right? You know, I let a tough day with a lot of stress lead into maybe a few drinks on a Tuesday night, and I wake up, and now I'm hungover on a Wednesday. I know I shouldn't have done that.
It's not who I am, but, you know I had a, now, now, now I'm losing a, a Wednesday because of bad decisions, man, a Tuesday. And, and, and, and again, going back to

kind of, kind of same crux as my original question, some people will either not be aware

that that decision was bad. Some people will just plow through it and go, ah, you know,

it's just one day. And then that leads to more of those bad days and other people's correct themselves and go, you know what, that was a bad decision, I'm okay, I'm gonna move forward.
How do you, how do you, talk to me a little bit about your awareness of your actions and their impact on you, and how you self-correct when you realize maybe you've allowed a bad habit or a negative habit to leak into your life that isn't putting you on the path to the goals that you want to be there? Yeah, this is something that I think about a lot. And I have literally the same conversation with a lot of people that I trust and respect in my network that I admire about what they're doing.
And I think today is, look, it's very important to show ourselves grace. But at the same time, I think today we're losing kind of setting a standard for ourselves and maintaining that standard.
And people now are either consciously or I think more often subconsciously looking for a free lunch. And all I can say is that one of the biggest things I've learned in my life is nothing is free, is that everything has a cost.
Everything. I don't care.
Each success has a cost. Failure has a cost.
And what I try to do is to set a standard in my life and I meet that standard or I attempt to meet that standard. And I don't care about anything else in the sense that it's, yeah, it hurts.
It's supposed to hurt. I'm setting a standard because I want it to hurt because that hurt and that pain is going to help me connect with myself and understand myself, you know, into growth.
And I think that, I think that's what it is where most people are just kind of, we're in, look, I fail all the time is I'll set a standard and I'm like, I want to do this day or I want to be this person. I want to hit this time or whatever.
And I'm telling you is I fail on a daily basis, but it's just, as long as I know that I'm putting everything that I can, you know, into this thing. But if I do get a little sidetracked is having that ability to kind of step back and to, and to not allow myself to repeat that same, uh, you know, habit or that same action over and over and over again, you know, something like that.
And I think it's a combination of understanding is that we are going to fail every single day, allowing ourselves to have that grace, because we have to understand what our ultimate goal is. And is this is our, are our actions and thoughts taking us toward that goal or away from that goal.
So if you fail to meet some standard or fail to perform in some way and you just start beating the shit out of yourself and driving yourself down into this shame hole, is that going to help you achieve what you're looking to achieve? And the answer is no. And sometimes we need to punish or adjust ourselves in a certain way.
But to do it in a sense, ultimately, that's going to help us achieve our goals. So I think it's kind of walking that narrow line of, you know, how you bring yourself back out of it.
So it's just, you know, showing yourself grace, but at the same time, not giving yourself too much leniency because I think, you know, today people are a little bit probably too easy on themselves in a lot of regards. And it's finding that line because, like you mentioned, you go on Instagram or you go on social media or you watch a commercial.
And it's like, oh, it's OK. It's OK to do this or it's OK not to do this.
It's OK. And just buy my product, buy my service, buy my this.
You'll feel better. And it's kind of getting us a little too far afield from where we need to be.
You know, it's funny. I had a conversation with one of the parents.
I coach my older son's baseball team. And, uh, uh, I was, there was a kid on the team who's very talented.
He's a, he's a good kid, but he's completely willing to take entire half a game off because he missed a grounder or struck out. And he'll just literally just give away three innings, head down, you know, standing wherever he is and we'll just give it away.
And, and, and I ride him on that particular aspect. I try to be constructive with it.
And, you know, I'm not like yelling at him because they don't listen to you when you yell, but you know, I'm, I'm on him. I'm on him about it.
I'm reminding him I'm on him. And his mom pulls me aside after one of the games and she's like, why don't you like my kid? You know, blah, blah.
And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The reason that I am on your kid about this particular aspect of his game is because I like him.
Like, because I want him to be successful because I think he's a good ball player because I think he's a good kid. That's why I'm on him about this particular aspect of his game of his personality that is keeping him from being as good as he wants, as he, as I know he wants to be that if I was just letting him do it, that would be me not liking him.
And it's like, was an eye-opening experience for me. It happened just this last summer because it's to your point.
Like we've – I remember being coached and like my coaches in football – I played high school football. I mean they would be spitting on you through your face mask.
They'd be so raging mad. And my thought, and this is, this is the big difference, right? My thought, and, and, you know, I'm sure you was like, Oh, you know, I deserve to get yelled at.
I did, you know, miss that tackle. I did.
I did, you know, I did play the wrong assignment. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I, that I deserve to be yelled at today.
It's, well, why are you yelling at me? Why are you yelling at my son? I'm yelling at your kid because he struck out, put his head down while he was in the field and let a grounder go right by him because he wasn't paying attention because he was so, like you said, a shame spiral about this one thing that happened that happens dozens of times throughout the course of a season. It know what I mean? Like it is a shift.
And before we really – I want to really get into the meat and potatoes of the stuff you have going on. Hey, I'm sorry.
Let me start. If I can just jump in for one second.
Yeah, yeah. Please, please.
I'm just laughing because I'm thinking back to high school, football, college, and even after I've had coaches, you know, damn near rip my head off, like literally grab my face mask and being here and spitting on me and everything else. But it's, it's, I haven't thought about that in a while is one thing I think that that's very important to, to understand the distinction of is when we talk about say performance and, you know, talking about that kid,

you know, striking out, then putting his head down, missing grounders and this and that, is that is not to tie our self-worth and self-love to performance. And this is what I found, you know, when I was coming up through is I inadvertently and subconsciously tied my sense of self-worth and my worth, my feeling of deserving love and of being worthy to my performance.
So it's like I, you know, I sought to achieve in order to prove that I was worthy of being loved or that I was, you know, important or that I mattered. And it took me literally almost four decades to figure out what I was doing and why that was wrong and how that was hurting me in many ways and hindering me in many ways.
And what I came to understand was it's not a matter of earning self-love and self-worth. It's a matter of demonstrating self-love and self-worth.
And that's a huge, huge distinction. And that helps to alleviate us of shame and guilt when we fail to perform.
And that's what these kids need to understand is you keep your head up and you keep pushing and you keep trying because you're showing yourself, hey, I'm worth this effort. We're all worth this effort.
And when I get out there and I'm training for, you know, a thousand hours a year alone in the mountains and, you know, on the roads and in the gym and I'm bleeding and hurting and we're on expedition or whatever, is I'm telling myself, you know, sometimes I'm like, why the hell am I doing this? Like this, this is tough. I don't want to be here.
I want to be doing, I want to eat, you know, eat Cheetos and sit on the couch right now.

And I'm like, listen, man, you're out here because I love you and you're worth the effort. And that's why we're doing this.
And I think when, when people look at it in that way, it helps to, you know, maybe approach it in a different way. And for me, it's been a much more beneficial way.
Yeah, I love that. And I, and I, I think you just made a great point, too.
There's like this, there's this, I think, misunderstanding by the vast majority of people that someone who achieves at a high level, they don't struggle with the same, like, desire for comfort or crappy food or, you know, a beer or something like they do, right? Like it's every high achiever I've ever spent time with in, in my own moments of, of my highest achievement. There's always that part of your brain.
That's like, you know, it'd be great right now to pop a beer and watch the football game and just veg out for five hours. You know what I mean? Like I would love that, but you know, you know, like everyone fights with these battles and it's, and it's a choice and I'd love your And I love your feedback and just where you would take this.
But like that, it's like people who haven't gotten there yet. And I believe everyone's capable.
Like they haven't gotten there. They've never really been at their peak achievement level.
They feel like, well, I'm just not driven like that. Or, or, you know, I really like to relax or, you know, they feel like somehow they have this year.
Yeah. Yeah.
They have this draw to comfort that someone like you who's climbing, you know, the highest mountains in the entire world on, on every count, you don't have that draw, right? You just, you were blessed with, you know, some lack of desire for comfort and fun stuff. And that you're, that's, you're just like predisposed to do this crazy shit.
And I've never found that to be the case, right? Like, you know, world-class athletes, you know, entrepreneurs who've run incredible companies, like they're making a decision every day, Cheetos on the couch or go get this shit done that I told myself I wanted to get done. And one, do you agree with that? And two, like, how do you, when that desire hits you, right? So you're, you're, you wake up in the morning, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna go for a big run today.
I got a time I want to hit, I got to go for a big run. And then your brain, because we all have this inside of us, right? We're our soul, not our body or our brain.
Our brain, well, at least that's what I believe. Our brain says to us, you know what, Matt? Just, hey, we haven't relaxed in a while.
Just pour yourself a cup of coffee, turn on SportsCenter, chill out. You don't need to go for the run.
You went for a long run yesterday. You don't need to do it today.
In that moment, right? Where you really get a strong pull, right? Some days you wake up, you're ready to go. And those days when you get that pull to just, man, that couch is calling my name.
How do you get past that? How do you, what's your process for, for, for making sure that you, you stay committed to the task that you set yourself to? Yeah. I love that.
And it was funny. I was actually thinking about this on Tuesday because I had a big leg workout on Tuesday.
And I call it the bargaining. Is that, well, first of all, let me tell you this, is that every single day I face this question.
Because there's certain parts of every single day where I'm like, I know I need to be doing this, but this over here looks a little more easier or interesting or whatever. But when I talk about the bargaining is there's always a part in everything we do that's demanding where there's going to be some piece of you that's trying to get you to do something

easier.

Or it's like, you know, maybe, maybe my glute is just a little tweak today, or maybe my

heart rate's a little low.

So maybe I didn't sleep quite as well.

Maybe I'm a little bit tired so I can take, you know, a couple of heart rate off this

run, or maybe I'll stop at 20 minutes earlier.

Maybe I'll stop the set three reps sooner.

And I just laugh because I call it the bargaining. And it's like, I've been doing this long enough that I look for it because I know it's coming.
And I still, again, I still do it on a daily basis, you know. And it's like when I was going through this leg workout the other day, you know, this thing was 750 reps per leg.
So you're talking 1,500 total reps. And when I was walking in there, I'm like, oh, I'm going to tear this thing a new asshole.

And I'm ready to go. And I'm motivated.
And about halfway in it, I'm like, you know, it made my glutes a little tweaked. Maybe I can stop this set.
So it's like Ivan face it. But what I think about is that my life is not just about me.
is more importantly, it's the role that I play in the world,

and it's the role that I play in the world, and it's the role that I play in the lives of others. And this ties back to what we were talking about earlier is about setting a standard.
And I know that if I set a standard and I fail to meet that standard, I'm not only letting myself down, but more importantly, I'm letting others down that are depending on me. And these are are people that that may be just you know in my direct everyday lives or this may be people that never meet me but because I honestly believe that everything we do will eventually impact everybody else I feel like I'm letting them down as well and what I think about is when I'm telling people that are close to me hey I love you and I'm here for you you and I will help you in any way that I can.
It's like what what person is standing behind that pledge? You know, what capabilities does that person have? And it's like if I'm, you know, if I'm with a bunch of friends on Christmas morning opening up presents, what person is sitting there? Is that person the one that fought through all those days to be the best version of themselves for everyone? Or did that person give up every single day and now I'm sitting there a shell of the person I could possibly be for them? And I know that that's kind of, you know, gets a little heady and gets a little intense. But honestly, that's how I think about it is when I understand that this is, I'm not just doing this for me.
I'm doing this for everyone. And that helps to kind of increase my perspective and get through a lot of it.
Yeah, there's a lot in there. And, dude, go heady as much as you want because I think the surface level shit doesn't matter, right? This underlying stuff is what really, in my mind, why I do this show.
I do this show not for tactics, tricks, and strategies because we can chat GPT that shit today. I want to know how – it's the deeper questions that keep us there.
I have this TEDx talk that I'm working on that right now is scheduled for the spring of 2025, that is all about the idea of status, right? So you're climbing mountains and skiing to the South Pole, and you played football at a high level. You've been an M&A investment banker.
You've done incredible things, some of which individually would be a life's achievement, and you've done multiple of them. And that sets you apart as a different kind of person than most people we bump into in our lives.
And I have a philosophy or a theory, we'll put it as a theory, and this is where I want your feedback, that there is a large pull on people not to achieve their highest goal because of the change in status that they will experience in achieving that thing. If you want to go climb even one of the highest peaks in the world, you have to dedicate yourself.
You have to put months, if not years of work in,

training, equipment, time away from family,

time away from friends, right?

You can't go get a beer or 10 beers on a Friday

with your buddies watching college basketball

if you're trying to get to this next level physical goal,

which starts to change your status in a community.

All of a sudden, you're not one of the beer drinking buddies.

You're like this fitness guy. And it's these status changes, I believe, status changes up actually restrain us more than the potential for a status change down.
We're like, we can explain away or excuse away or justify away a status change down and people will come around us and you're okay and we're here for you. But it's the status change up, I think that creates the most fear because it takes you out of a community that you know really well and puts you into that you become someone different.
And one, do you agree with that? And two, in your own life, have you had to deal with that and now have you? Yeah, I think that's a fantastic point. And I haven't thought about it in that context, but, you know, just kind of think about it as you're speaking through it.
I think it was, I think it's very well said. I think you've got a great basis there for that talk.
And I'd love to hear that once it finally kicks off. But it's, and that, that is something that I have, I was going to say struggled with, but I don't want to say that it's something that I have dealt with.
And I think it's even my closest friends here in L.A. And I've been very fortunate to build a great network of people that love me tremendously and they're there for me and I'm there for them.
And I'm very fortunate in that regard. But when I started making a lot of these friends is back when I was in my party days, when I was going out four or five nights a week, and I wasn't training, I was out, you know, getting drunk, doing drugs, you know, partying and traveling and, you know, all this kind of stuff.
And, you know, when I moved away from that, and I finally found a sense of purpose in my life for the first time, I found a better sense of direction. I started moving to that is I was naturally, you know, starting to disconnect more and more from those people.
And it was a challenging time. It was a confusing time.
And what I found that worked for me was, is I wasn't asking them what they thought about it or what they thought about me or about any of that kind of stuff. It's I simply determined the direction that I felt was the most authentic in my life at that time that was going to create the best version of myself.
And then just, I knew once you kind of start to get on that path, you can just, you can feel it. And I'm not saying you're going to have total clarity, but you can, you feel a greater sense of just of understanding and connection and ease.
And once I had that, it's that felt so good to me and it felt so right to me that I was willing to risk anything and everything in order to start to move in that direction. And to that point is, is I stopped seeing people that I saw that I would see once a week.
Now I see them once a year, literally, stuff like that. And it's just like we're talking about earlier is every single thing in life has a cost.
You can't do everything all the time. So you just have to understand what is most important to you in that I've lost certain people out of my life, but now I've also gained certain people in my life.
And maybe I have a little bit less of total elements in my life, but the things I have now are more substantive and they mean more to me. So it's a little more austere of a lifestyle, but I enjoy it so much more.
It makes me a better person. And I think it's just, you know, you just have to understand that, you know, things have costs.
Yeah. There's a quote by Ralph Walder Emerson that has been, since the first time I read it, it has been a driving principle.
And at some point I'll have it tattooed on my arm. I'm working on a sleeve on my left arm.
And it's, God will not make manifest the work of cowards. And for some reason, that quote just like the first time I read those words, it just like imprinted on my brain this idea that we know the cowardly decision.
And a lot of people don't like that word because it feels very harsh. I don't necessarily care.
I think we need that type of language in our lives. But we know we can feel it, right? And we're choosing a lesser version of ourselves every time we make those decisions.
We all make them, and that's why we give grace. But that idea that the cowardly decision does not lead you to that promised land, to whatever that is for you.
It could be, I want to be an incredible dad, right? That could be your goal. I want to be there for my kids and be the most awesome.
So don't do the things that take you away. That could be scrolling on your phone.
It could be taking a work phone call at dinner. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't all have to be high achievement that gets you national recognition.
I feel like we misconstrue what living in your terms and authentic life is right. Like everyone's authentic, you know, dialed in peak version of themselves doesn't have to be something that the national news media wants to cover or that monster wants to sponsor, right? It doesn't have to be that it can be whatever that thing is.
I want to be, you know, the best accountant in my town. I want, you know, I mean, or I want to be able to work on this type of deal, or I want to be an incredible spouse or partner or whatever.
Like these goals, the achievement of a goal doesn't have to accrue you recognition to be worthy of the pursuit. And I think that's such an important thing to talk about.
And I, and I just, as you're talking, that's like, I just love your mindset. So, okay, so I want to transition into some of the things that you probably expected me to ask you when you logged in today and we were starting to talk about.
But you had an experience. I want to take first a quick stop in 2016, and then I want to fast forward to 2021 and the things you've done past there.
So 2016, you have two kind of major negative impacts in your life. You lose your mom, you have a hard breakup, and then you go on and start doing solo training.
And correct me if I have some of the timeline wrong, but very interested in this idea of solo training. And I'll give you my experience to why I found this so intriguing that I really want you to expand on it.
I made the very simple decision. I do ruck walks, right? I actually have the 511 ruck vest.
I do 40-pound ruck walks almost every day. And I used to wear ear pods and listen to podcasts and stuff.
And then one day I just walked out of the house by accident. I was thinking about a couple different things, put my vest on, boom, out the house I went, I got 10 minutes into my walk and realized I didn't have the ear pods in and you had all these things going.
Yeah. Yeah.
And all of a sudden I'm like, well, I'm not going back now. Right.
So I did the hour long. I do our, so I go out, you know, whatever, 30 minutes out, 30 minutes back.
And I came back and I was like, the, the, the, the ideas that crept into my mind, uh, the good, the bad, you know, I started, you know, hey, you haven't followed up with this person or, you know, you're slacking on this. Like, sorry, I apologize to everyone.
Decided to take in. Sorry.
So what is it about solo training in particular? And as you state in a lot of your work, distraction free solo training that you found to be so captivating and that became such a part of your life? Yeah, it's so 100% to this point is 100% of my daily training is I do alone. And for me, it's been a critical element to my success.
And I look at why am I doing what I'm doing? And I'm doing it for a variety of reasons because obviously I'm going out there on a physical front to increase my physical capabilities, to increase my technical skills, all that kind of stuff. But more importantly, this training and this physical exertion is I see it as a tool of introspection and self-reflection.
It's simply a tool. And that's why I choose to train alone.
Number one is to make sure that I'm not being motivated by some exterior force or presence because you never know when you're going to be alone. You never know when you're going to have someone there.
And I can tell you in a lot of your hardest moments in life, whether it be actually on a mountain or sitting alone in your bedroom or in the car and you need to make a decision or you need to do something, is you're going to be alone. And so I think in those times, it's critically important to me to prove to prove to myself that I have the ability to perform and I don't need some sense of exterior motivation, you know, to do so.
But also it's, you want to say that it's a tool and allows me to connect with myself and reflect on certain elements about myself is when you get out there and you get in these stressful situations and you don't have that external stimuli. So I'm hearing the theme track to Rocky you know in my head or I'm not hearing some motivational speaker telling me how I can you know adapt and overcome and push through the suck and all this stuff is you'll you'll feel that when the more you get towards your limits the more uncomfort on discomfort that that we experience is our minds tend to speed up and they tend to get noisier and the more discomfort that we experience is our minds tend to speed up.
And they tend to get noisier. And the more you push, the harder you go, the more they speed up and the noisier they get.
And it's almost like you're moving through an hourglass is kind of how I like to think about it. So in the beginning, there's all this room.
There's no pressure. It's nice and easy.
But as you kind of get down to that, that final funnel point and your mind is just, is absolutely screaming and it's wanting you to stop and it's wanting just to come up with every excuse to get out of it. If you can just push through just in that, in that moment, recognize what's going on, force yourself to get quiet, to get comfortable in it, to release into it, not to be scared of it.
And if you can just hang on for sometimes,

it's literally just a few seconds. And I mean that literally a few seconds.
Sometimes it's hours,

sometimes it's days, but you can get through to what I call the other side. And I'm telling you,

things just open up. Your life opens up, your mind opens up, your understanding opens up,

everything you can possibly imagine just opens up to this deeper, greater understanding. And I've experienced that time and time and time again.
When I finally break my personal gravitational field and I get through to the other side and my awareness opens up, my capabilities opens up, it's just, not to sound cheesy, it's a magical feeling. And it's something that you just become aware of and almost addicted to where I know where I'm trying to get.
And that training alone enables me to get to that point more effectively. Yeah.
I was listening to Stephen Kotler, who's a flow researcher, and he different words similar. he said the.
He said the, you know, one of the things he said is the, you have to go through what you just described that sped up, noisy, you know, your, your body's screaming, you know, I'm going to fall apart. Your mind's screaming fear and doubt and all these things.
And like you said, if you can get to the other side, that's where flow lives. And like, you've heard every major athlete and I'm sure you've experienced as well, where like when you can get through that moment, it's like the world slows down, like the doves come out and you're just like, it's like you can see and predict and move and do things that you didn't even know you were capable of doing.
But it is, it's like, and to your exact point, like there's a cost to getting to flow, right? Like people try to do it with drugs. People try to do it with all these different techniques.
And at the end of the day, you just have to paddle through the, the, the tumult to get to the ease. It's just to get there.
Like, it's just, it's impossible. And, um, when your mind is filled with music or someone else's words, you're not what you're not going to get is the tumult.
Right. Those are like keeping you from getting to all that stuff because it's keeping your brain occupied on less than 100 percent on the full task.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. No, you said that very long.
and just one point, I think is important to understand the distinction is that it doesn't have to necessarily be physical. You know, this can be just, you know, psychological, emotional stuff, or maybe you're going to have a conversation with your, you know, with your, your partner, your husband, your wife, your business partner, you know, whatever it is, or, you know, maybe you're going to have, you know, there, there, there's something that, that you've been putting've been putting off, you know, that you something internal that you need to deal with that you've been putting off.
So it's like, it doesn't just have to be physical, is we can find these moments and a lot of different challenges, you know, that we face in life. But the key is, is just to, and this, you know, this ties into, you know, the, you know, the book and a lot of the concepts I talk about of strength and surrender is this ties into surrender.
And what I mean by surrender is not giving up and giving in and going along, but it's, it's, it's moving towards your greatest fears and, and trepidations and challenges and, and allowing yourself to experience them to the absolute fullest and not running from them, you know, cause to, and not fighting them because when you fight them is you feed them, but allowing yourself to feel the magnitude of whatever challenge it is you're facing. That is the only true way to effectively surrender.
And in my opinion, the only real way to get to that other side, you know, fully and authentically as you possibly can. Yeah.
right. We've heard the quote a thousand times,

but the only way out is through.

Okay, fast forward to 2021.

You decide that you're going to start

actually putting real legitimate fear of death

into your life.

You're going to start doing some extreme activities.

Talk to me about,

maybe just explain for the audiences

some of these things that you have done

... into your life.
You're going to start doing some extreme activities. Talk to me about, maybe just explain for the audiences, like some of these things that you have done, the challenge that you set for yourself, and then let's get into why you actually decided to take this on.
Yeah. So just a quick overview, and I apologize because there's a lot of detail here.
So I'll do my best to scale it down. But it's, so in 2018, a very good friend of, Jay Jablonski, and I started Dawson's Peak Foundation, which is a 501c3 that we have.
It's that our mission is to inspire the discovery and pursuit of individual purpose, to get people to understand that we're all capable of living greater lives, not only for ourselves, but for others, the benefit of others, to move from self-centered to service-centered. And the way that we do that is we create large-scale global expeditions.
We sponsor athletes where viewers can draw parallels between themselves and the athletes and say, you know, if this person is doing X, Y, and Z, I can find something comparable in my life, whether it be a physical pursuit or an emotional pursuit, professional pursuit, whatever it is, and I can try to achieve that. So in a nutshell, that's kind of who we are and what we do.
And the current project we have is called Seven for Soldiers, where I'm essentially the guinea pig for it. And the original intent was to set seven world records in 12 months.
So from May 2021 to May 2022, where I would climb, I'd complete the Explorer's Grand Slam, which is climbing the highest peak on each continent, and then ski into the North Pole and the South Pole. I was attempting to be the fifth person to ever do that in a single year, and then trekking solo unsupported across the Mojave Desert and Death Valley, and rowing a boat across the Atlantic Ocean, and then finally flying a plane around the world.

And we were able to accomplish everything that we set out to within those 12 months, except for the North Pole, which got closed down for the fourth or fifth year in a row, this time because Russia invaded Ukraine and that shut that region down. And also the flight, unfortunately, got postponed because the costs associated with with renting aircraft and logistics and in fuel because of covid in Russia, Ukraine went up four or five fold.
So we decided to postpone that to a little bit more of a manageable cost for us. But like I said, within those first 12 months, we're able to achieve everything else we set out to.
Which of those, not necessarily was the most challenging challenging but which brought you the most joy and sense of accomplishment and fulfillment of of maybe the individual treks or expeditions i i like that question because i haven't i don't think i've gotten that question normally it's what was the most you know what was the most challenging like where was the most painful part and all this kind of stuff. So I love you're coming out from a slightly different angle.
I think the one that brought me the most satisfaction or sense of contentment was Aconcagua, which is the highest peak in South America. And reason being is that that was actually my second attempt on that mountain is I tried to climb it back in 2017 before the concept of Dawson's Peak Foundation was was even around before we started anything and at that point I just learned about big mountain climbing and I was just you know trying to go around and and figure out what I liked and didn't like and things like that and at that and at that time as I failed to summit with my entire team because the weather was so bad that everybody got turned around and no one could summit.
But that was my first failure on a mountain. And I mean, granted, I was just getting started.
But I'm not used to failing a lot in my life. I mean, look, I fail all the time.
But I try to, like we said, hold myself to a standard. And when I failed to summit in 17, it lit something inside of me that was just, it was just this inferno that just continued to grow to where years later, it might be on a random Tuesday at three in the morning, I'd wake up just thinking about not summiting.
Like it, it bothered me and I use that as a fuel in my training where I might want to cut a set a rep short. I might not want to go that extra mile or climb that extra 500 feet.
And I was just thought back to failing on Aconcagua. And when I finally got the chance to climb it again in early 2022, I'd just been down in Antarctica for an entire month.
so I was no longer acclimatized. COVID was rampant on the mountains, so I had to take a helicopter into base camp.
So, I mean, I went from sea level to nearly 23,000 feet in three days. And the final 500, 600 feet of that climb, I was in rough, I was experiencing you know how high altitude cerebral edema my vision was going in and out I had really bad diarrhea really bad dehydration like arms and legs are going numb like I mean I was just I was on the verge of really falling to pieces and it took something special you know to find something special in myself to to get that done where I was literally finding, you know, a rock in the snow or, you know, whatever it was that was maybe 10 feet away.
I might just make it that 10 feet, then we'll figure it out. And I did that for hour after hour after hour and finally got to the top.
And as I was joking with my climbing partner, I was like, this is probably the best and worst I've ever felt in my life. That meant so much to me because where I thought my limits were, it just showed me again that there's so much further out there or farther out there than we think that they are.
And look, I'm nothing special in that regard. As we look in distance and we're like, okay, there's my limit if I can just get there.
But when we get there, it's like we can put our hand through the cloud. It looks like a cement wall, but it's just a cloud.
And he's like, well, maybe it's not here. Okay.
It's over there. Then you get there and you're like, you continue to understand these limits are not real things for the most part.
And that was just a good example of it for me. Yeah.
Isn't it interesting that your most joyful moment was accompanied by your most painful moment? It seems like exactly the way that it should be, right? That sense of achievement in that grind. So I have to ask about Antarctica.
I'm very intrigued by that mass that's down there. What is that like? What is Antarctica? I think people just think, you know, you see the penguins and they're near the shore.
And I think that's probably most people's exposure to what Antarctica is. But it's an enormous, it's an enormous mass.
And like, what, you know, what is that environment like? What is, what did it take to get to the actual South Pole? What is that experience like? Because I think it's probably, you know, people can imagine they've seen high mountains, you've seen people climb them, not that they've been there, but they can maybe picture themselves in that place. I think Anarcha seems like, like a.
And we know, I think as a regular people, we get so little information. What is that environment like? And what are the unique challenges of, say, skiing something like Antarctica versus a climb? Obviously, you have altitude, but what are those? How do you mash skill sets from a climb to a ski and managing those different environments?

Yeah, it's – Antarctica is a very interesting place, and I've heard it described by different people in different ways all the way back to the early 1900s where it's – some people call it the great white everywhere or the great white everything. is that when you get down there, you know, especially when you're, say,

you know, because there are mountain ranges in Antarctica,

and mountain vents in Antarctica and then Mount Vincent, the highest peak there is something I had the opportunity to climb. And to your point is there's, there's life around the edges, but once you get into the interior part of the continent, up on the, up on the plateau, I mean, there's, there's nothing.
When you talk about no life, I don't mean, I mean, there's, there may or, you know, some roundworm or ringworm or, you know, something like that. But other than that, there is, I mean, nothing for hundreds or possibly thousands of miles, you know, except for the station that's at the South Pole.
and when you get in that environment when people talk about say colonizing Mars and people get excited about this

I'm like you don't understand

when you say there's a deprivation and absence

of life. And down there, you start to understand what that really means.
And the best way I can think to describe it is, you know, I was skiing for 12, 13 hours a day, you know, trying to get to the South Pole. and just.
And just think about being on, take, take a big treadmill, put it in a freezer that's 30 or 40 below and put it in front of a white wall and just stare at that, you know, put your face a couple inches from that wall and do that for 12, 13 hours a day while pulling a sled. And that's essentially what it's like to ski down there.
I mean, there's just, it's just sensory deprivation in so many regards that it, it forces you, if you're going to deal with it effectively, just forces you to kind of go to a special, to a special place or to a deeper place. and you know a lot of people take you know like we were talking about earlier you know music for podcasts or listen you know they want to listen to something and i didn't take anything because

i wanted that i wanted that additional challenge of being so alone with myself. And it was just, it was a very special place and it was, it was a tremendous experience, but it's, it's just, it's, it can be lonely and isolating if you're not careful and it can be, you know, kind of like a lot of things, it can be destructive if you're not careful, But if you can use it in a conscientious way, it just helps you to have a more full and enriching experience because it enables you to connect with yourself on a deeper level.
Yeah. Yeah, there's so many movies that have been created around the concept of deprivation, of loneliness, you know, isolation and the impact that it has on people, you know, there's, there's, it feels to me like it would be very easy to spin off the planet in that moment.
Maybe a couple, I don't know, you know, how many days in, how many hours in you look around and you're like, am I ever going to get packed? Will I ever, you know, have another, you know, I mean, just the stuff that, that seeps into your mind as it's saying, we shouldn't be here. You know, what are you doing? Why did you take us to this place? Right.
Is there, you know, how did you deal with that, that, that sense of, of, of isolation and come out of it in a productive way and not let it start to eat at you. And, and, and as you said, start to make excuses or, Hey, I, today I can go for, I'm just going to go for 10 hours today and we'll take a few more days of, of camp because, you know, I, I deserve it or whatever.
Like, how do you fight through those nudges when you don't have the, you know, a podcast or motivation in your ear telling you to keep going? Yeah, I think a lot of it, and this ties into a lot of things that we've been talking about with life is it's a matter of perspective. And, you know, too often when we face challenging times, whether it be on a daily basis or, you know, psychological or professional or even, you know, physical is our work.
We have a tendency to make our worlds just very small. And sometimes it's an important and it's actually a critical tool to make our world small, but we can simultaneously have our world small, but our perspective, enlarge our perspective in a greater sense.
So when I was going down there, as I had a chance before I went, and even when I was down there preparing, to read a lot of stories about people that had faced those same challenges, but even to a harsher degree. Like Amundsen, when he was the first to get to the South Pole, Scott, Shackleton, Mowry from Australia.
And I read about what these men faced when they were out there for weeks on end or months on end or they would have to winter over and just all these things that they faced when I was out there, it literally took me a week to ski 70 miles, the last degree. And I was just thinking about, I'm out here for a week.
It's a very challenging environment. It can be very dangerous and life-threatening, certainly, and things can change at a moment's notice.
But when I thought about in a greater context of what these men had been through, what they were capable of, is it showed me what I was capable of as well. Because I felt like if these guys can do it, you know, I can do it.
If they can go to that level of challenge, you know, I can do the same. So it helped me to have a better sense of perspective of what I was facing might be extremely difficult in the moment, but that I was capable of so much more that I just need to find a way to get quiet, to figure this thing out, to push through it.
And then I was more than, you know, that I was able to do it. Matt Dawson, my friends, absolutely incredible.
If people want to get more from you, dive deeper into your world, follow with your journey. What are the places that they should go? And guys, wherever Matt wants us to go, we'll have them linked up in the show notes as well so that you can find it very easily.
But where are those places that they can get more from you? Yeah, I think the biggest thing is my first book is coming out. I'm very excited about it.
It will be released January 7th, 2025. It's called Strength and Surrender.
I actually just got one of the copies here. Sweet.
Yeah, we're just proofing it out right now. But it'll be available for pre-order before that time, but it'll be the audio book, paperback, and the e-book.

And that literally everything that we've talked about is in there and just so much more. So whether someone's interested in just, you know, reading about the mountains and all the training and it was, you know, this tall and the pack weighed this much and it was 100 degrees and all that, like all that's in there.
But more importantly, it's about the story of the human experience, about, you know, my personal redemption from, from being lost to a place of feeling better from,

from, you know, my personal redemption from being lost to a place of feeling better from, you know, going from having a life of self-centered to service-centered. All the things that I've learned, like the biggest things I've learned from strength and surrender.
And it's just I wanted to create a visceral experience that people it's not just a book, but just an experience where people could take it on a different way. So that that's coming out.
And then Instagram is just at Dawson's Peak, P-E-A-K. And then finally, the website is just Dawson's Peak dot com.
And that's my personal website. It links to our foundation.
And the last thing I'll say is, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, but Project 7 for Soldiers is 100 percent of our net proceeds that we raise are benefiting our veteran partners on this, which is Hope for the Warriors and Gary Sinise Foundation. So I'm not making a dime on anything that gets donated.
So please get involved. 100% of the net proceeds are going to those two groups.
Yeah, we have a big – this audience is big supporters of our military and things like that. So, guys, head over, wonderful organizations.
Appreciate the hell out of you, the work you do, and certainly the time that you spent with us today, Matt. Thank you so much.
No, listen, I really appreciate it. I've truly enjoyed this.
I love that you came at it from a different angle. You asked some interesting questions and also I appreciate your insights.
So thank you very much for having me on. Let's go make it look thank you for listening to the Ryan Hanley show be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts ain't anything for me I never switched to no change The only thing changing is...
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