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TEDx Talks
Published: 2012-11-05
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Bd8pNYH8A
how would you rate your life on a one to two overall how would you rate your a question I back in the year two thousand I gave myself a seven I thought it was pretty good I've got a warm bed I've got shelter I've got a good job I have everything I can have an electric toothbrush I had everything I needed I hear myself so I
knew I was wondering what do I need to do in order to get to let's say in a tour ten I wasn't sure I have a degree in religion and I was thinking well maybe I need to go back to the books maybe can get some answers there most thinking about what Moses did he went to get his as he went up Mount Sinai hi and
mountain to to get some of of the tank Mohammed went to out here to get the first revelation of the Ron and even the Buddha went into the wilderness to get his first enlightenment so I think and what about Jesus Jesus also had his most spiritual intense experience in the desert when he comes double and that was one of the most momentous part of his life
so what are the prophet's teaching us the profits are teaching us that perhaps some of the answers to life's most profound questions lie in the wilderness that's where you can find some of the answers to but you seek so it's like all it's interesting what what else does religion teacher it's that pilgrimages are also another way to find the truth if you look at El Camino
Santiago which crosses northern Spain it's a bra to route the people still do today and it's very popular among Christian pilgrims and that's not the only pilgrimage you have the hajj which is what Muslims do they go to Mecca and then they go around the Kaaba this is what is considered the fifth pillar of being a Muslim such a transformative journey it in fact for many
Muslim they make com Muslims once they've completed that fifth pillar of Islam and so for me there's interesting parallels of pilgrimages as will's wilderness but it's not just in the religious tradition look at the secular tradition you have John Muir who went you know John here went into the Sierra Nevada to commune with nature and you also have Walden written by Henry David Thoreau that was
also the pilgrimage into nature so I thought why not combine these two ideas of wilderness and pilgrimage into one idea and to maybe get the answers of what I need to do to nor to bring my life to a seven eight nine and above to attend so I thought about the abolition trail that's what I decide to do it's about two thousand two hundred miles long
but thirty five hundred kilometers and it stretches between Maine and Georgia now most people go north on the Appalachian Trail takes about six months of of hiking to do and so basically you're going from of Maine to Georgia covering all these miles in my case I decide to go the opposite way about only ten percent of people who were going and I start to mount Katahdin
which is the tallest mountain Maine and then I realize you know what after just a few days of hiking I thought this is probably the dumbest idea of getting wilderness and wisdom in the wilderness the second if you look at Lisa's back it's covered in mosquito bites and she's pulling yourself up in the roots of by the roots of trees to complete the trail this was
hard this was difficult this is how do you compare how do you think deep thoughts in nature when also hear the sound of the when you're you're not swatting yourself all the time if you look at the attrition on the trails incredible roughly about ten percent drop out just in the first week so they tell their their significant other honey I'm gonna be gone for like
six months sixties Womack already and it's it's because it's so difficult in the trail is is a lot harder than expected in fact by the end eighty percent have dropped out of the Appalachian Trail and so if you think about that up that's yet perhaps the reason why versus that you get such deep thoughts on the trail maybe that is what separates those who do it
and those who don't they come away with lessons and perhaps because it's the and so we were able to get the Georgia and one lessons I learned was to hike your own hike and the idea of hike your own hike is eleven will say Hey you're wearing the wrong shoes there are no no that backpack is too heavy you're doing too many miles per day people
give you all sorts of advice on the trail and you have to think well actually you should hike your own hike in the woods listen to your bliss make do what makes you happy and so that was what the key lessons I learned from the trail itself is to hike mount hike and to not be obsessed about what other people think they're seven other lessons seven
lessons in total that I learned from the trail but that was what I felt was the cordless now there's another thing I was thinking about on the trail I was I went to Harvard Business School and a Harvard Business School we talked about how to make a billion dollars how to make a billion dollar company raise billion dollars we spend a lot times obsessing about this
issue now in my case I was asking was a totally different question I think a much more profound an interesting question on the trails what would you do with your time time you had a billion how would you spend your days you wake up in the morning and you do whatever the answer a question is that publish your past you love to do that's what you
so I thought myself well for me what I would really love doing is to of the world that's what I would do I don't have a billion us I don't have a million dollars that's what I would do and so I would just wander and explore and learn from from others and learn from nature so I said well why not just risk quit my job my
corporate job I had at the time and then do that restructure my life all will take a big pay cut I make no income for awhile but that was my idea so I decided to go on the Pacific crest trail this was about five years after the Appalachian Trail now the Pacific crest trail but it's twenty five percent longer than the Appalachian Trail it stretches between
Mexico and Canada and most people go north I oneself so I start up in Canada and went through Washington state Oregon state to the cascade mountain range and then through the Sierra Nevada in California and then finally finished in the Mexican border it's about two thousand seven hundred miles about forty two hundred kilometers and it took about four months of hiking sleeping out in the woods
on this is picture me right at the beginning of the trail %HESITATION in Canada and I did go alone on this I went with my you rise when she's in Estonia and she had never been a monster big turning north and %HESITATION this was kind of shocking in fact after the first week she quit %HESITATION because there was just nonstop snow in Washington state of just
covered in snow you can see the trail who's very hard but she after taking about a week off she decided to re gather strength and then go out there again and complete the trail and she was very strong about it in fact if you look at her feet on the trail one point the trail they were completely destroyed arm and yet she got up and was
able to persevere and went on till the end and one of things that motivate us of course the views it's the solitude it's that ability to be away from cell phone from the internet and from all these distractions and it's a luxury that doesn't cost much money and for sleeping outside and so you're just paying for your food affect a little you need to do so
finally when we got to the end of the trail we were able to %HESITATION celebrate at the Mexican border and having completed that journey and that's when I told my you know what I'm gonna go to Estonia I live in a Estonia and then we're gonna travel around Eastern Europe and I'll write a book about that and so that's what I told her that I would
do on the trail a in the end what I ended up doing was not that in fact those plans when Ryan and to explain why that plan didn't work I have to tell you the story about my father my dad was born in France and he live there until he was eighteen years old and he then moved to Argentina at the age of eighteen a live
there for seven years he was current venture he he liked his motorcycle and like to travel around and eventually he emigrated to United States to San Francisco my mom is from Santiago Chile and she left Chile and met my father in San Francisco they fell in love and the eventually got married and a few years after that they had us children %HESITATION might my brother and
I and I would say that our family was pretty good a we had a maybe I would get scalded in three different languages that was the main difference but the overall I think I was blessed we were perfect like no family is but but I would say that I was %HESITATION us pretty fortunate and the the French my parents to get old and my dad on
got cancer in his leg and they had to remove the cancer and he the doctor suggested because he was diabetic and who seventy six years old that they would graft P. of his lower back onto his leg and that would help accelerate the healing process %HESITATION but he wasn't too keen on this idea on because of the fact that it would cause pain in both places
and so about a week before the I was gonna go to Estonia %HESITATION to add this it just happened right after a fish a crest trail he sat me down and he said to me Francis if I were to commit suicide would you think of me as a coward and I said no dad I think it takes a lot of courage to commit suicide I don't
have the balls to do that I can do that but I don't think you should and he said yeah well on the burden to your mom and I sit my mom loves to take care of you that's which that gives her a lot of purpose she enjoys doing and he's like yeah I understand but so that conversation come ended there and I had to go to
a stone I was going to catch my flight and the the day after I ride in Estonia I received a phone call from Amman he said two purpose if with means your dad is gone and I have to fly back two United States here taken a gun and he had shot himself in the head and unfortunately the tragic thing is that he didn't even die at
that instant if his heart was beating his lungs were still working was bring was basically dead so my mom had the unpleasant decision of having to pull the plug this meant that I had to go spend time back home and leave my dreams of Estonia behind but I thought about after spending months with my mom what my dad would want me do what you want me
to feel sorry for myself or more this whole issue no he would want me to pursue my dreams he would want me to go off and continue doing what I love to two in the reason my purpose in life is to just go out there and travel so I decided to go into something more ambitious and give myself more time to think and I was to
do around trip on the continental divide trail it was about nine thousand kilometers or about five thousand six hundred miles I would start the Mexican border and I walked through New Mexico Colorado Wyoming Idaho Montana and I got to Glacier National Park in Canada I which point I turned and walked out walk all the way back %HESITATION this is something I never had been done before
and I knew that I would be having to walk about thirty five miles a day in the wilderness alone and sleeping outside when I told that to the border guard he said he'll never make it because I was there at mile zero and his head you'll never make it in fact when I was going to Colorado %HESITATION walking knee deep in snow had to go through
about a thousand climbers of snow I started doubting my believe the dudes but I persevere and I even went up the house and I didn't know cook food the whole time I was just eating energy bars trail mix that kind of stuff %HESITATION I went to nine pairs of shoes in seven months and I got the candor celebrated for about ten minutes fifteen minutes then turn
around and start walking back to Mexico my dad had been in nineteen fifty six curiously at the parting of the waters where the dip where the continental divide in South America where it divides the the coach in the Atlantic Ocean and there I was forty one years later at this parting of the waters in North America %HESITATION and celebrating a river the only part in North
America where refresh the gets diverted both to the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean right on the con I'll divide I went to fires and I even went through a one point to I I was just surviving on chocolate alone %HESITATION it was I'd run out all my other food which really got old fast %HESITATION it was fun for awhile but eventually he cuddled but the
from there eventually persevered and got to the Mexican border why celebrated %HESITATION at that point my relationship though with my you had ended and up but I still hadn't I didn't feel like I was done traveling I I felt that I want to then sue some more trails after that so I decide to walk across Spain twice the Tierney's mountain is the mountain range divides France
and Spain and I walked across the spine of that mountain from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean was an amazing trip and yet it only took about twenty five days a day after that I walked across Spain again through the alchemy of Santiago bomb the point is is that a lot people say I know Fritz is I don't have five six months to take off
I can't do that I can go on these long trips with this took about three four weeks and so it's a much shorter journey and yet can be equally as transformative an eye opening up for you Anna and have a intense spiritual experience a deep and profound and life changing experience you might say well I'm an American I don't have to weeks three weeks vacation I
can't afford even take that well how about a weekend even just taking a weekend for example Mike has a one up more blood which took forty eight hours I went alone and in trail runners which I don't recommend doing because you'll eventually get altitude sickness once you get up of over fifteen thousand feet but I was able to get to the summit of the tallest mountain
western Europe and that just those forty eight hours really challenge my brain and really put me in a in a new way of looking at things other I'd done something I've never been able to do before you know the theme of this type conference is I sing the baton so what you have to do nor to pass the baton first you have to of course receivable