Finding Your Summit

Latest Episodes:

Derek Abby is the CEO and President of Project Recover. He is a badass Marine who combined his service with education to get his PhD in leadership. He since has gone onto help recover MIA's around the world and bring back our vets who were lost in war.. Nov 06, 2020

Show notes

176: Derek Abby: Former U.S. Marine with three deployments to Iraq and one deployment to Afghanistan and the President and CEO of Project Recover talks about making the transition from being a young military member at age 18 to the role that education has played in his current work in locating missing military members.

Derek Abby

How did Derek Abby deal with his parents divorcing early on in his life and his mother dying when he was only 13? "As a 13-year-old, you don't usually deal with it very well. You don't have the tools for it. There is no rule book you can read or anything like that, especially back then, and it was completely unexpected. My mom was there, healthy one day, and then had a brain aneurysm and was gone the following day. So, my life was turned upside down. I was 13, completely lost my rotor and sail, didn't really know what direction I was going to go in. I ended up going and living with my aunt and uncle."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Derek Abby, Former U.S. Marine with three deployments to Iraq and one deployment to Afghanistan and the President and CEO of Project Recover about how he ended up joining the Marine Corp. "I never really had aspirations of joining the military. Although, when I was young I kind of looked up to men that had served in the military and they were these role models to me in some ways. In most ways they were fantasies because they weren't really people to me. But, I ran away to the Marine Corp. Honestly, I needed a place to go."

What You Will Learn:

Even though Derek Abby didn't grow up dreaming about being a soldier, it looked like the best option to get his life situated for success. "I was looking at the military because it was an escape. It was something to get me out of where I was. I looked to the military, and I saw the Marine Corp., and honestly like so many young people, they had the best uniforms, and it seemed like the hardest. It seemed like the biggest challenge. I found myself in the recruiters office, and that was an easy sell. Not too long after that I was in boot camp."

What was going on in the world when Derek Abby joined the military? "There was another thing that was going on. When I signed up Saddam Hussein had crossed the border into Kuwait, and we were dealing with him with Desert Storm and Desert Shield. So, he invaded on August 2nd, and on August 30th was when I signed the papers. That was kind of the extra motivation, a way to prove myself, a way to go on and play my part, do something of value, really."

Derek Abby describes what his career trajectory in the Marine Corp. was like. "I was a successful young Marine and I invested in the Marine Corp. I truly gave my heart and soul to it. In turn they invested in me. So, I got an education. I ended up getting a commission and then was commissioned to Ground Officer, actually. All Marines have to go through a six-month school called the Basic School where you learned basic infantry tactics and company-level officer stuff. While I was there, I was selected for Flight School and ended up getting sent to Flight School and became a Marine Aviator."

What exactly is a Plank Holder in the military? "It is an original member. So, when they establish a unit, the very first people in that unit are considered 'plank holders.' It comes from the nautical tradition, the Navy tradition of the Marine Corp., the planks of the ships. I was part of the First Battalion, which is now the First Raider Battalion. It was First Marines Special Operations Battalion when it started, and the first Delta Company over there. I started as a First Battalion Air Officer while we were building out the battalion. Then when we started Delta Company I became the Air Officer for Delta Company, and ultimately the X of Delta Company and deployed to Afghanistan."

In what way did Derek Abby connect his education to his military experience? "I wanted to examine what was the thing that was causing all of this friction for military members when they are separating, and it turns out, for the most part, beyond injuries and things like that, both mental and physical injuries. It is these intangible pieces. So it is that perceived loss of identity and exploring what other identities you hold, having those intimate relationships that you gain and maintain through shared experience, through shared hardship. All of those things going on, deployment, depending on others. Same thing growing up as an athlete, committing your life to it. Then you step out of that system and now you have to find what that new legacy is going to be. What is that new impact or what is your new purpose?"

Project Recover in Action

Derek Abby defines what Project Recover is and the objectives that they have as part of their overall mission. "Project Recover is a non-profit organization and we search for Americans missing in action in our previous wars. That goes all the way back to World War II. Most people don't realise, but there are 82,000 Americans still missing in action, and when they hear POW MIA., things like that, most times they think of Vietnam and that is realistic. But, of those 82,000, 72,000 are from World War II, 7,000 are from the Korean conflict, and now less than 1,600 remain M.I.A. from the Vietnam conflict. We have done work mostly in the World War II era sites. But we have come all the way up to Desert Storm."

Finding Missing U.S. Military Personnel

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Derek Abby also discusses how Project Recover goes about locating missing military members. "We gather information year-round and we do search missions throughout the world based on the information and the data that we gather and we search for sites. We identify those sites. Who is associated with those sites? Traditionally we have turned that information over to the Department of Defense. Their organization is called the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency, DPAA. They have made the decision to do recovery on those sites that we have located. But now our mission has expanded into recovery and cooperation with DPAA. So we are doing everything from initial research, searching the waters and jungles all over the world for these people who are missing."

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
Project Recover's website: projectrecover.org
Derek Abby's social media: Linkedin
Mark Pattison: Instagram

Never Give Up, Never Quit... Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills was sure that he would become another statistic when, during his third tour of duty in Afghanistan, he was caught in an IED blast, four days before his twenty-fifth birthday Oct 30, 2020

Show notes

175: Travis Mills: Former U.S Army Staff Sergeant, President of Travis Mills Group, Travis Mills Foundation, New York Times Best-Selling Author, Veterans Advocate, and Public Speaker discusses his triumphant recovery and successful life after becoming an amputee during combat.

Travis Mills

Did today's guest Travis Mills grow up with his glass-is-half-full positive mentality? "Yeah, I'm pretty sure my parents called it stubbornness. It got me in trouble a lot. But I've always been the same way that I am today, going forward with life after everything that happened to me. The best compliment that I get and the most organic one that they give me is, 'Wow Travis. You are the same person. I didn't think you were going to come out of it the same."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Travis Mills, Former U.S Army Staff Sergeant, President of Travis Mills Group, Travis Mills Foundation, New York Times Best-Selling Author, Veterans Advocate, and Public Speaker, about his unwavering desire to achieve his goals. "I was always on sports teams. So there was that camaraderie. You had to go that extra mile, and do that extra rep, and go the extra hour, and workouts, and things like that just to achieve the goal. How my motto came around, I was actually doing recovery at the hospital and the occupational therapist asked me if I wanted to take a break, and I said, 'I am never going to stop. I'm never going to quit.' She said, 'That was a silly question, wasn't it?,' and I said, 'Yes it was."

What You Will Learn:

What was the drive for Travis Mills to go into the military? "I realised I didn't like school. It wasn't for me. My dad was in the Army. My grandpa was in the Navy. A lot of my family members were in the service, and I thought, let me take a look at this. Then I got talking more and more, and I got really excited about the idea of the Army and the Airborne Infantry, and the signing bonus, and all of that. I had bills to pay. I also had to try something different. I didn't want to live at home. No offense to my parents. I love them very much. But I want to get out and do my own thing."

What is the whole objective when you sign up for the Airborne Infantry? "Airbourne was started in World War II. It was you can basically be anywhere in the world in 18 hours. We are supposed to be anywhere in the world and then you are supposed to be ready to jump into combat so that you can get behind enemy lines or do whatever and jump, and hit the ground running and they called it Light Infantry because you are not in tanks. You are not in vehicles. You jump in with a rucksack and your weapon and you just go into the battle."

Travis Mills explains what happened on the day of his accident in Afghanistan. "I set my backpack down on an IED. It was about a 120-pound backpack and it set off the bomb and when it went off it took my right arm and right leg off automatically.They actually never found those pieces of me. Then the left side of my body, my left arm and my left leg were kind of there, and I don't know. I got thrown to the ground, rolled over, and saw the aftermath of what happened. My metic and my platoon sergeant started working on me and I told them don't worry about it. You are not going to save me. They went ahead and worked on me."

What was going through Travis Mills' mind after sustaining his injury? "Actually I watched a lot of war movies. I still do to this day. I love them. The only thing I saw in my head was the movie Saving Private Ryan, when the medic gets shot in the stomach and he cries out for his mom and he begs not to die, and says, 'I don't want to die.' He starts yelling for his mom, you know? I'm like, my guys will never see that. I always exuded confidence. I led from the front. never showed fear. So, when I got blown up, I was just like, it is what it is. Whatever happens, happens. I realised, nothing I was going to do right in that moment was going to change the outcome of what was going to happen."

What "The only reason I woke up in the middle of the night sweating is because I had the meat sweats from smoking meat. I ate too much. No, I don't suffer from PTSD. People always wonder if I am lying or how can that be. I have shot people. I have killed people. I have blown people up with grenades. I have watched buddies die. I couldn't tell you why it hasn't affected me. It doesn't bother me. I think the more crude sense of humor is, the first thing you feel when you shoot somebody is the recoil of your rifle, and that is just kind of how it is. I was there to do a job. I did my job, and I can separate the two. I can separate Afghanistan from my home life. I have a wife and two kids, and life goes on."

Life After the Injury

What "Nope, I had 19 months recovery at Walter Reade, and then they discharged me and I went to work out with a personal trainer for a little bit. I need to get back in the gym if that helps. This whole COVID thing. But, no, I live a pretty normal life. I own four businesses, either solely or partnerships and then I also run a big nonprofit up here in Maine. So, life goes on. What are you going to do?"

Travis Mills Foundation

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Travis Mills t, "I thought the only reason I want to get better is for my wife and my daughter. So, I might as well figure out how to help people. At Walter Reade, there are so many people doing awesome things. You want to start giving back some way, some shape, some form. We started the Travis Mills Foundation and we were doing care packages, and then we decided to bring families out to Maine that had been to a physical injury, a paralyzation, amputation, spinal cord injury, something along those lines due to service, not necessarily combat, but service-related."

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
Travis Mills: Linkedin Instagram Twitter
Travis Mills Foundation: travismills.org
Mark Pattison: Instagram

Josh Pelland is a former British Marine Commando and Special Opps who lived a life of adventure until he took a 65 foot fall, became paralyzed and has had to fight his way back. His tenacity, grit and shear will have got him back into the lane of life. Oct 23, 2020

Show notes

174: Josh Pelland: Professional Speaker and previously a Climber, Adventurer, ParaAthlete, and in Britain's Elite Royal Marine Commando and Special Ops talks about what life has been like overcoming the struggles in becoming a commando and then overcoming a life-altering 65-foot fall.

Josh Pelland

How did Josh Pelland end up in Britain's Elite Royal Marine Commando and Special Ops? "I grew up in Canada, lived all over Canada. Eighteen I went across and just took a big bite out of adventure and joined the Royal Marines. Main reason for that was the challenge. They have the longest basic training out of any NATO country, eight months. The end product, you know, was to close with and kill the enemy in any environment around the world. All of that sort of stuff I was enthralled with."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Josh Pelland, Professional Speaker and previously a Climber, Adventurer, ParaAthlete, and in Britain's Elite Royal Marine Commando and Special Ops talks about how his sense of adventure began. "Sixteen I went over to Kenya with family friends of ours that were originally from there. I was pretty grateful for that you know and my family being so free to kind of roam around. And they let me cut about by myself at times when I was there. So, I went into ghettos, slums I met and befriended local lads who took me around to their families in the cities in small rural villages. All of these crazy places."

What You Will Learn:

Josh Pelland sets the scene for a suspenseful situation that occurred when he was heading to the Massai Mara Game Reserve to see the elephants and giraffes in a taxi: "There was all of these goats in the road and they belong to the Massai. They were quite shy, these herders, nomadic people, tribesmen. It was really rare to see them and they would run away and hide behind their huts or whatever, the bushes. We didn't really see any of these guys. But when we pulled down into this wati, some of the goats kind of split like the Red Sea and the driver is honking his horn and all of this. As he is pulling up from the right side of the wati to get out of it, I saw this guy from the corner of my eye sprinting across the top and down into the front of the vehicle yelling and screaming and he had his sword out. Then more men came."

What was running through Josh's mind when he was mixed up in this life-threatening event? "There is this language barrier even between the African people I was with and this guy picked up this goat that was in the road, that I could gather at that time was that we hit this goat or something and they were obviously really mad about it. This is their livelihood. Oh no, they are going to extort us for money or they are going to kill this guy or whatever. Then out of nowhere, it just kind of all stopped, and all of the guys that were ahead of the vehicle holding these stones, maybe about 20-30 guys all just started laughing and dusted off the driver. He was visibly shaken. These just threw him back in the vehicle and off we went."

Was there anything that he learned from this intense experience in Kenya that informed his life later? "That whole time in Kenya and the freedom that I have and really seeing the beauty and the brutality of the world at such a young age, when I got put back into school amongst my peers I felt very different from them, a lot more mature. In a sense, I could hold my own already now through these experiences. It just seemed very boring to me, the world that I had come back to, home in Canada, and I knew that there was so much more out there already, and I experienced a huge bite of it and I just wanted more. That kind of thrust me into that adventure."

What did Josh Pelland's time in the Special Ops teach him? "It really taught me to face my fear with courage. So, recognizing the fear within, yet still moving forward, embracing that adversity, especially in that environment and the places I went and the people I worked with. It was a tough environment and I had to embrace it. The cold, the wet, the hunger, that fear. Also, having cheerfulness in that adversity. That is one of the key things is just laugh at whatever is coming down the pike, or that you know is going to come. Dark humor within that environment is a big thing."

After moving out of the Special Ops and into the private sector helping some of the maritime companies down in Somalia, did he have any difficult run-ins? "Our main thing was to build that deterrent. We did that by running rows and rows and rows of razor wire along the outside, having hoses going. So there were times when we did have skiffs approaching. Whether they were there to put in an attack or just probing where we would get weapons out and kind of have a show of force. That abruptly got them to spin around and turn around. We gave the crews, which some of them were very fearful as they had family members being held in Somalia or had been held in Somalia."

Squamish, British Columbia

Where was Josh Pelland when he fell 65 feet and became paralyzed from the waist down?" "I always had it in the back of my mind, I was always dreaming of climbing, continuing it, pushing myself and just learning. So, I committed myself to being a dirtbag, you know? So, living in the back of my truck, traveling all around summer and winter, just chasing the weather and getting after it as much as I could. So in 2016 I ended up falling 65 feet. I was in Squamish, British Columbia on the west coast of Canada, about an hour north of Vancouver. It is where big granite, mecca for rock climbing is. I just went up for a day of climbing. I was rope soloing, so for your audience, it is just managing all of the rope work by myself and using mechanical devices to catch me if I fell. I don't know what happened. About a month after my injury I ended up getting an email from somebody that saw me fall. So, I was just on this band of cliffs. There were a couple of other climbers there. She looked over at me and I was at the top of the climb, and that is how I know it was 65 feet. I was hooked into the anchor point, organizing all of my ropes and all of my gear

Falling 65 Feet

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Josh Pelland discusses life from his perspective after his fall. "I landed on my shoulder and the back of my head hit a boulder. I was still conscious trying to sit up and trying to help, I can't remember. I ended up getting airlifted to Vancouver and I was revived twice in the helicopter. That was pretty brutal. That was probably one of the most difficult times in my life. That first month, I don't really remember much of it. But my mind did revert back to probably the last bit of trauma that I had been through and that would have been in Afghanistan in 2010. I thought I was captured by the enemy and being tortured. I didn't know what was going on around me. But I could hear all of these foreign sounds of the hospital, smells, going in and out of surgery, drifting in and out of reality."

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
Josh Pelland's website: JoshuaPelland.com
Mark Pattison: Instagram

Butch is a former 11 year Army Apache helicopter pilot who helped to protect the ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He went from the Battlefield to the Backcountry in co-founding Kryptek, an outdoor apparel company. This guy is the real deal!! Oct 16, 2020

Show notes

173: Butch Whiting: CEO of Kryptek Outdoor Group, talks about he evolved from his childhood interest in the military, to leading soldiers in Afghanistan, to starting his own business and how all of these experiences connect.

Butch Whiting

Why was it that pushed today's guest butch Whiting to go into the military at a young age? "I was inspired to go into the military by my grandfather on my dad's side. He was the first sergeant in the 81st Airborne in World War II. So, from the age of four years old and on I was hell-bent on becoming an officer in the Army because he constantly told me, you need to become an officer."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Butch Whiting, CEO of Kryptek Outdoor Group, talks about his grandfather's influence in his pursuit not just the military, but also his education. "He was obviously a senior NCO. He also saw the advantages of having a college education, which is not always a prerequisite if you do green to gold. But somewhere along that route you need to get an education as well, and I think that was really what he was driving for. I was one of the very first family members to actually go to college and I got an Army ROTC four-year scholarship and went to Gonzaga University."

What You Will Learn:

What got Butch Whiting excited about helicopers? "The helicopter aspect of it was later on. I didn't go to college now, hey I am going to go to Army Flight School and become a helicopter pilot. I was actually introduced to that when I was a sophomore at Gonzaga University and we did an air assault on a local guard unit in Hueys, and it was super, super exciting for a young guy like I was in college. I started talking to the pilots after we did this mission and they basically started to explain to me, you can go to Army Flight School. You have to be selected. But it is an option and an opportunity."

Butch Whiting expresses the passion he felt about helicopters at the time "I became consumed by Apache Attack Helicopers because it fit my mentality of benign basically a hunter and I was super enamored with what is the most lethal weapons platform on the battlefield, and so you have to hold your breath, because you don't know what you are going to be assigned, what branch you are going to be assigned when you come out of college."

What was Butch's path to Army Flight School? "The OML is based on your performance, your leadership capability that gets evaluated the summer after graduation, your GPA. There are a whole bunch of factors that come in to generate that OML, and they just start to fill in the quotas. So, you might have a year where they need a project that they know they need 50 commissioned officers in Army Aviation. They start to fill those in and once they get to 50, then you are going to go to your second choice. So, for me I put down Army Aviation, Armor, Infantry, and fortunately I was able to get a slot in Army Flight School. Then you are back to competing again."

What was the reason Butch Whiting left his role in the military in 2008? "At the end of the day, the reason why I separated was not because I didn't love what I was doing. It was because I was gone so much from my family. At one point I had my oldest daughter who was 6-years-old. I was gone four out of her six years, and my youngest was 4-years-old and I was gone three out of four."

What was it like being in the cockpit of an Apache Helicopter? "We were forced back in to use these techniques that really hadn't been employed since Vietnam. Running fire. Diving fire. High-energy tactics is what that was called and it was simply because you didn't have enough power to do what we were trained to do before 911, before we went into Afghanistan."

Kryptek Outdoor Group

What were the inspirations for Butch Whiting's company Kryptek Outdoor Group? "The war on terror accelerated everything across the entire spectrum for war fighters. So, from weapons to communications and just systems in themselves, platforms, vehicles, body armor, you name it, there is just this giant snowball of improvements that are starting to happen, including into apparel. The lead on the apparel improvements was really happening at the spec ops level that then would spiral down. But we saw a lot of those improvements that were happening and going, dude, that would be epic to have in the backcountry elk hunting."

Military-Inspired Hunting Apparel

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, "We saw pocket placement that was designed simply for guys that are sitting like we are now in an aircraft and you need to access certain things which is no different from a guy sitting in a tree stand or a deer blind. How smart would that be to have in the hunting market?"

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
Butch Whiting: Linkedin
Mark Pattison: Instagram

Tom Arnold is an American actor with over 100+ movies and TV shows in addition to working with the USO whom Bob Hope exposed him to years ago plus a host of the Best Damn Sports Show years ago. He keeps reinventing himself and was a super interesting and Oct 09, 2020

Show notes

172: Tom Arnold: Actor and Comedian talks about how his humble beginnings in rural Iowa transformed into a celebrity life in Hollywood and overcoming family issues along the way.

Tom Arnold

What was it like for actor Tom Arnold growing? "I did grow up in a small farming town and the oldest of seven kids. When you are a kid from Ottumwa, Iowa, you have dreams. You watch the TV. You go to the movies. But you work in the field. You mail hay. You detach the cord. You rope beets. It is impossible to get to Hollywood. You dream about it. You talk about it. You daydream about it. The biggest thing about Hollywood that may come to your town is Andre the Giant. Wrestling occasionally comes to town"

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Tom Arnold, actor and comedian, about his family life early on. "I wanted to be on television because I grew up with a single father. When my dad was 22, I was 4, my sister was 3, and my brother was 1. We would always tell dad that he was boring because he would go to work. He would come home. He would play with us some. But we didn't think he was very exciting. But as a single 61-year-old father with a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old, I've gained a ton more respect. Every day I think about him."

What You Will Learn:

What was Tom Arnold's first acting job in Hollywood? "One of the first jobs I did in Hollywood was a Bob Hope special. Bob Hope was so nice. He called my dad. The dream I had was that my dad would watch me with Bob Hope on that same TV in that same living room (that Tom Arnold grew up in), and that happened. It was exactly as I dreamed."

Tom Arnold shares how what he is doing in his life are things that he always dreamed of doing. "I've been in over 100 movies. Every dream that I have ever had has come true. From my children, to every movie, TV shows, my sports dreams. I wanted to be on a sports show. I have met most of my heroes, childhood heroes. I've sat right next to them. These people would come on my sports show. People that my grandpa and on would just sit and watch."

Was actor and comedian Andy Kaufman different in person than his professional persona? "He was a very sweet guy. He is very brave. Obviously, Jerry Lawler was in on it. Those were characters. The wrestling people do it… Wrestlers, getting involved there you can get hurt. Wrestling women you can get hurt. Everybody was aware. It was a good thing for wrestling. But it was a character. He wanted to play a heel. I grew up with that type of wrestling. I worship all of those guys."

Tom Arnold talks about his passion for sports. "What a gift to go and talk about sports, which I love. Sports, I have always considered my drug of choice. Sports are more fair than life I always say. Because there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is no fake news. I mean, you just go out and you watch it and miracles happen. I tell my son, it is never over until it is over

Out of all of the interviews Tom Arnold said the one that stands out the most is visiting his sister when she was in prison serving 10 years. "I had become friends with the DEA, the agents that had originally had arrested her. She was the queen of meth. They are making a movie about her. I said (to his sister) you got the job there, you don't don't do this and that. I helped raise her son who was 7 when his parents went to prison. His dad ended up dying. The guy from the DEA said she is dealing again. He said if she stops right away we will let her off."

True Lies with Arnold Squartzenneger

How did the movie True Lies change Tom Arnold's life? "Of the maybe 120 movies that I have done, True Lies was really the first. I am so lucky because I failed during the last year of my marriage to Roseanne, I was doing the show, going back and forth, and when we got divorced it was a big deal. She is a big star, and I lost my job on the show, weirdly the same day she filed for divorce. They weren't going, 'we like both of these guys, we will work with both of them. 'She was like, 'if you were to work with him again, you will never see me again.' So I didn't think my prospects for jobs were too good. But James Cameron and Arnold were like, 'forget those, people. When True Lies comes out in two months, everyone is going to be blown away."

Being a Celebrity

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Tom Arnold also talks about the worst thing about being a celebrity. "Bad casting. Tom Arnold doesn't do...people think they know what you do. Well he does this kind of role because they've seen you in a bunch of movies. Or, when you read they are casting a Tom Arnold type but younger."

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
Tom Arnold: Instagram
Mark Pattison: Instagram

Joe is a former NFL player that after 8 years decided to retire, give away all this stuff, buy a Van, get a dog named Freedom and got hit the road for 8 months. Talk about self discovery of driving around the US, meeting new people and getting outside hi Oct 02, 2020

Show notes

171: Joe Hawley: Former NFL Football Player with the Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Founder The Hart Collective and Man Van Dog Blog talks about bouncing back after his football career ended and reemerging in a van with his dog Freedom to the benefit of former professional athletes.

Joe Hawley

Joe Hawley discusses his choice to take his college football efforts to UNLV as a California guy. "I really wanted to go to UCLA but they said my grades weren't good enough, which I knew was bulls**t because I played in an All-Star game with a bunch of UCLA commits that had worse grades than me. UCLA never offered me. I did get offers from Arizona, Oregon. But they were schools that wanted me to commit right away. I wanted to do my due diligence and figure out which school I wanted to go to. The reason I went to UNLV was because it was close to home."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Joe Hawley, Former NFL Football Player with the Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Founder The Hart Collective and Man Van Dog Blog. Joe Hawley shares what he learned after playing for two NFL teams. "A lot of ups and downs. It was not a smooth journey. It came with a lot of lessons. A lot of people talk about how hard it is to make it to the NFL and not a lot of people talk about how hard it is to stay in the NFL once you get there. They are constantly working to replace you. There is younger talent, cheaper talent always coming in. So, to have a long career is probably even harder than getting there."

What You Will Learn:

What can the Raiders expect as a lifestyle change when they move to Las Vegas? "What was it like going to school at UNLV? I went there from 17 to 21 in that prime age of trying to figure myself out. I didn't have any experience to relate it to. When I finally got drafted, playing with these guys that went to the University of Alabama, and Florida, and these normal college experiences. I didn't have that so it was all I knew at the time. As far as going there as a professional athlete, I'm sure there are going to be issues and challenges, especially with young guys coming into money for the first time. That town is tempting. There are a lot of temptations."

What does Las Vegas mean to Joe Hawley? As far as the city and somebody that loves Vegas as a city, because I played there and I go back there a lot, and I have really connected with it, I think (Las Vegas Raiders) is really good for the city. They are going to have a really huge fanbase. I know they just brought professional hockey there for the first time a couple of years ago, the Knights, and the community really rallied behind them. It's a really fun atmosphere, and I think it is going to be really good for the NFL to have a team in Vegas because every Sunday it is going to bring a lot of people into the city."

What was his transition from college football to the NFL like for him? "Going from a school like UNLV where I was one of the best players on the roster, obviously, and I played against NFL talent a few times in the year; I played some good schools. But, getting to the NFL, you are playing against the best in the world every day in practice, and that is such a huge step up to perform at such a high level. It really challenges you. I dealt with a lot of doubt. Do I belong here from such a small school?"

Joe Hawley, talks about coming to the end of his professional football career with the NFL. "My eighth year I lost my job for the fifth time and I realised that I was tired of having to prove myself. So I knew my eighth year after training camp going into that year, I was on the sidelines. I was actually an inactive player, until the final three games. I was content. It was the first time in my life that I was not fired up for being on the sideline. Usually, with my competitive nature I always wanted to be out there competing with my teammates."

How did he go from football to exploring in his van? "I started wanting to visit family and friends and people all over the country. I didn't first buy the van expecting to kind of, "find myself." But that is exactly kind of what happened. I'm really grateful for having played so much football. I played eight years in the NFL. I was basically footballed out by the time I walked away. I walked away on my own terms and it was still really hard for me. I always had this idea that football is something that I did and not who I was. I always tried to be really conscious of the fact that I didn't want my identity to be lost in that. But that still didn't prepare me for when it was over."

Ford Diesel Cargo Van and a Dog Called Freedom

Joe Hawley describes how he began traveling with his pet dog. "Before I hit the road I knew I wanted a travel companion. I knew the road might be a lonely place. I ended up going to a few different shelters. I wanted to rescue a dog and ended up coming across 'Freedom' about a month before I hit the road and that wasn't her name when I got her. Her name was like Emilia or something...I was driving home after I rescued her and thinking of a name and I just connected with this idea that I just rescued this dog who was in this shelter in this cage that looks really beat up, really lonely, really isolated, and metaphorically I felt like I was finally breaking free of a cage."

Shedding Worldly Possessions

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Joe Hawley talks about donating all of his furniture and possessions to the Metropolitan Ministries of Tampa Bay. "When I was first hitting the road I had a couple of options of what to do with my stuff. I knew I didn't want to put it in storage because I would just have to pay for that. I didn't know how long the trip was going to be. It was sort of symbolically part of this old life that I wanted to say goodbye to and move on from and really be free of."

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
Joe Hawley website: Joe-Hawley.com
Mark Pattison: Instagram
The Hart Collective - thehartcollective.com

MJ was one of the first venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. What a resilient story of overcoming the odds of being a woman in a men-dominated space to, in part, fund some of the most dynamic companies of this generation Sep 25, 2020

Show notes

170: MJ Elmore: Angel Investor at Broadway Angels, Advisor, Limited Partner, and Former General Partner at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), and Fellow at Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute talks about rising up to excellence as a woman in the overwhelming male investment industry.

MJ Elmore

MJ Elmore discusses how growing up, her older sister, who also attended Purdue University, was an early mentor figure for her. "In my family, we were five kids. My dad was a school teacher, and the likelihood was that we were going to go to the school at Indiana State University, not to Purdue. My sister sort of blaze the trail of no, I'm going to go away to school. She saved her money and worked during high school and did that, and I sort of thought, I can do that too. So she was the one who motivated me to go to Purdue and earn my way through college."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with MJ Elmore, Angel Investor at Broadway Angels, Advisor, Limited Partner, and Former General Partner at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), and Fellow at Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute who shares insight into her journey into the prestigious Stanford University. "When I first got out of Purdue, I worked for Hallmark cards in Kansas City, Missouri, which was a cool experience, and then I moved to California in 1977 and began working for Intel. I was going to business school at night at Santa Clara and not finding that a great experience and got the opportunity to go full-time to Stanford to get my MBA, and that was in 1980."

What You Will Learn:

At what point in time did MJ Elmore start working for IVP? "I had been in marketing at Intel, and I really expected after I got my MBA, I would go back into marketing in Silicon Valley. But along the way, there was sort of a booming time for venture capital firms. They were really growing, really looking for more personnel. I was one of the few people in my class at Stanford who had Silicon Valley tech experience. So, since most venture companies pursue those kinds of investments, I got some interviews."

MJ Elmore explains what makes a company typically do better business from an investment standpoint than others in their space. "We were really looking for ten times our money, and that would have been considered a hit. That was our goal, ten times our money in any one deal. So, then if you make ten investments, what you hope is that 3 of them make ten times your money, another 3 or 4 make five times your money or 2-5 times, or the rest of them return the money or lose. We have a saying, 'you can only lose all your money,' which sounds like a crazy thing to say. But if you think about it, if you have ten deals and one of them, you lost all of your money, but the other ones return somewhere between 2-10 times your money you didn't really care you didn't really care that you lost all of your money."

How did she work her way up into being a partner one year after she joined and not just a worker? "We didn't really have a lot of associates in those days. We were really just a group of partners. But in terms of how I made my way, he and I hired everybody else in the firm. Some of those people who we hired, well, they were all men, and a lot of them were more older than me and more senior than me and maybe even had a bigger equity stake than I did. It was an interesting position, but I was still trying to find my way. I was still a newbie in the venture business. I was in my mid-20s."

What was it like for MJ Elmore being the only woman partner? "The way you become successful in a venture partnership is to make your partners a lot of money. If you make good investments, they like you a lot. My mode was to kind of try to find great investments, and so it was going to be that the success would be the great equalizer for them to accept me, and truly I think they actually didn't think of me that much as a woman. I had some of my partners say after they read the Alpha Girl book, they were like, and I think one of them even says this in the book, 'MJ, I just thought you were one of the guys.' And he meant that in a good way."

What does MJ Elmore look for in companies with her over 38 years of experience? "What problem are you trying to solve? How big is the problem? How are you going to reach these people? I tended to focus on those kinds of marketing things. Is there a real market here? Will the dogs eat the dog food? What proof do you have that there is a market? How big is the market? How are you going to reach the customer?"

Mentors for Women

In today's environment, is MJ Elmore seeing more women coming to the table feeling more empowered? "There has been a big push over the last few years. There is an organization that was formed called All Raise, and it was a group of women, some of the younger women in the venture business. It started kind of trying to really sort of in a systematic way to increase the women in venture, increase the women that got funding. Right at the same time, we were in the Me Too area."

The Unpaid Work of Women

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, MJ Elmore also talks about the inequality of domestic work that women do compared to men. "Melinda Gates wrote a book last year, and she talks about women, the unpaid work with the home and the family when women are working. There is a huge disparity if you take a dual working couple, up to twice as many hours a week that the woman tends to put into home and family than a man does, and understand in today's times in COVID, it is really exacerbating because the kids are home. They are not in school. There is a lot more unpaid work at home."

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
MJ Elmore website: MJElmore.com

Andrew Hughes has been chasing mountains around the world in his attempt to climb the Seven Summits. Despite being pushed back on a few of his climbs, he continues to show his resiliency by coming back, not giving up and staying the course Sep 18, 2020

Show notes

169: Andrew Hughes: Mountain Climber, Explorer, Writer, and Speaker talks about overcoming the loss of his marriage and a complete career shift away from law towards focusing on his passion for the outdoors.

Andrew Hughes

What was the whole idea behind the 5683 steps personal training challenge that Andrew Hughes did after the pandemic? "Like you, we were both supposed to be in Nepal this last season climbing, and when that all of a sudden changed because the world changed around us, it became, I think, important to find a way to still kind of pursue some kind of training, and a lot of training is limited based upon the state. I'm a homeowner in Washington, and the ability to stay within my little neighborhood, I explored every little park I could do by walking around with a weighted pack on. At a certain point in time I realised I needed something more to train to."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Andrew Hughes, Mountain Climber, Explorer, Writer, and Speaker. Like Mark Pattison, Andrew Hughes was also all set to travel to Mount Everest until the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the world. Andrew talks about the adversity that he overcame. "I studied, going to law school and getting multiple degrees from good institutions in London and Seattle. I practiced law. I ran for Congress. I got married. I thought I had, kind of the perfect ensemble of things you are supposed to have to be content and to be satisfied, it just wasn't there. There was something missing, and when those things started crumbling even further around me, I realised I had built a foundation of my happiness on the wrong things."

What You Will Learn:

What was the life-changing situation that pushed Andrew out of his old life and towards his new one? "Towards the tail end of my marriage falling apart and all my political things kind of falling apart as well, I climbed a mountain, and there was something about living in that discomfort and that growth that came from it that just drew me back to wanting to do more and more of it. It was this movement through meditation, this healing. It was almost this sermon, you want to be told over and over again, and the more you went back to it, the more you learned. When things actually fell apart I made a choice to restructure my life, find ways to create enough income where I could do the things that were meaningful to me, but maybe didn't reconcile externally with what people saw as success."

How do the mountains factor into Andrew Hughes' life? "We always look at maybe a marriage, or a promotion, or a career, or a job as the peak of where we want to go to, and we forget that the mountain is involving much more than that. So, you flatten the mountain, and then you just see actually how far the journey is, and it always goes beyond the summit. There is always going to be future summits we have to reach for, and so, maintaining enough energy and perspective of where we really want to get to, and not just the summit is most important."

When did climbing become the missing link that reconnected Andrew Hughes with his goals and desires for fulfillment? "I ran for U.S. Congress in 2012, and climbed, and lost. I came third out of seven in my field, and about a year later my marriage started falling apart at the time, and I climbed Rainier in 2014 and I was so excited about it. I came back down and signed up for a six-day course at the north Cascades with Alpine Ascends, and I got back from that, and my ex-wife at the time was moving out of the house. So, it was a very clear delineation between my path towards the outdoors and my path in that relationship."

What talks about happened when he got high-altitude pulmonary edema. "High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema is one of the two things you really don't want to get. Altitude Cerebral Edema and pulmonary edema. Essentially, pulmonary edema is your lungs begin to fill with fluid and you begin to drown to death on the mountain. Your oxigen can't go through and reach the rest of your body as your lungs fill up. I was helicoptered off. I was staying by myself at the base of the mountain. I kind of had to reassess over the next few weeks whether this was something I was even able to do."

What are some of the exciting elevated heights that mountain climbing has taken Andrew Hughes to? "I just got back from Antartica where I did three different expeditions tied together. I did several in January. I've been able to climb six of the seven highest volcanoes in the world and the highest mountains, to hopefully finishing that off in the next year."

Antarctica Trifecta

Andrew Hughes talks about climbing astonishing summits in Antarctica. "We flew in. We were a little bit delayed. It was after the Chilean Airforce aircraft had crashed. So they actually grounded all flights in. We were first trying to get in and then we eventually got in and we hit the ground running once we did. We flew out. Luckily, we were one of the only places to get out to the 89th degree with all of our skis and sleds and small expedition team. They dropped us off at the 89th degree and there is absolutely nothing around you, and you've got your compass and your sled and your teammates, and you just start heading towards what you hope is the South Pole, and we got there within about six days."

The Everest and Lhotse

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Andrew Hughes also expresses his initial plans to take on climbing both Everest and Lhotse before COVID-19 put those plans on pause. "I was actually on Everest last year with Adventure Consultants and was on our summit push coming out of Camp 2, and had this horrific cough all of a sudden come up that turned out to be pneumonia. So I was evacked off. I was in my tent actually the night my team was summiting and I could hear them on the walkie-talkies stuck in Camp 2. I walked away from it and realised that I definitely wanted to come back."

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
Andrew Hughes website: AndrewIHughes.com
Andrew Hughes Instagram: Instagram

168: John Foley is an original. Full of positive energy, he is not only GLAD TO BE HERE but talks about bringing greatness to teams. He would know being the lead pilot as a Blue Angel! Sep 11, 2020

Show notes

168: John Foley: Former Blue Angel Pilot, Keynote Speaker, High Performance Expert, Glad To Be Here Mindset, and Founder of John Foley Inc. talks about what it took for him to earn his place among the Blue Angels and flying a jet in the movie Top Gun, as well as what Glad To be Here is all about.

John Foley

How exactly did guest John Foley become a Blue Angel and what was his motivation? "Blue Angels are Navy fighter pilots. So, we come from the instructor ranks usually. Bottomline is, we fly jets off aircraft carriers. That was always my dream as a little boy. I remember, Mark, 12-years-old, my dad took me to an air show. Now I love my dad. He was my hero, right? He takes me to this air show. He was an army officer and an engineer. So I thought that is what I'm going to be in life. He takes me to this air show. I will never forget this day. I'm looking up in the sky, and I see these six magnificent blue jets. You know how you just feel it? You don't just see them, you can feel it?"

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with John Foley, Former Blue Angel Pilot, Keynote Speaker, High Performance Expert, Glad To Be Here Mindset, and Founder of John Foley Inc.,who talks about the path to becoming a Blue Angel and the qualifications. "First thing is. You've got to go to college, right, and there are different routes, ok? Because you need to become an officer and then get a pilot's slot. There are a couple ways to do that. For me, I went to Naval Academy."

What You Will Learn:

What is the second step that got John Foley to Blue Angel status? "You go into flight training and you've got to do as well as you can and typically you are not sure which airplane you are going to fly. Blue Angels need to fly fighters or tactical aircrafts. You've got to get your butt in a tactical aircraft, an F-18, something like that. That is what I did. I actually flew a 7s off the carrier Enterprise. I flew in the movie Top Gun. Did you ever see the movie Top Gun? I did some of the real flying in that."

John Foley discusses the Fleet Replacement Squad. "You go fly jets off of aircraft carriers for about three years. That is the fleet. That is going out there doing the real thing. We have a saying, if you are still alive after three years, you have figured something. Out of that pool of people, then you usually go to the instructor ranks. So, you go to Top Gun. You go to what is called the Fleet Replacement Squad. That is where you train people, not how to fly but how to fight the airplane. That pool of people, those instructor ranks those people that are really doing the job in the fleet. They get to apply to become the Blue Angels, and it is a selection process and at the end of the day it takes about a year or two and the team picks its own replacements. It is one of the things in the entire Navy where the replacements are picked by the current team, not by Washington."

Did he every encounter anything where he had to eject or his teammates had to eject? "The good news for me is, I didn't have to eject. But, three times I wanted to and I couldn't, and what I mean by that is, there is an ejection environment which, which means you have to be at a certain altitude, a certain air speed. You don't want to be inverted 50 feet off of the ground. When you eject, you just become a dot. The thing is, you have to be in a certain envelope."

Just how dangerous is being a Blue Angel? "Priority is safety. As, you are looking at that and it is extremely safe what we do. I did that, ok. You are just on the edge. So when you are on the edge, and you know this in your life, you know this with climbing. Is climbing dangerous? The question I would ask you. How many people have died trying to do Everest, which you are going to do?. With your mind set on that, I guarantee it is the same flying the jet."

What does fear and uncertainty mean to John Foley? "I actually believe uncertainty has opportunity in it. On the same side of the coin, it has challenges in it. The first thing to address what is going on in the world today is, first off, compassion and awareness. There is some tough things out there. Black Lives Matter. You and I played ball. We know what it is like when you are a team, alright? You don't know the color. I didn't, of the skin of the person next to me. They were just a person. They were teammates."

Things are Coming From You

Things are coming from you not at you. "If you think the world is coming at you, like COVID, and it is going to get you, you've got to deal with fear, ok. Because fear is an outside force coming at you that you don't have control over. Bingo. Right? So, what I try to do when I talk to the companies I speak with, the people I speak with is that we have to understand how we perceive. How does the mind perceive the outside world? First thing is, the truth is, it is coming from you. So you do have some power and some control."

The Makings of a Great Leader

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, John Foley also discusses the power of viewing things from other people's points of view. "Instead of trying to be right, who cares about being right. Can I see the world through her eyes? If I can do that, it is actually called exchanging yourself for others, there is a technique on that, then you start to become more aware."

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
John Foley website: JohnFoley.com
Glad To Be Here website: GladToBehere.com

Merril Hoge is a former NFL legend & longtime ESPN football analyst whose motto "Find a Way" helped him make it into the NFL, overcome a heart condition and beat cancer! An exceptional person who has been goal oriented his entire life. Great inspirational Sep 04, 2020

Show notes

167: Merril Hoge: Former NFL Player for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Chicago Bears, ESPN Analyst, Inspirational Speaker, and Author discusses how he overcame the disbelief others all around him had in him while he pursued his childhood goal of being a professional football player in the NFL.

Merril Hoge

Guest Merril Hoge discusses how he pushed forward into his football goals at Idaho State. "I wanted to play for the NFL. I've had that goal since I was 12… since I was 8. Since I saw it on television. So, all I looked at is, I can only go to one college. You can only go to one. You can have 100 scholarship offers. You can only go to one. So, that's all I needed. I needed a chance. And when I got that chance, I wanted to start as a freshman."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Merril Hoge, Former NFL Player for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Chicago Bears, ESPN Analyst, Inspirational Speaker, and Author, about the cultivation of his champion mindset. "I always like to use, A quitter/losing locker room versus a champion/winner/successful locker room. The language is different in both. When you look at a quitting locker room, this type of verbiage is used. This type of mindset is used. They point fingers. They cast blame. They make excuses. They create this recipe, 'It's not me. It is everyone around me. It is not me. It is something else happening to me.' There is no accountability. There is no responsibility. That locker room will always be a losing locker room."

What You Will Learn:

Merril Hoge believes that every player, with a positive mindset, can mentally be in the winner's locker room. "A champion locker room, a successful locker room. The first thing that champ does, successful people do, you self-evaluate. You self-evaluate. That is the most important thing that especially I have learned, that you must do if you want to grow and you want to get better. Then you have to make the correct changes. Then you create a plan and then you take action."

What advice does Merril Hoge have for those working hard to enter into a desired occupation? "I was searching for things as a kid, and this is important for anybody that is trying to accomplish something or do something in life. Search out those people who are really good at it, that might have some insight and some wisdom that they could share with you to help you in the process."

What is a positive mindset that we can use to feel fulfilled in our journeys towards personal success? "If you can have peace with, you did everything possible. You exhausted everything possible and wherever you end up, it might be the greatest of all time at whatever you are going for, and good for you. I hope it is like that. But if it is not, it doesn't mean you are a failure. If you got the most; you did your part. You should have peace with that, no matter where you ended up."

Merril Hoge talks about his deep desire as a kid to have his own bedroom to turn into his personal fortress for future success. "I had always thought, if I ever have my own bedroom I'd like a wall with cork made. Because then I could put goals up. I could really use that as my sanctuary. It is where I start and I end my day. I asked my dad and he said he would see what he could do. It gets done, and I had written out all of my goals. I still had junior high, high school, and college to play. But it was going to be a pyramid, if you will. All of these goals and at the top was going to be, I will be in the NFL."

How important is state-of-mind to Merril? "Whatever resonates with you, man. That is what you want. I know what is possible for people if they put their minds working for them and use things they can learn from other people and put it in action into whatever it is that they are striving for or whatever they want, or whatever they are passionate about. If you can get people in the right locker room with the right mindset, and the right approach, man, their lives are going to be enriched, because when you overcome things or accomplish things. Money can't but that."

After Football

Merril Hoge shares what it was like when his NFL career ended. "My career ended because, people say head trauma ended my career, a concussion ended my career, and that is actually incorrect. Improper care ended my career. If head trauma would have ended my career, I would not have played after the Monday night game in Kansas City… I got cleared over the phone to play five days later."

Find a Way

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Merril Hoge talks about where his whole 'find a way' motto comes from in his path. "Those words, find a way, when they popped into my head, I'm telling you, it sent an energy, it's the words I always use. It gave me an energy that changed me. It inspired action. I have already mentioned that a little bit. But I thought, hey, listen, you've got control of this. You have a responsibility to go find a way to do that. That's what sent me on the search for Walter Payton. That was what my first journey, what my first object was. I was like, let's go find out things about Walter Payton I don't know that might help. What more can I add to what I'm trying to do to help me build faster and more efficiently?"

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia's Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
Merril Hoge website: MerrilHoge.com

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected