Matt Dawson’s hidden personal struggle with lifelong periodic depression despite a successful career forced him to finally contend with his fraying mental health. At 40, he radically reinvented his life by founding a charity and pursuing extreme adventure challenges in an effort to demonstrate that we are all capable of more than we believe.
Matt reveals how the profound lessons from his life can incite powerful change beyond the adrenaline-filled adventures, inspiring listeners to incorporate these teachings into their personal and professional lives.
This is a fun conversation as we talk how to get through truly difficult physical challenges, how to find purpose, how to be of service, and the nitty gritty of day to day training (Dawson’s, not Dr. Liz’s!)
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About Matt Dawson
Matt Dawson, a six-time world record holder, the visionary behind Dawson’s Peak Foundation, and the author of “Strength in Surrender.” Dawson is an M&A investment banker, corporate investor and small business operator turned 6x world record-holding endurance/adventure athlete; sought-after public speaker; lifestyle/performance mentor; and founder of Dawson’s Peak Foundation. Dawson’s purpose lies in helping people live more authentic, meaningful lives based on purpose and service to others. Known for the concept of Strength In Surrender, his philosophies help individuals to face their fears and challenges.
Dawson has completed expeditions on every continent, including summiting the Seven Summits (the highest peak on each continent); skiing to the South Pole; traversing the Mojave Desert; and rowing across the Atlantic Ocean.
To donate to Dawson’s Peak Foundation:
Text the word “dawson” to 53555
IG: @dawsonspeak
Email: info@dawsonspeak
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About Dr. Liz
Interested in hypnosis with Dr. Liz? Schedule your free consultation at https://www.drlizhypnosis.com
Winner of numerous awards including Top 100 Moms in Business, Dr. Liz provides psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and hypnosis to people wanting a fast, easy way to transform all around the world. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and has special certification in Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. Specialty areas include Anxiety, Insomnia, and Deeper Emotional Healing.
A problem shared is a problem halved. In person and online hypnosis and CBT for healing and transformation.
Listened to in over 140 countries, Hypnotize Me is the podcast about hypnosis, transformation, and healing. Certified hypnotherapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Dr. Liz Bonet, discusses hypnosis and interviews professionals doing transformational work
Transcript
0:00:00 – Dr. Liz
Hey everyone. Dr Liz here. I’m going to jump right into this intro rather than talking anything about myself and what’s going on with me, because I am interviewing Matt Dawson, d-a-w-s-o-n from Dawson’s Peak Foundation. He is a six-time world record holder, but more than that, he has a heart of gold and a deep sense of meaning and purpose. So when the opportunity to interview him came along, I jumped at it. I was like absolutely would love to, and I cannot recommend his book enough. It comes out January 7, 2025. This will air right around that time, but if you’re listening to this years in the future, you will know his book is already out and you can also look up what he’s doing currently.
He has truly impacted me personally as well as professionally. I took some of the concepts in his book and immediately applied them to working with clients and helping people that I see too. Again, cannot recommend it enough. So let’s jump in.
Hi Dawson, welcome to the Hypnotize Me podcast.
0:01:29 – Dawson
Hey, I appreciate you having me on. Thank you.
0:01:31 – Dr. Liz
Absolutely. I was very excited to read your book. I loved it. I will let you know probably the first book I read about adventuring is “Into Thin Air,” John Krakow. Like when I’m in my 20s. I’m in my 50s now, so I’ve followed that literature for a very long time. Read the Comfort Crisis by, I think it’s Michael Easter.
0:01:58 – Dr. Liz
Michael Easter, that’s right. One of my favorite books is how to Survive in Extreme Circumstances. John Hudson, who, like, trains the British military.
0:02:10 – Dawson
I don’t know that one. I’m going to look that one up, yeah.
0:02:12 – Dr. Liz
Oh yeah, how to Survive in Extreme Circumstances. Okay, it actually came in handy when I was in Asheville, North Carolina, visiting my daughter when the Hurricane Helene hit.
And we actually applied some of the principles in it and it’s, like you know, sort of amazing how these books show up in your life and yours. It’s been a couple of months now since I read it and it has really stuck with me. I don’t know if you wrote it meaning to inspire like a 55 year old, middle-aged woman, but it totally has. Even this morning I sprained my ankle, so I was reading it with a sprained ankle and then I got really sick and I was like no, it’s time to work out this morning. I’m interviewing Dawson and I’ve got to get a workout in beforehand, and so really impactful day to day.
0:03:06 – Dawson
So thank you, I really appreciate you mentioned that and that means a great deal to me because I was trying to break through and kind of get outside of just that adventure realm and the people that want to go out and climb Everest, because, look, there’s been a million books written about Everest and rowing oceans and doing all this kind of stuff.
And I’m not taking anything away from them because I’ve enjoyed all of them. They’re all wonderful works. But I wanted to kind of break out of that. I’m like, look, I’m not just trying to talk to a guy or someone that wants to do mountain climbing, it’s like I’m trying to relate a common experience that we all have. Yes, we can apply to everything in our lives and to everyone can take something from a portion of this. So that means a lot to that. It resonated with you, so I appreciate you sharing that with me.
0:03:55 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, I found it surprisingly relatable. I really did and I really enjoyed the structure of the book. So the structure was it’s really not a self-help but it’s not just a straight up this is what happened narrative. It gives the meditations and call to action, like the ask yourself and apply yourself, and I really loved those. I thought they were very relevant for my life. You would tell these like extreme stories about what’s happening and your surgeries and like where you were in the different parts of the world, and then I really did find the end of the chapters like oh I can apply this to my life apply this to my life.
0:04:45 – Dawson
You know, I love to hear that that, that that worked as well, cause, you know, the last thing I wanted is I didn’t want it to just be hey, here’s a story about me, and then here’s more information about me, and then here’s something else about me, and making it about me because it’s not about me, it’s simply saying, hey, here’s my experience, maybe you can take something from it and incorporate into yours. And so I really was working hard to put it back on the reader to say you’ve learned something.
Now. Here’s something you can do, or what are you going to do with this information? And it’s just wonderful, because we mentioned before we got on when you and I were going to speak originally and then we had to reschedule. It’s like the way that you did that. I really enjoyed it. And now I’ve incorporated you know, incorporated that into my story. So it’s like it’s all about incorporating other people’s actions into your stories and what you can learn and how you can learn and all this. So that’s it’s. I’m glad to see that you enjoyed that.
0:05:36 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, I think you really accomplished it. I do. I am curious about What was the hardest element for you in doing these extreme tasks like climbing the mountains and going across the desert and across the ocean. What was the hardest part?
0:05:58 – Dawson
You know it’s, I think there’s two ways to look at it. You know there’s physical, then there’s emotional, psychological think.
On a physical front, I would say probably the hardest one was actually the one that’s included in the epilogue, which is my second successful crossing of the Mojave Desert. That was 330 miles in uh seven, just over seven days, eight hours, where I did it solo, unsupported. It by itself, was a freestanding world record of the fastest ever crossing the Mojave Desert on foot, and I think it’s funny. Well, the next book I’m currently working on, I think, is going to be kind of extrapolation of that crossing, with some other things kind of mixed into it.
But the thing that was even just more difficult, because what I found is physical difficulty is one thing but, like a lot of people can relate to, psychological, emotional difficulty in all of our lives normally just makes everything else pale in comparison.
Yes, it was finding a way to keep going time after time and stay committed for so many years, because originally the project Seven First Soldiers was supposed to kick off in 2020. And then it got delayed because of COVID and then, once we finally got going, we were on track to everything successfully. And then the North pole got delayed in 2022. Then it got delayed in 23. Then it got delayed in 24.
It’s just and that’s like the last thing that that we need to finish this thing and we keep losing it, and you can only go for three weeks out of the year.
So if you lose it in early April, you have to wait another year. So it’s just every time you get so close like last year I spent two weeks in Russia and Siberia so close Then I lost it again. Now you have to wait another year. So it’s just that relentlessness that you have to just keep coming back, come back and just open for an opportunity, which I think you know everybody can relate to in their lives, when we get so close to what we, what we think we want, and then we lose it. Now we have to wait and to keep applying ourselves for maybe a potential other opportunity to perform, but nothing’s guaranteed.
0:08:01 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, yeah, on a much smaller, smaller level, it’s like my house is for sale right now and two contracts have fallen through, and it’s like you get so close and then it’s like, nope, you’re back to waiting.
0:08:14 – Dawson
You know like it is that feeling I mentioned the book it’s like, and we, it’s like, we all go through it, whether it’s, you know, selling the house or going for a new job or something to do with a relationship or whatever is. I found so many times where I thought I was all in.
0:08:29 – Dr. Liz
Yes.
0:08:31 – Dawson
Like you’re playing blackjack or whatever and I’ve got all my chips on the table and I’m like I am maxed out physically and emotionally and psychologically. And then the universe looked at me and it’s like, listen, if you want to continue to play, you’ve got to find more ways, put more stuff on the table. And I’m like I can’t, like I’m all in and like well, you better figure it out, that’s your problem. So then you put more of yourself into it.
You find ways of growing as an individual and if you think you’re maxed out, then the universe says, well, you got to put more on the table. And it’s a constant requirement to sacrifice and to grow even more, to pursue what you want to pursue. That was the greatest challenge. It was I think a lot of people have experienced that in various ways. It just causes you to grow, and then growing into it is even more.
0:09:19 – Dr. Liz
Okay, so it’s like staying in the pocket, like you say, this is later in the book. But you had an acronym. I was going to ask you. You know, I was like waking up at night thinking of that final S right, and then I actually ended up coming up with my own. I immediately started applying that with clients, by the way, like okay, let’s come up with an acronym that works for you.
So that the listeners know Dawson has this acronym BDS123. It’s breathe. Don’t give fear a voice. Don’t judge as good, wrong, bad, right. Slow down mentally, stay in the pocket, which is really like keep going, stay in the pocket. And then small, small, keep your world. Small meaning stay present to where you are, like don’t go too far into the future, into the past. You know beside you all of that. So how did you come up with this acronym?
0:10:21 – Dawson
yeah, it’s. You know, I just enjoy little things like that. I enjoy simple, little little things. I can think about it in the moment. When you do this type of thing, it’s very easy for things to get very big very quickly.
I’m a pilot. When you’re up there and you’re flying at 10,000 feet and you’re all alone and something goes wrong, things go wrong very quickly. So I need quick, little, you know reminders. I don’t have time to, you know, extrapolate big, big concepts, yeah. So it’s just like a little checkbook that I have and I was just trying to think, like what are the major things that I look for in ways to control myself and to understand and mitigate situations? And so it just kind of came to me one day when I was, when I was out climbing, I’m like what are kind of like the major things and kind of stealing everything down, and that that just, you know, seemed to resonate with me. It just seemed to work well and it’s something that I can just repeat very quickly as I’m, as I’m going, I’m like, you know, BDS, one, two, three, and I just it’s almost becomes like a, it’s like a mantra I can just chant yeah, it just just helps, you know, slow me down and it helps me perform better in a lot of situations.
0:11:30 – Dr. Liz
Fantastic, okay, got it, was really helpful. I’ll share the one that, um, we came up with. I work with a variety of clients when this happened, with an overeater, and then another when it was a parent who has small children and boy, small children can like trigger you, you know, like they do crazy stuff, and you’re like, ah.
So we came up with PASS, which is pause, ask a question, like get curious about what’s going on here, stay present, and then stay positive, like don’t start thinking far into the future around. Like you know, is this four year old going to become a drug addict someday? You know like no, he’s just a four year old, that’s it.
0:12:13 – Dawson
I think that’s. I think that’s wonderful, I think it’s absolutely perfect. I love it. I mean, it’s something you can remember. Yes, I think that that’s absolutely perfect. I appreciate you sharing that with me.
0:12:22 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, it speaks to also just um, let’s let this moment pass, for instead of like getting really drawn into it and then you know, all kinds of stuff starts happening um real world and in your mind. So it’s like all right, let’s just slow everything down for a minute.
Yeah, so you also talk about the sense of detaching, like not getting too much into when, when you get back home. So you do these amazing physical feats and set these world records and then you’d get back home and get depressed. What do you feel like finally helped the depression? You talk about this some in the book, but I’d really love for you to speak to the listeners about it.
0:13:26 – Dawson
Yeah, no, it’s something that it’s a great question and it’s like we talked about earlier with a lot of the things in the book. I think it’s something that a lot of people can relate to. Yes, and that’s something that was important to me is to have a story where we’re just sharing elements of just a common human experience or condition or issues. You know things like that, and ever since I was very, very young, I just started to tie my feeling of self-worth into performance number one. And then, secondly, it’s just, I needed like a constant sense of stimulation. It was difficult for me to sit quietly and to be quiet and to be present, and when I was coming back and one of the things that you’re referencing is from when I was rowing the Atlantic Ocean, which we were successful in doing, but on that trip we mentioned North Pole a few minutes ago is we lost the North Pole because Russia went into Ukraine and Even though you know, even though we were gone, you know nine for nine or 10 for 10 on expeditions up to that point, it said all these records and whatever is, all I looked at was we lost the North pole, which meant we couldn’t finish the project on schedule.
Like we, like we said, and therefore I’m a failure. And because I’m a failure is I’ve let everybody down. I’ve let all these people that depend on me, I’ve let them down and obviously there’s nothing I could do about it. I mean, one country invaded another country, but the way that I looked at it was I should have been able to find a way to still make this happen, like I don’t care the reason why it didn’t happen. I should have been able to find a way to move heaven and earth and to create, you know whatever, and to make it happen. And I, just because I couldn’t, is it really impacted my, my feeling of self-worth?
Okay, you know, and that’s just kind of what it comes down to. And with the detachment is there. There are different ways that you can detach in various situations, but really just, it’s a matter of of, of not ascribing, of not ascribing our feeling of self-worth or value or our ability to love or to receive love, to give love or to receive love based on X, y or Z. Fill in the blank number one. But then, secondly, with regards to performance, is you can’t, you can’t look at how’s this going to end up, you know, or how did it? How did it end up in the past? Like, if you’re a baseball player, you’re like well, I’ve struck out the last three times, or I’ve got all this pressure on this at bat, if I hit a home run here, then my life’s going to change. If I strike out, my career is probably over. Like, you can’t think about that kind of stuff. It’s especially the greater. The moment grows is. All you can do is just focus on your performance in the moment.
And that’s what I really talk about, about that detachment. It’s like there are plenty of times when you’re on the mountain it’s like I can’t think about there’s a potential for me to be dead here in a few minutes If I don’t get this right. All I can do is just focus on what’s immediately in front of me. So there’s different ways to detach, whether from the physical pursuit in that moment or from kind of like that greater psychological pursuit, once things kind of calm down in a much, just kind of larger personal sense.
0:16:38 – Dr. Liz
Yes.
0:16:39 – Dawson
That’s right. I know that was kind of a big answer, but it’s just, detachment is kind’s kind of a big subject it is, it is right.
0:16:47 – Dr. Liz
I mean, do you meditate?
0:16:49 – Dawson
I do, yeah, nor I try to make it a daily practice, so I’m pretty, uh, I’m good at at that, so it’s an important part of my you know kind of regime, okay and I did you meditate before you started doing all this? You know, I did, I did, but just not consistently.
0:17:06 – Dr. Liz
Okay.
0:17:07 – Dawson
And it’s you know. You can use either like real kind of traditional meditation, which I enjoy doing, I enjoy sitting quietly and things like that or you can. You know, what I tell people is that you can use kind of an active meditation where you’re just out, you know, walking by yourself or exercising or doing some type of functional flow technique. You know where you’re just out, you know, walking by yourself or exercising or doing some type of functional flow technique. You know where you’re just stretching and moving. So there’s different ways of meditating to connect with yourself.
0:17:32 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, yeah, okay, I’m curious because meditation talks so much about detachment as a concept, you know, as a philosophical concept, but also as a very real, like psychological in the moment, kind of technique to use. So that that’s why the question popped into my head of, yes, it’s very much staying present when you’re taking that one step and the next step could be lethal. You know, it’s like you’re moving forward and it, yeah, it would be very difficult to think about that and then stay present as well. As you know, I was really struck about the story you told I don’t remember which one it was where the guy was incredibly physically fit. He was part of the team going in on like day two or something he gives up.
So, yeah, and he gives up and it’s like somehow that he got, you know, sucked into the mental and, instead of really being able to detach and be present, and okay, this is what I’m doing right now.
0:18:43 – Dawson
Right now, yeah, it’s, it’s wild. I’m it’s, it’s wild. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Well, I know you’ve seen this in your practice. It’s wild what we tell ourselves and how that impacts our ability to perform. It is, yes, Just like you mentioned is. He just got it in his head that he wasn’t strong enough, he wasn’t in shape, he wasn’t this, he wasn’t that, and I just I watched him over you know two or you know I guess two and a half, three days, just I mean crumble mentally, emotionally, physically, when I knew for a fact that he, he could do it there, there was no question in my mind and I saw people that he was stronger than doing it. And he just got it in his negative feedback loop in his head and ended up paying like $14,000. Yeah, Got it backed out of there.
0:19:30 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think those beliefs we do have about ourselves and our own abilities do impact us like that, whether it’s in the South Pole or being able to walk down the street and say, okay, I’ve just had a surgery and now it’s time to get active again. Like you spoke about those beliefs that you I think you said your your real awareness of them came as a teenager – Like I’m a bad person, I deserve to be punished, I would find some way to fuck things up here here, and then how those continue to impact you along your adult life until it sounds like you really got a hold of them finally.
0:20:11 – Dawson
In the end, I think it was a lot of self-sabotage going on. Yeah, that’s the thing you got to be careful of. And later in the book, when we talk about the final 5%, is when we do all this work and we address, you know, I guess you know kind of obvious issues in our life. But when we really continue to drill down and drill down and drill down, when we start to see kind of the theme, you know, that permeates most of our lives, it really is just a couple things often that drive a greater, you know volume bubble. But when you kind of distill it down, it’s normally like one, two, three things that you just have on repeat. And those three things you just mentioned is I just kind of had on repeat where I saw as implementing them in different ways to self sabotage, you know, throughout my life and that that’s you know.
Once I kind of finally realized that and it came to understand that and try and start to address those in healthy ways. And, look, I’d be honest with you, I’m still addressing them. It’s still that I struggle with because I honestly believe I think we can let go probably 95, 98% of things, but I think there are likely will always be things there that that are going to be difficult for us to let go, but look, that’s okay. But the fact that you understand that they’re there and we understand how to deal with them in a positive, healthy manner, and that we’re not listening to them but rather we’re working to control them, then we can change the course of our lives.
0:21:37 – Dr. Liz
Exactly. Yes, I think there are some beliefs. I mean, I’m a big believer and I’ve seen the impact in my own life on hypnosis, changing some of those deeper beliefs. Hypnosis is not the only way. There’s all kinds of ways to change those. But sometimes what happens is that we end up managing them like you’re saying, like the awareness and the not listening and saying, ok, I know that’s popping up because of this and that’s what triggered it. And now you know, thanks for information, continuing on my way, yeah, and coming back to the better beliefs about ourselves. But it can also fuel amazing acts. That reminded me of David Goggins. You know, goggins, the yeah, the worst self talk I’ve ever seen in a book. It’s like, oh my God, directly stemming from his childhood that was severely abusive but fueled him to do all these incredible physical acts. But it’s like it says down times, I think, sometimes where, ok, the trip is over, the expedition is over, your home, and now what do you do with those? You can’t run from yourself anymore.
Right, yeah, exactly.
0:22:56 – Dawson
Well, I’m sorry to interrupt. That’s what we meant a minute ago is the hardest thing for normally anybody to do is to sit quietly with themselves.
0:23:05 – Dr. Liz
Yeah.
0:23:06 – Dawson
You can go out there and I don’t care if you’re getting a new job or running a marathon or you know, pushing a car a hundred miles, but you sit there quietly, with no distractions, in a quiet space, and all these things start coming up. It’s just, it’s very, very. Or if you’re out, moving, whatever it is, but just where you can’t hide from yourself. Yes, you do have a consistent basis. It brings up a lot of stuff and it’s difficult to do.
0:23:29 – Dr. Liz
It is. It is so you get back from I think it’s your 10th world record or something and you get very depressed. Yeah, do you go into treatment at that point?
0:23:42 – Dawson
Yeah, that’s a great question.
Yeah, that that’s a great question is, over the years is I’ve met with a couple providers you know a couple, you know therapists, you can call them and, um, I just I haven’t really found the right person.
That’s resonated with me and I think when you go into these treatment, in these you know various types of treatments you have to find the right person for you and one person works with one person, but it just kind of doesn’t fit with the other. So when I came back is is, I looked around, spoke to a couple of people, but nothing really kind of no one really matched with me. So it was more of just me grinding on my own, of just kind of taking more time, more trial and error, more sitting with myself, more you know, just kind of evaluating and just understanding, hey, and ask myself why do you think you’re feeling this way? And then, like we mentioned a couple of minutes ago, I just came to understand there’s nothing new here. This is just me rehashing, reliving these old things. And once I saw that, I was able to slowly start working past it and get to a better place.
0:24:45 – Dr. Liz
Okay, got it so more of like self-inquiry, sticking with it, not trying to avoid it this time with whatever.
0:24:55 – Dawson
I genuinely believe there are certainly times when it helps to work with an outside service provider. Yes, whether it be a physical therapist, whether it be a doctor, whether it be you know someone that helps you mentally or someone that fixes your car, you know it’s like you need outside help. But, that being said, is when we’re dealing with psychological issues. I believe a lot of times we have the answers we’re looking for deep inside of us, but we need to find the ability to listen to ourselves and we need to get quiet to listen to ourselves. It’s just so often we have so much going on is we’re screaming at ourselves but we’re not listening, or we have, we don’t have the ability to listen. We’ve got that volume turned down so low and we don’t realize because I’ve been doing this for a long time now is I’ve just I’ve found different ways of dialing that volume up and to say, hey, you know what? What am I missing here? And I can generally tell myself where the issue is now.
0:25:47 – Dr. Liz
Okay, okay, fantastic, love it, love it. All right, can you let people know about the well you have to? You have the seven for soldiers project was what really started this whole thing. And then you have the Dawson’s peak foundation. So can you tell people about both of those?
0:26:07 – Dawson
Yes, certainly so.
Dawson’s Peak Foundation is a 501c3 that a good friend of mine and I, Jay Jablonski, started back in 2018.
And our mission is to inspire the discovery and pursuit of individual purpose and just trying to get people to live lives of greater purpose and to transition from being really self-centered to service-centered, so to live for something greater than ourselves and to really understand that we’re all participating in this together, and everything we do not only impacts ourselves, but impacts everybody else.
So it’s about learning to live with a proper sense of contribution, and it’s just, I think far too often in today’s society is we’re not thinking about the participation and contribution that we want to have, and we’re starting to discredit our ability to impact the world, and so it’s important that we understand the sense of purpose that we want to have in our lives and the impact we want to have. So that’s really our mission, and the current project we’re working on is called Seven for Soldiers, where I was trying to set seven world records through a variety of activities. We talked about several of them. I ended up setting six so far, and 100% of our net proceeds are benefiting the Gary Sinise Foundation and Hope for the Warriors that are two of the highest rated veteran charities in the country. So you know I haven’t made a dime on this in the past several years. Everything that comes in that’s not spent goes out the door to those two groups.
0:27:35 – Dr. Liz
Got it Okay. I wasn’t quite sure how that worked in the book, so thank you for explaining that, but it’s like how are you funding it? Then I was like, how is this guy doing all these expeditions? I know you used to work in the banking world and so are you privately funding it yourself.
0:27:56 – Dawson
Yeah, so the way it got started was I was funding everything personally. You know, if you, you know, look at these expeditions. It’s, it’s not cheap, it’s not going to the IHOP across the street and then.
So I’ve personally funded everything and then we backfill it with sponsors. So Monster Energy is our largest sponsor and they’ve been absolutely tremendous to deal with over the past couple of years. A lot of people don’t realize the magnitude and the volume of the philanthropic efforts that Monster has in general because they just don’t, they just don’t advertise it. They have an organization within the company called Monster Cares which has just been, you know, incredible, and then also they’re very active with military veterans. But then we have other major sponsors like 511 Tactical, oakley Sunglasses, everybody knows Oakley Scarpa Boots. So then they bring on products and funding and things like that to get us over and start to create a net positive situation.
0:28:59 – Dr. Liz
Okay, got it. You talk some about the struggles in the book with the nonprofit, Got it. You talk some about the struggles in the book with the nonprofit and I actually enjoyed reading and hearing some of those parts because it’s like you know, people are often like, oh yeah, I’m going to start a nonprofit and they think it’s so easy, and it’s not.
0:29:17 – Dawson
It’s really not Everybody’s going to care about this, because I care about it, it’s going to be so funny, it’s going to be so easy, and I just give stuff away to people. It’s going to be so funny, it’s going to be so easy, and I just give stuff away to people. It’s going to be wonderful. Yeah, yeah, that’s not how it works.
0:29:27 – Dr. Liz
No, no. There’s a lot of effort that you describe that goes on behind the scenes of trying to secure some funding and sponsorship and all kinds of stuff, meetings that you got to have.
0:29:41 – Dawson
Oh look, I mentioned in the book and obviously you’ve read it but the backside, the administrative tasks of the project have been more difficult than training for 900 hours a year and going out and climbing Everest, like that’s the fun, easy stuff. It really is.
0:30:01 – Dr. Liz
That’s ridiculous, you know.
0:30:05 – Dawson
It is. You know it’s ridiculous, you know it is. It’s all of the folks, it’s literally there are over 1.5 million non-profits and like civic groups and all these kinds of things chamber of commerce. So if you think you’re gonna go out there and tell somebody about your wonderful idea and someone needs help, or you want to do this or that, you’re competing against over a million other people. You know a million and a half at least, and that’s it. And I mean, when you factor in everything, you’re competing against millions of people for every dime, yeah, for every second of attention, for every this, for every that, and you may have a wonderful cause, but no one cares about it the way you do, right yeah and if you’re, if you’re trying to get something from them, whether it’s their time or their money, you’re going to have to fight for every single second.
It just and it’s just. It’s a lot, and people just don’t realize until they get in it. And all the time is almost every day, someone reaches out to me and says hey, I’m looking at starting X, y and Z because of you know A, b and C. I’m like that’s wonderful, but you’re about to get your ass handed to you and you don’t know what’s coming. I’m like I hope you love it, cause it’s going to be a lot of work.
0:31:11 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, exactly.
0:31:13 – Dawson
Yeah, and I’m not trying to discourage anybody.
0:31:18 – Dr. Liz
Right, right. Yeah, I imagine there’s a lot of vetting. That happens too.
0:31:30 – Dawson
Oh, just some regulatory measures and filing taxes and just keeping up with it to get you know your 501c3 designation. Then you got to deal with the feds and the state and California loves to over-regulate everything. It’s like a contest of how many letters can they send you about some new regulation? Yeah, right.
0:31:42 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, I have a friend who’s from russia and she always says california should be its own country. So she says she actually thinks the us should be split into three. She’s like east coast, west coast and midwest. You’d have three countries, you’d all get along a lot better. I know it’s funny, yeah, but I was quite impressed that you keep going and you keep doing it. So are you still planning on going to back to Russia in April 2025? Then?
0:32:15 – Dawson
April 25. Yeah, the trip’s already set and we’ve already got the dates and hopefully it’s going to happen this year, ok great.
0:32:22 – Dr. Liz
So tell us what’s happening for you right now, Like what are you focusing on now? Why are assuming wait for that trip and train for it?
0:32:45 – Dawson
no-transcript.
0:32:49 – Dr. Liz
Fantastic.
0:32:50 – Dawson
Just trying to finish, you know, finish up everything, get all that stuff in place. And then, as you mentioned, the North Pole, in April I’ve got another climb that I haven’t started promoting yet. That’s probably gonna take place just after that, okay, and then probably, or potentially, some other big mountains next year. We just haven’t started to promote yet. So just, you know, just trying to get in the proper shape for that. And when you deal with, you know, cardiovascular system, it takes months and months and months to get it in the right condition. So it’s just 100%. You know, full time training for that right now.
0:33:23 – Dr. Liz
Can you? I’m sure some listeners will be interested in your training schedule, so could you give us a little insight into that?
0:33:31 – Dawson
I appreciate you asking that. It’s an interesting question. I love that side of it. I love hearing about the way people train. It is, on average, I train between, you know, 21 to 25 hours a week. Okay, that really ranges from, you know, two hours to maybe six to eight hours a day, something like that. I train seven days a week. Yeah, I don’t take, I don’t take days off, but one day a week is a recovery day. So one day a week is I’ll get in the pool and I’ll swim for an hour or two hours. Then I’ll do some recovery work, things like that. Four day or three days a week, three to four days a week, or two days, so I work out in the morning, then I work again out in the evening, and then two days a week or longer, sessions in the mountains. So those could be you know, four hour climbs, eight hour climbs, 10 hour climbs, you know something like that. And then I’ll throw four weight sessions where I’m actually in the gym training two days a week, but it’s, you know, in terms of being on my, as I try to stay on my feet as much as possible. So that’ll be.
You know cycling, for you know, 50, 50 to a hundred miles or be out. You know. Jogging you know, but doing undulating surfaces, you know so, going up and down, not just you know flat roads. And then the heavy pack carries, you know so carrying about 80 to a hundred pound pack either on a Stairmaster or out in the in the mountains, and then I’ll move with packs you know anywhere from. You know 30 to 60 pounds for four, six, eight hours. You know something like that. Most of the training historically has been done fasted, so no food before I train. So I may carry a 50 pound pack for six hours with no food. Lately it’s the science has kind of changed a little bit where people don’t believe you’re getting the, the fat adaptation benefits they thought you were before, where your body is fueling just off fat. So now I’m kind of playing around with that, sometime incorporating some carbs or proteins, and you know just kind of. You know it’s just figured out little ways to tweak things, but in a general sense that’s what the training looks like.
0:35:25 – Dr. Liz
Okay, fantastic, that’s interesting I hadn’t. I hadn’t followed, like the newer science on that, the fasted working out I used to. When I was, I was keto for about two years or so and low carb for longer than that, but haven’t really kept up with it in the last year or two, so they are thinking that’s different now.
0:35:43 – Dawson
Yeah, so.
So initially is so if I’m going to go in, say, for a weight session in the gym, then I’ll always eat before that session because I know I’m burning a ton of carbs and you need it, I need the glycogen, I need all this stuff.
But if, if I was going out for just you know, a long zone, one, zone two, training session is I stopped eating because the thought was you since you don’t have the glycogen, because you always use a combination of carbohydrates and fat in your body and glycogen is just stored carbohydrates. So if you’re going out for these long periods, if you don’t have the glycogen, then you’re forcing your body to use fat. So now when you’re out on the mountain, your body’s going to be more apt to use the fat. The challenge, or what they’re thinking about now, is that just if you get the training session long enough, or if you’re training enough during the week, so if training, say, north of 12 hours, then you’re naturally going to be using more fat than carbohydrates in a lot of situations, especially at low heart rates. So you don’t need that fasted training number one. And then, secondly, it impairs your ability to recover.
So if you you know cause I’m training- over 20 hours a week on average, so my body’s not gonna recover as fast as it could. So it’s honestly so. The science isn’t perfect on it right now. You’re kind of it’s just ebb and flow to it like most things. So now I’m kind of trying to go back and bend it towards having a little bit more fuel at least, putting protein in before I’m doing these sessions to help the recovery process which has only happened within the past maybe two months, so it’s been very recent.
I’ve switched back to this and trying to see how my body feels.
0:37:21 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, yeah, what. What kind of result have you seen, like, are you feeling better with it?
0:37:26 – Dawson
Yeah, yeah, what kind of result have you seen? Like, are you feeling better with it? Yeah, you know, honestly, it’s, it’s. I’m not. I’m not liking it so far, to be totally honest with you, cause I’ve been, I just gotten so used to not having, you know, carbs or anything in my system and now it just feels weird. I can feel my body’s a little bit, a little bit bonky, a little bit up and down, which I know there’s going gonna be a transition process. So just trying to to see you know how it’s gonna go okay, gotcha, yeah, well, he’s really impressed.
0:37:49 – Dr. Liz
And where you talked about having these surgeries like you had multiple surgeries over the years, even while you’re doing this and then I think there was one on uh, I think it was your ankle, because you said it was hypermobile.
I have a hypermobile ankles where I used to understand it I used to, yeah, sprain them two or three times a year, just they’d go out. You know, like boom, it’s gotten better since I started riding the bike, more in my peloton and doing bar and some more strengthening, but still, like I said when I was reading the book, I had sprained ankle but, um, you had the ankle surgery and then, like the next day out of the hospital you were back in the gym. Oh yeah, I was like, oh, my god, at least I could do is, like you know, walk across the room today. You know, and it’s like, what motivates you to do that? Is it really just like can’t, I can’t let the upper body? You did all kinds of upper body work and, like you know, trying to do the electrical stimulation. Is it just this thought of like? I won’t make my timeline if I’d let off?
0:38:57 – Dawson
There was some fear because we were trying to do so much in such a compressed timeline and, like the two you mentioned, there was a, an ankle surgery and then, as soon as that was healed, I went in and had my shoulder done.
0:39:13 – Dr. Liz
That was just to get to the starting line of the project, so that one. Even we haven’t started the thing yet. Yeah, it was just okay. I didn’t realize that yeah.
0:39:18 – Dawson
So it was a. It was a combination of of being fearful, of saying, look, I, I just, I don’t have the time to lose. But secondly is to be quite honest with you, I was proving a point to myself. You know saying, hey, listen, it doesn’t matter what happens, it’s how I choose to respond to what happens. I think a lot of times, you know, people are fearful that they’re not enough. But I think the greater fear that that we have, that we don’t realize, is that we’re more powerful than we want to believe, Because with that power comes responsibility. With with increased capacity comes increased duty.
And you know, I, after surgery, I was, I was in the gym about I don’t know 12 hours after surgery on my ankle. I was in the gym, you know, lifting my upper body and taking like a little you know, on my crutches and all this kind of stuff, because I could do it. And I wouldn’t go sit around and tell myself you shouldn’t do this or you can’t do this. I’m like, look, you can do it. So you’re going to do it, You’re gonna get your ass off this couch and you’re getting in there because you can do it.
0:40:25 – Dr. Liz
Got it.
0:40:25 – Dawson
It’s just kind of a theme I saw with myself. It’s that again, we’re all capable of so much more. It’s allowing ourselves to accept that responsibility and to show ourselves. It’s funny you mentioned David Goggins. I met him randomly in Beverly Hills.
And this was. I was driving home from having my shoulder operated on. I mean, I was literally an hour, two hours after surgery. I had the gauze, I had the iodine, I had all this kind of stuff. I was driving down, or being driven down Sunset Boulevard here in LA. I look over and there’s David Goggins jogging. I’m like what? What the hell am I am I hallucinating? Is this has the, you know, you know the whatever’s not worn off? And um and I I told the guy to turn around and I stopped. I’m like, and he, he just finished his workout. I was like I’m sorry to bother you and I introduced myself and I had like a hat on with Dawson’s peak. I gave him the hat.
I was like you know, you know all this stuff, whatever, whatever yeah, uh, and he thought I was a crazy guy because my arms in a sling and I got iodine all over my neck, yeah, but you know what that is is? Uh, you know, they told me, like, listen, it’s going to take you, you know, six weeks to do anything, and all this, and the next morning, you know, 12 hours after surgery, I was out on the road bike. Yeah, I still had the bandage on, I still had iodine all over me and I’m out there cycling with a bandage shoulder. But because I could do it, I gave myself the ability to listen to myself and there’s nothing special, everybody can do this. I refused to allow them to tell me and dictate what I could and couldn’t do. I could do it and I could do it relatively safely, and I got it done and just moved on with it.
0:42:06 – Dr. Liz
Okay, again, it was an inspiration because I was like, well, my right ankle’s out, but I can certainly do upper body workouts and core and like and I did it’s like I have my little app where I track things. I’m like I have such a great streak I’m not breaking it like I’ll get a workout in somehow when my ankle was out after the surgery and I had the cast on it is.
0:42:27 – Dawson
What I found was I’d get on the rower and I found a little furniture mover dolly that I bought for Amazon for like five bucks. I’d put that under the cast and I could just roll row for hours with one leg, or I could do a bike with. We can all do these things. It’s just a matter of making the decision to do it. Yes, give ourselves the space, believing in ourselves. Yes, and it’s. It’s look. It’s just a matter of making the decision to do it. Yes, give ourselves the space, believing in ourselves. Yes, and it’s look.
0:42:48 – Dr. Liz
It’s that old adage if there’s a will, there’s a way, and it’s just that simple and I would say adaptability too, like, okay, I can’t do it the regular way, now I got to adapt and figure out what I can do, how I can do it. Yes, well, on that note, I think it’s a good place to end the interview, but before we go, please let people know how they can find you. They’d like to donate or sponsor, how they can do that.
0:43:14 – Dawson
You know, look, I appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me on. I’ve really enjoyed it, me too. Dawson’s Peak P-E-A-Kcom that tells you all about the adventures and everything that links to the foundation site, which is Dawson’s Peak Foundation. And please get involved with donations. It would be wonderful. As we mentioned, 100% of the net proceeds go to Gary Sneed’s foundation, hope for the Warriors. So I’m not making a dime off of this. I haven’t made a dime since the beginning. The donations can be made through the foundation site or simply texting Dawson D-A-W-S-O-N to 53555. And so we can’t make it any simpler. And then you can follow along. You know the project, all this kind of stuff. And then, lastly, the book, as we’ve talked about several times, which is called Strength and Surrender, is coming out January 7th. Yes, the easiest way to find it initially will be on Amazon, and that’ll be the ebook, the paperback and the audio. It’s already hit, like I mentioned, number one new release on there, so we’re getting some great results on it.
0:44:14 – Dr. Liz
Fantastic.
0:44:14 – Dawson
And then, if you want to share your story with me, you can find me on Instagram, just at Dawson’s Peak, or email to info at Dawson’s Peak, and it’s been wonderful because we’ve had so many people reach out that are saying that things are resonating with them. How they’re incorporating it into their lives, which is the reason why we’re doing what we’re doing. So we’d love to hear those stories.
0:44:34 – Dr. Liz
Fantastic. And all of that will be in the show notes and that’s January 7, 2025, because people will listen to this for years later. So thank you again. I loved the book. I highly recommend the book to anyone who wants to pick it up. And again, thank you so much for being here and being on the show with us.
0:44:56 – Dawson
No, thank you for having me on. I’ve truly enjoyed it as well.
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