Erik Weihenmayer

I am! I’m ready!

Erik Weihenmayer

I think you’re right.

Erik Weihenmayer

Not to just single out blindness because I happened to be blind, but there are a lot of barriers out there. In fact, I founded this organization and movement called No Barriers.

Sure, there are people in the world that are physically disabled like being blind, like in wheelchairs, like they’re amputees, or they have physical things. Those are big challenges of course, but there are a lot of people in the world with invisible challenges.

Those people suffer from fear, doubt, anxiety, self-doubt, trauma, PTSD, and we find that the majority of our community is those kinds of people, with those invisible barriers.

Erik Weihenmayer

I think what happens typically is that people start out in their lives with hope, optimism, and big dreams, and I do think people start out “climbing,” and then things happen along the way like barriers get in the way.

One barrier after the next gets in the way, kill their momentum, and energy. Maybe, they try something, and they fail. They fall a little bit short, and they’re just like, “That was so painful. I never want to go through that again.”

Maybe, they create like these prisons that people do in mind. These prison bars that they put in their minds, and they get jaded. Or, they wake up, and the world has just changed, and they don’t know if they’re flexible or open enough to change with it. That’s where the challenge of breaking barriers gets in.

Erik Weihenmayer

So all these things happened to people along the way, and then they get taken out of the game. They get shoved to the sidelines. Sometimes it’s a dark place, and now, they’re stuck, and they don’t know how to get out.

And so, I’ve thought a lot about this. I don’t claim to have all the answers or anything like that. But I’ve worked with thousands of people now and written, and spoken about this topic about how do you climb out of those spaces, those stuck spots in our lives from that dark place through that sort of unexplored terrain to the summit, whatever that looks like for an individual.

Erik Weihenmayer

Well, there are a lot of ways to answer that. That’s a good question. I mean yeah, I would agree.

In the book I wrote, No Barriers, I wrote even about this that most ideas, they stay in the recesses of the brain and probably never get out. They just remain little dreams in the back of your mind. 99.9% of our ideas probably stay back there, and not many get to escape and live.

Erik Weihenmayer

There are a lot of ideas out there. If a hundred people have already tried that idea and failed, one, I’m not saying to be like a dreamer and just go for it without tons and tons of research and understanding why each of those people fails like comprehending the idea, and the environment and landscape around that idea.

There are a lot of things I’ve decided not to pursue. I just realized, “God, I’ve flirted with this idea, and I think it will just probably stay a dream in the back of my brain.” That’s okay too.

Erik Weihenmayer

But when you try to pursue an idea, it’s a mindset that “Hey, there is a chance that I will fail.” That’s okay because it will launch me forward in some exciting, spiraling, probably unpredictable way, and it will create energy in my life that will bring me to a new place. It may not be precisely the place you think you’re going, but it’ll be a new place for sure.

It becomes like looking at life like my friend Hugh Herr talks about. Hugh is a double leg amputee who is a fantastic climber and is the head scientist at the Biomechatronics Laboratory at MIT building, some of the most sophisticated prosthetic legs and limbs in the world.

Erik Weihenmayer

He says, “When things turn out differently than what you planned or expected, don’t see it as a failure. See it as an adventure.” and that’s what life is. Breaking barriers is a shift in mindset I think.

Erik Weihenmayer

Well, both of those experiences were similar.

One, there’s the natural beauty of the mountains, of the rivers, and trying to understand the landscape, and map of a mountain. Even though I can’t see, I still think very visually because I used to be able to see until I was a teenager.

Erik Weihenmayer

Understanding the map and the beauty of the mountains like mapping out your route of the mountain and then, experiencing all that sensations like the sun, the wind, the snow, the movement, and working with a great team of people to trust each other with your lives. That’s all incredible.

Then, the river was the same way; the Grand Canyon being this incredible natural wonder of the world, and walls that are thousands of feet tall that you can hear. Blind people click, and they listen for the echo. They call it echolocation. I can click, and I can listen to those enormous rock faces a mile high as you’re swallowed up at the bottom of this massive canyon, and you’re just this tiny little person floating down this, got led into the most incredible whitewater in the world, and understanding rivers.

Rivers are different from mountains. They have their map with eddies that flow backward, and holes that are like giant washing machines, and whirlpools, and boils, and all these crazy features in a river. Understanding that is cool.

Erik Weihenmayer

When you’re kayaking, all that energy is created from the bottom of the river, and so you’re experiencing the effects of all that energy and these huge waves and holes. But it’s all being created from all the features at the very bottom of the river that are making the river currents like the flow and crazy directions to do crazy things. I think there’s a more profound journey beneath the surface on all these things.

Understand that ‘no barriers’ process. How do you go through this process trying to dream big, trying to make that idea live with all the little failures along the way?

Erik Weihenmayer

Trying to build the right people, the right technologies, the right innovations, the right mindset, and tools, and then devoting your mind and soul to that pursuit in a way that equips you and gives you the best chance possible of succeeding.

Erik Weihenmayer

There’s that sort of process of trying to pursue an idea and what it takes to get there. I think I’m in love with that process as well.

Erik Weihenmayer

Yes, they are beautiful places for sure.

Like when I reached the summit of Everest, you’re standing at 29,000 feet on like this little island like a single car garage in the sky, and the sound, vibrations moving out through space. There’s nothing to block the sounds.

Any crunch in the snow and any tap of your ice ax just create this deep sound that sort of sends of into space, and infinite sky. It’s this overwhelming expansive sound traveling out infinitely. It’s like the sky is swallowing you. It’s a beautiful and powerful sound.

Erik Weihenmayer

When breaking barriers, I think the most important part is to understand the pieces of the journey.

What are those universal elements that we have to confront and understand along the way? I think just realizing what some of those things are, is beneficial.

It is helpful to us to look at the process of growth and change, and the content around that.

This sounds almost cheesy, and I don’t mean to sound cheesy but, what is that light that you have to grow inside?

Some people vision me having this ability to see the future, which most people honestly can’t do. I think of vision as something where you’re trying to take this light, this substance inside of you and trying to grow it, and nurture it, and use it to blaze into the world.

Erik Weihenmayer

I think part of that process is just becoming a pioneer. Always thinking of yourself as an engineer or pioneer, and you’re trying to build new things, and that’s an exciting process.

The team that you build along the way, are they the people that are dragging you down or lifting you up?

When you go out, and you try these things, and you get crushed, do those things stop you in your tracks or do they create an energy that propels you forward to that new place?

Erik Weihenmayer

I don’t know. There are universal things that happen along the way. I think the most important one I’ve discovered in the mountains and the rivers is once you reached whatever your summit is; you stood on the top, you’ve had your success, you’ve grown your company or whatever it may be, how do you come down the mountain and use those discoveries to elevate the people around you?

For me, at No Barriers, the community that we work with, that’s the most critical piece of the journey. We call it “elevate.” It’s coming down the mountain and using our gifts, the things we’ve learned through our struggles to elevate the people around us. That includes our families, our teams, our community, and maybe the greater world around us. I think that’s the real culmination.

That’s for me, the most crucial part was coming home from these great adventures and using it to grow No Barriers where we work with almost 5,000 people a year, and we’re growing fast, and that’s been just the most powerful thing I’ve ever done.

Erik Weihenmayer

Fantastic.