In this episode, join Rudy Rodriguez as he shares his experiences and lessons learned from a trek to Everest Base Camp. Journeying to an altitude of 17,598 feet (5,364 meters), Rudy dives into the physical and mental challenges faced, as well as the insights gained along the way.

Rudy shared the importance of teamwork and acknowledges that the trek to Everest Base Camp was a collective effort that couldn't have been accomplished alone. The roles of the guide, CB, and the porters were instrumental, highlighting the necessity of experienced leaders and mentors in achieving challenging goals. Maintaining a consistent pace was crucial for the group's successful ascent. Rudy discusses the principle of essentialism, emphasizing the 80-20 rule—focusing on the essential 20% of items or activities that yield the most significant results. This approach proved more effective than carrying unnecessary burdens.

The trek provided a practical lesson in economics, particularly the concept of supply and demand. As the group ascended, the cost of essentials like water increased significantly, underscoring the impact of supply chain challenges in remote locations. Rudy learned the importance of focusing on the next step rather than getting overwhelmed by the overall goal. This mindset helped him stay grounded and made the journey more manageable.

The trek fostered a deeper sense of gratitude and perspective. Rudy realized the relative insignificance of his problems compared to those faced by people in third-world countries. The journey made him appreciate small comforts and recognize the privilege of having access to resources that many others do not. Throughout the trek, Rudy and his friends proactively created fun and value by sharing experiences and discussing various aspects of life. This approach added meaning and enjoyment to the journey.

Simple comforts like a warm meal or a hot shower became precious. This experience reinforced the idea that true happiness often comes from appreciating the small, simple things in life. Witnessing the hardships faced by locals in Nepal gave Rudy a new perspective on what constitutes real problems. This realization helped him understand the difference between significant challenges and first-world inconveniences.

Rest and recovery were crucial during the trek. Rudy highlights the importance of taking breaks and recharging to ensure long-term success and well-being. He embraced the discipline of carrying only what was necessary, learning that extra weight without utility becomes a burden. This takeaway applies to both physical items and life activities. Inspired by Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," Rudy emphasizes the importance of rest and recovery to maintain peak performance and avoid burnout.

Tune in to hear Rudy's full story and insights from his Everest adventure. And remember, if you find value in this episode, share with those in your network who could benefit!

Links:

Comparison of the Amundsen and Scott Expeditions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_Amundsen_and_Scott_expeditions

Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena

https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Learn-About-TR/TR-Encyclopedia/Culture-and-Society/Man-in-the-Arena.aspx

Want to learn more about Rudy’s work at V.E.S.T. Your Virtual Event Sales Team? Check out his website at https://virtualeventsalesteam.com/.

Hi, in this video, I'm going to share with you my 11 takeaways from my recent journey to Everest, where I did an 11-day planned trek to The Everest Base Camp with two dear friends of mine. For those of you who don't know about Everest, it's the tallest mountain in the world, and The Base Camp is a location near the mountain where people travel to acclimate before they go up to the top of The Everest Base Camp. So, we did not go up to the top of The Everest Base Camp, that was not this trip, but we did do a trip, an 11-day planned journey to get up to The Base Camp, which itself is actually very high. It's at 17,598 feet, that's 5,364 meters above sea level, which is very high, especially for those of us who are coming up from sea level. So, we did this trek, I did this with two good friends of mine, Bronson Hill and Bryce Posey, and one of my greatest takeaways, first and foremost, was reminding me that life is a team sport. Definitely could not have done this alone, for sure. My late mentor, Vernon Levia, he often said, life's a team sport, none of us are doing this alone, and this was a great reminder of that. So, massive thanks to my two fellow trekkers, as well as my porter, CB, and our guide, CB, and the two porters that came along that helped us make the lift from Lukla up to Everest Base Camp. Number two takeaway, to follow along from one, this idea that leadership matters. This idea that in order to achieve something in life, it's helpful and valuable to find someone who's already done it and learn from them in order to get the same thing.

So, I'm really grateful in this case that we had a guide, CB, a gentleman in his early 50s who has taken many groups of people to The Everest Base Camp back over the years. He leads several treks per year, very seasoned, very experienced, and because of him, we were able to have a great plan, a route to get up there. We did not overexert ourselves, which would have been our likely situation because the three of us, we’re all fairly athletic guys, and we wanted to see how fast we could do it. Thankfully, our guide educated us on how to do it intelligently and how to rest properly, and I'm very grateful for that. So, this reminder that, hey, we got to have a guide, got to have a leader, got to have a mentor to achieve a goal that I haven't done before. Third takeaway, reminders, this notion of this supply and demand factor of economics. As you can imagine, going up this trek, this mountain, there's these teahouses along the way, kind of these stations, these towns that you can stop at for food, supplies, that sort of thing. I noticed that when we started the trek, a bottle of water was roughly $0.50. As we continued up the trek and we went from teahouse to teahouse, the supply started getting more expensive. The bottles of water went from $0.50 to $1, to $2, to $3, to $4. I think I bought a bottle of water for as much as $5 when we were just at The Everest Base Camp. If I wanted some hot water that was even more. I think that was like $6 or $7 to get a liter of hot water. So, things became very difficult to get access to because they had to move supplies up the mountain. Then when we were higher in the mountain, obviously, things were a little more costly to get.

So, it was a good reminder of this notion of real-world supply and demand, which was a great takeaway. Number four, this notion of consistency versus sprinting. Thankfully, again, our guide moved us at a fairly consistent pace where we got up each day and we started moving between like 6 or 7 in the morning. We would move for anywhere between 6 to maybe 7 hours each day, roughly 200 to 300 meters of altitude increase and we do that very consistently. We'd have lunch and then we would have more or less rest around 2 in the afternoon to 3 in the afternoon when we get to our destination. We would rest for the remainder of the day before dinner and then getting some sleep before the next night. There were definitely occasions where we wanted to sprint. We wanted to keep going, keep pushing. Our guide highly recommended that we didn't and that we would get proper acclimation. That was very smart of him to do. I'm really grateful for that notion. I'm also reminded of a recent story I read of the 1911 expedition to The South Pole, which is a great read. I highly recommend it. I'll include a link here to the full story that you can check out. Essentially, there were two explorers that were racing. One was a British explorer by the name of Scott. The other one was a Norwegian explorer by the name of Armisen. They were both going for The South Pole. There was a lot of this story, so it's not overly simplified here. I would recommend you reading it. At the end of the day, the Norwegian team, part of their core strategy was to move consistently each day, roughly 15 miles, and then rest on average 16 hours per day. They would move regardless of the conditions.

The British team waited for more optimal conditions before they moved. They were also a larger team, so there's other factors here. Then when they would move, they would push as hard as they could, sometimes 30 miles or more in a day, which often got them too exhausted to move the next day. So there's more factors to the story than just this, but I thought it was a great association reminder of this notion of consistency and moving consistently each day versus trying to sprint and how that works out when it comes to a longer trek, a marathon per se. So I highly recommend the read. Check it out here along with the video. Takeaway number five, this idea of essentialism, the discipline pursuit of less. So as I worked my way up the trek, I started to notice and realize that about 20% of the things I brought with me, I used 80% of the time. I kind of grabbed those principles, this notion of 80-20 rule. The 80% of things I brought with me that I was hardly using or using 20% of the time, I noticed that it was cumbersome. It became heavy, like I was carrying a laptop on my back in a backpack. Even though it only weighed a couple pounds, it started to add up that weight on the shoulders. So it went up an altitude, all the steps. It was a good reminder that, hey, anything that I carry with me that is extra weight that I don't use, that doesn't have utility, at the end of the day, it becomes much heavier. It was a good reminder of the fact that I actually don't need a whole lot in life. I just need a few things that I use the majority of the time and really taking a look and examining my life for what is that 20% of things that I use that give me 80% of the results or that I use 80% of the time and really getting rid of the other stuff.

Or stop doing some of the other things for that matter. Takeaway number six, this idea of starting with the end in mind, but only focusing on the very next step. We started with the goal, hey, we wanted to get to Everest Base Camp. This is a little magnet that took away, a little souvenir. But I wasn't looking at how far away it was or looking up to see how high we were going. In fact, most days, I would focus primarily on literally keeping my eyes on my feet and taking the next step. Maybe a little glancing up to see, make sure I didn't run into anything. I would just take one deep breath and take one step consistently over and over again for hours on end. A mantra was one step and one breath and just consistently taking that next step and just trusting that the following step will reveal itself. Eventually, I would just stop having to take steps. In fact, I remember the moment I got to Base Camp. I was so focused on taking steps that I didn't really realize it until I just basically ran into my friend who was in front of me. I looked up and there it was, we were at Base Camp. I looked up and all of a sudden, it was just like this massive relief came through me. It's this joy, these tears of gratitude for me having reached it. I was so focused on taking that next step that I wasn't looking up. I wasn't focused on that. Then it just hit me all at once that we had made it. So my next takeaway is this idea. So takeaway number seven, that not everybody makes it to The Base Camp, but that's okay. In fact, I had a really cool conversation with a gentleman at one of the tea houses. He was about 70 years old. He was there with his two daughters. He had grown up a huge fan of Everest.

He read books on it. He watched movies and because of that, his daughters decided to go on a family trip and take him on this trek to Everest Base Camp. He was confiding in me. He said, my friends back home, they think I'm crazy. They think I'm going to die up here. I don't know if I'm going to make it to The Base Camp. I looked at him. I said, well, you know what? Your friends back home, their opinion doesn't matter. You're the one that's here. You're the one putting in the effort. It doesn't matter whether or not you make it to Base Camp. What matters is that here you're giving it your best. I was reminded of this quote from a speech from Theodore Roosevelt called Man In The Arena. It's now known as Man In The Arena. The notion is it's not the critic who counts. It's not the person who points out how this strong man stumbles or how the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who's actually in the arena, who's actually putting in the effort, who's sweating, who's bleeding, who, even if he doesn't succeed, at least he fails while daring valiant. So that his soul is never along with those cold and timid souls that knew neither victory or defeat. I'm kind of paraphrasing it here, but I highly recommend this is one of my favorite quotes in the world. I'll include a link to it here if you want to click it and read the whole speech. It's a powerful talk. So it was a good reminder that, hey, it's not the destination. Rather, it's the journey we get to be along the way. Takeaway number eight, it's my responsibility to create and generate fun along the way and to generate value along the way. Thankfully, I was with two really awesome friends, and along the way, we were proactive about masterminding.

We were all entrepreneurs with business experience. We said, okay, let's share our experiences when it comes to certain elements of life. We would have days we talk about money, days we talk about relationships, days we talk about other personal challenges. We generated value as we went. It was a good reminder of like, hey, regardless of the situation, it's my responsibility to make it fun. It's my responsibility to generate value for myself. Reminder and takeaway number seven, appreciate the small and simple things along the way. So as we went along this journey, little things became much more enjoyable, simple things in life like a warm bottle of water. There was a hot shower along the way. We didn't have them most of the way, but we did have an opportunity to take a hot shower, and that was remarkable. A warm meal, a bed, just very simple things. That was a good reminder that, hey, I don't need a whole lot in life to be happy. In fact, the more comfortable I am, the less happy I tend to be is what I realized. Being in that discomfort or that challenge actually brought a significant amount of fulfillment. There's a great book that I've heard about. I haven't read it myself, but this notion of the comfort crisis and how much we actually need challenge or discomfort for us to grow as human beings, both physically as well as spiritually. Takeaway number 10 is a reminder that I have no real problems. My problems are first world problems and by and large, they're not real problems. The majority of the world lives off of less than three dollars a day. Being there in Nepal, being there on the Everest Base Camp, I got to see that it's a third world country. They don't have as many resources as we do in The United States and other first world countries. The work there is difficult. There are a lot of men carrying and pulling heavy loads up on their backs, up the hill.

One guy walked by, he was carrying a refrigerator on his back. Some people barefoot, other people in sandals, for hours on end, days on end. I think the average wage is something along the ballpark of I think like a few hundred dollars a month is like the average wage or roughly $300, you know, or $3 a day is what most of the world lives off of. So it was a good reminder of the fact that most of my problems are not real problems. It's when I'm on a mountain and I'm struggling to breathe oxygen and it's cold out. Those are somewhat real problems. Most of my problems are not real problems. So a good perspective in that sense. Last but not least, takeaway number 11, the importance of rest, remembering to rest. I have so many friends that are go-getter entrepreneurs who run companies who are very successful. Oftentimes I see them living life on hard mode, drinking lots of coffee, lots of energy drinks, sleeping very little, pushing very hard. It was a good reminder on this trek that, hey, that you got to rest. I had to rest on this trip. In fact, I was intentional about resting as much as I possibly could because I knew how much it was needed. As soon as I could, I would probably lay down and get some rest or go to the tea houses. Even when we got back down, I needed a full day of recovery and we got back home. All three of us got a little sick and we all ended up having to rest for days on end. But just a good reminder, sharpen the saw so that I don't get sick and I can continue to move forward. Stephen Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, habit number 7, sharpen the saw.

So if you found these takeaways to be helpful, please go ahead and share this video with this content with someone else. Also be sure to like and comment here as well. Let me know what you found helpful, valuable or insightful. I appreciate your comments and look forward to connecting with you soon. Take care. Bye bye.