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I'm recording you ready here we go SE schm welcome to my podcast thanks for having me Dum um this is
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embarrassing before we sat down you um you you uh no no let me tell it let me tell it
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please so I grew up in Hawks Bay and the edge was a really popular radio station
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there and I have a very vivid memory of being like 11 or 12 years old and JJ and
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Dom was it JJ and Dom or Dom and JJ JJ and D us two and Mike P and Mike and Mike who I'm seeing like tomorrow oh
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fantastic I'm so excited to see him um so yeah so you guys had a radio or a radio show and there was one
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particular thing that's like burned in my mind was that on the show you used to
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do this thing where somebody would go to the toilet and would pee and they'd hold
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the phone up and you'd count how many seconds they peed for what was it tinkle
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tinkle tinkle Tuesday tinkle Tuesday so that is literally burned in my mind from
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childhood I thought it was a it was a great radio it was a dollar a second a dollar a second most weeks most weeks it
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was less than 50 or 60 bucks that you pay for I think we ended up stopping it cuz we got scammed cuz someone had like
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a massive bottle and just it just kept on going it was yeah oh and the the um I feel awkward about that now like I'm
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sort of squirming in my seat a little bit because um we'll get into this with
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this is all part of the fabric of your amazing story of your life um but you went off the rails pretty badly after
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that and I'm wondering if it's what you were listening to on the radio exactly
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it was the it was all all you guys if it wasn't for your radio show I would have
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had a nice normal life no childhood trauma it would have been just fine okay let's go okay yeah I'm removing myself
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from all responsibility okay hey um welcome back first of all um yeah connection to New Zealand do you feel
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like a kiwi I do yeah I mean I was born in Napier and I was born and raised in Hawks Bay for the most part like most of
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my childhood that I remember was predominantly in either Tia Wong or Hastings um
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and yeah I left for like quite a while before I came back um I came back for my first book tour
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and that was kind of like a jarring way to return I mean like I came back and like cycled the whole country
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that was like my return back it's like I want to smell it and sweat in it and that was my return back um but
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yeah it's so funny because like to Americans I'm not an American because I
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have like a little bit of a twang to my accent and to kiwis I sound so American so American yes that's a so your parents
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are are American so my mom's Italian Aman my dad's um German ameran and then
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they moved over here before I was born like because your mom got invited to move here by a m tribe yes so she was
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originally working in Australia with um with an Aboriginal tribe there and then she was invited to work with Niti kahun
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Nunu iwi and she was a choreographer for kah the dance company and so like there's
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pictures of like well she's pregnant with me she was choreographing um for kahurangi so that's how the citizenship
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happened that's how they moved to New Zealand so they moved here before I was
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born is your middle name m yeah yeah and it means um like break Break of Dawn or
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start of day or yeah or SL of dawn Kima cuz I was born at 606 in the morning so right as the sun was coming up and um
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yeah the huata family was really close to us and so uh they gave me my my middle name [ __ ] that's cool and and
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what's what's theoa is that the is that a national park yeah it's like the
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tallest tree in the world um and yeah there's also a national park and uh yeah
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and SM it's just no explanation required so so how does it feel when you come back home to
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New Zealand now like is it painful is it happy is it no it's super happy yeah I
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always forget how small the country is like it's a small small country not if
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you're riding it on a bike no not if you're riding it on a bike that's for
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sure no not just physically like it's actually um just just in the media like
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for example I was at the am show this morning and like one of the guys who was in The Newsroom was one of the reporters
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for the show Sunday that after my dead and brother passed away I was in California and they sent a reporter
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there to interview me and do a two-part special for Sunday and he was that reporter and so it's so it's such a
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small world in the sense that like everything's so interconnected same thing like Hawk Bay is Tiny like in
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terms of like once you've been in bigger cities and stuff places like Hawks Bay H
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like everybody knows everyone like it's a small place know it is it is small I
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was down there for a wedding a few months ago staying at um craigy Range yeah and I end up like going for a run
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to from craigy range to Hastings and around Hastings and then back again like it's very small it's very small very
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runnable the community is like super tight like you were saying that you know I was a naughty kid right so let me
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emphasize this story with I was a naughty kid but like oh no we'll get to that a whole card called childhood oh
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[ __ ] but like just to give you an example of how small Hastings was I got caught I used to steal from the watery
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FY all the time like yeah I can't believe you call it the watery FY that's
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amazing like I used to steal from there all the time and like one time when I stole from there it was it was the
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police came and got me and cuz they knew me pretty well by then and they came to
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get me and by the time we to we went like you know I don't know a kilometer to get to my house to drop me off my dad
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already knew because the neighbor had seen me in the cop car earlier like that's how small the town is right get
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away with J sh can't get away with anything so you you get a lifetime ban at the way house or you I did but I
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walked in there like during my second book tour I walked in there um and one of and I was like really sketched out I
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like had a hat on and I was like oh my God they're going to like never let me
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inside the way get but of course they like they didn't even notice in fact one
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of the guys on the checkout counter like recognized me from my book door so my God that's amazing Oh Come the amount of
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theft at those places you would have been very low level I was very low level yeah um so you you got a new book out uh
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dream of flying which is about Basse jumping yeah dream of flight yep so base jumping that's where you have this you
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look like like a flying a squirrel um yeah so Basse jumping is just jumping off of any fixed object
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yeah so it's an necron what what is it yeah so building yeah building is B um yes one from four antenna a
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building antenna and then s is spin so that's like a bridge of some kind um and
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Earth so it's just just an acronym for those four things so jumping off of any
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of those four objects is BAS jumping but the book in its in its entirety is about
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more the experience of human flight and like confronting fear and my relationship with fear so it goes the
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Basse jumping is a part of it obviously but it also goes through skydiving it goes through Wing suiting it goes
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through um you know paragliding speed riding like a whole different types of aspects of human flight including you
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know being in a wind tunnel Russia and things like that so it's it's really
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just a exploration of my relationship with my own fear like that's most of my
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like my second book isn't about cycling around New Zealand it's just the the
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main storyline is around yeah it's the backbone but really it's about like an
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emotional Journey what what are your fears um so when I noral fears when I started that particular um
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story you know it was 8 years ago now um and I had I had a fear of trusting myself and my own abilities um and you
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know it started with a bungee jump when I was really young um in TPO actually and um the fear that I felt in that and
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then my first Skydive the fear that I felt with that and then deciding to get my skydiving license and then it became
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a fear of not just the activity that that I'm doing but it became a fear of trusting my own instincts my own
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abilities um and navigating my way to mitigate the situation and the risk as much as possible but potentially get
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myself out of a gnarly situation yeah so yeah so you you were a sky jumper so you
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did like 250 jumps or something and then you started bass jumping yeah I had about 250 skydives before I started bass
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but you're still like even when you're bass jumping you're still skydiving you
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know there yeah so so you have that suit on the wing suit so wing suit is something that you put on right so like
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you can wing suit skydiving which I do or you can wing suit Bas jumping which I have not done and there a lot of people
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who wing suit base um generally you learn how to Basse jump first and then you there's a series of steps that
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happen like you put on um a two-piece suit and like a sausage suit so so in the book you know I'm I'm in Europe and
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I've got a suit on that would be the two-piece suit and that suit inflates to
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help give you lift and glide um and then from the two-piece suit you can either go to like a onesie where you um your
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legs are connected like a wing suit but your arms are free or you can go straight into a Wings suit and then same
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thing in the sky you can do it with you know a squirrel suit on um or a phoenix F or any of the other squirrels just a
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brand um or you can do it with a two-piece suit or you can do it with a onesie or you can do it slick with with
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no type of suit on at all and so there's so many different navigations it's so
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funny when people talk about like skydiving or base jumping um it's kind of like
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saying uh climbing right like there's so many facets to climbing so if I just say
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skydiving that's that encompasses the whole thing and it entirety just like climbing encompasses the whole thing but
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if you look at the facets within climbing you have ice climbing rock climbing Mountain nearing like free solo
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right tread Climbing Gym climbing like there's a whole bunch of different facets within it and same thing goes for
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skydiving right you have free flying you have Wing suiting you have um uh tracking you have there's multiple
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different facets within it same thing for Bas jumping there's multiple fa so
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that's a that's a whole separate a whole separate I I guess it's just this
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natural sort of intrigu of curiosity cuz it's something that um [ __ ] 99.999% of us would never do yeah and
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for anyone that does it it's just this Intrigue because we just I suppose naturally assume you've got a Death Wish
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um which I mean to be fair like yeah there are a lot of jumpers who do I I did this as an exploration of what I was
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interested in what I wanted to do what I wanted to write about most people and I
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am definitely not even close to the most experienced jumper out out there there's
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people who dedicate their entire lives to this Sport and this activity and that is their everything and it encompasses
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everything within them and yeah sure I've met a lot who have death wishes I'm not going to deny that I feel
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like that's a cop out thing to say because anyone anyone that does it doesn't really want to die maybe they
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enjoy the exhilaration of feeling close to death but yeah they they don't it's a
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cop out sort of it can be yeah I mean I think that there's a very fine line that's walked in that world that can get
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extremely dangerous um and you know everyone has a different exploration explanation for their exploration of it
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and a lot of it depends on like the person that you're talking to because two jumpers are not alike there's
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there's a lot of differences between jumpers so if if it was legal if you were allowed to could you go to the jump
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platform on the sky tower in Oakland just using this as a reference point because it's something most people
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listening to this will better um yeah relate to could you jump off that in one of your suits or whatever with a with a
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skyd backpack on and land safely on the ground yeah so it would be a base jump you wouldn't be wearing a suit because
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it's too low there's no point the suit just gives you lift and glide and you
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wouldn't need that for something like Sky Tower um and yeah Sky Tower would make a great jump because you're trying
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to avoid like you know you don't want power lines and things like that which
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it doesn't have I was scouting it earlier so it doesn't have um but there's like a nice landing area and
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everything like that and there's people who specialize in this particular thing
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this guy named Jamie Crawford who's like in Los Angeles and San Diego and he just
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all he does is Jump Urban which is like um you know buildings and stuff like that but it that part of it gets a
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little tricky because it's not exactly legal so um that's not me I'm not
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interested in that stuff I have a company to R so I have to be like a little bit careful on what I jump you
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got to think about the Optics um jez it wouldd be great promo for the book though wouldn't it cheeky
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arist a cheeky arist yeah my public is wouldn't be very happy about that one um
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but this is how you metet your husband as well he he's a b jumper he was like
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an instructor yeah yeah yeah so he instructs he teaches people how to jump and that's how we met um I was a jumper
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before I met him like I had started Basse jumping already um but yeah that's
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how we met and fell in love yeah we'll get to that we get to that later it was
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very very quick courtship like two weeks before you got engaged yeah like really
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seems like you rush into a lot of things um but and and you guys even move to Idaho so you could be near like a base
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jumping Bridge yeah there's a bridge there so he coaches Bas jumping so how high is the bridge um 486 I think 4
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elevation 48 486 yeah meters uh feet feet yeah also like 150 M about that yeah so you jump off there
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yeah it's good training cuz like when you're on a span I thought High the
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higher you are would be better training like there's more chance to yeah it can
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be I mean like this particular one is you know like we're talking about the different facets like one of the facets
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is lower objects right so this particular one's good because it's got a great landing area and if you you know
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if your parachute has a 180 you can turn around and go to the landing area and so
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um it's a perfect place to coach and that's what he does is he trains people
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how to base jump all right hey thanks for that explanation feels like this is a whole
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separate podcast so let's um why the CL back go back to your childhood um you're born in
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um Hogs Bay um your dad's your dad's quite famous in mountaineering C circles
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yeah yeah Marty Marty Schmid and had an obsession with K2 he did yeah what's the
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obsession he he's climbed everist uh numerous times right yes why the so K2 is not as high as Everest why is K2
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considered you know so mysterious why is it so much more difficult lot of like there was like
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this saying years ago that like like um you climb Everest you're a climber to
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the world you climb K2 you're a climber to climbers um and so you know I think
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that it's very appealing to a lot of climbers it's a beautiful mountain it's
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super striking uh I can understand why he was so obsessed with it to be fair that
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saying was made quite a while ago and a lot has changed in mountaineering since then um
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now that there's a lot more teams and a lot of fixed lines and stuff like that
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on K2 so it was very different atmosphere when when I grew up um when I grew up it you know the K2 was the Holy
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Grail of mountaineering so I think that's part of the reason he was obsessed with it yeah yeah and what are
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your Recollections of your um your early years sounds like your dad was um away a
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lot like nine months of the year you mean other than JJ and Dom playing Tinkles is that that came later that
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came later um but yeah he's he sounds like um an intriguing dude sort of happy
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energy always topless um homemade sandals all of that yeah um tomato Peak is a huge one in my memory it's so funny
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I went back up there during my second book tour I think it was you have clim Mountain
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yeah yeah so he used to always teach climbing classes up there so that was really early in my memory yeah but you
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had you had a great relationship with both your parents early on early on yeah yeah I kind of left home quite young and
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like rebelled against everything to do with that and found business and um started my company and it wasn't until
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after they died that I kind of went back into the adventure space yeah yeah yeah
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cuz there was um yeah I've done like quite a bit of digging into your story so there was um so your dad was you
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loved your dad but your dad was away a lot so it wasn't often there is is that
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CU it seems like you sort of had a chip on your shoulder with your dad was that sort of why no I don't think so I think
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that um look there's something that comes with and this applies to really any extreme
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sport um you can apply this to base as well there's something that comes with
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the personality that's attracted to that particular world uh and a lot of the
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time they have a very different sense of responsibility than what normal people would have quote
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unquote right because they're there's a you have to be inherently selfish to do
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things like mountaineering or Bass jumping or anything like that like there has to be a vein of selfishness to that
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but in terms of the time it takes the time away from home or the risk or what all of it okay yeah yeah the pure
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dedication that it takes um to reach a certain level in that activity and you know my father was one of the top in the
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world um and so I think that I was a really challenging child cuz I was very much like him very driven like him
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stubborn very strong willed like these are like all traits I still have right um soed You Well in business serve me
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well in business but yeah I mean in in general I was like very very similar to him in many regards and so we you know
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as I went into my teenage years like many teenagers who challenged their parents um but his answer for it was to
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go back to the mountains right so I think that was something that I struggled with a lot we had a
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conversation before he passed away that was me trying to tell him like I was a child you were an adult you were
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responsible but obviously that didn't really work that well yeah cuz the picture I can get is um he was what
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you'd call the cool dead like there was wasn't a lot of like boundaries or
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parenting no there was definitely none of that he parented in his own way right right look like I'm like really I look
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back on it I'm like oh I I firmly believe that we choose our parents before we come into this Earth and I
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think that's a huge part of our human experience and I wouldn't change it for
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a minute his parenting style wasn't um you know stereotypical conventional or
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conventional in any regard whatsoever but I you know I learned a lot from both of my parents you go to police care
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foster care uh yeah I was in and out of foster care for a little bit was that s the beginning of that that was yeah that
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was the beginning of that but it lasted for a little while um and I don't know
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if you've ever been a foster home in Hastings Hastings is rough Hastings is not like a like yeah
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white picket fence kind of life like Hastings can be rough for sure yeah I I lived in Hastings for like a couple of
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years in the um in the late 1970s but it was a different place then like it's um
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yeah it's it's very rough now and I'm guessing when you were growing up it was
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so you were in foster care because you know because your your mom wasn't fit to
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look after you and your dad was away is that the or yeah child Youth and Family Protective Services here CS yeah it's
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funny cuz I I'll say Cs and nobody knows what that means in the stes but um yeah
00:21:08
siths stepped in um and yeah I mean I think it was like a mixture of stuff where it was uh we
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would I'd be in the home for a little bit and then if I was taken out of the
00:21:23
home like if Dad came back from an expedition or if he went on an expedition and um he arranged for
00:21:29
somebody to take care of us and then of course I was a super naughty kid so I'd
00:21:35
sneak out or something like that and then I'd get in trouble and then CS would come back and my caseworker would
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put me back in a home so it was just like a lot of on and off of that it's funny I've like started exploring it a
00:21:45
little bit more as an adult cuz you know when you deal with stuff like that you kind of block it all out just to get
00:21:51
through life um then I'm starting to explore it a little bit more Nowack everything unpack it all cuz I I I uh
00:22:00
joj and I when we were together we had like family adoption um yeah one of her nephews came to live with us when he was
00:22:05
like four years and 11 months old we we did a lot of therapy on on his behalf and you learn that um some like 80% of a
00:22:12
brain development's done in the first thousand days or three years so if the
00:22:15
first three years are um sound and relatively normal then you know you're going to be pretty much all right yeah
00:22:22
um your your first few years okay I think so I mean yeah were you yeah I'm not twitching too bad like I I yeah I
00:22:32
mean I I believe so my my mom tried to be a really really good mother and there elements to her that were an incredible
00:22:38
mother that's why I said like I'm a firm believer you pick your parents and I I
00:22:43
picked wonderful parents they just weren't conventional parents in any way whatsoever but if I look at my life and
00:22:50
how it shaped out I'm pretty good with it that's great those um yeah so the
00:22:56
Foster Kier experience was that I don't remember a lot of it to be honest like and I talked to a trauma
00:23:03
therapist um like just a few weeks ago actually just because I'm like looking
00:23:07
at exploring a lot of that stuff um maybe for another book um like but um yeah I mean I don't remember there's a
00:23:17
lot of I think everyone has that do you remember all of your childhood no no no like a lot of it kind of gets blocked
00:23:25
out I think um so that's a lot of my childhoods I don't I literally don't
00:23:31
remember a lot of it You' do fun with writing I've written some books mine are
00:23:35
mine are shitty books that you know nothing like yours but when you start writing often it triggers off like it's
00:23:41
almost like a snowball that's why I do it it's so up other memories yeah and
00:23:46
then it's also just such a fun time capsule like my style of writing non-fiction narrative it is not a
00:23:51
literary Masterpiece in any regard whatsoever I'm a publisher I work with literary people like I'm not one of them
00:23:57
I just like capturing my you know time on this Earth it's a cool time time capsule like that
00:24:04
trip to Pakistan I took when I was working on finishing this lost book I opened that first book and I was like oh
00:24:11
[ __ ] I don't remember any of this this is so cool like I can read back on what
00:24:15
the curry tastes like and like what the peak look like and stuff that I wouldn't
00:24:19
remember you know so it's really nice to have that kind of cathartic Time Capsule
00:24:24
yeah for sure so how did you end up in Australia when you're were a teenager I
00:24:28
went to a performing arts high school I like applied to a performing arts high school and I really just I think I just
00:24:35
really wanted to get out of the situation that I was in so were you you know Foster here over there or no I
00:24:41
emancipated so I was legally allowed to be on my own so where were you living who think I was 14 maybe 15 that's
00:24:49
that's alarming though you're so young right you must look back now how old are
00:24:51
you now 303 33 yeah yeah what do you think when you look back on that now that's crazy yeah I mean to be honest
00:25:00
I'm like really impressed oh I'm going to [ __ ] cry I'm like really
00:25:06
impressed if I heard my life story I'd be like [ __ ] impressed like what at your
00:25:12
survival and St yeah like I'm really impressed I made it out through all of that bring out the tissue box 27 minutes
00:25:21
on yeah you did Bloody grain I I don't know if you want to talk about this or
00:25:24
not but you you you you got pregnant over there at 15 yeah yeah mhm yeah that I suppose like like you're
00:25:32
terminating it was just like a no-brainer like it was the only option at that age and stage of Life yeah I
00:25:39
think you know I was so young um yeah I got a call from my dad and was like all right time to get an
00:25:47
abortion so yeah yeah um yeah thanks for being so open yeah it's I mean it's
00:25:55
really like it's really impressive like you know to you know the the the woman
00:25:59
that's sitting in front of me now and everything you've achieved with you know
00:26:02
what youve you've been through and survived and enjoyed it's [ __ ] cool
00:26:06
yeah it's really cool yeah I think you should be proud of yourself even though
00:26:10
your life to a lot of people like with the Bas jumping and whatnot seems chaotic now it's I suppose it's
00:26:14
Controlled Chaos now yeah yeah mitigated chaos for sure yeah I'm choosing which
00:26:20
chaos I allow into my life and which ones I don't and then um so then you s sent to live with your granddad in Texas
00:26:28
which was like so this this is after po opposite world oh I'm skipping out of it
00:26:33
here so um your Dad's second wife um she tries to discipline you or tell you off
00:26:39
and you you punch her in the face yeah she was a bit of a [ __ ] she still she lives in New Zealand so I hope
00:26:48
she listens to this one so you're you're yes so you come home this in Hawks Bay
00:26:53
you come home late one night yeah you had a thing that you did where you when you arrived home no curfew of course you
00:26:59
just tap on your dad's door so he knows your home's safe and then um she wasn't
00:27:03
aware of this thing so she wakes up and has a crack at you you um this is like the first time I ever met her too like I
00:27:11
never even met her never even matter her she gets up and starts screaming at me you're like
00:27:19
what nobody disciplines me give her a nice punch in the face and then um yeah so then you get sent to T
00:27:28
[ __ ] you must um yeah no then I go to boarding school oh boarding school that was right before boarding school which
00:27:35
one um in Australia right okay before the pregnancy oh good luck you're not going to last long there are you and
00:27:42
then from there I get sent to Texas yeah and and this sounds um amazing I I think
00:27:50
I heard this on another podcast you've done so your granddad who I'm guessing
00:27:53
you didn't even know very well no yeah so your granddad and his wife Barbara
00:27:58
and he sounds like the the most incredible [ __ ] guy he was yeah he was absolutely incredible yeah he was
00:28:05
amazing he passed away um just last year oh I'm sorry to hear that yeah yeah it
00:28:09
was honestly it was like a really beautiful um it was a beautiful experience I've never been able to like
00:28:19
sit by somebody as they're dying before like and so I spent um a few months with
00:28:26
him shortly before he died and um it was great I like read to him every day and played classical music for
00:28:34
him and just got really like good one-on-one time with him which was ni yeah CU it seems like it was finally
00:28:41
even though the the ship had probably already sailed in terms of the age you were when you got sent there seems like
00:28:46
finally you had this um sort of like Cal calm in your life and um yeah he he was
00:28:53
like a non-smoker non- drinker but he even he bought you siggies one day cuz you were oh he was like the most
00:28:58
straight La person on the planet like literally the most straight La woke up every morning put on a suit went to work
00:29:05
like was very you know very Italian American loyal to his family like a really good man um and yeah so he
00:29:17
definitely was not like with the naughty kids he would be like the guy running the track if we were to kind of condense
00:29:28
our personalities he would be the one running the track up early at the track meet and I'd be the one like smoking
00:29:34
behind the bleachers we were just very very opposite in our personalities and so when he took me in I think it was a
00:29:40
bit of a challenge for him but he like was so stable and so secure that it just gave me that what I needed at that
00:29:49
period of time you his wife wife Barbara like the first thing she says to you was
00:29:53
oh you smell something like that yeah I did smell to be fair they sent him it just it's like a feels
00:30:01
like a wonderful part of your story and then um he he had a line that he used to
00:30:04
say to you like um you'll always have a home here or something like that which
00:30:07
I'm guessing after everything you've been through and the instability and
00:30:10
everything it must have just felt I I don't did you did you trust it like you
00:30:14
know did you trust it or do you think this is another adult that's going to [ __ ] let me down eventually I think I
00:30:18
tested him so many times that eventually I realized that um yeah I trusted it like it just took a lot um in the year
00:30:27
that I lived with him a lot you know uh and then yeah even after I cuz I left I think I was 17 when I started my company
00:30:36
and I left his house and even after that I'd go over for Sunday dinners and you
00:30:42
know he was a big part of my life um and that's I think that's what even the most unstable or naughty
00:30:54
child needs is just a sense of stability M you know yeah you do think um yeah I like you know after you did
00:31:06
passed away and actually even before he passed away do you think um he took on like a father figure role in your life
00:31:10
would you say my father or my grand grand yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he he took on um a sense of
00:31:19
responsibility and stability that that should come from a parent yeah so so during that stage when you're in Texas
00:31:27
had you had you s of cut yourself off this this is when um your dead cut myself myself off entirely from everyone
00:31:34
yeah just kind of packed up my bags and got shipped to the states and your Dad tried to keep in touch with your
00:31:40
biological dad tried to keep in touch with you but um you redirected his his emails to your spam folder yeah for many
00:31:47
years yeah I only reconnected with him um you know we I spent five and a half almost six years not talking to him at
00:31:54
all um obviously still Denali Denali was still a huge part of my life I still talked to my brother constantly and he
00:32:02
would try to encourage me to talk to my dad but um yeah it wasn't until about a
00:32:07
year before he died that I started talking to him again and reconnecting with him yeah and and it was also about
00:32:13
this time you started your own company yeah uh so you're 16 years old um and
00:32:17
the company's still going today and and very successfully D'Angelo publishing so
00:32:22
D'Angelo was um yeah you you you you gave up the Schmid name no I just made it up I was just like oh really just
00:32:30
made it's so funny it's such a funny story I literally just made it up I was
00:32:36
just like D'Angelo that sounds cool I thought maybe it's your your grandad's
00:32:40
name or Barbara oh okay just made it up so so you became um SE Sequoia D'Angelo
00:32:47
yeah I thought it sounded cool you know the really funny part about this whole thing the really I mean
00:32:54
I was [ __ ] 16 like how smart were you at 16 the really funny part about this whole thing is like I spelled it
00:33:01
wrong D'Angelo is an Italian name it's D apostrophe and I put d i a n g e l o and
00:33:11
this is after I lived in Italy and everything like I spelled the name wrong but then I was committed to it I had a
00:33:18
logo I had business cards I had to stick with it right so I I kept it and then like four four or five years ago we were
00:33:27
doing our ational copyright registration and trademark and we submitted it to them
00:33:32
because we were opening a branch in the UK and we submitted it to them and the Trademark Office came back with we
00:33:39
wouldn't usually allow this trademark to exist for a company because it's a last
00:33:44
name but seeing as it's not spelled correctly will allow you to have the trademark yeah a publisher with spelling
00:33:52
issues what could be that's pretty much my life yeah so was that just like um
00:33:57
like a a [ __ ] you to your appearance really I think it was yeah I think it was a you don't get to be associated
00:34:05
with me in any way I'm going to be successful outside of your name yeah well you just felt you felt lit down or
00:34:11
abandoned or I just wanted to carve my own name and my own place in this Earth You know it's a random thing to do at 16
00:34:22
yeah how yeah how do you go about starting a company when you're 16 like where do you even begin um you obvious
00:34:27
you didn't at 16 you didn't plan for it to be you know be this big publishing
00:34:31
house that it is now no [ __ ] no no you just couldn't allow yourself to think
00:34:35
that big oh no I definitely thought that big I just you don't know where to start I've
00:34:42
always thought that big though like um yeah I I just don't think that I have
00:34:47
like I don't have that I don't have that thing that most people have where something's not
00:34:54
possible or something's not doable or something's too big I don't have that
00:34:58
I've never had that it's great but it's also a major detriment right yeah but um
00:35:05
I mean in the thing you put put your mind to I think you you know you've got
00:35:07
the the stubbornness or whatever you want to what the attribute you want to call it as to to do it well why
00:35:13
publishing oh [ __ ] that's a good question I ask my staff that every day I'm like why are we in publishing um I
00:35:21
think storytelling is very important I think that literature outlives us I think that the oldest form of
00:35:28
storytelling is written form and there's important knowledge and information that
00:35:33
should be passed down through generations that's why I do it yeah and it was quite successful
00:35:39
quite early on no [ __ ] no no no my first book that I ever published was quite successful but that was also it took me
00:35:47
years to realize why that was successful it was also somebody who was really well
00:35:51
known and it was circumstantial and um the timing was right on it but then no then I failed for many years after that
00:35:59
many many many years it's still a grind you don't get into publishing for money
00:36:04
that's for damn sure you don't get into media for money at all like yeah you're
00:36:08
right right podcasting do podcast they say yeah I mean it's just in general like um you know I I have a few other
00:36:17
companies on the side so like I do I have a real estate development company and stuff like that and I joke all the
00:36:23
time I'm like I make more money in a month with my real estate development company than I do with year with
00:36:28
publishing like that's not why I do it just for the passion or the love of it I
00:36:33
just think that storytelling is super important I think there's certain messages that should be brought to the
00:36:37
world you know yeah well that's cool and congratulations on the success that that
00:36:42
you've had with that and you continue to have with that cool yeah it's fun I get
00:36:46
to meet cool people and work with cool people as you do with things like podcasts right you get to meet cool
00:36:50
people and oh 100% And it's um yeah just I I get to have meaningful conversations
00:36:56
with cool people not like um you're from my radio background it was probably like
00:36:59
similar to like say the am show that you went on this morning it's S 5 minutes
00:37:03
sitting there if you've got a long answer I'd be look at my watch like [ __ ]
00:37:07
yeah yeah exactly but this this is a chance to get to to go deep and really explore the story which I [ __ ] love
00:37:13
Yeah long form's great I remember when podcasts start started like popping off
00:37:18
I was like oh this is amazing cuz books are long for right like we get to tell a
00:37:23
whole story and then if you're promoting a book you get a two second sound bite
00:37:27
snpp bit of what that story is in this case that encompassed eight years of my life you know yeah so let's um move to
00:37:36
K2 and the accident how do you feel talking about this now you you talked about it so much it's like an auto pilot
00:37:43
sort of thing is it still tough to go back yeah I mean I I think it depends um in the context in which I'm I'm talking
00:37:51
about it obviously so like and there's one particular event that I've done
00:37:57
every year for the last nine years now which is a Gala for the nonprofit that I have um Denali named after your brother
00:38:04
yeah Denali foundation so we have this like big black tie ball in New York City every year and so obviously I do a
00:38:12
speech every year and I bring it up then um and then during a book tour like this
00:38:20
um I'll speak about it but it's interesting grief is you know it's an
00:38:25
ongoing journey and it's been 11 almost 11 years now you know and so a huge part of it is like
00:38:34
navigating how I feel in these moments and through this time period and I'm okay talking about it I'm not like you
00:38:43
know I'm not in a position where I don't want to discuss it um I I think that
00:38:48
there's a a lot of elements to grieving publicly that have been really helpful and cathartic
00:38:56
to me but also to other people I remember after my first book came out that was like one of the first things
00:39:01
that people when I was touring one of the first things people would do was come up to me after a reading or a
00:39:06
signing and say like I lost my brother or you know my dad died tragically or something and yeah so like a
00:39:12
vulnerability Exchange in a way isn't it yeah and that's I think that's really
00:39:15
important in society because we're not really good with death in general yeah so um for anyone that's
00:39:22
like what what are they what are they talking about so it was um yeah the 10th anniversary last year so it's coming up
00:39:27
11 is uh that you lost your dad and your brother at the same time on in an avalanche on K2 um I've heard you say
00:39:36
since then um the greatest tragedy is the best thing that ever happened to me so funny so many people repeat that line
00:39:43
like it's hard it's hard to see how that's that's possible to get to that
00:39:46
point why a lot of people repeat that line back to me I don't even know where
00:39:51
I first said it um but a lot of people do you regret saying it now because at all you mean it I 100% mean it but it's
00:40:00
just so hard for people to understand or grasp that concept um because the trajectory in which my life
00:40:12
was going prior to their death uh was not one that I would want for my life so you were like 22 at the time
00:40:23
yeah and I was um the publishing company had done one book that was predominantly
00:40:29
doing a nightlife magazine I was out partying every [ __ ] night um I was just in a a
00:40:37
haze that I would have probably stayed in until the end of my life like you were smoking a lot of
00:40:47
cigarettes alcohol cocaine all of it yeah yeah doing a lot of drugs like um yeah I was in a I was in a spiral like a
00:40:55
pretty deep spiral um I was still managing to work every day because I'm just dedicated and
00:41:03
driven but I was in a pretty deep spiral I suppose at that age you can that sort
00:41:07
of living is going to catch up with you but yeah you can sort of stay out late at night and bounce back the next
00:41:12
morning in your 30s 40s not so bad yeah just the the people I was hanging out with like I wasn't I wasn't curious
00:41:20
about life anymore in the same way that I was when I was a child or that I am now um curiosity is a huge part of who I
00:41:28
am and that was stifled during that period of time and I think if I if I didn't have a massive tragedy wake me up
00:41:36
and take me out of that situation I don't know that I ever would have gotten
00:41:40
out of it and so that massive tragedy brought me back to my roots and my core which was
00:41:50
adventure and was exploration was curiosity was um and a need to understand this life and what the
00:42:00
purpose is and who I am in it and it took a really horrific tragedy the worst thing that ever happened in my life for
00:42:10
that to bring me to a point where I was living a life that I was happy with again yeah oh that's interesting that's
00:42:20
a great explanation think it you hear other people say it in different ways I just don't think most people will say it
00:42:26
as poignantly like like somebody who goes through a horrific divorce right and was a
00:42:31
horrible divorce and they were you know shattered and heartbroken but years later they're like I'm really glad I
00:42:37
went through that you know that was a really good thing that happened to me because it allowed me on a different
00:42:42
journey in my life yeah and I think this was a line from your granddad somewhere
00:42:45
he said um I think your your dad asked him once if um you you were ever going to like talk to him again and your
00:42:51
granded had some line about time which I thought was really profound um time is the only judge of that or something like
00:42:57
that which is really cool so um only time can judge that yeah yeah what is that only time can judge that
00:43:04
mhm yeah yeah I love that because people say time's the great healer but it's not
00:43:08
it's not a cure oil is it no I don't believe so no so so you you weren't um a
00:43:15
mountain climber at the time and neither was your brother Denali he was he was loved his art was very good at Art well
00:43:20
he was definitely a climber I mean he was the youngest person to do um Ali you know at that time period like he he
00:43:26
climbed a lot they did a first descent route on Mount Denali his namesake highest peak in North America um and
00:43:33
yeah he was a climber for sure there's no question he was a great climber he
00:43:36
was just an artist more than he was a climber I would say like he wanted to have his career be in art and his life
00:43:45
be in art he was just very gifted at climbing right but he he wasn't really sort of match fit to do K2 he'd been
00:43:51
just graduated top of his class i' would say he was fitter than most people in
00:43:55
the M right I think there that was a something I saw in a magazine article from your mom she said you know
00:44:01
you know he wasn't really his wasn't the right head space to do the second
00:44:04
highest peak in the world at that time something like that I mean I don't know
00:44:07
I I think that we have differing opinions obviously she lost a son you know she's she's got her own opinion on
00:44:14
stuff but yeah but you your dad had like this dream of being the first father and
00:44:18
son to yeah so they were doing a double Ascent cuz they did broad Peak which they were the first father and son to do
00:44:25
broad Peak and that's right right next to K2 and then from there they went over
00:44:30
to attempt K2 right is that is that something that's done in climbing like I'm just
00:44:37
thinking from like a running perspective you wouldn't run a marathon and then two
00:44:41
weeks later run another one you sort of um sometimes yeah sometimes it's done I
00:44:46
have a a good friend Kristen who just did like back toback multiple mountains but sometimes it's done like that where
00:44:52
you go in and you're attempting to do two mountains at once or you're acclimating on a certain Mount and then
00:44:57
you go to another one yeah and do do you remember the last conversation you had with your brother or your dad did they
00:45:04
have a phone there m yeah that that one's a little tough I won't talk about that one that one's a
00:45:14
little tough I had a bit of a tough conversation with Dad on on K2 uh no just before they
00:45:21
right yeah yeah so short conversation long conversation short conversation wow is this not in one of your books or
00:45:30
anything um I don't think so I don't know I don't think I I don't think I put
00:45:36
it in any of the books maybe I did I don't know I've done so many interviews
00:45:41
and talks on it now I'm like you forget I forget what's what's what I even said
00:45:46
on what yeah you forget I love that with with the podcast it's like did I have
00:45:49
that conversation with someone like on the microphone or was it off or was it off or who knows yeah it's interesting
00:45:55
because I also like you know I laid low for the last few years like I haven't done I think I did
00:46:02
like one interview in 2020 I think but since then I've like laid low you know I've been dealing with
00:46:09
a lot of my grandfather passing um husband's health issues like I've been
00:46:15
dealing with navigating life a lot um so I kind of steered clear of having the book come out this book was supposed to
00:46:22
come out like four years ago have a wound to bloody Publishers yeah exactly yell at the Ang what even is that what a
00:46:30
hacker is that okay um all right well we don't have to focus on that but yeah
00:46:35
like it because of what happened which was an accident which had nothing to do with you like are you are you
00:46:39
embarrassed about the last phone call or no no it's just you know um just a tough
00:46:45
just a tough one just between me and Dad yeah know okay well that's fair enough
00:46:49
and then so then when do you when do you hear that there's been an accident and
00:46:53
they they can't can't be found or that they've been killed I got that call from
00:46:57
a family friend um when base camp kind of made the call that that uh a couple Sherpas went up
00:47:07
there and determined that an avalanche had wiped out the camp so yeah and was it um was I've had another guy on the
00:47:15
podcast called Adam Adam perori he used to play cricket for New Zealand and he climbed Everest he had a he had a like
00:47:21
near-death experience on Everest and he said the quote is something like the mountain doesn't know you're an expert I
00:47:25
think it's a m line um was the accident the Avalanche that killed your your dad
00:47:31
and your brother avoidable or was it like sloppiness on their part or it's a tough one I mean K2 is gnarly
00:47:40
it's like you know so even the most careful climate comes with risk yeah I mean arguably one of the most if not the
00:47:49
most dangerous mountain in the world like even you can mitigate all risks humanly possible but Avalanche will
00:47:56
still work wipe you out there's nothing you can do with that one you know that seems like such a [ __ ]
00:48:04
terrifying way to go as well like I've got a mate that um took his own life a few years ago and he he took
00:48:12
it in a like a a very like a very violent way and whenever I think about it it just like sends a shatter at me
00:48:18
and I'd imagine it's the same for you know you thinking about especially with
00:48:22
your familiarity with mountains and stuff um yeah I oh I can't I just can't
00:48:27
imagine how terrifying that would be mhm yeah I mean over the course of almost 11 years now I come to terms with
00:48:36
it yeah so um yeah that must have been a rough time and then um then you you weren't uh
00:48:44
welcome back at your dad's memorial in New Zealand because no I was so pissed
00:48:48
about that so that was because of the his his his wife at the time of his death the one that you punched and the
00:48:54
you didn't make a great first impression but then again make a great first impression on you either no um yeah so
00:49:00
that must have been that must have been really [ __ ] hard yeah but it's been
00:49:03
really interesting cuz like whenever I'm back here I always have his friends like
00:49:07
come up and say oh we wish you were at the memorial that's been like an ongoing
00:49:12
theme um yeah I feel like they I mean yeah I just got a message this morning somebody saw me on the am show like
00:49:19
somebody I never even heard of and this is the one thing I love about New Zealand is is so small so I get messages
00:49:24
all the time for people that are like I know it's been like you know 11 years
00:49:29
since they died but I just wanted to say I climbed with your dad on Mount Cook and he like I guess had done some route
00:49:35
on Mount Cook with Dad and was like saw the am show clip this morning and wanted
00:49:40
to reach out like it's awesome it's super cool that's a really cool part
00:49:43
about it well when when you get get told you're not allowed at the memorial why
00:49:47
aren't you just like well [ __ ] you I'll do what I want that I think at that point I was
00:49:54
just so like Shattered by everything you know you got to remember I was like 22 you're still yeah you're you're a bad
00:50:04
[ __ ] for 22 though was it just like the just this respectful side that kicks in that
00:50:09
you're like I don't want to be involved in this drama or something like that
00:50:12
yeah I mean I think I knew that I had my own way to grieve with their losses yeah
00:50:19
um it's also just like you're you're really Jarred when it's such a sudden
00:50:25
accident um you know going through my grandfather's death this last year it's
00:50:30
like there's something really beautiful about the process of leaving this Earth
00:50:33
if it's done in the right way where you're old and you're surrounded by
00:50:36
people who love you and but if it's a sudden accident um it changes the nature of how you
00:50:46
grieve yeah I'd agree with that I think that's the you know something like um
00:50:50
cancer or any sort of teral illness as as awful as it is um I suppose the upside of that is it gives you that
00:50:57
opportunity to you know get your ducks in a row not leave anything unsa and maybe have that moment where you know
00:51:04
you're at peace and you've got you know some of the some of the faces that you
00:51:07
love the most like standing around you as you depart um yeah so when when did you when did you
00:51:16
go through the spam folder and read the emails God it must have been maybe 2 or 3 years after he died oh
00:51:25
really that long yeah but you you knew they were sitting there the whole time or did it just like come back to you
00:51:30
like oh that's right I think after I got out of my haze of grief yeah was so the yeah there must
00:51:38
have been like grief for your brother cuz you you know you you loved him in the relationship there was fine but you
00:51:42
you dead was it like part was part of it guilt on your part or was it just like anger at him
00:51:49
for being not being the dead that you thought he should be or no no I think that um
00:51:58
there was a little bit of anger for obviously my brother was 25 and in the beginning I felt like you know
00:52:05
challenged by the fact that he was on K2 and that happened um but it was just I think it's just a navigation of figuring
00:52:14
out that they just lived a very different kind of Life specifically my dad and it
00:52:21
took me going into Pakistan finding a venture in my own right living through my 20s in a very similar manner to how
00:52:30
my father did um and my brother for that matter in terms of determining what our purpose is on
00:52:38
this Earth and what we're spending our time doing and yeah took a lot of that to kind of
00:52:43
navigate it yeah what um yeah what was it like reading reading those messages yeah I
00:52:53
mean that's a good question I think it was by the time I had read them it was a few
00:52:59
years later and I wasn't in such shock anymore I think if you go through a tragic accident like that the first year
00:53:06
is like you're so you're so in shock kind like nothing that you do or say can
00:53:13
be taken um it all has to be taken with a grain of salt CU you're just in such
00:53:17
shock so it was a few years after that and I'm glad that I waited that long to
00:53:22
read through them what was the what was the sort of tone of them uh just check in on me wondering who I am like I think
00:53:29
that's a huge part of like you know father who loves their children it's kind of cool eh like he
00:53:37
never you know he never stooped to the to the level you were playing at I guess or I mean you were the child of the
00:53:44
relationship so you know you deserve a free pass but to be fair you you you you were completely entitled to have a chip
00:53:50
on your shoulder but the fact that he was never like H whatever yeah and he he kept keep
00:53:57
persisting like in hindsight yeah that's that's pretty cool yeah and then um so then it's is it
00:54:06
like a year after they die that the the Facebook thing happens two years two years mhm so what is so you're watching
00:54:14
some like promotional ad on Facebook no MH promotional video on Facebook and then
00:54:22
um yeah just jumped on a plane and flew to Pakistan and that became my first my first experience with big
00:54:32
mountains in the Korum yes so so so the Facebook thing was um what there's some
00:54:38
line in there about you know this mountain can kill you or something like that is that what the line is what's
00:54:44
yeah his name was Mike horn he's like I don't know this guy from South Africa
00:54:49
and he was doing a climb of K2 and climbers are very like chauvinistic some of them are not all of them not
00:54:59
some of them are so he was like you know showing that the mountain can kill you if you don't know what you're doing and
00:55:04
then flashed some human body parts so [ __ ] disrespectful yeah and then were were you outraged oh I was [ __ ] livid
00:55:13
yeah called around to some of the other families jumped on a plane went to Pakistan yeah you're skim wait you
00:55:22
you're skimming over this very quickly so do you get the video because I've
00:55:25
done you book tours on it and talked about it a million times um come on but there be people hearing learning who you
00:55:33
are and hearing your story for the very first time this is a chance to get a couple of extra sales for D'Angelo
00:55:38
publishing oh God not anyone will be to Google it cuz the spelling's all [ __ ]
00:55:43
up um so do do you phone do you message the owner of the video and get them to take it [ __ ] down or I think I wrote
00:55:52
him a public note yeah um and at one point he replied to a press inquiry I think it was a while
00:56:04
later but yeah no he was just a he's just a [ __ ] he doesn't matter yes so so you see you see this um
00:56:11
you see turns out it's not your brother but you you you think it is and then um
00:56:16
get an emergency Visa go to Pakistan even though you definitely weren't match
00:56:20
fit you were smoking a pack of daries a day at this point yeah not doing any sort of no I was just you know
00:56:26
in a that kind of cloud that I was telling you about you know what why didn't you um cuz you did the you did
00:56:33
the tricks that's a big massive trick to get the Bas I spent 17 days in the Korum
00:56:39
for that yeah why didn't you just helicopter or something well I didn't have the money for one helicopter there
00:56:45
is like 30 grand oh okay yeah it was you know I didn't have the money at that
00:56:49
time yeah um and two like to acclimate like to heli in you would only to helicopter into that altitude you'd only
00:57:00
have like an hour and then it gets really dangerous cerebrala and other things so you'd have to hel out right
00:57:07
away we needed time to go look for where the body parts were we didn't know exactly where they were so the only way
00:57:13
to get in with enough time was to acclimate Slowly by trekking in and I'm so glad I did it that way because that's
00:57:21
the way that really kind of opened my eyes to what the world holds yeah and you may not have even
00:57:30
known this at the at the time or maybe you did but it feels like with the benefit of hindsight in the book that
00:57:34
you've written about it it was um yeah like a healing Journey for you yeah big
00:57:38
time massive healing Journey yeah and that's how I feel about all the books like there've been a massive healing
00:57:44
Journey that's why I like doing it it's so your second one that's when you came
00:57:48
to New Zealand for a book tour to promote the first book and you did a self-sufficient um bike ride of the
00:57:54
there's got to be an easier way to heal yourself it could be self-sufficient
00:57:59
[ __ ] like the challenge like a bike with a little trailer on the back with all your supplies oh my God it was great
00:58:06
it smelled brilliant showed up to every book signing just smelling absolutely wretched suppose the good thing is you
00:58:14
don't get any strangers at the book signing wanting to hug you that's definitely true nobody wanted
00:58:20
to hug me nobody wanted to hug me it was great I had a lot of fun actually it was
00:58:25
a great bike it was a great cycle ride you know like halfway through I don't
00:58:29
know did you read the second book no I haven't so halfway through the second um
00:58:34
second book I funny I talk about my life in books now halfway through the cycle ride was just outside of Wellington and
00:58:42
um I was like cycling along and this other person was cycling along and we just started having a chat and it was
00:58:49
starting to get dark and I got a little lost and I was like do you know where this area is he's like yeah yeah but
00:58:54
it's kind of dark like do you want to you know um do you want some company like you're alone on a dangerous road
00:59:02
like not the best for cycling I was like no but I need a p place to like pitch my
00:59:07
tent and he's like okay I live right over there you can come pitch your tent
00:59:10
in my yard this is like so kiwi Hospitality culture yeah and so I went pitched by Ted at his yard like cooked
00:59:17
dinner and hung out with him and then the next day I woke up and it was like you know 5:00 a.m. or 600 a.m. we're
00:59:23
about to get going and he he had his bike ready to go was like what are you doing he's like I'd really like to join
00:59:27
you for a few days on the road would you mind he ended up cycling with me all the
00:59:33
way from wellon through Hamilton like like he cycled with me for a while it was quite a few days his name's Rod he's
00:59:40
awesome he's super cool and he's still to this day he's still he messaged me
00:59:44
this morning he's like I just saw you on the news how are you doing like he's
00:59:47
super cool super cool guy he was going through a bit of a tough time like during that period as well like just
00:59:53
split up with his wife had a bunch of daughters like trying trying to navigate everything and so he jumped on the road
00:59:58
with me and we just had a cycle together and like talked about life it was fantastic yeah it's so cool isn't it
01:00:05
yeah yeah it's funny how how sometimes you find people in life when when you
01:00:09
both need each other yeah yeah he's great he's a good guy yeah oh yeah so um
01:00:15
yes so so back to the K2 thing so you realized before you you before you get to that body that you saw on Facebook
01:00:21
that it's probably not your brother yeah yeah how do you how do you reach that
01:00:26
just kind of dissected it just based off of the other teams that were hit by Avalanches at that time right so you
01:00:33
realize you're dead and your brother were on a different part of the mountain
01:00:35
or different side yeah they most likely were swept over the Chinese border okay oh sweeped over God that sounds
01:00:43
awful MH so so so who do you think it is just just some other unlucky so I called
01:00:49
around to like a lot of the families who had lost people around that time period
01:00:54
and asked for their permission to like bury the body parts things like that so everyone would have would have been
01:01:01
yes yeah yeah of course yeah they didn't want them out there cuz people were
01:01:05
taking photos and putting it on Facebook yeah it's outrageous Facebook and like
01:01:08
so they they were all like pretty grateful that somebody was going to at least cover them treat it respectfully
01:01:15
yeah and so Al so you find you find the body body parts yeah body parts okay oh Jesus
01:01:23
oh and you do you've got a like a DNA kit mhm yeah what what do you teasted I'm not
01:01:35
going to go into that it was very graphic it was a lot it was you know it took me a long time to kind of come
01:01:42
through all of it um and I think like at this point in my life like for my own sanity and emotional healing like it was
01:01:54
documented in a book and put as a time capsule put up on a shelf and I can navigate away to move on from it or else
01:02:02
I'll just be stuck in this time warp of concentrating on that particular period
01:02:06
of my life yeah fair enough yeah what is your relationship with with therapy you
01:02:12
the like therapy since them you Professional Health oh yeah yeah I've gone in and out of therapy yeah I mean I
01:02:19
probably wouldn't be like working or sitting here and talking to you if I didn't do some kind of therapy
01:02:26
yeah like the the PTSD from that something like that that whole experience you know I just can't imagine
01:02:33
it yeah PTSD from that and then just like in general just navigating life through all of that through you know
01:02:42
through b me this last year was gnarly you know I this last year why oh just because I
01:02:51
you know I met a man fell in love and he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and you
01:02:58
know spent two two months in hospital where he was kind of surrendering to the process
01:03:07
he it was very you know hard he couldn't eat he couldn't swallow he couldn't do any of it he had
01:03:15
to kind of come to terms with what his life was and um watching all of that was really
01:03:23
challenging um and then just navigating life between two worlds for the most part you know I'm in business school
01:03:32
right now which is like more like my grandfather's world where it's you know
01:03:37
I'm at Yale which is a very elite University that's like the campus is like historic and beautiful and my class
01:03:44
is full of incredibly successful people at the top of their field and it's a
01:03:49
very very different style of life than the Adventure World the house and twinfalls jumping off of a bridge daily
01:03:58
and so trying to step between those two worlds is really really hard it's really
01:04:04
hard to navigate life between two polar Opposite Worlds you seem to just navigate it like a boss though like if
01:04:11
you see you on Instagram you're there in a business suit or whatever and then
01:04:15
you'll be um you know going for a month without showering somewhere around no I
01:04:21
navigate okay but I think it's really really important that every everyone in
01:04:26
the world understands that Instagram is not real like I feel like it is so important people get that because in in
01:04:36
life in general you can look at somebody's Instagram picture and think that they're a certain way and
01:04:41
categorized by you know what their tagline says or what they're wearing or whatever it may be but life behind
01:04:48
Instagram is full of raw human emotion that a photo and a video can't capture M
01:04:56
and I think that that's where things like social media get really dangerous and that's why I love literature because
01:05:02
I think that words can capture emotion in a way that an Instagram post has a hard time
01:05:12
doing yeah I think even someone that's really open on social media it's still a
01:05:17
curated curated version of your life isn't it and it's even if you um share
01:05:22
your most vulnerable moments they still moments that you are prepared to share so it is curated by Nature moments you
01:05:27
are prepared to share usually with some kind of intention associated with it like you want people to give you you
01:05:33
know add a girl and love and appreciation or you want you know a brand to promote you or you want like
01:05:41
usually you're sharing with a curated approach or you probably wouldn't be
01:05:47
sharing yeah has has your your husband's Health now he's good John was cleared to
01:05:52
jump back in January so he's been you know jumping off buildings oh my God if I was recing from
01:06:01
brain cancer there wouldn't be top my to do we're all different though aren't we
01:06:06
wow oh that's cool that must been yeah [ __ ] hell cuz you know there's um
01:06:11
yeah you read about resilience and stuff and people say tough stuff yeah makes you more resilient and stuff but I don't
01:06:16
do it feel like that for you you're like okay well uh I went through this as a
01:06:20
kid I lost my dad and my brother I can handle this or does it just feel like it's another gigantic in front of you
01:06:26
you know it's so funny I read a quote the other day that was like um just because they carry it well
01:06:35
doesn't mean it's not heavy like and I think that's very poignant like
01:06:45
um I think in general I carry stuff very well because I had to to survive for so
01:06:52
long um but you know it's an ultimate question of existentialism of our purpose on this
01:07:02
Earth and why we're here and what we want to discover and what we want to figure out and I think that I've gotten
01:07:08
as far as I have because I'm able to power through stuff and really go through it and feel everything that
01:07:15
comes over me with it and try to navigate my way through it um which I'm not I'm not sure if that comes from just
01:07:24
survival instincts maybe it will take me years more of therapy to figure this out but um but
01:07:32
whatever it comes from I'm glad I have it because I know a lot of people who
01:07:38
probably wouldn't be able to survive through a lot of the stuff that I've
01:07:42
been through recently yeah it's a lot oh not what do you mean recently like just the brain
01:07:49
tumor and all that okay like recent recent right well I guess the whole thing yeah I just wonder we're going
01:07:56
into the [ __ ] show life then what's your time frame for reason because he answer
01:08:01
it's a lot um how long did it take you to to um forgive your dad and make peace
01:08:07
with that sort of relationship you know what it really really helped spending a lot of time in
01:08:13
the mountains yeah that's like the most healing thing ever when you go through
01:08:17
anything tragic is just spending time in nature and the mountains and you know it's funny I I went out to
01:08:26
yesterday I guess and just sat on the beach and did like little meditation for a while and I I forget like how calming
01:08:35
and peaceful and relaxing and healing nature is sometimes so it's important to kind of
01:08:42
take yourself out and stick yourself in nature for a minute and that's I think
01:08:47
what really helped with the processing of the stuff with Dan denol and that's
01:08:52
why I did the second you know the when I came back during that second book was like cycling around New Zealand that's
01:09:00
why I did it that way to be out in nature and to try to heal and process through all of it
01:09:05
yeah and what about your um relationship with your mom how's how's that now you
01:09:10
guys good yeah yeah I just talked to her the other day yeah we navigate life you
01:09:14
know in terms of figuring out um figuring out our relationship we're still figuring it out I think you're
01:09:21
always kind of figuring out relationships with your parents yeah yeah yeah yeah so constant work in
01:09:26
progress um but yeah L losing your dad did was that sort of a catalyst for like healing things with your mom or
01:09:33
realizing [ __ ] I I can't put this off cuz who knows how long we've got yeah I
01:09:37
think that definitely plays a part in it like whenever you're you go through like
01:09:41
a horrific or tragic situation um it definitely plays a part in determining what you want the rest of
01:09:48
your life to look like and not putting things off yeah oh um sh sorry this just there's another
01:09:59
thing that we haven't even talked about your your silent Retreats yeah you like
01:10:03
where about Thailand no most of mine are done in Thailand yeah so I did one like
01:10:09
seven days October yeah I just did one on October how many have you done you've
01:10:13
done more than one I think I've done five now oh my God yeah I've done a few
01:10:19
seven s days so you just sit there in silence just playing on your phone scrolling on Instagram you're not allow
01:10:23
phones no phones no books no writing materials no nothing so just literally alone in your own thoughts literally a
01:10:29
change of clothes and a toothbrush why do you keep going back do you get something different from it each
01:10:38
time yeah oh my God it's so good for you have you ever like sat in silence for
01:10:44
nine 10 hours a day terrified of my own thoughts yeah exactly yeah most people are Stephen it's completely normal most
01:10:51
people are terrified of their own thoughts right it's really scary it's very like very
01:10:57
confronting you usually lose a few people in the group by the time you're done yeah you know it's very hard why
01:11:05
yeah why do you keep going back what what do you what do you learn do you learn something different things each
01:11:10
time every every time I learn something different just about myself about what I
01:11:15
want about my navigation about yeah I think I think meditation is super important very hard way harder than
01:11:23
jumping off a cliff that's for damn sure like to me like J me off cliff you're
01:11:28
it's a bit of a [ __ ] move like you sit you sit in silent meditation for like
01:11:33
most of your life in a monastery in the middle of you know the Himalayas you got
01:11:39
my full respect for sure why why why aren't you allowed um like like writing
01:11:44
utensils surely it be good to like write some stuff because you're the idea is
01:11:48
you're supposed to completely clear your mind of all thoughts you're supposed to
01:11:52
be in the moment completely present clear clear your mind of all thoughts and if you have a phone or
01:11:59
writing utensils or a book or anything else that is evoking thoughts right but are you ever free from thoughts I don't
01:12:07
you you can reach you can reach that stage in in meditation depending on what style of meditation you do vasana
01:12:15
meditation I think that you can you can reach I definitely have reached moments of clarity of thought um Clarity of mind
01:12:25
mind so an ability to concentrate solely on your breathing and nothing more I I studied um TM Transcendental
01:12:37
Meditation I I I did that religiously for maybe five or six years I've been with it since but yet you see you
01:12:45
meditate what you're talking about yeah but no but yeah 20 minutes twice a day
01:12:49
and as soon as you have a thought oh I'm not thinking about anything that that in
01:12:53
itself is a thought yeah so they come back in but I I can't imagine being in
01:12:57
silence for 7 days do you do do you find yourself like just weeping uncontrollably over
01:13:03
times the first Meditation Retreat I ever did was after d and joli died and absolutely I found myself weeping
01:13:13
um but since then no I wouldn't say I find myself weeping um it depends on what I'm going through in the period of
01:13:21
my life that I'm going into a Meditation Retreat um but yeah I I think it it can evoke
01:13:30
emotion but the point of it is is to clear your mind of thought so why do you keep going back I
01:13:37
think I'll probably is it like a reset I think I'll be a student of meditation
01:13:42
for my entire life um I don't practice on a daily basis like I'm not doing the
01:13:48
20 you know two times 20 minutes a day I don't I don't do that on a daily basis I
01:13:53
just go all in on a retreat that's what I do most of my life I go all in like
01:14:00
like if I'm going to meditate I'll just go seven days of Silence like I'll just
01:14:04
go hard you should CL out no I want to do that one there yeah that's kind of how I
01:14:12
do life in general yeah yeah yeah yeah just all or nothing right I just figure I mean it's [ __ ] short like why not
01:14:18
if you're going to do it you might as well go all the way yeah um yeah do do
01:14:23
you want to have a family yeah I mean I think that's something that um you know I'm at the age now where if
01:14:33
I'm if I'm going to do it I think that it's something that should be thought
01:14:38
about a lot more than most people think about it so you not necessarily ready but you you realize the biological clock
01:14:49
no no I just I I mean in general in society people will have kids without really thinking if they want to have
01:14:54
kids kids yeah and I think it's very important that that's something that is
01:14:59
um both people's priority is we're going to have a child and we're going to
01:15:05
concentrate on this child not we're going to have a child because Society tells us to have child or we're going to
01:15:10
have a child because we just want a child like it should be you you really understand the commitment that you're
01:15:16
getting into and maybe this is my childhood abandonment postt truma [ __ ] but I think that if you're going to
01:15:23
have a child you should really want that child and you should really concentrate
01:15:29
your energy and your effort and shape your life around bringing that child into this world um or else it's unfair
01:15:35
to the child so I'm not sure if I'm at that stage or not yeah how if you do
01:15:41
decide to become a parent how would you be different to your own parents I think i' do things a lot
01:15:48
differently than my parents did them um but there are a lot of elements that my my parents put into their
01:15:55
uh roles and responsibilities that I would include like my mom was very nurturing early on and very very um
01:16:04
loving and used like holistic medicine different approaches had us eat or organic you know couldn't watch screens
01:16:11
like all of that stuff absolutely brilliant like I would definitely take that and apply that my dad's you know
01:16:17
wild side and exposure to Nature and um I think those are all really really important elements
01:16:25
to raising a healthy child but I think there is elements of stability that I would probably do quite differently yeah
01:16:33
um and then it's also like you know if that if that's something that that my
01:16:38
partner wants and what what our concentrations would be because I think that um you know his his whole life
01:16:46
rotates around base obviously so yeah it's hard isn't it because I can understand you you want stability for
01:16:54
your kids but you know by normal conventional standards I suppose like you and your husband are not like an
01:17:01
overly conventional couple yeah you're not the white packet fence couple you
01:17:05
know what I mean no definitely not um but we have a lot of friends who are able to navigate children while
01:17:12
continuing to kind of Life yeah yeah and I would never want a child to feel that
01:17:19
we resent them in any way for not living that style of life so I think that that's like an important navigation of
01:17:27
of Parenthood um but I you know I'm I'm also a really firm believer and um I I work a lot like I run a company
01:17:38
and I'm I work way too much to be realistic I live in America which is a capitalistic culture and I work a Fu ton
01:17:46
and um we live in a culture where that's okay and I personally believe that like
01:17:55
I don't I I wouldn't want to have a child that I I had nannies raising like
01:18:00
I'd want a child that I could I could breastfeed and I could be there and it
01:18:04
could be like a pure connection that's the only real way to bring a child into
01:18:08
this world in my belief like I I don't know if I really agree with current culture of the way that children are
01:18:14
being raised um so yeah it's something I'm thinking about navigating yeah well you
01:18:20
by something you just said about um you're having your own business and working a [ __ ] ton you you but also
01:18:25
somehow and I think this is inspiring as well you managed to fit everything else
01:18:29
in you managed to fit in these you [ __ ] one month Expeditions or whatever where you're off the phone or
01:18:35
you one week silent Retreats where you're not on the phone I also don't have a family and that makes it a lot
01:18:40
easier like employes that's a family in a way and that took a lot of navigation
01:18:45
to figure out a system where you know at one point I was way too big I had way too many employees and I became a people
01:18:53
manager and I was like [ __ ] all right let me get rid of some of you um and now
01:18:58
I have a really like we have an amazing team at dap the Publishing Company amazing team like I know they're
01:19:05
handling everything right now I can be on this book tour [ __ ] sorted right um same thing with you know with Denali
01:19:14
foundation with the nonprofit like I know that it's sorted it's solid right
01:19:19
same thing with the you know rental property I know it's the rental properties are getting paid so now I've
01:19:25
been able to kind of navigate a system where it gives me a little bit more time but I'm still figuring it out it's not
01:19:31
[ __ ] easy like and that's something that um yeah I think Instagram's really
01:19:39
dangerous when it comes to stuff like business because I see um constantly like the the entrepreneurs and the like
01:19:47
hustle culture and work really hard I've been doing this [ __ ] since I was 16
01:19:51
years old I legitimately have been doing this like half of my life and I can tell you right now like
01:20:02
the the the the way that it's presented entrepreneurship and owning companies
01:20:07
and all of that not not a [ __ ] walk in the park like takes stress Beyond stress like you
01:20:17
your ability to deal with situations if anything my life of traumas prepared me to deal with
01:20:27
business in a way that most people couldn't handle because business in general trying to run a company and have
01:20:33
employees [ __ ] hard really really hard and we struggled my husband and I struggled a lot with that that my work
01:20:42
ethic and my mentality towards business is very very different than than most people's because it requires that to
01:20:50
keep a company running especially a company in media especially a company in books
01:20:55
right so I think that's like an important thing to note is yes I now am at a point where I can do both I can go
01:21:05
to a silent Retreat and still have a company running but there was a period of my life where I couldn't where 100%
01:21:13
of my focus was trying to get from one month to the next and navigate how to keep the company running so where most
01:21:21
people start out in their career in their what they come out of college in the states they'll go to college maybe
01:21:28
they're 25 when they really start in their career right and then they reach a
01:21:32
certain point what's 17 years plus 25 25 35 42 42 that's when most people start
01:21:39
really becoming successful that's when most people have reached the point in
01:21:42
their life where they can maybe start to navigate how do I take this family vacation how do I do that right so if
01:21:48
you think of my life I'm actually like way earlier than most people but I've
01:21:53
worked as much as most 42 year olds now right because I started because I started so young so
01:22:01
when people look at my life now and they're like you're able to navigate it
01:22:05
really well you're successful it's because I've been doing it for so
01:22:08
[ __ ] long that's why yeah yeah and that Scrappy um Street Fighter mentality or
01:22:16
whatever you want to call it it probably prepared you well for the life of an entrepreneur or a startup and it got me
01:22:22
to a certain point now like that's why I chose to go to school this year is because now I'm like I'm at this point
01:22:30
but my you know I'm in rooms with congresswoman and sometimes ambassadors and I'm like okay I got to get a little
01:22:37
bit of formal education because my scrappiness will only get me so far it can get me to the door but in order to
01:22:43
look good while I walk in the door and have a proper conversation I should probably refine it a little bit you know
01:22:48
yeah what um what what are your goals for the are you are you a goal goal Setter you got a the like the um the
01:22:55
mountain stuff you do that must that requires a fa bit of planning but is there planning in other aspects of your
01:22:59
life like do you have a 5year plan or a 10-year plan yeah vision board all that [ __ ] I learned that actually from I have
01:23:05
a couple of authors who were like motivational speakers and all that so they do vision boards um right now I'm
01:23:12
working actually I'm working on my next book it's called the comfort zone and
01:23:16
it's more of a business book than it is straight Adventure but the idea is to
01:23:20
take elements from my adventurous mentality speaking of being in Two Worlds and applying them to to business so like
01:23:29
um we have this thing in the office called The Hit List that's like all of the people that we want to sign as
01:23:35
authors and then this like it's stupid but I used to like stalk them all and
01:23:40
like to try to get them signed oh I saw a clip online about this the the Goosebumps guy yeah RL Stein is one yeah
01:23:46
yeah yeah Goosebumps famous um sort of like teen series Kid series one of the most famous in the
01:23:52
world huge author huge author chipped away yeah for four years I stalked him and he finally signed with
01:23:59
me that that mentality that you're talking about that scrabby don't take no
01:24:04
for an answerer mentality applying it to um business and then taking the lessons
01:24:11
that I learned within that and it's really all about like pushing yourself out of your comfort zone wait what is
01:24:17
your comfort zone my comfort zone yeah is is is is your comfort zone as bizarre as this would sound like when you
01:24:23
jumping or is it when you're at home on the Cofer with your husband what is it that's a really great question I'll
01:24:30
tell you what's not in my comfort zone that I'm exploring right now that will
01:24:33
probably be in the next book is some of the stuff we talked about like um navigating past trauma mhm that's like
01:24:42
not in my comfort zone at all because I've always just powered through everything been like a Survivor like you
01:24:48
can get through it the tough way yeah but I've never like sat down and really introspectively
01:24:56
looked at okay does this does this determination and motivation to um achieve and be successful come from a
01:25:05
place of wanting to do it or does it come from a place of feeling the need to do it because of abandonment issues or
01:25:12
past trauma or any of that stuff so I'm exploring that now through therapy and I
01:25:17
think that's really outside of my comfort zone there's nothing just like
01:25:20
you said with sitting alone with your own thoughts is terrifying for you right like there's nothing more terrifying to
01:25:26
me than the exploration of who I am and that is really outside of my comfort zone so but I feel like you've done more
01:25:36
of that than what most of us believer do probably which is really sad to be honest like I feel like half of the
01:25:43
reason we're on this Earth is to explore that right not just to live in this kind
01:25:47
of really boring bubble it's to explore that [ __ ] not just physically but emotionally as well yeah I suppose after
01:25:55
losing your brother and your dad on the same day in such a dramatic fashion you know you realize the importance of that
01:26:00
more than most of us yeah absolutely um and if you could go back and tell your teenage self something what would it be
01:26:07
if you could go back to that that girl stealing from the warehouse in Hawks Bay the
01:26:13
FY what would you tell her you tell her everything's going to be all right keep
01:26:17
keep doing what you're doing what would you say don't don't don't don't go too hard
01:26:23
on your dad like CU his time he's limited no no I think I think I think it would be really
01:26:31
important this is a great question by the way you should ask every guest this question it's a fantastic question
01:26:36
because it makes you really really contemplate I think if I were to talk to this scrappy little girl in the WTI
01:26:45
fatty who just got arrested for stealing I think I would tell her that it's okay to be Scrappy it'll get
01:26:56
you really far in life but at some point you need to stop and take a look at why
01:27:04
you're being Scrappy I think that would be really really important it's hard
01:27:09
though isn't it because I I get the feeling maybe this is psycho analyzing a
01:27:12
bit too much but even sitting up with something like um a Publishing Company it almost feels like a [ __ ] you to your
01:27:18
dad at the time you know because it's you know it's complete opposite to like
01:27:24
yeah climbing the world's highest mountain isn't it city of a Publishing
01:27:27
Company could be and it's funny because it's like you know that publishing
01:27:31
company I mean we have over a 100 books that we've published and we've worked
01:27:34
with some incredible authors and I've helped other people tell their life stories and it ended up being such a you
01:27:40
know such a great experience um but you know it's it's it's an interesting
01:27:46
navigation of like um how much of your life is done for you and how much of your life is done
01:27:55
circumstantially and how much of your life is done because of your parents and I think you can ask that to [ __ ]
01:28:01
anyone right yeah absolutely you can hey this has been a great chat it's been
01:28:07
really how's it been for you it's been awesome I all I can think of is tickle
01:28:11
Tuesdays I'm like drinking all the water thinking of tickle Tuesdays hey it's
01:28:16
nice to finally connect with you I've done um yeah so much uh reading and researching I feel like I already know
01:28:21
you cuz of your voicey Stu yeah yeah yeah oh God the years at the edge I got all climing we me just tinkled Tuesday
01:28:28
like out of all the out of all the little features and segments I did in 30 years of radio that's the [ __ ] one
01:28:35
you remember yeah I mean how bad did your parents [ __ ] you up that you Tuesdays badly I think they I think they
01:28:42
all they all [ __ ] us up hey yeah everyone has like a slight Grudge on their shoulder about the parents but if
01:28:47
you're a parent now like um you might think you're doing a lot better than
01:28:49
what your parents did but you you're [ __ ] you're [ __ ] your kid up yeah
01:28:53
yeah absolutely that's why when you ask me about kids I'm like you you're going
01:28:56
to [ __ ] them up no matter what so and the way I see it is like parents are going to [ __ ] up their kids no matter
01:29:02
what so if I chose my parents in this lifetime I did a damn good job of picking the ones that would like put me
01:29:09
in tough ass position so I would come out a lot more gritty well yeah you are gritty you're a gangster you're you're a
01:29:16
badass you're a Savage and it's been wonderful to sit down with you today
01:29:19
likewise sequa dangelo Schmid Schmid we going with Schmid sure why not we'll
01:29:25
just make up more names I like seoa I feel like it's Unique enough that would
01:29:29
be like a life you ask me my life goals I think I if I could get to a point where people just know me as seoa that's
01:29:35
like pretty badass it is got Beyonce energy to it one name only required one name only I love it he thanks for your
01:29:43
time today it's been great good luck for the future thanks d