PAPod 604 - On the Edge: Risks, Resilience, and Red Bull’s Adventure Athlete

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This is a pretty interesting week to talk because near as I can tell.
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So there's three things that I think are interesting. One is the parachute guys,
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the 12 people plus the pilot that died in Belton, Missouri.
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Yeah. They didn't even get up 100 feet.
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Yeah. You know, I haven't looked into that one. I don't know any of those people.
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I know the other incident this week, Sketchy Andy and Moab. Right.
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The Moab one, the base jump one is interesting. You know, I'm really good friends
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with the, they're retired. but
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they used to be the, the kind of the park directors in my lab for years.
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Huh. Walt Abney and, and, um, Mark Yeston, those whole gang.
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And they would talk about bass jump. And then there was the bungee cord event in South America.
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Oh, I don't know about that one. I didn't look up that one. They didn't clip
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the person into the bungee cord.
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So. Oh yeah. I did see something go by on this one. Yeah.
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Yeah, that's, well, you know, human error is normal. Yeah, yeah, error is normal.
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And that secondary verification. But it's interesting because they had two lines
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on the bungee jumper, and they didn't clip either line on.
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Hey, welcome to the Pre-Accident Investigation Podcast. I'm Todd Conklin. How are you?
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Well, you can probably tell by the conversation that happened before the introduction,
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that this is going to be an interesting podcast because this is going to be
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an interesting podcast. I'm so excited.
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I got to hang out with a guy named Will Gad, who's the senior adventure athlete for.
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Red But he's also really interested in safety.
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And that makes sense because, you know, that's what they do is interface with risk all the time.
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But it's been this amazing conversation to hear him talk about all the things
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that we talk about just in his environment.
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And his environment is interesting, kind of sexy, kind of cool, high risk.
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It's got it all, baby. And hats. They give out hats.
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And Red Bulls. They give out little cans of Red Bulls, too.
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So Will, I asked Will if he'd be on the podcast, and he so graciously said,
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absolutely, he'd love to.
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So it seems like these Red Bull cats have been listening to this podcast for
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a while, which I didn't know. I mean, nobody told me.
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And what's interesting is a lot of the things that we're thinking about and
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talking about are resonating with them in kind of a non-industrial setting.
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I mean, I guess it's non-industrial.
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It's adventure athletics.
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And it's pretty cool. And I think you're really going to enjoy the opportunity
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to meet Will. He's very fun and energetic. And, you know, he's an ice climber.
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I mean, there's about a million reasons to stay tuned. That's all I'm going to tell you.
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That alone is kind of worth the trip.
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Plus, in the week we recorded this, all these adventure athletics things happened.
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And so it kind of gave us a place to jump off from.
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And, oh, that's probably the wrong image. A place to begin our discussion.
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That's probably the right image. There we go.
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Oh, I'm getting so adventure athletic here. You have to be careful.
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It's been a good week for me. How about for you?
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It's a crazy week because I saw lots of people that I only get to see once a
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year. And that's always such a great time and hang out. And I've got some great podcasts.
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There's a bunch of interesting stuff coming up. That's for sure.
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Be ready for that. I think I'm going to jump into this conversation because
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I could stall and talk about the weather. You know, I love to talk about the
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weather, weather and donuts.
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But to be fair, though, donut is my very favorite kind of nut.
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So I'm very happy with that.
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But let's get into this conversation because this conversation is,
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I think, well worth having.
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So this is Will Gett and myself and you, and we're going to listen to some discussion
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on how this all kind of happens. So here's Will without any future adieu.
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So, I'm sure just, I'm sure human error. I mean, I'm sure that they just, you know, who knows?
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We could make stuff up. But my guess is this one guy probably thought the other
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guy did it and the other guy probably thought he did it.
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And then the other thing that I think is so interesting is it's a pretty stable
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system. It probably, that's probably never happened before.
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Yeah, that was in your talk in Baff. And I've been thinking about stable versus
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unstable systems and deterministic versus probabilistic.
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Systems a lot lately for some reason so isn't it weird when you start to peel
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peel the banana peel on that and you're like oh no this is,
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making it worse well it better and complicated and uh yeah i don't know um how
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do you want to do this do you want are you recording right now oh yeah we're
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doing it yeah we're doing it now,
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okay and you never you never never miss a chance to have the recording going
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because i mean you might say the most brilliant thing on earth and then we You
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wouldn't have it. Unlikely. That could happen.
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Well, so introduce yourself, Will, because I don't even know how to begin to introduce you.
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Other than you have a pretty cool gig. Life's good, yeah. Well,
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I grew up in a mountain sports family in Canada, in the Rocky Mountains here.
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So front range, kind of Calgary area, just like Denver or wherever.
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God's country. That's all I'm going to say.
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All us front range guys are all front range guys.
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Oh, it's great. Well, you live in a great place, too. I love it down there and
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I can't get good green chili here to save my life. So I need to come visit.
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You're always welcome. Come down.
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I will. Sarah and I were, my wife and I were talking about that.
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But anyway, I grew up there going into the mountains and loved all this.
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You know, the mountain people are great. They're on fire. Their eyes are bright.
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You know, these are the people you want to hang out with. You know,
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this you hang out with a lot.
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And the downside of that is even as a, as a young kid, you know,
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there would be regular wakes at my parents' house in, in Calgary for people
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who died in the mountains.
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And I just thought this was normal. It's like a kid in a war zone.
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You know, you don't realize that it's abnormal that once a year one of your
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one of your parents friends in this community would die and and so i just thought
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it was normal and i look forward to these parties because you know you get everybody
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together they were off the scottish or irish stuff i.
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Was like these are great parties man so anyhow growing up in that environment
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and seeing the very serious side of the sports that i did,
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and then getting into them on my own and you know again just very early on seeing
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accidents in the mountains, fatal accidents and other accidents in my teenage years. And,
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That left a mark, and I started to think about how do we do these things that
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we love with fewer bad outcomes.
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Then I got into all kinds of different things. I've been a kayaker and still
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go paddling. I was out with my kid on the river the other night. That was great.
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Climber and paraglider and set some world records and won some competitions and things like that.
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I did a lot of that kind of thing, but the thread through it all has been trying
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to learn about these sports and share them.
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I've written books about how to ice climb and how to do that with better safety
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margin. I spent a lot of time working in paragliding. And this was all just
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stuff in my world and trying to get better outcomes. And so,
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anyhow, I've had a pretty successful career as an athlete doing all this.
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And about 15 years ago, I did a slideshow for a bunch of drunk climbers.
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And the corporate guy. Isn't that normal?
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Yeah. Yeah, it seemed normal to me.
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I mean, they're a great audience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're out of beverages.
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The heckling can get fierce.
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So you learn how to deal with heck like fast, but it's, uh, at the end of it,
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this corporate guy came up and he's like, Hey, if you just changed a few words,
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this would be a good presentation for, for my guys in this corporate environment.
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And we, we do oil sand stuff. Can you, can you swear less and come do this?
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I said, yes, I don't know about the swearing glass, but I can come do this.
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And, uh, I, I thought I knew something about risk management and working at
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high hazard places. And I, I walked into this oil sands environment.
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But I think I got yelled at five times in the first three minutes for not holding
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the railing and talking on my phone at the same time.
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I just realized that they had a policy and procedural system that was way more
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advanced than anything I had to vibrate and could probably learn something from
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these guys. So for the last 15 years, I've been doing stuff in the,
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In addition to my athlete stuff, I'm Red Bull's oldest sponsored athlete now,
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but that's another story. Don't you think that's quite an honor, though? I am.
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I used to really kind of fight against the idea of getting old.
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Now I'm just happy to be here. Yeah, I was going to say, embrace it, baby. Embrace it.
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Like people say you pee too much. Just be glad you're peeing. That's what I think.
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Yeah, you can't change it. That's right. It's not going to get better, so go for it.
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Was it Twain who said that getting old sucks, but it's better than the alternative? Exactly.
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And if he didn't say it, it's a perfect fit for Twain to have said.
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So I'm supportive of that, too. Yeah, Einstein or Twain. You just give it to Waters.
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In this case, it was both. Yeah. Well, you've got to do it in a fact-check it, right?
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But yeah, so I just, I became more and more interested in how the industrial
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corporate military world does things.
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And my initial talks were more just straight inspirational. And then I started
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trying to meld some of the ideas from the outdoor world in with the corporate industrial world.
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And about five years ago, I was doing a show for a power company.
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And one of the guys in the back asked a question, I think it was about complacency.
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And I gave an answer and then I asked him how he did it.
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And his answer was way better. And your name was in that answer. Really? Oh no.
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I got to learn about this guy. So that's what I started, as I said earlier,
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just digging into your stuff and learning about it. And that's why we did the
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talk at BAP, which was great, by the way. I really appreciate that.
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Thank you. Oh, it was just a joy for me as well.
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It's interesting to me because you really bring two things to the table.
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One is the adventure stories. The stories are always great.
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Like safety stories are great. They're how we learn. It's how we process.
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The problem is, is they don't really have a lot of value.
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And when you start adding what you can do about these safety stories.
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When you start talking about, you know, we could create, it's not the risk that's
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interesting, it's the way we handle risk.
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And that's when these stories get super interesting to me.
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And what you just said is so key because in my world, what happens a lot is
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people identify something. They go, okay, there's complacency.
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And so we'll just watch out for it. Problem solved.
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Don't be that person. Yeah, I think that's the answer I gave to that wonderful
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guy at the power company years ago. I was like, okay, you got to be mindful and more aware.
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And he came back with these great systems and tools and things that added real
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controls to the situation.
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And I was like, okay, I didn't mention your name. So that's one of the things
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I'm trying to do in my world is, as you say, make it useful and go beyond just
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identification. It's like, what
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do we actually do? Because that's where things seem to break down a lot.
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Do you think it's changing adventure athletics?
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I think I've had a little bit of an impact there. And some other people are
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looking at this differently. But we're really stuck in kind of industrial safety
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1.0, where, you know, the person closest to the ass, it's their fault. We're done.
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Last person to touch it, screwed it up. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
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I use my shows. I use the guy, Joey. It's always Joey's fault.
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And Joey was there. It's Joey's fault. We fired Joey. We're good now. Yeah.
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Problem solved. That changes nothing. Problem solved, man.
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I love your vest, by the way. I got one hanging on the wall.
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Oh i'm sorry i rode my i was riding my bike this morning and i i didn't realize
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it was as close to the time to record the podcast so i had to zoom in really
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quick and i forgot to take it off,
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i dig it it's like this guy lives safety he's in his vest doing a podcast i
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do i do when i'm riding my bike around town i i figured the irony of dying in
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a car accident on a bicycle with no,
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vest dramatically outweighs the pain to wear the vest so i just wear the vest
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plus i like the vest because it's got all these pockets in it i can put stuff
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in it so and i think i look good in high viz it's slimming it's slimming.
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Vertical straights that's right baby yeah no but that's i mean that's that's
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all this stuff like just wearing a vest is something we could do to to change
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the outcomes with not a lot of effort and right and
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thinking along these lines and And the great thing about going into these places
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and doing these talks is I get exposed to people who are really good at this
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and think about it a lot and learn from them.
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So that's what I've been doing and trying to bring that over to the outdoor
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world. And then there's some things we do really well in the outdoor world that
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are applicable to the industrial world.
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And you know how much value you bring to the industrial safety world.
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I mean, it's beneficial from both sides.
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Don't worry because, I mean, that part's amazing.
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And that's what's so interesting about the three events that happened this week,
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right, is that I think people are going to look at them and see them as causally connected.
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But in fact, they aren't causally connected at all. They're three discrete events
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that happen separately.
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They're all tragic because they all ended tragically.
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But I think the question we want to ask is how good is, for instance,
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the base jumping, how good are they at learning?
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How do they see that failure in Moab as a cost or do they see it as an investment, as a community?
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That's a really, that's a really good question.
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And one of the things that's tricky about the outdoor world and less so in aviation,
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I can pretty much guarantee the, the way people look at those three events is
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going to like, it's going to be wildly different. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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It's, it's, you know, one is a, and I don't know Sketchy Andy well,
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but I've done a few things with him over the years. But pretty, pretty famous, right?
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And this is, and this is somebody known as Sketchy Andy, right?
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Well, yeah, he's sketchy, man. Yeah, so he's on the edge of the risk envelope.
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But we know – one thing we know is that expert performers will always move much
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closer to those marginal edges without transgressing.
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They don't often cross the edge.
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And I guess when they do, the payoff is they have an accident.
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But like you've lived on the edge of the risk margin probably your whole career.
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And your fellow athletes in Red Bull, I mean, that's the point,
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right, is to live on the edge.
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Well, it's to do beautiful things that are also dangerous. And it's – I talk
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a lot about this. But can I add a line to that?
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It's to do beautiful things that are also dangerous in a safe and controlled way.
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Yes. Right? And that seems to be the key, right?
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Yeah. I mean, if I just wanted to do dangerous things, I could go run back and
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forth on the freeway, right?
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Horns, I'd get lots of excitement. Horns would be blaring, but there's no purpose.
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You could cross from A&W to A&W in Red Deer. You'd have to.
00:15:34.968 --> 00:15:40.158
That'll kill you quick. Yeah. Talk about doing that with my kids,
00:15:40.158 --> 00:15:44.838
actually. That's another thing. But I think in our world, people simultaneously
00:15:44.838 --> 00:15:47.928
think these events won't happen because they do them hundreds of times.
00:15:48.488 --> 00:15:52.918
If you're a base jumper, you do. And I was a base jumper. I quit because I didn't
00:15:52.918 --> 00:15:57.434
think there was enough margin or capacity to use your language in that sport for me.
00:15:58.108 --> 00:16:01.788
Just little things go wrong. And when they do, you don't have a lot of margin
00:16:01.788 --> 00:16:04.815
or capacity to solve them. So I quit.
00:16:05.372 --> 00:16:08.788
But in that world, people simultaneously think because they've had like 100
00:16:08.788 --> 00:16:11.968
positive outcomes. They're like, we'll keep having positive outcomes.
00:16:12.348 --> 00:16:15.009
And it won't happen to me. I'm different. I do things differently.
00:16:15.601 --> 00:16:18.248
And it's this kind of individual exceptionalism,
00:16:18.919 --> 00:16:22.774
That unfortunately gets people and everybody goes, okay, that was,
00:16:23.429 --> 00:16:26.848
you know, that was completely impossible to predict and, you know,
00:16:26.848 --> 00:16:32.983
unique tragedy. When in reality, it's part of the level of hazard in that system.
00:16:33.326 --> 00:16:35.968
Right. And I don't know if you like the idea of base rates.
00:16:36.468 --> 00:16:38.840
I don't recall that in your writing, but I may have missed it.
00:16:40.288 --> 00:16:42.414
I haven't thought much about it because I'm kind of stuck on,
00:16:42.687 --> 00:16:47.307
like when you just said that, I'm stuck on how powerful the fundamental attribution error is.
00:16:47.574 --> 00:16:50.332
The belief that it won't happen to me, this won't happen to me.
00:16:50.576 --> 00:16:54.538
It happens to other people, but it won't happen to me because I'm more careful,
00:16:54.538 --> 00:16:56.190
more attentive, more aware.
00:16:56.672 --> 00:17:01.858
Yes. And this is, you almost have to think that way when you go into these situations.
00:17:01.858 --> 00:17:05.688
Because if you really looked at the base rates, and by that I mean the number
00:17:05.688 --> 00:17:09.495
of people who got killed or seriously injured out of like the whole group.
00:17:09.965 --> 00:17:13.028
And everybody goes, well, I'm not that statistic. I'm going to sway that statistic.
00:17:13.028 --> 00:17:16.797
You know, I'm different. Right. But that attribution error is.
00:17:17.740 --> 00:17:21.872
Like the base rates of accidents in these events, in these sports are really, really high.
00:17:22.012 --> 00:17:25.098
And so people look at it and go, that won't happen to me.
00:17:25.098 --> 00:17:29.188
And then when it does happen, it's a, it's a massive, well, obviously,
00:17:29.188 --> 00:17:32.518
you know, it's, it's very much, yeah, it's, it's a surprise to the community
00:17:32.518 --> 00:17:34.688
and it is a tragedy to the people involved, right?
00:17:34.688 --> 00:17:39.278
To the families. And, you know, I've been there a lot after these events, so I, I get it.
00:17:39.278 --> 00:17:43.068
But I think it's a tricky one.
00:17:43.068 --> 00:17:47.628
And one of the questions I'd have for you is separating out what is sort of
00:17:47.628 --> 00:17:50.778
a, an acceptable level of hazard.
00:17:50.778 --> 00:17:54.081
And what I try to get people to do is to look at these things and make,
00:17:54.853 --> 00:17:59.558
and risk is emotional. You knew that, you know, people are like one in 300,
00:17:59.558 --> 00:18:02.550
you can't really tell it that way. It's emotional. It's dynamic.
00:18:02.869 --> 00:18:07.026
It's, it's perceived, you know, it's in the eye of the beholder. Yeah.
00:18:07.646 --> 00:18:12.178
Yeah. All those things are true. and and then so how do we i i think if people
00:18:12.178 --> 00:18:17.048
want to do this and whatever it is if they're aware of the risks and prepared
00:18:17.048 --> 00:18:18.900
for outcomes one way or the other
00:18:19.335 --> 00:18:25.611
then i don't have that much of a problem with it it's a problem it sucks but it's it's you you,
00:18:26.177 --> 00:18:28.948
you can kind of go all right they knew what they were getting into and owned
00:18:28.948 --> 00:18:31.134
it and it didn't go their way i think it was a.
00:18:31.817 --> 00:18:34.888
You know, I think it was Scott coming back from one of the polls and he's dying
00:18:34.888 --> 00:18:37.428
out there on the ice sheet. He says, you know, it didn't go our way.
00:18:37.428 --> 00:18:39.148
We have no cause for completion.
00:18:39.392 --> 00:18:42.707
But I don't think most people going into these sports look at them that way.
00:18:43.308 --> 00:18:49.230
And it's a problem. Well, and to me, over the years, I've really thought about this a bunch.
00:18:49.770 --> 00:18:53.888
Over the years, it's become much more compelling to me to look at the control
00:18:53.888 --> 00:18:57.038
side of that question and less at the risk side of the question.
00:18:57.038 --> 00:19:02.308
So I'm going to assume that if you're doing urban downhill mountain biking in
00:19:02.308 --> 00:19:07.488
Valparaiso, Chile, you know, which is the coolest thing to watch on TV.
00:19:08.151 --> 00:19:11.608
And then I went there. I love that you watch that. And then I went to Valparaiso
00:19:11.608 --> 00:19:16.499
and I was like, holy crap, this is so much riskier in real life than it is on TV.
00:19:16.859 --> 00:19:23.105
But to me, the question isn't the risk that's presented in the activity. That's pretty normal.
00:19:23.453 --> 00:19:28.678
And it's highly dynamic. And there's risk homeostasis. And good riders are better
00:19:28.678 --> 00:19:31.969
with risks than bad riders. I mean, we could talk for hours on that.
00:19:32.399 --> 00:19:36.038
To me, the question is, is how much control is in the system so that when the
00:19:36.038 --> 00:19:41.809
system has some kind of anomaly, when there is a variation, do we have recoverability?
00:19:42.099 --> 00:19:45.978
So it's like, it seems like, and you should correct me because I know nothing
00:19:45.978 --> 00:19:50.488
about this, but it seems like you have to have a really robust approach to ice
00:19:50.488 --> 00:19:55.536
climbing and simultaneously a really resilient approach to ice climbing.
00:19:55.977 --> 00:20:00.064
So you have to be brave and bold and take chances, right? Right.
00:20:00.693 --> 00:20:06.040
But you have to also have enough controls in your system or margin.
00:20:06.928 --> 00:20:11.264
Capacity, whatever word you want to use, that when those chances have variation,
00:20:11.769 --> 00:20:15.101
that you have some kind of recoverability. That's the resilient part of that.
00:20:15.357 --> 00:20:19.808
And it seems like those two words need to always travel together for you guys,
00:20:20.408 --> 00:20:24.718
that you want to be robust, but you also want to be really resilient.
00:20:24.718 --> 00:20:26.708
So when this happens, here's plan B.
00:20:27.624 --> 00:20:30.602
And I bet you do that. I bet you do that a lot, actually. Oh, yeah.
00:20:31.193 --> 00:20:34.458
Well, and one of the things I, you know, one of the reasons I'm working on this
00:20:34.458 --> 00:20:38.508
book, which is a whole other topic, but it's about exactly working in these
00:20:38.508 --> 00:20:42.303
high hazard environments, right? And what kind of controls we can put in and how they work.
00:20:42.796 --> 00:20:45.008
But the fundamental question that prompted that book is like,
00:20:45.008 --> 00:20:49.108
why am I still alive? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is a super compelling question,
00:20:49.108 --> 00:20:51.348
right? I found it very interesting.
00:20:52.428 --> 00:20:54.824
But the reason it's interesting, I mean, it's interesting because it's,
00:20:55.265 --> 00:20:58.488
you know, in kind of a folksy way, it's interesting and it's clever and it makes
00:20:58.488 --> 00:21:02.052
for a good story, which I love all that. Don't get me wrong, that's cool.
00:21:02.586 --> 00:21:06.248
But, I mean, there's also really an answer to that. Yeah.
00:21:07.388 --> 00:21:11.785
When nothing bad's happening, why isn't anything bad happening?
00:21:12.464 --> 00:21:17.658
Yeah. This is what your work is about. And I tried to figure that out and controls
00:21:17.658 --> 00:21:21.108
and so on. And I'd say this is fascinating to me. Yeah.
00:21:22.485 --> 00:21:26.485
What I, digging into that, you can only add, if you say you're base jumping,
00:21:27.165 --> 00:21:29.665
and I don't have the world's deepest experience with base jumping,
00:21:29.665 --> 00:21:33.535
I quit because I didn't think there were enough, there were ways to put in enough
00:21:33.535 --> 00:21:35.371
control. Which I think is very telling.
00:21:35.562 --> 00:21:39.955
I mean, in this conversation, that's a very telling piece of information you're
00:21:39.955 --> 00:21:45.355
giving us is that it did not have the resilience you needed it to have and still
00:21:45.355 --> 00:21:50.205
be a father and a husband and a speaker and Red Bulls.
00:21:50.605 --> 00:21:53.680
I mean, there's a reason you're Red Bull's oldest athlete.
00:21:55.465 --> 00:21:59.375
Well, that's another story. But I think, you know, I give good value.
00:21:59.375 --> 00:22:01.445
That's what has worked well for me in my life.
00:22:01.785 --> 00:22:04.505
You know, I'm always like, isn't there a 12-year-old skateboarder that could do this better?
00:22:05.650 --> 00:22:11.925
But also, the other oldest athletes die. So, I mean, you know.
00:22:12.385 --> 00:22:15.335
Well, this is another topic, you know, why we do these things.
00:22:15.335 --> 00:22:20.425
But with base jumping, I couldn't put in enough of those controls to where it
00:22:20.425 --> 00:22:22.171
would work. And I couldn't do enough...
00:22:23.575 --> 00:22:29.169
If you look at predictive risk management versus capacity risk management,
00:22:29.401 --> 00:22:32.304
and your terminology has been really helpful for me in that.
00:22:32.716 --> 00:22:36.954
And I'll get some of it wrong. No, that's fine. It's fine. We're making it up. It's okay.
00:22:37.603 --> 00:22:41.255
Well, it's great. But just moving from that, in our outdoor world,
00:22:42.135 --> 00:22:44.563
we're predominantly about predictive.
00:22:44.842 --> 00:22:46.821
So these things will go wrong, and here's what we'll do.
00:22:47.875 --> 00:22:50.975
And often, it's the things we didn't see coming that end up getting us.
00:22:51.635 --> 00:22:55.215
And so in base jumping, there's things we obviously don't see coming that get
00:22:55.215 --> 00:22:59.546
us, but there's not a lot we can put on in terms of controls.
00:23:01.260 --> 00:23:04.905
Base rigs generally, base rigs being the parachute that you wear when you base
00:23:04.905 --> 00:23:09.075
jump, they don't generally malfunction a lot anymore.
00:23:09.075 --> 00:23:13.850
They used to malfunction a lot, and that's how people died. And now it's generally,
00:23:14.268 --> 00:23:19.573
people are, generally, because Sketchy Andy died with what's called a tension knot in one of his lines.
00:23:19.875 --> 00:23:23.347
And it just folds, string will fold up on itself and then catch.
00:23:23.835 --> 00:23:26.354
And when that happens in a parachute, it deforms the parachute.
00:23:26.847 --> 00:23:29.619
And, you know, that's the report I got anyhow. I don't know if it's true.
00:23:30.138 --> 00:23:35.877
But it's very, you can't, it's very hard to prevent every tension knot in a base rig always.
00:23:36.051 --> 00:23:40.585
So you can do things to make it less likely. but that there's still and when
00:23:40.585 --> 00:23:45.355
that does happen you're too low to throw a reserve parachute you can't add a
00:23:45.355 --> 00:23:48.764
lot of controls to solve that inherent problem in the sport.
00:23:49.625 --> 00:23:52.925
So I quit I was like you know when we're talking about you were talking about
00:23:52.925 --> 00:23:53.985
ice climbing a minute ago,
00:23:54.507 --> 00:23:58.344
like I don't solo meaning climbing without a rope very much in ice climbing
00:23:58.512 --> 00:24:02.365
because if you do there's no backup right and I like to have a rope on because
00:24:02.365 --> 00:24:05.795
I'm human and I screw up I think you said it better as one of your principles
00:24:05.795 --> 00:24:08.375
but it's like we're going to make mistakes and how do we,
00:24:08.857 --> 00:24:11.388
Build systems that are tolerant. So I like to use a rope.
00:24:11.620 --> 00:24:15.271
But that's that resilient part, right? You've got the robust part.
00:24:16.055 --> 00:24:21.595
I'm an experienced climber that also has some control. I have resilience.
00:24:21.595 --> 00:24:26.076
That's really, that seems really important to me. That seems more interesting to me than the risk.
00:24:26.800 --> 00:24:31.644
The risks that you guys face, that's why you do the sport. That's why I watch,
00:24:32.337 --> 00:24:38.584
bicycle racing in Valparaiso, Chile, right? Because it's risky and interesting and fun and crazy.
00:24:38.684 --> 00:24:41.445
How people respond to that risk and why they're there.
00:24:41.729 --> 00:24:45.634
And your comment that you made in our interview a few weeks ago in Banff was
00:24:45.634 --> 00:24:49.044
where you talked about the difference between being robust and resilient.
00:24:49.044 --> 00:24:52.494
Right. And I thought, I don't know if everybody's going to have that terminology
00:24:52.494 --> 00:24:54.104
in their braids, but I really liked it.
00:24:55.044 --> 00:24:59.534
And you had a good analogy for it. Well, I always think like a dam has to be
00:24:59.534 --> 00:25:01.753
robust. Yeah, that was it. Has to hold back the water.
00:25:02.083 --> 00:25:04.632
But every dam is going to get too much water.
00:25:05.108 --> 00:25:08.304
And so they're going to have to manage the water. I mean, we know that because
00:25:08.304 --> 00:25:11.924
that's where we live. Well, this year there was not too much water in the southern
00:25:11.924 --> 00:25:14.378
part of the Rockies. You guys stole it all.
00:25:15.184 --> 00:25:19.774
Yeah, we did. But that's why dams always have spillways and runways and containment
00:25:19.774 --> 00:25:22.639
ponds and, you know, pressure relief systems.
00:25:23.080 --> 00:25:25.494
Because the best dam in the world, the best dam in the world,
00:25:25.494 --> 00:25:30.004
the strongest dam in the world, still, if you overtop it, is no longer a dam.
00:25:30.434 --> 00:25:33.539
So you have to have ways to build resilience in that system.
00:25:34.296 --> 00:25:39.474
And I love that. And I'm working on some things in my head to try and convey
00:25:39.474 --> 00:25:43.204
this to the outdoor world. But we tend to focus on technical skill and go,
00:25:43.204 --> 00:25:46.664
right, you're really good at this, which is robust. You have a lot of experience
00:25:46.664 --> 00:25:48.044
and understanding. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:49.210 --> 00:25:51.974
You watch a video of Alex Honnold. He's the guy who did LCAP.
00:25:51.984 --> 00:25:53.541
And Taipei power, right?
00:25:54.326 --> 00:25:58.053
This guy's incredibly robust, right? He's got incredible skill levels,
00:25:58.686 --> 00:26:03.384
but it's not going to take a lot in that situation to have a bad outcome because
00:26:03.384 --> 00:26:08.009
there's very few controls you can put into place when you have nothing, no rope at all.
00:26:08.809 --> 00:26:14.184
And so it'll work, but he's relying on the robust part of it and there is no spillway.
00:26:15.584 --> 00:26:19.564
And that's what got me about base jumping. And I think to a large extent in
00:26:19.564 --> 00:26:22.009
my outdoor sports world, people will,
00:26:22.703 --> 00:26:27.768
They don't, they lean on the robust and are not very good at the controls and
00:26:27.768 --> 00:26:32.218
they tend to look at it as an individual problem beyond that rather than this
00:26:32.218 --> 00:26:37.358
and how do we manage these hazards and build more resilience or spillways into it.
00:26:37.358 --> 00:26:42.089
So this is really fascinating. Well, but that's also the part I think you have the most.
00:26:42.848 --> 00:26:46.368
So my guess is the reason they tend to look at those individual skills is because
00:26:46.368 --> 00:26:48.718
that's the way, that's the paradigm they have for the sport.
00:26:49.254 --> 00:26:54.608
Yes. And when we start to change the discussion around how the sport is done
00:26:54.608 --> 00:26:56.728
and how it's done successfully, I mean,
00:26:57.348 --> 00:27:01.711
your description was perfect earlier, then that's going to actually introduce,
00:27:02.205 --> 00:27:06.348
a whole new set of questions into the sport that probably many of your peers
00:27:06.348 --> 00:27:07.818
hadn't really thought of before.
00:27:08.114 --> 00:27:09.920
No, they hadn't thought of.
00:27:10.988 --> 00:27:14.948
And they perhaps don't even want to think about them because if you think about
00:27:14.948 --> 00:27:16.754
them, it's really uncomfortable.
00:27:16.899 --> 00:27:21.888
Yeah. um another way to look at this is like a classic mismatch between the
00:27:21.888 --> 00:27:26.220
idea of robust and resilient is you know you you may have even done some of this there's a
00:27:26.534 --> 00:27:30.078
there's a low technical skill form of climbing called scrambling where you you
00:27:30.078 --> 00:27:34.708
go up relatively easy blocky train right right right now we're having a lot of fatalities
00:27:35.028 --> 00:27:38.848
from people who are so-called scrambling because they're getting into train
00:27:38.848 --> 00:27:41.807
where the consequences of an error are really high,
00:27:42.447 --> 00:27:46.360
but it's really easy train and they go well, I climb at a really high level.
00:27:46.974 --> 00:27:51.388
This is easy. I'm fine not using a rope in this environment because I'm never
00:27:51.388 --> 00:27:54.776
going to fall off because it's easy, right? They're going, I'm so good at this.
00:27:56.331 --> 00:28:00.048
And then if they do fall off, the consequences are so high that we're having
00:28:00.048 --> 00:28:03.088
just a run of accidents from this.
00:28:04.191 --> 00:28:07.204
And so I'm trying to get in my world, people to think much more,
00:28:07.831 --> 00:28:09.508
much less about probability.
00:28:09.508 --> 00:28:12.438
I'm good. This won't happen to me and much more about consequence.
00:28:12.438 --> 00:28:17.228
If it does go bad I have nothing to deal with it it's not if it's,
00:28:17.768 --> 00:28:20.858
how are you doing that how are you how are you changing the dialogue I mean
00:28:20.858 --> 00:28:26.603
have you thought about like having a YouTube channel that just studies adventure adventure accidents,
00:28:27.373 --> 00:28:29.201
I have. I've got to finish my book first.
00:28:31.221 --> 00:28:36.861
So many things on your to-do list. I'm really excited about all this because,
00:28:37.361 --> 00:28:39.241
it's all related to just fascinating.
00:28:39.621 --> 00:28:45.111
But I do it through my social media. I still do a half dozen shows a year to
00:28:45.111 --> 00:28:47.820
rooms full of outdoor people at festivals and so on.
00:28:48.781 --> 00:28:50.621
And I get up there and I hammer it.
00:28:52.377 --> 00:28:55.367
A lot of times at festivals, it's like I climbed this mountain, I did this river.
00:28:55.843 --> 00:29:00.045
Here's some pretty pictures we're all stoked go home and i'm past that point i'm like all right,
00:29:00.579 --> 00:29:04.968
let's do this differently and how can we look at these sports differently and
00:29:05.363 --> 00:29:08.501
it's very much you know you could these are the same pictures i used for my
00:29:08.501 --> 00:29:11.481
industrial and corporate military whatever yeah why not,
00:29:12.181 --> 00:29:15.901
why not well it's the same stuff like how can we do this differently and i tell
00:29:15.901 --> 00:29:19.786
different stories to go with that are more applicable to you know yesterday was the,
00:29:20.326 --> 00:29:23.930
export development canada they're going into like new markets that are uncertain
00:29:24.116 --> 00:29:27.280
but it's the same stuff how do we deal with this and and i
00:29:27.721 --> 00:29:32.371
i'm fired up but you're you're robust versus resilient or not robust and resilient
00:29:32.371 --> 00:29:37.695
model i really like that and and i'm going to steal that thank you very so so can people.
00:29:39.421 --> 00:29:40.430
Can people contact you,
00:29:41.177 --> 00:29:46.279
Oh, yeah. You'll come to their company and walk them through this, right?
00:29:46.938 --> 00:29:50.959
Well, I do. And sometimes I give the tour to Concord. It's interesting that
00:29:51.299 --> 00:29:54.537
I showed you that presentation. I love it.
00:29:55.019 --> 00:29:57.614
But it's great because these are good tools.
00:29:58.579 --> 00:30:02.479
I'm doing another search and rescue group in a couple of months.
00:30:02.839 --> 00:30:08.049
And these are great tools if you're a search and rescue organization to get
00:30:08.049 --> 00:30:13.339
better outcomes in your group. And it's the same thing for, you know, oil and gas or whatever.
00:30:13.919 --> 00:30:18.929
It's how we as humans operate in places with high hazard of new environments.
00:30:18.929 --> 00:30:22.579
This is just, this is great. If I were younger, I would be, go back and get
00:30:22.579 --> 00:30:23.679
a doctorate. I don't know.
00:30:24.259 --> 00:30:27.299
I just, I get one just by listening to people like you and learning.
00:30:27.299 --> 00:30:29.279
And it's just great. Just finish the book, man.
00:30:30.239 --> 00:30:32.614
Then you don't need the doctorate anymore because you've got the book.
00:30:34.739 --> 00:30:38.179
I just keep learning things though, you know, like it's, this is the great thing
00:30:38.179 --> 00:30:42.059
about this. And it's exciting. You know, one of the guys yesterday was like,
00:30:42.059 --> 00:30:44.985
hey, have you read this book after my presentation?
00:30:45.403 --> 00:30:49.109
He does finance and credit exchange stuff in new markets, right?
00:30:49.109 --> 00:30:52.859
He's like, here's a book you got to read. And that's what's great is that connection,
00:30:52.859 --> 00:30:55.119
figuring it out and trying to do things better.
00:30:55.119 --> 00:30:59.299
So, anyhow, to answer your question, social media and presentations are how
00:30:59.299 --> 00:31:02.909
I'm trying to do that. And then also working within some of my professional
00:31:02.909 --> 00:31:06.614
organizations to just have a wider conversation.
00:31:06.730 --> 00:31:09.041
Excellent. Thanks, man. This was great.
00:31:10.199 --> 00:31:14.859
Oh, we're hammering. I love this. It was so fun. That was fun.
00:31:19.694 --> 00:31:23.067
What'd you think? Feeling a little cooler than you felt before the podcast?
00:31:23.374 --> 00:31:27.109
Now you go home and tell your kids, yeah, you know, the stuff I do at work is
00:31:27.109 --> 00:31:29.849
the very same things that the Red Bull athletes are doing.
00:31:31.907 --> 00:31:36.789
I'm on the inside circle. I was there early. You know, it'll give you some points,
00:31:37.079 --> 00:31:39.790
some street cred, and who doesn't need street cred?
00:31:40.214 --> 00:31:44.829
That's how it works. That is the pod. Thank you, Will, for being so gracious
00:31:44.829 --> 00:31:45.752
and spending time with us.
00:31:46.060 --> 00:31:50.649
I bet we talk again. I kind of feel the urge already. to talk more.
00:31:50.989 --> 00:31:52.823
That podcast could have gone for 10 hours.
00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:55.719
Until then, learn something new every single day. Bet you did today.
00:31:55.934 --> 00:31:58.039
Have as much fun as you possibly can. Be good to each other.
00:31:58.039 --> 00:32:02.018
Be kind to each other. Be good and cool and kind, even to the least among us.
00:32:02.604 --> 00:32:05.074
And for goodness sakes, you guys, be safe.