Stay on Offense Climb Mountains

Attacking Adversity

Go Hiking, Take My Course And Skip the Line

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Actually, that heading should read “Go Hiking Early, Take My Course and Skip The Line.” Early on the trail helps you avoid people. They are in front of you and you don’t want that.

The earlier you get to the trail head, the better. I say at least an hour and a half before sunrise. Then if you add to that the knowledge you gain from taking my hiking course you will be skipping the line, but time.

Take the course by going here: https://bmontgome.mastermind.com/masterminds/25439

Get Ahead and Stay Ahead

In the book Altucher talks about Micro skills. You need Micro skills in hiking too. Like knowing how to tie your shoelaces so they don’t come loose and you end up fast on your face. You can learn about those kinds of things in my course.

James discusses doing lots of experiments which is great when you are considering a business idea, but you don’t want to be experimenting with your body on the trail. You can avoid that by learning what to do from someone who has been doing it for thirty years and is still at at seventy-six.

Hiking Multiplication and Division

In the book, “Skip the Line,” Altucher talks about idea multiplication and division. Here let’s consider hiking multiplication and division. What is hiking multiplication? It is when you have taken my course and are hiking multiple times a month or a week. Division is when you don’t take my course and you are only liking half of what you wanted to.

He does talk about one other thing when it comes to ideas and that is idea sex. I am not going to get into that when discussing hiking, ok?

Go Hiking But First Take My Course – Attacking Mountains At Any Age

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If you want to be a hiking warrior, then it is time for you to take my hiking course. If you are a beginner and want to learn the basics in a fun way, plus avoid a lot of mistakes (ones I have made), then let’s go! If you are a little older and would like to get into the mountains but you have some challenges then I can help. Go to the course:

https://bmontgome.mastermind.com/masterminds/25439

In the course I give you the basics and discuss how you can prevent injuries. If you have bad knees I talk about how to get around that. There is always a way. Maybe you say, I climbed this one mountain in record time when I was 18 years old, but now you are 50 and all you talk about is when you were 18. You can do it again! Don’t stop living just because you are a little older.

Training

You will learn how to train for hiking. What I do and don’t do. If a 76 year old man can keep himself on the trail for 30 years think how much you can learn and how much pain you can avoid!

Did you think you could just go climb mountains every week without training? No! You need to get in shape and stay in shape.

Mindset

This section of the course is worth the price by itself, because it will give you tools to help you achieve goals you set in every area of life. Find out what your “why “ is in every area of life. Learn the motivation formula so you can get yourself to do what you say you want to do.

Mindset is so important if you set a path to climb mountains once a week, three times a week or even once a month.

Diet and Nutrition

I don’t have a diet for you, but I call this section “The Chocolate Bar Diet and Nutrition Plan.” I tell you up front it is really not a diet but my philosophy about diet. I also give you some recommendations for supplements.

However, twenty years ago I weighed 214 pounds and I dropped that weight and kept it off. I am 165 now so I know something about this area. As I say in my book, “Attacking Adversity,” diet and exercise are strategies one and two for getting through any adversity. Simple? Yes, but not easy! Don’t stay on the SAD (Standard American Diet).

Click on the link above and take my course. You will be glad you did!

Go Hiking And Develop Your Attributes

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Yes, by now if you have been reading these tributes to hiking you know what I m going to say. Hiking will help you develop your attributes.

It doesn’t take much skill to hike. You just need to know how to put one foot in front of another. It is different from climbing or mountaineering in that way. However, it does take some strong attributes. Plus, if you don’t know the BEARS you need to buy my hiking course which will be linked to as soon as it is available.

Discipline

It takes strong discipline to hike a mountain every week. Remember, discipline is different that self- discipline. Discipline means understanding what it takes to achieve your goal (the top of the mountain or doing it every week) and being “steadfast” in executing.

Week after week, month after month you climb a mountain. Not the same mountain but a mountain. You always reach the top. That’s discipline!

Perseverance

As Rich Diviney says in “The Attributes,“ “If courage is the ability to effectively move through fear, challenge, and discomfort, then perseverance is the ability to keep doing it over and over.” Hiking week after week fits that description.

Many times you might not even feel like getting out of bed to go hiking. It is nice and warm in your bed and you would like just a little more sleep. But no, you get up and go. Again and again and again!

Narcissism

This attribute drives us to take risks and get noticed. So it helps us achieve our potential. A good thing, right? Well, it is sort of like Goldilocks and The Three Bears. It has to be just right.
Too much narcissism and you become easily offended. You can’t take criticism and your self-esteem is usually low. People will catch on pretty fast and it will be over for you.

Use it when you go hiking to help you set that big goal. A mountain you haven’t climbed or a climbing record for a certain mountain. In any case go hiking!

Go Hiking and Get Beyond Order

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How do you get beyond order when you go hiking? Simple, as Jordan B. Peterson has said, nature is chaos. You can’t get much further from order than that.

Getting into the wild is, well, wild! As I write this I am planing a hike in a place known for lots of bears. When you’re out there in the woods, the bears and the cougars are the dragons in your world.

Lions, Tigers, Bears and Dragons

Here in North America there arena’t many lions or tigers unless you include Texas. Texas is the exception. I was going to say you wouldn’t find any real dragons in North America but when I think about Texas I am not so sure. After all doesn’t Tim Kennedy live in Texas?

Yes, I am digressing a bit. It happens when I talk about dragons. Peterson often tells a story of a dragon under a bed somewhere. He says we should kill the dragon when it’s small before it gets so big it can eat you. Good idea for sure. But with bears in the woods you actually want to stay away from the little ones because mom is usually close by.

Whistling In the Dark

It isn’t really dark when I hike before sunrise because I wear a headlamp. I tell myself that the bright light will scare the Sasquatches, bears and cougars away. So I Googled that and it says,
“Bears aren’t typically scared of bright lights because bears naturally have no negative association with bright light and don’t see it as a threat.” So much for that theory. I really wished I hadn’t looked for the information.

What’s left? Whistling! Noise does scare bears away. I am not so sure about cougars. I don’t think anything scares a cougar. If it’s hungry it just wants to eat you. I am not going to Google for an answer. Cougars scare me more than bears.

So go hiking, face real danger and then come home and the little dragon under your bed will seem like nothing.

Go Hiking and Control The Chatter

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In the adjacent book review I left one important thing out that is brought up in the book. The importance of getting into “nature” to help you take control of the Chatter. The author discusses enjoying a sunrise as “soft fascination” as opposed to voluntary attention. Voluntary attention can be exhausted. He says nature draws our involuntary attention because it is “rife with soft fascinations.”

There were studies done on this that the author discusses and you can read the book if you need more proof. One is mentioned below. Nature reduces rumination. Isn’t the amazing?

Climb a Mountain and Control the Chatter

Just climbing a mountain helps you to keep rumination at bay. Less negative chatter enters your mind when you hike. I knew it made a difference but I had never seen anything to validate my view.

One of the things I find myself doing while hiking is repeating mantras. It keeps me going and is like a meditation. Then when the sun comes up it is so awe inspiring.

Studies

One study that was done in 2016 had one group of people watch a video of streets with no trees and another watch one with trees. The ones that were exposed to the “most views of nature showed a 60 percent increase in their ability to recover from the stress…”

So if you can watch a video and chill out then getting out in the woods will be even better! Now there is no excuse to not get our in nature.

Conclusion

The author says, “Collectively the findings demonstrate that nature provides humans with a tool for caring for our inner voice from the outside in, and the longer we are exposed to nature, the more our health improves.”

Go hiking!

Go Hiking And Experience Fearvana

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Akshay Nanavati is a mountaineer and what I would consider extreme sport enthusiast. He goes all over the world looking for challenges. The little mountains I climb are mole hills to him. Still, you don’t have to be a mountaineer to experience Fearvana. You can just go hiking.

Let me clarify that. It is especially true if you are in your seventies like me when getting in and out of the shower is a daily risk. So climbing even a small mountain with bad knees and other ailments is a real Fearvana experience.

Ice and Snow

It is a real Fearvana experience when you are hiring in snow and ice. There is plenty of danger and you need to focus. You get nervous and scared just before a steep section and then you make it – Fearvana!

Coming down is really much more difficult in the snow. Once I tried it without the proper Microspike traction and fell. It was a good lesson. I don’t forget my Microspikes any more and if I did I would not venture up the mountain, because as Akshay says, “the mountain is in charge.”

Fearvana

Ok, what is Fearvana? I explained it in my review of his book but this former Marine describes it as being scared and then performing anyway and succeeding. You embrace the fear! It is your friend. Struggle is your friend.

One of the things I do before I climb a mountain is focus on the difficulty of the trail. The struggle. Not the top. The summit will be there but you need to be attentive to every part of the trail. Akshay says a couple things about this. First he says, ‘The next time you face a challenge, smile and ask yourself, “What is fun about this? How can I make this enjoyable.”’ Second, he stresses the importance of visualization by saying, “Visualizing the process of struggle, as opposed to the outcome on the other side of it, better prepares you to overcome the struggle.”

Flow

Can you go hiking and experience flow? I say you can. Maybe you need to make it a little harder consistently, but maybe not. Akshay quotes Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who is the expert on flow. He called it “optimal experience.” He defines it as a state “in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

Akshay takes it a bit further.He says, “…success demands a real struggle to the point of questioning the very endeavor to which we commit ourselves, even if only for a moment.” So can climbing a small mountain get you into flow? Well, every Saturday I question whether I want to climb a mountain the next day even though I am committed. So yes, I think so! Go Hiking!