Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I went on a long, strange trip. This is Ben. I hope you all are safe and healthy, and I hope we get back to the sky and what we love soon. But in the meantime, I'm glad that the show seems to be a source of good education and entertainment. I really thought that we were going to see a big drawback in support for the show, And if anything, it's been the other way around. There seems to be more people listening and more people supporting us. And that comes at a very good time for me personally. It's my business, the other side of my life. My kite surfing business and boat business is obviously on hold indefinitely here.
And so that has kind of cratered. Not a very good sector right now, adventure travel. So I really, really appreciate it. And as always, all we've ever asked for is a buck a show. And as always, I've always said that I don't want that, any support for the show to impinge on your health or well-being or financial soundness at any level. I don't want this to even impinge on your morning latte. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Obviously, we put a lot of effort and time into the show. And I realize many of you can't support us. But if you can, thank you for doing so. And at the same time, I want to make sure that you all are getting the bonus content.
We put out these bonus episodes. We just dropped another one last week with Jeff Shapiro on weather. We're doing this weather series and forecasting and how to identify good days to go flying. And we don't see a lot of downloads on those. And I'm assuming that's just because you have to go through a couple more steps to get that subscriber content. content, if you have had contact with the show, whether you're a financial supporter or just on the newsletter or any other way, you will have an account. I have set that up for you. So if you're not getting those, go to the website, www.cloudbasemayhem.com, click on podcast and under that subscriber content, and there's instructions for how to get those. So you get it on your, whatever app you use to listen to podcasts, whether that's podcasts or iTunes, Stitcher, whatever, it's pretty easy to do, so it only takes a couple seconds.
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This show with Thomas Therilow. Thomas, you all know him, of course. He was Chrigel's supporter in his first four campaigns, which he, of course, won. He's also the head of One Day Coaching. He's actually coached many of the people we've had on the show. Seb Espina, Patrick Von Cannell, Paul Guschlbauer, Tom DeDorlodeau, Yael Margulish, who we haven't dropped yet, but I recorded a show with her last week. She, of course, broke the world record last fall and will be in the 2021 X-Alps. Everything goes well for her. But he also coaches just people in life and business, all kinds of things. So it's not just the sport world, but he has an incredible program, an incredible philosophy, and pretty heavily into flow.
He's a former base jumper, and I just think of him as a wizard. We reached out to him basically to have a kind of a mini session with him using me as the subject for the book. I haven't talked about the book in many, many months, but we are getting very close to being done with the Cloudbase Mayhem book. This is kind of based on the first hundred and some odd shows. And the first half of the book is dedicated to kind of deep dives with 20 of the people I've interviewed in, gosh, I guess going on six years now. And Thomas, we thought we definitely needed to do one with Thomas. Thomas. So this is basically a little mini session that we had with him, kind of opened the floodgates on my mind with Thomas.
And this was just fascinating to see how he works and to see how he gets people to their best performing self. I think you're going to really enjoy it. This was a blast and it was a fun one to work on for the book. So keep an eye out for that. We're getting and close and have something for you to read here, hopefully, but hopefully by the time we get it out, we'll all be back in the sky. And this is something we can read at night. Enjoy, Thomas.
Thank you so much for coming on the show. This is a real treat for me. Of course, I followed your campaigns with with Chrigel back before I started doing the race, and you've always been kind of one of these wizards. I've very much enjoyed your writing and talking to quite. We've had quite a few pilots on on the show, Seb, Espina, and Paul Guschlbauer, and Chrigel, of course, a lot of people who have been through your program or have gone to you for help with whatever they're trying to accomplish. I can't wait to learn about your techniques in one day, and then maybe we'll take me through a little adjunct of what you do.
Great. For me, it's an honor to be in this show, and let's try what we can explain what what we do in this invisible uh with this invisible uh thing of of coaching and psychology yeah
It's, it's, it's a cool thing that it's, it's invisible, and what we, and we're flying in the invisible, so that the two go hand in hand in a sense, don't they? I thought it'd be fun to just start with one day: what was its inception? Because it's not just, just athletes you train. It's people in all kinds of different walks of life. What exactly is one day?
Yeah, we have to start when it comes to changes. I think in nature or in human being, there are two ways of changes. For example, if you do sports, you can learn something like some pull-ups. And then if you stop training, they go away. Or you can learn language. And if you stop speaking the language, you lose the words. And we call this a change. But in life, there are also changes, which we call transformation. For example, if you learn swimming, or if you become a father and you have a family or something like that, the world got digital. This is a transformation. We call it also a change on a second level.
And for example, if you look at a butterfly. A butterfly never goes to a flying school. There is a transformation and then he's a butterfly. If you do popcorn, you have the corn. Suddenly it is popcorn. And it's interesting, popcorn won't become corn anymore. Transformations are changes which don't go back. And our company is specialized in transformations. And because of that, we need the whole day. We think it's It's much more powerful to spend a whole day and try to make a transformation instead of spending 10 hours or 10 times one hour just to try to make a change. Because as I or we, our whole team from One Day Coaches, if we can help someone, if it's about leadership, if it's about resilience, if it's about peak performance, to find the best version or the next level, then we have a transformation.
There is a new approach, a new mindset, and this will change everything. And that's why we need a whole day, time in a row. And that's also the name of our company, also the name of our product.
What does one day with one day look like?
The one day, which is a whole day of a hike or a nature experience. And during this day, we do solution-focused coaching talks. And there is a pre-call, often three or four weeks before, an invitation with homework for both sides. And then there is a post-call like a month or two later where we try how good was this transformation already. That's our product. And so when we go to the desert with clients from business or when we go to the mountains, they are all very, very well prepared for this day because they had the pre-call. And we know the goal of them. We know what they want, what they don't want, what they know, what their strengths are. And then during this day, we try to find a new version for them or the new behavior they search for.
Sure.
And did one day lead you to Chrigel or Chrigel to you, or was it the other way around? Did your work with Chrigel, I understand you started working together in 2008 for his first XOPS campaign in 2009. Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct. And in this day, We were in the start because I wasn't so sure how a very modern and useful coaching service should look like, and during these exams we found a lot about sports. And here in Switzerland, there's a lot about, um, leading, because I think we—we are all—all companies are on a very high level, and if you want to, to make a difference as a company, you really need to have a very sporty mindset as a businessman, as an entrepreneur. And so it was really good to have such a challenge in, in sport, and it's interesting because I think, if I'm really honest, I think we didn't brought something, we didn't do something new in 2008.
The only thing was we brought something which was, for example, well known in golf or in other sports into the paragliding world. In other sports, it's totally normal that you work with a mental coach, and I think in 2008 it was new to come with this, this approach to excel some paragliding.
He has said many times over the years that a huge portion of his success he puts on you and the mental coaching he got from you. Can you give us a condensed version of kind of some of the things you worked on together? Yeah. And I think this is totally overrated. I
think this is not true. The thing is, I think he had on his level not the right, uh, challenges in the mental side before. Everyone was saying, "You're doing good," and we were saying, "Hey, for example, how does Regelmauer look if he performs at 100? We know from every tree how this tree can look when he flourishes 100. But if you, you ask an athlete, 'How does it look when you're 100?' and when you, when an athlete has to tell this answer, this question, then he say, 'Oh, I will do more of this,' or 'I will do less of that.' And then I say, 'I don't accept more and less. I want to hear a number.' For example, how is, is a perfect X-up stay looking when you perform 100 in a given weather situation?
Observation. And then you, you have a picture. And I'm very, very convinced that if you can dream it, you can do it. But first of all, the dream has to be very specific. So I think the, the work we did, and it's very funny because not long time ago we were thinking about this, because I have a book project now. The first paper he had to write me is what he wants to tell when he's in Monaco after his first race. And we call this a time jump. So I, I ask every, every client, for example, also Yael Margielis, who flew 500 kilometers in Brazil last year, she, she had to explain us, 'What do you want to tell after the record flight?' And I think if you really challenge people to explain their dreams, then it's very interesting how they will imagine what they can do with their strengths.
So this was, for example, a third thing. We still have this book, and it was interesting that he says, 'Okay, I—' Use 80% of the time, which is possible to fly during the day. I'm always 15 minutes before terminal starts on a east slope, changing my clothes. I will have always the right food. I change my socks after all two hours. If you ask someone the right question, he can imagine the perfect day. And then if you know the perfect day, then you can start preparing what do you have to do that this happens. How many campaigns did you
do together? Was it three?
There was four. And in the last one, we talked a lot about before the race and also during the race. And maybe what I really think is interesting is this was for me 2011 and 13. Next to dreaming, I also think it's very important, maybe specific important in Switzerland to analyze success. I think in the U.S., if someone is very good, he knows that he's very good. And if someone is good in Switzerland, he's too shy to think about why he's winning. So I ask a lot of athletes or also businessmen to make a list about their top 10 success.
And when you look at the list of maybe you can do also once a list or everyone who is listening should do take one evening and make the homework. It can be an Excel sheet, my 20 best flights or my 10 best flights. And then if you analyze this a little bit deeper, you can look, OK, is there a pattern behind it? I know, for example, from pilots, they often fly best if they are not at home because then they have a holiday. or they are far away from work. It can be that it was in weak condition, or in strong condition, or that it was during a competition. And when you look to this list of Riegel, it was very clear. During this flight, he's often alone.
What did you make of that, that he was often alone?
Yeah, that's why we took the night pass the first night. When we took 2011, the night pass in this day, it was only to be in the position when he's first. Because when he's in front, if you go for a race for 1,000 kilometers, it doesn't make sense to go full on the first day. This is stupid. But when you know you're a good pilot if you're alone, that's the reason why 2013, when he did the race in the six days, we took a night past the first night just to be in a good position the next day. Because when he's alone, he flies better than if he has other people around him. But I think to understand really success and to understand, okay, if I have these circumstances or this mindset or this equipment, then there's a high probability that I perform my best.
If you know this, then success gets to something like a recipe. If you have several ingredients and you do it in several procedures, you will get a nice cake. And if you look at why people often win over several years, it's only because they understand how they have this success pattern or this success recipe. And sometimes with athletes or business or companies, we really try to write a book or write a document about what is my success recipe. Because if you know this, you can repeat it. If you don't know it, you have to be nervous for every competition.
Walk me through the PDF that you sent me that has the various stages. It was just a one page and it's kind of how you've broken that all down. Is that something we could explain through audio?
Yeah, I think this spring, when we have the coronas in the world, I think it challenges us. It challenges us all to be our best version. And the last two weeks or the last week, we put together a little bit of a toolbox what can be good tools that a family or a company or a sports club can handle the given situation as positive as possible. For example, one tool is, it's called the helicopter view, is just to imagine you're sitting in a helicopter or in a satellite very high over your house.
And, Gavin, if you sit now in a helicopter and you're, let's say, 3,000 meters over your house, what would you recommend yourself? Jump. That would be really fun. Good, John. And if you look down to you making the podcast and having the family, what do you recommend, for example, to do during April? Oh,
you know, this is something I've been thinking about a lot is it's been such a treat to have so much time to dedicate to my family, to just being real consciously with them instead of dreaming or thinking about something else or planning something else, spending hours in the kitchen. I love cooking. I got that from my father and my mother. So it's actually been a treat. It's actually been really healthy, I think, for our family and certainly for me because I tend to be kind of a driven person and it's hard for me to slow down. So from the helicopter view, I see calm. calm
Wow, wow, and this is very interesting. You're, you're in a very challenging time of of the world, and you with a helicopter view, you, you are, you start talking very thankful about your life, and you see that calm, or calmness, can be a good title for the month of April. And on the other side of the, if you go down, you see the rocket, which we call the time jump. And this, for example, could be, if you continue thinking like this, you can say, okay, when we call again end of September, what would you like to tell me then about spring 2020?
I'd like to tell you what I think I'd always like to tell you is that I took advantage of that time that I was present. And that's, I think being present is one of the hardest things we have in our lives. And so I think if that's what I, over the scope of my life, that's what I think of the times where I've looked back without regret have been the times that I've been present, that I've just, that I've just noticed it, that I've been there for that time. I wasn't thinking back. I wasn't thinking forward. Wow. So being in the moment. Yes. I think that's all we have, isn't it?
Yeah, maybe, maybe this is maybe, but I think this is very interesting. After one minute, you're very clear what you want.
Yeah, well, what I want and what I get, or do everything sometimes, but that's what I would like. That's what I would like to see, you know? And at the end of September, I guess, when I've chased being present, things work better, okay?
and kevin on a scale from one to ten Then you have all the skills and the mindset and you're totally present. And one is the opposite. You're flipping around. Where are you right now today?
Nine. I'm high right now. This time, the last two, three weeks has been really quite extraordinary. Wow. Yeah. But that would not normally be where I'd be.
And why is it nine and not one? Why is it already so good?
I spent a lot of time, this answer sounds a little complicated, but I spent many, many years sailing around the world a couple of times. And so I guess I'm used to external forces that you can't control very much. And, you know, I'm used to things like storms and attitude to me is learned and is kind of everything. And so I guess I'm not, you know, I'm scared like everybody is in these times. But in a sense, I know that there's very little that we can do and we might as well enjoy what we can now. So I am a nine instead of a one because I'm just more there than I typically am for my family and for just being here.
It's nice because there's nowhere else we can really be.
Wow. And what can you do that you don't slide down, don't get back to the old pattern? What can you do that you stay on a nine, maybe for the rest of the year or the rest of your life? Gosh. What could you do?
I've thought about that a lot. And the answer is? I don't have a great answer, to be honest, because I have tried meditating, mindfulness practice for years now, and I really enjoy that. That definitely helps.
Being in nature helps me a lot. I must spend time outside. That is very good for slowing me down. My business has been an enormous distraction the last couple of years. And the coronavirus has been incredible in forcing that there's nothing I can do about it right now. It's a boat business. The boat's in the Seychelles. She can't even get into the country. So there's very little I can do in it. So it's been nice to kind of push that away. I don't know how I would be able to do that necessarily in the future.
So may I ask you one small question? If you can get to the 9.1, what would be different?
If you're a little bit more precise, how would your family, your wife, How would other people see, okay, now Gavin is on 9.1?
We have been doing like a gratitude practice every night before dinner. Hey, Maddie, what are you grateful for? And we ask my Fallon, who's two and a half. And so with her, we say, what are you happy about?
But we're not, we miss a lot of days. I think a 9.1 is just simply moving to do it, just making that a real practice.
Okay, do you have a paper in front of you? Sure, I've got it right here. Okay, okay. 9.1, gratitude practice. Okay, what's 9.2?
Okay, not not missing my morning meditation. Many times I missed that, okay?
And the positive language is, every morning I do my morning yes, great. The growth, we don't talk about what we don't do. We talk about what we do. Okay. What is 9.3?
Dedicated time. I will spend dedicated time each morning before breakfast, just playful with my daughter. Okay. 9.4?
Continue intermittent fasting. We started this about two weeks ago, something my wife and I have always wanted to do. She has MS and there's quite a bit of data now that shows that some kind of fasting, but especially just intermittent fasting can be quite good for people with autoimmune disease. So we're pretty good about exercise, but that can always be, can always do more.
Would it be something you do when the coronavirus is away and you still keep doing?
Yes, I think. Or something like a preparation of when you say I'm good in the storm. So maybe the challenge is to be good also in nice sailing weather with a lot of work, which is possible.
Yeah, maybe, you know, what I've, I'd like to do is have more, I'm not a very structured kind of, I don't like to structure my time, but a little bit more structure I think would really help. So maybe more structured time in terms of dedicating certain parts of the day to certain things. In other words, I only do email from 9 to 10 a.m., for example.
So less distraction.
Okay, so you make the day instead of that the day makes you. Yes, yes. I'm writing that down. Okay. what
would be a 10 that you say this is my best, my best version of of myself about being present all
of that combined so you have the the early wake up mindful time with my family structured time for business structured time for you know what it is it's the exact same as when I'm training for the X-Alps. That is when I'm a 10. I love training so much and it's the most joyful I ever am. And my wife would agree with that because it's, I have something to focus on. So maybe that's the answer, focus.
Or the thing is if you need a goal, which is bigger than X-Alps or which is not connected Yeah,
yes, yes. And this, maybe I'm jumping ahead, but when you and I were emailing before, this was the hardest thing about my three X-Alps campaigns is being done with the X-Alps. Okay.
And maybe seven minutes before you ask me, can you explain something about coaching tools? And this is the one to 10 question I asked you. And maybe it hates me really for one to 10 questions, because I think this is, for example, when we talk about coaching, this is a very powerful, very simple, maybe also annoying tool. Because first of all, you know, you get very specific. What is it about? Then everyone knows it's somewhere between one and ten. And we focus in the first step. Why is it not zero?
You tell me I'm a nine and we understand why is it already so high and what you can keep to cope with it or to stabilize. And I think every athlete has a dream. dream like you have a dream or not. Every athlete, every human, and now it is to have a mindful, thankful, and focused life, and to have days which you control and you, you work in a direction. Maybe it's easier if the direction is a sport competition, but it, you also can be like this without sports competition and you know what you want. I, I don't have to give you any advice; I just have to ask, Ask, what is 9.1? You tell me 9.2.
You tell me. And now after the call, you can go to your wife and tell her this. And when we come back to the tools, if you ask once a day yourself, is my behavior on track? And I think this is, we call it self-leadership. Either you sail around the world or you go with all the daily hassles to work or you try to manage family and work. You can ask yourself, because when you're sitting in in a car, you know how the car is performing, if there is fuel left, how much the motor turns a minute, all that. And if you start thinking about yourself like this, and I think this is very interesting, if you look at the marathon, everyone from these thousand people knows the heartbeat you
Can you have biofeedback? You know how much your heart is beating, but if you also can ask yourself, "How much is my focus? Or how much is my mindset about being thankful?" And the moment you start thinking like this, you also learn it. And if a runner is very experienced, he feels his heartbeat; he don't need to look all the time. And if you start thinking about yourself, "What is my focus? What is my energy? Is it me doing the day, or are the emails doing my day?" You get the feeling. That's how I, maybe the last five minutes was a little bit an example how we ask questions here.
Yeah, you told me that you never, you don't offer advice, you ask questions. That was very powerful, that exercise you just put me through. Can you give us an example?
Can I
ask something? Yes, of course. What was the most useful thing during these five minutes? just to make me think about it. Where was I? I hadn't thought about where I was so much. I hadn't thought about where I could get. In a sense, it makes me create a goal. Yeah. I mean, if you'd asked me the same thing on the one to 10 scale, three weeks after the ex-alps, I would have been more around a one, 2 maybe the
Funny thing is, that's totally okay. If you're on a 2, you can think about 2.1. That's totally okay. Sometimes we have clients and I ask them, "Where are you between 1 and 10?" and they tell me, "I'm on minus 100." And then you say, "Fine, but you don't do that. You don't get 2 minus 101." And then they know an answer. Why do people fall after a competition into a hole? Goal, yeah, is a very good question because it shows that during the competition they've been in a good state; they've been high performing. Because if you're not high performing, there is no... I think performance is like the skyline of a mountain range, and there, every mountain after a top, there is a valley.
No, One is, is even Everest. It's, it's, it's a top, and it's all, it's there is the word peak performance that also means that there are valley weeks after the peak performance, sure.
it's inevitable
And I can explain this because, because I think it's also interesting, if someone is after a competition, not down, it means he was not up during the competition.
Interesting, that's totally okay. And it's the funny thing for me is I've done these exhalts and this and coaching athletes in really challenging situations, like a season in a tough ski racing World Cup or stuff like this. And if you ask people or clients a lot of questions like this, there's the moment where they start thinking like this by their own.
And for example, I remember once I asked Viggo, how are you? And he said seven. And then I thought, okay, I don't have to continue because I don't want to talk with him about one and ten, but he was already thinking, okay, ten would be, I am chasing the perfect day. One is, I lost control. And then this is very funny for me when you, you see that, or not funny. I think this is also the moment where I often stop coaching because I think I can't add value anymore. I need my time for other people, and they don't need coaching anymore because they are empowered, so that we can't add value. And then I often think it's, it's better if this is often, or this is in general my main goal to start the coaching, that I try to be that it doesn't need me anymore as fast as possible because this puts the responsibility to the client and
then when they can do this, that's all good; they can win by their own How
much is Chrigel's focus on winning versus just the next move is he thinking about and how would you question him about that kind of thing during a race does that question make sense?
It makes sense, I would like to explain it in a different way and maybe I don't explain it with flying. I can explain it with you or something else. Let's take a normal thing like a marathon. If you do a marathon, you can put yourself four goals. One is a ranking goal. I want to win or be top 10 or whatever. And I say ranking goals are crap. It doesn't help you. The second thing is you can set yourself a performance goal. Like saying I do it in four hours or three hours. And the performance goal is something you can control. It's possible also that a hundred other people achieve a performance goal. It's also saying, I go up the mountain and I do 3,000 feet an hour or stuff like this.
And this is performance and you can measure it. And sometimes this is useful. Then there are things like a process goal, which describes how you do it. For example, you can go to a marathon and say, all 10 Ks, I eat a banana and I run with a heartbeat of 150. And these goals, how you do something, are often the goals which have the biggest impact. You told me a lot about how you want to live in April, what you do in the morning before breakfast, what you do with your emails. And if you can describe how you do something it's often interesting that having a good result is something which is a very nice side effect because you often perform the best with this and
When someone says, "comes to me and say I want to win this, or we want to be the best company in this," they often say, "Okay, what kind of performance do you need for that?" And when they can explain the performance they need, for example, if, "If you can do 150 kilometers a day," in average, you win the X-Hulks. This is the performance you need to bring. And I think if you sail something like 17.5 knots in average for 78 days, you win the Monte Globe. There is an average number you need. and if you can run 100 meters in 17 seconds for two hours, you can do a marathon in two hours.
So this is the performance, but to achieve the performance, you have to find out: how do I do this? How can I be sure that this happens? And all the focus should be on the how, on the process. And sometimes the world is too complex, the world is too difficult to describe the how because there... There are external factors. And for that, it's very useful to have a mastery goal. To say, when I'm good in something, then I also will do the how right. And if you look to Eastern fighting culture or fighting art, they only focus on mastery goal. Because there they have over a thousand years experience.
If they are a master, they will handle the how very good. and if they handle the how very good, they win the fight. And when it comes to a difficult project, like let's say an Ixalps, and you know what does mastery mean for me? It means that I can fly very well in several conditions, that I do the good decisions, that I'm on the right time at the right place, all that. And you achieve during the preparation mastery, Then the how is good. If the how is good, the performance is good, and the side effect is the ranking. That's how I think, and that's how I, or that we think, at one day coaching, we can make a change in the how.
And it's very for me nice to hear when you tell me about how to come from your nine to your ten. It's only about the how. What
Kind of coaching would you give Chrigel? Break down your your role with with Chrigel when in your four campaigns, because as I understand it, it was just the two of you for until maybe the last one, so you were doing the food and the logistics and and and everything else. Is he is he really making all the all the dis? Well, just just tell me what it looked like?
Okay. I think it's very interesting. If you have a big team, you should also see there's a big effort for the coordination of this team. If you have two people, every one of the team knows all the time the same if they speak together. If you are three people, then the support also needs some time for updates, for calls with the other supporter, then also the complexity gets bigger. And that's why we decided, for example, in this very fast race in 2013, or also in totally different projects, I think one is that you say, what is the benefit of being more?
And on the other side, also saying, what are the costs of being more? I really think being a child and being very flexible and not having to please too many people is an advantage. If you look to different sports like sailing, the record for sailing around the world single-handed is 45 days or 43 days. And sailing with a crew is only two days faster. So it's very interesting that often bigger teams, they look nice, or at the beginning when they climbed the 8,000 meter peaks, they've been big crews, but the outcome, it's not, there are also very small companies which are very smart and doing outstanding products.
It's not bigger is better. So this is, I think, from a work psychology point, is a good question. What is a good size of a team when they have to complete this task? I don't know the answer. I also think you can organize it in several ways. You can't win in quality if you increase quantity. When
I interviewed Chrigel after this race, I did a lot of interviews with many of the athletes just to get their take. And I kind of asked the same questions with everybody. but he, he, he shared the, he called it kind of going into a darkness in 2009 and 2011. He, he went through very much what I was feeling, especially after this one, this wasn't so intense in 2015 and 2017, but in this race, I really felt listless after the race. And so So I asked him about that and he said he, he, he kind of felt the same in 2009 and 2011. And he filled that he he's learned that to help that transition is to focus on more goals.
But I'm wondering, I'm wondering if there's, if you both spent some time with this either back then or still do today with this, you call it the valleys you're you're it's, it's It's good that you're on top of the mountain during the race. You're enjoying it. It's fun. But there's the inevitable. You can't stay there all the time.
Yeah. And I think it's interesting. We know it from music. We know it also from doctors that if you have a concert or a tournée, if you have a complicated operation, and then after that, it's empty. You lose the structure or the goal. role. And I think somehow this is very extreme form of recovery, that often recovery is connected with a bad mood. If the demand before was very high, we know it from soldiers coming high from a tough mission. And what I think is very interesting or useful is the theory of the flow channel.
Do you know this?
Yeah. Csikszentmihalyi's flow that -
Yeah. And if you have this right mix between skills and demands, you're totally in the flow. And because the demands are so high in the race, also like an adventure race where you can choose your speed, but also have external factors like weather, you're for two weeks. And when the race is two weeks, it means 250 hours. You're in this flow and time is running. you're taking care, you have maybe not much sleep, but a lot of coffee, and then you suddenly fall out of this flow channel. There is no goal anymore. And all the skills you have are useless
because it's normal life. And flow also makes you lucky. It is maybe more or less sometimes like a drug, and the question is, how do you handle life when you're not in the flow? Because everyone tries to get in there, but it's not possible to stay there, and I think sometimes action is something like, you are very mindful and you're very present because the circumstances are extreme. It's somehow the opposite of meditation, but has the same feeling; you're totally in the moment because the circumstances need this.
I did a lot of base jumps, and during the airtime, you're very fresh, very present, everything you see very crystal clear, and and it's easy. But you get to this state by external factors, like very tough sceneries or fast speed. And I think the goal is to switch to this state of mind by having nothing. And I think if you can also get to focus or a state of presence without flying in strong thermals, just by sitting there and focusing on your brace, for example, You can easily switch, but we all know that switching from one state to another, this transformation is the challenge.
That's how I see it. Do
you think one of the reasons that some people, and not everybody, but some people are so attracted to sports like hang gliding, paragliding, and adventure races like the X-Alps is that we're no longer being predated? You know, we're no longer out on the savannah worrying about getting killed by a lion. Does this have something to do with our lizard brain?
I don't think so. I don't. Personally, I think these theories, maybe they sound good, but they are not so useful to explain. Because the same person with the same brain can also show different behavior. behavior, I think. If, if we, we have this tendency enough, that's for sure. But I also think that it's, it's more about what makes me happy in life. And I think the challenge is, or that the situation is, if you want to be good in something, you have spent all your time there. And because you all spend all your time, say, let's say in rock climbing, your whole life, after some years is about rock climbing.
All your friends are in rock climbing, your girlfriend is in rock climbing, you live the whole time of your life in the camp four or somewhere like this. And then there is not some, not so much next to the rock climbing in your life. And then if you get an accident, or when you have to stop climbing because you have an injury, or it's, it's the bad weather, then life suddenly is very empty and I think the challenge is to be good in something, but also have have something else in life which is fulfilling, because people who have this, I think they they have several sources of happiness and not only their sport, but maybe they are not so performing well in sport because they also spend time for something else is
there a is there a real risk for high level level athletes who don't achieve that, who don't achieve satisfaction and joy outside of flow state?
This is a very good question. I think you only can have a good career if it gives you a lot of flow, because otherwise you don't spend all this time in training and preparation. It has to be somehow intrinsic motivating. rating, but look in psychology, maybe we can, by the way, we can put this on, on, in your book, into the article on the site, there's a formula for satisfaction and the formula for satisfaction is very simple. Satisfaction is the reality divided by your expectations. Why is this important? important you can always increase reality and when you run fast you can try to run faster or when you fly long flights you can try to add some kilometers or you also can reduce your expectations
And then you're also happy.
and the
funny thing is when we talk now about you and the corona I think the positive side of Corona is it shakes or reduces all our expectations.
Yes, definitely.
A lot of people, they lose their jobs, they lose a lot of money. But in the same time, they reduce their expectations way more. So in the end, they have more satisfaction.
And when you ask an athlete or I often ask businessmen, what's your satisfaction in percentage? And then they tell me 85 or 70 or whatever. And then you can really start working. What do you want? Do you want to increase reality, which will be an endless game in your life? Because there's always someone who is more and you get greedy. Or do you want to go and think about your expectations? For example, what was your dream when you've been a small boy? And this is why rich people are not more satisfied than poor. Because satisfaction is only relative. It's not like a stone, which is there.
It's something divided by something else. And if you have three millions, but you expect four, you're not happy. And if you're very poor in Africa and you got one kilo rice, you're very happy. And maybe when I can add something, I think there will be a lot of pain coming with Corona. There will be really a tsunami of troubles, but I think something will be good. And this is that our world has time to think about this relation, and has time to think about what is reality and what are the expectations, and how can we as a world continue to bring this in a good balance.
Yeah.
In a sense, it's on the scale of the last world war because pretty much everybody is involved. And it's even more dramatic than the last world war because everybody is involved. Doesn't matter where you live in the world right now. how everybody is aware of it and is going to be affected by it. And I see it as a real possibility for a kind of a reset on humanity. It could be a really...
For me, the fun is that something very... Oh, not the fun. That's the wrong word. For me, it's very interesting to see that something with thousands of dead people will come to our world, But a lot of families are happy and in a good state because they focus on the things which are important and they don't cheat, hunt or run behind things which have no value. have no value.
So let me ask you what may seem like a ridiculous question, but this is something that I constantly struggle with flying. It gives me so much joy. The X-Alps is up there with the expedition I did in Alaska in terms of just pure fun. I don't know how to have that kind of fun fun in any other way. It's the intensity, the training, the anticipation, being with my team. It just, it's outrageous. And yet it's so selfish. And it's, that's more and more, that's always been the trip for me to try to get over to the other side.
That's, that's what has been tripping me up. It's incredibly selfish endeavor at the same time. time so in a sense it lacks purpose yeah
And I think, I mean, for me, these are two questions. One is, what do you allow yourself? What, what do you allow yourself to say? I, I, I take the right to play this, I think, is a question you, you, you can ask yourself. Or maybe it's different if you, you have no kids, or if you, what, what kind of responsibility do I have? Is, is my purpose in life to play, or is my purpose in life to produce something? I think this is one thing, and I think
selfish somehow here in Switzerland, being egoistic and selfish is something negative, but I see this totally different. For me, it's interesting when you sit in the airplane and they say the oxygen mask will fall down if there is a problem with the pressure, you have to put it on first yourself because if you don't have oxygen, you can't help left and right. And I think as soon or as long as if everyone is happy on this planet and taking Taking on the oxygen mask first, as long there are enough oxygen masks, then this is a very positive way of being selfish.
The point is if you do something for your joy on the cost of others. But I think if you run to Alaska and if you have there a happy time and no one is paying the cost for you that you can be there, go for it. It will make the world a better place.
Perfect. I love it.
Thomas, how does Chrigel at this stage, he's won five. I'm just wondering from the mental aspect, how does he approach the next one? I asked him this, you know, is there more pressure on him or less, you know, now that he's won so many? But is that, let me ask it a different way. Is it harder or easier for him to stay motivated given he's won five?
I
think it's six. Because this morning he told me the next, if he wins one more, it will be seven and this will be a nice number. And he starts thinking about how to get to the seven.
You're right. It's six. You're right. That's right. Jeez. Holy cow. You're right. It
doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I think you don't get happy by chasing numbers. It has to be something else. And I think if it will be a good question for him the next, let's say the next year to find out what is my purpose in this game. game, and I also, I, I think it would be also nice once to be in a situation to be a real master. You also have to be in a situation where you have to bounce back. I also think this, for, for me, a good sport man is not someone who is always winning. For me, someone is also good who can handle a difficult, difficult situation or a place number two in a very good way, and I think what he shows for me is not that he, he has good ranking; he shows me that he has a good mindset and a good performance.
And here, here in in Switzerland, it's it's also, I think, a big or difficult to make a living out of paragliding, and it only works when you are either a test pilot or a tandem pilot, or if you can make a career with sponsors, and for that life, um, you have to you, it's it's it's a nice stage to take part in exams, how
Do you approach weaknesses in in the one day philosophy, um?
weakness. Yeah, I... I think it's a good point. I think it's, I don't have the image that someone should have no weaknesses. I think it's about facing reality. See what are the facts. Everyone has weaknesses. The question is, what do you do with your strength? And if you also try to spend all your energy to reduce your weaknesses, then you get average. I think you have to accept your weaknesses, learn to handle it, and really focus on your strengths. And because if you have some strengths which are really strong, then you will be outstanding there. And
if you look to people in the world which had the possibility to be somewhere very good, let's say in music or in art or in sports, no one asking them if they can spell the words right or if they can speak how many languages or how they handle their weaknesses. weaknesses. If and I, I'm, I'm the one who, who really focus on the strengths and tries to make them stronger. What the other side for me is very interesting is anger. I think anger is, is a very good thing because if you understand it makes you angry, you learn a lot about your needs.
And if you know your needs, you will find ways to achieve them. And people trying always to be smart and trying to be polished and not showing anger or emotions, I think this is just a cover story. You have to be honest, you have to understand what makes you proud, but also what makes you angry, and then you can grow as a personality.
If we could rewind the clock and let's just place me at... I stayed in Europe after the ex-Alps for almost two months with my family. And we were, it doesn't matter where we were, Northern Italy. And, you know, I was just struggling with the, just back into the real world, I guess is what we call it. If I had come to you then and just said, Thomas, I'm struggling after this one, I, you know, I really missed the race. I miss, I miss my team. Uh, I've got all this stress with the business and I missed the training. And so I don't, I don't feel as physical as I was.
Where, where would we start? I
would say, you tell me a lot of things you don't want or which are not good. What do you want? And then what would you say?
I would say I have been training and working at this for months and months and months and months. And this is a perfect opportunity right now to relax and stop worrying and be with your family.
Okay. And then I would maybe say on a scale from one to 10. 10 is you relax, you enjoy and have a good time with family. And one is you're somehow unhappy. I got you. Where would you be? Got you. I would
be a three or a two. I go, okay, it works.
Okay. And what would be a four? Maybe it could be that it would start like this, or it could be start totally different. Like saying, hey, what is the good thing on this problem? What are the benefits of being down and somehow in a transition in an airport between two planes. What is the good thing? What are the opportunities now? And then what would you say?
You have time. You have a place to be calm. You have a moment to relax. Okay. What else?
Yeah. And then you have very nice circumstances and very nice ingredients for a good time. It would start somehow like this. And do you take part 21, one excerpts i
Don't know, this... this would be a fun thing.
To explore with you, I just can say you something, okay? If you would take part in the 21, you have my phone number. Yes, after 21, you can do two things: you can say when you prepare the 21, you prepare three chapters: preparation, race, and post-race. And during the preparation, you also start thinking, what do I do in August and September 21? How does this time look good? What can be nice then? This can be one thing. Or the other thing, you call me by then, and then we will find a solution.
I like it. I like it. I think that's often what we see, isn't it, on a global scale post-war. We don't think about the post enough. You think about the preparation, you think about the war itself, but you don't think about how you're going to put things back together. And we have to think about all the stages.
This is a good point. And I think one thing is very interesting. Someone who is a beginner, he's just doing them something. Let's say a paragliding pilot who is a beginner, He goes paragliding. Someone who is a expert, he adds preparation to it, and he prepares the flight. He spends the evening looking to the weather forecast and thinking about, "What do I do?" And then he does the flight. And someone in every discipline, in business and in sport and in life and in art, who is a real expert, a real professional, he makes preparation.
He makes the thing, and he takes time to reflect. And I see in all the, if, if you want to understand if someone is really an expert in that thing, you can also look, what does he do after it? And if you look to two very good artists, after the show, they drink a beer or a coffee and look what was good. And if you look to good medicine people, after it, they go to their Excel sheet and put in notes. And if you look to very good sailors, they go and they clean the boat and they make some notes what they will change to the next thing. And I often think that competition or the moment you win and get the prize in the competition, this is not the end of the project.
The end of the project is maybe when every one of your sponsors has a hand-signed letter and if you had a good presentation and if you analyzed the race. race. So, this is something I really can recommend to to to really start with the end in mind and say it's finished when when we've learned something out of
It, yeah, I like that to have a kind of a finality, to have something you're working towards beyond the race that just puts an exclamation point on it. It's done now. Good, I like that. Thomas, what thought would you like to leave our our audience with when they're thinking about all these tools that you've been able to enlighten us with, a little bit? What, what I'm not going to ask you to give any advice, but what would you, you
Would like to have one advice, yeah?
i'd like
To have some, but okay, I can give you an advice. Okay, I'm really, I have no clue who is listening right now, but I think if, if you once want to have an advice, one is the really big picture. Take one's time in your career, or in your hobby, or in your passion, to have a look on the big picture. It can be first of January, or it can be the day of the your 40 or 50 birthday, and think once, if you have grand kids and if you're are old and happy and your your kids have kids, what would you like to tell them? What you have done, how you have done, maybe what you have not done, what your values you've been, that been like stars for orienteering through their life.
And I think if you have once this very, very big picture, what, what do I want to tell in the very end, it will make the questions you have today day, it will make them very simple. And I think in when you're old and telling your grandkids about your life, it's absolutely not important what you answered in this email you have in front of you, or if you call back or not. And I think this big picture can help you a really lot to find also out what are my values and what, what is the really, really big picture? Because sailing in, in the night on the ocean for me is very interesting. If you look to the compass or the GPS, the steering is often very nervous, and if you have a clear night and you can see the stars, you the, you the boat is very nice also, if the, um, the waves are choppy because the fixed point you're orienteering is far away.
And I think this, this can be an advice, I can really recommend everyone to take one's time or to write it down, what is the very big picture? And the other thing is often people in sports or in business, when it comes to performance, they think goals should be SMART. Everyone learns it should be SMART, but I think there some very important thing is missing, and And that's the fun. I think this is the second advice. How can you add fun to your goals? Because often goals are about discipline, about working hard, about trying more, being tough.
And if you think, how can exams be fun? For example, Pavel Kuzhlova once had this as a quote on his vario. How much fun is it right now? And I think this can also be an advice I can give in general. If you can add fun to something, you have discipline, you have purpose, you want to achieve it. But if you can do it with a smile, you will do it better.
I love it. I love it. Thomas, what a treasure and what a treat. Thank you so much for sharing these thoughts. And I am very thankful that yes, I do have your number now. Expect a call here at some point. But thank you for sharing all this. And thank you for the time you've given to our community, not just on this podcast, but just our community in general over all these years. And your relationship with Chrigel and being able to watch you two operate was and is remarkable. Thank you very much. Thank
you very much for your time. And thank you for sharing your honest, personal situation and being the example for the one to 10 thing. And I hope everyone who had listening to this can add something or can bring something from his nature and adventure life to the current challenges we are facing all. And I wish that everyone can be his best version. Thank
you so much for coming on the show. Good night. Ciao, Kevin. Good night.
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