Leadership Espresso with Stefan Götz
In a world of constant change and complexity, true leadership isn’t about control— it’s about curiosity, clarity, and courage. Join Executive Coach Stefan Götz - www.stefan-goetz.com, as he helps accomplished leaders unlock their authentic leadership compass, inspire peak team performance, and achieve sustainable success—without sacrificing life beyond work. Whether you’re a seasoned executive or an emerging leader, this podcast will equip you with the mindset, strategies, and tools to lead with confidence, purpose, and impact.
Leadership Espresso with Stefan Götz
Scaling New Heights: The Mental Game of Extreme Climbing feat. Huberbuam Champions
What drives someone to climb 500-meter vertical walls without ropes or attempt seemingly impossible feats that push the very limits of human capability? In this riveting conversation, the legendary Huber Brothers—Thomas and Alexander—take us deep into the psychological landscape of extreme alpinism and reveal striking parallels to leadership and personal growth.
The brothers articulate a philosophy that transcends climbing: "If I would always realize projects that I'm 100% successful from the beginning, then it's boring." This fundamental approach to seeking the unknown—deliberately pursuing challenges with unpredictable outcomes—forms the backbone of their pioneering achievements. They've transformed the climbing world through free solo ascents of massive walls and by shattering speed records on El Capitan's iconic "Nose" route in Yosemite.
Their relationship with fear stands in stark contrast to conventional wisdom. Rather than something to overcome, the Hubers describe fear as a sophisticated regulatory system that creates "sensitization"—a heightened state of awareness where all senses become fully engaged. This perspective offers profound insights for decision-making in any high-stakes environment. When they reach what they call "the vacuum of time"—that perfect state of presence and focus—they experience an absolute clarity that observers might mistake for machine-like precision.
The brothers' approach to high-performance teamwork provides equally valuable lessons. They emphasize that exceptional teams begin with individual mastery—each person must address their own weaknesses rather than expecting teammates to compensate for them. Only when everyone has "done their homework 100%" can a team transcend simple addition and create something greater than the sum of its parts.
Listen to discover how the Hubers' mental strategies for confronting life-or-death situations can transform your approach to challenges, leadership, and personal growth. Their wisdom offers a powerful roadmap for finding your own "inner summit" and creating experiences that remain vivid in your memory long after other moments have faded into the background noise of life.
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Welcome to Fresh Ideas. Today we are in Bad Reichenhall, namely at the Huberbum. The Huberbums are the probably belong to the world's top of the extreme climbers, now known through the film Am Limit through advertising spots. What we are particularly interested in today is how they do this for themselves, pioneer services, ie these inner processes, how they take place with you, once everyone for himself, so Thomas Alexander, and then together in the team. How this takes place together as a high performance team. Look forward to the conversation. There will be a lot of it, thank you.
Speaker 2:To do things that others are not doing Exactly, and that's why we are different from everyone else. You have to place yourself somewhere in the business, in your professional life, everywhere, and if you are basically great but basically do the same as Hinz and the same, then you are actually a number among many who are good. But to be completely different again, you have to develop completely new things. There is, for example, a doctor who is just like in the economy. I don't know what the doctor's name is.
Speaker 3:Eckart von Hirschhausen.
Speaker 2:Exactly. He makes comedy and it works perfectly, and that's why he's booked. And there we are at the second point.
Speaker 1:Only through humor you can achieve something, and that's exactly what fascinates and excites me about you when you're in the mountains in me, so what you do is sensational.
Speaker 1:So I get goose bumps, and certainly others too. But rather the question of the inner process. I also said that the inner climbing, yes, these mental stories and you two are not identical, but each one is a bit different. And to peel that out once, how do you, Alex, and how do you, Thomas, deal with this extreme situation? And then I would like to explain the second part, because that is simply very special for you. How do you deal with each other in a team to create such a pioneering performance? So what's different there and what can I learn from it?
Speaker 1:In business, I already said, Thomas, you are a professional in the expedition area and Alexander is, I think I understood it, a free solo expert At the absolute top of the world. And I would like to explain the question at the beginning what really motivates you, what is the driving force for what you are doing here and in the preparation, especially in the broadcast of Markus Lanz? Something very appealed to me First of all, when I asked Alexander, you said we approach things that we cannot predict at the outset. That is the essence of alpinism. Can you explain a little bit what the driving force behind it is?
Speaker 3:Yes, quite simply. If I would always realize projects that I have been successful, successful from the beginning keep it to 100% successful, then it's actually boring. It's a familiar path. We know that we want to reach the limit. Only then is it something extraordinary. If someone says I'm Mr 100% Success, then he can never really go to his limit, because going to the limit means failing or making mistakes is a forced part of it. And that's why, when I go to the limit, the outcome is never predictable. It can be that you have a success. It may be that you have to pull back again because you realize it doesn't work this time. The great art in this is perhaps to appreciate things realistically, and if you say, okay, that was your setback, it didn't work, then you should just reflect and ask yourself but have I grown in principle? And if I have grown in principle, then it simply means staying true to it.
Speaker 2:What is behind it?
Speaker 1:The challenge. Let me get in there a little bit. You said curiosity is very important. Yes, this childish curiosity trying it out, now you also have. We have one sentence that has touched me very much. You said we develop from mountain to mountain. Our way of life goes over the mountains. That means it is apparently even more than the challenge what drives you even further.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll put it this way, Philosophically speaking we are born and we die, and every person has such a way of life that he has given. One does it through the profession, we do it through the profession and of course, you hope that the way of life, the motor, is always accompanied by the passion. And if we keep this passion then we can achieve great peaks. As a metaphor, so you can really see peaks, like with us, that's climbing, but you can see peaks as a metaphor as well. We have achieved something great. We are standing up now. We have realized a in our professional life.
Speaker 2:Our father has put it in our way our way of life goes over the mountains. We climb the mountains, one after the other. Every summit, every achievement, every fall is part of it. To be able to say at the end of life, I have understood a lot, no, that's an inner attitude. I'll put it this way in the past you climbed the 11th difficulty mountain. Today we climb, maybe not quite as difficult anymore, but somehow different. And today I am on a completely different level than I was back then. In that sense I can't take the difficulty or the steepness of the wall, the scale of evaluation, but actually the inner attitude of where I am. So every step goes up, because the quantity is not decisive but the quality is decisive is what I do. At the end of the day, when I'm old, I'm much further than I was when I built a big wall in the Himalayas. Then I have my biggest mountain in front of me, maybe the step to take into another life.
Speaker 3:This is very philosophical, but that's what it's all about in life. That.
Speaker 2:I can really say at the end of my day I understood what I did and why.
Speaker 3:And with that you can say that's the fifth dimension which has changed the picture of the mountains.
Speaker 1:That means it is your emotional relationship to this challenge, to this way of life, to these goals that you set for yourself. So how can you deal with it?
Speaker 3:It's quite clear how I deal with it. Of course, you can also transfer it to today's times. Someone who comes from the city, who has never had anything to do with mountains, will look at the Matterhorn very differently than I do. Personally, as a mountaineer who is familiar with mountaineering, I start to look for lines. Try to imagine what it is like when I climb through the wall, when I stand on top of a summit. This is actually a real, existing relationship that is then possibly really carried out once, this action that I play through in my mind While the observer who comes from the civilization without mountains, from the city, is amazed by these huge structures. But it is almost something abstract for him because it is unreachable.
Speaker 2:The vacuum of time is the answer why life is great, why it's brilliant. Let's go on, then.
Speaker 1:Because for a manager, let's say, in the automotive sector, in the bank, in pharma, I think, from the age of 35 to 40, it's an existential question. Why am I doing this? Why am I starting a 60-hour day? Why am I starting to find new solutions in a crisis and to find new ways? What would you say to them? What does it all come down to?
Speaker 2:It all comes down to passion and the joy of doing what it's all about. And there are many people who have exactly that joy trying to pull the car out of the dirt again, for example, and that's what it's all about. And you don't have to be a mountain climber, you don't have to be a athlete. We are athletes. We need it because if we don't do it we're in trouble. A manager needs this challenge really. It looks desolate, but through my ability, through my experience also, to take a certain risk, I can maybe make it that then the numbers suddenly become red again instead of black.
Speaker 1:I don't come home here. It's a good number.
Speaker 2:Now I have a red jacket In any case that you pull the can out of the dirt, that I pull the can out of the dirt and then at some point say now I've done it. And that's exactly the same moment when we realized a huge project that we are standing on, the summit and the title of the lecture in the vacuum of time, the time is actually.
Speaker 1:Describe this moment. You both made it very sensitive for me. So these moments when you go through the wall, through the wall, yes, what is unimaginable for me. But describe it once. What is there? How does it look?
Speaker 2:like. How do you experience? It is a lightness, an absolute lightness, a clarity, and in the phase when you have made it, the absolute emptiness is built in you. You are in the here and now and there is nothing around you anymore, and emptiness initiates a crazy place in you that can trigger a firework. So a joy that is immense. But you must not make the mistake, like many in a company, that if you have achieved something, you immediately go into the next project. This being allowed to celebrate, being able to celebrate, leaving this joy alone, that is the crucial thing.
Speaker 1:So not filling the vacuum, but letting it in.
Speaker 3:What do you think about this moment?
Speaker 2:I don't want to bring anything religious into play, but I think, for example Dalai Lama is a great philosopher and he really said a very decisive sentence for the whole area of life, a very decisive sentence the greatest art in life is to be in the here and now. And that's exactly what we need. Unfortunately I really have to say unfortunately we need a tool. This tool is climbing. I can describe it with base jumping and solo there is no going back.
Speaker 2:When I jump away, everything is reduced to the elementary. There is nothing left. This image of the tunnel is great to use. We use this tool for our sports equipment, our actions. Another can do it with pure meditation, another needs it in the job to then go through the processes. But ultimately it's really about that here and now and in our society. It is totally difficult and that's why we are so much more, that's why the politics is so much more, that's why all the companies are so much more, because they don't work here and now and think if they would go through this process. Now I do this and everything else is hidden. Then I can say at some point I come to this success, that I get to the top, because I am then sensitized to all things that are coming towards me dangers, different decisions that I have to make immediately. But all these influences from the outside, they disturb these processes and then I can make mistakes. And that's the decisive thing and in the film some mistakes have happened that Alexander and I have not done.
Speaker 1:What is Fri Solo? You also take a project. Let's say with you, alexander, it is the Dirittissima of the big zinni, I think that was 2002, that's Fri Solo. Let's say for non-climbers, you briefly explain what Fri Solo is. What is that?
Speaker 3:Yes, quite simply climbing without any safety equipment in any form, preferably, of course, in a larger band or a large band. That is, a larger or larger band, that means above the height of the descent. Then you are without a rope, without a climbing rope, without everything on the way, and then you can clearly say that the safety of the climber is reduced to the own climbing skills, the own mental strength. One is responsible for not down from the mountain.
Speaker 1:So let me understand that again, this is a dolomite. These are the three teeth, these are walls that are five, six hundred meters high vertically with overhang, and then you go in. You have a climbing shoe on a bandage, on the magnesium in the back, and nothing else. Exactly that means it's actually such a metaphor. If I want to take a completely new path as an entrepreneur, I don't have an example, I don't have a reference, I don't know what the solution is. I go out into the open sea and then need strategies on how to find a new way.
Speaker 3:That's exactly how it is. Of course you are not allowed to fall into something like that blindly.
Speaker 1:You have to know the risks very well.
Speaker 3:You should know the difficulties, what can expect you there, because ultimately falling blindly into such a company would really mean that you would approach such a project in a harakiri way, and that could then go well. Maybe it doesn't go well. It is clear that I am not dead-cute, but I am happy with life. I want to experience life right now. That's why I go through the wall on the solo, that's why I don't do it in a character way, but I try to get to know exactly the things, to get to know the route, to know what is waiting for me there, so that in the end the risk is actually estimated for me. One thing is clear there is no zero risk. There is also not in life in general, but here it is certainly present this risk, but it should be minimal so that I can say it is worth it to take this small risk of survival because in the end I get something very special with it. What?
Speaker 2:we have already spoken about.
Speaker 3:Yes, just a particularly intense experience, and it should then also be so intense that it remains in my memory for many, many years. While, for example, other things that that happened in the same period of time have long disappeared in the fog of the past, these things are still there.
Speaker 2:Later the idea came up that it would be great to reach all three peaks on one day, with three difficult routes within 24 hours.
Speaker 1:So, just as a comparison, has there ever been such a thing before? Is this a new land? Is this something you do every day?
Speaker 2:No, there has never been this kind of way I practice before. That's why this project attracted me so much, and and I wanted to combine that with two base jumps, so to make the descent fast, without compromises, by jumping from the small and large zinni to stand at the end at the summit of the western zinni.
Speaker 1:So again, what is base jumping for the non-knowers?
Speaker 2:Base jumping is actually a relativelypromising, a quick descent. You stand on the rock wall above. Of course you have to jump to a corresponding point where it goes really steeply down and you jump down with the parachute and at a corresponding height you pull the parachute and then the cap opens. But of course it is very dangerous, because often seconds decide the reaction, if the cap has not opened properly, that you immediately decide not to so from my ears not only the project climbing up is impossible, but also the jumping down is now also very dangerous.
Speaker 2:I'll say it again it's not impossible at all. So we talked about challenges before. Try to make it impossible. We actually know in the end, we know everything will be possible. Only from our side it seems impossible at the beginning.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's an exciting point.
Speaker 1:That means you take projects where you say from the beginning it seems impossible. So a manager who says from the beginning, I need a new drive concept, I need a new medicine, I need a new chemical product, he could now say so not what I could imagine, that's already possible in the next step. But I take something from the front and say I don't know how that could work. That's the attraction for you Exactly.
Speaker 2:That's the attraction for us, and we just need to think back to history. 50 years ago, no one would have thought that our world is now set up like this over the internet over the whole, and it will go much, much further. So we don't even know what it will look like in ten years. There are science fiction films that were shot 20 years ago are actually old hat, because it is in fact that it is hit so. And we also know, in climbing, as as long as there are some kind of grips, at some point there will be a person who will have the ability to climb. But is it possible for us? That's really the question. Through our experience, training. But that's exactly the attractive thing that you can prepare so far, that you can prepare these processes, that we can say at some point, wow, and today is the day where we can do everything, our entire ability, which we have collected over the years, in this minute, that is, in this day, and then it is perfect.
Speaker 1:I would like to continue there. Alex, in a book, the Mountain in Me, you write at a certain point exactly about the preparation, how the project Free Solo can work. Absolute self-confidence in physical and mental skills will surely survive. Now I can imagine everything with physical skills. You train it and it's a long way. It's been explained for 25 years. I think it will be more exciting with the mental skills. Which ones do you have and how did you develop them to be able to handle such a thing?
Speaker 3:I think the most important thing about such things is that you have a certain visionary power, that you get an idea of what is feasible. There is actually a wonderful thing from physics from Albert Einstein, because it is also known his general theory of relativity. He built things together that were already known to everyone in science at that time. All significant elements of the special and general theory of relativity were known, but he was the only one who had this visionary power that he could imagine that it all belongs together and then also to bring these powerful things together. It stayed on and in the end, actually created this huge breakthrough in the physics. Ultimately, climbing is nothing else for us, climbing a diorites on a risolo. These were all known elements that were already there, only to pull the whole thing through in this dimension. That was then in a pull through the whole thing in this dimension that was then seen as new, to bring the whole thing together the 500 meter high wall, the Tiritissima was already free climbing in 1985 by Kurt Albert, a well-known free climber.
Speaker 3:And to pull through the whole thing completely without a rope was also not something new. Other climbers have already climbed routes of this size, this dimension, free solo. But the combination of the difficulty of this wall, then the steepness of the wall, also the orientation that it is a north side, an alpine terrain, was something new. In the end I just had to put the individual elements together. You can then also transfer that to the wall itself. Personally, I knew every single climbing train and I knew every single climbing train Without a doubt. I can climb superfrisolo, no problem. That's actually the whole dimension. But in that case you can't be beaten by the dimension of the wall. I can't stand down there and say, my God, I'll never make it, it's so big, it's beating me. I have to dismantle the thing mentally and then just go through it one by one and from every single move I know I've got it.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I would like to express that.
Speaker 2:I would like to share that with you, and in my sense it's actually exactly the same. As Alexander described, everything has already been done. In my project it was jumped from the western sense with the base shield, from the small sense from the large sense. All routes have been passed through the red dot x times, only the composition of all the building blocks. Nobody has done that yet. And to lay down this crazy marathon, to have this idea, to have the courage to put things together and that's what it's about to lift yourself up in front of everyone else.
Speaker 1:Now, if you say to put the courage together, how do you prepare yourself differently from Alexander for his projects? So, if you do Frisolo and if you do this, three, ten, four, five, there are differences.
Speaker 2:There are no differences at all. This is discipline, absolute discipline, planning. Although we sometimes appear to be completely free and are total freaks, we have a very clear structure. What does the structure look like? What do we imagine? The structure is actually quite banal with us, we always try to keep a very high training standard. In winter, we train because it's fun. And here we are again in the banality.
Speaker 3:We do it because it makes us really happy and that's why we can also keep this high standard.
Speaker 2:If we no longer have fun climbing, then we should give up, and we would probably do something completely different today.
Speaker 1:So I can say again for me, when I'm on the road as a company, as a manager, I now decide not to do it for the money, for prestige, for anything, but that you have the passion, the fun to say from the heart's blood I want that, and if it's four o'clock at night and I wake up, then I do it because my heart is beating for it.
Speaker 2:Exactly. For some you can really say I mean, that's just somewhere in today's society a terrible passion to have, passion for coal. For some it is really the passion to have a lot of money. Maybe that's the driving force that the entrepreneur is always rising again and again and then he should do it from me.
Speaker 1:Hopefully he does something positive with the money that he can give something back to the world again that can also be a motivation.
Speaker 2:Basis for us is the money, the basis for us to live.
Speaker 3:Our passion can live and that we can feed our families.
Speaker 2:That's a bit of a different reason for us, and for us, the passion is. I'm looking forward to climbing again tomorrow, to training and then to do something big again.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, then let's get back to this training camp. So you have the project Free Solo expedition. You go into the training camp. You do it with your heart and blood. How does this mental preparation come about? I mean, that's not the walk.
Speaker 3:It is very important with the whole thing that you have a long trajectory at all. What?
Speaker 1:is that.
Speaker 3:With that, of course, you have a trajectory, a treadmill as a climber, of course, you know your body, your mind. You have already met a lot of movements and always then, whether it is an expedition or a combination of turns, with base jumps. He has made many jumps, he has already climbed many turns in this difficulty.
Speaker 1:So experience Exactly. How do I tickle? How am I in this border situation? How does my body behave? How does my psyche behave? I have a lot of experience.
Speaker 2:Homework. We did the homework. That's how you have to reduce it, quite banally.
Speaker 3:And then the next project that we are approaching which really brings us back to the limits is an extension of the previous experiences. We try to include all possible information about this project. I know the route of the individual climbing trains, I know what I am getting into, how much time I need where I might reach my physical limits. Do I have to take a break in between? And then, when I have all this information, a feeling arises and then you can really talk about the gut feeling.
Speaker 1:Ah, now it's getting interesting.
Speaker 3:Ultimately these components come, which cannot be calculated mathematically anymore, but where a feeling arises from the experience, will it be feasible now or not? And if you want to quantify of the rest, for example, for example for the jumps that connect the climbs, just like for me, the risk of the rest with the strength, maybe somehow I'm overwhelmed or not, or it could break a grip then this gut feeling has to decide in the end, is it acceptable or not? Because it cannot be calculated mathematically, because the overall requirement of the project is so complex that it would never be calculated. And these are situations that every entrepreneur has. You can have control, you can make a plan in advance, set up a strategy for the next ten years and make a real business plan. But ultimately the great expert, the one who simply develops a feeling, and indeed a real feeling for it, is the whole thing really feasible or not? Because one will recognize, in a large company, in the economic environment, there are so many components that are not directly calculable that in the end the decision simply represents the leader.
Speaker 2:So it is very important, for example, that the gut feeling is not called esoteric. There are many who always say, yes, I have this feeling and somehow, why do you have that? Why do you have that so a feeling, a gut feeling, actually happens, as Alexander said wonderfully, from the experience of the thousand routes that we have already climbed, from these dangers that we were allowed to experience and made the right decision. And then it just comes from the subconscious. Although we cannot evaluate it at that moment. Where does this feeling come from? But from the subconscious. It is then shown and said to you, thomas or Alexander, you must not go there now, and now it's over and you have a very bad feeling and you don't know where the feeling comes from. But ultimately, you have've experienced that somewhere.
Speaker 1:Can we go a little deeper there, because I think that's very important now, especially in the entrepreneurial context. Yes, decisions are made based on the gut feeling or based on a calculation, and often they can't explain it For you. I understand. It's very important when I'm on the wall after all, it's a question of life and death that you have a skill. So your director, pepe Dankwarz, wrote about everything. In this situation of extreme vigilance, he takes up all the impressions of meaning. He works like a machine. Now, impressions of meaning, impression and machine somehow contradictory. But could you explain to us how this feeling, this awareness, what it means, where it comes from and how it allows you not only to survive but to make a pioneering achievement, so that we can shake it up a little?
Speaker 2:Machine actually means to be in the tunnel to do exactly every step intuitively. I know I can do it. Let's go back completely.
Speaker 3:We are in lightness.
Speaker 2:We are in perfection. It's fun. We don't even know, we don't even feel that we are on the right track.
Speaker 2:In the moment when fear comes along and fear is something that, in this process of expression, one of our most important emotions, which we still have, thank God we are afraid. That is in that moment this feeling arises. I have to make a decision immediately, because then I know hoppala, now everything is not as it should be, now something is happening. That's this gut feeling again, and now I just have to decide, sometimes in a matter of seconds do I go left, right, quickly on forward, or stop? I turn around? Fear is not a healing factor for us If the fear.
Speaker 1:As the normal society evaluates, fear is about fear of God.
Speaker 2:I can't go any further. I go into the knee. I can't go any further. That can, of course, be with us too. When the fear becomes healing, then I know I have crossed this threshold of the first fear. And then I'm climbing, unfortunately, in an absolutely deadly area. I went over the border. We are border guards, we go to the border, but we want to live and are not not allowed to cross the border. Good, what is fear?
Speaker 1:People often have similar situations. They don't want to know what's next, and then this fear often arises. How do we go on now? And, as you say, fear is a regulative. For you, it is very, very important to not push it away but to deal with it. And you yourself also write in the book. You experience the change of feelings in advance. Can you now explain to me how you deal with this change, what strategies you have to deal with it?
Speaker 3:In principle, this change of feeling is very noticeable. It is a serious matter. I think you can really describe it with the life in a company, Especially when you are at the forefront and have to make decisions. Once you are sure about what you are doing, then you have the conviction, the things are positive, the grips are solid, which I use during the climb. I have the difficulty with the grip. The other time comes just then again, this eventuality, this rest risk maybe then somehow a mental blackout or that something in the body does not work, that I get cramps because I am not satisfied with this day or because maybe a grip could break out.
Speaker 3:These are again these black thoughts and I think it's very important that you live through this exchange of feelings. Only if you know both sides can you be convinced at some point that the argument of the other side prevails. And it is especially with such a thing then, until a certain moment, possible to make decisions, until the so-called point of no return. Not even below, quasi at the beginning of the route, but quite a few meters further up you can translate it into German with the last possible turning point, maybe in a wall height of 80 meters, there is the first difficult climbing point, a really difficult climbing point. If I climb over it it is almost impossible for me to climb back. But by this point I have the opportunity to find out which feeling is more important, which feeling wins. If the black thoughts win, then almost too much nervousness is produced. Maybe then you could even breathe out something like a panic. Then I just have to look back, then I have to admit that I don't have the whole thing under control. And if it's different, if the positive feeling wins, if I have trust in myself, in the power of my fingers, in my mental strength, then I can move on. And you can also convey that wonderfully, I'll tell you really to the company.
Speaker 3:If the entrepreneur prepares a major action for his company, then he will also experience this interplay of feelings. Absolutely, he will be convinced that it works. It works. Then a few more information comes in, whether it is not perhaps too bold such a difficult decision. And then at some point in the later course, maybe after he has prepared the whole thing for three months, it takes one month. In the later period, maybe after you have prepared the whole thing for three months, you also need one month, the moment when it definitely has to be decided. Then the feeling has to be right. If the feeling is not right then and you step in and do the whole thing, then you can really suffer a shipwreck as a businessman. The important thing is that you experience this variable feeling that you know't.
Speaker 1:push myself away from the feelings but that I use them and observe what is happening now in which direction it is going. But I am totally open and one thing is very clear when there is the point of no return.
Speaker 3:when it was overcome, then, as Thomas Thomas already said, full force, that's what Pepe Dankwurz described Then you are in an absolute state of alertness where you can use your sensors to observe everything around you take it up properly and pull through.
Speaker 3:It seems from the outside like a machine, but of course it is actually not to be understood that way, because it is not a machine that works, but the human being. But you must not let the emotions slip away like that. You have to go to work so focused that you look at it from the outside. Actually, I think it's a machine.
Speaker 1:Can you explain it to us from your point of view?
Speaker 2:For me, fear results in a sensibilization, and that's actually the magic word for me, because sensibilization means that means also I'm absolutely awake, my whole sensors are off and I take this information on what is it. Is the weather good, does it fit? Okay, it's off, it's off, it's off, it's off, and then it goes forward and then the point of no return is the point of no return. I see myself here at a difficult mountain. I have this really in front of me and then I can really go like a machine and then I can easily walk, then I don't make any sense that you look at it from the outside and actually think it's a machine.
Speaker 1:Can you explain that from your point of view?
Speaker 2:For me, fear results in a sensibilization, and that is actually the magic word for me, because sensibilization means that, means I am absolutely awake, all my sensors are off and never this information on what is the weather? Good, it fits, ok, it's okay, it's kicking, kicking, kicking, kicking, and then it goes forward and then it's the point of no return. I see myself here right now on a difficult mountain. I have this really in front of me and then I can really go like a machine and then I can easily go. Then I don't have any effort. When everything goes tough, when everything goes difficult, then the fear comes with it. Then I know it actually doesn't make sense. I have to say even better for the economy, very successful with my lectures I have already tried some with the three senses, so that works.
Speaker 2:Go new ways, make visions. I also believe that Frisolo works well, but no topic works better than this story of speed. We are climbers and we suddenly do something new which we have not done before.
Speaker 2:We have to adapt ourselves again to what we throw into one pot from all the experiences we have gathered. Now throw them into one pot. How do we as a team manage to be faster than an incredible time? That was set up back then where everyone said nobody can do that anymore, exactly. But we had the courage to say where everyone else said this time is not available, and we really said at the beginning actually, back then we really said we can never do it.
Speaker 2:But that always bothered us. We can't do it, we can't do it, oh God, why not? Why can't we do it? No, because we can't do it. And then at some point comes motivation, comes this curiosity what's behind the corner? We two, we've already done so much and we've always been piqued by others. You know it, you two are the team. And then we said, damn it, let's do it today, and then let's see.
Speaker 2:And then Pepe Dankwart jumped into the boat, but Pepe Dankwart didn't jump blindly into the boat. We have already proven in the first place through a game, that we can climb a route Zodiac which is only 600 meters long, where we have climbed a fabulous time in speed one hour and 50 minutes. Where really good climbers also need three days and the speed record, the old one is at 8 hours. We really pressed it under two hours and with this know-how we wanted to get the crown Speed knows.
Speaker 1:Good, and the crown. Let's take a look at it in detail now. I can already see the eyes are already very glassy from you two. I think that's great. Now again from someone who is not at home, climbing again an entrepreneur, a manager, in a car, for example what is the Nose? What is the speed record to assess? Where is it? What is it?
Speaker 2:The speed record on the N was set in 2048, in the year 2000, by Yushi Hirayama, one of the best climbers of our time, and Hans Florin, an absolute speed specialist. Yushi was the climber, hans brought the know-how and they have practically reinvented this form of climbing speed climbing and the nose. It was the first route on the El Capitan, one of the most important mountains in climbing here, really great climbing history was written by Warren Harding in 1958. In 30 days of climbing, the wall first climbed through and that's really the nose, you can almost say the navel of the climbing world.
Speaker 1:The most famous climbing route in the world.
Speaker 2:The madness of the insane.
Speaker 1:Exactly Now. Let's go through again. So we have a wall that is about 1000 meters vertical granite. It is in America, in California, yosemite Park, one of you will know it. The normal trained rope-lifes take three to five days to get up there and you have set a speed record. So to get up there as quickly as possible from the existing 2 hours and 48 minutes, that means, so to speak, to raise the bar again. You just spoke of the Japanese, what they have brought. Now we come to a very exciting component for you as a team, which we also find in companies, and I would like to dig out a little bit of what distinguishes the beautiful new word high performance team. So to deliver absolute top performance. With what different know-how do you get there? If you look at it twice, what do you bring with you?
Speaker 3:It's quite simple that every person is, of course, an absolute individual. Thomas and I do not only distinguish ourselves physically, but also mentally and spiritually. But that is also seen as strength, because whenever a team works well, that is, can combine strengths optimally and eliminate weaknesses, then it is particularly successful when the weaknesses and strengths are also applied to different people, that is, if a team would take part that consists of two parts that are completely identical, then we could not eliminate the weaknesses and not combine the strengths, because then everyone would have the same strengths and the same weaknesses. Ideally it is just like that. If they do not fit together perfectly at first glance, but then they have the ability to use the respective strengths and to use the strength of the other in the case of weaknesses, thomas, please. And I think we can do that very well because we have been together since we were children. We have known each other for eternity, as brothers, of course, and the longer you know each other, the better and more efficient you work with eliminating weaknesses and combining strengths.
Speaker 1:So I heard know yourself, know yourself, know the others, know the strengths so that you can eliminate weaknesses. What is the package you are working with?
Speaker 2:So the package on the nose, so I would say high performance team. That's actually about the perfect team, and I always explain it in my lectures, that in all team trainings they always say the same thing Eliminate weaknesses, eliminate strengths, catch one or the other, but that only leads to the perfect team. High Performance Team means, first of all, you yourself. So Alexander himself. He has prepared himself 100% for this action, and I also 100% prepared myself. I worked on my weaknesses. Where my weaknesses were, I tried to level them out, and so did Alexander. And only then, when everyone has done their homework 100%, that everyone can do everything for themselves, mentally strong, physically, absolutely 100%, then the incredible and wonderful thing happens that we are both in the blind combination. And then it does not happen that one plus one that results in 2, as a perfect combination, but can grow beyond that, so that the imaginary number 3 results, which actually never exists. But that is for me the high performance team. So the basis is lies with Alexander himself.
Speaker 1:That means you lead or you lead. Now. To say concretely, if you want a high performance team, it means first and foremost high performance yourself, only yourself, only yourself. And high performance itself means, of course, to have his strengths. But you say not only to have the strengths but to develop the weaknesses that you have.
Speaker 2:And to develop, because I must not expect that my team mate tries to compensate for my weaknesses, and that's what it's all about. And that's what it's all about in training the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the.
Speaker 1:The, the, the, the, the, the. Now we talk to NOS. Do you talk to each other and say, thomas, you have to give it a little bit of gas, because you're not that far in that area yet. So how is the dynamics with you? How is it going?
Speaker 3:Yes, that's actually the case. We actually split up when preparing for NOS. We were on the road with various other climbing partners because Thomas had to train other routes than me. And you clearly stick to that because you say, thomas, you just have to get a little faster. Thomas said to me you could probably only get a little time out of it, and then you train these weak points. So that's pretty clear. In order to work optimally as a team, you have to be strong as an individual and that means eliminating the weak weaknesses as much as possible. What I said before then later in the combination in the team, it is still still still super efficient if you expand the weaknesses even further by trying to eliminate the weaknesses in the team by combining the strengths.
Speaker 2:And I say in climbing, there are so many moments where, even if I am in the lead, due to an error from Alexander, who is now in the second leg, or reversed, I can dangerously endanger the lead If I make a mistake and turn around. It's the same we are connected to in life and we try to, step by step, even though we can do it 100%, to tap into the 100% mark. We have to be 100% aware of these dangers as much as possible. Now I am in a life threatening situation and then try to minimize this second so that the time of mortality increases to zero, and that makes this project so complicated.
Speaker 1:Dean Potter said in a movie I think that fits quite well it's not about being better than others in life, but about finding your own best performance, your own limit. Is that one of the essences of what it's about? As a team In competition, you are brothers anyway. You are competitors from home, but competition is beneficial because everyone is looking for their best performance.
Speaker 3:That's exactly the case in this case. This positive competition which also I can say, which is the basis of our success, is not because I envy my't envy him, but I just want to bring up new motivation, train myself to get there myself, because in the end it is like that the world is always full of training. There are always hundreds and thousands of actions worldwide, no matter in which area for us important mountain climbing that happen, and that's about what my brother is doing right now, but that I do it myself. And there can always be a higher performance of my brother. Only a motivation. And if that's the case, then it's just positive competition because it drives you to one thing. And that's exactly the same in the field of science, science in the field of companies. It's not about that you envy the other, that he's done something good again, exactly, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:But that you just give gas yourself, that you give gas yourself. So the energy does not go against another in the competition, but the energy goes into itself. To stack up. Up to say, I still find a higher performance from me.
Speaker 3:That is the best corporate culture.
Speaker 1:That's what we're actually looking for and what you both experience. You are alpha animals yourself every individual and you give gas for each other. You enjoy that.
Speaker 3:I think it's very decisive. Now I would. In the record I see nothing but a motivation to make it even better, to make it even better.
Speaker 2:And now it goes of course here we asked ourselves some yes, you know, yes, do you want to crack the record again? And so on, and we said, no, we are not interested at the moment because we are now going a completely different way, a different way. We have proven that we can crack it through our know-how, through our ability and passion, and we could today, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:Alexander if we drove around, we would have great ideas.
Speaker 2:I have to be honest in my head at the moment when we were driving to San Francisco, we said New impulses, new ideas.
Speaker 1:There we were immediately driving the car there to San Francisco, we said there were new impulses new techniques. We were immediately driving the car hey.
Speaker 2:Alexander, now we really want to rebuild it like this. We could really get another quarter of an hour out In the process. We were just in with this strategy. We were pretty much on the edge. We could have been better in four minutes if we run down a little bit, but not faster. But we already have something in mind. But I really think that we can be faster for a while, maybe even 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:So there are immediately strategies to say from the knowledge of how you did it, there are ideas to push it forward Now.
Speaker 2:I would like to go into to the failure very short, but I still want to say something.
Speaker 1:Now I'm in there, why, why why?
Speaker 2:do we do that because we and that is really a wonderful word and the child out of joy and passion, because we are eager, the great achievement that we it. And then we have this curiosity where we again tussle every single step in there. And if we do that, that's right.
Speaker 1:That's what we would bring on.
Speaker 2:That's just when we take on different companies, this curiosity, this childhood, this childishness, this joy, then it often happens, then it works completely differently and much better and much easier.
Speaker 1:With Fieber. Fever was the keyword. So when watching a movie called On the Limit, when it knocked you down, I was very feverish and I always asked myself the question how do you go from failure to success? Because I could also say now it knocked me down, the project is no longer for me, we give it up now. Now we do something else. Exactly, you don't do that. The question is not you did it, you also achieved the record at some point. The question for me is how do you digest that?
Speaker 2:I have digested it very quickly. I mean my failure, because I could explain it somewhere. To be honest, I didn't go through the failure, the fall of Alexander that quickly. It was pretty close to me, especially because it didn't affect me myself, but my best friend, my life partner, my brother, with whom I have been connected since birth.
Speaker 2:But it only kept me in the mirror again and again, and that's where I also shaped this sentence in the moment, when you are on the road dangerously, you are safe on the road, and it applies to our two disasters that we experienced there 100%. There are two different disasters that we experienced there. Alexander, it happens in an area where there was a hiking terrain for him. He knew exactly that he was going up a slight rock and at that moment he was not 100% prepared because he wanted. Sure he would have knocked it off, he would have focused it, it would not have happened.
Speaker 3:Because he was standing above all else and above all else, it was just this moment exactly on myself, not 100% attentive. Then the intervention breaks out, and then it was actually already so that I could no longer control the course of things myself. I could only react. Thank God I reacted correctly and protected my life. The result was a further injury that made climbing impossible.
Speaker 3:At that moment, the filming of the film was, of course, at its limit. Our entire project was completed. It was clear that everything had to be cancelled. It was also not clear whether the film would continue, but I was very clear that the project would continue. We would return to it, and that was actually the most important thing for me at that moment, because it was the thing that was in my heart that I later expanded it with the cinema film. That it was possible again that we continue the project was, of course, wonderful. We also returned with the goal of pulling through the whole thing. That we would then get a problem again with the speed test. That would have been a problem again.
Speaker 3:You can say that the i-tool was almost on the film. Thomas and I gave it our all and made our first really sharp attempt, and what happens is that you climb powerfully to the limit. This also causes a little bit of precision underneath and you can't take every step and every grip as exactly as you should normally do. Thomas just slipped away. Whenever you go on speed, you are not so optimally secured mostly not so optimally secured. Thomas was just a huge fall cyclist was just wearing blisters not particularly serious, but heavy bruises and it was just clear that the speed record is now really also at this session, simply there.
Speaker 3:The shooting had to be completed and then the film came Ultimately in the cinemas without success, or at least not with success on the screen. And what we could of course complain about at the time we wanted to see our success on the screen of victory is seen in a film. Then the invasions are missing, because the euphoria just overcomes everything. Believe me, guys, the film will be very strong, especially because I didn't win in this case. And of course we were also asked by the press how it is when you have to present a film about failure in public.
Speaker 3:I answered him like this Look at the film and you will see at the end of the film. It is very broad. On the cable car, thomas and Alexander will travel so long in the Seasemmel Valley until they have fulfilled their dream and actually, we have not given up our dream yet, because we also felt that we have a chance to get this record. We wanted to stay with this game and that's why we went to the Semi-Tour Valley six months later, and that's the real highlight of the whole project. We then prepared intensively and, of course, after we learned the mistakes from the mistakes, we got this record in October, and that was the perfect end for us, the. I would like to come back to the failure of the nose, you give full speed.
Speaker 2:That's true, but you can still set up this failure much more complexly, as it really was. We were at the beginning. We took a three-day break. We were actually optimally relaxed. The we were actually already optimally rested. The previous attempt was so perfect on our part. We made a few mistakes, put a lot of time into it. It was a half-sharp attempt.
Speaker 3:We were rested upstairs and said 3 hours and 10 minutes, 3 hours and 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:There it goes 3 hours and 10 minutes. That's it. We had so many reservations.
Speaker 2:We were not afraid. It was so much fun. We laughed, we discussed. It was awesome. Now we have passed three days.
Speaker 2:I had a slight cold. I always took homeopathic drops. I would have had a slight infection, probably because of the breathing. I had a slight cold, but I always took homeopathic drops. I think I had a rough neck because of the breathing and a slight infection due to this strain. I got a stroke and then Alexander had something on his neck. It was a torn circle and he said I'll stand at the entrance.
Speaker 2:Pepe Dankwart was at the top of the elevator with the camera team, two camera teams in the wall below a camera team waiting for us to slide away. And on that day we had this urge to say Alexander doesn't feel 100%. We are confident that we can give 100%. We know we can make the record, but it is too dangerous. Alexander was massaged. That day we broke everything. Pepe Dankwart stayed upstairs, he hiked upstairs and the camera people hiked upstairs too. Again, kitchen crew up, food brought up. So the next day we stand again down on the edge and then it was Thomas's turn and on that day, strangely enough, I had the feeling that it was not working. It just doesn't work. We are back to this strange gut feeling, but then to say again today we break down again. Then the director turns us upside down Because the people are hanging, hanging in the wall.
Speaker 1:You also have responsibility towards the other person.
Speaker 2:And then we just said at some point okay, let's try it. And we started climbing and we had such breakthrough times when we knew exactly are we ready, are we not ready? And we kept it in and these concerns from my side were blown away. Alexander was great on that day. He was doing well again. But then suddenly there was one step for me where I thought during the pre-reaction attempt no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no fear at all. Hey, he laughs so brilliantly. It's crazy. And on that day came this feedback where I was right at the point. This is a voice from the outside that called me Thomas. How are you Well today? I somehow have Now when I fly there.
Speaker 2:Just this thought came suddenly Today when I fly there fuck me, I'm here for.
Speaker 3:God's sake, you heard in the movie that you briefly said Alexander, watch out, I'm not feeling too good today. I'm not feeling too good.
Speaker 2:And then I climbed into the Great Roof. Then I had a energy loss. From one moment to the next I started to tremble, I started to fear, I started to sneeze. I was completely dehydrated. Alexander came after me.
Speaker 2:I came to the first cameraman, franz. I wanted to tell him in the camera that he was hanging there, but before that, a huge attack by Pepe Dankwart happened Because he talked to me. Now I wanted to tell Franz. Franz, I can't do it anymore. I can't do it anymore. Franz just looked away and filmed me and I immediately knew Franz, you can't talk to me anymore. I climbed the next rope Completely in fear. I only had two ropes to lead. We were still on record. I only had two aiming standing at the stand. I came by Thomas, you're doing great, come on, you're on record, come on. I said to the aiming I can't anymore. I can't anymore. Come on, thomas, you do it. You do it, you do it. And then I said fuck shit. I pulled the rope again. Somehow I wanted to stop, but the body did what the other one told me I make the knot, climb further in tremble, climb up. Alexander came by and at that moment my foot slipped away. I fall. Everything was over.
Speaker 1:So my feeling said my fear told me everything told me. All signals said not today. Everything told me to stop.
Speaker 2:From the outside, it was projected. I was always told to keep going.
Speaker 3:It was so close the last 50 meters, thomas would have had to go.
Speaker 2:And then I have to say honestly we failed With a great teaching. We failed twice the great teaching, even if it's easy be sensitized, because there are the greatest dangers. Secondly, no power in the world should ever again tell us what we have to do and what we have to admit, the fear that we are allowed to say no. And here is stop, even if it is embarrassing, even if it is embarrassing, even if a company says I can't go on anymore, I have to stop now, Even if society criticizes it.
Speaker 2:But that's the best thing at the moment. It's better in politics if you go into politics Often in politics to hide the whole thing. We go a little over it, but that's wrong.
Speaker 1:So what you say now, that failure leads to success, always stay in this alertness, even if it seems to be smaller things. So give it a full sense. As you said, your sensors direct you and see if it is today. Is it the situation now? Are the circumstances there to go to the border area now? And maybe that's exactly the success factor that you then also learn for the next pioneering performance, because it comes from you, from your inner self, to understand how we tick, how we can do it, have the know-how and expand on a new situation. And that is perhaps the conclusion. I mentioned it earlier. It touched me very much what you said in the interview. I want to find my inner summit when climbing a mountain. What does that mean for you and what could that mean for a company, a manager? What is the inner summit?
Speaker 3:I can explain that we go to the mountains because we try to create very special memories and just then, when we set special goals, we go through them. Then we create so intense memories that they remain, say that in 20, 30 years I will remember it as an absolutely intense memory, because other things have long been forgotten and what I can do with it is simply a very richly illustrated, colorful page in the book of my memories because, let's be honest, it does not only depend on the number of years lived in life, but actually much more on this book of memories. We are just trying to create a particularly rich book of memories through this mountain climbing, through these projects that we take up in the mountain climbing, and that is the value of life for me. This is my very personal inner summit that I am trying to reach.
Speaker 2:From my side, it is more of a step that I go up, and I have always said that my life path goes over the mountains. It is my means to find the very top, to reach God or to reach the next dimension. One doesn't have to be religious so I see the end in earthly life. It is probably the last breath you take on this world that you look out again and then say thank you very much, I experienced it and I did it, and that is then the inner summit and that's what it's all about, that I can then peacefully close my eyes. So that's how you would imagine it Without fear, without anything.
Speaker 2:And if you get that far, then you have made it. If you don't, then you know you have done something wrong.
Speaker 1:I definitely have a very thick book of memories from today's conversation with you both To understand a sensational art how you tip, how you sit on it, how you bring these performances. I have also learned a lot about life without having to go into the wall myself.
Speaker 1:I would, as Re Reinhold Messner says, I would start with the idea of it in short. But I got the courage to go further, on my inner peak, and to have such conversations, to show new ways for entrepreneurs, and I hope we will meet again and then see where we are. I thank you, sakrisch, for the two great conversations, for the hours, for the preparation and you have a good time. Stay healthy, stay alive for your family, but also for everyone who can learn from you. Thank you very much.