“It's all about the process.”

Sure, the journey is important, but so is the destination. It's not all about the journey. It’s about mapping out the journey that gets you to the intended destination. So is there a way to care about the outcome without making it the focus?

In this Remix episode, we'll hear from athletes Sam Elias and Alex Megos, learning expert Trevor Regan, and mental training coach Arno Ilgner about how we can care about the outcome, but stay focused on the process.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Kobe Bryant  00:12

Hopefully what you get from tonight is the understanding that those times when you get up early and you work hard, those times that you stay up late and you work hard, those times when you don't feel like working, you're too tired, you don't want to push yourself but you do it anyway. That is actually the dream. That's the dream. It's not the destination. It's the journey.

Kris Hampton  00:39

If you haven't already figured it out, that's Kobe Bryant. You know, five time NBA championship winner, 18 time All Star Hall of Famer, widely considered to be one of the greatest basketball players ever, Kobe Bryant. That's from a speech he gave at the retirement of both of his jerseys, numbers 8 and 24. And this ceremony, hanging his jerseys up next to the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and Wilt Chamberlain, is exactly why we get to hear Kobe say something seemingly profound like, "It's not the destination, it's the journey." Because he was winning. He reached his intended destination over and over.

Kobe Bryant  01:24

At the end of the day, it's about winning the game. We won.

Kris Hampton  01:33

It seems Mr. 81 points in a single game also cared a lot about the outcome. At the end of the day, it's about winning the game, or sending the boulder, or clipping the chains. And this is where it gets tricky for us, all of us. We have to care about sending, or it's far less likely that we'll send. It's damn near impossible to be lackadaisical about how you're performing and then perform your best. If you've been listening for a while, you know that years ago, I reworked my Instagram so that I didn't see nearly as many board accounts. I was tired of seeing Moon Board beta videos. It's just not what motivates me and I don't particularly enjoy watching them. So I got rid of all but Lee Cujes, Ravioli Biceps, and Five3Benchmarks, and it had the intended effect. My feed was dominated by hip hop, and outdoor climbing. Pretty quickly though, I noticed a trend amongst the climbers. Every day, I'd see dozens of posts from climbers who had failed to send their project, with some variation of the phrase, "It's all about the process." Honestly, I'd rather see the Moon Board videos. Every single one of those process posts was missing the point. Sure, the journey is important, but so is the destination. In fact, if you don't reach your destination, your journey was missing something. Your process needs to be adjusted. It's not all about the journey. It is, in fact, about mapping out the journey that gets you to the intended destination. So is there a way to care about the outcome without making it the focus? Can we put our attention on the journey without fully discounting the destination? And if so, how do we walk that line? Today, we'll hear from athletes Sam Elias and Alex Megos, learning expert Trevor Ragan, and mental training coach Arno Ilgner, from the Warrior's Way, about how we can care about the outcome but stay focused on the process.

Kris Hampton  04:21

What's up everybody. I'm your host Kris Hampton. And today on Remix from Power Company Climbing: Process. The destination is a necessary part of the journey. But the truth is, we love a good platitude. They're easy to regurgitate, and often they hold some kernel of truth, though they almost never tell the whole truth. We hear them in education, business, life in general. And of course, (Lebron James speaking:) "Literally trust the process, build upon the process, live about the process," incessantly in sports. 

Max Kellerman  04:57

This is not KB years ago in OKC, when he's said "Hey, you know, there are more important things in life than rings." And that sounded like excuses back then. And of course we all like imagine MJ or Kobe saying something like that, these guys were killers. And this sounds to me like something you might like even less, Stephen A.: Trust the process. This dude is about process right now.

Stephen A. Smith  05:19

You got to close. You got to close the deal. You can't walk around with an attitude like. 'I'm just, this is about the process, and it ain't about winning the chip.'

Kris Hampton  05:29

Well, Max Kellerman, Kobe did say it. And at least Stephen A. Smith is on my side. A few years ago, I sat down in the Red River Gorge with filmmaker Ken Etzel and climber Alex Megos. to talk about their film "RotPunkt", which featured Alex, one of the best climbers on the planet, struggling with this exact conundrum. And I pitched to Alex the idea that there were just too many people using, "It's all about the journey," as an excuse for a failure to reach their goal.

Alex Megos  06:00

Well, I guess that depends. If you lose the focus on the actual goal then I guess the process is, in some ways, wrong. But I've experienced that setting a focus too much on the outcome kind of hinders you to actually succeed. And if the way to the goal is not important anymore, then you won't get there. I think there's two types of people. Like the types of people that are too much focused on the process and then there's people like, I am one I would say, was very often too much focused on the actual goal. And I kind of should focus more on the process and realize through that, that the process itself is important, too. And it might get me to my goal, if I am focusing on the process, rather than only the goal.

Kris Hampton  06:48

On a scale of 0 to 100 shits, how many shits do you give about clipping chains? 

Alex Megos  06:55

101. I give all the shits, I think, I mean, it is important for me, I don't know why. But it is important for me. And I yeah, I just like to see how far I can push my limits in climbing. And I don't know why that is so attracting for humans. They always try to push their own limits and see how far they can get. But for some reason, that is the case. And I chose rock climbing to do that. So I'm trying to be, you know, the best that I can, push my limits as far as I can.

Kris Hampton  07:26

What makes you think you're someone who's maybe too focused on the goal? 

Alex Megos  07:30

Because I really just want to fucking send, you know? I really get nervous if I don't send so that means, it shows me that I want to do a route really bad. And I'm thinking very often about climbs that, you know, hadn't done or haven't done. And I think that shows me that the process is... I mean, obviously, the process is still important, but I'm very much goal-orientated. And I think that was the reason for why I have not been trying very hard projects in the last few years, just because I was afraid that the outcome might be that I won't climb the the route or the boulder. So therefore, I was scared of the process because I thought, 'Okay, can I deal with the fact that I might not climb it?' And until recently, I was not fine with, you know, just the possibility of rock climbing itself. I only just picked routes and boulders where I knew that the outcome will be that I climb it.

Kris Hampton  08:27

Yeah. What do you think has changed? That's made it start to get better for you to accept the fact that you might not do it?

Alex Megos  08:37

I think what changed is that, I know if I want to climb my limit, I kinda have to pick projects where the outcome is not certain. And well, and, you know, I don't know whether I'll be able to climb it or not. So I think that was like a big part of it. I mean, if you always know that you will climb the route or the boulder that you're trying, then it can't be a limit, because if it is your limit, then you should not be certain that you will be able to climb it.

Kris Hampton  09:05

So to climb these dream routes, these dream boulders, you have to care about it, you have to want a certain outcome in order to reach it. But your focus needs to be on how to get there, not on already being there. This sounds a little like science: formulate a hypothesis, devise a series of experiments to test your hypothesis, and then adjust and repeat, and adjust and repeat, and adjust and repeat until you've reached a satisfying conclusion.

Trevor Ragan  09:41

If you think about how scientists approach their work, first thing we can say is they have outcomes that they care about and matter. Like they're trying to cure cancer or do whatever, there is a vision, there is a goal that they're striving for.

Kris Hampton  09:56

That's Trevor Regan. He's the founder of Learner Lab, where he helps teams and organizations get better at learning. And of all the people I've seen try to do this, Trevor is one of the best at collecting complicated information, connecting the dots within it, and then delivering it in an easy-to-understand package.

Trevor Ragan  10:19

Scientists know that outcomes are a reflection of their process. So if they're going to achieve this outcome, it's about constantly improving their process through experimenting, failing, getting feedback, breaking it, fixing it, like that's how you improve your process. The more you improve your process, the closer you get to your outcome. So understanding that, you see how they are one step removed from that. We use Elon Musk as an example, with SpaceX. They're trying to make reusable rockets, they've tried to do this for years. So they launch a rocket up, and they try to land it back on Earth, it explodes. Okay, that's the outcome. Now, it exploded. A scientist, remember, believes the outcomes are a reflection of the process, not a reflection of them. So when SpaceX crashes a rocket, there is, of course, some pain and frustration there. But no one takes it personally. They take it seriously, but not personally. 

Kris Hampton  11:17

That's a good distinction. 

Trevor Ragan  11:18

Big difference. We are not failures, the process was a failure. And that is a huge difference. Oftentimes, most of us don't operate like scientists, and we believe outcomes are a reflection of us. That's the ego we're talking about. So the rocket crashes: "I am a failure," " I am stupid,"  "We can't change this," versus "Something was wrong in the process. Let's go back to work and figure out what that was and launch another rocket." So the distinction is scientists know that outcomes are a reflection of the process, whether the outcome is positive or negative. That's feedback on our process. And there's lots of opportunities to learn there. Most of us feel like we're the experiment, where the outcome is a reflection of me. And there's a huge difference there.

Kris Hampton  12:07

Yeah totally. I mean, when, when a climber is on a route or a boulder problem, you have to choose which holds to use, which movements to make, how close to keep your hips to the wall, you know, whether to use momentum, or not use momentum for every single movement you're making on this route. And that could be hundreds of moves. Or it could be as simple as five really difficult moves that have a lot of little pieces to each movement. And it's so easy to fall off and just go "God, I suck." You know, "I can't do this." "I don't know what's wrong with me," instead of immediately going to "Where in the process did the mistake happen? You know, and what can I do in that process to make it get closer to success?"

Trevor Ragan  12:59

Love it. And, and that kind of got my brain going. And so, I think if we were to summarize this: learning like a scientist is understanding that regardless of what the outcome is, there are 1000's, if not hundreds of learning opportunities in that. So scientists realize no matter what happens, there are opportunities to grow. And as scientists will choose to look for those and find those and appreciate those, where most of us miss those because we fell off the wall and our ego hurts and we're mad. It's okay to feel that pain. It's okay to be frustrated. All of that happens, that's human. If you really think about all the things that happen to us, in sports and training, and school and life, everything is full of opportunities. And if we, if we have trained that muscle to look for those and appreciate those, we're going to grow more, and I think be happier, as well.

Kris Hampton  13:58

Easier said than done. We all understand the frustration of not doing as well as we hoped, of not sending as quickly as you thought you would. You made a goal, you trained hard, you didn't send. Now what? You get frustrated. Of course, you do. We all do, to some degree. And when you're a climber experiencing these feelings, one of the best people to turn to is Arno Ilgner.

Sam Elias  14:24

If we think about it, achieving the end result occurs just in a split second, right? But what is the majority of our life leading up to that? For some people, it's several years working toward a goal.

Kris Hampton  14:36

Arno founded "The Warrior's Way", a mental training system for climbers that goes well beyond the fall training that many people know him for. He and his coaches run regular workshops both online and in-person on managing fear and assessing risk, motivation and expectations, and how to get more focused. And Arno has a way of looking at goals and outcomes that I think any of us can understand.

Sam Elias  15:03

It's a test. Okay, it's a test of your learning. Let's draw a line in the sand here and make sure that you actually can show me that you've learned how to keep it together to do that redpoint. You got the rock – it's not animate, you know, it's an inanimate object – that route has a certain level of skill that's needed. And obviously, your skill isn't up to par with the challenge that you're facing, right? So when we get frustrated, essentially we want whatever's missing, that learning for no effort. It kind of points toward a way that we we can be kind of immature in, in our process of dealing with stress and challenges. Mature athletes understand that every bit of success that they have requires work. So frustration, essentially, is wanting to have achieved end result without doing that work. And that's just an immature way that that we approach challenges. And it tends to be largely unconscious, because the ego that's in there wants that achievement, the quicker the better, so it can feel good about itself. That causes our attention to be focused in the future, and not in the moment on what we actually need to do and learn to achieve the goal. 

Kris Hampton  16:30

So we should think about our goals on a timeline of sorts. The goal itself, it's in the future. And whether we like it or not, we can't do a damn thing about that future unless we start paying attention to the present.

Serena Williams  16:45

Whenever I enter a Grand Slam, or any tournament for that matter, honestly, I just play one match at a time, I don't get too far ahead. I don't think about the future. I just have my mind focus on that one event and that one match and that one point.

Kris Hampton  16:58

You might recognize that voice as Serena Williams, who knows a thing or two about winning and the path to getting there. But that doesn't mean it's easy. It's tough to do. You might think, "Okay, all I have to do is focus on now." But then you walk to the crag you rope up or arrange your pads, and then suddenly, you're thinking about sending. You're trying to skip the present, the work, the process, to get that send in the bag. We need to slow our roll. And I think I know how. After the break, we'll talk with pro climber Sam Elias, who employs one of my favorite ways to help athletes keep from jumping too far ahead. 

Kris Hampton  17:40

Are you searching for a training structure that actually works? For over a decade we've helped climbers prepare for their goals. We've seen patterns emerge, showing what's most effective for each level of climber. Those patterns became our Proven Plans, a training system that you can follow from complete beginner to V double digits. Delivered through our mobile app, with workouts geared toward your goals and focused on improving not only strength and power, but tactics and mindset as well. Each Proven Plan comes with a built-in group chat and an option to work directly with one of our coaches. We don't believe in a one size fits all approach to climbing. You shouldn't either. 

Kris Hampton  18:22

Okay, here's where we are. You have a goal that you really want to reach and that goal is important to you. But there are a series of steps in order to get there. The experiment – if we're thinking like a scientist. And if we're using Arno Ilgner's analogy, the goal itself is a test that requires a certain level of skill. And if we don't have that skill, we don't take it personally, we just go back to the drawing board and adjust our process. To adjust and design that process, we need to have the goal in mind. But once we're on the journey, that's where our focus should be – in the present. The destination – that's in the future, we can't control it. Instead, we pay attention to what we're doing right now. The process. The journey. Now, particularly with big objectives, understanding what your process is missing or getting wrong can be the actual crux, people often keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. And for many of those scenarios, there's a simple way through it, a literal checklist to make sure you're on the right path.

Sam Elias  19:31

In my camper right now, I have two checklists. The most recent one I posted was "Shadowboxing". And then I have one from "Fat Camp" from last summer.

Kris Hampton  19:41

That's Sam Elias, former competitive ski racer turned professional climber. Sam climbs with a lot of passion. He cares. And it's because of that passion that he's aware of how easy it is to get too focused on the big goal, take it personal, and end up frustrated with yourself. Both "Fat Camp" and Shadowboxing" are 14d routes at Rifle. So the method Sam employs here, a checklist, isn't just for folks who are breaking into 5.11 or 5.12. They can be applied at any level. And after seeing a photo of it on his Instagram, I wanted to know exactly how Sam uses his own checklists.

Sam Elias  20:24

There's some real sort of basic elements to that. And then there's like, a lot of depth to that, you can kind of like take it psychologically, um, deep. And writing anything down is very different than just thinking it in your brain. It activates different parts of your brain, it embeds things in different parts of your brain.

Kris Hampton  20:48

Sam's right, researchers at the Norwegian Center for Learning Environment and Behavioral Research and Education found that reading handwritten text activates different parts of the brain than reading typed text. And writing something down on paper has a similar effect. And when testing recall, writing things down on paper may not necessarily help people remember more, but it does help them remember the more important parts of what they wrote. So basically, you should be taking notes on this right now, on paper.

Sam Elias  21:23

The last few years, I've been working with a sports psychologist. And I've read a lot. But since I was a kid ski racer, like 16, my first mentor, my first like real coach, he was very much into the mental and emotional side of being an athlete. So I spend a lot of time trying to train my body. And in addition to that, you know, I'm reading these books, I'm trying to, try to meditate, trying to do these other things with my mind, these exercises with journaling, subconscious work, goal setting, that's basically connected to all that. So the list is just smaller goals that are basically trying to lead me up to a bigger goal.

Kris Hampton  22:11

You can see Sam's checklist at the link in your show notes. But let's talk a little about how to make your own. With any climb, sport route or boulder, you first want to identify the obvious parts you haven't done, individual moves or important sections that you need to do in their entirety, before you can climb into and out of them. After that, start breaking the climb down into sensible parts. These might be broken up by obvious rests, by a change in difficulty or style or angle, or however makes sense for you to better remember them. And you don't have to start at the bottom every time, you can climb bolt-to-bolt up to bolt five, say take, sit for a while, and then try to link from there to the top or whatever. Write those down in a logical order. Usually starting with moves, then links, then overlapping sections, then one hangs from various places. And then the redpoint. Post it where you'll see it, and get to work.

Sam Elias  23:28

I did that last summer with "Fat Camp". And you know what? I just love checking those fucking boxes, man.

Kris Hampton  23:34

People love checking boxes. 

Sam Elias  23:36

I, when I get to like a pretty decent point with a project, I can say, you know, these are the links I want to do: I want to do from the ground to here, I want to do from here to the top, I want to do this middle section link, I want to, you know... the one hang. And then you know, like then you, write at the bottom of the list: the redpoint. Just like you, how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. So if you can, focus on the bite you're going to take in that day. And some days you'll get it, and some days you won't get it, but the days that you get it? Man, you get this boost of confidence. You just, you feel like you're on the right path, you're moving in the right direction, you get to check that box, and the box is on my fridge. Like I literally look at it 100 times of the day. And I see the goals I want to do. And even if I'm not seeing them consciously, like my subconscious is registering that I wrote that down there. And that those are small goals on the way to my big goal. And man, when you get to check off that redpoint box and write the date and leave it on the fridge? Now I have two of them, you know, and it's just a cool, fun process. And it doesn't have to be, I mean, you can do that in anything.

Kris Hampton  24:50

Okay, Sam just gave us a lot of game. Let's see if we can unpack it a little. First, not only does research say that writing things down helps you remember the important parts, but Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at Dominican University in California, did a study on goal setting with 267 participants. Her study says that we are 42% more likely to achieve our goals just by writing them down. That redpoint box? It's important. And all of those other boxes? We get something from those, too. We love checking them because we get a dopamine hit with every single one. Hell, if you can break the project down into even smaller bite-sized pieces and get more of those dopamine hits, it's far healthier than watching the likes on your most recent Instagram post. Not to mention, having that checklist where you can regularly see it in a world full of push and pull distractions is a fantastic way to stay focused on what matters. And make sure you keep moving toward that goal. One more time: Kobe Bryant.

Kobe Bryant  26:03

But there's a quote from one of my English teachers at Little Marion named Mr. Fisk, he had a great quote that said, "Rest at the end, not in the middle." That's something I always live by.

Kris Hampton  26:16

Rest at the end, not in the middle. The end matters a lot. It informs the journey. And remember how Sam called it a cool, fun process? If it's something that you enjoy, it's going to be much simpler to focus on the now, the journey, and even more so if you know the next checkpoint is nearby. So put your focus on the goal itself, the thing you care fiercely about, while you're designing that journey, and then keep your eyes on the road. Focus on the journey itself and trust that it will get you where you want to go. And if it doesn't, it's not an indictment against you. It just means that something needs adjusted. So try again. Write it down. Check the boxes. Each successive time, you'll get better at creating more effective and realistic checkpoints, which will inevitably translate to climbing harder things. In your show notes, you'll find links to the full length conversations with Sam, Alex, Trevor and Arno as well as how you can find them online. Remix is brought to you by powercompanyclimbing.com. Whatever you do, don't stop in the middle. And please stop saying that it's all about the process.