#019: How Legendary Climber Hans Florine Achieved Peak Performance

Welcome to The Accelerated Investor Podcast with Josh Cantwell, if you love entrepreneurship and investing in real estate then you are in the right place. Josh is the CEO of Freeland Ventures Real Estate Private Equity and has personally invested in well over 500 properties all across the country. He’s also made hundreds of private lender loans and owns over 1,000 units of apartments. Josh is an expert at raising private money for deals and he prides himself on never having had a boss in his entire adult life. Josh and his team also mentor investors and entrepreneurs from all over the world. He doesn’t dream about doing deals, he actually does them and so do his listeners and students. Now sit back, listen, learn, and accelerate your business, your life, and you’re investing with The Accelerated Investor Podcast.

Josh: Hey welcome back. Welcome back to Accelerated Investor and I’m really excited to be with all of you today to talk about peak performance. If you’ve been really following along, we’ve gotten, you know, tremendous amount of comments and ratings and people sharing a lot of our previous episodes of Accelerated Investor on their social media platforms. Because I’ve been hearing from our audience that this concept, this talk around peak performance is really hitting home with them. And you know, our audience of investors, real estate investors as well as leaders and entrepreneurs are all, you know, striving to be a bigger, better version of themselves. And so I have a special guest with me today, a special treat for all of you. And his name is Hans Florine and he is an amazing, amazing case study on peak performance. Hans is a climber, if you’ve heard his name, he has climbed in Yosemite, which is the world’s capital of big rock climbing.

Josh: He’s climbed The Nose, which is just almost an impossible mountain to climb over 97 times. He’s climbed El Capitan over 150 times and he’s seven, eight times set the world record for speed climbing. He is a world record holder. He is an X Games champion. He has been featured by Tedex and done Ted Talks. He held the speed climbing champion championship in 1991 at the first ever international speed climbing championships. He’s held the US national title over 11 times as I mentioned, an X Games champion three years in a row. And today he takes his message out to the world, not only about peak performance but about speed, about entrepreneurship. He’s a successful entrepreneur and I was fortunate to run into Hans and actually meet him at the Capitalism.com conference Cap Con in the spring of 2019 just a few months ago. We’ve been working on sinking up our schedules for the last couple of months and so Hans, welcome to Accelerated Investors. So glad we could finally nail this down.

Hans: Hey Josh, thanks for having me.

Josh: You got it. You got it. So, so Hans, let’s just jump in real quick. And for those people that don’t know you, we can jump into some foundation and some background. But I know you consult with, you speak with you, do a lot of coaching today, you do a lot of consulting and talks around peak performance. You’ve obviously performed at an extremely high level for a number of years. You revolutionized the climbing industry and really push the envelope. So talk to me today about what are some of the things that your educating your clients, your, your audiences about peak performance? What are some things that you’ve done in your personal life and in your climbing practice to really just push yourself to the ultimate edge and get the most out of your personal life? You’re climbing, your entrepreneurship. What do you think’s been some of the keys to really push yourself to the edge here?

Hans: Wow, those are a lot of questions at once. I’ll try to tackle some of them, but you know, I point out that I’m in a sort of a glamorous sport. We just had free solo come out and you’re, you know, thousands of feet in the air looking down at little tiny trees that are hundreds of feet tall, but they look like Broccoli, right. And I’m fortunate, I’ve chosen a sport that is a glamorous to those outside of it. They think we’re dare devils, risk takers, but more and more people are embracing climbing. So, you know, what is my message to those people out there that are trying to do peak performance? It’s, you know, this cliché of finding your passion is, it’s a cliché because it’s true. You find what you love to do and you do need to get acceptance from your community.

Hans: That might be the investment community. It might be the, you know, the tennis community, mine was climbing. I tried a lot of different things. I failed to be a winner at bouldering, which is type of climbing. I failed to be a mountaineer. I call it the m word. Suited up and go to the big mountains. I was just too thin and didn’t have the patience for mother nature to sit out those storms and things. So t-shirts and shorts is my thing on big cliffs, right. I’d say try deep and try hard in the things you’re passionate about and try a lot of things, especially when you’re younger, and look for that response, right.

Hans: I told you earlier that, you know, my success at first was I did normal track. I was a high school kid went to college. Actually I loved college so much I went for six years, was a successful business person, a yuppie, and I took business declining as opposed to many people take this sport and then apply to the business or life world. So again, I’d say the biggest message is try a lot of different things and once you find the success, go deep on it and go one thing and everything will work out for you. It has for me.

Josh: Yeah, that’s fantastic. In some of our peak performance training that we deliver, you know, we talk about really understanding and wanting to know people to get really clear on what their end result is that they want to achieve and why they want to achieve it, right? What is the pain that they’re going to avoid or the pleasure that they’re going to get if they ultimately achieve that goal? Whether it’s in real estate, whether it’s entrepreneurship, whether it’s climbing, whether it’s a sport, whether it’s being a great parent, whatever that is. But ultimately you’ve got, you know, kind of make that plan, like design your plan, execute on it. But in my world would step number seven is we talked very similar to what you just mentioned about taking inventory, taking inventory of what you’ve learned and then modifying that. You talked about bouldering, you talk about mountaineering, you talked about track and all these things that you did.

Josh: You tried, you were successful at some and not successful at others. You ultimately arrived at something, you kind of took inventory of what you tried, what you liked, what you didn’t. And ultimately ended up in Yosemite doing these amazing climbs and really finding something that was super passionate for you. So Hans, what are your thoughts around the people who maybe have an entrepreneurial spirit or they want to try something new, try something different? Maybe their family and friends are supportive or not supportive, but we see so many people try. Whether it’s real estate investing, whether it’s entrepreneurship, starting a business, creating a marketing funnel, and they fail at the beginning, right?

Josh: I think the longer in the tooth you are, the more times you failed like you have. And I have, you kind of understand that failure’s part of the game and it’s the people who don’t try again try the next thing until they get the result that they want. So I know you coach a lot of people. What are your thoughts around failure and how that’s really just positioning them to get one step closer to the ultimate goal? What do you say to those kinds of people that are trying new things, whether it’s climbing or sport or entrepreneurship about failure, and then about finding that passion to take them to the next step?

Hans: So in my talks, I talk to kindergartners, I talk to CEO’s at pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, bankers, whatever. I talk to college kids and the message is different in each one. But you know, this is kind of the best example. This is 3,000 feet tall, right, this rock face here. And when I was 25, super strong, really good climber. I came to the base of this thing by headlamp and me and my other strong partner, Mike Lopez, we climbed all day for 14 hours, got dark and we got to right here just above tree line and we repelled down and went back home and went to college for a year and came back. But now the record on this route is two hours and well, it’s an under two hours. I’ve done it in two hours and 23 minutes the whole route. That was 20 years old, 20 years later when I was in my late forties.

Hans: So I failed to climb this rock face when I was young and strong and learned a ton of things over those 20 years and set the speed record, you know, eight different times. So I have my quote unquote failures. A great thing I just did last month, I did a graduation ceremony for Eagle Scouts. And for those who don’t know, Eagle Scouts have to go through all these merit badges, right to achieve Eagle Scout. And I asked a number of them who raise your hand if you failed to, you know, to receive a merit badge and one or more discipline or failed a couple times and then got it. And sure enough, all of them did. And I think what I pointed out to them was, that’s probably one of the greatest gifts that you guys have is that you learn something from your failure.

Hans: Having those merit badges does a sign of a accomplishment. Yes. And in succeeding, but it’s also probably a sign of things that you learn because you did fail to get something else right. Or you failed to get that merit badge at first. So that’s probably their biggest gift is that they’re going out into the world knowing that failure’s okay. They’re trying things they’ve never done before, right. That’s kind of, I think one of the, I’m not an Eagle Scout, but one of the things is, hey, try stuff you haven’t done and it’s okay if you fail at it because you’re going to learn something, right?

Josh: Absolutely. You might learn something about you that you’ve never known, so Han’s when you’re climbing, climbing The Nose, right. So help us understand. I’ve watched your Ted Talks, you know, we’ve had other conversations. I got started digging into your book, but the three thousand feet is like twice the size of major a skyscraper building in New York City, in Cleveland, you know, the Trans America building. I saw your talk about the fact that it’s one and a half times the size of the Trans America building, you’re climbing on the side of pure granite, straight down and you failed to do that so many different times to climb and then climb again, go up. So what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned in it’s just pushing yourself to the edge here? Climbing is not only extremely difficult but extremely risky. And you’ve, fallen a few times, you broke both of your legs.

Josh: So you’ve pushed yourself to the edge. Most people would never, they never maybe had the physical capacity to even try what you’ve tried. But is there, you know, three or four lessons or three or four things that stick out that maybe you pushed yourself to the edge and thought, God, this is something I never would have known about myself unless I really tried to go beyond what I thought I was capable of? Are the lessons that stick out where you’ve been on the rock band on The Nose and thought back like, I can’t believe I just did that or I didn’t know this about myself in the past?

Hans: I think is a great question is, you know, why do you do something in that will put yourself at physical risk, your health risk, whatever. But I think of it more as how big is a goal or an accomplishment? Is it big enough that there’s a chance you won’t make it, right? You think about going to a, well, a climber that goes, we have ratings right on routes from, we’ll just make it simple, you know, one to 10. If you’re a good climber, a two or three just isn’t very challenging for you. And you know that you will make it to the top of this 60 foot climb. Well, you tend not to do two’s and three’s, you’ll try a four or five or a six because there’s challenge for you, right? And the mountaineer doesn’t then go, does his local foot hill because he knows he can make it to the top.

Hans: Maybe that was his entry level climb but, you want to go do things where the outcome is unknown, you know. Does Warren Buffet put investments in things that he doesn’t know will yield, you know that’s a hard thing to transfer to, but I’m sure it’s boring for him to just put in millions and millions again and again in the same old investment that’s given him a 4% return. You know, he wants to go out and try different things. I think of what gets you out of bed in the morning, right? To me going and doing a 60 foot cliff that I’ve done before or that’s not challenging for me I’m not going to get up early for that, right.

Hans: Am I going to get up early to bake donuts in my own entrepreneurial bakery at 4:00 AM in the morning because I see at the end of the tunnel I’m going to own seven bakeries five years from now because of this hard work. Yes. You know, that’s a big goal and yeah, I could fail to do that along the way. But it’s the vision of the goal is big enough and a passionate enough for you that you get up early in the morning, right?

Josh: The interesting thing about that is, you know, if you’re looking at investing or building a company of any kind, there’s no playbook, right? There was no playbook to climb The Nose when you started doing it. There’s no playbook for building a company. Nobody hands you the exact playbook unless you know, buy a franchise potentially like a McDonald’s or a Subway or a Chick-Fil-A. They kind of hand you that in exchange for the million dollar investment that you make. You get the playbook in return. But like to build my real estate enterprise or to build your successful companies or your doughnut, did you, are you really building your donut bakery thing right now? Are we, going to talk donuts today? Is that something that you’re investing in?

Hans: I personally am not.

Josh: Okay. I thought you were going to go that route.

Hans: I don’t know if your asking your audience or if your asking me.

Josh: I’m asking you if you’re investing in donuts because that could get me going. No, that’s all right. But whatever you’re investing in, it’s like you don’t have a playbook to know what the future looks like. So it’s got to be something that pushes you to say, okay, I don’t really know exactly what I’m going to be doing. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen today, but I’m passionate for it to see what the outcome is going to be. And it’s that fire that stokes underneath us that gets us up, gets us going. And so what do you say to people, Hans, who maybe are in a rut? You’ve probably fallen into ruts during your climbing career and your business career. Is it a lack of passion? Is it a lack of maybe being congruent between what they want to accomplish and what they’re doing?

Josh: I often find my own clients and coaching students who are in a rut, that they’re simply doing something maybe for a paycheck or they’re doing something for income or they’re doing something because they’ve always done it and they’re just not passionate for it anymore as opposed to trying something new that they could fail at. So I’m sure you’ve been in a wreck before. You’ve coached people in a rut before. How do they, how do they get out of that and is it simply just trying something in the unknown that gives them a new fire?

Hans: Well, I’m going to comment on two different type of ruts. One is maybe a plateau in a business or endeavor that you want to be in. Say you open your own bakery and you want that bakery to succeed where you just plateau and nothing’s happening. You’re just at black, red, black, red, black, red. Versus I want to get out of, I’m in a cubicle on the seventh floor of a building in San Francisco. I don’t know, working for Uber or something. Two different things there. You want to be somewhere else or you want it, you got to break through where you’re at, right? To address first of break through where you’re at. I’ve been really unconventional at asking the competition, how can we, how can I do better? I went up to the people who broke my speed record on The Nose, congratulated them, and then proceeded to ask them how they did it.

Hans: And I could see them physically step back and go, wait, why are you asking us? And I’m like, because I want to, you know, beat you. I want to do better. You know, they thought it as competitive. Some of them like, hey, he wants to beat us, why should we give them information? But I just wanted to see what was possible, right? I want to know what’s possible. They inspired me to go even faster, right? So, hey, are you in a rut with a bakery? Go to the bakery, that’s your competition down the street and ask them and they’ll just be like, what? You’re in competition with us? I’m like, well, you’re beating me. I want to know what you’re doing. Blow people’s minds. What the heck. Generally people will instead of going to the competition and they’ll go to the best experts in that field.

Hans: There’s another great way to do it. Some people are so afraid to approach the masters, the expert. If you’re an investor, call up Warren Buffett, you know or listen to this podcast. It’s the number one podcast in the country for investing, right? This is, I think what’s incredible about our time right now is that, podcast, you can listen to the very, very best people in whatever business you’re in. You can find it out there and they’ll give away their quote secrets. So whatever business you’re in, if you want to do better in it, you can find somebody that’s better at it than you and they’ll share with you, right?

Josh: The world’s amazing place Hans, with that and that the world is almost turned into a co-opertition type of world. Like we cooperate and compete with each other. And I think that’s kind of what you’re getting at.

Hans: Yeah, that’s a great word. And it also has that I thing I think people for, well, I used to just call it that sense of abundance, right? There’s not like just a $100 are all going to split up. That’s not the way resources work. You know there’s an abundance, there’s an infinite number of investments out there that we can go invest in. So all these successes of somebody finding just the right residential neighborhood that’s undervalued in Oklahoma or Tucson or wherever, those people have all failed somewhere and then they found the right niche where to invest and then they just drove it home there and spread that knowledge elsewhere. But to the person that’s, you know, in that seventh story cubicle building that wants to move out. That just goes right back to what I said at the beginning. Try just crazy different things, you know.

Hans: There’s so many easy ways to hop on the Internet and, you know what, I’m going to import some shirts from China and see if I can sell them, you know? And at the, the Cap Con conference I went to, I heard amazing stories of people never, quote touching product. They had someone on Etsy build them some widgets. I use widgets as kind of because I don’t want to give away any secrets. They had someone who was building widgets in their garage. They had been build 30 of those things for them, never touched them and shipped them direct to the customer for half what they were charging and then they mark them up to see if they could and then took over the business, you know.

Hans: And never had to touch any product, never had to put an investment out because the person who is making the small mom and pop shop was happy to get the orders. So they fronted the labor money for it. You know, there’s amazing ways to try different businesses right now with just a little bit of information and not much investment, certainly not financial investment.

Josh: Yeah, that’s amazing. This really is in this world of social media and influencer marketing and, you know, personal branding that so many people are gaining influence or making sales or building their companies by partnering with other people, partnering with production companies, partnering with their competition, learning from their competition and sharing. And Hans to that point, you know, I don’t know what the climbing community is like. But in the real estate world, there’s all different kinds of masterminds and there’s all different kinds of coaching programs and accountability programs that people can participate in.

Josh: And I see this weird comparison between like all the people going to social media to free public Facebook groups to learn and to socialize. And they’re like, Hey, I can get everything I’ve ever wanted from this free public Facebook group. I don’t need to enroll in coaching or I don’t need to enroll in a mastermind group. I don’t need to get out and socialize in something that’s a paid like program and I think they’re greatly misguided. I think there’s a big difference between free public information, social media, and then having an accountability partner or having a mentor or having somebody that can lift you up. And I know you do a lot of personal coaching.

Josh: You do obviously a lot of public speaking engagements. Do you want to talk to that a little bit about what you’re seeing from successful entrepreneurs, successful climber, successful investors and what kind of investments have you made in making yourself better. I know when you said about climbing and you broke the world speed record eight different times, you went to your competition, and you had the guts, the balls, if you will, to go back and say like, hey, teach me what you’ve done. But you’re also a big fan and you do a lot of personal coaching and consulting yourself. So just talk about that and how that, you know, how that’s impacted your life and how you see people, whether it’s at Cap Con investors or in your community people taking and getting to the next level and how they can use both the free information and some accountability and coaching to kind of merge those together to get to the next step.

Hans: Again you’re great at packing on a ton of questions at once, I love it. What was amazing, I went to Cap Con my first time this last year and I realized in the first morning I talked to one guy who was in very pragmatic thing of building signs for a Rite-Aid, I think. And then I turned around and a few minutes later I’m talking to somebody who’s done this amazing job of moving things on Amazon and he knows all these incredible logarithm things to make things go front and center on our Amazon, a completely different business, right. And he was asking me if I knew anybody that had an expertise on, I don’t know, I forget what it was. I think it was coding something for PayPal integration with Amazon sales. And I said, no, I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know why he asked me.

Hans: Because I was a coach, he thought I knew everything if I’m a coach, right? So I turn around and 20 minutes later I run into a guy who was an expert at that and I gave him that guy’s card and I just realize, I don’t know how much you know, business I just made for those two or connected, whatever. But both of them probably over six figures worth of benefit from knowing each other, right. And I happened to connect them and this is the sort of thing. And I realized, oh, those guys got free coaching from me. And then I realize like, no, they didn’t they paid to go to Cap Con. It wasn’t a free social event. It wasn’t a free Facebook. They paid to be there they committed. And who knows how many other connections they made by paying to be there.

Hans: I think about, listen, I was furiously taking notes when people are on stage yourself included, at Cap Con I realized like all the notes, I took of the speakers at conferences and I’m sure people get this as they roll their eyes. Oh God another conference I got to listen the people on stage. But like most of the money, if you will, or profit from those events is when you get and talk to somebody in the hallways around that and you make connections, right?

Josh: That’s how we connected. We just happened to sit down at a random table right outside of the grand ballroom. I saw your book, we just started chatting and then here we are today, four or five months later, but you got to put yourself out there, right? You’ve got to reach out and say hello and have the guts to just say, hey, how are you? What business are you into? What? Tell me about your business. It’s really that simple.

Hans: And granted there are people that are not gregarious and they’re not, you know, outgoing. This is where, well then maybe coaching is right for you or you know, Facebook groups that are paid or masterminds that are paid. You don’t have to be the one up there, you know, the oracle, you can just listen and those mastermind groups are built so that someone will gently ask you what you need or gently ask you about your business and help, you know, that’s what they’re made to do, right. But if you’re not paying for it and you’re just idle on the side for these free services, you’ll get something out of it. But obviously when you’re engaged and you’re invested in it, people are going to invest in you, right.

Josh: Yeah. This kind of, this linear process that I feel is, I don’t know why this is coming to my head right now of, you know, finding something that you think you have a passion for. Jumping in, kind of getting going, asking a lot of questions, trying it out, asking your competition, your co-opertition and then like you said, taking inventory of what’s working, what’s not. But really going deep on one thing like you mentioned at the beginning of this interview. And then when I think about going deep and I think about your, what you’re well known for, you’re well known for speed climbing, right? Going from something that took you 14 hours to get, you know, 20% up the hill to becoming a speed climber to climb the entire thing, all 3,000 feet in about two hours. So speed is something that you’re well known for in the climbing world and also in how it relates to business. So just talk to us, talk to our audience a little bit about speed. Why is it important to you and how does that help impact, you know, you’re climbing and what you’re known for, but how does it translate to business and your personal life?

Hans: Well I realized I missed something in the last thing I’m going to get to the speed, is that I coached with MAPS Business Coaching and we missed something about accountability that you asked me about. When I gave away quote unquote gave away free information, free connections on things, there was no accountability it was just me trying to help people, right. This is one of the, the things about a mastermind group. If there’s homework or if there’s other people that you feel accountable to get things done and that’s sometimes what you need in business as an entrepreneur. You don’t answer to anybody because you’re the top person, right. But if you get somebody outside of your group that you respect, you feel accountable to get that next thing done, to call the next leasing option to open your second bakery or your third bakery because you told your coach you would, or your mastermind group, you would they helped you find that next property to lease for your next bakery, right?

Hans: Back to your speed thing. Why does speed matter? And for me, why does it matter? I took a job from college straight into manufacturing where we actually did make widgets. We made high tech fuel door seals for the airline industry and space shuttle and things like that. So we had to ship so many parts per month and make so much profit to get people paid. This is really common in business, right? The quantity you move out the door is what brings in your income. So that’s very, very pragmatic to move things quickly so that you can bring in income. But I’ve taught, you know, customer service skills and I talk about the plaid coat used cars, salesmen, right? And that sort of image of the past of, you know, you sit in the convertible and the plaid coat salesman says, you look so good in that convertible, right?

Hans: They’ll say anything to make you right and feel good about being in that car and paying double what you intended to, right. You might think that you’re not subject to the plaid coat salesman. You wouldn’t let them sell you a car. But in customer service, I kind of mix sometimes with sales is that in customer service and people interactions fast is slow and slow is fast. I think I stole that from Zig Ziglar in that if you try to go too fast with people to make the sale rather than go slow and make the relationship you’re not going to get the sale right. Or in customer service, if you don’t take the time to find out what the customer wants or you don’t show interest in the customer, they’re not going to show interest in you. And so you can be quicker with people. You can gain their trust often by trusting them. An interesting little flip flop. So I’ve learned, uh, to apply speed and things. Traditionally we don’t think to speed up, you know, like dangerous climb rate. Why would you speed that up?

Josh: Yeah. Why would you speed that up? Because it’s already dangerous.

Hans: And typically people know customer service is not fast. It takes trust is typically not fast. It takes years to trust somebody. But you find just, you know, when we do team building exercises, right? You take somebody up on a tight rope walk and you’ve seen these, you know, challenge courses, what are you doing there? You’re putting them in a crazy environment and they have to trust somebody, right? The issue is forced or to fall backwards into a bunch of hands holding you. You’re trusting those people. So a trust situation is kind of foisted upon somebody very quickly. Whereas in business, day to day environment, it’s tough to gain people’s trust quickly without having an expert in these psychological games, I guess, of how to get people to trust you, you know.

Josh: Yeah. I raise a lot of private capital. We have about $30 million of private capital under management. We have a hundred million dollar real estate portfolio. And to your point about fastest is slow, slow is fast. I find that when I raised money from an investor, the slower I go, the more time I take, the more times I tell them, you know, I don’t need your money, but I could use it and I could, you know, we could use it in a deal and we can get you an amazing return and create passive income and just get to know them really well. Ultimately they end up investing larger amounts of money with us. And then they invest more recurring, meaning more often, they might take more time to make the first investment, but I often find a guy that has a $10 million net worth or even bigger, he might start with a $50,000 investment or $100,000 investment.

Josh: And then I quickly find that all of a sudden deal two, deal three, deal four comes and now they’re into us for a half a million, $1 million or more because I went really slow at the beginning and I also wasn’t desperate for their capital. And it’s oftentimes the sales people or the companies that provide an amazing service that take their time, make the first sale. It’s an amazing experience. And then the second sale, the third sale comes faster because that first transaction was, it was a great experience for both sides. So I really, yeah, I really appreciate that discussion around speed.

Josh: I have to ask you Han’s like what drove you, what was it? Was it the notoriety? Was it just the personal, you know, pushing of your body, the physical exertion? Why was it for you when you started climbing these, you know, The Nose and El Capitan and climbing in Yosemite and it was this long process of getting up sometimes days to get up and all of a sudden speed became the thing for you. What was it at that time in your life that made you different to think that I want to do this faster, bigger, quicker than anybody else? What was your motivation behind going faster?

Hans: Well as a young man, I traveled around the world to do World Cup competitions and I would be in France in some, I don’t know some just local crap as we call it, 70, 80 foot high cliff. And someone would come up to me and say, hey, congratulations on the speed record. And I had won a world cup the weekend before. And I go, oh, well that’s nice, but I only beat the person by, you know, a half a second, could’ve gone either way. And they’d be like, no, no, no I’m talking about the speed record on The Nose of El Cap that you set last, you know, three years ago. And I’d be like, wow, I am having, you know, a door open to me here on the other side of the world because of this world famous cliff, you know, El Capitan and The Nose that is the world’s most famous big wall.

Hans: And so for me, that was like, I have credibility in this international community because of this one thing that I did, right. And so when the record was broken years later, I’m like, I’m going to just go get it back because it opens doors for me in my community, you know. I can see in investment world, you know, if you’re hitting certain returns, right? You’re going to attract, you’re going to open doors people will come to you. Talk about fast, you won’t need to approach them they’ll be approaching you, right?

Hans: Once you find the thing that you’re good at? And you know, we’re, we’re social beings and people acknowledge us for it. That recognition is like the number one thing as humans need is recognition, right? And I’m subject to it as well. So I got recognized for doing this act and then it just fed on itself, right. But you know, back to the just personal thing for me, I tell people I love climbing and the only thing better than climbing is more climbing. So if I go I can fit more in the day, right.

Josh: That’s fantastic. I also think it has a lot to do with the fact that you had a passion, which we discussed at the beginning of this interview. And then like you said, go deep. Like if you had decided that you’re going to be a climber, but you’re also going to ski, you’re also going to surf, you’re also going to run a business. You’re also going to, you know, do all these different things. It’s going to be tough to really be a world class at anything because you’re too wide. And I think what I’ve learned in this conversation is you became world class because you went deep on one thing. And I think so many people in this world where they see all these Instagram influencers and Amazon businesses and investors and companies that are, you know, they do all these different things like GE, they own television networks and they make wind turbines and refrigerators and cars and all this stuff that like I want to do all these new things.

Josh: The answer is really, and I think this is, you know how you run your coaching businesses to get super narrow to get super niche because that’s the only way you can go fast is if you know everything there is to know about that. The reason why you were able to set eight different world records climbing that is because you climbed it over and over and over. Every rock you knew every grab, you knew exactly where to put your foot. You knew every little crevice and you were able to go faster and faster and faster. So it really becomes about doing things super niche and be an amazing at one thing to be able to apply speed to that. So do you have any other kind of final comments as we wrap up around that topic?

Hans: You kind of wrapped it up pretty good there. And your hand motions I got to get you out climbing, I see you got this down.

Josh: Yeah, I’m terrible at climbing. I’m too heavy, I’m too old. But I would love to, I would love to climb with you. That would be a lifetime experience. You’d have to do a real short, small climb that would be boring for you. So as we wrap up here, Hans, tell us a little bit more about your book. Your book is out. It’s getting amazing reviews. It’s out in audible. It’s out in iTunes with a physical copy. Tell us about On The Nose.

Hans: On The Nose marks my hundred decent of this sun shadow line, there’s 60 different routes on El Cap, but I’ve, I’ve climbed a half of them. The Noes route is the biggest route. It’s the most famous big wall route in the world. And it was first climb in 1958. It is the Everest of rock climbs and most people would climb Everest. Most people would climb The Nose once or Everest once. So it’s ridiculous that I climbed it a hundred times. But this book is stories about that. I’ve climbed it with the Oscar winner, Alex Honnold a number of times. I’ve climbed it with Lynn Hill, one of the most famous female rock climbers in the world. And this is why I was kind of thumbing through it, is that this has brought me, the most famous climbers in the world have asked me to climb The Nose with them because it’s because of its, you know, history. I’ve climbed it with a blind person, I’ve climbed it with someone in their sixties. I climbed with an 11 and a 12 year old girl, boy and girl. So a variety of experiences in it. And there’s stories from all of those in the book.

Josh: Fantastic. And how can they get the money? We’ll put a link to the book and audible and iTunes and all that in the show notes. Ramy will make sure we’ll make sure we put it in there. So you guys can grab the book. I’m just starting through the book. I’m thrilled with it. I’m thrilled with learning about it. I don’t know really anything about climbing. It was great to hear some of your thoughts today. Han’s if somebody’s interested in learning more about you, again, you provide maps coaching, you help entrepreneurs grow their businesses, you help people perform at a peak level. How can they get ahold of you or your company to inquire about coaching, consulting directly with you?

Hans: Well, I’m pretty easy, HansFlorine.com. Although my last name is spelled Florine with an E on the end and it’s pronounced like what you’re standing on Florine. So HansFlorine.com or OnTheNoseBook.com. I’m on Instagram mostly, but I have a Twitter and Facebook feed as well, so.

Josh: Fantastic Hans. So I know you’ve got to run, I want to be respectful of your time. Is there any final kind of parting shots or words of advice that you’d like to leave our audience with today?

Hans: Yeah, I’m going to show a picture of my daughter. She’s 18 years old now. And this is her getting thrown up in the air, can you see that?

Josh: I sure can. That is incredible. How old is she there? Maybe one or two.

Hans: There’s she’s only two years old. But she’s 18 now. Why I put that is, I think it’s very celebratory that picture, celebrating just being there, right. Celebrate your small wins and your big wins on the way to whatever speedy thing you accomplish. Celebrate that dozen donuts that you finished off at 4:20 AM in the morning. Yeah. Celebrate the small ones. Measure where you’re going and celebrate little wins.

Josh: That’s fantastic, Hans. Listen, I know you’ve got to run. Thanks so much for your time. Really enjoyed this. Let’s do it again very, very soon.

Hans: Perfect. Thanks Josh.

Josh: All right guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Accelerated Investor. We’ll see you next time. Take care.

You’ve been listening to Josh Cantwell and the Accelerated Investor Podcast. Leave a comment on our iTunes channel and let us know what you want to learn next, or who you’d like Josh to interview. While you’re there, give us some five star rating and make sure to subscribe so you can be the first to hear new episodes. Follow Josh Cantwell and his companies, the Strategic Real Estate Coach and Freeland Ventures on all social media platforms now and stay up to date on new training and investment opportunities to start your journey toward the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of. Apply for coaching at JoshCantwellCoaching.com.

There’s no doubt… world-famous rock-climbing legend Hans Florine takes the idea of peak performance to a whole new level.

7,569 feet, to be exact.

Hans has an impressive climbing resume, needless to say. He’s climbed El Capitan in Yosemite more than 150 times, plus The Nose (a well-known route that’s part of El Capitan) nearly 100 times. Hans also won many speed climbing awards in his career, including three gold medals in the X Games.

In recent years, Hans published On the Nose: A Lifelong Obsession with Yosemite’s Most Iconic Climb and began a career in motivational speaking and coaching.

So the concept of peak performance – achieving the highest level of performance in your professional life while enjoying a fulfilling personal life – is very familiar to Hans, who experienced many struggles and setbacks during his illustrious climbing career.

Tune in to hear Han’s story of how he was able to become a bigger, better version of himself despite the challenges that came his way. Hans also shares the importance of celebrating the small wins in your life (not just the big ones).

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, business owner, real estate investor, or are simply looking for ways to improve yourself and your life, Hans story will inspire and encourage you to pursue your lifelong goals and dreams.

What’s Inside:

  • How Hans reached peak performance and became the best version of himself
  • How Hans addresses failure (in his own life and with the entrepreneurial students he coaches)
  • Lessons that Hans learned while pushing himself to the absolute physical and mental limits
  • How to get out of a “rut” and regain your passion
  • How to use a combination of free resources and paid coaching services to help you reach your goals

Mentioned in this episode​