Construction Contractor Explains Why He Quit Drinking and Started Mountain Climbing

Dave Helland [00:00:00] Over time, governments kept power by controlling the information, they could tell people what they wanted them to know. Now that's changed. And the truth is everywhere to see.

Vance Crowe [00:00:10] And she in there was like, oh, there's two people, Tommy Robinson and Candace Owens, and they're bad people. And the first thing I do when somebody tells me don't listen to somebody, is go find them. Right?

Dave Helland [00:00:20] See what they're saying.

Vance Crowe [00:00:21] And so I wanted to go see what they had to say. And I have to say like Tommy Robinson, I'd never really paid attention, but I was like, guys got some interesting points. If those things were happening to me, I'd want to know how can we stop people from having grooming gangs in my community? Right? I've

Dave Helland [00:00:36] Almost entirely quit drinking. I

Vance Crowe [00:00:38] Think you have entirely

Dave Helland [00:00:39] Quit drinking. Yes. Yeah. What prompted that? You know, I'm Bruce figure, a veterinarian living in Sylvia, Kansas, and you're listening to the Vance Crowe podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:54] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. My good friend Dave Helland, returns to the podcast, longtime listeners to the podcast. Probably remember that Dave came on and talked all about construction before. In fact, I've had a lot of my friends say, where's that construction guy, your construction friend? The reality was, when I got done with that podcast, I went to lunch with Dave. That was the first time we'd ever met. And I was horrified to realize just how little of his wisdom and experience that I had tapped into. Dave is actually a mountain climber, a prolific hunter. He has all these thoughts on the internal dialogue in your mind. And so when Dave offered to drive back down to St. Louis and do another podcast, I was elated. What you are about to hear is maybe one of the most wide ranging podcasts I've ever done, where we talk everything from the internal dialogue to why we've both given up drinking to the taking of a life of an animal, and the indifference of nature with you. This is a fantastic conversation that you are going to love. And I assure you, no matter who you are, there are parts of this where Dave's wisdom is gonna resonate deeply with you. We're gonna get to that interview in just a moment, but first, I wanted to talk about Legacy Interviews. Listeners of the podcast know that in this studio, I record people telling their life stories so that future generations have the opportunity to know their family stories and history and where they came from. I know that personally, I have had a chance to hear some of the stories that people have talked about that are who they are as a family, what makes them up, what are their values.

Vance Crowe [00:02:31] And I am so grateful to be a part of passing these values on the story of who we are. What we tell ourselves about what makes us a family are so critically important. And if your parents are not able to be around your kids and you wanna make sure the things that they taught you are passed down, if you wanna make sure that your kids understand why you are who you are because of who they are, then consider having them record a legacy interview. If you're interested in having me sit down with your loved ones to record their family stories, go to Legacy Interviews dot com. All right, without further ado, let's head to the interview with my good friend, Dave Helland. Dave Helland, welcome back to the podcast. I'm

Dave Helland [00:03:12] Glad to be here.

Vance Crowe [00:03:13] So you are in the highend home construction industry. How are high-end homes doing right now?

Dave Helland [00:03:19] Well, so we do a broad, a broad variety of things. So do new custom homes, do a lot of remodeling also. And basically, like I've described to people, I just say that I'm an, I'm a mercenary, but basically we'll do anything, small jobs, big jobs, whatever, but niche towards really nice work. So, you know, about the past five years, we've always had big projects kind of piled up waiting for us, and now we're worked through all that and don't have big projects in front of us right now, which is good in a way 'cause we can take care of more people, but things are changing a little bit. So obviously interest rates have to have something to do with that. Though my clients are, you know, not so worried about that. But I'm sensing some changes and I know that like the production builders in the area, there's a lot of things changing. They've just got a lot of inventory now.

Vance Crowe [00:04:17] Have you had to up your prices in order to meet with how much materials cost?

Dave Helland [00:04:21] Oh yeah. I mean, you know, the way I do it is basically like I, I'm an open book on prices. Like when I meet with people, you know, I say I put together a fee that I'm gonna charge for a project once we have a good handle on the scope, and of course figure out our carpentry labor. But then everything else, they see my costs, they pay what I pay. There's no markup hidden in there or anything. So those have just marched upwards. You know, when we get into these times that seem like a downturn, even though we're not quite there yet, people think, Hey, our, our price is going down. I get asked a lot. Like, n nothing's going down, you know? Now if you have a homes that are a commodity and the builders sitting on a bunch of 'em in a neighborhood, obviously those can be affected that way. But everything that I'm touching is just getting more expensive, just like everything else in the world.

Vance Crowe [00:05:12] And how are your, I don't know, competitors or other people in the, in the industry doing, are they all full work? No, no slow

Dave Helland [00:05:19] People like me that are just catered towards, you know, upper end stuff, high quality work, got plenty of work, lots of it. But there's, there's trouble coming for, you know, production builders don't know how much trouble nobody knows is, doesn't seem like it's gonna be another oh 8, 0 9 kind of a situation just 'cause of the structural triggers for that event don't exist now, but, but it's definitely gonna change. You know, my wife Heather is a realtor and she's just seeing the mood change out there too. Everything used to get, you know, multiple offers and everybody's fighting to get the houses bought quickly. It goes over asking price and that's just, it's just all changing and it, and it needs to change, you know, that's just the cycle once you get old enough, you've seen it a few times and you know that this is just the way it has to be. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:06:11] And housing is a weird thing now relative to like, if you're using the same lens that you saw 2008 with, it's just not gonna work,

Dave Helland [00:06:18] Right?

Vance Crowe [00:06:19] Because not only are interest rates totally different than what they were, but like the, there seems like there isn't enough housing stock, right? So there's a whole bunch of people out there trying to buy, but eventually, and

Dave Helland [00:06:30] There's not all the adjustable rate mortgages out there that blew up that first time around. You know? So that structural thing has changed. And then, yeah, the weird part right now is just like, okay, so my little sister is 25 years old, she bought a house at 23 and she's in a mortgage that's, you know, 3% or three point something. Well, she can't go anywhere. There's no moving up to the next house because she doesn't of course have the funds to swing it at 6% or 7%. So that's the, that's the glitch in the whole program. Now. There's not the, the move up buyers that's just not happening. So, you know, and I'm not super tied into all of that because I don't, you know, sell 50 houses or a hundred houses a year or anything like that. Everything I do is custom. But that seems to be the thing that's kind of, you know, jamming up the wheels of the whole program. There's just, people can't get out 'cause the mortgages are too cheap.

Vance Crowe [00:07:23] I don't have enough like time frame of reference, but it does feel like an unusual time in our economic history in that everybody feels like something's about to hit a tipping point and it never seems to quite hit it. And so is it that we're being propagandized to believe this? Or is it that we all know that something should be happening, but somehow they're keeping the, the whole boat afloat? Yes. What's going on?

Dave Helland [00:07:47] I, I don't know. Because you know how it is, like you, all you gotta do is get on Twitter or X and and I mean, you can feel pretty dark in just a matter of of minutes, right? And, but then I think like how many years have they been predicting that it's all gonna collapse? Like it's gonna be every man for himself. And so you, you can't process things like that and you really can't even protect from things like that. So, you know, people pretend like you're gonna prepare for everything to fall apart. And it's like, man, about all you can do is keep yourself healthy, have some powder dry with some money in the bank and just hope for the best. 'cause if it gets really bad, we're all in trouble, you know? But I just don't see, I don't know, even like the idea of high, high interest rates. I mean, the first house I bought in the year 2000, it was a 7% interest rate. And you know, my dad was like, like, oh wow, what a great opportunity that is. You know? 'cause I mean, everything was coming down from the eight, you know, all the way from the eighties. So, and now we're at six something and it's the end, the end times, you know, I think people get used to whatever it is out there and life just keeps going.

Vance Crowe [00:08:55] It's definitely true that when older people, so I do all these Legacy Interviews and people talk about going through the seventies and eighties with the savings and loan crisis and the amount of interest that they had to pay on things being wildly higher, you know, 20, 22%, like crazy things that people had to do. And, but there seems to be something really that that's like hard to see. I mean, inflation is, is certainly like, even if it's slowing down, it's still going up, right?

Dave Helland [00:09:24] And

Vance Crowe [00:09:24] Like,

Dave Helland [00:09:25] And we're at a time where it's just like the, you know, the i the things that we used to trust that were sturdy government, institutions, universities, whatever news, the news, the news. I mean, the things like, you watch the news and you, I mean I, people have complained about bias for a long time, but it was never so easy to, to see the bullshit. Right? Now I don't, there's a book by Martin Gurri, The Revolt of the Public. And it's really fascinating 'cause he just talks about how, you know, over time governments kept power by controlling the information. They could tell people what they wanted them to know. And that's, they were the source. So people had to believe them. Well, now that's changed. And the truth is everywhere to see. And you can see the government story and you can see a mainstream story, and then you can get on X and see that that was a lie. But they're still acting like they can control it. And so that's where the censorship comes in and like the desire to, so they can't control

Vance Crowe [00:10:32] It. And the super weird thing where they say things that, you know, they know aren't true and they just keep go going, walking forward and like, they don't even bat an eye. Right. And it's so bizarre. It

Dave Helland [00:10:42] Is bizarre. And so like, have, have they always lied? Yes. But it was just never so easy to tell when they were lying, I think. And maybe that's what's messing with their heads. 'cause nothing makes any sense.

Vance Crowe [00:10:52] Well, I think so many narratives are breaking down that even ones that maybe should be stable are, are up for grabs. So just last week I had a woman named Claire Fox on I really respect it, like Claire Fox. I listen to

Dave Helland [00:11:06] That. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:11:06] And she in there was like, oh, there's two people, Tommy Robinson and Candace Owens, and they're bad people. And the first thing I do when somebody tells me don't listen to somebody is go find them. Right?

Dave Helland [00:11:17] See what they're saying.

Vance Crowe [00:11:18] And so I wanted to go see what they had to say. And I have to say like Tommy Robinson, I'd never really paid attention, but I was like, guys got some interesting points if those things were happening to me, right? I'd wanna know how can we stop people from having grooming gangs in my community, right? I go to listen to Candace Owen, and I have no idea if she's right or not, but she is rocking my world with like, oh, you thought you knew who Sigmund Freud was? No, you didn't, right? Oh, you thought you knew how we got into World War ii? Well, did you know this and this and this? And they may be wild conspiracy theorists, but the very narratives that I thought, these are foundational narratives. Everybody knows them to be true. Now those are even shaking. And I'm a man in my forties. So what happens to a society when the stories that you've told yourself about who we are, about who are the good guys and the bad guys? What did we accomplish? What did we learn from all that? All that starts disintegrating. How are we even a people? Well,

Dave Helland [00:12:13] That's the, that's the real question. And I think like throughout the t word, the Trump phenomenon is, is to some degree, like, do we value and respect our history and the people that built what we have? Or do we think they were all racist, evil capitalists that have created this nightmare that now we've got assault. And it's like, you know, I think that, you know, we grew up being told that, you know, American America was exceptional. And you learn the stories about settling the west and all the hardship that people went through to get us where we are. And I think those stories are important. And I think that you can desire to change something and you can see, hey, there's this problem right now and we wanna fix it and make life better. But I think it's so important to not just denigrate what everybody before you has done. Right. And that's like, you know, it is just like the food production system too. It's like we've got so much food sloshing around now that we can say, you know what? I don't like the way he's doing that and he's doing that and they're doing that, and I want to be picky. Great, we should seek to make it better. But it all got to where it is with very sensible systems that led to everybody not having to worry about starving, right? So let's just say, okay, that's why we got here. They're not bad people making all these decisions that got us to this point. Now let's try to do something different. I just think they want to castigate everybody that came before.

Dave Helland [00:13:47] And I think that that's a real thing that's messing with people's minds because how can a kid feel good about anything?

Vance Crowe [00:13:53] Yeah. I mean, and if you don't have a story, I mean, how we decide that we're a we is based on what is the story that we tell ourselves about who we are and how things work. And if we can't come to agreement, then there is no we, there's just me and you and, and totally separate communities. And so I, you know, there's some like balance between, you don't want to be, let's create narratives that aren't true. But also like, what happens if all your stories are breaking down, something is going to come to fill the void because human beings will not go without having a clear description of where we came from and what our purpose is. And without it, it makes you very vulnerable to and soothsayers and,

Dave Helland [00:14:38] And you know, like the, I like the Tommy Robinson thing with the, with the England's immigration issues and our immigration issues. It, it, it goes right to that. It's like, you know, are we a coherent country with borders, with laws that it's kind of a club that we decide who gets to come in or not? Or is it a free for all? And like, you know, the pe people in general clearly want it to be some order to the system, right? And, and now there's arguments on how many immigrants and how few immigrants and what type of people. And that's, those are all great arguments to have. But the idea that it's open and people can show up at the border and just claim amnesty and be led into the country and their system is so crappy then that we can't deal with that. I think then it further breaks down this idea that we are a, that we are a coherent country that can be defined. And I just think that's one more thing that's messing with everybody's mind, right? What's the, who are we, what are we doing? And what's the point of it all?

Vance Crowe [00:15:47] Can you have that without having religion? Can you answer those questions without having

Dave Helland [00:15:51] Faith? Man, that's a, that's a great question. And, and I, so I grew up in a, in a, with a very religious, very religious upbringing. And then I, I turned away from it. Now I'm getting back. And that's probably just the normal trajectory of a lot of people in life. But I, I do think that there's something people, like you just said, seek something to believe in a higher purpose, a higher meaning. And if you don't have a religious underpinning, something fills it. And that something now appears to just be that, like the woke or politics on either side where it's just like, this is the thing that's gonna consume our minds and define our identity and that we're gonna spend all of our time talking and arguing about, and it's not making anybody happier. We know that. Right? And so I think religion, I don't think it's 100% necessary, but I think most people need it to make sense of the world.

Vance Crowe [00:16:59] To me it seems like there is a massive resurgence of Christianity in the United States. So you have Tucker Carlson, who's the number one podcast on Spotify and Apple. He's talking about Christianity all the time. Now I, I hear it from all different directions. I mean, Dave Smith, the libertarian guy was talking on Candace Owens podcast and they were talking about God, and there's now an infusion of a language in Christianity that I never heard when I was growing up in small town America growing up Catholic, which is the talk of demons and, and like, you know, dark forces and evil. And this is really coming up into our culture in a way that is bewildering to, I don't know if it's like Irish Catholics from small town America just didn't talk about demons, but this was never a part of the language parlance. Are you seeing this?

Dave Helland [00:17:53] I'm seeing it too. And, and so there's this, it's a weird thing happening where like, so Tucker Carlson, for example, he's bringing on and giving a platform to like some bad guys, like, like the Andrew Tates of the world.

Vance Crowe [00:18:08] Now we're gonna have to go listen to Andrew Tate. Right? Right.

Dave Helland [00:18:11] But so the crazy part is, so they're talking about Christianity, which is good, and the message that comes through some of these things like that Andrew Tate said in an interview with Tucker Carlson was like, it was amazing. It was one of the most amazing interviews I've ever listened to just talking about masculinity and, and standing up for yourself and your family and your country, and how it's critical in any culture that, that men are empowered. And once you can, you know, once you can break the men, you can break the culture. And so there's really fascinating. So there's bad people saying really powerful things that are good and bringing Christianity into the conversation. I don't, my mind cannot handle it because you can't compartmentalize them. So I'm hearing all the same things you're hearing and I'm encouraged, on one hand, I'm troubled on another hand, so I'm just trying to make sense of it all.

Vance Crowe [00:19:05] Well, you said Andrew Tate bad person is a pretty, you've said it multiple times there. Why do you say that?

Dave Helland [00:19:10] Oh, he's got, I mean, just a lot of, so he's in, is he in Romania? Romania and he's, you know, getting prosecuted now for sex trafficking is what it was. And so, and he had like grooming girls for OnlyFans pages and then taking the money and doing all that stuff. If you look at some of his old stuff, it's really, really horrifying. Now, he could have changed, but he also, he's got this, you mix the, you mix the religion and then the pursuit for material wealth and it just gets kind of ugly, you know, even though there's good messages in there, I just, I don't, you know, I don't know, it's just these are such imperfect people that are being put in front of us as like this counter counterculture against the wilm that it's hard to find something you'll really can get behind fully with a lot of these people. It's just like the, like a Trump thing, you know what I mean? He's fighting on one side, but like, my God,

Vance Crowe [00:20:13] Yeah. Things

Dave Helland [00:20:13] That he says and the things that he like, terrible, you know, in

Vance Crowe [00:20:16] Order to cheer for somebody, you have to like just kind of close one eye or, or look, you know, not, not pay attention to it or be like, well that was the way they were, but now they're not that way. Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:20:26] And then I've, you know, I've come to realize like, we're all guilty of this. Like once you decide, like one of these people is kind of generally has the idea that you have for the world, then the things they say just kind of wash over you like a cool breeze and you don't even pay any attention to it. But then other people on the other side are like picking out each thing, so what about this, what about this, what about this? And you're like, well, you know, you gotta look at the whole picture. Well, that's what a good leader should be able to articulate a vision that they can actually stand behind everything that they say.

Vance Crowe [00:20:59] It's been weird, particularly in the conservative world. I don't know about the left world, but in the conservative world, there have been these heroes that have runway up and become really important and then somehow fallen off. So, I mean, Jordan Peterson would be a great example, you know, the

Dave Helland [00:21:14] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:21:14] The runup to that where he went from, you know, total obscurity to interesting guy to watch, to somebody they tried to cancel to the most important public intellectual in the western world to benzodiazepine, you know, addiction and then, and then coming back up, but being in a different

Dave Helland [00:21:30] Format.

Vance Crowe [00:21:30] And

Dave Helland [00:21:31] He's kind kind of weird now. Like, he's just so angry. Like if you look at his, his old videos when he was a professor, they're wonderful stuff, powerful, you know? But he's seems like a guy that's just kind of become a victim of his own. I don't know his, his own importance, you know? He just, he got elevated too much and then that changed him, it just seems like to me. But, you know, you read his books, God, his books are so deep, they'll turn your brain inside out. But there's good stuff in there, you know? Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:21:59] I get to meet him before, before he became like really famous. I went to his house. That's

Dave Helland [00:22:04] When you got him at the, at

Vance Crowe [00:22:05] The Farm Bureau. Yeah. But that really, that was blew my first experience with being canceled. I, there's something about the speed with which people become famous there, there, it's like not stable.

Dave Helland [00:22:21] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:22:21] And Rob Long, who I had on the podcast not long ago, he had something to say that keeps ringing around in my head. He is like, I don't really want to listen to or read anything that somebody didn't hammer on for weeks or months or years. And then read it. Like, I want them to have written it down and then ripped it apart and written it again. And only then do I want to put those distilled ideas in my head. And when I think about these people that are really alluring as mob leaders, whether they're Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan, anybody, they're very clever people. Yeah. But they're clever in a very fast and somewhat fragile way. And it's probably a good rule of thumb to be like, maybe I should only be reading things that have been distilled over a long period of time.

Dave Helland [00:23:09] Well, and then, and then that touches on like, yeah, the reading the books, like a book that's on paper that was written high quality, high quality work that's been around for a long time has stood the test of time. Like there's value in bringing that stuff into your mind, right? But that's so much harder. It's so much harder than just like, you know, scrolling through. And so well, you

Vance Crowe [00:23:31] Don't get the like, ooh, what's going on? Like, ooh, that feels good.

Dave Helland [00:23:35] And you know, just the, the just the draw that that phone has to you when it's just even on, right? It's like it's gotta be off or in another room. Or else, like for me, reading, reading is hard, you know? I gotta have, I just gotta say there, I'm not touching this, it is away from me and I'm reading a book, and then you can get the focus you need, you know? And I think that's just so to your point, everything's happening so fast and there's so much content and we're really taking in way too much, like what's the right amount of news and information or, you know, commentary on x to take in, like, you want to, you want to know what's going on you. And you can't just be that first blast. You gotta then have some context around it. But then somewhere there's a line that you cross where it's like you take, you got in too deep, you took in too much, and now you're more confused than when you started. So stopping at that sweet spot is the key, but I don't know how

Vance Crowe [00:24:34] You do it. Well, and I don't know that there really is that sweet spot. 'cause doing the ag tribes report now, once a week, I'm trying to put together news stories and saying, all right, what's really going on here? And now I've hit the point where you're starting to do a story on milk pricing, right? And you're like, oh, this is gonna be simple. How much does the farmer, how much milk does the farmer produce? And what price are producers willing to pay for it? Oh no, wait, actually it's way more complicated than that. They're regulated and the government chooses how much money the producer owes the milk farmer based on did you produce cheese or whey protein or skim milk? Like, okay, well where did this system come from? And you start falling down into how complicated any one individual story is that trying to articulate that to an audience, which is just a game of telephone. So my description of what's going on is bullshit, because it would take years to understand this whole system. And then somebody hears it on my podcast and tries to relay that into the rest of their world. Like it's a, it's, it's, It's a never ending thing of abstraction on upon abstraction upon

Dave Helland [00:25:41] Abstraction. And it's impossible. It's there, there's another book, the Paradox of Choice.

Vance Crowe [00:25:44] Oh yeah, you

Dave Helland [00:25:44] Read that one.

Vance Crowe [00:25:45] Yeah. You

Dave Helland [00:25:45] Know, we're talking about choices are supposed to make you happy, right? But then it, what it required, you know, back when there was the phone company and you paid a phone bill, you don't have to research anything. It's like you, you get a phone and you're paying these people once a month. Well now there's so many different choices, which requires expertise and all these things. So now you're taking up your bandwidth, trying to learn about all these different things, right? And so we do that for our media. Well, you can't, you can't do it. So what do you do? You have to then default to some of the bigger names. I'm gonna, I'm gonna listen to what this guy says. And that guy might just, might, you know, be a guy on X or he might be a politician. And then that's, I think where too many of these things are then packaged up together in this political persona that I just said, where we were saying, well, I kind of know that this guy kind of wants what I want, so I, I'm not gonna pay attention to the details of this, this, and this. And then now we're being led around by demagogues all the time because we really don't even know what they're doing. And are they even changing anything? Nothing seems to change. Like every, you know, no matter what administration you've got, we've got the same things we're fighting about. So what does that mean? And this, so this is why we're also crazy because we think you can change it, but nothing ever changes. And where does that lead us then? Why care at all?

Vance Crowe [00:27:08] Yeah. And, and what is there to know or believe in, right? Well, one thing that's changed for both you and I is that both of us have, I don't know about you, I've almost entirely quit drinking. I think you have entirely quit drinking.

Dave Helland [00:27:21] Yes. What prompted

Vance Crowe [00:27:23] That?

Dave Helland [00:27:25] You know, so I've been, you know, for years just like, oh, I'm gonna, gonna slow down, you know? And, and so you slow down for a little while, but then you gotta social event. You're with friends doing this and doing that, and all the habits kick in and you just, and

Vance Crowe [00:27:41] When you say slow down, what do you mean

Dave Helland [00:27:42] Slow down on drinking? So, you know, when you drink, it sneaks up on you. So back, you start drinking in, in college, let's say, and, and it's just for fun. Well then it's, you know, you start drinking just in the evening, just having a drink to relax. And then pretty soon you're having two. And then it gets to be you're, you know, you're drinking every day and you're drinking more at social events. So it's just a lot. So from a health aspect alone, you think like, well this is bad and so I'm gonna try not to do that first way back. Tried to do it just for money. Like, like we're not gonna spend money on that. That's stupid. But then I just kept falling into drinking too much at events. So then I had the wise idea, this was somewhere in my twenties that, you know, like, drink too much at these events and maybe I just need to drink more often. Yeah. And then it won't be so, so that seemed like a good plan. Well, that, that didn't work. And so I just drank more often and then still drank too much when I got together socially. And

Vance Crowe [00:28:45] And when you say drink too much, you mean you wake up the next day and Yeah. Why did say that? Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:28:49] You don't feel good. And then that, you know, the what really got me is, so you're out late, you have drinks, you have a lot of fun. You wake up the next day and you're just like, ooh, you know, I don't feel very good about that. So then what do you do? You talk to the people that you were, hey, you know, well it was a good time last night and you just try to feel everybody out and see if you did damage. And then you cover yourself with the laughter and the good stories and then everything's fine again. Right. But there was just kind of an anxiety, it just developed in me that just never went away. So that was the first piece. And then the health aspect, you just start getting into fitness and health. And I remember talking to a guy who was just a, a beast, an absolute specimen of fitness. And he like didn't want to take aspirin, didn't want to take anything 'cause it, but he drank a lot. And I thought, so wow, that doesn't even make any sense to me. Right. It is inconsistent. Even though the guy looked great, like, well, this can't be that good. And then right about that time, Andrew Huberman, you know, the Huberman Lab podcast, had a podcast talked about on the cellular level, what happens when you drink alcohol and it's an unavoidable thing, this is actually happening to you. And then talked about the anxiety that comes from drinking, even moderate drinking that comes and I'm like, I was listening to 'em, like yeah. All of those things. So that, and then had a son at 15 at the time, and I just thought, how do I tell him that he shouldn't when I'm drinking?

Dave Helland [00:30:29] So basically I just decided to quit. And that was two full years ago. And yeah, for the first year and a half, you can ask my wife. I complained about it like almost all the time. I mean, it was my choice, but I was still just mad about it. 'cause there were so much of my life was associated with alcohol. Just the, you know, all the fun things, every event. And yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:30:52] You begin to find out that you didn't realize, which it's very difficult to distinguish which events were fun or which ones weren't based on alcohol. But you can't see that until you've had a long time away from it.

Dave Helland [00:31:02] Well, and all of the social stuff and, and, and fond memories, but you take away the alcohol and it's like, you can't just be talking to people for four and five hours. You know, you can't do it, you can't sustain it. You realize,

Vance Crowe [00:31:17] Well, you can't do it. I i in a

Dave Helland [00:31:20] Social setting, like, it's just not that interesting, you know? And so you realize that, okay, so that's, that's an, that was to me an awareness like, okay, I feel differently now. This is not as great as it once was. And so alcohol just kind of masked what was valuable and what was bringing value. I could, I just, it made everything seem valuable, but it was really the alcohol that I was seeking. And so now, you know, do less, but it's just higher value stuff, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:31:54] For me, I, I quit drinking, I don't know, about two years ago, I think. I think you and I were about the same timeline the last time we talked. And there's a couple of times when I've had drinks, it's almost exclusively been when I'm with older guys. Like, you know, my father-in-law, whatever. And the next day I wake up and I'm like, I feel horrible. And that sense of anxiety where you're like, what did I say? Did I do something foolish? And you start getting further and further away from that and you're like, I don't have to wake up every Sunday morning and be like, oh man, why did I do that? Which I had for decades at that point, right? And you start being like, man, life is a lot better. I didn't have the, like, it, it's not hard for me to not drink. That was a, but you know, like there are other vices that I took on as soon as, as soon as I cut alcohol out, right? And now I'm like shoveling ice cream in my face and

Dave Helland [00:32:46] You know, eating

Vance Crowe [00:32:47] Crackers still no end.

Dave Helland [00:32:48] And if you could just quit and not have it be a thing, that would be great. But I just, I just loved it too much. And I, because all of the behaviors that I connected with it, you know, one by one they had to be broken. And then, you know, I've got really good friends and, and at first it's weird. They're like, you know, nobody knows what to do with you for a little while because you've just, you, you're the guy that's changed. But now it's just what it is and it's fine. Well

Vance Crowe [00:33:11] It's, this is another thing just like Christianity that's coming up, giving up alcohol has definitely increased in volume. There is a lot more men I think that are quitting drinking than ever were 10 years ago.

Dave Helland [00:33:24] Yeah. And I just, you know, I wonder, I wonder what's driving that, you know? I mean 2020 just kind of blew up the, I don't know if you've seen the stats, I don't remember the numbers, but the, the, the alcohol consumption in the country in 2020. It, it's like off the charts. Oh really? Yeah. Exploded and, 'cause everybody's home.

Vance Crowe [00:33:44] That was the first time I'd ever had a friend call me during the day as an adult being drunk. Exactly. And being like, whoa, what's going on here? Right? Like,

Dave Helland [00:33:52] And so, you know, I don't know if that just was a blow off top of the, the whole cycle of everything and people start looking around and like, yeah, every gotta make a change. And once a few more people are saying that and they're talking to each other, then that drives a, a movement. But, you know, I it's, it just takes up a, a lot of bandwidth of your life just chasing the, chasing the social events that are related to alcohol. And so Heather and I both we're done with that and, and glad to be done with it though I still, I still, I still miss it. So

Vance Crowe [00:34:25] There are drinks I like, you know, that I, you know, I'd love to have a good, you know, scotch or whiskey or something like that, but outside of that it's not, it's, I'm, but I also discovered that the biggest reason alcohol impacted me is that it impacted my sleep. And if I don't have, I don't have to have a lot of sleep. I need about six and a half hours high

Dave Helland [00:34:44] Quality. But

Vance Crowe [00:34:44] It's gotta be high quality. And if I've messed it up by imbibing or smoking or doing anything, I would even say eating junk food. Now I've come to the realization now that I've gotten my arms around that, that having a bowl of ice cream at night impacts how deeply I sleep. Which has really been surprising to me.

Dave Helland [00:35:01] I isn't it, I think it's great when you get older and like, you can actually say to people how sleep is important to you. Everybody like for, I mean, for so many years you're just like, oh, I don't need any sleep. And you're just an idiot when you don't get to sleep. And, and you know, my friends and I, we, I was just talking about this the other day, you know, for all of our hunting trips and everything, we drive all night, you know, and then get there and you think you're gonna be able to just go, well everybody's grouchy, angry at each other, angry at the world. 'cause we we're tired, right? And so now, you know, good night's sleep on the front end is built into the plans.

Vance Crowe [00:35:34] What's a good night's sleep for you?

Dave Helland [00:35:37] I'm so go to bed at nine out of bed at four 30, a little bit of reading when I get to bed. So you're talking alarm goes off at four. I'm a snoozer, haven't worked out the gig.

Vance Crowe [00:35:49] Oh yeah.

Dave Helland [00:35:50] So I lose

Vance Crowe [00:35:50] Bad people, so I lose a half. So I lose a half hour on the tail end.

Dave Helland [00:35:54] So six and a half high quality hours in there is good for me. But if I get like interrupted sleep, it's like, it's like it goes, I don't know, somehow you lose a little sleep in the middle of the night and that has a supersized effect on me. So yeah. I'm about the same as you.

Vance Crowe [00:36:12] Yeah. Sleep is one of those things that if I, one of the questions I asked her during Legacy Interviews is, you know, if you could go back in your life and give this person some advice, what would it be? And I heard this old woman say, I tell 'em how important sleep is. That's what I would've told her. And you're like, actually that's probably the best. If I could go convince myself all these years, like focus on sleep, there's a whole bunch of problems that would've worked their way out on their own.

Dave Helland [00:36:35] Well first of all, you're not up late enough to get yourself into to doing anything stupid. That's the other thing. You know? And, and those nights where you're just like staying up watching the same dumb movie, you know, and then, and that was another thing that alcohol did, it just kept me up later. You know, you just kind of stay up just doing something stupid. So yeah. You know, I, so a lot of people say like, wow, when I was younger I could recover better, right? And like, okay, maybe there's some truth to that. But I also just think when you're older, you know what feeling good is and you wanna feel good. And so like when you don't feel good, you know it. And then you can identify the reason why you don't when you're younger. I think it's just all, you're just not focusing in on all those things and you're living your lives and you're thinking you can stay up till two and be up at six and feel good. And so can't, are we actually more that much more resilient for a lack of sleep when we're 20? Or do we just like, we just know what works now and we want to implement our plan. I think that's what it is. Personally.

Vance Crowe [00:37:36] Living your lies is one that as soon as you say that, I'm like, Ooh, I did a lot of living lies, right? And, and in your twenties and you're like, you can so easily lie to yourself. Yeah. And be like, nah, that's not that big of a deal. This isn't gonna hurt me. And you know, you know, the whole time you're doing it,

Dave Helland [00:37:52] And that's the thing everybody knows, whether it's diet and exercise or whatever, you know what you need to do. It is not a secret. Now we'll read a book and like, oh, I get my new motivation and these are great points. And then you get on a program, you do all these things, but everybody knows what they need to do, but it's so freaking hard to do it. And so you seek these other things just to, I don't know, just add a little bit of, of weight on the scale, hopefully tipping you in the right direction.

Vance Crowe [00:38:19] Well I think that like, you know what you're supposed to do, it comes down to that dialogue in your brain, right? That, that like, I need to get up. No, you don't. You can go back to sleep. It might be better for you to get more rest now instead. Or you hurt your toe and you don't want to hurt him more, right. By going out and going for a jog, do you have that inner voice that you talk with?

Dave Helland [00:38:41] Oh yeah. My inner voice is a and I, I end up being a harsh, I say a lot of harsh things to myself, which they say is bad, but it's like sometimes I gotta beat down. Like, you know, hey, no, you know, you idiot. Don't be weak. You know, you, you just gotta, I mean, it is really, really hard to do the things that you're supposed to do every day. I think that's the the first thing that people just, you know, if you're trying to into self-improvement, you just gotta accept that. Like, it is hard. It, it is, it is not complicated, but it is very, very difficult. And so those two things often don't go together, right. But, so because it's so difficult then we seek all these complicated solutions, you know, just look at like workout programs that people get into, like right off the streets, you know, we're gonna get you in a 60 day program and you're going to, you know, do this, this, this, and this. And people can just, through force of will do that for a short period of time. But you can't sustain that, right? And so you gotta find something that like is something that fires you up that you actually look forward to do and then you can get some results reasonably quickly, but then just ease into it. But like the whole culture of, you know, if you tell people like, Hey, don't expect anything for the first year. Nobody wants to get started in that,

Vance Crowe [00:40:03] Right? It's gonna, could be dead in a year, a year down the path, right? So one of the things that my wife and I don't fight very often, but even this morning as I was walking out the door, we had a little dust up and like I was really frustrated and I left afterwards and I'm driving to work and I'm like, why is this difficult? And really the core of the disagreement came down to she was checking that the answer that I gave to her before was the answer I still wanted, right? So she had asked me a question before I, we had talked all our way through it, I had given her an answer and she's like, do you still want this answer? Now for me, if somebody opens up a question and says, do you still want this? It means they want something else. And so they're trying to convince me of it creates

Dave Helland [00:40:43] Doubt, but

Vance Crowe [00:40:44] My wife's actually not that way. If I think about my wife, she can bring up a question, explore it again, and then set it down and then explore it again. It's just the way in her nature, me, the way that I stay on the path of, of the righteous and good and narrow is I make a decision and then I don't ever deviate. Because if I deviate now I'm way over here, I'm gonna go down the wrong path. And if I have to have that dialogue with my inner self, my inner self, my inner bitch, whatever that is, wins a lot of the time. And so I make decisions and then I don't fuck with those decisions. Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:41:20] Because, and so, and there's some like that revisiting stuff create creates doubt. Like, so with customers, with clients, you know, like they'll choose a countertop and then like countertop company, you know, we've chosen said this is our selection and then somebody fires something back just confirming that this is your selection. That opens up chaos because like, first of all, it's like, I don't know, was that our selection? Nobody can remember. This was like three months ago and we decided, and so then you, I'm obligated then to go to the client like, okay, I'm just making sure this is what you want. And then it's like a, you know, well yeah, we think so, but then, then there's doubt comes in. And what was certain is now doubt. And I tell people like, I mean obviously there has to be a long process to get everything just right. But once you've decided, if you put in the legwork on the front end, decide and forget about it and people, it will work out. Now if you're making quick decisions and not thinking about it, bad things can happen. But people almost never regret what they've choose chosen if they engage in a genuine process of discovery. Right? But then, yeah, once that's done, just be done with it. Move on.

Vance Crowe [00:42:32] Well I think of this just like the snooze bar, right? Like, I, I cannot do snooze. I have to make a decision. I will be out of bed at this time.

Dave Helland [00:42:41] Do you get up just like that?

Vance Crowe [00:42:42] Oh yeah, no, no question. In fact, I don't even set an alarm. In fact, setting an alarm only gives me more anxiety. If I set an alarm, I'll wake up throughout the night to be like, is that alarm about to go off? I wouldn't want it. I'm middle child of seven. So you didn't wanna disturb anybody else, otherwise you'd be a pariah. So I'm, I'm very much like if I make a decision then I just execute on that decision. And anytime I start making deals with myself, I always choose the easier, like, bullshit option that allows me to do something dumb. And so I just, I just don't negotiate with

Dave Helland [00:43:14] Myself. 'cause that's what our brain is always doing. Like we talked about before, it's trying to get you to do the easy thing and why wouldn't it? Because it's easier, but it's not, it's never right, it's always wrong. It's always the wrong thing. And you know, I'll find myself, you, I'm gonna get up and run, you know? And then like, ooh, you know, I got some work to do and God, I don't know, if I got time I'll run.

Vance Crowe [00:43:35] Wouldn't it be great If I had that time to work on that things, then

Dave Helland [00:43:37] I'll feel great. And then when I, I'll have all my stuff done and then I'll go out for my run and I'll be, yeah, but then, you know, five o'clock, ooh, you know, gosh, how should I run tonight? I don't know, I guess I lifted yesterday, maybe I need a rest day. You know, it's just endless. And like, to me, the only way around that is a plan. And like, you make your plan and you gotta, you gotta work the plan. And, and, and now you can't always, you know, I mean, when you got kids and you got things change, so you can't get weird about it, but you gotta know the difference when it's an actual, when you got a good reason to change the plan and not just some weakness, right? And that's the whole key to everything. Well,

Vance Crowe [00:44:17] So you're a mountain climber and we talked a little bit about this the last time, but you must spend quite a bit of time in your own head while you're climbing a mountain.

Dave Helland [00:44:26] Yeah, yeah, a lot. It, it, it's, and that's the, that's the best part of it. But, so like you get, you know, there's just all these different phases. So every, every mountain climb, there's a big approach. Like my son Drake and I just went out to the Beartooth Wilderness in Montana to do Granite Peak. And we did this, this Huckleberry Creek approach is what it's called. And it's through the forest and these winding trails. And they're not like good trails. They're just kind of footpaths through the forest. And it was, I think it was nine or 10 miles in, I forget to where we camped. So that approach is kind of this, you know, it's like you wanna climb the mountain, but you gotta get through this approach. So it's kind of just a necessary hoop to jump through. And that, so that whole time you're just thinking ahead to tomorrow, right? Then you get to your camp and you're gonna do your summit day and, and you know, that's when things get a lot more real and you're just thinking you gonna, what's the weather gonna be? Like, what's our plan? What time we get up in the morning, you know how long? And you never know what the hell's going on either. Like how many hours it's gonna take to get to the summit. You're just guessing. You go on some guidebook and try to find out what somebody else said. And so then summit day is, you start early and it's really difficult and you're just hating life. 'cause it takes so many hours to get up to the part that you really wanna do. And that's the summit. But, and so while you're grinding through that is when like my, your mind starts to really attack you and it just says like, you know, what are you doing?

Dave Helland [00:46:01] You should stop all this things. 'cause it wants the easy way out. But then if you can just get through that and you're just going one foot in front of the other, then that's when you get in this beautiful state of mind where you're just, you're just going, there's no thoughts or anything. So now why

Vance Crowe [00:46:22] Do you say that's beautiful where

Dave Helland [00:46:23] You're not thoughts? 'cause how many times do you get a gist? I mean, really all you're thinking about is there, there's no actual thoughts. It's just your body moving forward and like, you know, you're, you're not worried about your working, you're not worried about your family, you're not worried about, you know, what you're doing tomorrow. You're not worrying about anything other than like right now because it's so, so uncomfortable that you can't dwell on how uncomfortable it is. You just gotta think about, I always just think about like my whole body, my feet and my ankles and my knees and my, all the way up and just everything working together. And you just get in this beautiful flow and it's just really cool. And then, you know, if you do that long enough, you get that summit and the feeling of that is just amazing. And like shortly before we summit, when you know that you're gonna make it when you just know, 'cause you always had doubt all the way up until when, you know, and that's the moment that it just

Vance Crowe [00:47:22] Because the snowstorm might come up or, or

Dave Helland [00:47:24] You don't know if you can handle it, you don't know. Yeah. Thunderstorms, you know, when you're in the mountains in the summertime, thunderstorms come up in the afternoon. It's really, really dangerous. You know, this one that Drake and I just did, it was, you know, fairly technical top, you know, we're, you're climbing with ropes up the last several hundred feet and you've never been there before. You don't really know how you're supposed to do it. It's kind, it's, it's scary, right? And so you just, you just don't know. You don't know if you're gonna hack it. And then eventually you, once you know for sure, just that feeling is irreplaceable. And then you get the summit and then you come back down and then you always have a long grueling descent. And the descent when you're mountain climbing is actually the most dangerous. I I, I think it's like 80% of the injuries and deaths climbing come on the descent because you've burned up all your energy. And a lot of times people think, oh, the climb is over, right? Because I've made it to the top. Well, you gotta get back down and now gravity is working against you with falls are more likely stepping down. But, so we had this super long summit day on this last one, and my son Drake, who was 17, he had never had a, a long day like this. And we were out, I think we were 16 hours into the day and it was dark and we still had several hours back through these massive boulder fields. Very treacherous, just dangerous terrain. And I said, how are you doing?

Dave Helland [00:48:56] And he's like, I'm just starting to shut down. And I said, well, we can stay out here. We had food, we had, you know, waterproof gear, we could stay out here, we'd be fine. And he's like, I don't wanna stay out here. I said, we gotta get back. It's your only choice then. And I said, you know, way you're feeling right now in normal life you got zero to 10 fatigue scale, right? I said, you're way past 10 now you're in a zone you've never been in before and it can't, it can't be measured and it has no context. But now you're just like muscle and bone and blood and you're moving forward and that's all you do and that's all you think about. And I said, and here's what I promise you, you will never forget this day for the rest of your life. So we had another three hours and he made it back and we're back at the 10, at 1:30 AM and we're feeling great. We're eating and we're happy and we're laughing. And that's the weird part. Like you didn't have any energy, but you did. You just gotta access it. And that's the thing I love about mountain climate. Just you dig, I end up digging deeper to find something that you don't get to in normal life.

Vance Crowe [00:50:10] I really like that concept of you, you know, if you were in your regular life, you already crossed 10 and that would've put you in bed and everybody would've been like, oh, he's really tired. Tired, yeah, just give

Dave Helland [00:50:20] Him

Vance Crowe [00:50:20] A break. But you're way past that and you still have more to go.

Dave Helland [00:50:25] Yeah. And, and then that, so that's this fascinating part. So I told him like, you know, so then you take that back to your normal life. Now I'm not saying that you can always have this broad-minded context in normal life. You know, sometimes you just get crazy, but are you really that tired are you really, are you really to the point where you can't go on any further? Or is it just your emotional state is such that you can't access that energy? And I just think that's a, it's just a great thing to fall back on at times to just know that, you know what you're, it's not really as dire as you think it is right now. You got more, you've gotta figure out how to get it

Vance Crowe [00:51:04] In regular life. I think one of the things that I struggle with the most in my forties is I have so many things to do. I don't always know what to do. And I find like, I, I wake myself up being like, oh, you just kinda walked around in a circle for the last hour and a half. Like, that's not good.

Dave Helland [00:51:22] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:51:22] And, but like, when you're on a path, you're climbing a mountain, you know, that's the top of the mountain. I'm gonna keep going in that direction until I get there. And that's the way back to camp.

Dave Helland [00:51:32] Yeah. But

Vance Crowe [00:51:33] Regular life doesn't afford such a clear path.

Dave Helland [00:51:36] No, it's much more complicated. And, and that's again, that's like you boil down when you're in the mountains. It's just, it's just this beautiful simplicity where, I mean, really all you're, you're thinking about where you're going and then water, the food you have, you know, are you, are you dry? Are you wet? You know, just those kind of just basic existence and, and you realize like you just don't, and those moments, you don't need anything else, nor could you accommodate anything else. And so just to get out of the world in all of its distraction, I just think those wilderness trips in general and climbing specifically is just so, just so good for people.

Vance Crowe [00:52:22] What I hear you describing with, that you did with your son is kind of a summer climb up a mountain, maybe a big one, but that's not, you've got ice spikes on and you're right, like doing an axe up. Do you do that kind of mountain climbing? Yeah,

Dave Helland [00:52:34] I've done a lot of it. So, I mean, I've climbed, so climbed the Matterhorn in, in Switzerland and Mont Blanc in France and climbed in Ecuador in Argentina and you know, did Denali summited Denali in 2019. And then, so all of this different skills come into play on the bigger mountains. You know, the more complicated climbs you, you know, the, the ones that you see that are popular and publicized are the mountains are commercialized. And so now that's still great and people are going, putting forth effort and doing super, super hard things. But then the deeper you get into it and the more skills you build, just the, the less commercialized and more isolated you can get. And that's super sweet. So, you know, Denali's a big mountain that's commercialized on, on the standard route, but on the West buttress route. But we did this West rib route, which is a little different. So we were able to be alone on Denali. And so, yeah, I just trying to go everywhere I can, I'm trying to build all the skills necessary to do these more complex climbs. And that does not necessarily mean big mountains that anybody's heard of before are

Vance Crowe [00:53:56] All mountains climbable.

Dave Helland [00:53:58] There are some mountains that are crumbly enough, like the glaciers have receded enough, like on one side of it that it's just crumbly and just like unclimbable. But, and I think every mountain can be climbed. It just takes more, you know, has human skill and knowledge keeps expanding. You know, what was impossible 30 years ago now, like a lot of people can do. And it's happening and climbing too. So basically there's people climbing everything.

Vance Crowe [00:54:28] And when you think about the next mountain to climb, what is it that that makes you choose this one rather than that one?

Dave Helland [00:54:35] Well, so depends on like, okay, sun's coming with, we're, we're gonna do Rainier next summer. Okay. But then I also want to go back to Switzerland and we're gonna climb the Eiger next, hopefully, hopefully next summer also. And so, you know, the Eiger is just this mountain that's super famous and, and it's just got this just evil looking north face that is super scary and it's part of climbing lore. So I'm gonna climb that one. And then, but it all depends. Like, you go out to, you go to Europe and, and you got these, the Europe's crazy because like the mountains are so easily accessible because they've got all these tele freaks that chairlifts. So you'd be like down in Chamonix and somebody, you know, sipping wine and having a nice dinner and then like, you know, 90 minutes later you're up in, on a glacier in full alpine conditions. So it's like super accessible. So you can stay there, you go up and climb a lot of these peaks, you know, just one day up and down. And then you just can hit a bunch of them in the area and you can have like everything from easy walkups to these like super crazy things that are way beyond my capacity. So, you know, so there's that experience. And then there's the big expeditions. And the big expeditions would be like a Denali or AUA in Argentina where you're out there for a, a couple of weeks or three weeks. And I like the expeditions 'cause you just, it's like time changes. You're just, you're like, there's rest days, you know?

Dave Helland [00:56:08] 'cause basically you climb up to a camp, cash gear, come back down, sleep here, then the next day you move up to the next camp, stay there. And so you basically climb the mountain twice just to acclimate. But the, the time you spend, it's just like, time gets weird because you're spending like all day doing nothing at times. Like literally nothing. Just resting, laying in tents, stretching, reading a book. And on Denali, I was in a tent for three and a half days for a snowstorm and we were just stuck in there for three and a half days. Three of us. And you know, you'd think that would make you insane, but it just, it went by pretty quickly. So there's just some beautiful things about both of those. Lots of climbing on short climbs or just a long stretched out expedition experience. And I just like 'em both.

Vance Crowe [00:56:59] And when you think about your technical ability getting better at mountain climbing, you presumably have to do things you haven't done before. Yeah. How do you keep going without going too far?

Dave Helland [00:57:09] Guides? I go with guides and so I've got two different guides that I, that I go with. And they're friends now and you know, they just, they're experts and so you just, they, you're paying them to be your friend to some degree and to just show you, show you the ropes and then you gain experience with this person who you have total trust in and then you strike out on your own on something simpler than that and just build, you know, 'cause there's no substitute for just doing it alone to have the skills built. So, and I'm starting late enough in light life. I'll never be an expert at it, but I'm trying to do it as much as I can and learn as much as I can

Vance Crowe [00:57:52] When I, so we went to, what's the angel's head in, in Bryce Canyon, right? Like

Dave Helland [00:57:57] Where, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:57:58] And my, I tried to tell my wife as we were walking up, like, I'm not super comfortable with heights, like I've done mountain climbing before, but I, or like I've done a couple fourteeners in, in Colorado. But like, the path was relatively, like, there was plenty of space. I didn't have to look over an edge and see like, oh, there you're dropping forever. You know, you'll, you'll know you're gonna die before you're dead. And it holds no allure to me to be in a spot where you can like drop a rock off and it just falls and falls and falls and

Dave Helland [00:58:30] See. And I just, I love that feeling of exposure. Now it takes it, it takes some, you gotta build the tolerance to it, right? But I, I just love that feeling where you nose you're secure. If they call, call it low risk, high consequence where it's like, you know, I'm secure. I'm standing here, I got a hold of it, I'm fine, but if, but if you slipped and fell, you're dead. You know, I just,

Vance Crowe [00:58:53] Or if somebody comes by and bumps you, that would be like, I think I had an older brother that gave me enough fear. Like I, I have like an ever present fear that like, I'm just gonna get nudged and like, you're gone.

Dave Helland [00:59:03] So I've got a, a video from a 360 degree camera on a helmet on the summit of the Matterhorn and it's this knife edge ridge like that. And you're walking. And now those three sixties make it look a little more aggressive than it actually is. Like it falls off to the end of the earth and you see us like stepping around people who are coming up the summit. Oh yeah. It's wild. Do this. Yeah. It's on my YouTube page and it is and it is, it is wild. And so I just, and that was one the Matterhorn like, so this is back in 2017. I was scared outta my mind before, like the day before I was, I was in almost in tears by myself, just like, I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can do it. I didn't know, 'cause I knew that knife edge was up at the summit and it's basically, you, you know, you fall, you die kind of exposure the whole way. And then we just did it and it was great. And I, that was like this moment where it's, you know, to have such fear and then like have it work out. Like you can't not learn something from that.

Vance Crowe [01:00:07] I mean, I, I'm sure you could learn things from him, but I like, there are very few things that give me crippling fear. Well that's, and that one gives me crippling fear and

Dave Helland [01:00:14] That's normal. And I'll never forget the guy that I first started climbing with. So we were gonna go climb the leaning tower out in Yosemite and it's just big rock face that leans, leans back at you. And, and it was the first time I'd ever done anything like that. And then I'm just working through it and we're tied into the rope and, and you realize like, it's just the rope that's gonna keep me safe. Right. And I said that to him and he looked at me, he said, that's climbing. And, and now I've actually said that to other people. 'cause you're like, oh my God, you trust that rope? Yes, you have to. That's all you got. If you don't trust the rope, then you can't be climbing. And, and so, you know, how where does that trust come from? Just, I guess everybody else trusts it. And so the, like we were coming down Granite Peak in Montana and there's these rappel stations where it's just like a nylon strap that like put hooked around a rock and it's, you know, the size of your pinky and it's like somebody's left it there, you know, guides presumably. And like that's what you gotta hook into and repel down. And you know, Drake is like, I mean, is that gonna hold us? Do

Vance Crowe [01:01:26] You know the guide? Did he tie or not?

Dave Helland [01:01:28] Right? And he just like, you know, I believe it will hold us. And it's, and and that's, you know, obviously there's things that are tattered or ripped and you can't trust it, but it's just weird. You end up just having this intuitive sense of like, yeah, that'll hold, but you gotta be right. And that's the other beautiful thing about climbing is like, it's just this ultimate personal responsibility. Like, it's really not dangerous if you don't make a mistake, but if you make a mistake, you got big problems. And, and I guess I like that.

Vance Crowe [01:02:01] Yeah. There's something deeply like trusting yourself about all of this and trusting the people that you're next to 'cause

Dave Helland [01:02:09] Yeah. 'cause and you're out there like in the, and in the mountains, like the whole idea, they're indifferent, right? Like they mountains don't care if you fall or if you don't fall. They're just being mountains and there's just something that, you know, I don't know, there's just something, we're just, we have so much safety built around us in our normal life. And I guess there's just, to me, some value in just going out being, having all that stripped away. But

Vance Crowe [01:02:34] When you have like, I think there's like a profound realization that most men should learn. I don't know if women need to learn it or not. I'm not a woman, but for me, I remember going surfing in waves that were way bigger than I should have been in. And I'm on this wave and like I realize like if I fall off of this, I will die. There's like, there's very little chance that I'll be able to swim back to shore and you realize like, well this ocean wave can't be pleaded with like, I, I can't say like, oh please don't hurt me. There's no one to help me. It's just me out in nature. And that realization humbles you in a way where you're like, oh, nature doesn't actually care about me. Right? Like it's, it, it's totally indifferent and that indifference is like truly horrifying if you think about it. 'cause it's like whether you're here or not, you'll be gone and it will continue in whatever form it's in. And that's something that like when you have that realization, you're maybe one with the universe in a deeper way.

Dave Helland [01:03:36] Yeah. And it's interesting, you, you mentioned if women feel that, and I, I guess I'm sure there are, I know there are some women that seek that adventure, but it seems to be so inherent in, in young males. I mean that's why I do such stupid stuff, right? But, so to be able to harness that stupid in something that we're, we're, you know, skill and care and knowledge can, can protect you from the consequences, but you're still taking these risks. Like it's this perfect mix. And so maybe if there was more outlets like that, maybe kids would do less dumb stuff. I don't know. Maybe not.

Vance Crowe [01:04:14] Would you go back to your twenties if you couldn't bring your wisdom with you?

Dave Helland [01:04:19] Oh man, that's a tough one. I don't know. Twenties were pretty, you know, here's what I think about my twenties. I didn't realize how good being in my twenties were when I was in my twenties. You know what I mean? Like, I just kinda let that slide by and kind of ball is just stress, you know, the young man's stress trying to figure out,

Vance Crowe [01:04:40] Yeah, yeah. Oh

Dave Helland [01:04:41] God, how am I gonna get what I want kind of a thing. What

Vance Crowe [01:04:42] Am I gonna grow up to be Right

Dave Helland [01:04:44] Now I don't look back on my twenties and and long for them, nor do I have my thirties and really even my forties now. So every decade has gotten better for me. I suppose just to get more years I'd probably go back. But if just to be a dipshit again, I don't know. I don't

Vance Crowe [01:05:01] Know. Yeah, I feel that same way. Like my wife has like very much a nostalgia that I'm always afraid of. Not about her twenties, but like our kids are growing up and oh, are we gonna miss that? And it's just not something that I'm used to. And I think a lot about like, well if I could go back to my twenties not being able to change what I know. 'cause if you could go back to your twenties and be as wise as you are in your forties or fifties, you'd just kill it. Unstoppable. Dangerous. But like if you had to go back and like, to me it'd be like, I don't know, I'd be rolling the dice again. I'm not so sure I'd arrive here twice. Yeah, right. Like it takes

Dave Helland [01:05:36] A lot of luck. Yeah, it takes a lot of luck. And you know, I said being dipshit and obviously there's a lot of people in their twenties that are doing great things. And I did some good things in my twenties, but I just, the way my brain worked and, and the things that I just, this, you know, I just like how did I get that those habits built in my twenties that was just like, just

Vance Crowe [01:05:58] Destructive things? Well the alcohol being one of those ones that's like a synthetic form of adventure, right? Where you can convince yourself. I mean, I remember my buddies and I, we were living in northern California and we would go out to a bar and stay out there till two in the morning playing darts and trying to catch 'em outta the air. Right? Well it is stupid, right? But like to a 20-year-old that's drinking and trying to impress girls like this is like a lot of fun and an adventure. But like all those nights blended together and don't, didn't really amount to much think

Dave Helland [01:06:27] Of all the problems that could get solved that the girls held the, the the young men to higher standards. Yeah. They

Vance Crowe [01:06:34] Did think it was pretty cool if you could grab a dart outta air. It's cool. We called it Kill Dart. It was a pretty fun game. Not everybody would play. You'd sort everybody out that way

Dave Helland [01:06:42] And then you'd do the lawn darts after that bring

Vance Crowe [01:06:44] Oh man, I'm so glad lawn darts weren around when I was a kid because I'd have definitely killed somebody. So you all you, when we were talking before, you're like, I'm not really an expert in climbing. The thing I have an expertise in probably is hunting. Yeah. When did you pick that up?

Dave Helland [01:06:59] Well, so my dad didn't hunt or anything like that. I had a, my cousin Steve invited me to go hunting with him when I was 14. And for whatever reason it just grabbed a hold of me. I just, I loved it and didn't have, I had almost no success for the first maybe three years or four years even. Just, just muddling through and Steve trying to learn how to hunt with nobody teaching us. And and

Vance Crowe [01:07:25] What were you using for a gun?

Dave Helland [01:07:27] So shooting pheasants and ducks with a shotgun. And then we started, you know, in Iowa we don't have rifle hunting for deer. It's shotguns with slugs. So I think the first year I went deer hunting, I didn't see a deer. The second year I saw a deer but didn't have a shot. The third year I had a shot and mist. And then I think maybe the fourth year I finally got one. And then I started bow hunting when I was maybe 22 or something like that. But you know, I don't, it was really interesting 'cause I, I worked on a farm in junior high and, and high school and my great uncle and, and my dad's cousins. And so it's like had that, that kind of nature influence as far as farming, but didn't really have an interest in nature other than that started hunting and then that just blossomed into just a passion for love of nature of all kinds. Right. And then other really interesting aspect of hunting that has been great for my life is just my friends in college were my hunting friends. And that has kept us together all these years, you know, get together and, and deer hunt and Turkey hunt every year. And without that I don't, those friendships, you'd probably still have friends, but without that activity to get you together, it just seems, it seems impossible to maintain.

Vance Crowe [01:08:53] So for somebody that's never taken the life of an animal larger than an insect, what's that like?

Dave Helland [01:08:59] Well, it's, it's really interesting and I'll say that, you know, the first time I did it, I remember it just kind of, it really bothered me. Like, so I would've been, I think I shot a squirrel when I was 15 or something like that. It really bothered me. But then you get got over it pretty quick just because you're excited about doing it again, you know, kind of makes sense of that. And then, you know, there is a phase that a lot of people go through in hunting where it's, it's kind of a blood thirsty phase. There's like these definite phases of the hunting trajectory and where you're just trying to get stuff and, and that's not good and there's not enough reverence for what you're doing. But then as you just take in more of it, and over the years I just realized how significant that was. So I was in Colorado one time and my buddy Matt had just shot an elk with his bow and we were out there on the mountain gutting it and you know, cutting it into pieces. And I looked at him, I said, this is fucking serious and we should never forget it. And that it's just at that moment, like, look at us and we're, I mean, covered with blood and we're cutting an animal apart and we're gonna carry it all these pieces off the mountain and then we're gonna eat it. Like, holy, this is wild. But what a great feeling that is. You know, I remember driving away from that mountain and looking back and just thinking like, we just went in there and we got two elk and carried them out and here we are. And, and this was like, this amazing feeling.

Vance Crowe [01:10:29] Yeah. Deeply primal. Very human. Oh,

Dave Helland [01:10:31] Incredible.

Vance Crowe [01:10:31] Yeah.

Dave Helland [01:10:32] And I try my hardest to not, you know, ruin the moment when you kill an animal by just being too, you know, high ah, high fives and make it just too celebratory. I mean, it's still, it's something you're happy about, but you know, it's, it's a big moment and I try to give like a little quiet time, just, I don't know, whatever. You're not, not gonna say it's a prayer, but just to kinda give thanks for the whole situation. Right. And so that's a, it's a serious, it's a serious thing. And I think people, a lot of people would benefit from that because you just realize, you know, like when you're paying people to do the killing for you, you're still part of that. And just recognizing the magnitude of it, I think would be good for people.

Vance Crowe [01:11:23] I was asked to kill a goat one time when I was in Kenya and that was a surreal experience because I felt like I couldn't turn it down and I felt horrible about it. 'cause I had just never done it before. And you didn't, you don't realize like that knife actually goes in pretty easy. Yeah, that's, it's like the, the the, the blood comes out, the animal is gone fast and like it zaps you into the experience of like life and death is, but a breath away, you know, like one cut of an art major artery gone and

Dave Helland [01:11:57] You're done. And, and then, and that's the weird thing too, like where you're, you see these animals and I love watching 'em and they're beautiful and why would anybody want them to die? I don't want 'em to die. But then once you decide to be a hunter, it's just like laser focus and, and, and you're all about how am I gonna achieve this? How am I gonna get this done? And it's like, you're like, you're two different people just depending on the, the activity you're engaged in at the moment. And I just, I find it weird. It's definitely, there's a little evolutionary switch that gets flipped I think that brings you back to that predator and prey relationship.

Vance Crowe [01:12:32] Well I think like I, I often think about how much our worlds have changed as human beings, right? Like the very fact that you can sit in a room that's 72 degrees in the middle of summer is something that is almost magical. Like you would be a wizard if you could go back to other points in history and be like, no, we just sitting there at 72 degrees, it's perfect. We sleep at 68 degrees, we put blankets on in the middle of summer. Right? It's just like mind blowing. But to even go further back and to be like, most Americans have never killed anything that they're about to eat. Right? And like, how much does that separate you from food and the human experience? Now I don't, I don't know how you resolve that or what good it would do to do it, but like we have so completely changed that are we the same humans that we were?

Dave Helland [01:13:19] That's a great question. Like I I I've wondered that myself. Like do do we still have, if the the ability inside us to suffer to the degree that people used to suffer, like if we had to or is that gone?

Vance Crowe [01:13:34] Yeah, I mean I think, I don't really know, like, like I think about those guys that were trenchers that would like spend a week underground in these tiny trenches, you know, go going and prepared to knife fight the next guy to death, right? Like what would have to happen now in my life to make me prepared to do that for my family? Would I be able to do it if it was called to do it? I don't know. I'd like to think I was, but those people seem much better prepared for the level of suffering they went through.

Dave Helland [01:14:01] Yeah. Just, you know, the difference, just the, the how hard people used to be, you know, and, and, and like I, I really honestly don't know if we've got that within us. I mean, we have obviously more than

Vance Crowe [01:14:14] You can go past 10, like you said.

Dave Helland [01:14:16] Yeah. You can go past 10, but yeah. Do we, do we have that ability in us anymore? I, I don't really know, but that's where like that, like the climbing and then the wilderness travel, it's like, I guess that's what you're looking for. You're just trying to find, prove to yourself that you still got it, so to speak. You know, like we're going just less than a month going up to Alaska and doing a moose hunt and it's a river float moose hunt. They drop us in and throw a couple rafts and then we gotta get carry 'em to this river and float 62 miles on a river and pick us up on the other end and we'll have moose that we kill and bring 'em on down river with us. And like, you know, that's, that's just all suffering the whole time. But it's just such a, it's just such a great, you just removed from your world completely. And I, and you just don't get that very often. You know,

Vance Crowe [01:15:10] You are taking such advantage of your ability to move your body to to, to build things, to climb mountains, to go hunting. What would your life be like if you were a quadriplegic?

Dave Helland [01:15:23] Oh man. You know, I've thought about that too. And you see these people that, that manage to just have good attitudes and, and while they're paralyzed. And I think that's just, I guess I'd like to think that I would make the best of whatever situation I'm in. I would like to see myself as that kind of a person. But I don't know, you know, I can get pretty dark and down when things are good so and such that that's the thing that's such a, such a gift. It's an overused term, but like to just be able to choose to go do something. You know, my wife had a real back problem earlier this year and had to have surgeries. And when that's in doubt and you really don't know what the future looks like for somebody that was fit and healthy and now you're having a problem, you don't know if surgery's gonna fix it. It really got us into that state of mind. Like, what if, what if she can't do all of the things that she loves and that I do with her and like, what does life look like? Well then obviously you figure it out, right? But you just don't want to have to.

Vance Crowe [01:16:29] Yeah, that's right. I, I had a, like a, a growth on my neck a couple weeks ago and I had not really taken it all that seriously. I was like, no, nothing bad ever happens to me that can't be, that can't be bad. And then I, I was like, Hey honey, I'm gonna, the doctor then I, and in a couple days do you think I should show him this? And she freaked out, right? And so I had to face for a couple of nights going to sleep being like, what if I was wrong? And this is a death sentence. And like it, when I was younger, when I was going surfing in those waves, you know, my parents would've been sad, oh, you know, poor us that we lost our son. That'd be bad. But there would've been no real consequence to the universe now if I die because I was being irresponsible. There are two children and a and a wife that I've loved that now their lives are gonna be so radically altered, right? That you're going to bed at night being like, oh man, did I really screw this up? Is this 'cause I spent my 20 smoking cigarettes? Is this like, and that's one of those things that again, like we're talking about primal experiences having to confront, am I going to die like soon? Not like this metaphorical someday I won't be here. Like confronting that is a very important part of living.

Dave Helland [01:17:45] Yeah. It's, I and, and you know, to recognize, like, I remember it was in my, maybe in my early thirties where I had my first moment of like, where I had, you know, I had these some killer weird headache shows up just out of nowhere and it just knocks me in my knees. And so you get your brain scan and then you're waiting a couple days to find out and you know, it turned out to be nothing. But at the time

Vance Crowe [01:18:06] Yeah, mine did too, by the way. I'm totally fine at

Dave Helland [01:18:09] The, at the time you don't know. And I remember that was the first moment I, where I thought like, yeah, I don't wanna die. It, it was just that first, I never thought of it like that before and it was real. And I'll never forget it. I remember where I was in the moment when that came to me. And so, and I think that's just part of that process of getting, you know, from that youthful confidence and complete hubris to just this sort of fraught people that we are in middle age where it's just like, you just see all the risks out there and you just know too much. And then you're starting to realize like, okay, I get why old people are the way they are. I get it now because eventually you're just seeing like all the things that can go wrong and at some point it just wears out your brain and you know, it just SAPs you of strength and you're focusing on all the things that can go wrong and, and that's not productive. Right? But then you see the, the, you know, when you're, you're 20 and they think like nothing will go wrong. Like, well that, that's not really the way either. Right? And so it's just, it's a fascinating process. Until

Vance Crowe [01:19:20] A couple weeks ago I had Jack Milliken on, he's 25 years old.

Dave Helland [01:19:24] Listen to him. Yeah, he

Vance Crowe [01:19:25] Was

Dave Helland [01:19:25] Great. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:19:26] He was great, right? And I was sitting there being like, man, I remember when I was like, no matter what happens, I'm gonna be okay. I was like, man, I do, I wish I was back in that space. I don't know because you're sitting there and you don't wanna be like, well Jackie know a lot of shit can go wrong that you don't control. But like, at the same time, like you want somebody to have that much confidence.

Dave Helland [01:19:47] He, he was a, he was great and like, you know, so that's when you complain about, you know, how you were in your twenties. I mean, this kid's doing like he's, he's doing great. He's exactly where he needs to be. And then I heard that perfect and beautiful confidence. There isn't a doubt in his mind. And I'm like, you know what? You need that to make it through all, across all the obstacles, but then also that is the thing that can undo you. And so like how do you make sense of that? Right? Well, you can't, and so you gotta just eventually get your ass kicked enough and have enough close calls, dodge enough bullets that you, that

Vance Crowe [01:20:24] You, okay, this is

Dave Helland [01:20:26] Real. Right? And so we were just talking, I was just talking to Heather this morning about telling our son Drake, who's going off to college, like I mentioned, you know, I told him something dumb last night. I said, just be careful. And I'm thinking today, be careful. That's stupid. That's what you tell like a 5-year-old, right? What do I mean by that? Maybe it is just like, like out in the mountains there are, there are forces of the universe that you cannot control and they do not care if you live, if you die, if you're healthy, if you're happy or anything. Those same forces are around us all the time. And you, despite your youthful confidence, cannot avoid their effects. So be aware, don't be, don't hubris is the right word. Right? Don't think you're untouchable. That's what I mean by be careful. And that's, and it's still not gonna matter. You know, that it won't matter right now. It'll eventually matter. You know, and that's like we, I think I heard you mention one time about like injecting like context or whatever,

Vance Crowe [01:21:39] Injecting kids Yeah. Wisdom or kids

Dave Helland [01:21:41] Rejecting and like can, and like you can't. And so I look at it as like you're writing these notes down and they're stuffing these notes in their pockets and not reading them, right? Yeah. Okay. Whatever, whatever. And then eventually some moment happens and then they think, you know, they dig around and they find that, and okay, now I get what that meant and then helps them process it, right? And so, but that's the maddening part. You just think, wouldn't it be easier if you, if it could just listen and avoid the problems. But

Vance Crowe [01:22:13] Yeah, I could just help you if you would only listen to me. But you only listen. But your metaphor there about like you're handing your child notes that they're shoving in their pockets and not reading is exactly right. And then, I mean, I can remember my dad saying, time is the most important thing that you have and you are gonna feel like you have an infinite amount of it. And then one day you're gonna wake up and you'll feel like you don't have enough. And I remember being like, whatever old man, like I got all this time, I'm never not gonna have time. And then one day you wake up and you're like, oh my gosh, he's right. All this pursuit of, you know, money or wealth or, you know, health or any of this is so that you can do with your time what you want. You, you can use your attention in the way that you want. And it isn't, it's so finite. And those times when you just threw it out the window or gave it away to dumb things.

Dave Helland [01:23:04] Well, and like back to what we were talking about, like looking at Twitter, I keep calling it Twitter X you know, I, I haven't made the change, but like there's the valuable amount to spend on that. And then the rest of it is squandering your time, right? And so like you think in a life that is busy is yours or mine, where the stresses are piled on deep and heavy. The self-loathing I feel when I get sucked in and I just waste time and it's just weakness. 'cause I don't wanna do the thing that I know I need to do. And this is just this thing that can kind of distract me and maybe for a few moments feel like I'm doing something of value. I feel. So it's like, what is wrong with me? Like that's, that time is gone, it's never coming back. And what did I get out of it? And so I'm really good about like setting limits on the things that I go do, like social events and all that. You know, I, I want 'em to be high value. I don't do a lot of things that I don't really want to do. You know, there's some things in life you, you know, you have to, but I don't fill my life with that. But I do struggle with the daily distractions and the technology is a big one. I'm just thinking like that's a way to get your time back.

Vance Crowe [01:24:22] Well Dave Helland, I'm so glad that you decided that it was worthwhile for you to drive all the way down here and do this podcast with me. So thank you so much for coming on.

Dave Helland [01:24:30] It was great doing it. My pleasure.