Testing Your Limits: How Adventure Sports Unlock Growth

Maria: [00:01:00] Let’s talk about the the mental challenge of physical exercise or things like skiing or backcountry skiing like you did Petter Erik: I have never been like to do cross country skiing because I think it’s boring. I like to go downhill, but I think I got a new experience this winter because I, I was watching a lot of videos before I went to Japan about all the mountains there, back country skiing. So the highest mountain there is Mount Yotai and I think it’s, uh, 2000, no, 1800 meters. And it’s a big volcano. You can even ski in the crater up there. I was watching people going up there and, first of all, it’s kind of dangerous because it’s a lot of avalanche there. um, I’m not doing it because of the avalanche. But just walking up six hours and ski down again, and I think the feeling for me is just do it. With the body, you don’t need a lift, so we are not skiing so much, you’re walking up for six hours and use, I think I, one day I used six hours to ski up and I used 15 [00:02:00] minutes to ski down, I started to, Do some, uh, backcountry skiing and I figure out how much I can do and what was fun is like I’m trying to lose weight and I figured out that when I did backcountry skiing one day I lost almost one kilo because it’s really hard so then I get more interested doing it because I want to lose some weight even with the Hokkaido diet that was, uh, backcountry A lot of, uh, chocolate. It was a lot of, uh, a lot of unhealthy thing. All the desserts. Yeah, I started to drink Coke again when I was in Japan. I’ve not been drinking Coke for many years. So, uh, a lot of sugar. But, um, yeah, I was burning so much calories. and I also Find a guy from Canada was 29 years and he is like he told me the first time I was doing backcountry, you know, I’m born to do this. I’m like, this is my life. And he was so into it. And I’m so, so stupid that I will go up backcountry with a guy that are super fit. And it’s like 1516 years younger than me. So I was really challenging [00:03:00] myself. And I was so tired. one day I was sending a message to my You guys are saying I feel my legs is gone. I don’t feel them anymore When I go back, that’s the days. I remember when I was really tired And I think there’s something with challenging yourself you don’t remember the hard things when you went up you’ll remember the experience and Being in the mountain and being totally alone. I also know teen was with us I was walking on the mountain with him and said like You This is why I’m here. I’m not here for taking the lift up the mountain. I just being in the nature. Mm. walking out and feeling like you are in the nature and not around people. Maria: Mm. I think the, what you say about the being in nature, it’s something about the flow state or the, no thoughts state because you, at least for me, I focus so much. over my energy on the physical challenge of getting up the mountain or skiing down or, just being there that I, like, I can’t think of many other things at the same time. So it’s a good practice of just being present with what you, what you do, because Usually, and you are an [00:04:00] expert on multitasking, at least you’d like to think so, but, like skiing, you can’t work. You can’t, you can’t be on your phone. You can’t, you can’t send a message to someone or you can’t talk to people even because you are, you just have to be there. Like that’s the only thing you do. Even if it’s physically challenging, it’s relaxing for the mind or it’s another state for the mind. And then, what also happens for me is that then when it’s challenging or when all of you are ahead and I feel like, Oh, I’m so slow. And my, brain, like that happened last year as well. And this time also, it’s like, why are you such a chicken? And I’m like, and I told myself then I just heard myself say like, why aren’t you braver? Why aren’t you blah, blah, blah. And then I. I had to have this discussion with myself, but you’re actually here. If you were really like, not brave, you wouldn’t be here. it’s already courageous because I was there with three people that are much faster than me and stronger. And, everything I do when I do like physically demanding or, or even things that I need to concentrate on physical, we can talk more about golf later, It’s a chance of [00:05:00] practicing the mental game as well. because I talk so much about how you need to be your own supporter and like how to get over the inner critic. But when I put myself in those situation, the critic shows up and I have to practice my own strategies on actually how to get rid of it. I think it’s an opportunity for growth. Like every time we do challenging stuff, no matter if it’s mentally challenging or physically challenging or whatever challenging It’s making us grow as a person. Petter Erik: So, uh, interesting question for you, because when you left, uh, Japan and I was there one month alone, he was always behind us and he was saying, Oh, I’m behind. Oh, this is too challenging for me. And when you come back, he was just another person. What’s happened after his four weeks, because he was riding faster. He was, uh, getting on the black slopes. He was getting off piste and he was much faster. What happened the four weeks he was there. Maria: That’s interesting though. I, I firstly, when we came to Japan for Christmas, we were, I was sick. I was physically sick. So I was my best, uh, [00:06:00] form for a few weeks. And I felt like I was on the upward spiral when I, when I, the last week we were there, I felt like I was doing a bit better. But I, I actually had this story many years ago that I had been skiing with some, with a group of friends. And we’ve been skiing every year for, for like many years in a row. And then I was out for a few years because I got, that was when I got them. And I think I hadn’t been skiing for two years. And I came back and one of these guys said, Maria, what happened to you? You’re so much, a much better skier. And I just said, mental training, because I, at that time, I’d been working with a coach to let go a lot of fears and a lot of like, Limiting beliefs and things, other things I was afraid of. And it just made me not being afraid of the skiing. And I think that’s something that happened also between like, we were there for Christmas, New Year’s, and we came back for Vietnamese New Year. I did some, some healing work. I did some release work. I did some, other things. And I also do think that I have a tiny bit of competitive gene So I talked a lot about my mental game when I was skiing. But what about [00:07:00] you? Do you have thoughts going on? Do you have the inner dialogue or are you just there? Like how does your mental game work when you’re skiing? Petter Erik: so when I’m skiing, I just stop thinking or just, live in the moment. And, but I think if you look at the two months I have, uh, the last week I was jumping much more. I was doing much more and I was doing, when I was more. Child is but I also think setting a goal. I had this goal about but I never did that. But I said to them and let us jump from a eight meter cliff or something. I didn’t do that. But, but I just had this picture of about jumping from my eight meter cliff all the time. So I am at least I start to jump. for skiing is more like a, it’s not a challenge for me. It’s just yeah. But Maria: for example, when you were going uphill with this 29 year old super fit guy that was kind of ahead of you, are you just still not thinking any like, this is hard? Petter Erik: Yeah, of course. But he asked me, so what is your biggest challenge? This is a physical or is the mental game? I say it’s [00:08:00] the physical. Oh, then it’s no problem because everyone lose on the mental game. And then I told him that it was the physical things. I couldn’t say that by thinking not to turn around and all these things. I was saying this to my, I say to him that this was a mental, this was physical. So I could be super tired, but I can still use my brain to get up there. So I should never say that, but maybe it’s helped me. I Maria: think it helped you. Petter Erik: Yeah, Maria: that’s a good strategy. Petter Erik: I think we can do all the episode about Japan. but how, how are you feeling after being back in Vietnam? Maria: I’m actually thinking quite a lot on, about, um, Why I love Hoi An so much, I’ve been talking to so many people and we have had people here and everyone is like, Hoi An is great. And, and I’m like, yeah, it is great. And then I’m thinking the, but the weather isn’t that nice for the most of the year. Like, and we have this rainy season, then we have the cold season, and then we have the far too hot season. And like, there’s just a few months in there where it’s really great. But for some reason, for me, the beach is like a super, super, super big factor to me being happy here. so [00:09:00] just being able to walk on the beach and to be honest, the best beach walks for me is the stormy ones is the one when I maybe shouldn’t be out there because it’s the waves are, are like too strong and nobody else is there and it’s windy and, at some parts of the year, I am not out there because it’s, it would be actually like deadly, but, but, um, I just, I love the beach and that’s part of what I, what I like here. I’d also. We’ve been talking about that before in other episodes about the, entrepreneurial community that we live in. and I also think that one of the things that I realized when we were on this, this kind of cabin trip in Japan, we’re stuck together in a small house, is that a lot of the people that are our friends here, they’re very open minded, and they’re very accepting. Because I think when you have such a diverse community, when people from all over the world, we are, we are so different. And so, you kind of have to. accept and respect other people’s way of doing things. and now we haven’t been living in Norway for, for a few years. So, so maybe I shouldn’t be like judgmental about it. But of course, when [00:10:00] people are more similar, it also kind of less acceptance for being out of what is kind of normal. And here, normal is already like super white. So there’s no, It’s very easy to, to kind of be weird and still be, still be accepted. I think that’s maybe what I, what I like about being here. I’m not even sure if I’m answering your question. Petter Erik: No, you didn’t. What do Maria: you like about Hoi An? Petter Erik: What I like about Hoi An? Maria: Or, or how do you see the differences between Japan and Vietnam? Petter Erik: Oh, that’s a lot of differences. But both are in Asia. That’s, uh, that’s something. Because I feel I am. I feel I should be born in Asia instead of, uh, Scandinavia or Norway. Um, I feel less and less home in Norway. I feel more like Asia. I don’t know if Hoi An is really home, but Asia is more like, I love the Asian culture. I love people here. I love, maybe it’s because it’s so different. But also, I think like, being an expat, I know [00:11:00] we have been away for six years. Um, Everyone I talk with who have been away from their home country for many years, they say it’s hard and harder to get back. And there is some kind with the lifestyle, I hate to clean, I hate to wash clothes, I hate all this practical thing, and we have people doing it for us and we don’t, Can’t afford that. So that’s also something I like with it being here. And many things about that’s, oh, that’s a luxury life, but I think it’s outsourcing. It’s just like outsource what you don’t like to do in life. Everyone is talking about outsourcing for a company, but outsource also other things and spend more time. I like to make food. So it’s not that I don’t like it, but if I can use that hour to someone else that is more valuable and have someone cooking food or eating out and still it’s cheap then it’s better for me Uh, so I think that but also the beach and the environment there’s many cool people here And I love that. It’s kind of the middle of Southeast Asia. [00:12:00] It’s easy to get to singapore It’s easy to get to india. It’s easy to get to japan. It’s easy to get to bali It’s easy even we have not been there, but even australia is not far away. So I feel like we are in a I mean, I feel Asia is more in the middle of the world than, of course, Norway, who is in the side. Maria: I guess there’s something more about the difference between japan and vietnam because I I think it’s actually super funny because in In japan, everything is super orderly. Everything is super quiet You don’t go out and and talk loudly or you don’t if you’re in the airport or if you’re in a cafe You’re not putting your phone like with sound on listening to something and we went to this concert We went to a queen and adam lambert’s concert in in sapporo And and I noticed when we came in that to the big like stadium that they had this, this lines on the, on the floor outside the toilet with arrows on them. It was like back and forth, path on the, on the floor. And then in the break, when I went to the toilet, there was this lady with a sign marking the end of the toilet line. Like, and she made sure that [00:13:00] everyone went into the right line and nobody was sneaking. And I was like, Oh, this is so relieving because in Vietnam it’s like, you have to yourself and everyone’s sneaking and nobody’s waiting. And it’s just, A total mess. And Japan is so early. And maybe those countries, I feel like they are kind of on the extreme side, both of them. Also, we had this, this experience when we came out of the concert. And, and because of the capacity of the roads there, like people couldn’t leave quickly because it just took time to get everyone out. So we were lining up, I think we’re lining up for an hour to get out of the stadium. And then we were like, And back to our car. then women, my youngest son, he’s, he’s always a bit all over the place. And he was kind of sneaking up somewhere and just suddenly it was like many meters in front of everyone else. And then I think it was TN, our friend who was like, very loudly. And all the Japanese were like, wow, what is he doing? Like he’s screaming out loud. And, and the group of women, like before us, they started giggling like super loud. And then all the other people in the group [00:14:00] were like, And that turned into a joke, but it was, I think the, the kind of the comic thing about it was that no Japanese person would do that. It was just because we were, we were these rude foreigners and, and we were just super loud and everyone was like, Whoa, what is this? Petter Erik: I have always thought about, uh, writing a book called street smart for dummies, uh, because I think many are not street smart. So it’s street smart is something you Just like how to live life and when we was in japan with these other people They they were also kind of street smart. So we were also on this concert. We had some of the Cheapest tickets, uh, but again, this is different from Japan from other places because if you go to a concert in Europe or you go to a concert, yeah, what their places is, it’s like it’s guards between the cheapest and the most expensive tickets, but Japanese people are so polite. So there was no guards there. So we were street smart, we figured out why are we sitting here with the cheapest ticket when we can go down on the And there are Maria: [00:15:00] free seats down there as well. Petter Erik: Free seats, there was a seat. So we went down there and we were sitting quite comfortably. Yeah, nicer, not far away from the stage, but let me figure out why are we sitting here and we can go in the front of the stage and there is a thing no one everyone was sitting Japanese was sitting on the chairs under a queen concert was no one raising up and dancing and listening. So in the end, we were standing in front of the stage, like I had the band One and a half meter in front of us. I know you see if that was in concert in norway We need to be there eight hours before the concert and try to get in there But it was no one because we went the right up and it was in the front after a while It comes some guards and uh took us away But anyway, that was possible and that’s also kind of different in the culture with I think in vietnam, it will be totally different like everyone will try to get in the front of the stage but one thing I think is really interesting is the new project you started. And why I think it’s interesting is something you have talked about for [00:16:00] 12, I think it’s 12 years And I have been something that i’ve been super frustrating for me because I think like everyone should do what they love to do in life And do it Uh, I have tried, not hard enough, but I tried to, uh, motivate you and inspire you to do it. But it’s like every time it’s stopped up or I don’t know, not prioritize it. And, uh, so, so you are started with a new kind of, you have started a new department in Awesome in our company. Yes. So can you tell me about what you have done? Maria: Yeah, well, I, the story is that when I started working for you in, in 2010, I was trying to launch my career as a speaker and a, and a coach. And Kind of inspirational speaker, but at that time I didn’t know anything about sales and marketing and that stopped me from getting clients I had had the exact same problem as most of our other awesome clients have like they they want to inspire people They want to teach people but they don’t know how to sell and market themselves and then I started working for you instead and then we did all these physical [00:17:00] events with international speakers and I got to do a lot of Um of master of ceremonies and I got to do a lot of speaking. I think it was super You useful for my confidence and everything. And we started awesome. I always said like, I want to do this, this other thing, uh, as you say, it’s, it’s been quite a few years. and I think part of it is this, this is interesting because it’s, I’m teaching people to, to kind of go for their dream and, and be unstoppable and, as entrepreneurs. And I feel like When I think about it now, it looks like I wasn’t ready before and because because of my personal development, I could have done other things before. But I couldn’t have done what I’m doing now before because I wasn’t ready. And I do think there’s some kind of universal timing. And I, I think maybe we’re not agreeing on this, but because you were like, No, you’re just just just kind of avoiding it or or not being courageous. And I think kind of you’re right and I think kind of you’re wrong. It’s, it’s, it’s hard for me to, but I, I’ve, I felt like in the autumn of this year. [00:18:00] It’s like now it’s kind of there. It’s, I’m ready to give birth to it. I’m getting to bring it out in the world it’s exciting. And it’d be scary. And, uh, that’s perfect because that’s how it is. Yeah, no. So, so I, I, I’ve developed a method called the unpack method process. when I’ve see all the personal development that I’ve done, I see all the phases of what I’ve, what I’m doing. And I put that into a process and I call it unpack process because it’s a nice name and also because it’s a nice metaphor, I think, because I feel like we are born and then we are innocent and we’re small and we don’t have any belief systems and, and things and we don’t tell ourselves that we’re stupid or, or can’t do things. And then somehow we pick that up from parents, environment, school, blah, blah, blah. And we’re creating meaning of things that we aren’t developed enough to create meaning of. And then we start kind of carrying around on a bunch of bunch of things that are heavy. That’s, that’s kind of my, my vision of it. It’s, we have a, we have a backpack and we put a lot of like, things in there that [00:19:00] isn’t supposed to be there, that is, that is burdening us, that is bringing us down, that is limiting what we do and we’re comparing ourselves to others and we’re, we’re telling ourselves we can’t do it and we’re not good enough and all the imposter syndrome and like all of those things goes into the backpack. And then for me, I felt like at some point I stopped putting things into the backpack. I got to this stage where I kind of understand that I choose my beliefs and I, I can be my best supporter and I don’t have to believe in the inner critic and I have ways that I can snap out of it when it, when it shows up and start blah, blah, blah, blah. I can, I can, okay, that’s not a constructive thought. Let’s me choose something else. So I stopped putting things into the backpack. But then when you continue with that backpack and it’s still heavy and you work through life and, and then I kind of got into my forties and I’m like, this backpack is super heavy and now I’m, I’m getting tired and I’m, I have some physical pain in my legs. And then I’m like, okay, I have to actually have to take things out of this backpack that doesn’t serve me anymore because I don’t want to go around and carry it. And that’s why I call it the unpacked process because I. For me, it’s the, just the description of [00:20:00] how the process of, of personal development, how you understand new things, then you kind of let go of some things and you choose new beliefs. Then you have to reidentify who you are because otherwise you can’t, you can’t change. And that’s, that’s what I’m doing. And I’m excited about it. So what’s your focus in the company these days? When I’m doing that project? Petter Erik: Right now I’m focusing on speed. Get up to speed. sometimes I feel like the companies on the retirement retirement speed is like, uh, slowly is like, uh, sitting in a rolling chair and trying to do stuff. and I want to speed it up. in the business we are in, I think speed is the most important thing. It’s not about getting things done perfectly. It’s not about to have the perfect, Landing page is not to have the perfect sales script is not to have the perfect webinar It’s not to have the perfect ad it’s just to get something out there and do it i’m really looking at how I can speed up and I think what is really interesting to be an entrepreneur when Uh, sometimes you’re just looking at the cost for [00:21:00] having employer or how much cost it is but it’s also about what just realizing me if i don’t have the right team mate in the team or the team player in the team it’s like a lot of time for others so even if the cost is low the salary is low there is taking time from me and others so so i also thinking sometimes it’s better to pay someone really well and get a superstar that’s also what i’m thinking about i want a smaller team it’s better to have you Five people that are really performing and pay them really well that’s kind of what i’m thinking about how to Speed up things and get the right. I know this is something that i’m working on for 20 years It’s all about I remember I was reading the book with um, darren harley for many years ago He said it’s like hire a player Even if you don’t have money for it You will find money when you have a player because a player will bring in more money to the company and on that time That was the last time the company was running. We tried to find people who was unemployed and we get the government support to have [00:22:00] them in our company. And I didn’t think about that was a cost. Even if we had them for free for six months, it was a cost because I need to follow up more and my time is really valuable. When I do, I’m really blessed that I can bring in a lot of sales because I’m a good salesperson. But if I’m taking away from business, Focusing on the sales. We are losing more money than the cost on it. And that’s like a Sometimes I refer to the this the hidden cost the cost that you don’t see in a company because you just see like Oh, why should we pay someone 10k in salary when I can get someone 2k? it’s like roi We are talking about roi on ads all the time And what how much do you spend on ads and how much they get back? and I had a conversation with my mentor this week And he said, you know, I always hire based on Attitude not on skills because what we are doing in our company is really simple to learn If you get the right attitude and we have some a player in the company some really good people And they have the right attitude and then it’s easy to teach them It’s [00:23:00] like people think like digital marketing is so complex. It’s not it’s quite simple But we make it too complex and the right person can learn it It’s like the best best person we have in the company. She learned to run facebook ads in one hour Right kink and after actually Knew it and others like used 100 hours to the same thing and and she didn’t know anything She was coming from a totally other industry So so I think like hiring the right people or figuring out how we can get someone doing it Faster so I can free up my time and you can free up your time and we can do what? What is our super skills? And yeah, that’s what i’m working with Japan a couple of times and having some time with good friends and having time with family, What changed for you mentally or, or how, how you live your life? And what are you thinking differently after that two trips? Maria: No, I feel like we, we call this, this podcast scaling life and about 10x in your business is about 10x in your life. And I feel like what we are doing when we’re, [00:24:00] when we’re traveling, when we’re skiing, when we’re taking more time off is to kind of expand our life or grow in our life. And, and also what it brings out is like, we always wanted to have. Location independent business. We wanted to be free. We wanted to work when we wanted to. And one of the things we, we saw was that there are still things in our company that isn’t running very well when we are not there. And, and so, so just the, the, it brought up some things that we need to pay attention to, to have that business that we want. But also just, just as you said, I didn’t talk to as many entrepreneurs and things as you did because we were there with a group. But, just. Being in another environment meeting other people that changes the perspective and and it’s very interesting because we have had like the last weeks we had people here and some people working on their businesses from here and it’s something about getting out of that thing you go to every day and and be somewhere else because it’s not possible like when I’m here, I think. I can think at least relatively the same thoughts every day because I, I walk out of my [00:25:00] house. I walk the same road down to the beach. I walk on the beach. I see the same things on the beach. They’re changing pretty fast in Vietnam, but it’s not like it’s changing every day. And then, so I think the same thoughts, but when you are another place, you have to think different thoughts. And especially as we said, when we’re up there skiing and it’s just free flow of powder and it’s like, wow, this is a blank slate of paper. And then you get creative. So I think it’s just the. The clarity on how I want to live my life and what is important. I think that’s something that I got from the experience. What about you? Petter Erik: I think like the autumn was quite frustrating and hard for me. uh, one thing is like, I also get sick with dengue and we had, uh, the last, the last year went really good in the business into quarter four. It’s just like everything stopped up, but I’m reflecting on it. We had some events, we had other things, we had new team, team members, we had a lot of things. But for me, it’s like, I felt like I was, before I went to Japan, I felt like I was, [00:26:00] Accepting that things was not good and accepting is like, then you just lower your level, and having two months, I didn’t have off because I was working four or five hours every day and sometimes also at full days where there was bad weather or something, but most of the time I had a few. So, so coming back, I felt like I get this energy back and not accepting. What do you call it? Mediocrity? Mediocrity? Mediocrity? I can’t say that word. Uh, uh, but, uh, you know what I mean. Um, so not accepting it. And, um, sometimes when I’m back with full energy, I feel like I’m a pain in the ass to, to be a leader in a company because I want to speed things up. But I also believe, I think I, I left with, uh, Think oh, this is how it should be But I really believe there is a way that I can work five hours per day And have a really good income and have a growing company I believe that now but I also believe [00:27:00] and I also understand that I can’t run the company as I did before I Went to japan because I start to get this pain taught when I was in Japan. I like this life. I can, I can do a lot of things. We also been, we can talk about that later. We also been starting to play golf, but there is a lot of things I can do that are more fun, interesting that I want to spend my life on. and to do that, um, I also need to run my business differently and believe. Believe there is a solution. I believe there is great people out there before me. I think like, okay, there is no people that really can work on the speed and what I’m believing, but now I really believe it. I know I will find them. I know I will find a solution and it’s maybe right in front of me, but that’s kind of changing. And I think it’s good for all entrepreneurs to take more time off doing what other things, because it gets more space and, uh, And see what is possible. I saw what was possible with my scheme. I improved from maybe a two or two seven in skiing on if I can also improve how [00:28:00] effective and how to build a team from two to seven. It will be a great business. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. To dig deeper, visit awesome. com forward slash scaling light. That’s A W E S M dot com forward slash scaling light. You’ll find show notes, resources and links. mentioned in this episode, as well as links to our socials. If you like what you heard, please rate and review us on the podcast platform of your choice. Your feedback is so important to help more entrepreneurs to discover this show. Our goal is to provide inspiration and we hope you’ll continue scaling alongside us. 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