[00:00] Dean King: You gotta take that first step into the darkness. You gotta give up the fear and just trust. Things will work out and it’s better to try and fail than not to try. So I’ve always lived that way. I, I will try to walk into that dark room and see what happens rather than let fear keep me from doing that.

[00:21] And that’s the way to, I think, open up new horizons to, you know, shake up your world a little bit.

[00:28] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Welcome to another episode of Success for the Athletic Minded Man, real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity, consistency, and focus in business and life. This is your host, Jim Harsher Jr. And today I bring you Dean King.

[00:42] Yeah. There are times in your life when you get to come across these amazing individuals. You get to meet them personally just going through life, and Dean King is one of those people for me, and we met back in 2014. We both gave our TEDx talks. On the Charlottesville TEDx stage, Ted Charlottesville is in the top 1% of largest TED events in the world.

[01:05] And he gave a talk on his book that is about the Hatfield and the McCoys. Fascinating story, and ever since we’ve become friends, and he lives in Richmond, about an hour away. So we’ve connected and. He was a college athlete. Played lacrosse at the University of North Carolina. Of course I wrestled in Virginia, so we had that athletic background in common and we’ve stayed in touch over the years.

[01:26] Gotten to know him and his family a bit, and gotten to read some of his books and just see how somebody like him goes about. His craft. Somebody who is a master at what he does in the length that he goes to in order to produce the type of work that he produces. Because sometimes we go through our own jobs, our own lives, and we think, boy, things should be going better for me, I think I should have more success right now because all, all the hard work that I’m putting in, and then you meet people like Dean, you go, oh, that, like, that’s the standard in, in my coaching program, we have something called the Environment of Excellence, where you wanna be around people who have a high standard.

[02:02] High caliber, you know, high expectations for themselves, professionally, personally, health and fitness wise, relationships, all of that. That’s why the community component of what I do in my coaching program, there’s 80 some guys in my community, that community component is so, so critical. It’s not just the coaching, it’s not just the framework.

[02:21] It’s also. The type of people you’re around and you’re sharing ideas and not trying to figure out life in, in business on your own. You’re around these other high performing people who can help you grow and, and Dean has been really a part of my environment of excellence. He’s written 10 nonfiction books and he goes on these absurd challenges and, and adventures in pursuit of his work and pursuit of his craft.

[02:44] He goes on these sort of. You know, they’re their physical and emotional and psychological challenges of going through the Sahara Desert is one example in his books, skeletons on The Sahara, which is such a really, really cool book. That was the first book of his, I I read. Um, one of his more recent actors, most recent book is Guardians of the Valley, which is about John Muir in the creation of Yosemite National Park.

[03:06] And because of. His dedication to his craft, and because of the type of adventures that he’s been on, he was invited to be a collaborator and a consultant on the Netflix special called Golden Greed. If you’ve not watched it, it is absolutely. Just a fun watch. I think it’s just three, uh, three episodes about Forest Fend and this eccentric wealthy man who hid a treasure in the Rocky Mountains.

[03:30] This is just in recent years in, in the whole story behind that. So anyway, Dean was a consultant on that. Alright, so let’s get into my conversation with Dean, where we explore how do you master your craft? What lengths does somebody like him go to, to really. Pursue mastery and dedicate himself to his work.

[03:49] Alright, here we go. My interview with my good friend, Dean King. You have done some amazing things, ridiculous things in pursuit of research for writing your books. Can you think of a, uh, the most ridiculous situation or, or craziest thing you’ve ever gotten yourself into in the name of researching a book?

[04:09] Dean King: Yeah. I have a knack for getting myself into some pretty precarious situations, and if I ever ask you to come on a research trip with me, you should not do it. You know, I’ve, I took my daughter to West Virginia. We got shot at, I planned a trip for the Sahara for about two weeks after nine 11. You know, of course I planted a year ahead of time and then, you know, ended up actually going on that trip.

[04:32] Planned a trip to China to research another book, and uh, there was an earthquake in Siwan province that, uh, prevented us from going. I had to go the next year. You know, when you go to some of these. Outer limits, you’re gonna encounter things like this. And, um, you know, it’s, it is part of the fun, part of the excitement and part of the challenge that a lot of my subjects had to deal with.

[04:51] So I, I had to come back to actually West Virginia to get shot at that. I guess that may have been the hairiest situation I was in. So I was researching a book on the Hatfields of McCoys, and my family’s originally from West Virginia, but not that part of West Virginia. This is Southern West Virginia where the coal mines are.

[05:09] And my, my, uh, family’s from Parkersburg, West Virginia up on the Ohio River. So we go down to the Maan area and I had two private forestry rangers taking me, not in uniforms or anything, and I told ’em I wanted to go to this place where, uh. Uh, a certain McCoy was killed by a Hatfield, so they, they figured it out on the map.

[05:29] And we go there and we walk out on a little, uh, delta where a creek comes into the river. And I’m, I’m, this is perfect. I’m taking notes, just looking at it so I can write about it. And, um, all of a sudden we hear an a TV, uh, driving on the trail behind us and it, it goes around and we see some heads looking around a bend and they get back on their a TV and go up to the other.

[05:49] Other end of the river. Then we hear a gunfire and we see the shot hitting the, the river, you know, not 10 yards from us.

[05:57] Jim Harshaw Jr.: They weren’t, they weren’t just shooting into the air to, to scare you away. They were shooting at you.

[06:01] Dean King: Oh, yeah. Well, you know, if they wanted to hit us, they would’ve hit us, but they were shooting very near and, and from a distance that it was pretty dangerous.

[06:08] And I had my daughter with me to my oldest daughter, Hazel. And so the two rangers who have to work in this area. And it’s kind of place where you have to save face. You can’t just turn tail and run or you know, they say, look, let’s get your daughter in here and we’re gonna count to three and walk off slowly.

[06:23] So that’s what we did. We walked out before I went back the next time, I called a guy and met in the town of Mateis and said, Hey, you know, I, I can’t come in with some forestry rangers. I gotta come in with some Hatfields and McCoys to research this book. And he said. I’ve got a guy who works for me who’s a Hatfield.

[06:40] He’ll take care of you. So I go out and meet him, and I go to his house and he’s got, uh, gallon jugs of moonshine sitting on his dining room table. And, you know, he, he gets to know me a little bit, but a little bit of distance. Once he gets to know me, the next time I go, he says, uh, well, I, I heard you got shot at the first time you were in here.

[06:58] And I said, yeah, I did. He said, well, I know that fella, he’s a good old boy. He just don’t like nobody in his marijuana patch. We had bush whack down to the river through somebody’s marijuana patch without realizing it. But, um, this guy, this Hatfield, once he got to know me, it was like being part of the family.

[07:16] You know, he took care of me and I, I got great research after that, but that was pretty

[07:21] Jim Harshaw Jr.: scary. Yeah, no kidding. So has there ever been like some of these stories. You’ve written are just these, these incredible, fascinating tales and stories and journeys that that people have been on. Has there ever been one where the, when you uncovered the truth of the story, like it was more inspiring or, or more shocking than even the legend or like what you expected?

[07:45] Dean King: Well, I think that what I try to do is, you know, when history is legend. I try to make it real by making the people real. Not legendary figures, not statues. There’s a statue of Devil Lance Hatfield, a life life size statue of him in in the cemetery in area and West Virginia. But to make something powerful, I think you need to be on a level with.

[08:07] That the hero who did something heroic, because if you see them as, as somehow elevated and better than you with superpowers that you don’t have, you, you can’t relate to that. But if you, if you see them as a human being, like you who made a great decision or did something very courageous, then you can really connect with that and you can grow from that experience.

[08:27] So really what I try to do is go in there and find out and make these people real. Make Devil Lance Hatfield. A real person for you or Captain James Riley, who was the subject of my book’s, skeletons on the Sahara, who crossed the Sahara with it, you know, his crew, and made it to freedom after a shipwreck.

[08:44] How did he do that? How do you relate to him? So what I always found find is that history’s been told a certain way, and that if you really dig in, you’re gonna find new paths through that history, uh, new ways to relate to it, new ways to make it relevant, and that’s what I really love doing.

[09:03] Jim Harshaw Jr.: The books you write are fascinating.

[09:04] The stories are fascinating, and the life that you have to live and the adventures that you go on are fascinating as well, because you’re retracing a lot of their steps. And, and going back to the, the scene of the crime or the scene of the adventure, or the scene of the event and living out some of this yourself.

[09:22] So how did you, how’d you get into this? Like how did, how, how did you get to this point?

[09:27] Dean King: Well, the adventures, the reward for a lot of time, like a lot of people behind their computer with a nose and a book or in a library. And I started out, I went to NYU to and, and, and got a, a master’s degree in creative writing, but I always wanted to be a writer.

[09:42] So it, it, it dates back to, you know, time with my mother taking me to the library into the stacks, you know, pulling out biographies and, um, my grandmother always doing the New York Times crossword puzzle and loving words and word play. So I, I was surrounded by that all the time. I, I really had a duality of loving
[10:00] sports and being very active and reading for, um, you know, pleasure and for, you know, escaping into new worlds.

[10:08] I loved it when a, an author could transport me into a different place. And I’ve always tried to do that. I try to transport the reader and not shake them outta that. So any kind of modern context I add is usually in the end notes and that sort of thing, because I want you to be there with these people and to live, live there.

[10:24] I don’t want to fill you up with information. I want you to experience something. So I guess my first break was I was researching a, a companion book to Patrick O’Brien’s novels. And he wrote Mastering Commander the far side of the world. The Russell Crow movie you might remember, was called Mastering Commander.

[10:42] Based on these 21 books written by Patrick O’Brien, the New York Times called him, them, the best historical novels ever written. Uh, it is been called the Most Profound Literature about male Friendship. Ever written. So when I read what that, those things, I knew I was gonna love these books and I read ’em.

[11:00] Then I realized they’re on square rig ships in the Napoleonic Wars. So you read ’em, the plots are great and the humor and all kinds of things in these books is are fantastic. But I realized you needed to know more. So I went into the, I was living in New York City at the time. I went into the New York Yacht Club and started, uh, digging there.

[11:17] I actually did, my very first book was a dictionary. Uh, encyclopedia, a companion book for people reading these books so you know, the geography of the Napoleonic Wars, you know, the parts of the square rig ship, you know, the language, the politics, all this kinda stuff. But while I was there, I discovered Captain Riley’s his narrative of his shipwreck in 1815.

[11:38] I just looked up on the shelf one day and saw the word sufferings in Africa, and I pulled that thing down and I, I started reading. I’m like, oh my gosh. You know, I knew at that point. I worked on the, on the companion books, and I wrote a biography of, of Patrick O’Brien. So for eight years I kind of apprenticed under Patrick O’Brien.

[11:53] Really? Not, not that he knew it, but I, I wrote a biography of, of him. I, I did three different companion books. I did an anthology, I’d edited a series, but this little discovery of this book, you know, I knew Sailors Tales and I read, I was like, this is a real story, you know, this is accurate. It’s just too, too strange to be fake in a way.

[12:12] So, um, I then went down to the New York Public Library, which is just a few blocks from the New York Yacht Club. Went in there and went into the card catalog and found out that another one of the sailors he had listed, wrote a memoir, also published in 1817. Nobody had put those together. And then the, maybe the greatest piece was I discovered that Abraham Lincoln had read the Captain’s memoir as a boy and said it was one of the five books that made a big impression upon him as a boy.

[12:38] So I knew I had this little piece of, of American history that had been forgotten, and so I was able to put those things together that led to the trip, you know, in the Sahara. Nine 11 happened in the middle of all that, so it got really crazy and you know, the trip almost didn’t come, come off. One thing, I think maybe a good takeaway is you kind of think that, uh, maybe a writer goes on the adventure and then writes about it.

[13:02] Well, what I did was I took all the book information that I could get, everything I could find maps, you know, and put it together in the manuscript so that when I went on the adventure, I knew what I was looking for. So, you know, I knew I, I could only go to the Sahara. I crossed the Sahara on camels with Land Rovers, you know, using both at different times.

[13:20] But I knew it was a one shot deal and National Geographic had also bought a story from me. So I had a photographer and, but I had to be prepared. Preparation, you know, we talked about our sports background, everything, how important preparation is, but I knew what I was looking for. So when times got tough on that trip and it was a really rough trip.

[13:40] There’s a saying over there, um, Wawa, west Africa wins again. No matter what you plan, west Africa’s gonna win. And, um, I experienced that everything went wrong, you know, well, okay, it was a right after nine 11, so I had to prove my, uh, entire trip to the Moroccan Tourism Board. But when I got there. They didn’t care anything about the Moroccan Tourism Board.

[14:03] I was in, what was Spanish? Sahara now Western Sahara and it’s controlled by the Moroccan national police and military. So, you know, they didn’t want me there after nine 11. They were afraid something might happen to an American that would, you know, reflect badly there and and caused problems. So they disrupted my trip.

[14:23] And they would, for instance, the local sheriff would say, oh yes, you know, it’s so nice to meet you. Um, you can go tomorrow. And then tomorrow would come. And they, and they’d go, oh, but you need the approval of the chieftain of the area too. And he’s not here. And they kept doing stuff like that. They took us onto the military base at one point.

[14:44] Um, as we were going down to the southern most part of the arc that, um, captain Riley’s trip took him on where I wanted to, to start. They took us to the military base and I didn’t take it that seriously, you know, ’cause I’ve never encountered anything like that in, in the United States. But my guide came to me to, to talk about it.

[15:03] I could see that he was very disturbed. He tried to light his cigarette and he couldn’t get the lighter in the cigarette together. So that’s when I realized we got a problem here. This guy’s really scared. They’d taken his ID papers and the whole crew’s ID papers. So, you know, I realized, okay, this is, this is really serious to these guys.

[15:21] So it’s serious to me. And they, I don’t think they would’ve really messed with me, but, you know, my, my crew was under threat, so it, it went on and on, uh, like that we saw a camel that had been blown up. It’s the most landmine place in the world, the border of Western Sahara. And, and that’s a whole, you know, political thing.

[15:39] I could, I could talk about, but it, it’s a pretty big digression. The, the Spaniards left in 73 and then Morocco and Maia and um, Algeria have all kind of fought for the place, you know, but in the end, all these things. We, we, we also talked about the role of failure in, in life in projects. And Riley, uh, captain Riley faced the worst kind of failure.

[16:04] He, he wrecked his ship. He was lost. He thought they were gonna starve and die of thirst on the desert. And he tells you in his memoir, he surrendered to the will of God. You know, it was an amazing thing to read that, and, and for me to go there and experience that kind of disruption, not, not life threatening like his, but complete disruption of this big trip I had planned and put, poured a lot of resources into and planned for over a year.

[16:30] And my reputation, I felt wrote on it. And I think we go in thinking, okay, we’re, we’re gonna be in control of situations and I wasn’t able to succeed until I, I let go of that. Of that feeling that I had to control the situation, just like Riley. Riley said it, he surrendered to the will of God and that that’s what allowed him to survive.

[16:51] I even. At one point was, you know, trying to control like, we need to go this far every day. We need to do this, that, and the other. Finally, one of the guides challenged me to a foot race on the desert and we go tearing off across the desert. You know, it’s not that pretty sandy desert. It’s, it’s hard pan with stones and, and pretty soon, you know, I’ve trained for this too, physically.

[17:10] I’m, I’m ready to go and I’m outstripping the guide. Well. What good does that do? You? I don’t know where I’m going. You know, you, you want to outrun your guide. That’s pretty stupid. You hit one of these stones, you’re gonna break your ankle and your trip’s done. You know, so it, that’s how uptight I was wanting to, to make this trip work and be successful for my partners and me.

[17:30] But it was a moment where I had to let go and it wasn’t then, you know, I was, I was upset. It wasn’t until later where I, I got to reflect and go, oh my gosh. Just like Riley had to let go because of what he faced. I had to let go too. And so, um, it was a deeper experience than I even thought I’d be able to get.

[17:49] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. How does that relate to the listener? Right? The guy who’s listening, you know, mid-career maybe has this athletic background like you and I share. There are things that we want to control in our careers and our businesses and our lives, and you got put into a situation where you’re like, you know, you know, we always say control the controllables, but man, there, there wasn’t a whole lot.

[18:12] Control. I mean, how do we embrace this mindset out here in, in the real world for the rest of us?

[18:17] Dean King: Yeah. Well I think, you know, as athletes who’ve been on, you know, on teams, you know, it’s so important to, to have a team, to trust your team, know your role, and get in a situation where you can rely and trust on your teammates.

[18:31] And let go a little bit on occasion, you know? Um, I did have two people who’d come along. They, they skipped their honeymoon to come along and they had been to third world countries and everything, but they wanted to experience this, but it was so miserable. We were stuck in the Jeeps at some points for, you know, a day and a half not being allowed to go anywhere.

[18:47] And that, um, that it was upsetting to me that I was not performing for them and everything. And there was tension. But I think, as you said, you control what you can control and then try to be graceful, try to be pleasant and reasonable, and, and to make the best of a bad situation. Look for the, look for the, that proverbial silver lining as well.

[19:06] But, you know, for, for me, in a, a lot of these instances, I’ve, I’ve faced those kinds of things where you don’t immediately realize that you’re learning and growing. Until afterwards and you, and you kind of reflect and realize, well, that was a good experience for me. And I think sometimes if we’re in a, we’re struggling in a, in a project or things aren’t working out the way we thought they were gonna work, being a little more agile and looking for new ways to solve problems and opening up the mind, you know, as we get experience, we learn these kinds of skills.

[19:37] I think it’s more closer to wisdom, probably.

[19:40] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. You know, for the listener, like, how does this apply to your life? You know, after you. You’re done listening to this episode. It’s like whatever challenges you’re facing, struggles and things aren’t happening on the timeline that you want, like. You, you actually have to be present in that moment.

[19:56] Like Dean talked about. You know, we, we learned these lessons oftentimes in
[20:00] hindsight, and, and we have to carry those forward and go, okay, I heard Jim and Dean talking about this on the podcast episode and the project that I’m working on didn’t get done, or the job that I want, that I, I didn’t get it.

[20:10] Like, you gotta truly and actually embrace this. I have a client who, he, he was applying for a very big job, a very big, would’ve been a huge next step for him, the right next step for him in his career. And there were a hundred applicants. He got down to the final two and there were interview after interview after round, after round.

[20:28] And he didn’t get it. And I was texting with him. I said, you know what would, you know in, in, in our world, he’s a former wrestler. I’m a former wrestler. I said, what would, how would Jordan burs handle this? Like he, this is this the goat of wrestling in America. And you know, he, he won an Olympic gold medal.

[20:44] And then the next time around at the Olympics, he got eliminated, didn’t even medal. Right. And he still went on to become the goat. He still went on to win multiple world championships afterwards and. And it’s just like, how, how does that guy handle it? Right? How does Dean handle it in this situation? And we’ve gotta go and, and carry that lesson forward in that moment as opposed to hearing this nice story on a podcast episode and, and reflecting on the lesson, but actually not, not not utilizing it.

[21:08] So, so, Dean, for you, why pursue this? Like, you know, it’s one thing to be a writer, it’s a whole other level to, to be a writer who’s going on these, these impossible journeys at times. To do this? I mean, where does this come from? What itch are you trying to scratch with each book and each adventure?

[21:28] Dean King: You know, I remember back to being a kid and watching sports on tv.

[21:33] There’s a basketball neighborhood, basketball court, not too far. I could see it from the TV room and a certain point, I made a decision that there was ever a choice of watching the game on TV or actually playing the game. I was gonna play the game. And I think being out there in the world, being active in, in interacting with people in situations is invaluable.

[21:55] We all, I think, crave some sort of adventure interaction, human interaction. In terms of writing books, you know, you can gather all the, the information that’s in books and archives and, and pull all that together, but there’s no substitute for going out on the trail, you know, living by the campfire, smelling the campfire smoke.

[22:12] You know, I was gonna slaughter a camel over while I was over there because Riley, uh, there’s a very important scene where. He has a camel slaughtered and as soon as he does all the Arabs come and eat the camel. He bought the camel and had it slaughtered so that it, he get his men across the desert and the people he’s hired as gods won’t stop the others from eating his camel.

[22:32] And he’s distraught, he’s, you know, he’s an American. He doesn’t understand that. And then they explain to him, no, you know, ALA’s, given us this food, it’s ALA’s food. We have to share it with anybody. And when I went over there. I experienced similar type things. We would sit down to have tea in the middle of the desert, nobody for miles.

[22:49] The minute we’d light a fire and start cooking the tea, somebody would appear walking across the desert. It was mind boggling. And they’d come to the fire and our guide would be, oh, please join us. You know, we’re gonna share the tea. And, you know, split if we had sandwiches. We would cut them up and share everything and, you know, to, so to learn that different culture to be there.

[23:08] There’s a scene in the book where, uh, Riley describes his, his, uh, men get, uh, what they call moon sickness, what the natives call moon sickness. And they’re a very just, you know, their, their bodies are failing and they, Arab guides say, uh, we can fix this. And they take their knives and put them in the fire and heat up the backsides.

[23:25] And they brand these guys who are screaming ’cause they’ve got, uh, you know, hot knives being applied to their skin. And, you know, that was one of the most sort of outrageous scenes I read in Riley’s narrative. And I thought, well, maybe he’s, you know, stretching the truth a little bit there. Well, I, I get over there, I’m in the one of the Jeeps with my driver, and I see these two scars on his neck, and I say, how’d you get those scars?

[23:50] He went on to describe being sick four years earlier in the exact same treatment. They heated up the knives and the fire and branded him, and he said it saved his life. So that was amazing. One more quick anecdote. I, I’m on the camel for the first time, you know, and, and my guide. Was a camel jockey instructor.

[24:08] So he goes flying across the desert. I’m, you know, racing behind him. Rafts of camel, you know, foam flying outta the mouth, trying to dodge that. And my saddle starts to, to slide and I fall off eventually. Otherwise, I’m gonna go into the whip song, lot logs, legs of my camel. I didn’t, I didn’t know how to stop a camel.

[24:25] Even so my guide comes riding up, he goes, king, what’s wrong with you? You know, I’m checking to see if something’s broken. Y you know, my, my metaphor for riding a camel is it’s like sitting on a bar stool. On a horse. So the, you know, the horse is going one way, the bar stool’s going the other, and you’ve fallen from pretty, pretty high up and goes, king, what’s wrong with you?

[24:42] And it, and I don’t really answer. He goes, nevermind. Those who fall from camels are protected by Allah. You’re not hurt. You’re okay now. This would’ve been small solace to me having just fallen off of the camel, except for Riley’s guide. Said the exact same thing to him in 1815, and I read that in his memoir, and again, I thought, okay, maybe he’s stretching the truth.

[25:04] He fell off of his camel. The guide said, Hey, you fell off of a, a camel. If you’d fallen off of a, an ass, or, you know, you, you might be dead, but you’re fine. And so that was a thing I didn’t expect to experience, but being there, I actually experienced that. Yeah,

[25:22] Jim Harshaw Jr.: fascinating. So you, you’ve experienced, you, you’ve gone through a lot of pain and suffering and, you know, mental anguish and, and physical anguish to bring these stories to.

[25:34] I’m curious, your take on this, right. There’s a great book called The Comfort Crisis. I dunno if you’ve heard of this, from by Michael Easter. Easter where he talks about just the comfort crisis, especially in America, where, you know, things are very easy for us and you know, we can punch a couple buttons on our phone and, and food will arrive at our door.

[25:51] And you know, we never really have to exert ourselves. We can live in air conditioning and heat and like what value do you place on, if any, and this is not, I’m not trying to throw you a softball here. I’m just curious like. Do you value that hard, like doing the hard thing and ex that that experience of, you know, falling off a camel and the challenges that you’ve had to like, do you value that, that physical part of that?

[26:16] How important do you feel that is for people to experience?

[26:19] Dean King: Well, I think it’s super important to, um, shake up your normal life and get out and to be physical and to get paired down. I, I do a lot of cross country walking. I walked across England, you know, the year outta college and I’ve walked across England twice now and done the torte, Mount Blanc and walked the Welsh border and you know, so getting out and realizing.

[26:42] That you can survive off of what you carry on your back. You know, I was a boy scout too, so I did all that kind of hiking and survival camp, and I love that. I love adventure, but I think being paired down and understanding how little we need to actually exist and, and be comfortable or at least to survive is, is, is really important.

[27:02] It puts other things in perspective to be hungry out on the trail when you get back home. Something’s not cooked the way you want, or it’s not the perfect meal. You know, your attitude’s a little different. It’s like, Hey, that, that looks pretty good. You know? And so I think these kinds of experiences are important.

[27:18] As you know, I just, I walked the Camino Portuguese and, uh, with my daughter, we went 180 miles in 13 days. And just being out on the trail in that rhythm, you know, it just changes your perspective on, you know, you’re in pain, your legs hurt, your feet hurt. Over time, your joints hurt. Everything hurts. You know, you’re, you’re hungry a lot, but those are basic needs and it makes a lot of other worries and neuroses and things just go away.

[27:44] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. Like how many likes you got on your most recent. Social media post or

[27:48] Dean King: Yeah. Yeah. Hundreds, you know, of people really enjoying seeing that experience and, and bonding with the people you’re with. Meeting new people, you, you lose a lot of your baggage, so it’s a lot easier to meet people and to write to them, you know?

[28:01] ’cause you’re, you’re, you’re suffering the same experiences. Again, it’s, it’s sort of maybe a analogous to teammates where, you know, you, you did two aday with guys. You, you struggled, you, you, you hit each other, you punched each other, you know, all that kind of stuff, you know, to achieve a goal and that’s incredibly valuable and stuff, and, and, and helps you form bonds and, and grow in, in many ways.

[28:24] Jim Harshaw Jr.: There are two podcast episodes that I, that I remember and there’s, there’s a one quote from each that I. They just really struck me, struck deeply Inside of me is the one is, uh, by Dave Reding, who’s the founder of this F three workout group, men’s workout group that I’m a part of, that I talk about a fair bit on this podcast.

[28:41] And, uh, he said maybe somewhere deep in the hearts of men, we don’t want everything to be easy. And, and I think there’s a lot of truth to that. And then the other one is from Joe Deena, who’s the founder of Spartan Races, and he said, if you architect a little bit of discomfort into your life on a regular basis.

[28:59] You can be happy just eating a cracker in the rain.

[29:02] Dean King: Exactly. Yeah. That’s great. And, and I think that, I guess again, it comes back to that thing, it’s the journey, usually not the place you end up. And so in terms of writing books or achieving in your career, if you work hard and you put the time in, you put all the effort in and, and things don’t go your way, you can still be happy and proud.

[29:21] And that’s important to know that you gave your best effort. I do that with my books and when I launch them, uh, you know, they’re gonna go out to cruel critics who are just gonna potentially, you know, rake them over the coals. They don’t have anything invested in it, is a good read or not, you know? Um, and so I, I’m subjected to that.

[29:37] A lot of people, um, have a hard time with that. I don’t, you know, if somebody reviews me unfairly, I, I’m not saying I don’t get a little angry, but it doesn’t affect my self value and worth and feelings about myself. If I know I put everything I could. Into a book. If I turned every stone and edited it five extra times, there are limits.

[29:57] But if you do the best you can do,
[30:00] um, how can you question that? And I know I do like on the, I still play a squash and now playing Padel, this other racket game and. When things go wrong, I tend to blame myself instead of, you know, more often I should say, that guy hit a great shot and there are other factors there.

[30:15] And so again, as, as we live and gain experience, we understand that we put the effort in as best we can and we give it our all. We can be proud of that.

[30:25] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Has there been a time in your career where you, you’ve put forth what you thought was a, a, a good enough at least effort and things didn’t work out? A time when you failed?

[30:34] Dean King: Well, I think life is in some ways continuing series of failures. You know, when professional tennis players go to a tournament, one guy wins. At the end of the season of every professional sport, one team wins. Everybody else lost to, we have to deal with those things. There are. You know, sure. There, there are writers whose work I, I read and go, you know, I think mine’s better, but they’re achieving more or selling more books or for, for whatever reason that it is, you have to come to terms with those kinds of things as well.

[31:02] That luck plays a part in it, maybe certain choices, play, play a part in it and um, you know, so be it. But again, I think ultimately we’re looking for living meaningful lives and positive lives and giving back in some way, leaving the place better. Then we found it. And so, you know, those are things that I think that we do all struggle coming to terms with every day, and I think experience helps.

[31:28] Jim Harshaw Jr.: What do you say to the guy who’s listening who is maybe stuck in a career or a job or even their own business that. Is just not fulfilling for them. You know what, what I’m getting at is you’ve pursued your passion, right? This is something that, that just, it seems like found you, right? It was in you, you pursued it, it found you, you get to do the thing that was in you since you were a child.

[31:52] What, what do you say to the guy who, who maybe didn’t take that path, right? They took the path of, they felt like they were supposed to do, or what society tells them they’re supposed to do and, and they feel stuck.

[32:05] Dean King: Yeah, look for change where you can. I find it a a lot of times in just opening my mind to something else.

[32:11] I just gave the example to a young writer today when I did my book, guardians of the Valley, about John Muir and the creation of the Yosemite National Park and the modern environmental movement. Muir’s Life was so complex. That I didn’t really know how to harness it ’cause I don’t tell a biography. I tell a narrative story and I read a novelist named Anne Paget’s book Commonwealth.

[32:35] She jumps through time. It opened my mind. I saw, oh my gosh, I don’t have to tell you. I don’t have to give you every little piece. I can jump through time with his life. It allowed me to go back into his life and strip out what I didn’t want to tell and create this narrative arc of what I think the reader needs to know about John Muir, why he’s so great.

[32:54] But anyway, it was just it. It was almost random that I read that book, but I found a solution there. And I think, you know, letting go and looking for solutions in other places, maybe taking that walk. I mean, the walk that I just took was fantastic. Sometimes it’s, it’s picking up the telephone and just making a call to an expert that you don’t feel like you’re totally prepared to do.

[33:17] Or you, you know, you feel sheepish about just making yourself vulnerable sometimes I think, and. To look for ways to shake you out of the patterns or, um, your fears. A lot of people want to, to write and there is a threshold that the people who’ve already written a book or two, they forget. There’s a threshold there for people who haven’t, who don’t understand.

[33:40] So I always say, you gotta take that first step into the darkness. You gotta give up the fear and just trust things will work out and it’s better to try and fail than not to try. So I’ve always lived that way. I, I will try to walk into that dark room and see what happens rather than let fear keep me from doing that.

[34:00] And that’s the way to, I think, open up new horizons to, you know, shake up your world a little bit.

[34:06] Jim Harshaw Jr.: For the listener, go back, hit the rewind button 30 seconds or a minute, and go back and listen to what Dean just said about taking that first step into the darkness. And this is a guy who you may be like, oh, he’s just successful.

[34:19] And he goes on these adventures and writes these books and they’re great and people buy him and everything’s easy. Like we’re talking to a guy who is taken that step into the darkness over and over and over. To the point where he makes it look easy. I just saw, uh, something on social media today about this image of a ballerina who makes it look easy, but it’s so hard to make it look easy.

[34:42] It takes so much time, so much energy, so much effort to get to the point where you make it look easy. And you’ve certainly done that, Dean. So I’m gonna ask you a question that’s maybe a little bit selfish. ’cause one of my core values is adventure. Actually, in about 24 hours, I’m, I’m leaving to go on a weekend adventure with, with an old buddy, a couple old buddies.

[35:01] And I, I just think adventure is so critical. I, I, I, I work out in the morning and this morning I went and did a really hard workout and early in the morning with a bunch of friends, and I consider that a, a daily adventure that I get to do. I think it’s so critical to go out and do hard things and go on adventures and, and to have some uncertainty and to do just things that are outside of your comfort zone.

[35:20] So what do you say to the guy who maybe has lost touch with his sense of adventure? I, ’cause I, I’d be honest, like I, I think. I think it’s in particularly men, I think it’s certainly in women as well. I think there’s something unique about adventure in men and that that really can bring the best out of a man.

[35:40] But I think a lot of guys. Don’t pursue it.

[35:43] Dean King: You know, I, I agree. And I think it’s often little things that, um, stop us from taking adventures. And again, I’m gonna go back to that, that image of stepping into the darkness. It’s like, you know, you don’t know how to set up that adventure, but if you just make the first phone call, you’re gonna find somebody who’s gonna help you.

[36:02] You know, you, you’re not gonna do it all alone. And you know, most of these things aren’t being done for the first time. There’s people that have experience and people want to help you. I think people want to help move you along. So again, it’s sort of addressing your fears and I agree. That’s why we, we do these things.

[36:19] It’s why we go on adventures because. You’re gonna be faced with stuff that you’re probably scared of, you know, of, of, of thirst, of getting lost, of, you know, not being prepared if you’re out in the wilderness, that kind of thing. And then to deal with that, to learn from it and hopefully to succeed at your efforts, brings you pride and wellbeing and the ability to face more adventures.

[36:43] It makes us feel good about ourselves. In addition to, you’re talking about physical fitness too. I think that’s very important. And so if you’ve lost your sense of adventure, it may be as little as, hey, putting on the gym clothes and going out for a run today or a walk, you know, just making a walk, a part of your routine, whatever it is, it can be little, little tiny steps that lead to bigger steps.

[37:06] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. Excellent. And, and I always ask, you know, for an action item coming out of these episodes, and I think you just gave it to us like. Take that first step, make the phone call, reach out to somebody who’s already figured it out. Go do the hard thing, put on the running shoes. Go for a walk. Go for, go for a run.

[37:20] Um, those are good concrete action items and, and takeaways here. Dean, thank you so much. Uh, for the listener who wants to buy your books, find you, follow you, where can they do that?

[37:30] Dean King: I’ve got a website, DH king.com, and also on Amazon. If you look up Dean King, all my books are up there should be in your local bookstores too.

[37:39] I have love to keep people in local bookstores and, but either way,

[37:44] Jim Harshaw Jr.: and these are some phenomenal, phenomenal books that just stir the soul of adventure inside of me. So Dean, thank you so much for coming on the show.

[37:53] Dean King: Great to be on, Jim. Thank you. Good luck with all your pursuits. Likewise. Take care.

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