Craig Richard Discusses Surviving A Devasting Rock Climbing Fall, Becoming A National Finalist On American Ninja Warrior, And Being An International Touring Musician

Success Profiles Radio

Craig Richard joins Success Profiles Radio to discuss his extraordinary journey from surviving a devastating rock-climbing fall that shattered his leg to summiting El Capitan and

Key takeaways

• Richard shattered his leg in a 22-foot fall at Black Canyon of the Gunnison but returned to climb El Capitan a year later with metal hardware still in his leg.
• He describes rock climbing as a 'moving meditation' that forces absolute present-moment awareness and mental clarity.

Main topics

• Resilience and overcoming adversity
• Rock climbing and extreme sports psychology

Notable quotes

We make plans and God laughs.

Conclusion

Listeners gain actionable perspectives on transforming setbacks into c

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) It's time for Success Profiles Radio with your host, Brian K. Wright. Have you ever wondered if there's more to life than you're currently living? Then Success Profiles Radio is the program for you. Every week, we'll explore different aspects of success and how to apply them to your life. Guests will come from many different backgrounds, including expertise in leadership, business, relationships, careers, networking, health, overcoming adversity, and much more. Every show is a dose of inspiration. This is Success Profiles Radio. And now, here's your host, Brian K. Wright. Speaker 3 (0:39) Hello and welcome to Success Profiles Radio. I'm your host, Brian K. Wright, and it's an absolute pleasure to be with you here today. I'm honored that you chose to spend part of your day with me here. This is going to be a fantastic and amazing show. I'll be introducing my guest in a moment or two, and I promise we're going to have a lot of fun today. I do want to take a little bit to share some things I've been learning and thinking about lately, and I typically do this every single week. Have you ever noticed that life tends to go in cycles? Sometimes things are up and sometimes things are down, and I prefer to think of life as having seasons. There is a time to reap and a time to sow, as the Bible very famously says. During those downtimes, or winter if you want to make the analogy for seasons, it's really important to remember that your most productive days may be those in which you planted a bunch of seeds, even though you didn't experience many outward results. But just like in gardening or farming, some of those seeds will eventually produce a fruitful harvest. When you are in the harvesting season, you will be reaping the fruit of your previous labor. What many people forget, however, is that They are so busy reaping that they forget to keep planting. Once you have finished reaping the labor, you may realize that if you have not been planting seeds at this time, you will run out of anything to harvest, and thus your slow season begins again. The key is to remain consistent. Keep planting seeds for future opportunity so that you will always have something to harvest later. Stay in action, keep looking, and planning several steps ahead to minimize the cycles that we all inevitably face. You will be very, very glad you did. And if you have not downloaded and subscribed to Success Profiles Radio on Apple Podcasts or iTunes, please do. do that. Leave a five-star review if you think it's worthy. I hope you do. We've been doing this for 14 and a half years. We have well over 650 episodes and the 15-year anniversary will be coming up in January. I cannot wait for that. And right now, Success Profiles Radio is in the top 100 business shows on iTunes and it's in the top 10 in careers. And so I thank all of you for listening and downloading and subscribing and please tell all your friends. So let me tell you about my very special guest. Craig Richard. He has a remarkable life journey that has influenced millions of people worldwide, spanning over 150 countries of adventure. His incredible stories inspire the hearts and minds of people everywhere. He has a very incredible rock climbing story that was featured on the Travel Channel show called Got Home Alive, where he overcame devastating accidents against all odds. And one year after shattering his leg, he went back. to scale the summit 3,000 feet of El Capitan, one of the most difficult rock climbs in the world. And he also emerged as a world-class athlete. He was a national finalist on American Ninja Warrior, which I love. That's a fantastic show. He's also an accomplished music artist touring with other artists like Kenny G. And he has a very positive speaking career in which he influences lots and lots of people. And he shares about resilience and overcoming and reminding people that we all have unlimited potential. I cannot wait to dive deep into all of these things and so much more with my very special guest, Craig Richard. Craig, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you, Brian. It's a pleasure to be here. Absolutely. So did you envision early on that you'd be where you are right now? Speaker 2 (3:42) I love the saying, we make plans and God laughs. Speaker 3 (3:46) And Speaker 2 (3:47) I say that because no. I guess not the way I maybe envisioned it. I did know something very clearly as a young man I wanted to experience in life, and that was to see the world. And that has happened for sure. I've been to 151 countries now. I never would have imagined I would have done it in the way I have. It's been... Very interesting and untraditional. One of those is that my music career has taken me on cruise ships all around the world. I never thought that would be a thing. Speaker 3 (4:17) Sure. Do you have a favorite place that you visited? Speaker 2 (4:20) Oh, gosh. I love the South Pacific. The Tahitian Islands are really special. Speaker 3 (4:26) Wow. That's great. So Speaker 2 (4:27) tell us a little bit about Speaker 3 (4:28) your path. Speaker 2 (4:31) My path in life? Speaker 3 (4:32) Yep. Speaker 2 (4:34) Sure. Well, I was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and I'm the very proud son of a music teacher mother and a rock climbing psychiatrist father, which very much made me into this interesting concoction that I am. I've made a life as a professional musician. My mom gave me my first piano lessons, so... I had a show last week. We were in Quebec and my mom came to the show and I was able to honor her and say my mom gave me my first piano lessons. I toured the world playing music and there she is in the third row. So that was sweet. Speaker 2 (5:13) I just grew up with a really interesting balance between very different things. You know, the music is the art for me, being an artist. And then the rock climbing, the ninja warrior, the athletic side is, you know, a very physical, embodied part of myself. And so I guess I would say a lot of my path has been about holding, in some ways, opposites, but just... Speaker 2 (5:42) not necessarily having to be opposites, but just very different things. So a big part of my path has been, you know, I guess just opening myself up to a lot of different ways to express myself and grow. Speaker 1 (5:57) I've Speaker 2 (5:57) never liked that phrase, jack of all trades, king of nothing, because it discounts all the people that find their way to grow and come alive doing so many different things, which. I believe that really is the nature of the human spirit. In many ways, we're not one-dimensional beings. Now, you're a saxophone player, is that right? I play saxophone. I also sing and play guitar. Wow. Who are some of your musical influences? Hmm. Speaker 2 (6:25) Jackson Brown, Bob Dylan. Speaker 2 (6:30) John Denver. Yeah, I love a lot of really good folk music that tells great stories. Cat Stevens. Speaker 1 (6:39) I Speaker 2 (6:39) also really enjoy people's words that have a message. A lot of those people sang many songs about what's happening in the world and ideas on how we can improve it. And that's really something I believe. Speaker 3 (6:52) Yeah, that's fantastic. Those are all really good artists for sure that you named. The whole singer-songwriter era of the early 70s was... really foundational, you know, Carole King, Carly Simon, Kenny Rogers, Elton John. I mean, and everybody you named, of course, fantastic. So you have had to make a lot of sacrifices to achieve what you've done. What were some of those huge sacrifices for you? Speaker 2 (7:21) Gosh, I was just talking to a friend about this over lunch. In this matrix, this society we've created, we've created a lot of parameters and ideas on how we're supposed to live a life. And so it really has been a big risk and also caused me a lot of pain to blaze my own path in life. And I know anybody will attest to that, that has tried to do something out of the box to kind of sing their own song. Speaker 2 (7:58) Yeah, so some of those sacrifices are definitely a lot of times a feeling like I'm on my own in some ways. I've definitely had moments of feeling guilt that I'm not living right. You know, even though I had become so successful, it led me down a path where I've had a lot of free time. Speaker 2 (8:21) 20s, especially when I lived in New York City and I'd see everybody all dressed in black rushing off to their jobs. Speaker 1 (8:27) And Speaker 2 (8:27) I was moseying down the street to a cafe to write my journal because, you know, I had four days off that week and three days of shows. It's like I had this weird feeling like, oh, did I miss the memo? Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Speaker 3 (8:43) You know, I think a lot of them would gladly trade places with you, though. Speaker 2 (8:47) And they had said that to me when I mentioned that to people. I guess what part of that was for me was there seems to be something comforting in the way we've created society that's like you always know what to do. I would say, sadly, a lot of that is not things we want to do, but there is always something that you need to do. And so it's a real blessing, but also can be a challenge to. have a lot of free time and a lot of silence because there's nowhere to look except inward. And that's a big part of what's made me who I am is so much time to work on myself and know myself. But at the same time, with a very active brain, as I have and many of us do, my monkey mind, I say sometimes, it's caused me to overthink what I'm up to sometimes. Sure. Speaker 3 (9:42) Why do you think some people, many people don't want to pay the price for success? Speaker 2 (9:48) It's scary. Speaker 2 (9:51) I think that we... We are told to follow our dreams, Speaker 3 (9:57) but Speaker 2 (9:58) when you actually set out to do it, there seems to be so many voices and roadblocks that say that was a nice idea, but let's get practical. Let's get real. Speaker 1 (10:08) Um, Speaker 2 (10:10) And, you know, then a lot of us take on major responsibilities at a young age that also tie us into a lifestyle and a routine that make it really difficult to, again, have that space to really pursue something else. But I see that really changing now. I think the younger generations are starting to find really creative ways to make a living, to make a life and express themselves. And I'm really hopeful for where we're going in that sense. Speaker 3 (10:38) Yeah, for sure. We've got maybe a couple minutes or so to our first break. Tell us what you love about rock climbing. Speaker 2 (10:46) Oh, it empties my mind. You know, people will tell you meditate, you know, it's so good for you. And then you sit in silence and it's like, oh, this is hard. And it is. It's very difficult to get to that stage. And so for me, rock climbing is a moving meditation. And it's something that I have to be so present in the moment. I can't think about anything else. And, yeah, it's just one of my greats. offers to anybody is find any activity that when you're doing it, you're not thinking about anything else because that is kind of getting in the zone, you know, that blissful state. And that's so good for us. Yeah. Speaker 3 (11:26) And I Speaker 2 (11:26) would imagine Speaker 3 (11:27) that rock climbing is a great metaphor for life because you can't skip steps. You have to take the next step that's in front of you or you're going to fall. Speaker 2 (11:36) Absolutely. I mean, that's just the nature of the sports. If you are not zoned in on where your next handhold or foothold is, then you're going to take a dive down the rock. And nobody wants to do that. It's not fun. Speaker 3 (11:49) And if you don't decide to scale something more difficult, you never grow. I mean, analogous to skiing, you don't get very good if you stay on the bunny hill Speaker 2 (11:57) your whole life. It's true. It's true. I also would add, you know, in... I could see how you very much could compare climbing to a go-getter mindset. And there's absolutely a lot of parallels. At the same time, for me, with a risky activity like that, there needs to be a how much is enough, where's the edge aspect to it, you know? Speaker 3 (12:23) Yeah. For sure. We are coming up against our very first break. We are with Craig Richard, and we're going to talk more about rock climbing. In fact, after the break, we're going to talk about his very serious fall that changed his entire life. And we'll talk about how that ended up becoming... Speaker 3 (12:39) part of a travel channel TV show. And we're going to talk about his music career some more. We're going to talk about American Ninja Warrior, which is one of my favorite shows. And we're going to talk about his speaking career. We have so much to unwrap and unravel when we come back. And I cannot wait to explore a whole bunch of this. In fact, I'm going to ask him after the break, a question that I ask everybody, what's the most expensive mistake you've ever made? I'm going to give him the break so he can think about the answer to that. Speaker 1 (13:05) But Speaker 3 (13:05) we will come right back when we return. This is Success Profiles Radio. We will be right back. right back Speaker 1 (13:28) The mission is to motivate