Silvercore Podcast 160 Malcolm Wood

[00:00:00] I am curious, how often do you get to sit down with world class entrepreneurs, high flying adventures, expedition leaders, and just pick their brain, glean some sort of mentorship from people who've been there and done that? Well, if you're a Silver Core Club member, that's exactly what you get. Mentorship is one of those things that keeps coming up over and over again.

I keep hearing people say, I wish it was easier to find mentorship in hunting. I wish it was easier to find mentorship in business, or, man, it would be great if I could find a life coach, but I just don't have the money for that. The Silver Court Club is dedicated to providing accessible mentorship. Case in point.

Today's podcast, if you want to dig a [00:01:00] little bit deeper, little bit more into what makes Malcolm Tick, all Silver Court Club members have free access to the outpost, and that's where we dive a little bit deeper, get a bit more personal, and try and uncover the things that make others tick that we can internally apply to ourselves.

If you're already a Silver Core Club member, just log into the Silver core.ca website and you're gonna find that you have a unique RSS feed that you can plug into most podcast providers, and you'll automatically be updated through your phone or through your app when any new episode comes out. If you're not a Silver Core Club member, you might want to check it out, silver core.ca.

Now, let's get on with this episode. I am joined today by someone who's lived one hell of a life paragliding off of Himalayan Peaks building world class restaurants, filming climate documentaries, and still finds time to cast for steelhead in northern British Columbia. He's part [00:02:00] adventure, part entrepreneur, and all heart.

He's lived across continents, built a life that blends adventure with purpose and brings a mindset shaped by risk, resilience, and the drive to create meaningful impact. Welcome to the Silver Core Podcast, Malcolm Wood. Thanks Travis. Really, uh, really happy to be here. I. You know, uh, I don't know if you know this, but you were part motivator for me picking up a paraglider a couple years ago when we were first looking at, uh, doing recording, I figured I'll just head over to Shay, bring my brand new paraglider with me, do a little paragliding over there.

Maybe we can record something and something live or something in person there. And I was pretty ignorant to everything that I need to know about paragliding. And thankfully, the more I learned, the more I realized I shouldn't be learning off of YouTube. And there's a lot of, uh, checks and balances I need to, need to get under my belt.

But I wanted to thank you right off the hop for, um, for that inspiration. [00:03:00] Yeah, you're, you, you're welcome. Uh, you, you're, you're, you're, you're probably discovering that it's quite an intellectual sport and, uh, there's, there's a lot to learn mentally about it before you actually go out and do, do, do the sport itself.

Yes, I am. I thought I'd just put the parachute on my back and I could jump off something, not realizing everything that's involved about learning weather patterns and learning thermals and learning all, all of the ins and outs behind it. So that slowed me down a little bit in my process, but probably for the best.

I jumped off a few of the local mountains here and done a little flying around. But, uh, uh, at some point, maybe I'll be over there in Shamia with the, uh, the, the big flyers and, uh, doing some of that too. Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, it's, it's, the reason I ended up living here was, was because of the aerial sports and it's, it's got one of the biggest vertical reliefs anywhere in the world.

Um, you know, and, and it's lift accessed as [00:04:00] well. So we've got, um, from, from the Valley four, which is a thousand, a thousand meters to the top of Mont Blanc, which is 4,800. Um, it's, it's, it's a lot of, it's a lot of vertical airspace. So I first learned about you through Brian Ska Skeena Spay Lodge, uh, BC's Best Spay Fishing Lodge.

In my opinion, uh, anybody who hasn't been there, who's listened to this, should absolutely check it out. Did a podcast with Brian, uh, back in the early days, and, uh, we still keep in touch all the time. In fact, I'll be, I'll be heading up there in about a week to, uh, to catch up with him and see what's going on with the crew over there.

But the stories that I've heard about you, the businesses that you started, you've lived the world over throughout your life. Uh, the adventures that you go on, they're pretty exhilarating. And I wouldn't mind just diving into the mindset of you as an entrepreneur who blends all these seemingly diverse [00:05:00] interests into something that's cohesive.

Yeah, so like on, on, on, on the face value, it probably looks like I haven't worked out, you know, what I want to be when I grow up. Um, and, and it looks pretty eclectic, but like in my head it makes sense. Um, there's, there's a deep passion for the nature and, and the environment. Um, I really enjoyed cooking.

At, at a very early age. So a lot, you know, always going out into the wilderness ing my own food, um, learning how to cook it, learning about produce. Um, and, and that just kind of filters into everything I do. You know, if, if we're making an environmental film, um, about the environment, we're using sports, we're going out into the back country, we're documenting, you know, the environment that we love.

Um, and, and, and, and it nurtures us, you know, from, from a food, from food perspective. Um, so that makes sense for the restaurant business. Um, and, and, and again with Skiena Bay, [00:06:00] you know, putting, putting together a, a fantastic, wonderful team with Brian, uh, up in, in northern bc. And, um, actually a funny fact is all of my companies are called Steelhead something.

So, you know, if, if, if you look at the group, there's like 15 different steelhead something companies, um, around the world. How, how did you get into steelhead fishing? I mean through, through Brian, like, um, Brian, um, you know, Brian and Migo way back. I, like, I was, I think I met him when I was like 17 years old, you know, so we're, we're, we're, we're, we're talking like 26, 27 years ago.

Um, in Whistler, did a bunch of fishing with him. He, he actually took me to Alaska on a, on a hosted trip. So I, I joined one of his hosted trips to Alaska West, uh, for King Salmon. And uh, and then he brought me on another hosted trip to Skeena. And then I just fell in love with the [00:07:00] river. And he wanted, you know, it was, it like he was getting, he, he was getting, um, itchy to make a move as well.

Uh, 'cause he'd been at, hmm. We've been fly fishing for so long and, uh, and we sing around a campfire up in, on the Skeena River one night, and we're like, let's make this happen. So yeah, the rest is history. Is it true that the whole business plan was written out on a napkin and then bang away you went?

'cause that's the, that's the urban legend that I've heard. No, no. It, it, it's there. It's there. And, and actually the best business plans that, that, that we've put together over the years with various different partners have been around a campfire, around a bar table, around a dinner table, and just, just sketching it out, making a plan, make putting some milestones in there.

Um, you know, I'm, I'm my, my New Year's resolution, the first thing that I write out, the first line is nothing [00:08:00] happens without a plan. Mm. Like I have to remind myself, if you don't plan for it, if you don't think it through, if you don't strategize it, it's not gonna, it's not gonna materialize. You're not gonna be able to manifest it.

So the first thing you need to do, the first step in order to manifest anything you do, is make the plan and then be very precise about what you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it by, and, and that's the napkin exercise. So it's like, okay, this date, we're gonna do this, this date, we're gonna do this.

By this date, it's gonna be this big, you know? And, uh, and it, it's normally fueled by a lot of, lot of excitement and, uh, and a few drinks. Uh, you know, I guess I, I've heard that most best business plans work that way. And you know, when, when I look at my business started in a very similar fashion, uh, all of the businesses that I've run have very similar lot of passion, lot of energy, and I've always been a firm believer that the best laid out business plan.

Really means nothing. 'cause the second the [00:09:00] rubber hits the ground, everything changes. Like, they're great for going to a bank, they're great for, uh, uh, sort of articulating a design. But the biggest thing that I find of value is just that first step forward. And then, like you say, uh, checkpoints, like, am I meeting my objectives that I've laid out?

Uh, is there any other points in there that, uh, like once you've got your business plan kind, kind of sorted out, uh, do you ever come back and look and say, Hmm, okay, maybe it's time to pull the cord on this one? Yeah. Look, I mean, the, the biggest part of being an entrepreneur is, is you don't learn from your successes.

You learn from your failures. Yes. Like every, every great story I've heard, you know, the person has. Has had some adversity hit him, or a huge loss or something early on in his career or even his childhood. Yeah. And, and that gives you, you know, you've gotta turn that into fire [00:10:00] to fuel your motivation to moving forward.

Um, I'd I'd say like a lot of the, a lot of people that come to me, uh, with business ideas, if you do not have the plan first and the milestones, you, you can't, you, you can't make it happen. Yeah. And strategy is key to everything. So do, doing and executing is one thing, but if you don't spend the first 20% of your day or 20% of your business plan on the strategy.

The other 80% won't get executed in the correct way or the most efficient way, or in a competitive way to other people. Um, so like I'm a big believer in strategy, organization, and milestones as the key framework for being able to manifest any business idea. It brings to mind a couple of, uh, uh, tried sayings, you know, if you fail to plan, you [00:11:00] plan to fail.

But the other one that you brought up, which, uh, adversity and difficulties, both personal and business. I think it was EH Chapin who said out of suffering have emerged as strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars. What adversities did you face that you feel have really helped shape who you are now and how did you overcome them?

Look at there, there was a bunch of, there's a bunch of things that, that kind of made me very independent and, and, um, and outgoing early on as a, as, as a kid, you know, like I, I ended up living away from my family at a very early age. Um, that shaped me a lot. I ended up moving around a lot in, at a, at a very early age.

So like learning to adapt to different cultures, different groups of people, different family members, um, was a, [00:12:00] was a big, is a big part of who I am today. Um, I, I kicked off and tried to start making money when I was 17, like, just, just straight out that I didn't, I hated school. I wasn't good at school.

Highly dyslexic, very bad at learning languages, you know, not making friends. Keeping friends because I was moving around every two, two or two or three years. Um, and, and then just having to work, work out how to do it my way. Yeah. And I knew that, I knew that the education system wasn't for me. I knew that I wasn't gonna succeed.

I wasn't gonna get good grades, and I had to figure out how to break the rule book essentially. Um, and I, I tried, you know, we, I, I tried five or six businesses till one stuck, you know, and then that one stuck. And we got too cocky and we got too big and we were fully leveraged. And we'd raised a shitload of [00:13:00] money.

And 2007 hit financial recession. Asia went down. We were completely exposed to, to, to, to everything in the marketplace. We lost the business. We lost a huge amount of money. First. Massive loss, first big failure. Lost my house in the process. Um. Girlfriend left me like the, you know, the, the, the typical story.

Wow. And, uh, and, you know, I remember me and my partner sleeping on a sofa just thinking like, how are we gonna rebuild this? You know, and, and just turning, turning that back into motivation and, and getting back up and, and without going through that process of trying six times and failing and, and losing a bunch of money, you don't learn how to protect and grow business probably because you're not aware of the things that can go wrong.

Yeah. There, there's good success stories that have that of people that haven't gone through adversity, but during the process of building their business, they've had those [00:14:00] challenges and they've overcome them. Yeah. Uh, it doesn't necessarily mean you need to lose your business to be able to, to, to be able to build a successful one.

It just means that you have to have learned the lessons and had the right mindset and approach to, to move it forward. You know, there's, there's some people out there who are really clever and they can learn from other people's mistakes. That's been, uh, that hasn't been my story. Uh, I've always had to make my own mistakes to actually truly feel them and learn from them.

Someone says The stove is hot. I want to know how hot, like, what do they mean when they say hot? Uh, like, can I just touch it quickly and get my hand off, or will that be too much? Um, I'm wondering, you talk about growing up with dyslexia and I see a culture nowadays of people who lean into, um, they're looking for the adversity in their life.

Oh, I'm dyslexic, or, I'm a DHD, or I'm whatever. And they use that as an excuse for why they're not achieving or why [00:15:00] they're, uh, not able to. Progress onto the next level. But by and large, what I find is people who have these sort of, uh, difficulties in early life, it, it kind of primes them to, to be okay with failure and to, uh, know that failure isn't fatal and it's not, success isn't final failure isn't fatal.

They can use that as, uh, a means of resilience for later on in life. Is that something that you found? Yeah. I mean, look, the, the, the easiest route is to, is to put yourself as a victim. Yeah. And, and everyone does it. I, I've done it and, and, you know, one week everything's going badly and you're losing deals and the markets have gone, you know, terribly.

And, and you wake up and you play the victim mindset and you sit there for three days and you're like, why is this [00:16:00] happening? You know? You know, and you, you're, you're, you're stuck in your own head and you've gotta pull yourself out. So you, you, you've gotta become your, your own biggest fan. Um, I, I think the other thing that entrepreneur needs to, to be able to do is to rally his, his self.

He have self-motivation is one of the biggest, um, one of the biggest factors because, you know, you're sitting at the top of your organization. You're, you're changing an industry. You are doing something competitive that no one else is doing. It's you, there's not many people that, that get, get you, that you can discuss it with.

And so that self-motivation has to come from within the adversity thing. Um, I. Kids learn pretty quick how to figure things out. But when, when the, and I've got a whole nother podcast, we can talk about education. My, my kids are homeschooled. Um, they, they, they do, um, they do a three hour learning program.

So like, we [00:17:00] just intense three hours rest of the day. You know, do what you do, do what you want, um, and, and, and, you know, the education system penalizes you for not learning in the way that it, that, that they want to teach you. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so if you are dyslexic, you end up being set up for failure in that system.

So you either end up feeling shit about yourself, becoming a victim, and then for the rest of yourself, for your life and your career, you have that mindset and, and you never end up breaking away from it. So my biggest advice is you've gotta turn those things that differentiate you from other people, even if they're negative into your superpower.

Mm-hmm. And so I think I'm dyslexic. You know, I, I don't do language, I don't do written language very well. Now I actually write all of my marketing for, for my companies and, you know, and, and ended up being able to speak quite well, uh, through the process. But like, I think, like out of 500 kids, I was the only one [00:18:00] that failed English at, at, uh, at middle school, you know, in, in my school.

And I wrote to do extra lessons, and it was being, it was humiliating at the time. Um, Jamie Oliver, for example, is now very outspoken about his dyslexia and his language learning skills. But look at him like, he went and faced the, he went and faced the fear, like the second he got outta school, he got a camera, he filmed himself and he was like, you know, his personality, the way he spoke, that's what people fell in love with.

And now he's a success, um, case. Um, so that mindset of going after what you're fearful of. Like, and, and this, you're, and I know, I know this is coming up. You're gonna, you're gonna probably ask me about like, why am I doing all of these like, extreme sports? It's because they scare me. Yes. It's horrifying.

And, and it, and it's the mindset of going head, head into, into that fear and doing something that's not natural [00:19:00] and learning how to overcome it and be successful at it. And, and it's not chasing the adrenaline, it's overcoming the fear and, and being mindful that the fear is there to protect you, you know?

So like the whole thing is kind of connected. Uh, yeah, a hundred percent. I think you encapsulated that very, very well. You know, uh, so you've touched on a bunch of points here, and one of them talking about homeschooling, I wholeheartedly agree with, and we homeschooled our kids for a period of time. I. Uh, back.

I think the biggest thing that a kid can get from going to a regular school would be socialization and, uh, possible connections. But those can be also found in sports and they can be found in different, different areas. But the actual education I don't find it's built for my kids. I don't find it was ever built for me.

I was diagnosed with A DHD in grade, uh, three. I was put on an experimental dosage of [00:20:00] Ritalin from grade three, and I took myself off before I went into grade eight. It was, uh, the highest dose in the province and the entire time they were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and areas where I was very weak at, they figured, okay, that's where we gotta double down and we gotta figure out how to get you good in these areas that you're weak at.

And with my kids, I've taken a little different approach. Okay, you're weak in this one area, but you're really strong over here. Guess where we're doubling down? That area that you're strong in is the area that I just want to, we can figure the other stuff out. We've got calculators, we've got ai. So that I, I find that interesting from the, from the education standpoint.

And then you talk about, uh, the fear one. Um, you know, I used to look at it. Fear allows me to be present and I used to chase fear, not because, um, I'm an adrenaline junkie, but similar to the reasons that, that you've [00:21:00] outlined. I would, um, abseil off our local bridges and overpasses. I would start a whitewater rafting as a teenager with a little Canadian tire raft and got something proper.

Because I wasn't a good swimmer and I almost drowned a couple times. And so I wanted to overcome that. The reason why I bought the paraglider is 'cause I'm afraid of heights, and I didn't like that at all. Um, I, I find those aspects that you bring up rather, rather interesting, uh, through the process of education and through your, uh, extreme sports and, and the films that you're built making.

You were named, um, what was it? Un, uh, called You Environment, UN Environment called you Mountain Hero of the Year in 2019. What was that about? That was an odd segue, but whatever. What was that about? Yeah, so, so, so, yeah. So [00:22:00] look, I, I, I got into, I got into extreme sports. I kind of made it my thing. Um, and then through that got obsessed with flying.

Like flying everything. Gliders, paragliders, speed, wings, mini wings, uh, planes. And, and it, what I like about the sport is if you, if you make a mistake, the the consequence could result in death. And I've had a few very close calls and one, uh, a couple of years ago where I broke, you know, practically every major bone in my body, pelvis, rib cage, internal bleeding, was on a mountain by myself.

Um, um, you know, needing a heli rescue just lying there, you know, and, and people are like, you know, you're, you're an idiot to do that. Yeah, there's a, there's a really, there's a, there's a, there's a, one of my favorite sayings in para lighting is you've gotta be stupid enough to let your feet leave the ground, but smart enough to [00:23:00] let them come back down.

Um, and. What, what I like about it is the mental side. It's, it's that it, it, it's scary and it needs practice. It needs dedication, it needs time, it needs consistency. It needs, um, it needs an understanding of the environment. You, you're not, you're not just learning to fly. You're, you're learning how the environment reacts, how the sun affects the winds, how winds turn into rotors, how, you know, valleys react to different times of the day.

And in order to keep yourself alive, you have to have that full understanding. And so it, it, they, they call it mental chess. Yeah. Like it's, it's 3D chess and you're playing the environment. And that's why aerial sports is so demanding mentally as well as physic physically. Um. So, you know, for, for a long time, just perfecting that and getting obsessed with different ways to do it and, and overcoming fear.

You know, I had a fear of heights as well [00:24:00] when I, when I, when I started, and that was one of the initial catalysts for learning kind of paraglide. It's like, well, you like to get over this. What's the most extreme thing I can do? Dangle myself 2000 meters above the ground, being ripped up in a thermal, uh, into the sky, you know, into a cloud.

Um, and, and working out how to survive that. So, yeah, that sounds good. Let's go, let's go and do that. Um, but there's a lot of similarities between extreme sports and business as well. Um, which, which we can dive, dive into later. Um, but to answer your question, we ended up doing a bunch of environmental documentaries.

So I, I, I, I worked on an environmental documentary called A Plastic Ocean. In 2017, it ended up becoming the most awarded environmental documentary of the year. David Attenborough ended up saying it was one of the most significant films of our times. Um, and, and just quick seg segue, um, it was the first documentary to talk about microplastics entering into the human body right before all this new news came out, which [00:25:00] is why it was ground a groundbreaking documentary.

And that was like the first foyer into the environ in, into, in environmental filmmaking. Um, so we ended up, uh, I ended up partnering with Craig Easton, the director, and we decided we wanted to take on climate change. Back then, 50% of Americans thought that the changing climate was a hoax. So we're like, well, this is a great subject matter.

Yeah. Like it's, uh, people are debating this. There's no easy way to solve this. There's no e clear visual, you know, route down the scientific path. You know, there's a lot of people, um, it's like, let's take subject matter of glaciers because that's pretty easy. If a glacier is melting at a faster rate all around the world, that means the thermometers that are sticking up in the sky are indicating that the climate is warming.

And a kid can understand that. So we went and convinced IMAX, who had never done a sustainability documentary. They had done environmental documentaries about the [00:26:00] environment, but not a sustainability documentary to do their first one with us. And we thought it would be a great idea to use this love of aerial paragliding and extreme sports to demonstrate and film this.

This subject matter so that kids would engage with it, because no one wants to sit through a boring environmental documentary. So we filmed us going around the world, climbing mountains, flying off them, and documenting the science of these mountains. Through that, the un um, um, granted me, um, uh, an ambassador of climate change and the title of Mountain Hero, uh, in the year that we launched that documentary.

So, and, and you've gotta be an athlete, but, um, um, it, it was a combination of the work that I've done in the mountains through extreme sports and the film that, that, um, that, that we brought, you know, and, and try to drive awareness with. I love that. I want to, I wanna delve a little deeper. You [00:27:00] said there's a couple times that you almost.

Died doing these extreme sports. Uh, I'd like to delve deeper if you can relay one of those experiences, what the mindset was, what was going on, and um, maybe then we can segue that about talking about fear and business. Yeah. So look, I, I, I, I started going into the one, um, where I was, I, you know, I, it was, it was a horrific accident.

It happened very quickly. Um, I had some gear failure. Um, I wasn't, look, I was tired. Uh, I was alone. I'd solo climbed, uh, a mountain in the winter actually ski, toured up with, with, uh, with skis to speed ride, which is using skis very, very small paraglider at very high speeds with one of the most advanced wings.

The first mistake I made was, I was tired. Then, um, the, the, the, the carabiner was a quick lock carabiner that [00:28:00] had caught. A piece of my clothing into it. And so when I took off, I was, you know, traveling almost a hundred kilometers an hour. And, um, and I tried to rectify the situation 'cause the wind was blowing into my face, causing my eyes to cry, quick move.

And the glider flipped and accelerated me into the ground. I think I hit it. I hit the ground at about 17 meters per second. So if you're, if you're, if you're a, if you're a, a skydiver, that's about, you know, over a third of terminal velocity, uh, wow. Face down, like, like almost like a belly flop, straight into ice, um, and rock and snow.

But I did this most perfect fall, which when you learn how to paraglider, it's called a p uh, PPLF or something where it's like the paragliding landing fall. Yeah. And so my ski tips touched. [00:29:00] My ski boots shattered, my ski snapped my legs, my my feet broke, my cuff muscles, um, severed, my pelvis crushed. And uh, my pelvis got broken.

Um, my arm hit my chest, broke my arm, fractured all of all of the ribs down one side, internal bleeding. Um, and, and then impacted my face. So streaming with blood. My filming buddy had just passed away. Like one of my best friends from Paragliding accident. Um, I don't know, it was about six months prior to that in the Owens Valley, Sierra Nevada, um, and a very thermic country.

Like, like some of the strongest thermals. And by two in the afternoon you don't wanna be landing in the valley floor 'cause you've got dust devils and, and stuff. No one really knows what happened, but he, he had a similar impact where he broke his fema. And he, and he ripped his aorta, artery, so he bled out [00:30:00] within five minutes and died.

So the first, the first thought that came to my head was, you've got minutes, um, to call someone to let them know I was by myself on a Swiss mountain at altitude and crashed pretty, pretty high up the mountain. Um, so first quick reaction was, doesn't matter your situation, get your phone out, make the call.

Uh, so I, I placed three calls, three pin drops, and then I relaxed and assessed the situation. Um, so yeah, I mean, that, that was as bad, as bad as they get. Mm-hmm. Um, long story short, got rescued, um, was a very long, 50 minutes waiting for that helicopter to come. And, you know, they, they, they brought me into the hospital.

The doctor assessed the situation. Once I was stabilized, it was like, you're not gonna walk for six months. You're not gonna ski for at least a year. You should give up speed flying. [00:31:00] And I, I just remember the other crazy thing about this story is I had a GoPro, um, 360 camera filming the whole thing on 60 frames per second.

And your brain is not supposed to compute the moment you were supposed to die at 50 frames per second. So watching that footage, that's a whole nother story on how to give yourself PSD. No kidding. But, um, yeah, and that, that, that fucked with my head for, for, for a very long time. And so there was a mental challenge of getting over that.

But look, I, I, I remember saying to myself, this is one of those moments that defines you. Let's, let's do this. And look, I, I've broken a number of bones in some accidents previously not flying related. Um, and I know how difficult the physio process is. I know how to manage broken bones. So I asked for a soft cus asked to keep myself mobile and I had a mission.

The accident happened in January that I would be skiing and flying again before the end of the [00:32:00] ski season. Wow. With the doctor sitting, I wouldn't ski for a year and walk for six months, 11 weeks later, skiing and speed riding again. Wow. You taught NIMS die. Normal purge how to, uh, paraglide, didn't you?

Yeah. So he'd learned how to paraglide and, um, the, the sport that I specialize in is like para alpinism, which is where you climb mountains and then you try to fly down. And for a very long time I was obsessed with flying it at very high altitudes with small wings. Uh, still am. Um, okay. Obviously, you know, um, o obviously getting older and, and kids and things.

Your, your, your, uh, your direct motivations change. Um. So he, he, he, he, he looked me up and he was like, yeah, look, I, I want to learn how to fly small wings on all these 8,000 meter peaks that I'm doing. So, um, we met, we started training [00:33:00] together. We formed a, a, a good friendship off the back of that. And then, um, and then we went to Himalayas and tried to break the speed flying record and try to fly above, uh, 8,000 meters together.

And were you guys successful in that? So the, yeah, so the, we, we were not, and again, like the, this, there's been like these two very big moments on Manaslu, which was the mountain we're trying to climb. There was the, it's called the Manaslu Massacre, where it's, it was a huge amount of snow dumped in a very short period of time.

A bunch of climbers try to climb it, huge avalanches and killed a bunch of people. And then it was a number of years and till, you know, since, since that happened. Um, when we went on our expedition and we did a bunch of test flights and we did training, we started understanding, you know, how these, how the wings would react to attitude.

We had a good team together and then we were hit with [00:34:00] 15 days of straight snowing. Hmm. And I had absolutely no shame in being the first person to walk. And if, if, if you fly with me and you ask anyone that flies with me, I am the first person to walk off. I'm the safest. All of my friends, you know, I'm doing safety training with them.

So actually the accident I had, the first thing was a lot of shame. Yeah. Like I was, I was full of shame that I had been the one that had the most serious accident being the safest and always the one that walk off first. Um, it's relevant in monastery because I was the first person to walk. I packed my bags and said, this is not safe, and we should walk next day because every single team had.

Being trapped for almost o over two weeks at this stage, 500 people ascended the mountain in one of the most dangerous avalanche con conditions except for N's team. But I, I had already said, look, there's no way I'm gonna climb up [00:35:00] there. Yeah. That this is, this is too dangerous. It's gonna release time's running out.

This is not the right time to break this record. So, so I left next day, avalanche hit a bunch of people died, couple of days later, a big avalanche came out and destroyed 500 tents, wiped out every single base camp. Um, and then the whole expedition was, was over. And I called it three days beforehand, not 'cause I have a crystal ball, just because I like to play it safe.

Mm-hmm. So if, you know, I have a, I have a buddy I fly with. He's, he's, he's, um. He's a guy called Mike Moore, and he, he, he won the British, uh, open, uh, for paragliding. He's got 10,000 hours plus ex fighter, jet pilot one, one of my closest friends, he trains other pilot, you know, fighter jet pilots, had a fly jets around the world for, for, you know, the Australian army, the, uh, the Italian army, [00:36:00] one of the best aviators that I know.

And he goes, his new rule is a hundred percent, like, not, not a hundred percent safe, but the, the mindset of like, if there's a doubt that this is not safe, then you shouldn't do it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Obviously the sport is not safe, and I can hear people screaming, but you're doing something that's not safe in general.

But what, what I mean is when you learn what is safe and not safe within that sport. So paragliding is actually very safe and very simple. Pull the left toggle, you go left, pull the right toggle, you go right fly in the morning, you're not gonna get a collapse. You're not gonna die. The biggest place you're gonna have accident is landing and takeoff.

Yeah. So it, it's, it's fairly linear. It's when you start pushing it and flying fast and flying long distances and trying to use concurrents or gonna high mountains and you start mixing all of these different disciplines together, it starts to get very dangerous. Um, so the, the, the mindset of just it, of just like always breaking down the safety, assessing that [00:37:00] first, and if the, the safety doesn't stack up to what you're prepared, you are like, I'm prepared to deal with this risk.

I'm gonna do it because it's safe. I've already prepared and it's within, within, within my capability. The second it's over that, and outside of what I'm comfortable with, pull the plug, walk away. No shame. I like that. You know, I, I've talked to different people about how they assess risk. Some people engineer background, they've got a spreadsheet that they go through and it's gotta meet all of these different things.

I. I don't ascribe to that as much as, let's say Jamie Flynn friend, who's been on the podcast before, ex British Special Forces and world class Wingsuit, um, flyer, uh, skydiver, uh, wing suiter. And he had a pretty bad accident. And he says, you know, I've now developed what I call the rule of threes. If there's three things that happen, then I don't, I I'm not gonna jump that day.

I'm like, well, what do you mean three [00:38:00] things? He says, well, you know, if the, if I don't wake up to my alarm or if, um, uh, the light, uh, I don't make the light, or like really arbitrary little things that are happening. But I think basically what he's tuning into is into his gut feeling and he can ascribe whatever he wants afterwards to these three different things that, that pop up.

And so he's set a bit of a, um, a hard, fast rule. Okay. Yeah, there's three things that happened. In my gut, it's not feeling right. I'm not jumping. 'cause the one time that he ignored that, of course horrific accident, nearly died. He was over in Turkey there and got to experience, uh, their medical system firsthand.

Um, would you say that you ascribe more to the gut feeling based on experience or are you more analytical in your, uh, in your approach? Like check checking off a spreadsheet. Look good, good gut feeling, good intuition comes from experience. So your, your brain is automatically doing [00:39:00] the spreadsheet for you, and the second your gut feels like you shouldn't be doing this, you probably shouldn't be doing it.

Yeah. Um, so that, that's, that's why, that's why first person will walk off the hill, like, is is the person who's analyzing the risk the most? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Or. So fearful that he's not overcoming his risk. So there, there's that, there's that aspect. But like if, if you've got a bunch of experienced people that fly in extreme conditions, the first one that walks off is the one that's assessing the risks the best.

Mm. The ones that's still there when there's no one there still willing to jump, isn't being intellectual about their decision to, to make that jump or make that flight, make that base jump, you know, whatever it is. And, and those unfortunately are the people that end up killing themselves in the sport, in, in our sport.

Yeah. Um, and you know, so it, it's not the [00:40:00] degree of the risk that you're taking, it's the degree of the risk that you're capable of executing. Hmm. How does the extreme sports that you partake in, how does that impact your business? Do you apply lessons you learn there or vice versa? I. I, I, I think I, I, I, it's not, yeah, it's, it, it, it's not one helps the other.

It's, there's lessons in business that apply in extreme sports and vice versa. So they both help each other. Mm-hmm. Um, one of, one of the things that when you, when you run a business at a high intensity level, and you're sitting there for hours on end, dedicating yourself, trying to think out the box and doing multiple different things and multitasking, you, you know, you either burn yourself out or you work out ways in which to release.

And I, and I think that's a big part, is the balance of, [00:41:00] of the amount of energy and passion you put into work. And then what I like about extreme sports is when you do a sport like paraglider, you cannot be thinking about work, like, you know? Mm-hmm. You can go do a, you, you, you can go, you hit, hit a squash ball or a tennis ball, or.

Go onto the driving range with a, with a golf club and, and you can still think a little bit about, oh yeah, I should have said that in this meeting, or what's coming up tomorrow. And, and your mind isn't a hundred percent focused on what you're doing in paragliding. Like you are focused, your hands are on the brakes, and when it's, when it's spicy out there, you you, there isn't a second for anything else.

So it's a form of meditation. It's a form of Yes, really taking yourself away. And like, you don't actually feel stress in the sense that you feel stress in the workplace. It's a different type of stress. It's more, it, it, it's more, uh, it's more of like an animal instinct type stress. It's like a survival thing.

Um, but in terms of like lessons both [00:42:00] ways, like precision planning strategy, you know, you wake up in the day, it's like, what's the weather doing? Can I fly? I. Okay. I can, so I need to get, I need to arrive there by this time. You know, I need to be laid out, set up. I need to have a strategy. I wanna get to this point.

Okay, we're gonna take this path. Okay. Right. Wind's blowing this way. There's gonna be rotors on this side of the mountain. The sun's gonna move. Okay. East face to west face, which side of the, the, it's, it's meticulous planning. And if you, if you fuck that process up and you're on the wrong side of the mountain, the wrong side of the day, you're in the lee, your paraglide collapsed and you are gonna hit the ground.

Mm-hmm. That was one of the earliest experiences that I had, was losing my canopy, um, at, at the highest point I'd thermal to at that, at that, at that time. And it's, it's the intermediate syndrome. It's when you're cocky enough that you think that you've learned everything, right? Uh, and so you start pushing [00:43:00] yourself in the sport.

And, and then that's when the biggest accidents happen. Uh, yeah, that's intermediate syndrome. Um, but it wasn't, I was guided at the time. I had an instructor and we misheard each other on the radio. Ended up flying into the rotor, lost the wing, fell like 300 meters in, like two seconds in a downdraft, like with a big canopy to fall that quickly.

And the air was really diving and the canopy reopened about three meters above the ground. Oh man. And so that was the first big goal. And, and actually mentally, that was probably the hardest thing that I had to overcome in, in all of my sporting career, was that first accident. Because that set, that set the framework for how to overcome everything else after that.

Um. It's like, okay. Right. And I was really scared, you know, like I, I, I, yeah, I, I had ground brush. I thought every bone in my body was gonna break. Um, [00:44:00] and, and, and then I didn't fly for six months and then I wouldn't want to thermal after that. And then every little tweak in the wing like freaked me out.

And, and I was like, you, you are either gonna have to give this port up 'cause you're so twitchy, like doing this. We're gonna figure out how to overcome this. Yeah. So it was like, okay. Right. Three IVs, you know, thermal count. Yep. Let's XC with XC with, you know, friends that are really experienced at another region.

Like boom, boom, boom. We're gonna step this up. We're gonna come up with a plan. Nothing happens without a plan. Put a plan in place. Ended up ending up overcoming it. And then that kind of set the framework for, you know, every time something similar or I got close or, you know, it was, it was the mindset that I was gonna do.

Um, and look, it's easier in business when you have a failure and pick yourself up and you've crashed your company because your life wasn't at risk. When, you know, real fear, real fear comes into your body when you think you're gonna lose your life. Mm-hmm. [00:45:00] Um, so it's, it's actually harder in extreme sports to overcome the adversity.

Um, so I really respect extreme athletes that have, that are pushing their sports and, and have an accident, but then come back even stronger and harder. Like, I think that's one of the, the hardest things for, for people that people to really overcome. So you've talked about a framework a few times now and about overcoming the mental challenges.

Uh, what is your process when you have a catastrophic accident like you did and or you've got that PTSD feeling in your head of something that's just holding you back? What's your process for overcoming those mental challenges? Yeah, so look, I I, I've touched on a few of the, the, the, the key things like o over, over the, the, the stories that, that I've illustrated, but like the, the, the main, like the main driver is like self-motivation.

It's p being [00:46:00] able to pick yourself back up and then it's, it's putting a structured plan of the steps that you're gonna take to reintroduce yourself into that environment again, to learn what went wrong, to simulate the accident. But, you know, so I simulated the accident that, that I had immediately, like the first flight I did, I went back out, same wing, still had my blood all over it.

Same wing went out, simulated exactly the thing, but I simulated it with much more, uh, height between me and the ground. Recovered it, practiced, repeat so. With, with, with fear, it's, it, there's, there's, there's the steps to overcoming it, but then there's the repetitive exposure to the situation, and then there's trust in your ability to execute it the next time it, it [00:47:00] happens.

And that happens with practice. So you've gotta put the work in to overcome fear. You can't just go, Hey, I'm scared of heights all of a sudden. Like, I almost died, you know, like my rope rock climbing cut on the rope and I fell from five meters and broke my ankle. I'm never climbing again. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like, well, it brought you so much joy.

You were climbing with your kids, your family. Right. What's the process for overcoming that? You know, and, and you, you've gotta get yourself comfortable with the situation again. Um, a lot of people just don't wanna do the work, you know, like, and they use that as an excuse. Mm-hmm. Um, same thing with business.

When a business fails, understanding why it failed, being reactive, you know, like really getting to grips. Of the situation and then going to, what would I do differently if that same situation happened to me? And I'm like, am I prepared? And once you're prepared and you know what you would do, it's not a problem anymore.

So what does an average [00:48:00] month look like for you? 'cause from the outside looking in, it looks like you're paragliding off a high altitude mountain, then you're in the sailboat, sailing around the world and negotiating deals with high-end restaurants and chains to starting up new, uh, fishing businesses. Um, what, what's the reality of, uh, of Malcolm Wood?

I, I mean, it's, it's, it's actually really boring. It's, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's organizing your time. So my, my best friend is my calendar. Mm. Um, so I have a, I have a few rules. Um, one is, you know, 30 minute meetings. Um, try to get your meetings all consolidated into periods of the day. So don't just sit there and go, Hey, look, I'm just gonna take meetings whenever anyone else can take meetings.

Because what will happen is all of your available time will be used up and you'll have to sit for long periods of time in front of your office. So it's like, okay, [00:49:00] every Monday morning I'm gonna do these 10 meetings. They're gonna be 30 minutes long. If it's 60 minutes, something's really important or something fucked up.

You know, like there, there's gotta be a reason to go over into 60 minute territory. Um, the, the other thing is I work seven days a week, but I take time off during the day. So. I will make sure, you know, I'm either exercising in the gym or I'm going and doing a flight, or I'm, I'm going for a quick climb or a quick run, you know, and so I make time available throughout the day.

You know, Wednesday afternoons I like to spend with my kids. Saturday afternoons I wanna spend with my kid. Sunday mornings I spend with my kids. So those are kid, those are kids slots. Okay. Right. I want to, I wanna build, I wanna build some playtime into that. I want to keep practicing my sport. I wanna keep myself fit and healthy.

So these are my gym periods. Then I just pack as tight as and most efficiently as I can every other thing that I'm doing. Um, [00:50:00] and for every 10 meetings I set up 20 to 30% of that has to be. So if you do 10 hours of meetings, you have to dedicate. Two to three hours to strategy follow up and execution. You can't just do meetings.

Yeah. And, and, and that's the thing that people, that people miss out. So, you know, when I'm sailing, I'm still doing Zoom calls. Mm. You know, I, we, I'm still doing back to back Zoom calls, but I'm on, I'm on the boat, you know, and we're trying to do a mission or a crossing and we just make sure we have a really good star link.

So I'm sitting there doing calls while being, being knocked around and it's just been consistent, you know. Um, and if, you know, the, the last, the last six months has been re really, uh, an interest, you know, we've been, I've been working on a really interesting company. Um, it, it's, it's required a lot of time and dedication.

So you have to sacrifice the things that you enjoy and, and [00:51:00] focus and hit the timing and the momentum. So it's not, it's not always being able to balance your life, it's, it's knowing that Okay. When I find the time, you've gotta take it, you know? So, you know, people talk about work life balance and some people say, well you gotta look at the macro.

What does that balance look like? Um, do you ever find yourself repeatedly, like for me, for example, I have a hard time switching gears. If I'm outside and I'm doing something, I want to continue being outside. If I'm working, I have a hard time getting back outside 'cause I'm excited about the work that I'm doing.

So likewise, I have to physically schedule things in. Like, this is when I stop working and I go outside and I spend time in the bush. And when I'm out in the bush, here's some timings that you're gonna have to be back for. Um, do you find that things go pear shaped on you in your planning process where all of a sudden you're missing out on all these scheduled items, let's say time with the kids and you're spending more time at work?

[00:52:00] Or is time with the kids kind of a non-negotiable? Or do you have non-negotiables? I. My, I'm pretty flexible. I think I, I think, you know, I, I'm consistently working about 14 hours, at least six days of the week. And, and so like, my day starts at five and I'm still doing, I'm, I'm, I'm still doing emails, you know, at 10:00 PM mm-hmm.

And, and I'm not saying I'm doing that all the time. Yeah. But like, that's my go-to. Mm-hmm. So by the time I reach Wednesday, I've done a full, a full week. By the time I reach Saturday, I've done six days. I've done two weeks of work. Mm. And so, you know, and when I, when I want to pull back and take an afternoon off and spend it with the kids.

And so you can be really efficient with your time and I don't know, I, I, for me, I'm available all the time. My, my style of working is, is the human touch. You, you know, people I work with, [00:53:00] they have my WhatsApp. I'm reactive. I, we can deal with problems, we can, you know, we can talk whenever you want to. Um, but it's just being efficient with your time.

Mm-hmm. You know, don't waste time. Get up, get to the computer in a certain period of time when you get to the break time. Take the break, go out, walk the dogs, go paragliding, and then look, I'm, I'm human. If it's a nice, sunny thermal day and it looks like it's fantastic flying I can find paraglider. I'm like, see you guys later.

I'm taking the day off. Yeah. 'cause, because I'm not, you know, like I'm working, I'm working seven days a week, but it's, the opportunity comes up and it's great. I'll do it. And that's why I live here, because I live close to the things that I love doing. So if I want to go and go for a quick hour hike, I've got a thousand vertical meters out in the back of my house, I can fly my paraglider back to within like, you know, I.

400 meters of my, my house and I can be working by nine, nine o'clock when everyone else gets into the [00:54:00] office, and I've already done my sport for the day and, and, you know, so it's just being efficient. I like that. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should be talking about? I, I look, uh, um, yeah, look, the, the, the, the, the, the scheme of things, what brought us together, you know?

Yes. Um, Brian and, and, and, and this love for the outdoors and, and, and nature and, and, and cooking. And, you know, that's why I'm in restaurants as well because it's all connected if you, if you enjoy your environment. So I think, you know, I think people listening to the, the, the, the podcast, um, the, the, the business we built up in Skeena is, is honestly one of my favorite places on the planet.

And, um. And, and fishing is one of those things. It's, it's, it's meditation. It's removing [00:55:00] yourself. It's getting, getting back into like, it's just such a special experience. Um, so that, that for me is, is one of, it, is, is one of the businesses that's really close to my heart. It's, it's more, I don't even think of it as a business.

It's more like we've got a family of people up there, we've got a home we welcome you into, and, and, but it's also really cool, you know, we've got seven jet boats and we've got steelhead and king salmon on one of the coolest rivers in the world up there. So, um, if you want to, if you wanna see, see us in, in our real environment, that's a great place to come and visit us.

I think family is a perfect way to, to label it. You and Brian have built a family up there of people who are dedicated and passionate. Everyone who comes up there, diverse backgrounds, fishing, a lot of these outdoor pursuits can be rather egalitarian. And you will be sitting shoulder to shoulder with your local [00:56:00] fishing bum and your, your, um, high flying entrepreneur and you're all talking about the same thing that you're all passionate about.

I, I'm impressed greatly with, uh, the operation that you guys have up there. The first time I went up I was like, I don't know. Do I really want to be going up to a place like this? I'm used to fishing out on the river by myself. And, um, the welcoming, the education that I got up there as well, it was just phenomenal.

Um, you guys have done a really good job. Uh, I, I did have, and you'll probably laugh at, at me for this one, but I had a chat with some of the crew up there and I said, um. Do you know who Eddie ico? Eddie Iow is? Have you heard of Eddie Iow? He is, uh, a surfer in, uh, so he very famous surfer, uh, the first lifeguard Yme Bay on Oahu.

And he would go out in these massive waves. Nobody ever died, uh, on his watch when he was a, um, uh, lifeguarding out there. [00:57:00] And when other lifeguards would look at it and they say, ah, I don't know, it's too big. I I, it's too dangerous. Everyone would say Eddie would go, uh, he ended up losing his life, I think around 78.

And they, they were gonna, uh, boat over to Tahiti and a boat cap size. He gets out on his surfboard, takes his life jacket off so he can paddle better and go get, uh, help. Uh, they've got these t-shirts now it says Eddie would go, uh, based on his spirit. And I tried to, uh, convince the crew up at, uh, ski of Spa to get t-shirts made up that says Malcolm Wood, W-O-U-L-D.

I don't know. It's uh, it's looking a little gnarly out there. Should we go out? Malcolm would, right? I don't know. It's, uh, should we do this? Should we dare a little bit further? Malcolm would, that was my thought for, uh, t-shirts for you guys at the lodge. I don't know if it'll take off. The, the, that's, there's a new business idea in there.

I love it. Um, Malcolm, there [00:58:00] there is one. There is one. Yeah, there is one last thing. Um, yeah, we, we just, we just launched the last glaciers, um, available for anyone to watch anywhere in the world. So it's like, it is a very cool documentary. We put a lot of time and effort into it. It was filmed over five years, ended up being the most, um, um, comprehensive documentaries made about global glaciers.

We went to, you know, Antarctica and, and Nepal and the Cordia Blanca range. And we use extreme sports. And look, if you're interested in the outdoors, it's not, you know, a hundred percent a climate change film, but if you have kids that you want to educate. Then on the environment, it's a really great film for kids because they get to engage with the adventure side of things.

So that that's available, uh, on a new, a new platform. It's, it's, um, it's called All In, it's actually a company that I've been working on. So this is like my, my, my, my new thing. Cool. [00:59:00] And it's to be able to bring creators that make great films directly to their audience. And if you're interested in, in, in My work, that would be a great way to watch us.

So the, the link is available on our website, you know, the last last galas.com, uh, last gala film.com. And, uh, you can check out the, the, the platform as well, all in, because if you're a creator, it is one of the worst environments today. To be able to make money. And it's, it's literally destroying anyone who wants to make anything interesting about the environment, environmental documentaries, feature films.

It's, it's a really hard industry to be in today. And so we've got a solution where you can just directly distribute your film to your clients, your, your, your audience, you know, your viewers, um, and engaged directly with them, which is super unique and hasn't existed, uh, in the marketplace before. Wow, that's really cool.

Okay, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put links to all of those in the description. So if you're listening, you'll see it in [01:00:00] there. Just pull it up. If you're watching on YouTube, of course you'll see it in the description area. So we'll have links to all of your endeavors that you're doing, everything that we've talked about in here, and, um, just make it easy peasy for people to find.

I'll also throw it out in the newsletter too, 'cause that's, uh, that's, that's a useful tool. I've, I've talking with other people who do documentaries, other filmmakers, and you're right. Yeah, it's, it's a difficult market, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I, we, we didn't make any money from, from the three films that I've been involved in.

So my third film was, is with, uh, James Reed from my Octopus teacher. So he won the Oscar for Best Director, and then we did a film called The White Mountain, which talks again about climate change in the European Alps, pressure from o like tourism and, and, and overcrowded mountain places and pollution. Uh, but following two extreme athletes on the Mont Blanc range.

So my, my home, my home mountain. Mm-hmm. Um, so that was the third one. And [01:01:00] the motivation was just to drive awareness and do something that my kids would be proud of. Um, but having run successful businesses, my, my goodness, like the, the, the making money in films is, is a real tough, is a real tough landscape right now.

So this idea, um, all in is allowing the filmmaker to go direct to his audience. The audience to participate in the success, to share it if they like the content to friends that they think will like it. And they'll also get remunerated. So the remuneration is away from the streamers and the distributors, and it, it goes to the people in the audience.

So the people are in charge of how well the film is, is, is, uh, is, is, is viewed, essentially. Um, and that changes distribution in a completely different way to, to how it's being, um, propagated today. Yeah, that's kinda revolutionary actually. I, I could see that one taken off like, like wildfire, [01:02:00] hopefully. Um, yeah.

Hang crossed. What, what does the future hold for you and what would you, like others, let's say, of your children, what would you like your legacy to look like?

I mean, it's, it's, it's a real tough time right now, isn't it? There's the, there's a, there's a lot of, there's a lot of negative news. Um, and I, I think, you know, myself included, we're all, we're all, we've all recently been helping to fuel the negative, the negativity that's being spread. And I think we have to remind ourselves of human connection and the human spirit and focus on a little positive each day.

Even if you have a negative mindset, it's really important to remind yourself of the good things that we have, like the positive things, because that's what we're working towards. Yeah. And that's self-motivation. It's, [01:03:00] it's sitting there and, and, and saying, you know what, like there, there's a lot of good stuff going on just because.

You know, there's certain things happening around the world. It doesn't mean that we can't start to spread some love and positivity, especially to the children. 'cause they, they, they need it. You know, like they, they, they've got access to so much data, so many tools, you know, unlike anything when we were kids and, and, and it, and it's tough.

It's tough being a kid right now. So that they need our help and, and they need us to, to remain positive as, as adults and figureheads for them. Malcolm, thank you so much for being on this Silver Corp podcast. I truly enjoyed this. Thank you for having me. It's been great.