Josh Allred's Blog

Pressure implies constant force on an object.

Shooting free throws when the game is on the line teaches us how to manage this pressure.

Instant pots use pressure to cook food.

In other words, not all pressure is bad.

However…

Pressure to do something we are uncomfortable with might open up doors.

Jumping the high dive when all our friends just did it might push us out of our comfort zones.

Getting picked to give a presentation to the board of directors may not be your thing, but your colleagues believe you can do it.

Getting the encouragement to ask a girl to dance, a friend can apply pressure to muster the courage.

Pressure to do something reckless or dangerous, however, isn’t something we want to do.

The way to manage peer pressure is to become really good at assessing the risk.

Is this a real danger? Or is it perceived? Peers are good at pushing us out of our comfort zones, but they can also take it too far when there are no brakes.

In the end, peer pressure creates tension and friction. And can test a relationship.

Writers like Proust, Joyce, and Kerouac are masters at seeing things everyone else tends to overlook. When we slow down and actually process what we are watching before our eyes, we then can find the words. The words matter. They teach us that we can find beauty in everyday life. You don’t need to be in an exotic location (although it helps), but even then, we can become complacent and take for granted how beautiful this world is. The reason? Our modern world has conditioned us to move on to the next thing.

Giving a presentation to an entire school can be nerve-racking, but talking one-on-one with your best friend is free-flowing. At what number is public speaking too much? More than one? Five? Ten? 100? What’s the difference? The difference is that anytime we speak up, we fear being judged. But you can’t possibly please everyone in the crowd. Even if that crowd is made of one.

Public speaking is an art form. However, some of the best public speakers were not good at talking. And what we say is not nearly as important as what we do. The same advice can be said with writing–write like you talk. And with public speaking–talk like you talk.

You have plenty of practice sounding like you, not trying to sound like someone else.

A friend recently experienced a traumatic event in which someone in their party was caught in an avalanche. Luckily, no one was hurt other than their egos. If you know anything about snow science, people are their own worst enemies. Most avalanches are triggered by humans.

This has reminded me that sometimes, it is about having the conviction and the constitution to say the quiet part out loud. We massively underestimate what our voice can do. But when the time comes to stand up and use it, we often shrink. It isn’t the popular thing to say. It will threaten your status. It can feel risky. But important is rarely popular.

Systems, culture, and games are all around us. Understanding the key characteristics is important for navigating an ever-changing, complex world.

Systems are formal structures that allow people to adopt particular behaviors in order to operate. For instance, an education system in which a teacher must teach students to memorize when The War of 1812 was to ace a test isn’t the same as teaching students how to learn a subject. Modern-day systems push people to optimize metrics (to be faster/cheaper with fewer defects), follow instructions, and focus on appearances rather than substance. Systems often ignore culture and create tension for those who operate in it.

Culture is “people like us do things like this.” It is a shared set of beliefs, values, rituals, customs, symbols, and artifacts. These are the invisible rules and norms. You don’t show up at the golf course in blue jeans and a T-shirt. That’s not how things are done around here. Culture pushes us to fit in, not stand out, be mediocre, and follow the masses.

(It is worth mentioning here that status plays a role in everything we do. It enables culture. Who’s up? Who’s down? Caste systems thrive because humans categorize (wrongly) other humans and use false proxies to put someone above another.)

Games are either finite or infinite. Finite games have rules, boundaries, winners, losers, and a designated time. We are very familiar with finite games like soccer. But racing to submit TPS reports before Friday at 5 so you can go home on time is another type of game. Infinite games are different in that you play the game to keep playing. When I play catch with a six-year-old, I am not playing to “win”; instead, I toss the ball to entice the six-year-old to throw it back. Humans are biologically wired to play games. Games are much better when you are not set up to lose. Understanding how debt systems work, for instance, and making a game out of it, mixing in the rules and making your own, is a good way to stay out of debt to enable other games–like doing your art.

Costs are hidden with money, time, and attention. Here are some of the costs we tend to overlook:

The costs of maintenance: Buying a boat seems like a good idea until you realize that renting one is better. Boats need to be maintained and stored in order to work. Upkeep, storage, fuel, time, and energy are rarely a factor on the exciting first day of any purchase.

The cost of space: Buying a bigger home means you’ll need to fill it with more furniture.

The cost of opportunity: Owning a phone means dealing with the dopamine machine. When we trade for convenience, we must also acknowledge that we are selling it for attention that could be used to do something else.

The emotional toll: Work, produce, consume has been the industrial model for two centuries. Driving us toward debt or making purchases we don’t want to make. If we are not careful, the things we own can come to own us.

Man’s Search for Meaning teaches us that humans have the extraordinary ability to adapt to any circumstance or environment. Despite our circumstances, we can still find a way to survive, even thrive, in the sense that we can find meaning in suffering.

World-famous alpinist Colin Haley believes we use the word suffering too lightly. (And I agree.) We confuse what Victor Frankl went through with the hardships of climbing difficult (metaphorical) mountains. We confuse what it means to put up with discomfort with actual suffering. Once we can believe that, yes, the circumstances are awful, but like any storm, it passes, we can start treating suffering/discomfort as an opportunity.

The art of “suffering” is found on the edge of dancing with discomfort.

We can’t see other cars coming when we look at our phones. And we can’t drive as well when we are scrolling Instagram. So, why do we think we can talk or look someone in the eye when we have our phones out?

It’s seductive to think we can multitask like this. We do things better when we focus on one thing at a time. We have transitioned from being “on” the phone to “in” the phone.

The outdoor community attracted me because it was full of pirates, poets, beats, outlaws, scoundrels, artists, and impresarios. Today, it has significantly shifted into something else. For better or worse, it is noticeable how much mental health has entangled itself as part of the outdoor community.

People self-identify as climbers or backcountry skiers so much that if they are not skiing steep and deep or climbing some big line, they feel like they are somehow disappointing themselves or the people around them. Another thing I have seen (that I find pretty disgusting) is the spraying of how many people someone knows who have died. It’s almost like a body count. Knowing someone who died is a status symbol now.

No one is forcing people to do these types of Type II activities. And over and over again, I see people doing these things for the wrong reasons, like being in a toxic relationship with someone and justifying it because the sex is too good. For someone who has been in the field for many years, I advise taking a step back. Do these things for the love of doing it. Not because it will make you popular. Not because it will boost a dating profile. Do it because we love it.

Sometimes, we work so hard to create an identity that we forget that these things can’t grow by checking a box. A runner becomes a runner simply by tying their shoes and going on a run. The outdoors are a space for anyone–a space to work through the struggles and challenges we face “down there.” It’s difficult to pinpoint it, but the culture surrounding the outdoor community is experiencing an identity crisis. We lose something when we must document everything we do to snag another moment for the gram. We put ourselves in more dangerous/compromising positions when we continue to do these activities when, deep down, we are not at peace with ourselves.

Two quotes from Jack Kerouac in The Dharma Bums bring some perspective:

“The whole purpose of mountain-climbing to me isn’t just to show off you can get to the top, it’s getting out to this wild country.”

And

“Dammit, that yodel of triumph of yours was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I wish I had a tape recorder to take it down. Those things aren’t made to be heard by the people down below.”

The circle of now is enormous. We have a constant need for maintenance: hunger, thirst, temperature, emotions. This can spike our need for more, and more right now can appear to be the right answer.

However, investing in tomorrow is a great way to build a life of significance, purpose, and meaning. Too often, we are seduced to trade tomorrow for today. After all, there’s no telling if tomorrow will come.

Constantly, we are faced with the choice of making things better tomorrow or taking what’s in front of us today. The ones who appear the happiest understand how to balance and invest in something that could pay out in the future. Perhaps, for someone else to enjoy that isn’t even here yet.