I spent my twenties making choices that didn’t make sense on paper but somehow kept leading me exactly where I needed to go.

I was supposed to do something serious. I studied economics. I thought I’d work for the UN, make an impact on a global scale, follow the traditional path to success. But every winter, I kept finding myself back in the mountains. Alaska. New Zealand. Colorado. Jackson Hole. I told myself I was figuring things out, but really, I was getting pulled deeper into something I couldn’t ignore.

At some point, I stopped fighting it. I stopped treating the mountains as a detour from my “real life” and started organizing everything around them. I got serious about backcountry - learned avalanche safety, started snowmobiling, pushed into bigger, more remote terrain.

And something unexpected happened: the mountains started making me better at everything else.

I got sharper at risk assessment. I built deeper relationships because I needed trusted partners. I became more strategic about my career because I wanted the freedom to chase powder. I got physically stronger because the terrain demanded it. The outdoor commitment wasn’t taking from my ambition - it was amplifying it.

Since then, I’ve founded two companies (one venture-backed), become a sponsored athlete, taken the stage at SXSW, and been recognized on the Forbes Next 1000 list. But more importantly, I’ve helped hundreds of people discover what I did: when you optimize your life around building resilience outdoors, everything else gets better.

I call it The Backcountry Effect™, and I’m writing a book about it. I also work one-on-one with people ready to transform their confidence, decisions, and lives through outdoor commitment.