Summary: When David Mauro, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Altitude-Journals-Seven-Year-Journey-Highest-ebook/dp/B078HGS3Q5/&tag=authorhour-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Altitude Journals</a>, was in his 40s, his life hit rock bottom. With nothing to lose, he left everything behind and set out on an epic adventure. For the next seven years. Dave trudged across glaciers, frozen wastelands and through dense, dangerous forest.<br> Though he’d never been a climber, he ended up standing at the summit of Mount Everest. In this episode, you’ll hear the exciting true stories of one man’s remarkable mid-life crisis. What happens when you go to the extreme to repair a shattered life?<br> Note: Throughout this interview, David will use explicit language to tell his raw story.<br> <br> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Altitude-Journals-Seven-Year-Journey-Highest-ebook/dp/B078HGS3Q5/&tag=authorhour-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a>Get David’s new book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Altitude-Journals-Seven-Year-Journey-Highest-ebook/dp/B078HGS3Q5/&tag=authorhour-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Altitude Journals</a> on Amazon.<br> Find out more at <a href="http://davidjmauro.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">DavidJMauro.com</a>.<br> <br> David Mauro: My marriage was over, I wasn’t being allowed to see my children. My brother died, my career was in trouble, and in an honest moment, I’d have to admit I was flirting with alcoholism.<br> This is one of those moments that’s a lot like being at the bottom of the barrel and looking up. Day by day, I would just sort of move around en route and come home and look at my clothing sort of stacked in orderly towers on the floor of my sister’s guest room, which is where I was living, and just have no idea what to do with myself or my life.<br> <br> There was actually a moment where I was sitting on the edge of the bed in her guest room, and the guest room was used as overflow space for her daughter Brooke who had every American Doll in the collection.<br> And they’re all arranged on these orderly shelves and they’re all staring at me.<br> They just had what I perceived to be sad, judging expressions. At one point, I just shouted at them:<br> “I don’t need your fucking pity.”<br> I heard my sister drop something downstairs, and she told me later that they were washing dishes and her daughter’s eyes got about as big as a plate.<br> My sister just said, “Uncle Dave’s going through a tough time.”<br> I’m Not a Climber<br> David Mauro: I was completely out of ideas, and it just kind of paralyzed emotionally trying to figure out what would happen next. As the case may be, my 44thbirthday came three, four weeks into living with my sister, and a package arrived at the door.<br> It was a tubular shaped package and it was from Anchorage, Alaska, where my other sister Noelle lives with her husband Tai.<br> Tai at that time was a well accomplished mountain climber, and he had invited me several months earlier to join in a climb of Mount McKinley, now officially known as Denali.<br> <br> It’s the high point for North America, 20,320 feet, and it is a big, cold, moody son of a gun.<br> <br> I said, “Well, thanks for the invitation but I’m not a mountain climber so that just doesn’t sound like a good fit for me.”<br> I did think about it. I never seriously considered doing it, but I felt really good about myself that he thought enough of me to make the invitation. It was a one good thing I felt like I could hold on to in a moment where so much was being taken away from me.<br> Back to that tube that arrived, that package.<br> I opened up one end of it and turned it upside down and out falls two climbing poles and a note that says, “Happy birthday, super climber.”<br> In other words, your wife holding you back is not a problem anymore, so how about it?<br> The thing is,
