Episode #16: Take Yourself Out of the Comfort Zone

Transcript

We're coming to you live from Crested Butte, Colorado, which is a familiar place. As you know I love it, we have a home here and my family comes as often as possible. What's unique to this particular video is that I have some great guests. It's a blue bird sunny day, it's going to be about 45 degrees, it's spring skiing at its finest. And I'm joined by my middle daughter Natasha, who is 11 and a great ski racer. She just finished 20th in the U-12 class in all of New York State. So, that's a terrific accomplishment and we'll talk about that in a little bit, and my oldest daughter Ally, who is 14 years old and a great skier.

So here we are in Crested Butte, Colorado as a family. We're skiing, we're doing amazing things, and I thought we'd just talk to my kids and get their sense on, you know, what skiing means to them and what Crested Butte's like and some of the differences or similarities between what they do on the East Coast in a ski racing environment, versus what you see here, which is a little bit different. So who wants to speak first?

Richard: Okay, I'll hold this Natasha, you go ahead.

Natasha: Okay.

Richard: Tell everybody what are your thoughts here about Crested Butte.

Natasha: Well, I think it's a really nice place. I'm just going to list differences from Crested Butte and ski racing. Here, there's many natural obstacles, such as trees, rocks, powder versus ice. It's a lot more of an effort to get to where you want to go. It's a lot more skiing whereas...

Richard: A lot more vertical.

Natasha: Yeah, vertical skiing.

Richard: Okay, and is it tiring or...?

Natasha: Yeah, it's really tiring and it's really hard, and it takes a lot of effort.

Richard: Great.

Natasha: Whereas...

Richard: Go ahead.

Natasha: Whereas in Wyndham, when I'm ski racing, it's a very controlled environment.

Richard: Fantastic, Ally what are your thoughts?

Ally: I think that here we've done a lot of bowl skiing. So it's like a big, vast open space where we're just skiing in the trees and out in the open, and dodging rocks, like Natasha said. But then it's really difficult because after all that skiing, you're really tired. But to get out of the bowl there's no chairlift that can access it. So you have to hike, and yesterday we skied a really fun bowl with some powder in the trees, we had a lot of fun. But after it, when our legs were really tired, we hiked for like 25 minutes out of the bowl uphill with our skis off. So that was really tiring, but it was a lot of fun.

Richard: So you can see we as a family are having a great time together, but really what I wanted to talk to you about on this Simply Brilliant episode is about taking yourself out of the comfort zone and trying new and different things. And as you can see by the mountainous terrain, and the rock, and the trees and what my kids are talking about hiking in and out of bowls and powder conditions, as opposed to controlled ski racing environments. Similar skill set, but really trying to push them and get them to enjoy something that's a little bit different. And while we've skied in different mountain areas and Crested Butte before, I think they're finally at an age where one, they remember it and they can visualize and express the differences, and then to also appreciate them.

We're having an absolute blast, I'm happy to say that we're enjoying our family time. We're exhausted at the end of the night we just pass out, and then we wake up and we do it all again. And you can see why, I mean it's absolutely gorgeous. We're really fortunate to be here. We miss our other daughter Victoria who is at a travel volleyball game this weekend and, of course, our wife, and our mother, who took Victoria there and is back home in New York working for the next couple of days until we reunite.

So with that we're going to sign off. Coming to you live from Crested Butte, Colorado, about 12,000 feet. Where the air is thin, the oxygen is limited and we're pushing ourselves to physical exertion. We wish you a great day. Thank you for joining us. Please share this with anybody that you might find that you think might find this interesting and stay tuned, subscribe and we're coming at you again. Thanks so very much. What do you guys say?

Ally: Thank you.

Natasha: Thank you!!

Richard: How about a bye?

Natasha & Ally: Bye!!

Richard: All right.

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