[DELETED ON YOUTUBE] EP 284: Kristin Ulmer - From US Ski Team Extreme Athlete to Fear Expert:

Welcome back to Finding Your Summit! Host Mark Pattison sits down with Kristen Ulmer, former US Ski Team mogul skier turned extreme skiing legend who held the title of best female big mountain extreme skier in the world for 12 consecutive years. In this paradigm-shifting conversation, Kristen reveals why everything we've been taught about conquering and overcoming fear is fundamentally wrong, and shares the revolutionary approach that transformed her from adrenaline junkie to thought leader on fear and anxiety. This episode offers a complete reframe on one of humanity's most misunderstood emotions, demonstrating why fear isn't something to be eliminated or overcome, but rather something to embrace intimately as a performance enhancer and pathway to flow states. Kristen shares powerful insights from her death-defying career jumping off 70-foot cliffs on skis, her interviews with legends like Alex Honnold and Laird Hamilton, and why the goal of being fearless is not only impossible but actually causing the anxiety epidemic plaguing modern society. Key Topics Discussed: From US Ski Team to Extreme Skiing Legend: Choosing Danger Over Amateur Status Kristen reveals how she went from mogul skiing on the US Ski Team to becoming the most celebrated female extreme skier in the world. Faced with a choice between remaining an amateur athlete or getting paid to jump off cliffs into powder from helicopters in Canada, she chose the latter because she couldn't afford to stay on the team. Discover how her natural talent in the air immediately caught filmmakers' attention and launched a 12-year reign at the top of one of the world's most dangerous sports. The Deadly Reality of Extreme Sports: Over 100 Friends Lost In a sobering moment, Kristen shares that she's lost over 100 friends to extreme sports, including four ex-boyfriends, and experienced more than 60 near-death experiences during her career. Learn what "extreme" truly means: the consequences of failure are death or injury. Despite media portrayals of athletes like Kristen, Alex Honnold, and Laird Hamilton as "fearless," she reveals the truth: none of them are fearless. They're all willing to feel fear to an extreme degree because it makes them feel alive. The Revolutionary Insight: Fear Times Intimacy Equals Flow Kristen unveils her groundbreaking framework that's transforming how elite performers and corporations understand fear. Fear times resistance equals anxiety, depression, insomnia, anger, and underperformance. But fear times intimacy equals flow states. She challenges flow expert Steven Kotler's assertion that "when there's fear involved, flow comes for free," clarifying that flow only comes when there's fear AND intimacy with that fear. This distinction separates the best in the world from everyone else. The Fearless Myth: Why No Expert Claims to Be One Discover why Kristen has virtually no competition as a thought leader on fear and anxiety. She reveals that she Googled "fear experts" and found nobody willing to claim that title, because we falsely believe that to be a fear expert, you must be fearless and teach others to be fearless—neither of which is possible or desirable. Learn why the subtitle of her book The Art of Fear is "Why Conquering Fear Won't Work and What to Do Instead." Interviews with 26 Elite Athletes: Only 3 Understood Their Relationship with Fear For the documentary Voices of Fear, Kristen interviewed 26 professional danger sports athletes at the top of their game, spending two hours with each asking one question: What is your relationship with fear? Only three athletes—all in their 40s and the absolute best in the world at their sports—said they had an intimate relationship with fear. Twenty had no idea what their relationship was, citing clichés like "I don't let it get the better of me." Three became so upset at the suggestion they had fear that one nearly punched her in the face. Fear as Noun vs. Scared as Adjective: Redefining the Language Kristen makes a critical distinction that changes everything: fear is a noun, a feeling of discomfort in the body that's always present like food or oxygen. Scared or afraid are adjectives—only two ways fear shows up, and they're very rare. Fear also shows up as aliveness, presence, focus, intuition, and what we now call anxiety. We've stopped calling it fear because of stigma, but understanding this linguistic shift unlocks a completely different relationship with the emotion. The 4% Rule: Alex Honnold's Path to Free Soloing El Capitan Learn the exact process by which Alex Honnold went from regular climber to free soloing El Capitan. Kristen reveals the 4% rule: