Without further ado, I would like to introduce our special guests, Ruben Payan Junior. Ruben is an American fitness entrepreneur, who motivates athletes, coaches, and top business professionals to reach their full potential as an elite coach and motivational speaker. Ruben frequently taps into his experience conquering the seven summits to inspire others to dream big, take action and live life to the fullest.

So I want to ask my first question, Ruben, to you. You are someone, I know, you are always onto something, something new or a new venture. Marko just gave a fantastic introduction for you to your background just for those meeting you for the first time in our audience today. And I want to ask you to give me one summary. What's truly inside you? Mountain climbing, fitness, educator, entrepreneur, inventor, Inspirational speaker. Tell us what's inside you that, you know, makes your heart sing most.

And so, I think it's important that you kind of understand that being raised in that kind of household, I had to develop some really thick skin. We weren't really allowed to express a lot of emotions and all of those things. It was kind of looked down upon in the household. It was kind of looked at as being weak.

Right. You know, and then 17 years of age, I went to the Marine Corps, I served in the Marine Corps, and that only added on to that belief system that, hey, if you show vulnerability or if you act like you are in distress and you need help, it was almost like weak. You know, you suck it up push forward, and deal with it internally.

The wind was blistering cold, and our tent was shaking violently I had just woken up from a power nap and I immediately began eating this high calorie Sherpa porridge that Lakpa had just made. Now, Lakpa Gelu Sherpa is one of the most respected climbers in the world. He holds the Guinness Book of World Record for ascending Everest in 10 hours, 56 minutes and 46 seconds. He's a super Sherpa. He claimed that this porridge gives you superpowers on the mountains and it will make you stronger. So, I finished two bowls this was in our final preparation before our summit push. We would start at 10 p.m. and we would climb throughout the night into the early morning racing the clock. So, we would hit the summit just past sunrise, somewhere between 5:30 a.m. and 7 a.m.; 9 a.m. is the cutoff so as you are kind of going up, if you don't make it before 9 a.m., you know, you've got to get down. You're limited with oxygen. And the time window, so you got to go down. So, time is of the essence. Pressure's on. I was pumped. My altitude sickness had cleared the eight days of vomiting were over, and I was ready to conquer the world.

The countless hours of preparation had come down to this: "Put up, Ruben, or shut up.” We were off. Lakpa and I were towards the front of the line, and he told me that we would have to maintain a faster pace to avoid the traffic jam. I remember reading about traffic jams, the National Geographic articles where dozens of climbers would get caught into the death zone waiting to summit due to overcrowding on the fixed line.

It just takes one person to create a traffic jam, and the domino effect which could kill people. But there is no way that I was going to be the cause of a traffic jam. I assured him I was ready for the challenge, and I had no problem keeping up. He patted me on his shoulder in approval.

I was killing it. My body was running like a finely tuned Italian sports car, one step after another, timed perfect with my breath. It was almost trance like it almost felt like I was levitating up the mountain. A few hours passed and the wind started picking up. It was coming down from my right side, so I pulled over my down suit to protect my face.

I could feel the wind blasting into my eyes. I blinked rapidly to try to moisten them. My headlamp was directed about three feet in front of my boots, and this allowed this allowed me to see the heels of the person in front of me. That was a way to gauge if you're keeping pace. If I could keep up with this pace, I knew I was good.

We pressed on. A couple hours passed, and the climber in front of me slowed down to a standstill. I stopped. I saw that he was navigating towards what appeared to be a climber lying on the ground. I asked myself, who is that? And then it hit me. This was the body of a climber that had died years prior.

His body had never been rescued, and his remains were partially preserved from the cold. As I passed him, I saw the skin purplish of color. I remember asking myself, What happened to this guy? We continued climbing and the wind showed no signs of slowing down. Still a blast in my face. I could feel my eyes starting to become sticky, almost like they were bonding together.

I did my very best to shield them, but with no luck I sucked it up and kept going. Another 3 hours had passed, and I could see the snow was starting to change colors. It was starting to lighten. The darkness was starting to fade, and the sun was on its way up. Awesome. We were close to the summit.

It was at this moment I asked Lakpa if we could stop so I could put my goggles on. My eyes had been blasted for 7 hours and they needed relief. He said, “No problem.” We stopped and I put my goggles over my eyes and secured them to my head. I remember thinking, it's only a matter of time before my eyes would adjust to the sunlight and my visibility would be clear.

It never happened. My eyes never adjusted to the sun. It was at this moment I realized I had a big problem. I took off my goggles, rubbed my eyes in another attempt to moisten them. I put them back, but it seemed like my vision got worse. What was going on with my eyes? I thought to myself. I knew the sun was out because of the warmth on my skin, but everything was so blurry.

I tried to keep walking in a straight path, but I couldn't. Lakpa immediately stopped me and asked me, What's wrong with you? He clearly knew something wasn't right. I replied, “I can't see, something's wrong with my eyes.” He was very quiet. I asked him, "How much further do we have to the summit?” And he replied, "We have about 20 minutes.”

My eyes were getting worse by the second, and the more I strained to see, the worse they became. Imagine looking through a triple frosted beer mug. That's how it was 20 minutes before I reached the summit. That's how distorted my vision was. Lakpa suggested that we continue forward, get to the summit, and try to figure it out from there.

I didn't have much of a choice in the conversation. I needed him to help me. We reached the summit about 30 minutes later. I could hear the cheers and the joy and the laughter coming from the other climbers. This was the moment we had all been waiting for, a time to celebrate, time to be with one of the greatest accomplishments of our lives.

But not for me.

All I could think about was how the profanity am I going to get, am I my going to get down from there? Lakpa sat me down and I listened to the climbers in disbelief. I was shocked. I was scared. I was confused. And most of all, I was angry.

Hundreds of thoughts racing through my head why me? Why here? Why now? And what kind of cruel joke is this? Lakpa pulled out my water bottle so I could hydrate. I reached in front of me, in my front pocket, and I pulled out the banner and pulled out the CSOFT banner and I pulled out my Powerful Human banner.

I wanted to make sure that no matter what happened, it was actual proof that I had made it to the top. He agreed and captured a few photos for me. I asked him, what do you think we should do? He replied, "I don't know. I've never performed a rescue from the summit of Mount Everest for someone that is blind."

That's not good news. I asked him if he could find other Sherpas that could possibly help bring me down to high camp. I told them I would pay them a premium. He agreed to try to find someone, but there was nobody available. Now I'm freaking out. A rush of questions passed through my mind. Was this guy going to leave me here?

Is this where I'm going to die?

Was I just going to be like that dead climber that I had seen earlier as we were making our summit push?

What do I tell my family? What do I say to my son?

I few moments passed. I was actually afraid to ask him, but I figured I'd better get it over with. I said, Lakpa what do you want to do? He said, “Let's try now.” I knew the risk of him attempting to get me down by himself. One slip on my part, and we were both dead. He has children, a beautiful family. I had met them in Seattle about six months prior. He would lock his harness in close with mine, and this was a game of centimeters if I screwed up. It was over. I told him, “I will follow your instructions. 100%. Exactly. You tell me how much to move and I'll move that distance.” It was terrifying, CSOFTers. It was terrifying. Every step that I took, I felt like it was my last. This fight went on for a couple of hours, and then we stopped to take our first break. I asked him, "How much longer do we have to High Camp.” He said, “I'm not going to tell you.” That was a very clear sign that it was still a long way.

We have to just keep going while on break, I could hear him talking to someone else. I kind of recognized the voice. It was Rupert, an Austrian climber that I had met three weeks prior at Camp One. Now, Rupert was attempting to climb Mount Everest. He was on his way up and he was only about 45 minutes to reach the summit. He was making his attempt without supplemental oxygen, and so he was in the death zone with no additional support. He was by himself. He came over to me and he said, “Ruben, what's going on?” I said, “Rupert, I'm blind. I can't see.” And at that moment, Lakpa said to him, “Rupert, will you help me bring him down?”

Now Imagine this.

You have this stranger that you've met three weeks ago. He's on his way up to summit and accomplish one of the greatest moments of his life. He’s 45 minutes away, he's not using supplemental oxygen, and someone is in in in pain. Someone needs help. When Lakpa asked him, will you help me bring him down? There was no way that this guy in my mind would turn around and help me. He spent thousands of dollars in preparation, is less than an hour away from the summit. He's not using supplemental oxygen. If he turned around to save me, he would lose his chance to summit this season and he would expose himself to possible death.

CSOFT family, I'm here.

So, it's almost every step, each move. You have to be so precise because if you missed one step you'd be completely, I mean, all three of you.

It's just the way that I was raised. It was a form of weakness. And so, my whole view in my whole world, I got turned upside down in how I look at other people and how I can help other people and how I can be open to receiving help when I need it.

I looked all the wonderful relationships that I have and still maintain in China. And I said, you know what? I can create something amazing here, too. It's just going to be a step-by-step process, and I'm going to have to be patient, but I'm going to have to be diligent and I'm going to have to be open to asking for help.

And so, it's a whole new chapter. It's the journey of business. Can you conquer the Mt. Everest of business?

You were saying you were willing to give up all of the mountain experience to be able to have your dog back. So that's a whole different level because the Ruben I know in the early years is so about conquering all of the mountains. You tattooed each of the dates, you know, of each summit, and for you to be able to say you are OK giving up the mountain experience just to have your dog back. I feel like that's a totally different level, so I want, just for managing the time, I do want a kind of time for the last question you know before audience to ask a question. So, you were in your new venture in the US.

So, tell me what this venture all about.

And so, what I've learned is I've learned to find other people that are passionate about those things that I'm not passionate about and use those gifts and let them do the things that they love to do. So, Stride Gym is a business based on a download of all of my ideas for products, my ideas for education all put into one umbrella.

When I was living abroad, I had created maybe ten or 11 different products, but they kind of all had different names. And when I came back, I just put everything under Stride Gym, and it was just a way for me to download. And so.

You can hook it up to your door and you can train anywhere. You can train at your home, you can train in the office, you can train at a hotel. But my whole thing was, it's super lightweight, so it's not an inconvenience to carry. Right? And it's super easy to set up right now. I'm working on the training modules and training program for this product.

Let me hand it over to Marko and to Loren.

If you'd like to learn more about Ruben and his next adventure, you can follow him on Instagram @rubenpayanjr. Or if you want to learn more about his business Stride Gym, you can find more information at stridegym.com. Be sure to keep an eye out for next week's virtual fitness session hosted by CSOFT in partnership with personal trainer Mark Comstock.