What's Your Everest?
Name the one audacious goal that is yours — not someone else's summit.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
O'Brady asks everyone from 8-year-olds in school assemblies to entrepreneurs the same question: what's your Everest? It's a deliberately personal framing — he climbed the actual Everest twice because it was his childhood dream, and explicitly does not expect anyone else's to look like his. A kid's Everest was getting snow leopards off the endangered list; another's was being the first in their family to graduate college. The goal must be audacious enough to scare you, because daring to dream greatly means even a shortfall lands you 90% of the way there. He also uses it as a rut-escape lever: setting a big goal is what pulls you out of a low moment and gives the next months direction.
Origin
The framing came out of O'Brady's nonprofit work with kids' health, where he'd ask 8, 9 and 10-year-olds in assemblies to raise their hands and name their Everest. The answers — saving snow leopards, being the first in the family to graduate — showed him the metaphor scaled far beyond mountaineering. It traces further back to his own hospital bed, where his mother forced him to name a future goal and he pictured a triathlon finish line.
Core principles
- 01Your Everest is defined by you, never borrowed from someone else's highlight reel.
- 02A real Everest scares you a little and might be hard some of the time.
- 03Dare to dream greatly: fall short and you still got 90% of the way there.
- 04A big goal is the fastest tool for climbing out of a rut.
- 05There is no right answer — best life means something different to every person.
How to run it
- 1
Ask the question honestly
What is your Everest? Not the goal that sounds impressive at a dinner party — the one you actually want. It is your Everest, not anyone else's.
Pro tip If you can't imagine wanting to freeze in Antarctica, good — that's O'Brady's Everest, not yours.
- 2
Test it for fear
A real Everest scares you a little and looks hard some of the time. If it's comfortable, it's not the goal — it's a task.
Pro tip Fear is the signal you're outside the zone of comfortable complacency.
- 3
Use it as the rut-escape lever
When you've been knocked down — fired, injured, bankrupt — set the new big goal immediately. Positive action toward a challenge is the fastest exit from despair.
Pro tip Name it while you're still in the low moment; that's when it has the most pull.
Watch out A vague 'get better' is not a goal. It needs a finish line you can visualize.
- 4
Chip at it daily
Setting the goal gets you out of the rut; only chipping away at it every single day actually gets you there. Expect a long, unglamorous middle.
Pro tip Reframe every no as a rep that sharpens the pitch.
In the wild
In a school assembly, O'Brady asked 8-to-10-year-olds to raise their hands and name their Everest. One said their Mount Everest was making sure snow leopards get off the endangered species list. Another said it was being the first person in their family to graduate from college.
→ It proved the framing works at any age and any scale, entirely decoupled from literal mountaineering.
O'Brady turned the question on his interviewer mid-episode, pointing out that she almost certainly doesn't want to walk across Antarctica solo — but she'd built a podcast reaching enormous numbers of people who are inspired by her message.
→ Her Everest was the show itself, illustrating that the summit is defined by the climber, not the metaphor.
Common mistakes
Adopting someone else's summit
Chasing a goal because it impressed you in someone else's story means you'll abandon it on day 35 when the external gratification stops being enough to keep you moving.
Not starting because the summit is too high
'Everest is too far, I'll never get there' means you never begin, which O'Brady calls the ultimate failure — worse than trying and falling short, because a shortfall still teaches you a million things.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone in a rut, post-setback, or unable to articulate what they're actually working toward.
Not ideal for
People already over-committed to too many goals who need pruning, not another summit.
From the transcript
“I ask these, you know, 8, 9, 10 year old kids to raise their hand and assembly. What's your Everest? Calling my Mount Everest is…”
“When we dare to dream greatly, when we set massively audacious goals, we either succeed and amazing, that's wonderful. Or maybe we fall a little…”
“So many people don't even start. Hey, that goal's impossible, that summit's too high... And that, to me, that is the ultimate failure.”
From the episode
Colin O'Brady: Conquer Your Mind
Colin O'Brady