I once weighed in at 250 pounds.

That number feels strange to type now, and if you know me you might be surprised, but it’s true. At some point in my early thirties, I had let other things take priority over my health, and 250 is where I landed.

My friend Aaron is the one who inspired me to change that. He and his crew were climbing Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States, and he invited me along.

I was stoked! But there was a pretty decent caveat.

He told me I’d need to be able to actually run (not walk) a half-marathon in order to be safe at that altitude. This was no small thing to me at the time (nor is it a small thing, ever, really). I watched videos of climbers panting their way up the mountain and got real honest, real fast with myself about where I was physically.

It was tough to look at, but I was motivated.

I swam to get my breathing trained. I ran, slowly at first, adding minutes and miles a bit at a time. I did CrossFit. I got down to 185 pounds in 6 months and felt like I could have run up that mountain. And what an exhilarating experience it was. Bonus - my exercise regimen stayed with me, and the weight never came back. It stayed off. Aaron’s invitation did that. One ask from one person…and a big ass mountain.

The part people don’t see

Most clients see me at an event. Standing at a board, drawing. It looks like a calm, creative process from the outside. Smooth sailing.

What it actually is: standing all day, reaching overhead for hours, large format illustration, live, under pressure, for multiple days in a row.

My right shoulder carries the weight of the arm that does the work. At home, I prep boards standing on a stool. On the road, there's no stool, so I do calf raises just to reach the top of the board.

Is it climbing Mount Whitney? No, but it’s still something, and some days it hurts.

In the next month, I have a prep week leading into a multi-day client conference, a stretch of back-to-back four-day events after that, and 20 illustrations for a church capital campaign running alongside all of it. I am excited to do it all, and as I always say to my family when we’re doing something challenging, “This is why we train!”

This is an active job. I'm in good shape. But even a small ache can mean something different for me, and I sometimes worry when things don’t feel 100%.

My shoulder this week

My right shoulder has been feeling sore for a couple of weeks now. It’s likely normal enough wear for a 47-year-old who runs, works out, and plays soccer during the week. That’s what I know intellectually.

What happens in my head is something else. My mind begins asking those nagging questions:

“What if I can’t keep doing this?”

“Should I cut back on sketching?”

I’m in my own head about my own shoulder, and I know it. Time to reframe, and give myself time to recuperate in between. Then keep going.

Climbing that mountain didn’t teach me that the body can do hard things. I already suspected that. What it taught me was that asking an honest question early enough actually changes the outcome. Aaron asked me if I could run a half marathon. I couldn’t. That honesty is what started everything.

The same principle applies now, just pointed in a different direction. The question isn’t whether my shoulder can handle the work. It’s whether I’m staying calibrated across all of it.

The physical is one part. The mental, emotional, spiritual, the work itself, those are the other parts. Mark Devine calls them ‘the five pillars’ in The Way of the Seal.

His point is simple: if you only tend to one, the others will eventually make themselves known.

A sore shoulder made itself known this week. Not because something is wrong with my shoulder. Because I hadn’t been asking the harder questions. I’m in the best shape of my life at 47.

That didn’t happen by accident, and it won’t stay that way by accident either. The body needs tending. So does everything around it.

That’s the practice now.

What parts of you need tending? What questions are you asked that change the outcome? And what will you do next?

Grateful you are here,

Wade