Aron Ralston on Survival, Adversity, and the Unsung Heroes of Farming

What would you do if you found yourself trapped in a remote canyon with your survival hanging by a thread? Aron Ralston, whose incredible story of resilience was captured in both his book "127 Hours" and the film adaptation starring James Franco, joins us on The Poultry Leadership Podcast to share his remarkable journey. Facing a life-or-death decision after being pinned by a boulder, Aron reveals the mental strength and innovative thinking that saw him through 127 grueling hours to an astonishing rescue. His story is a testament to the power of human determination, transforming a harrowing ordeal into a transformative life lesson.

As Aron takes us through his post-rescue journey, we delve into the themes of overcoming adversity and choosing growth in the face of life’s toughest challenges. He discusses the trials and triumphs of adapting to life with a prosthetic arm and the importance of fostering relationships and love, even amidst heartbreak and loss. Aron’s perspective on viewing setbacks as opportunities resonates throughout, demonstrating how even the most traumatic experiences can be reframed into blessings that encourage personal growth and a renewed appreciation for life’s extraordinary moments.

But it’s not just Aron’s story on the table. We also celebrate the unsung heroes of our everyday sustenance: farmers. Drawing from personal experiences of farm life in Ohio, we express deep gratitude for the relentless hard work and sacrifices made by farmers to provide the nourishment we often take for granted. This heartfelt homage serves as a reminder of the resilience present not only in Aron’s survival story but in the labor of those who sustain us, capturing the essence of the human spirit and the preciousness of each moment and opportunity.

Pick yourself up a copy of Aron's Book - Between a Rock and a Hard Place - https://a.co/d/4OVssUe

Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com

Chapters

• 0:27 Survival Story of Aaron Ralston
• 11:03 Overcoming Adversity and Choosing Growth
• 15:49 Navigating Darkness
• 25:10 Gratitude for Hard Work and Sacrifice

Transcript

Brandon Mulnix: 0:27

Welcome to the Poultry Leadership Podcast. I am your host, brandon Mullnix. Join me on this episode as I interview Aron Ralston. Aron was the keynote speaker at this year's UEP AEB Executive Conference. His inspiring story is captured in his New York Times best-selling book, 127 Hours, and the 2009 movie of the same name starring James Franco. To give you a little backstory, Aron fell into a remote canyon while hiking in Utah and his arm became trapped between a rock and the canyon wall. In a feat of extraordinary survival, for 127 hours, aaron braved very cold temperatures and dehydration while he worked to rescue himself from the rock, before cutting off his arm with a multi-tool and hiking out of the canyon to rescue man. What an incredible story. Let's hear from the man himself.

Brandon Mulnix: 1:20

So, aaron, this is amazing to have you on the show. Our guests have no idea who I'm talking to today just because you were not able to be presented to the industry, but except I did meet you at the United Egg Producers American Egg Board event in Denver not that long ago and you shared your story. It's an exciting story long ago and you shared your story. It's an exciting story. It's a story that, as I mentioned around the office who I get to have on the show today. They're like no way you get that guy and it's like it's people that I wouldn't have even thought were hiking fans or anything. They know your story. So, aaron, I'm going to give you an opportunity. I want you to introduce yourself to the audience and just share a little bit about who you are, and then we'll get kind of into the meat and potatoes of this interview.

Aron Ralston: 2:13

Yeah, I appreciate that and it's an honor to get to chat with you. Brandon, I appreciate the invitation to be here. I think most people do recognize at least the outline of my story about being the guy who was trapped and had to cut his arm off, going back to 2003,. So it's been 21 and a half years since this went down, but I was 27 at the time just turned 49 a month ago or so here a month ago or so that I was out on a vacation spring break kind of time in the April 2003 that year, hiking through a lot of different canyons, mountain biking, and then on Saturday, april 26th it was.

Aron Ralston: 3:00

I was alone and descending down through Blue John Canyon, a particular slot canyon complex on the west side of the Green River, west of Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah, and I got about halfway through my day where I was down climbing off of a chalk stone that was wedged between the walls of the canyon and I pulled it loose as I was underneath it. It was falling from my head and I had to put my hands up to protect my skull and, of course, that's how my right arm gets trapped as the boulder becomes wedged between the walls about seven feet lower than it had been, right in in front of my chest, and it's crushed my hands and my wrist on my right side, down to the width of my pinky finger and between the boulder itself and the wall of the canyon there. So I was trapped in immense pain, panicking, enraged with adrenaline, trying to brute force my way through. Ultimately I was able to calm down and then start brainstorming, come up with a bunch of different options that I went through in series trying to carve through the boulder, trying to lift the boulder with the canyoneering gear that I had with me, building anchors, sustaining myself by rationing my food and water, hopefully that maybe somebody might come along or that a rescue might happen.

Aron Ralston: 4:28

But ultimately, after two days, three days, four days, five days of all of this understanding, I'm going to die here, not able to even take the most extreme measures. I mean in the first hour I thought, oh, I'm going to have to cut my arm off. But the attempts I made along the way were all futile. A knife that I had was just completely pathetic. It was not going to do the job at all. I'm trapped there almost as much by the blade as I am by the boulder until the final morning that I was still alive after six days out there.

Aron Ralston: 5:06

Morning that I was still alive after six days out there, I realized how I could break the bones in my arm and then use the pocket knife that I had to just cut through the soft tissues that were remaining. I accomplished this in about an hour hour and four minutes actually, to be precise, and that at that point I was liberated and I escaped the canyon to a miraculous rescue, after hiking over six miles from the spot where I was trapped to find a family on the way who helped me the last half mile, and then a helicopter, as part of a search and rescue operation spearheaded by my mom, lifts me out of the bottom of the canyon and gets me to a hospital just before I bleed to death. So a miracle top to bottom in all of this, before I bleed to death. So a miracle top to bottom in all of this and, quite sincerely, the most divine interaction that I've ever had in my life, feeling those much larger energies than what we usually tap into on a day-to-day basis, but, as it stands, a story that gave me gifts, especially to understand what's important to me, what's possible for me in my life.

Aron Ralston: 6:05

What's extraordinary about being alive?

Aron Ralston: 6:07

So often we kind of lose sight of that in our lives.

Aron Ralston: 6:12

And then that it's also given me this gift of understanding how I'm able to take almost any negative experience in my life, including this boulder, but to see with fascination how it brings gifts and blessings, as much as I've gone through any number of other very difficult times and adversity in my life, that I have also found strength from this story of my amputation to know that if I can make that the best thing that's ever happened for me and I certainly see it that way then that possibility is there for everything else in my life, whether that adversity comes in yeah, encountering mental health and wellness issues, my physical health, relationships and loss, and grieving the death of my father.

Aron Ralston: 7:00

It's been five and a half years ago since he passed from pancreatic cancer, but he was the one who taught me that life is so much more than what happens to us. But it's about how we respond, what we choose to make, especially of the adversity in our lives. So that's where I've landed with all of this. I try to apply it as much as it's, sometimes with my kids, with their moms, and co-parenting in relationships today, when there's adversity in my life, to see that there's something there for me. I'm going to grow and mature because of this the other side of it I can look back and say, just as I see that boulder, it was one of the greatest blessings of my entire life. That's in a nutshell. Maybe I don't know a seven minute nutshell.

Brandon Mulnix: 7:48

Well, I mean, you're a New York bestselling author with your book that details the story in written form, and you had a movie made about it. A few years later, you had someone James Franco that played you. Is that true?

Aron Ralston: 8:06

Yeah yeah, nominated for Best Actor for the role and five other Oscar nominations for the film in total. So, yeah, it's definitely had some traction out there in the world. And still most people, though, they know they know about the guy that cut his arm off. But, again, my perspective on all of this is that I share the story about the guy who was smiling when he cut his arm off.

Aron Ralston: 8:28

As you recall from seeing my presentation and putting that emphasis on it, it's about, whenever any of us are going to encounter something that's demanding of our highest potential, we get to choose how we frame it, how we see it in our lives, and even to find gratitude for it, which I certainly have from this experience and from all of the experiences, as hard as they've been, going through financial hardships, going through depression, going through again like loss and grieving and the anxiety and worry and uncertainty of life.

Aron Ralston: 9:01

It just like on a daily basis for so many of us and to be able to find something, whether it's to find a way to come back to peace in our lives. Maybe it's about innovating and changing, creating a new opportunity for ourselves. Sometimes it's about maturing and understanding that we're not so much again in control of what's happening, but what we are getting to control is about what's inside of us, in our mind, and how we approach things. All of that is there and it's part of my story and what I hope to be able to give to other people through it.

Brandon Mulnix: 9:37

As you shared your story to a room of business executives who, throughout that event, started talking about the challenges of family farms, the challenges of generational farming, the challenges of avian influenza, which, when you're down once, then down twice, and now some of these farms are hit a third time it's like, how do you get back up? And when I heard your story and I could see the tears in these eyes, I could see the fact that you got back up and I know from what you've shared in some of our other conversations is this wasn't the only time that you've you. You know you smiled, cutting your arm off, but you've had to live 21 years after. Can you? Can you talk about those moments, about getting back up? Getting back up, getting back up over and over and over again? Yeah, I?

Aron Ralston: 10:25

I think I mean there's the physical aspects of this, because I went into the hospital, I had five surgeries and every time I would start on my recovery and then have to have another surgery. It would set me back to a place where I was incapable of doing anything for myself, I mean not even able to get up out of a hospital bed to go to the bathroom on my own. That in time, of course, after all, that was settled out, but then I was fighting a bone infection and that, even with the best and strongest antibiotics out there, I only had about a 50% chance of surviving, which I did, obviously. But talk about setbacks along the way, developing and integrating prosthetics into my life that enabled me to get back to so many of my outdoor passions and, at the same time, the challenges and it's an iterative process that, okay, we're going to create something and then there's some things that don't work so well with it. Perhaps, iteration after iteration, before we get to a place where, okay, this is now reasonably functional, so that, whether it's mountaineering or skiing or rock climbing or ice climbing or any of these other kinds of activities that I enjoy, rafting, yeah, that I can overcome and adapt and refine that. All of these are strategies in terms of how we encounter adversity and what we do with it.

Aron Ralston: 11:52

So, yeah, I mean, of course, getting into relationships. I mean many ended relationships, some that caused tremendous heartbreak. I lost friends to suicide Again. That grief and loss my dad All of this, though, it reminds us that, especially in love, which is what life is all about.

Aron Ralston: 12:12

That's what I primarily learned in the canyon. It's about relationships and love. That we get hurt or something ends. There's a lot of feelings there and we do have to get back up. It is the purpose in our lives and we do have to get back up. It is the purpose in our lives. I mean, once we close off from love. That's where depression and eventually how my friends came to those choices to end their lives we're not living anymore.

Aron Ralston: 12:41

When we cut ourselves off from love, it can be hurtful, it can be scary, of course. That's another one of these times where it's again. We get back up. We have to keep working at what our life's purpose is, and that is to live with an open heart, I believe, an open mind in terms of where there is setback. There's also something that's a gift that's going to help us leap forward, and that's the mindset I keep coming back to. It's the choices that we get to make when something terribly difficult comes our way in life. There is a trauma, but we get to make a decision there about if that trauma is going to become a tragedy or if it's going to become an opportunity for transformation and maybe even triumph. Definitely understand the plight of the farmers, and really I mean the plight of the country at this point in China, the empty shelves of eggs where they should have been for most of the month of November. Even my daughter was like Dad have you seen, there's no eggs anywhere.

Aron Ralston: 13:35

Yeah, it's a big deal. Also, there is a future ahead trying one more time, I believe, finding a better way sometimes that we adapt, that we grow through that loss and that we grow through perhaps even a new opportunity that comes. I don't know exactly all the specifics of what that looks like in any individual's case. I just know that when I take on that mindset that it leads to better things in my life. A great example I've been through a better part with my daughter, almost a decades long custody battle that even at times when it seemed like, oh, there was some resolution, it was kind of that idea well, you can win the war but lose the peace.

Aron Ralston: 14:16

And there was a lot of that over the years too, until finally and I mean this is just the most recent development, a week ago to today as we're recording this that her mom and I signed a global settlement to set all of this aside, because we want peace in our relationship, our co-parenting and for our daughter, more than we want all the rest of the fighting change, which that takes a lot of growth, even as kind of wish it could have happened eight years ago, nine years ago maybe, but where we're at today, I'd like to think that we've both grown so much to know that this is now we're excited about and ready to move forward, and it's about having something that's more sustainable and that's more beneficial, especially for our daughter. Again, it's a lot of examples, but it keeps coming back to making that choice to see that it's not something that's happening to you, but that it's happening for you, and if you have that kind of perspective, I believe you can find fascination with negative experience and turn it into something positive.

Brandon Mulnix: 15:19

Aaron, your words are incredibly encouraging. You know, I've been at that place where I had a car accident, broken face, just sitting in that hospital and going how does how? Do I make this a blessing, because this could be the worst day of my life. I could whine, cry. I literally have an excuse. My face is broken, head injury all that I could make an excuse, and it's like you know what. That doesn't bring anybody peace and joy around me, making it the best thing that ever happened to me just opened up an entire perspective on it that I couldn't have imagined. As you go up and down, there's other people going up and down right now. They have their mountains or valleys. If they're in that valley, that's dark. What would you say to them? What's something that somebody said to you that just helped remind you that the mountaintop was coming?

Aron Ralston: 16:03

Well, first I want to empathize and just appreciate with gratitude what you just shared. I'm so glad to hear that you've had an experience that resonated with what I'm talking about too, and I think most of us recognize this. It's a truth in our lives. It's not my concept or idea that I'm proselytizing out in the universe. This is, I believe, how the universe operates. I appreciate you reflecting that and, yeah, knowing that you've grown through that adversity too. And so, yeah, to get to that idea, what do you say to someone who's in the darkness at the bottom of the valley? I think it's to remember that darkness only exists in the context of light, and even when there's something that's right in front of you that is blotting out the light, know that the light has to exist for the darkness to exist. A boulder has a light side and a dark side. In the metaphor that I talk about, the light and the dark in the universe has to balance.

Aron Ralston: 16:57

In our individual lives in a given moment, we can swing one way or another, and there are a lot of practices that you can put to use in your life in order to see some light when it might not be obvious Part of it. That is about putting intention, practicing gratitude, finding three things that went well and to understand why those things went well, to spend time curating and even cultivating some of that. One of the things I learned in the canyon was trapped, dying, knowing this is the end. And yet I would get out my video camera and hold it up in front of me and talk into that lens to my loved ones, and there would be a smile on my face, because you cannot simultaneously hold profound gratitude and profound despair in your heart at the same time. One will displace the other, and that was something I came to practice then. It would be reflecting and saying thank you and that I love you. It's what brought those smiles, even in the most desperate and isolated experience of my life. I think that there are always ways where you can find something that is light and that is beautiful in a moment, and sometimes that means turning to a loved one, calling on them for some help, support, for a conversation, to share the adversity that you're going through trauma, emotions because we're not alone in that and the more that we connect in those times of even the darkness, that's how we find the light again. Someone else who has been there can empathize and says it will get better, maybe finding out that, okay, you're through the worst of it and now you're taking steps to improve.

Aron Ralston: 18:41

I know a lot of darkness in my life and some of it goes back even to my adolescence being bullied and ostracized and made to feel less than, and how I responded by then building myself up and trying to make myself even more than, and some of that competitive ego kind of stuff lingered well past its utility. Then there's the, the process of trying to shed that and come back to some equilibrium. You're not such a jerk to be around because you're always trying to boost your ego, because you're too afraid that you're inadequate. That that's that's. That's part of the arc. That's there too. But to that person who's in the darkness to know that, yeah, you've been through life enough to know that there are going to be waves where there's peaks and there's troughs, and there's another peak and another trough. And when you find yourself in the trough, to know that there will be another wave at some point you'll be up on top of it again, and to know that, even when you're at the top of an experience, that it can be helpful to remember that, yeah, there's going to be another trap coming, and so to appreciate it, to revel in that Of course, we all know that in being alive, we will someday be dead. That has to exist and to remember, then, the preciousness of what maybe a moment is, a relationship, an opportunity.

Aron Ralston: 19:53

I think there's a lot of these kinds of strategies to pull from and for most folks they know, you know what works for you, and sometimes it's like oh, I'm feeling stuck and stagnant and that kind of a darkness. So like, get up and move your body and that helps loosen up some of the feeling of stuckness and it's what can open up your mind more. Yeah, maybe it's listening to a favorite song, doing something that actively like takes you to your happy place, doing a dance, whatever. That is like just go run as fast as you can for 30 seconds in place, get your heart rate, feel your aliveness. That's there. There's any number of mechanisms that can take you, but it's to keep seeing the both and in life that, yes, you can be feeling down in a heavy and tense way and also be in touch with something that's light and that brings you joy, and that happiness is also possible.

Aron Ralston: 20:51

Really, I come to see my story as about being this practice of happiness.

Aron Ralston: 20:55

If you can be happy even in a time where you're dealing with the most intense experience of your life, then what's stopping you in anything? If you have that kind of a practice, I think you will always be able to find and come back to your happiness, because you know that even the biggest adversities in life are there to help you grow. And that's like okay, I'm grateful, I welcome it. You know, the last thing I did when I walked away from that boulder is I took a photo of it and said thank you out loud to it. I mean, you know, amputated arm, probably going to die on my way out of here, certainly it's a massive risk to be taking, but at least I wasn't going to die in that place. And I left that spot with gratitude Every time I've been back over these 21 years to stand there, most recently with my two kids on the 20th anniversary of my entrapment, and it was to say thank you again and again and again to that rock for all the gifts that it's given me in my life.

Brandon Mulnix: 21:50

You talk about your past. You talk about how it's programmed. You, I mean your positive energy, even in the negative. How have you recently grown?

Aron Ralston: 21:59

I think it was recognizing, and I appreciate that because I mean I do, I try, I strive to continue to grow, discover like, where, where is there some kind of belief or limitation that I have in my life? It takes a little extra courage or maybe it takes some perseverance, some extra effort, but the big one that I'm reflecting on is recognizing from that experience of being bullied when I was an adolescent, then, coming to this value I held for the last I mean more than 35 years was to say that, oh, I'm going to stand up to bullies, I'm going to seek justice, I will gain advantage over them by winning, by being righteous, by holding them to account. So maybe that's a good strategy for a while in life. And then you start to see, like how wait I'm over applying that to situations that are not that. And that's really what I've been doing for the last decade with my daughter's mother. You know I kind of painted her in a particular perspective and was applying these values and these strategies.

Aron Ralston: 23:04

And well, what I wasn't understanding was the cost that it was having for me and for my daughter and for her mom too, and to find a different set of values around that, which is that well, what's more important, again, to express love and forgiveness and to have peace, especially for her daughter. And that's been the big growth, which has not at all been easy, and again it's come at great cost. But I do think the things that cost us the most are the things we value the most. So, going through a process to see that has to change, look where that strategy is going to take you in another 10 years, another 20 years maybe, and to see the costs and emotionally, physically, financially, like all of it, like, yeah, that is not my highest path in life. That's been a major point of growth to replace like a core value because, after having found that it's not serving me anymore.

Brandon Mulnix: 24:00

Would you say that's probably your most recent amputation.

Aron Ralston: 24:06

In a way I mean an evolution, at the very least an adaptation, replacing something that's not serving me, cutting something out but then also gaining from it. I see very much, yeah, I like that. It is the process to let go of something my hand. It was dead, it was decaying, it was decomposing, it was going to kill me. So to say goodbye to that was also saying hello and thank you to a whole host of other gifts and growth that were yet to come in my life. None of it easy, and a little bit worth it.

Brandon Mulnix: 24:44

I really appreciate your vulnerability here and talking about your situation with your kids, and that you were willing to amputate that idea, that attitude, out of your life. And now it's time to turn around and take that picture and see what that moment's going to look like and how you're going to grow from it. Aaron, I want to respect you and your willingness to serve. Is there anything else you want to share for the farmers of the US, the farmers of the world?

Aron Ralston: 25:10

Yeah, well, I mean, I want to come from gratitude and I grew up especially on summers going over to my relatives in Ohio and ride on the tractors and bale the hay and take care of the animals, and so I just have a lot of respect and gratitude, especially for the hard work, the early mornings, the long nights and everything in between, the sacrifices and the toll that all of that takes, especially in these times, with losing a flock after flock after flock, that experience I at least see and appreciate the costs and the toll that it takes and also know the value and the growth that's there and to say it's worth it. So keep going and thank you because, yeah, I got lots more omelets and pancakes and cakes to make, and so keep going please. My kids and I, we appreciate you.

Brandon Mulnix: 26:09

Thank you, Aaron. I really appreciate your story. I know the listeners are going to really really appreciate your story. Excellent. Well, have a great evening. Bye, Brandon, it was a pleasure.