She Never Healed the Wound. She Stopped Letting It Drive.

Alice Kao on daily authorship, childhood trauma, and six climbing gyms.

When Alice Kao was three years old, her mother walked out the door carrying two large suitcases and did not turn around. When she was fourteen, her mother dropped her off alone in America near a school with some cash and left. Alice spent the next thirty years running a story about what that meant , that she was not smart enough, not pretty enough, not worth staying for. That story became the engine. It drove her through surviving alone as a teenager in a country where she did not belong, through a devastating heartbreak in Hong Kong, through building Sender One Climbing into six locations across Southern California and raising six million dollars from 115 community investors.

Then she found out the way she interpreted her story was dead wrong. The facts were not what she had believed for thirty years. The wound was real. The story was not.

And the voice that generated it is still there every single morning. It still wants to tell that story.

If you have ever woken up and felt the weight of a story you cannot shake,  the one that says you are not smart enough, not ready, not worth the room you are about to walk into , this episode is the one you need to hear. Because Alice did not heal the wound. She built a daily discipline around deciding what it means. Every morning she chooses who is at the keyboard through authorship and it is the most underrated business skill a founder can develop. Write your own story.

In this episode we go into the phone call that broke the story open, the morning practice Alice has built around narrative authorship, and why imposter syndrome does not have to be gone before you can build something extraordinary.

About Alice Kao

Alice discovered climbing while living and working in London in 2008, following a difficult breakup. She was inspired by the healing and self-discovery that climbing brought her, which led her to co-found Sender One in 2011 upon returning to the United States with her business partners.

Alice hates following rules but loves rallying people to believe in an idea.  She wears her heart on her sleeve and is not afraid to cry in meetings.  She was born and raised in Taiwan and moved to the US when she was 14.  Alice's superpower is her ability to ask for help relentlessly, because no one has all the answers!

Connect with Alice Kao

Website | LinkedIn

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Transcript

Alice Kao 0:00

Made up the story that my mother had abandoned me because when I cried, when I called out to her, she didn't turn and look at me. So I made up a lot of stories about something is wrong with me, I wasn't pretty, I wasn't smart, I didn't listen, I wasn't a good Chinese girl. If you want to figure out where the voices came from, you should try to go back to the first time you heard it. I called her up on the phone and I asked her. She told me something that I'd never heard before. She told me that um my dad actually committed suicide. My life has been a lie. If this is not true, what else is not true, bro?

Beate Chelete 0:33

Hello and welcome. Today I say hello to a good friend and a woman who is truly extraordinary, Alice Cowell from Sender One. And what she's bringing to the show is super, super unique because she looks at this example of imposter syndrome and you know the the noisy voice in our head. And she certainly has figured out how to keep that in alignment and in check so that she remains the boss. Alice, it's amazing to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited for this conversation. Same here. So do tell me the the hard part about your story is that you were literally left alone and abandoned as a child in America. And you have come up with a whole methodology on how to get over this intense childhood trauma and being this successful climbing gym owner with I don't even know how many vocations you have now. Six because every time I talk to you, you raised another couple of million dollars to build another one. So tell me, how do you keep that core wound in check?

Speaker 1:45

Well, first of all, I want to challenge what you said because abandoned is a word that I made up, right? I keep saying that. Like I had written written this story that I was abandoned by my mother, but it's not true. It was just a version of the story that I made up.

Speaker 2 1:58

So that already is a hint that there's something more that we need to know about this. So did you at first believe that you were abandoned? And then what happened for you to reframe that as the first thing in the show?

Speaker 2:11

So are we is it okay if we start all the way from the beginning? Because I think that'll give some context.

Speaker 2 2:16

Context is always good.

Speaker 2:18

Yeah. I was born and raised in Taiwan, and my father died when I was three years old. And I didn't actually know how he passed away. Nobody told me. And, you know, Chinese culture shoved things under the rug. We just don't talk about it. But actually, my grandparents told me, or like the adults in my life told me later, that he had died from a brain tumor. So I always had this assumption that he died from brain tumor. In fact, for years, when I went to the doctor and they asked me for family history, I would check the brain tumor as a box. But I actually have a memory of my mother leaving when I was a child. When I was three years old, I had a memory of my mother walking out the door. And she was carrying two large suitcases, and she just kept walking and she didn't turn around and look at me. And you know, it's it's I know everybody has some trauma. I actually don't believe that my trauma is unique or special, but there's these moments when, like, no matter what I do, I just I close my eyes and I can see that moment, right? And I think that was the first moment that I started believing, or I made up the story that my mother had abandoned me. Because when I cried, when I called out to her, she didn't turn around and look at me. So I made up a lot of stories about something is wrong with me. I wasn't pretty, I wasn't smart, I didn't listen, I wasn't a good Chinese girl. It turned out, and then when I was a teenager, well, she came back. My mom came and left several times when I was a child. And when I was 14, she came to my grandma's house. And my grandma actually said, you know what, you can't keep putting your daughter here in Taiwan with me. You need to take her. So my mom took me to America and she just gave me some money and she rented an apartment like next to the school. And I walked to school and she left. She's like, Hey, you know what? You gotta make it work in America. You gotta make it work. This is your chance to survive. And were you at that time? I was 14. The other crazy thing is, a lot of people asked me. I get a lot of questions now, and they asked me, Hey, you know what? What was it like when you were 14? Was it super traumatic for you? And funny enough, I I didn't at the time when I put myself in that in that moment when I was 14, it didn't feel traumatic because I was in it. You get what I mean, right? But that was your life.

Speaker 2 4:32

You didn't know any of that life, you couldn't compare it to what is it like to have two parents that drive you to school and then pick you up. And that just wasn't your reality.

Speaker 4:41

That was my reality. I've read stories about this, like people who survived the war, right? When they were going through the war or their hunger or something that they were just trying to get up every day and find food or find shelter or trying to survive. And that I think that's how I felt. I just like my kids asked me, like, how did you do it? I don't know. I woke up every day and I said, Oh, I have to go to school today. Oh, I have to go figure out how to get food. You just put one foot in front of another to kind of get by. I think it was only like in my 20s, in my 20s and 30s, when I look back at my life, I realize, holy crap, like this does not happen to most people. This is really, really sad. And then at that point, I actually then I labeled myself as a child who was abandoned. So that word was a word that I made up later in my life. Because earlier in my life, I just said to when people ask me why I was living alone in America, I would say, Well, my mom had externiating some circumstances. She had my brother, she had another family, and we didn't have money. I would come up with some other version of the story. And and same thing as a child, after I found out, like after my parents left, like most of my life in elementary school, I didn't have parents. So when we had to write essays about your parents, I didn't know what to write. I'd be like, Well, my parents are not here. It wasn't my parents abandoned me. You know, that was a word that I made up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 6:02

So now let's talk about sort of this spiritual transformation. Because so here you are, you have to figure out how to make it on your own. As somebody who has a significant amount of trauma myself caused by my mother primarily, I can certainly relate to a lot of parts about your story. And people throw words around forgiveness and letting it go and surrendering. But the truth is that the story is a lot more difficult than that, than you know, going into therapy and then talking about it and then eventually coming to forgiveness because it changes fundamentally on who you are and what your capabilities are. Now, from the outside, looking at you, six climbing gems, you are a beast when it comes to raising millions of dollars. I mean, I've never seen anybody like this. Oh, thanks. And how do you left sort of these stories, as you call them, that you told yourself behind to get to this discipline that you are at right now? Because this cannot have been an easy route. It's not like you woke up one day and you said, that's it. So take us through some of the steps that you had to take to free yourself from the story and write another one.

Speaker 7:16

Yeah. Recently, as I've told you, I started sharing my story on the bigger stage. I did this 12-minute sort of TED TEDx style talk, you know, and at a YPO conference. And it's it's definitely been a healing journey for me. I think it began about 15 years ago, like when I got married, I remember going to therapy. I finally had decided, you know what? I think I need to see somebody about this because I wanted to make sure that I didn't bring this baggage into my life or into my marriage or into with my kids. Like I wanted to be a good mom. And I knew that I didn't want to take this with me. And so I think one of the first things I did was, and again, thinking back now was really crazy, right? I was like sitting in my therapist's office, and she says, uh, one of the things I told my therapist, you know, I have this little voice in my head. I don't know. Do you have a little voice? Have we talked about this? Do you have a little voice?

Speaker 2 8:05

I talk about the voice all the time. I you that's actually one of my intake questions for potential clients. I always ask them how loud the voice is. Is it whispering or is it already yelling?

Speaker 8:15

Oh my God, it's yelling all the time. Mine is really loud and it's very negative. The first time I met you, when you wanted it, when I asked you to be my mentor, I thought, oh, what could she possibly want from me? Like, how could I possibly, you know, deserve to have this woman be my mentor? Like it's super negative and that's very critical. So, anyway, so I started going to therapy because um that voice was it it was very successful in driving me to do some incredible things. Like in high school, when I was living alone, it would tell me, Oh, suck, you better get good grades and go to school because you need to survive. If you don't make money, you're gonna die alone here in America. Like it would say that. So then I worked really hard. So, right, I I get that. Like some of us have voices that drive us to do do things in life. But at some point, I was like, okay, you know what, I want to try to get rid of it. So I was sending my therapist's office and she said to me, If you want to figure out where the voices came from, you should try to go back to the first time you heard it. And for me, that was when I was three. So she said, Have you ever asked your mother why? You ever ask her why she left when you were three? And then actually, I immediately like argued. I made up a story in my head for her. I said, I can never call my mother and ask her. I could never ask her that because she's had a terrible life. Her husband died, and then she remarried and she was she had no money. I just made up all these reasons why I couldn't confront her. And I also made up her responses, right? But, anyways, finally, after I don't know, six months or so, one day, I decided it was time. So I called her up on the phone and I asked her, like very calmly. I was like, Hey, you know what? I've been seeing a therapist and I just want to know. Can you tell me? Like, do you remember that day? Do you I have this memory of you leaving? Like, do you remember? Do you have that memory? And she like lost it instantly. And she told me something that I'd never heard before. She told me that um my dad actually committed suicide. And I just remember like I was like sitting on the phone, like, what you know, just like, what? This is crazy. Like, my life, actually, what I was thinking was my life has been a lie. That's what I was thinking. I was like, wow, when were you gonna tell me that? And then she says, She told me that she was in so much pain, and she told me, and then eventually, and she she was crying, and then and then she said, you know, Alice, she's she's sorry, she apologized, which I also like didn't expect. I didn't think she was gonna say that. And she told me, and years later, she also told me some other things. Like she told me that um she didn't want to look at me because I reminded her of the man that abandoned her. Like she had made up a story that it was her fault that he killed himself. And you were a reminder of that to her, that yeah, that was the case.

Speaker 2 10:52

It's so interesting, you know. Yeah, I I like that you actually use the term confronting because I literally was just in Germany because my godmother uh passed away and I felt the call to go and fly there. And I just went for a week and uh was able to accompany her for the last whatever two, three days before she left. And then afterward, I went to see my mother, and I did confront her this time for the first time really in my life. And my and I where I see sort of these parallels here is the confrontation isn't a confrontation about how dare you do this to me or explain yourself, but it is a piece of a truth that is just missing in the story. And you said that you confronted her because you wanted to know why she did what she did. And when I confronted my mother, and that was literally two weeks ago, and I said to her, Can you even acknowledge uh that this happened, that you did what you did? And she can't. And what did she say? Yeah, she can't, she can't, she can't. She made a decision to erase these 12 years of the abuse that she's you know committed out of her life. It just doesn't fit her narrative. But I can live with the decision. And that really was what the confrontation was about. And so I want to be very deliberate and very clear, you know, in this interview about what confrontation means is like if if you do that and you're listening to the show, confrontation is not necessarily meaning with God's blazing and and your AK-47 ready. It just means that sometimes you just need a piece of the story to get clear on uh where that fits. And in my case, you know, it was about yes, uh a confirmation that I'll never get that because she made the decision, which is her decision, and it's okay. And in your case, it was you wanted to know why, or why she at least didn't turn around and could look at you. And now you have this. Now, did that add more richness to the trauma, or was that a relief?

Speaker 12:56

It was both. I know it's odd. And I want to come back to the confrontation thing because that was with my I feel very lucky. So I'm really sorry that your mother didn't complete the story for you. And in my case, she did, right? Like my mother apologized, which is amazing because I didn't expect her to. But what I didn't get that was from my dad, which I just, you know, discovered later, right? But at the time it was, it was probably both. I was just, I remember feeling very confused about my life. Felt like it was a it was a lie. If this is not true, what else is not true, right? Like maybe there's I I started questioning like everything that I've ever knew, I've ever known. And I was very angry at her. Actually, I didn't like forgive her right away. I didn't call her for like a month. I was thinking, wow, I don't know. I was just, I started, I was angry at her that she didn't tell me earlier. I was like, why didn't you tell me when I was five years old or 10 years old? You had so many opportunities. Like, wait, why did you have me check medical boxes, you know, for 30 years? Right, thinking that my dad died from a brain tumor. And then it went down a different different rabbit hole. Like, why did he kill himself? You know, why did he choose to do that? It was like more questions and answers for many years.

Speaker 2 14:00

Yeah, I can see that. Were you aware that this was your tr uh your trauma origin story? Is that a term of a trauma origin that you've ever even dealt with or examined like that?

Speaker 14:13

Mm-mm. I just never honestly I just I think I was in so much survival mode that I didn't really think about it until I started dealing. I I've been dealing with this maybe like the last 10, 15 years, but before that, nothing.

Speaker 2 14:25

Yeah. Well, I mean, when we met for the first time, and yeah, my my first prediction to you was that you were gonna be speaking on big stages in front of a lot of people telling your story. I do remember that very, very vividly because I I do too. Yeah. At that point, you just had uh sort of mentioned that you have this desire to do that. I'm like, oh girl, allow me to shed some light on this. This isn't even a question. It's gonna be much bigger than you think it is because there's so much about you that I think is so worthy to share with the world. And one of the reasons I also wanted you to uh to to be on the podcast, because the one thing that you have been very clear and open about and talked about is imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome is like one of those things that can be absolutely debilitating. So, can you share with our listeners and the people that are watching this interview what is imposter syndrome to you? How has it affected your life? And then we're gonna go into the transformation on how you ended up raising millions of dollars and building a bunch of climbing gems and are everybody's favorite, because that that is the breakdown, the breakthrough, and the breakout. So tell me about the imposter syndrome, please.

Speaker 15:38

I think at this point in my life, I've accepted that I'm always gonna feel a little bit like an imposter. And this is because I am always doing harder things. If I were doing the same things over and over again, like after a while, I'd be like, yeah, I'm really good at this, right? Like I can walk into a meeting and I know what to say and exactly what's gonna happen. But because I am always doing new things and hard things, I'm always gonna feel a little bit out of my death. And I think that's okay. And to talk about the little voice, right? Like in my case. And and by the way, I actually I think everybody has some version of this. Like I'm everybody has some version, right? Yeah, I've not met anybody, which is actually very freeing because for many years I felt like I was the only one. I was like, oh, and maybe every other people's voices probably tell them that they're beautiful or they're like so smart, and mine doesn't say that, right? So like I walk into it. Only if you're narcissist, only if you're narcissist. I don't know, I just I just don't like people, but I walk into a lot of rooms, a lot of business meetings, you know, a lot of stages, thinking, like, oh my God, you know what? I just I'm not good enough. Or like, oh God, you know, they're gonna find out like something is wrong with me. You know, people give me a compliment, and I literally think in the back of my head, well, but they don't know this other thing, right? This that's what impossible is. Like you think that people are gonna find something out about you, and then they're gonna they're gonna run away or they're gonna not do business with you, or they're not gonna love you. And I I but I I believe genuinely, like deep down, like I'm all about like I believe that it's like the world is about like human connection and and and interacting people with their hearts and souls. And I think deep down what we really want is we all want to be loved. We just want to be loved. And I the imposter syndrome comes from if somebody finds out something about me, maybe they're not gonna love me anymore, and then I will be alone and they're gonna leave me. So that that's my deep fear, you know that.

Speaker 2 17:35

But have you not found out that especially with the speaking and sharing your story, that the more vulnerable you are now, the more people love you because they now see the real you and not the version on the outside. I mean, between you and me, you've always been really terrible at pretending you're something that you're not. You've always been you've always been very consistently you. I've never felt once that you were trying to put up a front. And I think that's what what your appeal is in in business. And I think that's what the what the draw is into your message about how to do that. Okay, so you acknowledge that it's there, you recognize when it happens, and then you just don't give it any value. Is that the trick?

Speaker 18:19

It's I think it's a I wish there was like a pill that I can take, or I wish there was like an answer, like, yeah, just do this and it'll go away. But I think for me it's a combination of a lot of things. I think that it's a daily practice of like choosing a different belief. And so I'll give you an example. My kids make fun of me all the time, and I think I'm crazy, but I just do it. I think I'm the luckiest person in the world, you know, B. I really say this out loud, like all the time. Even when I don't believe that I am, something bad happens. I will still tell myself, okay, you know what, you're the luckiest person in the world. And my my daughter, the my eight-year-old the other day, literally said, Mommy, how can you be the luckiest person in the world? You didn't win the lottery. And it's like, tell me a reason why you think you're the luckiest person in the world. And I said, Well, because my mother left when I was a child, and my mom, my mother is 76 years old. She turned 76 last week. And I see her almost every day. I saw her this morning when I dropped you off at school. And then I get, I call her like five days a week. You know, on Saturday, I took her to Costco and we spent like three hours waiting in line. But like, that's how we spend time together. I was like, you know what? Most people, this doesn't happen to most people. This is why I am the luckiest person in the world. So I think for me, that it's like it's like a constant narrative. If you lived in my head for a day, you'll see it. It's like negative, negative thoughts. And then I'm literally talking to myself, I'm having conversations.

Speaker 2 19:41

You find evidence for the positive aspects in your life to prove to you that the thesis that you have about yourself that you're the luckiest person is true. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 19:50

But it's like constantly happening. So when I am zoning out, or like the other thing is my husband always tells me, I've been practicing that, I climb a lot and I practice yoga, right? And I'll literally be doing a pose and be thinking, having a conversation with myself in my head, which my husband says, You're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to empty your mind. I'm like, no, but though that's the time that I talk to myself. That's how that's how I do it. I'm constantly having conversations with myself in my head.

Speaker 2 20:16

But I I've I have found that to be the meditative practice is very unique in that sense, you know. So I have found that meditation for me sometimes is listening to music and letting and allowing my brain to to go in these places because we never give ourselves permission to explore some of some of these thoughts. And for me, the music allows me to sort of envision because it takes me in a different place. So if you're in a yoga pose and it allows you to release the tension in your head because you have to make a thousand decisions a day, and the decisions that you make affecting many employees and a lot of money and big decisions for your investors as well. So now let's switch gears here a little bit. So you are the woman that fearlessly throws herself at a wall, climbs it to the very top, and then takes as many people with her as possible. So you're taking the employees with you, you're taking your investors with you. What's that about? Like, tell me about the business. Like, what made you pick this?

Speaker 21:25

So I had a serious boyfriend in college, and my dream when I was 25 years old was to marry him and meet his wife and move to Hong Kong. That's what his family was from there. And when it didn't work out, um, I ended up moving to Hong Kong by myself. And when I got to Hong Kong, I found out actually he called me and told me that he was marrying somebody else. And I was like on the ground. You know what's funny is we even all that childhood trauma, it wasn't as traumatic as this. Like when I was twenty six, I think that was like the toughest time in my life because I remember I remember days where I didn't get out of bed. I just like wanted to sleep. I was I was depressed. I I stayed in bed. I didn't eat. You know, I didn't sleep. I was going to do some stuff. But anyways, I dug myself out of that hole eventually and I moved to London for work. It was really cold in the wintertime in London, and like everybody does like indoor sports. So a friend of mine told me to go to a rock climbing gym. And that is how I got into rock climbing. And I can't actually tell you exactly which day it was. I felt better. But I just remember like one day. I was like climbing five days a week till midnight every night, doing yoga, getting in shape, lost like 20 pounds. And one day I just remember waking up thinking, oh, you know what? Like I feel better. I climb, I don't know, two, three days a week. I try to, but and then I climb because every time I'm on the wall, I it reminds me of a time that made me happy. So when I'm sad or I'm going through something, like I go back to that because it it's like a feeling. So for me, climbing is very emotional. And I'm a very like emotional person, just in general, like in life and in leadership. And that's how I got into it. So like I got into the business of climbing because I wanted to give other people this feeling. I had to think that, oh, maybe other people would relate to this. One of my favorite things to do is go to the gym and talk to strangers, like talk to people and ask them, hey, how did you get into climbing? Like actually, every employee I interview, everybody I meet, I asked them, the first question is like, hey, how did you get into climbing? Like, how did you find this? And who brought you here? Why do you do it? Because I think that that's a way for me to connect with them.

Speaker 2 23:33

But you didn't leave it at that. You didn't leave it at just building a climbing gym and a wall to throw yourself against and then uh have people follow you. You decided to take this to a whole new level. So talk to me about this vision that you have for Sender One.

Speaker 23:49

Well, you know, a lot of people ask me questions about scaling, and I think scaling is a decision. So when we opened the first one, it was just because it was like a hobby and we wanted to do it on the weekend. But at some point, I was still working my other job and then doing this thing on the on the side. I think it was like year two or three, I finally decided it was time to really put some energy into it to see if we can build a company. And that that was a decision. I had a one of my mentors from EO told me this like maybe 10 years ago. Because growing up, I have all these traumatic events about not good enough, I'm not smart. I have the story be that I'm not smart enough. It's very loud. My husband went to Harvard. I am an immigrant in America, and some I sometimes actually I have a lot of cultural gaps, and my English sometimes get caught up and I don't understand. You have that, right? Sometimes I feel like my English is not good. I just have a lot of judgments about my own.

Speaker 2 24:42

Cultural references, and you just have no idea uh what that means.

Speaker 24:46

What that means. I I think I actually I legitimate, I think I am not smart. And my mentor said to me, you know, Alice, you know what your special gift is? It's like your special gift. I've mentored a lot of entrepreneurs, and your special gift is your ability to relentlessly ask for help. And I really thought about that. I can see that. You can see that, right? And then I really thought about it, I was like, okay, why is that a strength? And he goes, Because most entrepreneurs, they most people, most successful people, right? They get to a point and then they're like, oh, I know everything I know. So then, like, when they run into a problem, they try to get stagnant. Yes. They just try to solve the problem with what they know. But I I started like connecting those things together and I realized, you know what? Like, my belief that I'm not smart is actually the reason I ask for help. Because I always, almost always believe that somebody else must have an answer that is better than my answer. Like I must not have the right answer. So when I feel stuck on a problem, I am going to go out and ask people to contribute their answers. And then I'll look at all the answers and I'll pick one that I like. Right. So I'm pretty good at that. So to answer your question about the investors and like the employees and all that, you know, like this last gym that we opened, we raised money, six million dollars from 115 people. And one of the things is is the belief that, like, hey, you know what? Like I want to build this community, but man, I need the help of these people, this community to help me make this gym successful. Now, I I think I've come a long way, and no, it's no longer like coming from a place of like, oh, I'm not good enough. But I do genuinely I believe in like if you give, you will get it back. Right? So that is my way of asking for help. And you should ask my investors. I ask them all the time, hey, can you please bring a birthday party? Hey, can you please refer me? Like, I'm constantly asking. Actually, today we're hiring, we need to hire somebody. And then I reach out to like, I don't know, 20 of my investors. Hey, you know what? I need to hire this position. Do you guys know anybody? Like, what's the shame in asking? I think it at the end of it, it's just like I have no shame in asking for help because I don't believe I have the right answers. And then if you ask for help and people don't have the answers, well, you're not worse off than if you hadn't asked.

Speaker 2 26:57

Yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 26:58

Yeah, and I don't like I never perceive as asking for help as a sign of weakness. It's just like it doesn't even like I know some people say that. Like I don't even it doesn't even like exist in my mind that it's a point of weakness.

Speaker 2 27:11

Well, I think this is what what made you build this particular business model. And I wanted to spend a minute on on the model that you've created. So it's not just that you're asking for investors, the people that are invest go climbing and they take and they throw their birthday parties at the gym. So, how did you build sort of this add-on benefit community? I mean, did you do that deliberately? That you're looking for investors who also seeking the community who may already be climbers. I mean, how did you put that together?

Speaker 27:42

It's freaking genius. I believe that I I now really believe this. I believe that ideas are free. Have you heard this? It's so many ideas. It's like you could throw a dozen, like, you know, billion dollar ideas on the wall, especially with AI, where you can ask, like, tell me the next three billion dollars, you know, whatever. But it's not the ideas that are hard, it's the doing. It's the execution. I mean, in order to get 150 investors, I probably talked to 300 people. I spent like all year doing that, right? But that's this is not my first time doing it. When we raised money for the very first gym, I did the same thing. I ran around with the business plan and the financial model, and I just talked to like hundreds of people, hundreds and hundreds. I think I talked to like 50 banks. And it was constantly like, no, this is not gonna work. And like, just got to get over yourself and just keep going. I don't know if there's like a shortcut to this. Maybe somebody else will do it faster or easier, but I haven't found a way.

Speaker 2 28:30

No, I don't think so. I mean, what makes your model different, and I see a lot of models, is that you have a very clear community focus. So this is not just about an alternative investment opportunity and private equity investment model, but this is about a buy into an idea on how to bring people together. And you have been very deliberate. You're not the chic Equinox Lululemon kind of uh climbing gym. You're asking for the kids and you're asking for the family and the family parties. And while this might not be in the interim sort of the sexiest, coolest, high-ticket branding, but what it does, it creates this longevity of these kids grow up and then they might bring their friends into the climbing gym. They throw a birthday party at the gym. Now, kids are doing things that they thought they never would be able to have the courage to do is climb up a mountain. I mean, next time my my three-year-old granddaughter is here, we we gotta take her to the gym and and and see how she does. I mean, she she goes to this program, Kids Strong, where they just give her, you know, some sort of confidence. So I like this idea. So this is a deliberate decision on your part, though. Or did you stumble into that?

Speaker 29:55

There's a little, I it's a little bit of both. It was, I mean, it was by necessity, like hey, we needed to figure out how to raise money, we didn't want to go to private equity. What are our other sources? And then we thought, okay, if we're gonna do it this way, then we want to do it deliberately, we want to do it this way. I think what I've learned in this is that everybody wants to be a part of something, right? Everybody wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And what I realize is that this is what they want. And I I and I think it's like a mutually beneficial thing because what the my investors are giving me is the money to build this, this, this dream for us to live this dream together. But it's also very fulfilling to me because for me, remember, my purpose is to give climbing to a lot of people and to see how climbing had made a difference in their lives. And this is now every day when I hear stories from them, like how this has changed their lives, it makes me want to get out of bed. It makes me want to keep going. Do investors get to climb at the gym? So if I invest in the company? They they get to climb and they do all the time. I go into the gym and I see them climbing all the time. And it's a it's a beautiful, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 30:59

Well, I mean, if if I if I invest in something and then I can go and check it out and make sure and see if there's people there, it's gonna make me feel really good about my investment. Now I want to tell more people about this investment. So you really have fill uh figured out how to build this just amazing community model. So if somebody wants to go climbing, where should we send them and where do we send them if they want to learn more about you?

Speaker 31:21

Oh, well, I just started posting a lot on LinkedIn, so you can follow me on LinkedIn and uh sender one climbing, sender1climbing.com. You can take a look at the website. You know, we have intro to climbing classes every day. And actually on our website, we also have um information about our newest gym that we're fundraising for, which is Sunder 1000 Oaks. We are in permitting right now. We're gonna start construction probably in like Q3 and open April, May of next year, pending what happens the city. But we're gonna fund the next several gyms this way.

Speaker 2 31:52

I love it. And on a personal note, you know, I I just want our audience to know that it was Alice who was one of the first people after the fire. After you put your kids to bed, you packed her back, and you came over and you found us in our in our whatever five-day crash pad in Venice, and you brought me my first warm jacket that because you know, we came from Costa Rica, we lost everything. So you really truly are a woman that doesn't just talk the talk, you walk the path, and you are so, so, so, so loved and appreciated by so many people. And I hope in this interview we we can get this message out that women like you exist, business owners like you exist, and that there's many, many role models, and you know, you can build a business model any way you want. As long as it works for you, it'll work for other people as well. And so I want to really thank you.

Speaker 32:44

You're welcome. It's the people, it's the relationships and the people that you meet that matter, right?

Speaker 2 32:49

Always, 100%. And that is it for us for today. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I have. Alice is really an extraordinary uh woman to follow. Uh so go follow her on LinkedIn. If you are in California, especially in the Los Angeles area, check out Send Une Climbing. And I say goodbye until next time.

Speaker 1 33:12

That's it for this episode of the Business Growth Architect Show, Founders of the Future. If you're done playing small and ready to build the future on your terms, subscribe, share, and help us reach more trailblazers like you. And if you're serious about creating, growing, and scaling a business that's aligned with who you are, schedule your uncovery session at uncoverysession.com. Lead with vision, move with purpose, create your future.