Landscapes, Insights, and What's Next


Landscapes, Insights, and What's Next

Hi Reader,

These past three weeks I guided a private photo expedition through the American Southwest. My client and I explored some incredible landscapes - from the vast expanses of the Grand Canyon to the striking blue waters of Lake Powell and the distinctive red rock formations of Sedona.

Photography in these locations becomes about more than just capturing moments. It's about observing how light transforms these landscapes and finding the stories within them. We balanced our time between photographing snow-dusted canyons and Sedona's red rocks with some urban adventures too - taking a helicopter ride over Manhattan, enjoying some exceptional restaurants, and catching performances by both David Copperfield and David Blaine in Vegas - next level incredible! It was, as they say in the movies, quite an adventure.

I've been thinking a lot about how travel doesn't need to fit into neat categories. Whether it's a safari or a journey through American landscapes, what really matters is the experience itself - those moments that remind you why traveling matters in the first place. While safari work is my foundation, these different journeys have their own unique value and where I find myself gravitating to.

Not gonna lie, the jetlag has been rough, but I should be back to normal by tomorrow. I'll be back in full coaching mode with my clients as well as being back in the Wild Eye office planning new expeditions and working on something genuinely exciting - a new venture I look forward to sharing with you when the time is right.

For now, instead of writing a fresh article for the newsletter, I'm sharing some blog posts that Kim and I have put together recently. I hope you discover something valuable in them.

New Content That Matters

Like I mentioned, it's been a crazy few weeks. The jetlag has been hitting me hard, but from tomorrow I'm full-on back in the game. While I've been adjusting to time zones, and while stuck in airports while traveling home, I've managed to drop some new content that might actually matter.

Here's what's waiting for you on the blog.

It's Okay to Be Okay

Social media has made performative suffering the new authenticity badge. Everyone's filming themselves crying in cars and trauma-dumping for likes. Here's the permission no one's giving you - it's okay to be mentally stable. It's okay to work through your shit privately. It's okay to not have a diagnosis that explains your existence. Being okay isn't boring or shallow - it might be the most profound achievement in a broken world.

The Freedom to Not Give a Fuck

Most people live trapped in cages built from others' opinions. There's profound freedom in this distinction: caring about people doesn't mean surrendering to their judgments. You can value someone's humanity without needing their approval of your choices. The difference isn't semantic - it's the gap between authentic living and perpetual performance. Stop exhausting yourself trying to manage how everyone perceives you. Care deeply, but selectively.

The All-Or-Nothing Trap

Your discipline keeps failing because your measurement system is broken. Setting only ideal targets guarantees eventual abandonment. The solution? Every important habit needs both a ceiling (ideal target) and a floor (non-negotiable minimum). One push-up is infinitely better than zero. The floor isn't lowering standards - it's eliminating the zeros that destroy momentum. Most people fail not from lack of willpower but from binary thinking that says perfection or nothing.

Fix or Face: The Wisdom of Knowing What You Can't Fix

People waste half their lives trying to fix what can only be faced while passively accepting what could be changed. Your physical health and mental patterns? Largely fixable through consistent action. But grief, uncertainty, and growth pains? These are weather you can only ride through, not problems you can solve. The tragedy is watching people surrender to situations they could transform while frantically trying to "hack" experiences they can only endure. Know the difference.

The Cost of Downplaying Our Pain

Kim tackled something important here – how we minimize our struggles to seem put-together. After her surgery, she realized we're all playing this game of "I'm fine" when we're not, creating the illusion that everyone else is handling life better than we are. The real impact? We all struggle alone, thinking we're the only ones finding it hard. By downplaying our genuine experiences, we don't just hurt ourselves – we inadvertently isolate others going through similar challenges. Sometimes the bravest thing isn't pushing through silently, but simply saying, "This is hard, and I'm struggling."

One Year Out: The Greenland Countdown

With exactly one year until my Greenland crossing begins, I'm reminded that past accomplishment doesn't pull future sleds. The ice doesn't care what I did yesterday. This expedition serves as both my most selfish act - managing my own demons through purpose - and my most selfless one, showing others what's possible in their own lives. The most important discoveries aren't made on the ice but in the space between who you are and who you must become to cross it.

You can link through, to any of the posts that speak to where you're at right now, by clicking on the links below.

The gap between who you are and who you need to become is where the real shit happens.

Let's meet there.


Insights

As mentioned above, there are a lot of new posts on Insights.

You can use the links below to check out Kim and my latest posts but make sure to dig a bit deeper as I have been adding quite a few new performance focused posts while I was traveling.

Enjoy and, as always, please reach out if anything specific resonates with you!

It's Okay To Be Okay

In a world obsessed with performative struggling, stability has become almost shameful. But here's the truth: It's okay to be okay.

The Wisdom Of Knowing What You Can't Fix

Some problems need fixing, others need facing. Wisdom lies in knowing the difference.

The Freedom To Not Give A Fuck

Caring about people doesn't mean surrendering to their judgments. The real freedom comes in the distinction: I value your humanity, but your opinion of my choices is none of my business.

The All-Or-Northing Trap That Destroys Discipline

One push-up is infinitely better than zero—it maintains the chain when perfection isn't possible.

The Cost of Downplaying Our Pain

I recently underwent a pretty common surgery. What I didn’t expect? The recovery would hit me so hard – physically and mentally.

One Year Out: The Countdown Begins

The most important discoveries aren't made on the ice, but in the space between who you are and who you must become to cross it.

iPhone Image of the Week

A quick image from this morning when I went for my first hike since finishing my fall expedition a couple of months ago. This was an easy one, a quick 11 km without any weight, and it was just to kind of recalibrate being back at home, almost being through jet lag, and getting the head ready to start proper training again tomorrow.

Header image: I made this iPhone image a week or so ago when my client and I did a helicopter ride over New York. Amazing experience, my favorite city and definitely doing this again in the future.

And that's it for this week.

I have two months at home before my hectic travel schedule starts again, so for now I look forward to being at home, getting back into my training routine, planning some new exciting and very different private guided experiences for my clients, as well as working on something pretty big and scary, which I will share with you all in due course.

Also, on an aside, if you're keen to experience what it feels like to do a Greenland crossing or an Arctic expedition and you'd like to join me on the ice for four or five days at the end of March next year, send me a message. I'm absolutely serious about this. Get in touch.

For now, though, I'm going to take it easy and hopefully by tomorrow my jetlag will be gone because it has really, really sucked badly.

If you know of anybody who might enjoy this newsletter, it would be amazing if you would forward it to them.

Have a great week and stay safe.

And as always, don't forget to be awesome.

Mindset & Performance Coach | International Expedition Leader Speaker & Presenter | Photographic Educator | Co founder of Wild Eye

My Website Links

Fairland, Johannesburg, Gauteng 1732
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Gerry van der Walt

Weekly thoughts from the edge where comfort ends and reality begins. Raw insights on pushing limits, facing fears, and moving forward when everything screams stop. No carefully curated inspiration or polished self-help - just honest truth from someone navigating both physical extremes and human potential. For those battling inner demons, chasing impossible dreams, or simply tired of playing safe. Because transformation isn't about motivation. It's about movement. Into the unknown, where hands shake and doubts whisper, but you keep moving anyway.

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