The Void Between Summits
So many of you—yes, you reading this right now—are avoiding the heights life offers because you're terrified of the inevitable fall. You've made your peace with the middle ground, that gray zone of not-quite-living where nothing hurts too badly but nothing sings either. That's not living. That's surviving. That's existing in the shallow end where your feet always touch bottom.
I'm sitting here, thinking back to the Arctic. My body remembers every step, every gust of wind, everything. My toes still burn with the memory of ice. Strange how quickly the triumph fades, isn't it?
Yesterday I stood on top of the world. Literally. Today I'm just... here. Staring at a coffee mug like it might hold answers to questions I haven't even formed yet.
This is the crash. The void that follows every summit. Always.
I'm not being negative when I tell you this. Not at all. I'm being honest in a way most people won't. This hollow space isn't failure—it's as essential as the climb itself. Like exhaling after the deepest breath. You need both. The achievement means nothing without this emptiness that follows, this sacred space where the next version of yourself begins to form in the darkness.
Nobody warns you about this part. They tell you about the training, the sacrifice, the glory. They never mention the hollow feeling that comes after—when the thing that consumed every waking thought suddenly... isn't there anymore. But this emptiness deserves to be honored, not escaped. It's where the real integration happens. Where the summit stops being something you did and becomes something you are.
This emptiness isn't failure. It's the blank canvas waiting for your next masterpiece.
I've learned that the space between achievements isn't just dead air—it's where the most critical work happens. Having something concrete to work toward, especially in this crater after accomplishment, isn't just helpful—it's oxygen. It's blood. It's essential.
When I came back from my expedition last year, I spent quite some time in this strange void before I set my sights on Greenland. On my white whale. Those three weeks felt longer than months on the ice. Purpose isn't just about achievement; it's about waking up with direction, with something that pulls your eyes to the horizon instead of the ground.
You want some advice? Here's what works: Don't wait for inspiration. The crash will swallow you whole if you do. Write down what scares you. What feels impossible. What would make your heart race again. Do it while you're still raw. Do it before your brain convinces you to settle. The act itself—of putting ink to paper—is rebellion against the void.
Give yourself a window—a sacred, bounded time to feel every jagged edge of the crash. Not to wallow, but to witness. To feel. To experience. To lean into the emptiness without shame. Journal the darkness. Let yourself feel the overwhelming feeling of purposelessness. And then, when your chosen time has passed (mark it on a calendar, set an alarm, make it real), sit down and draft what comes next. Three possibilities. Three new horizons. They don't need to outshine what came before. They just need to be real enough to make you put one foot in front of the other again.
I've been thinking about world champions. About what happens the morning after they've won everything they've ever wanted. The medal's on the nightstand, the world knows their name, and they wake up to... what? The same sunrise. The same skin. But something fundamental has shifted.
The mind that was once laser-focused on a singular goal now spins in empty space. The identity built around "becoming" suddenly faces the vertigo of "being." And it's terrifying.
This is why so many of us avoid the highs altogether.
We sense the pattern instinctively: every peak casts a shadow. Every triumph demands its emotional toll. So we make a devil's bargain—we'll surrender the summits if it means we don't have to face the valleys.
We choose the middle path. The comfortable plateau. The dead zone of unremarkable safety.
And God, what a waste.
Because here's what I learned on the ice: the lows aren't punishment for the highs. They're part of the same essential rhythm. The same heartbeat. You can't sever one from the other and still call it living.
When you stand at the edge of achievement—when you've poured everything into reaching something that once seemed impossible—you don't just accomplish a goal. You become a different person. You can't un-see what you've witnessed about your own capacity.
Even in this crash, this emotional flatness that follows accomplishment, I'm not the same person who left for the Arctic. The emptiness itself is evidence that something extraordinary happened.
So many of us fear this emptiness so much that we never allow ourselves to experience the heights that precede it. We live our entire lives in the comfortable middle—not too happy, not too sad, not too anything.
Just... existing. Breathing but not alive.
But what if the void isn't something to fear? What if it's not just the price of the high, but the space where the next dream takes root?
Champions know this. The day after victory isn't just about loss—it's about rebirth. It's the necessary emptiness that makes room for whatever comes next. When Michael Phelps woke up after Beijing with all that gold weighing down his neck, he didn't feel like a god. He felt like a ghost. Empty. Hollowed out. Not because winning wasn't enough—but because winning was everything until suddenly it wasn't anything at all. His brain chemistry literally crashed. The dopamine that propelled him through 5 a.m. training sessions for years disappeared overnight. This isn't metaphor; it's neuroscience. The identity that organized every meal, every friendship, every decision for decades—gone. Replaced by what? Nothing yet. Just space. Terrifying, necessary space. He spiraled. Drank. Considered ending it all. Not because gratitude wasn't there, but because gratitude doesn't give you purpose. Doesn't tell you who to be now. Doesn't structure the shapeless hours stretching before you. He later called those post-Olympic months "the darkest place I've ever been." This void isn't failure. It's the scorched earth where the new self begins to form. The smart ones don't run from it. They don't numb it. They recognize it as the painful, necessary transition it is—the exact place where the next iteration of yourself starts to take shape, if you'll just stay present long enough to let it happen.
So I sit with this void. I honor it. I don't rush to fill it with noise or the next obsession. Not yet. (Even though I'm seriously looking at the NYC Marathon in November.)
Because I know now: this cycle of fullness and emptiness, of triumph and loss—this isn't just how we achieve things.
It's how we become more human.
The alternative is deadness. Half-living. A life spent carefully avoiding both the heights and depths, never fully awake to either.
So choose the summits. Choose the crashes too. Let yourself feel everything—the glory and the void that follows.
That's not just how you accomplish things.
That's how you actually live.
What summit are you avoiding because you're afraid of the fall?
Today isn't just another entry in your calendar. It's another day you'll never get back. Another 24 hours of potential that either transforms you or passes you by.
So tell me Reader: Are you breathing or are you alive?