Yeah, then suddenly you just let go in a thermal and think, "Yeah, there's nothing there anyway," and the next moment it starts rising. That's when it became clear to me, okay, it's too complex to just think through it logically all the time. And that's something that's always stayed with me, and I think that's why I rely on it, because you say it's a spiritual book—that's a big part of what the book is about, like, what kind of attitude do I basically approach this with to be ready to be able to make use of all those possibilities out there?
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast, stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Paul Guschlbauer and I am Lucian Haas.
Paul Guschlbauer is certainly known to many as a long-time participant in the Red Bull X-Alps and an aviation adventurer. He was already a guest on Podz-Glidz five years ago. In episode 18, The Bush Pilot, he told us how he flew many stages from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego with a small propeller plane and a paraglider in his luggage. Meanwhile, Paul is focusing on organizing his own competition series and coaching-style events centered around Hike and Fly under the brand he launched, Wunderbird. Fittingly, his first book, Wunderbird Strategy, was recently released. It's not just a technical book about Hike and Fly.
While Paul also writes about the fundamentals and techniques of this sport in depth, he puts the special mindset at the center. It's about striving for an ideal state, the Wunderbird Flow, in which the hike and fly pilot forms a perfect symbiosis with nature and its energies, both on the ground and in the air.
In this episode 172 of Podz-Glidz, Paul talks about his personal philosophy of Hike and Fly.
It's about how he himself became a wonderbird, how to get closer to that nature-connected flow, and how ultimately this Hike and Fly spirit can also serve as a school for life.
By the way, I can only present these kinds of special conversations in Podz-Glidz because there are supporters who financially support my work on the podcast. Join in too. You can find all the necessary information about this in the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the "Fördern" page.
Paul, are you a spiritual person?
Yes, I have to say, I am a spiritual person, even though in my eyes, that's just a bit of a label in society—it's a bit of a stigma, that's how it resonates with me—but basically, yes. What does that mean for you? For me, it means that things can have value that we might not be able to explain scientifically yet, or haven't experienced yet, and that there are connections that you just have to believe in. Is flying something spiritual for you?
Flying has extremely many aspects that can be spiritual, I'd say. You can fly, or specifically the way I do it, in so many different ways. And for me, I believe that... this way, this spiritual way, as you just branded it, let's say, is what has personally taken me the furthest, if you want to put it that way. But I wouldn't call it spiritual; I'd call it more like being connected to nature, so to speak, and not say, okay, I now believe in some crazy things, but for me, it's simply a fact, the worldview, that we are part of all of this here and the better we integrate into it.
And the more that means, the better it all works.
So I got onto the spiritual side because you wrote a book and I read it, and the book is called Wunderbird Strategy, Mindset, Fundamentals and Techniques of Hike and Fly. And when you read it, you first expect, oh, now I'm getting the great introduction to Hike and Fly. What do I have to do to get properly into the mountains, what exact technique do I need for that, and stuff like that. And then you read it and it turns out to be a very personal book of yours and, from my perspective, also really one that doesn't just deal with the mountains, but also with the world. A book with many spiritual thoughts, actually. Tell me the story of how it came about, so people can understand a bit how the mindset actually comes together. Not the story of how you wrote it, how you typed it out, but how did you get the idea in the first place and what drove you to write the book the way you did?
Well, I haven't exactly planned out how I'm going to tell you this story now, so I have to see where to start. But spontaneously, yesterday I was looking for an old video and scrolled through my Facebook until I got back to 2008, where I found a video—it was the second video I ever edited—from when I had just finished my first year of paragliding. In this video, you hardly see any paragliding scenes, but rather so many cloud time-lapses, and I edited music to it where... where it's about who's in control and how the clouds are moving, and then I had the clouds run in one direction once and then in the other, and I sort of thought to myself at that moment, wow, it already started back then that I was somehow... how should I put it, like from
...viewed from the outside and from the inside at the same time. That for me was more about how life works, actually, overall, and what's behind that in the big picture, so to speak, on an energetic level that is just hard to explain. And I kept getting deeper into paragliding, where, if you really deal with it intensively, it's just about that a lot in total. You notice that again and again, where you're just like, yeah, then you suddenly let go in a thermal and think, yeah, there's nothing there, and the next moment it rises. And that's when it became clear to me that looking at this sport logically, regarding something we can't see and can't actually, so to speak, grasp—I mean, of course, you can always keep feeling your way around and say, okay, yeah, the thermal must be there and it's shifting a bit with the wind like this and that—but how we experience and deal with this complex system in that moment is actually too complex to just always think about logically.
And that has always been with me in some way, and I think that's why—because you say spiritual book—that's a big part of the book too, like, what kind of attitude do I basically approach this with in order to be ready to be able to use all these possibilities that are out there?
But now you're saying, experiencing things while flying, what you do or what every flyer probably does, where you say I can't explain that logically anymore, but it's an... an energetic flow that I'm in, and I'm part of the elements, but if I know how to use them, I can still get high or something like that. Even so, you've now tried to put that into words and said you want to write a book about it. One thing is your own experience and how you do it, and the other is a book—I want to pass that on to others. So what drove you to say, "I, Paul, want to somehow convey what I experience or what I think to other people in writing"?
Yeah, I've always thought that I should write this down. I mean, I've traveled extremely a lot—I think I've been almost everywhere at some point and experienced so many things. And I thought, okay, crazy things happened, like, I don't know, once I was in Myanmar and had run out of money, and suddenly my uncle is standing there giving me money. These are just little stories from life, you know, about being able to travel again. And I've always found that quite funny. Your uncle was reliable. Was he there by chance? Yes, he was there, suddenly he was there by chance. So, I was sitting there with my girlfriend at that airport and we couldn't fly out anymore because we'd run out of money, and back then in Myanmar you couldn't just withdraw money; you had to bring what you had with you, and then there was an exit airport and you could only fly.
I think a border crossing was sometimes still open. In any case, my girlfriend and I were sitting there, we had no money left, and we were wondering how we were going to get out of here. So yeah, we're sitting there for a few hours and suddenly my uncle starts walking around the airport. I say, hey, what a cool coincidence that you're right here. Maybe you could lend me some money because I need to get out of here somehow. And exactly, things like that—funny things, or interesting things—have happened to me so much during all the trips I've taken, including the flight from Alaska to Patagonia. You meet so many people and you have no idea, there are 13 borders you cross, and then you land somewhere as an Austrian in an American mini-plane at some South American airport, and suddenly you have these very interesting challenges and very interesting solutions that you couldn't have imagined beforehand.
What's waiting for you there, where you can actually park your plane, where you can get fuel. And I've always thought to myself that I should write down all these stories. But they're not going to be in this book.
before, but the book is already quite specific. No,
the book, unfortunately.
Regarding Hike and Fly. You'll probably have to write three more books in
in the near future. Yes, to elaborate a bit, I already went to a publisher with this idea. That was about seven or eight years ago. But it was a bit too intangible. Like, yeah, okay, adventure stories, I don't know. So that wasn't enough, let's just say. And my life has then taken some interesting turns from this adventurous life toward personal changes as well. I've had two children in the meantime, at the same time I separated from the children's mother, and I'm now in a new partnership where the children are also well settled. So we get along extremely well with each other. And that only happened because I started dealing a lot with coaching, with psychological aspects; I also did psychosocial training, systemic coaching and so on, also really learned, let's say.
Then in training facilities. And then, in fact, Simon Lehmann and Werner Luidol, who both started the Viento publishing house back then, came to me and said, hey, let's do a book about this sport. And I told them from the beginning, yes, we can do that, but I also want to include a few other things. It's important to me to write something in the book that doesn't exist yet—I mean, I don't know every paraglider book, but I think it's important to put the sport, which is very close to my heart, in a different light, so to speak. It just needs a fundamentally different attitude toward the sport and a more conscious approach.
That's my personal motivation. And then I told them, "And this is what it could look like." And then we started roughly outlining the table of contents, saying what kind of topics would be included, what would be covered, and that's how this book came about, where, as you say, I wouldn't call it a spiritual book now, but it naturally contains a lot of mindset and mental strategies and other topics that I believe could also be taken into one's life. Is that...
In terms of the content, is it what you imagined at the beginning? Or did it take some crazy turns, like with flying, where you end up saying that in the end, you found the lift in a completely different place than you expected at the start?
Yeah, of course, I had a certain idea and then naturally dove into this topic and tried to somehow really find the point. And in some places, it was actually a bit difficult for me because I'm simply of the opinion that it's so individual. I mean, everyone practices the sport. I do it out of my own motivations, with my own goals, with my own ideas, and ultimately with my own desires for the experience. Everything depends on that. So, I could write a niche book for Red Bull League athletes, for example. I could probably make it quite authentic, say, "Hey, this is exactly how you have to train," and "this and that is what you could do from my perspective, this is how I experienced it and achieved this and this success."
But then that definitely won't appeal to the person who just wants to go to the mountain for fun and just fly through the clouds or I don't know, through the clouds, that experience above the clouds, what you could hear in the song, wants to fulfill that idea. Those are two completely different topics and the underlying approach is simply different. My wish, that's clear for everyone, it just has to be for everyone in some way, it has to have a drive. And that's where I am with everyone. And I came back to that with every topic and said, that's what it's actually about. So it's actually about the attitude, with what attitude do I approach the sport. And if I now approach the sport simply as someone who originally just wants to have a nice gliding experience and then read Paul's book and it says everything about Red Bull League freestyle in there,
is it right or important to fulfill it like that now? And is that the content of what I need to learn now to be happy or not? Of course not, it's simply about having the experience as well as possible and as beautifully as possible, positively for yourself. And that can happen in different ways. And that's what I kept coming back to, I noticed that again and again. And ultimately, I believe, also thanks to the help of Werner and Simon, we've drawn a good arc that everyone can take something away from. And of course, my...
...competitive past, I think, is already included. So you'd have to tell me that now after you've read it. Those certain themes of ambition, like how to be efficient, because you don't always have to have efficiency as your only goal. But yeah, that's sort of how it developed.
Yeah, that is... I'd say you've found a good balance between your scattered ambition or the competitive mindset that's in there. But when you read the book as a whole, I'd say...
Yeah, the mindset story, the spiritual side—or let's just say the spirit you bring with you, which is maybe the spiritual part, and how everyone brings it with them in their own way when they go flying. I'd say that's what takes up most of it, in terms of what you take away from reading it. And the chapters where you describe certain stages—like the days where you said, for example, Red Bull X-Alps Day 1 and 2, and on one you weren't doing so well, but on the next you were more in the zone, and then moved forward well, and you describe how different that is and what the influencing factors might have been. That's also fun to read and to trace a bit. At the same time, it's probably like for many who say, yeah, X-Alps is a long, long way from what I can actually do.
I wouldn't have to read this book for that. I want something different for my thing. But I think you can find an enormous amount for yourself in there, regardless of what level you practice the sport at. In the book, it's very much about something you call the Wanderbird flow. But before we get to that, I have another question regarding flow. Did you ever experience something like flow while writing, or was it pure work for you?
That's a good question. It was definitely both.
Flow—so we're automatically getting into the Wanderbird flow topic a bit now. The flow in writing kicked in once I really dedicated myself to the topic and cleared out the other, less important topics from my system, my body, and my surroundings. I basically cleared out a full week, probably three, four, or five times in total, making sure there was absolutely nothing else and dedicating myself 100% to the book for those few days. And then it worked. That flow was there. And then things actually moved forward, because that is definitely the experience I'm having with writing this book now.
Just sitting down once in a while and writing a page here and there—writing about it—is particularly difficult with this book, which ultimately has about 350 pages and is supposed to be cohesive. I mean, that's the thing: if you read the first pages and then the last pages, which might even be the intro for a next book, it all has to hang together. No matter where you go, you have to feel that connection. And keeping that consistent in your head throughout the entire time just doesn't work, and certainly not if you're only doing it on the side. So, the biggest learning was simply focusing on one thing, on this specific thing, and really sticking with it—then things actually started moving.
Then entire chapters were done in a week—I managed to get through a lot of pages.
You were in the flow, they just kind of flowed out of your fingers, so to speak. Yeah,
at some point, yeah. That's totally fascinating. So, like...
it's not simple at all, not at all how I imagined it. I mean, writing means, if everything goes well, putting your own thoughts and also your feelings into a, let's say, comprehensible form, and above all for yourself first, so that you can express it at all. What did you get out of working on the book for yourself, did you learn anything new about this Hike & Fly topic? Just by having to say, I have to express this now. It's not just a feeling, a gut feeling, or whatever is fluttering or twitching in your ass because there has to be some thermals to the right or something, but how can I express certain things in a way that shows I've understood them?
Exactly, an extremely big challenge. I can summarize it like this. You say, okay, now I'm going to write something about thermals flying. Okay, yeah, totally easy. I know how it works, I do it all the time. And then you start to imagine it. Yeah, okay, maybe it pulls here, as you just said, and so on. And in reality, yeah, you can't just write that, but there has to be a bit of... well, there's always this factual context, and that's where we hit a wall. And as you just said, it becomes extremely difficult to put that into words, into words, and that was definitely the biggest challenge. But also an extremely big learning experience, because of course I knew many things, they are correct, so for me,
but are they actually true in the first place, and how do you describe them in a way that's easy to follow? For example, one topic that comes to mind is the topic of fear. I remember being asked years ago by the Thermik magazine or Cross-Country magazine to write a commentary on the topic of fear, and back then I wrote something—looking back now, I'd say I wrote something—just the way I perceive it. And now, in the course of writing the book, I've dealt with it more clearly, partly because the question comes up at my events or in the workshops I do as part of those events,
...so almost always has something to do with fear. That's just so present when flying, and I've really taken a bit more time to deal with it so that I can explain it, because well, it does need explaining. A book like this is always sort of something where you get something in on a logical level so that you can refer back to it when you're actually in the situation. It's not really anything more than that, because they actually experience it; everyone has to do that themselves, so to speak. And now, it's about describing that in a way, as you say, that is recallable and understandable in that moment when the person is doing it. And when it comes to the topic of fear, it has so much to do with thoughts, beliefs, and whatever else, which is extremely psychological.
I mean, you just have to really look at the facts. And that's why I dedicated two-thirds of the book to, let's say, the topic of mindset or spirit—not to call it spiritual, but that. And then, for example, when it comes to anxiety, it's about how do I deal with it now? What is it actually? And what good or bad can I factually take away from it? And then, of course, describing that clearly and simply is the next challenge. I think I managed to do that by simply explaining the topics over and over again. I mean, you could probably summarize the points in far fewer sentences than they appear in this book.
But if you hear it over and over and deal with it repeatedly, that's my approach—eventually, you'll understand it better too. The question was, nothing against your answer,
very nice. Okay, did I forget the question? What have you gained for yourself—have you, through explaining or describing things, perhaps even understood some things for the first time or understood them anew, to the point where you could say that in some areas, I've perhaps become a better pilot or a better hike and flyer with everything that comes with it, by writing the book? That is a
That's a very, very big question, I have to say, because if you go through this entire process as intensely as I did, so that I can pass it on, the change happens on a much higher—well, much higher—personal level. I don't mean that in a judgmental way, but what actually changes is your entire approach to flying. I don't mean it's like, "Okay, I'm doing a curve differently when I fly" or something; it's about what value flying even has in my life.
What kind of change can happen because I've written a book and I'm doing events and I'm no longer, so to speak, the Red Bull Hero standing at the top of some events? That's what has changed, that's where the further development has happened, if you ask me like that. That's why I say this change has happened on a very personal level, where in my opinion I've become better because my life is pleasant, in the way I'm living it now.
and in that sense, a positive development has happened because of it. And as for flying, I just do it now however I feel like it. So, what does it mean for me when I enjoy it? Well, if it's still cool in the evening and I can fit it in, then I go out and fly another round. And maybe compared to before, I don't have that ambition to always have to do it anymore, because then my success, for example, would depend on external factors like sponsors and so on. And this process of writing the book has also contributed well to that.
So, a much more holistic view of the whole thing—meaning also flying and life, and how they fit together and how you can shape it so that you feel comfortable doing it.
Let's talk a bit about some of the core themes of the book, and let's start quite simply with a definition. What does hike and fly mean to you?
Yeah, that's where it already started, for example.
Because that's a good example. So, for instance, Hike and Fly is just Hike and Fly. If you just look at those two words as they stand, if you hear or write down Hike and Fly, then it's walking and flying. But in the combination, it's simply something completely different. That's been haunting me for a long time even before I started writing the book. The sport of Hike and Fly is a different sport than me going hiking and going flying separately from each other. The combination simply creates a new sport in total. And because, well, if I had to get straight to the point of what Hike and Fly is, it means I take my backpack, head out with the goal of flying, and then make the right decision,
Because that's a good example. So, for instance, Hike and Fly is just Hike and Fly. If you just look at those two words as they stand, if you hear or write down Hike and Fly, then it's walking and flying. But in the combination, it's completely something else. That's been haunting me for a long time even before I started writing the book. The sport of Hike and Fly is a different sport than "I go hiking" and "I go flying" separately. The combination simply creates a new sport in total. And because, well, if I had to get straight to the point of what Hike and Fly is, it means I take my backpack, head out with the goal of flying, and then make the right decision, to fly or not to do it. And that was my Hike and Fly. So now, because Hike and Fly always fits, but that was my Hike and Fly experience in this definition. So the flying is no longer the defining part of the sport for whether I did it or not, but actually the decision I make—to fly or not to fly while moving through nature—is more important for me. So I hope you've got that now, was that explained correctly? So one
goes hiking with his gear on his back, with the option to fly.
Exactly, so of course with the goal of flying as well, but if I notice now—and this is an attention issue and also an extension of the attention issue—I go to the launch site and realize it's simply not possible to fly or it's not the right moment for me to fly. So, it's not about flying in the sense that... well, that can have different reasons; it could be because I don't feel capable of flying there right now, or I can't assess the conditions properly, or there's actually too much wind or whatever. And that speaks against flying there for me now, and then I go back down with the backpack, then I still have—or right then I had a very successful hike and fly experience, in my definition.
Then, in the title of your book, it already says "Wanderbird Strategy," and this term "Wanderbird"—what does that mean to you?
Exactly,
so that's sort of what
I mean... You have that one,
I think I sort of invented it, right? Yeah, I invented it at some point, about three years ago now. Yeah. I was actually looking for a definition or a description of this hike and fly in my own definition. And I didn't know what to call it, or if it made sense. Of course, it also plays into how you tell the story around it, and Wandering Bird symbolizes that for me. So, "wandering" in English also implies that you're more like strolling, so that you don't necessarily have to exert maximum effort all the time, but you also enjoy it, so to speak. And "bird," of course, bird and flying, where you can also say about the bird,
A bird doesn't always have to fly; if it can't fly, a bird doesn't fly. So it sits down sometimes and doesn't fly. And this combination was eventually the point where I said, okay, that's the definition of this sport and, of course, of this approach strategy too, which is why the book is now called Wanderbird Strategy, because it's also, well, and those who read the book will understand that it's simply an approach, so to speak. How do I do this?
Right? Do the English people actually get it, do they understand? Like, for me as a German or Austrian, if you read Wanderbird, you're like, oh, that's some Denglish made-up term, "wandern" and well, then something with "Bird" instead of "Vogel" and then it fits. And then you can imagine something under that and say, yeah, that also kind of fits with Hike and Fly, it's a nice term for it. Do English people who read Wanderbird understand it in the sense you mean now? Like this strolling, not-always-flying bird that still wants to fly and actually puts everything into getting into the air?
I assume so, and I haven't heard anything else so far because "wandering" is an English word. So it exists there too. It's not... I mean, "wander" and "bird" are both English words, and that's why I assume it's well understood, and like I said, no one has told me otherwise yet. I have no idea what you're talking about here. And it's just a funny, cool coincidence that it works well in German too.
I think so. You could say it a bit differently based on the pronunciation, then it's the Wanderbird. Wanderbird, yeah. Wander with an O.
do you think,
or? Yes, yes.
Yes, that's already existed, I've heard it every now and then. Yes. It's not really intended that way, but I've actually written in every book I've published and signed, or where I've included it, that I wish people many wonderful experiences in the Wanderbird-Flow when I pass the book along. So it's already there, I deliberately wrote it as "wonderful" because it's also about the surprise. So that flow is already in there, or the concept of flow always has something to do with being in the now and allowing yourself to be surprised by life, so to speak, without living in the future.
You just mentioned that term again, and I actually had it in my question earlier, where I said we'd talk about it right away: Wanderbird Flow. When you read the book, it's sort of like the ultimate goal or the ideal state you can somehow achieve while wandering, birding, or whatever. What do you understand by that?
Okay, where do I start so that it doesn't come across as too spiritual and also not... from a coaching perspective, but ultimately it's about... I think you have to
you don't have to hide the spiritual side at all. I actually find it likeable, so from that perspective, just keep it in there.
Okay, so ultimately, in psychology—even if you bring it right to that point, or at least in this perspective—it's about going through life with a relaxed nervous system, so to speak. Meaning, that you simply have a certain level of relaxation. That doesn't mean you live without tension all the time, but that you simply have the ability to consciously return to relaxation as well.
And the flow topic actually means finding the right balance between tension and relaxation, so to speak. And... So, what I describe in the book isn't a flow moment, but the goal is to learn from paragliding how a longer duration of flow can ultimately be transferred into a flow life, so to speak. And with paragliding or hike & fly, we simply have the perfect example of that. So it really is, I mean, if you look at other sports,
is nothing, it's...
Funny enough, hunting occurred to me at some point.
But everyone has told me, yeah, it's like hunting. I mean, I'm not a hunter myself or anything, not at all. But you have to realize that it's about finding the patience, finding the moment, to then get the maximum out of, so to speak, what nature has to offer. To go along with that flow, so to speak. And in our sport, that's just... what does that mean? Just... just laid out, so to speak. Because you can't say, "Now I want to fly thermals right here." That's just not possible. Instead, it's always dependent on what's happening out there right now. That means I have to adapt to the whole thing. That's just one example of it. And then it naturally expands. So if I know, okay, I have to adapt. Yeah, how, with what attitude do I go out, for example, in the first place?
What kind of mindset do I need to have to be there at the right moment? Of course, scientifically, it's getting easier now. Back when I started flying, I'd really sit there for a few hours waiting for the right moment. Nowadays, you can probably check the burn air precisely up to 10 or 15 minutes to see when the wind will come from the right direction. So, it is changing. But the basic principle remains a moment. For example, that's the launch moment right now. But the basic principle remains the same afterwards. Because I can constantly check where the wind is coming from as I fly to the next mountain. So I have to fly there and then I feel it in that moment. Okay, am I hitting it a bit in this direction, or is it rising there or there? And how do I deal with that, and what skill do I have in that moment to perceive it at all?
Or do I just fly consistently to the next corner because I know that's the opposite of it. The forecast said the thermals have to be there. And then I fly there and suddenly they're not, even though they actually should be. And then the downward spiral starts, instead of the upward spiral you can have when you fly there and say, okay, yeah, I feel it now, something is happening there. And I just perceive that now and put it into practice and let myself, so to speak, be carried upwards in the flow. So if it's about climbing, for example. Exactly, that's it.
The ultimate goal is to flow with whatever energy is there at that moment.
Exactly. And of course, that's not established in our society at all, let's say. We don't learn that there. But through the sport, we have the chance to learn it and then bring it back, because my personal goal in my life right now is to implement what I've learned, bit by bit, and live that way. That's not so easy, because you naturally have rigid structures and ideas about people who might not live that way at all. Paragliders are already really good examples, if you look at it objectively. Yes, many of them buy some van and drive from one flying site to another. So, a life change often plays out there just to be able to go flying a lot.
And that is, in fact, how it expresses itself. But in the book, I definitely tried to explain a bit what the principles are and why it generally happens that you do it this way. And what can you take away from it? What can you take away on one hand for the sport, so that you can implement it so beautifully and in a flow, so to speak? And what else can you perhaps take away so that things change on the outside, so that you can do it at all? You know what I mean? So that certain things, structures, have to soften up so that I can have the experience in that specific way overall. So, Hike and Fly as a life coach?
I'd say, yeah. I definitely feel that was the case in my life. I learned an incredible amount from it and, of course, reflected on it a lot as well. And for me, a huge amount of what I believe is necessary to be successful, for example, at X-Alps—or even with very, very large projects, like flying from Alaska to Patagonia, or whatever it may be—anything that is complex, anything that is very, very complex and not manageable in detail or plannable, requires a certain level of openness. Things can change on the way to the goal, to the dream, or to the vision, however you want to call it.
And that's also totally okay, because that's actually the surprise that happens along the way, and it can be very, very beautiful. It's beautiful in itself because that's where the experience is, and you still get there. Even if, in that moment, you don't believe it anymore. I'm going somewhere completely different, I'll never get back to where I actually want to go. But that's exactly the cool thing, because it's also a part of the path you simply take to get to where you want to go. For me, it was specifically Red Bull X-Alps the first time, for example. It's also in the book, how my path there unfolded in an extremely short time and actually very simply, you have to say, in hindsight. But on the way to that participation and to that successful participation, I...
I wasn't thinking about it in such concrete terms, like always consciously planning and saying, "I have to take this step now so that it works" or something like that; rather, it was just established, so to speak, within me. I want it, it's pulling me toward it, it's going to happen, I know it, and now I trust that the steps will come. That doesn't mean at all that I didn't train hard or push myself way past my limits. I always say passion. Passion is a great word for that, because suffering is also involved. And passion is just totally important. It's not always just easy and I'm sitting on the sofa and then things happen. Not at all, I don't want to say that at all. It's just about it following a natural process that simply feels like a state of flow.
And in a state of flow, things that feel like they're in a state of flow—even the unpleasant things—can become totally meaningful and pleasant. Although, when you say,
Who suffers, if you take passion as a word, is basically almost the opposite of flow. At least in the classical conception people have. Or does suffering belong to flow somewhere too?
That's just a different perception of suffering, so to speak. So, suffering in the sense of, I'm completely, totally in the wrong place and I'm doing the wrong thing every day. Or in the sense of, okay, I need to push my limits here. So even if you're training and you're not fit yet, training is going to feel very uncomfortable. And that involves a kind of suffering, but I'm fitter afterwards. And the same goes for personal development. So if you go somewhere new, it's going to feel uncomfortable, but it expands your horizons, so to speak.
And that's a different kind of suffering, like when I go to the same job every day where I actually don't want to go at all, because I think someone else wants me there. Or because I just believe, for some reason that isn't my own, that this is the right thing to do. That's also a form of suffering, but it's one you can change, and it doesn't lead to any growth. So maybe at some point you'll say, okay, nothing is working anymore, I have to change something. But right now, it's a slightly different approach.
Let's jump back a bit in your life, but not to tell your whole life story or exactly how you ended up at the Red Bull X-Alps or anything like that. I'm interested in one point from it. Specifically, how or when and in what way did you, in this life story with your various X-Alps participations, actually become a wandering bird instead of an X-Alps athlete? Was there something like a moment, a kind of epiphany, where you said, no, I have to approach this differently? Or was it an absolute, yeah, a slow development where you'd say, I didn't even notice it. Suddenly I noticed I'm approaching things differently.
I only realized it in hindsight, but there is this moment. And that was exactly this moment between the 2011 Red Bull X-Alps and then finally, actually, the 2015 Red Bull X-Alps.
And in between, first of all, I got to the X-Alps 2011 very quickly as a rookie and was very successful. I came in third, even though in my opinion, looking back, I couldn't fly at all compared to those who really could. Everything just clicked. It was perfect. I mean, the weather suited me just as much as my skills did. The external situation was just right, I'd say. And it was a lot of fun. And then suddenly I was in third place.
After that, Red Bull said, "Okay, we're sponsoring you now." I got a contract, and back then I saw what kind of—I'd say—opportunities, certain goals I'd somehow had, I could actually achieve. Like, for example, flying in Pakistan. That was totally out of reach for me. And then suddenly Red Bull came along and said, "Hey, don't you want to do something cool sometime? Something you've always dreamed of?" And I was like, "Yeah, sounds good." So in 2012, that was flying in Pakistan, and then I wanted to go up the Musta Ghatta and fly down it. So that was in China—I did the whole Karakorum Highway as a trip, and Hunza Valley, and then finally the Musta Ghatta.
So, it was all called the Altitude Experience back then, and it was always over 6,500 meters. And then I went up to this 7,000-meter peak, and suddenly it was possible. I mean, they just made it happen, just with the kind of energy Red Bull can give you. And then I did it, and it was all super cool. But then 2013 came around for me. And it came very quickly, and I knew it was coming. I always had this feeling, oh god, now it's for real. Now I'm a Red Bull athlete. Now I have a Red Bull helmet on while I'm in this race. I was already in third place. The expectations were going to be incredibly high, of course, for me at that moment. And I found it very hard to handle the pressure.
And what I did then was go into extreme planning. I planned everything out in an extremely structured way. I knew exactly—I still have these Google Earth files—where on this straight line from the start in Salzburg to Monaco, I knew where I'd start, where I'd land, where I'd start, where I'd land, where I'd start, where I'd land. And then the race, well, I reached the finish line, I came in ninth.
and it wouldn't have mattered at all what the weather was like, I would have always been just as fast. So that was it. And then ninth, and only then did this disappointment hit—that I wasn't really that good—and I started thinking, okay, what's actually going wrong here? I wasn't aware of it; I already knew the plan was good, but I wasn't aware of what the mistake was, so to speak.
Nature was bad; it just didn't fit the plan, more or less.
Yeah exactly, or the nature was too good or whatever. I don't know, my plan was just so good, it was so incredibly good that it was watertight, but it was also, if you call nature water, watertight against this energy from nature. I just didn't factor thermals into my plan at all, they were unpredictable, but it was like, okay, if there are thermals, cool, but the openness was completely lost because of that. And what happened after that was like, okay, I can't do this anyway, so it was a bit of a personal crisis too, yeah, what am I even doing? This isn't me at all and I don't want to do this. And then the horizon just expanded in the sense that Hannes Acht back then,
who was also my mentor in the Red Bull world, basically allowed me, with a very simple, simple statement, because I asked him, yeah, what would Air Race be, for example, something I could also do. And then he just said, yeah, just start with that. And for me, that was a huge thing, I could never have imagined it. I mean, no one in my surroundings had ever flown, let alone with a plane or something like that. And for me, it was like that. And in hindsight, he just expanded the horizon for me a bit and said, okay, yeah, that's all possible. You can just do it however you want. You can just relax there for a bit. Because in the whole situation, also with Red Bull and so on, that's all easy. And through that, when you look back at it now, also through this relaxation, this flow came in, and this energy from nature too.
And if you look at it in a slightly bigger perspective, and I mentioned it briefly right at the beginning, sometimes you fly in a thermal and you're totally tense because it's not going up as fast as you want, or it's not going up at all. The moment you let go and relax, suddenly sometimes it pulls you there. Suddenly it's there, suddenly it just rises. And that's what it's about, both in the small and the big picture. And that's how it was for me back then too. Somehow the whole thing relaxed a bit. In 2015, I came back myself. I was extremely relaxed with a new supporter back then, with Werner, who accompanied me with thermals until the last one, I went there too. And I was third again. In between, I was even in first place with Kriegel in southern France. Then I made a big mistake. But that was my... That was my... That was my experience. Everything was okay.
And then I was third, and then I was third again, and third again. That's a different story. But that was simply the difference. And that was actually the experience, looking back now, where things really changed and where I also realized that there's somehow more to it. During that period, I also started getting coaching or looking for a coach, and I learned a lot from that as well.
In one part of the book, you describe Hike and Fly. And if we take that and apply it to your life or how it developed, you write that it's a kind of modern pilgrimage. But where to? I mean, where are you pilgrimaging to?
So you mean you'd need a framework like the Camino de Santiago, so to speak. You know...
I don't. So, what does the term "pilgrimage" mean to you? I mean, usually it's the usual pilgrims, who go to Rome, who go to Mecca, who go... to Santiago de Compostela, for example. But what is the "Hike and Fly" pilgrimage? Where are you going on pilgrimage? What's the goal there? Or the... you're also going towards a spiritual goal, but...
Yeah, the idea of a pilgrimage is simple, or the comparison comes from that: what do you do when you're on a pilgrimage? You just... you just have a clear goal and you do the same thing every day. You just keep going. And you think to yourself and you notice, at some point, okay, maybe all these thoughts are just going in circles. And then you eventually arrive and you have... Well, there are different stories about what experiences pilgrims have. Like, they've somehow, so to speak, just come to themselves a bit more. And that's the point of why I wrote that. Because pilgrimage, if I take, for example... I also happened to scroll through my year 2015 yesterday.
In 2015, I did 2,665 kilometers of hike and fly. So, on a direct line. Without any curves in that one year. And that was definitely a pilgrimage in that sense, because back then, I went with Tom de Torlo, and we just walked for days. 50 kilometers a day until it was time to fly again. Then it was time to fly again. Then we were so happy that we flew 100, 150 kilometers. And so on. And that is pilgrimage in the sense that you have a goal, you want to get there eventually. And along the way, you walk for a bit, then it's time to fly again, and so on. And it's only about that anymore. It becomes extremely simple. The tasks become totally simple.
You don't get so entangled in daily life. Like, "Oh, now I have to go there." "I still have an appointment." "I still have to do that." "I still have to do that." And I think a Hike and Fly adventure is very well suited for that. In a way, it's like doing a slightly more exciting kind of pilgrimage.
The journey is the goal, in a sense. Still, I mean, with a pilgrimage, there's very often a distant destination you want to reach. The experience is then what you do during the trip. Like you're saying now, Athletic Circle with Tom de Dorlodot—lots of hiking and also flying again. We wanted to get through the whole thing once. But the exciting part was the experience along the way. If Hike and Fly is a modern pilgrimage, you actually still have to set a goal to be able to experience it, where you say, "This is the direction we're heading," even if the experience then takes place on the way, on the path. So, does Hike and Fly need a goal in a certain way?
So I believe it's not just Hike and Fly, but many paragliders listen to that too,
doesn't need a specific goal in that sense, but clarity on what you want to experience. The more you deal with that, the more confidently you'll practice the sport, the more fun you'll have, and the better the whole experience will be. So I think that's very important. Like, if I have a goal of, okay, I want to fly exactly 100 kilometers, for example, that's a sequence of what I actually want to experience and a conclusion drawn from it. So if I just want to, yeah, how, if I want to feel free while flying, let's say, and I want to have that feeling of the winter blasting around my ears, and that I've physically exerted myself somehow, and that I get this feeling of satisfaction when I've just had a thermal and this and that.
So, you bring up these kinds of ideas, or is it in comparison to, for example, yeah, I have to win something. So if I win something, for example, then the goal is recognition in most cases. Or also a goal in the process. That's different from when I just land somewhere alone and I'm totally happy. So there are simply different... that's what I mean by reflecting on it, it's like, the more clarity you have about it, the better it is. Because if I say I want to participate in this or that competition and I put myself under pressure—like through external pressure—and then a launch comes, and then people are watching, and then a launch situation occurs and I'm not aware that I'm under this external pressure, so to speak, then I'm not standing.
I start there, even though I wouldn't start for myself. So I'm, so to speak, disconnected from what I actually want in that moment. And that's why this reflection on what flying is important to me is, I believe, simply important in order to be able to make the right decisions in the long run. If you...
Now, you're taking the book, but also your other Wanderbird activities—you organize High-and-Fly events and also small competitions that take place in a slightly different context, which we might come back to later. This Wanderbird philosophy that you're conveying in your book and also with these events you do—it expresses a certain sense of mission on your part, I'd say. What do you want to achieve with Wanderbird?
Ultimately, I want to achieve two things. First, I want to create awareness—I want to bring more awareness into the world through what I do. Because I believe that's totally important for how the world is currently developing, or how development happens in general. A bit more awareness regarding what you do and why you do it. Simply getting a bit deeper into that, even with yourself. That would be important. As I said, the sport of High-and-Fly is very well suited for that. And so are events where people come and are allowed to choose with complete awareness, in the best-case scenario. And for me, and for all of us involved, it's about being guided to make the consciously right decision for the category.
Do I just want to do this for fun? Do I want to be the next X-Half winner? Or simply, you can really engage with this here. And we also set the framework so that you can make a conscious decision. And the second thing I'd like to do or contribute to the sport is simply to represent the branding of the sport on the outside a bit differently. So right now, the story that you see a lot of is based on the idea that you can fly with a paraglider basically anytime, whenever. So if you've watched the last Red Bull League, for example, as an outsider, you could get the impression,
...you can just fly all the time. That's the sport. So, it's portrayed as totally hardcore and you're always flying, and no matter what the wind is like or how strong it is, it just doesn't matter, just flying. Flying with the goal of being totally extreme. So, it makes sense in the sense that I just believe this sport, or this activity, or this definition of the sport leads to more awareness. That's why more people should be able to do it, and that's what's getting in the way. So, it's getting in the way because people believe it's hardcore and it's the most extreme thing there is. And then not many people can do it. Then not many people will do the sport. And because they're afraid that it's nothing for them. Recently, you said with my brother, for example, that Allai would never do that.
Yeah, why would you never do that? No, that's way too hardcore. Yeah, but what's hardcore about it? I mean, the only thing is that you're at the right place at the right time where there's 5 to 10 km/h lift and you have this paraglider in your hand. I mean, you just have to inflate it, take a few steps, and you're gliding through the air and you can't stop, and it's not wild at all. Like, not at all. It's extremely safe. And that's what it's ultimately about. It's completely up to us, and at the same time, it's just so invisible. I mean, the air is just... we don't know exactly. And yet, it's exactly because of that, the more awareness it needs to do it properly. And that's what it's all about for me at the end of the day, because I, yeah, in the end, I'd be happy if many, many more people who feel like it,
to fly, just go flying, and not be afraid of it because it's so extreme, so to speak.
So, with the question you had earlier, something like what I actually want to experience, if someone says, I just want to let my soul wander in the air for 20 minutes. I hike up the mountain and know I'm doing it early in the morning or towards the evening when there are no more thermals. It won't be as bumpy anymore. I can just glide down and make that decision and say, everything else that happens during the day doesn't matter to me at all. So it's completely irrelevant, the others can do that if they want, but for myself, I don't need that realization, but I can have the other thing. So I don't have to say paragliding is dangerous, but the part of paragliding as I do it, it's just not dangerous.
Exactly, you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what it's about. And that's not exactly easy,
because every paraglider pilot,
every paraglider also follows other paragliders, and then you get that stuff coming in, like he did this today and he did that and it was so cool and I could experience that too, and who knows. The resilience you need for that is just pretty high, just to stay true to it. And that's what it's ultimately about. That's awareness again.
Your book. The pilots who buy it are probably reading it in their own little corner, just like I am. I can talk about it with you here, but normally, they won't be able to give you direct feedback on it. But you also do your Wanderböden—your Wanderböden events, where you give talks or coaching or whatever, where you probably present and talk about this idea, where you want to convey it. Yeah, what kind of feedback do you get there? Do you feel understood? Does this philosophy, this Wanderböden philosophy, as I call it, resonate with people?
I'd be totally happy to get more feedback, basically. I'm generally happy about that. So I can bring that up here now. It always helps. There will always be people who don't like something. I can live with that just fine. So it's also good to hear, just so I can offer what you just said—what I offer—even better. But what you also have to notice on the other side,
the audience that comes to my events, which are almost always sold out,
That also filters itself out. So maybe the people who came at the beginning aren't coming anymore, but instead, people who have never been to an event before are coming because they thought it wasn't for them. And that's really important to me, because the people who have a clear idea of what it is and know exactly, okay, they just want this and that—I don't want to say exactly what they want right now—it's also fine if they don't come. Many of them still come anyway, but it's just, that's exactly what it's all about. So that people can experience it once, see that it's not for them, and then the ones who resonate with it stay and the others leave again. So if, if no one came anymore, then of course that would be kind of stupid, but that hasn't happened; instead, it's been continuously new people and continuously more people, because we've also expanded our offering a lot.
So, by now there have been nine events that I've implemented, and I'm simultaneously completely open to feedback on what is actually, really wanted and what is really needed, because that's naturally my perception, but it's based on a lot of coaching from myself, a lot of personal development, but also feedback from others who are also really involved in this. I'm not doing all of this alone.
To what extent has Wanderbird
from your perspective, how should I say, the stuff behind it—as a spirit, as a philosophy, as an idea—basically become a full-blown movement in paraglider theory? That is
now difficult to separate from my wishes. Of course, I'd want a lot of people to come to the events and for a lot of people to find it cool. But there are different movements. So, I don't know, there's also another, let's say, movement at the moment that is, philosophically, at least in terms of communication, very much the opposite, so it doesn't correspond to this. And it's just becoming increasingly different. What is that? For example, No Off Season,
the thing, I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Yeah, so
I mainly know it as a brand that sells caps and other stuff and says "No Off Season," so a bit like...
Exactly, it's also a statement. Like, I want this now, can I somehow evaluate it? Not at all, but I've lived "No Off Season" my whole life. But saying "No Off Season," for example, in the sense that it's not allowed to exist, I don't think that's right. But there are surely many people who just want to follow it very strictly in their lives, and then it's really cool, then there's a different approach, so to speak. For me, there are no breaks, I'm not allowed to take breaks, so that's one way you could interpret it. And then there's my approach: okay, if you don't want to take breaks, then go ahead, but think about whether a break might not be a bad thing, to look a bit deeper into it. And that's just one example, there's always a different offer. Of course, I'm happy if it keeps growing because, because it's just,
Yeah, so if I didn't believe that the idea behind it is a vision that would be important for the world in general—I mean, we're still talking about paragliding, but you carry everything into your life as well,
then I wouldn't do it, of course. So in that sense, I naturally hope that it grows and continues, and there's also the podcast and there's also, yeah, I don't know, I also work with individual people who just want to move forward in this direction, who reach out to me and say, hey, I'd just like to work on this with you, to have some kind of good experience. That's also possible or that exists, and yeah, so I'm there, I'm totally open to that, with the background that the sport simply provides a meaningful input.
Have you ever looked into the Wandervogel movement, as it's known, from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century? No, I haven't, oh boy, now you're surprising me.
I hope I haven't missed anything. No,
I don't know. I mean, the Wandervogel movement was a youth movement back then, at the end of—or was it still in the German Empire? The German Empire, yeah, that was the time of urbanization, industrialization and all that, and then there was this idea that suddenly the youth, no, we want to break out of this very narrow framework, and they actually went hiking into nature, sought out the experience of nature, camping, whatever. There's also a lot of music from that time where they, well, they always had their lutes with them and would sing around there and stuff, and it was sort of against paternalism, performance pressure, against social constraints, and also this communal experience of freedom and maybe also of flow.
So, from that perspective, you could see Wanderbird as the modern version of the Wandervogel movement—people go paragliding, get out of the cities, do hike and fly, and get into the flow.
Yeah, I might be a bit... I mean, what you've just summarized sounds super cool. I don't know the details, but I have this feeling inside me that we all carry a lot from the past, and the topic of "movements" and things like that are just kind of branded in a certain way in the German-speaking world. That's why I want to emotionally distance myself from that for a moment and not trigger a movement in the negative sense here, but of course, everything you said—what I was created for, just redefining yourself out there, living a bit of freedom, so I definitely stand behind that, and I believe you can orient your life that way, even under...
the aspect of the current factual, I don't know, economic situation, whatever political situation, still, to give this impulse—hey, that's probably what this movement did back then, too—there are other ways as well, and that, yeah, I mean, we're still talking about paragliding, we're not a large group now, but yeah, I know many paragliders who actually make decisions for society in many important positions, and yeah, so I'm happy about that when they do such a sport, because you quickly learn certain things, and if you don't learn them there, outside, then you make the wrong decision at the wrong moment and it won't end well, and the feedback is just extremely short, I mean extremely fast, so you do that wrong once, but you can go into the wrong work your whole life and continuously, so to speak, against that,
so doing the wrong work or whatever, continuously doing the wrong thing for yourself as a human being, and eventually you'll be presented with the bill, but with the sport we do, you get that feedback extremely quickly because you do it against yourself or you do it against nature once, and it's not going to work.
Then you might end up with a broken back. Exactly. What might take 30 years of the wrong work to notice—whatever it is—the back is then broken, or you've developed cancer because you were under stress the whole time, or whatever.
And that's a very personal thing, but ultimately it was probably one of the most decisive points that my father died at the age of 60 from a heart attack. So, the personal history comes into play there. And when I look back at it like that and think, okay, how did he live his life? I don't know exactly, but my interpretation is precisely what you just summarized. And yeah, it just doesn't have to be that way. Usually, it's from such personal experiences that the greatest energy comes to change things. And for me, a lot of energy comes from saying, okay, that was eight years ago, and in these eight years, so much has changed in my life and things like these have now emerged.
Hike and Fly as a way to heal emotionally as well?
You just occupy yourself a lot, and you have the time, as you said, like budget travel and such, when you're really out there for longer. And now, there's nothing against it; many people often tell me they really want to do a bivouac thing. I say, yeah, you just need to grab your backpack and walk out the door. You don't have to wait for the right moment, you don't have to do anything, nothing, except grab the backpack and go. The rest happens completely on its own. But that's where people fail, and if you've done that just once alone and then you're out there, that's already the thing you're doing, simply. So, that's already this emotional part, or as you just called it, this engagement with yourself, and this, okay, I'm making it possible for myself—that's already the first step in that direction.
From
Regarding your Wanderbird—or Hike-and-Fly—philosophy, you can imagine a lot of things; it's about flow, about rivers, about energy, about vibrating with nature and things like that. We humans set ourselves against nature, or whatever "against nature" means, but our technology is often seen as the opposite of nature. It's what we use to partially decouple ourselves from nature or something like that. Well, we also use Hike-and-Fly techniques, but wouldn't the Wanderbird idea actually be the pinnacle if you were to say that you surrender to nature so much that you don't need any technology anymore? I mean, you still need the paraglider, but all the other stuff—that you just say, I surrender so much to the flow of nature that I can read everything, I don't need any Burn-Air or whatever.
So, specifically regarding the sport, I think—well, at least for me, it's the most beautiful form of it. Like, if I could approach the sport and say, okay, I just have my backpack standing there and I just head out, and as I said in the definition at the beginning, I go out and if I find the right launch site for the right wind and so on, then I fly, and otherwise I was just outside and had a nice experience. I don't need anything else for that. But of course, there's also this progress, and I catch myself noticing that all the time—like, now I even go up the mountain and check if the wind still fits at the launch site; I've really consciously noticed that myself now.
You also have to take that into account, but how much do you actually want to live in this little box, or how much do you just want to experience things? And that's just something you have to become aware of yourself at some point, so to speak.
And generally evolution, so the general topic of development, developments, and technical inventions—yeah, that's what we deal with socially. In some way, that's what suits us. So maybe, maybe that will change again, but right now that's where people find the most stability and the greatest security, simply finding as much structure and as much technical help as possible. It could also be, as an alternative, that you just constantly deal with every single day with how much awareness you have of your nervous system, how much awareness you have of what you do every day, what you actually really need, how you're really doing, and how your relationships with other people are going, and so on.
That would also be one way. So it's just like that right now. And the new path emerges from what the sum of people does. Some people do this, others do that, and the future results from that. So, that's just totally—it's not exactly predictable. That's also the cool thing about it. If
If someone wants to get some inspiration, they can buy your book now. But if someone buys your book or is thinking about buying it, what would you say they shouldn't expect from it, so they don't end up disappointed?
Yeah, so what people shouldn't expect is probably just very clear instructions on how to, I don't know, get to a 100 or 200-kilometer flight. Like, that's actually in the book, but in a different way. That's why—that's why you might even be able to put that better from your perspective as an outside analyst, because you have a bit of a broader perspective than I do. But for me, of course, that's the most important thing. That's why I wrote the book that way.
What you can't expect, yeah, is very specific instructions on how to find the next, the next thermals. I can't give any guarantees for that. No one can. That's the beauty of it. Instead, you can only say, okay, yeah, the probability is highest there. And then you have to try it out. And a book will never replace doing it. So the most important thing is still just doing it. Just doing the things. That's the most important part. So, simply, the book can get you to the next level faster because you get impulses that you would otherwise have to experience yourself. And the other person, well, in my case, would have had to experience them first. Then you can take that with you.
But you still have to do it yourself, otherwise you wouldn't experience it. And in the end, it's all about the experience.
And what do you wish for your readers to take away from your book, mainly?
beautiful experiences. So, I just wish that everyone who goes paragliding
get the feeling that they really want it. And those who might realize through the book—which has happened to me too—that they might not even have to fly in their lives to be happy. They should perhaps gain the awareness through the book that they aren't doing it and don't have to constantly push themselves and constantly think, I have to do this. So that, that's what it's about for me, because it's simply a beautiful sport when it's based on flow. And as soon as one little thing is often just off, it can simply become a huge point of contrast. So a huge topic of, yeah, I like doing this and it's always been my thing and I definitely want to. And every time it's actually just stress.
And that doesn't actually take anyone out of it at all.
Towards the end, I also want to look at the conclusion of your book. And there, you sort of open up the focus from Hike and Fly and the Wanderbird Flow and all that. You basically expand that into a perspective on life as a whole.
And to make that a bit clearer, I'll read a very small excerpt from it now. It's a bit out of context, of course, taken out of the larger context, but maybe it will make it a bit clearer in which direction your thoughts are going. And then there's one last question for you. The quote is: "In this free flow lies a natural form of being human, connected with the world soul, carried by universal energies, authentic in expression. Like colors blending into one another, like particles merging into larger patterns, you find your way in the great energy field of life. You feel the current and follow it, while your inner compass points the way."
End of the quote. There's a bit more in that chapter, or in this section, regarding these thoughts. My question to you, if you take it that way, where do you think it will lead you?
Wanderbird - lifestyle, I'd call it, philosophy, where will it lead you next?
I feel like it leads me to put the whole thing into a slightly larger framework. Simply. So, not in terms of the number of people, but in the sense that people who don't paraglide yet could also benefit from it, for example. So that's what drives my personality—simply to open up the target group, as they call it, a bit more, so that this message can reach them too. Because it's just very important to me, but maybe I don't dare because I'm just a paraglider, in that way. Like, what can I even do? That's what I maybe take with me from the past.
By now, I know that I've learned a lot, and that's the next step in what I'm currently trying to learn. I want to add something important now: what you just read appeals to me personally very much, but it assumes that you've read the book from beginning to end, so that you can really... so that you can really get something out of it, so to speak. That would be very important to me; the book isn't just about spirituality the whole time, it's actually about paragliding too, isn't it? Yes.
So I specifically mentioned that you're shifting the focus away from Hike and Fly toward something even bigger, but for me, the question was: what's next for you? Will it eventually come from your life? Do you mean you'll—that sounds like the wrong word, not "emancipate," but will you eventually leave Hike and Fly even further behind because you say it's about something more? Or is what you just mentioned about connecting and opening up even more—leading more people toward Hike and Fly, to say, how do I get non-flyers to, yeah, maybe go flying and learn something new for themselves, for their lives?
Yeah, I think you can—I mean, you just have to see it a bit more structurally. So, if you think about the events I do, for example, they have the potential to eventually reach people—just the events in terms of the story—to reach more people. You could set it up like the Red Bull League itself eventually and say, okay, you do a livestream, you do this and that, and people can just watch. Then you would obviously reach more people; it would be a long-term goal to get more people into the sport. I already said that at the beginning, but for now, it's already just cool if the sport develops from the inside out—and I think that's what's starting—just developing in that direction for the people who want it, towards awareness, and I'm carrying that with me, and I'm aware of what I'm actually doing there.
because that's how the message gets out more. And that's definitely happening right now, whether it's one-on-one in terms of coaching or mentoring, or at the events where 100 people are there in person. That just carries through, and that's what people really take away, at least in terms of attitude, I hope. And those who don't want to, they'll take something else away—it's completely open, but it's also really, really important. But of course, it would be nice if this idea of a more conscious life eventually took hold more broadly. And looking at it now, younger generations are already dealing with this much more than I even do; it's already much more of a given, which makes sense. I don't know, my kids are growing up with me and Veronika, who is...
sports psychologist and psychotherapist; she actually wrote a few pages in the book too, and of course, they'll take away something completely different from the start, or something like that—that's just how the world evolves. And that would be really nice, because in a more conscious state, I don't think you can do certain things that are happening in the world right now anymore.
I'll just leave that as it is. Paul, thank you for your work, for your story surrounding Wonderbird, your book, and the whole philosophy, the spirit that's behind it. I'm curious to see how this book and these ideas continue to resonate in the paragliding scene. Personally, I can do a lot with this approach—looking at what's actually right in the moment—because that's how I think flying should always be, otherwise it becomes unhealthy. Yes, thank you.
thanks for telling it. You're very welcome, and thank you so much for the invitation and for letting me discuss this with you on this spiritual level now—and yes, you put that into a very nice framework. Thank you very much.
That was episode 172 of Putzglitz with Paul Guschlbauer. The book Wonderbird Strategy has been released by Viento Publishing. You can find the link in the show notes. If you want to hear more inspiring stories from the world of paragliding, then you shouldn't just subscribe to Putzglitz on your preferred podcatcher. I also invite you to become a supporter of my work. On my Gleitschirm-Blog www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com, you can find all the necessary information and links under the "Fördern" section on how you can continue to provide a basis for this project with a freely chosen large or small financial contribution.
I want to thank all the supporters. See you soon. Your Lucian.