The most alive I've felt had zero productivity in it

When you plunge yourself into the cold, it's the ultimate way to connect with your senses! You feel the cold rush, your breathing becomes heavy, your brain goes into overdrive, and you slowly adapt to the cold hitting your bones as you settle into a rhythm.

Connecting with the cold is a reality check, a sort of awakened connection. It's a way to get no-BS feedback that strips you back to the core essence of who you are. No one wants to stay in that cold, but if you do, that relationship can transcend physical presence and reveal something new about yourself.

The cold plunge has become a habit for many individuals these days, and whether or not it offers benefits, many seek the thrill of doing something challenging and the feeling you get after. Sometimes, the most alive you will ever feel comes with no productivity.

So why am I talking about the cold? What does it have to do with connection?

Well, I had a front-row seat to AI accelerating inside Google, and seeing the relentless evolution of AI over just a few years had a profound effect on my outlook on life. I started to question what it means to be human in an AI-native world. And the sharpest edge of that question—the thing I want to explore and then come back and answer, because I believe it's going to be so important—is this: what happens when the work that defines your competence, identity, and sense of value no longer holds?

For me, that meant realising I needed to leave Google, that that environment was not my future. For three months now, I've had to adapt my life to be more me and to understand what that even means, because Google had been such a big part of my life and my identity. Leaving was my reorganisation. A reorganisation can look different for anyone: a new role, a small shift in mindset, finding what's actually in alignment. Remember the moment in The Matrix when Neo wakes up and has to relearn how to use his whole body? It sounds ridiculous, but in some ways that's the level of unpacking and identity-making I've had to work through.

I'd realised that if I didn't leave, I would scramble back to a context of my life that is no longer there. Or I could step into the proverbial cold and, yes, maybe squeal and curse at myself for doing it, but come out the other side having lived the question and answered it for myself.

Gregory Bateson had this image of a healthy system as an acrobat on a high wire. To stay up there, the acrobat has to keep moving, shifting from one unstable position to the next. If his arms lock, he falls. That, to me, is what presence actually is when you're really in it: constant small adjustments to whatever is in front of you.

At Google, over years and years, you get all these labels. You get put into a job profile, and slowly you fit the mould. Then one day you realise you're not operating in a way that's you, you're operating in the way the company needs you to. And you start to lose it: your creativity, your presence, your connection. You start to operate in a way that emulates a machine.

Back to the acrobat on the wire. It's as if, instead of using your arms to balance, safety ropes slowly start holding you up, one part of your body at a time, without you ever noticing. It feels like support. But the ropes don't save you; they replace you. You're still upright, so everything looks fine, except you've stopped balancing. You've become a marionette, getting moved.

That's autopilot. Part of it is that you've done the job so long you can do it with your eyes closed, and the enjoyment quietly drains out. The other part is worse: you stop thinking for yourself, and you just run in machine mode.

Presence is that constant small movement that keeps you on the wire. And I'd stopped moving. So I needed to go somewhere my ropes could not reach, somewhere my habits would not work.

I have always found Byron Katie's questions really poignant for situations where I am exploring my beliefs. The belief I'd carry up a mountain was this one: my value is my output.

Is it true? Can I absolutely know it's true? How do I react when I believe it? Who would I be without it? And then: turn it around.

So, fast forward to mid-August: I am over one month out of my job at Google and still unravelling the seven and a half years of programming I had installed. Insert system reboot, aka Nature! I arrive in the middle of winter at Jindabyne to meet five other dudes and embark on a four-day hiking journey into Kosciuszko National Park.

We started our connection together with a swim in Lake Jindabyne. It was rainy; we stripped down to our underwear and waded into the cold water. As we plunged our heads under and resurfaced, a rainbow arch starting in the lake graced us. It felt like a sign that our journey was to cross the rainbow to La La Land! I couldn't wait!

Arriving at the car park to begin our journey felt like it was the culmination of all the prep I had done. You need a certain connection to your goal to slog out 45–60 mins on a stairmaster at the gym with a hiking backpack on and 20 kg inside. Plus, there were a few sideways glances, either curious about what I was doing or confused about my mental state. It is easy to overlook the effort I put into this goal, and it is because I created a deep connection to it. I know; it sounds a lot like productivity.

Loading 30 kg on my back didn't feel all that difficult with the training I had done. But it was a metaphorical weight of everything I was trying to shed, and physically it was pushing me to new heights.

On most hiking trips, you get to see the journey unfold as you walk. Not us, once we crossed the snow gum ridge line. Imagine being on a movie set; it feels foreign to see white everywhere you look, with rocks and features mixed in. But as the actors, we absorbed this environment and made it our home.

Day to day, we see every colour: green, yellow, blue. To be surrounded by such a base colour as white altered my senses. It reduced everything to the essentials: the person in front of me and where I was stepping. My focus narrowed so much that even the strangest environment I’d ever walked through could not distract me. Looking back at the photos now, it's unreal. It was the least I've ever been able to see and the most clarity I've ever felt.

We managed to arrive at camp on North Rams Head by sunset. I was proud of what I had achieved so far, and my first real test of fear and anxiety was about to hit. I somehow set up the expectation that I needed to pitch my tent before sundown, which was approaching fast. I had to dig a flat surface too. I firstly chose a poor spot to set up, as I couldn't dig deep enough or wide enough, as I hit rock or dirt because there wasn't enough snow bed this season to work with. On top of that, I was really struggling to figure out how to tie my tent down and keep the pegs from coming loose. The fear and anxiety really settled in when I had my head torch on, my hands were cold, and I was feeling so frustrated that I wanted to give in and throw a tantrum.

I wasn't able to put into words the frustration I was feeling inside. Part of it was stubbornness: no, I can do this. I had come here to learn how to survive in this situation, and I did not need assistance. Looking back, the lesson was about recognising the threshold—the point at which I should ask for help. But we aren't isolated, disconnected beings; we're held together in an expansive web of care. Kade noticed what I was going through and asked, "Do you need some help, mate?" "Yes," I said, "can you hold this rope for me?" I was so thankful.

At work, I've always wanted to connect deeply with people and care for them. But on autopilot, moving so fast, it's easy for those signals to get missed.

Connection begets connection: the deeper you drop into where you are and are present, the more it gives back. After all the fuss, my safety net in this rugged wilderness was set up, and I enjoyed a delicious meal before preparing for my first night's sleep in the cold.

Day 2 arrives, and the whiteout persists, limiting our visibility to only a few metres ahead. An extreme blizzard was highly likely rolling in on the evening of day 3, with 130 km/h wind gusts, so we pushed day packs, four summits, and 8–9 hours of walking with our minds and the brother in front of us. The bond builds. Night: the stars come out. This snow living isn't too bad, though.

Day 3 was the money shot. Waking up to a clear sunrise allowed us to absorb the landscape we were in fully for the first time. WOW

It was wonderful to see the vastness and ruggedness around the little peak we'd camped on. As we walked to the top to watch the sunrise, we could see our tracks from the past two days and the four mountains we had summited without ever having seen them. When the white is gone and the contrast comes back, that's the beauty of reality. It's moments like these that make you grateful for saying yes to something you never realised would have such a big impact on your life. When Kade first suggested this trip to me, I quickly said yes, because I have learned that if you do not, the decision simply disappears; the energy only lasts for so long. Standing there, I was grateful for that yes. I was grateful to be there with those people, for the walk, and for every step I hadn't been able to see.

Summiting Kosciuszko, Australia's highest peak, felt like a rewarding moment for all the effort we put in. Smiles all round, chill vibes, and in some way you could say we had graduated into snowmen.

We packed up and started the journey down to the line of snow gum trees to protect ourselves from the incoming blizzard, with 130–150 km/h wind gusts. The snow gums were a surreal environment to be in. We shared stories and laughs, and we had a restful sleep under the extreme blizzard winds over the tents.

We woke to the blizzard just starting to ease. The gusts still blew snow across the hill, but nothing that could disrupt the moment. We each walked off to find our own spot to meditate for fifteen or twenty minutes. I went left, for a bit more space, where I could see the expanse of the valley and face the sun. As it rose, the wind lifted the snow and it shimmered with a golden glow.

This is what I said to myself in the moment:

Walking back to the car park, we finish the integration with a meditation and reflection. We express our gratitude to each other, to Keith for guiding us, and to Mother Nature.

You could say, 'I have presence at work too.' When I work on hard things, I'm fully there, and I feel accomplished when I achieve them. And that's true. But is that actually what you wanted to do? Is it aligned?

Forced presence on someone else's goal leaves you accomplished but hollow, like a marionette who performed brilliantly. Chosen presence makes you more yourself.

Thinking back now, I see that the training was so I could thoroughly enjoy the experience. I was choosing to be as present as I could possibly be, and having that meant doing the training.

So here's my turnaround. My value isn't my output. My value is the power and belief I have in myself to do what I want to do.

I don't have all the answers right now, but this is the journey I'm on and the one I've chosen.

On that last morning, I said it out loud: "This mountain calls for me more. I yearn to come back."

Now the cold is always calling — a friend we embrace with love.

As much as I've tried to put this experience into words, nothing will say more than the footage I captured, which I'm putting together into a film for YouTube. Follow my channel to stay up to date. It's out mid-October.