Speaker 1: So when you're in a remote, extreme environment where you
Speaker 1: don't have control over what's going on around you, that
Speaker 1: can produce a lot of fear and anxiety, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times fear is crippling to people. So what
Speaker 1: you have to do is you really have to embrace
Speaker 1: this mindset that you can be scared and brave at
Speaker 1: the same time.
Speaker 2: Today, it's my great pleasure to welcome my friend Alison
Speaker 2: Levine to the podcast. Where do I even start in
Speaker 2: describing Allison? She is so many things. She's an adventurer,
Speaker 2: she's an explorer, she's a mountaineer, a New York Times
Speaker 2: bestselling author, beer muse, filmmaker, storyteller, dog lover, growth enabler.
Speaker 2: Allison served as team captain of the first American Women's
Speaker 2: Everest Expedition, climbed the highest peak on each continent, and
Speaker 2: skied to both the North and South Poles, a feat
Speaker 2: which only twenty people in the world have achieved. So
Speaker 2: these are all her sort of formal accomplishments. But what
Speaker 2: I really like about Alison is her as a person,
Speaker 2: her spirit, her sense of adventure, and all the sort
Speaker 2: of lessons that she can teach us about how we
Speaker 2: can reach our goals in life and the things we
Speaker 2: want to do by not giving up. I mean, in
Speaker 2: one sense, it's pretty trite, you know when we hear
Speaker 2: over and over again, don't give up, don't give up,
Speaker 2: don't get up. But Alison really shows us what that means,
Speaker 2: you know, in action, in practical terms, what it really
Speaker 2: means to not give up. She was born with a
Speaker 2: hole in her heart, and she has survived some of
Speaker 2: the most extreme conditions in the world. What Allison shows
Speaker 2: is that you can be scared and brave at the
Speaker 2: same time, you can still act in the direction that
Speaker 2: you most value. There's a quote I really like from
Speaker 2: Alison which is on her website where she says, sometimes
Speaker 2: you look up at a mountain and think I can't,
Speaker 2: and then you climb it. Anyway. I love that so much. Well,
Speaker 2: she teaches us that everyone has mountains to climb, and
Speaker 2: the real inspiring thing there is that we can climb them.
Speaker 2: We can get started today. So I'm really excited to
Speaker 2: present this interview to you all. I know that you'll
Speaker 2: really enjoy it and find it inspiring. And so without
Speaker 2: further ado, I bring you Alison. Alison, so glad that
Speaker 2: you're finally on the psychology podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I'm finally on this psychology podcast too.
Speaker 2: How are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm good? How are you?
Speaker 2: You know, all things considered in the world, doing pretty good.
Speaker 2: Lot going on, so lot going on. But I think
Speaker 2: that this is a relevant conversation. You know, the things
Speaker 2: that you've learned in your life and the things you
Speaker 2: can teach others, I think can pertain to where where
Speaker 2: anyone's at in their life right now, right Yeah, you
Speaker 2: know you have this quote. I want to start with
Speaker 2: this quote that I love of yours. It says, because
Speaker 2: everyone has mountains to climb.
Speaker 1: This is so true. Everybody has mountains to climb, whether
Speaker 1: it's I mean, obviously I like literal mountains, but these
Speaker 1: figurative mountains in our lives, in our work lives, in
Speaker 1: our personal lives. There's always going to be mountains to climb.
Speaker 1: There's always going to be challenges, There's always going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, something big in front of you that feels
Speaker 1: intimidating and feels insurmountable. But if you have the right
Speaker 1: psychological tools, it's just a mountain. You can climb it.
Speaker 1: It's still there. It's still a mountain, but you can
Speaker 1: climb it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you feel in some ways or at any
Speaker 2: point in your life do you feel like an underdog?
Speaker 1: I definitely have felt like an underdog at times for
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. First of all, mountaineering obviously is
Speaker 1: a sport that's very heavily male dominated, and as a
Speaker 1: woman in this sport, especially as someone who's pretty small
Speaker 1: physically small, so I'm five four, about one hundred and
Speaker 1: ten pounds, just seeing these tall, you know, six foot four,
Speaker 1: two hundred pound guys blow by me on the trail
Speaker 1: and just feeling like, I don't know, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm made for this. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is the right sport for me. But then
Speaker 1: realizing you don't have to be the fastest, you don't
Speaker 1: have to be the strongest to be successful in the sport.
Speaker 1: You just have to be the person who is absolutely
Speaker 1: relentless about putting one foot in front of the other.
Speaker 1: You just have to be the person that won't quit.
Speaker 1: So you learn to stop comparing yourselves to other people
Speaker 1: in the mountain and you just you know, climb in
Speaker 1: your own style, at your own pace, and that's what
Speaker 1: builds confidence. Right when you get to the next camp,
Speaker 1: and you get to the next camp, and you get
Speaker 1: to the next camp, and every time you think, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm going to be fast enough, you
Speaker 1: realize I don't. I don't have to be the fastest.
Speaker 1: And then also just you know, I was born with
Speaker 1: a hole in my art that got bigger as I
Speaker 1: got older. So I've had three cardiac procedures, when when
Speaker 1: I was seventeen, one when I was thirty, and when
Speaker 1: when I was forty four, and so I you know,
Speaker 1: that's often a little bit scary for me, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to let feeling scared about something hold me
Speaker 1: back from doing the things that I want to do.
Speaker 2: Yes, what a great attitude. You know. I think a
Speaker 2: lot about a victim mentality, you know, and then I
Speaker 2: think of it in the context of you trying to
Speaker 2: climb Mount Everest, and you know, well, where would you
Speaker 2: be if like the slightest sign of bad weather. You're like,
Speaker 2: I'm a victim to the weather. I'm out. You know,
Speaker 2: I've never coming back.
Speaker 1: Everything's working against me. You know that I'm feeling sick
Speaker 1: from you know, you feel the altitude obviously when you
Speaker 1: get high up on a mountain, you feel the altitude sickness,
Speaker 1: You have a banging headache, you feel sick to your stomach,
Speaker 1: you lose your appetite. There's a lot that goes into that,
Speaker 1: and you realize that even though it feels uncomm sturable,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you can't keep going right. And there's
Speaker 1: always these uncontrollable factors that are going to affect your
Speaker 1: climb and are going to affect your success. And you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you have shit weather and there's nothing you can
Speaker 1: do about it. You control the things that you can control,
Speaker 1: and you realize that you have to just accept the
Speaker 1: uncontrollable things. And sometimes it means you're going to backtrack
Speaker 1: a little bit. Sometimes it means you're going to change
Speaker 1: the timeline that you had in mind. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you quit, and it doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: give up.
Speaker 2: You say in your book, but we can't control the environment.
Speaker 2: All we can control is the way we react to it.
Speaker 2: All right, Yeah, absolutely, you know. Now you are a
Speaker 2: multi faceted human being. You're you're very complex. You are
Speaker 2: an adventurer and explorer, a mountaineer, best selling author, a
Speaker 2: beer muse, a filmmaker, storyteller, dog lover, your your dog?
Speaker 2: Do you want to do you want to hold your
Speaker 2: dog up to the camera. Y oh, I know, we
Speaker 2: have a picture of him in the back.
Speaker 1: But hopefully he'll come back down here. I heard. I
Speaker 1: think he I was ignoring him, so he got frustrated
Speaker 1: so he left. But hopefully he'll come back.
Speaker 2: Now, do you take him on any expeditions?
Speaker 1: So? I do take him on hiking trips in Colorado.
Speaker 1: So I live in a little town called Morrison in Colorado.
Speaker 1: If you know red Rocks Amphitheater, that's in Morrison. So
Speaker 1: he gets to go hiking a bit in Morrison, but
Speaker 1: any big expeditions he doesn't get to come with you.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, you're just looking out for his safety. I guess, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So you you're no stranger to surviving extreme environments. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's that's that's kind of your thing. That's kind
Speaker 2: of your thing. But but what you've done is really cool.
Speaker 2: You've applied it to in lots of ways that people
Speaker 2: might not think to connect it to, and particularly leadership.
Speaker 2: Right you argue that everyone is in a leadership position,
Speaker 2: regardless of age or title, or tenure or where we work.
Speaker 2: See you, I read your book. I read it. So
Speaker 2: can you elaborate a little bit more how everyone is
Speaker 2: in a leadership position. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, I think that it's a mistake to leave leadership
Speaker 1: responsibilities to somebody with a certain title or a certain
Speaker 1: amount of tenure, or you know you're thinking about a
Speaker 1: leader has a number of people reporting to that person,
Speaker 1: or oversees a budget of a certain size. And leadership
Speaker 1: is not about title or tenure or how many people
Speaker 1: report to you or a budget. Leadership is about realizing
Speaker 1: that everybody, regardless of title or tenure, has the responsibility
Speaker 1: to help a team move toward a goal, right, and
Speaker 1: everybody also has the responsibility to be looking out for
Speaker 1: one another. You can't leave that to one person or
Speaker 1: a couple of people with certain titles, because God forbid
Speaker 1: what happens. You know, if that person's not maybe on
Speaker 1: an expedition, they're incapacitated or something, or in the business world,
Speaker 1: or you know, the person is just not present for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, the rest of the team needs to be
Speaker 1: able to carry on and move forward. And so I
Speaker 1: think everybody needs to embrace this leadership mentality and realize
Speaker 1: that they have an opportunity to have incredible impact on
Speaker 1: the people around them, and they don't need a title
Speaker 1: for that, you don't.
Speaker 2: I love that There are obviously some environments that are
Speaker 2: that seem more extreme than others. I don't know. You
Speaker 2: know what are some of the main lessons you've learned
Speaker 2: from being in extreme environments that you've been able to
Speaker 2: apply to help leaders be at their best right.
Speaker 1: So there's a few of them. One of them you
Speaker 1: touched on already, which is about we can't control the environment,
Speaker 1: only the way we react to it. And there's there's
Speaker 1: a few other ones that I'd like to talk about,
Speaker 1: and one is about managing fear right. So, when you're
Speaker 1: in a remote, extreme environment where you don't have control
Speaker 1: over what's going on around you, that can produce a
Speaker 1: lot of fear and anxiety, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: fear is crippling to people. So what you have to
Speaker 1: do is you really have to embrace this mindset that
Speaker 1: you can be scared and brave at the same time.
Speaker 1: You can be scared and brave at the same time.
Speaker 1: And when I really learned about that was going through
Speaker 1: this area called the Kumboo ice Fall on Mount Everest
Speaker 1: and if you're listening, you can google Kumboo ice fall.
Speaker 1: I mean not right now because I'm still talking, but
Speaker 1: when I'm done, you can google kuoboo ice fall and
Speaker 1: you can see photos of it. And it is an
Speaker 1: incredibly frightening part of climbing Mount Everest. It's two thousand
Speaker 1: vertical feet of these big, huge moving ice chunks, and
Speaker 1: the ice chunks are the size of small buildings. And
Speaker 1: what happens is the sun comes up, everything starts to melt,
Speaker 1: and then these big huge ice chunks that are the
Speaker 1: size of small buildings start to shift around, so you're
Speaker 1: in constant danger of being crushed. And then it's more
Speaker 1: complicated because you have these big, huge open crevasses, these
Speaker 1: openings in the glacier where you could fall hundreds of
Speaker 1: feet to your death. So between the big, huge moving
Speaker 1: ice chunks and the ladders and the crevasses, it's a
Speaker 1: super scary part of the mountain, but there's no way
Speaker 1: to avoid it. You go through it actually several times
Speaker 1: during the course of your expedition, and that's when I
Speaker 1: realized that fear. Fear is just a normal human emotion.
Speaker 1: Fear is okay, complacency is what will kill you right
Speaker 1: on this mountain. Complacency is what puts you at risk.
Speaker 1: You cannot stand around in the Kumbu Weise fall. You
Speaker 1: need to continue moving even when it's scary. So that's
Speaker 1: why I say you can be scared and brave at
Speaker 1: the same time. And then another lesson that's really important
Speaker 1: is to realize that when you're doing something big right,
Speaker 1: when you set a big goal, you're going to have
Speaker 1: a plan. Right. You want to have a solid plan,
Speaker 1: plan and keeps you organized, keeps you on track, keeps
Speaker 1: you motivated. But when you're in these environments that are
Speaker 1: very unpredictable, which is of course the world today, whatever
Speaker 1: plan you came up with last year, last week, last month,
Speaker 1: this morning, your plan is outdated. Your plan is shot
Speaker 1: all right. Your plan is outdated as soon as it's
Speaker 1: finished when you're in these very volatile environments. So yes,
Speaker 1: it's important to have a plan, but you can't be
Speaker 1: hell bent on sticking to that plan no matter what.
Speaker 1: You want to be much more focused on executing based
Speaker 1: on what is going on at the time.
Speaker 2: I love that, you know, let's let's let's let's unpack
Speaker 2: on anxiety a little bit more. You know, so fear,
Speaker 2: fear maybe is a little bit different than anxiety. Well,
Speaker 2: fear sound feels like extreme anxiety, but also fear it
Speaker 2: is a very psychological thing. It's very like my soul
Speaker 2: is anxiety. But with fear, you're really expecting bad shit
Speaker 2: to happen. Now, what do you It's like, what do
Speaker 2: you do in situations where it really is not looking good?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And I'm sure you've been in situations where all the
Speaker 2: signs are pointing in a negative direction. Now, have you
Speaker 2: ever had a panic attack?
Speaker 1: I have never had a panic attack, but I have
Speaker 1: known people. I've been on the mountain with people that
Speaker 1: have had panic attacks. So that's difficult to manage obviously,
Speaker 1: Yeah do you what do you do? Yeah? Well, what
Speaker 1: I did with this person is this was a person
Speaker 1: that had been incredibly strong throughout the entire expedition on Everest.
Speaker 1: Had an incredibly intelligent person with I think three degrees
Speaker 1: from Ivy League institutions, a milli terry background, six foot three,
Speaker 1: super strong physically, and this person had a panic attack
Speaker 1: and decided that he was going to turn around and
Speaker 1: go down. He'd never had a panic attack before, and
Speaker 1: he just said, I had a panic attack and my tent.
Speaker 1: This has never happened to me before. My heart was racing,
Speaker 1: my fingers and toes were tingling. I think I should
Speaker 1: go down. And everybody was pretty silent, you know, all
Speaker 1: of us that were sharing this camp. Everyone was pretty silent,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I don't want this guy to throw
Speaker 1: in the towel. He's been such an incredible source of
Speaker 1: inspiration for people on the mountain. He's been incredibly physically
Speaker 1: strong and psychologically strong up until this point. Now he
Speaker 1: seems to be having a trouble right, seems to be
Speaker 1: struggling with anxiety, and this was new to him, and
Speaker 1: so everyone was really quiet. And then finally I said,
Speaker 1: you are not going down. I said, you are not
Speaker 1: going down. I do not want you to turn back,
Speaker 1: because if you turn back, let me tell you that
Speaker 1: this summit is not going to mean as much to
Speaker 1: me to be up there without you, and I don't
Speaker 1: think it's going to mean as much to anybody else
Speaker 1: around us if you're not there too. So tell us
Speaker 1: what we have to do. What do we have to
Speaker 1: do to make you feel more comfortable about going up
Speaker 1: this mountain? And he said, Allison, I appreciate your sentiments.
Speaker 1: But I'm the one, you know, it's my life. I'm
Speaker 1: the one that's in danger. So I really need to
Speaker 1: think about this for a while. And I said, absolutely,
Speaker 1: think about it, but just know we're here to help you.
Speaker 1: I think I speak for everybody in this tent right now,
Speaker 1: everyone in this mess tent when I say, we want
Speaker 1: you to be with us and we want to help.
Speaker 1: So ten minutes go by and then he says, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'll go. I'll go, and everybody cheered. Everybody
Speaker 1: was so happy that he was willing to continue going
Speaker 1: because everybody really loved this guy. But what was interesting
Speaker 1: is that when we walked out of the tent after dinner,
Speaker 1: people said, I'm so glad you said something because I
Speaker 1: didn't want him to turn around either. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to put either, and I thought, why did you guys
Speaker 1: say something? But this is what was so interesting is
Speaker 1: everybody assumed that he knew that they didn't want him
Speaker 1: to quit. Everybody assumed he knew how much people admired
Speaker 1: him and wanted him to be you know, wanted to
Speaker 1: be on the mountain with him, but nobody said it.
Speaker 1: And what was interesting is that he made it to
Speaker 1: the summit of Everest. A couple weeks later sent me
Speaker 1: the loveliest note and he said, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for that pep talk at camp too, because that is
Speaker 1: what made me decide to keep going. And it was
Speaker 1: such a great lesson for me because I learned that
Speaker 1: a few kind words of support can completely change the
Speaker 1: outcome of a situation. I would argue, you could completely
Speaker 1: change somebody's life, and do not make the mistake of
Speaker 1: thinking that because somebody is traditionally a strong performer, that
Speaker 1: they don't need to be told how important they are
Speaker 1: to you. And I realized that from that experience on
Speaker 1: the trip, and I thought, wow, I can't believe just
Speaker 1: a few words from me made the difference for him,
Speaker 1: because I just assumed he knew, he knew we didn't
Speaker 1: want him to quit, he knew he wanted him to
Speaker 1: keep going up with us, but no one else said it,
Speaker 1: and so it really I think about that all the
Speaker 1: time now. Say say the thing right, Say the thing
Speaker 1: to make somebody feel valued, Say the thing to make
Speaker 1: somebody feel important, Say the thing that makes somebody understand
Speaker 1: how much you care about them, Because those words, those
Speaker 1: spoken words, can make a difference.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, And I like the words, the specific words
Speaker 2: you used with him. I mean, that's really really It
Speaker 2: would have probably impacted me too, So we're very, very,
Speaker 2: very thoughtful with your words. You know, you served as
Speaker 2: the team captain of the first American Women's Everest expedition
Speaker 2: in two thousand and two. Now, what I thought found
Speaker 2: really interesting about the situation is that your team came
Speaker 2: within just a couple hundred feet of the top of
Speaker 2: the mountain when you were forced to turn back because
Speaker 2: of deteriorating weather conditions, and that was your first experience,
Speaker 2: and you didn't give up. You know, how easily would
Speaker 2: that have been to say, you know, I was close enough.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the interesting thing is, yeah, we got
Speaker 1: what if basically, you're on that mountain for two months
Speaker 1: and you miss it by what feels like that much,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty nine thousand foot mountain and you miss
Speaker 1: it by two hundred and seventy feet in bad weather.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you do the right thing and
Speaker 1: you make smart decisions, you can always go back and
Speaker 1: try it again. But if you do something dumb up there,
Speaker 1: you may not have the opportunity to go back and
Speaker 1: try it again. And although two hundred and seventy feet
Speaker 1: sounds like a short distance and it is in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of things, that distance would have taken us
Speaker 1: several hours because when you're at twenty eight thousand feet,
Speaker 1: you're moving very slowly, you're taking multiple breaths for every step,
Speaker 1: and once the weather started coming in, we did not
Speaker 1: feel like we had a you know, enough time left
Speaker 1: of a decent weather window to keep going for the summit.
Speaker 1: So that's where we turned around. And it was heartbreaking
Speaker 1: to turn around at the time because we were the
Speaker 1: first American women's everstexpedition, and we felt all this pressure
Speaker 1: to get to the top, right. We had a big
Speaker 1: fan base following us, we had tons of media coverage.
Speaker 1: Ford Motor Companies sponsored the trip, you know, they paid
Speaker 1: for everything, and we just wanted to make everybody proud,
Speaker 1: and then we didn't make it, and it was it
Speaker 1: was hard because it was such a high profile failure
Speaker 1: with so much media coverage when we didn't make it,
Speaker 1: and then I was the butt of Jay Leno's opening
Speaker 1: monologue joke, and of course that didn't feel good. And
Speaker 1: I really internalized this failure because I like to be
Speaker 1: the person that comes through for people. I am the
Speaker 1: person my mantra. In my book, I talk about having
Speaker 1: a personal mantra, a phrase that describes who you are
Speaker 1: at your core. My mantra is count on me. When
Speaker 1: I say I'm going to do something, I get it done.
Speaker 1: When I say I'm going to show up, I show up.
Speaker 1: You know. When I say I'm going to deliver, I deliver.
Speaker 1: And then we didn't make it, of course, because of
Speaker 1: whether something out of our control. But it took me
Speaker 1: eight years to get up the guts to go back again,
Speaker 1: because I had internalized this failure for so long and
Speaker 1: felt like I disappointed so many people, and what if
Speaker 1: I go back and I don't make it again, what
Speaker 1: will that feel like? And the media scrutiny and the
Speaker 1: opening monologue jokes from guys like Jay Leno. But then
Speaker 1: I realized that failure is just one thing that happens
Speaker 1: to you at one point in time. That's all it is.
Speaker 1: That's what failure is. It's one thing that happens to
Speaker 1: you at one point in time, and it doesn't define you.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna quote the great philosopher Pitbull who said,
Speaker 1: I do not know the word lose I only know
Speaker 1: the word learn, right, So that's how we have to
Speaker 1: look at our failures, even very public, high profile failures.
Speaker 1: And I got up the guts to go back to
Speaker 1: the mountain eight years later and made it to the summit,
Speaker 1: and then standing on the summit, I didn't really feel
Speaker 1: like it was this big, life changing, earth shattering moment
Speaker 1: for me. And by the way, that summit, when I
Speaker 1: reached the top in twenty ten, was the completion of
Speaker 1: what's known as the Adventure and Slam, which is climbing
Speaker 1: the seventh Summits that's the highest peak in each continent,
Speaker 1: and then skiing to both the North and the South Pole.
Speaker 1: And at the time there were only a couple people
Speaker 1: in the world that had completed it. But I still,
Speaker 1: when I reached the summit, didn't feel like it was
Speaker 1: this life changing moment by any means, because I put
Speaker 1: it in perspective and I thought, Okay, this mountain that
Speaker 1: I'm on top of, this is just a pile of
Speaker 1: rock and ice, right, And a pile of standing on
Speaker 1: top of a pile of rock and ice doesn't really
Speaker 1: change the world, right. What changes the world is human interaction,
Speaker 1: and so that's really what I thought about was like
Speaker 1: the amazing like human experiences that I had along the
Speaker 1: way and watching people overcome their fears their doubt and
Speaker 1: helping other people overcome their fears and their doubt. And
Speaker 1: that's really what I felt was valuable about the trip.
Speaker 1: It wasn't standing on the summit of the mountain.
Speaker 2: It really was. But with that said, what does it
Speaker 2: feel like to stand in the summit of the mountain?
Speaker 2: Can you actually like talk walk me through it a
Speaker 2: little bit? Like, let's so you get up there and
Speaker 2: you're like, I'm here, what's going through your head?
Speaker 1: So I know this is going to sound like this
Speaker 1: is going to be a super disappointing answer, but what
Speaker 1: was what was going through my head was now I
Speaker 1: need to get down safely. So the in A little
Speaker 1: interesting statistic about Mount Everest is that the majority of
Speaker 1: the deaths that occur on the mountain occur after people
Speaker 1: have reached the summit, when they're on their way down. Wow,
Speaker 1: people are so focused on getting to the top of
Speaker 1: the mountain that they forget that the top of the
Speaker 1: mountain is only the half way point. Only halfway you
Speaker 1: have to be able to get yourself back down. And
Speaker 1: what happens. Does people use everything they've got in them
Speaker 1: to get themselves to the top and they don't have
Speaker 1: an enough gas left in the tank to get themselves
Speaker 1: back down. So as soon as I got to the summit,
Speaker 1: I thought, this is great, mission accomplished, but the most
Speaker 1: important thing is getting down safely. So I think I
Speaker 1: spent maybe thirty minutes up there because I also wanted
Speaker 1: to wait for the guy I was talking about that
Speaker 1: had the anxiety attack. He was about thirty minutes behind me,
Speaker 1: and I really wanted to be up there to just
Speaker 1: hug him and high five him when he got to
Speaker 1: the top. I did you, Yeah, So that's why I
Speaker 1: waited up there for thirty minutes. But typically I don't
Speaker 1: think I would have even stayed up there for that long.
Speaker 2: That's I mean, that's exciting. It's to reach something. And
Speaker 2: then do you go faster down the mountain than coming up?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Is it a faster process?
Speaker 1: You go much faster going down because you're losing elevation, right,
Speaker 1: And when you go higher on the mountain and there's
Speaker 1: less atmospheric pressure, you feel more altitude sickness. You're taking
Speaker 1: more and more breasts for every step, and you're going
Speaker 1: slower and slower. That's the hard part is as you
Speaker 1: make progress on the mountain, you feel worse and worse
Speaker 1: and worse. But as you go down the mountain and
Speaker 1: you're losing elevation, you feel stronger and better with every
Speaker 1: step as you get lower on the mountain.
Speaker 2: Now, okay, how high is Mount Everest? How many feet?
Speaker 1: Twenty nine thousand and thirty five feet?
Speaker 2: Okay, that's incredible.
Speaker 1: So I when you're on an airplane and you're yeah,
Speaker 1: we're currently cruising at twenty eight thousand feet, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've been higher than this.
Speaker 2: That's incredible.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I was recently in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is
Speaker 2: seven thousand feet, and my I was my oxygen levels
Speaker 2: were low, and I had I was feeling dizzy and
Speaker 2: I got headache and nausea. So I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: imagine more than seven thousand feet. Wow, how droople that?
Speaker 2: Now do you have like a do you have a
Speaker 2: one of those things you put in your fingers, that's
Speaker 2: that's what you're.
Speaker 1: Ullstalk siminar, Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: So and that everywhere you go.
Speaker 1: Your oxygen saturation and it's really you know it gets
Speaker 1: lower as you get higher on the mountain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what's the wall with your oxygen has been?
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know,
Speaker 1: because typically I've only used them at base camp to
Speaker 1: make sure that I'm recovering okay and that my Oh
Speaker 1: we tell them like, oh two sets oxygen saturations O
Speaker 1: two SATs are not too low. But I've seen people
Speaker 1: where at you know, so you're at base camp, and
Speaker 1: I think my oxygen saturations are like in the eighties
Speaker 1: when I'm at base camp. But I've seen people where
Speaker 1: it dropped to the sixties when they're at base camp,
Speaker 1: and that's not good. You're in trouble there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't sound good. Well, how were you chosen
Speaker 2: as the team captain?
Speaker 1: Just bad luck? No. I had been started climbing in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, about eighteen months after my second heart surgery,
Speaker 1: and back in the late nineties, there weren't that many
Speaker 1: women in the sport, and so you would meet people
Speaker 1: and kind of stay in touch with them, or they
Speaker 1: would have friends of friends that would get in touch
Speaker 1: for advice or to borrow gear and equipment and things
Speaker 1: like that, and so I just got a phone call
Speaker 1: from some women. In two thousand and one, I got
Speaker 1: a phone call from some women who wanted to pull
Speaker 1: this team together, asking me if I wanted to serve
Speaker 1: as the team captain for the first American Women's overst Expedition.
Speaker 1: And when I first got that phone call, I actually
Speaker 1: said no, just because even though I had climbed the
Speaker 1: highest peak on six continents and had done a lot
Speaker 1: of other climbing in between, I still really felt like
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be good enough. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be fast enough, I'm not going to be strong enough.
Speaker 1: Just all this doubt crept into my mind. But then
Speaker 1: I realized, Okay, hang on, there's only going to be
Speaker 1: one first American Women's ever se expedition, and if I
Speaker 1: don't step up to the plate to be the team captain,
Speaker 1: somebody else is going to do it. Somebody else is
Speaker 1: going to be living my dream adventure. So I ended
Speaker 1: up pawing them back and agreeing to serve as the
Speaker 1: team captain. And even at the time, I still really
Speaker 1: didn't know if I had what it was going to
Speaker 1: take to get up the mountain. But I knew if
Speaker 1: I didn't step up to the plate and try that
Speaker 1: I would never find out. And I think there's just
Speaker 1: there's times in your life where you just have to
Speaker 1: step up, even if you feel like you aren't ready.
Speaker 1: Right you step up. You don't have to feel totally ready,
Speaker 1: but just step up, take the chance, push yourself outside
Speaker 1: of your comfort zone, because that's where you learn really
Speaker 1: about what you're made of when you get outside of
Speaker 1: your comfort zone.
Speaker 2: Now, were you nervous?
Speaker 1: I was nervous the whole time.
Speaker 2: The whole time.
Speaker 1: I was never not nervous. And by the way, it
Speaker 1: doesn't help me at all when I would get to
Speaker 1: a sketchy part of the mountain, going back to the
Speaker 1: Kumbu Wiyes fall, with all the moving ice chunks and
Speaker 1: the ladders and the open crevasses, when I would get
Speaker 1: to that, I would be scared every single time. And
Speaker 1: by the way, we went through that Kumba ice fall
Speaker 1: eight times. When somebody says to me, don't be scared,
Speaker 1: that doesn't help me at all. It doesn't help me
Speaker 1: at all. Don't be scared. I'm thinking, oh, okay, thanks
Speaker 1: for that. Now I'm not scared anymore. No, it makes
Speaker 1: me sometimes, it makes me feel even more anxiety about it.
Speaker 1: But that's when I had to really go back to
Speaker 1: embracing that mindset. You can be scared and brave at
Speaker 1: the same time, right, And if I let fear stop
Speaker 1: me from moving forward every time I felt it, I
Speaker 1: would never get up any mountain.
Speaker 2: That's a metaphor for life. Are you familiar with Alex Huddled?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Very Have you ever met him?
Speaker 1: I haven't met him, but I mean so first of all,
Speaker 1: I you know, watched the film and I was like
Speaker 1: the whole time. And then I actually saw him on
Speaker 1: a webinar and I was so impressed with him on
Speaker 1: this webinar, not only just for his climate thieves, but
Speaker 1: he just was on the you know he in the
Speaker 1: movie you can tell like he seems a little bit like,
Speaker 1: you know, out there, like a little bit detached. I
Speaker 1: got to tell you, on this webinar he was the
Speaker 1: most like charming, engaging person, you know, charismatic and everything.
Speaker 1: And so I'm, you know, I'm impressed with his accomplishment
Speaker 1: and what he's done and who he seems to be
Speaker 1: as a person. Although I've never met him, but I
Speaker 1: will say like his stuff still scares the living shit
Speaker 1: out of me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you w what does n FW mean? Okay, you're
Speaker 2: not going to be doing free soul climbing anytime soon,
Speaker 2: but you know what you do was here's the behevis
Speaker 2: about a lot of people by a lot of people
Speaker 2: probably listening to this podcast right now. So it's all
Speaker 2: it's all relative. You know. I'm trying to understand what
Speaker 2: you how you you skied into the North Pole and
Speaker 2: you skid into the South Pole? Is that what you did?
Speaker 2: I mean about six.
Speaker 1: Miles Antarctica, So to the South Pole is six hundred
Speaker 1: miles on skis, hauling one hundred and fifty pounds sled
Speaker 1: that was harnessed to my waist with all my gear
Speaker 1: and supplies, harness to my waist.
Speaker 2: At one time. Pardon like, with no break? Well, do
Speaker 2: you stay at a hotel?
Speaker 1: I mean it took.
Speaker 2: Overnight.
Speaker 1: It took us almost two months to complete the journey.
Speaker 1: And I will tell you that that that journey to
Speaker 1: the South Pole, six hundred miles across Antarctica, was the
Speaker 1: expedition where I learned the most about leadership, the most
Speaker 1: about teamwork. And I just figured, yeah, I've been you know,
Speaker 1: I did this in two thousand and eight and so
Speaker 1: I'd been to Everest the first time. The first I
Speaker 1: had my first failed attempt, but it was still climate Everest.
Speaker 1: You know, to get to within two hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: feet is fricking hard. It's really hard. You get bet up.
Speaker 1: You have to use everything you have in you. So
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, scanned to the South Pole. That's not
Speaker 1: going to be nearly as tough. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: you don't You're not dealing with a lot of elevation.
Speaker 1: The South Poles at about almost ten thousand feet of elevation,
Speaker 1: but that's nothing. And I thought, okay, I'm used to
Speaker 1: cold environments. I'm used to feeling exhausted, No problem, I
Speaker 1: can do this. Well. Let me tell you that, within
Speaker 1: the first few days of this expedition, I was falling
Speaker 1: way behind my teammates. I was with four other people,
Speaker 1: all from different countries, and I thought, okay, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Why am I so much slower than everybody else. I
Speaker 1: trained as hard as I could possibly train. I mean,
Speaker 1: nobody trained harder than I did. I was pretty sure
Speaker 1: of that. I did everything I was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: I studied the route, I studied people who had done
Speaker 1: this before I trained. I did everything, and then I
Speaker 1: was the slowest person on the team, and I thought,
Speaker 1: this is weird. Maybe I just need to get used
Speaker 1: to the environment. Right, Antarctica coldest windiest place on Earth.
Speaker 1: So I thought, maybe it's just the extreme cold coldest
Speaker 1: temperatures ever recorded were recorded. I think, like one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight degrees below zero. Just need to get
Speaker 1: used to the cold, and then I'll be faster, and
Speaker 1: then I'll be able to keep up with my team. Nope.
Speaker 1: As the days went on, I didn't get any better,
Speaker 1: I didn't get any stronger, I didn't get any faster,
Speaker 1: and I thought, how how can this be? I trained?
Speaker 1: You know, I trained. I did everything I was supposed
Speaker 1: to do well. Basically, the law of physics dictates that
Speaker 1: my teammates who are six foot four, two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty pounds write a foot taller than me and more
Speaker 1: than twice my weight, they can drag one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty pounds sled a lot more quickly and a lot
Speaker 1: more efficiently than somebody who is my size right, five
Speaker 1: foot four hundred and ten pounds. Even the next smallest
Speaker 1: person on the team had fifty pounds on me, and
Speaker 1: no amount of willpower, desire, focus was going to change
Speaker 1: the fact that I just could not be as physically
Speaker 1: strong as my teammates. And that was really hard for
Speaker 1: me because now I'm feeling like the person that's the
Speaker 1: weeklyk on the team holding us back, right, And I
Speaker 1: talked about my mantra count on me right, on the
Speaker 1: person that it shows up that wants to be the
Speaker 1: MVP that wants to contribute, that wants to be a
Speaker 1: strong performer, and I couldn't be And it just felt
Speaker 1: soul crushing to me that I was the person that
Speaker 1: was holding my team up. And then my teammates ended
Speaker 1: up having to take weight out of my sled. My taller,
Speaker 1: stronger teammates had to offload some of my weight and
Speaker 1: make their sleds heavier to lighten my load. And it
Speaker 1: really changed the way that I looked at weak people
Speaker 1: on my teams, whether it had been on a mountain
Speaker 1: or had been in the business world. Right when I
Speaker 1: had somebody weak on my team, I would just think, Oh,
Speaker 1: why am I stuck with this person? I don't realize
Speaker 1: they they're never going to be able to handle this,
Speaker 1: you know, And I would just wish that they would
Speaker 1: quit or transfer to another department, or get trapped under
Speaker 1: something heavy, just anything to get this person off my team,
Speaker 1: because I'm just thinking we would be so much better,
Speaker 1: we'd be so much more efficient, we'd be so much
Speaker 1: more productive if I just wasn't stuck with this weak person.
Speaker 1: And then I became that person, and it felt so
Speaker 1: crushing to me, and I realized that some people have weaknesses.
Speaker 1: Like we like to pretend, you can always overcome your weaknesses.
Speaker 1: We say that all the time, you can always overcome
Speaker 1: your weaknesses. No, there are some weaknesses that we will
Speaker 1: never overcome, but we can always compensate for those weaknesses,
Speaker 1: not necessarily overcome, but compensate. And so as soon as
Speaker 1: those guys took the weight out of my sled, I
Speaker 1: start thinking, Okay, what am I going to do to
Speaker 1: pay these guys back? Right, they're sacrificing for me, They're
Speaker 1: taking more weight in their sleds so that I can
Speaker 1: move faster. What am I going to do to help them? Well,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, after you ski for
Speaker 1: twelve to fifteen hours, then you have to make set
Speaker 1: up camp and you pitch your tent. And after you
Speaker 1: pitch your tent, you have to build a snow barricade
Speaker 1: around it to protect it from the elements. Because again
Speaker 1: coldest windiest place on Earth, the wind can easily destroy
Speaker 1: your tent. So you build a snow barricade to protect
Speaker 1: your tent from the elements. What I noticed was these
Speaker 1: tall guys eyes trying to use the snow shovel right
Speaker 1: to shovel the snow to build the snow barricade. They're
Speaker 1: wrenching their backs and they're super uncomfortable trying to shovel
Speaker 1: the snow to build a barricade. Well, at five foot four,
Speaker 1: I am closer to the ground. I can use a
Speaker 1: short snow shovel easily than these tall guys. So I
Speaker 1: became the designated snowshoveler. And the next night, after they
Speaker 1: took the weight out of my sled, I said, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys, like, pass the shovel over here. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'll make the snow barricade around your tent. And our
Speaker 1: team leader Eric said, wait, what You're gonna do what?
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna make the
Speaker 1: barricade around your tent. Like I'll shove the snow around
Speaker 1: your tent and he said, I'm sorry, what why do
Speaker 1: you want to do that? And I said because I
Speaker 1: just I love to shovel snow. And he said you
Speaker 1: love to shovel snow and I said yes. I grew
Speaker 1: up in Phoenix and I never got to do that,
Speaker 1: so shoveling snow is a treat for me. So as
Speaker 1: often as I could, I shoveled the snow around their
Speaker 1: tent to make the barricade. And it was just a
Speaker 1: great lesson to me about really focusing on our strengths.
Speaker 1: And if we are so concerned, you know, or so
Speaker 1: if we're so focused on comparing ourselves to other people
Speaker 1: in areas where they are strong, we may never uncover
Speaker 1: the areas where we can truly shine. Because everybody has
Speaker 1: a gift. Everybody has a gift, right, we all have
Speaker 1: an area where we shine, where we add value. We
Speaker 1: all have a superpower, but it might be very different
Speaker 1: than the superpowers of the people around you. So focus
Speaker 1: on what you can do to add value and don't
Speaker 1: worry about if it's not the same as the people
Speaker 1: around you.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I feel like another lesson there's a certain
Speaker 2: humility that you had as well. In recognizing that you
Speaker 2: had some things that were holding you back. And I
Speaker 2: was wondering how you reconcile that with your notion that
Speaker 2: leaders they shouldn't leave there and go at the door,
Speaker 2: that like you hate that expression, leave here, you go
Speaker 2: at the door. So how do you reconcile the importance
Speaker 2: of humility with also this the reason why you hate
Speaker 2: leave here, yougo at the door.
Speaker 1: So I actually came to that thinking after a discussion
Speaker 1: with Coach K Mike Krzyzewski, who wrote the forward for
Speaker 1: my book. So for people who are not familiar with
Speaker 1: Coach K. Mike Krzyzewski, he's the former men's head basketball
Speaker 1: coach at Duke University, and he's the winningest coach in
Speaker 1: the history of Division one college basketball. And I was
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to serve on the board of the Coach
Speaker 1: K Center on Leadership and Ethics for a number of years.
Speaker 1: And I remember this one breakfast that our board had
Speaker 1: with Coach K when the US national team had just
Speaker 1: come back from winning a gold medal. Because not only
Speaker 1: was Coach K the coach of at Duke, he was
Speaker 1: the coach of the US national basketball team. Right our
Speaker 1: US men's Olympic team. They won several gold medals. So
Speaker 1: we're out this breakfast where he's talking about what he
Speaker 1: looks for when he's recruiting a team, because I thought,
Speaker 1: how do you figure that out? Right? You have this
Speaker 1: big talent pool to pull from. How do you know
Speaker 1: who you want to put on the court. And he
Speaker 1: really surprised me with his answer because he said that
Speaker 1: when he's recruiting a team, what he looks for is ego.
Speaker 1: And I thought, right, because leave your ego at the door, right,
Speaker 1: I get it. Weed those guys out, we don't want them.
Speaker 1: And he said, no, you want ego and I thought, no,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make any sense. That goes against everything I've
Speaker 1: read in every management, every leadership book. And then he
Speaker 1: went on to explain it and it did make sense,
Speaker 1: and he said, when he's recruiting a team, there's two
Speaker 1: kinds of ego that he looks for. The first is
Speaker 1: what he calls performance ego. He said, I want people
Speaker 1: who are good and who know that they're good. He said,
Speaker 1: I don't want Lebron James to come onto the court
Speaker 1: and be a wisp. I need him to beat le
Speaker 1: Bron James right. All the confidence that goes with him,
Speaker 1: and I thought, Okay, that actually does make sense, because
Speaker 1: I definitely do not want to be climbing Mount Everest
Speaker 1: with a bunch of teammates who are up there. You know,
Speaker 1: they get to the mountain and they're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't really know about this. You know, looks looks pretty
Speaker 1: high now that we're up close. You know, you want
Speaker 1: people who are thinking, I've got this, right, I've got this.
Speaker 1: So that's what Coach k calls performance ego. And then
Speaker 1: the second kind of ego that he talks about that
Speaker 1: he looks for is what he calls team ego. He said,
Speaker 1: I want people on my team who are going to
Speaker 1: be proud to be a part of something that collectively
Speaker 1: feels more important than the individuals alone. Right, the name
Speaker 1: on the front of the uniform Team USA is more
Speaker 1: important than the name on the back of the uniform.
Speaker 1: And that made sense to me too, because I wanted
Speaker 1: women who are going to be proud to be a
Speaker 1: part of the first American Women's Everest Expedition where our
Speaker 1: country's flag all in their sleeve, and being confident in
Speaker 1: your abilities and feeling like I'm good and I know
Speaker 1: that I'm good. I don't think there's anything wrong with
Speaker 1: having that mindset. But I think that also doesn't give
Speaker 1: you the right to be arrogant, or to treat other
Speaker 1: people poorly, or to look down on other people or
Speaker 1: diminish their skills and their contributions. I think having that
Speaker 1: sense of performance ego and team ego just means you're
Speaker 1: good and you know that you're good, and I don't
Speaker 1: think there's anything wrong with that.
Speaker 2: Why can success be a problem?
Speaker 1: Well, I think sometimes when we achieve success, especially if
Speaker 1: we achieve it easily, and when before I went to Everest,
Speaker 1: I had summited every mountain I'd ever been to on
Speaker 1: my first attempt, And I think that success can be
Speaker 1: a problem because when we succeed at things, especially when
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of struggle involved, then we tend
Speaker 1: to just you go on to the next one, and
Speaker 1: go on to the next one and think, Okay, everything's great,
Speaker 1: I'm good at this, I'm good at this, and we
Speaker 1: don't take the time for self reflection. And sometimes we
Speaker 1: achieve things because of the luck. Sometimes we achieve things
Speaker 1: because we were right place, right time. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons why people achieve success. But if you
Speaker 1: just say, Okay, I did this, so I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: good at this. I'm gonna be good at this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be good at this, and you just automatically think
Speaker 1: assume you're going to achieve success in the future because
Speaker 1: you're relying on your past track record of success. I
Speaker 1: think that that is a mistake. And I think that
Speaker 1: it is always so important to take the time and
Speaker 1: reflect on the experience and think about the struggle instead
Speaker 1: of like, oh, yeah, I got to the top of
Speaker 1: that mountain. Next, Oh yeah, I was so strong. I
Speaker 1: got to the top of that one. Next, reflect on
Speaker 1: the challenges, reflect on the struggle, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what makes you better. And when you just assume that
Speaker 1: because you've had success in the past, that that bring
Speaker 1: you success in the future, I think that that is
Speaker 1: a terrible mindset to have, because that's sort of the
Speaker 1: mindset that I had going into this South Bull expedition. Right,
Speaker 1: I've been to the summit of all these mounds, I've achieved,
Speaker 1: I've achieved so much success. I'm going to be fine
Speaker 1: on this. No that I wasn't fine on that one,
Speaker 1: And so I think it's so important to reflect. I mean,
Speaker 1: when something goes wrong, we tend to take the time
Speaker 1: and reflect. But I think we also need to just
Speaker 1: you know, not not make the assumption that because we've
Speaker 1: had success on X amount of things in the past,
Speaker 1: that that's going to lead to success on X amount
Speaker 1: of things in the future. It's so important to really
Speaker 1: reflect on the entire experience and pick it apart. And
Speaker 1: even though sometimes you have success, but there are still
Speaker 1: things that were not done as well as they could
Speaker 1: have been done. There were still things that were not
Speaker 1: necessarily done properly. But we're just like, oh, check success next, No,
Speaker 1: think about break it all down and think about you
Speaker 1: still have to think about what could have been done better?
Speaker 1: Even though you achieved success, what could you have done better?
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes just success can lead us to
Speaker 1: almost become complacent. Yeah in life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you've you just talked earlier about how complacency
Speaker 2: is not good, especially when you'll kill you on the
Speaker 2: edge of a mountain glacier. So the kind of reverse
Speaker 2: of what you're just talking about is actually my favorite
Speaker 2: chapter in your whole book on embracing failure. You talk
Speaker 2: about owning your failure and then coming back with a vengeance.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love that. I love that. Can
Speaker 2: you talk a little about that.
Speaker 1: Well, I definitely had expeditions where where I've made it
Speaker 1: to the summit but through luck and perseverance where I
Speaker 1: could have done things better, or I've made it to
Speaker 1: the summit and had a harrowing experience coming down. And
Speaker 1: you know in the book I talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking that I was prepared with all of the gear
Speaker 1: and equipment, that I needed a spare bulb for my headlamp.
Speaker 1: But what I didn't count on was my headlamp bulb
Speaker 1: actually burning out and not having a spare bulb and
Speaker 1: having to descend a very treacherous mountain in the dark
Speaker 1: by myself, where I couldn't see a thing, and I'm
Speaker 1: literally on my butt with my you know, my feet
Speaker 1: in front of me, my hands behind me, trying to
Speaker 1: feel the ledge of this mount to make sure I
Speaker 1: didn't fall off the side of it. And I actually
Speaker 1: ripped the whole butt out of the whole ass out
Speaker 1: of my gortex pants on these rocks. And just funny
Speaker 1: side note, I remember I was a student at the time,
Speaker 1: I had no money, and I had bought the pants
Speaker 1: these north Face pants at a second hand store. And
Speaker 1: I went to the north Face store in San Francisco
Speaker 1: and tried to return them because they say they have
Speaker 1: a lifetime warranty on their gear and clothing, but it's
Speaker 1: only for you know, manifests defects. So I go in
Speaker 1: there and the whole ass is ripped out of the
Speaker 1: back of my pants. They're covered in mud and dirt.
Speaker 1: And I go into the north Face and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I have a return. I'm wondering if I could exchange
Speaker 1: these pants, you know, and get and I know you
Speaker 1: have a lifetime warranty, so these pants have a hole
Speaker 1: in them, and I was wondering if I could just
Speaker 1: get a new pair. And okay, he looks at my
Speaker 1: pants and he just starts laughing as the whole ass
Speaker 1: is ripped out of him. And he said, we have
Speaker 1: a warranty for manufacturers defect, but this looks like a
Speaker 1: man made defect. And I said, nope, not a man
Speaker 1: made defect. And he said come on, and I said
Speaker 1: it was a woman made and he just started laughing
Speaker 1: and he said, I'll give you a new pair of
Speaker 1: pants if we can keep these because we're go I
Speaker 1: hang them up in the office and I was like,
Speaker 1: what gon But really, I mean going back to the failure,
Speaker 1: right that was I was lucky to make it down
Speaker 1: from that mountain, and you would maybe call it success
Speaker 1: because I did something and I did make it down,
Speaker 1: but I considered it a failure or because of the risk,
Speaker 1: the unnecessary risk that was involved because of my poor planning,
Speaker 1: and I had to really embrace that and realize, like
Speaker 1: I could have easily have lost my life because I
Speaker 1: didn't have a spare light to pull, and so thinking
Speaker 1: like that really hit me hard. When I got back down,
Speaker 1: like I couldn't for whatever reason, I couldn't unpack my
Speaker 1: duffel bag for about two weeks. I just had it
Speaker 1: in my living room and I just stared at it,
Speaker 1: and I stared at it and I couldn't touch it
Speaker 1: because I just kept thinking about the fact that I
Speaker 1: could have been dead on this mountain because I wasn't
Speaker 1: prepared because of my own failure. And so it's so
Speaker 1: important to really think about that, and what are you
Speaker 1: going to learn from that? Right You've got to You've
Speaker 1: got to learn from these failures. You've got to do
Speaker 1: what you can to mitigate risk. Going forward, and so
Speaker 1: I think that just you learn to embrace these failures
Speaker 1: and learn as much as you can from them, and
Speaker 1: then you all so don't let them stop you from
Speaker 1: doing the things that you want to do in the future.
Speaker 2: I love it on it and I just want to
Speaker 2: end by one of these principles. You talk about you
Speaker 2: saying you're not special. Why is it important to UH
Speaker 2: to remember that?
Speaker 1: Well, I think part of the reason it's important to
Speaker 1: remember it is first of all, to have a sense
Speaker 1: of humility. Right You're I always think, especially if I'm
Speaker 1: on stage giving a speech, at what I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: is I'm the least important person in this room. Right now,
Speaker 1: I am the least important person in this room, and
Speaker 1: our most important The most valuable asset that anybody has
Speaker 1: is their time. And when someone's giving you their time,
Speaker 1: like to me, that's very humbling. And even right now,
Speaker 1: people that are going to listen to this podcast, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, you just took time out of your busy,
Speaker 1: important life to listen to us have this conversation that
Speaker 1: to me is very humbling and makes me feel so honored.
Speaker 1: For every single person that's listening, I feel honored that
Speaker 1: you're listening to me, because you could be doing anything
Speaker 1: you want with your time, but you're listening to us
Speaker 1: have this conversation, and to me, that's that's very powerful.
Speaker 1: But also, you're not special to me. Goes back to
Speaker 1: a victim mentality. I mean, you and I've talked about
Speaker 1: this quite a bit that I think is so pervasive
Speaker 1: these days, about everybody feeling like they are special and
Speaker 1: they need special treatment, and that they, you know, feel
Speaker 1: maybe feel unsafe because somebody with different political views is
Speaker 1: on their campus, so they feel like this is somehow
Speaker 1: a violation of who they are, and it's just you're
Speaker 1: not special. Just goes back to this victim mentality of like,
Speaker 1: understand that you need to be a contributing, productive member
Speaker 1: of society. That's how you leave a legacy during your lifetime.
Speaker 1: You'd be a compassionate, contributing, productive member of society that
Speaker 1: wants to have a positive impact on the people around you.
Speaker 1: And so for me, whenever I feel when I start
Speaker 1: to feel sorry for myself or something like, oh I
Speaker 1: got a raw deal with this, or this isn't fair
Speaker 1: or I'm not being treated fairly, you know, I think
Speaker 1: about my cousin He was actually my mom's cousin who
Speaker 1: was a Holocaust survivor. His name was Jack Terry passed
Speaker 1: away last year. Unfortunately on his own terms. Chose he
Speaker 1: didn't this wasn't in the US, but he chose to
Speaker 1: do physician assistant suicide because his body was becoming very,
Speaker 1: very weak, and he couldn't take care of himself and
Speaker 1: he couldn't do the things that he loved doing that
Speaker 1: made him feel alive. So he chose to end his life.
Speaker 1: And I talked to him on the phone the night
Speaker 1: before he had the procedure. And he wasn't American by
Speaker 1: the way, but was overseas when this happened. But he
Speaker 1: was a Holocaust survivor and he was in concentration camps
Speaker 1: from age nine until fifteen. He watched his entire family
Speaker 1: get murdered fought by the Nazis. His parents were murdered,
Speaker 1: his brother, his sisters, and he survived. He managed to
Speaker 1: survive six years under you know, under Nazi rule in
Speaker 1: these concentration camps. And in April nineteen forty five, when
Speaker 1: the ninetieth Infantry Division came to liberate the Flossenburg Camp,
Speaker 1: which is where he was, that was he'd been to
Speaker 1: three different camps and Flossenburg was the end of the
Speaker 1: line for him. It was the last one. These soldiers
Speaker 1: were shocked to see this young fifteen year old boy
Speaker 1: staring through the gates of the Flossenburg prison because the Nazis,
Speaker 1: when they heard the Americans were coming, marched all the
Speaker 1: remaining prisoners to their death, and the only ones that
Speaker 1: remained were the ones in the time yoid ward because
Speaker 1: the Nazis figured that they were going to die anyway. Well,
Speaker 1: my cousin Jack survived because some other prisoners had the
Speaker 1: idea to hide him in a tunnel that was beneath
Speaker 1: the barracks. So they hid him in this tunnel. He survived.
Speaker 1: So he survived, and the Americans come to liberate the
Speaker 1: camp and there's Jack Terry looking through the gates. But
Speaker 1: he had no family, he didn't speak English, you know,
Speaker 1: he grew up in a small village in Poland. He
Speaker 1: had no money, he had no belongings, he had nothing,
Speaker 1: he had nothing like truly had been traumatized and had nothing.
Speaker 1: And these soldiers took him back to their battalion. And
Speaker 1: thank God for this Colonel Lewis Leland who took Jack
Speaker 1: back to his battalion, and he handed eventually, like after
Speaker 1: spending a couple of weeks with him, handed him off
Speaker 1: to one of his sergeants and said, get this kid
Speaker 1: to the US. I don't care how you do it
Speaker 1: or what you have to do, but you get him
Speaker 1: to the US, and you make sure that he finds
Speaker 1: a family. And so they got him to the US.
Speaker 1: He was adopted by the Terry family. His name was
Speaker 1: Jacob Zobmacher when he was in Poland, but once he
Speaker 1: came to the US, he became Jack Terry. And this
Speaker 1: guy that just gets like dropped into this new family. Oh,
Speaker 1: here's your new family in New York. Good luck. This
Speaker 1: guy went on to become a stellar student in high
Speaker 1: school even though he barely spoke English, got a scholarship
Speaker 1: to college, ended up serving in the United States Army.
Speaker 1: Became an officer in the US Army because he wanted
Speaker 1: to give back to the American Army because he was
Speaker 1: always so grateful to them. After serving in the US
Speaker 1: Army as an officer, he went on to medical school
Speaker 1: and became a psychiatrist because he wanted to help people
Speaker 1: who had been through incredibly traumatic experience. So he focused
Speaker 1: on trauma and helping people overcome trauma, and he also
Speaker 1: became an elite athlete, where at one point he held
Speaker 1: the US record for distance running for his age group
Speaker 1: in the country. So this is a guy that experienced
Speaker 1: what you and I know as post traumatic growth. And
Speaker 1: I just thought, I cannot ever feel like I cannot
Speaker 1: have a victim mentality because I think about people like
Speaker 1: Jack Terry, and that's what I want people to think
Speaker 1: about when you think, oh, the cards are stucked against me,
Speaker 1: and I have it so hard and everything is so difficult,
Speaker 1: and it's traumatic to listen to somebody with different views.
Speaker 1: You know, this just makes me want to lose my shit.
Speaker 1: Excuse my language, but like listening to somebody with different views,
Speaker 1: it should not traumatize you. You don't have to agree
Speaker 1: with them, but it should not traumatize you. Traumatized being
Speaker 1: traumatized when you want your family being murdered and you
Speaker 1: get thrown in a concentration camp, right and losing everything
Speaker 1: like that's traumatizing. So for me, hearing stories about people
Speaker 1: like Jack Terry helped me realize that I can find
Speaker 1: the strength in me to overcome whatever it is that
Speaker 1: I'm facing because if he can get through everything he
Speaker 1: went through, like I can get through what I'm going through,
Speaker 1: tough situation at work, tough situation, you know, personal situation,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it is, even just I mean thinking
Speaker 1: about all the horrible things that are going on in
Speaker 1: the world at any given time, right and just the
Speaker 1: injustices that we hear about and that we see unfolding
Speaker 1: on TV. We can get through these, like we can
Speaker 1: rise above our circumstances and people like the human spirit
Speaker 1: is so unbelievably strong, and I think that when we
Speaker 1: hear about stories like you know, people like Jack Terry
Speaker 1: are other people that have been through traumatic things and
Speaker 1: have grown from them, like that should give us hope
Speaker 1: that we too can grow from whatever type of experience
Speaker 1: feels traumatizing to us.
Speaker 2: Wow, so powerful, What a powerful way to end. I'm
Speaker 2: so glad we finally got this podcast in the books,
Speaker 2: and I you know, I'm gonna pull Schwarzenegger here and say,
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you and your amazing tenacity and heart.
Speaker 2: You really get emotional when you talk about a lot
Speaker 2: of this stuff. So who says you can't be strong
Speaker 2: as fuck and be emotional and be emotional as well.
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you for well, not
Speaker 1: only just for having the honor of having me on
Speaker 1: your podcast, but thank you for what you do with
Speaker 1: this podcast, because I know that you're helping so many
Speaker 1: people with so many fabulous topics, and you have so
Speaker 1: many interesting guests, and again I'm humbled to be included
Speaker 1: in this, but what you're doing is really making a difference.
Speaker 1: And also, I guess you just came back. Tanker came back.
Speaker 2: Yeah there's Tanker. I'm gonna screenshot that. Yeah there's Tanker.
Speaker 1: Yeay.
Speaker 2: Bye Allison and Tanker. Thanks for being on the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I