October 15, 2024 • 41 mins
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Robyn Benincasa, World Champion Adventure Racer, a CNN Hero, a Guinness World Record Endurance Kayaker, a best-selling author, founder of The Project Athena Foundation, and one of the Top 10 Speakers featured by Harvard Business Review shares her incredible story of resilience and triumph in the tough world of adventure racing. She reveals how her experiences, from grueling Ironman triathlons to the Borneo Eco Challenge, have shaped her understanding of building high-performance teams. Robyn takes us back to her early days with Mark Burnett, creator of the Eco Challenge, whose influence was pivotal in her career. Her insights offer a powerful testament to the impact of mindset—specifically, how being driven by the hope of success can lead to extraordinary achievements.
Experience the exhilarating account of Robyn's team as they became the first American champions in adventure racing in Ecuador in 1998. Fast Company Magazine highlighted their victory, underscoring their extreme teamwork alongside high-profile organizations like NASA. Robyn opens up about her personal battles with osteoarthritis and multiple hip replacements, sharing how these challenges taught her invaluable lessons in resilience and adaptation. Her story is one of overcoming physical limits and embracing new opportunities for growth despite significant obstacles.
Robyn's journey with Project Athena illustrates the transformative power of blending passion with talent. She underscores how finding what you excel at and combining it with genuine enthusiasm can lead to extraordinary success. We explore identity transformation and resilience, inspired by "Atomic Habits" by James Clear, and hear moving accounts from Project Athena participants. Robyn also offers practical insights from her background in sales and firefighting, highlighting team-building strategies that can be applied in any context. Robyns mission to unveil people's true potential through endurance adventures is compelling, and she invites listeners to embark on their own transformative journey with Project Athena.
This episode brought to you by - Enjoy the Work
Georgianna Moreland - Creator, Executive Producer & Managing Editor;
Matt Stoker - Editor
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Robyn Benincasa (00:03):
What if I saw this from the perspective of
being ruled by the hope ofsuccess versus the fear of
failure?
I'm a person that, like,obsesses about fear of failure,
and that's how I operated mostof my life was how do I say?
One step ahead of losing, oneof my teammates grabbed the top
of my head and spun it around toface forwards down river.
He said, hey, winning is thatway to face forwards down river.
Georgianna Moreland (00:26):
He said hey , winning is that way.
This is Masterstroke withMonica Enand and Sejal Pietrzak
and welcome to our specialguest host, Ned Renzi.
Conversations with founders,CEOs and visionary leaders in
technology and beyond.
This episode is sponsored byEnjoy the Work.
For over a decade, they'vehelped more than 300 startup
(00:47):
founders build successfulcompanies.
Many have reached unicornstatus, while others have
secured meaningful exits.
Founder growth is key tocompany growth, and Enjoy the
Work focuses on developing bothyour leadership and operational
skills, From go-to-marketstrategies to raising capital
and scaling teams.
They partner with foundersready to take their companies to
(01:10):
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Learn more and schedule anintake session at
enjoytheworkcom.
Monica Enand (01:29):
We are super excited because I don't even
know if I can describe who RobinBeninghassa is, but we're going
to get to know her a little bitin this podcast and understand
why all her crazy adventures Ithink I can say and how it
relates to business and how shecoaches business teams to get
(01:53):
amazing things done that theynever thought they could, and
she's one of the top 10 speakersfeatured by the Harvard
Business Review.
She is a world championendurance racer.
Business review.
She is a world championendurance racer.
She has been highlighted as the2014 CNN hero and we want to
hear more about that.
(02:13):
Later We'll dive into moredetails.
She's got Guinness Book ofWorld Record holders for
endurance kayaking, which isamazing.
She's a best-selling author ofhow Winning Works, a book that
draws on her adventure racingexperiences to offer insights
into building high-performanceteams, and I think this is
(02:34):
related to the CNN Hero.
She is the founder of theProject Athena Foundation and I
assume that that's related tothe Hero Award, and I assume
that that's related to the HeroAward, which is a nonprofit
dedicated to helping survivorsof medical or other traumatic
setbacks achieve theiradventurous dreams.
Robyn Benincasa (02:53):
That was quite the intro.
Monica Enand (02:55):
Yeah, and as I learned more about you, the more
I thought holy cow, this ladyis amazing, like you are just
incredible, and I'm dying tolearn how you became this way
but we'll get to that becauseyou know it's just incredible.
Ned Renzi (03:15):
So yeah, monica, I think Robin's stated mission is
to show people how amazing theyare through keynote
presentations and team-basedendurance adventures.
So, robin, super excited tohave you here.
Robyn Benincasa (03:24):
Thanks, Ed.
I'm thrilled to be part of this.
Yeah, get to hang out with youguys.
We have a few friends in common.
Ned's a super adventurer.
Monica's going to be a superadventurer by the time we're
done with this.
Ned Renzi (03:35):
I see joy and fear in Monica's face right now.
Monica Enand (03:39):
I mean, I don't know how to swim, but I can no
swimming, oh good.
All right all right, well,maybe I will.
Ned Renzi (03:45):
You won the eco challenge way back in 2000,
which was rebranded the world'stoughest race.
Uh, it's an original successfulshow that launched mark
burnett's career, who went on todo survivor, apprentice, the
voice, shark, tank, a wholebunch of things, and so, robin,
please tell us about the raceand what motivated you to do it.
Robyn Benincasa (04:04):
Oh boy, yeah, that was the Borneo Eco
Challenge.
I ended up there because I haddone, you know, you've heard of
Ironman triathlon.
I'd done you know a bunch ofthose over the years and I
realized that I was reallystrong but I wasn't that fast
(04:29):
and so I'd always kind of beenlooking for you know, something
longer, something crazier.
I was like maybe if I could dolike three Iron Mans, like maybe
I'd be, you know, be able to bewith the pros.
And so when I read aboutadventure racing and at the time
Mark Burnett had the onlyAmerican team that was doing the
sport he actually was anadventure racer before he
created Eco Challenge.
I read about it in Runner'sWorld it was one of those
moments where I was reading themagazine and I just got chills
(04:51):
like wow, this is the sport Iwas meant to do.
It's funny because my careerstarted when Mark Burnett was
actually looking for the womanto race on his team.
After he won he was ninth inMadagascar.
He wanted to win the next RaidWorld Championships, so he had a
big try at his house for thenext what do they call it?
(05:12):
The next female ultimate,whatever adventure racer.
And he bless his heart, thisguy back in the day.
He got Dateline out there to hishouse.
He got a bunch of TV camerasout there and he put like 14 of
us women it was the invitationalonly he put 14 of us women
through a Navy SEAL hell weekand it was yeah, it's funny that
(05:35):
you mentioned him because thatwas the start is you know he let
me come to this tryout for youknow, for his team, he's been
integral to my life, to thesport.
You know, for his team, he'sbeen integral to to my life, to
the sport.
You know for for all this timeand I'll never forget, after the
six days of nonstop racing andwe had no idea if we had one or
not, cause we had paddled allnight and it was daylight when
(05:55):
we crossed the finish line andwe just hear Mark Burnett kind
of at basically at sunrise wepull into the dock and we hear
his voice say the world champion, oh wow.
Yeah, and I'm like I still get alittle floopy.
Monica Enand (06:14):
Were you the only woman on the team Is that how
that worked.
Robyn Benincasa (06:18):
Yeah, back in the day, and the person who
actually invented the sport is aFrenchman named Gerard Poussil,
and he had this kind of coolidea to make sure that every
team was mixed gender, so youhad to have one man and one
woman on the team, and so therewere multiple different mixes
(06:39):
over the years, and at first Ifeel like a lot of people
thought, like the women werejust a mandatory equipment, you
know, like we all, we have totake this, you know, this woman
with us.
And then, over the years, wediscovered how amazing uh, a lot
of the women were at um, atjust kind of keeping a steady
pace, like the men would strutreally strong and then they'd
(07:02):
lose a bunch of weight and get alittle weaker, and the women
would just kind of do this.
And so we were stronger nearthe end of the race, we were
better in the heat and the cold,we had a different way of
reading maps and strategizing,and so we realized over time
that a lot of the really goodwomen were really instrumental
to the team and had betterresults almost than results,
(07:23):
almost than than they would haveif it was an all male team.
And in fact we um.
We took fourth place at EcoChallenge in Argentina as a
three woman, one man team.
Monica Enand (07:34):
Wow, that's crazy, that's awesome.
Robyn Benincasa (07:37):
Yeah Well, cause, when, when you're, when
you're at that ultra endurancestate, no one can be good the
entire way.
You know it's how youstrategize together, how you
take care of each other, how youeven.
You know the culture that youcreate as a team.
And you know, when you're in aculture where you're constantly
elevating and inspiring eachother and know at the baseline
(08:00):
that you have each other's bestinterests at heart, you know
there's almost nothing that youcan't accomplish.
It's when that infightingstarts.
Monica Enand (08:07):
Going into what we want to spend some of the
podcast on talking about.
You know the relationshipbetween these teams and building
world-class teams in business.
But before we get there, I gotto know, like, what were you
like as a little girl?
Like, how did your parentsraise you?
Like?
Were you like what were youlike as a little girl?
Like, how did your parentsraise you?
Like?
Were you like always a badass,or you just like became a badass
(08:31):
later?
I don't know.
Robyn Benincasa (08:32):
No, I had like totally normal parents.
Yeah, you'd think that they'dbe like these crazy adventure
people.
I think my mom's never done asport.
My dad played baseball when hewas younger.
My mom's never done a sport.
My dad played baseball when hewas younger and I was just lucky
in that I found a flyer forgymnastics school on my front
lawn when I was seven and Ibegged my mom to go.
(09:05):
Over the years I had differentcoaches that were, you know,
just brought that real deepinspiration to drive, to drive
through challenges, to drivethrough pain and rips in your
hands and to want to be greatand to get to the next level.
And I had a coach when I movedto Arizona named Stormy Eaton,
and he has been an incredibleinspiration to hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds ofespecially, you know, girls
who've been through hisgymnastics program.
And he was unfortunately killedin a plane crash and all of us
(09:27):
just, you know, kind of continueto remember like that
inspiration and that drive thatStormy, you know, instilled in
us because he was doing Ironman.
You know he was kind oftraining for Ironman during the
days and then coaching at night,and so we all watched him, you
know, go through that evolution.
Some days he'd invite us to hey,you want to go for a 13 mile
run with me?
(09:47):
Or hey, do you want to go for aride with me?
And it was just a handful of us, like five or six of us that
were always like, whatever he'sdoing, I'm doing and um, you
know so I just grew up wantingto to do whatever he did and, um
, my, my dad thought I was goingto die.
Every time I left the househe's like you can't do it on
(10:08):
your bed, you're going to die.
And but, yeah, I just.
We all came through the stormyeat in school and we just
remember those times so fondlyas somebody who was such a
driver and inspiration in ourlives and I think it's important
that you know kids have that,whether it's in their parents or
in somebody that is a coachjust shows them how to be a
(10:29):
badass.
Ned Renzi (10:37):
Robyn, tell us how you made this transition from
world champ endurance racer tothe corporate world this being a
keynote speaker for some of thebiggest companies in the world
and maybe just talk a little bitabout like the similarities,
like you talk so much about yourteam and people's roles, and
how does that translate torunning a team in a business.
Robyn Benincasa (10:56):
So it's a.
It's a funny story Because I'ma like in my real life.
I'm a complete introvert andyou know you think of keynote
speakers.
As you know, these extrovertedand and I I rise to the occasion
on stage just like you would ifit were a competition.
Um, you're like, we've alltowed the line in our lives to
competitions and you do.
(11:17):
We need to do it and I actuallyreally, really love doing it.
Um, but I never would haveimagined doing it, and the idea
for it, um did not come from me,it came from fast company
magazine.
And after we had won the worldchampionships in adventure
racing in uh, our year of theLord 1998 in in Ecuador, uh, we
(11:38):
were the first American teamever to win a big international
adventure race.
And so we were contacted byFast Company Magazine because
they were doing an articleentitled Extreme Teamwork, and
their idea for the article wasto take a look at some of the
world's most consistentlyhigh-performing teams in the
craziest of situations, and seewhat they could kind of glean
(12:01):
from our brand of teamwork andapply to fast-mo moving
companies in the real world.
So they interviewed our teamand a team from NASA and
Industrial Light and Magic.
You know all these teams thatwere operating in these higher
pressure, constantly changingsituations, and asked us about
you know what made usconsistently great.
And after the article came out,it was a big success, and they
(12:23):
were having a reader conferenceand they asked someone from our
team to speak at the readerconference and I pretty much
just drew the short straw.
Everyone else was like no way,no way, no way.
And it just rolled downhillonto me as the newest member of
the team and so I created apresentation.
That was pretty cool becausewhen I started writing down what
(12:49):
it was that made our team sospecial and what it was about
like like us, I said, you know,we really create this what I
called in my brain, you know,human synergy.
And then I started writing downwhat those elements of that
human synergy were like, whatmade us great.
And it was almost a perfectacronym for teamwork and I was
like, oh, like the angels weresinging.
(13:13):
And so there I was presenting ata reader conference for Fast
Company magazine and they had meeven do a little outdoor
adventure leadership program,you know, associated with it,
and we were doing little beachboot camp together as teammates
and we ran into the beach atsunrise into the water at
sunrise, you know, on the beachand people were like we've never
(13:36):
had anybody do this for us,like people are always so afraid
to, you know, to push corporatepeople a little bit, you know,
because you bit, because we'resoft, right, not soft, but we're
always so afraid of, oh, thisperson's challenged, or this
person won't, or that person.
And I just challenged them andsaid nobody has to come, but
(13:59):
we're all running in and if youdon't want to run in, just be
here with towels when we getback.
It's all good.
And we just took off runningand everybody, just everybody,
like all 50 people just ran intothe water, like it was awesome.
So anyway, after mypresentation which I thought I
was going to die, my heart ratewas so high and it was so
(14:20):
meaningful to a few people inthe audience that they came up
afterwards and one of them, oneof the people that came up, was
his own vice president fromStarbucks and he said I want you
to come and talk to all of mystore managers.
Like what are?
Georgianna Moreland (14:39):
you doing the next few weeks and I was
like oh my gosh.
Monica Enand (14:45):
You also had a setback related to your health,
did you not?
Um in the last?
I don't know exactly when, butum was it osteoarthritis.
Is that correct?
Robyn Benincasa (14:56):
yeah, yeah, that was a bummer.
Um, in the middle of the worldchampionships in scotland, I, um
, I suddenly just fell to theground and I thought I had
pulled a hip flexor or somethingand I had to literally take a
piece of bungee cord off mybackpack and wrap it around my
(15:16):
leg and pull my leg forwardphysically, because it wouldn't
move forward on its own at allanymore.
And you know we weren't goingto quit the race.
I just had to move my leg likeI was a puppet, you know, like I
was a marionette, just had tomove my leg forward, and my
teammates had to take all myweight, put me on toe.
You know it was horrible and Ithought I had just pulled a
(15:38):
muscle.
We still did okay after allthat we didn't win.
I think we're still in the top10 though.
But I went home and um and hadan x-ray and I had never had
like an osteo thing happen in mylife.
You know, I was just a kid thatalways, just, you know you work
through it, you know you justyou hammer on it for a little
while and it fixes itself.
But this wasn't one of thosethings.
(16:00):
I went to the orthopedicsurgeon and he threw the x-ray
up and you know, he said, hesaid, hey, check this out,
you're, you're, uh, you're nevergoing to run again.
And uh, and you need two full,two complete hip replacements,
like you know, just like that.
And so I was like, okay, youknow, I thought he was, you know
, I was like this is a littleextreme.
(16:20):
And I said, okay, well, howabout you just give me some like
lots of ibuprofen and I'll seeyou in a, in a couple of years,
I'll see you in two years.
And he and I walk out the doorand he's going, I'll see you in
two weeks.
And he was right.
So, like I had to just wrap mybrain around it and, uh, I had
just run out of cartilage ahundred percent on on on both
(16:42):
sides and, yeah, it was bad.
So, anyway, over a series ofmany, many years, I went through
, at this point, six hipreplacements just because the
first four failed.
A couple of cups failed, Istarted running on them too soon
, cracked my femur, pulled thecups out of place and, yeah,
(17:06):
because I was not a person who,in the early days, was following
any instructions whatsoever.
Oh, my goodness.
So that's one of the things Ilearned the hard way, but yeah,
but it did lead me to two reallycool things that I probably
never would have stumbled uponif I had just kept forward on
that trajectory.
(17:26):
I still did a couple more races,but I also knew that, you know,
I wasn't the same runner I wasbefore and I wasn't going to.
You know, hold my guys back,you know, because I need to be
on tow right off the start line.
You know it wasn't the rightthing to do, but instead, kind
of over time, I thought tomyself well, what if I, instead
of not being obsessed with whatI can't do, what if I focused on
(17:49):
what I can do?
And I knew that, even withcrutches, I could still crutch
down to the side of the side ofthe bay and sit in a kayak.
And you know I don't.
I don't need my hips for thatas much.
I mean you're supposed to pushoff when you're paddling, but
you know, still, yeah, I mean Icould paddle.
And so I set out to try to dosomething great in paddling and
(18:16):
started looking at like, okay,what's the Guinness World Record
for longest distance paddled bya female in a kayak in 24 hours
?
Like you know, maybe I can dothat.
And then I ran into another guyon the same mission as I was to
break Guinness World Records.
He is a freaking world-classpaddler, like an Epic paddler,
and so we started taking a whackat the um, at the Guinness
(18:36):
world records together, like hewould set the men's record.
Now it's at the women's record.
So, yeah, so we set the movingwater record 24 hour together.
We set the flat water recordtogether Um, I set a 24 hour
standup paddling record, youknow, just for fun, just to feel
like I was, you know,accomplishing something.
Ned Renzi (18:59):
You hold every non-hip-related record in the.
Robyn Benincasa (19:00):
Guinness Book of Records?
Yeah, because I didn't.
I was like I'll just, you know,I could just you know, push my
butt out of my boat, get back onmy crutches and crutch to my
car.
I was like I'm just going toyou know, like why not, you know
why, obsess about what I can'tdo anymore.
So, so that you know, not onlyto lead me to paddling, and now
(19:25):
I'm a, I'm a really goodendurance paddler still.
Monica Enand (19:29):
I just had a big race last month where I'm not
going to talk about myself.
Robyn Benincasa (19:31):
Okay, Tell us about the race I know I'm like
this is too much talking aboutmyself.
So I did.
I entered the longest nonstoppaddling race in the world after
I set the first Guinness WorldRecord and that race is called
the Missouri River 340.
And it's a 340 mile nonstoppaddle from Kansas City to St
Charles and if you want to win,you do it nonstop.
(19:54):
And so I entered that race andin my first whack at it I won
the women's division and I hadset the women's course record
and I was.
I was second solo overall out ofall 111 boats and I was like,
(20:14):
yeah, I have a new sport.
Like I was so excited, you know, I was like this could be my
new thing and so I started doingyou know that race and I had I
took second place overall therefive times over.
Like the next eight years I wasalways second solo, second solo
, second solo.
And, um, last year I got a callfrom two of the men because
(20:34):
they were both men that had thathad beat me, and it was always
a different, a different guy,like I.
I couldn't just wait for theone guy to stay home.
So I finally got a call fromtwo of the guys who had beat me
in that race and they asked meto join them for a team boat for
this year's race, a four-manteam boat and we just did that
(20:54):
last month and we did not breakthe course record because the
river was slow, but we won therace out of all 475 boats as a
four-person team, yeah.
So I was like oh, the old ladystill got it.
Congratulations, of course itwas the team, but I was so
scared, I was so scared.
I'm like, oh, the old ladystill got it.
Congratulations, of course itwas the team, but I was so
(21:16):
scared, I was so scared.
I'm like, am I too old?
Ned Renzi (21:17):
for this.
Am I still good at this?
And yeah, I discovered that yougot your answers.
Robyn Benincasa (21:20):
Yeah, yeah, I was very excited about that.
And then the other thing thatthe crazy metal hips led me to
was starting Project Athena.
And that happened after myfirst trip replacement, and and
that happened after my first hipreplacement.
And I was thinking, okay, well,I'm not going to define myself
by this setback, I'm going todefine myself by my comeback and
(21:40):
the comeback story that I cancreate.
Now I just had this flash oflight in the shower one day.
I was like what if we do thisfor other people?
You know, like how specialwould it be to show people how
amazing they are by creatingtheir big comeback story through
endurance sports?
And so since 2008 now, we dofive or six five-ish endurance
(22:08):
adventures a year and we takesurvivors and volunteers, slash
fundraisers and we train themfor four months and we train
them to cross crazy challengingfinish lines and we do the
entire adventure as a team, likeall 30 of us or 40 of us stay
together as one big team and wedo it just like an adventure
racing team where the strongerpeople will go back and take
extra weight or tow people orencourage people and the people
(22:31):
that need help.
They know they let us help them, they ask for help because our
strength is collective and youknow that's how we're going to
all cross the finish linetogether.
And so it's a way for people tokind of live what they hear in
my presentation.
But it's the coolest thing onearth to take a survivor who's
had a big life setback and theyleave home as their family's
sick person and they return astheir family's badass ultra
(22:54):
endurance athlete and it's likesuch a crazy, like
transformation for people.
Because we do like not kiddingaround things, like last weekend
we just did the rim to rim torim in the Grand Canyon, which
is where I took this photo thatis behind me.
So we go all the way across theGrand Canyon in one day and all
the way back the next day, andthen we do 120-mile kayak and
(23:15):
bike ride from Key Largo to KeyWest over three days.
So we like take off in KeyLargo we never touch a car, you
know, all under our own power,riding and paddling.
We end up in Key West threedays later.
We do a 45-mile two-day hikeacross Zion National Park,
called the Zion Traverse.
We do a walking marathon up thecoast of San Diego and it's
(23:52):
really cool for people to getsome perspective too on bike to
Key West, or you know, or?
Or someone who had just had adouble mastectomy two weeks
earlier, you know paddle intheir boat to, you know to, from
Key Largo to Key West.
You know, people are like Idon't have any problems, like
you know they're.
They're so inspired by, youknow, by these people, as am I
every single, every singleadventure that we have, because
(24:14):
we don't just take cancersurvivors, we take people who
have had any kind of bigtraumatic life setback.
Sometimes it's people who havebeen in a terrible abusive
marriage or traumatic braininjuries, or you know, we've had
lots of amputees, blind people,and uh, it's just the most fun
thing to just show them howamazing they are Like and they
(24:37):
just leave on this cloud of Ifreaking rock and yeah, it's the
best.
It does give you perspective,right?
Yeah, and none of those thingswould have happened.
You know, I would have neverdiscovered paddling or started
Project Athena if I had morecartilage.
So, you know, in a way I'm kindof grateful for that.
Ned Renzi (24:59):
When you're working with these leaders, you know in
the tech companies or otherbusinesses what's sort of the
number one mistake you seepeople making or number one
thing you see them dealing with.
Robyn Benincasa (25:12):
Well, in the pre-event calls that I have with
people, a lot of people talkabout culture and about the kind
of culture that they want tocreate, and I think one mistake
that people make is realizingthat people don't necessarily
(25:33):
work for companies.
They start out working forcompanies, but they ultimately
work for people.
And I mean, like, how many ofus have stayed in a job or a
role that you know we probablyshould have left a long time ago
, but our leader or our team wasso special and important to us?
You know that we stayed forthem.
You know we work for people.
(25:53):
So you have to be the personthat people want to work with
and work for.
You have to be the leader thatyour team needs in that moment.
You know whether that's a friend, that's a colleague, that's
someone who needs to get out infront and say, out of the way,
follow me.
Whether that's a visionaryleader, whether that's sometimes
even a coercive leader thattells you what you need to get
done right now.
(26:15):
Which is what you respect in aleader is when they're able to
adapt to the situation, adapt tothe team, adapt to the vibe of
what's going on, and I thinkthat sometimes a mistake is made
when we're not just talkingculture of the organization, but
it's got to come from theleaders, like it's got to come
(26:35):
from who these leaders are aspeople.
That's what makes the culture.
Ned Renzi (26:39):
And if you flip the question, maybe away from
leaders and you could talk toanyone.
Like Monica and I had a recentpodcast where, like, we had some
people in their like 20s and30s who were asking for career
advice.
What do you wish everyone whowants to have an amazing career?
What do you wish they knew?
Robyn Benincasa (26:56):
Well, I think one thing I've learned over time
and what I've seen in like youknow, kind of younger people
that I've observed my nieces, mynephews, just people around me,
me is that where your magichappens is in sort of that
(27:18):
intersection of where yourpassion meets your talent, and
so part of understanding, likepart of being really successful,
is finding that real vein ofgold in yourself.
Like what are you really goodat?
Like that most other peoplearen't, what comes easiest to
you?
Like what's that thing?
Like, are you a peopleconnector?
Are you incredible withlanguages?
Are you great at math?
Are you great with spatialrelationship?
(27:39):
Like whatever it is you knowyou're really really good at.
If you can marry that with apassion that you have, you know,
then your success just becomesexponential, just, and and for
me that's what happened withProject Athena Like it was my
passion to help people and toyou know to show them how
(28:00):
incredible they are and to tohelp them realize that you know
it's all about your comebackstory.
And then put that together withmy with adventure, racing and
endurance background.
You know the thing that that Iwas was best at in my life, and
and that success for me is isnot about money.
I've never I've been a volunteerfor the last since 2008,.
(28:20):
I've never.
You know, I it's not about,I've just it's.
I'm a volunteer, you know, ceoof that organization.
But like that's like people.
That's where your authenticspace is and people really like
sense that like like this isreal, um, where, where this
passion this person has meetstheir, their authenticity, and
like boom, you know, if you can,if you can create that in in
(28:44):
what you do for a living, youknow that's where you're going
to be the happiest, that's whereyour success is going to be
exponential and people are goingto come, come to you with
opportunities when you're reallyin that authentic space.
Ned Renzi (28:55):
Yeah, great advice Thanks.
Monica Enand (29:05):
Robin, you kind of talk about like your mindset.
It was, you know it soundedlike you had to say I'm not
going to focus on what is Ican't do, I'm going to focus on
my comeback story, I'm going tofocus on what I can do.
You know that's a framing or ashifting of your mindset.
How do you think that people intheir daily lives or in their
lives should think about kind ofmindset and how do you advise
(29:28):
people to use that?
Robyn Benincasa (29:30):
I think it's important to just have a few
things almost like go-to, likecatchphrase or things you really
deeply believe in that you cansort of help redirect yourself a
little bit, because everyone'sgoing to have their down moments
, they're going to be mad,they're going to be pissed,
they've been wronged, somethingwasn't fair, something wasn't
right, they didn't get thepromotion, like, whatever it is.
(29:51):
You're, you know you're allowedto be bummed because stuff
happens, you know, and ithappens to all of us, and
sometimes really bad stuffhappens.
Um, but like a few of thethings that like once I'm kind
of done with my little, you know, circling around obsessing
about something for a littlewhile, like obsessing about the
you know the bad thing thathappened, the thing I don't want
to happen, um, one of thethings that that I talk about
(30:13):
and just to myself is okay, whatif I were?
I saw this from the perspectiveof being ruled by the hope of
success versus the fear offailure?
Cause I'm a person that, likeobsesses about fear of failure
and that's how I operated mostof my life was, was, like you
know, kind of not losing.
How do I say one step ahead oflosing?
(30:37):
And and one of my teammates inthe middle of a race, when I
kept looking behind us to seewhere our competitors were.
We were, we were in a boat, ininflatable, and I was paddling,
paddling, paddling.
I just kept turning around tosee where our competitors were
and finally he was so annoyedthat he threw his own paddle in
the boat and he grabbed the topof my head and spun it around to
face forwards down river andthen he said in my ear he said,
(30:59):
hey, winning is that way, youknow.
And I was like, oh, you know.
Oh, that just really like.
I was like you know what?
He's right, I'm totally focusedon not losing and I'm not
focused on what it takes to win,because that just suddenly
completely changes yourcreativity and your innovation
and your drive.
And it's like I'm not focusedback here anymore.
(31:21):
What's it really going to taketo win?
Like I'm not focused back hereanymore, like what's it really
going to take to win?
And there was another guy inthe boat that heard my friend
Ian tell me you know, winning isthat way, and he was a really
innovative guy and so he startedthinking about what it was
really going to take to win.
Like this became somethingcontagious and he started
thinking about okay, whatresources do we have?
What can I do to make the nextcraft that we're going to be in
(31:41):
faster?
What can I do to make the nextcraft that we're going to be in
faster?
What can I do to make us betteras a team?
And so he started ruminating onthis and we got to the next
transition area and the racedirector took away each team's
whitewater raft and handed eachof us two inflatable canoes.
So our competitors grabbedtheir canoe paddles, jumped in
their canoes, they were gonedown the river because they were
right behind us and they passedus in the shoot, basically.
(32:02):
And then Steve said to us hey, Iknow this is going to suck,
this is going to take a fewminutes, but I have this idea I
want to get our climbing rope.
You know he'd been thinkingabout this for a while.
He said I want to get ourclimbing rope that we use for
the mountaineering section, andI want to actually tie our two
boats together Like cause they,they, they took off in two
separate boats just going downthe river.
He, he wanted to tire two boatstogether, end to end, you know,
using our climbing ropes forthe D rings on the outside of
(32:24):
both boats so that he could makeyou know one big long boat.
He knew we'd be faster, as fivepeople paddling one boat versus
five people paddling two boats.
And then he said and why are westuck using canoe paddles?
Just because they gave us canoepaddles?
We're a much stronger kayakingteam.
So he'd also thought throughwhat's going to make us faster
and realize we don't have to usewhat the organization gave us.
We're going to use our kayakpaddles that we have for the
(32:47):
last section of the race anyway.
They're just sitting in ourgearboxes.
Nobody's telling us we can'tuse them.
So we got out our kayak paddlesand made them longer, different
on the sides of the canoes, andwe ended up creating like what
we call the Steve Gurney missileand we put that sucker on the
water.
We were literally double thespeed of of the team in front of
us.
It took us a couple hours tocatch them, but it's funny,
(33:09):
cause they actually have it onvideo where we pass them, they,
they you know the TV cameraswere there and we pass them in
our craft like they are standingstill and one of their boats
flips around the wrong directionand and it was, you know, it
was an exercise in risk.
You know, sometimes you takethis calculated risk because it
did take us 40 minutes to put ittogether.
But you know, he had just beenthinking this whole time.
(33:32):
We were in that that originalraft, like, okay, what's it
going to take to win versus notlose?
And so when you can switch thatperspective and and think about
it, opens up your mind, yourheart, your creativity, when you
start thinking about how can Iwin, you know, versus how can I
not lose, you know.
And then then, of course, youknow, always being defined by by
(33:54):
setbacks, by comebacks versussetbacks, is a big thing for me.
I tell myself that every singleday, and also that when you're
stuck you don't have to be therealone.
I think a lot of people don'tlike to reach out to other
people to ask their advice orask for their help.
(34:15):
They kind of like to be theirown little island, their own
little silo.
And I think that people seeasking for help as a weakness.
And we kind of discovered inthis sport that asking for help
and accepting help and, in ourcase, literally and figuratively
towing each other, which we didfrom start to finish, somebody
(34:35):
was always on the end of a towline, whether it was in the
hiking and on bikes and boats,who had these little bungee
cords with carabiners, you know,on the ends of the bungee cords
, and we would just connect theperson who was struggling or
slowest in that sport to theperson who was strongest and
instead of waiting for ourslowest person, we would just
take them with us.
And so we started realizing thataccepting a teammate's help,
(34:58):
letting them carry your weightfor a while in our case
literally, you know, but in thereal world, figuratively it was
never a weakness Like it's howwe won, it's how we created the
consistency of our success, likeit made us so even at the
highest level in the sport.
We were on the podium for 10years, we were top five in the
(35:18):
world championships for 10 years, and it wasn't even always the
same people.
It was just people with thatsame mindset of understanding
that accepting help, asking forhelp, reaching out for help,
isn't a weakness, it's how wewin.
And you know so just in yourreal life, seeing that as a
winning move.
You know versus you know.
This is not me likedemonstrating my weakness.
(35:39):
It's showing that I want to win.
Monica Enand (35:41):
It kind of cracks me up that you keep saying real
life, as if work is real lifeand that what you're doing is
not real, where I feel like thereal consequences of being out
there in the world like this,tracking and doing all of these
things sounds pretty darn realto me.
Robyn Benincasa (35:57):
Yeah, it's a little too real sometimes
because there's really not much.
You can't just pick up yourphone and order DoorDash or have
someone come get you.
This team really has to careabout each other more than they
care about themselves, which ishard to come by when you're not
(36:19):
in these crazy situations, butit's such a nice goal to have
you know.
Monica Enand (36:25):
I have to tell you .
The other thing that strikes mein listening to you talk is you
use the words like defined byyour comeback, as opposed, and
what it kind of reminds me of isI don't know, ned, have you
read, have you read, robinAtomic Habits?
And he talks about youridentity and how he talks about
(36:47):
like.
If you want to make these goodhabits, you actually have to
change your identity.
Like.
You have to think of yourselfas a different identity, as of
someone who runs, someone whodoesn't smoke, or someone who
you know, who does the thingthat you're trying to build.
And I think you just innatelydo that Like.
You just innately talk aboutlike defined by your comeback.
(37:08):
You know you think of it as anidentity as opposed to I'm going
to do this thing.
It's, I'm going to be thisperson.
Robyn Benincasa (37:15):
Right, yeah, that's true.
No, I see what they're saying.
Yeah About making it youridentity, because I'm a person
that that does this, that thinksthat.
You know.
Not, it's not just, I'm arunner, not just I injured a 5k.
Monica Enand (37:27):
Right, or I did this once or twice, or yeah.
Robyn Benincasa (37:31):
Yeah, no, I like that, and that's, you know,
that's kind of how I see it too.
Like when people come home fromour Project Athena adventures,
they, they literally have awhole different definition of
who they are.
And it's, you know, and and soso do their families, and so do
their friends, and it's it's noteven just the survivors, it's
also, you know, the, thevolunteers who come.
(37:52):
They come thinking that they'regoing to help their survivors,
and the coolest thing is thatit's often the survivors helping
them.
And you know, it's, it's somuch fun.
But one, one story that I loveabout you know, it's so much fun
, but one story that I loveabout you know, kind of not only
you defining yourself, but thepeople who care about you
defining you.
We had a breast cancer survivorthat did the Florida Keys
adventure and I asked her whather favorite part of the
(38:14):
adventure was and she saidyou're going to think this is
weird, but it wasn't actuallyduring it.
I loved the adventure, but itwasn't during the adventure.
That was my favorite part, shesaid.
My favorite part was when Icame home to the airport and my
luggage came out.
My family was there, my husband, my two kids.
The luggage came out and itstarted going around and around
on the carousel and she goes.
(38:36):
I didn't even think to grab itbecause my family had spent the
last five years doing everythingfor me, picking up everything
for me, not letting me doanything, not letting me strain
myself.
I had cancer and she goes.
It was the best thing when myluggage went around for like the
third time and neither myhusband nor my kids lifted a
(38:58):
finger to grab it because theyknew I could.
They're like our mom's back.
We don't need to grab her stuffanymore.
She's good.
And so she was.
You know, without, without themeven saying a word, they
basically you know, we'reshowing her that, you know that
you're, you're our mom again.
You're not, you're not ourcancer survivor that we have to.
(39:18):
You know, fluff over Likeyou're our badass mom again.
And yeah, so she, yeah, sheloved that and so, yeah, she,
she got her the definition sheloved the most back and that was
badass mom.
Ned Renzi (39:32):
Very cool, great, great way to end the episode.
Monica Enand (39:35):
Absolutely Well.
Thank you so much, robin, forbeing with us today.
You are really an inspirationto me and, I'm sure, to so many
more people, I just think, andthe way you've been so
thoughtful about taking theseteam building and thinking about
the team and applying it to thecorporate world, it's really
(39:59):
helpful and it really I did?
Robyn Benincasa (40:01):
I worked for a Fortune 500 companies for a few
years before I became afirefighter.
Yeah, I was in hospital supplysales and pharmaceutical sales
and yeah, so I, yeah, I have alittle bit of that background
and able to relate.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, I love it.
And if you want to come with uson an adventure,
projectathenaorg.
Monica Enand (40:20):
All right.
And how do we reach you if wewant to have you come speak to a
team?
Robyn Benincasa (40:25):
Robin at world-class teams and it's Robin
Hi With a.
Monica Enand (40:30):
Y Robin at world-class teamscom.
At world-class teams, and it'sRobin, ben and Casa.
So thank you so much, robin,for being here.
Thank you, ned, for co-hostingwith me.
Guest hosting yeah.
Ned Renzi (40:42):
I and Ned for co-hosting, with me guest
hosting.
Yeah, I love that.
Great to meet you, Robin.
Thanks so much.
Robyn Benincasa (40:45):
Yeah, you too, and I'll see you on next year's
Canyon, maybe, or Zion, maybe.
Yeah, next year's my 16thbirthday, I turn 16.
Ned Renzi (40:55):
I'm trying to think of something epic.
Robyn Benincasa (40:56):
So Kilimanjaro is also on the list, so we'll
see what we end up with yeah,Kelly's pretty cool too, I hear
so, but we'll see you sometime.
Both of you guys, Absolutely.
Monica Enand (41:05):
And everybody listening.
Absolutely.
Who wouldn't want to come on aproject Athena?
Robyn Benincasa (41:10):
Hell yeah, and I lead them all, so I will see
you there.
Monica Enand (41:13):
All right.
Well, this has been anotherepisode of Masterstroke.
Thank you so much to Ned and toour executive producer,
Georgiana Marland.
Robyn Benincasa (41:23):
Well, thanks, monica, ned Georgiana, entire
gang.
Georgianna Moreland (41:26):
Thank you for listening today.
We would love for you to followand subscribe.
Monica and Sejo would love tohear from you.
You can text us directly fromthe link in the show notes of
this episode.
You can also find us on theLinkedIn page at Masterstroke
Podcast with Monica Enid andSejo Petrzak.
Until next time.
What if I saw this from the perspective of
being ruled by the hope ofsuccess versus the fear of
failure?
I'm a person that, like,obsesses about fear of failure,
and that's how I operated mostof my life was how do I say?
One step ahead of losing, oneof my teammates grabbed the top
of my head and spun it around toface forwards down river.
He said, hey, winning is thatway to face forwards down river.
Georgianna Moreland (00:26):
He said hey , winning is that way.
This is Masterstroke withMonica Enand and Sejal Pietrzak
and welcome to our specialguest host, Ned Renzi.
Conversations with founders,CEOs and visionary leaders in
technology and beyond.
This episode is sponsored byEnjoy the Work.
For over a decade, they'vehelped more than 300 startup
(00:47):
founders build successfulcompanies.
Many have reached unicornstatus, while others have
secured meaningful exits.
Founder growth is key tocompany growth, and Enjoy the
Work focuses on developing bothyour leadership and operational
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and scaling teams.
They partner with foundersready to take their companies to
(01:10):
the next level.
Learn more and schedule anintake session at
enjoytheworkcom.
Monica Enand (01:29):
We are super excited because I don't even
know if I can describe who RobinBeninghassa is, but we're going
to get to know her a little bitin this podcast and understand
why all her crazy adventures Ithink I can say and how it
relates to business and how shecoaches business teams to get
(01:53):
amazing things done that theynever thought they could, and
she's one of the top 10 speakersfeatured by the Harvard
Business Review.
She is a world championendurance racer.
Business review.
She is a world championendurance racer.
She has been highlighted as the2014 CNN hero and we want to
hear more about that.
(02:13):
Later We'll dive into moredetails.
She's got Guinness Book ofWorld Record holders for
endurance kayaking, which isamazing.
She's a best-selling author ofhow Winning Works, a book that
draws on her adventure racingexperiences to offer insights
into building high-performanceteams, and I think this is
(02:34):
related to the CNN Hero.
She is the founder of theProject Athena Foundation and I
assume that that's related tothe Hero Award, and I assume
that that's related to the HeroAward, which is a nonprofit
dedicated to helping survivorsof medical or other traumatic
setbacks achieve theiradventurous dreams.
Robyn Benincasa (02:53):
That was quite the intro.
Monica Enand (02:55):
Yeah, and as I learned more about you, the more
I thought holy cow, this ladyis amazing, like you are just
incredible, and I'm dying tolearn how you became this way
but we'll get to that becauseyou know it's just incredible.
Ned Renzi (03:15):
So yeah, monica, I think Robin's stated mission is
to show people how amazing theyare through keynote
presentations and team-basedendurance adventures.
So, robin, super excited tohave you here.
Robyn Benincasa (03:24):
Thanks, Ed.
I'm thrilled to be part of this.
Yeah, get to hang out with youguys.
We have a few friends in common.
Ned's a super adventurer.
Monica's going to be a superadventurer by the time we're
done with this.
Ned Renzi (03:35):
I see joy and fear in Monica's face right now.
Monica Enand (03:39):
I mean, I don't know how to swim, but I can no
swimming, oh good.
All right all right, well,maybe I will.
Ned Renzi (03:45):
You won the eco challenge way back in 2000,
which was rebranded the world'stoughest race.
Uh, it's an original successfulshow that launched mark
burnett's career, who went on todo survivor, apprentice, the
voice, shark, tank, a wholebunch of things, and so, robin,
please tell us about the raceand what motivated you to do it.
Robyn Benincasa (04:04):
Oh boy, yeah, that was the Borneo Eco
Challenge.
I ended up there because I haddone, you know, you've heard of
Ironman triathlon.
I'd done you know a bunch ofthose over the years and I
realized that I was reallystrong but I wasn't that fast
(04:29):
and so I'd always kind of beenlooking for you know, something
longer, something crazier.
I was like maybe if I could dolike three Iron Mans, like maybe
I'd be, you know, be able to bewith the pros.
And so when I read aboutadventure racing and at the time
Mark Burnett had the onlyAmerican team that was doing the
sport he actually was anadventure racer before he
created Eco Challenge.
I read about it in Runner'sWorld it was one of those
moments where I was reading themagazine and I just got chills
(04:51):
like wow, this is the sport Iwas meant to do.
It's funny because my careerstarted when Mark Burnett was
actually looking for the womanto race on his team.
After he won he was ninth inMadagascar.
He wanted to win the next RaidWorld Championships, so he had a
big try at his house for thenext what do they call it?
(05:12):
The next female ultimate,whatever adventure racer.
And he bless his heart, thisguy back in the day.
He got Dateline out there to hishouse.
He got a bunch of TV camerasout there and he put like 14 of
us women it was the invitationalonly he put 14 of us women
through a Navy SEAL hell weekand it was yeah, it's funny that
(05:35):
you mentioned him because thatwas the start is you know he let
me come to this tryout for youknow, for his team, he's been
integral to my life, to thesport.
You know, for his team, he'sbeen integral to to my life, to
the sport.
You know for for all this timeand I'll never forget, after the
six days of nonstop racing andwe had no idea if we had one or
not, cause we had paddled allnight and it was daylight when
(05:55):
we crossed the finish line andwe just hear Mark Burnett kind
of at basically at sunrise wepull into the dock and we hear
his voice say the world champion, oh wow.
Yeah, and I'm like I still get alittle floopy.
Monica Enand (06:14):
Were you the only woman on the team Is that how
that worked.
Robyn Benincasa (06:18):
Yeah, back in the day, and the person who
actually invented the sport is aFrenchman named Gerard Poussil,
and he had this kind of coolidea to make sure that every
team was mixed gender, so youhad to have one man and one
woman on the team, and so therewere multiple different mixes
(06:39):
over the years, and at first Ifeel like a lot of people
thought, like the women werejust a mandatory equipment, you
know, like we all, we have totake this, you know, this woman
with us.
And then, over the years, wediscovered how amazing uh, a lot
of the women were at um, atjust kind of keeping a steady
pace, like the men would strutreally strong and then they'd
(07:02):
lose a bunch of weight and get alittle weaker, and the women
would just kind of do this.
And so we were stronger nearthe end of the race, we were
better in the heat and the cold,we had a different way of
reading maps and strategizing,and so we realized over time
that a lot of the really goodwomen were really instrumental
to the team and had betterresults almost than results,
(07:23):
almost than than they would haveif it was an all male team.
And in fact we um.
We took fourth place at EcoChallenge in Argentina as a
three woman, one man team.
Monica Enand (07:34):
Wow, that's crazy, that's awesome.
Robyn Benincasa (07:37):
Yeah Well, cause, when, when you're, when
you're at that ultra endurancestate, no one can be good the
entire way.
You know it's how youstrategize together, how you
take care of each other, how youeven.
You know the culture that youcreate as a team.
And you know, when you're in aculture where you're constantly
elevating and inspiring eachother and know at the baseline
(08:00):
that you have each other's bestinterests at heart, you know
there's almost nothing that youcan't accomplish.
It's when that infightingstarts.
Monica Enand (08:07):
Going into what we want to spend some of the
podcast on talking about.
You know the relationshipbetween these teams and building
world-class teams in business.
But before we get there, I gotto know, like, what were you
like as a little girl?
Like, how did your parentsraise you?
Like?
Were you like what were youlike as a little girl?
Like, how did your parentsraise you?
Like?
Were you like always a badass,or you just like became a badass
(08:31):
later?
I don't know.
Robyn Benincasa (08:32):
No, I had like totally normal parents.
Yeah, you'd think that they'dbe like these crazy adventure
people.
I think my mom's never done asport.
My dad played baseball when hewas younger.
My mom's never done a sport.
My dad played baseball when hewas younger and I was just lucky
in that I found a flyer forgymnastics school on my front
lawn when I was seven and Ibegged my mom to go.
(09:05):
Over the years I had differentcoaches that were, you know,
just brought that real deepinspiration to drive, to drive
through challenges, to drivethrough pain and rips in your
hands and to want to be greatand to get to the next level.
And I had a coach when I movedto Arizona named Stormy Eaton,
and he has been an incredibleinspiration to hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds ofespecially, you know, girls
who've been through hisgymnastics program.
And he was unfortunately killedin a plane crash and all of us
(09:27):
just, you know, kind of continueto remember like that
inspiration and that drive thatStormy, you know, instilled in
us because he was doing Ironman.
You know he was kind oftraining for Ironman during the
days and then coaching at night,and so we all watched him, you
know, go through that evolution.
Some days he'd invite us to hey,you want to go for a 13 mile
run with me?
(09:47):
Or hey, do you want to go for aride with me?
And it was just a handful of us, like five or six of us that
were always like, whatever he'sdoing, I'm doing and um, you
know so I just grew up wantingto to do whatever he did and, um
, my, my dad thought I was goingto die.
Every time I left the househe's like you can't do it on
(10:08):
your bed, you're going to die.
And but, yeah, I just.
We all came through the stormyeat in school and we just
remember those times so fondlyas somebody who was such a
driver and inspiration in ourlives and I think it's important
that you know kids have that,whether it's in their parents or
in somebody that is a coachjust shows them how to be a
(10:29):
badass.
Ned Renzi (10:37):
Robyn, tell us how you made this transition from
world champ endurance racer tothe corporate world this being a
keynote speaker for some of thebiggest companies in the world
and maybe just talk a little bitabout like the similarities,
like you talk so much about yourteam and people's roles, and
how does that translate torunning a team in a business.
Robyn Benincasa (10:56):
So it's a.
It's a funny story Because I'ma like in my real life.
I'm a complete introvert andyou know you think of keynote
speakers.
As you know, these extrovertedand and I I rise to the occasion
on stage just like you would ifit were a competition.
Um, you're like, we've alltowed the line in our lives to
competitions and you do.
(11:17):
We need to do it and I actuallyreally, really love doing it.
Um, but I never would haveimagined doing it, and the idea
for it, um did not come from me,it came from fast company
magazine.
And after we had won the worldchampionships in adventure
racing in uh, our year of theLord 1998 in in Ecuador, uh, we
(11:38):
were the first American teamever to win a big international
adventure race.
And so we were contacted byFast Company Magazine because
they were doing an articleentitled Extreme Teamwork, and
their idea for the article wasto take a look at some of the
world's most consistentlyhigh-performing teams in the
craziest of situations, and seewhat they could kind of glean
(12:01):
from our brand of teamwork andapply to fast-mo moving
companies in the real world.
So they interviewed our teamand a team from NASA and
Industrial Light and Magic.
You know all these teams thatwere operating in these higher
pressure, constantly changingsituations, and asked us about
you know what made usconsistently great.
And after the article came out,it was a big success, and they
(12:23):
were having a reader conferenceand they asked someone from our
team to speak at the readerconference and I pretty much
just drew the short straw.
Everyone else was like no way,no way, no way.
And it just rolled downhillonto me as the newest member of
the team and so I created apresentation.
That was pretty cool becausewhen I started writing down what
(12:49):
it was that made our team sospecial and what it was about
like like us, I said, you know,we really create this what I
called in my brain, you know,human synergy.
And then I started writing downwhat those elements of that
human synergy were like, whatmade us great.
And it was almost a perfectacronym for teamwork and I was
like, oh, like the angels weresinging.
(13:13):
And so there I was presenting ata reader conference for Fast
Company magazine and they had meeven do a little outdoor
adventure leadership program,you know, associated with it,
and we were doing little beachboot camp together as teammates
and we ran into the beach atsunrise into the water at
sunrise, you know, on the beachand people were like we've never
(13:36):
had anybody do this for us,like people are always so afraid
to, you know, to push corporatepeople a little bit, you know,
because you bit, because we'resoft, right, not soft, but we're
always so afraid of, oh, thisperson's challenged, or this
person won't, or that person.
And I just challenged them andsaid nobody has to come, but
(13:59):
we're all running in and if youdon't want to run in, just be
here with towels when we getback.
It's all good.
And we just took off runningand everybody, just everybody,
like all 50 people just ran intothe water, like it was awesome.
So anyway, after mypresentation which I thought I
was going to die, my heart ratewas so high and it was so
(14:20):
meaningful to a few people inthe audience that they came up
afterwards and one of them, oneof the people that came up, was
his own vice president fromStarbucks and he said I want you
to come and talk to all of mystore managers.
Like what are?
Georgianna Moreland (14:39):
you doing the next few weeks and I was
like oh my gosh.
Monica Enand (14:45):
You also had a setback related to your health,
did you not?
Um in the last?
I don't know exactly when, butum was it osteoarthritis.
Is that correct?
Robyn Benincasa (14:56):
yeah, yeah, that was a bummer.
Um, in the middle of the worldchampionships in scotland, I, um
, I suddenly just fell to theground and I thought I had
pulled a hip flexor or somethingand I had to literally take a
piece of bungee cord off mybackpack and wrap it around my
(15:16):
leg and pull my leg forwardphysically, because it wouldn't
move forward on its own at allanymore.
And you know we weren't goingto quit the race.
I just had to move my leg likeI was a puppet, you know, like I
was a marionette, just had tomove my leg forward, and my
teammates had to take all myweight, put me on toe.
You know it was horrible and Ithought I had just pulled a
(15:38):
muscle.
We still did okay after allthat we didn't win.
I think we're still in the top10 though.
But I went home and um and hadan x-ray and I had never had
like an osteo thing happen in mylife.
You know, I was just a kid thatalways, just, you know you work
through it, you know you justyou hammer on it for a little
while and it fixes itself.
But this wasn't one of thosethings.
(16:00):
I went to the orthopedicsurgeon and he threw the x-ray
up and you know, he said, hesaid, hey, check this out,
you're, you're, uh, you're nevergoing to run again.
And uh, and you need two full,two complete hip replacements,
like you know, just like that.
And so I was like, okay, youknow, I thought he was, you know
, I was like this is a littleextreme.
(16:20):
And I said, okay, well, howabout you just give me some like
lots of ibuprofen and I'll seeyou in a, in a couple of years,
I'll see you in two years.
And he and I walk out the doorand he's going, I'll see you in
two weeks.
And he was right.
So, like I had to just wrap mybrain around it and, uh, I had
just run out of cartilage ahundred percent on on on both
(16:42):
sides and, yeah, it was bad.
So, anyway, over a series ofmany, many years, I went through
, at this point, six hipreplacements just because the
first four failed.
A couple of cups failed, Istarted running on them too soon
, cracked my femur, pulled thecups out of place and, yeah,
(17:06):
because I was not a person who,in the early days, was following
any instructions whatsoever.
Oh, my goodness.
So that's one of the things Ilearned the hard way, but yeah,
but it did lead me to two reallycool things that I probably
never would have stumbled uponif I had just kept forward on
that trajectory.
(17:26):
I still did a couple more races,but I also knew that, you know,
I wasn't the same runner I wasbefore and I wasn't going to.
You know, hold my guys back,you know, because I need to be
on tow right off the start line.
You know it wasn't the rightthing to do, but instead, kind
of over time, I thought tomyself well, what if I, instead
of not being obsessed with whatI can't do, what if I focused on
(17:49):
what I can do?
And I knew that, even withcrutches, I could still crutch
down to the side of the side ofthe bay and sit in a kayak.
And you know I don't.
I don't need my hips for thatas much.
I mean you're supposed to pushoff when you're paddling, but
you know, still, yeah, I mean Icould paddle.
And so I set out to try to dosomething great in paddling and
(18:16):
started looking at like, okay,what's the Guinness World Record
for longest distance paddled bya female in a kayak in 24 hours
?
Like you know, maybe I can dothat.
And then I ran into another guyon the same mission as I was to
break Guinness World Records.
He is a freaking world-classpaddler, like an Epic paddler,
and so we started taking a whackat the um, at the Guinness
(18:36):
world records together, like hewould set the men's record.
Now it's at the women's record.
So, yeah, so we set the movingwater record 24 hour together.
We set the flat water recordtogether Um, I set a 24 hour
standup paddling record, youknow, just for fun, just to feel
like I was, you know,accomplishing something.
Ned Renzi (18:59):
You hold every non-hip-related record in the.
Robyn Benincasa (19:00):
Guinness Book of Records?
Yeah, because I didn't.
I was like I'll just, you know,I could just you know, push my
butt out of my boat, get back onmy crutches and crutch to my
car.
I was like I'm just going toyou know, like why not, you know
why, obsess about what I can'tdo anymore.
So, so that you know, not onlyto lead me to paddling, and now
(19:25):
I'm a, I'm a really goodendurance paddler still.
Monica Enand (19:29):
I just had a big race last month where I'm not
going to talk about myself.
Robyn Benincasa (19:31):
Okay, Tell us about the race I know I'm like
this is too much talking aboutmyself.
So I did.
I entered the longest nonstoppaddling race in the world after
I set the first Guinness WorldRecord and that race is called
the Missouri River 340.
And it's a 340 mile nonstoppaddle from Kansas City to St
Charles and if you want to win,you do it nonstop.
(19:54):
And so I entered that race andin my first whack at it I won
the women's division and I hadset the women's course record
and I was.
I was second solo overall out ofall 111 boats and I was like,
(20:14):
yeah, I have a new sport.
Like I was so excited, you know, I was like this could be my
new thing and so I started doingyou know that race and I had I
took second place overall therefive times over.
Like the next eight years I wasalways second solo, second solo
, second solo.
And, um, last year I got a callfrom two of the men because
(20:34):
they were both men that had thathad beat me, and it was always
a different, a different guy,like I.
I couldn't just wait for theone guy to stay home.
So I finally got a call fromtwo of the guys who had beat me
in that race and they asked meto join them for a team boat for
this year's race, a four-manteam boat and we just did that
(20:54):
last month and we did not breakthe course record because the
river was slow, but we won therace out of all 475 boats as a
four-person team, yeah.
So I was like oh, the old ladystill got it.
Congratulations, of course itwas the team, but I was so
scared, I was so scared.
I'm like, oh, the old ladystill got it.
Congratulations, of course itwas the team, but I was so
(21:16):
scared, I was so scared.
I'm like, am I too old?
Ned Renzi (21:17):
for this.
Am I still good at this?
And yeah, I discovered that yougot your answers.
Robyn Benincasa (21:20):
Yeah, yeah, I was very excited about that.
And then the other thing thatthe crazy metal hips led me to
was starting Project Athena.
And that happened after myfirst trip replacement, and and
that happened after my first hipreplacement.
And I was thinking, okay, well,I'm not going to define myself
by this setback, I'm going todefine myself by my comeback and
(21:40):
the comeback story that I cancreate.
Now I just had this flash oflight in the shower one day.
I was like what if we do thisfor other people?
You know, like how specialwould it be to show people how
amazing they are by creatingtheir big comeback story through
endurance sports?
And so since 2008 now, we dofive or six five-ish endurance
(22:08):
adventures a year and we takesurvivors and volunteers, slash
fundraisers and we train themfor four months and we train
them to cross crazy challengingfinish lines and we do the
entire adventure as a team, likeall 30 of us or 40 of us stay
together as one big team and wedo it just like an adventure
racing team where the strongerpeople will go back and take
extra weight or tow people orencourage people and the people
(22:31):
that need help.
They know they let us help them, they ask for help because our
strength is collective and youknow that's how we're going to
all cross the finish linetogether.
And so it's a way for people tokind of live what they hear in
my presentation.
But it's the coolest thing onearth to take a survivor who's
had a big life setback and theyleave home as their family's
sick person and they return astheir family's badass ultra
(22:54):
endurance athlete and it's likesuch a crazy, like
transformation for people.
Because we do like not kiddingaround things, like last weekend
we just did the rim to rim torim in the Grand Canyon, which
is where I took this photo thatis behind me.
So we go all the way across theGrand Canyon in one day and all
the way back the next day, andthen we do 120-mile kayak and
(23:15):
bike ride from Key Largo to KeyWest over three days.
So we like take off in KeyLargo we never touch a car, you
know, all under our own power,riding and paddling.
We end up in Key West threedays later.
We do a 45-mile two-day hikeacross Zion National Park,
called the Zion Traverse.
We do a walking marathon up thecoast of San Diego and it's
(23:52):
really cool for people to getsome perspective too on bike to
Key West, or you know, or?
Or someone who had just had adouble mastectomy two weeks
earlier, you know paddle intheir boat to, you know to, from
Key Largo to Key West.
You know, people are like Idon't have any problems, like
you know they're.
They're so inspired by, youknow, by these people, as am I
every single, every singleadventure that we have, because
(24:14):
we don't just take cancersurvivors, we take people who
have had any kind of bigtraumatic life setback.
Sometimes it's people who havebeen in a terrible abusive
marriage or traumatic braininjuries, or you know, we've had
lots of amputees, blind people,and uh, it's just the most fun
thing to just show them howamazing they are Like and they
(24:37):
just leave on this cloud of Ifreaking rock and yeah, it's the
best.
It does give you perspective,right?
Yeah, and none of those thingswould have happened.
You know, I would have neverdiscovered paddling or started
Project Athena if I had morecartilage.
So, you know, in a way I'm kindof grateful for that.
Ned Renzi (24:59):
When you're working with these leaders, you know in
the tech companies or otherbusinesses what's sort of the
number one mistake you seepeople making or number one
thing you see them dealing with.
Robyn Benincasa (25:12):
Well, in the pre-event calls that I have with
people, a lot of people talkabout culture and about the kind
of culture that they want tocreate, and I think one mistake
that people make is realizingthat people don't necessarily
(25:33):
work for companies.
They start out working forcompanies, but they ultimately
work for people.
And I mean, like, how many ofus have stayed in a job or a
role that you know we probablyshould have left a long time ago
, but our leader or our team wasso special and important to us?
You know that we stayed forthem.
You know we work for people.
(25:53):
So you have to be the personthat people want to work with
and work for.
You have to be the leader thatyour team needs in that moment.
You know whether that's a friend, that's a colleague, that's
someone who needs to get out infront and say, out of the way,
follow me.
Whether that's a visionaryleader, whether that's sometimes
even a coercive leader thattells you what you need to get
done right now.
(26:15):
Which is what you respect in aleader is when they're able to
adapt to the situation, adapt tothe team, adapt to the vibe of
what's going on, and I thinkthat sometimes a mistake is made
when we're not just talkingculture of the organization, but
it's got to come from theleaders, like it's got to come
(26:35):
from who these leaders are aspeople.
That's what makes the culture.
Ned Renzi (26:39):
And if you flip the question, maybe away from
leaders and you could talk toanyone.
Like Monica and I had a recentpodcast where, like, we had some
people in their like 20s and30s who were asking for career
advice.
What do you wish everyone whowants to have an amazing career?
What do you wish they knew?
Robyn Benincasa (26:56):
Well, I think one thing I've learned over time
and what I've seen in like youknow, kind of younger people
that I've observed my nieces, mynephews, just people around me,
me is that where your magichappens is in sort of that
(27:18):
intersection of where yourpassion meets your talent, and
so part of understanding, likepart of being really successful,
is finding that real vein ofgold in yourself.
Like what are you really goodat?
Like that most other peoplearen't, what comes easiest to
you?
Like what's that thing?
Like, are you a peopleconnector?
Are you incredible withlanguages?
Are you great at math?
Are you great with spatialrelationship?
(27:39):
Like whatever it is you knowyou're really really good at.
If you can marry that with apassion that you have, you know,
then your success just becomesexponential, just, and and for
me that's what happened withProject Athena Like it was my
passion to help people and toyou know to show them how
(28:00):
incredible they are and to tohelp them realize that you know
it's all about your comebackstory.
And then put that together withmy with adventure, racing and
endurance background.
You know the thing that that Iwas was best at in my life, and
and that success for me is isnot about money.
I've never I've been a volunteerfor the last since 2008,.
(28:20):
I've never.
You know, I it's not about,I've just it's.
I'm a volunteer, you know, ceoof that organization.
But like that's like people.
That's where your authenticspace is and people really like
sense that like like this isreal, um, where, where this
passion this person has meetstheir, their authenticity, and
like boom, you know, if you can,if you can create that in in
(28:44):
what you do for a living, youknow that's where you're going
to be the happiest, that's whereyour success is going to be
exponential and people are goingto come, come to you with
opportunities when you're reallyin that authentic space.
Ned Renzi (28:55):
Yeah, great advice Thanks.
Monica Enand (29:05):
Robin, you kind of talk about like your mindset.
It was, you know it soundedlike you had to say I'm not
going to focus on what is Ican't do, I'm going to focus on
my comeback story, I'm going tofocus on what I can do.
You know that's a framing or ashifting of your mindset.
How do you think that people intheir daily lives or in their
lives should think about kind ofmindset and how do you advise
(29:28):
people to use that?
Robyn Benincasa (29:30):
I think it's important to just have a few
things almost like go-to, likecatchphrase or things you really
deeply believe in that you cansort of help redirect yourself a
little bit, because everyone'sgoing to have their down moments
, they're going to be mad,they're going to be pissed,
they've been wronged, somethingwasn't fair, something wasn't
right, they didn't get thepromotion, like, whatever it is.
(29:51):
You're, you know you're allowedto be bummed because stuff
happens, you know, and ithappens to all of us, and
sometimes really bad stuffhappens.
Um, but like a few of thethings that like once I'm kind
of done with my little, you know, circling around obsessing
about something for a littlewhile, like obsessing about the
you know the bad thing thathappened, the thing I don't want
to happen, um, one of thethings that that I talk about
(30:13):
and just to myself is okay, whatif I were?
I saw this from the perspectiveof being ruled by the hope of
success versus the fear offailure?
Cause I'm a person that, likeobsesses about fear of failure
and that's how I operated mostof my life was, was, like you
know, kind of not losing.
How do I say one step ahead oflosing?
(30:37):
And and one of my teammates inthe middle of a race, when I
kept looking behind us to seewhere our competitors were.
We were, we were in a boat, ininflatable, and I was paddling,
paddling, paddling.
I just kept turning around tosee where our competitors were
and finally he was so annoyedthat he threw his own paddle in
the boat and he grabbed the topof my head and spun it around to
face forwards down river andthen he said in my ear he said,
(30:59):
hey, winning is that way, youknow.
And I was like, oh, you know.
Oh, that just really like.
I was like you know what?
He's right, I'm totally focusedon not losing and I'm not
focused on what it takes to win,because that just suddenly
completely changes yourcreativity and your innovation
and your drive.
And it's like I'm not focusedback here anymore.
(31:21):
What's it really going to taketo win?
Like I'm not focused back hereanymore, like what's it really
going to take to win?
And there was another guy inthe boat that heard my friend
Ian tell me you know, winning isthat way, and he was a really
innovative guy and so he startedthinking about what it was
really going to take to win.
Like this became somethingcontagious and he started
thinking about okay, whatresources do we have?
What can I do to make the nextcraft that we're going to be in
(31:41):
faster?
What can I do to make the nextcraft that we're going to be in
faster?
What can I do to make us betteras a team?
And so he started ruminating onthis and we got to the next
transition area and the racedirector took away each team's
whitewater raft and handed eachof us two inflatable canoes.
So our competitors grabbedtheir canoe paddles, jumped in
their canoes, they were gonedown the river because they were
right behind us and they passedus in the shoot, basically.
(32:02):
And then Steve said to us hey, Iknow this is going to suck,
this is going to take a fewminutes, but I have this idea I
want to get our climbing rope.
You know he'd been thinkingabout this for a while.
He said I want to get ourclimbing rope that we use for
the mountaineering section, andI want to actually tie our two
boats together Like cause they,they, they took off in two
separate boats just going downthe river.
He, he wanted to tire two boatstogether, end to end, you know,
using our climbing ropes forthe D rings on the outside of
(32:24):
both boats so that he could makeyou know one big long boat.
He knew we'd be faster, as fivepeople paddling one boat versus
five people paddling two boats.
And then he said and why are westuck using canoe paddles?
Just because they gave us canoepaddles?
We're a much stronger kayakingteam.
So he'd also thought throughwhat's going to make us faster
and realize we don't have to usewhat the organization gave us.
We're going to use our kayakpaddles that we have for the
(32:47):
last section of the race anyway.
They're just sitting in ourgearboxes.
Nobody's telling us we can'tuse them.
So we got out our kayak paddlesand made them longer, different
on the sides of the canoes, andwe ended up creating like what
we call the Steve Gurney missileand we put that sucker on the
water.
We were literally double thespeed of of the team in front of
us.
It took us a couple hours tocatch them, but it's funny,
(33:09):
cause they actually have it onvideo where we pass them, they,
they you know the TV cameraswere there and we pass them in
our craft like they are standingstill and one of their boats
flips around the wrong directionand and it was, you know, it
was an exercise in risk.
You know, sometimes you takethis calculated risk because it
did take us 40 minutes to put ittogether.
But you know, he had just beenthinking this whole time.
(33:32):
We were in that that originalraft, like, okay, what's it
going to take to win versus notlose?
And so when you can switch thatperspective and and think about
it, opens up your mind, yourheart, your creativity, when you
start thinking about how can Iwin, you know, versus how can I
not lose, you know.
And then then, of course, youknow, always being defined by by
(33:54):
setbacks, by comebacks versussetbacks, is a big thing for me.
I tell myself that every singleday, and also that when you're
stuck you don't have to be therealone.
I think a lot of people don'tlike to reach out to other
people to ask their advice orask for their help.
(34:15):
They kind of like to be theirown little island, their own
little silo.
And I think that people seeasking for help as a weakness.
And we kind of discovered inthis sport that asking for help
and accepting help and, in ourcase, literally and figuratively
towing each other, which we didfrom start to finish, somebody
(34:35):
was always on the end of a towline, whether it was in the
hiking and on bikes and boats,who had these little bungee
cords with carabiners, you know,on the ends of the bungee cords
, and we would just connect theperson who was struggling or
slowest in that sport to theperson who was strongest and
instead of waiting for ourslowest person, we would just
take them with us.
And so we started realizing thataccepting a teammate's help,
(34:58):
letting them carry your weightfor a while in our case
literally, you know, but in thereal world, figuratively it was
never a weakness Like it's howwe won, it's how we created the
consistency of our success, likeit made us so even at the
highest level in the sport.
We were on the podium for 10years, we were top five in the
(35:18):
world championships for 10 years, and it wasn't even always the
same people.
It was just people with thatsame mindset of understanding
that accepting help, asking forhelp, reaching out for help,
isn't a weakness, it's how wewin.
And you know so just in yourreal life, seeing that as a
winning move.
You know versus you know.
This is not me likedemonstrating my weakness.
(35:39):
It's showing that I want to win.
Monica Enand (35:41):
It kind of cracks me up that you keep saying real
life, as if work is real lifeand that what you're doing is
not real, where I feel like thereal consequences of being out
there in the world like this,tracking and doing all of these
things sounds pretty darn realto me.
Robyn Benincasa (35:57):
Yeah, it's a little too real sometimes
because there's really not much.
You can't just pick up yourphone and order DoorDash or have
someone come get you.
This team really has to careabout each other more than they
care about themselves, which ishard to come by when you're not
(36:19):
in these crazy situations, butit's such a nice goal to have
you know.
Monica Enand (36:25):
I have to tell you .
The other thing that strikes mein listening to you talk is you
use the words like defined byyour comeback, as opposed, and
what it kind of reminds me of isI don't know, ned, have you
read, have you read, robinAtomic Habits?
And he talks about youridentity and how he talks about
(36:47):
like.
If you want to make these goodhabits, you actually have to
change your identity.
Like.
You have to think of yourselfas a different identity, as of
someone who runs, someone whodoesn't smoke, or someone who
you know, who does the thingthat you're trying to build.
And I think you just innatelydo that Like.
You just innately talk aboutlike defined by your comeback.
(37:08):
You know you think of it as anidentity as opposed to I'm going
to do this thing.
It's, I'm going to be thisperson.
Robyn Benincasa (37:15):
Right, yeah, that's true.
No, I see what they're saying.
Yeah About making it youridentity, because I'm a person
that that does this, that thinksthat.
You know.
Not, it's not just, I'm arunner, not just I injured a 5k.
Monica Enand (37:27):
Right, or I did this once or twice, or yeah.
Robyn Benincasa (37:31):
Yeah, no, I like that, and that's, you know,
that's kind of how I see it too.
Like when people come home fromour Project Athena adventures,
they, they literally have awhole different definition of
who they are.
And it's, you know, and and soso do their families, and so do
their friends, and it's it's noteven just the survivors, it's
also, you know, the, thevolunteers who come.
(37:52):
They come thinking that they'regoing to help their survivors,
and the coolest thing is thatit's often the survivors helping
them.
And you know, it's, it's somuch fun.
But one, one story that I loveabout you know, it's so much fun
, but one story that I loveabout you know, kind of not only
you defining yourself, but thepeople who care about you
defining you.
We had a breast cancer survivorthat did the Florida Keys
adventure and I asked her whather favorite part of the
(38:14):
adventure was and she saidyou're going to think this is
weird, but it wasn't actuallyduring it.
I loved the adventure, but itwasn't during the adventure.
That was my favorite part, shesaid.
My favorite part was when Icame home to the airport and my
luggage came out.
My family was there, my husband, my two kids.
The luggage came out and itstarted going around and around
on the carousel and she goes.
(38:36):
I didn't even think to grab itbecause my family had spent the
last five years doing everythingfor me, picking up everything
for me, not letting me doanything, not letting me strain
myself.
I had cancer and she goes.
It was the best thing when myluggage went around for like the
third time and neither myhusband nor my kids lifted a
(38:58):
finger to grab it because theyknew I could.
They're like our mom's back.
We don't need to grab her stuffanymore.
She's good.
And so she was.
You know, without, without themeven saying a word, they
basically you know, we'reshowing her that, you know that
you're, you're our mom again.
You're not, you're not ourcancer survivor that we have to.
(39:18):
You know, fluff over Likeyou're our badass mom again.
And yeah, so she, yeah, sheloved that and so, yeah, she,
she got her the definition sheloved the most back and that was
badass mom.
Ned Renzi (39:32):
Very cool, great, great way to end the episode.
Monica Enand (39:35):
Absolutely Well.
Thank you so much, robin, forbeing with us today.
You are really an inspirationto me and, I'm sure, to so many
more people, I just think, andthe way you've been so
thoughtful about taking theseteam building and thinking about
the team and applying it to thecorporate world, it's really
(39:59):
helpful and it really I did?
Robyn Benincasa (40:01):
I worked for a Fortune 500 companies for a few
years before I became afirefighter.
Yeah, I was in hospital supplysales and pharmaceutical sales
and yeah, so I, yeah, I have alittle bit of that background
and able to relate.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, I love it.
And if you want to come with uson an adventure,
projectathenaorg.
Monica Enand (40:20):
All right.
And how do we reach you if wewant to have you come speak to a
team?
Robyn Benincasa (40:25):
Robin at world-class teams and it's Robin
Hi With a.
Monica Enand (40:30):
Y Robin at world-class teamscom.
At world-class teams, and it'sRobin, ben and Casa.
So thank you so much, robin,for being here.
Thank you, ned, for co-hostingwith me.
Guest hosting yeah.
Ned Renzi (40:42):
I and Ned for co-hosting, with me guest
hosting.
Yeah, I love that.
Great to meet you, Robin.
Thanks so much.
Robyn Benincasa (40:45):
Yeah, you too, and I'll see you on next year's
Canyon, maybe, or Zion, maybe.
Yeah, next year's my 16thbirthday, I turn 16.
Ned Renzi (40:55):
I'm trying to think of something epic.
Robyn Benincasa (40:56):
So Kilimanjaro is also on the list, so we'll
see what we end up with yeah,Kelly's pretty cool too, I hear
so, but we'll see you sometime.
Both of you guys, Absolutely.
Monica Enand (41:05):
And everybody listening.
Absolutely.
Who wouldn't want to come on aproject Athena?
Robyn Benincasa (41:10):
Hell yeah, and I lead them all, so I will see
you there.
Monica Enand (41:13):
All right.
Well, this has been anotherepisode of Masterstroke.
Thank you so much to Ned and toour executive producer,
Georgiana Marland.
Robyn Benincasa (41:23):
Well, thanks, monica, ned Georgiana, entire
gang.
Georgianna Moreland (41:26):
Thank you for listening today.
We would love for you to followand subscribe.
Monica and Sejo would love tohear from you.
You can text us directly fromthe link in the show notes of
this episode.
You can also find us on theLinkedIn page at Masterstroke
Podcast with Monica Enid andSejo Petrzak.
Until next time.
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