July 24, 2025 • 47 mins
What does it take to lead the first American women's Everest expedition, survive a near-fatal heart condition, and keep climbing into your 50s? For mountaineer, author, and speaker Alison Levine it all comes down to one thing: putting one foot in front of the other, even when you're terrified.
Alison joins Danielle to talk about the summit attempt that made her the butt of a late-night punchline—and the second attempt that helped her rewrite what success really means. In this episode, she shares how a childhood marked by isolation, medical setbacks, and grit shaped her into one of the most inspiring leaders on and off the mountain. Alison shares:
- How being born with a hole in her heart shaped her risk tolerance
- The story behind the first American Women's Everest Expedition—and why they had to turn around 270 feet from the top
- What it felt like to fail so publicly—and what she learned when she finally reached the summit 8 years later
- The mantra that replaced "go big or go home"
- Why fear can be your best asset
- Her surprising leadership advice (hint: ego isn't the enemy)
- The unspoken voice every woman battles—and how to train it to speak differently
- Why the strongest teams honor each other's limits
- What she learned dragging a 150-pound sled across Antarctica
- Why she just left her successful speaking career to write a one-woman show—and what's at stake
- How being "the smallest one on the team" became her greatest asset
- The quote from Pitbull that reframed how she views failure
Book rec: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Follow Alison on Instagram here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
No one has all the answers, but when we ask
the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Danielle Robe and each week, my guests and I come
together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And who says?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
So? Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's
time to question everything. Hello, everybody, I hope you're having
a fabulous week. I just want to let you know
that this is the type of episode that you're going
to want to share. And I don't say that to
(00:50):
spread the word about the podcast. I say that because
it's the kind of episode I wanted to share. It
was hard for me to hold on to this recording
and not put it out faster. There are so many
life lessons and quotes and moments from this interview that matter.
Our guest today, Alison Levine, who you are going to
(01:11):
hear about and hear from. She's one of the most
unbelievable people I've ever interviewed. So I don't want to
talk a lot at the top of the show because
I want to climb in.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Picture.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
This the first American women's expedition on Mount Everest. They've
been climbing for nearly two months.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Every step is.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
A battle, body's aching, the oxygen is thin. Their eyes
are on the summit, and then just two hundred and
seventy feet from the top of the world, a storm
rolls in visibility completely disappears, and someone has to make
the call. That someone is Alison Levine.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
It's so hard to fail so publicly, and I really
internalize this for so long.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Allison is a mountaineer, a polar explorer, a leadership expert,
and a professor at West Point. She's skied across Antarctica
and stood at the South Pole. She's climbed the tallest
peaks on every single continent. But perhaps her greatest climb
wasn't physical. It was the mental mountain of going back.
(02:22):
Because eight years after that public failure, she returned to Everest.
This time she made it to the summit, but what
happened up there surprised her.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
The summit of the mountain really wasn't the most important thing,
and I feel like I learned so much more from
that failed experience. In two thousand and two.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
She realized that the goal isn't just about reaching the top.
It's about how we show up, how we endure, how
we come back.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Backing up is not the same as backing down.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
She says, you don't have to be the best, the fastest,
or the strongest climber. You just have to be the
person who's absolutely relentless about putting one foot in front
of the other.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That feels like an analogy for life.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So in this episode, we're circling this question, what does
it take to keep going when everything in you and
around you says stop? Because, as Alison teaches us, willpower
is the most important piece of equipment.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You can't buy it. It has to come from your heart.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
It's time to question everything with Alison Levine. I was
so grateful to hear you speak at the AT and
T marketing conference months ago, and you're such a dynamic
public speaker, but they only really give you like twenty
minutes or so, and you didn't share this in your speech,
(03:52):
or I at least didn't hear it at the time.
You were born with a hole in your heart, and
you've had to have three surgeries. You suffer from rainoids, disease,
which is a neurological condition that leaves you at extreme
risk for frost bite. So some would say that mountaineering
seems like a pretty unlikely passion for you, knowing that
(04:14):
you have this incredible risk, what drew you to it?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
It's crazy. I have had three heart surgeries now and
then that rainoes does put me at risk for frostbite.
So I'll tell you how I got started. I grew
up in Phoenix, Arizona, and when I was a kid,
I was obsessed with the stories of the early Arctic
and Antarctic explorers and the early mountaineers. So I would
read these books and I would watch documentary films about Antarctica,
(04:41):
the North Pole, the South Pole, these mountaineers going to
find these big mountain ranges. So I'd read the books
and I would watch the documentaries because it felt like
an escape from the extreme summer heat in Phoenix. So
I loved any story about really cold places. I watched
the films, read the books, never thought I would go
(05:03):
to those places because I had those health challenges, and
as a kid, I always felt shortness of breath and
a pain in my chest, and I had these medical
issues growing up, but I grew up in a very
tough love family, no whining, no crying, no complaining, so
I did not get properly diagnosed until I was seventeen
(05:23):
years old because I didn't want to be a complainer
when I was a kid. But I lost consciousness when
I was seventeen, and the friends that I was with
at the time had the good sense to rush me
to the emergency room, where I was finally properly diagnosed
with this life threatening heart condition. So I had my
first surgery and I turned seventeen. That one did not
(05:44):
go so well, but I had another one when I
turned thirty, and a few months later, this light bulb
went on in my head and I thought, wait a minute.
If I want to know what it's like to be
these explorers going to these remote mountain ranges, then I
should go to the mounds instead of just watching films
about them. If I want to know what it's like
to be Ryan hold Messner and drag a one hundred
(06:06):
and fifty pound sled across six hundred miles of Antarctic ice,
then I should go to Antarctica instead of just reading
about someone else doing it. And if these other guys
can do this stuff, you know, why can't I do
it too? So I climbed my first mountain when I
was thirty two years old, and I'm fifty eight now
and still going.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So I read that it costs fifty thousand dollars to climb.
Everst I didn't know that, so I.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Think now it's around forty or so.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
What made it go down?
Speaker 3 (06:34):
I think that's about the average cost. I don't think
it's gone down. Of course, you can pay fifty or sixty.
There's even people that will charge one hundred or two
hundred thousand dollars. So when I was climbing, the cost
was about twenty thousand dollars a person. And when I
served as the team captain for the first American women's
(06:55):
ever STU expedition, and we were so fortunate to have
the Ford Motor Company come in and sponsor our trip.
So luckily it was all expense paid vacation to Mount Everest.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Can you take me through that first expedition?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yes, So that was an expedition that brings up so
much emotion in me and I think about it because
we were the first team of American women to even
try something like this. We were sponsored by Ford, so
we had all this publicity. Hundreds of media outlets from
all over the world were following our climb, and then
(07:30):
we didn't make it. We missed the summit by about
two hundred and seventy feet because we got caught in
a storm and we lost visibility and we had to
turn back. And it was so hard to spend two
months on that mountain, be that close to the summit
(07:52):
and have to turn back from the goal. But you
always want to air on the side of safety and
making sure that every single part on the team comes
back alive. And it was hard to miss the top
by such a short distance. But what made it even
more painful was coming back to so much media scrutiny
(08:12):
because we were the first men, had all that media
coverage before we went to the mountain. Then we had
to come back and go to all the same TV
shows and talk about this very public failure. And I
was even the butt of Jay Leno's opening monologic, which
did not feel great. And it's so hard to fail
(08:33):
so publicly, and I really internalized this for so long
and felt like we let people down, We disappointed people
because everyone focused on the failure instead of focusing on
the fact that we were the first team of American
women to try something like this. It was an altitude
record for every single member of the team, but everyone
was focused on the failure, and I really internalized that
(08:57):
and let that failure eat at me for so many years.
And then finally, eight years later, I got up the
guts to go back to that mountain and try it again.
And I was climbing in honor of a friend of
mine named Meg Bartee Owen, who had passed away very
unexpectedly and wanted to climb in her honor, so I
(09:17):
engraved her name in my ice axe, went back to
the mountain, made it to the summit, and realized, reflecting
back on that failure from two thousand and two, reaching
the summit of the mountain really wasn't the most important thing.
And I feel like I learned so much more from
that failed experience in two thousand and two, because that
is where I learned about my pain threshold, about my
(09:40):
risk tolerance. That is where I learned what it felt
like to get the living snot kicked out of me
high up on that mountain in a storm. And in
twenty ten, where I did make it. It didn't feel
like this big life changing moment when I got to
the summit, because I realized that so much in life
is about the struggle and the fight and the failures
(10:03):
and how we come back from those failures. And so
when I look at that two thousand and two expedition,
that's really the one that is the most meaningful to me,
even though we didn't make it to the summit.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I was reading that Everest is about twenty nine thousand
feet high, so to be two hundred and fifty feet
short is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Especially after two months. You know all the fundraise and
you find the sponsors, all the training, putting the team together,
getting the logistics together, two months of fighting your way
on that mountain, and then you miss it by that much.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I'm sure there were a lot of lessons in that.
I'm trying to sort of synthesize what you said.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Was it that you now.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Lean into the struggle, that you feel like it's more
about dancing in the rain, so to speak, than it
is about getting to the moment that you build up
in your head. What did you leave that moment thinking about, Well.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That moment when I made it to the summit. There
were so many emotions going through my head. And I
used to be very much one of those go big
or go home, people, Right, We hear that mantra all
the time. Well, when I got to the summit, I
started thinking about all of the people I know that
went big in the mountains and didn't go home, and
(11:30):
that really just it felt like such a piercing jolt
to my heart at that moment, and that's when I
realized that we need to change that mantra from go
big or go home to go big and go home. Right.
So when I was at the top of the mountain,
all I was thinking about was I've got to get
(11:51):
back home safely, go big and go home. Do the
big things, set the crazy goals, take the big risks,
get outside of your comfort zone. But remember, at the
end of the day, the most important thing is coming
back to the people that you love and the people
that you care about and the people that care about you.
(12:12):
And granted, for most people watching this or listening, your
life is not at risk every day. But it's similar
to climbing a big mountain in terms of the stress
we feel every day to achieve big things and to
give it your all and your career in your life.
Like I say, take the big risk, do the big things,
(12:32):
but remember you've got to come home at the end
of the day. You have to have energy left in
you for the people that are important to you. You
can't give everything to your dream because you have to
have something for the people. Right. So that's really what
I was thinking about when I got to the summit,
was I need to get back down alive, and that's
(12:53):
the most important thing, right, Go big and go home.
And I also really thought about the peopleeople that paved
the way before me, that made it possible for people
like me to climb big mountains. And so I started
thinking back to that failure and about how when we
try something really hard and we fail or we don't
(13:15):
have the exact outcome that we wanted at the time,
we are still giving a gift to others because we
are paving the way for other people to climb that mountain,
for other people to achieve really big things because they
see what we've done and they can go as far
(13:35):
as we did and then hopefully go further and achieve
even more. And so we have to embrace our failures
and even be proud of them and realize that every
time we fail, we're laying another stepping stone for somebody
else to achieve something really big.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I've heard you talk about this idea before, and it's
so ego less. I don't think think that most people
could frame.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Failure that way.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I don't know if I'm at the point where I
could frame failure that way. Like I want my dream
so badly, the idea of not getting there and just
paving the way for somebody else to feels absolutely soul crushing.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
How did you get your mind and your heart there?
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Because failure is just one thing that happens to you
at one point in time. That's the way I look
at it. It doesn't define you, and you just use
that failure and come back from it better the next
time around. I really internalize that failure in two thousand
and two because it was so public, right, And so
(14:43):
I will also quote the great philosopher Pitbull, who says,
I do not know the word lose. I only know
the word learn, And so I just have to look
at those failures as an opportunity to learn, so I
can come back next time and be even better. And
(15:04):
when I think about the incredible climbers that have paved
the way in the sport. I think about Sir Edmund
Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Tensing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary
were the first people to stand on top of Mount
Everst in nineteen fifty three. It was Tensing Norgay's seventh
attempt on the mountain, and I thought, you know what,
(15:25):
if that guy can be that persistent and keep going
back and trying again and again and again, certainly I
can go back and try again. And the other thing
I really had to understand is that you do not
have to be the best, fastest, strongest climber out there
on the trails every day. You just have to be
(15:47):
the person who's absolutely relentless about putting one foot in
front of the other. That is who gets to the
top of the mountain. It's the people that will not
quit when it feels incredibly hard, when it feels incredibly uncomfortable,
and it's the people who say, this feels really bad
right now, but I think I can take one more step.
(16:09):
And then after you take that one step, hey wait,
I could take one more. Then you take that step
and then you say, well, wait, I could take one
more and then before you know it, you find yourself episummit,
and that's who gets there. It's the people that will
not quit when it feels really hard. And I would
see these guys, so I'm five three and a half.
I would see these tall guys, six foot two, six
(16:33):
foot four, long legs, big long, strong bodies blowing past
me on the trail, and I would feel so discouraged
and think, maybe this isn't for me, maybe I don't
belong here. And then I realize I don't have to
be as fast as they are. Right, they can get
twice as far as I can with every step. I
don't have to keep up with them. I don't have
(16:53):
to keep their pace. I have to go my pace,
and I have to do this in my own style.
And when you get to the top of Mount Everest,
nobody says how fast did you go? How many steps
did it take you. They just know that you persevered
and you made it. And that's really the most important thing.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
I want to talk about leadership in extreme environments because
you really talk about teamwork a lot in your book
and in the.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Podcasts that you do.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
You said that determination is key, but willpower is the
most essential piece of equipment for survival. How did you
learn to harness willpower as a leadership skill?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
It's so true. I feel like willpower is the most
important piece of equipment. And I got that from a
quote from the first woman whoever climbed Mount Everest, Junko
Taiba from Japan, and she had this quote about technique
and ability alone will not get you to the top.
It is willpower that is the most important thing, and
nobody can give it to you. You cannot buy it.
(17:53):
It has to come from your heart.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Quick question.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
When you set out to do your first expedition, because
you have such a vast knowledge of climbers, did you
deep dive into research of all these other climbers or
did you accumulate this knowledge over time.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I did do a deep dive, just because I've been
reading about these climbers from the time i was a kid,
you know, because I loved the story. So I would
read all about them, and I would read books about
these women. Arlene Blum is a female climber who has
really inspired me over the years. She was the first
person to put together an all female expedition to climb
in eight thousand meter peaks they climbed Anna Pirna, so
(18:31):
I learned a lot about her from her expeditions and
reading about Junko Taibe, this teeny tiny Japanese woman that
was buried in an avalanche during her climb and it
took I think five or six people to dig her
out and she still went on to summit that mountain.
It's incredible. She's so inspiring. So for me, I just
(18:51):
realized that when you feel that will power, that strength
is contageous to the people around you. And so sometimes
even when you're feeling like absolute hell, if people see
that you are still willing to keep going when you
feel like crap, they will still keep going when they
(19:12):
feel like crap, and they're like, yes, we are a team,
you know, And as a leader, you can never expect
the people on your team to be willing to endure
anything that you are not willing to endure. So that
willpower drawing on that, I do feel like that is contagious.
But I want to share a story with you about
(19:32):
a great leadership lesson that has to do with willpower
and enduring discomfort that I learned from one of my mentors,
somebody I just admire and respect so much. His name
is bern tehas an incredibly accomplished climber. I don't even
know how many times he's completed the Seven Summits, now
climbing the highest peak on every continent. He did the
(19:52):
first winter ascent of Denali in Alaska, which this guy
is a badass climber. I was climbing the highest peak
in Europe with him, Mount Elbros. And I was the
only woman on the team. I'm the climb with these big,
strong men. My quads were screaming. I had a horrible
altitude headache. We stopped for a break and Verne said,
(20:13):
how's everybody doing? Everyone? You know, everyone's feeling okay, And
all these guys chimed in, feeling great, feeling strong. Wooo,
let's go. And I'm thinking, why are my quads screaming
at me? Why is my head screaming at me? Why
do I feel like I'm in a vomit from the altitude?
What is wrong with me? Maybe this isn't the sport
for me, Maybe I don't belong here, maybe I'm just
(20:35):
not good enough. Well, so as everyone's saying feeling good,
feeling good, then Verne says, okay, guess it's only me
whose squads are screaming. Guess it's only me who has
the altitude headache. And all of a sudden I felt
if vern Tahas, this incredible climber, is feeling pain on
this climb, and it's okay that I'm feeling it too.
(20:56):
This is how I'm supposed to feel. It's supposed to
be uncomfortable. And when everybody else was chiming in with
how great they felt and how easy this was, that
put doubt in my head about whether or not this
was the sport for me and whether or not I
could do it. And as soon as Verne said, oh yeah, well,
I guess it's only me that's feeling the pain. When
(21:17):
a leader can acknowledge that, when a leader can acknowledge
the discomfort and the challenge and maybe feeling uncertain about
what's going on, I think that inspires the team because
they know that person is human, and they also know
there's nothing wrong with them for feeling uncertain or feeling uncomfortable,
(21:42):
and it's okay to say, look, we don't have perfect
visibility here. That's okay, We're going to put one foot
in front of the other and we're going to get
to the top of the mountain as a team. And
I think that that willpower that you show in times
of uncertainty is contagious to the people around you.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
What are the mental practices that you've built up to
push through those really tough moments. The resilience that you're
talking about, Well.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I'll tell you a lot of it has to do
with how I manage fear, because that's a part of
it too, is managing fear. So obviously, on a mountain,
there's fear of your health. You know, you could get
altitude segments, you could get cerebral edema or pulmonary demon
These things could kill you. Falling into a crevass could
kill you. An avalanche could kill you. Just sliding off
(22:31):
the mountain could kill you. There's all these things that
could kill you. But in our everyday lives, there's fear
about taking risks too. And granted, like I said, these
risks aren't going to kill you, but there's a lot
on the line every single day, right our job, our reputation,
our companies, you know, performance are you know, hitting revenue goals,
(22:55):
market share goals. We all have things we're tasked with
achieving it can create a lot of stress, and the
unknown can produce a lot of fear. And there is
this heart of Mount Everest. If people want to google this,
it's the Kumboo Ice Fall. Google the Kumboo Ice Fall
(23:16):
and you will see one of the scariest parts of
climbing Mount Everest. And you're basically walking over these crevasses
that's been hundreds of feet down. You could fall hundreds
of feet to your death. You're walking over these rickety
aluminum ladders trying to get across the open crevass from
one side of the route to the other. It's very scary.
(23:38):
And you go through the Kumboo Ice Fall multiple times
and I thought, Okay, well it's scary the first time,
maybe the next time I go through it won't be scary. No,
it was scary the second time, and the third time,
and the fourth time. It was scary for me every
single time I went through the kumbo Ice Fall. And
I just had to learn to embrace this mind set
(24:01):
that you can be scared and brave at the same time.
That is really what I had to embrace. Fear is
a normal human emotion. You should allow yourself to feel
that fear, just don't let it stop you in your tracks. Right,
You can be scared and keep going.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
It's the only way.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
It is the only way.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Georgia O'Keefe has this quote.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
She once said, I've been absolutely terrified every moment in
my life, and I've never let it keep me from
doing a single thing I've wanted to do. So when
you say that, fear is okay, even maybe helpful almost,
but complacency is what will kill you. What is the
most terrified you've ever felt by a choice of your own?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Making the most terrified I've ever felt of a choice
outside of the mountains? You mean?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
You know, I've been on the speaking circuit for sixteen
years and I had the same agent that represented me
for sixteen years, and I'm being the most incredible year
this year. The month of October twenty twenty four was
an all time record year for me business wise, and
I just left them, and I'm thinking, what am I doing?
(25:11):
You know, I'm having such a great run, But I
got recruited away by CIA and I just signed with them,
and I'm still going to be doing speaking, which I love,
but I'm pursuing this bucket list goal that I've had
for a number of years, which is to write and
perform a one woman show and take it on tour
all over the country and try to do a national
(25:33):
tour of this one woman show. So I'm so scared
because I had such a good career in this speaking
industry and this is something completely different because the stories
that I want to tell from the stage during my
one woman show involved my expeditions, but they're also about
just a difficult childhood and dealing with a parent who's
extremely mentally ill and having to feel like the parent
(25:56):
my whole life, you know, my whole childhood I felt
like a parent, and sharing some of the more really
vulnerable stories and how my childhood affected sort of my
mentality in the mountains because when I went to the
mountains and I would just be an a tent by
myself on the side of a mountain, I felt very alone,
(26:17):
but I could rationalize it, will I feel alone because
I'm by myself on the side of a mountain and
a tent. I'm doing this climb solo, so that's why
I feel alone. But when I was in my house
growing up, I also felt very, very alone, but I
couldn't rationalize it because I'm thinking, there's other people in
this house, but why do I feel like there's no
one looking out for me? And so I want to
(26:40):
tell the more personal side of my story in this
one woman's show, and I'm so scared to do it
because it's really coming from a very vulnerable place. But
I do have this dream to create this show and
take it on the road, and so I'm really scared
about that.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
As a little plug, I don't think I've ever seen
such a dynamic or engaging public safe speaker as I
did you, and so I can only imagine how great
the one woman show is. It's hard to pull off
a one woman show, but you totally have the charisma
and stage presence and all of it.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I want that message about go big and go home
to be a message in that show because I want
people to take risks and try things and push themselves.
But I want them to remember, at the end of
the day, human connection is the most important thing, and
we can have so much impact on people around us
by just being an encourager and being the person that
(27:36):
can share a few words of support with somebody who's struggling.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Well, that voice that you're listening to now.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It seems like it's been pretty loud ever since you
were a kid, even if you didn't recognize it was
a voice when you were reading these books about mountaineering
or climbing. I'm curious about the opposite voice, the one
that's in your head saying I'm tired, I'm cold, I'm afraid.
I think everybody has the voice that says I'm tired,
i'm cold, I'm afraid, regardless of what industry you're in.
(28:06):
How did you learn to override that voice and listen
to the one that is beating in your heart.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
That voice that tells you I'm tired, I'm cold, and
afraid is the same voice that has to tell you
I know you're tired and cold and afraid, but you
can take one more step. You just have to train
that voice to talk to you differently. That's the thing is, yes,
I'm tired, cold, and afraid. I think it's so important
(28:32):
to acknowledge those feelings because, by the way, when I'm
standing in front of a massive crevasse with a rickety
ladder across it that I have to cross, where if
I fell in it, it could kill me. When I'm
standing at the base of that ladder about to cross it,
and I'm feeling fear and somebody says, don't be scared.
(28:54):
This does not help me at all. When I'm feeling
fear and someone just says don't be scared, no, that
feels dismissive to me.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
It's like when you're mad and someone says, relax or
calm down.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Oh great, now I'm not scared anymore, Thank you so much.
I'm all good. No, that don't be scared doesn't help me.
I have to remember fear is a tool that I
use to propel me forward. Fear keeps me awake, alert,
aware of everything going on around me. And I feel
like if you're in an intimidating situation, a scary situation,
(29:28):
a situation that makes you uncomfortable, that fear can actually
help you. And for most people, if we had to
put our emotions in a bucket, in a positive emotion
bucket or negative emotion bucket, I think most people would
put fear in the negative emotion bucket. They think it's negative.
(29:48):
And I've just really reframed how I think about fear,
and I think fear is the thing that's going to
keep me alive. Fear is the thing that reminds me
that I'm human and that I'm feeling all the things
I'm supposed to be feeling. But that fear doesn't have
to stop me from moving forward. So when that voice says, mm,
(30:11):
this is scary, I don't know. I just trained that
voice to say, but you know what, one more step.
And that's because on one of the very first mountains
I ever climbed, I felt like I needed to turn
around because I felt like I had this altitude headache.
I felt like I was gonna vomit in this mountain.
(30:31):
By the way, was Kellimanjaro, the first mountain I ever
went to. How are we? A lot of people watching
this have been to Kelimanjaro. Thousands and thousands of people
climb it every year. It's the highest peak on the
continent of Africa, so it's one of the seventh summits.
It's the easiest one. So go to Mount Kelimanjaro on
summit day. Altitude headache, feeling sick to my stomach. Oh no,
(30:51):
I'm gonna have to turn around and go down. I'm
definitely going down. Man, what a bummer. Before I go down,
I'm gonna take which is a couple more steps, one
or two more steps, then I'm gonna turn around. So
take my one or two more steps. Okay, still feel horrible.
I'm gonna go down, but let's take a couple more steps.
More steps. Still feel like absolute shit. I know I'm
not gonna make it. I'm gonna have to turn back
(31:13):
because I feel terrible, but just a couple more steps. Well,
before I knew it, I was on the summita Mount
kelliman Jarol, and so I reflect back on that experience,
and I knew that on any mountain after that when
I felt like I'm tired, I'm cold, I can't do this,
I feel sick. Wait a minute, I felt like that
(31:34):
before and I kept going then. And since I did
it before, I know I can do it now. So
you just need that one experience to push through that,
and then you know you can train that voice in
your head that says, uh uh, this is too much
for you to say. It feels like too much for you,
(31:55):
but it doesn't mean that you can't keep going. So
that's how I trained that voice, is looking back on
an experience from the past and thinking I felt like
this before, and I did it, I could do it
again now.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And it's the idea I learned from a child psychologist.
I asked her, how do you create and foster a
confident child? And she said, competence equals confidence doing something
and so recognizing that you've done it before, that you've
felt that way before. What does it mean to climb
like a woman? You said, you're five three and a half.
There are physiological differences. I've heard you talk about sort
(32:30):
of making trades with some of the guys. When you climb,
you'll offer to help them at base camp and they'll
help carry some of the gear.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
How have you sort of negotiated all of this?
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yes, it was an expedition I did where it was
a six hundred mile ski traverse across Antarctica from the
edge of the continent to the South Pole. I trained
as hard as I could possibly train. I read all
the stories about the Antarctic explorers. I did the research.
I did everything I was supposed to do to prepare
(33:02):
for this expedition. When it came down to it, I
could not keep up with my taller, stronger teammates. So
you're skiing six hundred miles across Antarctica with a one
hundred and fifty pounds sled that's harnessed to your waist,
still sled with all your gear and supplies, this has
harness to your waist. For me, at five three and
(33:24):
a half one hundred and ten pounds trying to drag
one hundred and fifty pounds sled, I could not do
that as quickly or as efficiently as my teammates, who
were six foot four two hundred and thirty pounds a
foot taller than me and twice my weight. The law
of physics dictates that people that are that size can
(33:47):
drag one hundred and fifty pounds sled a lot more
quickly and officially than somebody who is my size, And
no amount of determination, will power, mindset nothing was going
to change the fact that I could not keep up
with these guys with their long legs right on the skis,
going so much further than I could with every step,
(34:09):
and there was nothing I could do to change that. Well,
my twice my sized teammates recognized that I was struggling
with the weight of my sled, and they actually offered
to take some weight out of my sled, now making
their sleds heavier, making their job harder in order to
help me their teammate. And that meant so much to
(34:31):
me that they were willing to do that. So of
course I immediately started thinking, what am I going to do
to pay these guys back. Well, what I found was
that these tall guys, at the end of the day,
so you're skiing for twelve to fifteen hours, you are
absolutely exhausted dragging the sled. You pitch your tint. Then
you have to build a snow barricade around your tent
(34:52):
to protect it from the elements. And what I noticed
was these tall guys they were struggling to you make
the snow barricade because you use a very short snow shovel.
So these guys were struggling and wrenching their backs, bending
over trying to build the snow barricades. Well, at five
(35:13):
foot three and a half, I am closer to the ground.
I can use a short snow shovel a lot more
easily than these tall guys. So I then became the
person who made the snow barricades, and I shoveled the snow,
and I made the ice bricks for them and became
the barricade maker. And it was a way that I
could play to my strength and found that this was
(35:34):
a way I could contribute, and it really changed my
mindset for the trip, because initially I thought I am
a horrible teammate because I am not as physically strong
as these guys. I have nothing to offer. I am
not a contributor. I am not a valuable asset to
this team. But when I stopped trying to compare myself
to areas where they were strong, and I focused on
(35:58):
my strength, I found it area where my size, my
small size, was actually an asset and not a liability.
My small size was a strength. And it took me
a while to discover that. But once I started building
the barricades, I felt like I was contributing. I realized
that I was a valuable asset to this team, and
(36:19):
it was such a great lesson because we have to
realize we all have an area where we can shine.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I've heard you say look for teammates with big egos,
and when you're making progress, turn around and change direction.
Hearing those both of them, most people would say the
exact opposite. Why when you're making progress turn around and
change direction? And why look for teammates with big egos.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Okay, I'm gonna start with the teammates with big egos.
And this is something I learned from Coach K Mike Rzewski,
who wrote the ford for my books. So for anyone
listening who's not familiar with Coach K, he's the former
head men's basketball coach at Duke University and the winning
is coach in the history of Division one men's college basketball.
I was fortunate enough to serve on the board of
(37:09):
the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics for a
number of years, so I got to interact with Coach
K a bit. And I remember this one meeting our
board had with him when he had just come back
from coaching the US national team. They won a gold
medal in the Olympics. They just come back and he
was talking about what he looks for when he's recruiting
(37:29):
a team, and he said one of the things that
he looks for is ego. And I thought, well, of course,
because you read those guys out right, you look for
that and then get rid of those guys. And he
said no, he said, you want ego, and I thought
that doesn't make any sense. Come on. He went on
to explain it and then it made a lot of sense.
(37:51):
He said that when he's recruiting a team, there's two
kinds of ego that he looks for. The first is
what he calls performance ego. He said, I want people
who are good and who know that they're good. He said,
I don't want Lebron James to come out onto the
court and be a wis. I need him to be
Lebron James with all of the Lebron James confidence that
(38:12):
goes with him. And I thought, okay, that actually does
make sense, because I definitely don't want to be climbing
Mount Everest with a bunch of teammates who are thinking,
I don't really know about this. You know this mountain
looks really high. You want teammates who are like, yeah,
we're gonna do this. You know we've got this. So
that's performance ego. That's the first kind of ego that
Coach K looks for. The other kind of ego that
(38:34):
he looks for is what he calls team ego. And
he said, I want people on my team who are
going to be proud to be a part of something
that collectively feels more important than the individual alone. Right,
So name on the front of the uniform. Tamusa is
more important than the name on the back of the uniform.
(38:56):
And that made sense to me too, because what I
was recruiting for the first American women's ever sexpedition, I
wanted women who were going to be proud to be
a part of the first American women's ever sexpedition, where
the American flag on their sleeve, you know. I wanted
that sense a yes, we're a team and we're doing this.
(39:16):
So that's where I learned about ego was from Coach
k and I thought, this actually does make sense. And
then what you asked about having to turn around and
change direction when you're making progress, and this goes back
to the process of climbing Mount Everest. You start at
base camp, and then you go up to Camp one,
(39:36):
and you come back down, and then you go up
higher and you come back down, and you know that
you need to be going this way to get to
the top of the mountain, but you're spending a heck
of a lot of time climbing down the mountain back
down to base camp to acclimatize, and a lot of
people get very frustrated with that process because they feel
(39:59):
like they're losing ground. And they put so much effort
into climbing up to Camp three at twenty four thousand
feet above sea level, and now they're all the way
back down at base camp at seventeen thousand, five hundred
feet above sea level, and they feel like they're losing ground.
But what I remind people of is that just because
(40:21):
you're going in a different direction than where you thought
you needed to go to achieve your goal, this is
not losing ground. This is your opportunity when you go
back to base camp to regroup, regain some strength so
you're better out of the gates the next time round.
(40:42):
I have a phrase that I've actually trademarked, which is
that backing up is not the same as backing down, Right,
it's not. Sometimes you have to back up and change direction,
and sometimes progress doesn't always look like progress. But if
changing direction is something that is going to give you
an opportunity to regroup, catch your breath, reframe things, look
(41:08):
at the route differently, this is all part of gaining strength,
This is all part of making you better. So sometimes
you do have to change direction in order to make progress.
This is not backing down. This is not giving up.
This is not losing ground. You look at this direction
(41:29):
change as part of the progress. So maybe you interviewed
for a job that you didn't get, maybe a goot
transferred to a different division that you didn't want to
be in. Look at that opportunity and think, what can
I do right now in this position that maybe I
didn't think I would find myself in this position that
(41:50):
I would not have chosen for myself. What can I
do with this opportunity so that I'm better positioned for
success going forward? And that's how you look at those
direction changes.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
I have a few rapid fire questions for you. What's
one thing that every woman should try?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
One thing every woman should try writing their name in
the snow when they pee. And there's actually a device
that we use in mountaineering that allows that. I call
this the p funnel. This device actually allows women to
urinate standing up, so we can write our name in
the snow. And the best thing about this device is
(42:36):
that even in freezing cold temperatures, it stays this long.
If you ever wanted to know what the big deal
was about being able to pee your name in the snow,
this is your solution. You can find out so there
you go.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
What is something simple that you do for yourself that
makes a big impact on your life.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Something simple I do for myself that makes a big
impact is just snow uggling with my dog. It sets
my mood for the day if I can just get
a snuggle. And the crazy thing is I have a
dog that's not affectionate and it kills me. And he's
a lab, which is really unusual. So we have forced
cuddle time and I grab him and I'm like, you're
(43:15):
gonna cuddle with me, and we cuddle. But I feel
like that sets my intention for the day. I'm like, oh,
I got some love, just a little intention for the day.
And then the other thing is my husband and I
when I'm in town, we always do morning hug. That's
how I start off the day every morning, stand up
morning hug. It's a great way to start your day
with a hug. But it doesn't have to be a
physical hug if you don't have somebody there, it can
(43:37):
just be a quick text to somebody just get send
you a virtual hug. And so I think that's another
thing that you can do every day because when you
make someone else feel good, doesn't that make you feel good.
And if you wake up every day and you start
your day sending a text to somebody just giving them
a little boost and a little bit of encouragement, that
(43:58):
not only makes their day, I think it can make
your day too.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
What is the best financial tip or philosophy that you
think more women should know about.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I'm going to pivot this to the worst financial tip
and just do the opposite. I think the worst financial
tip is do what you love and the money will come. No. No,
you know what I love hanging out with dogs, Petting dogs,
That's what I love. I'm not going to be able
to pay my mortgage petting dogs. So a tip I
have is take the job that you don't have to
(44:29):
be incredibly passionate about the job itself. Because I've had
many jobs that I wasn't passionate about the job. But
you know what, I loved the people. You know what
I loved the opportunity to learn. You know what, I
loved being in a situation that made me uncomfortable where
I knew I had to grow. So my financial tip
(44:49):
is take the opportunities that you might not be super
passionate about, because sometimes those opportunities will surprise you, and
you will learn from those opportunities, and years down the road,
when you've made all the money and you've had all
these success then you can focus on doing what you love.
But sometimes you have to do what you don't love
(45:10):
in order to make the money to allow you to
do the things that you love down the road.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Is that how you felt about finance?
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Yes, I did not like my job on Wall Street
at all, but I loved the people. I loved the
people so much. I was working alongside with green berets,
concert pianists, Olympic medalists. I worked with such interesting people,
and I didn't love the job, But what I did
(45:39):
love was the culture of being a clutch player. And
what I mean by that is the people there delivered.
When they said they were going to do something, they
got it done. When they said they were going to
have a report finished, they got it finished. And you
knew that when somebody said they were going to do
something that you could count on them. And I placed
(46:00):
a very high value on that. And there's a chapter
in my book that talks about having a personal mantra.
Have a phrase or a few words that describes who
you are at your core. My mantra is count on me.
I am the person that shows up. I'm the person
who delivers. I'm the person that does not break my promises.
And so being on Wall Street, I appreciated the culture
(46:25):
of the people that I worked with at Goldman Sachs.
Even though I didn't love the job, I loved the people.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I like having a personal mantra. I've thought about a
personal mission statement a lot, but not really a mantra,
and I think that's easier to access. That's really interesting.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
It's what do you want people to think about you?
If you have to describe who you are at your
core and the way you want people to think about you.
For me, it's count on me. I want people to
know that I'm in a deliver for them.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
That's really cool. Okay.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
A book that should be required reading, or something that
you've read that has just really changed your life.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Oh my gosh, a book that changed my life. Victor
frankel Man search for meaning about his experience as a
Holocaust survivor.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Hey, I have a card game, and because we're virtual,
I'm just going to have you say stop whenever you
feel okay, stop, Okay. What's the one song that without fail,
gets you dancing.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Oh my gosh, I think Taylor's stuffs shake it off.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
That's so great, Allison. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Thank you so much for having me my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
To have a good day. I'll see you next week
No one has all the answers, but when we ask
the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Danielle Robe and each week, my guests and I come
together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And who says?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
So? Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's
time to question everything. Hello, everybody, I hope you're having
a fabulous week. I just want to let you know
that this is the type of episode that you're going
to want to share. And I don't say that to
(00:50):
spread the word about the podcast. I say that because
it's the kind of episode I wanted to share. It
was hard for me to hold on to this recording
and not put it out faster. There are so many
life lessons and quotes and moments from this interview that matter.
Our guest today, Alison Levine, who you are going to
(01:11):
hear about and hear from. She's one of the most
unbelievable people I've ever interviewed. So I don't want to
talk a lot at the top of the show because
I want to climb in.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Picture.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
This the first American women's expedition on Mount Everest. They've
been climbing for nearly two months.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Every step is.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
A battle, body's aching, the oxygen is thin. Their eyes
are on the summit, and then just two hundred and
seventy feet from the top of the world, a storm
rolls in visibility completely disappears, and someone has to make
the call. That someone is Alison Levine.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
It's so hard to fail so publicly, and I really
internalize this for so long.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Allison is a mountaineer, a polar explorer, a leadership expert,
and a professor at West Point. She's skied across Antarctica
and stood at the South Pole. She's climbed the tallest
peaks on every single continent. But perhaps her greatest climb
wasn't physical. It was the mental mountain of going back.
(02:22):
Because eight years after that public failure, she returned to Everest.
This time she made it to the summit, but what
happened up there surprised her.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
The summit of the mountain really wasn't the most important thing,
and I feel like I learned so much more from
that failed experience. In two thousand and two.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
She realized that the goal isn't just about reaching the top.
It's about how we show up, how we endure, how
we come back.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Backing up is not the same as backing down.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
She says, you don't have to be the best, the fastest,
or the strongest climber. You just have to be the
person who's absolutely relentless about putting one foot in front
of the other.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That feels like an analogy for life.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So in this episode, we're circling this question, what does
it take to keep going when everything in you and
around you says stop? Because, as Alison teaches us, willpower
is the most important piece of equipment.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You can't buy it. It has to come from your heart.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
It's time to question everything with Alison Levine. I was
so grateful to hear you speak at the AT and
T marketing conference months ago, and you're such a dynamic
public speaker, but they only really give you like twenty
minutes or so, and you didn't share this in your speech,
(03:52):
or I at least didn't hear it at the time.
You were born with a hole in your heart, and
you've had to have three surgeries. You suffer from rainoids, disease,
which is a neurological condition that leaves you at extreme
risk for frost bite. So some would say that mountaineering
seems like a pretty unlikely passion for you, knowing that
(04:14):
you have this incredible risk, what drew you to it?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
It's crazy. I have had three heart surgeries now and
then that rainoes does put me at risk for frostbite.
So I'll tell you how I got started. I grew
up in Phoenix, Arizona, and when I was a kid,
I was obsessed with the stories of the early Arctic
and Antarctic explorers and the early mountaineers. So I would
read these books and I would watch documentary films about Antarctica,
(04:41):
the North Pole, the South Pole, these mountaineers going to
find these big mountain ranges. So I'd read the books
and I would watch the documentaries because it felt like
an escape from the extreme summer heat in Phoenix. So
I loved any story about really cold places. I watched
the films, read the books, never thought I would go
(05:03):
to those places because I had those health challenges, and
as a kid, I always felt shortness of breath and
a pain in my chest, and I had these medical
issues growing up, but I grew up in a very
tough love family, no whining, no crying, no complaining, so
I did not get properly diagnosed until I was seventeen
(05:23):
years old because I didn't want to be a complainer
when I was a kid. But I lost consciousness when
I was seventeen, and the friends that I was with
at the time had the good sense to rush me
to the emergency room, where I was finally properly diagnosed
with this life threatening heart condition. So I had my
first surgery and I turned seventeen. That one did not
(05:44):
go so well, but I had another one when I
turned thirty, and a few months later, this light bulb
went on in my head and I thought, wait a minute.
If I want to know what it's like to be
these explorers going to these remote mountain ranges, then I
should go to the mounds instead of just watching films
about them. If I want to know what it's like
to be Ryan hold Messner and drag a one hundred
(06:06):
and fifty pound sled across six hundred miles of Antarctic ice,
then I should go to Antarctica instead of just reading
about someone else doing it. And if these other guys
can do this stuff, you know, why can't I do
it too? So I climbed my first mountain when I
was thirty two years old, and I'm fifty eight now
and still going.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So I read that it costs fifty thousand dollars to climb.
Everst I didn't know that, so I.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Think now it's around forty or so.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
What made it go down?
Speaker 3 (06:34):
I think that's about the average cost. I don't think
it's gone down. Of course, you can pay fifty or sixty.
There's even people that will charge one hundred or two
hundred thousand dollars. So when I was climbing, the cost
was about twenty thousand dollars a person. And when I
served as the team captain for the first American women's
(06:55):
ever STU expedition, and we were so fortunate to have
the Ford Motor Company come in and sponsor our trip.
So luckily it was all expense paid vacation to Mount Everest.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Can you take me through that first expedition?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yes, So that was an expedition that brings up so
much emotion in me and I think about it because
we were the first team of American women to even
try something like this. We were sponsored by Ford, so
we had all this publicity. Hundreds of media outlets from
all over the world were following our climb, and then
(07:30):
we didn't make it. We missed the summit by about
two hundred and seventy feet because we got caught in
a storm and we lost visibility and we had to
turn back. And it was so hard to spend two
months on that mountain, be that close to the summit
(07:52):
and have to turn back from the goal. But you
always want to air on the side of safety and
making sure that every single part on the team comes
back alive. And it was hard to miss the top
by such a short distance. But what made it even
more painful was coming back to so much media scrutiny
(08:12):
because we were the first men, had all that media
coverage before we went to the mountain. Then we had
to come back and go to all the same TV
shows and talk about this very public failure. And I
was even the butt of Jay Leno's opening monologic, which
did not feel great. And it's so hard to fail
(08:33):
so publicly, and I really internalized this for so long
and felt like we let people down, We disappointed people
because everyone focused on the failure instead of focusing on
the fact that we were the first team of American
women to try something like this. It was an altitude
record for every single member of the team, but everyone
was focused on the failure, and I really internalized that
(08:57):
and let that failure eat at me for so many years.
And then finally, eight years later, I got up the
guts to go back to that mountain and try it again.
And I was climbing in honor of a friend of
mine named Meg Bartee Owen, who had passed away very
unexpectedly and wanted to climb in her honor, so I
(09:17):
engraved her name in my ice axe, went back to
the mountain, made it to the summit, and realized, reflecting
back on that failure from two thousand and two, reaching
the summit of the mountain really wasn't the most important thing.
And I feel like I learned so much more from
that failed experience in two thousand and two, because that
is where I learned about my pain threshold, about my
(09:40):
risk tolerance. That is where I learned what it felt
like to get the living snot kicked out of me
high up on that mountain in a storm. And in
twenty ten, where I did make it. It didn't feel
like this big life changing moment when I got to
the summit, because I realized that so much in life
is about the struggle and the fight and the failures
(10:03):
and how we come back from those failures. And so
when I look at that two thousand and two expedition,
that's really the one that is the most meaningful to me,
even though we didn't make it to the summit.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I was reading that Everest is about twenty nine thousand
feet high, so to be two hundred and fifty feet
short is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Especially after two months. You know all the fundraise and
you find the sponsors, all the training, putting the team together,
getting the logistics together, two months of fighting your way
on that mountain, and then you miss it by that much.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I'm sure there were a lot of lessons in that.
I'm trying to sort of synthesize what you said.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Was it that you now.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Lean into the struggle, that you feel like it's more
about dancing in the rain, so to speak, than it
is about getting to the moment that you build up
in your head. What did you leave that moment thinking about, Well.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That moment when I made it to the summit. There
were so many emotions going through my head. And I
used to be very much one of those go big
or go home, people, Right, We hear that mantra all
the time. Well, when I got to the summit, I
started thinking about all of the people I know that
went big in the mountains and didn't go home, and
(11:30):
that really just it felt like such a piercing jolt
to my heart at that moment, and that's when I
realized that we need to change that mantra from go
big or go home to go big and go home. Right.
So when I was at the top of the mountain,
all I was thinking about was I've got to get
(11:51):
back home safely, go big and go home. Do the
big things, set the crazy goals, take the big risks,
get outside of your comfort zone. But remember, at the
end of the day, the most important thing is coming
back to the people that you love and the people
that you care about and the people that care about you.
(12:12):
And granted, for most people watching this or listening, your
life is not at risk every day. But it's similar
to climbing a big mountain in terms of the stress
we feel every day to achieve big things and to
give it your all and your career in your life.
Like I say, take the big risk, do the big things,
(12:32):
but remember you've got to come home at the end
of the day. You have to have energy left in
you for the people that are important to you. You
can't give everything to your dream because you have to
have something for the people. Right. So that's really what
I was thinking about when I got to the summit,
was I need to get back down alive, and that's
(12:53):
the most important thing, right, Go big and go home.
And I also really thought about the peopleeople that paved
the way before me, that made it possible for people
like me to climb big mountains. And so I started
thinking back to that failure and about how when we
try something really hard and we fail or we don't
(13:15):
have the exact outcome that we wanted at the time,
we are still giving a gift to others because we
are paving the way for other people to climb that mountain,
for other people to achieve really big things because they
see what we've done and they can go as far
(13:35):
as we did and then hopefully go further and achieve
even more. And so we have to embrace our failures
and even be proud of them and realize that every
time we fail, we're laying another stepping stone for somebody
else to achieve something really big.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I've heard you talk about this idea before, and it's
so ego less. I don't think think that most people
could frame.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Failure that way.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I don't know if I'm at the point where I
could frame failure that way. Like I want my dream
so badly, the idea of not getting there and just
paving the way for somebody else to feels absolutely soul crushing.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
How did you get your mind and your heart there?
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Because failure is just one thing that happens to you
at one point in time. That's the way I look
at it. It doesn't define you, and you just use
that failure and come back from it better the next
time around. I really internalize that failure in two thousand
and two because it was so public, right, And so
(14:43):
I will also quote the great philosopher Pitbull, who says,
I do not know the word lose. I only know
the word learn, And so I just have to look
at those failures as an opportunity to learn, so I
can come back next time and be even better. And
(15:04):
when I think about the incredible climbers that have paved
the way in the sport. I think about Sir Edmund
Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Tensing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary
were the first people to stand on top of Mount
Everst in nineteen fifty three. It was Tensing Norgay's seventh
attempt on the mountain, and I thought, you know what,
(15:25):
if that guy can be that persistent and keep going
back and trying again and again and again, certainly I
can go back and try again. And the other thing
I really had to understand is that you do not
have to be the best, fastest, strongest climber out there
on the trails every day. You just have to be
(15:47):
the person who's absolutely relentless about putting one foot in
front of the other. That is who gets to the
top of the mountain. It's the people that will not
quit when it feels incredibly hard, when it feels incredibly uncomfortable,
and it's the people who say, this feels really bad
right now, but I think I can take one more step.
(16:09):
And then after you take that one step, hey wait,
I could take one more. Then you take that step
and then you say, well, wait, I could take one
more and then before you know it, you find yourself episummit,
and that's who gets there. It's the people that will
not quit when it feels really hard. And I would
see these guys, so I'm five three and a half.
I would see these tall guys, six foot two, six
(16:33):
foot four, long legs, big long, strong bodies blowing past
me on the trail, and I would feel so discouraged
and think, maybe this isn't for me, maybe I don't
belong here. And then I realize I don't have to
be as fast as they are. Right, they can get
twice as far as I can with every step. I
don't have to keep up with them. I don't have
(16:53):
to keep their pace. I have to go my pace,
and I have to do this in my own style.
And when you get to the top of Mount Everest,
nobody says how fast did you go? How many steps
did it take you. They just know that you persevered
and you made it. And that's really the most important thing.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
I want to talk about leadership in extreme environments because
you really talk about teamwork a lot in your book
and in the.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Podcasts that you do.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
You said that determination is key, but willpower is the
most essential piece of equipment for survival. How did you
learn to harness willpower as a leadership skill?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
It's so true. I feel like willpower is the most
important piece of equipment. And I got that from a
quote from the first woman whoever climbed Mount Everest, Junko
Taiba from Japan, and she had this quote about technique
and ability alone will not get you to the top.
It is willpower that is the most important thing, and
nobody can give it to you. You cannot buy it.
(17:53):
It has to come from your heart.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Quick question.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
When you set out to do your first expedition, because
you have such a vast knowledge of climbers, did you
deep dive into research of all these other climbers or
did you accumulate this knowledge over time.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I did do a deep dive, just because I've been
reading about these climbers from the time i was a kid,
you know, because I loved the story. So I would
read all about them, and I would read books about
these women. Arlene Blum is a female climber who has
really inspired me over the years. She was the first
person to put together an all female expedition to climb
in eight thousand meter peaks they climbed Anna Pirna, so
(18:31):
I learned a lot about her from her expeditions and
reading about Junko Taibe, this teeny tiny Japanese woman that
was buried in an avalanche during her climb and it
took I think five or six people to dig her
out and she still went on to summit that mountain.
It's incredible. She's so inspiring. So for me, I just
(18:51):
realized that when you feel that will power, that strength
is contageous to the people around you. And so sometimes
even when you're feeling like absolute hell, if people see
that you are still willing to keep going when you
feel like crap, they will still keep going when they
(19:12):
feel like crap, and they're like, yes, we are a team,
you know, And as a leader, you can never expect
the people on your team to be willing to endure
anything that you are not willing to endure. So that
willpower drawing on that, I do feel like that is contagious.
But I want to share a story with you about
(19:32):
a great leadership lesson that has to do with willpower
and enduring discomfort that I learned from one of my mentors,
somebody I just admire and respect so much. His name
is bern tehas an incredibly accomplished climber. I don't even
know how many times he's completed the Seven Summits, now
climbing the highest peak on every continent. He did the
(19:52):
first winter ascent of Denali in Alaska, which this guy
is a badass climber. I was climbing the highest peak
in Europe with him, Mount Elbros. And I was the
only woman on the team. I'm the climb with these big,
strong men. My quads were screaming. I had a horrible
altitude headache. We stopped for a break and Verne said,
(20:13):
how's everybody doing? Everyone? You know, everyone's feeling okay, And
all these guys chimed in, feeling great, feeling strong. Wooo,
let's go. And I'm thinking, why are my quads screaming
at me? Why is my head screaming at me? Why
do I feel like I'm in a vomit from the altitude?
What is wrong with me? Maybe this isn't the sport
for me, Maybe I don't belong here, maybe I'm just
(20:35):
not good enough. Well, so as everyone's saying feeling good,
feeling good, then Verne says, okay, guess it's only me
whose squads are screaming. Guess it's only me who has
the altitude headache. And all of a sudden I felt
if vern Tahas, this incredible climber, is feeling pain on
this climb, and it's okay that I'm feeling it too.
(20:56):
This is how I'm supposed to feel. It's supposed to
be uncomfortable. And when everybody else was chiming in with
how great they felt and how easy this was, that
put doubt in my head about whether or not this
was the sport for me and whether or not I
could do it. And as soon as Verne said, oh yeah, well,
I guess it's only me that's feeling the pain. When
(21:17):
a leader can acknowledge that, when a leader can acknowledge
the discomfort and the challenge and maybe feeling uncertain about
what's going on, I think that inspires the team because
they know that person is human, and they also know
there's nothing wrong with them for feeling uncertain or feeling uncomfortable,
(21:42):
and it's okay to say, look, we don't have perfect
visibility here. That's okay, We're going to put one foot
in front of the other and we're going to get
to the top of the mountain as a team. And
I think that that willpower that you show in times
of uncertainty is contagious to the people around you.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
What are the mental practices that you've built up to
push through those really tough moments. The resilience that you're
talking about, Well.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I'll tell you a lot of it has to do
with how I manage fear, because that's a part of
it too, is managing fear. So obviously, on a mountain,
there's fear of your health. You know, you could get
altitude segments, you could get cerebral edema or pulmonary demon
These things could kill you. Falling into a crevass could
kill you. An avalanche could kill you. Just sliding off
(22:31):
the mountain could kill you. There's all these things that
could kill you. But in our everyday lives, there's fear
about taking risks too. And granted, like I said, these
risks aren't going to kill you, but there's a lot
on the line every single day, right our job, our reputation,
our companies, you know, performance are you know, hitting revenue goals,
(22:55):
market share goals. We all have things we're tasked with
achieving it can create a lot of stress, and the
unknown can produce a lot of fear. And there is
this heart of Mount Everest. If people want to google this,
it's the Kumboo Ice Fall. Google the Kumboo Ice Fall
(23:16):
and you will see one of the scariest parts of
climbing Mount Everest. And you're basically walking over these crevasses
that's been hundreds of feet down. You could fall hundreds
of feet to your death. You're walking over these rickety
aluminum ladders trying to get across the open crevass from
one side of the route to the other. It's very scary.
(23:38):
And you go through the Kumboo Ice Fall multiple times
and I thought, Okay, well it's scary the first time,
maybe the next time I go through it won't be scary. No,
it was scary the second time, and the third time,
and the fourth time. It was scary for me every
single time I went through the kumbo Ice Fall. And
I just had to learn to embrace this mind set
(24:01):
that you can be scared and brave at the same time.
That is really what I had to embrace. Fear is
a normal human emotion. You should allow yourself to feel
that fear, just don't let it stop you in your tracks. Right,
You can be scared and keep going.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
It's the only way.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
It is the only way.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Georgia O'Keefe has this quote.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
She once said, I've been absolutely terrified every moment in
my life, and I've never let it keep me from
doing a single thing I've wanted to do. So when
you say that, fear is okay, even maybe helpful almost,
but complacency is what will kill you. What is the
most terrified you've ever felt by a choice of your own?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Making the most terrified I've ever felt of a choice
outside of the mountains? You mean?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
You know, I've been on the speaking circuit for sixteen
years and I had the same agent that represented me
for sixteen years, and I'm being the most incredible year
this year. The month of October twenty twenty four was
an all time record year for me business wise, and
I just left them, and I'm thinking, what am I doing?
(25:11):
You know, I'm having such a great run, But I
got recruited away by CIA and I just signed with them,
and I'm still going to be doing speaking, which I love,
but I'm pursuing this bucket list goal that I've had
for a number of years, which is to write and
perform a one woman show and take it on tour
all over the country and try to do a national
(25:33):
tour of this one woman show. So I'm so scared
because I had such a good career in this speaking
industry and this is something completely different because the stories
that I want to tell from the stage during my
one woman show involved my expeditions, but they're also about
just a difficult childhood and dealing with a parent who's
extremely mentally ill and having to feel like the parent
(25:56):
my whole life, you know, my whole childhood I felt
like a parent, and sharing some of the more really
vulnerable stories and how my childhood affected sort of my
mentality in the mountains because when I went to the
mountains and I would just be an a tent by
myself on the side of a mountain, I felt very alone,
(26:17):
but I could rationalize it, will I feel alone because
I'm by myself on the side of a mountain and
a tent. I'm doing this climb solo, so that's why
I feel alone. But when I was in my house
growing up, I also felt very, very alone, but I
couldn't rationalize it because I'm thinking, there's other people in
this house, but why do I feel like there's no
one looking out for me? And so I want to
(26:40):
tell the more personal side of my story in this
one woman's show, and I'm so scared to do it
because it's really coming from a very vulnerable place. But
I do have this dream to create this show and
take it on the road, and so I'm really scared
about that.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
As a little plug, I don't think I've ever seen
such a dynamic or engaging public safe speaker as I
did you, and so I can only imagine how great
the one woman show is. It's hard to pull off
a one woman show, but you totally have the charisma
and stage presence and all of it.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I want that message about go big and go home
to be a message in that show because I want
people to take risks and try things and push themselves.
But I want them to remember, at the end of
the day, human connection is the most important thing, and
we can have so much impact on people around us
by just being an encourager and being the person that
(27:36):
can share a few words of support with somebody who's struggling.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Well, that voice that you're listening to now.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It seems like it's been pretty loud ever since you
were a kid, even if you didn't recognize it was
a voice when you were reading these books about mountaineering
or climbing. I'm curious about the opposite voice, the one
that's in your head saying I'm tired, I'm cold, I'm afraid.
I think everybody has the voice that says I'm tired,
i'm cold, I'm afraid, regardless of what industry you're in.
(28:06):
How did you learn to override that voice and listen
to the one that is beating in your heart.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
That voice that tells you I'm tired, I'm cold, and
afraid is the same voice that has to tell you
I know you're tired and cold and afraid, but you
can take one more step. You just have to train
that voice to talk to you differently. That's the thing is, yes,
I'm tired, cold, and afraid. I think it's so important
(28:32):
to acknowledge those feelings because, by the way, when I'm
standing in front of a massive crevasse with a rickety
ladder across it that I have to cross, where if
I fell in it, it could kill me. When I'm
standing at the base of that ladder about to cross it,
and I'm feeling fear and somebody says, don't be scared.
(28:54):
This does not help me at all. When I'm feeling
fear and someone just says don't be scared, no, that
feels dismissive to me.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
It's like when you're mad and someone says, relax or
calm down.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Oh great, now I'm not scared anymore, Thank you so much.
I'm all good. No, that don't be scared doesn't help me.
I have to remember fear is a tool that I
use to propel me forward. Fear keeps me awake, alert,
aware of everything going on around me. And I feel
like if you're in an intimidating situation, a scary situation,
(29:28):
a situation that makes you uncomfortable, that fear can actually
help you. And for most people, if we had to
put our emotions in a bucket, in a positive emotion
bucket or negative emotion bucket, I think most people would
put fear in the negative emotion bucket. They think it's negative.
(29:48):
And I've just really reframed how I think about fear,
and I think fear is the thing that's going to
keep me alive. Fear is the thing that reminds me
that I'm human and that I'm feeling all the things
I'm supposed to be feeling. But that fear doesn't have
to stop me from moving forward. So when that voice says, mm,
(30:11):
this is scary, I don't know. I just trained that
voice to say, but you know what, one more step.
And that's because on one of the very first mountains
I ever climbed, I felt like I needed to turn
around because I felt like I had this altitude headache.
I felt like I was gonna vomit in this mountain.
(30:31):
By the way, was Kellimanjaro, the first mountain I ever
went to. How are we? A lot of people watching
this have been to Kelimanjaro. Thousands and thousands of people
climb it every year. It's the highest peak on the
continent of Africa, so it's one of the seventh summits.
It's the easiest one. So go to Mount Kelimanjaro on
summit day. Altitude headache, feeling sick to my stomach. Oh no,
(30:51):
I'm gonna have to turn around and go down. I'm
definitely going down. Man, what a bummer. Before I go down,
I'm gonna take which is a couple more steps, one
or two more steps, then I'm gonna turn around. So
take my one or two more steps. Okay, still feel horrible.
I'm gonna go down, but let's take a couple more steps.
More steps. Still feel like absolute shit. I know I'm
not gonna make it. I'm gonna have to turn back
(31:13):
because I feel terrible, but just a couple more steps. Well,
before I knew it, I was on the summita Mount
kelliman Jarol, and so I reflect back on that experience,
and I knew that on any mountain after that when
I felt like I'm tired, I'm cold, I can't do this,
I feel sick. Wait a minute, I felt like that
(31:34):
before and I kept going then. And since I did
it before, I know I can do it now. So
you just need that one experience to push through that,
and then you know you can train that voice in
your head that says, uh uh, this is too much
for you to say. It feels like too much for you,
(31:55):
but it doesn't mean that you can't keep going. So
that's how I trained that voice, is looking back on
an experience from the past and thinking I felt like
this before, and I did it, I could do it
again now.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And it's the idea I learned from a child psychologist.
I asked her, how do you create and foster a
confident child? And she said, competence equals confidence doing something
and so recognizing that you've done it before, that you've
felt that way before. What does it mean to climb
like a woman? You said, you're five three and a half.
There are physiological differences. I've heard you talk about sort
(32:30):
of making trades with some of the guys. When you climb,
you'll offer to help them at base camp and they'll
help carry some of the gear.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
How have you sort of negotiated all of this?
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yes, it was an expedition I did where it was
a six hundred mile ski traverse across Antarctica from the
edge of the continent to the South Pole. I trained
as hard as I could possibly train. I read all
the stories about the Antarctic explorers. I did the research.
I did everything I was supposed to do to prepare
(33:02):
for this expedition. When it came down to it, I
could not keep up with my taller, stronger teammates. So
you're skiing six hundred miles across Antarctica with a one
hundred and fifty pounds sled that's harnessed to your waist,
still sled with all your gear and supplies, this has
harness to your waist. For me, at five three and
(33:24):
a half one hundred and ten pounds trying to drag
one hundred and fifty pounds sled, I could not do
that as quickly or as efficiently as my teammates, who
were six foot four two hundred and thirty pounds a
foot taller than me and twice my weight. The law
of physics dictates that people that are that size can
(33:47):
drag one hundred and fifty pounds sled a lot more
quickly and officially than somebody who is my size, And
no amount of determination, will power, mindset nothing was going
to change the fact that I could not keep up
with these guys with their long legs right on the skis,
going so much further than I could with every step,
(34:09):
and there was nothing I could do to change that. Well,
my twice my sized teammates recognized that I was struggling
with the weight of my sled, and they actually offered
to take some weight out of my sled, now making
their sleds heavier, making their job harder in order to
help me their teammate. And that meant so much to
(34:31):
me that they were willing to do that. So of
course I immediately started thinking, what am I going to do
to pay these guys back. Well, what I found was
that these tall guys, at the end of the day,
so you're skiing for twelve to fifteen hours, you are
absolutely exhausted dragging the sled. You pitch your tint. Then
you have to build a snow barricade around your tent
(34:52):
to protect it from the elements. And what I noticed
was these tall guys they were struggling to you make
the snow barricade because you use a very short snow shovel.
So these guys were struggling and wrenching their backs, bending
over trying to build the snow barricades. Well, at five
(35:13):
foot three and a half, I am closer to the ground.
I can use a short snow shovel a lot more
easily than these tall guys. So I then became the
person who made the snow barricades, and I shoveled the snow,
and I made the ice bricks for them and became
the barricade maker. And it was a way that I
could play to my strength and found that this was
(35:34):
a way I could contribute, and it really changed my
mindset for the trip, because initially I thought I am
a horrible teammate because I am not as physically strong
as these guys. I have nothing to offer. I am
not a contributor. I am not a valuable asset to
this team. But when I stopped trying to compare myself
to areas where they were strong, and I focused on
(35:58):
my strength, I found it area where my size, my
small size, was actually an asset and not a liability.
My small size was a strength. And it took me
a while to discover that. But once I started building
the barricades, I felt like I was contributing. I realized
that I was a valuable asset to this team, and
(36:19):
it was such a great lesson because we have to
realize we all have an area where we can shine.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I've heard you say look for teammates with big egos,
and when you're making progress, turn around and change direction.
Hearing those both of them, most people would say the
exact opposite. Why when you're making progress turn around and
change direction? And why look for teammates with big egos.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Okay, I'm gonna start with the teammates with big egos.
And this is something I learned from Coach K Mike Rzewski,
who wrote the ford for my books. So for anyone
listening who's not familiar with Coach K, he's the former
head men's basketball coach at Duke University and the winning
is coach in the history of Division one men's college basketball.
I was fortunate enough to serve on the board of
(37:09):
the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics for a
number of years, so I got to interact with Coach
K a bit. And I remember this one meeting our
board had with him when he had just come back
from coaching the US national team. They won a gold
medal in the Olympics. They just come back and he
was talking about what he looks for when he's recruiting
(37:29):
a team, and he said one of the things that
he looks for is ego. And I thought, well, of course,
because you read those guys out right, you look for
that and then get rid of those guys. And he
said no, he said, you want ego, and I thought
that doesn't make any sense. Come on. He went on
to explain it and then it made a lot of sense.
(37:51):
He said that when he's recruiting a team, there's two
kinds of ego that he looks for. The first is
what he calls performance ego. He said, I want people
who are good and who know that they're good. He said,
I don't want Lebron James to come out onto the
court and be a wis. I need him to be
Lebron James with all of the Lebron James confidence that
(38:12):
goes with him. And I thought, okay, that actually does
make sense, because I definitely don't want to be climbing
Mount Everest with a bunch of teammates who are thinking,
I don't really know about this. You know this mountain
looks really high. You want teammates who are like, yeah,
we're gonna do this. You know we've got this. So
that's performance ego. That's the first kind of ego that
Coach K looks for. The other kind of ego that
(38:34):
he looks for is what he calls team ego. And
he said, I want people on my team who are
going to be proud to be a part of something
that collectively feels more important than the individual alone. Right,
So name on the front of the uniform. Tamusa is
more important than the name on the back of the uniform.
(38:56):
And that made sense to me too, because what I
was recruiting for the first American women's ever sexpedition, I
wanted women who were going to be proud to be
a part of the first American women's ever sexpedition, where
the American flag on their sleeve, you know. I wanted
that sense a yes, we're a team and we're doing this.
(39:16):
So that's where I learned about ego was from Coach
k and I thought, this actually does make sense. And
then what you asked about having to turn around and
change direction when you're making progress, and this goes back
to the process of climbing Mount Everest. You start at
base camp, and then you go up to Camp one,
(39:36):
and you come back down, and then you go up
higher and you come back down, and you know that
you need to be going this way to get to
the top of the mountain, but you're spending a heck
of a lot of time climbing down the mountain back
down to base camp to acclimatize, and a lot of
people get very frustrated with that process because they feel
(39:59):
like they're losing ground. And they put so much effort
into climbing up to Camp three at twenty four thousand
feet above sea level, and now they're all the way
back down at base camp at seventeen thousand, five hundred
feet above sea level, and they feel like they're losing ground.
But what I remind people of is that just because
(40:21):
you're going in a different direction than where you thought
you needed to go to achieve your goal, this is
not losing ground. This is your opportunity when you go
back to base camp to regroup, regain some strength so
you're better out of the gates the next time round.
(40:42):
I have a phrase that I've actually trademarked, which is
that backing up is not the same as backing down, Right,
it's not. Sometimes you have to back up and change direction,
and sometimes progress doesn't always look like progress. But if
changing direction is something that is going to give you
an opportunity to regroup, catch your breath, reframe things, look
(41:08):
at the route differently, this is all part of gaining strength,
This is all part of making you better. So sometimes
you do have to change direction in order to make progress.
This is not backing down. This is not giving up.
This is not losing ground. You look at this direction
(41:29):
change as part of the progress. So maybe you interviewed
for a job that you didn't get, maybe a goot
transferred to a different division that you didn't want to
be in. Look at that opportunity and think, what can
I do right now in this position that maybe I
didn't think I would find myself in this position that
(41:50):
I would not have chosen for myself. What can I
do with this opportunity so that I'm better positioned for
success going forward? And that's how you look at those
direction changes.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
I have a few rapid fire questions for you. What's
one thing that every woman should try?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
One thing every woman should try writing their name in
the snow when they pee. And there's actually a device
that we use in mountaineering that allows that. I call
this the p funnel. This device actually allows women to
urinate standing up, so we can write our name in
the snow. And the best thing about this device is
(42:36):
that even in freezing cold temperatures, it stays this long.
If you ever wanted to know what the big deal
was about being able to pee your name in the snow,
this is your solution. You can find out so there
you go.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
What is something simple that you do for yourself that
makes a big impact on your life.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Something simple I do for myself that makes a big
impact is just snow uggling with my dog. It sets
my mood for the day if I can just get
a snuggle. And the crazy thing is I have a
dog that's not affectionate and it kills me. And he's
a lab, which is really unusual. So we have forced
cuddle time and I grab him and I'm like, you're
(43:15):
gonna cuddle with me, and we cuddle. But I feel
like that sets my intention for the day. I'm like, oh,
I got some love, just a little intention for the day.
And then the other thing is my husband and I
when I'm in town, we always do morning hug. That's
how I start off the day every morning, stand up
morning hug. It's a great way to start your day
with a hug. But it doesn't have to be a
physical hug if you don't have somebody there, it can
(43:37):
just be a quick text to somebody just get send
you a virtual hug. And so I think that's another
thing that you can do every day because when you
make someone else feel good, doesn't that make you feel good.
And if you wake up every day and you start
your day sending a text to somebody just giving them
a little boost and a little bit of encouragement, that
(43:58):
not only makes their day, I think it can make
your day too.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
What is the best financial tip or philosophy that you
think more women should know about.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I'm going to pivot this to the worst financial tip
and just do the opposite. I think the worst financial
tip is do what you love and the money will come. No. No,
you know what I love hanging out with dogs, Petting dogs,
That's what I love. I'm not going to be able
to pay my mortgage petting dogs. So a tip I
have is take the job that you don't have to
(44:29):
be incredibly passionate about the job itself. Because I've had
many jobs that I wasn't passionate about the job. But
you know what, I loved the people. You know what
I loved the opportunity to learn. You know what, I
loved being in a situation that made me uncomfortable where
I knew I had to grow. So my financial tip
(44:49):
is take the opportunities that you might not be super
passionate about, because sometimes those opportunities will surprise you, and
you will learn from those opportunities, and years down the road,
when you've made all the money and you've had all
these success then you can focus on doing what you love.
But sometimes you have to do what you don't love
(45:10):
in order to make the money to allow you to
do the things that you love down the road.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Is that how you felt about finance?
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Yes, I did not like my job on Wall Street
at all, but I loved the people. I loved the
people so much. I was working alongside with green berets,
concert pianists, Olympic medalists. I worked with such interesting people,
and I didn't love the job, But what I did
(45:39):
love was the culture of being a clutch player. And
what I mean by that is the people there delivered.
When they said they were going to do something, they
got it done. When they said they were going to
have a report finished, they got it finished. And you
knew that when somebody said they were going to do
something that you could count on them. And I placed
(46:00):
a very high value on that. And there's a chapter
in my book that talks about having a personal mantra.
Have a phrase or a few words that describes who
you are at your core. My mantra is count on me.
I am the person that shows up. I'm the person
who delivers. I'm the person that does not break my promises.
And so being on Wall Street, I appreciated the culture
(46:25):
of the people that I worked with at Goldman Sachs.
Even though I didn't love the job, I loved the people.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I like having a personal mantra. I've thought about a
personal mission statement a lot, but not really a mantra,
and I think that's easier to access. That's really interesting.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
It's what do you want people to think about you?
If you have to describe who you are at your
core and the way you want people to think about you.
For me, it's count on me. I want people to
know that I'm in a deliver for them.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
That's really cool. Okay.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
A book that should be required reading, or something that
you've read that has just really changed your life.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Oh my gosh, a book that changed my life. Victor
frankel Man search for meaning about his experience as a
Holocaust survivor.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Hey, I have a card game, and because we're virtual,
I'm just going to have you say stop whenever you
feel okay, stop, Okay. What's the one song that without fail,
gets you dancing.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Oh my gosh, I think Taylor's stuffs shake it off.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
That's so great, Allison. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Thank you so much for having me my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
To have a good day. I'll see you next week
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