Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #58: Colin O’Brady Asks ‘What’s Your Everest?”

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

The growth that happens within adversity can ultimately lead us to really positive outcomes in the long run. If we understand and learn how to harness it. Colin O’Brady learned this lesson first hand after a tragic accident that landed him in the hospital compelling his mother to flee to his side, which happened to be at a hospital in Thailand. Her consistent positivity during Colin’s healing process set Colin on his way to the life-changing mind-shift that ultimately lead to his record-breaking, adventure seeking achievements.  About The Guest: Colin O’Brady is an American professional endurance athlete, motivational speaker and adventurer. He is a former professional triathlete, representing the United States on the ITU Triathlon World Cup circuit, racing in 25 countries on six continents from 2009–2015. O'Brady is a four-time world record holder. In 2016 he set the Explorers Grand Slam (Last Degree) and Seven Summits speed records. He became the fastest person to complete the adventurers challenges in 139 days and 131 days respectively. In the summer of 2018, O'Brady set the speed record for the 50 US High Points in 21 days. On December 26, 2018, he completed a solo crossing of the land mass of Antartica, excluding the ice shelves, using the South Pole Traverse (SPoT) vehicle road during the last 366 miles (589 km) of the journey. In 2007, O'Brady began what was planned as a year-long backpacking trip around the world. In January 2008, on the island of Koh Tao, he suffered a devastating burn injury. Though he was warned he might never walk normally, he took his first step the following month and was determined to make a full recovery. Finding Colin O’Brady: Visit his website: https://www.colinobrady.com Buy his book The Impossible First Twitter & Instagram: @colinobrady  To inquire about my new coaching program opportunity visit https://mentorship.heathermonahan.com Review this podcast on Apple Podcast using this LINK and when you DM me the screen shot, I buy you my $299 video course as a thank you!  My book Confidence Creator is available now! get it right HERE If you are looking for more tips you can download my free E-book at my website and thank you! https://heathermonahan.com *If you'd like to ask a question and be featured during the wrap up segment of Creating Confidence, contact Heather Monahan directly through her website and don’t forget to subscribe to the mailing list so you don’t skip a beat to all things Confidence Creating! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We'll overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited you're here. Wow, a lot has happened in the last week and it's surreal. Life feels surreal. Honestly, it's been a lot on all of us.

And I'm actually, I'm stopping watching the news. I'm taking a little break because it was getting me really down, really down. And I just, I couldn't process it. I was feeling scared, upset, not sleeping good. So not helpful for me. Not sure about you. But for me, I decided I need to separate myself a bit from social media and the media. And so last night, I decided to watch a movie with my son.

And on TV, they played the movie Up, which is essentially the super cute kid movie about an older man that appears to have been with his wife for like 50 years, happy years, loved her. You know, she was his life. And then she passed away. And he became known as this angry, old, mean man. But really, he was heartbroken, but he didn't show that to the world. And along comes this little boy who's trying to get a badge and to get the badge. You have to help old people. And so he's trying to help this unhappy, angry old man. Turns out the man's whole plan was to get the house to fly up to, essentially he wants to get back to his wife and, you know, be with her and go to the places she loved and just sit next to an empty chair, you know, traveling the world, thinking of her until he dies and gets to

be with her. And so this little boy ends up on the flying house. And the whole epiphany moment of the movie is when he started to forge a relationship with the little boy and the animals that they're spending their time with, and he doesn't realize it. He wasn't looking to do that, but it was happening over time. He was unaware, and he starts worrying about them and caring about them, not meaning to. He definitely did not want to. And he went inside his house to sit next to the empty chair. He always sat next to because his wife was no longer there. And he pulled out this book that she had given him right before she passed away. It was a photo album with notes in it. And at the end, it was so beautiful. It said, thank you for an amazing adventure.

Now, on to your next one, you know, looking forward to having you enjoy your next one, something like that. You know, it's time to close this chapter and you've got to move on to your next adventure. Oh my gosh, I was bawling. I could cry right now thinking about it. So he closes the book and decides to go and save the little boy and the animals that he'd been spending time with it. He had feelings and emotions for basically close the door on the past and step into the new adventure. and he does, and he does it with vigor and happiness and so beautiful. It doesn't mean he loses those memories.

It just means he's not going to sit there stuck living in the past because he was literally living sitting next to an empty chair. It was really so eye-opening because I know so many people get stuck in situations, in relationships, in jobs, in ruts, whatever, you know, sitting next to an empty chair figuratively, right? I did that. I was stuck in an empty job for a long. time. And I would say I had golden handcuffs. That was my visual and the words I would use. And our words

have so much freaking power. So I really appreciated that movie last night. It really, I don't know, it connected with me. And I just wanted to share that message with you that at any point in time, we can close our book on one adventure, keep the memories with us, and move on to our next adventure. And I think that's really powerful. So I don't know why I had this jotted down. Sometimes I take notes during the week on my notebook or on my computer and I had written down, enjoy the journey. And I have to tell you, I hate this. I hear this all the time from people like Gary Vaynerchuk or other people who are killing it, millions of followers, making millions of dollars, you know, having been in the entrepreneurial game forever. And they're like,

oh, you have to enjoy the journey. That is such BS. I just want to tell you that because right now, I'm not enjoying the journey. Anyone who really hasn't made it, who hasn't hit that tipping point, I think would agree with me on this. The journey's freaking hard and pretty dark right now, too. You know, and yeah, I'm doing the things that I need to to pivot and work my tail off to find ways to make this work. And I am and I will. And I'm certain of that. And I want you to have certainty and you and the choices you're making and the pivots you're making.

However, the journey's hard until you make it. Right. Once you kind of know that you're, oh, I'm about there. okay, then you can really start to enjoy it. Until then, it's a guessing game and a pivoting game and a failing game and a picking yourself back up game and a hard game and a loss game and a win and a fail and a loss and an embarrassment and all the rest. I really have this vision clearly because I had made it, quote unquote, in corporate America, right? I was at the C-suite I'd been promoted. I don't even know how many freaking times in my career, but I was on this trajectory, you know, taking off.

And I remember when I hit vice president of sales, I, you know, then I started enjoying the journey, right? I knew when I was younger and I was an account executive delivering wine on the back of trucks and having people say disgusting things to me, I was not enjoying the journey. Right. So I want people to have that realization. It depends where you are in your journey before you start enjoying it. And I don't want people to have that pressure because I don't have that pressure on myself. No, I get it. I've seen this movie.

And I know when you're at the lower run. I'm only, you know, at two and a half years right now in being an entrepreneur, it's still freaking hard. It's really hard and it's confusing and I haven't figured it out and I don't have the hacks. And then when COVID came and then when the protests and rioting and looting came and, you know, fear came and all these different really difficult feelings that can distract you, that can keep you from sleeping at night right there. I mean, the whole pitfalls go on and on. So I don't want you to have the pressure on yourself to enjoy the journey. journey. Right before coronavirus hit, I felt internally. I'm not saying it was definite, but I kind of finally, I was getting booked by agents. And that really was the tipping point for me. Because up until

that point, my speaking business, I was booking everything. And suddenly I was getting booked by the agents and they were getting the testimonials back from the clients and they were killer. I saw that sequence of three times in a row happen. I kind of knew I just hit my tipping point. Now they trust me. They believe in me. They've got the things. feedback. They're going to start pitching me more. I'm landing more gigs. And I started getting booked and booked. And then coronavirus happened and I was so close to that tipping point and it just disappeared. Right. I understand that had that really come together with the way I saw it happening, I would have really started enjoying the journey because then you've got the cash coming in.

Then you've got the foresight and the picture to see, okay, I'm great for the next few months. I'm not going month to month anymore, not knowing in the volatility and fear and, you know, hours that I'm putting in and giving up on everything else but work right now. I do understand enjoy the journey really means once you hit that tipping point, you will enjoy it because you know a certainty and clarity and you can see it that it's there. Now my journey changed, as did yours, as did everyone's in the last three months. And so I'm rewriting that journey. So I'm not at the tipping point right now, which is okay, because now I've seen the movie a couple of times. And the more times you see the movie, the more certain you feel that you will hit that tipping point. And then I will start

enjoying that journey much, much more. So I just wanted to share that with you. And then I can't not say something about, you know, what's been happening in the country over the past 10 days, the past week, two weeks. So I, like many people, you know, didn't know what to do. Everyone, no one knew what to do. And it was scary with that. I mean, my city was shut down because of looters and crime and violence. and horrible things that happened that were so scary. And we all went on this lockdown and curfews. And it happened so fast. It was so bizarre.

And what's interesting is, and I've just realized this, so many people who aren't in major cities maybe haven't felt it the way that if you're in a big city that you have. And I think different cities have been impacted differently. So my heart goes out to everybody. Even the people who aren't affected by it, who are confused, they don't even get it. But it's been a really scary time for everyone.

However, I am a huge supporter of equality. I am a huge supporter of, you know, crime. When a crime is committed, when someone is killed unjustly for no freaking reason, that person has to pay accountability. It doesn't matter who you are. And I also believe there are good police officers out there, right? So I believe so wholeheartedly in the First Amendment, and I believe people should voice their opinions and peaceful protesters should be welcomed anywhere and everywhere. Peaceful. Not those looting and taking advantage of a situation and turning things into violent acts, more violence, more stealing, more hurting our country and the people within it that don't deserve it. So I posted about it this weekend, and I saw a lot of people being very judgy on social media. I don't know if you saw this. I don't like that. How is this a time to judge and batter people, right? I saw people posting, you're not supposed to say that. That's not helpful. This isn't bar bra, I mean, some people I saw saying nice things like, oh, that's not the hashtag to use if you want it to be a part of of what's going on on Tuesday. This is a hashtag. That's cool and helpful. But I don't like when people

are judging or using their personal bias, you know, that's, you shouldn't write that. This is a better thing to write. And I knew people would write things like that, given that I have my own opinions and I'm happy with my own opinions. And I also knew I had to post something because I am confident in who I am at 45 years old. Thank freaking God. And I know I'm not for everybody because I'm not vanilla. And I don't want to be vanilla. And I've learned to step into that and own who I am and deal with, you know, the fallout. I support black people. I support people of all color. I support everyone. And I myself, I have been sexually harassed. I have been harassed by another woman. I have been abused as a child. I've had so many crappy things

happen to me in my life. Let me tell you, I don't want any of that for anyone. So anyone that's suffering or being treated unjustly, unfairly, any type of inequality is disgusting to me. and should not be tolerated. That's where I stand on that. However, I am not for violence. I am not for looting. And I'm crystal clear on that. And I shared that on social media.

And yeah, of course I got some haters that came out for me. And I ignore them. I've learned that over the years. I don't even respond to me anymore. That's what they want. Right. But I do think in some weird way, as awful as this has been for everyone. And the fact that lives have been lost now, so many lives around the country,

now that the violence has occurred, there's been a lot of deaths. It's just so needless death. It's horrific for everyone. I just think bigger picture, our world will change for the better because of this. I do believe that, not because of the violence and all of that crap, but I do believe that the whole world was in this heightened, sensitive space and this horrific act occurred, and a man lost his life. And that just started a domino effect of no more tolerance.

And that is a fantastic thing. So I'm very hopeful for our world. I'm hopeful for our country moving forward that it will make our country and our citizens, all of us, better people, more real discussions, get real, keep it real, and keep it moving because this is going to be a better place to live and a better world to be in. So that's what I'm hopeful for. That's what I'm focusing on. I know that everyone needs to focus on different things for themselves.

A lot of people are turning to God and prayer right now, which I completely applaud and jump in on. I'm definitely praying so much more than I normally would. So praying for peace for everyone, kindness and understanding, and please stop judging. I really, I remind myself every day, I'm not going to judge others. I don't know what they're up against. I don't know their situation. And I'm really moving forward with that attitude every single day. And I'm reminding myself too, because sometimes I want to judge someone, but I won't let

myself. I can't. So I want to also talk about the importance of consistent. When the coronavirus started, I was very upset and freaked out because my speaking business disappeared and I was panicking. And I was eating whole bags of my son's M&Ms. I don't know why I did that. I felt like I had a free pass.

Like the world took something away from me and now I was going to go on a bender of eating Nutella and M&Ms. Ridiculous. I'm super disciplined. Anyone that knows me really well, I'll be the guy sitting at the table, you know, not eating anything other than the salmon, tartar, and salad. But I came off the rails, and you can't do that at freaking 45. I don't know who I was kidding. But here's what it reminds me now. Here we are three months later, and I'm battling my way back, trying to lose weight and get in shape again,

is that consistency is key, whether it be with your diet, whether it be with your or whether it be in your business, consistency is key. And my guest today, the reason why I'm bringing this up or I thought about it is a year ago I tried to get him on as a guest. He's an amazing guest, huge guests. Everybody wants him. He's on the Tonight Show. He's on the Today Show. He's on everything huge. He's huge. Super happy for him to. Really nice guy. Awesome wife. Really nice people. We have a great mutual friend that actually connected me to him a year ago. And a year ago, I reached out crickets. And my friend came back, reconnected again. There was an exchange. We couldn't find a date. Crickets. And so I just kind of forgot about it and moved on. And my good friend,

Scott came to me a couple weeks ago and said, what happened with him? And I said, oh, they blew me off. I don't know. And he said, Heather, since when are you going to take that as an answer? Like, blow you off. Come on. Go back after him again. I'll help you. He reconnected me this time to the wife. And this time I was able to land him as a guest. So, you know, don't forget about the people in your pipeline, the people you're going after. Stay in touch with your network and let them know what you're working on. Let them know about the challenges that you face. And be consistent. with reaching out. You know, I almost missed having this amazing guest today for you because I wasn't being consistent. Luckily, I was reminded by my good friend Scott, I got to jump back

into consistency. And I'm doing it now with my workout. I'm doing it now with my eating. And I'm so grateful I'm doing it now with my guest. So I can't wait for you to meet my next guest. You are going to love him. And I can't wait to hear what you think. Hang tight. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited to introduce you to Colin O'Bradie. If you've never heard of him, you are one of the only. He's one of the world's most recognized endurance athletes and explorers. He's a 10-time world record holder and Yale University grad.

It's very impressive to me. In 2018, he became the first person in history to cross the continent of Antarctica solo, unsupported, and unassisted. The New York Times said O'Bradis-Anarchy's Antarctica Crossing joined some of the most remarkable achievements in polar history. Guinness World Records called O'Bradie's most recent success, the world's first completely human-powered ocean row across Drake Passage from South America to Antarctica, one of the most significant human-powered adventures ever undertaken. But Kahn isn't just an elite athlete and an adventurer.

He's a highly sought-after public speaker, New York Times best-selling author of The Impossible First, and is considered to be one of the foremost experts on mindset. His TED Talk, Change Your Mindset and Achieve Anything, has been viewed over two million times. Colin has been featured on leading platforms, including The Today Show, Tonight Show, Joe Rogan, New York Times, CBS, PBS, CNN. The list goes on and on.

Colin, thank you so much for making time to be here with us today. My pleasure. It's great to be here. Okay, so I really want to jump into, I've heard so many, I've heard your TED Talk, which is amazing. I've heard so many of your interviews. And one of the things that I really wanted to get some background on with you is as a child, you know, taking it way back. When you go back to your childhood, did you have this vision for your future? You know, what did you want to grow up and be?

Yeah, you know, as a young kid, I always kind of really love sports from really young age. I was a swimmer. I was a soccer player. My family didn't have a lot of money or anything when I was a kid to travel, but kind of always instilled this value of kind of you can do anything you set your mind to. So my earliest memories of kind of sports as a kid was watching. in the Olympics when I was, you know, six, seven years old and like dreaming and my mom saying to me like, maybe one day you could do that or, you know, that kind of stuff. There was a lot of kind of encouragement and, you know, dreaming, but dreaming and actually kind of talking about how to turn

those dreams into reality, whether that was in sports or academics or things like that. And kind of, I think it was long before this phrase was coined where I look back, I think there was a lot of growth mindset and still to me as a young age of just kind of like, here we are in this moment, but, you know, kind of with hard work or dedication to whatever it is. And I was, I was up, pushed towards sports necessarily. I was just my passion, kind of this belief of kind of you can achieve a lot of. So I guess I didn't know that I would be walking across Antarctica by myself or some of these other things, but I always did love the outdoors. I always did dream of climbing Everest as a little kid and stuff like that. So that was sort of, you know, deeply embedded in there

for sure as a young age. It's so interesting to me with the growth mindset concept and the huge role that your mother played on really instilling this in you and walking you through that exercise, when you needed her most. Can you share a little bit about that hard, really dark time in your life? Yeah. So just after graduating from college, you know, although I have a, you know, economics degree, most of my friends was 2006, we're headed off to Wall Street because it was pre-credit crisis and all of this. And, you know, that just didn't seem like the path that I want to take right out of school, although certainly the financial security that appealed to me, I kind of had this wanderless still and I hadn't traveled to actually painted houses in the summer

as a kid, saved up a few thousand dollars and said, I'm going to buy a one-way plane ticket to see the world, like, on the cheap, you know, just like living in youth hostels and hitchhiking and basically living as cheap as I possibly could just to have like a few beers and a roof over my head at night, you know, being a young kid in his 20s. And it was an amazing experience all told, but up until I found myself in rural Thailand, unfortunately, a really bad accident happened. I was severely burning a fire and the rope wrapped around my legs. There was a burning rope and it kind of lit my entire body on fire. I ended up in a Thai hospital. There was, you know, my mom, you know, flew out after four or five days and the doctors were telling me

look on. You'll probably never walk again normally. So it was just a really kind of rough situation, obviously, middle of nowhere, really bad medical facilities, terrible diagnosis, you know, physical pain, emotional trauma. And I can only imagine what it's like to be a mother to fly over there and, you know, see your kid in this helpless state, you know, all as a mother wants to do is kind of help and support and love and it's pretty kind of out of her control as well. But one of the most remarkable things I look at as such a turning point in my life is my mother could have very easily, you know, shown me her own fear. And I know now she was kind of crying in the hallways with the doctors pleading for good news, but she really never showed me that fear. Instead, she kind of came into my hospital room every day with

this big smile on her face and this kind of air of positivity, kind of urging me to look towards a future saying like, you're in a bad situation right now. You are facing a significant amount of adversity, but your life isn't over. Like, what do you want to do when you get out of here? Let's set a goal. let's look towards the future. And it took me a while to kind of buy in. Admittedly, the first few days, I was like, what are you talking about? Well, I'm never going to walk in normal. I'm going to be in a wheelchair, you know, all this kind of stuff. But she really kind of instilled that belief and kind of long story short, you know, encouraged me to set a goal, which ultimately I said, I pictured myself racing a triathlon one day. I think in that kind of

kind of been, I'd never done that before, but thought, you know, that would be what kind of my able-bodied self could do after an accident like this and kind of, you know, focus on training for that. first just in my mind and then my mom kind of teaching me how to walk again normally. Sort of a long story, but basically long story short, after 18 months being told I would never walk again normally, I showed up and moved to Chicago, took a job out there and raised to Chicago triathlon my first race ever, which I ultimately didn't just finish and complete, but I actually won the entire race, beating about, you know, four or five thousand other participants on the day, which was complete shock to me. But ultimately, it's not about like the winning some

race. It was, you know, when I look back on that moment, my mind immediately goes back to that Thai hospital realizing my mom taught me in that moment one of life's most valuable lessons, which is, you know, life, no matter who we are, where we are, if we're starting a business, family, relationship, entrepreneur, what doesn't matter? Like, you are going to face adversity along the way. But in these dark moments, in these low moments, we have a choice of how we react and how we take our next steps moving out of that low moment. And my mother's positivity and love really taught me that in this lowest moment. And I look at it at these kind of sliding door moment, which is, had my mom not wrapped me in that positivity, what would have happened versus

the outcome was she did and, you know, look where it is. I won this race and then, you know, fast forward 10, 12 years now, I've, you know, set these world records and all these things and kind of all spawn from this lowest moment. So it's a reminder that the growth that happens within adversity, particularly if we can harness the way we react to it, can ultimately lead us to really positive outcomes in the long term, which is hard to remember when we're going through something hard. That's for sure. And it's so your message resonates so close. clearly to so many right now struggling, you know, through this pandemic and quarantine. So thank you for that. One of the things I wanted to dive into a little bit more about your mom that I really respect as a

mother myself, I imagine must have been so hard. I can totally see how she was able to sit with you, hold back her tears and instill the positivity. I get that. But when I've heard you talk about how she was sort of pushing you and teaching you to walk again when it was almost impossible for you to get out of the wheelchair at first and she was pulling the chair back. That really got to my heart because Colin, as a parent, I know you're not a parent yet, that's got to be tough for her to push you. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's kind of, you know, I don't want to say tough love because I think my mom's really definitely oriented towards maybe a gentler touch. But at times, she knows kind of when to push. And, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about it later, but also my wife is kind

of the same orientation and the things that we built and created in our business and these expeditions things has all been a product of both of her and I's collaboration. And there's been, you know, moments with my mother as well as moments with Jenna where it's like, they know when they need to kind of push me harder. You know, there's been kind of intense moments on Everest when I'm having my own doubts or in Antarctica and whatever where Jenna's like, hey, like, you need to put your boots back on or, you know, you need to do this. And it's not coming from a place of kind of rough military Navy seal, like, you better do this, harden up, you know, that kind of stuff. But it's also. not coming from, okay, it's fine, just sit there in the wheelchair. It's definitely kind of like,

hey, you committed to this goal and you're losing your way a little bit, and let me kind of redirect that energy. And my mother and Jenna, both of them have that kind of that balance of strength that really, they kind of know when to push. And I also have a trust built up with them of kind of like, okay, they're saying this. They're reminding me. They're almost being a mirror to myself and not, you know, letting me be accountable to myself. They're not like instilling their belief system on me. They're saying, hey, you set this goal. You wanted to do this, remember? And I'm just reminding you of that. And you're like, right, right, okay, this is where I need to dig deep.

Yeah, I definitely see that parallel between your mom and your wife and these strong women that you've surrounded yourself with and how they truly have elevated you to that next level. And I like, you know, you're saying they're not taking the David Goggins in your face approach, but they're also, you know, not Mary Poppins and sitting at your bedside holding your hand. And I think that's really important whether it be a white. or a mother or whoever, if you don't have a spouse, if your parents aren't here, but picking those people that can see that potential in you and be willing to have those hard conversations.

A hundred percent. I mean, look, this applies just to life in general. It's not, you know, necessarily a fully unique concept, but I'm definitely a big believer that we are the product of even the five or ten people that we spend the most time around. That is certainly played out in my life and I see that, you know, around others. And sometimes that can be hard because sometimes, you know, there's people that have just been in your life, you know, whether that's, you know, your family or people have been in your life for the long time, old friendships and stuff like that. And I cherish those old relationships,

particularly when you're daring to dream greatly, when you have audacious goals and you're pushing yourself for it. Sometimes the people that love you the most oftentimes can hold you back in certain scenarios. And it's not a way to say like cavalier, like just cut people out of your life and throw them away and whatever, but to also just be aware of who you are surrounding yourself with. If you're trying to build something creative, if you're thinking, you know, outside the box, whatever, like find other people that buy into that or at least go, I don't know how you're going to get there, but like, I believe you're going to get there. And what's fun about those relationships that I have in my life that have supported me is not a one-way street. In the

most ideal circumstance, you're also reflecting that back on sort of their goals and their aspirations. And so it's sort of a two-way, even though maybe you're not working on it in the same direction or the same field or really completely different avenues, basically a support system where there's kind of an equal buy-in both ways to kind of, you know, love and share. support one another. And that really goes back to what Jenna's goals were for April. You and she had created some massive goals for her that unfortunately have been paused. Yeah. So, you know, after all these, you know, many world record breaking exhibitions of my own that, like I said, she's been a huge part of, you know, planning and dreaming and executing on, you know, my book came out to see of the impossible

first. It's certainly about my crossing of Antarctica. But you quickly realize when picking up the book, it's really our story. It's a story of there's a whole, you know, chapter. And there's a whole, you know, or on the entrepreneurship of how we had this big goal of raising, you know, sponsorship dollars and how her and I were just out there hustling, and we could talk more about that. But it was fun. You know, one of the things that I like to ask people, I started out asking, you know, young people and kids in my nonprofit, but it's really kind of extended to, you know, corporate settings, you know, put my public speaking, et cetera, because I realize it's a

question that just, you know, resonates with myself and others, which is what's your Everest? You know, I really wanted to climb Everest as a kid. And not everyone wants to climb mountains. That's totally fine. But it's an obvious metaphor, which is like kind of, what's your big? goal. What's your audacious thing that you want to work towards and dream about? And answer that question for yourself, what's your Everest? And then now let's talk about actually the incremental

steps of how to get there. And it's fun, like I said, taking elementary school kids through that process and, you know, leaders and businesses and CEOs, whatever. There's, you know, obviously a different tactic. The age group you're talking to. But Jenna came to me, you know, a year or so ago after being, you know, really not behind the scenes so much, but really, you know, out in front, but not in the field quite as much with me in these expeditions, although she has done some incredible things, you know, physically in her own life? And she said to me, you know what, Colin? My Everest next year is to actually climb Mount Everest, which was, you know, really fun for me to hear. It's not something I really pushed on her. And certainly she would say, not, you know, a childhood

dream of hers per se, but as she's gotten closer to this sort of expedition life that we've been living for the past, you know, many years, she's like, I think I can do that. I need to train. I need to prepare. I need to improve my mountaineering skills, all this. But she's not starting from scratch either. And so this whole past year, we trained and got her really ready and feeling great about the possibility of climbing Everest. We had our plane tickets and everything. We were going to climb from the Chinese side so you can climb either from Nepal or Tibet. Previously, I climbed from Nepal, but we were going to climb from China. So our flights on April 2020 to China, not the best time in our world to be flying there, obviously. So needless

to say that expedition was canceled or hopefully we postponed. You can. can only really climb in April, May of any year. So it's tentatively on the schedule a year from now. And it's just another, you know, example of step back. Sometimes when you set a big goal, it's not a linear path to get there. But it definitely focused, you know, like I said, a few weeks before we were supposed to fly in and take off kind of like, nope, that's not happening. And how do we kind of reshift our energy and kind of reprioritize our year? So disappointing, but also, you know, the way that we always kind of, in our lives anyways, you know, it's prepare for the unexpected or things aren't going to go the way that you expect them to and anything that we built or created. And this is just

another example of that. And so rather than kind of sitting in our self-quarantine depressed over the last couple months, it's been kind of looking at say, okay, well, this is something different, not what we expected, but what are the gifts here? What are the silver linings? What can we build from the creative space that we're in right now and move forward in a productive way? If your anxiety, depression, or ADHD, or ADHD are more than a rough patch, you don't need just another meditation app. Tachiatry makes it easy to see a psychiatrist online using your insurance in days. Tachiatry is 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, insomnia, and more.

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about not having that linear path. And so many of us, especially those of us who came up through corporate America, we're so accustomed to that, right? We're in a well-lit area. We know what the next move is. And to start to learn, to anticipate that things aren't going to go, to anticipate the challenges are coming so that we really change our mindship, that's one of the biggest takeaways that I get from your work, your life experiences that

really connects to me because it's so new. How are some of the ways that you teach that expect the unexpected? Yeah, you know, obviously some of my teachings come directly from the expeditions that I've, you know, set forth in, you know, just sort of draw on my book a little bit again. It is a, you know, adventure memoir of becoming the first person history across Antarctica alone, but it's interspersed with all these kind of flashbacks for my life that ultimately are sort of teachings. And the hope is, and the book really was written, the way I wrote it, was not just to, God, if you really are excited about Antarctica or adventure, you should read this book. It's actually like, if you are ambitious in any sort of pursuit,

this book has tangible takehomes told through a narrative that is edge of your seat exciting storytelling. But, you know, I get feedback from single mothers who are like in the Midwest who are really not interested in mountains or expedition or whatever going like, oh my God, I got so much about this, about relationships and partnership and never. I've got people who are badass entrepreneurs or CEOs going like, oh my God, this is perfect for my team because it's instilling these types of lessons. So for me, when I do talk about, and I will get to your question, talking, you know, the context of an expedition. For me, it's just a rich environment that I personally love to bring people into, but because of the stakes are life and death, because your

decisions are very consequential, it's actually a really great overlay for high performance, really, in anything that you're trying to get after. And the book is called the Impossible First. And that is what I call my Antarctica Crossing. But my hope is that when people set the book down, they feel inspired to take on their own impossible first in their life, whatever that is. Like I said, I'm not just advocating, like, go to Antarctica or climb efforts. It's like, that's not for you. Like, who cares? It's fine. Like, that's just my passion. But in terms of the lessons around adaptation, I think one of the biggest things, particularly when you put yourself in an environment, you know, like I was in Antarctica, like rowing a boat across Drake Passage, like climbing

Everest, like some of the other things I've done, is you're ultimately at the mercy of Mother Nature, for, you know, for lack of a better word. And I think that there's few of us on this planet that think that we are, you know, fully in control when all of a sudden a storm can reach in or the weather can shift or, you know, a million other things that just are fully out of your control. when you're out there. And that is a, you know, very good example of what it's like to navigate the business world, what it's like to navigate personal relationships and things like that, to realize we are really only in control of ourselves, but there's all of this external storms

sort of brewing on the outside. And so, you know, one of the things in terms of expecting the unexpected is Jenna and I, when we set off on these expeditions, we always have a plan. You know, we're like, well, it'll be crazy not to have a plan. It's like, we think the Antarctica the crossing is going to take about two months. I need roughly this much food. I need to train to be able to drag a 375 pound sled, you know, all of these types of things. However, the subtext or the asterisk, the big like kind of highlighted access would be like, but we know this plan is not going to work. We have to have a plan. We have to have a base level to start with a business plan, if you way. We're actually saying in our minds consciously to begin this process, there are so many

variables, nature, health, wellness, logistics, that would be nearly impossible for it to all go to plan. So just expect that we're going to have to pivot. And in Antarctica, it's a great example. I get out there, like I said, I train for all these things. I announced to the world, I'm going to try to be the first person in history to make this crossing. You know, other explorers had tried before me and failed. You know, there's a big New York Times article to launch the whole thing. This tiny little plane drops me off on the edge of Antarctica. I've got 375 pound sled and hour one day one I cannot pull my sled like I can barely pull it and the chapter in my book about this is actually called frozen tears because what happens when you actually started

crying because I felt so bad for myself it's minus 25 degrees outside and what happens like the tears they start freezing to your face like all the time pathetic now I thought to myself things aren't going to go the way that I hope they would at some point I thought that I was setting out to do something that people had said was impossible, so it was possible that I was going to fail. But I'll tell you what, I did not think that that failure or that doubt was going to come in hour one, you know, mile one of a nearly thousand mile of journey. That was a tough thing to react to. So I pick up my satellite phone and I call home to Jenna thinking, I said to her like, look, like this might be over before it starts. She's like, what? Like, it's day one. We didn't actually expect for this.

But she says to me, she goes, do me a favor. Just get to the very first waypoint. So I have these like GPS markings and the first waitpoint was like a mile or two from where I was. I was just like, I don't care how long it takes you to get there. Get to the very first wait point. And then tonight, go to sleep in your tent and we're going to regroup. And to me, the less than that and the way that applies to other people is we had another literally, literally nearly thousand miles to go. I had, you know, thousands of thousands of decisions that need to be made between the first wait point and the last wait point. But Jenna said like, forget about the whole path. Forget about the whole plan. execute on one tiny little incremental step now.

Then we get to that weight point that night and she's like, I think you have too much food in your sled. It's too heavy. Here's these things. Let's adapt. And she actually convinced me in this really kind of intense way to actually reduce the amount of food that I had in my sled, which is kind of my life source,

ultimately wait though and leave it there at the start line, which ultimately, fortunately it was still in a zone where that could get picked up and not have a negative environmental impact. But the point in that and the less, how that applies to all of us is you set a massive goal. You answer that question what your Everest is. For me in this case, it was crossing Antarctica. Then you have a plan that you're going to execute on. And you say to yourself, at some point, you're going to have to adapt this plan.

But don't be surprised if you get smacked in the face day one, minute one, you still have to remember, hey, I still committed to this. It's not all given up. There are frozen tears on my face right now, but I'm going to figure out how to adapt and evolve. And in this case, bouncing an idea off a strategic, partner, in this case my wife, really trying to problem solve in the moment, even though the stakes are so high. It is very embarrassing. If I had told the whole world in New York Times, it just run this, man tries to cross an article. And the next day, it's like, and he failed after after, you know, one mile. But that kind of urge to say, there's not a single entrepreneur that I know that's been very successful. There's not a single creative artist, you know,

people that we, you know, athlete, et cetera, that we generally point to as, you know, quote unquote successful, you know, mother, parent, whatever that is, that hasn't had to pivot a number of times. There are very few people that says like, oh yeah, I turned in my business plan for this great, you know, app and it was a unicorn overnight, you know, that's just not how it works. And so that applies everything. You have to be willing to adapt in real time, shift your purpose, shift your goals, take food off your sled, take your life source away that might be hedging against a different risk in the future. And that is the pathway I have found any ways to navigating these challenges and ultimately becoming successful in this. What everyone needs to understand,

because I wouldn't have understood this if I hadn't researched you so much, there was a true real threat of dying. If you don't have enough food, the challenge for you or anyone trying something like this is you needed to pack enough food so you would be sustainable to actually live and feed yourself. And even you, as prepared as you were for this, I know that I know that I've read or heard that you were somewhat emaciated by the end of this. Yeah, so the crossing that had never been done before is something called unsupported and unassisted in Antarctica. So unsupported means no resupplies or food or fuel throughout. And then unassisted means no use of like chites or dogs or anything else to propel you.

But the unsupported is kind of the key part of what we're talking about right now, which is that means there's no resupplies. I couldn't have like, oh, I ran out of food, you know, fly over in a plane and drop me off food. or there's a GPS coordinate where I stashed another extra, you know, 50 days of food or something like that. So basically it's like a closed system. And it harkens back to kind of the history of, you know, age-old exploration from 100 years ago because obviously a guy like Ernest Shackleton or Amundsen or these guys were exploring Antarctica for the first time, didn't have the choice to say, you know, calling on their GPS like, hey, just drop me up some more food.

I'm hungry. It's like they were going out there and they had what they had. And so it's kind of, you know, thought to be unsupported one of the purest forms of exploration in the polar environments. There had been a couple other people who had attempted this crossing previous to me. One guy, unfortunately, after 71 days fell ill and ultimately passed away. Another guy the year before I attempted, he ran low on supplies. He was fortunately able to get picked up before anything life-threatening happened to him, but it ended his expedition because he was just out of food and fuel.

And so it's this weird equation, which is how much food and fuel can I take with me in my sled without running out? But if it's too much, you can't pull it. Like I said, I thought I could pull 375 pounds to start. turned out that was too heavy. I needed to lower it to about 350. But if you put a thousand pounds of food, you're just never going to move at all. I know you'd have tons of food. You could sit there and eat day after day after day, but you wouldn't move at all. And so it's this very fine balance between having enough and not. And so for me, it sounds like a lot of food while we're

sitting here in our, you know, warm, cozy houses. I was eating 7,000 calories per day, but I was burning at least like 10,000 maybe more often. And so I was running about a 3,000 calorie deficit every single day from the beginning, I was starving. And so by the end, you know, I had my hips were protruding, my ribs are protruding. I put on 20 pounds knowing I was going to lose this, but I still lost so much weight that I was very emaciated. And so you can imagine the stakes, knowing that going in, obviously I was aware that was going to happen going in, having research and training for this. And then having that phone call on day one, which is you have to get rid of food. Basically, you have to get rid of your excess supplies. And we're taking a gamble.

because we're only going to know if this was the right decision 50 days in the future when you do or don't run out. And ultimately, I finished the crossing. I had 55 days of food after I dropped the food at the beginning. And I finished on the afternoon of the 54th day. So I was more or less down to, you know, my last few bites of food as I made this push to finish. So it was, you know, it's definitely a razor thin margin being able to complete something like this. And again, applying that backwards, you know, why I think the expedition environment is, such a great place to learn these lessons because the stakes are very real. Now, not all of us

want to or should be necessarily in these life, quote unquote, life threatening or really, you know, high risk environments like we're talking about right here. But we do, you know, decisions we make, you know, I know entrepreneurship is a big focus of yours, obviously. Decisions that you do make in your business can be sink or swim decision. Should I allocate resources to these couple employees? Should I hire a creative brand design to launch this product? should I this or that. If I allocate those resources here and it doesn't work, well, my balance sheet is zero.

Does that mean I go bankrupt? Can I not invest in the next product lunch? Do I have to furlough or leave staff off? We are constantly optimizing and making these decisions and we can either be paralyzed by the fear of them and not make them, but not making a decision I think we both know is actually making a decision. It's just making no decision is your decision. And so it's a really high-stakes environment to facilitate these type of thought

processes, but they really do apply to so many avenues of life, which is how to assess risk, how to make decisions, how to allocate resources, time, et cetera, in various different kind of buckets, and ultimately how to be confident in those decisions and move forwards. And sometimes they're the wrong decisions, but how to then pivot quick enough off the wrong decisions to not completely, you know, sink your ship, so to speak. So there's one other element I want to get into in regards to Antarctica just because I'm not sure if everyone understands this. And I think it's really interesting the element of competition for you in this scenario and how you've explained that in the end, you feel like it benefited you and Lou, the other person that happened to be taking on this same

massive goal at the exact same time on that day when you were standing there crying, thinking that you might not be able to move forward. Quick historic context, I won't go too far down this, but basically, as other explorers that attempted this in previous years, had kind of come into the zeitgeist of exploration, like, will someone be able to do this? Is it impossible? You know, who might be the first? And so, you know, I guess it wasn't a huge surprise, but it turned out that somebody else and other really experienced explorer by the name of Captain Lou Rudd, a British guy, was attempting the crossing at the very same time. Now, Antarctica has a very specific season. You can really only attempt this during the Antarctic summer, so that's our northern hemisphere winter.

and the logistics are so complicated and expensive that there's like really only one guy, one company with a plane that can drop you up on a specific date, et cetera, that you have to charter. It's very complicated. And so not only was somebody attempting this at roughly the same time, literally there was this tiny plane,

we were both loaded into it on the exact same day, sitting shoulder to shoulder, dropped off on the edge of Antarctica. We made the choice to be dropped off one mile apart from each other so we weren't literally standing next to one another, But you can imagine it's a, you know, like I said, nearly a thousand mile race. And it's like, ready, go. And there's just a guy, like, right over there.

And this guy, you know, I kind of get into it in the first chapter of my book is he's intimidating the hell out of me. I mean, he's, you know, quite a bit older than I am, but really experienced, one of the most experienced polar explorers in the world. He's, you know, British military, you know, season, season British military veteran, all these kind of accolades from, you know, Buckingham. and Pallas had sent him off, you know, to like, do that, you know, it's just, and I'm like, oh my God, like, I'm, you know, relative novice in polar exploration.

Here's this guy who's been on some of the most pioneering expeditions in the world. Like, and then day one happens. I can see him a mile away from me because in Erica, it's just like this blank, empty white place. I can't move my sled. And what do I see this guy in, like, full military march just taking off and disappearing on the horizon? And so not only am I thinking, I'm going to fail just personally, because I was thinking more of

was a personal challenge, but I was like, my competition on day one has already just left me in the dust. And it was really hard to kind of wrap my mind around that. Now, you know, in contrast to that, you know, your point of the competition elevating, it ultimately did. Once I kind of found my rhythm again, did motivate me. Ultimately, I caught up to him on the sixth day. There's this kind of weird moment where we exchanged just a couple of words. It's like we've run into each other in the middle of this literally blank white. It's minus 25 degrees. It's 24 hours of daylight. It's endless white. either white out or then is the weirdest. It's like being on a different planet, but it's like being inside, I say inside the belly of a ping pong ball. It's just like disorientingly white and

cold everywhere you go. There's not a lot of features on the horizon. So I spot him. We exchange a couple words. I ultimately take the lead and I stay in the lead, but not like it was just easy. Like every single day, I would wake up. I was pulling my sled 12 hours a day and there was about five hours on either side of that, of chores of melting water and setting up my tent in these stream conditions and, you know, my fingers were getting a little bits of frostbite and fixing my gear and all these things. There's a lot of hard work manually about 17 hours every single day. So you can imagine when your alarm goes off every single day on the, you know, 37th day of this, you're like, alarm goes off, oh, 17 hours again in this brutal cold, in this, in this storm, and this this,

there was not a single day that I didn't get up. I never actually took a rest day the entire time. And a lot of that has to do with, once I was in the lead, I was like, if I even take a few hours off. If I like don't get out of bed immediately, if I don't start my day, you know, consistently, if I don't put in 12 hours in sled, he's going to catch up to me. And ultimately, I think there's two, you know, key take homes, I think, apply here. One is, although the competition was heated and I, we were both certainly trying to be the first. And spoiler alert, I was the first. I beat him by a couple of days. We both agree. We've now, we've now continued a friendship and I'm so grateful for that. I'll talk about that in a second. But we have both agreed

that us both being out there competing for this same goal elevated both of our game. And the possibility, you know, no one had completed this crossing before. And yes, I was first, but Lou was only a couple of days behind me. And we both kind of acknowledged that had either of us not been there, it's possible neither one of us would finish. And so, of course, how does that apply across the board, which is competition can be very healthy in the sense that it really requires you to focus. It requires you to not take a day off.

It requires you to keep your eye on the prize. It retires you to keep your eye on the goal. And then ultimately, you know, for me, and this is more of a personal thing, it is after making that crossing, and like I said, very proud to be first, et cetera. But it's not like I wanted to stand at the finish line after that and like beat on my chest. As intimidated as I was by Lou in the beginning, what ultimately overcame me was this deep sense of gratitude and camaraderie

and realizing there's seven billion people on this planet. There's one other guy that actually knows, the intensity of what it took to drag this sled across an article all alone, I could either be like, continue like an adversary of his, but rather, both of us were like, thank you for being out here. Like, thank you for this. And the fact that I can, you know, I was texting with him just a few days ago that I can like call him up or text him or whatever. And if we want to like reminisce on the experience or talk about other expeditions, like ultimately, like I have the most respect in the world for this guy. It's absolutely extraordinary what he did. I'm proud of my own accomplished.

And so it doesn't have to be such a, you know, binary winner, loser, this, that, the other thing. It's like the power of the human spirit, the power that we all have inside of us to achieve these extraordinary things. Both of us, our competition, elevated each other to our best and highest levels. And ultimately, I'm proud of my accomplishment and I'm proud that both of us were able to complete this crossing. Yeah, I'm really proud of you for waiting for him too. I was just blown away, seeing still how uncomfortable you were. It wasn't like they had some, you know, four seasons igloo waiting for you when you made the end. And you could kind of have a cocktail and wait for him.

I mean, you were still in that crappy tent out in negative whatever degrees. And you waited two days for this man. Yeah, I could have ultimately, you know, hopefully the plane could have come and pick me up and took me out of there back to food and a shower and this little like bigger encampment that's in Antarctica. But ultimately, it just, you know, I thought about it as hungry and tired and all the things that I was, I was like, it just doesn't seem right to just. kind of, you know, fly back to that and, you know, maybe never see him again because I could have ultimately kind of left the continent, depending on how the logistics lined up before ever seeing him again. And I'm so grateful that I did make that decision to wait. Although, yes, those couple of days weren't that comfortable. I thought to myself, I've been out here for however

many days already. What's another couple of days to ultimately kind of really have a full, you know, 360 reflection on this and be able to kind of debrief it with Lou. And, you know, one thing that neither of us really anticipated, I suppose, at the time. We knew that there was some press and media covering this. We had no idea, you know, kind of how big that that had become out in the world and this competition was really followed very closely out in the kind of mainstream media. There was ultimately something like two billion media impressions on this, but I was only talking to Jenna on my satellite phone and she was more or less keeping me pretty much protected from the reality of that to just stay super focused on it. And so the second, both him and I got back to, you know,

quote unquote the real world. You know, we were both whisked off before we even went to our homes. Both of us flew to New York City and we were on talk shows and we were on this and all that, which in itself was, I guess, a humbling and interesting experience, very bizarre, having been alone in a tent in Antarctica for two months to be on the bright lights of live television in Manhattan. But more so, to your point, those moments, those couple of days that I waited for him, I had these moments of reflection myself and a lot of writing that actually informed the writing that was in my book and kind of this very pure place before being untouched, to my all people asking questions about the experience. And then also Lou and I were able in our

couple days there as well as the several flights and things that took, basically took about a week actually to unpack the logistics to get us all the way back to South America. Him and I were able to have a series of conversations and meals and things just the two of us before kind of being thrown back into the real world, which from a kind of assimilation of the experience when I look back, I'm so grateful that I have that and that I have that. that I didn't make the choice, which would have been the easy choice just from the comfort level to say, get me out of here. I am freezing cold. I'm tired. My bones are sticking out. I'm hungry. I need a shower. I've been wearing the same pair of underwear for 55 days. Like, get me the heck out of here.

And making the choice to wait, ultimately, it was the best thing for just assimilating that as well as the ongoing friendship and camaraderie that I feel towards Lou. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. All in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest Northwest Registered Agents has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They are the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S. with over 1,500 corporate guides, real people who know your local laws and can help you in your business every step of the way. Build your business fast with

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and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit northwestregistered agent.com slash confidence free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent at www. northwest registered agent.com slash confidence free. That's such a do the right thing move. So congrats there. All right. I want to jump to something that I don't know that you see it this way, but I do.

I keep seeing you jump into things as a rookie. And for me, leaving corporate America, becoming a rookie in the entrepreneurial world, being a rookie as an author, being a rookie as a TEDx speaker, all those things have been scary for me. You've done all these things, a decade earlier than I have.

And not only did you acquire all the success on solo trips and by yourself, but you jumped in and became a rookie rower on a team with a team of people. And I'm so interested how you felt mentally going from all these personal accomplishments now to jump into this rowing space in a never been done before yet again and having to rely on all these people and showing up that you're the new guy that everyone can count on is going to do a great job. Yeah, so, you know, after finishing the solo Antarctica, you know, crossing, of course, there's the inevitable question, what's next, what's next, what's next? And it's funny how that the world is like that, you know, no matter what someone does, doesn't matter who you are. It's always like, okay, great, you know, what's next? It required a little bit of thought for me to think about, you know, what was next. But one of my biggest curiosities, and we touched on earlier, is growth mindset. You know, it wasn't, for me, it was never, you know, I was always fascinated by Antarctica and ultimately the robot, I guess, did take me back to Antarctica. And a very different way. But it wasn't like, oh, great. Well, now I have this, you know,

world first accolade of crossing Antarctica in this way. Is there another polar expedition that I can do? That's like even harder or just a slight variant on this. And look, I admire the people that have done that. Someone like Captain Liu has done, you know, four or five major expeditions in Antarctica. And that's the place that he just wants to continue to do and pull sleds in different ways, you know, with teams or whatever. But I've always been fascinated to say, can I tell you. take what I've learned in this expedition. Basically, can any of us take what we have in this moment and have learned, our past experiences, and then apply them to a completely new medium?

Can you take your experience in the corporate world and apply it to this new playing field of entrepreneurship, right? And so maybe the easier thing to do would be to kind of replicate what I've done before in a new, you know, sexy way or whatever. But I thought, can I take a sport now that I've literally never done? And so this case, it was rowing, ocean rowing. I never rode a boat like at a summer camp. I never rode a boat, you know, when I was in college or anything like that.

Now I'm going to try to row a boat, but now I'm going to try to row a boat across what's known to be the most treacherous stretch of ocean in the world, Drake Passage from the southern America to Antarctica. You know, you're talking icebergs, freezing cold water, 40-foot waves, some of the worst storms you ever see the convergence of the southern ocean, the Atlantic, and the Pacific. I mean, a brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal stretch of water. and going out there with no motor, no sail, the only way to propel our cell in this robo. And then overlay on top of that, which is, yes, I've done these other expeditions and not just the Antarctica crossing, but my other previous world records were all solo endeavors. You know, there were other people like Jenna, other partners who helped me out, you know, incrementally along the way. But ultimately all those world records are, you know, Colin Brady sets the record for X, Y, or Z. And so it was like, can I do something that is a team project?

Now the rowboat, the only way to move that robot was to have six of us on this tiny little like 28 foot long, you know, four foot wide robot that only sits a few feet out of the water. If you look at it, you're like, that is going to sink immediately a wave hits it. It's this tiny little thing. And the cramped quarters of that, the teamwork, the risk associated with that, all these things, you know, can we bring together a group of guys? And ultimately, it was an amazing group of people, you know, all of which had, you know, previous rowing experience, certainly way more so than I did. Not everyone had ocean rowing experience, but everyone had rowing experience. I had never been on the ocean. I had never been in a team environment this intense.

I had never rode a boat before. And I set myself the goal to say, hey, I want to do this at the highest level in a short period of time. Now, the part that I do think is important to take from this is it's not a, on the outset, it might look like a crazy pit. it or sort of a reckless thing like, I'm going to just try to be like the new guy that's working this. But I have a fundamental belief that we are often afraid to do things that we've never done before. However, we are actually closer to achieving them than we might think based on our previous experience. So if you line the resumes up with me and these other guys, or ultimately, dear friends of mine, incredible guys, you know, four different countries,

three different continents, all these kind of accolades and rowing, et cetera. But, you know, I was the only one that had done a really intense expedition in Antarctica before. someone who knows how to navigate coal. Ultimately, how does that, you know, stack up in an expedition like this? Well, you have to take care of yourself and your physical mental health over a long duration of time and extreme isolation. Well, that's going to happen on the rowboat. Your nutrition has to be dialed. The logistics of preparing an expedition that require like the paperwork to get a boat, you know, imported through the Panama Canal into southern Chile and to have all the paperwork to go to Antarctica. I mean, that doesn't, that's not the sexy part of expedition, but like that is a requirement, raising. the money and the funding and the sponsorship. It's like, oh, wait, yes, I do not have the skill of ocean rowing, but there's a whole bunch of other skills right below the surface that I can apply to this new medium. And so for me, it was really fun to exercise this very new muscle, I suppose, but also draw strength from the previous experience. And what that means to me, and I think that that hopefully what that illuminates for others is that, that, you know, it's a lot of, is that, that,

although a leap into the unknown can be very scary, you also might be way more prepared for it than you actually might think. And the proof is if you apply yourself for me, I applied myself to learning rowing. Yes, I had never rowed before, but I've pushed myself as an athlete for years and years and years and know what it's like to push my body and train for something or whatever. So I was able to apply that and learn this new skill by bringing in experts to teach me a lot of that. You know, am I, you know, the world's best, best, best, best rower of all time now? Maybe, you know, no. The answer is no. Was I a part of a team and in a leadership role of this team to become the first people and were we successful in doing this? Absolutely yes. And, you know, it was really fun

project. I got to give a little bit of a shout out. We did this big kind of television documentary around it for Discovery Channel. There's a bunch of kind of short episodes of it online that you can check out around my Instagram, but there's also a feature length documentary that's coming out on and Discovery this fall. And so I've already just seen the rough cuts and stuff of it. Insane footage, a drone footage of us approaching Antarctica and these crazy waves and all of this. They couldn't, you know, give us any support or supplies or anything like that, but they were able to capture it in a really incredible way. So I'm kind of excited to share that with the world soon once that comes out. Yeah, I just watched all of the short videos on YouTube through the

Discovery documentary or shorter version. It's unbelievable. It is so exciting. Words don't do it justice. And that's why I think it's really important for everybody to check this out on Collins, Instagram or YouTube wherever, because it doesn't do it. No one understands how small that vote was and watching how it capsized and flip back and those waves. So please check that out. And one other thing I wanted to bring up about this story in particular, Colin, that I really personally love, because this is new for me, was your work that you did on visualization with the beginning of that journey and you already seeing celebrating with the guys. and then actually in the end playing it out on tape and being able to see that.

Yeah, 100%. You know, I've always, you know, I think that visualization is really powerful. I often say, obviously, we talk a lot about mindset in this conversation, but I love saying, you know, I think the most important muscle any of us has is the six inches between our ears. Obviously, these expeditions that I do require physical preparation, but ultimately the mental preparation, I think, is so crucial, you know, in the execution phase, in when the going gets tough and how to keep yourself motivated, how to stay, you know, mentally sharp,

meditation has been a huge part of my journey. There's a number of different ways, you know, obviously to exercise and flex that muscle, but you need to actually develop that muscle of your mind. But, you know, visualization certainly has been really key. Like I said, you know, just like when I have any plan for anything, I don't, you know, I have the plan and then I know the plan's not exactly going to work, but I'm going to adapt to a ball. But, you know, in my solo Antarctica crossing, I'd had never been there before, obviously,

but the other side of the continent, there was this post hammered into the ground. And I had just known that, you know, basically from doing that. on my research and stuff like that. I didn't even know exactly what this post measured in the ground is, but it's like a U.S. survey marker in the ground, and that marked the edge of the continent at the beginning of the ice shelf. And every single day in training and preparation, as well as during my crossing,

I saw myself touching that post and being like, I have crossed Antarctica, and ultimately, you know, that came to fruition. And so I applied the same methodology with this team environment, which is I knew that the teamwork was going to be such a crucial element to this crossing. And for me, also success in rowing this boat across the ocean, as much as us and the six of us crossing the ocean together and touching the edge of the continent is objectively successful.

Success look to me like touching the edge of the continent with five new lifelong friends, comrades, you know, basically teammates who we've gone through this together and not being like, yeah, we did this together, but like never speak to me again or something like that. as you know, in hyper-intense team environments can devolve in that situation. But my visualization was not only crossing and getting to that finish line and each individually being proud, but ultimately saying, I was one-sixth of a larger hole, and here we are with our arms around each other, like, not I did this and I did this and I did this, but six separate eyes, but six of us collectively looking at it and say, we did this.

And so that was sort of my constant visualization. And as you've seen from some of the discovery footage, you know, it's literally, you know, exactly as it happened is. It wasn't scripted, obviously, but we jump onto the shores of Antarctica and we wrap our arms around each other. And it's like, we freaking did this. There's icebergs and penguins. And like we're all, you know, emaciated and, you know, exhausted and all the things.

But it was a beautiful thing. And I think that there's a lot of power in that. You know, maybe you can't visualize every single one of the dots and how they connect moving forward. etc. But when you set that business plan, when you set an intention around whatever that goal is, a personal goal, a professional goal, I do think it's very powerful to draw in that visualization of that outcome that you are really seeking. And, you know, careful what you put into that visualization, because, you know, dare to dream as greatly as you possibly want to because I really believe that

we can manifest and create those things, particularly when we have it, you know, hammered into our brain. And that's the, you know, obviously where our energy and life force goes towards. Colin, I could talk to you forever, but I'm already over time, and I don't want Jen and mad at me. So tell everybody where can they find you. Come say hello. I'm very active on Instagram. That's probably my most active social media platform. That's just my name at Colin O'Brady.

Share all my expeditions that I post pretty much every single day on there. So definitely come say hello on there. My website, Colinobrady.com, has all the information about booking me as a speaker, information about my book, which I really poured my heart and soul in. and is really proud of. Came out a few months ago. Recently hit the New York Times bestsellers list. It's called The Impossible First from Fire to Ice,

crossing Antarctica alone. Definitely encourage you to check that out. Pick up a copy. Drop me a note when you read it. Let me know what you think. If you don't like reading, there's also an audio book that I narrate myself. So yeah, check it out.

Appreciate it. And really fun conversation. Thanks for having me on. Thank you so much, Colin. Hang tight. We'll be right back. I'm so happy you got to meet Colin. I can't wait to hear what you think of them. Please leave me comments on my post on social media. Send me DMs. I can't wait to hear what you think. And I also want to know, what is your Everest? What is your big, huge goal that you're going to commit to that you are going to go after? I'll tell you for me, it was, well, first it was me writing my first book, Confidence Creator, which I'm super proud of. But I want to remind you, there's mistakes in it, you know, done will always be better than perfect in my book. I'm still so glad I freaking did it.

I'm so proud of myself. And going to work for myself. I remember I used to say, I'm unemployed. And then finally I had to say, I work for myself. Like that was a huge leap. So that was my Everest for a long time. Then when COVID hit, it was changing my business and launching my mentoring program, not knowing what I was doing, not having a website up, not being ready for it,

and just posting on social media, this is what I'm doing, this is what I'm offering. Are you in? And I had the most amazing feedback for my May team. And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that now. The accomplishments that these people have had, what they've done, I'm so flipping proud of them. And the friendships and relationships network and collaboration that have grown out of this have been amazing.

And that I did not forecast. I did not see. I didn't know that was going to happen. Well, today I've been onboarding my new, half of my team from May signed up again for June. Half of my team for June is new. So I was talking to them over the past couple of days, and we have our team meeting tomorrow, our first team meeting, and I was letting them know, you are a part of an amazing group of

people who you can trust, who you are safe with. These are people who are going to encourage you and challenge you to grow, who are there to help you and cheer you on. And you can be your real self in front of them. And a couple of our teammates in May, our last team meeting, revealed some of you. huge personal things with a team. And it was a real breakthrough moment for them because I think one of the biggest ways to claim your confidence is to step into your shame, to own your flaws, to step into your fear, right? All these really scary, hard things. When you do it and you do it

in front of people, it doesn't feel so scary anymore. And then you walk away saying, actually feel pretty good. And I've seen this whole domino effect in the month of May where my team did that, individuals did that, and them doing that elicited the same out of others. And it was a really cool thing. So I wanted to remind you, be so careful who you surround yourself with. Whether you're on my team or on someone else's, pick good people to be around that want to support you to push you to grow, not hold you back. And I saw it.

I was so glad. I didn't know when the new team was coming on. Oh, gosh, I hope they're good people. I hope they're like-minded like us that they want to grow and push. They all are. I mean, everyone's very different, different background, different ethnicity, different ages, different goals. But there's that one commonality of good people that want to get to that next level, that want to get to head and are willing to put the work in. And to me, that's the key factor, that key thread across the team that needs to be there.

So look around your team, the people that you're spending your time with and make sure they're stretching you, make sure they're supporting you, challenging you to get to the next level, but supporting you. at the same time and picking you up on the days that you're down. Those are the kind of teammates you want to be around and the kind of teams you should be on. And if you are not, fire those team members, fire your villains, create boundaries for yourself and start recruiting new teammates. Because anyone can do it. I've seen it happen for me so many different times and I'm so proud that I've built this new team that came out of crisis and challenge. And I'm excited to see where it goes. And I'm so excited for our meeting tomorrow to welcome these new people in to this amazing group and to see the accomplishments that come out of this month. So if we can do it,

you can do it too. Start creating your confidence today. Get a picture of what you're going to look like at the end of the month of June in your mind. Get clear on it and put that picture somewhere and start taking steps every single day. Action steps that will get you to that point, action steps that will move you in your business forward, start firing those villains, start speaking as if you're worthy because you are. And one of the things I heard today, someone was saying, this is a stupid question, Heather, I know this is going to be a dumb question. And I had to catch this person and say, please don't say that anymore. And be self-aware. If you start speaking negatively about yourself, that's how you're selling yourself to other

people. They'll follow suit. They're going to start saying the same things. So instead, let's speak really highly and strongly and powerfully about ourselves so others can do the same. And it's breaking some bad habits and implementing some new ones, which I know all of you can do because I've done it. And if I can do it, you can do it too. All right, can't wait to see you next week. Thank you so much for sharing the show. Thank you for leaving your reviews. They mean the world to me. Please share on social media and tag me. And I will always reshare and tag you back. Until next week, keep creating your confidence.