Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - Confidence Classic: Bust Through Limiting Beliefs & Harness Your Highest Potential with Jenn Drummond, Motivational Keynote Speaker, World Record Holder, Author
Episode Date: March 25, 2025Are you ready to take on the mountain that will CHANGE your life? In this episode, I had an amazing chat with Jenn Drummond, a world-record mountaineer whose journey from a stay-at-home mom to a fearl...ess adventurer is seriously inspiring. Her story kicked off after she survived a life-changing car crash in 2018, a wake-up call that made her decide to seize life’s moments and break through her limiting beliefs. Her journey, which she shares in her book "Breakproof: Seven Strategies to Build Resilience and Achieve Your Goals," shows the power of breaking through limiting beliefs, staying curious, and pushing forward with the help of a great team. By taking risks, trying new things, and challenging ourselves, we find hidden talents and strengths we never knew we had. It's in those uncomfortable moments that we truly SHINE! In This Episode You Will Learn About: How to EMBRACE curiosity and let yourself fail while chasing your dreams Ways to bust through limiting beliefs and really be in the moment Why you need to SURRENDER and let go during tough times to find peace and freedom What it means to acclimatize to challenges, reflect, and learn from setbacks as you move toward your goals Resources + Links Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/monahan Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite.com/MONAHAN. Want to do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic? Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com/MONAHAN. Get 10% off your first Mitopure order at timeline.com/CONFIDENCE. Get 15% off your first order when you use code CONFIDENCE15 at checkout at jennikayne.com. Call my digital clone at 201-897-2553! Visit heathermonahan.com Sign up for my mailing list: heathermonahan.com/mailing-list/ Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Follow Heather on Instagram & LinkedIn Jenn on Instagram: @thejenndrummond
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If someone would have said, hey, I want you to go climb this mountain in a different setting,
I would have been no, unless I knew exactly how to make it happen and to get to the top
and to win or to whatever else like that.
Like I was I can look back and see like I was very selective on what I would get involved
in because it was my brand.
It was who I was.
Like I had to be number one because that's the only place I felt safe.
And after the accident, I was like,
I would rather have the experience failing,
trying to climb a Mount Everest
than never even trying to climb it.
I'm on this journey with me.
Each week when you join me,
we are going to chase down our goals,
overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow.
That's a no-sail dance.
I'm ready for my closeup.
Hi and welcome back.
I'm so hyped you're back here with me this week.
Okay, you are going to love our guest today.
I love her.
We've got Jen Drummond.
She's a world record mountaineer.
What the heck is a mountaineer, Jen?
I can't wait to get into this.
A sought after speaker, an author, a podcast host,
and life disrupting multiple eight figure entrepreneur as a perspective mindset mentor.
She challenged people to slow down, be present and get real with themselves
by tapping into her own personal experiences of light, altering loss,
setback, disappointment and failure.
Jen helps guide others through mindfully and strategically breaking
through their limiting beliefs, moving from going through the motions
to being present to self-awareness
and harnessing their highest potential of self.
Jen, thank you so much for being here today.
Oh my gosh, I'm so excited.
Thank you.
Woohoo.
Okay, so we have to give everyone,
I love giving people the behind the scenes in my life.
So Jen and I met a year ago when she joined my mastermind,
which I loved having you in the mastermind
and thank you for doing that.
And so we got to know each other on the internet,
but we had never met in real life.
And then Jen called me and said,
Hey, I'm coming to Miami.
I'd love to interview you for my podcast.
Can you do it?
And I said, yeah, for sure, let's do it.
And then the day of I was like, I had a million things going on. I text you like, Jen And I said, yeah, for sure, let's do it. And then the day of I was like,
I had a million things going on and I texted you,
I'm like, Jen, I am so sorry to do this,
but I'm running late.
Is there any way you can work with me?
You were so gracious.
I'm like, well, let's go out for drinks after
so that we can still spend more time.
And we ended up having like the best day.
You introduced me to so many people in my town,
which is so ridiculous.
We had such a wild, fun night.
And I told them, like,
I never add people to my friend team anymore
because I have 30 people I run with.
It's like, I have enough friends I can't take anymore.
But I told them, like, no,
you've officially been added.
You're on the friend team.
I know, it was so much fun.
And now I'm sitting there, okay,
cause like, how do we do another Miami weekend?
Like, let's go, it's happening.
Watch out Miami.
Yeah, Miami, seriously watch out.
We really know that as the case
because when we're together, it is ridiculous.
And for everyone listening, just know,
sometimes you meet people on the internet
and they're not the way that you thought they would be,
which sadly that is the truth, right?
Like, you just never know what you're gonna get.
Jen is so my energy, so my vibe,
like she's so us, and it was just, it was so great to be able to hang with you. I can't wait till I
get to see you again. I know, I'm so happy. So yay, yay, internet. Thanks for the connection. We're
good. Your story is so incredible. And my son loves your story, like parts that you were sharing
with him. And I really want you to kind of give everybody the insight
and the incredible journey that you've been on thus far.
Yeah, you know, so I was that girl that was seeking
external validation anywhere she could get it, right?
I got into the financial service career out of college,
which is fantastic for people seeking external validation
because they keep your
names on a wall and stats and how much money are you making and bringing in and revenue
that you're driving and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And that lifestyle wore on me so much to the fact that I'm like, okay, I can't stay here
any longer at this company because I will explode.
So I started my own company,
which is always a ton more work in the beginning
until you learn how to hire yourself out of a job,
which is a skill that takes a lot of development,
a lot of trial and error.
But luckily I had that happen because I became a mom.
And when I became a mom, I'm like,
okay, I'm gonna be this wonderful stay at home mom
because that's what everybody's dream was in my hometown.
And I have these seven amazing children
and all of a sudden they started going to school.
I'm like, okay, well, I don't really like this.
And I didn't know what to do with not really liking that
because I felt shame and guilt about not being ecstatic
to have this privilege to be a stay at home mom.
And I told myself this lie.
I said, okay, this is just a season.
I'm gonna do this stay at home mom thing
until my last one goes to college.
And so that's like 15 years from now.
Like we got this girl.
And I was going through the motions
and I was doing the thing
and I would say that my life was meh, right?
Like it wasn't ecstatic, it wasn't terrible.
It was just, this is what it was, plug and play,
Groundhog's Day, repeat, repeat, repeat.
And then in 2018, December 18 of 2018,
I was in a horrific car crash that should have taken my life.
In fact, they've rebuilt the accident 50 different times and could not build a scenario where I lived,
let alone walked away. And that accident made me realize I don't get to choose when I die, but I sure get to choose
how I live and how I'm living is a choice and is this the choice I want to be making?
And that just woke me up to the fact that like my life could end at any moment.
And if it ended right now, I would be devastated of all the things I didn't take a chance to see,
do, experience, try, like all of it.
So 2019 became like the year of the reckoning
and I had this huge bucket list
and everything under the sun went on it
from I wanna taste pasta in Italy,
to swim in the ocean at the Great Barrier Reef,
and like whatever, right?
I just allowed myself to be playful and curious
and explore who I was.
And on that list was climb a mountain.
And then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna climb a mountain
for my 40th birthday, which happened in 2020.
And that got escalated into this world record pursuit in like life's history.
But that's kind of like me in a nutshell from the beginning.
So when you look back, and first of all, it's so incredible what you've done,
and I can't wait to get into some of the details here.
But, you know, when you look back at that accident, like,
what do you contribute that to in your perspective,
like how you survived that?
Yeah, you know, I think it's funny
because two months prior to that accident,
so in October, somebody gave me that book
called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer.
And prior to that point in my life,
like surrender was a weakness.
Like you do not surrender ever.
And someone's like, just read this book.
I think you'll like it.
So I read the book and I journaled on that word
for like a month.
And finally, I'm like, oh, okay, I get this.
I understand how this is actually a superpower,
not a weakness and da da da da da.
And I think the universe has this way of saying, okay, you get it, but do you live it?
And so when that car accident happened, I remember seeing the semi truck coming up onto
my passenger side headlight.
I'm like, I'm going gonna, the work colliding.
And I remember like saying, you know,
you negotiate with death in those moments,
like, okay, I promise I'll do something significant
with my life if you just let me live.
And when that collision actually happened,
like I had this download of like,
I am not gonna be able to force through this, like
everything else in my life where I would double knuckle and try harder and push more and make
it happen.
Like the only way I'm going to survive this accident is if I let go and totally surrender
and just roll with the car because the car is stronger than me and I can't beat it.
And it was, it was that surrender experiment in real life.
So I put my hands on the steering wheel,
my head on the headrest, and I just counted the rolls.
I'm like, okay, I have enough momentum.
I'm gonna go again.
I'm gonna go again.
And I went like three forward flips,
and then I started doing the sideways rolls,
and then I ended up upside down in the median.
And the interesting thing about that spot was,
someone came running and I could hear them.
They're like, are you okay?
Are you okay?
Are you okay?
But I wasn't registering that they were talking to me
until that person peeled back the windshield.
And when they peeled back the windshield, we caught eyes.
And this guy looking at me goes, are you okay?
And I looked back at him and I'm like, based on his facial expression, I am not okay. And so I'm like, what do I do? What do I do? And so instead of, I didn't have the courage to look at my body at
this moment because I felt all these warm feelings everywhere. And I'm like, I'm sure I'm bleeding
out. I don't even know what just happened. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I closed my eyes and I wiggled my fingers and toes.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I can feel my fingers and toes.
Like I can feel my fingers and toes.
And I said that out loud a couple of times.
He goes, if you can feel your fingers and toes,
you're going to be okay.
I just need to leave you here until the ambulance comes
because I don't know what's going on.
I'm like, okay, fine.
And I share that story because I don't know what's going on. I'm like, okay, fine.
And I share that story because I think it's so important
for us to recognize we're the only ones
that can tell the world we're okay.
Because the world is gonna tell you you're not.
Like that guy's face was telling me I'm not okay.
But that's not a truth I have to believe.
I have to listen to my internal story
and come up with whatever that truth is for myself.
Meet a different guest each week.
What is on your mind?
Confidence cleared.
Confidence cleared.
I ask you to try to find your passion.
So powerful.
I'm not great at surrender either.
However, probably the last year, I've really,
actually no, it started for me back right at the end of the pandemic. I started like trying to
learn more about it, trying to understand what that meant because truly, and I'm sure for some
people listening, like it doesn't even make sense. Can you explain to us what surrender is and how
it's applicable in your life? For me, I think it's like, I learned how to surf during COVID.
Like one of the fun things about COVID is like,
we had all this time and I took my kids to Hawaii
because I'm like, if we're gonna blow up,
like let's blow up at the beach.
And so we did COVID in Hawaii
and I remember learning how to surf
and how you had to like paddle so hard to get into the wave.
And then once you got into the wave,
like you just, you relaxed and you just let go and you just like flowed into the wave. And then once you got into the wave, like you just, you relaxed and you
just let go and you just like flowed with the wave. And I think so much of us are used to just that
paddling of so hard and just giving it all that we got that we forget the other part of that circle
is to let go and ride the momentum that you've generated. And so for me with that car accident, it was like,
okay, I can't beat this car.
The only thing I can do is try to move with it
because if I move with it, then I'm not resisting it.
And that resistance is what causes injury.
And so when we're looking at our own lives,
like, yeah, the bus pulls up, you got to fricking
hustle to get on that bus to go wherever you're going.
But once you're on that bus, like that's your chance to like, take the ride and get off
at the next stop.
When I'm hearing you talk about this, it's reminding me that it's wild.
I haven't thought about this in a long time.
Right near the end of COVID, my spin class,
we couldn't meet indoors.
So we actually did class on a rooftop,
which is when I live in Miami.
So we're very blessed, right?
Like we're at the beach.
So we're so blessed we had the opportunity to do that
in such a difficult time when people couldn't be together.
We could actually be in a group setting outside.
And you could see over the top of the roof.
And I remember, and I always think like divine intervention,
like you get the right messages at the right time.
It's up to you if you want to receive it or not, right?
Like obviously some of us were busy, whatever.
But in this moment I wasn't,
I was like open to receiving messages.
And COVID had been horrible for me and my son
living in a small condo.
My son lost his dog, was depressed.
Like it was a really bad time in our life.
And I'm the most extroverted person I've ever known
in my entire world, so I was miserable.
Okay, cut to, I'm on this roof,
the instructor's speaking to us,
and he starts, he's like this kind of introverted,
quiet guy, and he's talking about the need to just let go.
And how scary it can feel to just let go, but that when you do it, that's when you
find your peace, that's when you can really be free. And so I'm listening to him and I'm like,
it makes sense, but that sounds really hard, really foreign to me and super scary because like you
type A overachiever, I've just been flying my way to everything, trying to control everything my
whole life, right? Like, and I didn't even understand there was a different way.
So as we sang this, I was so open to receiving the message in the moment.
I remember thinking, I need to let go right now.
Like, this is the moment.
I was like looking over the edge of the building.
I could see like just the whole world.
And I'm like, I just need to let go.
I can't white knuckle anything anymore.
I have to let go.
And like that really started this process for me, which I certainly I'm
not nailing it. But every morning I asked this rep surrender my life to God and God
your plan is greater than mine and I let go and for your plan because the one thing that
I've noticed nothing as dramatic as like what you've gone through just so powerful and so
visible like I get it. But I've had like these little wins of like, when I do let go, watching something beautiful show up in my life
that I never knew.
It kind of similar to you.
When you're talking about this whole path
that you started down,
that's when you found the mountain to climb.
Right? Like when you got,
oh, you really find your true path and your true calling.
And what's more beautiful than that?
Oh no. And it's crazy because like,
when I got into this
mountaineering stuff, I had never slept in a tent.
OK, so it wasn't like I was this hardcore mountaineer.
Let's make this happen. Life is good.
Like it was just this OK, I have this space
to allow something different. Show up.
I'm in this place of curiosity.
And if someone would have said,
hey, I want you to go climb this mountain
in a different setting, I would have been no,
unless I knew exactly how to make it happen
and to get to the top and to win
or to whatever else like that.
Like I was, I can look back and see,
like I was very selective on what I would get involved in
because it was my brand.
It was who I was.
Like I had to be number one because that's the only place I felt safe.
And after the accident, I was like, I would rather have the experience failing,
trying to climb a Mount Everest than never even trying to climb it.
And that, like when I had that aha moment and that like thing of success is
experience versus success is number one.
The doors like flooded open with all kinds of opportunity.
Wow, that's so incredibly powerful. And you're so right. Why did it take us so long to start
learning these things? And PS, this stuff needs to be taught to kids in school. It's
crazy.
Yes, I know. It's great. Like, and like, it's funny because I have
seven kids. So I have like this, you know, crayon box of different colors and ways of doing life.
And it's funny because some of my kids are hardwired for that external validation. And I
have a couple of them that are hardwired. They're like, I don't care what my grade is, mom, it
doesn't matter. Like this is who I am. And it's so fun because some of them I'm like,
oh, this is me.
And some of them are like, man,
I wish I had that knowledge or that view
or that way of doing life.
It's so fun to watch them bring it forward
and we learn from them.
Guys, so listening right now,
the power is in the surrender.
The power is in the letting go.
That is the strongest, most powerful thing
that you can do, not the way we'd always been taught.
All right, Prisvend, take us into,
because first of all, the fact that you bring hair dryers
and like curling iron when you do go on your mountain trip,
like give us a little insight into like
how this thing came to be and like how you still are you
on mountains and like what you've done.
Yeah, okay, so we back up and say,
okay, I'm gonna climb a mountain for my 40th birthday.
And I live in Park City,
so there's people that are big into mountains
all over the place.
And I asked some friends
that I knew were big into mountaineering,
hey, if you could climb one mountain in the whole world,
what would you climb?
And some people said,
you know, you should go climb this mountain
named Amma de Blom. I'm gonna say that again because it's go climb this mountain named Amma de Blom.
I'm going to say that again, because it's going to come forward.
Amma de Blom.
I'm like, okay.
But it gets the Paramount Pictures logo.
I've researched it now.
I don't think it really was, but I was sold on that at the moment.
So every time you go to a movie, you can say like, I climbed that mountain and it's in
Nepal and all these things.
So I'm like, okay, sweet.
That's the mountain I'm going to climb.
Well, early on in 2020, COVID happened.
So I'm not climbing anything or going anywhere.
And I'm homeschooling.
And my youngest son is struggling with his math homework.
So I'm doing that parent pep talk.
Like, we do hard things.
You've got this.
And this little guy looks me straight in the face
and he goes, mom, if we do hard things, you've got this. And this little guy looks me straight in the face and he goes, mom, if we do hard things,
why are you climbing a mountain called I'm a dumb blonde
instead of a real mountain like Mount Everest?
And I'm sitting there, I'm a dumb blonde, I'm a dumb blonde.
I'm a dumb blonde, honey, not I'm a dumb blonde,
but thank you.
And so then I'm like, you finish your homework,
we'll look at Everest.
So he finishes his homework, we look at Everest,
he goes to bed, and I sit there and think,
I'm like, why not Everest?
If this kid's perception is that Everest is the hardest
mountain in the whole world, I'm in a climate,
and I'm gonna show him whatever Everest is
we're capable of summiting.
So I call up a coach. The coach is like, yes, I can get you ready. You used to be an athlete.
This will be fine. He goes, buy this book about becoming an uphill athlete. So I'm like, okay,
fine. So this book comes in the mail and in the front, I'm like reading it. And in the front of
it, there's a story of a lady who got a Guinness World Record. I don't know, I must have been having a terrible day or something but I'm having this call with
my coach about training and I'm like, I could have done that. That lady suffered through something
in the Alps. I can suffer. I have seven children right now that hate me because I'm doing this
homeschool thing. Like if I got a Guinness World Record, I'd be a cool mom. And my coach is like,
okay, I'll think of something. I'm like, okay, fine. And I like just went on with life kind of
letting it go. I didn't even, it wasn't a big point of our conversation, but he calls me a
few weeks later and he's all excited. He's like, Jen, I have the perfect world record for you.
I'm like, oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, what is it?
He's like, I think you should be the first female
to climb the seven second summits.
I'm like, okay, I don't know what you're talking about.
He's like, you know the seven second summits?
I'm like, no, I don't know the seven second summit.
So he's like, you know, it's the second highest point
on each of the seven continents.
It's actually harder than the first seven.
It's only been done by one male.
So you'd be the first woman to do it.
And he goes, if you think about it,
seven mountains, seven continents, seven children,
it sounds like a jackpot.
And I had that full body, yes,
like it does sound like a jackpot,
but do you know what I look like?
Like, do you know what it takes to run this show?
Like, are you kidding me?
And he's like, I think you should do it.
So I thought about it with my kids and I'm like, yeah,
let's do it.
Like, who cares if I fail?
This is a pretty epic experience to pursue.
And so I started on it and I remember,
like I climbed one mountain and it wasn't like a big deal.
So then I'm like, okay, I'm fine.
I climbed the next one, wasn't like a big deal. So then I'm like, okay, I'm fine. I climbed the next one.
It wasn't a big deal.
As in like I wasn't away from civilization for very long.
So like I could still keep this going.
But it was time to go climb Everest with my son that I had promised that I would climb
it.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be gone for like three or four weeks.
And that's the speed version of Everest.
Most people are gone like six to eight and
so I'm trying to figure out how this is all gonna work and I
Called these climbing companies and like hi
I'm like interviewing climbing companies to climb Everest they have some questions
So I had like all the important questions and then my last question was
Hey, I have really long blonde hair and I don't wanna get sick and not be able to summit.
And so I was wondering if I could bring a hairdryer
and use the generator to dry my hair.
And the first company was like,
you should just cut your hair.
Like, no, you're not,
I don't even know what you're asking me right now.
Like, okay, hung up, right?
The second company I called,
they're like, yeah, sure, you know, once a week,
you could use the generator.
I don't think that'd be a big deal, that'd be fine.
And then the third company I called was like,
do you need a mirror?
I'm like, that's my company, right?
Like they're anticipating, like not, you know,
if you're gonna dry your hair,
you need to look at when you're doing it.
And I'm like, that just shows this company
going above and beyond, that's who I'm gonna climb with.
And so anyways, I go to Climb Everest
and a company in Utah gave me a solar powered battery
that would actually power the hairdryer.
So I wouldn't use the generator
and then I could leave the battery
for this company to use for other things.
And so I bring the solar powered battery.
I take a shower at base camp, and I go to plug in
my hairdryer, because I think I'm going to dry my hair in my tent so no one really knows what's
going on. And it doesn't work, because it has to be on the freaking sun for the battery to work. I'm
like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to do this in front of all these people. Okay, maybe my hair will
dry by itself. So like I literally waited an hour
to see if my hair was drying.
It was like turning into ice crystals.
It was not drying.
I'm like, okay, well I have to dry it
because the sun's out, the sun's gonna go down.
So I finally get enough courage and I try to hide.
Okay, I'm hidden for like five minutes.
And then everybody's like,
there's that girl blow drying her hair over there.
And so like everybody's watching and coming around.
I'm like so embarrassed.
Whatever.
My hair gets dried.
I kind of like get over it.
We climb Everest, we summit.
And then afterwards everybody collects in Kathmandu before they fly home and
kind of have some celebration.
So I go back to Kathmandu and I'm known as Mountain Barbie because I'm drying my hair.
And I was super embarrassed until this woman came up to me
and she goes, hey, I just wanna thank you.
I'm like, thank me?
She was like, yeah, I wanna thank you for having needs,
not apologizing for them and doing what you needed to do.
And she's like, that gave me a whole bunch of courage
to ask for what I needed because it wasn't like I was asking for shrimp at base camp.
I'm just not a mini male and women have different needs than men do and we can still do things that
they want to do like climb Everest. And I literally had like four or five women come up to me and give
me those same kind of sentiments.
And it was one of those things where like, well, if I knew this was going to happen,
I would have been like loud and proud drying my hair at Everest. But I think we forget
that if we have a need, somebody else probably does too. And so if we have the courage to
step into that, just like you talk about about if we have the confidence to do whatever.
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But in my life, what you just reminded me of is every time I speak at a tech conference, I
mean, you and I are very similar with like how we dress and whatnot. And so I'm always
like wearing, you know, bright pink or like bright baby blues. It's like something very
feminine. And typically I'm wearing a dress, right? And so what I didn't know, just like
you, you didn't know that the impact you have just being yourself. Because when you were
trying to hurt just doing what you do, right? Like that was important
to you. And I love that they gave you this feedback because every single time I do it at a tech
conference, specifically, I get chased down leaving the building every time going to my car, going to
Uber. And it's always women coming after me to tell me, thank you so much for wearing what you
wore today. You just gave me permission to start showing up as a woman in my tech company.
I always feel like I can't.
I feel like women can't really be women and celebrate themselves.
Thank you for showing me what's possible for me.
And I think so often for everyone listening,
that we don't think that we have that impact, that we have that domino effect
on other people, but the reality is everybody has that power.
Yeah, no, we do.
And we forget that we're not just showing up for ourselves.
We're showing up for women everywhere.
And it's so important to check in and say,
if I do this, what kind of impact can I have?
Because we impact each other either by not doing something,
which then keeps everybody hush hush,
or if we have the courage to do something,
it lets other people tap into their courage
and war becomes possible.
So good.
Okay, so you didn't stop
with just summoning these mountains, right?
Like this started you on a whole different path
and trajectory in your life,
ultimately to writing your new book.
Talk to us a little bit about like how that came
to be and why you did it. Yeah, so here's the book Breakproof Seven Strategies to Build Resilience
and Achieve Your Life Goals. And I live by somebody that writes books, right? So when I was on a walk
one day halfway through this pursuit, they're like, you should write a book. I should have thought
about that. But like who the messenger was that you write books for a living, that's easy for you.
I do not write books for a living,
this was a big undertaking.
But I did it because I know the me before the accident,
there's a lot of me out there.
And so I wrote this book to that version of me
and saying like, listen, if something is inside of you,
like you're
the only one that can bring it to life I need you to become break proof in that
pursuit because if you do you you give my daughter permission for her to do her
and we all benefit. It's so true and it's funny because when you were just talking
about that I'm thinking about what you said, you were living meh. That's what you said. Meh. Like, well, I've been
there myself when I was in corporate America for a decade, I was kind of meh. I didn't
love what I was doing. But I'm like, Oh, golden handcuffs got to do it. I really thought like
that was just the only option for life, which is wrong. So wrong. How like Jen, now that
you've gone down this road
and like you've really devoted so much of your life now
to this purpose driven work,
what percent of people are living a meh life?
Gosh, you know, it's crazy.
I think a lot.
Like I don't even know how you put a percentage on it,
but here's how I know.
Because when I go on walks with friends
or I talk at companies or I meet with people
because their companies come in here to do events and I take their group on a hike or
whatever that looks like, you realize you have these conversations and then they start
getting excited because they're excited about what you achieved and they start seeing the
possibility in themselves and they start getting curious about what that shift would look like
or what single step they could take
to do something a little bit different.
And I think if they were already on that path,
those aha moments wouldn't click like they do.
And so for me, it's just been this thing of,
get curious, like lean into yourself.
What gets you excited?
Like I was so lost in motherhood.
And that's like a reputable thing to be lost in.
Like let's not be shy about the fact
that society commends you for being lost in motherhood.
Right, you could never be too good of a mother.
That when I started journaling after the accident,
I'm like, I don't even know what my favorite color is.
And so I bought this pack of pins.
It was like 12 different colors.
I'm like, I can't write in red
because that feels like I'm correcting myself.
If I write in yellow, I feel like I can't see what I wrote.
Like, I'm like going through these things
and I finally decided, I'm like, I'm gonna write in purple.
Purple's playful.
It's like all these different things.
And when you get curious about yourself
and allow yourself to like just step into these things
and try it out and not commit to it forever
and let it be a season,
like life becomes pretty fun again,
no matter what you're doing
or where you are on your journey.
It's so flipping true.
And that's the thing, it's for a long time
when you are a type A overachiever
who's so driven to achieve success,
like you said, and be number one, it's easy to lose sight, but life's supposed to be fun.
And I, for a long time, and I know same with you, like you kind of just forget about it, you ignore,
am I even having fun every day? Versus when you show up every morning and you're doing something
that you're put on the scourge to do and you're living a purpose driven life. Things are so here's like a crazy thing. So my story and we all
have a story. So the thing is to give yourself space to become aware of your story. My story
was I am lucky to have the opportunity to be a stay at home mom, which I truly was.
But there was a time where my kids needed me home and I'm glad I was there for it.
And then they started doing their thing
and they needed a different role model.
And so when I started to step into things that I was doing,
they like watched and we would have conversations
that were more of the same, right?
Like my son didn't wanna do his math homework.
Hey, I don't feel like training today,
but I'm gonna go climb Everest so I have to train. Like sometimes we have to do his math homework. Hey, I don't feel like training today, but I'm going to go climb Everest, so I have to train.
Like sometimes we have to do things we don't like
because we want the end result.
Like I have to eat healthy, I have to do,
so we were doing life in parallel.
And so we could compare notes of like,
oh, this is what we do.
This is how it looks.
This is how it works.
It wasn't just me preaching like,
hey, I don't even really like my life,
but here's what you need to do.
Kids don't wanna take advice
from somebody that's not loving their life.
They wanna take advice from like,
my mom is slaying it and she's happy, what is she doing?
I wanna copy that.
And I think it's so important for us to realize like,
we're always on a stage with our friends,
with our children, with our peers, like we gotta always on a stage with our friends, with our children, with our peers.
Like we gotta lean into us.
Meet a different guest each week.
What is all this?
Confidence quick.
Confidence quick.
I asked you to try to find your passion.
Oh, such a fact.
Kids are gonna do what they see you do,
not what they hear you tell them to do.
And that's so powerful and so important to remember.
All right, let's get into some of the strategies
from the book, the seven strategies to build resilience.
Can you share some of those with us?
Yeah, I think my biggest one from like the book
that I have to repeat to myself on a regular basis
is big mountains, metaphorical,
big mountains take big teams. You know, I think so much of us like I have this Everest-like goal.
It's not me climbing Everest. There are so many people that made that goal possible for me,
from help at home, help with the kids to like getting food on the mountain and
moving tents and oxygen and having support and setting ropes.
And I mean, there's a ton of people involved to be able to climb a Mount Everest.
And so for you that are listening, if you have your Everest goal and you're starting
to get tired or you want to negotiate with yourself on it like,
oh, I was just being crazy. I don't need to set a goal that big. I want to do this.
I want you to just stop for a second. Instead of negotiating or trying to shank your goal or trying
to give yourself an excuse to not achieve your Everest and ask yourself, do I have enough help?
Because I think nine times out of 10,
it's we don't have enough help, we don't ask for it.
And so we're trying to take on this huge Everest goal
by ourselves and that's not gonna happen.
Like you're not gonna get to the top
unless you have people on your team.
And so in the book, I talk about how to ask for help
and how to build your team so that you can get to the top of the mountain.
And here's some signs
that you don't have enough people on it.
And that's why you want to quit.
So true. Oh my gosh.
It's so hard to ask for help until you do it successfully.
And then you're like, what the heck was I waiting for?
All right, what's another one of these strategies
that you hear from your readers that has helped them?
I think the concept of a climatizing.
Okay, so it's what happens when you climb a mountain
like Mount Everest.
I thought you literally went to Everest
and then you went from base camp to the top
and back down to base camp,
and that just took three weeks.
Well, when I got to Everest,
I realized you actually climb Mount Everest multiple times
because of the lack of oxygen.
So you'll get to base camp and then you'll hike up to camp one or camp two. And then there's a
point where your body can not go any further. There's just not enough oxygen in the air for how
you currently are wired. So you get to that point of failure and then you go back down to base camp and you sit at base camp for about three days.
And the stress from that point of failure
causes your body to physiologically change.
So you're making more red blood cells.
So that three days later,
if you were to climb that same section,
you can actually go higher up the mountain
because now you have more red blood cells
to operate in the lower oxygenated environment.
So you go up to camp three, hit a point of failure, come back down, go to camp four until
you get to the summit.
And so whatever our goal is, if it's an Everest-like goal, so like your biggest one you have, maybe
you hit a point of failure.
That doesn't mean quit. that doesn't mean stop.
That means come back home, come back to the boardroom,
look at what you've learned, figure things out,
integrate that learning into who you are,
so that when you go climb the mountain again,
you're acclimatized and you can climb higher.
So sometimes you need to climb down to climb back up.
And I don't know, we always give ourselves permission to do that.
Well, number one, I didn't know that that's how it works.
Obviously, I've never climbed a mountain, but I had no idea.
It's so interesting to think of that parallel to like other things in life.
And this is what confused me, though, and I'm interested to know your answer
on our thoughts on it.
But when do you know it isn't time to give up?
Cause now I'm thinking of like relationship,
like there's so many different lenses you could see this
or like how do you know when it is time to call quits
on something, on a business, on a relationship,
on a partnership, whatever,
or that no, maybe I just need to climatize my body
and go for it again.
Okay, so we'll use this analogy, right?
Like you hit this point of failure
and you come back to the boardroom
and you're looking at things and you're saying,
okay, what do I know now?
Does this still make sense to go forward?
So I'll give you an example of when something
didn't make sense for me to go forward.
I went on a friend's private plane and we went shopping.
We didn't have to do all that TSA garbage. Like we's private plane and we went shopping. We didn't
have to do all that TSA garbage like we got to leave when we wanted to like it
was the most romantic sexy adventure we've ever done and so I came home I'm
like I need a plane this is amazing I'm gonna go get my pilot's license so I
sign up at the local airport I start taking pilot classes I get there and I have to go through all these rundowns
and run-ups and all of a sudden I realize
when I'm in the air, like 97% of the time
I'm checking for problems, right?
And like 3% of the time I actually get to enjoy
what I'm doing, like, oh, isn't this pretty
and look what we're doing.
The rest of the time is, are the gauges working?
If something went wrong, where would we land? If something went wrong, where would we land?
And like all this stuff.
So I'm like, okay, this isn't quite what I thought
it was gonna be.
And so I'm like, okay, but it's gonna be so nice
for my kids.
So then I go back to the class and I'm like, hey,
I wanna take my kids and fly them over our house.
So I take two kids to my class.
They sit in the back of the plane and they're like,
where's my TV? Like there isn't one on this plane. They have to go to my class. They sit in the back of the plane, and they're like, where's my TV?
I'm like, there isn't one on this plane.
They have to go to the bathroom.
There's no bathroom on this plane.
Mommy's learning to fly.
Where are their snacks?
I'm like, oh my gosh, just look at your house.
This is amazing, right?
And so then we leave that day, and I'm driving home.
I'm like, okay, I don't think I can fly this plane
and raise my children at the same time,
because that didn't work
Every time I come home from this flight I'm like all of a sudden having that scan my home environment for bad things that are happening and
That's not a great thing to do when you have seven children because there's always bad things happening
And you need to focus on the things that are going good not bad
And but I don't quit like I'm gonna do this. I said I was.
So anyways, I keep doing the lessons.
And it's time to take my final exam.
And my instructor's like, hey listen, you need to call your insurance company because
today you'll pass your exam and that changes things.
So I call my insurance company.
I'm like, hi, I'm getting my pilot's license.
I should get it later on today.
And then they gave me all my insurance premiums,
which are like seven X what they were
prior to this pilot's license things
because it's so dangerous
that the chances of dying are so much higher.
I'm like, okay, wait a minute.
My kids are gonna be a nightmare on this thing.
My insurance premiums go through the roof.
I like, I'm not the nicest person
for a few hours after the lesson
because my mind hasn't
shifted into like a different gear.
Like this isn't working for us.
So I didn't do the final exam and I walked away from it and I walked away from it knowing
that I checked all the boxes.
It wasn't what I originally set it out to be.
Like I knew like there was no guilt or shame or like, hey, I wish I would have
completed. And so for us in a relationship or in a business setting or in personal goals, when you
can pull away from the situation and look at it with a rational mind instead of an emotional mind
and do like the pros and cons, not every pursuit you're going to take needs to be taken to the top
and that's okay. Oh, that is so good. And I never knew that story before. And you're gonna take needs to be taken to the top and that's okay. Oh that is so good and I never knew that story before and you're such a
badass that you were even flying a plane that is freaking incredible. Yeah it's
awesome. Yeah you're like, no you went from mid-flight to now she summits the biggest
mountains in the world and flies planes. Okay so tell us who did you write this
book for? Who needs to get this book?
Yes, so if you are at a spot where you're not sure
what you wanna do next with your life,
maybe you sold a company, maybe you got out of marriage,
maybe you launched your kids and now you're in this space,
you're like, hey, what do I wanna do
with my one precious life?
This book's gonna be for you.
If you're running into a hard time and you're like,
hey, I don't know what to do next, this book's for you. If you're running into a hard time and you're like, Hey, I don't know what to do next.
This book's for you. If you are like going to start a new pursuit and you want to be proactive
and be like, Oh, this feeling might show up like the messy middle or the imperfect start or these
different pieces. This is going to allow you to know what to look for. So when it shows up,
you're like, aha, I have a solution.
This is how we overcome.
OK, the book is a break through seven strategies
to build resilience and achieve your goals.
Where can people find the book and where can they find you?
OK, so come to jendrummond.com.
You can buy the book there at Amazon or any retailer.
And then if you go to jendrummond,
you'll be able to see all my social media handles.
Follow me on whatever platform's your favorite.
Reach out, say hi, and let's connect.
Jen, thank you so much for all the work you're doing
to make the world a better place to help elevate,
literally, yourself and others,
and by leading a family of seven
and doing it with such put-spud
that inspires me every time I hear your story
or take a
look at the work you're doing. I'm just so grateful that to call you a friend, my friends.
Thank you so much.
All right, guys, until next week, go get the book, Breakthrough. You are going to love it.
Don't lead a meh life when you have a life of purpose, passion, and fun ahead of you.
Get the book. Until next week, keep creating your confidence.
You know I will be.
I decided to change that dynamic.
I couldn't be more excited.
What you're gonna hear, start learning and growing.
Inevitably something will happen.
No one succeeds alone.
You don't stop and look around once in a while.
You could miss it.
I'm on this journey with me.