Habits and Hustle - Episode 315: Jenn Drummond: Lessons Learned From Climbing Mountain Everest While Raising 7 Kids

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

Can you imagine training 1,238 hours for a moment that lasts just 10 minutes? Now imagine doing all that training as a working mom to 7 kids. Feels kind of impossible right? Well, if you’re looking for a boost of inspiration today, we’ve got you.  This week on Habits & Hustle I’m joined by guest, Jenn Drummond. Becoming the first (and only) woman to complete the seven second summits we discuss how she balanced her rigorous training with motherhood and entrepreneurship, from pre-dawn workouts and on-the-go exercises at her kids soccer games.  She also shares the rigorous mental and physical preparation that goes into climbing Mount Everest, and how to shift your mindset from prioritizing achievements, to the people and relationships that help you get there. Jenn also explores the critical importance of following rules and maintaining a strong mindset in an extreme environment, and how we can apply that to our own lives day-to-day.  Jenn Drummond is a world record holder, author of ‘BreakProof’, host of the ‘Seek Your Summit’ podcast, and mom of 7. Jenn holds the record for the first woman to summit the seven second summits following a life-threatening car accident in 2018. What we discuss:  (00:01) - the shift from operating out of fear to living from a place of abundance and purpose (10:08) - how you turn life’s toughest struggles into your biggest triumphs  (15:43) - the harsh reality of preparing to climb Mount Everest (when you’ve never even slept in a tent) (24:05) - how to navigate the mental and physical preparation alongside parenthood (32:11) - navigating life or death situations in real time (41:42) - lessons learned from climbing the most famous mountain in the world  (48:58) - how to master your mindset to achieve everything you’ve ever dreamed of Thank you to our Sponsors:  Therasage: Go to therasage.com and use code B-BOLD for 15% off HBR: Go to www.hbr.org/subsciptions and enter promo code HABITS Find more from Jen:  Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen  Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Jenn Drummond:  Website: https://jenndrummond.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejenndrummond/ Book: https://jenndrummond.com/book/ Podcast: https://jenndrummond.com/podcast/

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it! Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therisage. Their Tri-Lite panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their Red Light Therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps,

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and use code Be Bold for 15% off any of their products. Jen, I'm so okay. First of all, thank you. You're the most accommodating human I've ever met in my life, which is why I just adore you. So thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm excited about another Jen. Another Jen, right? Another Jen. Jen, okay, first of all, let me just tell everybody I did Jen's podcast, I don't know how many months ago, and in all transparency, I didn't know who you were.

And as we were doing the interview about me, like little tidbits of you were, you were telling me about you in the conversation. And like one thing was more impressive than the other. And I'm like, Oh my God, you have to be on my podcast because you know, like you don't know what you don't know. And you're like a gem of like people overuse the word badass and high performance. But then there's are those times where you meet somebody and like they legit are a badass who are super high performers and you are one of them. So it's just a pleasure to have you in my life and to have you on the show.

So again, congrats to everything you've been doing. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a journey, which we all know, right? But the habits and hustles get us to the top of these summits. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Exactly. So let me just tell people, for those of you who don't know,

Jen is an entrepreneur, a mother of seven, okay guys? Not one, two, seven, and a world record holder as the first woman in history to climb the seven second summit. So you'll tell us about that, right? I mean, people legit like die trying to do what you've done and you're like little wee you did it. And I first want to ask you or just give people a quick brief origin story of who you are before I kind of dive into more questions. Yeah, you know, I was definitely an achiever growing up for sure. But I was achieving out of fear instead of out of love.

I got into a car accident in 2018 that should have taken my life and didn't. It really woke me up to this fact that we do not get to choose when we die, but we sure get to choose how we live. And am I really living? And it was just an entire paradigm shift on so many levels. So I started to take that personality and instead of operating from fear, operate from this place of abundance and opportunity and purpose and drive. Somehow we can talk about the details of getting into the seven second summits. I was presented with an opportunity to climb. I thought that'd be a great way to make my mark in the world. And here we are. I set the world record on June 1st of 2023. I just launched the book a couple of weeks ago. So life's been full speed ahead. So right. Jen's new book is

called Breakproof. And I just wanted to, before we get into all of that, the questions I have, you said something that I just wanted to tap into, which is not operating out of fear. How do you tell people like what would how do you start doing that if that's how we're preconditioned or that's how we've been so used to doing things? What is your advice on how we start taking that step for not operating out of a place of fear? Yeah, I mean, I think awareness is our first step in all cases, and really just asking yourself the questions, why am I doing this? What am I doing this for?

Where's the drive coming from? So I started a business in the financial service sector. I graduated from college, friends of my head of me said, you're expensive, you better get a job whereas you make good money because otherwise you're gonna be upside down. And so when I took a job in finance, it was calling people and helping them with their financial futures.

And I really enjoyed it, but there was like never enough. And that feeling of never enough is just a hollow feeling that keeps you in the rat race. And all of a sudden I realized like, I'm the only one that gets to determine if it's enough, not somebody else, not any other judgment matters. And so when I started looking at it and being, man, is this where I'm feeling happy?

Am I like excited to go to work? Am I doing impact? Am I like making a difference for myself and others? And just cluing into those little pieces about us that say, oh, I'm not afraid that I'm not gonna get there. Now I'm like afraid. I guess my fear shifted from like failing and looking like an idiot, not having enough

and all that kind of stuff to my failure was, what happens if I don't get to taste pasta in Italy? Or what happens if I don't get to experience these things that I want to do that before I was too afraid to look like an idiot doing them? Now I don't care if I look like an idiot. Everybody who's judging me is going to die someday just like I'm going to die. So why am I going to let their opinion matter more than my own? Right. That's exactly true. I feel the same way. I think like that too. But I do also feel like this, the idea and the thought of never enough is what motivates and drives a lot of high achievers and high performers because things are never enough. I mean, I'm,

you know, in all honesty, that's kind of, I'm guilty of that, right? Like even now, I mean, I try to overcome it myself, but you know, no matter what I have achieved, I never look at what I've done as enough, which then when something happens, I'm like, okay, okay, onto the next thing to prove it to myself, right? Not competitive with other people, but competitive with myself.

And it's very hard to like unravel that behavior pattern, right? Cause that's what drives us to be successful a lot of the time. Right. And it's hard when society promotes it. I mean, when I set this world record, the number one question I got was,

what's next? What's next? What's next? And I, yeah, I'm like, you want to know what's next? I'm celebrating a season of what is, I'm not allowing myself to commit to another goal or take another thing on for at least a year after this goal has rested because my kids need to see what it looks like to be in a season of winter to not be chasing something, to not be doing something and still be valued as the human they are.

And so- Wow, you just said that, but then you also said for at least a year, you know, what you've accomplished is for most people, like a life accomplishment, right? Or like, wow, now I can just, you know, lie down, watch Netflix, eat bonbons. Like what, it's not just, oh, I promised myself

not to do something for a year. I mean, do you hear the cuckoones of that? Like it's crazy. Yeah, but you know, I think we meet ourselves in pursuits. Right? Yeah. You know, so for me, it's like, okay, I'm gonna take a year off, but here's what happened. I got to a top of the last mountain

and I'm 12 steps away from becoming a world record holder. And those last 12 steps I took so intentionally and just thoughtfully and as slowly as I could because I knew I wasn't getting those moments back. And when I got to the top, I took in this huge inhale and everything disappeared. There's no time, there's no space, there's nothing to achieve, there's nothing to do. It's just you're this moment of awe. And then you start breathing again and then things start to separate and you get cold and you realize you're

on a mountain and you need to get down and all like life returns at its speed. And I remember telling myself, okay, soul, I'm gonna take you out of my body, throw you out into this universe. And I can't wait to see where I find you next. That I amazing, right. And so I know that we're driven by pursuits. Because that's where we meet ourselves. That's where we find our edges. That's where we expand or learn or experience living. But there's definitely a thing of, Hey, I'm doing this for the experience

versus I'm doing this to prove a point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually a great, that's actually a great point. Doing something for the experience versus the, to prove to yourself or prove a point. Okay. I'm just dying to know, okay, you have seven kids. Number one, I wanna know how this came about. How do you train for it? How did you even accomplish it? Like, I wanna know all the nitty gritty and where you even had the time to train

because I can't imagine, like, just let me know. Tell me all of it. The secrets, the secrets. Yeah, I wanna know the secrets. Let's start with the seven kids briefly, just because I think this is a story that people can relate to. I struggled with fertility. Like, I was the girl that could not get pregnant naturally,

and I had such a shame story, such an angry story, such like, why is the one thing I was born to do, my body won't do, what does that mean, da-da-da-da-da, and I was always a tomboy. And so I'm like, see, I shouldn't have even been born a female, right? do, my body won't do, what does that mean? Da da da da da, and I was always a tomboy. And so I'm like, see, I shouldn't even have been born a female, right? Like I can't do female things, just things that we should never say to ourselves.

I did, and I finally went to a fertility clinic. Nothing worked for a while until finally they came up with a chemical cocktail that somehow turned me into a hen. And I had eggs beyond eggs, which we never had before. And so then they fertilized these eggs. And so now I had embryos. They planted two. I had my son. I felt like a million dollars. And then I got a bill from the fertility clinic. I'm like, Oh no, no, I'm done. Like I paid you guys. I have my kid. We're good. They're like, well, these are your embryos on ice. I'm like, we need to talk about this because I don't really remember

this part of the story as much. And so we went into it and they're like, okay, well, the embryos, you have a choice. You can use them, you can destroy them, which if you come from my position where I just struggled for so many months to have a positive P test, destroying them felt like the worst karma

I could throw into the world possible. And then my third option was to donate them, which meant the rest of my life I was gonna wonder if I had a kid out there or not. And so I'm like, okay, well to me the best option feels like using them. How many kids do you think I'll get based on what we have here? I'm like, three, maybe four. I'm like, okay, I can do three. I'm three. I can do three. Like I have a huge family. So extended family, I can definitely do four, no problem.

I have four kids. I have four embryos left. I have, they plant the next two embryos, only one sticks. So now I have five kids. I have two embryos left. The last two embryos that weren't gonna survive the thaw, that were the worst ones, like don't even worry, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, twin girls. So all of a sudden, my like horrible story of like struggling

fertility issues, I'm a mother of seven children, five boys, twin daughters, crazy story. Oh, okay. Wait, that is okay. How old are your kids now? Yeah. So my oldest is 17. And my youngest are twin 11 year olds. Okay, so you're okay. You are in the weeds. And so that's like having a kindergarten class. It was like in the beginning, it was total chaos, right? Like I tell people, I truly think that the patience I needed to raise these little humans

has been the best gift for every other pursuit I've ever taken on because that's just constantly things coming at you and you're like, okay, how do we pivot? How do we adjust? What do we do? Where are we going? But yeah. And also it trains you to be the most efficient person. You have to be efficient. Your time management has to be on like on point. It like teaches you all these like fundamental skills that are transferable in everyday life beyond being. Yeah, beyond being a mother, which is in itself for one kids, a huge full time job. I like cannot even imagine having seven.

Do you have a lot of help? Do you do it by yourself? Like how are you doing it? No, I like best story ever is when I was growing up, I was a nanny for a family. Okay. And when I started having kids, she went through a separation.

She had only ever been a mom. I'm like, why don't you come help me with my kids now? So she's been with us for 17 years and is as much of a mom to these children as I am. And what a blessing that has been to our family all day long. Are you married? Do you have a husband?

Yes, I have a husband. Yep. So he's working. He lives in Michigan. We live in Utah, but he comes out and does stuff here with us. Wow. Okay. So is he there?

How many times, like how much of the month is he spending in Utah? Maybe four to six days. Yeah, it's busy. But we have our system down. We figured it out. It's working. So we're working it. Wow.

Okay, then where did you have time? So how did this whole idea come to be about even, hey, you know what? I want to because like you've climbed like, like I'm going to start climbing Mount Everest. I'm gonna start climbing all these mountains. Like how did that even come into your brain? Like, my thing is, how am I gonna find like 30 minutes to run on the treadmill? Like, how are you doing that?

Okay, so the accident was like the line in the sand. I survived this accident where they cannot rebuild a scenario where I could live, which really put me into this whole reflection point of why am I here? Why was I saved? What's my purpose? 2019 became the year of the bucket list. Like, okay, if my life is going to end in the next decade or year or month or week or day, what are things that I want to do that I keep pushing off? Because I kept telling myself that once the kids launched,

then I would get back to me. But right now I'm just in the season of motherhood and that's what this looks like. And all of a sudden I like, I started making this list. I had a little talk with the kids and I say, guys, mom almost died in a car accident, but she didn't. So mom's going to start doing things a little bit different than we've done before. And I'm going to start doing things that get me excited and get me like, I might not be able to run your lunch if you forget it at home, or I might not be here after school every single day, but that's not going to change anything. And we're going to work through these changes together." And they're like, okay, it sounds good, mom, whatever. On that list was climb a mountain. In 2020, I was turning 40. So when I looked at the

list of things I wanted to do, I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna climb a mountain for my 40th birthday and kind of launch this next decade of life. And so I live in Park City. We have mountains everywhere, tons of mountaineers. I asked some friends, I'm like, hey, if you could climb one mountain in the whole world,

what would it be? And like, oh, go climb Amma the Blom. I'm like, what is that? Like it's the Paramount Pictures logo. So every time you go to a movie, you can say like, hey, I climb that mountain when it plays and, you know, the kids and I go to movies. I'm like, OK, that sounds good. It's in Nepal.

Like it hit a couple of boxes of things on my bucket list. It sounded good. Well, if you remember back in the beginning of 2020, Covid enters the scene. So I'm not training for any mountain anywhere, right? Now I'm a homeschool teacher to these seven beautiful humans. And one day, my little guy, my youngest son, is struggling with his math homework. And I'm doing that parent pep talk, like, we do hard things, you've got this, like one more problem. And that little guy looks up at me

and he goes, mom, if we do hard things, why you climb in a mountain called I'm a dumb blonde instead of a real mountain like Mount Everest? And I'm like, I'm a dumb blonde. It's amma de blom, honey. Not I'm a dumb blonde. But thank you. Finish your homework. We'll look at Everest. Wow. I know. That little turd. Yeah. So then we did, right? We looked at Everest, he went to bed and I thought about Everest more and I said to myself, you know what? If this little guy thinks that Everest is the hardest mountain in the whole world, I'm

going to climb it and I'm going to show him that we can, whatever our Everest is, we're capable of summiting. So I call up a coach, coach is like, yes, I can get you ready. Don't you worry. Buy this book about becoming an uphill athlete. Because I had been an athlete in college and stuff, but I wasn't, you know, a mountaineer by any means. So I buy this book, I must have been reading it on one of those days that you're just not feeling good about yourself. And my coach calls and in the front of the book, there's a story about a lady who got a Guinness World Record

for doing something in the Alps. In the conversation with my coach, I was like, I could have done that. Like I could have gotten that Guinness World Record. My kids would think I'm the coolest mom in the whole world because that's how they learned how to read. And this homeschooling thing would be done and life would be normal and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My coach is like, Oh, I'll think of something. Don't you worry. I'm like,

okay, fine. You can think of something, but I'm not throwing pumpkins or speeding hot dogs or like the weird things that are in those record books. He's like, no worries. I got it. So he came up with the seven. He's like, calls me one day and he's like, Jen, I have the perfect record for you. You should climb the seven second summits. I'm like, I don't even know what you just said. It sounds like a tongue twister. And he's like, let me explain. He goes, the seven second summits are the second highest point on each of the seven continents.

It's only been done by one male. It's harder than the first seven. And you'd be the first woman to do it. And he goes, if you think about it, there's seven continents, there's seven mountains, you have seven children. It sounds like a jackpot. And it was one of those things that made zero sense, but it did sound like a jackpot. And my body was a full body. Yes. So I said, sure, let's figure it out. I haven't slept at a tent before. Is that a problem? He's like, we'll figure out the details. And so we started on the

pursuit. So you started training in 2020, basically. Yes. Wow. And then how much training did it take? Like, what kind of what was the training like? What was the like, what, how do you even start? How many hours a day? Give me like this, like the actual like details. So the training is you period, periodization train, right? So you're like, you're gonna do heavy and then you're gonna back off for a couple of weeks and you go heavy again

so your body can absorb the training. There's definitely training plans out there. It was not what I was following because I was a mom first and a business owner. And then I had to do this thing kind of as an extracurricular activity. So if it had, hey you need to hike six hours today with a 25 pound backpack, I didn't have six hours to put

together. So I would wake up in the morning before they go to school, I would do steps on like the StairMaster. I bought one for my house. What time did you wake up? I want to know the minutiae of the details. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would probably wake up around 5.30 and I would get an hour and a half in before the kids got up and started to move. And so then they would get up, I'd do breakfast with them and I would get them to school and all that kind of stuff.

Then I would come home and I would try to get like another hour and a half to two hours. And I could do it like on a inverted, like a treadmill that was at an angle and do zoom calls and things like that, as long as I didn't have to be on camera because I was getting it done. If somebody had a soccer game at night,

I would be the mom with a 12 inch step, a backpack full of water bottles, that entire game I'd be like, oh, in the corner doing my step ups because then I could watch his game and get the training in multitasking. Oh, it's amazing. It's totally thing. So this is what you said to me when I was on your podcast and I was like, okay, this girl I like her. So instead of just sitting at the soccer game

with all the other parents on this on the grass watching passively, you went got a stepper like a like a like a riser and just did up down up down the entire game just to get your steps in to kind of acclimate right? Yeah, 100%. Yes. And then like here's the unique thing like we all have problems when we're setting goals, right? Like everybody, the obstacle is like the fun of the setting the goal because you figure out how to solve it. One of my biggest problems was, is like to climb Everest,

which I was gonna do because I promised my son, I need to be gone for eight weeks. I'm like, I can't be gone for eight weeks. I'm like the sole provider for these humans primarily. Like I have to be here. I've never been gone for more than a week. Like this isn't gonna work. And because I was like so, I'm like,

there has to be options. I live at altitude. Wait, don't football teams come up to altitude? Don't they have to do something to get their bodies ready so they can perform well when they're like playing in Denver? And so I called this doctor. I'm like, how do these guys get ready for this? He's like, oh, there's actually a company that makes like things that helps you acclimate. I'm like, how do these guys get ready for this? He's like, oh, there's actually a company

that makes like things that helps you acclimate. I'm like, okay, cool. So I call this company and they're like, yeah, you know what, we can make a tent for your bed. So when you go to bed at night, it mimics like a lack of oxygen environment. So you can acclimatize at home and not have it be as stressful on the mountain.

I'm like, OK, perfect. How does it work? He's like, well, this is, you know, we don't have a ton of data on it, but you could be part of our research and figure it out. I went to Everest and back in three weeks. Right. So three weeks is a long time, but it's not eight weeks. And the only reason why I knew that option came about is because I had a problem that I needed to work around and we figured it out. Well, okay, let me get this straight. So before the accident in 2019, what were you doing in

terms of training or fitness or all that stuff? Like what was your- I loved Pilates. I'd go to yoga class. Like I'd go hiking with my friends. I'd go downhill skiing. Like just like anything that was just fun and kind of social. Right, so you did regular mom fitness stuff. You went to a Pilates class, came home, picked up your kids, did the rest. Would you say you'd work out, you'd do like an hour, 45 minutes of something a day about? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes, because Park City is crazy like sometimes I would do two classes and I felt like a million dollars. Like we're going to go from yoga to Pilates and have like a big day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you were doing like and then you went from doing that to doing how many hours,

even if you were multitasking with the soccer games and the before the hour and a half on the was it the stairmaster or the treadmill in the morning at 530 mix them both up I would do the stairmaster first because I felt like that was the hardest I was training probably 25 hours a week 25 hours a week okay so alright so keep going here so okay tell me another stuff so then you're getting the tent to try to acclimate or acclimatize. Yes. What else would you do during the days to kind of train for this insane task? You know, I'm a firm believer in training harder than reality, right? So I would study the mountain and be like, okay, there's this section of Everest called the Loze Face. It's basically a 3,700 foot outdoor stair master. It's the steepest section of Everest. It's outdoors, it's exposed, whatever. I'm like, okay, as long as I can do 4,000 steps in a row,

and if I was going straight up and down, that was harder than if I was walking on a path on the mountain. What I would do is I'd go to the climbing gym down in Salt Lake City, and I would do the easy routes on the climbing gym. But I would make sure that I got like a thousand feet climbing straight up vertically because I knew I would have the fitness then to do something at a less angle. And I would just do anything that I was like, okay, I'm going gonna run into the sun and the mountain. How do I make it harder here? So when I get there, I'm gonna be like, okay, all I need to do is perform here. Because what's gonna be hard there is food I'm

not used to, whether I'm not used to, it's gonna be outdoors. There's just so many variables that I was always trying to see what variables I could solve for to have less variables show up on the actual pursuit. Right. So then by the way, what is about 4,000 feet? What is that? How long does that take? Give me another like that would take how long that would be about how much miles? Like what would it be? Give me a it's not really miles, right? Like, I mean, I would be the approximation of time or oh my gosh i would be dying but it would take me a few hours like two and a half hours for sure to get that done and sometimes longer but yeah it was two and a half three hours and the nice thing about climbing Everest is i wasn't speed climbing it i wasn't running it or racing it or doing whatever. So you're very much just walking.

And the lack of oxygen is the stress. Yeah, that's what I heard, because a lot of people die doing it. And it's because of the lack of oxygen or unable to like acclimatize, I guess, to the environment. Yeah, yep, definitely. And so if you can go slow and you can drink a lot of water and your body naturally acclimatizes easier, which is genetic, like we have no say on that really, then you're good, right. So my reality was, you could get from

camp one to camp two, and you could do it in four hours, you could do it in six hours, you could do it in eight hours, it's just like whatever the longer it took, the less rest you had there. But at the same time, the less stress you were putting on your body when you're actually going from point A to point B. So I was just very much always trying to go under like I could have a conversation the entire time I was on the mountain. And if I could hold a conversation, then I knew I wasn't pushing my body too hard. Because people who push their body too hard, those are the people that typically got sick and weren't able to summit.

And so, OK, so what is the difference between which camp? How many camps are there? You say Camp 1, Camp 2? Yeah, so different mountains have different numbers of camps. So for example, what happens in the camps? Like, give me a talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So camp is your favorite thing to see. You're hiking up the mountain, you're following the path of people or the trail or whatever.

And you get to camp and camp has typically, well, at Everest, Camp 1 will have somebody there ahead of you. And that person will be boiling, like, melting snow so that you have water. And that boiling water allows you to add a hot chocolate mix or you know ramen noodle type deal and actually refuel and get out of the elements. It will protect you from the wind, the cold, the snow, the whatever which feels really good. You get to sit down and relax. A lot of times when you get to camp two they actually

have chefs at camp two. So camp two you'll sleep at they kind of move it to a second base camp. You have a bathroom you don't shower but you have a you can go to the bathroom you can have like pasta or just like a little bit more variety of food. You have your tent so you can sleep in it. You can leave gear there so you don't have to carry all the gear all the time. You're like okay I only need this when I go back down or if we get up to the next point there's a problem we't have to carry all the gear all the time. You're like, okay, I only need this when I go back down. Or if we get up to the next point and there's a problem, we just have to come to this point to come back to get it. So that kind of helps. But Everest has four camps, K2 has four camps, Mount Logan had five camps, Tyree only had one camp, Mount

Kenya, you do it in a day. So you're racing the clock because it's at the equator. You don't have any camps. Yeah, every mountain was so different and so unique. So wait, so how long did Mount Everest take you, you said? I was door to door in three and a half weeks. God, that is so, so you were basically living in tents and on mountains this whole time? Yeah, the whole time you're living in tents on mountains.

And it's so funny because you come home you're like my favorite thing about being home right now is I don't have to put shoes on to go to the bathroom. Or I get an open refrigerator and there's choices in the refrigerator of what I want to eat. I mean how did you keep your spirit? How was your spirits the whole time? Were you like, did you ever get down, self-doubt, or were you always very like I can do this attitude like you always believed in yourself or did you believe just like were there times that were really hard and you're struggling? Oh there's every yes every day I'm like why I picked this like I'm paying for this what am I doing here I could have gone to beaches like what is my problem right like so I was

definitely my own worst enemy, which I think all of us are when we think about it in our pursuits, but here's the joke of it. This was crazy. I get to Everest. You've all seen photos of those ladders where you have to cross those crevasses. Okay, like I had no idea that I was gonna have a fear

of heights like all of a sudden show up when I got there. I mean, I had practiced ladders at home because I'm like, okay, my friend has a swimming pool, we're gonna put a ladder across the swimming pool, I'm gonna walk across it, if I fall, I fall in the pool, no big deal. So we did that, it was all stable. Well, you get out into the elements,

you're in this huge puffy gear, you step one foot on the ladder, it's not OSHA approved, the other side goes up in the air, right? Like, I mean, it is like, what? And the crevasses are these 2000 foot drops. And it's just this crazy feeling. So all of a sudden we got to the ladder and they're like, hey, it's your turn.

I'm like, I'll take a minute. And then they're like, okay, well, it's your turn. I'm like, yeah, not ready yet. And so I sat there, I'm like, okay, this is either gonna get bigger or it's gonna get smaller and only I get to decide. And so I had to pull out all the stops. Like I pulled out a photo of my kids. I looked at them. I'm like, okay, if they were here, I'd want them to do this. And they're watching. So okay, we're good. And then I go to get up there. I'm like, yep, not ready yet. So I got back on the side. I'm like,

okay, I wrote myself a letter. So I knew I was gonna run into hard times. So I wrote myself letters for different hard times. So I'm like, okay, gonna pull out the letter that I need like, hey, you got this, you trained, you know, all the like baloney that you pop yourself up about, yeah, I'm still not ready. We literally played this song, vanilla ice, like anything less than the best is the felony.

So I'm like trying to dance it out. I'm like, okay, okay, we're gonna go. And I realized the only thing that was gonna get me across this ladder was a safe step. And so I repeated out loud, consistently, safe step, safe step, safe step. It gave my brain something to hold onto. It crowded out a chance of any other thought to come in.

And I just went across that bridge. And at the other side, we had like the largest, funnest, wildest dance party on Everest of all times. And it was so much fun. And you get so much confidence in yourself when you do these things that took you 45 minutes and 10 different tactics to get across. but I mean, that's life.

And you did it. And you did it. And you did it. And you did it. And you did it. And you did it. And you did it. And you did it.

And you did it. And you did it. And you did it. Widely acknowledged as the leader in business leadership information, Harvard Business Review provides information, tools, and practical advice on leadership, management, and strategy through the hbr.org website, their print publication, and their podcasts.

The site hbr.org is updated with great new business management articles daily and includes key insights to those interested in practical advice for better business management. Some examples of recent articles that I really got a lot from are Organization Change, What's Derailing Your Company's Transformation, and another one called Decision Making and Problem Solving, Leaders Framework for Decision Making. Plus, HBR produces a number of leading business podcasts from HBR on Leadership to HBR Idea Cast.

I'm telling you guys, there's such great foundational information if you're trying to get a leg up on anything business. While much of Harvard's Business Reviews content is available for free, after signing up at their site, subscriptions to unlimited content start only at $10 a month. Go to www.hbr.org slash subscriptions and enter promo code HABITS right now to take advantage of this great offer. Again go to www.hbr.org slash subscriptions and enter promo code HABITS to learn more about this great opportunity to help manage your career and business. By the way, like these are dangerous feats, right?

Like people have died trying to like cross, right? Like you don't need to know the amount of people, but has there been a lot of people who've died trying to cross the crevasse with the ladder? I don't know, like, I never- Did you know the numbers before you even did it, I guess? No, I wouldn't let myself know the numbers. I mean, there's like no help there whatsoever. The crazy thing is, is that, yeah, you see dead bodies on Everest, right? Like you like you see the body and like you just you almost block it out. You have to until afterwards, you're like, wow, that that ambitious person was so ambitious that they stopped listening to

themselves. Like you I mean, it's so curious, right? Because I think for most people, or at least for myself, like I knew when it was getting hard, or I knew when things weren't going well, or I knew like, and I was so afraid I was following the rules like to a T, and I was over double checking and doing all the things because I lost the Sherpa on the team that I was on. So while we were there, we were climbing. It was a stormy day day and the Sherpa un-clipped from the rope, which you're not supposed to do. You're supposed to just, if you have to go pee,

you tell everybody around you, like, I'm gonna go pee and you just squat there and everybody gives you privacy. But he like became familiar with the mountain. And sometimes when we're familiar, we do different things. He un-clipped to take a few steps over to go the bathroom. Those few steps over ended up him in a crevasse and they couldn't rescue him. Like he was done.

And it was one of those things where you're like, oh my goodness. Like I don't even, what? And so like every rule that anybody said, I'm like, I don't care if I look like, okay, I'm in. I'm following the rules. I'm doing whatever. And when we were on the mountain,

we had to make a decision if we were gonna go up the mountain or down the mountain with the weather that had come in. And it was, you know, like I would say 60% of us said go up and 40% of us said go down. Those that wanted to go up went up. And three hours later, our camp was hit by an avalanche. And you're sitting there like, okay, I've read about this.

I don't know if it would have killed anybody, but it would, I mean, it definitely took out tents and ripped things and did whatever I depended on where you were standing when that avalanche hit. So yeah, it's a real extreme environment. But just like anything, your mindset matters most and you just have to focus on what am I focusing on? What's going to serve me in this spot? And what's not? And only feed what's gonna serve me. And what happened to the 60%?

Did anybody get really badly injured? You said nobody died. No one, so like of our team, like the crazy thing is we had like five tents get totally destroyed, cook tent got destroyed, but are the people that stayed actually were like talking to other people at other camps when it happened? So everybody, no one got injured or no one passed away in that avalanche, but it's just, it gave you a taste of how real this environment

is. Wow. So they got lucky, but then, so then the got the Sherpa, can you I'm curious about the these Cravasses like was it that it was so deep and so far like so far down Why because I've heard these stories is it like how could people can't pull them out? Is it because they are so it like they're so locked in like what happens to them? Are they too far down? I mean, there's a lot of different scenarios that can play out one It can be like they're so deep that you can't, like when the person falls,

blunt force trauma is gonna take care of it, right? So you can't even rescue them. Is that what happened to him? I think so. They didn't let us get it. They take you away from that scene as fast as they can. Oh, okay. But the problem was is that we were in a full snowstorm.

So you couldn't really, you saw the rope that you're holding onto and you're like, okay, just follow this rope, just follow this snowstorm. So you couldn't really, you saw the rope that you're holding on to and you're like, okay, just follow this rope, just follow this rope. And so you didn't know. I mean, it's crazy. But even when we were climbing Mount Logan, which is a different mountain, we got dropped off by a helic or an airplane onto the glacier. When we're climbing this mountain, we're taking a ski pole and we're going to the left of us, to the center of us and to the right of us. And if that pole gets rejected back,

that means it's strong enough for us to take one step forward. And you go one step forward and then you go repeat, left, center, right, one step forward, left, center, right, one step forward. Because you don't know if there's a karas or a snow bridge or something in front of you, because there's no path. This is just nature.

And so then we would make a path and we'd put bamboo sticks up to mark where we went, because we knew that was safe. Five feet to the left, five feet to the right, maybe not. It is such a disciplined journey, and you cannot cut corners, and you have to do everything like ABC, ABC, and just keep doing it over and over for your safety to be like as safe as possible.

You know, I got to tell you, even though I knew that theoretically to hear it again, like to hear it now, it just tells me like you can't be a ninny going up there. You have to be able to like remember these rules, abide by these rules. Like it's not as like, hey, I'm athletic, let's go do this. It is meticulous and strategic. You could like, like, for an example, if you're like, you can't just, oh, oops, I forgot to check these three spots, because your life depends on it, your life and the people with you. Right mean, yeah, it's a serious game. And so it's just it's fascinating. And the crazy thing about Everest or some of these mountains,

Everest in particular, is the people that don't summit, it is not the physical game. It is 100% like the mental game. Talk about that though, because I think it's super interesting. The other thing I want you to talk about is that how many people are with you and is there some type of like tests that you have to take? Because I wouldn't want someone who's weak on my team, to be honest with you. Yeah, no, you're super fussy about who you climb with and why you're climbing

with them and like what climbing company you're vetting. Yeah. So many things to put into play. I mean, when I climbed K2 in 2021, I turned around. I'm like, the team I'm climbing with is not safe. We've had bad things happen. A friend lost his hand to frostbite. Another friend lost his life to an avalanche.

I'm not saying like all of that can be prevented, but there was a lot of things that were just little mistakes that I like, we're done. Like I left, I came back to the States, I knew I'd have to go back to climb that. And the lessons that I learned on questions to ask, how do you vet this company? How do you know they're safe? How do they handle this? How do they know these different things? So that when I went back, I had the safest team possible. And I felt confident in who I was climbing with because there's enough thrown at you.

Your team matters so much, definitely. But yeah, so the Everest thing is, Everest is such, yeah, it's a huge mountain, it's a huge undertaking, it's a mental game more than anything, and it's interesting because one of our teammates, like three hours from the summit, like we've been on this mountain forever. Most of my team had been on this mountain for months

because they came unacclimatized. And they're like, okay, I'm done. I'm like, what do you think you're done? We're three hours from this thing, you're not done? They're like, I can't go anymore, I'm exhausted. I'm like, you did five Ironmans in a row. You're not exhausted. I'm sorry, I don't believe you.

And they're like, no, I'm done. I'm like, no, you're not. And the thing of it is, is that they've spent their whole life wanting to climb Everest. They spent zero time on what it would look like once they did. And so now all of a sudden you're going to climb, now all of a sudden you're going to be at the top. Well, what does that mean? And they don't know. And they're afraid to find out. They're afraid to feel it or experience it or see what that is. And the crazy thing about climbing Everest is I was on the top of Mount Everest for 10 minutes.

I trained 1,238 hours for 10 minutes on the summit of that mountain. If that's not a story and you better enjoy the journey and the process and the becoming and all those things, I don't know what is. That is 100%. I just did this whole thing about like, life is 99% set up, right? And like 1% for success, right? Like if your whole life is just setting up for whatever that success may be.

Like have you ever seen this? Of course you've seen like, you know, vacation, National Lampoon's vacation, when they get to the Grand Canyon and they're like, okay, let's go. You know what I mean? Like that is life. It's amazing. Okay, so let me ask you, so these people that were three hours away, could they have just rested and then done it again if they were tired? Why couldn't they just take a break and then go again for the last, you've done all this, you've gone that far. How do you don't come this far to only come this far? Right? Right. Right. No. So you like you feed them, you fuel them, right? I mean, that's the funny thing or the nice thing about altitude is that you don't get hungry. And so you have to set an alarm clock or you realize like if I'm starting to get grouchy, that actually means I'm hungry because

your body just doesn't work the same at altitude as it does at sea level. So you feed them, you do everything, and then you just have these conversations with them and the conversations you realize like, wow, you haven't really thought past like what this really means. And that's where you're stuck, because it's not really the other pieces. It almost never is. Okay, so were your kids freaking out? Are you able to talk to your kids? I guess not.

Like is there cell service? Like, yeah, no, this is crazy. So of course I'm the mom who's like, oh my God, I've never been away from my kids. What are we going to do? So I went to the kids school and said, hey, listen, I'm going to go climb Everest. I have everything set up at home, but I just want you to know, so if they're like emotionally a little bit, whatever, can you give them some grace?

And God bless my kid's school. The school was like, are you kidding me? You're climbing Everest? We can do more than that. Would you be willing to come in and talk to the kids about setting an Everest goal? I'm like, yes. So I went in, I talked to the classrooms,

told them I was gonna go and climb Everest, help them set goals. And then in the front of the school, we made this huge Mount Everest. And then I was a little climber and I had a tracking device on me. So the school could move me up and down the mountain based on where I was.

And then at base camp of Everest, you have wifi, because why would that be, right? So I could zoom call into the classrooms, answer questions from the kids, like what I ate and where I pooped, because that's all they cared about. Me too. I want to answer the same question. I'm 11 also, apparently. OK, fair enough. And so, I mean, that was probably the most like that was probably the thing that kept

me going during the hardest moments is like, I have this whole school watching these kids are paying attention and they have ever schools and whatever is hard for me, they got their own version of heart and I got to show them that we do hard things so we could do this, Jen, and I would like keep doing that. And so when I summited, it was the most magical feeling in the whole world because it was like that whole school summited. And then I came home, we talked about it. And the crazy thing is, is like, of course, I miss my kids all day long.

I had nothing to do except like look at snow and pretend like acclimatize, right? My kids were slammed with activities in school and everybody was excited about what their mom was doing. And so I came home and what a gift that whole experience was for all of us because my kids felt so seen and loved and supported by people that weren't me. That's amazing. What a gift. Right? Yeah. I mean, how did you pass the time? Like, are you having conversations with people? Are

you you can't are you able to listen to like a I don't know, like music? I mean, what do you do with it? Yeah, I mean, we're listening to music, we're playing games. I was working on the book, right? You are? You're able to do all this? Yeah, because I mean, you're playing card games or whatever. You have to because otherwise your mind will eat you alive. But as you're walking, like how much walking are you doing a day or climbing? Like how much a day? The days really weren't that bad. I was expecting them to be worse. I mean our longest day was maybe 10 hours of moving, you know, and so then you're at

the base and you're like, okay, what do I do? And I acclimatized well, so I had energy. I didn't need to sleep. And so I just sit there and I'd write in my journal or I'd write notes to people or play card games. But 10 hours is still, are you able to have conversations with people or you have to be very much? Are you able? But don't you have to concentrate on the pool situation and all that?

But like you're on Everest, they have fixed lines. So somebody has gone ahead and set all the ropes. So all you need to do is click into them. So that makes Everest a lot easier than Mount Logan, for example, where we didn't have all that set up for us. And you're like the Loatsay face, which is normally everybody's least favorite section of Everest.

When we got to that Loatsay face, I'm like, okay, if this is everybody's least favorite section, how are we gonna make it fun? Because we're definitely going from here to there. None of us are quitting at this point. So we sat there and we took turns being at the front of the line and whoever was at the front of the line had to tell stories, sing songs, come up with jokes, do whatever and then when they were tired then the next person would go and their job would be

to like entertain the crowd. And it's funny because most people's least favorite section of Everest was our favorite section of Everest because we got to learn like so much about each other and just be goofy and make up words and I think when things get hard and you're in serious environments, doubling down on being serious doesn't help. You need to figure out how do you make it fun and playful and joyful again and not make everything so hard. That's a very good point. Your book and your subtitle is

Seven Strategies to Build Resilience and Achieve Your Life Goals. Can you give us a couple strategies to build resilience since if anyone knows them, that would be you. Yeah, you know, I think one of the biggest lessons for me was big mountains take big teams. I think we sit and we set these huge goals for ourselves and then somehow convince ourselves

that we're going to get it all the way to the end and all the way to the top by ourselves. When I look at what it took for me to climb Everest, I had the team at home, I had the school involved, you have teams on the mountain, you have so many people involved that allow me to actually enjoy and participate in the climb. And if we take that mentality to our house and say, like, I have this big mountain that I'm climbing, instead of when it gets hard or frustrating or when you're like, okay, I'm going to dial it back. I was being a little aggressive.

Maybe I didn't mean it to be that big. That's a sign to say who can help, who can help me carry this load or make this easier or get to the top quicker because I think the goal came to you not to negotiate but to figure out how to make it happen. I love that. It's true that they say like it takes a village right like to raise a family, to do a business. I mean, there's also this, obviously, I'm sure you've heard the quote, you know, if you want to go fast, but not far, go alone.

If you want to go far and whatever that, what's the quote? If you want to go far, you need a team. And it's a hundred percent true. I mean, honest to God, I struggle. I'm struggling again because I don't have a couple people that I need in place work wise. And it's like really taking me back a notch until I kind of build properly again. So not again, but as you grow, right.

You it's hard to grow bigger your business or anything in life if you don't have a support system to really make it happen. So that's a really good one. What's another one? Give me another strategy for building resilience. Yeah, you know, I really think we need to celebrate along the way. Honestly, God, like you just need to have these little milestones or these little things that you break these goals into pieces and you're like, OK, I'm making progress and that progress gives me

momentum to be able to keep going forward and only you get to decide if you're making progress and sometimes I think we focus so much on how much further we have to go and we forget how far we've come. So sometimes you need to look backwards to go forwards and a big point that I talk about in the book is acclimatizing. When you climb Everest, you climb up to a point, you hit failure, right? Your body won't function, you can't lift a leg, there's not enough oxygen for your body to work. And then you go back to base camp. And when you go back to base camp over the next three days,

that failure has caused your body to physiologically change and produce more red blood cells. So now when you go back up the mountain, you can go further because you had that point of failure. And so when you're climbing your mountain and you hit a point of failure, go back to home, go back to the boardroom. Now look at the situation. What do you know? What are you coming up against? What have you done?

So that when you go back out to climb, you can go higher up your mountain. It's not from base camp to the summit. There's going to be points where you have to climb down to climb up. It's kind of like regrouping, so to speak, right? You got to regroup to kind of then move forward. No, I think that's great. I mean, Jen, thank you. I've taken up a lot of a lot of your time. It's been, I don't know, an hour. It's actually not that bad actually. But I have so many questions like, like your like your kids, like, where did you poop? What did you eat? I want to know all the details. Can you give me a few more those details and then we could wrap this up like yeah yeah yeah were you

lonely did you make friends um you know how do you like how do you even like find the right I mean I want to know all the little details yeah you know you this is a cool thing about climbing or I think sports in general you don't need to speak the same language to be a friend and do it together. Right? So I've been to the seven continents. I've met people from all over the globe. When you share this common pursuit and this common goal, that is enough to bond a relationship that doesn't even need language to solidify it, which is pretty fun to be a part of. You poop in little bags, and then you bring those little bags home and you like try to dispose of them. Yes. So sometimes

they'll have bathrooms set up on the mountain that you'll go to the bathroom in and they'll take care of it. But when I was in Antarctica, we pooped and peed in bags so that we could bring it all home because they didn't want to contaminate the ice or contaminate Antarctica at all. So, I mean, every mountain has different rules and different ways of handling that, but it's very much pack out to what you left out, right? Which is, bleh. But part, I mean, I guess I feel better about it

than leaving poop on the mountain for somebody else to step in. Food is horrible. I mean, just bottom line. You're just eating garbage. Carbohydrates are so much easier to digest than proteins. You crave lettuce. You crave like healthy things when you get back because you just haven't had healthy vegetables or anything

in a while, which is funny because I'm known as junk food Jenny. So I get sick of junk food and just want real food when I get back. Wow. Junk Jenny, I love it. Yeah, I know. I mean, all of it, all of it's fun. And here's the thing, it's always people over peaks, right? Like I've turned around on mountains and you realize like the mountains will always be there. Our goals will always be there, but who we are as people is way more important

than what we achieve. And being in these environments just reminds you of that continuously. And it's pretty magical. What is what else is on your bucket list? Not to say what, you know, now what, or what's next, because I'm not going to say that. But is there something else on your bucket list that you you want to try to attain again, like afterwards, after the years up? Like, what is the thing on your like, is there something or? Yeah, you know, I'm taking a group to Kilimanjaro soon, and we're gonna go climb to the roof of Africa. Because for me, we can read about this stuff or like, to be preached to it and speeches

and all that kind of stuff. But when you actually embody it, it's just a different level of wisdom. And I want people to have that experience. So I'm taking a group, including my three oldest sons. I'm making them go with me, but they're excited about it. And I hope to do more of that. I hope to get on more stages this year and just share the story, because it's so fun when you're in front of a group of people and that aha moment starts to click over for others and those excuses that they've been subscribing to all of a sudden are no longer valid. And so they have to like take a step forward, which is super fun. I also like listening to people, you know, just to stay on that for a second, who've actually done the things or the thing, right?

Because they have real life experience to pull from as opposed to what's happening a lot with these, a lot of motivational speakers is they're speaking in theory, like, you know, in order to, you know, uh, become disciplined or this is how you, you know, overcome self-doubt resilience, like versus someone who's actually had something that they've done and overcame and had to like figure it out and like create a goal and then work towards that goal. And like, like you said, there's, I'm sure there's a lot of mishaps that happen that you had to like rejig and pivot

and life lessons that you've learned. There's no replacement for real life experience is my point really. I know exactly. I mean, like to talk about the Grand Canyon, you can look at the Grand Canyon in a magazine and be like, that's pretty. You go to the Grand Canyon, you're like, oh, wow. Okay.

A pitcher can never do that justice. And that's so much like that in the mountaineering and just getting people outside into those environments. It's the pitchers just don't do it justice. I totally agree. And like I said, like the, the what now it's like this, this makes you unstoppable. Like you feel like, oh my God, if I can do this, what else can I do in a way? Like it's not like now what, because nothing's enough. It's more like, wow, now I know I'm capable of this thing. It's like a very empowering feeling, I would imagine.

Not like I know, I've never climbed anything like that. But- Yeah, we'll get you out there. Don't you worry. I don't know. Maybe. I mean, how long does it, by the way, take to climb Mount Kilimanjaro? What is that?

So I'm doing the seven day route, right? Just because it's easier on the body. There's a four day route as well, but there's less success on that one because the body just struggles a little bit more. You know, like it's Africa, you can go over, do that almost year round. If you go in April, like August,

you can climb it and then go watch the great migration. It's just, there's so much to do and see and experience over there. Yeah, no, I went there on my honeymoon. I went on a safari, but like I loved it. But I didn't climb the mountain, but I agree with you. Jen, thank you so much. Guys, the book is called Breakproof Seven Strategies to Build Resilience I loved it, but I didn't climb the mountain, but I agree with you. Jen, thank you so much, guys.

The book is called Breakproof Seven Strategies to Build Resilience and Achieve Your Life Goals. Here it is. I hope you can see it here. But you really are extraordinary and someone I'm really impressed with you, really. And I don't get impressed much. You really are like a living, living you're like a living breathing real badass not just someone that they pretend to be on social media. So Jen thank you for being on the podcast. Where can people find you and hear more about your extraordinary life? Yes please

thank you for having me. So jendrummond.com works you can find the book programs different things going on and also all my social media channels So reach out on your platform of choice. Everybody who's listening today, if you want to text the word Everest to the number 33-777, I'm going to give you a little video of the Milky Way going over Everest Base Camp. And I keep this on my phone in favorites anytime I'm feeling overwhelmed or want to quit or stop. I just look at that video and it reminds me like how big life is, how insignificant my little issue is right now. And it just reconnects me to the present moment. So check that video out.

You'll really like it. Can you send it to me? Is this the one when you pass the, when you, when you cross the crevice with the. No. So we just did, we did a time lapse so it's so cool so if you text everest to 33777 it will it's a video of the Milky Way time lapsing over just base camp and you just see the Milky Way just right go above and it's such a cool thing to see amazing okay. Okay, thank you. I'm going to do that. I'll text you. And then the other question is how long did it take you to walk across that ladder?

Oh my goodness. Okay, so it took me about 45 minutes of pep talk. I heard you say that. And then it took me like five, like maybe five minutes to get across. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was so silly five, like maybe five minutes to get across. And then- Oh my gosh. Yeah, I know, so silly. Not silly, no it's not. I can't believe it.

It wouldn't take me 45 years to, for the pep talk. All right, Jen, thank you so much. I'll speak with you later. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Bye. Bye. Music