Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Victoria Humphries On Taking Life to New Heights EP 46

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

In this powerful episode of the Passion Struck podcast, John R. Miles interviews Victoria Humphries (Riches) about taking life to new heights by being willing to have an anything is possible attitude. By saying "I CAN" to life's opportunities, she found it to be the key to living her bucket list which she is doing in her 50 at 50 challenge. We discuss that and so much more during our inspirational conversation. Like this? Please subscribe, and join me on my new platform for personal development: https://passionstruck.com/. How To Take Life to New Heights Do you believe anything possible? Victoria Humphries (Riches) has built her life and career around that simple saying and taking life to new heights she never imagined possible. She is a polar adventurer, three times Guinness World Record holder, mountain climber, marathon runner, author, businesswoman, motivational & after-dinner speaker, and just a 'normal' person. She believes that Anything is Possible if you put your mind to it. What's the worst that can happen? Just give it a go!   New Interviews with the World's GREATEST high achievers will be posted every Tuesday with a Momentum Friday inspirational message! Always remember that anything is possible - just believe in yourself! Enjoy!! Show Notes Learning an "I Can" attitude Growing from failure Stepping into life's door Open door mentality Her polar expedition Flying a frozen C-130 plane Finding her middle ground Her 50 at 50 challenge Overcoming fear Having self-belief Her book "Frigid Women" Succeeding in hard times Rapid round ENGAGE VICTORIA HUMPHRIES LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriahumphriesuk/ Website: https://www.anythingispossible.co.uk/ 50at50: https://www.50at50.org.uk/ Speaking: https://www.scampspeakers.co.uk/speaker/victoria-humphries/   QUOTES BY VICTORIA HUMPHRIES "If an opportunity is presented to you or a door is opened for you, step through it, step into it." "If you conceive yourself succeeding, that's how you gain self-belief." "Things will always go wrong. And my goodness, they will go wrong badly at times, but you've got to keep moving. You can't stop and bury your head in the sand, but equally, don't ignore what's happened; learn from it."   ENGAGE WITH JOHN R. MILES * Subscribe to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles * Leave a comment, 5-star rating (please!) * Support me: https://johnrmiles.com * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johnrmiles.c0m​. * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles JOHN R. MILES * https://johnrmiles.com/my-story/ * Guides: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Coaching: https://passionstruck.com/coaching/ * Speaking: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking-business-transformation/ * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_struck PASSION STRUCK *Subscribe to Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passion-struck-podcast/id1553279283 *Website: https://passionstruck.com/ *About: https://passionstruck.com/about-passionstruck-johnrmiles/ *Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast *LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passionstruck *Blog: https://passionstruck.com/blog/    

And actually that analogy completely ties in with it. I had, I was an all-rounder sports wise. I was never in the A or B or even C teams at school. I dabbled in a bit of military stuff at university but didn't do anything properly. I wasn't the dream of polar exploration at all. So none of that, I didn't have any of that kind of planning for the polar bit itself. But what I did have was that open door mentality. And quite literally I was standing on the tube in London, commuting to work in my mid-20s. You know, happy, didn't have any reason to feel as if I wanted to leave my job or anything. And I saw an advert in the newspaper, little small article, and it said women wanted to walk to the North Pole, no experience needed.

Welcome visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and growth seekers of all types to the Passion Struck Podcast. I'm John Miles, a peak performance coach, multi industry CEO, Navy Veteran, and entrepreneur on a mission to make passion go viral for millions worldwide. And each week I do so by sharing with you an inspirational message and interviewing eye achievers from all walks of life who unlock their secrets and lessons to becoming passion struck. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener by giving you tips, tasks and activities. You can use to achieve key performance and for two, a passion-driven light, and you have qualities wanted to have. Now let's become PassionStrike. Hello Visionaries, Creators, Entrepreneurs, Leaders, and Growth Seekers of all types.

I am John Miles and welcome to the PassionStrike podcast. I'm going to start today's episode out with a quote from famous Explorer and Expeditionary, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, an Anglo-Irish expeditionary who led three British explorations to the Arctic. And he is famously quoted as saying, difficulties are just things to overcome after all. And Stupor came in effort, isn't worth a damn,

unless it achieves results. And lastly, loneliness is the penalty of leadership. But the man who has to make the decisions is assisted greatly if he feels there's no uncertainty in the men who follow him, and that his orders will be carried out confidently and in expectation of success. And I picked those three quotes specifically, because today we have on really amazing guests, Victoria Humphries who herself is a polar explorer and in today's episode you're going to hear so much about her life starting with the failure that started early in her life that propelled her look at life

completely differently from that point forward why should decided to tackle this polar exploration the events leading up to it will go into what happened in her life after that and how at some point she changed from having an eye-can attitude when I can't, but more importantly how she realized it made changes and the lessons she learned to get herself out of it. And finally we will talk about her current challenge of doing 50 at 50 challenges and the results that that's achieved for her and so much more. But now, let me tell you a little bit more about Victoria Humphries. Victoria Humphries is a polar adventure, three-time Guinness Book World Record holder, mountain

climber, marathon runner, author, business woman, and just a normal person. She prides herself in being an average person, but one who believes that anything is possible. As long as you put your mind to it, life is full of challenges and we always have a choice. Whether you step forward or run away, it's up to you. You can become overcome by the enormity of it, or if she likes to say, you can just take one step. 20-21, so Victoria moved into the world of freelance. And she currently loves the opportunity it is presenting her.

She works as a business woman specializing in the education sector and as a motivational speaker. She is unusual as a motivational speaker in that she combines her experiences from marathons, that polar expedition, et cetera, with a martial background that she has, to create a talk that is both inspirational yet relatable. As I've spoke about before,

she is currently embarking on her next journey, which is a 50 at 50. 50 different challenges. Some of them are physical, more of them are out of her comfort zone, and some learning new skills to celebrate achieving 50 years on the planet. More important to raise money for four important charities.

I am so excited to share this episode with you, and more related to those quotes that I gave at the beginning of the planet. More important to raise money for four important charities. I am so excited to share this episode with you and more related to those quotes that I gave at the beginning of the show. Now let's get on with talking to Victoria Humphries. Victoria Humphries, I am so excited to have you on this show. What an amazing background you have. Thank you. It's lovely to be here. Well, well, thank you. And for those maybe tuning in for the first time, the purpose of the Passion Struck podcast is to have high-achieving guests on the show. And I try to talk to them about the habits, mindset shifts, actions that they put in place that help them unlock a passion

struck life. And we have an exceptional guest today. And I want to start, as I typically do, with her telling her story so that you can get some backdrop on the path that has led her to where she is today. So Victoria, as we were talking for the show, we both decided that a starting point might be all the way back to when you were an adolescent and then finishing your schooling. And some of the moments that happened because you were a adolescent and then finishing your schooling and some of the moments that happened because you were a very good student but then something changed. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yes, absolutely and thank you for having me on the show. It's great to have this opportunity to chat to you. So I was thinking about, you know, where do I start and where did

those lessons start inside me? And I think it was the upbringing my parents gave me. We were incredibly lucky, I've got two younger brothers, and we were always taught, there's no such word as, I can't, or no such word as no. If we wanted to try something, they were like, well, yes, go and try it. And if we failed, so what?

It didn't really matter. It was about learning from all the experiences in your life. Recognizing that life is not linear, life is not perfect. So what, it didn't really matter. It was about learning from all the experiences in your life. Recognizing that life is not linear, life is not perfect. Things will come and hit you sideways when you least expect it. And it's all about how you cope in those situations. And I'd been taught all these lessons directly or indirectly by them. And it hadn't really sunk in.

And I was coming to the end of my schooling. I was 17. I was very young for my class, but I was the head girl, you know, so a high-profile role expected to do well in my leaving exams and I failed every single exam and we're not just talking failed by a little bit. I got used, which means unclassified. So I really did make a mistake and how my parents reacted and how I reacted, I think now and I look back was a key defining moment in my life. So my parents could have been really angry, they could have blamed the school, they could have blamed me, they could have done a

myriad of things. Instead, they said, for 24 hours, we're going to, you know, be angry, cry, get upset. After that, let's move forward. Learn from what happened, but it's not something we ignore, but it's not something we beat ourselves up about. You've got to carry on, you know, you've got to pick yourself up, get on with it. And so for that 24 hours, I felt sorry for myself, obviously. And then I regrouped and I decided that because I was so young, I would take away a year away from education. I actually went to Canada for a year, worked in a school, and I grew up and I then came back and I did the last two years of education. I condensed it into six months and I got top marks. Now it's not because I'm clever or anything, but because I was mature and my mindset was different. But what that taught me was things will always go wrong and my goodness,

they will go wrong badly at times. but you've got to keep moving, you can't stop and bury your head in the sand, but equally don't ignore what's happened, learn from it, and those lessons have carried on, especially on my polar expedition I did where lots of things went wrong and we had choices and the choices was always really to move forward and keep going and not give up. Okay, well I want to dig into the polar exploration a little bit further on in the show, but for those listeners who may not be familiar with this testing system here in the United States, we're on from we have standardized tests in the form of something called an SAT and then an ACT. Are these standardized tests and what are they measuring?

Yes, so their national exams, they're set, the government dictates the content of the curriculum and there's different exam boards, set the actual exams that interpret that curriculum. I had, it was the late 80s and I was determined to be a woman in engineering. So I think I emailed you the other day, my dream is to go into space

and it's a science for something I aspired to do. That didn't work out sadly. But so I was doing science what are called A levels and they were vital if you don't have the A levels you can't get to university. It was as simple as that. I had potential sponsorship opportunities to pay for me at university and so when I got these disastrous results every single opportunity was taken away or all the sponsorships not surprisingly said no sorry we don't want you and you know all your dreams just disappear overnight and it's a very competitive world I wasn't looking to go to Opsil Cambridge but I was looking to go to one of the

top universities and overnight just falls off a cliff you are left with nothing and all your friends are going to university and you're not and it was tough you know and I still I still think about it now but actually in retrospect it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it changed my direction of travel. Well, that's some great, great background. And these tests, I'm guessing most of them are multiple choice. No, no, they are essays. So with science, you, they're, gosh, if I remember rightly, it was two or three two-hour papers for each subject, and I was doing maths, physics, and chemistry.

And it's a lot of, it's two years worth of solid work builds up to this point in time, and you might have to write an essay about something. There may be a multiple choice, but generally they are essays or, you know, a question needing half a side of A4 to answer. So it's quite intense. Okay, glad some good backdrop.

Our tests here do have some essays, but they're much more multiple choice. And for me, I always struggled with that. I got great grades in high school, but when it came to taking standardized tests, my mind just had a very difficult time with them. So in multiple choice aren't the easiest people often think multiple choice are easy, but it's, you think, well, is it ALB? I don't know, because they and be are quite similar, but as if you just are writing a sentence, often that's easier, isn't it? It is.

So, I like the way that you address that and how you learned through that, the key to failure and how much you can grow from failure. And for me, it was one of the main reasons I think I took the path of instead of going to a typical public university, I ended up going to the Naval Academy. And a lot of that for me was around challenging myself, developing a water attitude, and putting myself into situations where I knew I was going to be forced to fail. I was going to have to fail often and through that, make myself a better person. So I think that is what Delia often teaches us is how to self-improve more than anything else that we're going to do. Definitely. And do you know, I think the such a, I sometimes think the word

is the wrong word because failure has got negative connotations. And then if you say experiential learning, which is the same thing, it's falling off a bike, experiential learning, that sounds a bit too academic almost. And as I was thinking, we need to have a word in the middle because people perceive failure as I have failed, I have done something wrong. And actually, it's just evolution.

It's how you learn, it's how everything evolves. And so I wish we could see it as a positive step, rather than a negative. And that I wish we could see it as a positive step rather than negative. And that's a real passion of mine, not for people to stop seeing failure as a negative. Well, it's interesting you bring that up because when I was a senior executive at Lowe's,

my boss who was the CIO at the time, we would have staff meetings with them. And my peer was over strategy for the technology group. And we were trying to, at that time, I was leading application development, him strategy. And we were trying to bring agile methodology into lows. And I remember Steve Curley, unfortunately, he's deceased now. But he would always bring up.

We need to fail fast and fail often. And it would just hurt our boss so much. He goes, you mean, we need to succeed fast and succeed often. And it would just hurt our boss so much. Because you mean we need to succeed fast and succeed often. He used to always get in these battles with our boss, because he's like through success you learn, but through failure you learn so much. And agile is really, in our case, about failing more quickly so that you understand and can make adjustments rather than what we were doing at that time, which was the huge monolithic project. So for me, it was a really key learning, especially steadfast as Steve

Shirley was at not giving up about the mantra that we needed to fill more often. But how do you apply that in your personal life? Because I think people hear that and they're thinking to themselves, I don't want to be a failure or I can't afford to fail that many times. So people approach us in different ways. How would you think about that? Um, I think the honest answer is I don't. Not in an arrogant way, but I turn it on its head. And again, it goes back to a childhood thing I was always taught. You know, if an opportunity is presented to you or a door is open, step through it, step into it, because you never know what's going to be the other side. Now, you might fall off the

stage if it's acting. You might come last in a race if you're running something or other, you might fall out of a tree. But I don't think about that failure falling bit. I think about, oh my goodness, because I walked through that door, this is what I got to do next. So I remember my father said to me, my CV looks like a dog's dinner because it was in the days, we now people often only spend 18 months in jobs, but when I first started work, it was still the days of, you know, 10 years in a job kind of thing, and anything less was considered a job hopper. And I often change jobs after 18 months, two years, because I saw an exciting opportunity, not because I've failed. So I do think about failure,

don't get me wrong. I, I don't like to make a fool of myself. Of course, I don't, you know, I don't want everyone to laugh at me. I don't want to not succeed. But I don't know, I don't know if it's something that's innate. I was born with, I'm lucky or I was growing up, brought up with it. But I genuinely don't let that eat away at me. I always, I'm always looking at that open door. So yeah, in my personal life, I don't think about failure in that way, but I still have complete self-doubt. I get imposter syndrome just as much as anyone else, very much so, you know, so I'm not some superhuman, strong person. Definitely not. I'm a real person. Yeah, it's not, I know for myself and I'm not some superhuman, strong person. Definitely, no, I'm a real person.

Yeah, it's not, I know for myself, and I'm sure thousands who are out there who are listening to this, you know, there are many times that you look in the mirror and you don't like necessarily what you see. And so what I've learned to try to do because there's plenty about myself or the years I haven't liked is you can't

throw to all of it at one time, you kind of have to take micro bits and focus on it. And one of the most frustrating things for me is there often times where I'll pick an area of my life that I have to work on. And then I make a progress on it. And next thing, you know, I keep repeating it. And to me, that is failure. And it's something that you start talking negatively to yourself about because you're repeating a habit or mindset or an action that you need to share. And it's not easy, but every time I have found that I do it and I have that failure, it makes me not look at it as, you know, the fact that I am a failure, it makes me look that

I am just maturing my steps along the way and that it's going to take time and it's going to take repetition to do it. And so that's what I would tell listeners who are watching or listening to today's podcast is they're going to be steps like that that you walk into where you're trying to do a correction and you're finding yourself relapsing into it. And yes, you can look at it as failure, but you could also look at it as that you're growing, you're realizing and admitting to yourself when you're relapsing. And it's the most important thing to keep crying and put that effort in because the only way you're going to do it is to keep facing that brutal reality of your life.

And I think you're so right in those little steps in that repetition. I can't remember how many days it is, but isn't it something like 23 days or something in order for something to become a habit? You know, when people go and climb Everest, they don't set out to climb Everest, they go to Basecamp, then Basecamp 2 and Basecamp 3. It's all about those incremental steps, and it's, and as you say, if you fail,

or you keep on repeating that the incorrect action, but you've recognised it. That's the first thing, is you know you've recognised it. That's the first thing is you know you've done it, and so the second time you almost stop yourself doing it, and then the third time you probably do stop yourself doing it, and it's about not beating yourself up, I think, again, is it a societal, is it to do a social media, I did it, everyone blame a social media for everything, but is there a societal expectation of perfectionism? I don't know, and I think we're not helping our young people to realise there is no such thing as perfectionism or I don't think there should be.

Personally, I think it's about developing and growing and every day you are developing and improving and then something else comes along which you do wrong and so you develop and improve that. But as you say it's those repetition of those little steps. I think you spot on with that. Well, throughout your life, as you talked about earlier, you were taught by your parents and those around you to say yes to life altering opportunities. And I've said it a million times on this podcast. So many of our beliefs come from our zip code, our families, our social structure, socioeconomics that we were brought into and so many people say I can't. And I think one of the most important things that people can do is to focus on taking the steps to be prepared because you never know when that yes opportunity is going to come.

But if you don't make the preparations to do it more times than not, I feel that's what leads people to saying I can't. So can you, using that kind of as an analogy, take the listeners through this amazing polar expedition you did and what led up to it and you saying yes to that opportunity? Yeah, and actually that analogy completely ties in with it. I had, I was an all round of sports wise. I was never in the A or B or even C teams at school.

I dabbled in a bit of military stuff at university but didn't do anything properly. I wasn't the dream of polar teams at school. I dabbled in a bit of military stuff at university but didn't do anything properly. I wasn't the dream of polar exploration at all. So none of that, I didn't have any of that kind of planning for the polar bit itself. But what I did have was that open door mentality. And quite literally I was standing on the tube in London commuting to work in my mid-20s. You know, happy, didn't have any reason to feel as if I wanted to leave my job or anything. And I saw an advert in the newspaper,

little small article, and it said, women wanted to walk to the North Pole, no experience needed. And I was like, I would have thought that is a joke. Someone's putting that in the newspaper just to see who's crazy enough to respond to it. Exactly. But I was just like, why not? You know, and again, not it wasn't arrogance, but I was like, well, I know I can do that, because I know I've got that kind of keep on trucking mindset. When something goes wrong, a kind of bit of that blitz spirit, kind of laugh a bit, dark humor,

keep on moving. And so I was just like, yeah, I can do that. And I'm funny enough, I rang up my mother that evening to say, I'm applying to this expedition. And she just hit 50, it had breast cancer, it had a mastectomy a few weeks before previously. And she said, I'm going to come too. So my poor father, just was like, I don't believe this. This is so not what I want. Both of my women in my life, they had off up to the Arctic. But actually, when we went through the selection processes, which were run by the military, so they were pretty hard core and they were running a part of Britain,

one of the moors in the southwest of Britain, where it's always raining and it's always windy. I mean, the tourist office probably tell me off a saying that. But in January, it can be pretty horrible down there. But what they were looking for, it wasn't the fitness. They weren't interested if you could run 10 miles in whatever time. They were interested in that mindset, the mindset being that when you're up in the Arctic, there's no ambulance to come and get you. Hardly, you can't really even get aeroplanes and

helicopters up there very easily because of the wind, the weather conditions, and the pilots flying times, and the cost. So actually you've got to be self-sufficient mentally, as well as everything else. And that's really what they were looking for. And so that's preparing myself without knowing what I'd been preparing myself for, in all those other kind of life lessons I'd had of what, prepare yourself to make mistakes, prepare yourself to go through the open door. Suddenly, this life-changing opportunity did appear and I did take it and I was incredibly lucky to be given the opportunity to do it and it really was life-changing. Yeah, how long did you have to prepare for it and then how long did the expedition last? So the preparation in the UK, the training and stuff, was about six months. So that was more at at that point, that was an element of physical fitness by that point.

But again, most of it was preparing you mentally. And then we went up to the Northern Arctic, the Canadian side, and we had three weeks preparing at base camp in Resolute Bay. And then we had, and it depended on the ice conditions, but each team walked for three to four weeks on the ice. So I think we were 24, 25 days in the end. So on the ice. So I think we were 24, 25 days in the end. So on the ice training and for real, probably six, seven weeks in total. So it was enough, you know, it wasn't

to fill on four-month expedition because it was a relay, but it was enough of an expedition for you to really understand and experience the highs and lows and the exhilaration and the fear that the Arctic gives you. Yeah, is there one or maybe two famous explorers that through this she began to follow? He's my absolute hero. And the reason why is because of his attitude to perception of failure, he wasn't scared. When his expedition, you know, was attempting to get to the South Pole, the ship got stuck in the ice, the ship got crushed, et cetera, he could have been really pig-headed and said, I'm still going to get to the South Pole. That is still what I have to do. And he would have the highly likely lost some or all of his men in the process. Instead, he can, he swallowed his pride,

he completely changed his goalposts. And he said said my absolute aim is to get everyone back to Britain safe and sound. You know, doesn't matter how I do it, that is my goal. And so he sacrificed his own dreams for his team, and he's actually probably become more of a hero to people because of that. And he did, he succeeded with his adapted goal. And I think there's so much, we as individuals, but we as businesses, and certainly leadership teams can learn from that. So he's my complete and utter hero. Well, that's great. Well, and for those of us who've never been to the North Pole, they never get to go to the North Pole. What are some of the things that make it so much different? Because as I was researching this episode, I saw a quote where someone said it's like being in the desert, what they picture about being on Mars and being

in a cold climate, all in one thing. They said it's really hard to explain. Yeah, it's like stepping into this completely different world and people always assume it's really scary. Now of course, if you stop and think for long enough that you are two and a half miles above the ocean bed, you are hours and hours and hours from any form of help. We were up there in the 90s when technology was nothing like it is now. You know, I have friends who go to the Arctic and Antarctic now and they FaceTime me

or send me a text message. You know, we had no laptops, no nothing, no formal communication in that respect. It was old fashioned radios. So if you put that to one side, the landscape is so unique because it is not static, it is not permanent, it is permanent, it is constantly moving. You are walking on frozen ice flows basically and they are held together by pressure and when that pressure releases,

you suddenly have a river of water in front of you. You put your tent door facing south, next morning your tent door maybe facing north without you knowing that ice flow has moved and rotated. So you've got this constantly evolving landscape. So you know, I'm looking at the window now at a tree. In the next five minutes, that tree wouldn't, I mean, you don't have trees up that far north, but the tree wouldn't be there. The tree would have gone because the Arctic is just moving the whole time, but it's again, people think it's flat and white, it's not. It's every color under the sun, the ice, depending on, even if the sun's not shining, just the light, the brightness that comes down, it changes the color of the ice from

blues to greens to blacks, and it's definitely not flat. A good distance is eight to 10 miles a day because it's so rough because all when the ice crushes together it forms these big high ridges. And it's times, yeah, it was daunting and it was scary a couple of times definitely, but I felt comforted up there. It was like being in a retreat.

It was like being in this wonderful world where you get off the treadmill and you stop for a bit. And when we were up there, there were only three people in the world further north than us. And that was a team who'd set out the day before. I mean, when do we get that opportunity to say that? Three people further north in the whole, the whole of the world's population. Yeah, it's hard to describe, but it's magical. Well, I can only imagine. And as you talked about earlier, you said, one of your dreams was to go to space. And this past week, I was lucky enough to do an episode with NASA astronaut

Chris Cassidy. And I asked him a similar question about space travel and what was the most monumental moment for him. And he said, although, blasting off and returning back to space is pretty amazing, he said that for him, it's when he opened that hatch and walked out the door on his first spacewalk. And he said, his sensory perceptions just completely changed. And the magnification of it became someone tense because as many times as you practiced for that moment, when you actually are there, your body is just like, we should not be here.

Is that kind of how you felt when you were on the pole? Yes. And do you know, I heard that bit of his episode. I was listening to it this morning, actually. And I mean, I just cannot even imagine what he must have felt like. And just that, as you say, sensory perceptions, you got the fear because you're a long way above us. But it's that sensory bit and you are, I not thought of it with that language, but it is. I remember when the aeroplane left us and we were just left on the ice. It wasn't fear at all. There was no fear at that point. There was awe, complete awe and wonder, slight

bemusement, like, oh my goodness, this is it. But it was that sensory, the noise, the Arctic is obviously completely silent because there's no man-made noises or anything, you know, no machines, no nothing like that. But the wind, the every crunch of your foot on the ice is a different type of sound. You know, by the crunch of the ice, what kind of snow and ice you're walking on. You know it's young eyes or old eyes just by listening. Wow. It's, yeah, so it's that sensory ears in particular, bizarrely, definitely. Well, I'm going to tell you a little story about Fuller Explorer,

a polar explorer that I know, and then I'll ask you a question coming out of it. So earlier in my career, I was lucky enough to work with a gentleman named Chris Pierce. It happens to be another Naval Academy grad. Fantastic guy. Ended up becoming one of the top four or five leaders of all of Booz Allen over his just great career. But prior to me hiring him at Booz Allen, he was in the military and was a C-130 pilot. And he, during one of his forers, was part of the group that would do these explorations. I think his were more to the South Pole if I remember correctly. And he would tell me some of

the same things about how in some ways it's so desolate but in other ways it's so much different than anything you would expect. Well, as we were talking one day, I asked him, you know, what's the craziest thing that ever happened to you? And he said that years before one of the C-130s, they had a terrible ice storm of some sort, and the plane got completely buried and had been buried in ice and water for years. And they had gotten orders because I guess climate had shifted and it had melted away that they were to find this aircraft, retrieve it, and fly it out of there. So he said that they found the aircraft and when they found it, it had holes all over it. But miraculously, they were able to get the aircraft to start.

But he said it was the most heroine flight he's ever been on because the entire time, they never knew if this thing was going to just fall out of the sky. And so they flew it about, if I remember correctly, three to four hundred feet over the water the whole time, because they were so worried it was going to crash. But the other difficulty was they only had so much fuel, and by not getting higher altitude, they couldn't conserve the fuel. And so he said, it going through this flight, it was, are we going to crash in the water a week? Because the plane's gonna fall apart or are we gonna run out of gas and crash? Long story short, they ended up making it, but I just remember, and that is one of the crazy

stories I've I've ever heard, and why we just didn't leave the plane there? Yes. I don't know, but he told me that, you know, going through some of those things, it had had so many life altering changes for him. And that's kind of where I wanted to come to at the end of this is having done that polar exploration. What did you learn about yourself and how did it change your perceptions on how you led your life since then? I learned that I'm more resilient than I think, or at least when I'm having a bad day or a bad week or a bad period when you need the self-doubt and stuff,

I reflect back to the Arctic and I think come on Victoria, pull yourself together, you've done that. So it gives me a benchmark, I suppose, a point in the sand, a proof. It gives me a proof that I can use in my arm, my toolbox to help me when the going gets tough. So that's one thing, definitely. I think the day to day thing that the Arctic has absolutely given me, there's no question and it impacts me almost daily is perspective and the kind of just take a chill pill, it just put life in perspective. When you're up there and everything is stripped away and at one point my mother and I fell in the water and we were in

the water for eight, nine minutes. Now, logically you should die in that period. It was, you know, pretty horrendous experience. We didn't. And but I've, I haven't seen the light, you know, it wasn't that I kind of could see, you know, people were about to die say they can see that. I wasn't anything like that, but it completely made me realize that I've been given an opportunity to survive. So make sure you take it. So that perspective on life has made me,

sometimes when I read things in the press or you see things on telly or you hear people saying stuff, you just think, oh, come on. Really, let's just take a bit of a relax a little bit. And I think where that has helped me is especially in the office, in the work environment, where people can get quite up tight if targets aren't reached, or if goals are changed, or if, especially when I was working my way up the ladder,

if the exec board changed the strategy for whatever reason, partly maybe because I didn't mind change, I quite like change, change doesn't scare me. But I would say to people, look, just look at the whole picture, think about why they're doing it. They're not doing it for fun or X hasn't happened for fun. There's a reason, you may not agree with it, but try and look at the whole picture, try and be a bit more rational in your reactions. And I think that's the bit that has carried with me throughout, is that sense of perspective and just just try and look a bit broader before you jump in and scream and shout about something. Not to say I do it the whole time, but that's that's what generally drives me.

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And we've got that covered too. Let us show you the systems and frameworks that we teach, both minded individuals, to help them step into their sharp edges, execute on their passion journeys, and get predictable results time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. And I proof for myself having been in several combat situations where we at the time we're trying to go after high-value targets and for me it's you really have to have this warrior mentality and part of it gets into the preparation that you do before you go on any of these missions.

But when you're getting ready to knock down a door or you're going into perhaps an airport or some other place to extract someone, at the time, you're not thinking about it, but in actuality. I mean, in that moment, you're putting your life on the line. But I think you don't think about it as much because of the training and preparation that you've done for it. But I can tell you similar to what you're saying about perception here, you know, when things happen in my life now, and I look at them, and I'm trying to process them, I often go back to those moments because again, as Chris Cassidy said about whether he was at Buds going through training or his own time in on foot. Someone has a much worse than you at this moment and someone has much better than you. And I remember times that I've had it much worse and I remember times I've had it much

better. And it's that perception that you can play to your internal self that can completely change how you're embracing whatever's happening to you at that moment. And it's not to say that when you think you're having it worse, it's okay to feel sorry for yourself for a bit. There's no harm in that. And equally, if you think you're having it better, there's no harm in self-congratulation.

But it's about finding that middle ground, that perspective again. It's not, I don't like use the word wallowing because some people do have it really tough. But it's not letting yourself think I've got it worse than everyone else for too long. It's making yourself just stop a minute, look in the mirror or look outside and vice versa if you're at the top feeling really good. Think well how's everyone else feeling around me? Let's just temper it a bit and I think it is,

it's just being aware, the wider picture, the broader picture, definitely. Okay and I'm going gonna transition a little bit now in the interview. You had this defining moment with the polar exploration and then from there you went on to be a mother, a wife, et cetera. You're now back in your career and I think I'm finding more and more people,

regardless if they're our age, they could be younger, could be older, or finding this point where they're our age, they could be younger, could be older, or finding this point where they're having to reinvent themselves. Could be, or they're pushed out of a career, but they're pursuing, it could be they find, they wake up one day after going to work for years and years, knowing that what they're doing is not what they should be doing. Or sometimes you just become bored and you realize that you reach a stage in life that instead of saying, I can, you start saying, I can't. And I kind of wanted you to then, through that analogy, kind of walk the listener through, you know, what's happened to you and then what are some of the

changes that you've made. Yeah, and I think it's very true. I think I, for a long time, I was definitely, and there's nothing wrong with this but you know family was the focus so my husband had a job where he traveled all over the world so in effect I was a single mother to my son whilst developing my career but whilst I was still fairly independent ultimately my son always came first and being at home every evening or as many evenings I could so there were certain things you definitely said no to and I don't regret any of that, but you are right. You suddenly you wake up one morning and for me it was as I approached my 50th and I was like, come on, I've just got to start being the Victoria I used to be, not that I'd stopped totally, but I had become maybe a bit boring and a

bit, well I haven't got time to do this and maybe I'll put that off for a bit. And so I set myself this thing called 50 at 50, which is 50 challenges in theory. I was going to complete it in two years, but COVID has completely scuppered that. So I'm again, I've changed my goalposts. I'm like, I will complete it at some point, 50 challenges, but they're not all I'm deliberately. It would have been really easy for me to have done 50 challenges like Skydive, Wingwalk, Parachute, you know, Abseil, because I love doing those. The whole point is that I have to do things as well that I absolutely don't want to do. So something loads of people have said I need to do it, and I think I'm going to have to, is stand up in a comedy, you know, in the comedy club and do a

skit. Nah, that scares me, Richard. I'm not funny. I have no fear standing up in front of people. That's one of my day jobs. It's standing up and talking. But a comedy club, oh my goodness. So these 50 at 50s are about forcing me to do to step right out of my comfort zone and practice what I preach. And I suppose one of the big things I'd been unsure about my job for a while, I'd been there, I'd been in the company 15 years, I'd worked my way up, I was running the company, it was an edtech business, I knew I wanted to go at some point, couldn't find the right job,

but also I was probably comfortable there, so why step out the comfort if you don't need to? And then the business got sold last year, my role was Maeve redundant, And suddenly it was the brilliant opportunity that actually I'd not have the courage to do without that push. And I have taken the plunge now, you know, it's one of my challenges. I have set up on my own, you know, as I said to you earlier, doing that in a middle of a pandemic probably isn't the most sensible thing. And, you know, as long as I can pay the mortgage, that's the key thing. But it's the most exhilarating work

I've been doing for years because suddenly I'm doing what I really am passionate about. But I'm scared at the same time because I'm out of my comfort zone. I'm having to do stuff. I'm having to sell myself, market myself, which isn't naturally something I do. But you know, the reward, I don't mean financial, the reward in here that I'm getting in myself. Oh, honestly, I am a different woman, completely different woman, then. It's the best thing I've ever done, definitely. Well, I'm going to pick up on two things that you talked about. The first is for me a year ago, as I was approaching at this time, my 50th birthday, which is in July. COVID is raging. We're on lockdown. I can't see anyone. In fact, I, at that point, I couldn't even see my kids because we were at a point where

we didn't know it was going to happen. They were at their moms. We made a decision. They're going to stay there. We're going to keep them safe. So as I was approaching it, not only was I getting depressed because of COVID, like I think so many people were, I, you know, I didn't have any issue with facing 30 or facing 40,

but there was something about facing 50, and I started reflecting more and more on my life and saying, I just have not accomplished anywhere near what I want to do with my life. And I really think that it was one of the most powerful periods of maybe self-agony that I've ever been through, but similar to you, I don't have 50. I might have to come up with that.

I've set a whole bunch of goals that I want to achieve, no writing a book, getting back into public speaking, which it takes time. It's not easy to get up there on the stage and do it. And those who were great at it, you know, I'm just amazed at because some of them, as you said, are some of the most introverted people, but they learn how to get through that fear. I do want to pick up on one other thing, and that is for me, I was a career fortune 50 executive than an industry CEO, and for me, one of the most difficult things has been trying to sell myself, and it's a big difference when

you're trying to ask a company for money or you're spending a company's money on an initiative, then going to an individual and asking them to spend their money on your services. It's tough. And the only saving grace I have is that I was the fundraiser in chair for a foundation here, an arts foundation called the Warehouse Arts District. And in the fundraising world, it's very

much the same way because you're asking people to spend their individual livelihood on a charity. And it's completely different. So you're a listener out there. Can you kind of talk to them about maybe some steps that you have taken that got you over that fear? Because it's a hard one to tackle. It's a really hard one. And you know I was talking about to someone just yesterday so I've just been doing the classic thing of feast or famine you know when self employed and so I've been really busy the last two months so I haven't marketed myself at all and of course I'm now you know the

diary's looking not so busy for June and July so I was having to do a whole other networking kind of call set-ups the other day. And I started to reach out to people who are not my kind of closest colleagues, they're the kind of next level down. And I was like, I can't pretend to them that I want to have a catch-up out the blue because they're going to know that I'm not. So I've just decided the advice I'd give people is be completely open and honest. And so I basically dropped these people a message and say, look, I would love your help. Please, have you got 20 minutes spare to have a quick chat and possibly give me a couple of contacts that I could follow up with. And do you know the reaction has been brilliant and then you end up having some amazing conversations

and you know, whatever will come out of it. But I think I would say, well, this is experience for me. I haven't got a sale strategy for myself. I am just being me. And being me is someone who loves chatting to people. And if something comes out of it great, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. But every conversation is interesting. They just, by default, they almost always are.

So don't beat yourself up and plan too much. Just follow your instincts. Drop a message to someone. Can we have a chat? I'd love a bit of help. And you'll be amazed how many people respond. I'm sure a salesman would tell me that's completely wrong, but that's, I'm being me. I think being authentic, authentic is a word that can be overused, but I think it's a really powerful word. And I think it's important to be yourself, definitely. Yeah, I've actually, on the same line, it's been written a book by a gentleman named Chris Ta,

someone who at a young age has become very successful, but his book is called Saving Your Ass, not ass, but save your asks, because, you know, for me, I've got this big role of deck, so I'm sure you have a big role of decks, but one of the hardest things I have found is going to people and asking them for help. It is so difficult.

And then it's, when do you ask them for help? Which is what the book's about and when is the appropriate time that you use that ask for them to help you? Because for me, it's something I struggle with. When do you go to someone who I work both closely with like Michael Dell and say, Michael, I could really use some help on this podcast.

Would you be willing to be a guest? Or could you help some people come on it? It's not on the surface. It seems like that's an easy thing to do, but it's not. Oh, it's not. It takes courage. It takes guts. But actually 90% of the time, people are happy to help. You know, you're always

told, if you're good, if you're, you know, a polite and nice and helpful on the way up, you know, you'll soon know who your friends are when you're either affording down or you come out the other end, and, you know, which is why it's so important in life to not develop relationships cynically or politically, but genuinely take time to get to know the people you're working with because you never know when that relationship will be needed, you will need to call on that relationship. Yeah, there's so much true to that. So much truth to that. I think the other aspect of it is, I think as we go through life, friendships come in and out of your life for a reason,

and I think I think I was at some point where I had friendships because of group think or because they were telling me what I wanted to hear instead of really challenging me to be a better human and so that's what I try to seek out now is people who are really authentic and they don't care about how much money you make or this or that. They're challenging you every day to be a better person. And they don't judge and they don't judge and they allow you to be vulnerable, which is a difficult thing to do. Yeah, I think that vulnerability, it's really important because you want to be in a safe environment, in safe environment to be vulnerable, but being vulnerable is one of those powerful things that you can do. I couldn't find the exact quote Victoria, but what I wanted to talk to you about was the book that you wrote with your mom.

but what I wanted to talk to you about was the book that you wrote with your mom. And I remember there was a quote that I found from it that really touched me. I thought I had written it down, but I didn't. But can you tell me about that book because it's influenced thousands of people since you wrote it? Yes, so we, I mean, really, when we say the Arctic

was life-changing, we didn't think we would, we certainly never thought we would write a book. And more importantly, we didn't realize the impact of the book. So our book is called Frigid Women. It's very tongue-in-cheek because obviously we were very cold up in the Arctic. But actually the kind of subtext of it is that anything is possible. And I think it's really important, again, it goes back to the mantra I've said the whole way through. If you want to do something, take that first step. Don't try and climb Everest because that's just two biggest steps. Just take the first step and you never know

what the second step will be, what the third step will be. And I think by showing that mum and I, two completely normal people, we're not athletes, we're not polar explorers, we're just normal people, we both love our electric blankets, I like my glass of wine, you know, I'm not a big fan of camping if I'm truly honest, you know, if we can do something like that, step by step, day by day, then everyone else can too. And I think it's too easy for people to look at big role models, big famous role models and think, or like I could never be like them, they're just superhuman. Actually, they're probably the same as you, and everyone is capable of doing their own north pole or their own going to the moon or their own climbing Everest, whatever it is, it can be your own one. And I think we never realize the impact we could have on other people.

And so we do talks all over the world now to groups with that message that, you know, truly anybody, even the most self labeling normal person can go to their own North Pole. And I think it's, but the key is step by step. And as you said earlier, repeating that step by step. Yes, and that's a perfect segue into the mantra for the show, which is make a choice, work hard, and every day step into your sharp edges, do something each day that scares you. Because what you just described are exactly the steps you gotta take. First, you've got to make that choice

that you're gonna change, that you wanna make your life different. But I don't care if it's military training, going to the North Pole, doing anything, if you don't do the work, and you don't face rural reality that's facing you, looking in that mirror, and saying to yourself,

I'm going to make change, then nothing is ever going to happen. And you've got to build that resilience. It's a word that's been used a lot in the last year with COVID, but resilience, you know, people say, oh, she's born resilient or she's not born resilient. Well, there may be an element of that, but actually you can build it up. It's practice. It's practice makes perfect. You learn, you know, how to cope in different scenarios because you don't, unless you experience that or something with a transferable experience, how can you ever move forward? So you've got to step in order to experience. It's just, it's just fundamental. And if you make the step small enough, it doesn't have to be scary. And then you do that two, three, four, five times, suddenly it becomes habit.

Then look at the next thing that's scary. Do that three, four, five times, and then that'll become habit. Just make it so tiny that it's achievable. Don't set yourself up to fail. Set yourself up to succeed. No, I can have said any better. And yesterday, I was fortunate to be watching a Tony Robbins conference that's going on right now.

And a gentleman came on Brendan Pouchard. You may be familiar with, you may not. But he's got millions of influencers. I think his Facebook group now is about 5 million. Now making millions and millions of dollars a year, being a content creator. But he talks about his life and he was doing a normal job

and for seven years, he was coming in doing it, but just going through the motions until finally he made the choice that he was gonna do something different. And that was around 2016 and he said is, he started this out, all he started to do was to try to put content on YouTube. And he said one of the most difficult things was you'd have a video out for weeks and

it would have two, three, maybe four, five views. And he said that's one of those people quit. But continuing to do the work and then he translated it into a podcast and then figured out how to make email marketing work. And four or five years later, you now look at it and he's got millions of followers. So my point of telling that story is he was no different than anyone else

who might be in a career that they don't like and decided to make a change. You could make a change in a completely different direction. But the most important thing is when things get tough, when you think you really want to quit, that's typically when you have that breakout moment like he did. And I will tell you, there's mention Michael Dell earlier, who I've had a ton of conversations

with, how much guts did it take him to quit college and to take this dream that he had and to focus on it. I mean, he was just like person, the biggest, like any other person, the biggest difference was he had a passion inside of him. He saw a problem that needed solving something that Jim McKelvie says all the time is what makes a successful entrepreneur and an unsuccessful one is those who achieve success continue to make that problem they set out to solve the main thing. Those who don't get so distracted by other things that they don't keep that passion at the center.

So I think you've just led the listener into a whole bucket of truth how to approach this. So one last thing I did want to ask you about is as I was reading on the 50 to 50 site, you talked about self-belief, not cocky arrogance, you put it, but that belief in yourself. And if you were going to give advice to a listener who's out there, or someone who sees us on YouTube, how would you tell them if they're really doubting themselves that they can become a self-believer? Again, it's about not setting yourself up to fail. So you can believe, if you can believe in yourself, if you see yourself succeeding, if you see yourself in your eyes being successful. So therefore,

make those success points accessible. Make them small, make them bite-size, and suddenly you think, oh, I did that, I can do it again. Oh, I've done this, I can do it again. And I think it's also about remembering, it's okay to fall over or make mistakes or whatever language you want to use. That's okay, if anything, that's good. So I think it's really important that people don't set themselves up to fail.

They set themselves up to succeed, but with a sense of perspective. And that perspective is really important. I've said it all the way through. It's, you know, you will fall over, challenges will come in your way, everything will go horribly wrong and you'll have to change direction. That doesn't mean life's a disaster. That just means you've got to change direction. And so I think if you can see yourself succeeding, that's how you gain self-belief. But self-belief isn't a constant, it's like a wave.

You will have days when you absolutely don't feel any belief in yourself, and that's okay. And then you have days when you're riding the crest of a wave. If you think self-belief is a constant linear, that's not gonna work. You've got to recognize it's going to be like that. That would be my lesson. Yeah. Okay, well, I think a great way to end the main portion of the interview for the listeners who have, for the listeners who want to know more about you,

how can they contact you? The two easiest places, so my kind of website is anything is possible.co.uk. So that's really easy to remember. Anything is possible.co.uk. So that's really easy to remember. Anything is possible.co.uk. And if you want to check out my challenges or suggest any challenges, it's 50 at 50.org.uk. So the number 50 and then the word at and then the number 50.org.uk. Okay, I'll make sure all those are in the show notes as well.

And on the YouTube channel, so people can reach out to you. Now, the last portion of that I like to do, I think it's one of the listeners' favourites that I've heard from, is a rapid round of questions. So I'll just do five or six. Go for it. Where is your favourite place you've ever been to? Oh, that's really difficult because the Arctic obviously, but actually there's a bench just above our house on the hill and I love sitting there and looking out at this gorgeous rural landscape I live in and that's where I feel at one with the earth, the world, I feel peace. So if I'm allowed to, can I have both of those peace?

So being you like space exploration, if you were on that mission to Mars and they gave you the opportunity to establish one rule or law for this new civilization, what would it be? Listen before judging. Yes, so the law is you have to listen to all sides of the argument before you judge someone or make decisions. Okay, and I know different countries have had different levels of quarantines during COVID. When you were going through years, what was the one thing that you missed more than anything else? Hugging my parents, and I still haven't hug them, and I am so desperate to, in the end of June, I'm going to be able to. I cannot wait. Well, that's fantastic. So your mom got through a difficult bout of cancer and did

this exploration and everything with you. If you're someone who's going through an illness like that or a top point in your life, what's the biggest piece of advice you would give them? I think it's take each day as it comes. Yeah, I think it's go back to that one step at a time, day is it comes? Yeah, I think it's go back to that one step at a time, whether it's someone going through illness, you know, and some really quite serious illnesses, you know, recovery, we all know is not a constant, it goes back and forward. So just take one step at a time, if it's, if it's mental health, absolutely, completely one step at a time and recognize yet. I think I would say recognize each little incremental gain. Don't dismiss them. Each incremental gain, recognize it and celebrate it. Yeah, that's great. It actually ties into a previous podcast I did with Canadian

Trapley Sydney Hooper, but at the age of, I think she was 47, 48, was diagnosed with pain crata cancer, ends up getting whipple surgery, and then the midst of chemo, does the Whistler Ironman triathlon. And she said, you think about these amazing accomplishments, but she said, she just made micro steps and built herself up on each one,

and anything is possible. Okay, and the last one, if there was someone who is currently living or deceased that you've never met before, who would you wanna meet and why? Marika Barma, because in my eyes, I'm taking politics out of it, because your audience will be both, I'm sure.

I think he's a complete role model for his behavior and I just would love to meet him. Okay, well great. Well, Victoria Humphreys, that was an amazing interview. I had so much fun doing it with you. Thank you so much for being on the show. And best of luck with everything that you're doing and especially accomplishing those 50 at 50.

Thank you. It's been great. I love it's been really fun chatting. And those questions have definitely got me thinking. Well, I'm glad I could do that. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Victoria Humphries as much as I did and we covered a ton of ground with important lessons for anyone who is listening and watching. And one of the most important ones I think we covered was that warrior mentality whether it was going to the North Pole or for her or being a warrior in your own life. And that starts as we talked about making a choice that you want to make changes in your life,

that you want to be someplace different than where you are today. It's been doing that hard work along the way, those micro steps that she talked about throughout this episode and doing those every single day stepping into those sharp edges, those fears, those self-limiting beliefs that are holding you back from achieving your goals. And throughout all these podcasts, I hope we are bringing on inspirational guests that you can relate to.

Because just as she said, whether it was Michael Dell or Brendan Bouchard, or Pavilion Lewis Howes, you listen to, or Jay Shetty, they were just like any one of us. Before they made the decision to be different and to change their life and to the steps that I just went through. It sounds so simple, but it really is as simple as that, but it starts with you making that decision that you're not going to live the life that you're living anymore, and that you're going to do that work

and focus on yourself and focus on where you want to be. Thank you as always for listening or watching. And if there's a topic you would like to hear or a specific person you would like me to interview, please reach out to me at Instagram, at JohnRMiles, and I will do my best to get one of those two things to happen. Thank you so much as always for spending your time. I know how special it is and how much it is a privilege for me

to have you spend that precious commodity with us on the show. And until next time, go out there and start igniting your passion journey. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make passion go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Passion Strike podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast ad. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five star rating on iTunes, and you sharing it

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