The School of Greatness - 57 Alison Levine: Atop Mt. Everest, She Learned the Greatest Lesson

Episode Date: March 24, 2014

She came from a tough love sort of family. She said, it feels like there is an elephant on my chest. But they always told her, toughen up. At age 16 she passed out during soccer practice. While at the hospital they learned that she suffered from a rare heart condition. Three surgeries later, she climbed to the peaks of the highest mountains on every continent and skied the North and South Pole. This week on the School of Greatness, we have an amazing athlete, adventurer, professor of leadership and New York Times Bestselling author on the show. Please welcome the inspiring Alison Levine.

This is episode number 57 with Allison Levine. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. You want to talk about leadership?

Imagine yourself on the highest mountain in the world. You're at 26,000 feet above sea level, a place known as the death zone, an elevation at which human beings cannot survive for long. Your brain and your body are oxygen starved. You have to deal with the physiological effects of extreme altitude, along with the bone-chilling temperatures, battering winds, and a climbing team that's counting on all its members to make smart decisions. There is simply no room for poor judgment. Welcome to the School of Greatness, everyone. I'm super pumped for today's guest, as it's Alison Levine, and she's the author of the

New York Times bestselling book, On the Edge, The Art of High Impact Leadership. And I had such an incredible conversation with Allison. She really goes into some amazing stories about these climbs that she's done. She's done so many different mountain climbs, the tallest, biggest mountains in the world. She's climbed them all and done the North Pole and the South Pole. And as really a huge adventurer, expeditionist, and discoverer, and explorer, all these different things, she's an incredibly inspiring woman. And she's pretty tiny. She's not like a large woman. She's a tiny petite woman and climbed these mountains that a lot of people actually end

up dying on. And it's inspiring to hear her story and her journey and the lessons she learned on top of these mountains in terms of leadership, in terms of building a team, in terms of how to connect with people so that you don't get left behind. Because sometimes at the top of the mountain, people lose their sense of awareness.

And when the oxygen is low, people actually get left behind because they walk right past them and they only think about themselves and getting to the top and surviving. So she talks about some critical things in this interview about leadership, about survival, about thriving. And it's extremely inspiring. I'm very pumped to introduce you and welcome Ms Alison Vien to the podcast. And thanks again, everyone, for coming back on The School of Greatness. And we've got Alison Levine on, who is a New York Times bestselling author.

What's up, Allison? How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing great. And you've got a book out called On the Edge, The Art of High-Impact Leadership. And this is the type of conversation that I love having on my podcast about leadership and achieving greatness and

doing the extraordinary. And it's going to be interesting to hear your take on this because you have a really inspiring story and message. And I hope I'm going to get it right, but you've climbed and gone on an expedition on all seven summits, including, I guess, what's called the Grand Slam of expeditions, which is the North and South Pole. Is that correct? That is correct. I have climbed the highest peak on all seven continents, which is known as the Seven Summits, as you mentioned,

and then skied to both the North and the South Pole. And completing the seven summits and the North and South Pole together is called the Adventure Grand Slam. And I think there are a couple dozen people in the world now who've completed the Grand Slam. Only a couple dozen. They're out there somewhere. Wow. So how many women have to completed it? Oh, great question. I want to say maybe two or three.

Okay. So you're one of two or three people who's ever done something in the world. There might be a couple more. By now, there are probably a few more women who have done it. But at the time when I finished it, there were just a couple of us. That's crazy. Now, what inspired you to want to go on your first expedition and then kind of do the grand slam of expeditions? Well, from the time I was young, I was always very intrigued by the stories of the early Arctic and Antarctic explorers and the early mountaineers. And I used to read books and watch documentary films. And I was just in awe of these types of adventurers. And then

finally, the light bulb went off. And it actually wasn't until I was in my early 30s, because I was born with a hole in my heart that got bigger as I got older. So I had a couple of heart surgeries, one when I was 17 and one when I was 30. And after my second heart surgery, that's when the light bulb went on. And I thought, okay, if I want to know

what it's like to be legendary explorer Reinhold Messner and drag 150 pound sled across 600 miles of Antarctic ice or if I want to know what it's like to be Sir Edmund Hillary and scale Mount Everest then I should go do it instead of just reading about it or watching documentary films about it so that's how I got started and I really didn't start with the intent of completing the seven summits or the adventure grand slam I just thought it would be cool to go out and see what it was like in these extreme environments and I like the physically challenging aspects of it but i also like the psychological aspects of it as well and there's a lot of challenge you know that that lies

in that part of the climb too now you're pretty tiny woman aren't you you're like five foot nothing right right yeah i'm five four about it five, four, about five, four, a hundred, nothing. I mean, how does being so tiny, I mean, how do you carry 150 pounds when you're, you're carrying more weight than you are? That's one of the toughest things to deal with is my size, because no matter how hard I train and no matter how well I prepare, the law of physics basically dictates that somebody who's six foot four, 230 pounds is going to be able to carry weight a lot more quickly and a lot more efficiently and much, you know, much more easily than somebody who is my size. So, you know, and, and the smaller people have to carry just as much weight as the taller people.

So you have to, first of all, you want to pack really carefully and only take the things that you absolutely need because everything you take with you, you have to carry. But the other thing is, you know, for me on one of my expeditions where I was really struggling with dragging 150 pound sled across Antarctica, I had amazing teammates that were willing to help me with the weight of my sled. And they ended up offloading some of my weight, making their sleds heavier and carrying a little bit of extra weight for me because they were so much larger, they knew that they could carry it more easily. So it just goes back to, you know, one of the

points I mentioned in my book on the edge is picking the right team, you know, people who are going to be courteous teammates and who are going to care more about the team than they care about themselves as individuals. Yeah. And that point, you know, you've got a number of points of advice throughout the book, which is extremely well written. You wrote it yourself. You didn't have a ghostwriter. So it's amazing. And it's New York time bestseller. So kudos to you for all that. But one of the points is don't try to overcome your weaknesses. And you just mentioned that story in the book where some of your teammates had compassion for you because they saw that you weren't able to keep up at certain points because of the weight of your

sled, right? With all the stuff on it. And you talk about don't try to overcome your weaknesses. And there's something you did in return, I guess, after they kind of offloaded some of your weight. There's something you did in return, right? Yes. And the chapter you mentioned about the ski expedition across Antarctica to the South Pole, that's probably the chapter I get the most comments on from people. And as you mentioned, it is about the fact that you're not always going to be able to overcome a weakness, but you can compensate for it. And what I did in return for my amazing teammates taking weight out of my sled is what I noticed. I immediately started thinking, wow, here are some people that want me to succeed. Here are some people that are sending me a message

that I am valuable to this team because instead of letting me continue to struggle or instead of saying, hey, look, you can't keep up. You know, we can't have you on this team anymore because you're dragging us down. They showed me they wanted me to succeed by helping me with the weight of my sled. And in return, what I noticed is at the end of the day, every day, so you ski 15 hours a day, sometimes more across Antarctica, you're freezing, you're uncomfortable, you're exhausted. Then after you're done skiing for the day, you get to set up camp and you pitch your tent. And then once you pitch your tent, you have to build a barricade around it to protect it from the elements. So you build these

walls out of snow and ice and you use this snow shovel, which is a very short shovel because you can't take a big heavy shovel with you. You want to cut down on weight. Like I mentioned, you're carrying everything with you, all of your gear and supplies. So you want to keep things light. So you have a light snow shovel. And what I noticed was these tall guys really wrenching their backs, trying to bend over to use this short snow shovel. Well, of course, because I'm shorter to the ground, I can shovel snow without screwing up my back.

So that next night after they took the weight out of my sled, I said to them, hey, you guys, can I shovel the snow barricade around your tent? And our team leader, Eric Phillips, said, you want to do what? And I said, well, I want to shovel the snow around your tent? And our team leader, Eric Phillips said, you, you want to do what? And I said, well, I want to, I want to shovel the snow around your tent. And he said, why would you want to do that? And I said, well, I love to shovel snow. And he said, you, you know, of course he was very skeptical. What do you mean you love to shovel snow? And I said, well, I grew up in Phoenix

and I never got to shovel snow. So it's a treat for me to be able to shovel snow. I love to do it whenever I can. Give me the shovel, you know, and I shoveled the snow barricade around their tent as often as I could as a way to say thank you to them for helping me with the weight in my sled. And, you know, it was just one of those situations where I learned how to compensate for my weakness because I wasn't going to overcome my size. And that was really a tribute to Eric Phillips, our team leader, who, you know, sent me the proper message of, hey, we want you on this team. We want you to succeed. We don't want to go on this expedition without you. We want you there with us. Come on, you got

to, you got to stay with it. And because he was willing to do everything he could to help me, I was willing to do everything I could do to help him and the rest of my team. So it was just a great example of how to build trust and loyalty amongst teammates and how to help people compensate for weakness. I like that. And another point on your advice you talk about with teammates, you say look for teammates with big egos. Can you talk about that? Because it seems a little contradictory to find someone who's got a huge ego and is all about themselves or maybe doesn't care about the team or whatever that means. And you often hear that phrase, leave your ego at the door.

And I used to think that was the way to go, right? Yeah, you don't want ego. Ego's bad. Well, then I had an interesting conversation with Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski, who is the head basketball coach at Duke University. He's the winningest coach in the history of Division I men's basketball. And for all you Duke haters out there, just bear with me for a second, because he's also the coach of the U.S. men's Olympic basketball team. And he was talking about what he looks for when he chooses people for the Olympic team because he gets to choose those players. And obviously he has a huge talent pool to pull from, right? The entire NBA. And I thought, how does he decide who he wants on that team? And what he explained is he said, I look for ego. And I thought, right, because you don't want ego. That's bad, right? So those are the people that

are out. And he said, no, you want ego. And I thought, what? And he explained there's two kinds of ego that he looks for. The first is what he calls performance ego. And he said, I want people who are good and who know that they're good. And that made sense to me because I thought, I don't want to be climbing Mount Everest and be about to ascend the Hillary step, which is one of the toughest parts of summit day. It's a nearly vertical pitch of, you know, 40 foot, 40 feet of rock and ice. And I thought, I don't want to be stuck on the Hillary step behind someone who's up there and who isn't moving and who's saying, well, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't be here. Maybe this mountain's too much for me. You know, you want to be climbing with people who

are thinking, okay, I got this. No problem. I got this. So that's the first kind of ego he talked about, performance ego. The second type of ego he mentioned that he looks for is what he calls team ego. And he said, I want people who are going to be proud to be part of something that collectively is more important than any of the individuals. And that made sense to me too, because in 2002, when I was recruiting the first American Women's Everest Expedition team members, I wanted people who were going to be proud to be part of the American Women's Everest Expedition team members, I wanted people who were going to be proud to be part of the American Women's Everest Expedition.

My thought about ego being bad, all that is out the door now. I now look for ego. I realize that ego can be a very good thing. Maybe if you didn't have the ego, someone might die up there. Exactly.

If they didn't have the confidence, someone might die up there. Exactly. Exactly. If they didn't have the confidence in themselves and they weren't so excited about it, it may cause them to be in harm and everyone else to be in harm. Right. Exactly. You don't want people who are going to hesitate during the trickiest parts of the route, during the most challenging parts of the climb. You want people who have the confidence to just keep climbing and to climb in a strong fashion. Okay, I love this.

I like this idea. Now you talk about you want to have teammates with big egos that are successful and believe they're going to be successful and believe they're going to win and finish. But you also say that success can be a problem. So can you talk about that? I do. So I do think success can be a problem. So can you talk about that? I do. So I do think success can be

a problem because oftentimes when people are so focused on success and so focused on achieving their goals, they tend to not really challenge themselves as much as they should or as much as they could. And oftentimes it's the people who are really challenging themselves and really pushing their limits who are the ones who are stumbling along the way because they are the ones who are operating outside of their comfort zone. And I had such an interesting conversation about this with a guy named Pete Dawkins. So I serve on a board with Pete Dawkins. So I serve on a board with Pete Dawkins. Pete Dawkins is a West Point graduate. He was first in his class at West Point. He was a Rhodes Scholar. He was a Heisman Trophy winner. And I had this conversation. I was

having this conversation about failure with Pete Dawkins. And I thought, how can I be having a conversation about failure with Pete Dawkins, right? This guy who's achieved nothing but success in his life. He rose to the ranks of general in the army. He fought in Vietnam. He's a Heisman trophy winner. I mean, this guy knows success. I thought talking to Pete Dawkins about failure, it's like talking to the Pope about sex. You know, he knows it exists, but it's something that only happens to other people. And Pete shared this article he wrote with me back when he was a young captain in the army. He wrote an article for Infantry Magazine called The Freedom to Fail. And what he was telling the army is that if you only look for people with perfect track records to promote and to value, you know, that's really a mistake because

those people are often not taking on a great amount of risk. And it's the people who are pushing their limits, taking on risk, getting out of their comfort zones who are often failing along the way. But through those failures, they pave the way for other people's success. And if you think about Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first guys to summit Mount Everest. I mean, almost everybody who knows anything about climbing knows those names. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, first guys to stand on the summit. But guess what? There were dozens of climbers who attempted Everest before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who tried and failed. And nobody knows their names.

But, I mean, you've got to know that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay absolutely got a hell of a lot of 4-1-1 from those previous expeditions that tried and failed. And it was only because of those failures that Hillary and Norgay achieved their success. And I think that you've got to give yourselves and your team room to fail. As long as you come back from it better the next time around, failure is a pretty incredible learning experience.

So encourage people to fail. Don't just reward success. Reward people who are getting out there, taking risks, and really pushing their limits, whether they succeed or not. I mean, that's great in theory. But what about if you're running a business and you have an employee that just is failing over and over again and is costing you thousands of dollars? Do you continue to reward them for their creativity? Or at some point, do you get to the point where you have to cut them off or really kind of lay the hammer down so they're getting results for your company?

I think that's a great question. And it depends on the position that person is in and how much risk tolerance you have at the time. So for example, if it's somebody in R&D that's trying to invent something, they may fail time after time after time until they get it right. But the progress and the product or the service or whatever it ends up to be through that success may end up bringing in a heck of a lot of revenue

down the road. But if you just have someone that's failing because they're a crappy performer and because they have a lousy attitude, then you should absolutely cut that person loose because a bad attitude, I mean, and you know, that type of thing can be toxic in a work environment. And that's, that's, you know, not, that's different than someone who's taking risks

and pushing themselves and who wants, who's willing to stumble and get beat up along the way in order to help advance the company and its mission and its goals. But if you have someone that's failing just because they're not trying and they have a crappy attitude, I say get rid of them. Yeah, I like that idea. Now, you've got another piece of advice, which is also contradictory. You say, when you're making progress on something, turn around and change direction. So what's that advice all about?

So that's an interesting one and it's one of the most psychologically challenging aspects of climbing a big mountain. So we'll just use Everest for example, but it's, this would be a process that you would use on almost any Himalayan peak. So when you go to climb Mount Everest, you don't just climb from base camp to camp one, to camp two, to camp three, and on up the mountain. You're going to spend about 10 days hiking just to get yourself to base camp. Once you get to base camp, you have to spend a few days and nights there to get used to the altitude because it's over 17,000 feet. Wait, 10 days just

to get to the base camp, to the bottom of the mountain? Just to get to the bottom of the mountain. Exactly. I mean, 10 days, you're exhausted, you're over, you know, you're at an elevation of over 17,000 feet. Wow. So you're really feeling the altitude and you're just at base camp.

Are you telling me that you can't take a horse up there or a car? No. So, but I'll tell you an interesting little factoid is on the north side of Mount Everest, when you climb from the Tibet side, you can actually drive all the way to base camp. But on the south side, you have to hike in. And that's the route I took base camp but on the south side you have to hike in and that's the route i took is the route from the south side from the nepal side so you're at base camp for a few days and then you pack up your stuff and you climb up to camp one and you get to camp one and you spend the night up at camp one and then after you spend the night at camp one you pack up your stuff and you come back down to base camp again and then you you spend the night at Camp 1, you pack up your stuff, and you come back down to base camp again.

And then you spend a few nights at base camp again. Then the next day you climb to Camp 1 again, spend the night. And then you climb up to Camp 2, and you spend the night at Camp 2. And after you spend the night at Camp 2, which is even higher up on the mountain, after a night there,

you pack up, and you come all the way back down to base camp again. And then you spend more time at base camp again. Then you climb to camp one again, spend the night. Climb up to camp two again, spend the night. The next day, you'll spend about nine or 10 hours fighting your way up to camp three, which is at about 24,000 feet. So you spend the night at 24,000 feet. And the next day you come all the way back down to base camp. So as you're moving up the mountain, you have to keep switching direction and coming back to base camp because you have to let your body get used to the altitude very slowly. It's this process

called acclimatization. And if someone were to magically drop you off on the summit of Mount Everest, if you could be dropped up there by by a plane or a helicopter or something like that, you'd be dead in a matter of minutes from the altitude. Wow. So you have to move up the mountain very slowly just so your head doesn't pop off when you get to the very top. Catch is that anytime you're above 18,000 feet, which is going to be any camp above that base camp, anytime you're above 18,000 feet, your body is starting to deteriorate and your muscles are getting weaker. So it's this crazy catch 22. Yeah, it's so frustrating because you want to spend time up high to get used to the altitude, but you have to keep coming back down low so you can eat,

sleep, hydrate, and regain some strength. So yes, it's very physically challenging to be climbing up and back down and up higher and back down again. But psychologically, oh, incredibly frustrating as well, because I mean, you know, you want to be going up the mountain because you have to get to the summit, but you're spending so much time climbing in the backward direction. Down. Exactly. And so it's really easy to just think, oh my gosh, I'm losing ground. I'm not making progress. This is not the direction I want to be going. This is moving away from my goal. How can I get to my goal when I'm moving in the wrong direction? And for whatever reason, we always tend to think that progress has to happen in one particular direction, but that's not the case. Sometimes you are going to have to go backwards for a bit in

order to make progress. And my point in, in the book is that you should not let this backwards direction discourage you or make you feel like it's a setback. You look at going in the wrong, you know, going in a different direction from what you anticipated. When you go in that different direction, just look at it as an opportunity to regroup, regain some strength so that when you do turn around and change direction again, you're even stronger the next time around. Use that time as an opportunity to strengthen your skills so you can be stronger. And don't look at it as a setback and don't look at it as losing ground. Just look at it as part of the process of getting to where you want to be. I love this approach.

And while you're talking about this, what it makes me think about is relationships, romantic relationships, and that you may go through a number of breakups and may feel like you're going in the backwards direction every time you break up. You just want to get closer and closer to someone and build this relationship and this bond and this love,

and then it goes away for whatever reason, and it's probably heartbreaking psychologically, well then it goes away for whatever reason. And it's probably heartbreaking psychologically. Well, it is for a lot of people. And you think you're just moving in the wrong direction, but then all of a sudden you're moving closer and closer. You learn and grow from it and get accustomed to other challenges that will come up in relationship and find the right one for you. Absolutely. I mean, you learn from it. And at the time, during the heartbreak, you're thinking, why am I going through this?

But down the road, and you may not understand it at the time, but I really do believe that down the road, it comes to you and you think, okay, this is why I went through that before because I had to learn how to do it better this time. And you do, you learn from each broken relationship. And at some point, I really do think you find the right one and you always think, oh, it's timing and it's because this person is my soulmate. Yes and yes, but also

it's because you're better at relationships because of what you learned. I love that. It's, uh, that's very interesting. And you have another point of advice, which I have, uh, some questions for you on this. 50 cent has a famous quote saying sleep is for those who are broke.

And there is, there is, my, And there is another friend of mine who is a sleep and health expert, talks about how he goes to bed before 10 o'clock. Basically, when the sun goes down, right after the sun goes down, he starts to like wind down and he goes to bed no later than 10 o'clock. And he has this entire process of like shutting off all the lights by nine o'clock and really allowing your body to slow down so you can have the most restful, rejuvenating sleep possible. And then he wakes up with the sun and he has this whole process of how important sleep is for our bodies to be performing at a high level, to be efficient, to grow, to do everything it needs to do and to stay youthful for a long amount of time.

And he talks about all the scientific reasons why sleep helps a lot of people who live over to be 100, the reasons why. So one of your pieces of advice is practice sleep deprivation. And one is, can you tell me how you practice this and why you think it's important and for what? Yes. All right. So on these big expeditions or on these expeditions to these big mountains, there is going to be, there will be times where you have to push through the night where you are climbing for 14, 18, maybe more than 20 hours straight. So you climb through the night, you don't get sleep, you're exhausted. And you know, this is coming typically, you know, okay, on summit day, we're going to start at 11 p.m. or 10 p.m. We're going to climb through the whole night.

It could be 20 hours. And what I find is there's a lot of anxiety surrounding this. People start to stress out, oh, my gosh, how am I going to climb for 20 straight hours with no sleep? And there's all this anxiety and stress as you're thinking about this task that you're going to have to do with no sleep. And then people toss and turn the nights before, which throws off their sleep for the nights before as well. And I have my own approach to this, which is that I, as you mentioned, practice sleep deprivation. Because my feeling is that if you practice sleep deprivation, then you know you can function in these extreme circumstances when you have to with no sleep. You can, you can climb for

20 or 24 or more hours. You absolutely can. And my philosophy is that you can either be sleep deprived and super stressed out about it, or you can just be sleep deprived and deal with it. And I think it's better to just be sleep deprived and deal with it and not have the stress associated with it. So what do I do to practice that? Well, I know when I have a big climb coming up, I need to get out to smaller mountains and practice on those mountains. For me, it's Mount Shasta, which is about six hours north of where I live in the Bay Area. Mount Shasta is just south of the Oregon border. I drive up there from the Bay area. I start my climb at 11 o'clock at night from the parking lot. I climb from the parking lot to the summit and back down in one push. I carry a heavy pack. It takes me about 14, sometimes 16 hours, depending on how heavy my backpack is. And what I do is I'm trying to simulate this push of being on a mountain for 16 hours with no sleep.

I try to do it with as little food and as little water as I can. I keep food and water in my backpack in case I need it. But I try to do it without that because I want to throw my body into that state of deprivation so I know what it feels like, so I'm familiar with it, so that it doesn't stress me out when I know I have to do it. Now, is it good for you to go without sleep? No. No, it's terrible for you. But I didn't write a book about how to live to be 100.

I wrote a book about how to push through the most challenging of times when you absolutely have to. For me, I think it's better to have a bunch of people that know they can push for 20 hours and not sleep and they're good with it rather than people who are super stressed out about, oh, how am I going to do this? I'm not going to be able to sleep. I can't function with no sleep. I need at least eight hours. You know, so that's sort of my philosophy behind the, the idea of sleep deprivation. I love that. It's funny. Now, I'm curious. You went up to your first summit. You said it was Everest was your first summit? No. I had climbed six of the seven summits actually before going to Mount Everest, but I

went to Mount Everest twice. In 2002 as the team captain of the first American Women's Everest Expedition, and then again eight years later in 2010. Okay. What was the feeling of your first, you're at the summit of your first summit, your first expedition? What was it like on top? Well, of the first mountain I ever went to? Yeah. Gosh. The first mountain I ever went to was Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. And it was a great learning experience for me because it was the first time I had been to high altitude.

So Kilimanjaro is over 19,000 feet. And by the way, high altitude is considered anything above 8,000 feet. And by the way, high altitude is considered anything above 8,000 feet. So when you're in Aspen or in some of these ski resorts, you're at high altitude when you're above 8,000 feet. So I'm at 19,000 feet. And I remember thinking, I cannot do this. I cannot take one more step. I cannot breathe.

I have a headache. I feel sick to my stomach. I'm short of breath. I cannot keep going. But I would take one, you know, okay, well maybe one step, right? All right. Maybe one more step. All right. Maybe, maybe just one more step. And then you keep saying that over and over in your head. And then all of a sudden you find yourself on the summit of Kilimanjaro. And I'm thinking, how the hell did I get here? I have no idea. But what I took away from

that trip and why that first summit was so important to me is because I learned that I had that voice in my head that would say to me, you can take one more step. That's all you need to do. Just take one more step and one more step after that. And I think everybody needs to find that voice that tells them they can keep going. And Kilimanjaro is supposed to be, tell me if I'm wrong, but it's supposed to be one of the easier climbs, I guess, if you can consider it easy, of the seven summits. Is that right or am I off there? I think you're right on target. It's probably the easiest of the seven summits. Not that any of them are easy.

Right, and it's not the lowest. There are two other mountains that are lower than Kilimanjaro, but there's no technical difficulty. You can go climb Kilimanjaro without any experience, and it will really give you a good feel for what altitude is like. Yeah, a buddy of mine named Kyle Maynard, I had him on the podcast a while ago. He was born without arms and legs

and he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro on his elbows and nubs on his knees basically and crawled up. Oh, yeah, that sounds easy. Yeah, it took him 12 days, I guess, to crawl up the mountain. Wow. I just thought that was one of the craziest things I've ever heard. That is amazing. I couldn't even imagine.

So I'm sure it was hard enough to just walk up there, let it all crawl. I couldn't even, you know, it'd be challenging just for me to walk. Yeah, trust me. I mean, for me, yeah, just walking felt like a huge challenge. I cannot imagine crawling up there the way he did. That is impressive. So what was the feeling like on top then when you finally made it, your first, the first summit up there?

I just thought, first of all, I thought, I can't believe I'm here. You know, you think you will never get there because when you're climbing at altitude you move so slowly and sometimes you are taking five breaths for every step in order to catch your breath yes and i mean maybe not so many on kilimanjaro maybe on kilimanjaro it's two or three breaths but on everest on mount everest you're taking five to ten breaths for every step as you approach the summit so So you're moving so slowly and you think you'll never get there. And then when you find yourself there, it's interesting because Kilimanjaro, because it was my first summit, I thought it was so cool to be up there.

And I thought, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I never thought I would be here. I never thought I would do something like this after two heart surgeries and here I am. And for me, it was a meaningful moment. But as I started to climb other mountains, more technically challenging mountains, higher mountains, I started focusing less on the summit and more about the journey and the lessons that I could learn along the way. And that's how I really became interested in leadership and in team dynamics and focused less about how do I get to the top and more on how do I make sure this expedition is a good experience for everyone on this team. So that's always my goal now. It's more about the experience, making sure the team comes back, you know, in one piece that they have a great time. And I don't focus so much on the

summit because when you focus too much on the summit, that's when things can become dangerous. And interestingly enough, most of the deaths that occur on Mount Everest occur on the way down after people have reached the summit already because they use everything left that they've got in them, every ounce of energy and their reserves to get themselves to the top. And they have nothing left to get themselves back down. And so most of the deaths occur when people collapse just below the summit on their way down because they don't have enough in them to get themselves back down. Wow. back down. Wow. Now we kind of skimmed by something pretty interesting that I thought is a defining moments in your life, which is two heart surgeries. So can you talk about,

first off, what that was like having two heart surgeries, why you had to have them, and how were you able to climb all these summits with, I guess, an injured heart? able to climb all these summits with, I guess, an injured heart? I was born with a condition called Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome. And it was basically an extra bypass tract in my heart that was not supposed to be there. And it got bigger as I got older. And I wasn't diagnosed until I was 17 years old because I grew up in kind of a tough love family. And when I would complain about my health when I was younger, oh, mom, I can't breathe or I feel like there's an elephant sitting on my chest and my heart hurts. And she would just say, oh, you're fine. You're just nervous for the spelling bee. You're just nervous for your student council

speech. Yeah, I grew up in this house where there was no whining, no complaining allowed. I mean, it was very much a suck it up type of environment. And so I actually wasn't diagnosed until I was 17 when I lost consciousness during a ski trip. And I was rushed to an emergency room of a hospital, and that's how I was diagnosed. So I had one surgery when I was 17 that was not successful. But when I turned 30, I did have a successful procedure that basically sealed up the hole in my heart and I was essentially cured. So when I started climbing about 18 months after that second heart surgery, so I didn't

have any health issues after that, or so I thought. But it turns out I had another hole in my heart which wasn't discovered until 2010 so I actually had a third heart surgery when I got back from my second Everest expedition in 2010 so this is a complete open heart surgery chest open no they actually were able to do it uh they can do it in a less invasively now they went through they would go through my jugular vein my elbow and my groin in order to get to the spot I know. Oh, my gosh. That almost sounds worse.

I think it might be. Jeez. And the worst part is you have to be awake. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I think I'd rather you crack my chest open. Wow. Yeah, you have to be awake and that's hard. Oh my God, the groin, the jugular and warehouse?

But they give you your elbow. They give you a lot of sedation. You get a ton of sedation. I don't know. That still just sounds really painful. Wow, so three heart surgeries. That's like the Grand Slam of heart surgeries. That's the turkey of heart surgeries, that's like the grand slam of heart surgeries. That's the turkey of heart surgeries.

Wow. There you go. How long did it take to recover from those? Well, it wasn't as bad as you would think. So I think for one, I wasn't allowed to walk for five days and I wasn't allowed to drive a car for about a week. But then slowly after that, I would say within about two weeks, I was up and moving around a bit. And probably within a month or so, I was back to exercising.

Gotcha. Okay, cool. Now, you have a mantra. What is this mantra? My mantra is count on me that's my mantra what does that what does that mean to you uh and why do you have one i have a mantra because i feel like everyone should have three words give or take could be more could be, three words that are sort of their rallying cry, three words that they want to describe them. And I want to be the person that people in my life

know they can count on, whether they're business colleagues, family, friends, whoever, expedition teammates, whoever it is, I want to be the person that comes through when people are counting on me. I want to be that clutch player no matter what. And so I always think about what can I do to be that person that people know they can count on? What can I do to be the person that everyone wants on their team? And initially, when I started doing these big expeditions, I thought, oh, the way to be a valuable team member is to be fast and to be strong and to be the first person to the summit and to be out front and have a huge lead. I'm way out in front of the rest of my teammates. Look how fast I am. Look how strong I am. I'm so far ahead of you. And then I realized

that is not what a good teammate does. A good teammate and a good leader sticks with their team, even when they can go faster, even when they are stronger. They stick with their team. So if anything happens, they're there to help out and they can be a supportive, valuable team member. And so I think about that every day. I want people to remember me as the person they could count on. And that's what I want people to say about me when I'm not in the room. No, I don't want, I don't want people to say, oh yeah, that Allison, she's a fast climber. She's a strong climber. I want people to say, yeah, you know what? She's a friend that we know we can always count on.

That's what's important to me. And I think everybody has to have their mantra of how they want to be viewed as a human being, as a leader, as a teammate. And you have to consciously think about that and put effort into that mantra so that you are walking the walk and not just talking the talk. I like that. Did you ever have any near-death experiences on the mountains? I did. I've had two near-death experiences on a mountain. One is, and I actually wrote about this

in one of the chapters of On the Edge, but one was on a mountain called Karsten's Pyramid, which is in a random place called Irian Jaya. And I went there in 1999 during my fall break from grad school. But it was a much longer summit push than I anticipated. My headlamp burned out and I couldn't see. My climb went well into the dark of night, which I didn't anticipate. My headlamp burned out. I didn't have enough food and water in my system. And it just it took me much longer than I anticipated. With no headlamp, I couldn't see the route. I was climbing along very steep ridges where if I had fallen, I would have fallen to my death. So that was a scary situation. I put myself in through some

very poor decisions, which I talk about in the book. And the other was a situation on Mount Everest in an area called the Khumbu Ice Fall, which is where many of the accidents occur on the south side of Mount Everest. The Khumbu Ice Fall is basically 2,000 vertical feet of these big, huge, moving ice chunks. And these ice chunks start to melt as the sun comes up. So they're in constant motion and you're at risk of being crushed anytime you're in the icefall because when you know the things start to melt in a big huge ice block the size of a building could come toppling down on you and in 2002 during my last foray through the icefall on our way back to base camp when we were

getting ready to to pack up and and leave the mountain our last time back down the mountain uh i had just crossed this one crevasse in the icefall, this big open span over this ladder, and there was a huge ice avalanche right behind me where the section of the Khumbu Icefall collapsed behind me. And had I been two minutes slower, I probably would have ended up crushed in that ice avalanche. Wow.

Yeah, I'm looking. I've got the book in front of me. I've got it all highlighted, and I see you've got some great images in the middle of the book of your expeditions and 300-foot ladders climbing up ice walls and ropes everywhere connected to the whole team

and just like crazy images that are, I don't know if I'd ever be able to climb these ladders but it's it's pretty interesting and you've got images of you at the top of everest which is just like it seems like it's so high you're just in the cloud you're just in the clouds you know it's like how do you even get up there this seems almost impossible what escalator yeah what is the what was the most emotionally moving moment you've had on a trip? The most emotionally moving moment I had on a trip was at camp two on Mount Everest and my expedition in 2010 at camp two, when we were moving up the mountain for our summit push and we're getting

ready to, you know, go to camp two. You know, we talked about how you go up and down, up and down, up and down the mountain. Well, when you're ready to go for the summit, you just go up base camp, camp one, camp two, camp three, camp four summit, right? So we're at camp two getting ready for, you know, to push up to camp three. And one of my favorite team members decided that he was going to quit. And he just said, I don't think I can continue. I'm having weird tingling in my hands and my feet. I just, I don't, I had an anxiety attack in my tent. I'm not feeling good about this. I'm going to turn around and go down. And I just absolutely lost it at the dinner table. I just, I mean, I was like, you are not going down. This guy was such an amazing teammate. He was so valuable to

all of us. He was the most thoughtful, caring, courteous person on our team and an incredibly strong climber and i thought if anyone deserves to be on the top of this mountain it is this guy so when he said he was quitting i literally like i started talking and i couldn't i mean i'm choking back tears just saying this summit is not going to mean as much to me if i'm up there without you. I mean, you, you know, it won't mean as much to anyone on this team if you are not with us. You cannot quit. You know, we will do whatever we can

to help you along the route if you need help, but you are not going down the mountain. And I just was crying. I mean, tears streaming down my face, which was amazing because I was so dehydrated. But I just thought, I don't want this guy to quit. And I gave him my best, best sales pitch to get him to continue. And he actually agreed to continue. He made the summit. And afterward, he sent me the loveliest

letter. I got back home and he sent me a letter just thanking me saying, thank you so much for the encouragement you gave me that, you know, that allowed me to continue on the climb. And he said, if it weren't for you, I would have turned around. And for me, it was just a great reminder. And I really want people to think about this. It's a great reminder that when people are valuable to you and when you care about people and people are valuable to their team, or even when you just care about them as individuals, you've got to tell them that. And don't assume that people know how important they are to you and how valuable they are to your team. You need to verbally remind them because everyone on our team thought that this guy knew that none of us wanted him to quit, but nobody spoke up about it until I did. And knowing now that my speech

was what caused him to continue, it really made me realize how important it is to tell people that they're important to you. Yeah, I think communication is extremely important on all levels of life and business, relationships, everything, sports teams, obviously expeditions. But it's sometimes the strongest players in life that receive the least amount of

acknowledgement and communication of how valuable they actually are. Sometimes people, you know, everyone just assumes since they're so good, they get acknowledged or they receive the communication they think they should be receiving. So no one speaks up to them and encourages them. And it can be a lot of weight on some of these big leaders' shoulders. And I'm sure this guy sounds like he was one of the bigger leaders. Maybe he was feeling a lot of pressure, a lot of weight, and he just didn't want to do it anymore. He didn't feel like, you know, you guys needed him or something.

Yep. So that's amazing. I love that story., you know, you guys needed them or something. Yep. So that's amazing. I love that story. That's a very moving and emotional. So tell me the difference in 2002, you were the captain of an all girls team. And what was that like being a captain of an all girls team? And why did you decide to do an all girls team or all female team? an all-girls team? And why did you decide to do an all-girls team or all-female team? The reason that I decided to do an all-women's team or all-girls team, I kind of thought of it as girls actually, to be honest with you, but it's because I actually got a call from someone saying they were interested in putting together the first American Women's Everest Expedition.

And would I be interested in participating? And I thought an opportunity to go to Mount Everest, it was a sponsored expedition, no cost to me, you know, no financial cost, first team of American women. I thought, absolutely. I'm interested. I would love to be a part of the first American women's Everest expedition. And I thought there's only going to be one first team of American women to climb Everest and I want to be a part of it. And then as things, you know, evolved and certain people were in and other people were out, I ended up serving as the team, you know, being asked to serve as the team captain. And I've got to really hand it to the other four women on my team who

were, I think all much better climbers, much stronger climbers, and took just as much responsibility for leadership as I did. I might have been the designated team captain, but everybody pulled their share of the weight. Everybody was involved in the decision-making processes from day to day. Everybody did just as much to help the team as I did. So it was really a great example of everybody on a team empowering themselves to think and act like leaders. And it was an amazing experience. I'll tell you, climbing with that team of women, and this has never happened to me on a trip before, where every single person on the team

got along the entire two months. And Everest Expedition is two months long. And it's only natural that there's conflict between people. That's okay. Conflict can be a good thing. You know, as long as there are open lines of communication, conflict can be helpful. When conflict becomes dangerous is when it's unresolved. And so conflict on teams doesn't bother me,

but it just so happened that among these women, we didn't have any conflict. You couldn't have asked for more courteous teammates than these other women. They were amazing. Two months on a climb. It seems like a long time.

You know what? When you're there, it seems like two years some days. You're're like i feel like i've been here forever uh it is two months is a long time to be in an extreme remote environment away from civilization away from loved ones uh you know in 2002 there you didn't have blackberries and satellite phones were really expensive and there wasn't, you know, people weren't tweeting from base camp or sending videos back. You know, it was much, it really was, you really did feel like you were in a remote, isolated place. And you have to, you have to be aware of the psychological effects that environments like that can have

on people. And people do get homesick. People do get depressed and people do experience heightened emotions when they're happy about something. They're absolutely ecstatic. And when something bothers you, you think it's the end of the world. I mean, someone's whistling a Neil Diamond song that you hate. You know, you are ready to push that person off a cliff. That's how much you can't stand it. So, I mean, it's, you have to really be, you know, check in with yourself and ask yourself questions. Am I, is this really how I should be feeling? Or is this just exacerbated by the fact that I'm in this remote, extreme, isolated environment? What were, were all, did you always have the same type of emotional, I guess, challenges or psychological challenges on every climb?

Or were some mountains more extreme than others with the emotional battles? I love that question because so much of the answer ties into the team dynamics. And even if a mountain, I mean, I've been on mountains that were relatively easy that I'd climbed many times in the past, but because I had challenges with team dynamics, it made the climb seem so much more intense, so much more difficult. When you've got one person that's making things miserable for the rest of the people on the team. It can make the climb feel much more physically challenging than it really is. That's interesting. Now, I want to know, you talk about when you're looking to bring someone on your team,

how you go about that process for hiring someone or, I guess, on any sports team or expedition. What's that process like for you when choosing someone? Well, part of it goes back to Coach K's advice about looking for ego. But part of it too, it has to do with making sure the person is a good fit for the culture of the team. So for example, when I was first looking at team members for the first American Women's Everest expedition, I was very fired up about women that had a ton of climbing experience. But of course, you figure out very quickly that it's not going to do you any good to be high up on Mount Everest or any other mountain for that matter, with the best, best

climbers if they don't care about the team. And then on the flip side, you don't want to be up there with people who are really fun and cool and easy to get along with if they don't have the right skills to be successful in that environment. I mean, recruiting mistakes are very costly and you can't afford to make them when you're going on an expedition to a big Himalayan peak. So you want to find people who have the perfect mix of skill and experience but who are also going to be really good team players. Yeah, and you also talked about something which I would say that I like to apply in my life where you really connect with everyone.

I think you said at base camp or kind of like the starting of the journey, you actually connect with everyone and get to know everyone and become friends with everyone. And you talk about the importance of that connection with each human on the journey along the way. And why is that so important for you? Well, people make fun of me all the time because the first thing I do when I get to base camp on any expedition, very first thing I walk around, I want to meet everyone else that's there. And people always tease me and they always say, oh, Allison, you're so social. And of course, it's not about being social.

It's about the fact that, God forbid, something should happen to someone on one of my teams high up in one of these peaks. I want the people around us to feel obligated to help us. And the only way that's going to happen is if you have these relationships in place with other teams outside of your own. And I think a mistake that's often made is people think that just because their team is working really well together, that that's all they need to worry about. But you have to be very strategic and think about who outside of your team you might need to call on for help at some point and you want to have those relationships in place

before you need the help. Right, right. I like that. I mean, that's something I apply in my business and my life. I'm always connecting with people and really learning about what makes them tick and learning about what they enjoy, what they love, their passions, and building a bond with them.

Because I think it's important on a lot of levels, but definitely when it's a life or death situation to make sure someone's looking out for you as opposed to just walk by you. So I like that approach. Well, so I just wanted to mention something that's interesting is that I feel like every year you hear a story about some climber high up on Mount Everest or some other mountain that's struggling to survive. And you do hear these stories about other climbers that will march right past this person because nobody wants to give up their summit bid to stop and help save a life. And it's tragic that that happens.

It should never happen. But unfortunately, it does happen. But I guarantee you, if you have relationships in place with other people, those people will stop and help you out. But again, up to you to be proactive about forming those partnerships. Sure. Yeah. And a couple last questions. You had a friend that you dedicated a climb to. And I think you said that you were weren't planning to do everest more than once but then you did it a second time and decided to basically dedicate this journey to a friend uh meg right yes meg and you had her name itchedched into or engraved in your ice axe. I did.

And why did you decide to go back for the second expedition? Oh. And what was that like? What was the difference? Was it going up your first time? Was that amazing? Or going up the second time to kind of embrace this relationship? Was that more powerful?

or going up the second time to kind of embrace this relationship? Was that more powerful? Well, I really didn't think I would ever go back to Mount Everest after my first expedition. So in 2002, as part of the first American Women's Everest Expedition, we came to within just a couple hundred feet of the summit, and we had to turn around because of bad weather, and we got caught in a storm, had to descend in a whiteout. And it's tough to spend two months on that mountain,

because as I mentioned, that's how long an Everest expedition takes, two months. And you miss it by a stone's throw, basically. Not that you could throw a stone a couple hundred feet. But when you're thinking that the summit's 29,035 feet and you miss it by just a couple hundred feet, it's tough. That's a little bit of a heartbreaker. Yeah, exactly. But I mean, you always have to make the decision based on what's best for the team and you want to err on the side of safety and you can always, you know, go back and try it again. But if you make a stupid decision up there, you may not have an opportunity to try it again. So you always want to err on the side of safety. You know, the goal, number one goal of any expedition is come back alive, right?

Come back with all your fingers and toes. So the summit should never be the goal. But I mean, again, it's disappointing when you're on that mountain for two months and you just miss it. So I thought, I am not going to go back to that mountain. I mean, I spent two months on Everest already. I don't need to spend another two months on Mount Everest. Yeah, just to go the last couple of hundred feet. I kind of feel like I had the whole Everest

experience already. But Meg was one of my best friends, one of the first people I saw when I got back from the mountain. And she, you know, first question she asked, are you going to go back next year and try it again? And I said, no, I am not going to go back next year and try it again. And she said, well, the year after? And I said, no, I am not going to go back next year and try it again. And she said, well, the year after. And I said, uh, no, I am not going back to that mountain. And she said, no,

no, no, you got to go back and go to the top. And I said, no, no, no, I don't.

And I would tease her and say, okay, well, I'll go back as long as you go with me, which always, you know, put an end to that conversation. But I had a lot of admiration for Meg.

She was one of the most amazing athletes I ever met in my life. She was an all American soccer player at Harvard and captain of the soccer team there and went on to Harvard Business School. And she also beat lymphoma twice in her 20s. But as a result of her lymphoma treatment, so she had stem cell transplant, chemo, and radiation. As a result of that, she had some lung damage. And because of her compromised lung function, she could no longer play soccer,

which was really what she'd been most passionate about most of her life. But she did actually end up taking up cycling. And she found that even with her reduced lung capacity, she could still ride a bike pretty well. And she became such an amazing cyclist that she actually was one of a handful of riders chosen to cycle cross-country from San Diego to Washington, D.C. with Lance Armstrong. And she did not use performance-enhancing drugs, in case you were wondering. But then, unfortunately, she passed away at age 37 in 2009 from the flu. Because she had that lung damage,

she wasn't able to recover from a lung infection that she got. And Meg was this person that just always had this amazing spirit, and she just felt like she could conquer anything. And she went out and always really pushed her limits. And I thought, all right, I want to do something to honor my friend. And the thing I'm most passionate about is climbing mountains. So I decided to go back to Mount Everest in 2010, eight years after my first failed attempt, and give the mountain another try. And that's why I engraved Meg's name in my ice axe. I felt like my ice axe gave me superpowers at that point, because Mag was such a, I mean, she was such a positive influence on my life.

And she inspired me so much that I thought every time I look at this ice axe, I'm going to think of Mag. And that's going to give me some extra strength. So I actually was able to make it to the top of Mount Everest in 2010. And what's interesting is that we got hit with the same type of weather conditions that we had in 2002. But this time when I got caught in the storm in 2010, I kept going and I didn't turn around. And because I had that failed experience under my belt from eight years prior, I knew a little bit more about what my pain threshold was, what my risk tolerance was, and I wasn't afraid to be out on that summit ridge in a storm. And I wasn't afraid to get the snot kicked out of me the

second time around. But had I not had that failed experience eight years prior, I'm sure I would have turned around in that storm because most climbers did turn around that day. And I feel like if I hadn't had that failure, I definitely would have turned around. So it was a good, you know, another good example of learning from failure. But I got to the top of the mountain, and what I realized when I got to the top of Mount Everest, which for me was not only completing the seven summits, climbing the highest peak on each continent,

but skiing to both the North and the South Pole. So that summit was right there, the completion of the Adventure Grand Slam. And what I realized from standing on the summit is that standing on the top of a mountain really is meaningless because you're only up there for a few minutes, right? You're like, okay, here I am. What is important are the lessons you learn along the way and what you're going to do with that information to be better going forward. I mean, the only reason I made it up in 2010 when most people didn't is because I learned from the previous journey. And I think it's so important to remember that journey and to remember that the people who stand on top of Mount Everest

are no better than the people who turn around just short of the top. Because it's not about, again, not about spending a few minutes on top. It's about what you're going to do with the information you learned to be better going forward. Hmm. That is a perfect segue to my final question, which is what I ask all my guests on. And I'd love to hear your definition of greatness. My definition of greatness is inspiring others to take risks, push their boundaries, and to become greater than they ever thought they could be.

I love it. Alison Levine, On the Edge, The Art of High Impact Leadership. Make sure to check this out on Amazon and your bookstores, Barnes & Noble, but also alisonlevine.com. You're on Twitter. You're on

everything, right? It's all your name online. I am on Twitter and On the Edge has a Facebook page, but I'm not on Facebook myself I know it's terrible I'm a hold out it's all good you're on Twitter and you've got your website Allison Levine Levine yeah AllisonLevine.com

it looks like vine to me but it's veen exactly so make sure to check this out it's a very inspiring book by an extremely inspiring human being. And I'm so glad we were able to finally get on here and do this interview and, and share this with my audience. I know people are gonna love it. And thank you so much for for all your wisdom and for your courage for the journeys that you've taken and the lessons you're sharing to everyone in the world. It's truly an inspiration. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.

Seriously, such an honor to be a part of your program. So thank you. Thanks, Allison. Appreciate it. There you have it guys i hope you enjoyed this episode again make sure to check out all the show notes over at lewishouse.com slash five seven the number 57 lewishouse.com forward slash 57 for episode 57 and to learn more about Allison, make sure to go check out her site. All the show notes are over on lewishouse.com

forward slash 57 where you can connect with Allison. You can learn about the book On the Edge, The Art of High Impact Leadership. And please share this with your friends over on Twitter and Facebook and Google Plus and all the other fun places online and leave a comment. Leave a comment below.

I'll have a question on the show notes for you and I would love your thoughts, your feedback and yeah, let's connect. I want to hear from you guys. Keep posting pictures over on Instagram. I get pictures posted by you guys almost every single day all over the world where you're listening to The School of Greatness

and it inspires me to see those images. So go ahead and just tag me at Lewis Howes on Instagram, wherever you're listening to the School of Greatness podcast. And shoot me a quick little hello via picture. I would love to say hi back. So again, thanks, guys, so much for tuning in. I have some huge episodes coming up. And I've got a special one that I'm doing that I think is going to be interesting to a lot of people. It's going to be a different episode than I've ever done. I'm stripping down all of my walls and getting extremely open and vulnerable with you guys. So I'm excited to hear about the feedback on that one because I'm opening up about something I've never shared in my life until recently. And I would love to hear what you guys think about it. So in the meantime, guys,

thanks so much for tuning into this episode. I'm extremely grateful for Allison for coming on. Make sure to check out the book, leave a comment, write a review on iTunes if you haven't yet. And make sure to go out there and do something great. My girl