She Knew She’d Fail… And Did It Anyway

0:00Alex Chisnall:What stops founders from building something meaningful isn't the lack of ideas, it's the fear of getting started. I'm Alex Chisnall and this is Screw It Just Do It, a podcast for people who are ready to stop waiting, take action and make things happen. I don't know how we're going to pull this out of the bag, like this is impossible on a different level. I remember specifically the morning that I decided to actually explore Everest and I really did feel like there were suddenly two paths in front of me. It was like either get up and go downstairs, make your Coco Pops, have another day where nothing changes or explore this whole new idea, this ridiculous world where I'm going to fail.

0:37Your brain has had hours and hours in the dead zone where it's just not getting enough oxygen. The veins, the capillaries in my eyelids when I shut my eyes, everything just felt like it was going to burst. It just exceeded expectations in every way. It was like every day waking up and feeling like the luckiest person in the world. player.

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1:31How many other climbs or expeditions did you do before Everest? So I did an expedition to the Himalayas. I climbed the world's eighth highest peak, Mount Manuslu, which is only a few hundred metres shorter than Everest. So I'd been on a big mountain. I knew what it was like in the dead zone. I'd worn the supplemental oxygen I'd seen the big avalanches you know climbed across the crevasses and to get to Manusloo there was a few climbing trips in the Alps and to get to the Alps there was lots of climbing trips in the UK and indeed right up until the moment I went I was you know every weekend I could going to North Wales to climb and so by the time I got to Everest you know I hadn't just climbed a tree as you said in your intro.

2:15Alex Chisnall:And what's it like for someone who's somebody who's going snowboarding in about three days time what is it like seeing an avalanche I've never seen an avalanche um it's if it's far away it's kind of like oh look at that avalanche yeah it's when it's close enough that you look at your teammate and you see the terror in their eyes and you know that you've got the same expression and you both jump away from the sound what's that gonna do you know yeah yeah i've been so close to big avalanches that we we i've just seen in my teammates eyes like we're gonna die and we haven't really um yeah so i've never been i've never been nose to nose with one luckily but i you know i've laid laid in a tent and heard a huge avalanche come past some k2 and just like just laid there thinking this is it like that's the end and I was away in the summer um with my husband we were in Indonesia and this got earthquakes there and it was quite a big earthquake on our pretty much our last night the room was shaking it was quite like this big noise and he completely freaked out and I was like I don't know why this hasn't scared me but I think it might have something to do with the fact that this is nothing like the fear of an avalanche yeah and uh so yeah um it's it's an insanely scary overpowering noise wall of sound and hopefully just far enough away that you can you there's that few extra seconds when you're like i'm still alive therefore it's probably okay yeah um yeah i saw this um i was chatting about it with my friends this clip the other day you know once you start you know you know you're going snowboarding so you start watching more snowboarding clips on instagram and all the rest of it and it was you know one of these you know extreme skiers being filmed by I'm guessing a drone maybe it was a helicopter or whatever and you know the snow break you know breaks into a couple of pieces and then one is coming right behind him and he does a backflip as he's escaping the avalanche and you're just like what is going through your head at that moment in time that you would think of doing something like that just in flow just in flow man yeah exactly I mean the avalanches that we'd get and the Himalayas aren't like powder avalanches.

4:38They are pieces of ice, blocks of ice that have been on that mountain for thousands of years, like these huge seracs that will just suddenly like explode and like tons of these like solid blocks of ice come crashing down. So, yeah, well, both can kill you, right? Yeah, you get smothered. But they're very different types. Yeah.

5:00Alex Chisnall:And an earthquake, like the first time you experienced that is a scary... I remember being in Japan and experience in a bar. And the first question is like, how much do I have to drink? And then you literally see the barman trying to grab every bottle behind the bar. So it is a strange one. And then you realize everything's moving. Yeah. Really, really odd. Tell us that climb then to Everest. Expectation versus reality. Oh, I mean, the climb was just exceeded expectations in every way. it was like every day waking up and feeling like the luckiest person in the world like how you know before you even open your eyes you can hear the sounds of the mountain you can hear teammates around you and in the morning and it's just it's amazing like such a privilege to be there um but getting to the summit was it was just bizarre because i there wasn't really i couldn't there wasn't really a view it was quite cloudy and in my dream of getting to the summit i was get there and see the curvature of the earth yeah there wasn't that at all right and you you know you're exhausted your your brain has had hours and hours in the dead zone where it's just not getting enough oxygen so i was hallucinating um my teammates were sort of semi-hallucinating as well and um so you it's just this hyper real weird moment and then there was a sherpa as well on the summit of Everest who had taken off his oxygen mask and he was smoking so so it was a bit like starve yourself oxygen why don't you they I think they call it Sherpa oxygen the cigarettes but it was this bizarre moment where uh you're like oh my gosh you're like top of the world and this guy's like done it 10 times love you know no big deal it really puts your achievement into perspective and you're there for 10 minutes on the top yeah rummaging around for your camera you know trying to get these pictures um there've been many other summits for me where I've really been present and just taken it in and been so excited to get there but Everest was just bizarre considering how long I'd spent like big you know building up to this moment yeah yeah I remember saying saying to Jay um Morton when I when I had a chat with him um what was it you know like when he got there with the only person now and he said these two guys kind of stepped away and i kind of stepped up i mean i did have that thought in my head going i am literally for want of a better word on top of the world higher than any other human yeah on the planet he went and then i just like carried on yeah you can't it's too much for the human brain to take in yeah these these kind of moments yeah it's like seeing a different level again because it's you know very touristy but to see the Grand Canyon and trying to actually get your head around what that is and just the sheer vastness of it at that moment is a difficult one to take in I think yeah um tell me about K2 then and what that experience was was like and then um let's chat about the North Pole one as well but what was K2 like because you've I guess you've experienced a whole gamut of emotions and different experiences with with with your climbing um well um there was no helicopter off k2 you you can't be helicoptered off k2 i i um was at base camp for a few days and then you know we uh i just i got managed to get on a helicopter that was going out okay um you can't you've got to get yourself off that mountain like no one's coming to rescue you um we it's very different climbing in the Karakoram in Pakistan different from the Himalayas the mountains are like jagged shark teeth you know they are so pointy so beautiful but just otherworldly and um an amazing trek from Skardu um or this place from Skardu called Ascoli you start walking for like a week into the kind of belly of the mountains and you just feel like with every day that passes civilization is is further and further away there's just nothing there it's not like trekking to everest base camp where there's tea houses and villages all the way up until you know just below base camp right this is not like that you are um you know you are completely in the wilderness and it's amazing but it also feels like the mountains are sort of closing in on behind you and really to get back out again what kind of experience are you going to have before you're spaffed back out yeah and go back to civilization so you've got you're contending with that kind of mental side of it of just being okay with disappearing into the belly of the beast if you like and then getting on to k2 i mean after after the walk to base camp i was already like right i need to i need to like collect myself because it felt dangerous walking to base camp we're crossing glaciers crossing crevasses you'd look down the crevasse there'd be a dead donkey down it that slipped in think okay maybe like let's just be a bit more careful because you sort of you know just think that you're not going to die on the walk-in but you can if you slipped and then we settle everything at base camp walk onto I walk up to what we call crampon point which takes another couple of hours and again to just get to the point where we put on our crampons and get up you know get all of our equipment on that is a really dangerous walk through a kind of ice fall at the bottom and um I remember again thinking like if this was Everest like we would be fully kitted up but you're just on another it's just another level and then you start climbing the mountain and it's really steep pretty straightforward and down the bottom as you get higher you start to go through the these chimneys and um gullies and things like that which make the climbing really interesting and I really loved it because you have to actually use your hands to climb and that was fun um I love you know I'm not a good I'm a terrible rock climber but I really that was my background was was in rock climbing before um that was how I trained really originally and uh so yeah and then you you say all this really exciting climbing beautiful mountain lots of avalanches um and then got up to sort of camp two on the peak and got you know I felt like my head was going to explode.

11:28I could see the veins, the capillaries in my eyelids when I shut my eyes. Everything just felt like it was going to burst. And we had a doctor on our team who just said to me, you need to go down now. OK, it's getting dark. We're going to have to stay the night here, but you need to go down in the morning. And that was the worst night. Just, you know, you feel like your head's in a vice, basically. Really? it's it's where your where your brain starts to swell inside your skull because your brain's not getting enough oxygen so it swells up to increase its surface area to take more red blood cells as it and um and it's very dangerous and the reason you get it is by going up too quickly yeah which is exactly what i had done because my ego was way too big and i wanted to you know show my my team that I was quick and strong and whatever else and then massively paid for it and uh yeah so the next day I remember just um getting getting ready very slowly and stepping out the tent and I remember like looking out toward the route the camp was just off the off of the route and I was thinking it's maybe 50 steps and then it's the whole way back down the mountain and all the way back to base camp it's like a massive day with my head feeling like this I thought I can't do it I I cannot even take maybe two steps.

12:51But there's that other voice in your head, which has been well-trained over the years, like screaming at you, yes, you effing will, get out of the tent, go one foot in front of the other and by five minutes later, you're in a rhythm and you're doing it. So that was me and I got back down and was like still not in a great way, but much better, but just worried really about what damage had been done yeah and so that's when i made the decision like i'm gonna i'm gonna call a helicopter and i'm gonna get to to a hospital and um and then the weather was bad so we had to wait

13:26Alex Chisnall:like three or four days um so is anyone helping you at this point are you pretty much um not down the mountain no i mean like you've got to climb down there's no one no one can you know i've got to carry my stuff no no i mean we were all coming we were all intending to uh climb down anyway because maybe we were going to go and try and sort of tag as high as we could. Like sometimes that's what you do when you wake up in the morning from your camp and you try and climb a little bit higher before coming back down to base camp. And these rotations we do many times before we go to the summit. But, you know, that day everyone decided to come down anyway.

14:05So I was, my teammates were, you know, 20 metres above me.

14:08Alex Chisnall:If this conversation resonated with you, don't just sit there, act on it. Make sure you follow or subscribe for more game-changing conversations. and remember the only thing standing between you and your business breakthrough is the decision to screw it and just do it so yeah