The Unstoppable Missions of Noëlle Demole – From Battling Injustice to Setting World Records

Hi, this is Joe from Vanta. In today's digital world, compliance regulations are changing constantly and earning customer trust has never mattered more. Vanta helps companies get compliant fast and stay secure with the most advanced AI automation and continuous monitoring out there. So whether you're a startup going for your first SoC2 or ISO 27001 or a growing enterprise managing vendor risk, Vanta makes it quick, easy and scalable. And I'm not just saying that because I work here. Get started@vanta.com. Living a Life in Full is a conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I I'm your host Dr. Chris Stout and I hope you enjoy this episode. This episode is brought to you by the nonprofit I founded, the center for Global Initiatives. The center is an all volunteer organization so there are no salaries and thus all tax deductible donations can go to the work. While our key country partners in Tanzania, our work is global and generally focused in the areas of education and healthcare. We also help others to get their nonprofits started or augment others project based initiatives. It's our goal to open source humanitarian intervention and to help make it easier for others to do more good in the world. We are proud to have been ranked a great nonprofit every year since 2011 and to have achieved a Platinum level rating by Guidestar Links in this episode's show, Notes will take you to published articles on our outcomes, a number of helpful tools and downloadable resources which are all free always. Please Visit us at CenterForGlobalInitiatives.org and be sure to watch our video at Patreon.com DrChrisStout to learn more. Thanks. Welcome to another episode of Living a Life in Full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout. What does it take to dismantle systems of injustice while building hope? One child, one case, one project at a time. Noelle Demole can tell you how and more. She's a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree who juggles fighting white collar crime and runs a groundbreaking NGO for India's most vulnerable youth. While pursuing a PhD in criminology at Cambridge and a world record or two, her secret, relentless planning, radical self organization and a vision that ties every facet of her life together, Noel's journey is a testament to resilience, vision and interdisciplinary impact. Born and raised in Geneva, Noel's career is as multifaceted as it is inspiring. Her current job is serving as a client due diligence expert at the Julius Baer bank in Switzerland, working the front lines in the global fight against white collar crime and terrorist financing. But that's just one aspect of her extraordinary life. Noel's story is deeply rooted in a defining experience. At 18, she traveled to India at her grandfather's suggestion. Volunteering at an orphanage that housed 120 children that month sparked an enduring passion for humanitarian work, leaving an indelible mark on her sense of purpose that has never left her. After returning to Switzerland during an internship in compliance management at EFG Private Bank, Noel discovered her second calling protecting institutions from the movement of illicit funds linked to drug trafficking, human trafficking, terrorist financing and tax evasion. Realizing the profound intersection between humanitarianism and compliance, she decided to unite her passions and earned a master's degree in negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Columbia University. Recognizing the ability to negotiate and manage conflict is central to affecting real change, whether in the nonprofit sector or financial services. In parallel to her master's, Noel founded Shere Khan Youth Protection in 2018, an NGO dedicated to supporting homeless and vulnerable youth in South India. She saw firsthand the challenges faced by children forced out of orphanages at age 16, left to navigate life on the streets, often without education or skills, and vulnerable to falling into crime. She's also the founder and CEO of Edidays, which I hope I'm pronouncing right. We'll find out. An innovative Swiss startup providing free period product dispensers to businesses and schools, addressing essential health needs, and promoting equity in public spaces. Her portfolio of leadership includes delivering a TEDx talk entitled Dancing with Danger, co authoring the biography of Jean Pierre Cogni, a banker with heart, and co authoring the number one Amazon best selling book Leadership DNA, shaping a thriving business culture. She's also an executive producer of two ongoing documentary projects, the Wallet of the Exploring Swiss Private Banking and the Lost Prince, chronicling her humanitarian work in India. Her accolades in addition to the Forbes honor for her humanitarian contributions include delivering a keynote at the 2024 Forbes Money Summit in Zurich and recognition as one of the most emerging women Leaders of the year in 2024 by Victory magazine. Noelle is currently pursuing a PhD with research focused on sex trafficking, further amplifying her commitment to justice and social progress. When she's not working, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family Shark free diving, as most of us do, alpinism and a Guinness world record attempt project that we'll be talking about today. In this episode, we'll explore how Noelle manages multiple impactful projects, the strategy she uses for effective planning and self organization, and the vision that ties together her many roles, proving that a life fueled by purpose, discipline and empathy can indeed change the world. Noel, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you for having me today.

It's great. So I wanted to start off. Your journey weaves together. We kind of talked about this off mic before we started together with like high finance, humanitarian work, your academics with Cambridge and Columbia and you span continents, you span cultures, from orphanages in India to the halls of Cambridge, you work in Swiss banking and beyond. So today I hope we can explore maybe some of the underlying threads of your story, your philosophy and your vision for impact. So having said all that, let's maybe begin at a pivotal moment in your life. Perhaps that experience in India, what did you see or experience fundamentally shifted your worldview and set you in this current path.

So, yeah, very, very good question, Chris. And let me know if I get a bit too far and out of, out of the subject because I have a tendency to talk a lot, but no worries. So, going to India. So I went to India. I was 18 going on my 19 19th year, so I was young. I've never been out of my country where we are very comfortable here. And you know, I've always had a very, very comfortable life and I've never really seen dramatic, chaotic and, you know, poor places as I saw in India. And the thing is, what happened there, I had a big, big, A serious culture shock, to be very honest. And, and maybe it seems very cliche to say so, but, you know, going from Switzerland at 18 and, and having lived 18 years here and then suddenly, you know, arriving in India, in the south of India. And the first thing I remember that I saw. So going from the airport in a car, you know, going to the place where I was, I would spend the night. The first thing I saw was a very young girl, very, you know, skinny, you know, skeleton skinny. She must have been not more than six years old, seven years old, max, working on a train highway. So like on the train. How do you say the train?

Train tracks.

The train. The train tracks. Literally one of the tracks, picking up the stuff in the tracks, I don't know, food, whatever. And she had like this bag and she was like picking up stuff. And I kind of studied the thing. Later, these kids just Pick up anything they found and then they try to sell it. So basically that's the first thing that I saw, you know, literally arriving with the plane in India. And that moment. And it was like almost 11 o' clock in the evening, midnight. It was very late in the evening. And so I thought, oh my God, I've never seen this. Not even in a movie, not even in a documentary, not even, you know, like. And it really, really made me feel bad about just even being there and watching this, thinking about all the things that I have back home. So that moment was. I knew that this trip in India was going to change everything, to be very honest with you. And then everything that I saw just did change every thing in me. And I don't want to say this to make myself interesting or to. But it really, really changed my whole life going to India that year. Definitely.

Wow. So when was the idea to just go as like a tourist or was it to go do some volunteer work or what. What specifically? Once you got off the train, what happened?

Absolutely. So basically I was. So I was advised by my grandfather, which I deeply loved and who's not with us anymore, unfortunately. I was very, very close to him. And he was the one who told me, you know, you just finished school, you know, high school. And he said, I don't think, I don't think. Because I didn't really know what I was gonna do. Right. I was a bit. I was kind of a rebellious teenager. I never did anything seriously, you know, you know, to regrets, but I was a bit lost. I did. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with my life, to, to be honest with you. And my grandmother told me, you know, Noel, I think don't just, you know, apply at university just to go there and just to study like everybody else and just choose any faculty, just, you know, take it, take some time and actually maybe go somewhere. And I, and I said to him, you know, okay, where to? And he said, well, you know, actually through my own work. So he, he was a, you know, a banker back in Geneva. Yeah. And he, and he told me that he's been sponsoring and giving a lot of money back to India through, uh, through the bank that he actually founded. And, and he told me, you know, go to India because I have one person that I know that is of, you know, that I can trust that could eventually show you around and maybe you could help out some people there and just get out of your comfort zone. And then my mom was like, that's a great idea. Just get out of your comfort zone. And I. By that time, you know, I was. I wanted to work, you know, in a coffee shop or whatever. And they were like, you're not going to do that. Just go see the world? No. You know, I wanted to earn some money and to see what it's like to be in the real world. And they. And they. And my grandfather really advised me to go and see India. So it really. A lot of things in my life is thanks to him. So that's why I ended up there. And when I was there, I was able to work in an orphanage, one particular orphanage, for a month. And I had the opportunity to choose between a school where you had 200 blind kids, which was very, very difficult for me to even wrap my head around. To work for a month with 200 blind kids. For me, it was too much, and I felt ashamed of thinking that. But then I had the opportunity to choose between this or a regular orphanage. So the one you talked about in my bio, and I chose that one. So basically, my grandfather's contact here in Switzerland had a contact in India directly, somebody we can trust. And I ended up to this. This woman's, you know, home outside of city, outside of Chennai, you know, really in the countryside in the middle of India. And I started my first day, my second day, sorry, you know, choosing that orphanage. And every day for a month, I was working with all these kids, helping out the sisters. So these were Catholic sisters, you know, taking care of the orphanage. So. So here we're like two hours from Chennai. Rights, Chris. So we're like in a small village called Arnie, and there's a lot of orphanages everywhere. And that's when everything for me kind of started. That's where, you know, I knew what I was going to do in my life. That's where I saw the world. That's where I saw suffering. That's where I realized a lot of things for me. And that's also where I realized that how important it is to know where you're going and to do something with your life and not just hang around not knowing and. And be okay and being okay with not doing anything and just figuring it out. Like, you know, that's where everything changes changed you.

I think your journey is, you know, it's varied by virtue of the path, but I think the context and the sense of finding a purpose. You're very premature with that. I know a lot of people decades older than you that are still trying to figure out, you know, what am I going to do or what's my purpose? And it seems like it really, you know, is, in a sense, a fortuitous kind of opportunity to do that. So I just want to get straight in my head. So you had this experience. Then did you come back and go to university, and then after undergrad, did you start the nonprofit, the ngo, or did it. Was it. You're the kind of person that seems to do 15 things at once. So I'm wondering where these things overlap or if one thing ends and the next thing begins. So step us. Step us through that part. The next part.

Honestly, Chris, I'm like, I literally have my CV opened in front of me because I'm like, I don't want to tell Chris anything that is wrong in the timeline because I don't remember. But, but. But to answer your question regarding, you know, founding the ngo, so definitely, you know, I was too young. I had no experience whatsoever of anything. I had no money aside, you know, I was still a student living, you know, of my parents, and after coming back from India, obviously, that year, so I did. I did other things, but nothing. Nothing worth saying today on the call, but I just had to figure out about myself and this trip in India. But then definitely I went to school, so I went to university. I understood the importance to actually get a degree and go back to work, go back to studying, and I did my bachelor's degree here in Geneva in international relations. And that was good. That was. That was. That was cool.

I bet.

And then obviously after that, I, you know, wanted to go to the next step, to the next challenge. Did a master's degree in New York. That's when I had a. An opportunity at Columbia, which was amazing. Which, by the way, Chris, I never thought I would get into that amazing school. And, you know, we're going to talk about it after, but it's always like, honestly, 80 of the things that I was able to do, I never thought I. I could. And so there's this. This thing where I always tried, and I. Even when I applied there, I was like, let's just apply as a joke, like, I know I'm never going to get in, but I. Right. And then things happen, and then you're like, oh, it happens to so many people. It's not just some people with different brains, you know, out there that are not in your. You know, sometimes you think that things are not in the cards for you, but they are. And so when I was. During that year in New York, I was alone. I was very alone in the first month it was also another challenge to find myself as a young Swiss female, ending up in New York City, this amazing big city, not knowing one person. And I had Chris then I had some time on my hands. So next to my studies, next to my classes, next to, you know, some boxing lessons and trying to make some friends, I was alone every evening, and I was alone on weekends. You know, honestly, in the first three, four months. And, yeah, it was not easy. And then I thought, I finally have the time to maybe think about India and doing something. And we're talking about now almost six, seven years since the trip in India. Right. And I knew that at the time I was 18. 18, 19. I couldn't do anything. You cannot help if you haven't helped yourself. Grow, develop, study, work a little bit, or at least just study. You can't help without first being somebody yourself. Right? So. But at that moment, I thought I would be ready to start brainstorming how I'm gonna do something. And basically, I used my time at lunchtimes, you know, in evenings, weekends to start founding this ngo, because I always wanted. It was very clear to me, Chris, that I did not want to join any NGO or anybody's work because I have this thing where I trust only myself for a lot of things. I want to be my own leader, my own boss for Especially. Especially for humanitarian work, because you don't always know what's happening if you don't have the full control. And I thought I wanted thing. And from picking up the phone, doing that first call with people that I met in India, and just every day doing one step after another and building it up. And I did that during my year in New York, and I decided to create an NGO in order for me to give back so many things that I've actually received in my life. I really felt the need, Chris, to give back. It's as simple as that. And I thought, this is the time now. And I forgot to mention, Chris, I discovered compliance as an intern between my bachelor's and master's. So it also. I also had some work experience. I already knew that I was going to do compliance work in my life. So I felt that this was quite a good time to start the ngo, and I didn't want to lose more time. And there's also a very special story that happened in India that made me really think, I don't want to waste another year.

Wow.

Basically.

So, all right, well, let's. Let's put a pin in that special story. So to summarize, you, then, this happened you get on with life, you start to learn things, get connections, etc. Now you've got some time on your hands. And the aspect of still wanting to help these children, the teenagers, be able to get out of whatever the next step was for them, which seemed to be kind of off the side of a cliff in a sense in terms of further education, career, high risk kinds of things. So I think that's great. You know, I, with. We were again off mic before we started. I started a nonprofit a number of years ago now and my mentor, you know, basically, you know, said that, you know, in the, and I've written about this a little bit with LinkedIn of kind of referring to myself as an accidental humanitarian. And I think you and I have a similar kind of background as I think you and I also share with a number of other people that work in that space, that there's something that happens, there's an opportunity that you have with other people who I feel like we learn from their experience, the good and the bad of their experience, but also then gain an inspiration that just sticks with us. It's not like you immediately come back and start doing things, but for you, it hot housed, it incubated over time and it was always kind of there. And then it's probably, you know, not to get cooking. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's percolating, it's cooking. So. And not to get woo woo, but it's sort of like sometimes, you know, the timing has to be right. And now here you find yourself with, you know, some time free, you know, in New York and still have this itch that you need to scratch to help those others. So let's, let's go back to that pin. So let's pull that out. And what's the, what's this story?

Yeah, Chris, if I may just add before telling the story, I think America had a big role in my, in the enhancement of who I am and this will to make so many things. Coming to America from, from Europe, from, from Switzerland was really for me a huge plus in my life and, you know, my whole family. Yeah. For me, America, New York, arriving there, the atmosphere, the, the vibe that I got there, the excitement, the positivity that I really felt like I could have my own kind of American dream, if I may say so.

Sure.

I mean, I, I love that country. I've always loved America. I've always dreamt to go there. One day my dad went there, my grandfather went there, my mom went there, and I've always wanted to go there. So I Think in some way, just going to America also kind of gave me the strength to say now is the right time, because the place got me so motivated, if I may say so. I really want to insist. America was a big gift for me, to be honest. And I think we, yeah, that's very.

And I have to say, too, just to give you a little feedback, I remember just when we were first seeing each other at the event that we met at, I remember, remember seeing you just kind of come across. We were in Times Square, and you just look like you owned Times Square. You just, you were, you were in your element. You were comfortable, and it was just sort of like, okay, you know, who is that? So, so that, that makes it, it's, it's nice to hear you put words to it. But, but honestly, I mean, that was, you know, I, I, I totally get what you get what you're saying. That, that is, that is quite authentic.

So, yeah, it is from the heart. As a Swiss, you know, ending up in America was, was a huge, huge motivational, you know, like, jump for me. But anyways, going back to the, to the story, what happened is so I, in two words. So I don't want to be two hours on this, because I could go two hours on this. Okay. I, no, it's, it's a nice story. I, I was very attached to one particular orphan, so a little boy. He was at the time, 12. It wasn't clear, like 11 or 12 years old. And, you know, there's all these children, like, right. There's like 120 children. And of course, you cannot really have preferences and you cannot really show that you have a favorite, but you always do have a favorite, I think. And, yeah, and there's only, there's always that kid with whom you connect a little bit more than the others. And so basically, this little boy stayed with me all these years afterwards coming back because it was very difficult to say goodbye to him when I had to leave. And, and he looked at me and behaved in a way that no other kids did. There was something special in his eyes. And I've never understood when people told me, you know, you can understand people through their eyes. Like, just look at the eyes of that person. You know, he looks like there's something special about that person. Oh, that person looks really happy and good. Look at the eyes. And I've never really understood that. Like, how can you tell things from people's eyes? It seems so, seems like it makes no sense to me. And when I was in India and this little Boy, the way he looked at me was. I can tell you, Chris, honest, it was different than any other looks from any other of the kids or anybody I've met in my life. And he had this. These eyes. And we connected. We stayed together a lot. We exchanged even with. Even if there was a language barrier. And he was my inspiration, actually, to create. Sure can. And I really have to say that because I insist on the fact that sometimes one person can have a huge impact on your life. And he was a big inspiration. He had this box. He showed me a box. So every orphan had a box for themselves, and their whole lives was in one box. That's all they had. And that was also another. Yeah, Chris. That was also another, like, turnpoint in my life. Just seeing these boxes. And he opened it and he was like, yeah, this is what I own. Basically, there was nothing. There was, like, if I remember correctly, like, one exchange of clothes. So they were. They had clothes, right? Like, dirty, simple clothes. And he had, like, one exchange, like, one shirt and one shorts, you know, just. Just a pair of shorts and a shirt, and that was it. And he had, like. He did. He could find this. He did find this green ring on the floor somewhere. Like a plastic ring, only, like, material thing that he had. And he gave it to me. Oh, and Noel.

Oh, gosh.

And I was like. I was like, keep that ring. That's like your own, your toy, like, your thing. And he's like, no, it's for you. The memory of me and your time at this orphanage.

And I was like, oh, boy,

how sad and mature and beautiful. And I don't know how to explain that moment was for me.

Yeah.

Just Chris realizing all the things I had. And this boy had this box and was. There was, like, nothing in it. And. And, you know, this. And, you know, we just basically hang out the whole month together with. With the other kids, of course. But we had these memories together. Eating together, playing together, you know, painting our nails with my nail. You know, college to get, like. Oh, just, you know, ridiculous stuff. But. And I remember the kids had, like, many fingers on their hands. Like, they had more fingers than me because they. They had. They had these diseases right, where fingers would just grow on other fingers. And I was a. You know, it made me scared. I was a bit, like, shocked. But you know what happened, Chris? They were. They were laughing at my hands because I had only 10 fingers.

Yeah. That's great. Wow.

Yeah. And I was like, I love this. And. And, you know, I came back. I was never the same. And this guy. Yeah. I cannot, actually. If I can't spoil anything, because the documentary we're working on is about. I've always wanted. Wanted Chris to find him again because I never saw him again. And I promised. Yeah, I promised this boy that I would come back to India. And I never did for six, seven years, until I found Shuriken. And when I came back to India, you know, building up the team and building up the whole thing, I went back. He was. I was like, oh, where's. You know, where's. Where's the boy? You know, not to say his name. And the sisters were like, well, what are you talking about? He's like a grown man. Like, now. He's, like 18. What are you talking about? He's not here anymore.

Wow.

I was like, what? Of course. How stupid am I? You know, he's not there anymore. And they're like, yeah, he. He's just, you know, they have to leave at some point because we need space for the younger ones, right? They're just thrown out. They're thrown out to, you know, in the streets, basically, in the wilderness because they, you know, that. That's it. And they have nobody, nothing. And it was basically lost. Lost to me, if I may say that. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm never gonna see him again. And I'm actually building this NGO as a. You know, being inspired by him. And then I actually created the NGO even more because I did lost him. And I was like, oh, my God, if only I came back to see him again, as I promised. Then we actually, Chris, we exchanged some. We exchanged some. Some drawings, some letters, you know, over the years, and I never came back. Was busy with studying and, you know, figuring right my life out. And I have regretted that so much. And I came back too late, and it really even gave me a better reason to. To do an ngo.

Yeah, for.

For that kind of. That exit. A time where they have to leave. That's when we come in and we say, you know, you're gonna. You're about to leave the orphanage or, you know, instead of starting a life in the streets, joining, you know, gangs or using violence as a means of survival or girls being sold or whatever. Like, we don't want you to end up there. Come with. Come to us. We can help you. We can fund you a scholarship. Go to school. Go. Go back to school. Go to college one day, earn a degree and get a job and earn a salary, and that's. That's actually what we do. And. And I did it Basically for him, because of him, because I was too late. So that's the story in a nutshell, Chris.

That's wonderful. Wow. So is. Is that then the. The genesis behind the Lost Prince title of the documentary?

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Makes per Prince now. Yeah, I get it. Wow.

So the Lost Prince is our documentary. So I actually have a tattoo on my left foot. It says Little Prince. And actually his name in Indian, in Tamil means Little Prince slash Little King. Every Indian name actually have. Have a symbol, which is not the case Right. In our cultures. But. And so I tattooed on my foot Little Prince as a memory of him as my attachment to. To India.

Wow.

And. And, and what happened, Chris, to be very honest, with the documentary was a matter of coincidence. I met this. This producer on a. On a shark diving trip. Can you imagine? In the Bahamas.

I can for you, Noel. I mean, of course,

of course. Like, yeah, a normal Tuesday.

Right.

And. And. And this, this. This guy, you know, he makes a shark, you know, documentaries. He was the producer behind Ocean Ramses documentary Saving Jaws. Like, he. He's into shark stuff and ocean stuff. And, and then he. We. We just talked. We got to know each other and we wanted to work together on something with the oceans with sharks. And he was like, noel, I actually love your story with the NGO with this boy so much. Actually would want to do something about that. Do you want to talk more? Do you want to talk about that? And I said, yes, absolutely. And that's when we started a project of shooting a documentary on the story behind sure Can. And this dream of. This dream that I've had for years and years after that of finding him and being able to say thank you to him for being my source of inspiration, basically. And that's been our kind of. How can I say that? Our investigation, our research, going back there a few times and trying to find him. It's a whole project. And this is the. Wow. Yeah, we want to show this.

I can't imagine. And is this. I'm gonna play detective puzzler here again too. So is this is then a reference to Kipling's Jungle Book with the name of the foundation, of course.

So. So obviously I love animals. I love marine animals, my favorite ones, spending time in the water with them. But I also love any. Any other animal. And tigers for me, were a nice childish symbol for kids. Like just an animal, you know, a beautiful animal that is in India specifically. I think they're only in India and in Siberia for the white ones. And I thought it could be a nice symbol to have the type, you know, there's sure can from the Jungle Book. Even though he's actually. He's actually not a nice character. He's not the kindest character in this. In the Jungle Book. In the Jungle Book. But the tiger was a symbol of protection and strength. And it's the beautiful animal symbolic of India. It's also an endangered species, unfortunately. And I thought for kids, for young kids, it's a nice way of. Of having my logo like a. Like a childish tiger.

That's good.

Being sure can. You know, protecting the next young generation. So I'm sure. Can you.

I love all of the overlap of that and I. Again, you and I have shared histories in. In varied ways. The, you know, and we'll get into your alpinism soon, but I did a climb in Tanzania, did Kilimanjaro decades ago, and met a person. Yeah. Met a person who was a porter. And he. Long story short, he and I kept in touch during the 90s as pen pals. And one of the things that they needed help with was establishing a kindergarten. They didn't even have. They had all these orphans, but they didn't have any educational kinds of things. So I was working with a number of. My specialty when I was in clinical practice was with children and families. And so I knew a lot of teachers, I knew a lot of educators, principals, things like that. So I got together with them. This is kind of predates and is actually probably the starting of what now became our center. Was that again, long story short, we put together a dossier of materials. It was all Western focused. And so I explained that to said this is just, you know, this is kind of a Western focus. So please, you know, insinuate it, you know, with. With your. Fill it with your cultural aspects, et cetera, et cetera. With my, My partner, who had formerly been a porter on a climb, and he's now in charge of this kindergarten. He's now a priest. And it was a Catholic situation. And they. We collaborated on it together, always as partners and collaborators. And it was submitted to the Ministry of Education in Tanzania and was accepted. So we got an official certification to start that. Yeah. So hearing your story, it seems like, you know, maybe we can. There might be, you know, once we get off the show here and keep in touch, you know, there might be some overlaps where. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think so.

We're kind of the same person in many ways.

Yeah. Well, I think we have certainly shared interests. So that's. That's why I've been Looking forward to pick your brain about some of these things. So. All right, so let's. Well, I'm sure we will keep circling back to this, but now I'm going to go. I want to hit some other highlights in your career highlight reel. So you then at Columbia, international relations and negotiation and conflict resolution. And then. And that. Is that then related to, like, what you do today in the banking industry in Switzerland or. Tell us. Tell us a little bit about that vis a vis white collar crime and trafficking and terrorism financing, stuff like that.

It's funny, Chris, because a lot of people are asking me, what's the correlation? Where's the link? Why all these topics? Actually, you know, it's funny because it wasn't even planned, to be honest. My life just built, you know, it built up organically, naturally. But somehow all the topics I'm. I chose and all the topics I'm involved in, they really naturally collided and they are correlated. So for instance, international relations for my bachelor's was. Was a coincidence. After going to India, I was like, okay, that's the closest topic to maybe humanitarian work, understanding the world, understanding world orders and how politics work. And so that was just. That was India's influence, right? And then compliance, that's white collar crime. And I was like, wow, why do I like this so much? I actually love the idea of fighting organized crime through a bank in my own country, where, you know, it's not like I'm gonna go in the streets and be a police officer and arresting, you know, criminals, but actually doing it in a bank, you know, indirectly. I am doing good and I'm doing kind of ethical work, if I may say so, because we are fighting tourism financing, corruption, you know, in any forms of. Of crime and financial crime of any sorts. And I got very attracted to that topic by coincidence. But then I was like, it's funny because I want to do humanitarian work, and these kids ending up in the streets, they could. They can end up in forced prostitution, meaning sex trafficking. Men can end up in gangs, you know, selling drugs, selling weapons. That. That's dirty money right there. That one day being in hands of powerful people could end up in our banks. So if I work as a compliance officer, that's a way of combating that. It's correlated. And then, you know, my master's degree in America, I thought negotiation and conflict resolution is a great fit because working in a bank, you have to negotiate a lot. As a compliance specialist, you have to. How can I explain this? You have to make people within the bank let's say bankers, you know, bankers, private bankers that actually bring in clients. We're going to investigate on them and where their money comes from. So this is basically the core of, of my work. Where does the money come from? How was it it earned? Is it clean? That's in a nutshell, making, you know, the industry specialist understand that we are here to ask those questions to protect the banks, to keep their licenses, you know, because we have to obey to certain, you know, to national rules. Right. Within the country and every country now has become more and more strict about anti money laundering laws. Right, right. And so that's my job, but my job is always continuously negotiating my way and you know, finding the answers to my question to make sure when we approve accounts, you know, the, the money is, it can be corroborated and it's plausible and it's clean. Right. So this is in a nutshell, what I do, at least in my department. And so negotiation felt like great fit to learn how to. We actually learned how to negotiate, how to med, how to be a mediator and how to be a facilitator. Do not ask me to define all three. They're different. And so, and then finishing my master's degree, finding this, this first job at Julius Bear at Bank Jillous Bear, which is, you know, the number two biggest bank in the country, biggest private bank. Sorry. I wanted to go to the next level and do a PhD and then I thought, okay, I'm seeing all these cases of organized crime happening through my work. There's so many dirty money out there that we have to look out for. And I've always been very interested, unfortunately, by this, for me, the worst crime one can do to another, trafficking human beings. So basically modern slavery in any form, any type. There's different types. I've always been very sensitive to that specific organized crime happening today. And it's one of the most profitable criminal business there is. And you know, these cases could happen, you know, if you work in compliance, dirty money coming from that specific criminal industry could end up in our banks. So I thought how interested it could be to make a PhD as an academic, understanding that topic from an academic point of view.

Yeah.

And then being able to kind of apply it or understand better my work in Swiss banks, you know, how it's really, how relevant it is to study it from another perspective. You know, interviewing former sex trafficking victims, understanding how to fight dirty money through a bank, and then doing humanitarian work in India. So being in like in the prevention, you know, angle and then, you know, like, actually. And then I realized, very naturally, Chris, even I said to myself, oh my God, how interesting it is how all these things I'm doing, they're actually so correlated. I. I didn't plan for it, really.

Yeah.

It's just different sides of crime and sufferings and fighting, and it's actually all about fighting injustice in a way. Through a bank, through my PhD, through an NGO. I'm really. Chris, I'm simply trying to do good as much as I can. And maybe it sounds a bit naive, but I've always tried to be a good girl, if I may say, in a more serious manner. It was not just about making good grades at school and obeying to the rules. I love obeying to rules today, which is why I love my work.

Yeah.

Which is why I try to fight injustice and people that are not supposed to do certain things because they're hurting.

Yeah.

A lot of other people.

It makes perfect sense to me, Noel. I mean, it's sort of like my picture of Venn diagram of all these. What seem to be divergent kinds of things overlapping. And right in the middle is you. You know, so you're kind of this. The connective thread, the connective tissue between these things. And you have the ability to do this not only. I mean, you do it in your volunteer aspect, in the humanitarian work, you do it in your day job and the work work, so to speak, and you do it in your academic work. And I tell you, I'm going to get my crystal ball on making a forecast here that when you finish your PhD, if you do a dissertation for it, which I presume you probably will, that that's going to be one of your next books. Your dissertation will turn into your next book. So let me know when it comes out and we can have you.

For sure. I will, Chris, for sure. Thank you for that.

And I think, you know, when you were talking about this vis a vis the banking system, I have a couple of questions specific to that. Like, one is, you know, we were talking off mic before. Well, I guess I'll interrupt myself. Like, one is like the proverbial. It's a cliche. I don't know if it is in Switzerland, but it certainly is like in the US of Follow the Money. Like when someone's trying to do a criminal investigation about something that's, you know, nefarious, that it's usually, you know, there's obviously there's a money angle in it when it's not a crime of passion or something like that, but it's it's that and certainly, you know, the, the, the, the ante gets added to when it's white collar crime and high stakes kinds of things and then, you know, multinational kinds of things and Interpol and whatnot. And we were talking pre, to hitting record today about Peter Klein, who is a guest on the show a couple of episodes ago. And he has a documentary called Bribe Incorporated. And it's a, it's a number, as you've been describing what your day job is. There' of overlap, you know, obviously with, with bribery and that bribery isn't necessarily universally illegal, you know, which I think then complicates your situation. And one of the things, just real quick, in his documentary, there is a, an organization which I can't tell you the name of it right now, but there's an organization that vets, you know, companies and stuff vis a vis, that they get like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval, that they don't take bribes and they operate ethically and, you know, know, blah, blah, blah, all within proper, you know, guidelines that I presume is kind of what, you know, you deal with on the banking side of things. And this person was found that, you know, that they, people were like, getting around them and, you know, and working around them. And I think that just adds to the, it speaks to the sophistication but adds to the complication of probably, you know, what your job is like of trying to, you know, play whack a mole that, you know, once you kind of figure out, oh, here's ways that people try and, you know, hide money, launder money, you know, do whatever. And I know enough from the work that I've done historically with terrorism that you know, just, you know, funding jihadists or funding, you know, criminal enterprises, be it a, you know, a terroristic organization or a criminal organization, which I guess are kind of, you know, terrorists or criminals. But how, I mean, it just seems like how is it for you in your day, in day out? I mean, do you, you don't need to tell us anything that's confidential, but I mean, do you like, do you uncover these kinds of things in the work that you do or with your colleagues or tell us maybe kind of an insider's perspective of what a day in the life or a week in the life of a compliance officer in

Swiss banking is like so very high level, Chris. Of course, because this is still my job and it's very confidential and it's not something, you know, we talk a lot about in public, but very high level. First of all, to answer one of your questions. Yes, it's very difficult for us to tackle these crimes working in banks in the sense that what's difficult and it's very simple. Crime is always one step ahead. Always. And this is very difficult to accept for someone that's, that's, you know, for someone like me, where all my life is.

I totally get it. It would make me crazy. I totally get it. Ye, yeah.

Let me see. But, but, but it is the case. I mean, that's my opinion. Of course. Crime is always one step ahead. It is like this. It's always been that way. New processes to bypass the laws, new ways to, to hurt, new ways to hide are always one step ahead. You always see the policemen in movies chasing after the, you know, and once you figure, you know, a seat and then the guy is already one step ahead, it really feels that way because it's just by the time our processes, the laws change to being more strict by the time we have right processes in place, by the time we understand how crime works in order to detect it and see red flags. By those times, the criminal, wherever he is, whoever he is, and under whatever, you know, aspect he, he's hitting hidden behind, he's always going to be already to the next step to. So that we don't find him.

Yeah.

And there's so, and the thing that is dangerous in this world is that highly trained, highly skilled, highly educated, educated people are themselves working for, you know, criminals.

Yeah.

So it's actually very, they're very sophisticated, they're very intelligent, they're very, they're educated, they're very, you know, they have, they have professional lawyers, they have professional negotiators, they have professional.

Wow.

You know, they have all these. So it's really like a very, A high. Like people have no idea how sophisticated this other side, this, this, this underworld, you know, this underworld is. And so. Which makes us always a bit behind. I would, I would, you know, summer summarize. You know, this, my, my feeling with my job in, in this way. And it's the same with my PhD. It's like all these girls always falling into the same traps. They're the same traps, but they're, you know, they're kind of used different ways. They're, they're kind of improved as the world, you know, as the world develops. And it's crazy how we still fall in the same traps. I think. Yeah. Unfortunately, crime is always one step ahead of the game, which makes our job difficult. And tracing money is really one of my biggest interests. And the job is actually very interesting. A lot of people see compliance as a, as a very administrative even to say the, to say a vulgar term, to summarize it as a boring, you know, kind of function within banks. It's for me, the, the opposite of boring and the opposite of admin. Yeah, we are compliance today, whereas it's onboarding, whereas it's tax compliance, AML monitoring. So, you know, studying transactions and analyzing transactions. Whether it's, I mean, any department of compliance today is the center, is at the center of banking and not even bank interest of any other industry and company. A lot of companies, if not every company today has a form of compliance. Right.

Yeah.

Because the world is becoming more. How can I say this? The world is still, is still kind of going to a more ethical way of doing things because we don't accept anymore abuse, violence, whatever it is. But at the same time, organized crime is, is getting way ahead of us because there's always going to be people that are going to do those crimes. There's always going to be people benefiting from wars, from COVID from whatever, economic, you know, crisis, whatever. So, you know, both, you know, the good and the better are kind of growing at the same time. But there's one that's always going to be ahead and, but, but yeah, coming back to the job, job, it's a highly interesting and central. Like, it's a very central.

Yeah.

Important department and companies. And we actually take the decisions, Chris. We, we make decisions that are very important today that, you know, 20, 30 years ago, it didn't exist.

Right. I totally get it. I. And I would think too, you're where you sit, so to speak, with having to deal with. I mean, like in the states there's, you know, federal law and sometimes state variances. Like in the states, I know from, like certain states have legalization of marijuana, for example, and other states don't. And the. I forget, I'm. I'm certainly no expert on bank laws or legalized marijuana, but that some like there's these complications where people like, let's say in California where it, I guess is legal that they can grow marijuana and they, you know, but they need bank accounts and they need, you know, all these other kinds of, like any other business, small business, agribusiness, whatever, they need to have the same kinds of systems and the same access to things. But then there's, then the banks are kind of in this awkward position of like, well, you know, is this legit? Is this legal? Is this, you know, and it's Sort of like that's evolving. So those kinds of things can exist. I don't know what it's like in Europe, but then in Europe you don't have state differences, you've got country differences. And I would imagine that, you know, every country's got some kind of variation around down, like I talked about with, you know, bribery, but then also just

how, you know, of course that rules

their own, I can't imagine. And oh my gosh. Just. And in cultural differences, linguistic differences, oh my gosh.

So we're still tendency, Chris, to move towards, more towards like fighting, dirty money fighting, you know, dirty cats that still, at least in Europe and honestly, all over the world, at least in developed countries, it's. It's a tendency to strengthen our rules, our regulations, our laws, to, to try to combat, you know, financial crime. A maximum. Yeah, yeah.

How do you maybe. One last question on this. Then we can, you know, get into some other things too. What, How. What's the role or what's the impact either that has happened or that you would predict with your crystal ball with like Bitcoin and the cryptocurrencies.

Yes. So we don't really, we're not very open to that, Chris.

Good. I get it,

to be very honest. So we have today in the country. So talking about Switzerland, we have have the first crypto focused online, online bank that was actually a startup company many years ago. It's a bank called the Swissquote, I don't know if you know of it, Swiss quotes. So it's, it's the number one bank for crypto and it's an online bank also, which is something very new. It's something, it's something. Some say it's the bank of tomorrow. I am still in very traditional Swiss private banking. And Swisscoat is a really new way of doing banking and they are working a lot and they are developing a lot the crypto side. And they're very, very much advanced in the crypto world, which is something, not to say too much, but it's something that traditional banking is being quite careful.

Yeah.

Of cryptos.

Yeah.

And this is normal. You know, it's, it's, it's. Some banks are more open, you know, than others to cryptos. This is. I can't really talk more about it because I'm not a specialist at all in crypto or a lot of that. It's not my specialty at all. And it's a whole specialization. It's a, it's the really. It's another world. But we have A Swiss bank, a Swiss online bank that is, you know, moving towards that very much. And it's a very respectable, successful bank. It's a very young bank. It's a very successful bank. So we, it's starting, definitely, but I have nothing more to.

I hear you. Well, that, that answers the question. I, I, it would be interesting to find your, your crypto compliance colleague, you know, and pick their brain about things.

I would be myself interested to interview a crypto specialist because that's my world. But personally, I, I'm careful with those because it's, you know, I don't know

that I have zero specialty and a lot of, you know, uncertainty myself just because I'm so naive and uneducated about it. But it also seems like, you know, just what I read in the, in the headlines, in the Wall Street Journal and whatnot, you know, that a lot of things that seem sort of unhackable and the, the whole blockchain, this and that, all of a sudden, you know, billions of dollars are missing. And indeed, you know, there are hackers that have the, like you said, you know. Yeah. The sophistication, like you said, it's always kind of cat and mouse and, you know, one step forward, two steps back kind of a thing, so. All right, well, good.

I think. Why not? Why not? But it's a, it's a miss to me. It's still a very mysterious world. I don't understand it from A to Z. So, yeah, I think, and if you're not comfortable with something, that's it, you know, you're, you, it's, that's okay.

Yep, totally agree. All right, well, let's shift. Now. We're going to be talking about a different kind of business, so I, I hope I, well, tell me about your feminine hygiene products and the proper pronunciation of the name of the company.

Yes. So Edgy Daze.

Edgy Days, very clearly. Okay, good. I think I said it right in the intro. Okay, so tell us about, okay, thank you. Tell us about Edgy Days. Like, how did it come about, how long has it been going on and for people that are yet to be familiar with it, what you do with that.

So Edgy Days is actually a very early stage startup, Chris, that I've been building up since exactly now, three years, since the first brainstorming of it officially. I've created legally the legal, you know, entity a year ago, a year and a half now ago. And so it's very early stage where, or I am at the beginning of this, we can call it a Startup company. But it's really a very early stage idea. But I am developing with a bunch of engineers, very highly qualified Swiss engineers from the. Our very famous engineering school. The upper in Lausanne is the. Anyways, and we're building up, we're trying to develop a dis. A dispenser of tampen and pads with an anti theft in. Oh, sorry, let me put my WhatsApp in. In. Sorry. In sleep mode. Sorry. And basically I want to sell to schools and companies and public spaces a dispenser where, you know, the end users, females or any menstruator for that matter, could just find tampons or pads, you know, if they have an emergency, you know, and if they have their periods in public, they can simply, you know, find easily find free period products. For me, this is again, it's another minute kind of humanitarian mission that I have that I'm transforming into a business to have the experience of a business how to. How to build a company. But I want at least first in. In my country, in Switzerland to see beard products available and free in all public spaces. I don't understand, Chris, why someone can find herself, you know, at her desk in her company, working, having an accident, having a surprise period. You know, because they're actually not by the clock. And many people do not know that. But even later on in life, we never know when they can, when they can drop. What do you do? Like. Honestly, Chris, I know it's a very intimate and female matter, but I think men have to understand it and they have to be interested in that too because it's just a basic, basic. It's a basic need. It's. For me, it's the same need as going to the bathroom. And we have toilet paper. We have, we have soap, we have some, you know, we have a hand, you know, tissues, whatever. We have. There's even like condoms, like machines with condoms everywhere in airports. Like I'm seeing this all the time on highways. I've even. Which is crazy. I've seen a dis. A distributor of sex toys in a. In a, In a, In a public. In a mall and another one in a, In a. In a highway, you know, kind of a shop. And there's never period products, Chris, which is like the most. Honestly, it's. It's so basic. And if you have your periods and there's nothing there for you, it's really a problem.

Yeah.

And using toilet paper is, Is another problem. Like it's not comfortable, it doesn't work and like you have a big problem you cannot really function in your day correctly. And so imagine an employee, you have to run out of your work. You have to go to a shop and buy those, come back. Like, it's such a hassle and a stress.

Yeah.

And for me, like, I go in a bathroom and every time, Chris, for years, I'm like, like, there should be 10 pins or pads or any other period product. And so it's been like this idea that I have on the setup, and I was like, I have to do this one day. I have to do something for this one day. But I don't have time. I have all these things I have to finish. And then, Chris, I'm like, no, because there's always time. There's always hours in a day that I could use. And I think, like, talking a bit more globally on the strategy, how I handle all of this, because. Because it's been a mystery for so many people. And that's why they invited Forbes Money Summit in Zurich. They're like, noel, we just basically, we want to know how is it possible to do all of that? And actually, Chris, not to seem arrogant, but it's possible. And I think people have no idea how. They have no idea of the potential that they have with the hours that they have in a day. A day has 24 hours. Okay, you sleep maybe six to eight hours. Even if you have a nine to five job like I do, where you have to work eight hours a day, the amount of other hours that you have every lunchtime, every hours in early morning, all the hours in the evenings. And like, I use all of my time and all of my hours as if tomorrow I would not be here anymore. Like, every hour counts. And I just try to work a maximum all the time. I have a little hour on a train going on a weekend in. I don't know, in Paris, I'd be like, instead of being on my Instagram or. Or just wandering around, I'd be like, oh, it's like a few hours. So it's actually three hours to go to Paris. I would be like three, four hours. I would be like, oh, oh, I'll just do. I'll just do this. I'll just answer all those emails. I'll just start to do that. I'll plan on this project. Every hour counts, you know, waiting in an. In an air. In an airport, waiting on a friend that is late for dinner. I'm always trying to work and progress in something, and that's my strategy. I work on lunchtimes, I work on evenings, weekends. But Chris. I also have time for my personal life, for fun, for movie night, for, for going out. Like, I, I still have fun, I still do a lot of things for. I just like, I try to progress in all these projects at the same time, but every day, every week a little bit. Yeah, in everything. Does that make sense?

Oh, I totally get it. I totally get it. Noel. It's sometimes it's a, A, an iterative process, sometimes it's fits and starts. I had a guest on earlier this year, Jodi Wellman, and she has a book called you Only Die Once. And part of it is just, you know, feeling. Isn't that great? Yeah. And it's, she is very befitting to a show called, you know, living a life in Full. And again, I think obviously you're kind of a poster child for that sort of a thing as well. But I think when people have, you know, you've got the, you know, quote unquote, you know, eight hour day, 40 hour week day job, but it's also something that's important and also, you know, it does not suck the life out of you. You know, it's something that you feel, you know, you do important work, you feel impassioned by it, you have additional ideas. I mean, now you've got the humanitarian NGO and now, you know, another feather in your cap is being a social entrepreneur with, you know, doing this with, with Edudays and all those things. Again, just you, you can't, you're the kind of person that says, you know, sees a problem or whatever, and can't you just walk past it or, you know, give up on it or leave it to somebody else and you know, and you engage other people. Yeah, yeah. So I, yeah, I totally, I totally get it. So maybe this is a good segue. I don't want to delve into your personal life, but just to let everybody know too, you're kind of recently engaged. Congratulations. That's, that's awesome. That's so great. So yes, you do have a social life. Yes, you do get to, you know, go out and have fun. I don't want people to think you're just kind of, kind of toiling away, you know, at all these different wonderful things. But one of the other things that I only know a teeny weeny bit about that I want to know a heck of a lot more about. I know that you're an alpinist. I know which you lucky you, where you live, by the way. But.

Right. It's for, so, you know. Yeah.

How do you not how do you live in Switzerland and not climb, but not so much to Switzerland is free diving. You've already noted how you network with shark divers to make, you know, documentary films and things like that. But you tell us. Tell us what? Tell us about your, your bona fides in the wild athletics. Just tell. I, I don't know. I don't feel like I know all the stuff that you have done and are involved with. And then lead us up to what your Guinness World record attempt is.

Yes. So on the site cruise, because even though I work a lot and I, and I'll say this also coming back to your previous question, I also love what I'm doing and I love every bits of working. You also have to love working. To work and be able to do all of that work is not just work for me, it's actually pleasure. I just love working all the time with the things that I do, which I feel very lucky to feel that way. But so of course on this, I mean, it's still. So I would say I love working, but this is still work. It's still efforts. It's. It's still work. Right. So on the side, there's all these other things I wanted to do and that I would use my holidays for and some weekends also not working for and all of that, of course, I can't do as much as I would love to, but that's okay. So mountains, of course, I've grown up within mountain since, you know, I had to ski since. Since I'm very young. And my dad was somebody that climbed summits here in Switzerland, so he stayed only within the country, but he did the Matterhorn, which is our very famous, you know, mountain in.

Yeah.

Which is a very dangerous, deadly summit.

Yep. Yeah.

It's like our mountain. And every Swiss is actually dreaming of being able to go up there. And my dad, you know, seeing him building a career, having kids, having, you know, his wife, having friends and having so many things, he still managed to train for, for mountains and to be able to do the Matterhorn at some point. And my grandfather was actually himself. So we're all very Swiss. Right. We're, we're all 100% Swiss and we all see, we all summit, you know, mountains. And so I saw. So none of the females in my family were into mountains. I'm the first one. And I love the idea to kind of copy my grandfather. So when I talk about my grandfather Chris, I specifically talk about my mom on my mom's side, like my mom's dad, Jean Pierre Cronie. He's my grandfather, and so I'm very close to him specifically. And so I saw him always being in the mountain, and he used to tell me that walking in mountains and being within mountains has actually taught him a lot of things on how to do his business, on how to work, on how to, you know, come back home and, like, deal with the conflict or with the fire fight. So I've listened to him loving mountains. I've listened to my dad loving being able to be in mountains. And then I was like, I want to be, you know, I want to be also in mountain. I want to. I want to be like them, even though I'm a female. And what's interesting is in Switzerland, not so long ago, the Matterhorn was prohibited to women. Women were not allowed to climb the Matterhorn.

You're kidding.

Not so long ago. I don't have the exact date, Chris, but you can Google it. Like, it's like we've been very, very, you know, traditional. And it's been. Yeah, so, you know, things like this. And, and so I climb some summits when I have the time. I try to train. Obviously, I haven't done any, you know, 6, 7, 8,000 DER, only 4, 5,000 meters, which is already no, you know, nothing compared to all these guys climbing Everest and stuff. It's nothing. But, you know, we have our mountains and they're beautiful. And my fiance actually proposed on the summit of a. Of a mountain, which is really nice because I kind of. Yeah, I. I brought him with me to, to do this, and he. He's never done any alpinism, and he discovered it through me and he loves it. And. And then there's the. So there's mountains and there's oceans. I have started scuba diving through my mom, and then I discovered freediving by myself. Actually, Chris, living in New York because again, being in America has honestly, you

kind of passively said that you were taking boxing classes and now you're free diving in New York. Okay.

Also not in New York, but being in New York, I was inspired by some people free diving in Florida.

Wow.

And I was like, what is this new sport that I don't know of, like, freediving and even like shark freediving. What is it? I, you know, took the opportunity to go to Florida by myself and I. And learned it on the spot.

Wow.

And I was very. I was very attracted to the idea, Chris, to be able to discover oceans for the first time, not in a scuba diving gear, but in a free, kind of, in a free way. Kind of like just you. Your fins, breath, holding, you know. Holding your breath.

Yep.

And being. Being able to go underwater at the depth that you want and kind of dance and even like it's not even dancing, it's like taking a walk, if I may say. Taking a swim.

Wow.

Next to beautiful marine animals, especially sharks or whales or you know, or even giant jellyfishes. I mean it's. It's been to me, Chris, like on my free time for leisure, the most beautiful and peaceful activity that I've been doing. Albinism is one thing. It's challenge. It's hard. I've cried in the middle of submitting amount. Like it's really hard. And I do this to learn about resilience and how effort and hard work you need to kind of go through and it. But it's a different kind of pleasure. Whereas being in oceans and learning how to dive, learning how to scuba. Div. Dive. Learning how to free dive, learning about your body, learning about respecting oceans, learning about respect in an animal. You don't want to be bitten by any animal, whether it's a shark or any other animal that could feel threatened by you. Well, there's a whole. You have to learn about, about. About it. If you respect, if you behave well, if you keep your distances, if you learn about that animal, if you study it correctly, well, you might as well be welcomed in their world and you might have a little swim with them and nothing's going to happen. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Wow.

And I love those two worlds. It's kind of the two extremes, you know, mountains and oceans. I just love those. That person. I. That's what I do for, for me, that's what I try to do.

Well, it's sort of like sports, you know. Noel, I'm going to get kind of poetic here. Attempt it. But I mean, it's sort of like I see a parallel between that experience and back when you were 18 in India. You know, you're a different person in an alien environment with things that might be at first scary and fearful and then turn into loving and you know, I mean it's wow, wow, wow. Have you seen the movie? What's that?

Yeah, no, you're right. I never thought about this, like loving some place that seemed the opposite of your. Of your human life on Earth. Going in mountains or like going in India, like from your day to day. Just opposites. So.

So now for the Guinness record thing. Tell us about that. You're combining these, these two things in a very unique Kind of way. What was the idea spark for that? And then tell us the mechanics and the plans.

To be honest with you, Chris, I've. In the last years working on all of these things, I've been putting sports a little bit on the side because I think sports comes last if you want a career, if you work, if you have hours, obviously, you know, social life, friends and sports, sometimes they come a bit at last. Right. Because that's the sacrifice. And I was a bit upset about that because I've always loved doing different sports, but those two are my favorite. And I had this idea to. If I can motivate my. It's all. All about motivation. It's all about motivating yourself. Like, if I have a project, if there's a goal, if there's something I need to reach, I will be much more motivated, you know, to go to a sports class or sports training. Because sports was a bit like the thing I left aside. And I thought, thoughts, there's my health involved and I. I want to be able to move, but I'm sitting down all the time, Chris. Every day.

Yeah.

As I said, evenings, weekends, working on all these projects. And I forgot a little bit about, you know, nature and sports. Even though I try to do that during my holidays, it's not enough. And if I have a specific, like, sports challenge, maybe I'll be more strict about my schedule for sports. Sports. And that's when I thought, how can I do that? How can I turn my sports not into a leisure anymore, but actually, again, in a sort of working project to kind of force myself to have a more disciplined routine with sports? And to be very honest, Chris, you know who inspired me?

Who?

I got got. I got somebody that you actually interviewed, Jen Drummond.

Uhhuh. Uhhuh.

Y. I was very inspired by her.

All of her second seven summits. Yeah.

Break, break proof. Break proof. And I was a bit. A bit looking about all these women that I admire that I follow on LinkedIn. You know, how, you know, do they do sports? How do they manage? And these women have kids and they have even families I don't. I don't even have yet. And I'm like, how do they do it? And seeing people like Jen, I was like, oh, it's actually possible to handle even more, to even go and do second. Second. The second seven summits and having seven children and doing all of that. And, you know, and. And I have to say, maybe I'm an inspiration to some people, but I. I get a lot of inspiration myself from other People, People. And I think this is the beauty of doing things because you just, you are an inspiration, but you're always inspired by others. And I think that's beautiful. And, and that's okay to, you know, inspired. And, and she was doing a, you know, she was doing this, this Guinness World Record. And then I thought that's maybe an idea for me to do, to set a record that, that could actually motivate me to go back into school.

School? Yeah.

Not just on a holiday basis, but on a regular basis, you know, during my, my working weeks. But then I was like, how can I come up with something very unique? That is my idea, my only idea that is not dangerous, not too dangerous with the time that I can allow for that project, right? No, because you have to consider the time that I have for that. That and being a professional mountaineering, you know, athlete, Chris, is challenging. If you have a full time job and if you can't be always in the mountains and preparing and if you don't want to risk your life too much, I thought something only with mountains is not the best idea, but I can combine it with the oceans. And my idea was to eventually, and I'm training for that right now, is to combine both. And I thought, what about the highest altitude free diving performance? And I've, and I was like, how can I combine altitude and going up but still going down in an ocean?

Right.

You know, like, how can I go down? Well, you and I, you know, free

dive to sea level.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, how it's not interesting to just dive at sea level. I have to dive.

Of course. You of course, know. Yeah, of course, yeah. So tell us how this works.

And so I made some research, you know, and it's been months of research. There's been a guy that went to the highest point of water on earth. This is in Chile. How do you say in English?

Chile?

Chile.

Chile.

There's the, there's a Lake at 6,000 meters in altitude. 6,000. 6,000 plus there's a point of water and there's a guide a few years ago that actually did the first scuba diving there. And I was like, oh my God, that's, that's it, that's actually, that's my idea. But then free diving, because no human in history, Chris, has tried free diving at such a high altitude.

I, I, at least, yeah, I, it, it seems to, I mean, not that I track this stuff with great specificity, but it certainly seemed like something I've never heard of. And, and I think you know, maybe you've already thought of this, but I highly, highly, highly recommend that you talk to some scientists that research this stuff. I know a couple of people that do a lot of altitude medicine, altitude research. And I just think it would be a fascinating thing to think about, you know, because, I mean, I dive too. And I mean, I know about, you know, the bins and narco dives and weird kinds of things that your body has to deal with pressures and stuff. And I just think it would be. I mean, I. Hey, you know, I'm certainly no physiologist or, or human biology kind of expert, but I think it would just be a. There's going to be people that want to do blood samples and test you and, you know, so, you know, so are you, are you involving scientists and researchers with this or just. Is that a plan or is that already being done?

So basically, it's an interesting question because obviously it's not just going to be a sports challenge. You know, go in, go out, do the thing. No, it's actually, actually my freediving coach and my mountain guide were. They were like, it's actually becoming a scientific experiment.

Good, except you're. I can say good because you're the guinea pig in this, not me. So.

Right. I'm like, oh, my God, guys, you know, just take a second. No, because, because it, it's transforming, Chris, to this bigger thing than it was in my head because it's such like, it's an experiment because nobody has tried that. Yeah, obviously there's dangers. There's physiological, physiological dangers, but they're all like, they can all be, you know, controlled and there's risk assessments within the. This project. But we definitely want to test and involved me involve maybe one scientific person or two. And this is. Is currently in discussion not making it either a too big of a. Too big of a. Of a thing. I still want to keep it, you know, fun and, and challenging and I don't want to make a whole PhD out of this either. But definitely, you know, it's too complex either. But you're right. It's a discussion that I'm having with, with my team that I'm building up for, for this. How can we bring this to a more interesting level to help out science and medicine and because there's no, there's actually, if not none, studies about free diving and out. Like, it's very, very. Yeah, we don't know. Yeah, we don't know how the body will react. Possible. We. I don't know, actually.

Yeah, no, no, Scientific institutional review board would approve it. So it has to be a. A case study with an N of one, and you're the one, so. Wow.

Yeah, well, I'm gonna try, depending upon

how it all turns out and stuff. I mean, just, you know, back channel me. I have two people. One's a PhD and one's an MD that I think would know and be able at the very least, to get you some tips and guidance and stuff if you need that. If you do, just, you know, let me know and I'd be happy to do introductions. Yeah, I've got a couple of folks.

Please.

Okay, do. Do you have a. Like a training regimen for this or step us through? Like what. What's. What? Do you have workouts yet or. Okay, tell us what that's like.

So. So, Chris, the Guinness World. The. The Guinness. Actually, the. The Guinness Enterprise has. Has very recently approved this application.

Oh, congratulations.

Thank you. It was like a week ago, so it's very, very new. I had an idea previously for a Guinness World Record, but. Which was approved too, but I decided to change it to this project, which was less risky and more. More of a fit with my schedule. So we actually did not decide to start. Starts like the training. Training, you know, program before it was approved. But the training plan is going to be very strict and intense. And it involves, for instance, you know, training for altitude, you know, and having lower amounts of oxygen in your body. So there's like machines for that and being. There's even like tents for. For that. Where you go in a tent.

Yeah.

And you kind of late 6 and 7,000. So that's. That's going to be one part of the training. Then there's, you know, kind of hardcore fitness muscles training, you know, like really developing muscles like I do for mountains, you know, running, you know, I have to be able to run 20km without being too tired and being able to talk stop at the same time. And for. For the moments I can run 10km. Do you know, kilometers? And how do you calculate that in measurements?

Like a 10k would be six miles for us.

Yeah, exactly. So for now, I can do 10km while talking and not being too exhausted. And I have to do 20 to be yet full, full shape. So you see, I'm not there yet. And I need to train in the mountains. I need to train because we're still gonna do a summit of 6,000 and more, which I have never done, and then dive in the lake. I mean, free dive in the lake. And so that also involves Chris a few Times per week to go in the, in the freezing cold lake that we have in Geneva.

Wow.

You know, building up, building up resistance to the cold.

Wow. I'll have to.

And so it involves.

I'll have to put you in touch with Wim Hof. He was an early guest on the show. He knows how to spend a lot. Spend a lot of. Yeah, yeah, he was.

I'm such a big fan.

Oh yeah, yeah. Well, I'll add. Add Wim to the introduction list. Yeah. Wim. I forget maybe our second or third season season. So yeah, tune in, go back to the old catalog. It's. It's, it's out there. So yeah,

he's, he's the one that developed all this. But basically we have this lake in front of where I work and you can literally go and do your ice pass there. It's. It's, it's so cold.

Wow.

And so yeah, just training, you know, alpinism, you know, running muscle training and obviously altitude and then obviously freediving. Static freediving. Chris. So being able to hold your breath maximum. So you know, you have to imagine at 6,000, you almost have 50% less of oxygen in your system and you have to be able to do breath hold at the surface. Just even think at a static freediving at the surface. Surface.

Yeah.

Being able to breath hold with half of the oxygen that you usually have. Imagine the. It's. It's a, it's a very interesting.

Yeah, that's. That's the bio. Physiology of it that I just can't wrap my head around. So I mean that, that, that's, that's fascinating.

Yeah, that.

Wow. Wow. You know, when I'm not even. I was just gonna say Wim. Wim was doing one of his antics years ago and he. I don't. I'm sure he set some kind of record or something, but I forget he was like in the. Who knows, the polar ice cap or something. Yeah. And he was swimming under like there's a hole in the ice and he swum underneath to pop out another hole down, you know, X number of meters down the way. And his retinas froze or something. His eyeballs froze. Then he couldn't see. So be really careful, Noel. So really, you know, duck jeeps. So. Yeah. So.

Yeah.

Wow.

So there's the cold. Yeah.

Are you, are you cold? Acclimated generally from, from like. Do you, do you do ice plunges and stuff like that? I mean, is that part of the training regimen?

Yes, I do.

Gotcha.

Yeah. This I do already a lot My mom does it. This is, this. It's not easy because it's actually very difficult. And it's like having a thousand night in your body when you go in the water really hard.

We have, we have a goofy. We have a goofy thing in the States called polar plunges or polar bear plunges or whatever. And about two winters ago on January 1st, I and a number of other crazy friends of mine, in an organized thing, jumped into Lake Michigan, where we live near here, and, and it wasn't the coldest as it has been, but I know exactly what you mean. You know, I'm kind of all Wim hofed up with my breath and everything like that. And oh my gosh, it is, it's. It's searing. I mean, it's, it's unbelievable how, you know, like from zero to like total body pain. That can be so I tip my hat to you. You're an animal. That's amazing, Chris.

Like you could. You would do it without, without any difficulties. Difficulty. Like anybody. It actually, that's the thing. It's very mental. And like every, every, every other challenge in life, Chris, is it. It depends on your mental.

Yeah.

If you decide in your mind that it's okay that you can do it, that you're just gonna do it, there's no choice. And you decide.

Yeah.

To take on something. I think, think the brain is so powerful. And I know you must have heard this a thousand times through your podcast, but I think mentally, this, this ice cold water, you know, hitting your body, that's when it's not physical anymore. It's. It's mentally your brain. You keep it. And you're like, I'm staying. And you. And you count. You stay one minute, two minute, three minutes, not more. Because then it becomes dangerous. But you force yourself to count and stay and accept the pain and kind of open your arms and accept the cold, accept the challenge, accept the difficulty. And then what's interesting, after a minute, Chris, of suffering, the pain goes away and you're actually. Do you know that you actually feel very good in the water and you can actually feel that it's not cold anymore. You don't even feel the cold anymore. Does that make sense?

Yeah, there's like a paradigm paradoxical transition or something like that. And like you said, you nailed it. I mean, the whole mindset of it. If it's like, if I'm going to suffer through this the entire time, you're going to suffer through it the entire time. If you say I'm going to suffer for the first part of it and then I'm going to acclimate and it's going to be oddly fine. Then that's what chances are going to happen. So. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Wow.

Yeah.

So do you have.

I think that's, that's.

Do you have a calendar? Yeah. Do you have a calendar target date for this yet or is it too soon to. To plan for that?

Yes, we do. Yes, we do. It's in. We're, we're looking at. We're targeting November 2026.

Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. And what kind of. Yeah, what, what like atmospheric temperatures and water temperatures might you be facing in November 2026 in that part of Chile?

I wrote it down here to not give you false information.

You're so good. You look up your cv. No one has to, no one has to fact check this episode.

You know, it's actually not that bad.

Good.

It's not that bad. Three degrees.

Okay. Okay. And that's, that's Celsius, right? Three degrees Celsius, not Fahrenheit.

Right.

Okay, gotcha. Okay.

It's not.

That's a relative thing, Noel. That's not that bad.

That's in summer. That's if you have a non freezing lake. And of course if you have a ice lake, that's a different. Yeah, but we're looking at, at 3 degrees which is kind of what an ice bath can do.

Is it? Let me, I'm going to ask you a couple last dumb questions about this and we can start to wrap up. But is, is it, is there. What's the aquatic life in that lake? Is, is there their fish and whatnot and plants or, or nothing. Okay. Okay.

We can ask Chatgpt. I haven't even looked up exactly this. I just made sure there's no like crocodiles or whatever.

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Nothing that, Nothing bigger than you. Yeah.

Because I would love to see sharks.

Yeah, that would be good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it just, it seems to, I mean just again my naive curiosity about like what, what has adapted itself biologically, you know, be it plant life or animal life, aquatic animal life, marine life, to, to those kinds of, you know, whatever bizarre pressures and, and atmospheric issues that would be in a, in a high altitude lake. So that's interesting.

I mean, not much, Chris. Of course, plants. Not much. I know the Depth is like 5, 5 to 10 meters. So it's, it's a very, very small depth. So, so it's. But I mean look at Norway. You have orcas, you have whales. I've been there and it's, it's, there's icebergs and ice like so marine animal, marine life is absolutely possible in those temperatures. It's just a lake so high.

So evolutionarily how it, how a lake wound up up there, so. So to speak.

So it's crazy. It's a natural lake, you know, that,

that is, that is crazy. So. Well, Noel, listen, we have covered a lot of territory. We've gone high, we've gone low, we've gone around the globe. So is there anything that we've missed that you'd like to add before we wrap up?

No, I think Chris, I'm like, oh my God, it's been almost two hours.

I know it's gone fast. That's great. Well, and I just, I had one other thing that, that I just have to say. So your grandfather is who you wrote the biography of then, right? Is that right? In my little.

Exactly.

Okay. All right. Because when you said his name, I thought I know that name and I know the name by doing background on you. That's. That is very cool. That is very cool. Well, maybe that he was a quiz. Wow.

You know, in banking, he was an amazing person.

It, yeah.

Started from nothing and had a very successful life. But starting from nothing, which is quite rare, usually privileged people, you know, kind of get a head start, you know. Yeah. And he wasn't. And he, he created a, you know, a whole business and it's, it was a beautiful story and I think it was worth to, to say it.

I'm glad it's, it's immortal in the book, so maybe that's a good segue. So if listeners would like to pick up a copy of that book or your leadership book, learn more about you, connect things like that. What, what are some of the best ways we can put that into our LinkedIn and into the show Notes.

Yeah, to be honest, I mean, I really love LinkedIn. I'm a big fan of LinkedIn, I think very. And I'm very responsive to messages. I'm very open to, to people and ideas and exchanges and corporation and, and I would say LinkedIn and you know, buying the book. You can buy it on Amazon, on Barnes and Nobles. Both, both books. No, wait, I'm mistaking now the Swiss book is quite local, Chris, because it's a Swiss story. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's more local, but you can find it on a few websites and the other one on Amazon, obviously, Barnes and Nobles. There is also the audiobook of my grandfather's book on Apple books. So you can definitely find all of this the net. And I'm very happy to connect through, through my LinkedIn, LinkedIn messages. I would say.

Yeah, okay, we will get all that. If people are working out for whatever Guinness challenge that they have while they're listening to this, they don't need to stop and break stride. But I'll put all that into the, all that into the show notes so people can check that out and then there'll be obviously the write up about this too, so. Oh, Noel, this was long overdue. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on. I so enjoyed it. You just, you are an inspiration. No, no, that's, that's the way the show is. People want to get to know about you and I think listening to your story and your background is quite inspirational. So it's just been a treat for me to be able to share that with the world and to pick your brain. And then you and I need to do a lot of back channeling and I'll do some connections with some of these other folks with some of the cool stuff that you're doing.

Oh, I would love that. Thank you so much. And I know we talked about me today, but I, I, I wish I could ask you a thousand questions too.

Okay.

But I can already read a lot about you and I can already, I know already a lot about you and, and hopefully we can meet in the future again and, and be able to talk more, you know, more.

That'll be great. Yeah, I would love to have, love to have a round two. So let's, let's do Keep in touch. Take care. All right.

For sure.

Bye Bye.

Take care, Chris. Thank you so much. Bye Bye. Bye.

As a reminder, listeners can read a summary of this episode and access links to the show notes via my LinkedIn Top Voice Companion article, along with past guests as well. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I have and I hope it will help you in your journey to living your life in full. Until next time, Living a Life in Full is a production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knot, LLC. Assistant Producer, Gracie Wong Music Dan O' Brien Executive Producer and Host, Dr. Chris Stout to learn more, stop by our website at lifeinfull for show notes and please recommend us to your friends and subscribe on your favorite platform. And as for the obligatory disclaimer, this podcast is for general information uses only and does not constitute the practice of psychology, medicine, nutrition or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical or psychological advice, no doctor patient relationship is formed. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I take conflicts of interest seriously. For all of my disclosures as well as show notes, please see livingalifeinfull.org podcast, podcast and my LinkedIn profile. Thanks and until next time.

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