#58: Colin O’Brady Asks ‘What’s Your Everest?”

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Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited you're here.

Wow.

A lot has happened in the last week and it's surreal. Life feels surreal. Honestly, it's been a lot on all of us and I've actually, I'm stopping watching the news. I'm taking a little break because it was getting me really down, really down. And I just, I couldn't process it. I was feeling scared, upset, not sleeping good. So not helpful for me. Not sure about you, but for me, I decided I need to separate myself a bit from social media and the media. And so last night I decided to watch a movie with my son. And on TV they played the movie up, which is essentially the super cute kid movie about an older man that appears to have been with his wife for like 50 years. Happy years. Loved her, you know, she was his life. And then she passed away and he became known as this angry old mean man. But really he was heartbroken, but he didn't show that to the world. And along comes this little boy who's trying to get a badge. And to get the badge you have to help old people. And so he's trying to help this unhappy, angry old man. Turns out the man's whole plan was to get the house to fly up to. Essentially he wants to get back to his wife and, you know, be with her and go to the places she loved and just sit next to an empty chair, you know, traveling the world thinking of her until he dies and gets to be with her. And so this little boy ends up on the flying house. And the whole epiphany moment of the movie is when he started to forge a relationship with the little boy and the animals that they're spending their time with. And he doesn't realize that he wasn't looking to do that, but it was happening over time. He was unaware. And he starts worrying about them and caring about them, not meaning to. He definitely did not want to. And he went inside his house to sit next to the empty chair he always sat next to because his wife was no longer there. And he pulled out this book that she had given him right before she passed away. It was a photo album with notes in it and at the end was so beautiful. It said, thank you for an amazing adventure. Now onto your next one. You know, looking forward to having you enjoy your next one. Something like that, you know, it's time to close this chapter and you've got to move on to your next adventure. Oh, my gosh, I was bawling. I could cry right now thinking about it. So he closes the book and decides to go and save the little boy and the animals that he'd been spending time with that he had feelings and emotions for. But basically close the door on the past and step into the new adventure. And he does, and he does it with vigor and happiness and so beautiful. Doesn't mean he loses those memories. It just means he's not going to sit there stuck living in the past, because he was literally living sitting next to an empty chair. It was really so eye opening because I know so many people get stuck in situations, in relationships, in jobs, in ruts, whatever, you know, sitting next to an empty chair, figuratively. Right. I did that. I was stuck in an empty job for a long time. And I would say I had golden handcuffs. That was my visual and the words I would use. And our words have so much freaking power. So I really appreciated that movie last night. It really, I don't know, it connected with me. And I just wanted to share that message with you that at any point in time, we can close our book on one adventure, keep the memories with us and. And move on to our next adventure. And I think that's really powerful. So I don't know why I had this jotted down. Sometimes I take notes during the week on my notebook or on my computer, and I had written down, enjoy the journey. And I have to tell you, I hate this. I hear this all the time from people like Gary Vaynerchuk or other people who are killing it. Millions of followers making millions of dollars, having been in the entrepreneurial game forever, and they're like, oh, you have to enjoy the journey. That is such bs. I just wanna tell you that. Because right now I'm not enjoying the journey. Anyone who really hasn't made it, who hasn't hit that tipping point, I think would agree with me on this. The journey's freaking hard and pretty dark right now too, you know, and, yeah, I'm doing the things that I need to. To pivot and work my tail off to find ways to make this work. And I am, and I will, and I'm certain of that. And I want you to have certainty in you and the. The choices you're making and the pivots you're making. However, the journey's hard until you make it right. Once you kind of know that you're oh, I'm about there. Okay, then you can really start to enjoy it. Until then, it's a guessing game and a pivoting game and a failing game and a picking yourself back up game and a hard game and a lost game and a win and a fail and a loss and an embarrassment and, you know, and all the rest. I really have this vision, clearly, because I had made it, quote, unquote, in corporate America, right? I was at the C suite. I'd been promoted. I don't even know how many freaking times in my career, but I was on this trajectory, you know, taking off. And I remember when I hit vice president of sales, I, you know, then I started enjoying the journey, right? I knew when I was younger and I was an account executive delivering wine on the back of trucks and having people say disgusting things to me, I was not enjoying the journey, right? So I want people to have that realization. It depends where you are in your journey before you start enjoying it. And I don't want people to have that pressure. Cause I don't have that pressure on myself. No, I get it. I've seen this movie and I know when you're at the lower rung, I'm only at 2 1/2 years right now in being an entrepreneur. It's still freaking hard.

It's really hard.

And it's confusing and I haven't figured it out. And I don't have the hacks. And then when Covid came, and then when the. The protests and rioting and looting came and, you know, fear came, and all of these different really difficult feelings that can distract you, that can keep you from sleeping at night right there. I mean, the whole pitfalls go on and on. So I don't want you to have the pressure on yourself to enjoy the journey. Right before coronavirus hit, I felt internally, you know, I'm not saying it was definite, but I kind of finally, I was getting booked by agents. And that really was the tipping point for me. Because up until that point, my speaking business, I was booking everything. And suddenly I was getting booked by the agents and they were getting the testimonials back from the clients, and they were killer. I saw that sequence of three times in a row happen. I kind of knew. I just hit my tipping point. Now they trust me, they believe in me, they've got the feedback. They're going to start pitching me more, I'm landing more gigs. And I started getting booked and booked. And then Coronavirus happened. Happen. And I was so close to that tipping point. And it just disappeared. Right. I understand that had that really come together with the way I saw it happening, I would have really started enjoying the journey. Because then you've got the cash coming in, then you've got the foresight and the picture to see. Okay, I'm great for the next few months. I'm not going month to month anymore not knowing in the volatility and fear and, you know, hours that I'm putting in and giving up on everything else but work right now. I do understand. Enjoy the journey really means once you hit that tipping point, you will enjoy it because you know with certainty and clarity and you can see it that it's there now. My journey changed, as did yours, as did everyone's in the last three months. And so I'm rewriting that journey so I'm not at the tipping point right now, which is okay, because now I've seen the movie a couple of times, and the more times you see the movie, the. The more certain you feel that you will hit that tipping point and then I will start enjoying that journey much, much more. So I just wanted to share that with you. And then I can't not say something about what's been happening in the country over the past 10 days, past week, two weeks. So I, like many people, didn't know what to do. No one knew what to do. And it was scary with. I mean, my city was shut down because. Because of looters and crime and violence and horrible things that happened that were so scary. And we all went on this lockdown and curfews, and it happened so fast. It was so bizarre. And what's interesting is, and I just realized this, so many people who aren't in major cities maybe haven't felt it the way that if you're in a big city that you have. And I think different cities have been impacted differently. So my heart goes out to everybody, even the people who aren't affected by it, who are confused, they don't even get it.

But.

But it's been a really scary time for everyone. However, I am a huge supporter of equality. I am a huge supporter of, you know, crime. When a crime is committed, when someone is killed unjustly for no freaking reason, that person has to pay accountability. It doesn't matter who you are. And I also believe there are good police officers out there, right? So I believe so wholeheartedly in the First Amendment, and I believe people should voice their opinions and peaceful protesters should be welcomed anywhere and everywhere. Peaceful. Not those looting and taking advantage of a situation and turning things into violent acts. More violence, more stealing, more hurting our country and the people within it that don't deserve it. So I posted about it this weekend and I saw a lot of people being very judgy on social media. I don't know if you saw this. I don't like that. How is this a time to judge and batter people? Right? I saw people posting. You're not supposed to say that. That's not helpful. This isn't ba ba rah. I mean, some people I saw saying nice things like, oh, that's not the hashtag to use if you want it to be a part of what's going on on Tuesday. This is a hashtag that's cool and helpful. But I don't like when people are judging or using their personal bias. You know, that's. You shouldn't write that. This is a better thing to write. And I knew people would write things like that. Given that I have my own opinions and I'm happy with my own opinions. And I also knew I had to post something because I am confident in who I am at 45 years old, thank freaking God.

And.

And I know I'm not for everybody. Cause I'm not vanilla and I don't wanna be vanilla. And I've learned to step into that and own who I am and deal with the fallout. I support black people. I support people of all color. I support everyone and myself. I have been sexually harassed. I have been harassed by another woman. I have been abused as a child. I've had so many crappy things happen to me in my life. Let me tell you, I don't want any, any of that for anyone. So anyone that's suffering or being treated unjustly, unfairly, any type of inequality is disgusting to me and should not be tolerated. That's where I stand on that. However, I am not for violence. I am not for looting. And I'm crystal clear on that. And I shared that on social media. And yeah, you know, of course I got some haters that came out for me and I ignore them. I've learned that over the years. I don't even respond to me anymore. That's what they want, right? But I do think in some weird way, as awful as this has been for everyone and the fact that lives have been lost now, so many lives around the country now that the violence has occurred, there's been a lot of deaths. It's just so needless. Deaths. It's horrific for everyone. I just think bigger picture, our world will change for the Better because of this. I do believe that. Not because of the violence and all of that crap or. But I. I do believe that the whole world was in this heightened, sensitive space and this horrific act occurred and a man lost his life and that just started a domino effect of no more tolerance. And that is a fantastic thing. So I'm very hopeful for our world. I'm hopeful for our country moving forward, that it will make our country and our citizens, all of us, better people. More real discussions. Get real, keep it real and keep it moving, because this is gonna be a. A better place to live and a better world to be in. So that's what I'm hopeful for. That's what I'm focusing on. I know that everyone needs to focus on different things for themselves. A lot of people are turning to God and prayer right now, which I completely applaud and jump in on. I'm definitely praying so much more than. Than I normally would. So. Praying for peace for everyone, kindness and understanding and Please stop judging. I really. I remind myself every day, I'm not gonna judge others. I don't know what they're up against. I don't know their situation. I. And I'm really moving forward with that attitude every single day. And I'm reminding myself too. Cause it's. Sometimes I want to judge someone, but I won't let myself. I can't. So I want to also talk about the importance of consistency. You know, when the coronavirus started, I was very upset and freaked out because my speaking business disappeared and I was panicking and I was eating whole bags of my son's M&MS. I don't know why I did that. I felt like I had a free pass. Like the world took something away from me. And now I was gonna go on a bender of eating Nutella and M&Ms. Ridiculous. I'm super disciplined. Anyone that knows me really well, I'll be the guy sitting at the table, you know, not eating anything other than the salmon tartare and salad. But I came off the rails and you can't do that at freaking 45. I don't know who I was kidding, but here's what it reminds me. Now here we are three months later, and I'm like battling my way back, trying to lose weight and get in shape again. And is that consistency is key, whether it be with your diet, whether it be with your or whether it be in your business, Consistency is key. And my guest today, the reason why I'm bringing this up and. Or I thought about it, is A year ago I tried to get him on as a guest. He's an amazing guest, huge guest. Everybody wants him. He's on the Tonight show, he's on the Today show. He's on everything. Huge. He's huge. Super happy for him too. Really, really nice guy, awesome wife, really nice people. And we have a great mutual friend that actually connected me to him a year ago and, and a year ago I reached out, Crickets. And my friend came back, reconnected again. There was an exchange, we couldn't find a date. Crickets. And so I just kind of forgot about it and moved on. And my good friend Scott came to me a couple weeks ago and said, what happened with him? And I said, oh, they blew me off. I don't know. And he said, heather, since when are you gonna take that as an answer? Like blow you off? Come on, go back after him again, I'll help you. He reconnected me, this time to the wife and, and this time I was able to land them as a guest. So, you know, don't forget about the people in your pipeline, the people you're going after. Stay in touch with your network and let them know what you're working on. Let them know about the challenges that you face and be consistent with reaching out. You know, I almost missed having this amazing guest today for you because I wasn't being consistent. Luckily, I was reminded by my good friend Scott, I gotta jump back into consistency. And I'm doing it now with my workout, I'm doing it now with my eating and I'm so grateful I'm doing it now with my guests. So I can't wait for you to meet my next guest. You are going to love him and I can't wait to hear what you think. Hang tight.

Meet a different guest each week. Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited to introduce you to Colin o'. Brady. If you've never heard of him, you are one of the only. He's one of the world's most recognized endurance athletes and explorers. He's a 10 time world record holder and Yale University grad. It's very impressive to me. In 2018, he became the first person in history to cross the continent of Antarctica solo, unsupported and unassisted. The New York Times said o' Brady's Antarctica crossing joined some of the most remarkable achievements in polar history. Guinness World Records called o' Brady's most recent success the world's first completely human powered ocean row across Drake Passage from South America to Antarctica. One of the most significant human powered adventures ever undertaken. But Khan isn't just an elite athlete and an adventurer. He's a highly sought after public speaker, New York Times bestselling author of the Impossible first, and is considered to be one of the foremost experts on mindset. His TED Talk, Change youe Mindset and Achieve Anything has been viewed over 2 million times. Khan has been featured on leading platforms including the Today Show, Tonight Show, Joe Rogan, New York Times, cbs, pbs, cnn. The list goes on and on. Collin, thank you so much for making time to be here with us today.

My pleasure. It's great to be here.

Okay, so I really want to jump into.

I've heard so many. I've heard your TED Talk, which is amazing.

I've heard so many of your interviews. And one of the things that I.

Really wanted to get some background on.

With you is as a child, you.

Know, taking it way back when you go back to your childhood, did you have this vision for your future? You know, what did you want to grow up and be.

Yeah, you. So as a young kid, I always kind of really loved sports from a really young age. I was a swimmer, I was a soccer player. My family didn't have a lot of money or anything when I was a kid to travel, but kind of always instilled this value of kind of you can do anything you set your mind to. Some of my earliest memories of kind of sports as a kid was watching the Olympics when I was six, seven years old and dreaming and my mom saying to me like maybe one day you could do that or that kind of stuff. There was a lot of kind of encouragement and dreaming, but dreaming and actually kind of talking about how to turn those dreams into reality, whether that was in sports or academics or things like that. And kind of, I think it was long before this phrase was coined. When I look back, I think there was a lot of growth mindset instilled in me as a young age of just kind of like here we are in this moment, but you know, kind of with hard work or dedication to whatever it is. And I was not pushed towards sports necessarily. I was just my passion, kind of this belief of kind of you can achieve a lot of. So I guess I didn't know that I would be walking across Antarctica by myself or some of these other things. But I always did love the outdoors. I always did dream of climbing Everest as a little kid and stuff like that. So that was sort of deeply embedded in there for sure as a young age.

It's so interesting to me with the.

Growth Mindset concept and the huge role.

That your mother played on really instilling this in you and walking you through that exercise when you needed her most. Could you share a little bit about that hard, really dark time in your life?

Yeah. So just after graduating from college, you know, although I have a, you know, economics degree, most of my friends was 2006 were headed off to Wall street because there's pre credit crisis and all of this and you know, that just didn't seem like the path that I want to take right out of school. Although certainly the financial security that appealed to me. I kind of had this wanderlust still and hadn't traveled. So I actually painted houses in the summer as a kid, saved up, you know, a few thousand dollars and said I'm going to buy a one way plane ticket to see the world like on the cheap, you know, just like living in youth hostels and hitchhiking and basically living as cheap as I possibly could. Just have like a few beers and a roof over my head at night, you know, being a young kid in his 20s and it was an amazing experience all told. But up until I found myself in rural Thailand, unfortunately a really bad accident happened. I was severely burned in a fire and the rope wrapped around my legs, there was a burning rope and it kind of lit my entire body on fire. Ended up in a Thai hospital. There was, you know, my mom, you know, flew out after four or five days and the doctors were telling me, look Colin, you'll probably never walk again normally. So it was just a really kind of rough situation obviously middle of nowhere, really bad medical facilities, terrible diagnosis, you know, physical pain, emotional trauma. And I can only imagine what it's like to be a mother, to fly over there and see your kid in this helpless state. All as a mother wants to do is kind of help and support and love and it's pretty kind of out of her control as well. But one of the most remarkable things I look at as such a turning point in my life is my mother could have very easily shown me her own fear. And I know now she was kind of crying in the hallways with the doctors pleading for good news. But she really never showed me that fear. Instead she kind of came into my hospital room every day with this big smile on her face and this kind of air of positivity, kind of urging me to look towards the future, saying like, you're in a bad situation right now. You are facing a significant amount of adversity, but your life isn't over. Like what do you want to do when you get out of here, let's set a goal, let's look towards the future. And it took me a while to kind of buy in. Admittedly the first few days I was like, what are you talking about? Well, I'm never going to walk anymore, I'm going to be in a wheelchair, you know, all this kind of stuff. But she really kind of instilled that belief and kind of, long story short, you know, encouraged me to set a goal, which ultimately I said. I pictured myself racing a triathlon one day thinking that kind of, I'd never done that before, but thought, you know, that would be what kind of my able bodied self could do after an accident like this and kind of focus on training for that. First just in my mind and then my mom kind of teaching me how to walk again. Normally, sort of a long story. But basically, long story short, after 18 months being told I would never walk again normally, I showed up and moved to Chicago, took a job out there and raced the Chicago Triathlon, my first race ever, which I ultimately didn't just finish and complete, but I actually won the entire race, beating about 4 or 5,000 and other participants on the day, which was complete shock to me. But ultimately it's not about like the winning some race. It was, you know, when I look back on that moment, my mind immediately goes back to that Thai hospital, realizing my mom taught me in that moment one of life's most valuable lessons, which is, you know, life, no matter who we are, where we are, if we're starting a business, family, relationship, entrepreneur, what doesn't matter, like you are going to face adversity along the way. But in these dark moments, in these low moments, we have a choice of how we react and how we take our next steps moving out of that low moment. And my mother's positivity and love really taught me that in this lowest moment. And I look at it as kind of sliding door moment, which is had my mom not wrapped me in that positivity, what would have happened versus the outcome was she did and you know, look where it is and I won this race. And then, you know, fast forward 10, 12 years now, you know, set these world records and all these things and kind of all spawn from this lowest moment. So it's a reminder that the growth that happens within adversity, particularly if we can harness the way we react to it, can ultimately lead us to really positive outcomes in the long term, which is hard to remember when we're going through something hard that's for sure.

And so your message resonates so clearly.

To so many right now struggling through this pandemic and quarantine. So thank you for that.

One of the things I wanted to dive into a little bit more about your mom that I really respect as a mother myself, I imagine must have been so hard. I can totally see how she was able to sit with you, hold back her tears and instill the positivity. I get that. But when I've heard you talk about how she was sort of pushing you and teaching you to walk again when it was almost impossible for you to get out of the wheelchair at first, and she was pulling the chair back, that really got to my heart. Because, Colin, as a parent, I know you're not a parent yet. That's gotta be tough for her to push you.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's kind of. You know, I don't want to say tough love, because I think my mom's really definitely oriented towards maybe a gentler touch, but at times she knows kind of want to push. And, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about it later. But also, my wife is kind of in the same orientation. And the things that we've built and created in our business and these expeditions things has all been a product of both of her and I's collaboration. And there's been, you know, moments with my mother as well as moments with Jenna where it's like, they know when they need to kind of push me harder. You know, there's been kind of intense moments on Everest when I'm having my own doubts or in Antarctica and whatever where Jenna's like, hey, like, you need to put your boots back on, or, you know, you need to do this. And it's not coming from a place of kind of rough military, Navy seal, like, you better do this, Harden up. You know, that kind of stuff. But it's also not coming from, okay, it's fine. Just sit there in the wheelchair. It's definitely kind of like, hey, you committed to this goal and you're losing your way a little bit. And let me kind of redirect that energy. And my mother and Jenna, both of them have that kind of. That balance of strength that really, they kind of know when to push. And I also have a trust built up with them of kind of like, okay, they're saying this. They're reminding me they're almost being a mirror to myself and not, you know, being. Letting me be accountable to myself. They're not, like, instilling their belief system on me. They're saying, hey, you set this goal. You wanted to do this, remember? And I'm just reminding you of that. And you're like, right, right. Okay, this is where I need to dig deep.

Yeah, I definitely see that parallel between your mom and your wife and these strong women that you've surrounded yourself with and how they truly have elevated you to that next level. And I like, you know, you're saying they're not taking the David Goggins in your face approach, but they're also, you know, not Mary Poppins and sitting at your bedside holding your hand. And I think that's really important, whether it be a wife or a mother or whoever, if, you know, if you don't have a spouse, if your parents aren't here, but picking those people that can see that potential in you and be willing to have those hard conversations, 100%.

I mean, look, this applies just to life in general. It's not, you know, necessarily a fully unique concept, but I'm definitely big believer that we are the product of the five or 10 people that we spend the most time around. That is certainly played out in my life and I see that, you know, around others. And sometimes that can be hard because sometimes, you know, there's people that have just been in your life, you know, whether that's, you know, your family or people have been in your life for a long time, old friendships and stuff like that. And I cherish those old relationships, particularly when you're daring to dream greatly, when you have audacious goals and you're pushing yourself for it. Sometimes the people that love you the most oftentimes can hold you back in certain scenarios. And it's not a way to say like cavalier, like just cut people out of your life and throw them away and whatever, but to also just be aware of who you are surrounding yourself with. If you're trying to build something creative, if you're thinking, you know, outside the box, whatever, like, find other people that buy into that or at least go, I don't know how you're going to get there, but like, I believe you're going to get there. And what's fun about those relationships that I have in my life that have supported me, it's not a one way street. In the most ideal circumstance, you're also reflecting that back on sort of their goals and their aspirations. And so it's sort of a two way. Even though maybe you're not working in the same direction or the same field or really completely different avenues, basically a support system where there's kind of an equal buy in both ways to kind of, you know, love and share, support one another.

And that really goes back to what Jenna's goals were for April.

You.

You.

And she had created some massive goals for her that unfortunately have been paused.

Yeah. So, you know, after all these, you know, many world record breaking exhibitions of my own, that, like I said, she's been a huge part of, you know, planning and dreaming and executing on, you know, my book came out this year, the Impossible First. It's certainly about my crossing of Antarctica. But you quickly realize when picking up the book, it's really our story. It's a story of there's a whole chapter on the entrepreneurship of how we had this big goal of raising sponsorship dollars and how her and I were just out there hustling. We could talk more about that, but it was fun. You know, one of the things that I like to ask people, I started out asking young people and kids in my nonprofit, but it's really kind of extended to corporate settings, my public speaking, et cetera, because I realized it's a question that just resonates with myself and others, which is, what's your Everest? I really wanted to climb Everest as a kid. And not everyone wants to climb mountains. That's totally fine. But it's an obvious metaphor, which is, what's your big goal? What's your audacious thing that you want to work towards and dream about and answer that question for yourself, what's your Everest? And then now let's talk about actually the incremental steps of how to get there. And it's fun, like I said, taking elementary school kids through that process and, you know, you know, leaders and businesses and CEOs, whatever. There's, you know, obviously a different tactic, the age group you're talking to. But Jenna came to me, you know, a year or so ago after being, you know, really not behind the scenes so much, but really, you know, out in front, but not in the field quite as much with me in these expeditions. Although she has done some incredible things, you know, physically in her own life. And she said to me, you know what, Colin? My Everest next year is to actually climb Mount Everest. Which was really fun for me to hear. It's not something I really pushed on her and certainly she would say not a childhood dream of hers per se, but as she's gotten closer to this sort of expedition life that we've been living for the past many years, she's like, I think I can do that. I need to train, I need to prepare, I need to improve my mountaineering skills. All this, but she's not starting from scratch either. And so this whole past year we trained and got her really ready and feeling great about the possibility of climbing Everest. We had our plane tickets and everything. We were going to climb from the Chinese side. So you can climb either from Nepal or Tibet. Previously I climbed from Nepal, but we were going to climb from China. So our flights on April 2020 to China, not the best time in our world to be flying there obviously. So needless to say, that expedition was canceled or hopefully postponed. You can only really climb in April, May of any year. So it's tentatively on the schedule a year now. And it's just another example of setbacks. Sometimes when you set a big goal, it's not a linear path to get there, but it definitely focused. Like I said, a few weeks before we were supposed to fly and then take off. Kind of like, nope, that's not happening. And how do we kind of reshift our energy and kind of reprioritize our year? So disappointing. But also the way that we always kind of in our lives anyways. It's prepare for the unexpected. Things aren't going to go the way that you expect them to in anything that we've built or created. And this is just another example of that. And so rather than kind of, you know, sitting in our self quarantine depressed over the last couple months, it's been kind of looking at say, okay, well this is something different now we expected. But what are the gifts here? What are the silver linings? What can we build from the creative space that we are in right now and move forward in a productive way?

It's that time of year again.

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So much of your teachings that really resonate with me are about that adaptation, about the change, about not having that linear path. And so many of us, especially those of us who came up through corporate America, we're so accustomed to that.

Right.

We're in a well lit area. We know what the next move is and to start to learn, to anticipate that things aren't going to go, to anticipate the challenges are coming so that we really change our mindship. That's one of the biggest takeaways that I get from your work, your life experiences. That really connects to me because it's so new. How are some of the ways that you teach that Expect the unexpected.

Yeah. You know, obviously some of my teachings come directly from the expeditions that I've, you know, set forth in, you know, just to sort of draw on my book a little bit. Again, it is a, you know, adventure memoir of becoming the first person history to cross Antarctica alone. But it's interspersed with all these kind of flashbacks from my life that ultimately are sort of teachings. And the hope is, and the book really was written the way I wrote it was not just to God. If you really are excited about Antarctica or adventure, you should read this book. It's actually like if you are ambitious in any sort of pursuit, this book has tangible take homes told through a narrative that is edge of your seat exciting storytelling. But you know, I get feedback from single mothers who are like in the Midwest, who are really not interested in mountains or expedition whatever, going like, oh my God, I got so much about this, about relationships and partnership and never I've got people who are badass entrepreneurs or CEOs going like, oh my God, this is perfect for my team because it's instilling these types of lessons. So for me, when I do talk about, and I will get to your question, talking, you know, the context of an expedition, for me it's just a rich environment that I personally love to bring people into. But because the stakes are life and death, because your decisions are very consequential, it's actually a really great overlay for high performance really in anything that you're trying to get after. And the book is called the Impossible first. And that is what I call my Antarctica Crossing. But my hope is that when people set the book down, they feel inspired to take on their own impossible first in their life, whatever that is. Like I said, I'm not just advocating like go to Antarctica or climb Everest. It's like, if that's not for you, who cares? Fine, that's just my passion. But in terms of the lessons around adaptation. I think one of the biggest things, particularly when you put yourself in an environment like I was in Antarctica, like rowing a boat across Drake Passage, like climbing Everest, like some of the other things I've done, is you're ultimately at the mercy of Mother Nature, for lack of a better word. And I think that there's few of us on this planet that think that we are fully in control when all of a sudden a storm can rage in or the weather can shift, or a million other things that just are fully out of your control when you're out there. And that is a very good example of what it's like to navigate the business world, what it's like, like to navigate personal relationships and things like that, to realize we are really only in control of ourselves. But there's all of this external storms sort of brewing on the outside. And so, you know, one of the things in terms of expecting the unexpected is Jenna and I, when we set off on these expeditions, we always have a plan. You know, we're like, well, it'd be crazy not to have a plan. It's like we think the Antarctica crossing is going to take about two months. I need roughly this much food, I need to train to be able to drag a 375 pound sled. You know, all of these types of things. However, the subtext or the asterisks, the big like kind of highlighted asterisks would be like, but we know this plan is not going to work. We have to have a plan. We have to have a base level to start with a business plan, if you will. We're actually saying in our minds consciously to begin this process. There are so many variables, nature, health, wellness, logistics, that this would be nearly impossible for it to all go to plan. So just expect that we're going to have to pivot. And in Antarctica, it's a great example. You know, I get out there, like I said, I train for all these things. I announced to the world I'm going to try to be the first person in history to make this crossing. You know, other explorers had tried before me and failed. You know, it was a big New York Times article to launch the whole thing. This tiny little plane drops me off on the edge of Antarctica, 375 pound sled and hour one, day one. I cannot pull my sled. Like I can barely pull it. And the chapter in my book about this is actually called Frozen Tears because what happens when you. I actually started crying because I felt so bad for myself. It's minus 25 degrees outside. And what happens? Like the tears, they start freezing to your face, like all time. Pathetic. Now I thought to myself, things aren't going to go the way that I hoped they would. At some point I thought that I was setting out to do something that people had said was impossible. So it was possible that I was going to fail. But I'll tell you what, I did not think that that failure or that doubt was going to come in hour one, you know, mile one of a nearly thousand mile journey. That was a tough thing to react to. So I pick up my satellite phone and I call home to Jenna, thinking I said to her, like, look like this might be over before it starts. She's like, what? Like it's day one. We didn't actually expect for this. But she says to me, she goes, do me a favor, just get to the very first waypoint. So I have these like GPS markings. And the first waypoint was like a mile or two from where I was just like, I don't care how long it takes you to get there, get to the very first waypoint. And then tonight go to sleep in your tent and we're gonna regroup. And to me, the less than that and the way that I think that applies to other people is we had another literally, literally nearly thousand miles to go. I had thousands and thousands of decisions that need to be made between the first waypoint and the last waypoint. But Jenna said, like, forget about the whole path, forget about the whole plan. Execute on one tiny little incremental step now. Then we get to that waypoint that night, and she's like, I think you have too much food in your sled. It's too heavy. Here's these things, let's adapt. And she actually convinced me in this really kind of intense way to actually reduce the amount of food that I had in my sled, which is kind of my life source ultimately weight, though, and leave it there at the start line, which ultimately, fortunately was still in a zone where that could get picked up and have a negative environmental impact. But the point in that and the lesson how that applies to all of us is you set a massive goal. You answer that question, what your Everest is, for me, in this case, it was crossing Antarctica. Then you have a plan that you're going to execute on and you say to yourself, at some point you're going to have to adapt this plan. But don't be surprised if you get smacked in the face. Day one, minute one, you still have to remember, hey, I still committed to this. It's not all given up. There are frozen tears on my face right now. But I'm going to figure out how to adapt and evolve. And in this case, bouncing an idea off a strategic partner, in this case, my wife really trying to problem solve in the moment, even though the stakes are so high, it is very embarrassing. If I had told the whole world and New York Times, it just run. This man tries to cross Antarctica and the next day it's like. And he failed after one mile. But that kind of urge to say, there's not a single entrepreneur that I know that's been very successful. There's not a single creative artist, you know, people that we've, you know, athlete, et cetera, that we generally point to as, you know, quote, unquote successful, you know, mother, parent, whatever that is, that hasn't had to pivot a number of times. There are very few people that says, like, oh, yeah, I turned in my business plan for this great app and it was a unicorn overnight. You know, that's just not how it works. And so that applies everything. You have to be willing to adapt in real time, shift your purpose, shift your goals, take food off your sled, take your life source away. That might be hedging against a different risk in the future. And that is the pathway I have found any ways to navigate these challenges and ultimately becoming successful in those.

What everyone needs to understand, because I.

Wouldn'T have understood this if I hadn't.

Researched you so much. There was a true, real threat of dying if you don't have enough food. The challenge for you or anyone trying something like this is you needed to pack enough food so you would be sustainable to actually live and feed yourself. And even you, as prepared as you were for this, I know that I've read or heard that you were somewhat emaciated by the end of this.

Yeah. So the crossing that had never been done before is something called unsupported and unassisted in Antarctica. So unsupported means no resupplies or food or fuel throughout. And then unassisted means no use of like sort of kites or dogs or anything else to propel you. But the unsupported is kind of the key part of what we're talking about right now, which is that means there's no resupplies I couldn't have, like, oh, I ran out of food, you know, fly over in a plane and drop me off food, or there's a GPS coordinate where I stash another extra, you know, 50 days of food or Something like that. So basically it's like a closed system. And it harkens back to kind of the history of, you know, age old exploration from 100 years ago. Because obviously a guy like Ernest Shackleton or Amundsen or these guys were exploring Antarctica for the first time, didn't have the choice to say, you know, calling on their gps, like, hey, just drop me off some more food, I'm hungry. It's like they were going out there and they had what they had. And so it's kind of, you know, thought to be unsupported. One of the purest forms of exploration in the polar environments. There had been a couple other people who had attempted this crossing previous to me. One guy, unfortunately, after 71 days, fell ill and ultimately passed away. Another guy, the year before I attempted, he ran low on supplies. He was fortunately able to get picked up before anything life threatening happened to him. But it ended his expedition because he was just out of food and fuel. And so it's this weird equation which is how much food and fuel can I take with me in my sled without running out, but if it's too much, you can't pull it. Like I said, I thought I could pull £375 to start. It turned out that was too heavy. I needed to lower it about 350. But if you put 1,000 pounds of food, you're just never going to move at all. Even though you have tons of food. You could sit there and eat day after day after day, but you wouldn't move at all. And so it's this very fine balance between having enough and not. And so for me, sounds like a lot of food. While we're sitting here in our warm cozy houses, I was eating 7,000 calories per day, but I was burning at least like 10,000, maybe more often. And so I was running about a 3,000 calorie deficit every single day. From the beginning I was starving. And so by the end, you know, I had, my hips were protruding, my ribs are protruding. I put on £20 knowing I was going to lose this, but I still lost so much weight that I was very emaciated. And so you can imagine the stakes knowing that going in. Obviously I was aware that was going to happen. Going in, having research and trained for this, and then having that phone call on day one, which is, you have to get rid of food, basically you have to get rid of your excess supplies. And we are taking a gamble because this is, we are only going to know if this was the right decision. 50 days in the future when you do or don't run out. And ultimately I finished the crossing. I had 55 days of food after I dropped the food at the beginning and I finished on the afternoon of the 54th day. So I was more or less down to, you know, my last few bites of food as I made this push to finish. So it was, you know, it's definitely a razor thin margin being able to complete something like this. And again, applying that backwards. You know why I think the expedition environment is such a great place to learn these lessons? Because the stakes are very real. Now. Not all of us want to or should be necessarily in these life, quote unquote, life threatening or really high risk environments like we're talking about right here. But we do decisions we make. I know entrepreneurship is a big focus of yours. Obviously decisions that you do make in your business can be sink or swim decision. Should I allocate resources to these couple employees? Should I hire a creative brand design to launch this product? Should I this or that? If I allocate those resources here and it doesn't work well, my balance sheet is zero. Does that mean I go bankrupt? Can I not invest in the next product lines? Do I have to furlough or leave staff off? We are constantly optimizing and making these decisions and we can either be paralyzed by the fear of them and not make them, but not making a decision, I think we both know is actually making a decision. It's just making no decision is your decision. And so it's a really high stakes environment to facilitate these type of thought processes. But they really do apply to so many avenues, avenues of life, which is how to assess risk, how to make decisions, how to allocate resources, time, etc. In various different kind of buckets. And ultimately how to be confident in those decisions and move forwards. And sometimes they're the wrong decisions, but how to then pivot quick enough off the wrong decisions to not completely sink your ship, so to speak.

So there's one other element I want to get into in regards to Antarctica, just because I'm not sure if everyone understands. And I think it's really interesting, the.

Element of competition for you in this scenario and how you've explained that in the end you feel like it benefited you and Lou, the other person that happened to be taking on the same massive goal at the exact same time on that day when you were standing there crying, thinking that you might not be able to move forward.

Quick historic context, I won't go too far down this, but Basically, as other explorers that attempted this in previous years had kind of come into the zeitgeist of exploration, like, will someone be able to do this? Is it impossible? You know, who might be the first? And so, you know, I guess it wasn't a huge surprise, but it turned out that somebody else, another really experienced explorer by the name of Captain Lurud, a British guy, was attempting the crossing at the very same time. Now, Antarctica has a very specific season. You can really only attempt this during the Antarctic summer. So that's our northern hemisphere winter. And the logistics are so complicated and expensive that there's like, really only one guy, you know, one company with a. That can drop you off on a specific date, et cetera, that you have to charter. It's very complicated. And so not only was somebody attempting this at roughly the same time, literally there was this tiny plane, we were both loaded into it on the exact same day, sitting shoulder to shoulder, dropped off on the edge of Antarctica. We made the choice to be dropped off one mile apart from each other, so we weren't literally standing next to one another. But you can imagine it's a, you know, like I said, nearly a thousand mile race, and it's like, ready, go. And there's just a guy, like, right over there. And this guy, you know, I kind of get into it in the first chapter of my book is he is intimidating the hell out of me. I mean, he's, you know, quite a bit older than I am, but really experienced. One of the most experienced polar explorers in the world. He's, you know, British military, you know, seasoned, seasoned British military veteran. All these kind of accolades from, you know, Buckingham palace had sent him off, you know, to like, do that. You know, it's just. And I'm like, oh, my God. Like, I'm, you know, relative novice in polar exploration. Here's this guy who's been on some of the most pioneering expeditions in the world. Like, and then day one happens, I can see him a mile away from me because in Erica, it's just like this blank, empty, white place. I can't move my sled. And what do I see? This guy in like, full military march, just taking off and disappearing on the horizon. And so not only am I thinking I'm gonna fail, just personally, because I was thinking more of his personal challenge, but I was like, my competition on day one has already just left me in the dust. And it was really hard to kind of wrap my mind around that now, you know, in contrast to that, you know, your point of the competition Elevating it ultimately did. Once I kind of found my rhythm again, did motivate me. Ultimately, I caught up to him on the sixth day. There's this kind of weird moment where we exchanged just a couple of words like, we've run into each other in the middle of this literally blank white. You know, it's minus 25 degrees, it's 24 hours of daylight. It's endless white. Either white out or that is the weirdest. Like being on a different planet. But it's like being inside, I say inside the belly of a ping pong ball. It's just like disorientingly white and cold everywhere you go. There's not a lot of features on the horizon. So I spot him, we exchange a couple words. I ultimately take the lead and I stay in the lead. But not like it was just easy. Like every single day I would wake up, I was pulling my sled 12 hours a day, and there was about five hours on either side of that of chores of melting water and setting up my tent in these extreme conditions and. And my fingers were getting little bits of frostbite and fixing my gear and all these things. A lot of hard work manually. About 17 hours every single day. So you can imagine when your alarm goes off every single day on the 37th day of this, you're like, alarm goes off 17 hours again in this brutal cold, in this storm. And this, this. There was not a single day that I didn't get up. I never actually took a rest day the entire time. And a lot of that has to do with once I was in the lead, I was like, if I even take a few hours off, if I like, don't get out of bed immediately, if I don't start my day consistently, if I don't put in 12 hours in a sled, he's gonna catch up to me. And ultimately, I think there's two key take homes I think apply here. One is, although the competition was heated and we were both certainly trying to be the first and spoiler alert, I was the first. I beat him by a couple of days. We both agree we've now continued a friendship and I'm so grateful for that. I'll talk about that in a second. But. But we have both agreed that us both being out there competing for the same goal elevated both of ours game and the possibility no one had completed this crossing before. And yes, I was first, but Lou was only a couple days behind me. And we both kind of acknowledged that had either of us not been there, it's possible neither one of us would finish. And so, of course, how does that apply across the board, which is. Competition can be very healthy in the sense that it really requires you to focus or it requires you to not take a day off. It requires you to keep your eye on the prize. It retires you to keep your eye on the goal. And then ultimately, you know, for me, and this is more of a personal thing, is after making that crossing and like I said, very proud to be first, et cetera. But it's not like I wanted to stand at the finish line after that and, like, beat on my chest. As intimidated as I was by Lou in the beginning, what ultimately overcame me was this deep sense of gratitude and camaraderie and realizing there's 7 billion people on this planet. There's one other guy that actually knows the intensity of what it took to drag this sled across Antarctica all alone. I could either be, like, continued like an adversary of his, but rather, both of us were like, thank you for being out here. Like, thank you for this. And the fact that I can. You know, I was texting with him just a few days ago that I can, like, call him up or text him or whatever, and if we want to, like, reminisce on the experience or talk about other expeditions, like, ultimately, like, I have the most respect in the world for this guy. It's absolutely extraordinary what he did. I'm proud of my own accomplishment. And so it doesn't have to be such a, you know, binary winner, loser, this, that, the other thing. It's like the power of the human spirit, the power that we all have inside of us to achieve these extraordinary things. Both of us, our competition, elevate each other to our best and highest levels. And ultimately, I'm proud of my accomplishment, and I'm proud that both of us were able to complete this crossover.

Yeah, I'm really proud of you for waiting for him, too. I was just blown away seeing still how uncomfortable you were. It wasn't like they had some, you know, four seasons igloo waiting for you when you made the end, and you could kind of have a cocktail and wait for him. I mean, you were still in that crappy tent out in negative whatever degrees, and you waited two days for this man.

Yeah, I could have. Ultimately, you know, hopefully the plane could have come and picked me up and took me out of there, back to food and a shower and this little, like, bigger encampment that's in Antarctica. But ultimately, it just. You know, I thought about it as hungry and tired and all the things that I was. I was like, it just doesn't seem right to just kind of, you know, fly back to that and, you know, maybe never see him again, because I could have ultimately kind of left the continent, depending on how the logistics lined up before ever seeing him again. And I'm so grateful that I did make that decision to wait. Although, yes, those couple of days weren't that comfortable. I thought to myself, I've been out here for however many days already, what's another couple of days to ultimately, ultimately kind of really have a full, you know, 360 reflection on this and be able to kind of debrief it with Lou? And, you know, one thing that neither of us really anticipated, I suppose at the time, we knew that there was some press and media covering this. We had no idea, you know, kind of how big that that had become out in the world. And this competition was really followed very closely out in the kind of mainstream media. There was ultimately something like 2 billion media impressions on this. But I was only talking to Jenna on my satellite phone, and she was more or less keeping me pretty much protected from the reality of that, to just stay super focused on it. And so the second both him and I got back to, quote, unquote, the real world, we were both whisked off before we even went to our homes. Both of us flew to New York City and we were on talk shows. We were on this and all of that, which in itself was, I guess, a humbling and interesting experience. Very bizarre having been alone in a tent in Antarctica for two months to be on the bright lights of live television in Manhattan. But more so to your point, those moments, those couple of days that I waited for him, I had these moments of reflection myself and did a lot of writing that actually informed the writing that was in my book and kind of this very pure place before being untouched by all people asking questions about the experience. And then also, Lou and I were able, in our couple days there, as well as the several flights and things that basically took about a week actually, to unpack the logistics to get us all the way back to South America. Him and I were able to have a series of conversations and meals and things, just the two of us, before kind of being thrown back into the real world, which, from a kind of assimilation of the experience, when I look back, I'm so grateful that I have that and that I didn't make the choice which would have been the easy choice, just from the comfort level to say, get me out of here. I am freezing cold, I'm tired, my bones are sticking out, I'm hungry, I need a shower. I've been wearing the same pair of underwear for 55 days. Like get me the heck out of here. And making the choice to weigh ultimately was the the best thing for just assimilating that as well as the ongoing friendship and camaraderie that I feel towards Lou.

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It's such a do the right thing move. So congrats there.

All right. I want to jump to something that I don't know that you see it.

This way, but I do.

I keep seeing you jump into things as a rookie and for me, leaving corporate America and becoming a rookie in the entrepreneurial world, being a rookie as an author, being a Rookie as a TEDx speaker, all those things have been scary for me. You've done all these things, you know, a decade earlier than I have. And not only did you acquire all the success on solo trips and by yourself, but you jumped in and became a rookie rower on a team with a team of people. And I'm so interested how you felt mentally going from all these personal accomplishments now to jump into this rowing space and never been done before yet again, and having to rely on all these people and showing up that you're the new guy that everyone can count on is going to do a great job.

Yeah. So, you know, after finishing the solo, Antarctica, you know, crossing, of course there's the inevitable question, what's next? What's next? What's next? And it's funny how that the world is like that, you know, no matter what someone does, doesn't matter who you are, it's always like, okay, great, you know, what's next? It required a little bit of thought for me to think about, you know, what was next. But one of my biggest curiosities, and we touched on earlier, is growth mindset. You know, it wasn't for me, it was never, you know, I was always fascinated by Antarctica. And ultimately the rowboat, I guess did take me back to Antarctica in a very different way. But it wasn't like, oh great, well, now I have this, you know, world first accolade of crossing Antarctica in this way. Is there another polar expedition that I can do that's like even harder or just a slight variant on this? And look, I admire the people that have done that. Someone like Captain, Captain Liu has done, you know, four or five major expeditions in Antarctica and that's the place that he just wants to continue doing pull sleds in different ways, you know, with teams or whatever. But I've always been fascinated to say, can I take what I've learned in this expedition? Basically, can any of us take what we have in this moment and have learned our past experiences and then apply them to a completely new medium? Can you take your experience in the corporate world and apply it to this new playing field of entrepreneurship? Right. And so maybe the easier thing to do would be to kind of replicate what I've done before in a new, you know, sexy way or whatever. But I thought, can I take a sport now that I've literally never done? And so this case it was rowing, ocean rowing. I never rode a boat like at a summer camp. I never rode a boat, you know, you know, when I was in college or anything like that. Not only am I gonna try to row a boat, but now I'm gonna try to row a boat across my. What's known to be the most treacherous stretch of ocean in the world, Drake Passage, from the southern tip of South America to Antarctica. You know, you're talking icebergs, freezing cold water, 40 foot waves, some of the worst storms you ever see. The convergence of the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic and the Pacific. I mean, a brutal, brutal, brutal stretch of water. And going out there with no motor, no sail, the only way to propel ourself in this rowboat and then overlay on top of that, which is, yes, I've done these other expeditions and not just the Antarctica crossing, but my other previous world records were all solo endeavors. You know, there were other people like Jenna, other partners who helped me out, you know, incrementally along the way. But ultimately all those world records are, you know, Colin o' Brady sets the record for X, Y or Z. And so it was like, can I do something that is a team project? Now the rowboat, the only way to move that rowboat was to have six of us on this tiny little, like 28 foot long, you know, four foot wide rowboat that only Sits a few feet out of the water. You look at it, you're like, that is gonna sink immediately. A wave hits it. It's a tiny little thing. And the cramped quarters of that, the teamwork, the risk associated with that, all these things, you know, can we bring together a group of guys? And ultimately, it was an amazing group of people, you know, all of which had, you know, previous rowing experience, certainly way more so than I did. Not everyone had ocean rowing experience, but everyone had rowing experience. I'd never been on the ocean. I had never been in a team environment this intense. I had never rowed a boat before. And I set myself the goal to say, hey, I want to do this at the highest level in a short period of time. Now, the part that I do think is important to take from this is it's not a. On the outside, it might look like a crazy pivot or sort of a kind of a reckless thing. Like, I'm going to just try to be like the new guy that's working this. But I have a fundamental belief that we are often afraid to do things that we've never done before. However, we are actually closer to achieving them than we might think based on our previous experience. So if you line the resumes up with me and these other guys who are ultimate, dear friends of mine, incredible guys, four different countries, three different continents, all these kind of accolades and rowing, etc. But I was the only one that had done a really intense expedition in Antarctica before. Someone who knows how to navigate cold. Ultimately, how does that stack up in an expedition like this? Well, you have to take care of yourself and your physical mental health over a long duration of time in extreme isolation, well, that's going to happen on the rowboat. Your nutrition has to be dialed. The logistics of preparing an expedition that require, like, the paperwork to get a boat through the, you know, imported through the Panama Canal into southern Chile, and to have all the paperwork to go to Antarctica, I mean, that doesn't. That's not the sexy part of expedition, but, like, that is a requirement. Raising the money and the funding and the sponsorship. Like, it's like, oh, wait, yes, I do not have the skill of ocean rowing, but there's a whole bunch of other skills right below the surface that I can apply to this new medium. And so for me, it was really fun to exercise this very new muscle, I suppose, but also draw strength from the previous experience and what that means to me. And I think that hopefully what that illuminates for others is that although a leap into the unknown can be very scary. You also might be way more prepared for it than you actually might think. And the proof is if you apply yourself. For me, I applied myself to learning rowing. Yes. I had never rowed before, but I've pushed myself as an athlete for years and years and years and know what it's like to push my body and train for something or whatever. So I was able to apply that and learn this new skill by bringing in experts to teach me a lot of that. You know, am I, you know, the world's best, best, best rower of all time now? Maybe. No. The answer is no. Was I a part of a team and in a leadership role of this team to become the first people and were we successful in doing this? Absolutely, yes. And you know, it was really fun project. I gotta give a little bit of a shout out. We did this big kind of television documentary around it for Discovery Channel. There's a bunch of kind of short episodes of it online that you can check out or on my Instagram, but there's also a feature length documentary that's coming out on Discovery the Fall. And so I've already just seen the rough cuts and stuff of it. Insane footage, just drone footage of us approaching Antarctica and these crazy waves and all this. They couldn't give us any support or supplies or anything like that, but they were able to capture it in a really incredible way. So I'm kind of excited to share that with the world soon once that comes out.

Yeah, I just watched all of the short videos on YouTube through the discovery documentary or shorter version. It's unbelievable. It is so exciting. Words don't do it justice. And that's why I think it's really important for everybody to check this out on COLLINS Instagram or YouTube, wherever, because it doesn't do it. No one understands how small that boat was and watching how it capsized and flipped back and those waves. So please check that out. And one other thing I wanted to bring up about this story in particular, Colin, that I really personally love, because this is new for me, was your work that you did on visualization with the beginning of that journey and you already seeing, celebrating with the guys and then actually in the end playing it out on tape and being able to see that.

Yeah, 100%. You know, I've, I've always, you know, I think that visualization is really powerful. I often say, obviously we talked a lot about mindset in this conversation, but I love saying, you know, I think the most important muscle any of us has is the six inches between our ears. And obviously these expeditions that I do require physical preparation, but ultimately the mental preparation, I think is so crucial, you know, in the execution phase, in when the going gets tough, and how to keep yourself motivated, how to stay, you know, mentally sharp. You know, meditation has been a huge part of my journey. There's a number of different ways, you know, obviously to exercise and flex that muscle, but you need to actually develop that muscle of your mind. But, you know, visualization certainly has been really key. Like I said, you know, just like when I have any plan for anything, I don't, you know, I have the plan and then I know the plan is not exactly going to work, but I'm going to adapt and evolve. But, you know, in my solo Antarctica crossing, I had never been there before, obviously, but the other side of the continent, there's this post hammered into the ground. And I had just known that, you know, basically from doing all my research and stuff like that. I didn't even know exactly what this post measured in the ground is, but it's like a US survey marker in the ground. And that marked the edge of the continent, the beginning of the ice shelf. And every single day in training and preparation, as well as during my crossing, I saw myself touching that post and being like, I have crossed Antarctica. And ultimately, you know, that came to fruition. And so I applied the same methodology with this team environment, which is I knew that the teamwork was going to be such a crucial element to this crossing. And for me also, success in rowing this boat across the ocean as much as us, and the six of us crossing the ocean together and touching the edge of the continent is objectively successful success looked to me like touching the edge of the continent with five new lifelong friends, comrades, basically teammates who we've gone through this together and not being like, yeah, we did this together, but never speak to me again, or something like that. As, you know, in hyper intense team environment can devolve in that situation. But my visualization was not only crossing and getting to that finish line and each individually being proud, but ultimately saying I was one sixth of a larger whole. And here we are with our arms around each other, like, not I did this and I did this and I did this, but six separate eyes, but six of us collectively looking at it and say, we did this. And so that was sort of my constant visualization. And as you've seen from some of the discovery footage, you know, it's literally, you know, exactly as happened, is it wasn't scripted, obviously, but we jump onto the shores of Antarctica and we wrap our arms around each other and it's like, we freaking did this. There's icebergs and penguins and, like, we're all, you know, emaciated and, you know, exhausted and all the things. But it was a beautiful thing. And I think that there's a lot of power in that. You know, maybe you can't visualize every single one of the dots and how they connect, moving forwards, et cetera, but when you set that business plan, when you set an intention around whatever that goal is, a personal goal, a professional goal goal, I do think it's very powerful to draw in that visualization of that outcome that you are really seeking. And, you know, careful what you put into that visualization because, you know, dare to dream as greatly as you possibly want to, because I really believe that we can manifest and create those things, particularly when we have it, you know, hammered into our brain. And that's the, you know, obviously where our energy and life force goes towards.

Colin, I could talk to you forever, but I'm already over time and I.

Don'T want Jenna mad at me.

So tell everybody where can they find you?

Come say hello. I'm very active on Instagram. That's probably my most active social media platform. That's just my name, Colin o'. Brady. Share all my expeditions there. I post, you know, pretty much every single day on there. So definitely come say hello on there. My website, colinobrady.com has all the information about booking me as a speaker, information about my book, which I really poured my heart and soul in and is really, really proud of. Came out a few months ago. Recently hit the New York Times bestsellers list. It's called the Impossible First From Fire to Ice, Crossing Antarctica alone. Definitely encourage you to check that out. Pick up a copy, drop me a note when you read it. Let me know what you think. If you don't like reading, there's also an audiobook that I narrate myself. So, yeah, check it out. Appreciate it and really fun conversation. Thanks for having me on.

Thank you so much, Colin. Hang tight.

We'll be right back. I asked you to try to find your passion. I'm so happy you got to meet Colin. I can't wait to hear what you think of him. Please leave me comments on my posts on social media. Send me dms. I can't wait to hear what you think. And I also want to know, what is your Everest? What is your big, huge goal that you're going to commit to, that you are going to Go after. I'll tell you. For me, it was. Well, first it was me writing my first book, Confidence Creator, which I'm super proud of. But I want to remind you, there's. There's mistakes in it, you know, done will always be better than perfect in my book. Still so glad I freaking did it. I'm so proud of myself and going to work for myself. I remember I used to say, I'm unemployed. And then finally I had to say, I work for myself. Like, that was a huge leap. So that was my Everest for a long time. Then when Covid hit, it was changing my business and launching my mentoring program. Not knowing what I was doing, not having a wealth website up, not being ready for it, and just posting on social media. This is what I'm doing. This is what I'm offering. Are you in? And I had the most amazing feedback from my May team and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that. Now. The accomplishments that these people have had, what, what they've done, I'm so flipping proud of them. And the friendships and relationships, network and collaboration that have grown out of this have been amazing. And that I did not forecast, I did not see. I didn't know that was going to happen. Well, today I've been onboarding my new half of my team from May signed up again for June. Half of my team for June is new. So I was talking to them over the past couple days and we have our team meeting tomorrow, our first team meeting. And I was letting them know you are a part of an amazing group of people who you can trust, who you are safe with. These are people who are going to encourage you and challenge you to grow, who are there to help you and cheer you on, and you can be your real self in front of them and a couple of our teammates in May, Our last team meeting revealed some huge personal things with the team, and it was a real breakthrough moment for them because I think one of the biggest ways to claim your confidence is to step into your shame, to own your flaws, to step into your fear, right? All these really scary, hard things. When you do it and you do it in front of people, it doesn't feel so scary anymore. And then you walk away saying, I actually feel pretty good. And I've seen this whole domino effect in the month of May where my team did that, individuals did that, and them doing that elicited the same out of others. And it was a really cool thing. So I wanted to remind you, be so careful who you surround yourself with, whether you're on my team or on someone else's. Pick good people to be around that want to support, support you, to push you, to grow, not hold you back. And I saw it, I was so glad I didn't know when the new team was coming on. Oh gosh, I hope they're good people. I hope they're like minded like us, that they want to grow and push and they all are. I mean, everyone's very different. Different background, different ethnicity, different ages, different goals. But there's that one commonality of good people that want to get to that next level, that want to get to head and are willing to put the work in. And to me that's the key factor, that key thread across the team that needs to be there. So look around your team, the people that you're spending your time with and make sure they're stretching you, make sure they're supporting you, challenging you to get to the next level, but supporting you at the same time and picking you up on the days that you're down. Those are the kind of teammates you want to be around and the kind of teams you should be on. And if you are not, fire those team members. Fire your villains. Create boundaries for yourself and start recruiting new teammates because anyone can do it. I've seen it happen for me so many different times and I'm so proud that I've built this new team that came out of crisis and challenge and I'm excited to see where it goes and I'm so excited for our meeting tomorrow to welcome these new people in to this amazing group and to see the accomplishments that come out of this month. So if we can do it, you can do it too. Start creating your confidence today. Get a picture of what you're going to look like at the end of the month of June in your mind. Get clear on it and put that picture somewhere and start taking steps every single day. Action steps that will get you to that point. Action steps that will move you and your business forward. Start firing those villains. Start speaking as if you're worthy because you are. And one of the things I heard today, someone was saying, this is a stupid question. Heather, I know this is going to be a dumb question. And I had to catch this person and say, please don't say that anymore. And be self aware, if you start speaking negatively about yourself, that's how you're selling yourself to other people, they'll follow suit, they're going to start saying the same things. So instead let's speak really highly and strongly and powerfully about ourselves so others can do the same. And it's breaking some bad habits and implementing some new ones, which I know all of you can do because I've done it. And if I can do it, you.

Can do it too.

All right. Can't wait to see you next week. Thank you so much for sharing the show. Thank you for leaving your reviews. They mean the world to me. Please share on social media and tag me. And I will always reshare and tag you back. Until next week. Keep creating your confidence. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen.

No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

Come on this journey with me.