Alison Levine Interview - Nir & Far

Hi, I'm Nir Eyal, and this is the near and Far Podcast. This podcast is about business, behavior and the brain. On this show, I do a few things. I read quick articles I've written about topics shaping your behavior. I interview authors of books I enjoy, and from time to time I devote episodes to answering your questions. If you want to ask me a question, visit the podcast page on itunes, go to Ratings and Reviews, and ask me a question. By leaving a review, I promise to read it and possibly include your question in a future episode. So please ask me anything now. Enjoy the episode and for more, you can always Visit me@nearandfar.com.

Hello, welcome to near and Far. I am Nir Eyal, and we are broadcasting to you live today from the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial center here in sunny San Francisco. Today's guest is someone who truly does push the limits. Not only her limits, but the limits of mankind. Allison Levine is the author of on the Edge. See, she is a person who has led the first female expedition to the top of Mount Everest. She has touched the highest peak in every continent, including expeditions to the north and South Pole. She started successful companies, and she wrote this New York Times bestseller, On the Edge Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme Environments. Alison Levine, it's an honor to have you here today with us. Thank you so much.

It's an honor to be here.

So tell us why this book? What inspired you?

So I found that so many of the leadership lessons I learned in the mountains, whether it was serving as the team captain for the first American Women's Everest expedition or climbing an unclimbed peak, doing a first descent somewhere, somewhere no one had ever been. A lot of those lessons, the business lessons I learned or the leadership lessons I learned really applied to not only the business world, but to life's everyday challenges that people face on a daily basis. So I wanted a way to share the lessons I learned in these extreme environments so so people could apply them to their everyday challenges that they face.

So what I really liked about this book is that you have a lot of counterintuitive insights. It's not the same advice you hear again and again. So I just want to walk through some of these that I think are particularly counterintuitive, like, look for teammates with big egos. It's the exact opposite of what people would generally tell you. Why do we want teammates with big egos?

So every management leadership book you read, it's that leave your ego at the door thing. And this is actually some advice that I got from Coach K. Mike Krzyzewski, who wrote the forward for my book. So for people who aren't familiar with him, he's the head men's basketball coach at Duke University, the winningest coach in the history of Men's Division 1 college basketball, and for people who don't care about college basketball, and for Duke haters, because I know there's a lot of them out there. Coach K is also the head men's basketball coach of our U.S. olympic team, our U.S. men's basketball team. They've brought home several gold medals now. And I serve on the board of the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics at Duke. And I was at a breakfast a few years ago where Coach was talking about what he looks for when he's recruiting that Olympic team. And I thought it was really interesting because he said that he looks for ego. And I thought, well, right, because you don't want that, right? Leave your ego at the door. I get it. And he said, no, you want ego. And I thought, wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense. He went on to explain it, and then it did make sense. He said that when he's recruiting a team, there's two kinds of ego that he looks for. The first is what he calls performance ego. He said, I want people who are good and who know that they're good. He said, I don't want LeBron James to come out onto the court and be a wuss. You know, I want him to be LeBron James with all that confidence. And I thought, all right, that makes sense. Because I don't want to be climbing Mount Everest with a teammate who's thinking, gosh, I don't know, maybe we're a little out of our league. You know, maybe we shouldn't be here. You want to be climbing with people who are thinking, you know, I've got this. I've got this. So that's performance ego. The second kind of ego that Coach K looks for is what he calls team ego. And he said, I want people on my team who are going to be proud to be a part of something that collectively feels more important than the individuals alone, right? Name on the front of the uniform. Team usa. More important than the name on the back of the uniform. And that made sense to me, too, because when I was recruiting our Everest Expedition members, I wanted women who were going to be proud to be a part of the first American women's Everest Expedition and wear our country's flag on their sleeves. So what he said about ego really Made good sense to me.

Yeah. So how do you screen out for entitlement?

That's interesting because that's something different. And also you can have a strong ego and treat people well. Having a strong ego doesn't mean that you treat people poorly or you have that sense of entitlement. And for me, it came from just asking questions. I did phone interviews with potential candidates for our team and I asked them a lot of questions and I could tell by the questions they asked whether or not they were going to be a good fit for the team. So when you bring up entitlement, when people would ask questions like, are we getting paid? Are we flying first class? And I'm thinking no and no. And I thought, maybe this is a person who isn't going to be such a great fit. But when I would have people that would ask me, gosh, is there any way, if I'm not chosen for the team, is there any way I could still come and pay my own way to base camp and stay and support you somehow, or can I help you build a website or raise money? And so I thought those are the people who are going to be a good fit. They don't have that sense of entitlement and they're asking more questions about how they can help rather than asking questions about what's in it for them.

Right. So what do you do when you give a lot of talks? You give over 100 talks a year to different corporations about leadership skills. How do you spark that sense of purpose and mission for a company that's not climbing Mount Everest for not a great important visceral mission like pushing the boundaries of humankind? How do you inspire that in other companies?

Well, when you're passionate about what you do every day, you know, you realize that it is about having, you're still having impact. I mean, you might not be climbing a mountain in the middle of nowhere or skiing to the north or South Pole, but what you do every day has impact. And even though you're not in an environment where it's 50 below, you know, sub zero temperatures and hurricane force winds and sudden avalanches, you know, people are still in these environments where a lot of people are depending on them. Right. That their performance has an effect on not just them, but on the people around them. And they're dealing with these environments that they can't control, that are fairly unpredictable. So even though they're not in these remote, extreme environments, there's still so many parallels as to what they do every day. And you know, they start thinking Gosh, those situations are similar in that I have to make very tough decisions, but when the conditions around me are far from perfect and they're thinking, whatever plan I came up with last year, last month, even last week, is gonna be outdated as soon as it's finished because of how quickly things change these days. So I think people are motivated to get out there and really take on leadership positions themselves. So the book has a lot of leadership lessons in it, and I really stress that every person on a team, every person within an organization is in a leadership position. Leadership is not about title or tenure or how many people report to you or how big of a budget you oversee. It's about realizing that everybody on a team has a responsibility to help the team move toward a goal. Right. And everybody also has a responsibility to be looking out for one another. And I think when once people really realize that and empower themselves to think and act like a leader, and they realize that what they're doing every day, regardless of where they work, is incredibly important and has a lot of impact right now.

Do you think you can take a team member who's maybe not so inspired and change them into someone who is inspired and who is someone who has an ego that's a value add to the team, or is it just that you need to screen out some people versus others?

Well, attitude. So a bad attitude is something that's very difficult to overcome. But I do have a chapter in the book that talks about an expedition I did to the South Pole. It was a 600 mile ski traverse from the edge of the West Antarctic continent to the South Pole, where I was actually the person on my team who was the weakest link. And that was very difficult for me because I trained incredibly hard and I was very prepared for the trip. I felt I prepared as thoroughly as I could possibly prepare. And then I got there because of my size. So I'm five, four, about 110 pounds. I found that I couldn't drag a 150 pound sled across 600 miles of Antarctic ice as quickly or as efficiently as my teammates could. My teammates who were 62 or 6, 3, and £230, because the law of physics basically dictates that they're gonna be able to perform better with that heavy sled than I can. So for me, I became the person who was the drag on my team. I became the weakest link. I became the person that I knew was holding my team back. And that's not a great feeling, but the way our team leader handled it really changed my approach to leadership when it comes to dealing with people who are not strong performers. And the team captain for our trip actually ended up taking weight out of my sled and putting it in his sled. And another one of my teammates, who's really big and strong, also offloaded some of my weight and put it in his sled, making their sleds heavier and lightening mine up so that I could keep up with the team. And for me, that sent a really strong message about them wanting me to succeed, them wanting me to be part of the team, and that they valued my contributions, even though I wasn't as physically strong as they were. And in order to repay them, what I did is I became the person who shoveled the snow barricades around everybody's tent at night. So after you ski for 15 hours, you have to pitch a tent and then you have to protect it from the elements. So you have to build a snow barricade to protect it from the wind and the storms. And so I, because I was shorter to the ground, I could shovel snow more easily than the taller people. So I sort of found my sweet spot in an area that I wasn't expecting. Right. Becoming the team snow shoveler that would make the barricades around people's tents. And I did that in order to repay them for the extra weight that they put in their own sled. So I think that as leaders, we need to be creative. And instead of expecting people to overcome weaknesses, we need to be creative and help them compensate for their weaknesses. Because if you can take someone who is not a fantastic performer and help them compensate, you will often get a higher level of performance out of that person than you would have gotten out of them had they been an on par performer with everybody else to begin with. So it's just a good lesson about how to handle weaker team members. Right. Be creative. Help them find their sweet spot and not overcome, but compensate for the weakness.

Right. Right. Something I wanted to ask you while reading this book is you have an amazing threshold for pain. I do. And grit.

I do. I do.

And it seems, you know, we read the work of Angela Duckworth around how important grit is and determination. How do you have that level of grit and how do you develop it in others?

I think growing up in a tough love family is part of it. So I. Long story, but I was born with a hole in my heart that got bigger as I got older. So I had my second heart surgery and I turned 30. I had one more when I was 40. 4. You know, when I would complain about problems, you know, I feel like I can't breathe. I feel like there's an elephant sitting on my chest. And my parents were like, oh, you're fine. You're just nervous for the spelling bee or whatever. You know, I'm in fifth grade complaining about these things. And I think just learning that, you know, we had this rule in our family, no whining, no complaining. You know, just figure out how to do what you need to do and do it with a smile on your face. And I think that really set the tone for me because as a leader, you can never expect the people on your team to be willing to endure anything that you are not willing to endure. So when I am in these situations where it is painful and difficult, uncomfortable, and I'm exhausted and I have an altitude headache and I feel sick to my stomach, I know that the people on my team are feeling the same way. So I've got to still get out there, put a smile on my face, do what I'm supposed to do, because it's not about me, it's about the team. And that's what I do for the people around me. So that's just how it is for me. You just suck it up, you get out there, you do what you're supposed to do, and you do it for your team.

And what about the preparation side? I mean, so much preparation goes into before the expedition. How do you keep yourself motivated? I think a lot of people out there, whether they're self employed, whether they're working at a startup, you know that it's a daily grind before the big payoff comes along, you've got to just show up and keep doing the job every single day. And it's not glamorous. How did you kind of put yourself in that headspace to do what you need to do every single day?

So for me, it goes back to knowing that I have a team that's relying on me and knowing that I need to show up and be as prepared as I possibly can because I owe it to them to be that person that shows up. And I don't ever want to have something go wrong on an expedition because I didn't train hard enough or I wasn't prepared, or I didn't have the right gear or supplies with me. So I'm always thinking about, you know, up until the day that I'm on that mountain, and even every day that I'm on the mountain or I'm on the ski expedition, I'm thinking What do I need to do? You know, I gotta bring my A game every single day because this is what I, you know, the least I can do for the people on my team.

It's a lot of fear.

It sounds like there is. There is. So there's a lot of fear and a lot of stuff I do. You know, people will sometimes ask me, you know, how do you do this stuff without feeling scared? I feel scared all the time, but I just figured out how to use fear to help propel me forward. So fear, I think, can be a really helpful tool. It keeps me on my toes, aware of everything going on around me. I think when fear. Fear becomes dangerous is when it paralyzes you. So I always tell people, when you feel scared or intimidated, don't worry about that. It's just a normal human emotion. What puts you at risk is complacency. So complacency is really what will kill you when you're in the types of environments that I'm in.

Say more about that. What do you mean by complacency?

So, for example, I think about that a lot in this area called the Khumbu Icefall on Mount Everest. So there's this area between Base camp and Camp One on Mount Everest.

And.

And it's made up of 2,000 vertical feet of these big, huge moving ice chunks. And these ice chunks are massive. They're the size of small buildings. And what happens is the sun comes up, everything starts to melt. These big, huge, massive ice chunks, they start to shift around. So you're in constant danger of being crushed. So it's one of the scariest parts of the mountain. It's one of the most dangerous parts of the mountain. It's where most of the accidents typically occur. And people are really, really scared of the Khumbu Icefall. A lot of people will climb Everest from the north side just to avoid the Khumbu ice on the south side of the mountain. And, you know, when I'm going through it, I'm always very aware of the fact that if I get scared and I stop, that's when I'm at risk. Right, because the longer you're in that icefall, the more dangerous it is. You want to get through it as quickly and as efficiently as you can. So I always, you know, yes, it's very scary. And I'm going through there thinking, man, this is, like, really effing scary. But I just got to keep moving because being complacent, standing still, not taking action is really what puts you at risk. When you're in these types of environments that are constantly shifting and changing.

So keep pushing through the fear.

Push through the fear. Yeah. Just don't let it paralyze you. And realize it's okay to feel fear. It's normal to feel fear. I think there's something wrong with you if you're in the Khumbu Ice fault and you're not scared. So I say don't worry about it. If you feel scared or intimidated, that is normal. Complacency is what will kill you.

And what about what drives you to take on these challenges in the first place? I mean, once you sign up, once.

You'Re committed, yeah, you're in.

You gotta do it.

Yeah, you're all in.

Yeah. I mean, have you ever felt after you signed up, what'd I just do?

Yeah, I mean, plenty of times even. I mean, thinking about the first American women's Everest expedition, right? We were first team of American women to climb Everest together. We had this big sponsor, you know, Ford Motor Company was our sponsor. We had 450 media outlets following our climb. CNN doing live updates from the mountain. And then we missed the summit by a couple hundred feet because of bad weather. And then you go from, you know, doing all these media interviews and everything, and then you're just the butt of Jay Leno's opening monologue joke. And yes, that really happened when you get back. And it actually took me eight years before I got up enough courage to go back to the mountain and try it again. And I made it to the top on the second try in 2010. But what I learned from that experience is that we need to be more failure tolerant. Right. Because I made it up in 2010 when I had a really similar circumstance and that a storm came in like it did in 2002. So. So we missed the summit in 02 because of weather. Had the same type of weather in 2010. But because I knew a lot more about my pain threshold and my risk tolerance, I managed to actually make it through some pretty crappy weather to get to the summit in 2010. So because I had that previous failure in 2002, that experience sort of enabled me to get to the top in 2010. And I think in general, we're not really a very failure tolerant society, which is really too bad because the lack of failure tolerance really stifles progress and innovation and prevents people from taking risks.

And in fact, one of the lessons from your book that's counterintuitive is that success itself can be a problem. We always think that Failure is the problem. You're saying failure is good, but success is the problem. Tell me more about that.

I think when you succeed at things all the time and you never have a big setback or a big failure, you just kind of think, okay, I did it. Good for me.

Yay.

Pat yourself on the head or pat yourself on the back and move on. But when you have a failure, especially a high profile failure, you tend to really stop and reflect on your own performance, on your team's performance, on the situation. You think about what went wrong, what could have gone better. And it's interesting because when I made it to the top of Everest in 2010, you would think that I would think, yeah, the summit. But really what I was thinking is, all right, this is it. I mean, it just. It didn't seem like that big of a deal because I realized that what's important are the lessons you learn along the way. When you're fighting like hell to get up there, rather than the 10 minutes that you're standing on the top, you have to think about what you're gonna do with that information. Right. What you learned along the way during that battle, what you're gonna do with that information to be better going forward.

Right. I mean, is that the high for you? Because I hear this a lot from people who have been successful, who have accomplished things that are so amazing. They get there and they kind of have the same reaction of like, all right, that's it. And they almost get depressed from the fact that the struggle now has been checked off the box. There's nothing to then climb. Have you felt that?

It's interesting because there are so many other mountains that I want to go to, and people will think that, well, it's Everest. That's the highest one, so there's nothing left. Right. There's so many more mountains for me that I want to climb. I just got back actually a few weeks ago from doing the first ascent of a 22,000 foot peak in Nepal called Kongkarpo. Nobody had ever been there before. Nobody had ever climbed that peak. So for me, I just like going out and trying something that's never been done, Going out into the unknown. And whether I succeed or I fail doesn't matter to me because it really is about the lessons that you learn along the way, and those are always going to be helpful and valuable.

Yeah. So what's next for you professionally?

And I am working on a documentary film called the Glass Ceiling. If people are interested in checking out our film trailer, it's at www.theglasssailingmovie.com and it's a documentary about the first Nepali woman to climb Mount Everest. And her name was Pasang Lamu Sherpa. And she wasn't allowed to climb because she was a woman and they didn't let female Sherpas climb that mountain. And she basically said, look, women from 23 other countries have climbed our mountain, the one that's in our country, and I'm not allowed to climb it. This doesn't make any sense. So she went up against the Ministry of Tourism and fought for the right to climb, and she tried three times, unsuccessfully, to make it to the summit. She finally made it to the top in 1993 on her fourth attempt, but she died on the way down. So she didn't live to tell her. So we feel it's an important story to tell, so that's why we're making this film now.

Wow. Incredible, incredible story. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Of course. Thanks for having me.

This is on the Edge Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme Environments by Alison Levine. Thank you so much for being here. It was a pleasure.

My pleasure.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the near and Far Podcast. You can always find more at my blog, nearandfar.com and don't forget, if you have a question you'd like me to explore in a future episode, leave me your question. The former review for the podcast on itunes. Sam.