Dr. Mimi Zieman Conquered Everest Without Self-Doubt Holding Her Back

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. Well, you guys, I'm excited because when I get to meet people that are doing cool things, they introduce me to other people that are doing cool things. And so I'm so excited to get to talk to my next guest because I was introduced to her and heard about her book and all of the amazing things that she's doing. But we haven't had a chance to talk yet and get connected. And so this is such a great opportunity for us to be able to talk hear her do this thing story while you guys are hearing it as well. And so I am so excited to welcome Minnie to the show. Hi, Minnie.

Hi, Stacy. I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much. I can't wait to just hear all about your story because, man, you've been up to some really moving, powerful things, huh? Yeah.

Thank you. What I try to talk about is so aligned with what you do. So I'm thrilled to discover you and learn about your mission and how you coach people and teach people. And what I do is very similar, but without the coaching.

Yeah, I'd love to start off and have you share about you and your story.

Yeah, sure. So I'm an OB GYN now, but my story started as a young person when I faced fear and battled vulnerability to do the thing or do the hard thing, which is basically, I was the doctor on a very remote Everest expedition in Tibet when I was a 25 year old medical student. And I wrote a book about it just now, many, many years later, decades later, because I looked around me and I looked at things I did in my life and what other people are doing. And I wanted to connect around this message that it's okay to do things when you're afraid. And I'm very honest in my book. So I wrote a book that just came out called Tap Dancing on a Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure. And I'm very, very honest about My fears, self doubt and vulnerability. But how I moved forward anyway, which is sort of what I think brings us to connect with our deepest parts of ourselves and kind of live our best lives, so to speak. And I call it unlikely because I was a grown up in New York City, city girl, daughter of immigrants who literally came off the ship. I wasn't raised in Colorado hiking mountains every summer, but I did various things and pivots that eventually brought me to that role at 25. And we read a lot of mountaineering stories based on the climbers, which is fantastic. But I wanted to tell the story of someone in the background and a woman. I was the only woman on the team because those stories aren't told as much. And I like to say my Everest was being the doctor while still a medical student. It wasn't climbing the mountain. I was climbing my own fear of like, how could I serve in that role? So that's an overview.

Yeah. Cause you would think it would be the mountain, right? Yeah. So let's talk about that. So what was that like? And then we could talk about your book too. Cause it sounds like now so long later like, okay, I've got to share this story. And I'm imagining maybe you're kind of feeling that calling to help people overcome fear. And you knowing what it took you to do that while you're living it is something that people need to know.

Yeah, absolutely. And it was funny because while writing the book, all those fears came up again. It's not like you battle them. They go away. While writing a book. I'm. Who am I to write of a book? Who's going to want to read it? Who do I think I am? And it was literally what I was writing about, feeling as a medical student, who am I to serve as the doctor? We were in Tibet, in a very remote part of the mountain. We didn't see any other Westerners the whole time. There was no chance for rescue. The team was not using oxygen, they were not using Sherpa support. We were isolated. So it was a very risky situation. So why did I do it? For me, it was about being in the mountains, which was a long path to get there. So I discovered the mountains earlier. My love for the mountains. And basically this is another do the thing story. But when I was 22, I put on a backpack to hike alone in Nepal. I again was a city girl, not very experienced, didn't have the right equipment, but went all on my own and carried my weight the whole time. And that was really life changing. And When I got the opportunity to go back and serve in this role, I didn't want to miss it. I wanted to be in the mountains again for prolonged period of time. So it was a little bit of a calling. And I say that when I went forward, despite fear, to do these kinds of things, it was a gut feeling like this was the right thing for me to do. I had to do it. It was a passion. It was driven by curiosity. And those are the times I think it's good to push yourself because fear may be a good message to limit yourself in some situations. You don't want to do things you don't want to do. You don't want to say yes to just everything because other people want you to do it, or it's the way to be successful or whatever. I said yes to this because it was an internal driving force that I wanted to do. So I pushed through the fear. Wow.

Yeah. It's incredible hearing you talk about how each of these things, whether it was the Everest, both the hiking and then having to care for people. Right. And then the backpacking trip, and then you talking about the book and how each phase you're having to overcome the same internal things. Right. I think a lot of you said it so perfectly. So many people think, okay, I've accomplished this thing. Now I'm good. But no, every level, every hard thing you do, it comes back. And now you've learned how to manage that in such a beautiful way. And it sounds like what you've really gotten good at is trusting your gut and then being able to not question that feeling, and you're leaning in and you're creating this curiosity towards it.

Yeah. It's funny because since I've been doing book talks, some people say I don't have gut feelings or I don't know what that is. And that's been a fascinating thing for me to think about because that's the way I have described it. But I think it's also about. Well, that's a whole topic, being in touch with your body and your intuition and your feelings and your passions and curiosities. But then it's also noticing the opportunities in the world and taking advantage of them that I think I did get from being the daughter of immigrants because they had to start over and they had a. It's very much a yes mentality, like, yeah, I'm going to try that. And especially as women, I think we often underestimate ourselves a lot. And that's also why I wanted to tell the story a woman's story because yeah, I was not, oh, look at me, I'm brave. I'm confident, I'm going to go do this thing. I had a lot of self doubt, but I think that we're capable of a lot more than we think we are.

Yeah. It's so true. And I love what you just said. I just wrote it down. Stop underestimating yourself. That's what I'm hearing is, it's how many times do we do that? Right, where like you said, who's gonna hear this? Who's gonna listen? What am I gonna. Who's gonna care? And being able to know that it's not for everyone. Right. It's for you because you wanna get the story out. And then because you're so deeply committed to that connection point with yourself now it opens up time for everyone to be able to hear it. Right. Cause if you get stuck in that paralyzing fear of all of that, no one ever hears anything that we have.

Exactly, exactly. And the process of writing a memoir is all about recognizing how my truth can be universal for other people. So I was very aware while writing the book, which part of my experiences could other people relate to in their lives. It's not about climbing Everest or going to Tibet, but it's about what fears are holding you back. Are you just trying to be practical or safe? And that's fine. But what are you missing out then? Because there's a negative to that too. Staying in your safe zone and what is worth taking risks for. And these may be small things, changing jobs. Well, they're not small things, but again, not going to the Himalayas, but changing jobs or relationships or where you live or things like that. And hearing the examples from people who read my book who said, oh my God, now I did this and I was thinking about you has just been the absolute best part of reaching readers. Yeah.

Let's talk more about your book. So what's the framework of it? What do you think is kind of the core pieces of it that have gotten you most excited?

Yeah. So I call it kind of. It's about the risks you take to become your truest self. And I also call it a coming of age memoir because those are the years. It ends when I'm 25. So it asks the questions in those years, who am I? Who do I want to be? What's my purpose? What are my values? Those are running threads. But there are different people in particular that enjoy, for example, immigrant stories because I bring my family into it. And I'll tell you A little bit about them, but also medical narratives, adventure narratives, feminist narratives. So I tried to really thread a lot of themes through it. And people have been responding to those in different ways, which has been great. Even men, when they read it and just say, oh, my God, I saw myself in the immigrant family, or now I feel like I can do this risk or whatever. And it's very gratifying. So basically, my family, like I said, came off the ship. And my father was a Holocaust survivor, but also the only survivor in his family. His entire family, parents and siblings, were killed. And so they really had to start over in this country. And that affected me in many ways. And the bad ways in early life are kind of losing trust in the world. How can these horrible things happen? And the good ways are they were very strong people, and I think that strength was transmitted to me and sometimes in the form of benign neglect. They're so busy building their own lives. I felt very driven to find out who am I separate from them. Yet I make it clear at various parts how much they are with me. In Nepal, in Tibet, they're always there with me. I have a metaphor of I'm carrying them in my backpack, stitched in the seams and that sort of thing. Lots of metaphors, carried through. But also, as a woman, I'm very honest about things. Women go through harassment, and I just think that's kind of universal. So I mention all those things. And then because I'm a physician, I'm very upfront about bodily situations, the things that I encountered traveling and had to deal with on the mountain, in terms of periods and other bodily functions and things like that. And I just feel like, as a physician, I'm a good person to normalize that. Wow.

So when you say that wasn't really the mountain, that was the hard thing. It was the actual doctor part of it. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, sure. So I got the invitation about a year after starting medical school and thought there was no way I could do it. It was gonna happen two years later and basically didn't wanna miss the opportunity. So I reached out to experts and I studied high altitude medicine, wilderness medicine, nutrition for altitude physiology, and had to create a medical kit. And then one of the big things was had to get time off from medical school. And I ended up going at the end of my third year. So medical school's four years and kind of made that happen, although with a good amount of fear. I'm honest in the book of even going to therapy before leaving, because I was thinking this is a bit crazy and kind of realizing there that we have to embrace uncertainty anyway in life. We don't really have control over everything. And leaving for Tibet, I knew that anything could happen and I had to become okay with that. And bad things did happen. And I wanted to write about that too, because again, you're used to reading mountaineering literature, bad things happening to the climbers on the mountain, but they are the people waiting for them at advanced base camp who are going through things. The people who have to take care of them when they come down are going through things. And I wanted to tell that sort of lesser told story.

Wow. Yeah. It's so powerful. So I would really love to hear with fear because that's where we kind of started. And I feel like that kind of leads into everything that you're doing right now with people that are being controlled by. And actually wrote this down. I don't think it's funny. It's what came alive when you said it. But don't let fear be your co pilot.

Right.

Because that's how you're able to do all these things. What advice would you give people when they're wanting to do something, but they're scared?

I think first I would look at what is it you really want to do and why is it important to you? The times I've moved forward I mentioned is because it was so driving me and so deep in my core, something I wanted to do. So I think that helps face the fears. And then there are smaller things you can do on your road to bigger things. So for example, one of the things I do now is a lot of advocacy work for women's reproductive rights. And that is fear too, because I'm putting myself out there on a national level for anyone to criticize and hate me. Right. I'm sure you know and use this quote all the time by Theodore Roosevelt. Do you use that quote about the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena Do. Yeah. Yeah. Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who comes up short again and again, who just lost it. But you know that one that you're not going to get to your goals if you're going to let the fear stop you, at least, as he says in that quote, at least you may fail daring greatly. And so if we don't put ourselves out there, risk the criticism, we're just not going to get to those places we want to get to. And it's hard. So nothing I do is easy. So you have to Be willing to do hard things, too.

Yeah. And it's like, what it makes me think. And this is kind of where my work has been really kind of focused a lot, too. It's not just on doing the thing. It's on helping people find their voice through the things so then they're able to know what they want. Because when I hear you say that, daring greatly. And I watched that. I don't know if you saw the Benny Brown one where she does that quote. Yeah, I love that. I probably watched it six times. I love it so much. But it's like, in order for you to be able to hold tight and strong in those beliefs and not let the criticism or judgment or any of the fear of all of that stuff, of putting yourself out there, it's like you have to know what you want and to your core. Right. And I think that goes back to your unbelievable gift of that gut feeling and the intuition, which it is completely connected with you going after the fear. Because if you don't know what you want, then you can't hold tight in it. And I think a lot of people don't. They don't take the time because we have all these other things that we have to do. Right. And all these other priorities. But it's like when it comes time to ourselves, we're the last ones. And until you realize, no, this is actually the key, is knowing yourself and knowing what you want. I'd love to just maybe talk about that, too.

That's so important. And that's what I call coming of age in the context of my book, which was finding out what I want and who I am. But I totally hear you that that's a challenge for a lot of people to feel their gut and know what they want, which is the first step. Right. I think one way I could be wrong. I think part of why I was so. So driven to be in nature is because it connected me to myself. So there are many scenes in the book where I had some spiritual feeling of a world bigger than me. But I think that that also reveals myself to me. Something about the trips I did. I had to rely on myself, which connected me to myself deeply. But I think being in nature is one way to filter out the noise. And that can be as simple as walking outside, around the block. I don't think it has to be that you're in a beautiful mountain or river, but I think there's talk of mindfulness and yoga and meditation, and I think that helps filter out some of the noise, too. For Me. Another really great thing is when I can get out of my head and just be in my body. So the reason my book is called Tap Dancing on Everest is what I really wanted to do with my life was be a dancer. Dragway dancer. That was my dream. And I gave up on myself. I did not have the courage to do that at 17. I was dancing all the time and wanted to do it. I didn't pursue it professionally because I was afraid. And I think knowing that, that I kind of failed at that. I failed myself. I didn't have belief in myself. Maybe gave me courage later. I wasn't going to give up my other dreams. I don't know.

Yeah, it's powerful. And so the tap dancing on Everest part is the metaphor. Right. That's your dancing.

So you think it's a metaphor. And it is, but it actually is a concrete scene because I did bring my tap dance shoes there and I did tap dance on the back. So you think, of course it's a metaphor, but it's also a concrete scene. And the way I describe it in the book is kind of fusing my love of dance in the mountains in a moment where I was totally free to be me in this team of guys and I have my psychedelic tights on and I'm dancing, not caring what they think of me. Yeah. And you mentioned Brene Brown. But when I read her book on steps of getting over shame and fear, and the last one was dancing, I was like, oh, my God, totally. And I lived through that.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Well, I'd love to hear what your advice is for people. Actually, let's hear your number one piece of advice for people on doing the thing.

The thing may be hard. And hard is okay. Probably hard makes it more meaningful. When something comes easy to us, it kind of feels less significant. But hard makes us really reach deep inside us. And maybe that's part of figuring out who you are and connecting to your deeper self is forcing yourself to tap on those reserves and do hard things. And fear is part of that. Overcoming that fear. So just not to be afraid of something being hard. If it aligns with your soul.

Yeah. And then the aligned with your soul. Now I've got to ask you, what do you think would help someone kind of identify that? It's a big question.

Yeah. I think getting quiet. So for me, that's in nature and in. I do yin yoga, which is a form of meditation. Yeah. It's like these deep stretches and breathing. So it's meditation without having to sit still and meditate. So. So I think those are ways. Nature, movement, and this sort of stillness or silence.

And please share with people where they can get your book and get into your world.

Thanks. I have a website. It's mimiziemanmd.com, one word. My book's in all the online retailers, maybe your library or bookstore Pro. It's hard to get books in there now. But also through my website and Amazon, I have a newsletter through my website. It's called Medicine, Mountains and more. And I tried to share medical news through my lens. Some inspiration from art or nature and more.

Well, congratulations on all your success. I'm so excited. I can't wait to read your book. It was literally, I'm like, oh, my gosh. And I feel like, I don't know if you've thought of putting this in high schools, if it's that kind of book, but I feel like this would be amazing for that, too.

Well, if there are any teachers out there, I am speaking to my local high school, but I had an early reader who was a high school English teacher, and she said that her school had this curriculum called what is your Everest? But they read these male narratives and she's like, I wish your book would be there because it would be. So if anyone wants to make a curriculum like that.

Yeah, it would be amazing. Yeah. I'm just thinking I have a daughter in high school and it'd be so good for her to read that. So.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much. And I'm so excited to get to know you and, yeah. Be in your wall.

Yeah. I'm so excited about the work you do because I feel like it does fall more in that how do you find your voice? How do you. With real, actionable steps? So I'm really excited to learn about you.

Yay. All right, you guys, thanks for joining. And yeah, I'm excited to hear what you are going to do with this episode because there's so much power in being able to walk through that fear, get to know who you are and what you want. And so what a beautiful way to see it through the tap dancing on Everest book. So I encourage you guys to get that and do the thing. Don't wait for opportunity. Create it. And hey, guys, have you checked out my Facebook group yet? Go to do the Thing collaboration dot com.

Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the thing. Do you have a burning question on doing the thing that you'd like answered. How about an inspiring do the thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at dothothing callcast. Co or email us at hello at dothingpodcast. Com.