Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And I have joining me from Park City, Utah, Jenn Drummond, and the book is called BreakProof. And the subtitle of the book is "7 Strategies to Build Resilience and Achieve your Life Goals. Good day to you, Jennn, how you doing?

Jennn Drummond
I'm fantastic. Thank you so much for having me here today.

Greg Voisen
Well, I'm finally great to have this happening. It took us a while to get this done, but I know because of your schedule, it's been tough and my schedule. So, thank you. Thank you. And for all my listeners, I'm gonna let them know just a tad bit about you, she says right in her bio, in the back of her book, she has seven children, seven continents and Seven Summits, so that kind of just sums it all up, right? She's a busy lady. She achieved financial success and founding a financial services company in Park City is there where she found her passion for the outdoors and hiking, and more than hiking, biking, skiing, mountain climbing, which really took off. But something happened in 2018 and in 2018 she was knocked off the tracks from a very horrific car accident, and we're going to be talking about some of that, and a brush, a brush with that. And I think when people come that close to their finitude, oftentimes many things change. It's like, okay, so what's important in life? And I think today, where there's so much uncertainty, Jennn that we're all kind of looking for some place to do it, but you know you really have to walk through uncertainty to get to the opportunity. And I know for you, that's all you've been about, is walking through uncertainty, because every time you climb a peak, you never know what's on the other side. You never know what's going to come up. So she confronted this, and with vigor and enthusiasm, she now speaks all over. She's got a podcast out there that you can see from her website, which is Jenn, J-E-N-N, Drummond, D-R-U-M-M-O-N-D.com and the podcast is called Finding your rhythm, or, well, I should say is really seek your Summit. But in there you'll find all kinds of great podcasts, and I'm going to highly recommend that you go listen to Jenn. Most of my listeners know Jenn that we did the precipice of life last year with Bo public Mark Parfitt, who did the highest Seven Summits as well. Great, great book. So you know, let's start off. Tell me a little bit about your own personal story. And obviously I alluded to a little bit of it. But, you know, look, the car accident was one thing, but to actually, you know, say, hey, I've got I got married, I got all these kids. I did a financial services company, I built businesses. I sold the business off. You know, you've constantly been somebody who's always curious. And I think climbers are curious because I interviewed 22 of them, including Eric Wyman. The guy from Colorado is blind, and he summited Everest blind, right? The first guy to ever do it. So what is this curiosity and drive inside of you, Jenn, that just kind of keeps you, like, pumped all the time to get more new adrenaline.

Jennn Drummond
Yeah, you know, I love the experience of life. I think at a young age, I was very much determined to have financial success, because I felt like at that time, the only thing my parents fought about was money. So for somehow, if I could solve that money problem, I wouldn't ever fight obviously, that's not the truth. But, you know, we all start somewhere, and that's where I started. The interesting thing about the car accident is it really gave way of right and wrong, and it gave way from like before, when I would take on task. I always wanted to be number one or at the top or the most extreme. And after that car accident, it was like, who cares if I'm bad at it? Why don't I just try it and see what it is? And I just gave myself so much more flexibility in understanding that life is as much about depth, that is about width.

Greg Voisen
How did you deal with the discomfort of all this? Though, you know a lot of people sitting out there today. Here I'm sitting in my chair talking to you. You're sitting in your chair, but to get up and climb you have to be okay with all kinds of discomfort. For, you know, I know all the situations when you go to Everest, and how Everybody pees and pose in a pot, and, you know, I've seen all of that. And the reality is, you know, you're a woman, there aren't that many women that have done what you've done. So how did you kind of deal with all that discomfort? Because there's plenty of it.

Jennn Drummond
Yeah, um, I think we get we train ourselves in discomfort. You need to have like resilience reps done, and the more resilience reps that are done, the more resilience you have to keep doing different things. And so for me, when I was young, I was in gymnastics, and when you're in gymnastics, loan Biles, yes, not quite, but, you know, maybe in another life, but you you make so many mistakes on so many tricks, but you only get better by continuing to do them. I was a lady that actually struggled with pregnancy. I would every single month have a negative test, have a negative test, have a negative test. Hired fertility doctors. Worked with them for a couple years, and then we came up with a chemical cocktail that worked, right? And it worked so well that I had all these embryos that turned into seven children. But the reality was, if I didn't try to pee on the stick. It would have never had a chance to be positive. So I was already had the worst case scenario. It was negative. The only thing that could get better is that it turned to a positive right at some point. And so when you have those experiences in your background of failure and overcoming, they build this muscle in you that's like, Okay, well, that's just right now. That doesn't mean forever. That doesn't mean not yet. And that changes how you approach a lot of things in life. Well,

Greg Voisen
your perseverance, I think your purpose in life changes, and it probably changed after the accident I'm surmising and you, you start looking, you know, you had this near death experience in 2018 now, you've climbed all the highest Seven Summits. You have seven children. You know, everything is seven, right? That's a great lucky number. But that book is called break proof. I mean, they for the listeners. You know, what is this concept of break proof, and how does it really differ from somebody just being determined and persistent? Yeah,

Jennn Drummond
you know, I think the big difference is, is that we are going to break. Sometimes we take a break proactively. Sometimes things get to a point where they break because we push them to the nth degree. But in that, break is the proof of what's working what's not working. What do you know now that you need to do to be able to get further along your climb, metaphorically or physically? And so when we take the break and we explore it, and we learn ourselves in it, and allow us to use that proof to become break proof in the future, like, hey, this didn't work. Here's a different way to do it. Let's try it that way.

Greg Voisen
Well, that's a great, good definition. And I'm sure you've said that many, many times to podcasters and people on TV shows and places you've been in in and I think for the average person out there, whether they're in a company trying to get through a new invention or create a new product, they've got to continually break it. So the point is, it's like, you know, when Steve Jobs invented the cell phone, it just didn't happen overnight. None of these inventions happen overnight, and none of these new scientific developments happen overnight. It's breaking, proving, breaking, proving and continuing to prove that you're on the right thing. Now, in your first chapter, you discussed casting your vision wider and deeper. And I'd like for you to share the story that really kind of illustrates that concept. Because, you know, people that have big visions, like they're going for it, they're like, in your case, I am going to climb the Seven Summits. You maybe didn't start off with, like, I'm going to go climb the Seven Summits. You started off maybe with, Hey, let's go do Denali, or let's go do this first, right? And then you gradually moved up, and you said, Wow, this is a big vision. Now it's and this happened with most of the mountain climbers I interviewed for the precipice of life. It was progressive talk about this, about that bigger, wider vision. Yeah,

Jennn Drummond
you know, so for me, I survived this horrific car crash, and now I'm reevaluating my life and making this master bucket list of things I want to do and climb a mountain was on that list. And in 2020 I was turning 40, so when I looked at my bucket list that I had been writing out for the last year, I'm like, You know what? I'm going to climb a mountain for my 40th birthday and have that be what's going to launch me into this nine. Decade of life. And so when I asked friends like, what mountain should I climb, the general consensus back to me was a mountain named ama de Blom. I never heard of it, but I'm like, Okay, it's in Nepal. It's the Paramount Pictures, logo, all these different things that sounds fun, but training for AMA dablom and covid happens in the beginning of 2020, so I'm not going to be climbing anywhere anytime soon, based on that situation. And I was homeschooling my kids, and one day, one of my kids was struggling with this homework, and so I did that parent pep talk, we do like we do hard things. You got this this little kid looks at me. He goes, Mom, if we do hard things. Why you climbing a mountain called I'm a dumb blonde instead of a in like Mount Everest? And it took me a minute. I'm like blonde. I'm a dumb honey the mountain. I'm a de Blob, not blonde, but, you know? And so for me, we finished his homework, we looked at the mountain. He went to bed, and I thought, you know, what? If he thinks Everest is the hardest thing in the whole world, I'm going to climb it, and I'm going to show him what our Everest is and that we're capable of climbing it at any point. So for me, it started with climbing a mountain. My son upped it to climbing Mount Everest. And then when I called a coach to train me for Mount Everest, we were talking. He's like, Hey, Jenn, I think you should buy this book about becoming an uphill athlete. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I buy that book, and in the front was a lady who got a Guinness World Record, and I called my coach back. I'm like, I want to Guinness World Record. Like, that's amazing. My kids would think I'm cool. That's how they learned how to read. And so then a few weeks later, my coach called me back. He's like, Jenn, I know where you could get a Guinness World Record. You could be the first woman to climb the second highest peak on each of the seven continents. I'm like, Okay, I don't know anything about that, but tell me more. He's like, Well, listen, the second summits are harder than the first. And you'd be the first woman that did it, the second human ever. And he goes, if you think about it, seven mountains, seven continents, seven children. It's a jackpot. I'm like, it is a jackpot. I am. So you said.

Greg Voisen
So you said, give me k2 right?

Jennn Drummond
I said, Right, right. Oh, I had to use average to train for k2 but I like, listen to this. I had never slept in a tent before when I said yes to this thing, right? It was just one of those whole body yeses, and it felt like so, right, even though there's no reason why it felt right. It just did. And it started with climb a mountain. Then it went to go do Everest. Then it went to set this world record and show people what they're capable of. And for all of us that are on these pursuits, there's little nudges that, if we like the thing, open doors to bigger things and allow us to have a bigger impact.

Greg Voisen
Well, question for you, look, you're a mother of seven children along the way, yeah. And I always, you know, I listen a lot to Jordan Peterson, and he say, we make a contract with the future, but we have to make some sacrifices today. Yeah. And the contract with the future for you, seems to be that my contract was, I'm going to climb these mountains. So my question for you is, do you believe you had to make any sacrifices when it came to your family life or what you were doing, considering the amount of time it takes to prepare to do what you did, which, for my listeners, it's astronomical preparation to be able to do these things. What comment would you give either another man or a woman? Doesn't matter who's out there right now, going, Hey, I realize that I'm going to make some sacrifice along the way, but is it really a sacrifice, or is it really more about what it is that I how I want to live

Jennn Drummond
my life. I think there's an opportunity costs in everything we do. Is when you explore those opportunity costs, you can evaluate if they're worth the expense for yourself. I remember when I was going to train for Mount Everest, at first, I was like, There's no way I can climb Everest. And it wasn't because I was afraid of climbing the mountain. It was like, I don't know how I'm going to be away from my kids for three weeks. I've never been away from them for more than seven days. My biggest fear was being away from the children. And so it was interesting, because most Everest expeditions are six to eight weeks long, yeah, like, I can't do that, that that's an absolute no in my book. And so I with a doctor in Park City, and I told him, like, Hey, what are my options? And he's at a high altitude doctor, and he's like, hey, you know what, Jenn, there's this company called hypoxico, and they. Tents that mimic lack of oxygen environments. You can call them and see what your options are. So I called this company, I bought one of their tents, and I slept in it at night for months before I left. And so I was acclimatized to approximately 22,000 feet before I even got to Mount Everest. So when I got to Mount Everest, my team was on a rotation to get up to camp three, and then after that rotation, then you would wait till the weather's good and go to the top. My first rotation was going to camp three, and then I came down, and then I went up to the top with my team. So I cut out weeks of my expedition. And so there's excuses that show up in our lives, like mine was, I can't be away from my kids. But I think if you dig further and look at options, you're going to find solutions that are going to allow you to make the thing that you want to happen happen. Yeah, and

Greg Voisen
I and I remember, there's a picture of beau, the other gentleman who did the book, the precipice of life in one of those like literally sitting there in deprivation of oxygen. So I get it. So, you know, you you have you stated in chapter seven that understanding the goal was not the goal. And what I'd like you to do is elaborate on the goal. Is not the goal, right? And how does this philosophy impact, really, how you pursue any objective, right? Because I know from a Buddhist philosophy, and you dealt with plenty of people helping you climb in Nepal, the Sherpas would tell stories like, hey, this isn't the right time. And you go, what the hell it's not the right time. And you go, no, do I listen to you to say this is the right time to climb or not? And if you're attached to the outcome, right? This is the goal, not being the goal. The reality is sometimes you become extremely disappointed. You don't always make all those summits that you were going out to make. That's just the reality of climbing. You got to come back and try it again, right? Or in our case, one of Bo's friends died on the way up, and he had to make the decision, well, do I just keep going. Well, he did keep going, and he left his friend there, and the body was never actually recovered. They never took it off. But the point was is you got to make some hard decisions, and where that comes down to here is, where do you Where does this philosophy impact you? In the goal is not the goal,

Jennn Drummond
yeah. So for me, I have goals that drive me forward. They give me a star to aim towards. And so when options come up for me, I can say yes or no, because it's either going to bring me closer to the goal or farther away from the goal. But what was interesting as I chased this pursuit, I realized that it gave me a decision making framework to use, but I realized that it was awesome to stand on top of the mountain, but compared to the whole rest of the journey, that was just one piece of it. I went to go climb in Kenya like my goal was to stand on top of Mount Kenya, the second highest point. And when I was going to arrange the trip. I had learned of a charity, and that charity was giving period products to women so they could stay in school, because otherwise, when their period happened, they would miss a week of school every single month. And I had no idea that even existed, or that was a problem or whatever, but it really hit me passionately, and so when I went to go do that climb, I got to help fund 400 women to stay in school for four years with period products. And it was the climb that brought me to that destination, but it was truly the journey that gave it significance. And so now it changed how I did every climb going forward. Okay, I'm going to go to this place. How do I leave impact? How do I make a difference? It's more than just the climb for me. And so when we start chasing these goals, like whether you get to the top of that goal or not is less significant than how you show up and what you do in that environment, because who we are as people is way more important than anything we'll ever achieve. That's

Greg Voisen
a good point being made, especially the point about a greater cause. You know, I've been doing this show 17 years, and I have a nonprofit called compassionate communication that supports homeless and the Ukrainian refugee children who I buy bicycles for no so when they come out of Ukraine, we buy them bikes. And the point is, is people say, Well, you know, you've been doing the show, and you don't take a salary and don't do anything. I get the benefits from this, from interviewing people like you, and from the donations that come in. Actually support those things, it's the bigger cause. And I think when you have a bigger purpose in life, and that's where you know, I want you to talk about the challenge that the mountain brought, either literally or metaphorically, because everybody out there today has some kind of mountain that they've tried to climb and maybe haven't succeeded. What do you what do you mean by that when you talk about, you know, the challenging mountains that we face, that we're trying to climb, and what we learn from it, not, you know, the against Ness, but even if we don't make it, what we learned from it? Can you speak about what you've learned about mountains you've tried to climb that you just literally haven't conquered?

Jennn Drummond
So k2 right? A, k2 was the first mountain in my pursuit that I didn't get the first time when we were on the mountain, one of my teammates died in an avalanche, and two others got hurt, and so when we were on the mound, we had a choice, do we continue to climb, or do we come back down? And based on the situation of the team, it made more sense to come back down. There was a part of me that really wanted to continue, but I had values lined out before the climb, and one of my values that I live by is people over peaks. And so realize I'm like, You know what? This mountain is always going to be here. I can take care of like, do this mountain another time. I can't support these people in this hard moment, another time. So I chose to go back down. We buried a human, exited the country, did all the things I remember landing in LA and like, staying a couple days

Greg Voisen
because the roller coaster there you were. There's so much stuff

Jennn Drummond
that happened that time that I was like, I am not ready to go home. I need to metabolize this a little bit more before I go face my children and tell them that their mom's going back to a mountain where she just buried a teammate, right? And so I kind of worked through the story. I came home and I was training to go back to k2 I wasn't ecstatic about it by any means, because now you know, right? You've had the experience, you have that memory, you have to overcome it. And about three weeks before I left to climb k2 for the second time, I got a phone call about a person that had been training and didn't quite have the resources to make it happen, and was wondering if, like, I can help out. I'm like, Of course I can help out. And actually was really helpful for me to have that, because it gave me something to focus on outside of myself and the thing that happened the year before. And so on july 22 of 2022. I became the third American female to stand on top of k2 and then 30 minutes later, the first Pakistani female stood on top of our country's prized peak. And that's somebody that I had been introduced to because of my failure that first time. And so I love that story, and I share it, because sometimes we make decisions, and those decisions end up being way more significant than we ever understood because we kept doing the thing that we said we were going to do,

Greg Voisen
yeah, and I think that's really important, you know, I'm sure You're familiar with Allison Levine. She was somebody that I had interviewed for the other book. And you know, she, like you was, I mean, really, when you look at the two of you, you're probably some of the very few people that have really summited all these highest Seven Summits. In her case, even the polar explorer too, right? Because you both are speakers, you're probably out on the same speaking tour because of your great stories. So let me ask you this. You know, if you could, you mentioned one area where you had to pivot, which was k2 it was like, Hey, I have to let go of that. So what goes through your mind as a mountain climber when you've had to let go of this goal and pivot? You lost a person. You had to bury that person. You came back to LA. You then decided to go back again. What I'm understanding. And in the process, two other women summited at the same time, and you were responsible for one of them in the way in which you gave some of your time and resources to is that correct? Correct? Yeah, yeah. And so what did that feel like for you? Because literally, when you're helping other people, just like you said through your thing for periods with women so that they could stay in school. I think there's this whole sense of like, okay, I'm doing this, but I'm not doing it for Jenn. I'm doing it for something else. What is the greater purpose for Jenn for doing all this? This?

Jennn Drummond
Yeah, you know, I have five boys, and then I have twin daughters, and Nothing drives me more bananas, thinking that the gender changes their experience and different things, right? And so all of a sudden you're sitting there thinking like I'm their mom. How do I provide opportunity for them, and how do I make a difference? So that narrative changes. And so for me, when this opportunity came up to help this other woman, like it was great that I summited like, of course, I'm celebrating that. But more significant was knowing that this lady who is Muslim, who looks entirely different than me, that has a whole bunch of little girls like my daughter's age, across the globe, seeing somebody that looks like them in an environment that they've never had that opportunity to see before is so significant. Like, who cares that I climb the mountain? It's that now we have more visual representation of people and environments that maybe at first look don't belong in air quotes, and when we start that I don't belong curiosity, it opens the door to so many more opportunities, because it allows you to look and be like, Why do I think that person doesn't belong? Where else in my life? Am I operating that same way?

Greg Voisen
Yeah, and I think these are the unconscious biases. And we're we're all running around with unconscious biases. There's probably not a person watching this show, maybe not listening to the show that looks as you, looks at you, as you are an extremely attractive woman to say, Oh, she climbed Seven Summits of I, I can't believe that. I, you know, I just, whatever it is. I mean, let's face it, so, you know, rake proof this book, I'm going to just tell everybody, go get a copy. I'm covering my face. We're going to put a link to it on Amazon. Where would you say the principles? Now, I know in mountain climbing, there's all these analogies between preparation and the Sherpas and carrying the packs and climbing up the mountain, and leadership, and who's going to make the calls, and who's going to do what, and making sure that you're actually following a guide, because most people have guides. We were talking about Kenton cool prior to this. I don't know who your guide was, but the reality is is those are the kind of people that lead expeditions that have been to Everest many times and have done it, and that's in the ever, Everest case. So what would you tell people? Because you ran your own business, you built it, sold it off. We have a lot of people that have businesses out there. Where do these principles from break proof actually have an application, both in their courage, their curiosity and their willingness to climb the mountain?

Jennn Drummond
Yeah. I mean, that was what was interesting. I had built a business first, and then got into mountaineering. And when I was climbing these mountains, I'm like, this is the same principle we use a business like, this is the exact same. Like, I didn't realize how much of a parallel it was until I actually did both activities and like, one of the lessons in the book that I have to revisit myself on a regular basis is big mountains. Take big teens. You're not building an amazon.com by yourself, right? That's true. We're living Everest by yourself. You're not done so like, I always remember when I was building the business, and I was like, just getting exhausted and tired and whatever it was, my first thought was, where can I cut back? How do I get more time? Like, you know, like I was like, trying to lower the goal instead of, now I'm like, Okay, who can help me? Who can make this easier, not? How do I do it? Who do I add to this picture? Because the more who's we have, the easier, the how becomes. And it's that concept of the bigger the mountain, the bigger the team. It just gives me a different script to play when I run into a struggle.

Greg Voisen
It's that's a great analogy. And so the next question on that was, why is it that you believe people's egos are so big that they feel they have to do it themselves. And what advice would you give them to let go of what they always think is right so that they could do it from a team approach? Now this can apply in mountain climbing, because I've heard this happen in mountain climbing, where people get in arguments with others that are like, Hey, this is the way we do it. And you're like, No, I think I know how I want to do it. That isn't what you need to do. So it does happen up there on the mountain, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. So the quick the question, I think you got the question right,

Jennn Drummond
Yeah.

Greg Voisen
The question doesn't go very eager. Because the ego frequently is like, Okay, if a Sherpa told me, No, it isn't the right time to go, and you're going, damn it, it looks great. I'm going to go ahead and do it. We need to do it. Why don't we do it? And you get all angry, that isn't really the thing to do, is it? No,

Jennn Drummond
and the reality is, is that we need to come home alive. Okay? So getting to the top, it's not the wind. It's coming down, you know. And it's also like when you think of you're building a business and you're launching a new product, and that product is costing a lot of money and maybe isn't working the way that you thought or hoped it would, you know, a lot of businesses would be in place today if they thought about how much runway they needed to go out and come all the way back home. Problem is, is they just keep going out, and then they don't have enough runway to make it back home, and the business blows up for a lot of us that are running companies. I know, in the beginning, I had a hard time letting people help me, because it exposed my weakness, right? It exposed where I wasn't doing a good job, and I was embarrassed of that, and I was trying to pretend that I had it all under control. And then when I finally realized you can't be all things to all things, and I allowed myself to just pick one lane and then hire out those other lanes to make a supportive team, that's when everything changed and grew faster, grew better, grew stronger, was more sturdy, and once you have one of those examples that work, it's a lot of lean into that story and repeat it in different ways. And

Greg Voisen
it is wonderful advice for all my business listeners. I hope they're listening and they get this, because the reality is, no matter if you're the mastermind behind the invention or whatever it is, but still takes a team to execute and implement and then get it to market. Doesn't matter what it is, and as you said, you used your example of Amazon. It doesn't matter what size company it is. It's in almost every size company. It's going to require a team to do it. So in kind of wrapping up here, what final piece of advice would you give someone who's out there listening or watching to this, watching this youtube today that wants to become break proof in either one area of their life or most areas of their lives? What are the what are the top tips that you would tell somebody that that really is like, hey, if this woman can do it, I can do it.

Jennn Drummond
Yeah. I think one of the things I really learned on all of my pursuits so far is that being kind to myself makes me stronger. Yeah, life is going to be hard, the obstacles going to be hard. The setbacks are hard. The climb is hard, and you being hard on yourself as well does not help the environment. So you need to figure out, like, how do I keep myself motivated and positive and encouraged, and how do I be my biggest cheerleader, even when everything isn't working out exactly as I wanted, because in that balance of hard and soft, do you are you able to move forward? If two things are hard, something's going to crumble and fall, and if it's you versus nature, it's going to

Greg Voisen
be you so, so self nurturing and care we it. That is an important thing. And I think many entrepreneurs, many mountain climbers, many extreme athletes, they forget that, and that's when they get injured, right? And so the reality is, you know, we, we, we've seen this with Simone Biles, and it's not just injured physically. Sometimes it's through depression and mentally, where we actually go into a funk, right? And there isn't anybody that doesn't get out of this without having some levels of deep funkiness, right? I'm just gonna call it like depression or anxiety or whatever they're dealing with. But you are definitely a resource for people. And again, the website is a resource. It's just Jenn Drummond, jenndrummond.com, you can go there. There is the book again. And now, Jenn, thank you for being on the show. I would like you to give me a 59 second little answer for a YouTube short that we're going to do that we'll cut it into this. And basically the question would be, what are the things that you learn from mountain climbing that apply to life, that you could tell people very quickly that they could apply, and if they do, they're bound to have more successes than failures.

Jennn Drummond
Okay, can I use something we kind of talked about already that? Yeah,

Greg Voisen
yeah. No, this is this just a little part of the video where we're just going to be like, 59 seconds, boom, you're on,

Jennn Drummond
Okay, perfect. You tell me when to go. Go. Okay, all right. So one thing that we could all benefit from is the concept. That big mountains take big teams. So whatever you're trying to achieve, the bigger the goal it is, the more people you need to help you make it happen. So if you can change the mindset from how to who you are, going to be able to go that much further in your pursuit. So anytime you feel like stopping or quitting or checking out, pause and ask you. Ask yourself, who can help you take this goal all the way to the top. I promise you, when you recruit more people into your vision, that summit is going to be much easier to achieve.

Greg Voisen
Thank you. Jenn Drummond, that was perfect. I think all my listeners will get that. I appreciate you being on Inside Personal Growth.

Jennn Drummond
Thank you.