The Summit Is The Halfway Point. A Story About Reaching Extreme Goals And Coming Back To Tell Us About It. With Theresa Payton And Alison Levine

We asked our co-host, Theresa Payton, to bring a fantastic guest; she got one of the most badass guests you could ever find: Alison Levine.

We tried to summarize in a few paragraphs the stories she recounted, but they are just too many — Furthermore, unless you hear them from her, you wouldn't believe us. Here, to get the story started, are some facts about Alison:

History-making polar explorer and mountaineer.Team captain of the first American Women's Everest Expedition.Climbed the highest peak on each continent and skied to both the North and South Poles—a feat known as the Adventure Grand Slam, which only twenty people in the world have achieved.In January 2008, she made history as the first American to complete a 600-mile traverse from west Antarctica to the South Pole.She made history again in 2016 when she completed two first ascents: Hall Peak in Antarctica and Khang Karpo in Nepal.Earned an MBA from Duke University.Finance director for Arnold Schwarzenegger in his successful bid to become Governor of California.Adjunct professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point.Wrote a book called “On The Edge,” where she shares the leadership lessons she learned by leading a team on Mount Everest and other extreme environments, and she translates them into what we all need for both our personal and professional lives.In 2019, she was the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor — one of the USA's most prestigious awards — for her accomplishments and inspiring national service.Wife, dog mom to Scout and Trooper.Overall Badass.

Not only does she have beautiful stories to tell, but she tells them beautifully. Our job is to bring amazing peoples' stories to you; and this time around, we felt like we were captured by Alison's adventures ourselves—we are listeners just like you.

We loved speaking with her so much that we asked her to come back to tell us more about the upcoming documentary she is producing and her previous adventures reaching the South Pole. She said yes, and we cannot wait.

Join us now by listening to this one and stay tuned for the next one. We will let you know when, but we know it cannot be soon enough!

"Because really, that mountain is just a pile of rock and ice. It's really all it is, right? You can always go back. But if you do something dumb up there, if you make a bad decision, you may not have the opportunity to go back. So that's why you have to think about how every single move you make is going to affect everybody else around you. It doesn't matter how much blood, sweat, and tears you personally put into something if the conditions aren't right, you pull the plug,  you walk away, and you know that you can always come back another day." —Alison Levine

"There are people that forget that the summit is not the goal. The summit is the halfway point because you have to be able to get yourself all the way back down. So people die on a mountain every year, because, typically, most people die after they've reached the summit when they're on their way back. They use everything they've got left in them to get themselves to the tippy top, and then they don't have enough energy reserves to get themselves back down." —Alison Levine

Guest(s)
Alison Levine

Co-Host(s)
Theresa Payton

Resources
Alison's website: http://www.alisonlevine.com

Alison's book, On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Mt. Everest and Other Extreme Environments: https://www.amazon.com/Edge-Leadership-Lessons-Everest-Environments/dp/1455544876/

The documentary film The Glass Ceiling: http://www.theglassceilingmovie.com/

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