Back to Global Conversations 3.09: Alison Levine, Leadership expert, polar explorer and mountaineer
How do you work through your greatest fears so you can make it to the top of the mountain (and not let your failures define you)? Melissa Biggs Bradley talks with mountaineer Alison Levine about the incredible places she’s been, completing the adventurer’s grand slam: climbing the seven summits and skiing to both the North and South Poles; plus, life lessons learned along the way—and why going backward doesn’t mean you’re not making progress.
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Episode Guide
Among many projects, our guest today, Alison Levine, is helping produce a documentary about the first Sherpa woman who summited Mount Everest—a Nepalese woman named Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, who fought tradition to start her own trekking company and eventually lead her own climb, which she completed in 1993 before dying on the way down.
But Alison’s own life and the story of her own climbs—that’s bound to be a movie too, at some point. She’s one of those people whose name is usually followed by a list of achievements. In her case, a long list: she’s a climber, sportswoman, explorer, and leadership consultant. She has ascended the highest peaks on every continent and also skied to both the North and South Poles—making her one of only 21 people ever to complete what’s known as the Explorers Grand Slam. She serves as an adjunct instructor at the U.S. Military Academy. She is the author of a book on leadership called On the Edge. And amazingly, for someone who has spent so much time in the cold, she grew up in Arizona, and for someone who has pushed her body to such achievement, she was born with a heart condition and has a neurological disease that cuts blood flow to her fingers and toes—in cold temperatures, no less.
Alison, who by the way is 5 foot 4 and barely weighs in the triple digits, started climbing at 32, and since then she’s been an inspiration to people all over the world, as she’s traveled all over the world, to its highest mountains and most challenging terrains—-all of which has given her amazing perspective on life.
