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Sue Stockdale: What the Arctic Silence Does to Your Mind · The BEYOND Podcast

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  Never would anyone tell what hardships you've been through, rough terrain you've trekked through,
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  and how many adventures you've had.
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  What I've learned in my life is that the only person stopping us achieving amazing things is
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  yourself. I'm Sue Stockdale. I'm a polar explorer, an author and a coach. 30 years ago, I skied
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  to the Magnetic North Pole, the first British woman to do so. It looks white all around. There are
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  icebergs. You wake up every morning. It's cold. You ski for 8, 10, 12 hours a day. And
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  then you went back to real life. Well, yes.
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  I sat back because I thought, well, I'm going to be famous now. The media will be bringing me
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  opportunity. And then you're old news. All the confidence I'd had at the North Pole began to dissipate.
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  I began to think, oh, poor me. Nothing's going to happen. And I said to myself, do you know, Sue, the
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  only person that's going to help you is you. You have to get back out there. There I am in Greenland,
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  four of us, on an expedition. We're going to ski from the east coast to the west coast. You've got to
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  rely on each
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  other because out there, this is an environment that wants you dead. Did you feel that you could die?
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  The thought went through my mind. What's the worst that can happen on this expedition? That we don't
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  come back. I was prepared to accept that. Often in life when we're trying new things, we think, "Oh,
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  nobody will be there to help me." Well, maybe we've never asked. I think there's also the element that
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  it's not necessarily that nobody will be there to help, but there is pride. Asking for help is a
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  strength.
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  You know, you were living an everyday life like all of us, you know, doing the usual thing that we
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  all do. And then your life changed. How did it change? What happened?
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  Well, the first dramatic thing in my life was that my mother sadly died when I was 14. As a
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  teenager, that really makes you grow up fast. I learned to take on responsibility. I learned that
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  life can be short. And I also learned that if my life, no matter how long or short it was going to
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  be, was going to be fulfilling, I better use every minute of it purposefully.
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  Wow. Yeah. I've got a 14-year-old, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old, and I
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  can't even– like it would just be awful. I can't even imagine what that's like, a little 14-year-old
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  child like that losing her mom. But you channelled it in a very mature way, this
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  sadness. I mean it's Were you always uh such a responsible person and like in in your own mind? I
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  mean Did you used to be very, s very studious and anything like
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  that, or did you just grow up fast?
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  I think in some ways I'm responsible, but I am the younger sister. I have an older sister as well.
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  She she might be described more as the responsible one. However, I think that the responsibility, if
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  we want to call it that, I realised was to myself, because I maybe wouldn't have described it like
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  this when I was 14. Yeah. But I wanted to make sure that every minute that I had ahead of me, that
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  I could fill it up with things that would give me a sense of enjoyment. And I guess it's the
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  opposite from the
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  sadness. How does then one bounce back and say, wow, I want to make my life fulfilling and for it to be
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  a big adventure? And part of that was, in those childhood years, I loved the Enid Blyton stories,
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  the Secret Seven and the Famous Five. Yeah. And those adventure stories, whilst fictitious, I wanted to
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  translate into real-life adventure. So
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  I suppose as a kid you were already then exhibiting signs of framing the negative into a positive, and
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  you weren't aware that you were doing that. But so many of us– I've had so many people on the
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  podcast and we speak about this. It's how you look at things that's so important. It's that it's a
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  powerful thing. Okay. So you lost your mom. You're developing your character here
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  into the sort of person that's a positive-minded person, which is already fabulous.
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  What then?
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  Well, I got myself a normal job like anybody else at that age. Got myself into employment at
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  16. Okay. Although I could have gone on to university, I had all A-star, A grades with my exams. I
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  wanted to go into the world of work and discover what that was like. So this was again a bit
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  curiosity-led. My sister was working, earning money. I wanted to do the same. And it was in that
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  job, when I was working in that job, that I saw an advert to join Raleigh International, which is a
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  charity expedition, to
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  spend 3 months in a r a remote part of the world. And I tr I applied for that, followed my
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  curiosity, and found myself in Kenya in 1988. And it really gave me a much bigger
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  sense of the world, which before that had been Edinburgh and Scotland.
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  So so what did the expedition say? What did this What did it say?
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  They were looking for young people to take uh to go on a three-month expedition to carry out
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  scientific, community and adventure projects.
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  And you were like, "Yeah, let's go to Kenya. Let's just go."
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  Well, you got your salary paid. And in my mind, it was like 3 months off work, salary paid, and
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  have an adventure. and, What's not to like about that?
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  Okay And you were how old? You were 16? I was 22 by then. Oh, you were 22 then. 22 by then. Okay. So you're 22
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  and you see this thing, you're like, "Yeah, I'll go to Kenya." And you went to Kenya. And how was Kenya?
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  Well, I I met there there are people from all over the world. Uh There were 120 of
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  us young people on this expedition, split up into small groups of 10. And my black book of contacts
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  had gone from a few friends around the local area in Edinburgh to now in many different countries
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  around the world. So my sense of like what's possible suddenly just grew enormously. And I lert
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  learned how to plaster walls. We built a school. We did scientific work with the local scientists.
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  We
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  trekked with camels. So there was a good degree of hardship. And it just really gave me a much
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  bigger level of confidence. So much so that I went back to my employer afterwards and I said, I don't
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  wor want to work in this finance function that I'm based in now. I want to work in the training
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  department, because that's where I think I can add most value to the company. I never would have had
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  the confidence to do that prior to that expedition.
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  Right. I love that. So that started to develop your sense of confidence, and then you moved into
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  this training department. And then let's, you know, talk us through. So So what was the next thing?
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  Like How did that work for you?
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  Well, in the training department I I I helped uh managers and leaders to get better at what they
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  were doing. So I understood what it meant to develop yourself. While helping other people was
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  fantastic, I also wanted to develop myself as well. And after a number of years working in that
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  company, I thought it really is time for an a bigger adventure, because there I'd been com working in
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  the organisation for 12 years. And I think that's probably a pivotal moment. You think, well, I'm
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  either going to be here till I'm [unclear: 25?] and retiring. Yeah. Or
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  leaving after a very long career here. Or there's now it's time to change. And I saw another advert
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  in the newspaper.
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  You you did indeed. You did indeed. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the that advert said, "Are you
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  man enough?"
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  It said, yeah, "Wanted: 10 Arctic novice explorers to ski 350 miles to the
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  Magnetic North Pole." The brochure came back because I was curious enough to apply for it. And
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  then it said, "Are you man enough for the ultimate challenge?" Can you believe that?
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  The ultimate challenge? Are you man enough? They wouldn't do an ad like that now. There's no way
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  they would do an ad like that now. But you sort wha w did you did you sort of get wound up by all
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  the "man enough"? Did you feel you did?
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  Yes. Yeah. Because the brochure had just all pictures of men, and I thought, ho how dare they think
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  only men can do this. But could you do this? I mean, had you ever done it before? No. I had no idea. But I thought, well, the only way I
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  would find out is if I can try. And you know, I I think what I've learned since then uh is always
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  about just take the next small step and see what happens. Just take the next small step and see
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  what happens.
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  But that's a bit more than a small step. Well, there's always plenty. That's a long way. How far was it again?
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  350 miles. That would be like skiing from London to Edinburgh in Scotland.
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  And were you fit? I mean Did you have any sort of– did you know you must have had some sort of
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  physical fitness to be able to– Yes, I will admit to that. At that point
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  I was competing competitively in athletics. I represented Scotland. I knew that I was– What distances were you– In 3,000
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  metres and cross country. So that kind of endurance distance. So I knew I was fit. I didn't
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  know what would be required. I knew we would be dragging our own sledges. So, okay, it would be very
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  physically demanding, but there was plenty of time to back out if I was selected. But it's always
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  about just take the next step and discover what is possible, and from that I can then make a next
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  decision.
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  Okay. So you did have enough fitness-ish. But in y in terms of skiing ability, were you a skier?
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  I had done
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  downhill skiing, Aleksandra. I had never done cross-country skiing, but I didn't think that was going to
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  be– a problem.
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  What does that mean technically, for those that don't understand? What is it? Yeah.
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  Downhill skis, you've got your feet fully clipped into your skis and generally you're using
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  gravity to take you downhill.
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  Cross-country skiing, your feet are only clipped in at the toes of your boots. Your heels are loose,
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  and you're then using your muscles to push yourself along the ground to glide. But don't forget you're
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  dragging a sledge behind you.
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  So let's imagine a supermarket shopping trolley filled with shopping, that weight if not heavier, behind
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  you, a harness attached to your waist. You've got these skis on your feet that aren't completely
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  fixed in, so there's a degree of out-of-control feeling there. And then you're heading heading
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  forwards and you're heading north towards– Okay. Okay.
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  So you you'd agreed to the ad, you were like, "Yeah, okay, I'm going to do it." And then did you do any
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  special preparation before you embarked on this adventure?
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  Well, you can imagine hundreds of people applied for this uh opportunity, and there was a whole very
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  stringent selection process. Okay. A 28-mile hike, uh the military assault course at Sandhurst.
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  There were psychometric tests. And really the the main qualification, if you like, that the
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  organisers of this expedition were looking for was the ability to work in a team. So there were
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  some really fantastic individuals that excelled in many of the tests as individuals, but they didn't
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  look out for other people. And when you're
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  out in a place like the Arctic that wants you dead, you need to know that your teammates are
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  going to rely on you and you are going to rely on them. So you need to trust them. So you don't want high-performing
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  individuals. You want high-performing teammates.
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  Okay. And the objective of of the team in in in this inhospitable zone was what exactly?
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  It was twofold. It was an adventure expedition, because back in 1996 you couldn't
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  just sign up and turn up and go on expedition. That that Those sorts of things didn't exist like
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  they do today. This was really the first ever opportunity for people who didn't have experience to
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  pa participate in an expedition. So there was the adventure element, and then there was also a
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  scientific element. We were collecting data for the University of Ottawa to track the location of
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  the magnetic pole. And so the data that we would collect on the expedition
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  would go back there and be uh verified by the university and help their work. Yeah.
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  How do you How do you collect that data? I mean I don't want to get really [unclear: technical?], but what do
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  you do? Did you have a little gadget? Did they train you and you need to like point something, or
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  what? You're pretty much right. Yeah, we had a magnetometer and a theodolite with us, the sort of surveying equipment
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  that people would use. I'd never seen it before,
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  but we were trained in how to use it. Now, it's fine saying that on a lovely warm British day in the UK. Take yourself to minus 40 Celsius when you're physically and mentally exhausted at the end of each day, and you still have to go out there with pen and pencil and make the you collect the data.
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  You didn't know that at the time. So you signed up, you thought, okay, sounds good. You went through
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  this rigorous training process. How long did that last, the training? From August till January was the selection process. Couple of months. Yeah. I only knew I'd gained a place on the expedition in January, and we were leaving in April, and I still had to raise £15,000 to pay for my place. Right. So you had to pay for it as well. How did you raise the money? Sponsorship,
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  and thankfully Birds Eye Frozen Foods came up with the money. We were filmed by the BBC, and of
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  course if successful I'd be the first British woman to get there. So those were two compelling
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  reasons that they agreed to sponsor. Okay.
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  Okay. So you got some sponsors, and then you had to get on a plane. And did you know any of the peop
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  with any of the people coming with you on the expedition on that flight, or you were just were going
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  straight there? Where did you fly to? What was your airport?
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  We flew uh I flew ahead with two others. We were the advance party, so we were doing some of the
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  early preparations prior to everybody else joining us. And we flew into northern Canada. Ultimately,
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  our expedition began in Resolute, which is in the Nunavut territories of northern Canada. So think
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  of a globe. Think of almost to the top of the world in northern Canada and put a finger a dot in
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  the map, and that's where we started from.
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  How did it feel when you landed?
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  We opened the door. I think it was minus 20 Celsius outside, and the cold just hits you in the
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  face and the body. Yeah. And I suddenly realised, what have I let myself in for? I'm not going to have any
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  respite from this sapping feeling of of really extreme cold when we were out on our expedition. And I
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  thought, mm maybe I've bitten off more than I could chew. Yeah.
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  I was in Poland once when it was, I think, minus 20 or something, and my eyeballs hurt, literally. They stung. You just wanted to protect every bit of your entire– oh. Yes. It's penetratingly cold.
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  It m It just uses up so much mental as well as physical energy that you realise how comfortable we
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  are normally in warmer temperatures.
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  Oh, so comfortable. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, talk us through. So you've arrived. You go to your hotel. Are
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  you excited? Or you th Yeah, I know you've got a bit of "what did I get myself into?", but are you
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  excited? Yes,
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  I am excited. I've now got to know that my teammates a little bit, so I'm looking forward to
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  working with them. I love how you say hotel, because we are in the High Arctic. So it's more
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  boarding house. Think youth hostel uh equivalent. Very small building that only would uh house
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  20 or so people. Think, yes, comfort and warm, but fairly primitive. And you know, that's
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  probably the easy easing us into the extre the extreme hardship we're going to have when we're
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  camping out in tents
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  on the ice. Was the food good when you– The food was– it gave you a lot of energy. you know, It was wholesome food. What was it? Just
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  your pasta and– uh you know, I can't remember the exact things we were eating, but it was it was
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  uh wholesome food that set us up for being out in the cold.
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  Hearty, w lovely food. I always think about food. Sorry, I, I apologise, but anyone who watches my
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  podcast will know I love food. Okay. uh So you eat, you you you start mentally preparing, you've
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  arrived.
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  What's next?
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  Well, one of the things that is really important is to do sort of final preparations. And by that I
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  mean, we uh when the rest of the team arrived, then we went out from the village where we were– s
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  camped uh we are not camped– we went out from our village to camp just outside of the village
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  overnight, dragging our sledges, pitching our tents, simulating what it would be like when we
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  actually leave for the expedition. And very quickly you work out the things that are working for
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  you, the equipment that's working, that's suitable, and the things that aren't.
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  Unknown: when there's no extra zips or uh latches on the end of your jacket to zip
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  up your jacket, for example, and you're wearing giant gloves and it's really cold, it's very hard to
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  comfortably or easily zip up your clothes. So we went back immediately and sewed an extra loop
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  on the end of our zips for our jackets, for example. You wouldn't think about that when you're in
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  comfortable temperatures. You go into the cold, you realise that's really important.
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  Oh, it's like a tr trial run.
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  Yeah. So it was like a trial run. And even simple things, like you now realise that everything in
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  your sled you're going to be dragging with you. y, And so therefore everything is carefully
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  considered: as should it really be in there or not? No luxuries, nothing that's weighing too much.
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  You thought you could take an extra pair of socks. Well, maybe you'll leave them behind. So it really did
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  force– Difficult. I'm a terrible packer. I'm not sure how you would fare in the Arctic then,
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  Aleksandra.
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  Yeah.
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  So, yeah, it does it does. It forces you to really think, what do I actually need to survive?
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  To survive. Yeah, that's the key. What do you need to survive in your survival kit bag?
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  Well, minimal clothing, you know clothing enough to keep you warm in the really cold temperatures.
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  I think what's more important is what's in your head that you need to survive. It's the mental
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  toughness. It's the belief you can keep going. It's the trusting your teammates. It's what you're
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  telling yourself at any hour of any day, in any moment. That's the key thing that you need to
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  survive, I think.
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  Okay. We'll get to we'll get to your head in a second. Um So you've got your essentials, you've
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  packed, you've done this little testing thing, you've camped out there. Did you enjoy the test? Huh.
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  Yes. And it gave me a sense of anticipation of what was to come ahead. And then I also realised
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  that the next time we go out, that is it. We're packing our sled, we're heading north, and we won't
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  see anybody else. Okay, let's
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  go there. You went out. You're now on the real expedition. The adrenaline's pumping. You've packed
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  your things. You've tested. You're going. What is it li like? What does it look like out there and feel
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  like?
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  It looks white all around. There are icebergs. there are um The snow is not flat. It's not looking
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  like an ice rink, watching an ice hockey match. It looks more like the rubble on a building site. So
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  there are large lumps of uh ice, icebergs that have been frozen into the frozen Arctic Ocean. And of
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  course the current's moving, so the ice is pushing itself together and then it kind of erupting,
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  and therefore it's very uneven. So you have to work out your way, at looking
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  ahead. Should I ski over that block of ice? Should I go around it to the left? So it's a it's a
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  puzzle.
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  Why do you have to have skis? Can't you just take them off and walk?
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  You might think that that would be the case, but given that in some areas the snow is very thick,
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  if you walked, the single weight of your foot going through the snow would actually be up to your
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  thighs. What you what The benefit the skis give you is weight distribution.
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  They must be like thick skis, and not the normal thin– They are thin
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  skis. Yeah. Just like you would see on a ski– s But why don't you just sink down there? and I still don't get it. Sorry. It's like my
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  lack of ski and Arctic knowledge here, but– Yeah. So you're wearing your long thin skis, and on the bottom of them they have what you would call skins, like fish skins. Obviously it's not real fish skin, but it's something that's going to grip when you're going uphill. You're not going to slide back down. And so I quickly learned from the others how to navigate my way using these skis,
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  and remembering your sledge is following you behind through this uh difficult icy terrain. The other
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  thing that we really realised very quickly– and we had a very uh experienced expedition leader
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  guiding us, David Hempleman-Adams– and he said to us, okay, the first thing you need to learn in the
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  Arctic is routine. Because we will, for example, ski for an hour. We will have a five-minute break.
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  We will ski for another hour, another five-minute break. And that will be the routine for the entire
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  day. The reason
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  you don't stop for longer is you're just going to get cold. And if you um You need to have some sort
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  of break as you're going along, but it gives you some sense of structure to the day. And it was
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  really important to have that sense of structure.
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  I love that. I love that. It's like steps. It's like little goals. Yes. I love that. Did that help you?
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  Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And on some days, when an hour just seemed insurmountable, I couldn't ever imagine
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  even skiing for 60 minutes, I said to myself– back to the thi what's going on in my head– I'll
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  get through the next 5 minutes and then I'll see how I feel. This reminds me of athletics training, and I love running too. And it is
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  like the idea of interval training, where you push yourself to unbelievable speeds that you think you'll w you will die, but then you rest and then you go again. It also reminds me
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  of childbirth, because you think after you've done it once, and never again, but you do it again, don't
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  you? It's a different kind of interval. Okay. Okay. So so you're doing these little intervals, and
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  so that's c so you're good? no? Is it all good or is it not?
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  Well, you it's too cold to really speak to anybody else, very often. Not talking. It's cold. Very often you speak you're
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  skiing in single file, because it's safer if the ground and the terrain beneath you is unstable.
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  then If all of you are skiing in across in twos or threes, then you're putting much more uh weight on
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  that area of ground. So safety means we ski in single file. You have so many clothes on: you have
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  your balaclava, your hood up, your goggles, your mask, whatever it might be. Therefore it's really
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  quite difficult to speak to anybody
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  else. So now that means that you don't have any– we didn't have Sony Walkman or anything like that.
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  It was pre all of those things. So now you're just in silence. Can you imagine 30 days' silence
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  in your head? And all that then begins to then evoke in your mind is, if you start to catastrophise, if
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  you start to think I can't do it, of course that will really affect your performance. You know, the closest I ever came to that was on The Apprentice,
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  the reality TV show, and I can't give away too many things, but there were these periods, and I found it unbelievably difficult. It's not something you think– "I'll be
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  fine, silence." No.
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  Yeah. So that was a that was a b a huge learning. And uh learning to start to notice what what and
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  how I was thinking was going to really impact wh how I skied and how I showed up for the day.
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  Because then you're having conversations with yourself, and that could be a problem. So what wh what
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  were you telling yourself? What were those conversations? What did they look like? Did you
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  doubt yourself?
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  Initially I did doubt myself, and then I quickly realised that that wasn't going to be helpful for me,
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  because I noticed my speed of skiing was reducing. So then uh You talked about athletics already,
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  Aleksandra. You'll know from interval training yourself how you're thinking, I'll just get through
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  this next 400 metres and then I'll have a rest. So that whole kind of process of just
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  really giving yourself some positive thoughts, positive self-talk, that was uh I quickly realised
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  that was important. And then I just began to always be thinking about food. You mentioned
• 23:14
  that earlier, and I also have a love of food. And after a few days of this– Chocolate. Oh, I love chocolate.
• 23:21
  I began to think to myself, you know, Sue, you know surely you must think about something a little
• 23:26
  bit more highbrow than food. Come on, get, get some more intellectual thoughts in your mind. So I
• 23:31
  began to think about friends that I hadn't seen for a while, and recall who they were and where we
• 23:37
  met and what we did. And then I quickly realised that the memories that I had were always that I'd met
• 23:44
  this person in a bar or a restaurant and we'd eaten something, and I could recall exactly what
• 23:48
  meals I'd had when I when I had met them. Steak. And I apologise. [unclear: So they said, "Don't eat meat"], but steak. Steak. Steak. Steak. So it just made me think, come on then. Okay. Food's
• 23:56
  the thing that y you want to think about, just do it. Oh, well done. Oh, that's good. You see, I don't have
• 24:10
  to go to the Arctic to think about that. Okay. So you're talking to yourself, you're going on this expedition. How l how many days in are you now? How
• 24:16
  how is it? We're about
• 24:19
  10 days or so into the expedition. And you've been doing fine. Yeah, I've been doing okay, although I'm starting to get blisters
• 24:25
  on the back of my heels. And any cuts or problems that you have health-wise, of course, you're not
• 24:31
  going to be in warm conditions to allow anything to heal or improve. So all that happened
• 24:37
  to those blisters is they got bigger and bigger and bigger. And then my attention then stopped
• 24:43
  thinking about food and started thinking about the pain in my heels.
• 24:47
  Okay. Very real pain, getting worse. No. no um Did you tell anyone? Yeah, I
• 24:52
  did. And although I tried to uh look after the the these blisters, um you you know what it's like, even
• 25:20
  if you wear shoes that hurt your feet for the first time, that's all you can think. You're in a terrible mood as well. Yeah.
• 25:20
  So that it was really a bit of an endurance test until I managed to get a combination of wearing
• 25:20
  more layers of socks and just really trying to take my mind off that discomfort and start to look
• 25:20
  elsewhere and to start to think about other things. Were
• 25:20
  you able to sleep at night? You must have loved just the moment where you guys put your heads down,
• 25:25
  right? And you're like, "Oh, please help." Was it like that?
• 25:28
  Well, yes. However, also it's 24-hour daylight. We're going in April, May. So–
• 25:34
  I was going to ask you about the stars. I'm not going to do that anymore. There's no stars.
• 25:37
  There are no stars. So I'd wear my balaclava over my eyes to give me a sense of darkness, and that's
• 25:42
  what helped me go to sleep. But of course if we're so exhausted then, it really is very easy to just
• 25:47
  be off to sleep in a couple of minutes.
• 25:50
  So, yeah, so that that's actually good advice. Just make yourself physically [unclear: tired?]
• 25:56
  and then you'll sleep. So, um yeah. so you But you're managing, you're managing fine, and the
• 26:01
  expedition continues. and And what happens next?
• 26:05
  Well, I'm now beginning to really get to know my other teammates. I'm not there on my own. There's
• 26:10
  a team of 10 novices. We have four experienced people. And I'm now realising that I am i I could
• 26:16
  be a motivator to them when anybody's having a down day, and that they can be encouraging me. And I'm
• 26:22
  really not there on my own. I'm also realising that the only way that we're going to be potentially
• 26:29
  successful is if Mother Nature allows us to get there. I mean y You think in a place like that,
• 26:35
  Aleksandra, in the Arctic, there's nothing to look at. There really is nothing to focus on.
• 26:39
  So there's the– [laughter]
• 26:42
  Well, there's not anything let's say there's not anything different particularly to look at.
• 26:46
  Everything is white all around you.
• 26:48
  Different types of white.
• 26:49
  There are different types of white. Now you're making it sound good, you see. But it can be so uh
• 26:55
  it can be very one-dimensional. And so, uh realising that if the weather turns bad, that might stop
• 27:01
  us getting there. If we meet a polar bear, that might stop us getting there. There are so many
• 27:08
  factors that are uncertain, out of our control, that that's when I thought, you know what, we're so
• 27:13
  insignificant in this world. So we have to just make the best of every moment on this expedition. And
• 27:19
  I'm so glad I wasn't doing it on my own. In fact, I don't think I could have done it. all.
• 27:22
  Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, if you're on your own, I mean anything happens to you, you're you're
• 27:27
  toast. I mean You probably felt the– the von yeah, you did, the polar bears you're talking about– the but
• 27:32
  the vulnerability of it, that you basically you really are relying on– yes, you've got a team, but
• 27:36
  you've got to put your work in, because how are they going to carry you when something happens? Like
• 27:41
  you You've got to survive now.
• 27:44
  Yes, you are in the team, and but you have to also contribute to the team. So you have to do the
• 27:48
  work, you have to– drag You will die [unclear: quickly?]. You could die. And did you feel that you could die? The thought went through my mind. What's the worst that can happen on this expedition? That we don't come back. And I was prepared to accept that. Did
• 28:10
  they tell you when you signed up to the ad? It wasn't quite like– warn you. [laughter] I think it was about acceptance of risk. You could walk out in front of a bus unexpectedly, or a cyclist could hit you in the middle of a city, and you could die. It's a bit different. I don't think it is. I was consciously choosing to put myself into that situation, and therefore I'm consciously accepting of the risks that it brings. And I'm accepting also that the teammates
• 28:40
  there are doing also the same, to the best of their abilities. So I think– I I felt again, we talked
• 28:45
  about responsibility earlier in this conversation– I felt uh uh you know, I took responsibility for
• 28:50
  being there and the consequences that might happen.
• 28:52
  Did you feel responsible for other people?
• 28:54
  Yes. Yes, I did, because um I w I think we were all looking out for each other. When you're all novices,
• 29:01
  when nobody in our 10 of us had previous experience, you know what it's like. You're all in it
• 29:07
  together. You're doing something new. You're all eager to learn, but you also know that you've
• 29:14
  got to rely on each other, because out there, this is an environment that wants you dead. Yeah. And
• 29:20
  you're also um taking responsibility for other strangers' lives. You You're in this very bonding
• 29:26
  situation, but you've gotta e you know, you're there to save their life, they're there to save your
• 29:31
  life. So what happened?
• 29:34
  Well, it was a a slog. It was mindless. After days and days and days, you wake up every morning, it's
• 29:42
  white and cold. You eat the same food. You put your skis on, you pack your tent up, you pack your sledge,
• 29:49
  you wait for everybody else, you begin to ski, and you ski for 8, 10, 12 hours a day. And
• 29:56
  it's you know, rinse and repeat. Same thing every single day. And there were times when I thought,
• 30:02
  why are we doing this? W you
• 30:04
  is, you know, Do I really want to get to the North Pole? Is it worth the effort? I did question
• 30:09
  myself. And then I realised, well, you know, there are very few people in the world that ever get
• 30:14
  an opportunity to do this. This is a privilege, and I've got to really make sure I make the most of
• 30:18
  it.
• 30:20
  Did you get there?
• 30:22
  30 days later. Yes, we did. We did. And it was a bit of an anticlimax. Of course there was
• 30:28
  a great sense of, we've we've accomplished our goal. But you can imagine, just uh checking we had our
• 30:34
  g our GPS, our global positioning system, like your car satnav. We were had that in our hands
• 30:40
  and we were measuring down: 100 metres to go, 50 metres to go. Oh, now you can just stop
• 30:45
  skiing. Yeah. And you've skied for a whole month, and then all of a sudden you go–
• 30:52
  One
• 30:52
  day.
• 30:52
  Well, this is just white and cold, and like every other bit of white and cold. There's no monument thing, nothing? And who's going to build a monument? There's no– [laughter] All
• 30:58
  of a sudden we almost just crashed into each other like dominoes, because the person at
• 31:04
  the front said, "Okay, right. We're here." They planted a flag, and– So there's a flag there. Well, we took our flag with us. Okay.
• 31:09
  But there's nothing to distinguish it from the ice. There's nothing there? No. I would think there's something there, special. You're you're f
• 31:15
  skiing on frozen Arctic sea ice, and the Arctic sea ice moves. So the North Pole today would be
• 31:21
  different
• 31:22
  in 2 hours, 3 hours' time if you were standing on the piece of ice, because the ice is
• 31:26
  gradually moving. So there isn't a fixed– compare that to the South Pole where, there yes, there is a
• 31:31
  fixed pole and a flag that you can get to, because that's a land mass. So they're quite different. Gosh. But you made
• 31:37
  it there. We made it. though. But it was it was it was a sense of– well, really the big thing that was most um
• 31:42
  valuable and enjoyable was the journey, the camaraderie that we'd shared together. And actually I w
• 31:48
  I think we were all quite sad that when the plane was going to come in to pick us up, the the
• 31:52
  little little Twin Otter plane, that close connection, the camaraderie that we'd shared, was going to be
• 31:57
  broken, and we would have to go back to the real world and be out of this amazing experience we'd
• 32:02
  had together.
• 32:05
  Was getting out of it a bit of a shock then,
• 32:07
  the hustle and bustle of life?
• 32:10
  Yes, it was. And uh there there was uh we had a sponsor that flew in with his wife on a small jet
• 32:15
  to meet the the group of us, It's a rather wealthy Swiss individual. And uh we did find it it was
• 32:21
  quite amusing, because we of course hadn't washed for an entire month, and then they had to travel
• 32:27
  back in the same small jet as us. So we thought perhaps we've got our own back now.
• 32:33
  Yeah. Yeah. Don't want to imagine what that uh smelled like. But, no but, yeah. yeah. And then you went
• 32:41
  back to real life, and then what happened? Well,
• 32:45
  yes. I w I sat back. I sat back because I thought, well, I'm going to be famous now. The media will be
• 32:50
  bringing me opportunities. I'll be in the press and so on. Well, that lasted 5 minutes, and then
• 32:55
  you're old news. But I just thought that the world would bring me things. And all the confidence I'd
• 33:01
  had at the North Pole began to dissipate. And I didn't just wait a week or a month. I sat back for
• 33:06
  three months. And then I began to think, "Oh, poor me. Nothing's going to happen." And I said to myself,
• 33:13
  do you know, Sue, the only person
• 33:15
  that's going to help you is you. You have to get back out there. And if you can do something for
• 33:21
  somebody else, then maybe that will give you some confidence. So I took my attention away from
• 33:26
  looking internally to the outside world. How can I help somebody else? And so I contacted the
• 33:32
  charity that I'd been to Kenya with. They always need volunteer members of staff. And I asked them
• 33:38
  if they needed somebody like me with my experience now. And they said, "Yes, we'd love to have you.
• 33:45
  Would you like to go to Chile in 3 weeks' time and be deputy expedition leader for 120
• 33:49
  young people down there?" Well, I just grabbed their the opportunity from them, and I
• 33:55
  headed off down to southern Chile, which looks mistakenly like Antarctica. Really? Yeah. Well, if you go down to the south of Patagonia, there's lots of ice there. There's a northern and southern Patagonian ice cap. So whilst
• 34:02
  I spent four months there leading the expedition, my
• 34:08
  curiosity now began to make
• 34:15
  me think, I wonder if I can get to Antarctica. And so in a m a letter that my sister wrote to me,
• 34:21
  she enclosed a newspaper cutting with an advert in it. And this was talking about an expedition
• 34:27
  that a man called Robert Swan was organising, to take young people down to Antarctica. Now, the age
• 34:34
  limit at that time was 24 for the young people. So in my letter, my sister wrote, "Ha ha, Sue, you're
• 34:39
  too old now," because now I was uh thirty almost 30, "but I thought you'd like to know about it."
• 34:45
  And from this newspaper cutting, I thought mm maybe there's a chance here. Maybe there's an
• 34:50
  opportunity. To do what in Antarctica? To be part of Robert's team. So he was taking 35 young people from
• 34:58
  25 different countries as part of a UNESCO expedition, to take these young people down
• 35:04
  there to inspire them to experience Antarctica first-hand. So that in 2041, which of
• 35:10
  course is many years away, when the Antarctic Treaty comes up
• 35:15
  for renewal, which is a treaty that means that all the countries in the world agree to use
• 35:20
  Antarctica for science and peace and not to take the resources from it, that these young people
• 35:26
  would now be older and be in positions of influence to then, s i if you like– in inf influence their
• 35:32
  countries.
• 35:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:39
  It's a noble cause. –influence their
• 35:42
  countries. It's a different way to operate, I would say. Yeah. Well, very different.
• 35:43
  I think the important thing that Robert really realised is how we can often only get inspired when we experience something for ourselves. Reading a book or watching a television programme isn't the same as actually being there.
• 35:51
  So, having read about this expedition, I thought, I'd love to be a member of staff on this expedition.
• 35:55
  I didn't know who Robert was, but I was resourceful. I found out his contact details, made
• 36:01
  contact, and asked him if I could be part of the expedition. Would you believe, two months later,
• 36:07
  after the Chilean expedition, I found myself in Antarctica? You went
• 36:13
  to Antarctica. So you went all the way up and all the way down, if there's any up or down, whichever way you want to
• 36:18
  think about it. who knows Who knows at this point? And and how do the two sides of the the
• 36:23
  Earth differ?
• 36:34
  Well, apart from the Antarctic being, of course, the land mass and the Arctic being frozen sea ice, they're still cold and white. They're still places that want you dead. They're still magical and remote and challenging. And of course there's a lot more wildlife in Antarctica than the Arctic.
• 36:43
  So taking these young people, now I had responsibility. I wasn't just taking myself there as part
• 36:47
  of a team. I was now co-leading the expedition as a one of the the leaders with Robert.
• 36:52
  Well mo More responsibility. what For those that don't know, what wildlife, what what and what does
• 36:56
  the day and night look like? and Just tell us the basics about the region.
• 37:00
  Well, we were sailing down to Antarctica. So we sailed from Ushuaia, which is the bottom part of the
• 37:05
  the continent of South America. So we took a ship from there, and we sailed uh over the Drake
• 37:10
  Passage, which is quite an infamous stretch of water because it can be so extreme. So then of
• 37:15
  course we begin to get closer to Antarctica. We begin to see icebergs floating past us in the water.
• 37:23
  We see penguins. We start to see seals, walruses– All sorts of things. And uh it's just uh an amazing
• 37:30
  place.
• 37:31
  Oh, it's beautiful. So beautiful. Filled with nature. And so far it's it sounds like you know very
• 37:36
  touristy, very nice. But, yeah, take, us take us with you. So what are you eating? What's going on?
• 37:41
  You know, Are you getting along with everyone? And what's the what's the next task?
• 37:48
  Well, these young people from these 25 different countries were uh op purposely selected because they were countries where
• 37:54
  there was a degree of conflict at that time. So there was Chechnya and Russia. There was Northern
• 38:00
  Ireland and and Ireland. There was uh uh uh uh a black and a white person from South Africa. Uh You
• 38:06
  get the sense of what of what I'm describing.
• 38:10
  Good Interesting com combination. Because
• 38:12
  Robert wanted to show that th these people and the and these countries, whilst they can be in
• 38:17
  conflict in their countries, when you take them to Antarctica, we promote peace. We promote
• 38:23
  connectedness and cooperation. [unclear: Same species] and surviving. Nobody cares. Yeah. Literally no one cares. And these young people, yeah, they r they quickly
• 38:29
  realised it didn't matter if that person came from some ob uh another country that there was back in
• 38:34
  conflict.
• 38:37
  So Do you not think it would be a terrific idea to do that with our world leaders? Put them on a
• 38:40
  little expedition.
• 38:42
  Absolutely.
• 38:42
  Little skis on them, say, you want to survive, you've got s to work together. Can you imagine? Yes. Well, that's the wonderful thing. It does. It strips away– It
• 38:51
  would be wonderful to do that. –job titles, sense of importance, value, anything that is the measures that we use, let's call it, in normal life. Those things get stripped away and you come back to being an authentic human being.
• 39:06
  Oh, I love it. Right. Okay. Okay. So so so yeah, so what's your your assignment?
• 39:12
  My assignment is to really support the young people, if you like, uh almost kind of pastoral care. So
• 39:19
  when i There were some peop young people there that had never seen snow before. There were some
• 39:23
  that weren't good at speaking English. uh, They had to be co cooperate with one another. Some of
• 39:28
  them were completely overawed by the experience. Uh We were camping out on the ice uh in Antarctica
• 39:34
  for part of the time, getting off our ship and and having that experience. We were doing some
• 39:39
  community work, uh helping some of the projects.
• 39:42
  uh There's an old museum uh hut there at Port Lockroy. We were helping those that were running
• 39:50
  that hut to uh refurbish it and look after it. So my job was to really be noticing you know, which
• 39:56
  young person's looking a bit quiet, who who's hogging the space here, how can I get them to
• 40:02
  interact more effectively together? So way back, all that experience in that corporate environment
• 40:08
  and training development helped you. I was able to then help to bu build a team
• 40:12
  uh f together with these young people, helping them to learn, get to know each other and to trust each
• 40:16
  other.
• 40:18
  Okay. So were there any hairy moments?
• 40:21
  Well, I think there w there were some people that enjoyed the experience more than others, it has to
• 40:26
  be fair to say. Um And I think also when you have you know young people that want to enjoy themselves,
• 40:32
  you've got to keep them engaged. You've got to keep giving them some activities to engage them. And we almost
• 40:38
  didn't even get on the expedition, because when we got down to Ushuaia ready to sail out, waiting for
• 40:44
  our boat to come back uh into harbour from its previous charter, we got a call to say the ship had hit
• 40:51
  some rocks in its previous voyage and it was going to the boatyard to be repaired. Can you
• 40:56
  imagine? Young people have saved up money. They've prepared. They're there, excited, ready for this
• 41:02
  expedition, and now the ship isn't going to arrive. Well, Robert was a great leader at that moment, and
• 41:08
  he said, "I don't have the answers as a leader here. Let's tell the young people that this is going to
• 41:13
  happen. We may not get on the expedition, but let's use the time purposefully." So we broke the
• 41:19
  young people up into small groups of four or
• 41:21
  five, and we said, "Go and research what's available for us to do here at low or no cost. We're going to
• 41:27
  be here for at least four or five days minimum. What can we do that's going to be purposeful and
• 41:32
  meaningful?" And they were brilliant. They went out, they accepted the reality. They found things
• 41:37
  for us to do. They wanted to learn from one another. They wanted to learn about the food from their
• 41:42
  different countries. They wanted to learn about the language. They wanted to learn about Antarctica
• 41:46
  and how they would put the tents up and things like that. So they got really
• 41:51
  involved in using that time purposefully, which I thought was fantastic. It
• 41:54
  would be interesting. I mean, but people go on on you know as tourists to go there to just enjoy, you
• 41:59
  know and if you can, I mean it'd be a wonderful experience to just look at these beautiful animals. Yes.
• 42:04
  And just be in that environment, as lo as long as you're well fed and you have your hot
• 42:09
  chocolate. Well, you know. But, yeah, no but it's um that's that's lovely. So um how did that then
• 42:15
  evolve, and what happened next? Well, after that
• 42:20
  experience– Robert Swan is a great motivational speaker, and he delivered a speech to us all, and I
• 42:26
  was wowed and inspired by what he had to say. But then I began to also think, hmm, maybe now with my
• 42:32
  experiences that I've had in adventuring so far, maybe I've got something that I could use to
• 42:37
  inspire people. And I didn't just want those photographs that I had taken in the Arctic in
• 42:42
  particular to be photographs in an album that were just personal and memories for me. I thought, what if
• 42:47
  there's a bigger reason for me having done that
• 42:50
  journey? What if I could inspire other people, just like Robert's doing with us, to get to their
• 42:56
  North Pole in in life and in work? Maybe that would mean that my experience had been really more
• 43:01
  purposeful, more valuable than just something personal and selfish for me. So uh Robert's wife at
• 43:07
  the time, she was a uh his agent his speaking agent. So I asked for some help from her, and she
• 43:13
  helped me craft together my first presentation, and I decided to set up in business as a
• 43:18
  motivational speaker.
• 43:20
  Yeah. And that that's what you do now. And you take these lessons that you've learned and you help
• 43:25
  people and you help companies to apply them. I I'm going to ask you the most important one I find in
• 43:30
  business um now, and that is resilience. What have you learned about resilience in all your
• 43:36
  adventures?
• 43:39
  Well, I've learned a lot about resilience, because I think back to what we talked about uh earlier
• 43:44
  on, about taking that next small step. So you see the advert. What's the next small step? You get
• 43:50
  the brochure. What's the next small step? You apply. you, You go through the tests. Always about
• 43:56
  taking the small steps. And if it doesn't work out, this next small step, well, what have I learned
• 44:00
  from that? How can I apply that in the next small step?
• 44:03
  But even the next small step has a big step.
• 44:06
  Not always. It's ea it's it's about how we frame things in our minds. Get Taking anything that
• 44:12
  seems like a big step, then I always think to myself, okay, well, if I could just break that down–
• 44:17
  Break it down. Break it down into just to to the smallest thing. And the other thing I learned is how we often
• 44:22
  have more support around us than we ever realise. I had the support of the team in the Arctic
• 44:27
  expedition. I wasn't there on my own. So I could help use their support, their encouragement, to give
• 44:33
  me a degree of resilience. Often in
• 44:36
  life when we're trying new things, we think, "Oh, nobody will be there to help me." Well, maybe we've
• 44:42
  never asked.
• 44:42
  I I think there's also the element that it's not necessarily that nobody will be there to help me,
• 44:48
  but there is pride. I see that a lot. Um And it's like, no, I want to do it myself. you know. Um
• 44:54
  There is a lot of that. Not everyone wants help.
• 44:58
  Well, perhaps that's because maybe s they perceive that help is a weakness, asking for help is a
• 45:05
  weakness. I see that asking for help is a strength. Why? Because if somebody asks me for help– if I take it the other way around– if somebody asks me for help, I feel honoured that they have valued me enough to want my help. I feel good when I give it, and I see that in some small way I've helped to benefit what they're doing. And now I've got a
• 45:28
  vested interest in supporting them in what they're doing. So now there's two bits of en there's
• 45:33
  two sort of sets of energy helping them forward. Okay.
• 45:36
  Can you give me an example in your adventures where you were forced to ask for help and you didn't
• 45:40
  want to ask for help? Has that happened?
• 45:44
  Well, I can give an example from a g uh subsequent Greenland expedition that I was on.
• 45:47
  Let's go Let's go to Greenland, right? What's Greenland like, before we go there? W What's Greenland?
• 45:52
  Well, Greenland's certainly not green. It's cold. It's not green at all. It's also Cold and white
• 45:56
  as well. Again, it's it is an amazing country. There There's obviously a lot more population there than
• 46:01
  there is in Antarctica, but only on the edges of the of the country.
• 46:05
  Is it clean and and not polluted?
• 46:06
  It is. uh In some places it is polluted. We did see some aspects of pollution, but there's 56,000
• 46:12
  population in a vast land mass. So they're very few and far
• 46:17
  between in terms of human beings. Okay. There I am in Greenland, four of us on an expedition. Heavier
• 46:23
  sledges than the Arctic expedition. We're going to ski from the east coast to the west coast.
• 46:30
  Why are you doing this adventure, Sue? Because it's there. You need to really– okay. Right.
• 46:38
  Unknown: two Norwegians, a German and myself. And we set off on our adventure. And I'm the most
• 46:55
  experienced person in the Arctic environment, polar environments, by that time. So I sort of think of
• 47:06
  myself as, well, I know it all, effectively, because I've done it before. And as we begin skiing, the
• 47:07
  others start skiing much faster than I am. Now, I become kind of annoyed by this. you know, Don't
• 47:08
  they know I'm the expert here? And we can't
• 47:08
  ski at this speed for an entire month. Yeah, sure. This is ridiculous. You know, I'm sure we've all been in those
• 47:12
  sorts of situations, where we think we've got you know, we're expertise and no one's
• 47:16
  listening to us.
• 47:27
  But also a valid concern, that you feel they ski too fast. Yes, but of course they're skiing so fast that I can't catch up with them to tell them that. And when we get to the end of the day and we're all inside the tent together, nobody says anything.
• 47:32
  Oh, it's awkward. Oh, it's awkward in a tent in Greenland, and cold.
• 47:38
  So you can get that sense of tension. You know, The elephant in the room sort of thing.
• 47:43
  Well It's quite annoying if they all skied ahead. You think– Yes. –that's not very nice.
• 47:47
  Now, I was reflecting on this at the uh later, because I probably didn't really think about it at
• 47:51
  the time. But if that happened in the workplace, you could probably go home and you could complain
• 47:55
  to your husband or your wife or your friends: oh, those people that work there. You
• 48:00
  get away from it, and then you can come back next day and you can still have the frustration, but
• 48:04
  you've got some some way of getting respite from it. In the Arctic, four of us together, there is
• 48:10
  no respite. There's nowhere to escape. So really these issues have to be addressed,
• 48:17
  otherwise they're going to just cause fracturing or tension in the group. Right. Heavy. Yeah. So there's kind
• 48:23
  of frustration, trouble brewing, nobody's saying anything in the tent, and it's a little bit
• 48:29
  uncomfortable. Well, the next day, the fittest of the team, the one who was far ahead, he gets a
• 48:35
  muscle strain in his leg. Because he was
• 48:39
  going too fast. Well, of course, my reaction initially was, "Yes, now he can slow down. Look, that's solved the problem." A
• 48:46
  very selfish perspective, of course. A little bit of I told you so. Yes. Yes. and and you know And what is that
• 48:52
  about? That's probably about me not willing to address my own inadequacies here, you know, my
• 48:58
  looking at my own self. What was that? I think I was trying to to put put the blame on him. Well, it's his
• 49:04
  fault. He's going so fast. it's Now we're slowing down. And
• 49:09
  I'd started to tell myself a story that wasn't reality at all, just to keep myself in my comfort.
• 49:15
  What was the reality? The reality was I didn't want to accept that I had a weakness: that I couldn't take a quarter
• 49:20
  share of the weight of the equipment and ski at the same speed as everybody else.
• 49:26
  So we had to sit down together, and this uh muscle strain was the catalyst that for that
• 49:30
  conversation. And the first thing was that it was: you're too fast, you're too slow, you're not
• 49:35
  listening, all that kind of emotion emotional expression.
• 49:39
  Heavy stuff.
• 49:40
  Yeah. But then we just sat, because we knew that we couldn't just storm off in a huff and escape.
• 49:47
  There's nowhere to escape to. So you just have to sit with that discomfort, and then you can start to
• 49:53
  then let those emotions subside and get to some quality thinking. And so we came up with lots of
• 49:58
  different ideas. How can we resolve this problem? We've got a variation in speed of skiing. We need
• 50:04
  to find a way through it. It's Eventually the the m the man with the muscle strain said, "Look, Sue,
• 50:10
  give me some of the weight from your sledge. That will free you up. You can ski faster. It will slow
• 50:15
  me down with my muscle strain. We'll have found a more even speed of skiing." Now, doesn't that sound
• 50:20
  really simple, Aleksandra? It sounds you know it's very logical. that so I resisted that. Why? "No, I'm fine,"
• 50:27
  I said to myself. "I can do it." Because I didn't want to actually accept that I had a weakness.
• 50:40
  And then it took me a few moments to think, what's not to like about a lighter sledge? Why am I
• 50:40
  stopping myself accepting this this change? And if I do that, I'm uh I'm helping the entire team to
• 50:46
  succeed. It's not just about me.
• 50:50
  In business,
• 50:50
  it's like when I started. I I went from being an employee to having a business and being
• 50:55
  forced to rely on people. I actually in the Initially I was worried about that, you know, the whole
• 51:01
  finance side or this side, or giving someone the power to– you know the w you do the technical ads–
• 51:05
  instead of you know being in everything. There's a relief in that, though, too, when you can allow
• 51:11
  someone with their talent and their expertise– like please do run that, actually, please do do that.
• 51:18
  But you have to let go of the control,
• 51:20
  and it's hard, isn't it? Yes, it is hard. And when I accepted that– Hard, that difficult challenge, that difficult decision to make. There was a lightness. Then there was a freedom. There was like, wow, this is great. I'm enabling everybody. It's not just about me.
• 51:41
  And that was such a pivotal moment on that– You realised that in that moment.
• 51:47
  I did. And it just gave me a newfound gratitude for the other members of the team.
• 51:50
  I thought we handled that– maybe not initially. uh you know The the sort kind of storming stage of
• 51:56
  team building, we didn't maybe handle that as effectively. But once we then did sit down and have
• 52:02
  that conversation, with nobody escaping and sitting with that discomfort, we found a really uh
• 52:07
  helpful resolution. And that lesson for me has stuck with me ever since: that there's no shame in
• 52:12
  having weaknesses. There's no shame in actually then enabling somebody to give you help, because
• 52:19
  actually it so it's
• 52:20
  takes courage to do that, and it's about being having enough humility to accept we're human. Do you know what, as you're speaking, do you know what else it takes courage to do? To have these emotionally horrible, draining, annoying, awful– and all the listeners will relate– those horrible conversations that
• 52:50
  you don't want to have, and you've got to go through them. You've got to hear the other side, and you've got to just listen as well, and calmly say your piece and communicate. It's hard to do that.
• 52:57
  It is hard. And I think what I've learned from that is the tolerance of the discomfort. We we We
• 53:05
  can tolerate far more than we realise. And to see that– the belief, I guess– that accepting that
• 53:13
  discomfort at that time will lead to something better. That, you know, co Conflict is part of
• 53:19
  everyday life. It's healthy to have differing views. It's about listening and understanding. I
• 53:24
  always find, when I'm working with leaders
• 53:27
  these days, when I say understanding doesn't mean acceptance. I can understand you have a different
• 53:33
  point of view to me. That doesn't mean I agree with it, but I can accept it's different to mine. Sure.
• 53:37
  Sure. That's a powerful thing that we don't even get role-modelled very often. Very powerful. Very powerful.
• 53:46
  The avoidant type, those personality types um who have perhaps been burnt by conflict and find it very difficult– you,
• 53:52
  know w and we're now moving away from business, we're talking about just in life. They've been
• 53:57
  burnt. They don't want to face more conflict. They don't want to have those conversations, because
• 54:04
  it's brought them pain and they haven't found a very good resolution to it. So the the survival
• 54:10
  mechanism for that is: leave, walk out. In this situation, it was really good because there was no "I'm
• 54:16
  just going
• 54:16
  to leave the room". you know. Um But what if and there what if there is no mediator? What if there is
• 54:24
  no tent-in-Greenland and situation situation, and you are an avoidant type? How do you recognise you're
• 54:31
  the avoidant type? And maybe it's not that obvious. And what what do you do to put yourself back in
• 54:38
  the game, is what I'm going to call it.
• 54:42
  Yeah. No, that that makes complete sense. The c The question that comes into my mind as you're
• 54:48
  saying that is: what would it take for me to stay in the room, to stay in the discomfort, and what's
• 54:54
  the benefit that I believe I'm going to gain?
• 54:56
  Oh, I love it. Oh, Sue, this takes me back to right at the beginning, when your mom died, and
• 55:02
  this horrible thing. But, yeah, what will it take to get me to get back in the game? Yeah.
• 55:08
  And to believe that there's something beneficial from doing so. Nobody's going to want to have pain if
• 55:12
  they don't believe there's a positive light at the end of the tunnel. So reconnecting with that
• 55:17
  bigger purpose, with that reward, with that benefit of resolving the team differences or whatever
• 55:23
  it might be. It's going to require effort. It's going to require discomfort. And you know what? The more we
• 55:28
  experience those things, the more we get practised at them, the easier they become.