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Mike Horn: Extreme Expeditions, Losing Loved Ones, and Finding Discipline in Life | E33 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:03
  Randall Kaplan: You're listening to part two of my incredible conversation with Mike horn, the greatest explorer of modern times. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first.
• 0:11
  Randall Kaplan: Without further ado, here's part two with the amazing Mike horn
• 0:27
  Unknown: you complete your trip down the Amazon. And as you're looking out their horizon, you say to yourself, if you could continue on this way you could go around the world and that's when the idea of an expedition called latitude zero degrees was born, which would be an even bigger challenge. As a reminder to our listeners and viewers zero degrees latitude is a line designated the equator and divides the Earth into two equal hemispheres meaning the equator is located at a latitude of zero degrees. For this trip, you took a Corsair F 28 tri Moran, which is a multi Hall boat that has a main hall and two smaller outrigger halls that are attached to the main hall with lateral beams. Your journey started in the Central African country of good bone, and then went west and similar to your trip down the Amazon, you almost died several times. When you were crossing Colombia, you encountered a group of drug dealers who are making cocaine in the jungle of article on Quora. They wanted to kill you, but you explain what you were doing. The drug dealer was impressed with your courage across the entire forest and let you pass. When you cross the border from Colombia and to Ecuador, the US soldiers who are guarding that part, you are drug dealer because no one entered or less such an area. So they captured you and beat you up before they realize you were just an explorer. If that wasn't enough, you caught malaria on your trip across the Pacific Ocean, which made you very weak for several days to the point where you passed out almost two and a half days. When you were crossing the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A rebel group thought you were a spy and put you in front of a death squad.
• 1:54
  Unknown: And as they lifted up their collision or coughed an AK 47.
• 1:57
  Unknown: You thought this was it? You close your eyes. And as they were waiting for them to shoot you when you were seconds away from death, a police officer saved you by telling the rebel group that it was a police a fair amount of military affair.
• 2:09
  Unknown: This is some crazy shit.
• 2:13
  Unknown: Let's go back to the firing squad. Where do you close your eyes and thought you were seconds from dying? What were you thinking at that exact moment in a search of excellence? How's it related to 30,000 days, I believe that one life to the average age of 82 years old. That's the average age that we'd love to around the world.
• 2:32
  Mike Horn: We have 30,000 days, and after time you asleep. So you've got 15,000 days that you can actually do stuff. And then on top of what let's say to the age of 10 years old, you're not really loving life, you kind of been taught how to love life. So we don't have a lot of time on planet Earth to really do what you want to do. And once you find your passion, that's when these days count and you want to live each day to its full capability and capacity. And, and that's why I love your subjects about excellence. The more you know, the better you inform the bed, you educate yourself. The harder you work, the more you interested in what others do, the more you build relationships instead of destroying them. The more you help people, the more you become out, the more you surround yourself with amazing people, the easier it becomes to reach your goals. And those things are the search for excellence that I did in my life. Just the fact that I wanted to go out there and just make my life a better, better place because I am allotted 30,000 days in a lifetime. And those 30,000 days, we've got to be able to live to the fullest of our capabilities.
• 3:54
  Mike Horn: And basically, that's what I did. So just the death squad, I didn't know that this squad was just trusting people that I shouldn't have trusted, going walking right towards the lion that was going to eat me. And I was caught with another another guy that I thought was a rebel.
• 4:15
  Mike Horn: But he attached himself to me and we kind of traveled together and having two people to stop and want to scout out to find information and stuff made it easier for us. So we will code together. And when we were caught by the rebels, obviously, it was like we were put into our hearts and kept present in that heart and and that night. Well when we were caught they said they were going to publicly execute so the next morning, so unfortunately the guy that I got caught with was shot first. And I was going to be shot second when he fell. I just walked forward and I took the gun that Kalashnikova Have have the command and put it on my head and I said, Just Just shoot me. But that willingness of me to survive, by them afraid, that willingness of saying that I'm not who you think you are. But if you think I'm really a rebel, shoot me while I look at you, but I'll be your biggest problem for the rest of your life, you will never get rid of me, I'll be in your mind, I'll be everywhere.
• 5:24
  Mike Horn: And I'll haunt you. So that power of survival that I needed to portray to him just mentally made him hesitate at that moment, why they shot the other guy first is because he he wreaked of fear. He died the night before. He said he was going to die. And I believed I would survive, although that if I believed that I survived, that I would survive, and I actually die. I wouldn't know. So why don't you want you give yourself a chance of survival in your mind? Why should you worry if you worry, you die, if you don't worry, you also die. So why worry about stuff that you cannot change, be able to be the power that influence people that overpowers people, in moments that you really need it. And that hesitation led that policeman come out and actually saved my life and said, This is a military affair. This is a civilian affair. This is not a military affair. We cannot be executed military wise. So I was taken in by the police. And a couple of hours later, I had the gun in my hand, the commander was put in front of me. And I had the right to shoot him.
• 6:43
  Mike Horn: Because I was protected by Mussolini, the president of Uganda, everybody knew that I was coming through, and that I'm just an explorer, and they should leave me out. So the roles changed. And when they said shoot him, I just said to him, Listen, I'm still alive. He did nothing wrong in my eyes.
• 7:06
  Mike Horn: That's why I cannot shoot him or kill him. I'm alive. I'm fine.
• 7:11
  Mike Horn: What he did might have been wrong. But he didn't kill me. So it's not for me to execute him.
• 7:16
  Mike Horn: I can't possibly ever put myself in your shoes. I don't think I lasted a day on any of your expeditions. But when I think about going on one of them, and then I think about what the biggest highlight of one would be for me, which I think would probably be for the overwhelming number of my listeners and viewers would be overcoming the tremendous amount of anxiety and fear about going on a trip where the odds of completing that are nearly impossible, and that if we make it and don't die, our greatest moment would be completing it and achieving success against all odds. But that's not your view. You said that the greatest moment of your trips is the day you leave. Why and the Search of Excellence?
• 7:55
  Mike Horn: How important is it to look at our chances of success. When they seem low or impossible to confront and fight our fear of failure, get to the Star Line and try. You know what? Why do we do what we do? Simply because it's unknown. At the end of what when we succeed. And when I arrive at the end of my expedition, it's no longer a dream. I've actually made the dream come true. And then I feel empty, then I feel wow, what next? So the moment that you stand there, ready to go out and find the answers to your questions. That's the most interesting part of the expedition, the moment to actually make that first step to go into the unknown. That moment that you say, I'm not sure that I will make it but I will be able to learn from it. I will run enrich my life with knowledge. And I would have experience that nobody can take away from me. Stock Exchanges goes up and down shares, prices rise and fall, you might lose or you might win. Knowledge is the only thing that you can ever lose knowledge that you carry in your heart. Nobody can steal away from you. That's your wealth. So I invested in net wealth, that wealth that will keep me alive. So the moment that you actually stand there with that little bit of knowledge, and you seek to that excellence, to get that knowledge that becomes your wealth. That's why you actually leave. That's why it's the most exciting moment of the expedition. And in the 1012 books that I written. And unfortunately I write in French and only two or three are translated in English but there's in German and Spanish and Chinese and Korean and whatever languages I wrote, after this expedition, I just said in the beginning, I thought I had the knowledge to set out to do what I wanted to do, but it's only On arrival, that I knew that even now that it's done, I don't have the knowledge to redo what I did. And that's where you've got to be able. And we spoke a little bit about fear. And fear is a very interesting topic that we can address a little bit late if we have time. But there's a moment that if you come back from an expedition, and you ask yourself, will you be able to do it again? And the answer is no, then that was the best expedition of your life. Because the moment that you answer all your questions, is the moment that there's nothing to look forward to. One of the main ingredients that allowed me to do some of the fortunate things I've done in my life is that I'm always the most prepared person in the room as someone spends one hour for a meeting.
• 10:54
  Mike Horn: Sometimes I'll spend 20, for our podcast today, 33 hours, I call this extreme preparation going way above and beyond what would be considered great preparation.
• 11:08
  Mike Horn: You've talked about reading three foot high stacks of snake information, training with special forces, you spent two years of preparation before your trip down the Amazon River, you prepare two years for pole to pole, which is your two year circumnavigation of the globe via the poles. You We already talked about you train with Brazil, jungle warfare center, crazy stuff, but necessary stuff, how important has extreme preparation been to your success, and In Search of Excellence, can extreme preparation make the impossible possible? I believe it, it can.
• 11:43
  Mike Horn: But you must never stick to your plan. 100%. There's a couple of times in life that I planted that at home, when things happen, the outcome was completely different than what I thought I would do the action that I should take. And I believe that it's important as well in life, to not have too many options. Meaning that stopping is not an option. To me, I've got to find a way of not stopping. While people believe that as soon as they have a little bit of resistance, that I think of stopping while I think of continuing. So the way that my brain, I programmed my brain to reach excellence is to be able to not go to find the options of trying, this is not working. Now I'm going to try this in. If that doesn't work, I'm going to try this. And if that doesn't work, I'm going to try something else and you're not moving forward, you're just moving sideways in your life.
• 12:57
  Mike Horn: And a lot of people move their whole life sideways. And they would never reach excellence, because we're not heading any way in a direction. So I believe by removing the options, there's one option you gotta go. And when I often get to that point where you have to overcome obstacles and things like that.
• 13:17
  Mike Horn: I'm not looking for other options, I'm confronting the problem. And by confronting the problems, you overcome these obstacles by saying that life is difficult by saying that, Oh, now we've got inflation. Now the market has crashed, doesn't mean it's difficult, it just means that you have more challenges.
• 13:38
  Mike Horn: And the best way to overcome that challenge is if you better your life, if you better who you are, then the obstacles become smaller, by complaining, it will never become smaller just becomes bigger. And that is how I solve my problems. I go out to find a solution not to try a different option. Because those options are all going to face the wall at the end of the day.
• 14:05
  Mike Horn: And I'm not moving forward. When I went to the North Pole, the ice was moving back and for 11 days, I walked to stay in one position. And a lot of people can't even imagine to walk for one day on moving ice that drifts back. Imagine walking 20 hours a day on ice drifting back and you're not making one kilometre progress. And when people ask, tell you that you're not making progress, they're not thinking in the right way.
• 14:38
  Mike Horn: Because indirectly, if I stayed in the tent, and I didn't walk for those 11 days, I would be minus 500 miles, but now I'm at zero. So I've made progress. I'm not at minus 500 miles, I'm at zero and that gives me a chance of success. Let's talk about the elements of success. We've talked about preparation
• 15:00
  Randall Kaplan: When we think about the other ingredients of success, many people will include being motivated. We've talked about that. And having a positive mindset. We've talked about that as well. What are the other ingredients of success?
• 15:11
  Randall Kaplan: And where does discipline fit into this?
• 15:14
  Mike Horn: I believe that you've got to be able to make fear your home, fears got to be present in your life, fear shouldn't be affected that would, would influence the way you do things or think things, fear would just awaken your alertness to what's actually happening. And that's the moment that you cannot sleep. That's the moment that you've got to start focusing.
• 15:36
  Mike Horn: That's the moment when you find the solutions. So fear becomes my home. Fear is something that I love, I understand fear. If we speak about fear, what are people afraid of? Let's take a simple example of kids. They don't want to walk into a room that's dark, they afraid of the dark, but they're not really afraid of the dark. There's something else they'd afraid of, are they afraid of somebody hiding underneath their bed, that would come out and maybe injure them? Are they afraid of walking into the cupboard, or standing on a toy that unfold or hurt themselves by understanding what they afraid of, you can actually deal with that fear. So fear, because my home, I accepted, that's where I love.
• 16:23
  Mike Horn: And if I'm not living in that life of fear, I'm not at my full potential. And fear is just simply not knowing what's going to be the outcome. Fear is something that becomes your home. And then in life, if you want to reach excellence, you can't only do what you love doing, you've got to start loving the things that you hate doing in life as well. Because the moment that you love what you hate doing or don't like doing, you broaden your life, and then you can reach excellence, because you're capable of operating on a much wider playing field, that opens your mind to be able to reach goals that you couldn't reach before, because you're not only doing what you'd like doing, you can do what you don't like doing as well. And by using those things in life, you actually go out there and live a much broader life.
• 17:27
  Randall Kaplan: You've had all these incredible successes. But I want to talk about failure, which is something we all face many times in our lives. What you do is often life threatening and despite some incredibly close calls, you're not reckless in accomplishing your goals.
• 17:38
  Randall Kaplan: There have been times when you've had to turn back and abort your trips. To name a few you had to abort your first attempt at solo crossing of the North Pole. When you were only five days away from reaching your goal because you made the mistake of taking your gloves off and experienced severe frostbite, to have to have three of the tips of your fingers amputated, you've attempted to suffocate to three times for our listeners or viewers who don't know que tu is located on the China Pakistan border is the second highest mountain in the world 31,532 feet, your first attempt in 2002, you left Basecamp at 4am and 36 hours later, with only 1300 feet to go you had to give up because of a snowstorm and snow drifts that prevented you from breathing or seeing anything, you couldn't even see your feet. When you made the decision to turn back, you knew that the ascent was only half the battle and that you still didn't make it down the mountain within a short window of time and go through something called the death zone, which refers to what is above an altitude of 24,600 feet a height where hikers can only last between 22 and 26 hours on the 70% oxygen available to them. It was your birthday and you thought yourself that you couldn't die that day, which was a good decision. Because an avalanche killed two people from teams who continued toward the top. You said that turning around might be seen as a failure by auditors but that true failure is dying. And that's when we're so close to our goals and objectives. In life, it's very hard for us to fail because success can be so close for you. breaking boundaries is the fine line between failure and success.
• 19:09
  Randall Kaplan: You've also said that failure can be beautiful, and that you value it more than success. Why is that? And how do you define failure? Why should we hide it?
• 19:21
  Randall Kaplan: And why is making peace with failure an absolute requirement of success.
• 19:27
  Mike Horn: Randy, if you know the perfect person that never experienced failure in life, I would like to be introduced to them. So as success failure plays a part of our life. And for me climbing K to three times the way that I choose to climb it's so low without oxygen without ropes without camps, climbing from Basecamp straight to the top is making it as difficult as it possibly It can be to climb a mountain.
• 19:59
  Mike Horn: Now, there's a bigger chance of failure. But I'm not choosing an easier method to succeed. I'm choosing the method where failure, there's more chances of failure than success. And why is it important to do to be able to live with failure, and to openly admit that you failed us, because then people can't speak about behind your back and said, he failed. If you come down and said, I failed, I didn't get to the top. But I tried and I was alone up there, that others failed to leave Basecamp, then let's speak about the level of success or the level of failure in a way. And that in the level of failure, I was the most successful. And in many ways, we don't deal with failure, right?
• 20:55
  Mike Horn: We see it as being a shame, but you mustn't be ashamed of try.
• 21:00
  Mike Horn: If you make, like I said earlier, the same mistake twice, then yeah, you can be kind of embarrassed about failure, failure. And if you're not learning from others, or listening to others, should not make the mistakes that is so visually put in front of your eyes, then we try and hide failure. So my father dogged me again, when he gave me that freedom, that failure is part of success. And the more you fail, then the more successful you become. Because you try. And the moment that you try new things, it doesn't mean you need to fail and pay with your life. That's the moment that very close to the summit of Ketu, I decided that if I go further, I'm going to die. And I will never have another opportunity to climb.
• 21:55
  Mike Horn: And the moment you get back to Basecamp, and you look up you say I'm alive. So coming back to Basecamp alive, might be seen as failure for others. But it's successful me because next year, I can come back and climb again.
• 22:13
  Randall Kaplan: We've already talked about how you study sports psychology in college, and how you're always interested in a human capability of always breaking records and going further than you did before. In 2011, you started putting that into practice by using motivation sessions to significantly improve the performance of professional sports teams. In 2001. You coach the Indian cricket team, and they won the World Cup that year. Next in 2012. You coached the South African cricket team.
• 22:37
  Randall Kaplan: We then went on to beat England who at the time was the best team in the world. Because the Kolkata Knight Riders a cricket team from India, they won the Indian Premier League the next year. And finally in 2014, he coached the German soccer team which won the World Cup that same year, after working with his teams, you find that the difference in winning champions isn't so much about physical capabilities. Yes, you've got to have the right DNA and makeup to be a marathon athlete or a sprinter, or football player or a baseball player. But once somebody has reached what you call the summit of their performance, you said that the only difference that we can make is our psychological attitude that we have towards things and that in your case 80% of what you do happens in your head. 15% is physical and 5% is luck. Can you tell us about what you did with the Indian cricket team and the reasons they've never sworn so much in their lives? And for those of us who don't have the DNA to be professional athletes?
• 23:34
  Randall Kaplan: Can our psychological attitude and mental strength make the difference and whether we achieve excellence? And if so, can you give us a couple of examples how?
• 23:43
  Mike Horn: Randy absolutely yes, we can make the difference through using our psychology as as power. So I spoke about top athletes when they are running 100 meters or 800 meters or playing in a World Cup Series.
• 24:01
  Mike Horn: We have some of the best athletes from all the countries competing against each other, and the skill levels are more or less the same. Now you speaking about experience that might change. But skill can adapt and add value to less experienced players. If they have an amazing skill, and how you develop the skill and how you train it is really important. What we cannot really train is our psychological attitude. How can I become psychologically so strong to overpower the others?
• 24:42
  Mike Horn: And how can they see that and understand that? So I'm speaking about showing weaknesses. The moment that you show a weakness is the moment that somebody else is psychologically overpowering you. We see that in football. And that's what I told the German football team, don't roll on the ground and act like a complete loser, just to get that penalty and act like you've been hurt or kicked in the shin.
• 25:14
  Mike Horn: Or that shows complete weakness, show strength, no matter how hard they push you, no matter if they really committed penalty, stand up straight away, look him in the eyes, and gain that respect, they will feel weak.
• 25:35
  Mike Horn: Then I spoke about space space that you take space that I take on the field, the moment that you can take space of others in any business is the moment that you your playing ground becomes bigger, and the playing ground becomes smaller, you play with more freedom, and they play with less freedom. And imagine you play in a team like the Indian cricket team, when the bowler or the or the pitcher comes in, and he throws that ball, and the whole team moves into the one that's gonna take that shot, then it shows like, wow, this team is like a solid, concrete base, I can't get through them.
• 26:18
  Mike Horn: There is not one weakness shown.
• 26:23
  Mike Horn: There's only power shown. And those aspects in professional sports becomes really important.
• 26:28
  Mike Horn: It's that the whole team, if it's an a team sport, should be able to not show one weakness.
• 26:39
  Mike Horn: And then the space that we take from the other team becomes our space that allows us to play with freedom. And they play with less freedom and more stress. He tells us about the polar bears sitting on your tan and the North Pole expedition in 2006.
• 27:50
  Mike Horn: And In Search of Excellence, what's your advice about relying on others to solve your problems versus solving your problems by ourselves? I think that we as soon as we run into problems, we always kind of look around do to blame instead of blaming ourselves. And then second of all we trying to look at who's going to help us out of the problems that we got ourselves into. So the polar bear walked up to the tent we were tired.
• 28:17
  Mike Horn: Borge and myself the Norwegian explorer in the tent, and the polar bear got into my sled. So the polar bear is kind of eating a little bit of the food that we don't have much of and I'm not there to feed polar bears. And if the polar bear is going to eat all the food is going to come into the tent and eat me so he gets into the sled and he pulls the sled back and it moves and he sits on the tent and he actually sits a little bit on the tent on my stomach. Only thing I could move was my elbow.
• 28:49
  Mike Horn: sigh I woke up Borge next year.
• 28:49
  Mike Horn: I said Borge, Borge, there is a bear in my sled and Borge wakes up a little bit confused. We all are we tired, it's dark, it's permanent darkness. And he said what's happening? I said Borge.
• 29:06
  Mike Horn: There is a bear in my sled eating my food. And he looked at me like this in that darkness and we got our headlamps on. And he said Mike, why are you waking me up the bay is in your sled eating your food. It's not my problem. Let me sleep. So in fact, it's true. The bass in my sled eating my food, it's going to influence my life. It's my problem. I have to deal with it.
• 29:36
  Mike Horn: But that's when the Borge we got a flare gun that we actually shoot a flare at the bay and usually the flare is a banger that makes the bear frayed and he runs away. And there's this massive big flame burning and the bear doesn't like that intensity of light so lights are disturbed and completely. So one day Borge sleeps with a flare gun in his sleeping bag because a flare gun can actually freeze and I sleep with a flare gun in the in my sleeping bag the next day so we change it and Borge forgot that actually he had the flare gun and he slid. So I said, Okay, I'm not asking you to go out there to chase the bear way. What I'm asking is just to give me the flag and the tool so I can get rid of the bay. And it became kind of this private joke in between ourselves that listen, if the bass in your sled that's your problem, you do something about it. But if you somebody has the tools, ask them to give you the tools and you do something with their tools. Don't ask them to do something that you can do. I always talk about work life balance on my show, and it's usually focused on successful people who
• 30:52
  Randall Kaplan: what we consider to have more typical jobs are running big companies, who work a tremendous amount of days long hours and return home to their house every night and need to decide how to allocate their time between work their families or kids, and other responsibilities, including board positions and philanthropy. Your job is a bit different in your world, you may not return or see your family for two years. In 1990, you met your wife, Kathy had a local in Switzerland, and she quickly became your partner. And these expeditions, she handled all the planning, logistics, support and promotion. After 27 years of marriage, she passed away after a seven year battle of cancer.
• 31:23
  Randall Kaplan: She knew what you did when she met, you was always incredibly supportive of your career, she supported you being away for very long periods of time, even though it had to be tremendously difficult on your family, especially on two young kids.
• 31:35
  Randall Kaplan: For most people, I think that being away, for a very large part of the childhood would severely hurt the relationship with your kids. But in your case, it didn't even to the point where your daughters took over Cathy's row and she died.
• 31:47
  Randall Kaplan: How did you manage that? And what's your advice on work life balance for those who lead more conventional life?
• 31:55
  Mike Horn: I think, Randy, we all have that predicament or that that challenge to overcome.
• 31:58
  Mike Horn: As soon as we spent too much time at work and not enough time with your family, it's not actually that we've got to understand that. It's the amount of time that we spend with a family that's important. It's the quality of the time that we spend. A father is somebody that must give something to his kids, that the kids or is children can only get from him. So meaning that only you can be the father of your kids. It's not buying a bicycle or computer or something else, you've got to give them something that's so unique from you, that they can only find that from you that they're always looking for that in you.
• 32:38
  Mike Horn: That is basically how I educated my kids or my daughters. Not that I was always at home. But the moment that I could take them with me on expeditions, they became the youngest kids to ski to the North Pole, they crossed the pilot Island 500 kilometres, they sailed around the world with me. And that bonded our family, because they knew that is what they could only get from me. So we're not often coming back home from work and sharing what we did with our kids, we sometimes do try to even listen to them, we need to be able to give them our time.
• 33:19
  Mike Horn: And the moment you give them your valuable time. That means you are interested in their lives. And the more you become interested in their lives, the better it is the relationship.
• 33:33
  Mike Horn: Now Kathy, unfortunately, my wife that I was married with 27 years, was an angel. She was the most amazing person that I could have been married with. Because she knew that for me and our family to operate. She needed to give me the freedom to do what I could do, because that's who I was. I didn't change along the time. I was always like that.
• 34:06
  Mike Horn: And she knew what she married.
• 34:06
  Mike Horn: And I was heading to the South Pole when she got cancer. And she called me and said, Listen, I've got cancer. I said, oh shit. Okay, I'll try and get back. But I had to ski back to my boat, would it take me a month and a half and then get on my boat and sail to Patagonia.
• 34:26
  Mike Horn: And then from Patagonia get on a plane and maybe get back home? A month and a half later? When I said Well, I'm heading back home. She said no. Why do you want to head back home? This is my problem. You can't do anything about it. Just keep on doing what you're doing. Finish it up. And then you come back and then began to discuss it.
• 34:46
  Mike Horn: And as the situation I eventually made it back home and the situation didn't look better. And she got close to death. It was it was a really special time for our family. And we kind of sat around the table with the girls and we spoke about life in general, our family and what we achieved in life as a family that arrived with no money in Switzerland, that she was from New Zealand and I was from South Africa. I got to understand by plane arrived in Switzerland. She came and worked as a nurse and completely low life that bolt up to become respected by everybody. And we sat sat around the table with the girls and my one daughter, Jessica studied at Boston in Boston and BU and the other one was in Paris and we said listen, life's gonna change and and mums are not going to she's not going to be around for much longer. But I want to die with her. I said and when I was willing To say that I want to die with the person that I loved so much.
• 35:58
  Mike Horn: The kids, my kids understood it.
• 35:58
  Mike Horn: And then Kathy said something that was really amazing. And she said, you know, Mike, don't die for me, but love for me. Wow.
• 36:06
  Mike Horn: That is the power that we have when you are alive. You can live for others, even though I was willing to die because I thought I did everything that I wanted to do in life. She in abled me, she was the anchor, she was the pillar. She was the one that educated my kids, my kids even agreed with the fact that I could die with her because they educated we had no debt, we had a stable solid life. And then she tells you don't die, love.
• 36:42
  Mike Horn: And that's what I'm doing. I'm loving life to the fullest of my capabilities. Because my kids understand who I am. They find the joy to join me. I'm giving them what a father can give to his kids. And that's what Bond's us as a family. If you stable at home, if you have that base, that's good, then that base will allow you to reach for the stars. But keep your feet on the ground. Do not bigger than life.
• 37:21
  Mike Horn: Do not. Because you got a lot of money doesn't mean anything.
• 37:25
  Mike Horn: Just be a perfect person. That's an example to everyone, that people look at you and say, Wow, that's what I want from me. And the moment you start doing that is the moment you start living for islands.
• 37:40
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about our environment and ecological issues. One of your main missions is to conserve the planet something you've encouraged all of us to care about, which stems from how you've seen the world change before our eyes for more than 30 years of expeditions. You've seen the Arctic warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet with temperatures reaching 100 degrees in the summer in a Siberian Arctic, which is caused the North Pole, which has been frozen for 15 million years to start melting.
• 38:09
  Randall Kaplan: You've seen polar bills being killed by grizzly bears massive amounts of Amazon being cut down and more wildfires than any point in history. And I want to start this discussion with your$14 million custom made 115 foot boat called the Pangea, which was named for the supercontinent that existed when all continents were joined around 300 200 or 300 million years ago during the Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. Your boat isn't a normal boat, it was built for extreme adventures to navigate through the tropics and small rivers as easily as it can in the polar regions. It was designed to leave a minimal carbon footprint with his two engines to be used only as a necessary alternative to the 35 meter mast. And there's 2000 square feet of sailcloth attached to it, in addition to Pangea is also ecologically friendly. Its aluminum body was built out of recycled Nespresso pods. And its Hall was deliberately left on painted so that when it has to break through the ice, no flecks of paint break off would be toxic to the environment. And the boat also has large nets to collect bottles and plastic bags from the waters. We've all heard how we have to do our part to help save the planet. And one of the comments I often hear when this comes up is that with 8 billion people on the planet, how can my little actions have any impact on anything? Or that the Arctic Circle isn't going to melt? In my lifetime? I that polluted oceans don't affect me.
• 39:29
  Randall Kaplan: So why should I care about them?
• 39:32
  Randall Kaplan: Can we really make a difference?
• 39:32
  Randall Kaplan: And if so how? And as part of this, can you tell us about writing letters to Jacque Cousteau and your younger Pangea project and Alana, and the young Explorers program, and what you're doing to save the planet and what we should be doing?
• 39:47
  Mike Horn: Randy no example I just try and protect my playfield. So said as a young boy growing up in South Africa, although South Africans were boycotted, we had one TV program, and it was about an explorer Jacques Cousteau. And I was allowed to watch that program. And I saw him diving and had this boat and sailing and going to these most amazing places and, and really explaining nature, to everybody that didn't have access to it.
• 40:15
  Mike Horn: And I told my father that while I want to go and work for this guy, and he said, Well, why don't you just write him a letter and ask if you can work as a deckhand? So I wrote him a letter and he never answered. As a young kid. I always went to the post box to see if you wrote the letter to accept my application, and I was far too young. But my father made that dream come true because he gave me hope. I wrote a letter in may be reply. You don't try to later he will never reply. So I grew up and he never replied. But there was always hope.
• 40:52
  Mike Horn: Until that day, I thought that I wanted to give the opportunity that I didn't have to younger people. And that's when I built my own boat. And I actually sold my name to investment company that bought my name and IP that and created a trademark that I can put on watches and I had sponsors of Penn arrived, the penrhiw watch from the Richmond group, automobile manufacturer, Mercedes Benz sponsored me for 20 years. And I could actually use by intellectual property and copyright in some of the marketing campaigns. And everything was to be able to conserve the planet and educate the youth. And when I bought the boat, I just thought that I need to do something to change our planet, I need to educate the youth. And if I can educate the youth and they can educate their friends, then the little action that we are making is going to have a ripple effect and a massive impact around the world.
• 41:50
  Mike Horn: And that's when I bought Pangea.
• 41:55
  Mike Horn: Like you said Pangea was one super continent. And that's why the night boat was named Pangea, because I didn't reunite the continents together, I reunited the people on my boat. So the boat became the super continent, where I took two kids from the six different continents, North America, South America, Africa, Austria, Australasia, Asia, and I put them back on to my and Europe and put them on my boat.
• 42:23
  Mike Horn: So when I sailed off on my expeditions with these young explorers, I had the world represented times for kids wrote about it. And we were on the cover of times and stuff like that, where we could motivate the youth to be able to get involved in educational projects. And we reached 62 million people in 2013 62 million people that day environmental projects. Now that's starting to make a big difference. When you think that alone, we can't make a difference. But if we can inspire others, by our actions, that's when that's going to start counting. And that's why I want to give hope, a message of hope to the youth. Forget about environmental anxiety. Yes, the project to save our planet is big, it's not a problem, do what we can do today. Don't wait for others to do be an example, tell people if you're not happy with the actions, pick up papers, if you could just stop plastic from reaching the ocean, one plastic bag that you pick up out of the ocean, would save the lives of many fish. And that's how I kind of believe that these small little actions can lead into massive ripple effects around the world. And today, we have an environmental project called Pangea x where we inspire young students to propose ideas and projects related to the ocean.
• 43:57
  Mike Horn: So each year, we've got a problematic to solve. And we try and get the engineers and biologists and the researchers and everybody together and help through the industry to finance these projects. And it's going to become the world's biggest environmental institution, to propose ideas to make the world a better place. And that's how I believe step by step, I'm changing the way that I would like to protect our planet. And then from the same side, I just invested a little bit of money and energy. And it's not money that I don't have money, I get paid $5,000 a month. That's my salary, but I live the life of a billionaire. And I can influence a lot of people. So I started with 52 engineers, a research program on hydrogen fuel cells.
• 44:54
  Mike Horn: And today, I've got a hydrogen fuel cell that we can put into trains into planes into buses. I went to Mike Bloomberg, two weeks ago and spoke to him about it. Because this is what the world needs. We need to decarbonize. I'm a simple explorer. Imagine what you can do in your position. Don't limit your mind to what people tell you. Open your mind and decide what you want to do because it will make a difference. Before we finish today, I want to go ahead and ask some more open ended questions. I call this part of my podcast fill in the blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? Let's go. When I started my career I wish I had known.
• 45:42
  Mike Horn: I knew that I just thought earlier in my life because I started too late.
• 45:49
  Randall Kaplan: You started eight years old. You're eight years old and you want Learning to ride 300 kilometers, bike probably went 20 kilometers. I believe that there is no age to start anything in life. If something really drives your passion, go out there, take the risks and do it because you'll find the solutions to it.
• 46:09
  Randall Kaplan: I started too late, I should have started when I was four.
• 46:13
  Randall Kaplan: The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is,
• 46:16
  Mike Horn: I think the biggest lesson is not to listen to everybody telling you, you can't do it. The biggest lesson that I that I learned from that by not listening to people, is that it's a rocky road that you can overcome, don't see the obstacles, see the solutions. My number one professional goal is I think my number one professional goal is to stay alive as long as I possibly can because it's got value. And the moment that the 30,000 days that you live in a lifetime, you can live to the fullest of your capability, you have a successful life, even if your life might be taken, be short, do what you really love doing because it adds value. My number one personal goal is my personal goals is to be able to be surrounded by people that I love, and that loves me. And I think that that to me is more than climbing the is mountains or crossing the poles or sailing, sailing across the oceans to be happy family is I think one of my personal goals in life. My biggest regret is Oh, my biggest regret is that you know, I'm not patient enough, I should be more patient.
• 47:34
  Mike Horn: And I want things to happen too quickly. And I don't take I don't take no as the answer.
• 47:38
  Mike Horn: Sometimes, yes, be a little bit more patient things happen. Take no as an answer because it gives direction, and then deal with information in a more valuable way we don't know at all. And the more that you you've learned from others, the more you deal with good information. And that is where decision making becomes easier. The one thing I've dreamt up for a long time but haven't done is when I was put in front of a desk what I asked myself if I really did what I wanted to do. And I was 38 years old? And the answer was yes. I don't mind dying to date, not that I want to die. But I did exactly what I wanted to do. And since that moment, I think I live my life on what I call a bonus extra life. It's like a video game, that you've got an extra life and you can keep on playing. So I just want to keep as many of those lives in my hand as possible.
• 48:36
  Randall Kaplan: If you could fix one thing in the world, what would it be?
• 48:39
  Mike Horn: I would like to establish peace. Why should we criticize if we can help? Why should we break other people if we can add value? That's a human error. And that's what I would like to fix. Imagine we can all think that we have to add value to others live but stick our hand to those in need. Instead of standing on top of them or just ignoring them. We are intelligent human beings. Why are we acting in the way that we act? Sometimes? That's sometimes a question, especially when I get back from expeditions that that I spend more than five, six months in remote places only with myself, other than your dad and Kathy,
• 49:26
  Randall Kaplan: The one person in the world that I admire the most is,
• 49:30
  Mike Horn: well I admire Honestly, my daughters to be able to live with a father and each time they say goodbye to me knowing that I might never come back and the last expedition crossing the North Pole way we ran out of food and not sure to ever make it back out. They still believed it was possible for me to make it back. And that's amazing to have kids like that. Totally amazing. My next expedition is Oh, my next expedition is called what's left, the next expedition will take me around the year for a period of three years visiting places that I've seen, and that I've changed, that has changed throughout the years of exploration. And then what's left for me to do, that I haven't done in the polar regions in the Amazon jungle in the mountains and in Antarctica, and then what's left of our planet that's so beautiful that we can conserve what's left of what's threatened in life. And the idea is really to be able to make a documentary series on the topic, what's left. And I believe that when we know what's left, we know how to deal with a problem. The one question you wish I had asked you is I think the one question is that maybe it's Is that look at the wall and tell me what you see. And that was the question that my father asked me from a young age.
• 51:03
  Randall Kaplan: My there's a list of six things I want to ask you. But I Yeah, you've been so generous with your time. I mean, if you have five minutes to talk about the wall, I have two minutes.
• 51:13
  Mike Horn: I mean, I will wrap it up in two minutes. You know, Randy Woods is my father was always studying. And he took me in his study, and he put me on a couch in front of his desk, and he told me to look at the wall and, and tell me what I see. So I looked at the wall, and there was a painting of a mountain on the wall. So I walked through the wall, and I removed the painting, because if he asked me to look at the wall, he didn't want me to look at the painting, he wanted me to look at the wall. So I removed the painting, and there was a white wall. And then I started imagining how the wall was painted. So I said, the guy that painted the wall most probably was 32 years old. He had a white, white suit on, he put something on the carpet.
• 52:01
  Mike Horn: Maybe he was right, and that, and this is where it started.
• 52:05
  Mike Horn: And I explained to him why he started in that corner, and on the top right hand corner, follow up the way must have ended the painting job, and it wasn't so well done. So I said, I might have been tired. And then I started analyzing why didn't he start the job where it was more difficult. And he had he still was he was strong and motivated, and then finished, where it was easier to do it.
• 52:29
  Mike Horn: And after this explanation, my father just said, Mike, yeah, it's fine. You never seen the wall being painted, but you don't know how to look. And I went, he said, Come back tomorrow, look at the wall, and then think of telling me what you really see. And I went to bed and I started thinking of it. And I said, Well, if he asked me the question, he must know the answer. So imagine I can look through his eyes, and we can reverse the roles, then he will give me the answer. So I ran to his room. I said, come on to your office, I want to ask you a question. And when we got into his office, we were studying, I said, Now you sit where I sat, and I stand where you stood. And now I'm asking you look at the wall and tell me what you see. So my father looked at me and said, Yeah, that's quite clever. So why are you doing this? I said, because I want to see through your eyes, I want to see what I don't see.
• 53:28
  Mike Horn: I want to be able to find more information. Because the more eyes I look through, the better I will see things in life. If I only look through my eyes, I can never reach that excellence, that perfection that's needed to really stay alive in what I want to do. And just as my father was going to explain to me what, what he was seeing, looking at the wall, I realized that that's not the wall that I should look at what's beyond the wall. And when I told him that, listen, it's not the wall, I can see the neighbor's house, I can see the jungle, I can see the beach, I can see the ocean, I can see the south boat. He said, Yes. Now, you're not looking at problems.
• 54:14
  Mike Horn: You're looking through problems.
• 54:14
  Mike Horn: And that is important in life.
• 54:18
  Mike Horn: Don't always look at what everybody else can see. Look beyond that. Because that is the long journey of life. It's not the snake in front of the tree that will kill you. It's a snake that you don't see beyond the tree that that will kill you. So see that snake before he bites you. And that's how we started to look and see things.
• 54:40
  Randall Kaplan: When I was 28 years old. I was invited. I was a corporate guy.
• 54:45
  Randall Kaplan: As you know, I was wearing a three piece suit at the time. I was invited to this Hollywood function at Peter goobers house who was running Columbia TriStar Pictures and I was the only non entertainment people there's all these agents and their fancy suits and, and I was intimidated. And Tony Robbins was in the living room speaking and I've been a Tony Robbins fan as he changed my life when I read his book when I was a freshman in college, and he's there. He's got us doing jumping jacks and suits. I mean, we looked ridiculous screaming like crazy people the top of our lungs. And I walked out of there Mike thinking I can't lift Peter goobers mansion on my pinky finger. I'm I'm so pumped up right now and that's how I feel.
• 55:30
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, that's how I feel today when I was doing your research I mean your what you've done is just so incredible. And I hope everybody listening takes these amazing lessons even doing your research. I feel like when my workouts that I do and I've got my my muscles killing me anthems swearing, I said, Well, my corn will be telling me to do 10 more reps Right now, so you've had a huge impact on my life you've done great things in your life I'm, I'm so grateful to you shout out to Taya against Borger who was phenomenal person superstar has a great future who set this up.
• 56:05
  Randall Kaplan: So I'm grateful to her. Thank you for all of your time. You've been so generous. And I hope to meet you in person one day.
• 56:14
  Randall Kaplan: Thank you so much.
• 56:17
  Randall Kaplan: Randy, I think you really well kind of worked hard of getting information that came out today that I never really spoke about, I don't know, we you kind of get your hands on all this information. And that means that you dig deep to get the truth out of people. And that, to me, means so much because a lot of the journalists that I that I used as well, or that speak to me, touches the surface of things. And we do sometimes a little bit. We scratched the varnish of life, instead of going into the depth beyond the varnish in the core of things.
• 56:59
  Randall Kaplan: And you've got this capability of going to the core of things and that is not easy to find in today's world. And that's why you got to keep on doing this podcast. Because it's really amazing. We're going to point in that direction to have as many viewers or listeners as possible, so that we can we can keep on inspiring people and I think your podcast kind of inspires me as well. Like I might have inspired you. Thank you