If you believe your days of adventuring or taking on a new hobby are well & truly over, or that you need to be a pup to push yourself physically, today’s guest will hopefully make you reconsider! Actually, several of our guests should have already smashed this preconception.

Masha Gordon is a two-times Guinness World Record holding mountaineer, an activity she turned her attention to only 7 years ago. 7! In those few years she has become the fastest woman to scale the 7 Summits (the highest peak on each continent), plus, to complete, the Explorers Grand Slam – that’s the 7 Summits AND the North & South Pole. All the more fantastic, considering Masha was not an athletic child and she even failed PE at school.

Hear Masha describe the difficulties she’s had to overcome to enable her to achieve her ultimate goal of climbing Everest; how others questioning her dreams has never deterred her, the highs and lows of climbing some of the world’s tallest mountains, and why she’s helping teenage girls cultivate greater resilience through mountaineering.

Topics Discussed:

• Why Masha turned to mountaineering just seven years ago, despite not being a typical endurance athlete.
• How her 16 years’ experience on Wall Street prepared her mentally for climbing mountains.
• Why she likes returning from an adventure to a hectic schedule!
• The significance of the Guinness World Records.
• How Masha dealt with others questioning her ability to climb.
• What the Poles taught her about the world.
• Why lack of funds shouldn’t be prohibitive to pursuing adventures.
• What drives Masha to keep conquering goals.
• Her charitable endeavour Grit & Rock.
• The consequences to society of the gender self-confidence gap.
• The importance of developing hardiness in children.
• The book which helped Masha overcome difficulties.
• How grit and resilience was honed in her professional life.
• On being a female accomplished mountaineer.
• Running out of food on Denali.
• Unexpected events which thoroughly tested Masha & how she overcame them.
• Passing the time when events take a turn!
• Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable!
• Experiencing an avalanche – lessons learned.
• Advice to those who lack the confidence to pursue an adventure.
• The importance of failure and losing.