Forging Resilience
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Whether you're seeking to overcome personal challenges, enhance your leadership skills, or simply navigate life's twists and turns, "Forging Resilience" offers a unique and inspiring perspective for you to apply in your own life.
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Forging Resilience
S3 Ep90 Jo Bradshaw: The Mountain Within
In this episode we sit down with Jo Bradshaw, Everest summiteer, expedition leader, and leadership coach. But this conversation quickly moves beyond altitude, summits, and achievement. Jo shares a non-linear life story shaped by uncertainty, fear, loss of confidence, and repeated reinvention from working with horses, to corporate roles, to standing on the highest mountains in the world.
What emerges is a deeper conversation about leadership under pressure, responsibility for others, and the cost of chasing external milestones as proof of worth. Jo reflects on what mountains strip away rather than what they give bias, ego, comparison, and the illusion that strength looks only one way.
Whether she’s talking about surviving the Everest earthquake, leading teams in extreme environments, or navigating menopause and identity shifts later in life, the focus repeatedly returns to presence, honesty, and self-trust.
This is an episode for high performers in transition, those questioning whether the next summit, promotion, or achievement will finally deliver clarity or peace. Jo offers a different lens: growth that comes from attention to the small inputs, ownership of internal states, and the courage to adapt without losing yourself.
If this episode sparked something for you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find us. What 1% change will you make today?
Connect with Jo through her website, LinkedIn or Instagram.
Welcome to Fortune Resilience, real conversations for high performers facing transition. I'm Erin Hill. Join me as I talk with people about challenge change and the adversity they face in life so we can learn from their experiences, insights, and stories. Today on Fortune Resilience, I'm joined by Joe Bradshaw. Joe's an Everest Summiteer, Seven Summit Climate, Expedition Leader, and Leadership Coach. But this conversation isn't about ticking off mountains, it's about what those environments can reveal about leadership, responsibility, and who we become when things don't go to plan. It's not necessarily about doing the hard things without letting them define us, and about the difference between climbing the mountain that's sometimes in front of us or sometimes the one that's inside of us. So, Joe, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you very much. Thank you for having me, Ron.
SPEAKER_00:No worries, it's a pleasure to have you here. Joe, for those of the that are listening that that don't know you, give us a quick run-through of of your story or backgrounds that's relevant for this conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Um yeah, because I it's interesting because I haven't led a what you'd call a kind of classic uh career path by any stretch of the imagination. Uh when I left school, I all I wanted to do is work with horses all my life. Um and I did, I went to, I was originally meant to go to agricultural college, binned that because I enjoyed working more than learning in that type of environment. So I learned out on the job, and I spent the first six years of my working life after school with horses, and I loved it. And then the dream and the reality, sort of as I got into my mid-20s, stretched apart somewhat. Um, and other life events were happening, and I chose to leave horses and needed to get a job, so went into retail because it's a great all-encompassing um line of work. Uh, at the same time, I also worked uh behind the bar in pubs, which is um I think everybody needs to do. I don't know if it's gonna be the same these days, but uh yeah, again, great life skills from there. And I worked in business um for the next 15 years of my life or so. So I left uh in retail. I was um I ran an early learning center, amongst other being in other retail outlets, and then went into newspapers and uh was in charge of a business advertising side of a newspaper, local newspaper in in Aylesbury, and then worked at uh an electronics company, uh global electronics company for five years, and then went into business advice from the side of what was Business Link, so a government-funded business support organization. And then when I'm telling sort of maybe more students than adults this, like, wow, you just don't stick at anything, do you? It's like, well, you can see it like that, or you can see it from the point of view that I'm gaining experience and I'm sort of branching out and putting feelers out. And if one thing doesn't feel quite right, where can I go using all the experiences that I've uh built up over the years? And it was whilst I was at BusinessLink that m the world of adventures sort of started opening up for me, really. And I did a parachute jump for charity, terrified of heights, decided that was going to conquer my fear of heights, uh, which it didn't. It just ingrained it a bit more. And um, that parachute jump led on to a bike ride in Peru, uh, which led on to a few more, and eventually I went to work for the company who ran the bike rides overseas, and gave up my very well-paid corporate job, um, sold my house, got rid of my fancy car, and moved down to Salisbury, which is where I am now, and worked in Adventure in the office, in Discover Adventure in their office for two years, whilst gaining a load of experience out on the hill, and then went freelance in 2010. And and I now sort of moving forward to we're recording this the end of 2025. I now combine my old world in business in within leadership development. I still lead expeditions overseas, I teach D of V students, so I'm a keynote speaker from the experiences that I have. So I it's really lovely that those four things are centred around growth because without growth we we're nothing really.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. There's lots of different directions I could take there. I think, yeah, I I'm gonna jump to the obvious one. Yeah, what what drew you up into the mountains then, I think, specifically rather than any other type of adventure?
SPEAKER_02:It was very much a sliding doors moment because when I when I sort of tent took the tentative first steps into adventure, it was through a bike ride, through bike ride in Peru, which was for Asthma UK as well. So they sent me the next thing. So after you do the parachute jump, it's the next thing. And so when I started at Discover Adventure, I was a cyclist, I wasn't a trekker. Tracking to me was a bit boring. I walked my dogs and I loved that, and I loved being outside, but I love I did love the extended journeys on the bike that you could see so much more. And before I the in 2007, before I actually started work at DA the following year, um I did some trips with them uh in my holidays from work. And I was due to be assistant leader on a bike ride in Vietnam, and they took me off that and put me on to lead a uh Great Wall of China trek, uh, which was a bold move for them because I wasn't really a seasoned trekker at the time, but they said, Well, you you understand how the trips work, uh, and what we're doing is taking away the wheels and just putting you on foot instead. You know, it's not rocket science, and you know, see how you enjoy it. So I went out to China in October 2007 with a group of 40 girl guide leaders, um, and I was their leader along with my co-pilot and a doctor, and I really enjoyed it. I was like, I quite like this slower pace of life, and you can spend more time seeing what's around you and really appreciating your environment rather than flying through it. Um and yeah, so it was it was that sort of was the catalyst for I think the start of the change. And then in 2008, uh I was assisting on my first Kilimangioro expedition and just fell in love with the mountains then. Um and yeah, have now led 37 expeditions on Killy, so it's a staple of my work, and I love going back. Um and I love going to Nepal and other countries. I think I go back to Killy so often or Tanzania so often because as much as I feel comfortable there, I still learn a lot whilst I'm on the mountain. Um so yeah, it's it's the best of both worlds, really. And I love views and I love the cold, and I am not a jungle lover at all. Um I know some people are very much at home in that environment, and it's definitely not for me. I've tried it and didn't enjoy it. So um, yeah, high cold snow, that's my happy place.
SPEAKER_00:Love it. You've you've answered my next question there. But um, what do you think it is that you've taken away from such a very and what I've would say a non-traditional career path that you've been able to carry into the next uh career and especially leadership on the mountain?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it's I think everything that I've done in my past has led, not that I knew at the time, but has led on to the next thing. It's given me the tools I need for the next thing. So I used to be uh really afraid of public speaking. And before I went to BusinessLink, I used to avoid standing up in meetings or giving any types of presentations at all. I just wasn't confident. And then when I went to BusinessLink within the first three weeks, I was doing one-minute elevator pictures that they hadn't told me I would be doing in the interview. And I think if they had said, I probably would have gone, that's not for me, because I was very much in that realm then. And being thrust into that environment, I was, you know, I went to my first networking meeting uh with my boss's boss, so director of Business Link at the time. And I was like, oh, no pressure. I have no idea what to say. Nobody had briefed me, prepped me, given me any training. They're just like, say what you feel from the heart is what we do at BusinessLink. And that's probably the best way that it could have happened because it wasn't scripted, it wasn't rehearsed. I just got up and said it from what my feeling of the job was. And that then led on to many, many, many more networking meetings, and then I eventually would be running my own events and standing up in front of audiences, um, you know, delivering events as well as introducing them, and that gave me the confidence so that when I became a leader, an expedition leader, I could give briefings to 150, 200, 300 cyclists or whoever, and not really worry about it. And we were talking before about having a good amount of nerves before you do any sort of public speaking, because that for me makes me have that little bit of edge that I need. And that's what my previous life has given me, amongst many other things. So, working in logistics, working outside with horses, with unpredictable animals, um in all weathers. And when you think you have a plan for the day, it's really you might as well just rip it up. You hope it's gonna go in that direction, and that's very much what expeditions are like. You can get up in the morning and and you know, walk out of your camp or wherever you are, and hope you know that what's gonna happen, you know your destination, and and nature is very much uh involved, and and she's the key, she's the queen of what goes on, and it's working with that environment rather than against it.
SPEAKER_00:In in terms of your your message and keynotes, what what is is there an overarching theme that you you generally talk about, Joan?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so it depends on the brief of the client. Um quite I mean, all the time it's around my story of going from a no-saying, height-hating, comfort-loving business advisor to standing on the top of Everest, Fine Earthquake, and all of that kind of drama, although I'm a bit averse to drama. I always uh but being in an earthquake is quite dramatic. Um and coming back from that, and quite often I talk about the first woman to summit Everest, who this year, 2025, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of her ascent of Everest, her summit of Everest. It's Japanese mountaineage and Kota Bay. And in her book, Honoring High Places, while she's trying to find female climbers for her all women's Everest expedition, um she would quite often have the reply from people, I would love to go to Everest butt. And she says she found it difficult to hear people crush their dreams with the word butt. So very often I use the the analogy of binning your butt so often in life, and I was a hundred percent this person before I'd love to do that, but dot dot dot, you know, I'm washing my hair or I can't afford it, uh, or whatever it is, and quite often behind that was fear, you know. I was f afraid of failing, and I was also fearful of success. What does success look like? I think because I had set out in my life to do the one thing that I really wanted to do, and I was also amongst the horses bit, was gonna marry a farmer or farrier and have kids and everything, and none of you know that ended in my mid-20s. And so very early on in my working life, I was like, crikey, I've got a long way to go, and what am I gonna do? I just completely lost my confidence in life. So I was very much a an I would love to butt type of person, so it's breaking down those butts, finding out what it is that the fear where the fear is coming from. Um, and also on my boards, I have uh I don't know if you can see it, but it's the right way around. I've got a little trash can that's got butts going into it. And there's also um, so the four P's for me are really uh most important. So purpose, whatever I'm doing, I have to have been brought into the purpose, or I need to make sure that I fully understand my why for whatever it is. And then the three pillars above that are patience, perseverance, and perspective. And as much as patience and perseverance are polarities, they work so well together because for example, my seven summits challenge journey, well it was a challenge and journey, was seventeen and a half years in total. Not that I knew that at the start, and the last mountain that I climbed, which was I summited eventually in twent uh 21st of March 2025, took me seven years to get there with five cancelled expeditions and quite a lot of lost money. And so often I had people say to me, Why don't you go and climb Cosyosko in Australia? Because it's still one of the seven. Well, it's not the seven that I had planned, and there's there's two versions to the lowest. Because Cosy Osko, you can drive most of the way up. It's yeah, it's challenging can be challenging conditions, but it's only 2,200 and something metres. Whereas Carlston's Pyramid is the other version, is nearly 5,000 metres. It's in the jungle in West Papua. Um, you know, it's it's it's a proper climbing mountain, it's it's rock climbing, it's was really challenging my former sort of hatred of heights and exposure. So it's like, why wouldn't I want to go and do it that do that rather than the old me would have gone, actually, yeah, Carsten. Uh sorry, Cosy Osko sounds great. That's a great option. Um, so yeah. So when I'm doing my talks, it sort of going back to what I was saying at the beginning, it depends what direction the brief is, what what um sort of pointers I'm given, and it is around the journey of you know being patient um and having perspective about what your purpose is. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well what do you what do you think all of your experience on on the mountain has taught you from your own leadership and and growth journey?
SPEAKER_02:Um I think I th it's that's an interesting one. I think from the very beginning because I was nearly hitting my forties when I started leading on expeditions. So with that comes people's bias that I've been doing it all my life. It's like uh no, I've been gaining a lot of life experience and when I I was told you you know, show no weakness, show people that you know everything, you know, be the strongest person and define strong, you know, as I mean physically strong, mentally strong, emotionally strong, you know, what's your strength? What is the strength? Um and I don't think I was authentically me in the beginning because I was trying to put across this sort of different version of me that everyone else was telling me I needed to be, and it just didn't feel right. And over the years I've really settled into my own style, and humility and vulnerability are so important to me. If I don't know something, and I'm you know, I'm human, I don't know everything, then it's important that I ask for help and I go and find out. Because as a leader, it's not my job to know everything, it's to my job is to know how to go and find out, or bring in the right people to get issues sorted. When I was first leading, I thought I needed to be out in front and you know, all guns blazing and everything, and that's so not true as well. And I learned very early on, and I was working with a guide in the Sahara, and he said, Joe, this is my back garden. You know, this I grew up here. I'm the technical expert, and you bring a different level of leadership to what to what he has. So let's work together rather than trying to you do it all because you can't do it all. You just don't have, you know, with the best will in the world. I didn't grow up in the Sahara, does it? Um, and he was absolutely right, you know. The the the guys that and girls that I work with on moving over to Tanzania on Kilimanjaro, they do that mountain week in, week out. They know it better than anybody. So who am I to jump in as the sort of Western leader and go, follow me? It's like, no, actually, follow them because they're always going to be at the front. I'm going to be more towards the back because I'm generally the medic on the trip as well. And we'll work together. So they're my co-pilots. The whole team. I couldn't do my job without the guy who cleans the toilets, without him having the agency to do his job properly. I couldn't do my job without the waiters or the cooks really feeling that they owned what they do. They're the technical experts, I'm not. I've never cooked on a mountain for 30 people on a you know twin burner. They're phenomenal. So that's really changed over the years. And if I make a mistake, own up to it. Don't hide it because people will call you out and now do I cannot lose their trust. Um I think I would be much happier if I was being led by somebody who I knew if they'd made a mistake, they just went, yeah, that wasn't quite right. Here's how I'm gonna fix it. Um and that's I think I don't how how have you felt in previous because you've worked in extreme environments where trust and authenticity is is sort of watchwords as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so great question. I I I think the authenticity piece is still something I am working on because for so long I was I moulded myself into what I thought was expected, and I wasn't in a leadership position in terms of it was very much self-leadership of very, very small teams. Um so yeah, and and trust, yeah, is something that was inbuilt to us, and and also our our system, the processes, the training that we went through was almost even if you don't didn't go through that process with somebody, there's a it's a lot of buy-in and trust automatically because there'd been a shared a shared uh experience, um, and and as well as all the other things that come on, like in terms of yeah, the purpose or the briefing or the mission, um, understanding our role, um, etc. helps to to get buy-in there. Um yeah. So as as as I quickly reflect there, so a lot of my lessons I've only started reflecting now recently in the last five years to be able to accumulate them and then communicate them. Um it's not something I would have had in my awareness or perspective back back back then. Um that's that's okay. I think that that's that's part of growth as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's really interesting that you say about the common purpose. Can you hear my dog barking?
SPEAKER_00:I can, but hang on a sec.
SPEAKER_02:Monty might be the postman. Yeah, that would be nice. Um, yeah, it's interesting you say about the common purpose because so often when I'm leading expeditions, and I lead a lot of expeditions where we're summiting a mountain, you know, five, six, or so thousand meters. And this has often been people's lifelong dreams, and they have one shot at doing it, and they come on the expedition and and they're there on an individual agenda. They happen to be part of what they would term loosely as a team. They're they're there with a collection of people, and more often than not, they forget that actually we need to work as a team in order for them to be successful as well as everyone else. Because if they stick their if they haven't washed their hands after they've been to the loo and then stick their hands in their popcorn or share their sweets around. So everyone else is putting hands in foods, which gives me the hebie jeebies. Is there it's a fast track to making everyone sick. So when I'm leading, I'm really upfront about that type of teamwork. You know, without a team, we're we're nothing, we can't do the mountain. And what I do has an impact on you, and vice versa, and what I do every step of the way has an impact on my success as well as your success. And that really came together when I led an expedition uh this year in April in Nepal, a mountain I haven't climbed before. And we had no sickness, altitude sickness or or any stomach bugs, no coughs, nothing. It was because everybody took ownership of their own decisions and if they saw anyone else doing something that may put our health, our collective health, uh, you know, in a bad place, they wouldn't sort of suddenly call them out, but they'd just say, Oh, you know, here's a spoon for the popcorn before it happened. Because it was all front-loaded and it was all very much we all bought into that notion of what I do has an impact on you and your success, and vice versa.
SPEAKER_00:So what was what was different to what was different, or did you do differently uh to to start or set that environment up?
SPEAKER_02:Um I think this time round, because we were on the expedition, it was an expedition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Junko's summit of Everest, and she had climbed Yalla Peak, the mountain we were going to uh two years after Everest. So we were on a slightly different mission. So I think a lot of people were there from a more holistic viewpoint rather than simply I want to go and climb this mountain because none of them had heard of it before I sort of put the put the um expedition together. So it was more curiosity about oh, this is a mountain I've never heard of, about following in the footsteps of a woman that very few people know. So I think the curiosity around the expedition was probably greater than the summiting the mountain. And a friend of mine says, you know, when you go and summit any mountain, you have a target and a goal. And your target, yes, is to stand at your highest point, wherever that may be. Uh the goal is to come back with great memories and all your fingers and toes attached. And I love that because our goal was to have a great journey, and the summit was the bonus. Um, because you know, anything can happen. There was um another couple up at base camp the day before us, and they the weather was horrendous, so they couldn't go, you know, and they trekked all the way up there, and then one day of bad weather, and that was it, and they came, we met them on the way down. So if you forget about the journey and you're only concentrating on the summit, you lose so much richness in an expedition or in an experience, and I think that was that took the pressure off everyone. So, and I'm very much in favour of saying to the group, you know, I'm not gonna talk about the summit, or I'm not gonna talk about three days time now because it will come. I'm gonna talk about what we're doing today, and how we can make sure that what we do today will get us to in a good place to do tomorrow. So it's all about the one percent, it's all about washing your hands, walking slowly, eating enough, drinking plenty. And they become a habit in the end, so then you don't have to think about them. And then that makes life so much easier. You know, we all form we all think forming good habits is hard work, but it's not. It's you know, she says, not wanting to go out running every day.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's I think it is when we can zoom out and get a different perspective and understand what what yeah, our role or function. And the note that I've just made there to myself, really, is that yeah, what what I hear you saying is that the talk about um can't see what that says. Oh, yeah, pr presence and and the inputs, concentrating on the inputs rather than the outputs. So yeah, um yeah, one day at a time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, presence. And I think you know, when I'm now going, I think the our expedition in April was unique, and I'll probably never have that type of expedition again, purely because it was focusing on the commemoration sorry, the celebration of Junko's achievements, and also the commemoration of the earthquake uh in the pool ten years ago. And I was on Everest during the earthquake, and Yalla Peak, the mountain that we were going to climb, is in the Langtang Valley, and Langtang Village was destroyed by an avalanche which was triggered by the earthquake. Uh, 320 or so souls lost their lives, and you know, we were walking across what effectively was a grave site of the village into the new village. And I think it everybody was present, very present, and I absolutely front-loaded that. So I didn't give I said to them, if you ask me about tomorrow, I'm not gonna answer. You know, I'm gonna politely say, I will tell you later, or I'll tell you tomorrow. And everybody respected that, and I haven't experienced that on an expedition before, so I need to remind myself of what it was about that. And I think it was saying, staying present. Because if we're always thinking about what's going to go on tomorrow, and I have an eye on what goes on, I have to. You know, I wouldn't be uh, you know, I wouldn't be an effective leader if I didn't have an eye on how everyone is and and what the impact of what they're doing now has on tomorrow, or thinking about the weather over the next few days, or our route or anything. But for my clients, I very much wanted them to be present because they're all part of the journey and they're all part of the process. Um, and this is their that was their one one and only time they are likely to do that, whereas I am likely to go back, so you know, sort of absorb it as much as you can.
SPEAKER_00:W where were you when the the earthquake happened? Were you you were you actually walking, climbing, or were you?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I was at camp one. Yeah, so we had just so the 25th of April 2015, uh just before midday, um myself and the guy that was climbing with, we were we'd just got to camp one about half an hour before, and we were sort of sorting out our tent and our kit. And we'd left Everest Base Camp about four o'clock that morning and had a good slow but good uh climb up through the Kumbu Icefall, which is seen as the initially the most dangerous part because you've got big crevasses and ladders and massive blocks of ice that can fall in your head, and you know, it's a it's kind of it's a bit of Russian roulette going on in there to say the least. And yeah, we'd we're camp one is 6,000 metres, so it's um 700 and something metres above every space camp, and it's a two-mile distance. Took us seven hours, so you know you think, oh, two miles and seven hours. We had 20 ladders to cross. There was multiple crevasses and a lot of climbing, and it's hard at altitude. And uh yeah, we were just setting up our camp. All our tents were already set up because we were sharing with another team that had just that were on their way to camp too. And Rolf and I were I was in the in the main body of our tent, um, and he was in the porch. And I I'd chosen the tent initially, and when I went into it, had a big dip in the base from the previous people, and I didn't, you know, you want you know it's like camping. You you like a nice flat surface, even if it's on a bit of a slope, you don't want to dip when you're sharing with someone else. So I just shouted out to him, or let's move, because there were plenty of tents available. Um, so I said let's move to another tent, and then we were just chatting, and then we just suddenly stopped chatting, and it was really weird because there was a sense that something was going on, but we weren't quite sure what, because when you're mountaineering and you hear an avalanche, it generally comes from one place, so you you have an idea of you know, is it front, side, behind, or wherever to me, and this rumbling was coming from all around, and then as I was kneeling in the tent and Rolf was in the porch, the the ground beneath us just felt like it was disappearing, and I thought, because there was a dip in the tent, I thought, Christ, in my head, it was god, there's a crevasse opening up, and we're going we're going down, and I did not want to die wrapped up in the tent with Rolf. That's it. Not that I've ever thought about how I'm gonna die because it's not really our choice. It's like that definitely was not it, and um and then the ground started shaking, and we dashed out of the tent, and we could feel the updraft, we could feel a massive updraft coming up through the kumbu ice fall below us. Um, and when an avalanche hits, you get hit by the the draft, the initial wave of kind of wind, I guess, but the draft, which is then followed by snow and ice and rocks and whatever else happens to be there. And so we had this big updraft, and then from the sides, from the west face of Arist, and from Nupsea, which is sort of where Camp 3 is sandwiched in between in the Western Coombe, we were avalanced, but not, you know, we weren't buried, we were sort of dusted and um it looked a bit like snowman after it, and the ground was shaking really violently. And I don't know how long it lasted for 30 seconds a minute, I have no idea, and then it stopped, and we then had a radio call from our base camp manager Henry, who said, Are you guys okay? You know, there's been a big avalanche at Everest Base Camp, which is a safe place to be because it doesn't get avalanched, or it you know, it's they're fur it's far away. But three of our team uh well two had been found dead and one was missing later, found deceased. And yeah, we were trying to understand what what on earth had happened because even though you're in the Himalayas and you know how they're formed, you don't expect there to be an earthquake when you're there. It generally happens to other people on TV where you hear it in the news and it wasn't a life event I ever expected to go through. Yeah, so it was um it was quite unpleasant.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but did that ever do anything for your appetite for risk? Because I I can't imagine Everest being straightforward or even any other summits or certain expeditions or climbs.
SPEAKER_02:Did that um weirdly, no, actually, considering I used to be such a risk-averse individual, I had I was given the opportunity to go back. So in 2015, I was sponsored to go and climb Everest, and I was fundraising for children's mental health charity place to be. And when I got down to Basecamp, because I'd left my mobile phone down there, because it, you know, 10 years ago, phones on cameras weren't that great, so I had a proper camera, so I'd left my phone down with all my technical equipment, well, all my other equipment um at base camp, and about the only thing I found after two days was my mobile phone. Weirdly, it was under a meter of snow and ice. Uh put it in the sun to warm up, and it worked amazingly. And all I wanted to do was ring my mum. I'd already spoken to her, they already knew what had gone on, and but I wanted that contact. And my sponsor messaged me and said, Are you guys okay? Um, and we had a text conversation, which ended in, would you go back? And I was like, Yeah, I would. Because it wasn't anything that I'd done wrong to stop our climb. You know, I felt after initial issues with you know delays and lost luggage, and I'd crushed one of my fingers and then got a chest infection and all sorts of stuff happening on the way up to base camp once we were there, and I'm like, yeah, this is good. We've got this. And then Mother Nature stopped us. And I was like, no, I'm not having this. And I'm sure my mum would say as well, you know, we totally understood if you had not wanted to go back, if you'd gone, actually, that's it, fine, you know, I'm done. I'm like, no, no, I'm I'm really gonna kick. Because I could have gone, I could have done the the I'd love to, but you know, I was scared, fearful, what have you. I'm done. And I was like, no, I definitely put the butt in the bin on that one and and just went, yeah, somebody is giving me the opportunity to go back, and we went back in 2016 and stood on top of Everest on the 19th of May, and it was uh yeah, it was a a a weird victory, that one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Have you ever been involved in expeditions or summits of mountains where y you've just had to bite your tongue in terms of of yeah, emotional challenges rather than than the physicality of it, Joe?
SPEAKER_02:Um yeah, I have well emotional for me or for the clients?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I would probably say you.
SPEAKER_02:For me.
SPEAKER_00:Because I'm interested in what you've learned about that or what you draw from those examples.
SPEAKER_02:I think. Um I learned very on in my life in leadership that I'm not there to be everyone's friend. Because that doesn't get you anywhere. And people are very confused about that. When you need to suddenly do the tough love, they're like, hang on a sec, you were all lovey dovey earlier, you know, all sort of friendly and nice, and now you're being, you know, a bit harsh. It's like, no, this is tough love is the whole way through because your life is basically it's in your hands, but it's also my hands. And there have been times when I've been on mountains where people haven't quite told me the truth about their physical challenges, um or that they have altitude sickness uh worse than they're actually letting on. And that's a challenge in itself. When you're at the top, you know, top of a six thousand metre mountain, and someone says, Oh, I haven't been feeling well all the way up, and now you've got to get me down. There's all sorts of expletives I'd like to fire out, and that's not helpful. You know, I can do it in my own head, and I can do it on you know, silently. At that point in time, my job is to get that person into a fit state to to descend the mountain, and I have I'm fortunate that I haven't had that very often because I am so passionate about people being honest all the way through, because if they're honest earlier on, then I can fix whatever it is, or sometimes it's your body just saying, you know, you no thanks very much. But if if we can fix an issue, a medical issue, or you know, whether it's a psychological issue, and we can help you along, then I will. When you're at the top of a mountain and you're then telling me you've had a banging headache for three hours and you've been silently vomiting places, and that and that's serious, that's life, life or death stuff, and I'm not keen on that. And it's not because I want to avoid it, but it could have been avoided. So again, it's all about the one percent. And there have been mountains that I've been on that have been emotional climbs for me as a leader, and I need to take that emotion out because the mountain is not about me, it's about I'm there in a position of responsibility, and therefore I can do my emotions when I get back down and deal with that when I get back down. Um, I need to be on it with the client, with my clients, because also I'm generally more in a position of experience as well, not generally, but yeah, where I've done these mountains more, or I have been in the mountains more often than my clients, so yeah, I can't afford to lose it until until it's a safe place.
SPEAKER_00:You you talked earlier about bias and some of the things that that people might imagine you're capable of, or not capable of, by the way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and and I'm curious how that's played out and and and how you've dealt with that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um so the general conversation with new clients, in particular earlier on in my days where I was guiding people I didn't know. Whereas nowadays I'm generally the majority of people on my expeditions, I'm friends with or they know me through social media or what have you. So the general conversation was, you know, so are you married? Um, no. Do you have children? No. Uh boyfriend? No. Girlfriend? No, not that either. Um, oh, so so there was this box people were trying to put me in. And quite often the boxes and the biases are out of our own comfort. So we we want, you know, we're looking for comfort in where in our own discomfort. So if if I'd said to somebody, yeah, I'm married with kids, brilliant. They know where where I fit in worlds, but because I'm not married, don't have children, um, don't have a boyfriend, I have a dog. Um you know, it it doesn't it doesn't fit in a social bias. So and I'm not out to being anonymous I can't even say it anonymally that thing.
SPEAKER_01:I know what you mean.
SPEAKER_02:It's just it's just the way I live my life, you know. That's just me. Um and I think also because I don't look my age, I'm blonde, that's always a great one. Uh people come up with a vision of what a lead what a mountain leader um ought to look like, and it's usually what you look like. Um, you know, tall, slim, beardy, and male. And male. Um and to begin with, I used to be very annoyed by that. It's like, how dare you be so you know, arrogant to think that that's all that, you know, or where I should be, or that I should be the assistant leader and not the leader, because I've quite often been the leader where my assistant is a guy. Because I have the at that point in time, I have the greater experience. And I used to use I used to waste energy being annoyed with it, and it's like, well, I and I'm also not going to be annoyed with you. What I'm gonna do is do my job and still speak nicely and authentically and empathetically, and not be out there to change your mind. I'm just gonna be me and do my job. And if you choose to change your mind, brilliant, that's great. But I'm not out there to prove anything to anyone, because if the companies that I have worked for and st and now work for didn't want me on the mountains, they wouldn't employ me. And the same when I'm doing keynote speeches or I'm working in leadership development, if the companies didn't feel that I was capable of doing the job and they'd get good results from me, they wouldn't employ me because there's lots of other people out there, you know. So uh yeah, so the biases I think I do it, you know, probably subconsciously. Uh I'm very aware of it now, and I think that's the difference. So I can maybe cut it off at the past before before I sort of go down a bit of a rabbit hole.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I tell you where my brain goes with that as well. Is it's it's almost I've I've worked predominantly in male environments, male dominated, and and yeah. So in my 40s, I am or yeah, late 30s, I'm I'm coming into contact with a more balanced work environment, and males and females that are incredible, and some that are not, um very capable, and some that are not, and that's absolutely fine. So where my mind was going with that is kind of how how do yeah, okay, how do men how do we as men then help? I don't I'm I'm even trying to pigeon myself whole into into this question, but in terms of of you being a woman on an expedition, yes, it's not that how do we support you, but yeah, yeah, yeah. And how do you help us find our place where yeah, without without fitting some sort of stereotype or without us trying to over-humorise, bully or blackmail because we think we know better.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've yeah, I've never been asked that question before, so thank you for that. Uh I just treat me as a person because quite often people see me as a woman, and hopefully sometimes the sort of chivalry side will come in. So I've sort of been moved out of the way so that men could get the big bags, and I'm more than capable of unloading and loading bags, and sometimes I choose to go, yeah, absolutely. If that's if that's what you want to do, I'm gonna just let you get on with it. Because I don't need to be doing the loading or unloading, I can go off and do something else. And I think very much of if there's somebody in a put in a position of leadership as I am on the mountains, like I was saying just now, you're there for a very good reason. Uh so respecting that is really important. You don't have to get on with me, and I don't have to get on with you. I'm there as a technical expert, I'm there to um enable your journey. And another thing that I'm really passionate about is not prefixing women with a female, this, that, or the other. So quite unless you're talking about Junko Taabe, she was the first woman to summit Everest, and she summited Everest not to become the first woman, it's because she wanted to climb Everest. You know, her and her team. Yeah, it's a byproduct of what she is, and I don't want to be prefi I don't feel the need to be prefixed with Joe is a female mountaineer. Uh because guys do not get that. You you you know, I I can't even imagine Sir Chris Bonnington being that says he is a male mountaineer, because it just doesn't happen. Whereas you know, and I'm I'm most definitely not comparing myself with him and his calibre, I'm I'm not a female mountaineer, I'm a mountaineer. You know, or I'm not a female podcast guest, I'm a podcast guest. I think people can work it out from themselves. And I think also strength can be seen in many different ways. And it is really embracing what our strengths are. So th I was in Antarctica, the end of 208 uh 2019, climbed Vincent, got back to Union Glacier, which is the base camp on Antarctica, and there was a husband and wife there who had climbed in a different party but been on the mountain the same time as me. And I was carrying big loads and doing my thing because that's what I'm used to doing, and I wasn't guiding there, I was a client. And this guy said, Well, I'm stronger than you. I was like, Okay. He's right. I was a bit like, oh, that's a bit weird. And when we summited the same mountain, who cares? And I said to him, Define strength. You know, what are you talking about you could carry 25 kilos where I couldn't? Or are you talking about the fact that I could potentially stay out for longer? If that's a valid point, I you know, it's like define your strength. I I I was really unsure what he was trying to prove to himself, and so I I just walked away. I'm like, I'm I'm not really after this discussion because it he was totally on an agenda to prove something to him, and I I was like, I'm not gonna be party to this. So the the ability to walk away from a situation rather than be part of that fire. Um, I think you know, I've learned that, and and to be honest, that's what the menopause has given me perspective. Talk about perspective earlier on is that everyone has their own stuff going on, and I don't need to be part of it a lot of the time. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I'm keen to go back to the menopause, so I'm gonna put a bookmark in that, but it does lead me on what you're talking to there about something we discussed briefly is my assumption through my own life experiences as well of seeking validation through the things we do, yes, and know more clearly than Everest that I will be worthy, valid, or accomplished when I reach the top of that. And my reflection for myself after what watching a documentary is yeah, I've got my own in Everests or or mountains to climb. Um does does that land for you in any way, shape, or form, or have you seen that manifested itself in in an in your own climbs or clients when they get to the top? Is it's what's next? What's next? What's next? What's the cost?
SPEAKER_02:Um just does that huge amount of cost for some people? So I never set out to climb Everest when I started in in adventure. It and I all the mountains I did before Everest was because I wanted to do the mountains. I never really had the self-belief or the need to go and climb Everest. I didn't want to be part of that journalistic circus or that kind of what can be seen as a bit of an egocentric environment. You know, that's just not me. And after I climbed quite a few mountains on the way up to climbing my first 8,000 metre peak in 2013, uh, the eighth high school, Manasaloo, and I climbed it in really good style. I I learned a lot from the mountain, but I also took a lot of experience there. And I was thinking after that, well, if I am if Everest is going to be a thing, then that's the way that I want to go and do it. Um, I don't want to be dragged up by anyone. I don't want to not get in anyone's way from a sort of diminutive thing, but I want to make sure that I'm capable of doing this mountain because it's flipping enormous. It's it's a big undertaking. So many people get to base camp and go, yeah, I could climb that. I mean, it's another three and a half thousand metres, nearly, yeah, nearly four, yeah, three and a half thousand metres from base camp. It's three and a half kilometres, that's a long way in any stretch, you know, and you you spit that up straight, and it's like, yeah, that's that's pretty, pretty gnarly. And I I was also, I'm not a bragging sort of person, and Everest is something that I've done, and I'm immensely proud of it. Same with the seven summits. I'm immensely proud that I, you know, little old me has achieved the these things. Uh, because I never set out to do it, so it was never sort of a a dream or a thing. Um, so it's part of who I am, it doesn't define me as a person. And often I'm, you know, if I'm at social event or meeting new people where I'm not a speaker or I'm not, you know, on the list or what have you. I quite often don't say anything about it until I feel comfortable in the conversation that I've got to know the people that I'm talking to, and they've got to know me a little bit because it changes the conversation massively. Um and it and and it's all eyes on Everest. And that's all people want to hear. Because very few people have met an Everest Summit here. You know, it's not we're not, even though a lot of people go, Oh, everyone's climbed Everest. Um, you know, it's like, brilliant, have you? Often not. Uh or so they want to know about it, and then that's just a one-sided conversation, where it's a not conversation. They ask the questions I answer. So it depends where I am and what I'm doing. Obviously, if I'm giving a talk, it it it's what I talk about. If I'm, you know, I was working in Antarctica two two and a bit years ago, three years ago, and I was a field guide on the Antarctic peninsula, and Everest had nothing to do with it at all. And I don't think I mentioned it at all during my stay there. I was doing talks on ships about the um job that we were doing uh in Antarctica, so it wasn't relevant. It's it's something I've done, it's a chapter in my life, it has brought me great joy and great sorrow, and I'm not I'm not confident enough to go up to people and go, hi, my name's Joe Bradshaw, I've climbed Everest, because they just think, what a knob. People have done that to me, and I've gone, oh is that it? Is that there's you know, you that's one moment in your life um because we are made up of so much more richness than one mountain, and to me it wasn't the pinnacle of my achievements. It's you know, it was it was a big expedition. I raised a lot of money for charity, survived an earthquake. You know, there was a lot going, it's a big chapter of my life. Uh talk about it a lot because fortunately people are interested, it's not the sum total of who I am.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%. I love it. It's something that resonates deeply. It does, it's something done, not not defined by, and it's much more yeah, um, it's much more about who we're being than what we're doing, and irregardless it's of mountain or position. Yeah, um, and and what I take away from that is you ended up going up and over Mount uh Everest because you were your present is just one of those inputs on your on your journey rather than the the total, yeah, the the the the end goal. Um but going back to the menopause, what's what how's how's that changed? Then how in terms of expeditions and uh and and climbing and mountaineering.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh it's changed quite a lot actually. I think before um perimenopause started, you know, I I got into climbing later, so it was so very, very late 30s. Um so I always knew that I didn't have all of you know my 20s and 30s sort of in energy. What I did have was stability. Um and I had a good few years where I was away an awful lot, whether in the UK or or mainly abroad, and just expedition after expedition, and my body could cope with it and my mind, and then I sort of hit um a period in my life where my father passed away at the end of 2017, and then I injured myself in the spring of 2018 and just sort of had to press pause a little bit, and I didn't realise at the time that perimenopause was creeping up on me then. I thought I was in grief for my father, and it sort of yeah, just carried on. Um and then for me, it was actually COVID did me a favour in a really weird way because I remember before just before COVID when I said a saying about I was climbing in Antarctica at the end of 2019, I remember being on the mountain and I was a little bit more anxious than normal. I'm not an anxious person, a bit of anxiety and I was worrying about needless stuff, which is again not my like me. And I remember being on the mountain and I was trying to um re-thread a figure of eight tied to my climbing harness, and I forgot how to do it. And I was looking at this rope, I'd already tied in the first bit that was figure of eight. I was looking at the rope thinking, crikey. What do I do? You know, how's where's this knowledge got? You know, it's just disappeared, and I uh Rolf was just dying uh because he thought I was just being an idiot. And there was another guide there um called Anders who was looking at me, he knew what I was capable of, and he was looking at me going, Come on Joe, you can do this. And in the end, I said, Can somebody just tie me in? Because I I can't remember. And um I'm thinking this is really weird. And then during COVID, all my work was cancelled, and I became a Tesco delivery driver and physically struggled with that. I'm a strong individual, I'm used to being in the outdoors, I'm used to carrying heavy loads, and we were shifting a ton and a half of produce every day, you know, on a on a 10-hour shift, it's it's a lot going in and out, and I'd work three and a half days a week, and for the other three and a half days, I'd just be asleep on the sofa. And and a lot of it has to do with the sort of mental load of COVID and everything. Uh, physically, I was done. I was putting on weight, um, I was forever hungry, and I hadn't done any research about the menopause because in my head I was not gonna go through it. Just it wasn't even something that I it was even entered my consciousness that, oh yeah, I'm nearly 50, this is gonna happen. And actually, it's been happening for for a good few years, and then um coming out of COVID, I went back to expeditions and just struggled with the physicality of it and also the recovery, um, I found really hard. And in 2022, I was like, right, I was 51 at the time. I thought I've I hopefully have another half of my life to go, and I don't want to be struggling through it. And I was in a really deep dark place during the menopause of thinking, if this is how I'm gonna feel for the next 50 years of my life, I'm not sure I want to be here because it was awful, and not every woman goes through that, and I could have done myself a massive favour and educate myself beforehand, and that would have helped enormously. So, in 20 during 2022, I thought, right, how am I going to adapt my life? I've done it before with sort of changing careers, and how am I actually going to still keep my love for the mountains and maybe do it less so I love it more, and also still earn a living, and I really enjoy the leadership development side and had been doing quite a lot of it anyway. So, how can I just adjust the balance? And I heard this phrase of rather than saying work-life balance, because when is it ever balanced? You know, balance to me is is is a flat horizon. And it's work-life integration. So sometimes work's going to be more and life is going to be a bit less, or the other way around. It's like, how can I get that integration to work for me? So when I came back from Antarctica in the spring of 2023, I hadn't booked any more expeditions in, which was, you know, a big thing for me because I usually have my diary stacked out. And I spent the year working on my business and making new connections and making myself available so that people didn't say in the you know, the couple of leadership companies I work for, I'm associate for, oh, we won't ask Joe because she's always away, because we'll always get a no. It's like, no, I'm here. So I made myself available and it absolutely paid off. Um, and I've come out of, or I'm coming out of the menopause with so much more clarity, uh, more energy as well, actually, weirdly, more hope, uh, more aspirations, and a feeling that, and we were talking about this earlier, that I cannot influence what other people think of me or what I do, and actually I don't care about it because they will think what they think. I can only do what I do from my authentic self, I'm not doing it for anyone else. Um, so yeah, it's it's definitely given me a sense of calm, which I never thought I would get back to. Um, hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and what I'm hearing hearing is acceptance. Don't have to like it, yeah to dress it up.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, and I so wish I had done more research before it happened to understand how important oestrogen is in our bodies. Um I mean they ru it runs everything, and when it goes on holiday, it's you know, you've you're a bit up the creek. Um and then how I'm a big reframer, so if something isn't working for me, I was like, okay, how can I look at it from a different angle? How can I make this work? And in the end, it's like rather than trying to fight the menopause, whatever that looked like, and I didn't feel very strong at the time, I kind of gave into it. It's like, how can I make the menopause work for me? What can I do to help my future self? So it's being that butler to myself, all about the 1%. What can I do now to make the tomorrow me happier? Or actually just want to get out of bed? You know, it's it's as simple as that, or not go for that millionth chocolate brownie. And uh yeah, so 2023 was a really pivotal year for me for sort of rebalancing or integrating different things into my life.
SPEAKER_00:Um yeah, yeah, I'm I'm hearing freedom, freedom with, not not freedom from, and I love that. Do it less to love it even more, yeah. Recognizing the different capabilities and and priorities, um yeah, but still being able to get what you want and need. Joe, as as we start to to wrap this up, is there anything that I've not spoken about or you feel that you want to mention before we finish?
SPEAKER_02:Um no, I think we've covered a lot. Um what actually one thing I did write down just as we came on the call was about, and this is something that probably I've learned more out of the menopause is about comparison. And I've been doing a lot of sort of interviews about stuff lately, particularly around the expedition, and we made a film about the expedition honouring Junko's achievements. Um and quite often people say, Oh, I haven't done anything like you, or I'd done some stuff, but it's not on your level. It just breaks my heart every single time someone says that because they're diminishing their own achievements and their own extraordinary life. And quite often I ask them why they why they're comparing their life to mine when when they're when they're so totally different, you know, there's there's there's no par I'm not living a parallel or a mirrored life with anyone else. I'm living my own authentic life just as they're living their own authentic lives. And and I say to them, are we using the comparisons as something that's gonna torture us? So something that's gonna hold us back, or is gonna be in a sort of view of envy, or am I actually using it as why as a question, why am I comparing myself to you? What is it that you have that actually I would want to strive for? So am I using it as a tutor, not a torturer? And I've stopped comparing I've stopped the comp that comparison in when I'm looking at someone, you know, this morning I was um doing some work and something popped up on my screen. I was like, wow, gosh, look at that. That person's doing amazing, you know. And I'm really pleased for them rather than going, well, why have they got that and I haven't? Because they've worked blooming hard to get to get where they are. Um you know, and and fair play to them. And I think that's the clarity I was talking about earlier that's really helped, and it just it's just sloughed it off, you know. I've I've got rid of that the need to waste that energy because my is it, what's the saying? Your uh attention will go where your energy flows. Is that the one?
SPEAKER_00:Energy flows where attention goes.
SPEAKER_02:That's it, the other way around. Yes, thank you very much. And that's really important. It's like I'm not gonna have the breath that I've just breathed back again. I'm not gonna have the last minute back again. So, what am I gonna do with it that is going to support my life because I'm not living someone else's life, I'm living my life, and if I want to get a bit of what they have, how am I going to achieve that? Because there's still stuff in my life I want to do rather than going, oh, they they get it all. Yeah, we see what we you know, we people will only tell us what they want to hear and they'll only show us what they want to see. We don't see the behind the scenes stuff, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it's a really interesting point and probably uh another conversation in itself. But yeah, I I love that analogy of the the tutor or the torturer, but yeah, what comes up for me as hearing then is uh how do I not diminish myself or play small because of of certain achievements or backgrounds or yeah, but but still yeah, speak my truth as it were. So yeah, something to dwell on over the Christmas break, Joe. Um where where might where might people reach out or or find out a bit more about you, Joe?
SPEAKER_02:Um so I'm on Instagram um as at underscore Joe Bradshaw, uh Facebook, uh LinkedIn is a great place, and I have a website. Um, and uh, you know, so contact if people want to would like to get in touch, then through any of those um channels would be great.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Well, I'll put those links in in the show notes, but thanks very much for your for your time today, Joe. I've really enjoyed that conversation. There's a lot for me to reflect on personally and definitely be listening back to this from a uh listener perspective rather than the interviewer perspective. But um yeah, I appreciate who you've been and and and the the depth of our conversation, Joe. So thank you very much.
SPEAKER_02:Very much and and thanks for pulling the good stuff out. It's been uh yeah, it's been great. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00:My pleasure.