36 Hours Trapped in an Arctic Storm (Polar Explorer)

What happens when the wind is so powerful it literally rips the air from your lungs? Sue Stockdale knows this terrifying reality all too well. Trapped for 36 hours in a small tent during a violent storm on the Greenland ice cap, her survival wasn't just a physical battle but a profound mental one. "I discovered depths of resilience that I didn't know I had," she recalls, in a moment that would shape the rest of her extraordinary life.

From becoming the first British woman to reach the magnetic North Pole to skiing across Greenland's vast frozen expanse, Sue has pushed herself into some of the world's most unforgiving environments. But these adventures weren't just about conquering extreme conditions—they revealed fundamental truths about human potential that Sue now brings to boardrooms and leadership teams worldwide.

Her journey began with curiosity and defiance. When she spotted an advert seeking "novice Arctic explorers" with the tagline "Are you man enough for the ultimate challenge?", something sparked inside her. Despite having neither the experience nor the £15,000 required, Sue trusted her gut feeling—a pattern established early in life after losing her mother suddenly at age fourteen, which taught her that "life could be short" and we must maximize our potential.

What makes Sue's story particularly compelling is how she translates the lessons from polar expeditions into practical wisdom for everyday life and business leadership. Whether facing a literal storm in the Arctic or a metaphorical one in the corporate world, success often depends on managing your mind rather than external circumstances. "We're finding what it means to be alive," she explains about pushing beyond comfort zones, highlighting how modern life has emphasized exploitation over exploration—both externally and within ourselves.

Ready to discover what you're truly capable of? Connect with Sue at SueStockdale.com and explore her book "Explore: A Life of Adventure" for inspiration to step into your own unknown territories, whatever form they might take.

Sue's Website - https://suestockdale.com/

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Facebook - https://web.facebook.com/SueStockdalespeaker/?_rdc=1&_rdr#

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Transcript

Surviving Greenland's Merciless Storm

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Greenland. A frozen expanse of ice and endless horizons. Majestic and utterly merciless. For nearly a month, Sue Stockdale and her small team had battled across this vast ice cabin. Skiing with a sledge as heavy as a person with a relentless cold that never seen an end. And then on day 24, the storm arrived. With it, we came a savage wind, tearing down from the high point of the ice cabinet. It's so powerful, it literally ripped the air from your mouth.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

You know when you dive into a pool and you hold your breath? It was rather like that, just diving outside into this dreadful environment, holding my breath, and then breathing when I get into the other tent. And now you think, oh my goodness, what happens if this tent collapses? There is gonna be no way we can survive him in that weather.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

For 36 hours, their survival wasn't so much a physical battle, but a mental one. And when the storm finally passed, Sue carried with her a lesson that would shape the rest of her life.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

I think I discovered depths of resilience that I didn't know I had.

Sue's Journey as Adventure Pioneer

SPEAKER_02 1:59

My guest today has pushed herself into some of the harshest and most unforgiving environments on Earth. From skiing across the Greenland ice cap to becoming the first British woman to reach the magnetic North Pole. Sue Stockdale is an adventurer, author, and speaker whose expeditions have revealed just how much you discover about yourself when you're pushed to the limit and beyond. But she doesn't just leave those lessons on the ice. Today she works with CEOs and leaders across the world, helping them develop the same adventurous mindset that kept her alive in the Arctic. And as you heard in that opening, her big story takes us to Greenland, where a violent storm left her and her team fighting for their lives inside a small tent, with nothing but their strength of will to carry them through. So sit back as we go behind the scenes and find out what it takes to build a career in adventure and exploration. You're listening to No Ordinary Monday? Let's get into the show. All right. Sue Stockdale, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

I'm great, Chris. Lovely to speak to you.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

It's always lovely to have another fellow Scott on the end of the line, I have to say. Yeah. Well yours is yours is much stronger than mine, as mine's been diluted over the years, but you've managed to retain yours, which is fabulous. So the other thing that I think is really interesting is looking into you, is that you actually dipped a toe into kind of my career a little bit in the sense of the TV world with a couple of things. But the one that stood out to me was one on Channel 4 called Superhumans. And the reason is because I actually made a show called Superhumans as one of my first ever TV projects. And it sounds it ironically, I was like, oh my god, it's the same thing. But I was like, no, I didn't work with Sue back then. I would have recognized it. But um I did one for the BBC um way back in Scotland. So um but yeah, so just tell me a little bit about how how that all came about.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah, that was a fantastic program. I I was invited to participate in it. It was uh 10 of us to, you know, in so in in so-called uh terms of the television to see who is the most superhuman person. Really, it was to make science more appealing to the general public. And we were taken through 12 different tests. So imagine yourself turning up at a venue on a given day and taken into a room and then told, okay, you're going to stand on a 150-foot platform, your ankles tied up on a bungee cord, potentially doing a bungee jump, and you've got to keep your heart rate as low as possible. Oh, and by the way, you're competing against somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Oh my God. Well, I have to apologize because it would have been someone exactly like me devising those sorts of experiments and having great glee at watching, oh my God, this is this is great.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Well, one of the things that was quite funny, Chris, and I think you'll probably identify with this, is when we were doing this fearlessness test, and I have a fear of heights, and I had put that on the form that we were all to fill in at the start of the whole programme, you know, it's sort of details about yourself. And they asked the question, what's your greatest fear? Well, I am always honest when I fill in forms, so I put fear uh heights. And then speaking to the other contestants later, they're like, Surely you didn't tell them the truth, Sue. So there I was pitched against in this fearlessness test, 150 feet off the ground. I was pitched against a firefighter. Now, you know, he's used to going up on those turntable ladders, and and the and the the scientist that had devised the test, uh, along with all the camera crew before we went up, said, Okay, Sue, uh, you know, what's your strategy? What and the other guy, what's your strategy? And he shrugged his shoulders and went, Strategy. I don't need a strategy. I do this all the time.

unknown 5:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

And I said, Oh, I'm going to use visualization, a technique I know from my athletics background. Hmm. So all the camera crew were betting on who was going to win between the two of us. And every single one of them bet on the firefighter and the scientist bet on me because I had a strategy and and I you know had said about visualization. And of course, guess who won?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Amazing. So wait, so that meant that basically like you had heart rate monitors, and whoever whoever's heart rate raised to a certain level, their bungee jump would like commence, they would be dropped. Yes. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

You had a hundred, I think it was like a 500 heartbeats. So you know, it was counting who reaches 500 heart heartbeats the quack the quickest, which means you're the most anxious. Yeah. And those that can keep their heart rate lowest would won't have to do the bungee jump. So um using that visualization technique helped me to keep my heart rate low and helped me to beat the firefighter.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Brilliant. That must have been a great moment. Well, I think that's a um a great way to introduce. I mean, um, obviously uh you are probably best known as the first British woman to reach the magnetic north pole, umst other um endeavours and achievements. But um I guess what I like to do at the start is just, you know, imagine you're at a party or something like that, and someone comes up to you and says, Oh, hey, what do you do? Um, what do you do for a living? You know, um what what's your sort of stock answer usually?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Uh well it depends on what sort of party it was, but sometimes if I'm feeling in a jolly mood, I'd probably say, Oh, I'm an adventurer.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

And then that normally gets uh, oh, what does that mean? Or, you know, what what's advent what sort of adventures do you do? And then I might talk about polar adventures and uh challenging myself in different ways, exploring the unknown. And then that normally gets into a whole conversation about uh how other people, how they're how they have a level of comfort or not with exploring the unknown. And actually that has got me a big bit of business as a as a in my uh life as an entrepreneur, where I did have this type of conversation with somebody, and when I said to them, So what do you do to take risks in your job? And there was a long silence, and they said, Oh, yes, I probably need to do more of that. And then about a week later, after we'd swapped business cards, they contacted me and uh I ended up doing a big piece of work for their organization to do with helping them to be more uh lead, you know, be better leaders. But that came as a result of that kind of introduction at a party. So uh it's a brilliant, sometimes a good opener.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Yeah, it's a great opener. I mean I mean it's interesting because when people hear, you know, Polar Explorer or Adventurer or something like that, they might think, oh, that's isn't that just like a it's like an outdoor hobby or like some sort of thing like that. Like, but at what point like d has it become a career for you, like to become an adventurer or polar explorer? Because there has to be that distinction between something that people just do outside of it could be a lawyer or something that goes and does polar stuff, but this is your career.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Yeah, I I I guess it took a turn towards being a career, Chris. But in uh when I was in my late twenties, and I I had had a I was working in a corporate organization, doing that kind of job that you know many people do these days, corporate training and development, getting a nice salary, pension scheme, company car, so on. The whole, the whole uh, the whole thing. And uh I I just found I wasn't fulfilled. I I it wasn't there was something missing. And so I um I left that job, I got an opportunity, I saw an advert in the newspaper, and I ended up going to work for a year in a war zone with the United United Nations. Now, this was a a quality assurance job, so it was there to to help the civilian workforce improve their efficiency that were supporting the military as well. But it was uh that was like an adventure for me, and that's why I took the job in the end. I said to myself, logic says on paper this doesn't make sense at all. Why would you leave all of this kind of familiarity to go into the unknown? And then I used my gut feel and my intuition, and it said this is just the thing to do. So you want an adventure, here's an adventure.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

You know, to sort of go, it doesn't make sense to to do this thing that's really risky. Um why why at what point do you think you kind of learn to trust that kind of gut instinct and and and follow it?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Ooh, great question, Chris. Uh fairly early on. Um well, I'll I'll give you a bit of the back of the backstory that probably led also to this thinking about being uh adventuresome, is sadly when I was 14 years old, my mum died suddenly. She was in her early 50s. And you know, in in most one doesn't expect to to pass away at that at that kind of age. And so I think as a young girl, I got into my thinking, well, A, life could be short, and B, therefore, if that could be a reality for any of us, uh, surely we need to make the most of the time we're here on earth. And so there was something about maximizing, I didn't call it this when I was 14, but maximizing one's potential, exploring what one's capable of. And um so that I was kind of driving us as well, is how often do you ever get an opportunity to go and work in a war zone and see what that reality is like?

unknown 11:19

Yeah.

From Corporate Life to Arctic Explorer

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Now, maybe most of the listeners listening to this, Chris, are thinking, well, I'd never want to find out the answer to that. But if you put on that backdrop of what I just explained about uh, you know, life is short, life could be short, so take those opportunities, then I think that is quite a pr a pivotal point to then drive towards that. And I think then having done a year there, having survived, having learned a lot and realized the reality of what that was like, that gave me a huge amount of confidence. Because if I can do that and it works out, then what else can I do?

unknown 11:56

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Um so that was the kind of point where you because I what I find fascinating about your I mean, we go into lots of careers on this podcast, you know, we've got paramedics and you know, scientists and stuff, but this is not if you're at a school career sphere, like this is not typically one that you would find sort of like engineer, doctor, lawyer, polar explorer. I mean, at what point did you think like this is a viable career? Was it when you were in in that war zone kind of thought, this is this is it, like I can make a I can make a career, I can make a living out of doing this.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Not uh exactly. And and by the way, when I when I would be at those career fairs when I was a young girl, what was going on in my mind, Chris, was I wanted to be a a cook on an oil rig. So I think there was an element of adventure even back then.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Oh wow, that's fascinating. So you were you know a girl in school, you know, like in their teenage years, and you thought, I want to be a cook on an oil rig.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Oh my god, where did where did that idea come from?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Uh well, I like eating. So that's a cookbook, maybe. Um and so so I don't know where it came from. I don't know anybody that works on an oil rig or anything to do with the the oil industry in in Scotland. But somehow it's uh there was something that appealed to me about that kind of adventuring into the unknown. And so, to me, in a way, if there's anything, that those young people, when they're developing ideas for the future, is if the biggest thing they need to foster is curiosity and imagination and possibility, because then that opens up the doors for thinking about maybe adventurer being on that career list, and then and it was going to that work in the war zone that for me was that door opener into beginning to then think, oh, I could do something more adventurous. And next after that came the North Pole opportunity, and so that was the and that was really the the the big uh game changer in terms of being an adventurer and saying I can do adventurous things in my life and uh earn a living as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Because again, that that is a huge that's a huge step for someone to be able to, you know, to have an expedition. Like I mean, I I really want to go into that actually at this point, is just to sort of that whole process of because you know, being the first woman to reach magnetic fourth pole, that's no small achievement. But I'm sure the journey to get there must have been long and arduous. So just take us through that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, well, I I saw again, I saw this advert in the newspaper. So I'm a great advocate of reading newspapers and seeing things.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Um I saw this advert in the newspaper and it said uh wanted 10 novice Arctic explorers. And there was a picture of of uh you know the Arctic and polar bear, probably, and there were two qualifications to go on this expedition to the magnetic north pole, two two sort of things you had to have to apply. One the ability to work in a team, and that's you know, that that sounds very glib, but actually that was really an important point is you're not there as an individual, you're there as part of a team and supporting other people as well. And then the second was the ability to raise£15,000,$25,000, uh, to pay for your place. Now, you know, I had no idea how to raise that amount of money. I probably could have bought a house if I'd had that amount of money back in the mid-90s. Um, but I had a mindset and I said to myself, if it's meant to be, I'll find a way. So I just said that. I just said, and what's what's the worst that can happen if I send off for details? Nothing. So I sent off for the information, and then a brochure arrived back in the post, and it was all glossy pictures of men, and on the front of the brochure it said, Are you man enough for the ultimate challenge?

SPEAKER_02 15:40

This is the 90s, by the way, just to remind everybody.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yes, so maybe that wouldn't appear today, but nonetheless, isn't it sometimes we're as driven by a I'll prove you wrong motivation as a let's see what's possible? And it and I thought, how dare they think men can only go on this expedition? You know, I want to go as well. I didn't know where the magnetic north pole was, but I thought it's somewhere cold and white. This sounds challenging, this sounds like an adventure, I'm going to apply. And hundreds of people, of course, applied. And then there was a whole series of selection tests to narrow down the final team of 10. So we did physical tests, mental tests, uh, lots of different things. And even although I got my place, which was I was only confirmed my place in the January, the expedition was happening in the April, and then you would have to come up with the money.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Brilliant. And then the actual expedition itself, you were one of how many in the team?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

There were 10 of us in the team that were novices. So there were eight men and myself and a Swedish woman, Susanna, and then there were four experienced explorers. So there was a quite a big team of us, 14 out on the ice.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

And and just what was that experience like? Was it easier or harder than you thought it was going to be? Like just put us in the sort of the uh that sort of adventure.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Well, imagine that you've never done any cross-country skiing before, and you and you arrive in northern Canada and you're given some cross-country skis, and then you've got a sledge that's weighing the weight of an average person, and you're having to drag that across ice that looks like rubble in a building site. So we're not talking about an ice rink, smooth ice, and you know, wonderful, sunny, lovely conditions. We're talking about uh a frozen Arctic Ocean, and with the currents of the water, it pushes the ice together, and then you get these giant lumps of ice, and you have to travel across that with your skis on. So you're not really skiing. Your skis are there, yeah, with your sled too. So it's physically and mentally demanding. You know, uh, we were skiing sometimes 10, 12 hours a day. So it is it is not an easy experience, but at the end of it it was very rewarding.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Aaron Powell For how many how many days did it take you from from start to start?

SPEAKER_01 17:49

We took a month, a month to ski. 350 miles, five hundred and forty kilometers to every day, ten to twelve hours on the move. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Oh my god. But I that that can I mean for a lot of people listening, just putting people in that position of being one of a team of ten, some some most of them novices, doing something that is uh very difficult physically and mentally. Like you say the what's the worst thing that can happen? The worst thing that can happen is failure, you know, and how do you uh failure in the sense of, you know, you just cannot keep up with the team, you know? And uh how do you personally, how do you deal with failure? Has that sort of have you got a technique for it? Has it changed over the years? It must be something you've got to overcome on any well, not just expeditions, but in any any sort of thing you do.

Battling 36 Hours in a Life-Threatening Storm

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah, it's a it's a it's an important and uh uh salient point to re refer to, Chris. I y I think what I learned about failure, well, I learned about failure in lots of different parts of my life. Yeah. Particularly, I I used to compete in athletics uh pr competitively, so I ran for uh ultimately ran for my country. And I used to go out onto the athletics track every day, or you know, I was training every day, maybe running in the streets or on the track, but training every day, and I learned then that you know you s you can sometimes fade, uh, you know, you lose your energy quicker than you imagine, somebody's gonna be faster than you. But then the next time then you're better than them. And so never giving up was what I learned from training, to just keep going no matter how bad you feel, and you'll get through it. The power that other people can help you through that, so you're not there on your own, you've got kind of that energy of others around you, and not and not to be afraid to take failure as learning because that's the only way I ever improved on my athletics times was to fail, not do a time I wanted to do or something, but then I would learn and I would try again. So I don't see I don't use failure as a word that's uh negative. Failure is part of growth, and the more we fail, the m faster we learn, the quicker we will be able to develop.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Yeah, it's just a step on the journey. Yeah. I mean, just you mentioned there how important uh the team that you surround yourself with, you know, particularly I mean obviously in again we we're sort of both talking in a expedition sense, but also in a you know, maybe even a corporate or a business sense. But talking about how much energy you can derive from others, do you think you would have been able to do that expedition solo? No. Given the skills that you I mean, it could put the skills aside, like you needed the team, did you? You couldn't do that alone.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yeah. Well, I I I I was quick to say no. No, because I wouldn't want to do it on my own, first of all. Yes, I probably could do it if I was forced into it. But then the number one thing would be what's the compelling enough reason to want to do it. And that having purpose is such a huge thing. And all of us in our North Pole team had a combined desire and purpose to get to the North Pole. You know, that is hugely energizing and it is hugely magnetic. I mean, we're going to the magnetic pole, but you know, there's a there's a there's a draw towards something that you want to accomplish. And that that is quite an important ingredient in keeping you moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Aaron Ross Powell There's something I've always wondered about these kind of trips, big expeditions, you know, going either going to the North Pole or transecting the Sahara or whatever it might be. You know, you talk about purpose. I mean, was there a particular goal in mind for that expedition, or was it just someone that said, I I have this dream. I'm gonna put together a team and we're gonna do it. But there's no particular reason we're gonna do it. We're just gonna do it because it's a challenging thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Well, there were a couple of a couple of reasons, Chris. One is it was part of what you've just described, yes. It now today, no you can pretty much go anywhere in the world and put down money and you'll have somebody that can guide you and take you there. That is the world of adventure that we live in today. Thirty-odd years ago, that didn't exist. The only people that were exploring were people who were kind of professional explorers at the time, or that is what that is what they were doing. It wasn't the the norm for let's call it a novice, an ordinary person to go into an extreme environment. And so David Hempelman Adams, our expedition leader, said, I wonder if that's possible to take people who haven't got all of this experience and background and adventure and mountaineering and so on, to take them on an expedition. So that was kind of his curiosity, then advertising for the team. But um, you know, along with that, then we were doing scientific doing some collecting scientific data for the University of Ottawa to track the location of the pole. So that was an additional purpose, but it wasn't the reason for the expedition. The main and obviously once we were successful, then you know it was like, oh yes, well, we can do this. And it and if you look back in the re history records after our expedition, a lot of other expeditions followed on, where it was groups of all women or you know, lots of different other kinds of groups of novices began to do expeditions. But we were the kind of pioneers in that going to the North Pole.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Brill, yeah. I mean, in this sort of middle part of the chat, I always love uh guests to sort of share the most, you know, standout experience of their entire career, you know, whether it's the most unforgettable, the scariest, the most death-defying. Um, I wonder whether you could take us through. I know you've done so much, and there's like lots of things to choose from, but what what what is it for you, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Well well, if we think about risk taking, and that's what adventuring's all about, Chris. You know, the the ultimate risk that one takes takes is with one's life. And so for me, the the the closest I've come to death is probably the most memorable for the wrong reasons experience. And this was back in 1999. I was on an expedition with three others skiing across the Greenland Ice Cap. Now we're that's that's the toughest expedition I've done out of all the ones I've done over the years because the terrain is we we were skiing two-thirds uphill from from sea level to 8,000 feet and back down again over the course of a month. And also that that dragging really heavy sledges were completely self-sufficient, and the temperatures were really cold. So put all of those factors together. It's physically, emotionally demanding. A small team, you know, you're really just reliant on one another.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

And we got you leading this team?

SPEAKER_01 24:35

No, we were there, wasn't really an a leader. We were all kind of it was it was almost like a collective. One person had to have the idea to organize it. They all we all got involved and we all had varying levels of knowledge and experience and skills. So there was quite a distributed leadership uh amongst the team. So we were we'd been in this expedition now for 24 days. So uh, you know, we we knew each other pretty well by this point.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

We're pretty much a good idea. But did you at the start were you were you pretty new to each other on day one? Or did you kind of have a you know, you you kind of familiaricize familiarise yourself with each other beforehand?

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Uh we were probably pretty new to each other. I knew the the the the German guy who organized it. I had uh spoken to him a couple of times. I'd I'd met him with some friends of mine in a bar in Chile two years earlier, and and that's a whole other story about even just that kind of serendipitous meeting when you hear a non-Spanish uh voice having a conversation. Um, so so he you know he was kind of an acquaintance, a contact, knew I did polar expeditions, had invited me on the team and said I've got a couple of Norwegians as well that are coming along. So the four of us on the team, I didn't know the Norwegians, and I barely knew the German guy that was organizing it.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

But I I knew of his experience in expeditions and he'd been very successful. So there's a bit of that kind of track record and credibility. We didn't know each other well at the start, but obviously after 24 days, we're knowing each other a lot better. And um this particular day, I think we'd skied 40 kilometers. So what's that? About 24 miles, something like that. In temperatures minus 20 Celsius, something like that. Yeah, the relentless uh wind in your face very often, the extreme cold, it's physically and mentally demanding, and just sapping, sapping all your capability to make decisions, to think clearly. And by the end of this day, we we every day up until that point, we had built a snow wall. So it's a bit like a wind break, blocks of snow and ice. Imagine like half an igloo.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

You build that to to have some sort of protection when you pitch your tent, knowing that if the wind gets stronger, you've got some protection there. Now we have done this for twenty twenty-four days, and there's never been any strong wind in the evening.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah. And just to just clarify, you were you building one tent for the four of you or individual tents?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

There were two tents, so two two-person tents. So we had to build two snow walls and put pitch our two tents. And we all and every day we would sort of share with somebody else. So we never just shared with the same person all the time. We used to switch around to sort of you know avoid clicks happening. Um so we were we were exhausted on this given day. I'm sure that you know, I know we we half-heartedly built that snow wall, just thinking, oh, well, we've done this every other day. I can't wait to get in that tent. I'm so tired. You know, when you do something with not a lot of energy and commitment. And so we dived into the tents, and uh the the Norwegian and myself, the woman, we were in one tent, the guys were in the other that time, they were doing the cooking, and we would normally all meet in one tent and eat together. And we're lying in our sleeping bags, exhausted, and we're waiting for them to shout for us to to go through and eat food. And it's much, much longer than normal. We're like, Where is it? Why aren't they telling us? But meanwhile, we're hearing this noise getting stronger and stronger outside, the noise of the wind. And they were they were calling to us, in fact, but we couldn't hear them. And eventually then one of them comes to the end of our tent, unzips the door, sticks his head in and says, Come and get your food and bring your sleeping bags. And we're thinking, What's he going on about? So, in those few steps between one tent and the next, the strength of the wind outside, you know, imagine um really strong wind, um horrendous, not quite hurricane levels, but you know, really strong wind. Uh I had I felt it was like diving into a swimming pool. You know, when you dive into a pool and you hold your breath under the water and then you wait until you come up and you can breathe again. It was rather like that, just diving outside into this dreadful environment, holding my breath and then breathing when I get into the other tent. Oh, whew, I'm out of that wind, it's horrendous. But now I'm thinking, well, hang on a minute, this is the wrong way around, isn't it? That that we should be able to breathe outside. And what's going to happen if those winds get stronger? Our snowball will probably collapse and our tent might blow away. So this is what was going through my mind. And we're all we all get in the tent together and then start to say, This must be a storm. And uh one of the others says, Well, remember those Norwegians that we met, because we'd met a Norwegian team a few days earlier that had come the opposite direction from us, they'd gone from east, uh east to west, we were going west to east, and they had told us that at this similar point, which is a high point on the ice cap, they had encountered a storm, winds so cold, uh winds so strong temperatures so cold that two of their dogs had died. They had they had dog team with them. So, you know, you have I had this in my imagination. Oh no, this is a sort of Of storm where their dogs died, it must this is going to be horrendous. And now we're four of us sitting in this tiny two-person tent, the wind shaking all around us, making the tent shudder, and now you think, Oh my goodness, what happens if this tent collapses? There is going to be no way we can survive out in that weather. And there's no protection, there's no people, there's no nothing around us for miles and miles and miles.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

Jeez. So just to just to clarify, like, even I think just because it's such an important point to emphasize, like standing outside, you're outside and it's blowing a gale, and you can't breathe. You're literally, you cannot suck in air, or the maybe it's the wind is so strong it's literally pulling the air from your lungs.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Yeah, yeah. It's that you maybe maybe some of the listeners have been out on a windy day in their countries and and they've had that sort of sensation where you're just you're trying to catch your breath. It's so strong, the wind. And so that's what it was like out there in the Arctic. And um wow. That's that that's it was it did make me suddenly think, oh my goodness, you know, that point about life could be short. The wind over me had suddenly got a lot a lot shorter. And uh and the four of us all kind of managed that uh those moments and those hours. It ended up being 36 hours. We were stuck in that tent, waiting for the storm to subside. Um that it did make it's a long 36 hours, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Well, I guess on on an expedition like that, I think maybe people don't realise that that you don't have a lot of room for redundancy. You don't overpack, you don't, you know, you have you go, I need this much food for this many days, and it's you know, you don't pack extra days because you've got to carry it. And you guys are stuck in the same spot having to feed yourselves, but then you've got a ration and you've got like, you know, mental stress to deal with and all that. Like, how did you how did you manage that?

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah, well well, I think remember that what goes in must come out if we eat anything, Chris.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Yeah.

The Human Mind as Survival Tool

SPEAKER_01 32:08

From a from a practicality perspective. So you don't really want to well, you couldn't it was too s the wind was really strong for any of us to go outside. One of the Norwegians, he did brave it to just even get out the door and stop our tent getting completely covered over with snow, so we wouldn't even be able to escape. So he went out and uh he was only out for a few moments and he came back and his face was completely covered in ice, his beard was all frosty. I have a I have a photograph of him somewhere where it reminds me every time I see it. And and you know, he was the brave one to go outside and try and make sure that our tent could be protected as best it could be. But the rest of us were inside just thinking, you know, oh my goodness, how are we going to survive this? And it wasn't that kind of like, oh Chris, I'm so scared, what are we going to do? There was none of that sort of communication together. One person actually sort of retreated into wearing their headphones, and we didn't have much battery power to be able to ever use headphones for music. This was the old Sony Walkman days, but they had they had a little bit of of power, so they kind of put their headphones on and just listened to music. And another one was thinking about well, how much rations do we have and how many days, and sort of strategizing about what ifs. Of course, the other Norwegian was going out to worry about the tent, and I was just always thinking about what we will get to eat when we survive this. Because that's the thing, that's the thing that always keeps me happy is uh you know, looking forward to some next tasty meal.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

The next meal. Oh my god. So I mean just to just to touch on that, as you said, 36 hours is a long time to hold one's bodily functions. Is is that what you guys did? Or did you did you go out, did you have to take a big breath of air and then try and go outside quickly because you've got layers and layers of clothes on, or did you sit in the corner and try and like, you know, relieve yourself in a water bottle? Like how do because I've been on expeditions before where the toilet situation is obviously very important. We're nowhere near a functioning toilet, so you've got to manage those things suitably. But what do you guys end up doing?

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Yes. Well, I uh you know, it it again, reality it's somewhat different for men and women. Men can release themselves into a bottle or something like that a little bit more easily than a woman can. In in a tent, there's two two ends to the tent, obviously. And there was the one side that we would always use as our exit in and out when if we did go out. But on the other, at the other end, so the non-entrance end, you still have the kind of space between the fly sheet outer and the inner, and that would be the the effectively our our toilet space. But you know, you're it's it's it's like having a thin curtain between you and three other people. I mean, there is no privacy really, and uh I think most we hardly even ate anything. It was more about just having hot drinks occasionally to keep us warm. But if you eat something, you're eating into those rations that you talked about, and you still have to ski the same distance afterwards, so you don't really want to eat much food at all. So it's a bit of a a bit of uh a tough existence lying there in your sleeping bag. Now it's not even dark, it's 24-hour daylight, so you're just lying in the in the light. That's the time where your imagination can run riot, you can catastrophize. It's so important to keep one's mind focused on the possible the things that are working, the the things that we can do, as opposed to, well, what if this and what if that, and you know, I'm gonna die here? Because that's not a road I want to think about in those sorts of situations. It's about being really practical.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

It's really amazing how you describe everyone's different reaction to being in that situation. You've got one who's going, Great, we've got this many rations for this many days, you've got the other guy outside trying to be physical, solving the problem, you've got one who's just burying their head in the sand, potentially, with the music, and you've got you that's kind of going, you know, trying to, again, visualization, trying to sort of project, you know, um useful thoughts that keep you going. But I guess of all of those uh situations, I guess everyone's got a slightly different way of handling it. And I guess how do you I guess yeah, how how do you know how it's going to be for you when you get to that kind of point? You know, how do you manage that?

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Uh I didn't I didn't know. I didn't know. Yeah. And um I I think I discovered discovered depths of resilience that I didn't know I had, even in that moment of doing nothing effectively. And there is, you know, I am quite an activist, as you probably have worked out already from the the things we've been talking about so far, Chris. I do like doing things, but sometimes you can't do your way out of a situation. You can't just act, because acting is not what's required. And in those, in that particular situation, out there on the ice, out there in the cold temperatures, the the acting that you're doing is managing your mind.

unknown 37:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

You're doing on the inside, not on the outside. And and that probably again reinforces to me so much that that's why I spend a lot of time these days in my my job helping other people to develop that adventurous mindset. And it's exactly to those points that if they're a leader in a business, if they're an entrepreneur, whatever they're doing, is that are they aware of what their mind is telling them and how are they in control of their mind, or is a mind in control of them? And and that's what I had to take control of in that tent is I'm not gonna do anything else. I'm just gonna take control of my mind and focus on the thoughts that are gonna be serving me here. And I learned that in the moment, I think. Not there was no training for that beforehand.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

That's amazing. Because I guess that's what you took from that experience. It's kind of the one thing that's you know um sort of allowed you to progress as a as a human or or whatever you want to call it. Uh it's amazing. Um I'm kind of curious, uh is there because I've had this on similar expeditions before as well. Is there a single visual image? Maybe it's a smell, maybe it's a sound. What what really is something that really sort of stands out as a something seared into your memory from that, from that 36 hours?

SPEAKER_01 38:30

It was that it's the visual picture of the the Norwegian uh coming back in from outside and it and and completely uh ice on his face, ice on his beard, ice on his eyebrows, but still a smile on his face.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Oh brilliant. And he was only out there for what a few Yeah, a few minutes, like not even five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Not even five minutes.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Oh man, that's tough. I can't believe that. Oh amazing. Um Brill. Um so I mean I said all the experience, including that one. Um you're talking about, and I think you've touched on it there, is that all of these um expeditions that you do, the experiences that you undertake, they're all designed to push, you know, push yourself, push your team members beyond what you think you're capable of. And again, we kind of just found it there in one example, but you found resilience in one thing. But why is it always important that we're pushing ourselves beyond that sort of comfort line? What what are we finding on the other side of that line?

SPEAKER_01 39:34

We're finding what it means to be alive, in my view. Uh I think if we if we uh reflect back to as well, prehistoric days, but you know, early, early human beings, that's what we've had to do to survive. Uh I was reading a really interesting book recently, The Explorer's Gene. And and that's what the the premise of that book is, that you know, as human beings, we are built to explore. And and the the contrast that the author makes in that book is explore and exploit. So we have to get over the hump, so to speak, get out get up to the top of the hill, you know, get over the the uh inertia to make progress. And then once we've found a place, once we've developed something new, we can are in a position to exploit. But it's to knowing when to explore and when to exploit. And and I kind of like that idea that as human beings, uh, I think we're actually very good at exploiting in the Western world today.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

Fair to say, yes, fair to say.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

In lots of different ways. And I think we've lost a little bit of that exploring. So if I've got a if I've got a crusade to make, it's about helping people to do more of the exploring.

Bringing Adventure Mindset to Leadership

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Brilliant. Re-re kind of recapture, reignite that flame for doing doing the thing that makes you uncomfortable, but ultimately benefits you. Yeah. Interesting. Um and you kind of mentioned a couple times already, um, your you've got your expedition experiences, but that's obviously fueled kind of like another asset or um facet of your career. Um, and I've noticed a lot with you know, a lot of people that do this adventure um stuff, they kind of move naturally into this like coaching, leadership management, you know, working with corporate sides of things. Like, what is it uh because the boardroom or the office environment is a very different environment from being stuck inside a tent, you know, in sub-zero degrees in a near-death experience. Like they're opposite ends of a spectrum in some ways, but like how are you connecting those dots and I guess benefiting people that may never go into that situation, but using the skills that you've learned there to benefit them in their own unique situations.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

The first thing that comes to my mind is that I did, you know, my my career, as we talked about, started in the board, not in the boardroom, but in the corporate organization. It started in the land of business. And then it went into adventuring, and then I thought, how can I bring that adventuring back into the world of business? So I think I I'm firm and very comfortable in that environment. The thing that connects both Chris is human beings. So today, whether I'm sitting with a CEO running a you know a multi-million dollar organization, or I'm sitting with a person running a charity, or somebody that's aspirational, looking to join, you know, starting out in their career, I'm sitting in front of a human being. And that's how I try to show up as a human being. And your listeners will get a sense of that today with whether they're thinking I am. But and what I mean by that is just being authentic, being enough as you are, and knowing yes, you can grow and develop, but actually there's something, there's a spark inside of each of us, no matter what our level of responsibility is and scale of impact, that when you are seen, that will a person lights up. I always talk about like bringing out their brilliance, and that's what I see. That there's a there's packaging around sitting with a CEO and the the uh you know, the responsibility they have and the impact they have. And sometimes they get out, they they don't find a place to be a human being. And if they can sit in a conversation with me and they and we've found a way to kind of strip back all of that packaging that comes with the job, and they get back to the essence of just being a human being and going, Yeah, I don't know that. Yeah, okay, maybe I could do that, and uh or like, yeah, I actually am proud that that's what what my values are, whatever it is. When they touch that connection, that that's what brings us all together. You know, we're back to our explore and exploit, explore human beings and explore potential. And so that my quest to help people explore is how did they explore themselves? To survive, we've got to be able to trust ourselves. So, you know, in that moment in the tent in the Arctic, I had to trust myself and the team that we had the resources within all of us to get through that moment. So I I you know, we very often I think people have lost trust in themselves. They look to the internet, they look to others, they they don't find themselves in a position where they have to be self-reliant and say, you know, I I can do this, I can survive this. And so, so I think that if if I can help bring that out of somebody and they start to think, oh, maybe I can sort of explore my capability in a different way, then you know, that's hugely satisfying for me. And I think that's enough. That that's the essence of what it means to be a human being. And like, what what better job to have as an adventurer to bring that out in other people? I love what I do. So I so yeah, adventure. We can adventure everywhere, and I think it's about bringing the the mindset that's gonna be of most value and most use to you in those sort of contexts.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

Brill. Um towards the end here, I always love to ask guests, um, you know, for anyone who's gonna listen to this, and I'm sure people all walks of life, but what advice would you give to people? And I guess it's kind of like no, actually, no, just I mean, in terms of the building a career and following in your particular footsteps, you know, becoming an adventurer, stepping outside your comfort zone, what does it take to be successful in that kind of space?

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Yeah. Uh number one, curiosity. So develop curiosity. Because that's and curiosity is the opposite of judgment. You know, judgment serves our brains to make us make quick decisions. You know, we judge if we like something over something else and we can make quick decisions. But sometimes judgment limits our opportunity to develop curiosity. So tr follow curiosity and develop that. Uh be prepared to see failure as learning because it, you know, and and use it as I say, the quicker we fail, the quicker we learn, the quicker we grow. So see that as a process. And then I think it's about uh doing, taking action, as I said at the start, small steps. Seven days from now, you could have taken seven small steps, you will have learned seven things, you will have grown. And then the next seven steps, what will they be? In the next seven steps, you know, unless you've got a greenhouse, flowers have a growing season, they will take a time to go from a seed to a flower. Change doesn't happen always quickly, you know, or something that we're striving for. Despite what you might read in the media, despite what you might listen to, in success isn't instant. And so, so just not understanding that that it you're playing the long game. Uh, you know, I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day who said, I can't believe you got 150 podcast episodes, Sue. He said, That's testament to keeping on, keeping on. He said, I could never do that. I said, Well, yeah, you could if you want to. And so that that's the thing, it takes time. And so those are just some of the lessons that I think can be applied to any career or decision or activity that people want to try.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

I think that's it's good advice, but it's really um it's so difficult to follow sometimes, particularly for young kids in this day and age. You've got instant gratification, you've got a an environment, a digital environment, a cyber environment that moves at a million miles a second. You know, is there you know uh any techniques that you've kind of given to people about how do you actually just slow down and go, it's okay, this takes time. I can't rush this, be patient.

Advice for Building an Adventurous Life

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Well, you know, I as you're saying that, Chris, the question that's going through my mind is rushing to what end? You know, uh and maybe I'm sounding like I'm 95 now or something and a bit, a bit a bit cynical or something. But if I as I sit back and just look at the the the world around us, you know, you're talking about speed. Speed to what end? What are we trying to rush towards? As we fill up our lives with busier stuff, are we any happier? So maybe there is some just a different way of being busy, a different way of of saying actually what is happiness? And you know, if I go back to uh my first ever expedition in Kenya, which was back in 1988, uh, with a with an organised charity called uh Rally International, they're now doing still expeditions, but they're mobile phone-free. So the young people going on those expeditions love it because there's no uh uh connection with technology, and they can get back to all this stuff that I'm talking about today, about kind of the simplicity of life. And so, you know, maybe there's something in in what I'm saying here, just be bring that critical thinking and not just habitually get on your phone or and I'm not I'm not anti-phones at all, but it's it's it's everything's got a time and a place, so it's being more critical about like what's driving this, why am I doing it? Is is fast helpful to take me where I want to go, and if I get there, then what happens? So, you know, I I think if there is something I've seen, and maybe I'm getting away from your question now, Chris, but something I've observed of life is that that many people are they're they're they're busy because they want to fill up their time to actually avoid sitting down and asking some of those critical questions as who am I, what am I about, why am I here? And and because they don't want to face that, you know, there's where the courage is required to to actually say, maybe I could do more with my life and what would have to change.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Um brilliant. Sue, thank you so much for uh taking the time. I mean, just at the end, I always like to say, is there anything you'd like to plug, anything you'd like to promote, where can people find you? Um, stuff that you've maybe written, you've written lots of books.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Yeah, well, I I think two things. If people want to think about how to develop an adventurous mindset and get a little bit of inspiration, then they may want to reach out and connect with me. So SueStockdale.com is the website, and you can get all my connections from there. Uh and the book if you like reading, it's on uh Audible as well as uh in the written form, Explore a Life of Adventure. And that will be giving you a little bit of inspiration to step into the unknown.

SPEAKER_02 50:07

Brilliant. Did you have did you read the audiobook by any chance?

SPEAKER_01 50:10

I did, yes.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

You voiced it. Oh, brilliant. I did voice it. So good to hear you share dulcet tones if we go on the audible. Yes. And of course, your Access to Inspiration podcast um as well. Um people should have a listen.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Yes, absolutely.

unknown 50:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:25

All right. Sue, thank you so much for taking the time today. Great speaking with you.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

Thank you, Chris. It's been great to be here.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

And that is it for this week's episode. A huge thanks to Sue for sharing her extraordinary stories. And of course, a big thanks to you all for listening as well. Sue has kindly shared the photos from that infamous Greenland expedition, uh, including the one with the guy with the frozen face, which is really crazy. It's not just his beard, it also looks like his skin might be frozen as well. If you want to check those out, they are on the website. So go to Noordinarymonday.com and look for the episode page. You also find stuff on our socials. Um, we are on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and a bunch of others as well. Next week we are leaving the Arctic behind and heading to California. My guest is Christy Warren, a paramedic and firefighter who spent 25 years saving people and racing into burning buildings. But later she found herself facing an even tougher battle with PTSD. Her story of struggle and recovery is incredibly raw, powerful, and just really, really inspiring. So subscribe now so you won't miss out on the episode. If you'd like to share your own career story with us, we'd love to hear from you. Get in touch via our socials, or you can email hello h l o at noordinarymonday.com, or you can simply use the Submit Your Story page on our website. And if you enjoyed this episode, please do two very, very quick things for us. Just click five stars and maybe write a review, and the other one's just tell a friend. You know, it uh it really helps us grow the show, attract more amazing guests, and inspires new listeners. And that's it. This show is produced, hosted, and edited by me, Chris Barron. Thank you so much for listening and have a great Monday, everyone.