Picture yourself on the peak of Mount Everest, conquering your fears and breaking societal expectations. That's the journey our guest, world record holder, author, and mother of seven, Jen Drummond, takes us on in today's episode. Jen's life story is packed with incredible experiences, including a near-death car accident and the tragic loss of a friend, which shifted her perspective on life and made her see every day as a gift. Join us as she shares her insights into overcoming societal expectations, igniting the fire within, and becoming 'breakproof'.
Jen doesn't just climb mountains, she conquers them. With the mighty Everest and formidable K2 under her belt, Jen's tales of adventure are nothing short of awe-inspiring. Hear about her unique methods for tackling life's challenges, how she uses positive self-talk and music to overcome fear, and the careful steps taken to conquer these peaks. Jen's fire and determination will inspire you to face your personal Everest, whatever it may be.
Wrapping up our conversation, Jen emphasizes the importance of self-care and integrity, even in the most challenging of environments. It's not just about reaching the peak, but how you got there. From her personal experiences, Jen imparts valuable lessons on trusting in your journey and maintaining a sense of self amidst adversity. Encouraging everyone to live as the best version of themselves, Jen is here to ignite a spark within you to overcome your limitations and reach your personal summit. Don't miss an episode that promises to motivate and challenge you in ways you never imagined.
Learn More about Jenn: https://jenndrummond.com/
Follow Playing Injured on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playinginjured/
Picture yourself on the peak of Mount Everest, conquering your fears and breaking societal expectations. That's the journey our guest, world record holder, author, and mother of seven, Jen Drummond, takes us on in today's episode. Jen's life story is packed with incredible experiences, including a near-death car accident and the tragic loss of a friend, which shifted her perspective on life and made her see every day as a gift. Join us as she shares her insights into overcoming societal expectations, igniting the fire within, and becoming 'breakproof'.
Jen doesn't just climb mountains, she conquers them. With the mighty Everest and formidable K2 under her belt, Jen's tales of adventure are nothing short of awe-inspiring. Hear about her unique methods for tackling life's challenges, how she uses positive self-talk and music to overcome fear, and the careful steps taken to conquer these peaks. Jen's fire and determination will inspire you to face your personal Everest, whatever it may be.
Wrapping up our conversation, Jen emphasizes the importance of self-care and integrity, even in the most challenging of environments. It's not just about reaching the peak, but how you got there. From her personal experiences, Jen imparts valuable lessons on trusting in your journey and maintaining a sense of self amidst adversity. Encouraging everyone to live as the best version of themselves, Jen is here to ignite a spark within you to overcome your limitations and reach your personal summit. Don't miss an episode that promises to motivate and challenge you in ways you never imagined.
Learn More about Jenn: https://jenndrummond.com/
Follow Playing Injured on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playinginjured/
Welcome to another episode of playing injured. I think this episode is a perfect fit. I think we have the epitome of playing injured right. Here we have Jen Drummond. She is a world record holder, she's a podcaster, she's a speaker, author, a mother of seven I have to make sure I put that in there. Mother of seven is an accomplishment, right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But Jen, how are we feeling?
Speaker 2:I'm feeling fantastic. Thanks for having me today.
Speaker 1:I love it, so I always love starting the show with who is Jen? I know I got a chance to kind of explain you from a bird's eye view, but who is Jen and how does she spend her time today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, Jen's a little girl just out there having a good time playing on this planet and experiencing all the things that it has to offer. So yeah, I say I'm a curious kid is, who is Jen?
Speaker 1:I love that. You know, I was looking at some of your content and you were talking about your kids, right, and you were saying how kind of the main thing you want to do as a mother is kind of to help them discover their wild side and put a fire under that. And I think a lot of times right in society we get domesticated, we become like everybody else in that fire that we have inside of us gets extinguished, right. So talk about that, you. I mean, you just explained it You're a little girl, you are your adventurous.
Speaker 2:I am, I'm adventurous, I'm curious, I'm like I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I just want to know. Right, like I just want to know what's on the other side of that door, what it feels like to put my foot in the water of the ocean or see what it looks like at the top of the mountain and things like that. But you know, there was a time in my life that I think we're curious when we're young and then somehow society, we kind of start conforming to society and subscribing to the rules and all the different things. And I had a business that I hired myself out of a job so then I could become a stay at home mom because I thought that was the dream situation to be in. So all of a sudden I find myself in that situation and my kids are in school.
Speaker 2:I'm like what do I do? Right? And I didn't allow myself to do anything because I'm like I need to be here. Okay, somebody needs something, because there's seven, there's always something nice we needed. I can always be available for them and I just kind of subscribe to the thought that once they go to college then I can get my life back. But right now, this is the season of me taking care of everybody else, and you know there is some truth to that for a little bit, but there's a way to do yourself and everybody else in your life, and I just didn't know how to do me and everything else. So the thing that I let go was me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's not a great thing to demonstrate to your kids Like, hey, be a mom, give up your life for everybody else, don't you want this job? I mean, come on.
Speaker 1:Right. So what do you think changed that mindset for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I was in a horrific car crash in 2018. And that car crash should have taken my life and it didn't. The police rebuilt the accident, like a number of times, could not build a scenario where I lived. And then you add that on to another experience that happened around that time. A couple of weeks after the accident, a girlfriend of mine went running on a trail that we could push a stroller. It was wet out, she slipped, she hit her head and she never came home. And so I have me, who survived this horrific crash almost unscathed. She does something healthy and never gets to come home.
Speaker 2:And it was the pairing of those two events that I realized I don't get to choose when I die, but I sure get to choose how I live, and every day is a gift that I get to choose how I want to spend. And I just really that accident would let me let go of what society thought, because I'm like everybody in society is going to die, so why do I care what they think? They're all going to die anyways. And I was more concerned about, like, what happens at. This is my last decade, my last year, my last month, my last week of life. Am I doing things that celebrate who I am? And I wasn't at the time. So 2019 became a big year of who's Jen. What does Jen want to do, what does Jen want to experience, what does Jen want to be known for? And then all everything kind of fell out of that. I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that. It's crazy how adversity hits in some of these moments, that Some folks hit rock bottom, and that's when they realize they get woken up like whoa, I actually need to take action on the things that I wanna do. And so you have this idea of being what is it called? Breakproof, right and so, and you sit and I was watching some of your videos, you was like it's not about being breakproof, it's about the proof is in the break, and it's almost like you mentioned, the accident was kind of the proof, right.
Speaker 1:So talk about that idea of being breakproof.
Speaker 2:Breakproof. Yeah, so I'm doing this big mountaineering quest to set a world record to help people get out of their limiting beliefs. And a friend of mine pulls me aside. He's like you need to write a book. Like these stories are so crazy. I don't even like mountaineering and I'm loving everything that you're saying, like write a book and share this experience with everybody. He said okay, okay. So I was like trying to write like think of the title and I'm like you know what the title is?
Speaker 2:Breakproof, because to become resilient, we need to learn how to break, and when we break, we need to learn how to repair right, like what happens in that break. So to me, the break gives us a chance to look at everything what's working, what's not working. Is this even the mountain I wanna climb? Or do I wanna climb a different mountain or do something different with my life? And so breakproof combined together is like I'm not gonna have a break. But the reality is break is the proof of what you need to fix or do to continue up the mountain that you're climbing and in that you become resilient and reach your summit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. I think we all have limits and these limits a lot of the most limits, right Are lies. They sound good, they feel good, right, they keep us comfortable, but it's honestly just not the truth. Talk about that. How have you found the ability to find the truth, to be able to even become the first woman to climb seven second summits? How does that happen? How do you find the truth to a lot of?
Speaker 2:this. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I think easiest for all of us is the not truth, right, Like you can't do that. You have seven kids, you have this, like all of the things that are the no, and I guess I always feel like if there's a no, there also has to be a yes somewhere right Like there has to be another side of this that I'm not looking at.
Speaker 2:So what is that? Yes, how does it look? And a lot of times we have to create that. Yes, we have to create that path that works for us, that allows us to bring whoever we are to the world and share that. And so, like, one of the big adventures I remember is you know, I was gonna climb this mountain named Amadablam. My son challenged me to climb Everest instead, because that was a real mountain, and then my coach raised the goal to this like seven second summit quest. And so, when it was time to climb Mount Everest because I was gonna show my son that whatever his Everest was, he could climb it and I remember being like I can't go to Everest, I'm gonna be gone for four weeks. I can't be gone for four weeks.
Speaker 2:I'm a mom, like, who leaves their kids for four weeks. A lot of people leave their kids for four weeks, okay, like not just moms, but like people that are in the military, people that are doing these different things, whatever. And so I hire a whole bunch of help. My parents come in, I go to the kids' school and I talk to the teachers and I say, hey, listen, I'm gonna be gone for three to four weeks. I've never been gone this before that. Can you please keep an extra eye on my kids? I'm a little worried about how they're gonna do and I just want you to have a little grace, because things aren't normal for them at home.
Speaker 2:And my teacher came back to me and she says how about we do a what's your Everest campaign? Why don't you come in here, teach all the kids about setting an Everest-sized goal and then we'll track you, cause I had a tracking device while I was climbing, so they made this big Mount Everest in their room. I was a track like a little climber that they would move up and down the mountain. I had Zoom calls at base camp, like there's wifi at base camp of Everest so I could call into the classroom, see the kids talk to them about what was going on. And then when I climbed that mountain, we all did, we all submitted. It was like this huge big community event. And was it harder, my kids, that I was gone? I'm sure it was a little bit, but was it super empowering that everybody in the community stepped up and asked how they were doing and supported them and they all cheered their mom on doing this huge quest. I mean there's a lot of value in that that they would have never experienced had I stayed home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how did you think that helped you having the community? I think a lot of folks we look to climb our Everest by ourselves. We just see this big goal. We need a community.
Speaker 2:Good look, you're not climbing yours by yourself, because it's insane. But yeah, in my book I even talk about it. I say big mountains take big teams, and so the bigger your goal is, the bigger the team you're gonna need to make that goal happen. Because what happens when we don't summit? We normally run out of energy, right? We don't have enough oomph in us, we lose our momentum, we do whatever. That means you don't have enough people to help carry the weight, to help bring the thing to fruition. So if you're struggling in a goal right now, one of the things you need to do is check in Do I have enough people on my team to climb this mountain?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. You know, I feel like a lot of mountains. When it comes to mountains, it's in us. Actually, the mountain is us. Right, we are the mountain.
Speaker 2:We are the mountain. Yes, we are. I mean, it's fascinating when you climb these mountains, the conversations you have with yourself, the experiences that you overcome, the limits that you learn and expand, and then you come down the mountain in the same way, pretty much, that you went up it. You're an entirely different person, like you're not the same person that's set out on the pursuit, that comes home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that you know you mentioned that especially fear these moments of fear. You climbing a mountain I imagine climbing Mount Everest wasn't just a calming experience. You had some moments where you got scared right. What are you doing those moments when you feel fear?
Speaker 2:right? Oh, you feel it and you still do the thing. Like I mean at the end of the day. So I didn't know when I got into mountaineering that I had a fear of heights.
Speaker 2:Probably would have been a nice thing to know before you signed up to climb all these mountains, right, and it was fascinating. So in Everest, you see photos right Of those ladders that go from like one crevasse to another and it's a way you get over them and they're terrifying. Okay, like they are as terrifying as they look, because here's the thing it's not like it's two flat surfaces where these ladders have been screwed into the ground and they're like super sturdy and safe. You step on one side of the ladder, the other side of the ladder on the other end is like up in the air and it wiggles with you. There's no OSHA rules. Like you are in the elements.
Speaker 2:And I just remember thinking like I have to get through this section to get up this mountain and there is a thousand things that could go wrong. But what's in my control, what was in my control, was taking safe steps. So I literally like gave myself a pep talk before I go across this ladder. I even listened to vanilla ice. Like I'm jamming into music, right, because I'm like if I was a drug I'd sell up by the gram. Like I'm like fierce, right, like I'm intense, I can do this.
Speaker 2:So like we play this song and then when I start, like going across the ladder, I remember saying out loud safe steps, safe steps, safe step. And by doing that it crowded out any negative thoughts, right Like I didn't have. My brain was working, my ears were listening, all these things, so nothing negative could grab on to me. And I just did safe steps, safe steps, safe step. And got to the other side. We had a dance party. I wanted to cry because I was so proud of myself. But like that's the thing that you gotta do to get through the hard stuff. I was scared, but you'd still do it.
Speaker 1:I love that. It's a few things I realized. You didn't say, oh, I believe I can do it, like you didn't have an overly positive type of mindset. It was you just staying present and in a moment and keeping your thinking neutral. It was no negative, it was no you know fake positive. You stayed neutral of safe step, being in a moment and just taking things by the moment. I love that.
Speaker 2:Safe step baby. That's how that mountains climb.
Speaker 1:I love it. So tell me this you get to Mount Everest, you look up and you be like okay, how do I climb this? What is the mindset behind this Cause? I think in life, if we have an Everest challenge or we have big goals, big dreams and we look at the end point, it looks so far away.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, here's the crazy thing about like. So when you climb K2, right, which is the second highest point in the world. So I used Everest to train for K2. K2 is a triangle, so, like at the bottom of K2, you can see as far as your eyes can see you're like, okay, that's the top.
Speaker 2:The thing about Everest is you don't get to see. It takes five days to climb Everest. Typically, you don't see the summit until day four. Whoa, okay.
Speaker 2:So like you're like this thing is so big I don't even see the summit for like days that I'm on this thing, right, and it's like this messy middle. I mean it's crazy. You're just saying like, okay, I'm trusting everybody that this is where we're going, cause that's where everybody else is going. But come on, and it's overwhelming.
Speaker 2:Right, it's overwhelming, but you can either look at how far you have to go or you can look at how far you're going, and anytime you're looking at how much further there is to go, that can feel overwhelming. There could be a big gap from where you are to where that is, and so then you just have to dial in and expand where you are and say like, oh, wow, I'm actually making progress. I was hiking for 10 hours, so I must be somewhere further than where I started and I'm just gonna trust that that works. And I think all of our goals kind of have that messy middle where you don't see where you started, you don't see where you're gonna end. But you know that if you just keep going, eventually you're gonna arrive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's that kind of that faith, that almost blind faith it is blind faith, entrepreneurship and life and any goal that you have.
Speaker 1:A lot of times you really can't see the end, and a lot of times it feels blurry. It feels like you are kind of questioning, like, is this crazy, am I on the right track? But just keeping things in perspective of, hey, this is where I'm going, I'm going and we'll get there eventually, yep, I love that, I love that. So I saw another thing. Right, you were blow drying your hair on Everest as well, right? So first of all, I didn't even know this was possible, didn't even know this was a thing.
Speaker 1:It's not a thing, just to let you know, it's now maybe a thing a little bit, but so what I loved about it is that you talked about being embarrassed doing it.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so embarrassed?
Speaker 1:yes. Why were you embarrassed? Was it because it's not normal? What made you embarrassed?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, like so, here's the deal. I have long blonde hair and anybody has long blonde hair. It takes a lot of work to grow long blonde hair. Okay, it wants to break off every second it can, and all the things. And I like my hair. It's part of my identity, it's who I am.
Speaker 2:So when I was interviewing climbing companies, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have to shower at base camp. When I shower at base camp, my hair is gonna get wet and if we have to go the next day it's not gonna be dry. It takes like if I don't have a hairdryer, it's gonna take 24 hours for my head to dry. And again, I don't know Everest, right, I'm just like you hear stories and you're thinking things through and you don't have any experience. I'm like I'm gonna need a hairdryer, like I'm definitely gonna need a hairdryer to not get sick. And I didn't wanna like not summit, because my hair was long. I mean that would be the worst story ever. And so the first company I called, I said, hey, I'm Jen, I'm interested in climbing. You know, I'm kind of worried about my hair. Do you think I can bring a hairdryer? And the guy's like, no, you should just cut your hair. I'm like, okay, sounds good.
Speaker 2:So then I call the next company and I'm like, hey, I'm Jen, I'm interested in climbing. You know, I kind of have this weird concern about my hair. Can I bring a hairdryer? And they're like, yeah, you know what? You can probably dry your hair once a week with the generator that we have at base camp. That shouldn't be a problem. I'm like, okay, cool. And then the third company I called and I'm like, same story. And they're like, hey, do you need a mirror? I'm like this is the company that I want to climb with. Not only are they gonna say, yes, you can have your hairdryer, but do you need a mirror? If you're worried about me having what I need at base camp, you're gonna be very anticipatory of what I need on the mountain.
Speaker 1:This is amazing.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, yeah, okay, perfect, this is the company I'm gonna go with. And so I hire that company, and a company in Utah that does solar powered batteries or whatever was testing some stuff out and they're like hey, you can use our solar powered battery to dry your hair. So now I'm not even voicing somebody's generator and I'm leaving a battery for these people to use your round. And all of a sudden I wash my hair and it comes time to dry it. I'm like, oh, the solar powered battery has to be in the sun. I have to dry my hair in front of everybody instead of like privately in my tent, like I'm okay being a diva behind the scenes, but I don't need to be in everybody's face. And so I was like, oh man, this is so embarrassing. But anyways, I get out there and I'm like drying my hair as fast as I can. Of course people see, and I don't know, I just felt embarrassed.
Speaker 2:And then the climb gets done. We get back to Catman Do and somebody's like are you the girl that brought the hair dryer? And I go great, now it's gonna start right. Like, yep, that's me. I'm like, yeah, it is. She's like thank you.
Speaker 2:I was like what she's like thank you. I'm like what? Yeah, no problem, happy to hope. And she's like no, I just want you to know that in the climbing community it's primarily males and it's hard for women to ask for what they need without feeling like they're being an inconvenience for what's going on. And it wasn't like I was asking for shrimp at base camp. I was asking to be able to dry my hair so that I was healthy enough to go up the mountain and didn't like have it freeze and crack off or do whatever my brain came up with. And I had a handful of women that said thank you for having needs, asking for what you want and giving us permission to do the same. And it was just one of those stories that I think sometimes the stories we write about ourselves like feel limiting and feel like embarrassing, but we don't realize that by owning who we are, we actually allow others to own who they are and everybody benefits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. I think you know we don't realize when we do things that are embarrassing people, it doesn't break just our barrier, it breaks others as well.
Speaker 2:Like wow, it breaks others right, yeah, and so I have spent sense, known as Mountain Barbie, and that's just who I am. And then the Barbie movie came out this year and made it even cooler. So there we go.
Speaker 1:Here we are see.
Speaker 2:Here we are. I was ahead of the game. I was ahead of the game.
Speaker 1:And so you were doing that so that she wouldn't get sick, right? You wanted to dry your hair so that she didn't get sick, and so what you valued at the moment was okay, I'm embarrassed, but I value not being sick over what people think, right 100% and the reality is is like if I'm sick then I slow down my whole team, right.
Speaker 2:Or if I get sick and I sneeze on somebody in my tent, do they get sick? And there's like so many things that can go wrong that I was like I just need to be responsible for staying as healthy and as strong as I can because I have a team that I need to participate and be my best version for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. See, I mean, and it's unselfish. You know it's really an unselfish act. It might have looked selfish. No, no, if you ask.
Speaker 2:TikTok. You might hear a different story On TikTok. There's a lot of people that have a lot of opinions about this, so there you go.
Speaker 1:Well, you know the folks who comment, you know that's how it goes, I know.
Speaker 2:I know it makes me laugh, it's so funny.
Speaker 1:No, I love that and I think it's so many moments even myself I think about. You know, when I'm in that moment of caring about what people think, in the moment I'm thinking about, okay, do I value what people think or am I valuing what? The task that is at hand? Do I value that more? And typically I usually just value that more. So I just focus on that instead of trying to focus on what people think, and a lot of times our radar is off anyway and people aren't even thinking about what we're thinking 100%.
Speaker 2:The amount of time that people think about me is way less than what I think they think about me about. So there we go.
Speaker 1:I love that. So you know, on a journey, you know you talked about kind of you know all these accomplishments that you've done right, and happiness along the way, right, Thinking that you kind of will find happiness in a lot of these achievements. And then you just you just talked about you know, owning yourself, owning your identity, owning kind of who you are, being authentic, and a lot of times I think that we chase these achievements that society has put out there to house the car, whatever the case may be, and we think we'll find happiness in that, and usually this comes from within. Talk about that idea Kind of how you discovered that and Well, we can stay on Everest for this one.
Speaker 2:So when I was climbing Everest, the guy was with a team from England and so a lot of these people had been dreaming about climbing Everest since they got into grade school, right, because Sir Edmund Hillary was the first person to summit Everest and he was an English person.
Speaker 2:So the English are very proud of this human in their history and they study him from the beginning of time, and so I had started training for Everest like a year before. Like I'm gonna climb Everest, okay, I'm in decent physical shape, I can climb it in a year, no big deal. Well, we get to the top of Everest and we're there for 10 minutes. We can't stay any longer because the worry the oxygen tanks are gonna freeze and the weather's cold and all these things. So all of a sudden we start heading down and I'm like man, some of these people have been dreaming of this pursuit for 40 years and we're heading down the mountain after 10 minutes. If you do not learn how to enjoy the journey, the days in between the start and the top, you are missing out on so much of life because your summit might be 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, it is crazy, that is crazy that is crazy.
Speaker 1:And it takes you back to you know. It takes you back to the accident, it takes you back to your friend, it takes you back to all these moments where it doesn't last long. So why hold back and why not just enjoy every day? You know every sales call, every podcast, every social media post, everything along the way. It's enjoying that moment and not seeing it as tough days and different things like that. I love that and that's a mindset we talk about. Playing injured. It's not just like the craziest things, it's like the everyday nuances, the mundane days that we don't feel like it and a lot of times we don't think about like hey, this could be the last day, it could be the last day.
Speaker 2:It totally could be the last. I mean, I remember that accident and I thought I'm like man, who did I talk to this day before I got into this accident? What are the last things that I would have said to people? What would they have known Right, like it was such a flash forward of my life, like I still, on December 18, call all the people that I talked to that day because it's just, it's etched in my mind and it's just fascinating. It could be your last conversation. You just never know and learning how to live with integrity, being the best version of yourself, is the best thing we can do.
Speaker 1:Listen, I love it. I love it. Well, closing down, where can folks continue to follow you and follow your journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, please reach out.
Speaker 1:I love people.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. Okay, so my website is Jen Drummondcom. On there you can find all my social media handles and reach out on your platform of choice. I have the book available for sale break proof seven strategies to build resilience and achieve your goals. You can buy it on Amazon. You can click on the link through the book website and say hi. I loved cheering people on in their pursuits and hearing what everybody's up to. Let me know what your Everest is.
Speaker 1:I love that. Jen, you're like I said before we even hit record. Your story is inspiring and you've broken not only barriers for yourself, but barriers for so many other people that you don't even know of. So I appreciate you for jumping on and showing love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.