From Near-Death to World Records: Jenn Drummond's Inspiring Story

KATHLEEN: Jenn Drummond is a mom of seven successful business owner and World Record holder as the first woman to climb the second highest summits on each of the seven continents. She now spends her time inspiring others to create a thriving business and lasting legacy of their own.

KATHLEEN: She shares her story and strategies for success through her book Break Proof Seven Strategies to build resilience and achieve your life goals and her seek your summit podcast programs and signature talks. Learn more about how she elevates devoted and determined entrepreneurs to go beyond a life of success to a life of significance. Welcome, Jenn.

JENN: Thank you for having me today.

KATHLEEN: You're welcome. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey of becoming an Awakening Spirit?

JENN: Yes. Well, it started in October of 2018. I was introduced to the book, The Surrender Experiment. I read this book and I journaled on it for an additional month. I just remember starting that process thinking surrender is a weakness. Why would anybody surrender? Why would they give up? Like this is crazy who does this stuff that's quitting?

JENN: By the end of my two months with this word surrender, I realized it was actually a superpower. When you can surrender and accept what is you have so much more energy to create what you desire. So interesting enough, the universe tested me.

JENN: On December 18 of 2018, I got into a horrific car crash that I think prior to reading that book, I would have doubled down, cinched hard and tried to resist the car accident. I remember watching the semi hit my passenger side headlight and saying the only way I'm gonna survive is if I surrender. I put my hands on the steering wheel. I put my head on the headrest and I just talked myself through the accident.

JENN: I was going one time over two times over, three times over. Now I knew I had enough momentum not to flip over. Then I started doing sideways rolls and ended up upside down in the median. I remember hanging there and having an individual yell. Are you ok? Are you ok? Are you ok?

JENN: I heard them, but I didn't really think they were talking to me. It just felt like it was in the background and then this individual pulled back the windshield and he looked at me and we caught eyes and he goes, are you ok? I just remember thinking, looking at his face, I was not ok. If that guy was telling me I was not ok. I was afraid to look at my body.

JENN: What I did instead, I closed my eyes and shut out the world and I started to wiggle my fingers and toes. I remember saying out loud, I can feel my fingers and toes. I can feel my fingers and toes. I'm going to be ok. Then he looked at me and he goes, you are.

JENN: He talked with me until the ambulance came, the ambulance came, they took me to the hospital to make sure nothing was wrong that we couldn't see. I was discharged the same day. I remember walking into my house seeing my kids running around crazy, having no clue what I just went through and thinking, wow, that was really close to having seven orphans today.

KATHLEEN: Wow.

KATHLEEN: Wow. What came out of after having that accident? I mean, here you are surrendering, trusting a process. You never believed in to begin with. You surrender, you survive a horrific accident that you probably should have been dead and here you are coming home. Nobody has a clue that mom almost died. 10, 15, 20 minutes before Right?

JENN: Right. Yeah, I just remember for probably, and I wish this, I could say it was longer but reality is, is probably for the next 3 to 4 months. Everything was magic.

JENN: Like, no longer did I need to intervene in things that before I felt, needed my opinion. It was interesting. I remember watching my kids fight and instead of being, like, stop fighting or don't do that or get along with your sibling, I just sat there and I watched in awe that I could have two children that were so convinced of their opinion that they wanted nothing more than their sibling to feel the same way.

JENN: So instead of me intervening, I remember the kids being done with the fight and they're looking at me and they're like, mom, you didn't say anything. I'm like, no, I'm just happy that I'm here to witness this. I think this is magic that you guys care so much about each other that you want to be on the same page. That's magic.

JENN: The crazy thing about the accident was a few weeks after it, I got a phone call from the police and they had tried to rebuild my accident over 50 times. They could not build a scenario where I survived, let alone walked away. At that point, all of a sudden everything's magic because I'm here. Everything is a bonus moment.

JENN: Everything's a bonus experience that I almost didn't get to have time. A girlfriend of mine went running on a trail and she invited me to go running one day and I said I can't, I've got too much going on and it was kind of wet out. It wasn't ideal circumstances. she went running, it would be a trail that you and I would push a stroller on.

JENN: It was wet. She slipped, she hit her head and she never came home. Oh dear. Yeah. I'm metabolizing this horrific car crash that no one can create a scenario where I should live and my friend does something that's healthy and doesn't get to come home.

JENN: When I was trying to process these two stream events, I realized we don't get to choose when we die, but we sure get to choose how we live and how we show up and what we do with this life of ours. I remember feeling so empowered that I was saved. I was kept alive for a reason. I need to live life to show life that it is a gift by living it and giving that back.

KATHLEEN: Were you more or less in, I mean, a mother of seven, we know you have a crazy busy schedule and it's all about your kids. Were you in that type of a scenario? Was there anything else going on in your life? Aside from the accident? Because that was a huge wake up call. That's very evident. How did your family feel once you told them? I'm sure that had to make some changes with them as well.

JENN: You know, I think when everybody saw the car, right, when you actually saw the car that looked like a tin can, it made it really real for all of us. I had conversations with my kids because I would say the accident was a line in the sand for me. Before the accident. I was striving. I was pushing hard.

JENN: If I was being totally honest, I was kind of at a plateau and my life coasting. I had put myself in a position to be able to be a stay at home mom because I thought that'd be the dream position to be in and I was there and I wasn't fulfilled and I didn't know how to get myself back and not feel guilty about that.

JENN: I remember telling myself once my kids go to college, then I can do me once this happens, then that can happen. I think we all can fall guilty to that story, right? The if then scenario, if this happens, then I'll be happy. If I'm this way, then I'll be happy. If I get this payroll, whatever fill in the blank for yourself.

JENN: I was at that stage and the car accident woke me up. It made me realize I'm allowed to have my own way of doing life and it doesn't have to fit into society's directive. In fact, I'm here to show that we have other options. There's other ways to do things.

JENN: I remember telling my kids, listen, mommy had a life changing accident and so she's gonna start doing things a little bit different and we're gonna have to communicate through it because if you feel left out or not loved or not seen, I want to know because I'm here for you and you give me meaning. But at the same time, my life has meaning too and I need to start stepping into that.

KATHLEEN: We are here with Jenn Drummond and she has made a decision to change her life. I'd like to know how your kids responded to that.

JENN: Yeah, they were super supportive. I think kids are watching us on how to do life, right? Before I felt I was checking the boxes and after the accident, I was definitely more animated. I was more excited. I was more like, how does this feel? What do you think? Let's try this thing.

JENN: Because I was more excited, I gave them permission to be more excited because I was more curious they're watching and now they can become more curious. Our children are very much mirrors of what we are in life. When we learn to step into our authenticity and own what sets us on fire, it gives them permission to do the same.

KATHLEEN: What made you decide to climb the seven summits or go through the continents? Here you are as a housewife with seven kids and now you're out there climbing these massive mountain peaks all over the world. What went on in your mind? How did you get there? How is your family supporting you?

JENN: Yeah, that was a huge change, right? So 2019 was the year of my bucket list. What do I want to do? What do I want to experience if this was the end of my life? What are things I want checked off. On that list was climb a mountain in 2020. I was turning 40.

JENN: When I looked at my list of like, what do I want to do on my list for my 40th birthday climb a mountain stood out because I'm only gonna get older so it's only gonna get harder. I might as well do that now. I asked some friends that were into mountaineering, if you could pick one mountain in the whole world that you would climb, what would it be?

JENN: More than one person said I would climb a, a De Blom. Like I'd never heard of it. But I'm like, ok, they're like, yeah, you know, it's the Paramount Pictures logo. So now every single time you go to a movie, it's by Paramount. You see the stars circling that mountain.

JENN: You can say you climbed that like that's kind of cool. I'm like, perfect. I'm gonna climb a De Blom. Ok? If we remember 2020 in the beginning of the year, not too far in COVID enters the scene. Now I'm not climbing anything. In fact, I'm a homeschool teacher to seven children because all the schools shut down.

JENN: One day, one of my guys was struggling with his math homework. I gave him that parent pep talk like we do hard things. You've got this, don't you worry? He looks at me and he goes, mom, if we do hard things, why are you climbing a mountain called? I'm a dumb blonde instead of the real mountain like Mount Everest.

KATHLEEN: Oh my God. That's so funny.

JENN: It is a ad blom not, I'm a dumb blonde, but thank you very much. I think the universe has humor. The universe is funny. Right? If we let it, it will be funny. All of a sudden we're looking at Everest, he goes to bed. I'm still looking at Everest.

JENN: I said, you know what, if this kid thinks Everest is the hardest thing in the whole world, I'm going to go climb it and I'm going to show him that whatever our Everest is, we can hit the summit. So I call a coach. I tell him, hey, I want to train for Everest. He's like, I can get you ready, buy this book about becoming an uphill athlete.

JENN: I buy this book. I'm reading it. My coach calls me and I'm half joking and I tell him there's a lady in the front of the book who got a Guinness World Record for doing something in the Alps. I told him, I do hard things all the time. I could do that.

JENN: I would have gotten a Guinness World Record and my kids were thinking I'm the coolest mom in the whole world because right now I'm not cool, like homeschooling is not working out for us at all. My coach is, oh, think of something. Don't worry, ok, fine.

JENN: I let it go and then he calls me back a few weeks later and he's, Jenn, I have the perfect World Record for you. I think you should be the first female to climb the seven second summits. It sounds like a tongue twister. I don't even know what you're talking about.

JENN: He's, listen, listen, listen, the second summits are the second highest peak on each of the seven continents. They're actually harder than the first seven. Only one male has done it. You would be the first woman to do this. He goes, if you think about it. Seven continents, seven mountains, seven children. It sounds like a jackpot.

JENN: I'm, gosh, it does sound like a jackpot. I've never slept in a tent before and I barely hiked any mountains. But let's try it. Why not? Right. It was one of those whole body. Yeses. That made zero sense because I had zero mountaineering experience. But I figured, you know what? You tell me where to go. We'll figure it out. I said yes and here we are.

KATHLEEN: I guess that death experience must have really done a lot of rewiring or I understand what you did and makes sense to me, but there's a part of me that's like this doesn't make any sense of why she did this, right?

KATHLEEN: I mean, you come out of a death experience, you have seven kids, you have all this ambition to go out and try something like that. What was it? What prepared you? I understand because there was no more holds bar. I get that. When people die they know that there is no death, they're deathless.

KATHLEEN: That's the bottom line. We're not going to die. Our bodies die but we don't. What actually did you have to do to prepare? How did your kids get behind you and your husband on this? That's a big change. That's a big, huge commitment on your part with seven kids at home.

JENN: Yeah. When you're excited about something you can't hide it and everybody just knows it. Right? That's an energy field that you tap into when it's real. Everybody was cool. My mom's gonna set a World Record. My mom's gonna be in the book that taught me how to read. That's awesome. Right. Like they're too young to understand the dangers of it.

JENN: I surrounded myself with enough people that had done these types of adventures. By the time I presented the concept to my parents, I felt a little more bulletproof because if I would have told them first, they would have been like, no, you're not. That's cute. Not happening.

JENN: I figured, hey, its never been done before. So let's say it doesn't work out who cares. I think that was a big thing that the accident shifted. I used to have to do things to win. After the accident. I had to do things to have the experience.

JENN: It wasn't about the destination, it was about the journey. I'm like, ok, if I get four mountains in and it doesn't end up working out like I thought it did. I'm not a worse off person. I have a lot of new experiences that are in my mind that I can now carry forward like it's gonna be ok.

KATHLEEN: Did your husband, Did he come with you or did he stay at home with the kids? Were on this adventure all by yourself?

JENN: Yeah, this was definitely my adventure. I'm probably the more athletic one and it was my calling, right? I had support from my family and everybody, but this was definitely something I'm doing. Now, I will say my three oldest boys are interested in climbing.

JENN: Now that this record is done, I'm taking them to Africa in February and we're gonna go climb Kilimanjaro, which is the highest point in Africa where I went the last time I climbed the second highest point which is Mount Kenya.

KATHLEEN: Wow, that's amazing. What all did you have to do as far as your mindset when you made this decision? It's one thing to have the enthusiasm. It's one thing to have all that. A resounding yes in your body. I understand all of that. But there's still parts that come up that you had to feel something a little.

KATHLEEN: I don't know if it would have been remorse because I believe that life is an experience. I've always said I'm here to experience life, whatever that is to me because we all have it instead of the 9 to 5. I never got behind that.

KATHLEEN: But what all did you have to do? Then how long from the time that you made the decision that you were going to go and do the climbing to when you actually went? Was it successful? Did you go every year thereafter or how did that look?

JENN: Yeah. The adventure started in the fall of 2020 as countries started to open. I would go climb where it made sense. The interesting thing about mountaineering is that mountains have seasons. That's why you'll always see Everest summits in May, right? Or you see K two summits in July or you'll see different mountains you climb at different times of the year.

JENN: In the beginning, it was what opened based on COVID and what mountain was in season to climb. That's how it started. My first climb for the pursuit was in December of 2020. I failed two of the mountains twice. I had to do two mountains over and so I just finished the pursuit, June 1st of 2023. It took me about 2.5 years to do it all.

JENN: The nice thing is that the training kind of built, right? Like what you learn from one mountain helps you climb the next mountain, it helps you climb the next mountain. I am a mom first, then a business owner, then an athlete. It's very easy to build your calendar when you know who you are.

JENN: I'd look at my calendar and make sure that my calendar looked like that versus athlete first, then business owner, then mother, right? That's how you hold yourself accountable to what you say you're doing. A lot of times my training was broken up into bits and pieces.

JENN: I would go to a soccer game of my sons and I'd bring a 12 inch step and a backpack full of water bottles and during his soccer game instead of sitting and watching, I'd be the mom on the sideline doing my little step ups while I was training and watching him play so that I could get both things to happen. So you just get creative.

KATHLEEN: Were your kids really excited when you got into it? Did you have an award ceremony or something when you got into the Guinness Book of Records? How does that work? I've never met somebody who was actually in the Guinness Book of World Records.

JENN: You know, like everybody does it different. The fun thing about having kids is they keep you humble. I remember coming home from my last climb, I just set the World Record.

JENN: I was feeling pretty good about myself if I had to be honest and I get off the plane, my kids meet me at the airport, they all give me hugs and then my son goes, mom, you have bad breath and I'm like, and there we are back to everyday motherhood. Nothing special over here. Just to let you guys know I've been on a plane for 12 hours and got called out. So there we have it.

KATHLEEN: Oh, that's so funny. Leave it to kids. I mean, honesty is just something that they do and they, you're right. They keep you very humble.

KATHLEEN: How was it a letdown when you were finally done with this or do you have another adventure that you're planning?

KATHLEEN: I can't imagine that you climb seven mountains and I know there's got to be a little bit of a letdown because you're just building and building and building and there's got to be something more that keeps that. But then you're also bringing it in. Tell us about that.

JENN: Yeah. I'll tell you in the beginning, it felt like it was never going to happen, right? Like it's so far away. What did I even say yes too? This is crazy. What am I doing? Then you get halfway through and you realize, oh, man, I better start enjoying these moments because this is actually happening.

JENN: Like this stuff is, I'm not going back to these places, right? When I went to climb in Antarctica, I'm not going back to Antarctica. That mountain's only been climbed 15 times before we climbed it. There are too many other things in this world. All of a sudden when you realize this is the last time I'm going to be in this part of the world or doing this activity, it helps you savor it.

JENN: Then when you get to the last one, you're sitting there thinking man, this might be done. This has been my story for the last 2.5 years of my life. If we get to the top of this thing we're done. I remember saying to myself, when I was done, there is a tinge of sadness, there is a tinge of, wow, it really happened now.

JENN: It's done. What does this mean? What do I do? I think our society has trained us so much to say what's next, what's next? What's next? That I really was intentional about saying I'm going to celebrate what is and I am taking a year off of committing to anything or doing anything big because I'm an easy person to get going.

JENN: I'm a hard person to stop. I want to teach my children that when we do big things after that, we need to recharge our batteries and recalibrate and rest and really honor what has just happened so that we can go into the next thing with intention and energy and, the willingness to pursue.

KATHLEEN: Do you have any idea what you want to do next or are you still just taking in and celebrating this massive accomplishment?

JENN: Yeah. I have a book coming out in January. That's been a big thing on my plate to keep me busy. I'm taking the boys climbing in February. My one year anniversary comes up in June which feels fast all of a sudden like, ok, what is this next thing gonna be?

JENN: But I trust that. I never knew I was going to climb a mountain before and all of a sudden look what I just did. So I trust that whatever shows up, I'll be able to figure it out.

KATHLEEN: Well, I know that when I feel like I don't know where I wanna go and, I call it limbo. It's the wrong word. But when you need to take that moment with yourself and be quiet and be still and it doesn't matter how long it is.

KATHLEEN: I find that's when some of the greatest adventures and gifts start coming because I stopped moving long enough to say yes. Instead of I'm moving so fast that it goes by like a thought and it never comes back. Is that what you're finding as well?

JENN: Yeah. I did when we were in COVID, I did this thing called The Artist's Way, which is a 12 week journaling program. And it taught like you, you learn how to sit and for the first in the beginning, you write three pages and it's a lot of work.

JENN: Then as you get trained, all of a sudden you write pages and then stuff kind of starts flowing out of you like a faucet that hasn't been run for a while and then you start getting into the flow of stuff. I know right now I'm slowing down and some ideas are starting to percolate, but I'm not willing to grasp at any of them yet because I want them to form a little bit more.

KATHLEEN: We have Jenn Drummond in the room with us today. Tell us a little bit more about what you're doing? How has your relationship with your children and your husband and even extended family members changed for you since all of this occurred?

JENN: One of the things we all learned is that big mountains take big teams. If you're going to take on a big pursuit in your life, you need a big team behind you to make it happen. All of us went on this journey. I might have been the one physically at the location but we were all connected in supporting each other in ways that we needed.

JENN: My kids learned a lot about counting on other people like there's more than just this mom in their life if they want some. All of us learned that we are our only limitation, right? We are the ones that get in the way of doing what we desire. So when we're in a struggling spot just to pause and say, ok, what am I doing here to block this or prevent this or make this harder than it needs to be?

KATHLEEN: How has your relationship with your husband changed from all of this?

JENN: That's probably been the least changed relationship, to be honest with you. Yeah.

JENN: I think we were very supportive of each other's pursuits and passions always and we have always been each other's cheerleader. When I took this on he stepped up and did what you should do and we're in a good spot but we've always been in a good spot because we've had a very open relationship just supporting the other person.

KATHLEEN: Oh, that's great. Because a lot of times other things can come up in relationships when one's off traveling the world and the other one's being the stay home parent. So that's amazing. That's great. That's encouraging.

KATHLEEN: You work hard at something like that. Trust me. I know that one, you work hard to have somebody that supports you to that degree.

KATHLEEN: What are some of the things that you are thinking that you want to do? I know that you said you had a bucket list that you were working on. So, what other big adventures do you have even if it's not today or tomorrow but something that, what other big adventures are you wanting to accomplish?

JENN: I think a lot of us hit this point of success, right? Then once you hit success, you crave significance. Now that I've done this huge thing that was successful, I'm been focusing. Like, how do I make it significant? How do I make it apply to the person that will never climb a mountain?

JENN: How do I take those lessons and share them so that other people can find themselves in my story? Because I think we are all so many different versions of each other and learning how to unite instead of separate is definitely something that I feel is on my forefront and just being able to share the story and say like, hey, I stepped into this pursuit.

JENN: I had no clue where it was going to take me. But I had this direction that it gave me and then the universe stepped in and allowed a whole bunch of other beautiful things unfold along the way that I would have never intended. But I'm so glad it showed up, you know. So for example, I went to climb Mount Kenya in Africa.

JENN: Before I got into this pursuit, I had no social media, I was kind of against social media. I only saw the negative of it. One of my girlfriends said, listen, Jenn, the closest we're going to ever get to these mountains is through you. You have to share the experience because this is, I get to live through you in this experience. I'm like, ok, fine.

JENN: I just feel really vulnerable saying I'm going to do this thing when I don't know if it's gonna happen or not because I haven't done it yet. The beauty of that was I put, I'm pursuing this World Record. Well, some charity at one point found me and said, oh, listen, we're trying to donate an ambulance to a charity in Kenya.

JENN: It looks like you need to go to Kenya to be able to climb one of your mountains. Would you be willing to partner with us to be the face of the charity so that we don't have to spend the money to send another human being over. I'm, ok, fantastic. Of course, I'll be a part of that. Are you kidding?

JENN: Then I could use that charity who had relationships on the ground in Kenya and ask them, who is the climbing company that people use to climb this mountain? Just like if someone wanted to come to Utah, they wanted to go skiing. If they knew me, I would be able to tell them, here's what you do, here's who you call here. You know, you have different intel because you're in that environment.

JENN: It really taught me how to wave my flag along my journey and be, here's who I am. Here's what I'm trying to achieve. Here's what I need and here's how I can help. When you do that, then it starts sending a signal to others in the world and you start collaborating with people that you never knew existed and amazing things happen.

KATHLEEN: It sounds like people would say it's a charmed life but it's not, you did all this. You're the one that's doing this. You had a friend that says, hey, I'm never gonna go to that mountain. So do this for me.

KATHLEEN: I can live vicariously through you because a lot of times that's what people do because they're afraid to do that themselves or they don't feel worthy or they're scared or whatever the reason is. Here you are doing this, which I would assume gave a lot of your friends a lot of more openness in their life.

KATHLEEN: They didn't have to limit themselves anymore because something like that helps you realize you are a limitless person and it's a matter of putting your mind to what you're doing. If you put your mind to doing something, of course the universe is going to open up and support you along the way.

KATHLEEN: Yeah. So when that started happening, I think that's amazing that you supported a charity that helps the people over there while you're doing something for yourself. If that doesn't make you feel good about yourself, I don't know, what would. If you didn't go on social media, that would never have happened for you, they wouldn't have been right?

JENN: I would say another piece of it was, I remember going to climb Everest, Everest for most people is a 6 to 8 week adventure. I'm, I cannot be gone for 6 to 8 weeks. That is not an option. There has to be another way to make this happen. I didn't say no to Everest.

JENN: I just said no, I'm not going to be gone for this amount of time. That made me start to look for different ways to make my expedition quicker or shorter. I actually found a company out of New York named Hypoxic that you can buy a tent from and put on your bed and it simulates an environment that has less oxygen in it.

JENN: That stresses your body to make more red blood cells. Then all of a sudden you trick your body to think you're on the mountain at some level, right? That allowed my Everest expedition to be three weeks instead of 6 to 8 weeks. Ok.

JENN: So even me though I'm three weeks is a long time. I've never been away from home that long what does this mean? How does this work? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I went to my kids' school and I told the teacher hey, listen, I have help lined up the nanny's here, grandma's here. Everybody's lined up to do what they're supposed to do. But I know with me gone, my kids are still going to have a hard time.

JENN: I'm letting you know so that maybe you can offer them a little bit more grace during these next few weeks because you know what's going on behind the scenes. My teacher came back to me and she said, Jenn, why don't you come in and teach the kids about setting an Everest like goal. We'll have all the kids color little hikers and we'll decorate the hallway with what their Everest goal is.

JENN: They put a huge Mount Everest in the front of the building and then we made a little hiker that was me and I had a tracking device on me. Now every day when the kids went into school, they could see where I was on the mountain because the tracking device would update. I had the ability to call in from base camp to the classrooms over zoom because there's wi fi at base camp.

JENN: All of a sudden I can answer questions at the school and talk to the kids and they can see my face and we can interact. I'm the one who was sad that I was on Everest because I have all this down time. My kids never felt more supported in their life. Right? Like everybody's like, here's what your mom's doing. Here's where she is. This is awesome, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

JENN: I benefited from that because when I'm on the mountain and I hit some scary points which you do. I just remember thinking there's a whole school watching what I'm doing. I have to be able to have the courage to get through this section because they're watching. It held me accountable to a force and source bigger than myself. All of a sudden I summited Everest, the whole town summitted Everest.

JENN: Everybody felt amazing and excited. Whenever I come home now I have little kids that come over that are my kids' friends and they're, you're the mom that climbed Mount Everest. I'm, yeah, damn. I want to climb Everest someday. I'm, I will be your coach when you're ready. I'm here for you. You just let me know. This thing that I was so afraid of, right?

JENN: I was afraid that I was going to be gone too long. My kids were going to be hurt like all these different things that fear wasn't, don't do it. That fear was what other solutions do you have besides this fear? All of a sudden when I started getting curious about that fear and figuring out, OK, how do I address this? How do I address this? How do I address this? Magic unfolded.

KATHLEEN: I love it, I love it. So the book that you wrote, is it about your adventures or is it, is this gonna be the prelude of where Jenn goes next?

JENN: So the book is called Break Proof Seven strategies to build resilience and achieve your life goals. The reason why I named it Break Proof is because we're humans and we're going to break the key to our breaks is evaluating them for proof. What's working, what's not working.

JENN: What do I know now? So that when I go to climb up the mountain again, I'm better prepared or I know what's expected or I can get it the next time, right? The book title is Break Proof. What I do is I take the reader on the adventure of climbing.

JENN: We go to each one of the mountains and I highlight a specific lesson from that mountain that you can apply to your own life because why I climb physical mountains. Everybody listening here is climbing, metaphorical ones and the lessons apply to both.

KATHLEEN: Wow. I love that. What a beautiful book to write because we do that because we go, you know, when we traverse in our life, we're going back and forth, we're switched back and you do the same thing on a mountain going up there. It's not a straight up to the summit. You're going through all sorts of different experiences on a mountain.

KATHLEEN: I can see a lot of things coming from this as far as, if you're going to be a coach or a teacher or instructor. I mean, I see something coming in with this book because it's like you've taken like all this metaphor, metaphysical, metaphorical stuff, grounded it in into a real life experience.

KATHLEEN: People can actually probably read your book and go, I've been there, I've been on that mountain. I know I've been on that mountain because you know, it, it still comes from inside. We still feel if we're living it or not, we're still feeling that experience.

KATHLEEN: We have Jenn Drummond with us today and she was discussing her new book and what she's taken.

KATHLEEN: Every single person is gonna go on the journey with her. Do you have any idea of what you think possibly could come from this because I'm getting all sorts of hits of what can happen. Do you, are you getting anything? Because I think you are.

JENN: Yeah. No. I have been on stage recently sharing some of the lessons from the book and I'll be on a stage of, 500 people, 800 people, 100 people. It's the best part is afterwards and having those aha moments from the people in the audience and be like, oh, I now see it from a different perspective or I now get it or that makes sense.

JENN: When you watch the story transfer to somebody else and then watch them find a piece of themselves in it and then make a shift in their life. There's not a better gift, right? I mean, it's so rewarding to just have that transfer happen.

JENN: I really hope I get to continue to be on stages because it really fills my heart and I love connecting with people and seeing what other people are doing and how they're stuck in ways that maybe I can see them and maybe they're showing me ways that I'm stuck or not growing or not doing things that are best for myself and we're just so connected to each other and I'm so grateful for that.

KATHLEEN: I find that to be very true. People say that they are mirrors of us, but they are good or bad. It doesn't matter. There's no such thing as good or bad. It's what is we have limitations that we have within ourselves that we don't know that they're there and we do need other people to tell us because we are blind to certain things about ourselves.

KATHLEEN: The gift of people is allowing you to see that so you can step into your greatness and be a bigger version of who you are and you have definitely stepped into a bigger version of you.

KATHLEEN: There is no doubt in my mind that you have gone down a really huge path and I see a lot of great things coming. What is one thing, one piece of advice that you would tell our audience to help them to move into a different direction, to achieve their dreams?

JENN: I think it's some of the most simple things, right? I think we make it hard because we want it to be hard. But we realize really it's like the little teeny tiny things we do every day that matter. I'll give an example when I was on the mountain and I had to brush my teeth every day. There was no mirror.

JENN: The only thing I could look out as was the gorgeous universe that's in front of us. I remember thinking, wow, isn't this beautiful? What a great place to be able to brush my teeth and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. hen I came home and I have a mirror in my bathroom.

JENN: I start brushing my teeth and I'd be looking at my face like, oh I need to pluck my eyebrows or I need to color my hair like I was picking myself apart and I only noticed that I was picking myself apart because it was such a contrast to how I was doing my life the few days prior. I was, why am I doing this to myself? Life comes at us fast and hard enough.

JENN: If I can't cheerlead myself, who is going too? Then I talk to my kids, does anybody else pick on themselves while they brush their teeth at my house? They're, oh yeah, you know, everybody kind of said, yeah, you know, whatever. I'm, OK, listen, we're doing this thing called the toothbrush talk.

JENN: When you brush your teeth in the morning or when you brush your teeth at night before you go to bed, while you're brushing? You're only allowed to say positive things about yourself. That's it. That's the only rule I have. It's amazing how awkward it is at first, which is unfortunate.

JENN: Then it's amazing, OK, you can finally get used to saying I love you and not be, what's wrong with me? What a difference that teeny tiny little thing makes for your dreams at night, makes for your day that you start. I mean, it's fascinating that it's something that small can have an exponential effect on how you feel.

KATHLEEN: Well, and you have seven children that you're gonna probably totally change the course of their life just by what happened to you and then going out and climbing in the mountains. Talk about a role leader, a role model beyond role models. Who does that? Most parents don't do that? It's the 9 to 5. It's making a buck, it's slapping the food on the table.

KATHLEEN: It's running off to soccer where there, it's crazy times instead of something exciting like a family. What a beautiful family unit you created for yourself and giving your children big dreams to go after instead of being small. I love that. That's the best that you could have done. That's the gift.

KATHLEEN: Why don't you tell our audience how they can get a hold of you?

JENN: Yeah. No, please. The best way is Jenndrummond.com. That's my website. You'll have access to the book, different things that I'm doing where I'm speaking and then also it has all my social media handles. Depending on your platform of choice, reach out, say hello, let me know you're out there.

JENN: In fact, I have a little gift for everybody that's listening today. If you want to text the word Everest to the number 33 777. I'm gonna send you this clip that you can keep on your phone that shows the milky way going over every space camp.

JENN: It's a video that I go back to all the time because sometimes life gets hard or overwhelming or just feels big and heavy and I'll look at that video and remind myself we are so insignificant. How can this problem be so significant? It's not, I'm making it significant. So text the word Everest to 33 777 and save that photo and that will help bring you back to the beauty of the life that we live.

KATHLEEN: Oh, I love it. I'm definitely gonna be texting that. I'd like to see that. I think that would be amazing. I wanna thank you so much Jenn for coming on the show today. I really appreciate your Everest gift and I will check out your social profile because, I don't always look at social media myself either. 

KATHLEEN: I have that attitude and I'm trying to shift that attitude of social media and see what the adventures are because I think seeing that would be awesome to have just a little bit of the inclination and experience of what you've done. Again, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you.