TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

There’s a terrific meditation exercise where you practice imagining yourself finding calm and being mindful in the eye of a hurricane while there is chaos and turbulence around you. And thank you so much for listening to this right now in the midst of it all and sharing it with your friends and family, rating and reviewing and downloading wherever you find your podcasts, and for following us on social media @drabhaydandekar. So the security, resilience, and confidence in discovering that inner peace and joy may help us react in times of danger when facing the steepest of uphill challenges and prepare us to calculate the balance and border between exhilarating adventure and risking your life. Someone who knows this intimately is Lhakpa Sherpa, a Nepali woman who lives in Connecticut and has climbed Sagarmatha (also known as Mt. Everest) more than any woman in the world. Lhakpa grew up in Makalu, a village in the Himalayas, and unlike most girls in her family and her community, found her education, lifeline, comfort, and escape in the mountains. Growing up, she often would wander and climb barefoot and soon discovered her physical and mental strength allowed her to excel in mountaineering. Unheard of for a girl - both in her family of 13 in Makalu, and in Nepal, Lhakpa started as a porter hauling food and prepping it at base camp for guides and their clients, and soon shadowed and learned from experienced and famous Sherpa guides. In 2000, she became the first Nepali woman to climb Sagarmatha and return to base camp successfully. Of course, the dangers are incredibly daunting, with navigating through ultra-extreme weather and terrain, surviving the altitude health risk of the death zone above 26,000 feet, and even actual traffic jams among climbers. She’s now sumitted and descended 10 times, but it has not been without its cost, losing many friends and peers in the quest of climbing the world’s tallest mountain. Nonetheless, the mountains are her sanctuary, along with daughters, who live with her in Connecticut where she’s found a home now for over 20 years. Funding and sponsorships for women climbers are sadly scarce, and like a lot of things for Lhakpa, she’s forged ahead - as a single mom through odd jobs and even working at Whole Foods - all to fuel her passion and help her inspire so many others. She’s also the founder of Cloudscape climbing, an adventure guide company for trekking and hiking and this July, she is aiming to climb K2. I was grateful to share a conversation with her and I asked her about developing confidence with mountain climbing from a very young age…

And you can learn more about Lhakpa at cloudscapeclimbing.com and wherever you are, perhaps the world's greatest adventure lies ahead in helping fix our climate crisis, so please…act thoughtfully, consume minimally, and plan wisely. Till next time, I’m Abhay Dandekarl