Cathy O’Dowd: Climbing to the Top with Teamwork

Today’s guest is South African mountaineer Cathy O’Dowd, the first woman to climb Mount Everest from both sides. 

Her many Himalayan expeditions have provided her with extensive experience with individuals and teams, facing stress, risk, and overwhelming challenge. 

Pre-COVID, she shared insights with corporate audiences all over the world through story-driven expedition case studies. 

Post-COVID, she has had to shift her business online like many of us and is grateful that she lives in Andorra in the Pyrenees Mountains, where she can hike every day and run her business from her phone on the side of a mountain. 

In this candid interview, Cathy shares some of her silver linings from the pandemic, what led her to become a mountain climber, and some of the tragic circumstances of her first Everest expedition.

Tuning in, you’ll find out why she believes in teamwork over the competition, opportunities over achievements, and lifestyle over the business. 

All this and more in today’s episode, so don’t miss it!

Here’s a peek at what else we discuss: 

• How Cathy's career as an inspirational speaker has been affected by COVID.
• What led her to become a mountaineer after discovering rock climbing as a teenager.
• How she came to climb Everest at 27-years-old and the circumstances of that expedition.
• Cathy explains why she identifies as curious rather than strictly ambitious.
• What she learned about teamwork and competition climbing Everest when so much of what happened was beyond her control.
• A time when Cathy had to overcome a great deal of fear: working through public failure.
• The value of building skills and confidence through experiences rather than building success through achievements.
• Cathy’s advice for new entrepreneurs: be open to unexpected opportunities along the way.
• Running a lifestyle, not a business; knowing her value and owning her definition of success.
• Bringing her feminine energy to a goal-oriented and money-driven patriarchal world.

Resources:

• Cathy O’Dowd on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube
• Cathy O’Dowd
• Just For the Love of It by Cathy O'Dowd
• Namastream

This week’s Joy:  The discovery of joy brought by walking just two kilometers outside the house and watching flowers bloom which she overlooked before because she was busy on the bigger picture.

This week’s Hustle:  Setting up a whole home office that is fully accessible from her phone. She loves the fact that she can go to the mountains and still closely monitor her emails and clients using her phone.

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