Today is was an honour to hear from Mollie Hughes – the youngest person to climb both sides of Mount Everest. She is also fresh back from her latest expedition, which made her the youngest woman to ski solo to the South Pole. All of this achieved by the young age of 29!
She spoke to our captive audience of students about her extraordinary exploits, taking them on a journey through her different adventures with various awe-inspiring video clips – exhausting and emotional just to watch.
Whilst Mollie told us of her stories she explained along the way what it took just to survive and then to go on to succeed: the mix of four key ingredients….
Controlling fear
Astonishingly, Mollie told us that she has a fear of heights and was scared every minute when climbing Everest. Whilst this fear has never diminished, she has learnt to feel the fear rather than ignore it and developed ways to control it.
Resilience
Resilience, she believes, requires an ongoing effort to push yourself out of your comfort zone – to make yourself work harder and harder to achieve something. Each new expedition has been more difficult, bringing more challenges and the need to build more resilience.
Self-belief
For her South Pole trip, Mollie wanted to go solo, to rely on only herself. This she explained is about having an inner-confidence, a feeling deep down that you can really succeed. (It’s different to being self-confident. She may not have liked public speaking for example, but she always felt an inner self-belief.) She admits that on many occasion, especially in extreme conditions, that dark thoughts of self-doubt can creep in. She fights this by reminding herself of three positive affirmations that quickly rebuild her self-belief.
Head space
During the last leg of Mollie’s South Pole expedition, technology failed her and she wasn’t able to listen to her podcasts or music which had kept her so occupied. Initially daunted by the loneliness and sheer silence of her surrounds, she recounts how it allowed her a new kind of head space for creativity, planning and peace. She urged students to seek space and silence for the same reasons.
We’d like to thank Mollie for visiting Brampton College today – we were both humbled and inspired to hear what it takes to make the impossible possible.
To see videos of Mollie, follow this link
http://molliehughes.co.uk/gallery/video-and-audio/
