Mic Drop

Cry and Keep Walking (ft. Robyn Benincasa)

Episode Summary

Robyn Benincasa is a career adventurer— and one of the most inspirational people alive. This week’s episode features a deep-dive into the transformative mindsets she taps into on a regular basis for herself and for the thousands of people she speaks to every year.

Episode Notes

Cry and Keep Walking (ft. Robyn Benincasa)

Lessons from the valleys to the (literal) peaks

OPENING QUOTE:

“And this was after three days racing above 14,000 feet nonstop, no sleep, three days into it and then we get to this hut at 15,000 feet and realize, "Dear sweet, baby Jesus. We now have to summit this 19,700 foot active volcano." And then you return to this hut before we ride 250 more miles on our bikes and paddle three days to the finish line. It was nine days for the win.”

-Robyn Benincasa

GUEST BIO:

Robyn Benincasa is a world champion adventure racer, a 2014 CNN hero, a Guinness World Record endurance kayaker, a New York Times bestselling author, and a 23 year veteran San Diego firefighter. She's been named one of the top 50 keynote speakers in the world, the number-one female speaker for meetings.net, and one of the top 10 speakers featured by Harvard Business Review. She's been delivering over 100 keynotes a year for the last 15 years and remains one of the highest demand speakers in the world.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[5:18] - Learning from the Extreme

What keynote speakers can learn from firefighters and racers

Robyn has become world-renowned for the performance of her teams. In keynote speaking, we can learn from her example. Robyn relies heavily on her team of agents, bureau reps, and others who help manage and grow her career. No speaker is a one-person-show.

[15:26] - Gaining Stability from Speed

How going faster helps us stay on course

When pro mountain bikers come to rocky, uneven portions of the trail, they speed up. In life, the rocky portions of life often leave us feeling like we need to slow down and reduce our action. In reality, these are the times when we should power up and power through.

[17:06] - Turning Setbacks into Comebacks

How to flip the script on your biggest disappointments

As Robyn says, “You’re not defined by your setbacks. You’re defined by your comebacks. We're all going to have those setbacks, so what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do with what we have? “If you’re going through hell, go faster.”

[37:28] - Humility Over Arrogance

A woman who has every right to be prideful — but isn’t

Robyn has earned the right to be arrogant, but instead, she's the opposite. Robyn isn't there for the accolades or applause. She's there to lift others up and show them what's possible. She hopes others become the best versions of themselves in the spirit of generosity, and that's what makes her an irresistible choice for bureaus and meeting planners alike.

RESOURCES:

[2:56] “Adventure Race teams and Audacious Goals,” Harvard Business Review
[10:09] Project Athena
[27:18] About Altitude Sickness

Follow Robyn Benincasa:

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Brought to you by eSpeakers, hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter it’s starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is produced and presented by eSpeakers; sponsored by ImpactEleven.

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Josh Linkner is a Creative Troublemaker. He believes passionately that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar.

Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Today, Josh serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.

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Episode Transcription

Robyn Benincasa:

And this was after three days racing above 14,000 feet nonstop, no sleep, three days into it and then we get to this hut at 15,000 feet and realize, "Dear sweet, baby Jesus. We now have to summit this 19,700 foot active volcano." And then you return to this hut before we ride 250 more miles on our bikes and paddle three days to the finish line. It was nine days for the win.

Josh Linkner:

Welcome to Mic Drop, podcast for professional speakers. We cover the ins and outs of the business, helping you deliver more impact on bigger stages at higher feeds. You'll gain an inside edge through intimate conversations with the world's most successful keynote speakers. Mic Drop is brought to you by eSpeakers. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Get ready for some inspiring mic drop moments together.

Josh Linkner:

Today's show is sponsored by ImpactEleven formerly known as 3 Ring Circus. The best and most diverse and inclusive community, built for training and developing professional speakers. They're not just elevating an industry we know and love. They work with hundreds of speakers to launch and scale their speaking businesses, earning tens of millions of speaking fees, landing bureau representation, securing book deals, and rising to the top of the field. To learn more and schedule a free intro call, visit impacteleven.com. That's impact E-L-E-V-E-N.com. Mic Drop is produced and presented by eSpeakers. If you want more audiences and organizations to be moved and changed by your message, you owe it to yourself to find out why thousands of top experts use eSpeakers to manage and grow their business. When you use eSpeakers, you'll feel confident about your business, package yourself up for success, and be able to focus on what matters most to you and your business. For more information and a free 30 day trial, visit espeakers.com/micdrop. That's espeakers.com/micdrop.

Josh Linkner:

On today's show, I sit down with the incredible Robyn Benincasa. Talk about a badass. Robin is a world champion adventure racer, a 2014 CNN hero, a Guinness World Record endurance kayaker, a New York Times bestselling author, and a 23 year veteran San Diego firefighter. And her work in the speaking business is just as impressive. She's been named one of the top 50 keynote speakers in the world, the number one female speaker for meetings.net, and one of the top 10 speakers featured by Harvard Business Review. She's been delivering over 100 keynotes a year for the last 15 years and remains one of the highest demand speakers in the world. In today's conversation, Robyn shares the surprising truth that in difficult moments we can gain stability by writing faster. She also shares what keynote speakers can learn from extreme performance teams in firefighting, adventure racing, and even philanthropy.

Josh Linkner:

Robyn shares how to flip our setbacks into comebacks and also how to cultivate just a handful of key relationships that can drive our speaking businesses to the next level. She also takes us to an altitude of three and a half miles up a mountain in Ecuador to a 90 mile extreme hike in Zion National Park and 120 mile endurance kayak ride from Key Largo all the way to Key West. All in the name of leadership, performance, and impact. World class endurance athlete, firefighter, bestselling author, philanthropist, and powerhouse keynote speaker. Robyn Benincasa, welcome to Mic Drop.

Robyn Benincasa:

Woohoo. Glad to be here my friend. Thanks Josh.

Josh Linkner:

Thank you. So I have admired you for many years, not only in your stage skills, but what incredible background that you have. Adventurer, firefighter, philanthropic contributor. Maybe just take us back a little bit on what you were all about before you got into public speaking.

Robyn Benincasa:

Oh gosh. Well really I was all about just being good in school, being good at my sports. Gosh. I was a bajillion sport athlete growing up. Gymnastics, diving, track, cross country, triathlons, judo, adventure racing, sort of Jack of all sports, master of none. And after that I kind of got into speaking totally, totally by accident. Never, ever set out to be a speaker, like at all. It was a full accident on the universe's part. And here we are.

Josh Linkner:

So can you help us understand that? So you went from adventure race, which that's one thing, but then by accident you become a speaker. How did that accident unfold?

Robyn Benincasa:

Well, it was one of those you know how they say luck happens in those moments where opportunity meets preparation? So it turns out that our preparation as world champion adventure racers kind of lent itself to being noticed by Fast Company magazine. So the accident happened when Fast Company magazine got in touch with us after we won the world championships in Ecuador. And they're like, "You know what? We're doing an article called Extreme Teamwork. And our mission is to take a look at some of the world's most consistently high performing extreme teams and see what we can learn from you guys and apply to fast moving companies." So they kind of interviewed our team and a team from NASA and Industrial Light & Magic and I think it was a team of Navy seals and they sort of distilled down what the essence of our teamwork and leadership was and then shared that with the readers of Fast Company magazine.

Robyn Benincasa:

Yada, yada, yada, for all you Seinfeld fans, I ended up on stage at their reader conference called Real Time and they wanted someone from that article, which I guess was very popular, to come and speak to their readers. And I literally drew the short straw because everyone on my team are like total introverts including me. And they're like, "Well somebody has to do it." So it rolled right downhill onto me like it does in a fire department, the newest member of the team, all the you know what rolls right downhill onto them. So there I was, I ended up creating this presentation called the essential elements of human synergy about how one plus one can equal 25 when you have an incredible team and a world class team.

Robyn Benincasa:

And I thought I was going to die before I got on stage. And luckily for me, there was a zone vice president from Starbucks in the audience. I mean talk about luck. So he came up to me after the presentation and said like, "Do you know of Starbucks? Have you worked at Starbucks? Do you know people that have worked at Starbucks?" And I was like, "No," and he goes, "Well this is exactly what we tried to share. This vibe, this energy, this intent, this culture, is exactly what we tried to help all of our store managers deeply embrace and understand. And I want you to go across my entire zone and talk to all of our store managers."

Josh Linkner:

There was a venti cup of caffeine and you were off. And approximately what year was that?

Robyn Benincasa:

Our year of the Lord. Many listeners were not born at this point in time. That was '99, I think. Yeah.

Josh Linkner:

Wow. Wow. And fast forward to today, you're one of the most successful speakers out there. You do 100 plus engagements a year for some of the largest organizations in the world. What can speakers learn from extreme team performance? Obviously you apply that to Starbucks and other big companies, but what about individual speakers like you and I that are out there on the front lines, hustling the business, trying to make it work. What can we learn from what you teach on stage?

Robyn Benincasa:

Oh my gosh. So many things. I think the power of having a great team around you is so incredibly important. I know in the beginning we sort of all tried to do all of this ourselves and we all kind of dabble in, "Okay. Well, I'm going to be my own agent. I'm going to do my own PR. I'm going to do all my social media. I'm going to send out my pitch docs. I'm going to do visits to the bureaus." It's literally like a full-time job when you take this on. And I think it's really important to find people that have skills and background and experience that you may not have so that you can focus on your content and creating an incredible presentation and ensuring that you're great on stage and that you create amazing content and let other people do what they do best, which is like I can't pitch myself.

Robyn Benincasa:

There's no freaking way. Like there's no way I'm going to get on a phone and tell somebody how awesome I am. So I have to have a manager/agent to pinch hit for me about why my presentation is impactful and what it's going to do for their audience. And I think also creating teammates with the bureau agents as well. You don't have to have every bureau agent in the world on your side. You got to have a handful. If you have 10-ish great people who you're on the top of their mind all the time, that makes a career. And so kind of thinking about who else can I bring onto my team and how do I create a world class team with all of these other people who have talents and strengths and background that I don't have so I can focus on my part, which is the content and being great on stage?

Josh Linkner:

What does your team look like today?

Robyn Benincasa:

I have many teams. I have my team at the fire station. I have my team at Project Athena, which is my nonprofit and we can talk about that later if you want. And I am not racing at the top of my game anymore after having six hip replacements. Don't get me started.

Josh Linkner:

Oh, you got a lot of hips.

Robyn Benincasa:

I just ran out of cartilage and then when I'm at the world championships, I literally fell onto the ground. I had used my last ounce of cartilage in one of my hips and my teammates picked me up, took my pack, and for the next three days, I had to move forward through the course with a string around my leg so that I could like physically pull it forward because it wouldn't pull forward on its own. And I thought, "God, I just ripped my hip flexor or something." And I got home and discovered that I had stage four osteoarthritis in both hips. And that's how I became an endurance paddler. So that's what I've been doing the last few years.

Josh Linkner:

So I'm actually really curious about all those teams and I do want to speak about them, but just as we were saying on the topic of speaking for a second, what does your speaking team look like? Do you have a team internally? Are you managed? Do you have a bureau partnership? How does the Robyn Benincasa's speaking team look?

Robyn Benincasa:

It's amazing right now. I'm super stoked. I've had all kinds of combinations over the years. I had an independent manager at first, then I had another independent manager, then I went exclusive with BigSpeak, which was amazing. They're wonderful people and their sales people are super topnotch. And then a couple years ago I went back to an independent agent model again. So right now I am working with one of my best pals who's an independent agent named Shannon Downey at Six Degrees Speakers. And I sucked in one of my best friends for the last 23 years who is the most amazing fricking detail person as the planning side of it. Like this kid down to the detail will tell you exactly where you're going, what your flight number is, what your car number is, when you're stopping, when you're going, when you're talking, when you're sleeping. She's amazing at like building and organizing the events.

Robyn Benincasa:

And then I have my husband, Jeff, who creates all the slides and actually runs my presentation from the back of the room, which allows me to have that incredible flexibility to never do the same presentation twice because then I'm not just like clicking forward to the next slide, he is actually listening to me most of the time and he'll go like wherever I decide to go. And he knows like if I introduce a certain video, he'll go to that or if I skip topics or move around or go on a little mini sidebar, he follows me. So it's really fun because I don't have to ever do the same presentation twice. And if my brain is taking me in a certain direction for a certain group, I can just roll with it. So between those three amazing people and I do all my own travel. A lot of people have a travel person, but mine is so ridiculous that I'm literally doing travel an hour a day probably. Like rearranging flights, redoing flights, and I feel like I have to do that myself, but we have a small, but mighty awesome team.

Robyn Benincasa:

And then I have my amazing handful of agents that are with multiple different speakers, bureaus who, God bless them, I'm at the top of their mind all the time. I mean, I would say I have about 12 people that book me super regularly and a bunch more that it's just onesie, twosies, but again, it's that 10 or 12 if you can get them in your corner, you don't have to get everybody. You just have to get a few huge fans.

Josh Linkner:

So well said and as an expert in extreme performance teams, you're exactly right. You don't need hundreds. You need a couple very deep connections. I was struck by the fact that your husband listens to you. I think my wife Tia would pay to not listen to me just knowing her, but-

Robyn Benincasa:

I can't believe-

Josh Linkner:

That's for another day.

Robyn Benincasa:

He still does it. Bless his heart-

Josh Linkner:

Very generous soul.

Robyn Benincasa:

Oh, God bless him. He shows up, he does the AV checks, he sits with the crew, he's got the headsets on, he brings all his dangles and dangles and dingles because the last thing I want to worry about personally is my presentation, like the AV side of it, going to get jacked up or do I have to break with the audience to walk over to the podium, click something, and go to the next slide or is my little thingy slide clicker working or is the guy in the back even paying attention or do I even want to go to the next slide? I want to skip and do something else. And I'm just so grateful that ... and we customize our slides for every presentation too. We change the title every time, we change the content every time, and it's based on my conference calls with the clients about exactly what they want and we do a fully customized show every time.

Josh Linkner:

What's interesting, you look at the successful elements of a high level speaker like you and it's obviously great charisma and onstage skills, but it's also a fascinating background outside of speaking. So you've done amazing things beyond the platform. You've got this really thorough team behind you and your level of professionalism is off the charts and you're customizing it to the individual needs of your clients. So you start to unpack it and this magical mystical Robyn Benincasa, like it starts to make sense because you're doing all the requisite things to get there. Speaking of that, I was watching a video of you a little bit earlier today and you talked about the notion, really grabbed me, it said that when you're in a difficult spot, I'm paraphrasing, of course you're in a rough spot, you're in extreme conditions, that instead of slowing down, your stability comes from going faster. Can you unpack that for us a bit and maybe apply that, how it works into a speaking business?

Robyn Benincasa:

Hmm. Well, I mean, I learned that the hard way mountain biking, but it applies to everything in life. Whitewater rafting, life in general. I've long thought, just in the back of my head, like sort of depression, when things slow down in your life, it's a lack of action. It's a lack of having made a decision is when you sort of get stuck. So like the same is true in mountain biking. I fell off the bike so many freaking times because I was trying to be so careful through all the technical stuff. And then I started racing with world champion mountain bikers and I realized that when it got more technical or got more rocky or it got to a place where they were more nervous, they would literally just go faster. They would just power through it like nobody's business.

Robyn Benincasa:

So that's sort of a life philosophy for me is whenever I kind of feel those sort of low points, I'm either like, "Okay. Have I not made a decision or what action do I need to take right now?" Because when you let yourself stew around, that's where depression sets in. That's where setbacks set in. And I always say like, you're never defined by your setbacks. You're defined by your comebacks. And so we're all going to have those setbacks. It's what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do with it? So I totally live by that philosophy. If you're going through hell, go faster.

Josh Linkner:

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Josh Linkner:

That's why the major bureaus like Washington Speakers Bureau, Premier Speakers, Speak Inc, Executive Speakers, Harry Walker Agency, Kepler, Gotham Artists, and GDA all endorse and participate in ImpactEleven. From interactive boot camps to one-on-one coaching, if you're looking to take your speaking career to the next level, they'll help you make a bigger impact faster. For a free 30 minute consultation, visit impacteleven.com/micdrop.

Josh Linkner:

[inaudible 00:19:01] faster. You're not defined by your setbacks. You're defined by your comebacks. I feel like those are Robyn-isms. What are some other Robyn-isms?

Robyn Benincasa:

Oh gosh. I'm trying to think through. Commitment starts when the fun stops.

Josh Linkner:

Ooh. That's good.

Robyn Benincasa:

You got to leave your ego at the start line. It's the heaviest thing in your pack.

Josh Linkner:

Mm.

Robyn Benincasa:

And you can't bring it to work with you. You can't bring on the race course with you. And oh gosh. Oh, this is the one that ends up somehow, and I don't create these memes. I wouldn't know how to create a meme if you paid me a million dollars, but it's been picked up like on a lot of leadership circles and it's kind of one of the things that I sort of close with and the last video I show and my presentation's multimedia, which I think kind of adds to the fun is people kind of hear a concept, hear a story, very story driven, and then see the video of this team in action. And so the last video I share is a Japanese team who had a woman rip her Achilles tendon.

Robyn Benincasa:

And most teams would've just had to go home, quit the race. But they said, "You know what? We want to show the true Japanese spirit. We want to try something." And the race director let them go and they found a way to turn a backpack inside out and make it into a carrier where her legs fit through the arm holes. Turned it upside down and made it into a carrier. And they carried her on their back up and over the highest mountain in Queensland for 12 hours. Like no trail because we were right in front of these guys. So we know exactly what they were doing. And literally no trail, scrambling up to 14,000 feet, and down the other side. And the coolest thing is, as they're coming into the finish line, the three guys who have carried her for the last 14 hours now, pick her up and they put her on their shoulders and they make her the hero because she let them do it, but kind of one of the last statements I make is that we don't inspire people by showing them how amazing we are.

Robyn Benincasa:

We inspire people by showing them how amazing they are and that's exactly what they were doing for her. When they had her on their shoulders, they were saying, "We achieve our greatest height, not by stepping on somebody else's back, but by putting our teammates on our shoulders."

Josh Linkner:

Mm. What a beautiful story and also very much representative of what our real job is as a keynote speaker. It's not to come out there and say, "Look at me. Look how great I am. Look how smart I am. Look what I can do." It's not look what I can do. It's look what you can do.

Robyn Benincasa:

Yes.

Josh Linkner:

And that point that you're there to help show them the best version of themselves, not to be brag or arrogant about it, again, that sense of humility. I'm not surprised at all that you've been so successful because I think that's such a crucial element, especially what people are looking for today. They don't want some overbearing, arrogant, bore. They want somebody who's there to lift others up.

Robyn Benincasa:

Yes. I mean, I go out and in my heart, I'm like, "I want to give these people a gift." I'm not here to talk about myself. If they remember me, that's cool, but I want them to remember how they felt when they left. Like I don't want them to be going, "Oh great. It's so cool to be you." I mean, I worked in Fortune 500 when I was out of college and there were so many speakers where I remember sitting in the audience going, "Okay. You did something awesome and I'm proud of you and I'm happy for you and that must be amazing," but I didn't really walk away with anything aside from, "You go. Awesome." So when I created my presentation, I want it to be all about the feeling that people took with them.

Robyn Benincasa:

And if people leave saying, "You know what? I want that. I want to be that kind of leader. I want to be that person. I want to build that team. I want to be that kind of teammate. I want to have that moment in my life." And they leave with the tools to create it and to create that world class team and the inspiration and mindset to do crazy, hairy, audacious things with a team. Like that's when I know my work is done. Like I love it when people come up and say, "I want to run through a wall right now," which is like I hear it all the time. It's just a funny thing. Like, "I want to run through a wall right now." And I'm like, "Yes." Yeah. My work here is done. Like they're going to leave here like so fired up. Whether it's personally or in their business or in their life. Like people just leave like on this cloud, like just fired up like, "I want to do something fricking awesome." And like that's when I'm like, "And I'm out."

Josh Linkner:

Well, speaking of lifting people up and running through walls, you are not only an extreme, adventurous, amazing athlete, and a brilliant keynote speaker. You are an active firefighter. And maybe you could share a little bit about that. How long you've been firefighting? Am I correctly that you're part of an all female firefighting group? Maybe just share a little bit about that and not only what you do, but sort of why you do it and what you've learned from it?

Robyn Benincasa:

Oh gosh. I've been a firefighter for 23 years now and I just took off for shoulder surgery. So I miss my gang. I was on an all female crew for a while and it totally happened by accident. We have a bid system in the city of San Diego. So people just bid into a station when somebody else retires and all of the sudden one morning we're just like, "Oh. Look at us. We're all chicks. Here we are." So I guess we were the first full-time all female crew in the country from what I understand. And so we had our little 15 minutes of fame and it was a hoot for a while. And I love the fact that as a firefighter, you never know what you're going to roll up on.

Robyn Benincasa:

And you just know that like we have these skills, I have this team, we all have different talents and no one's going to have all the answers. We just have to build a team that can handle anything. Not that knows the answers to everything because you can't possibly. Every single time you run on a call, it's something completely new and different. And so you have to rely on the strengths of everyone around you to know their job, but also be prepared to lead, which one of the eight essential elements of human synergy, the last one is kinetic leadership. It's actually an acronym for teamwork so people can remember it, but the last one is kinetic leadership and it's all about realizing the difference between management and leadership.

Robyn Benincasa:

As a manager, like the captain's job is to facilitate all of our success, make sure the citizens are happy and safe, make sure we're happy and safe, but that difference between management and leadership, where leadership is based on talents and never just titles or tenure. So you got to let people lead based on their talents and their background experience and not based on what it says on their business card or what it says on their badge and the best crews actually allow that leadership to constantly flow and change based on who has their stuff together. What people's background and experience is. The newest person on the crew can be the person that solves the problem.

Robyn Benincasa:

So you never discount the new person. You always figure out what are the amazing assets and strengths and talents and knowledge of every single person on this team. And I'm going to let them lead with that strength. And that's what I love about a fire crew is even the newest person can be the most instrumental person on the call with their own background and experience and the best captains understand the strengths that they have on their crew and let people lead.

Josh Linkner:

Earlier on you said, when you gave your first keynote, you were terrified, as many people are by the way. And to me, thinking about running into a burning building is terrifying, as is many of the extreme sports that you've done. What's a time that you can look back at and remember when you were truly terrified, maybe not this first speech because we talked about that already. Maybe it's running into a fire or with your team out in the wilderness. Maybe share a time that you were just really scared and how were you able to overcome that fear and still perform at your best?

Robyn Benincasa:

Well for this story I have to remove the at your best part, just perform, which is keep moving forward. Gosh. My first big race with the best team in the world was in Ecuador where we won the world championships. But in the middle of this race, we had to summit a 19,700 foot active volcano. And this was after three days racing above 14,000 feet, nonstop, no sleep, three days into it, and then we get to this hut at 15,000 feet and realize, "Dear sweet baby Jesus. We now have to summit this 19,700 foot active volcano." And then return to this hut before we ride 250 more miles on our bikes and paddle three days to the finish line. It was nine days for the win. And day three, we realized we got to almost get 20,000 feet.

Robyn Benincasa:

And I was a total disaster like at 15,000 feet because I was from sea level-ish. I tried to do the tent thing, but we were actually all pretty destroyed, but I was really bad. I was blue. My nail beds were blue. I couldn't breathe. And to even think about getting to 20,000 feet, I mean, I couldn't even wrap my brain around it. And we all looked so bad, the top two teams that came into this hut at 15,000 feet. We all looked so bad the race doctor said, "Look, I'm not letting anybody leave this hut if your O2 sat is less than 70 or 70 or less," which, as a firefighter, if someone's O2 sat is like even 90, we're rushing them to the hospital like with lights and sirens.

Robyn Benincasa:

So we're like, "Oh. 70s good. Okay. That's a good number because I get to keep climbing." So we're all going out of the hut, like this is first and second place, us and the top French team, which was the whole theme throughout these years. And we're putting our fingers into the O2 sat and everyone else is kind of saying 89, 90, 91. I put my finger into the O2 set and it said 71%. And so I already knew I was dying, but now my whole team knew I was dying and the race director knew I was dying and our competitors knew I was dying and the doctor looked at me and said, "You shouldn't go." And he said, "We'll just give you a five hour penalty if you stay here." And my teammates and I looked at each other and I said, "I don't want to get a five hour penalty. If you think you can drag me like to 18,000 feet," because the other caveat was if you get to 18,000 and come back down, you only get a two hour penalty. So I said, "Guys, can you drag me to 18,000 feet? And then I'll just roll down or something, but at least we'll get to 18,000 and I'll only have the two hour versus the five hour penalty."

Robyn Benincasa:

Yada, yada, yada. We get to 18,000 feet, I have no memory of it whatsoever. I mean, they literally like dragged me on, we were roped up for glacier travel. I couldn't breathe. It was middle of the night. Sideways hail. I mean, my O2 sat was way below 70 at this point. And we got to 18,000 and the race director looked at two of my teammates and said, "You guys have the beginnings of high-altitude pulmonary edema. You need to go down. You can't keep going up." And my teammate, our team captain, came over to me who was contemplating going down, and he said, "Rob, John and I have to go down. You have to go up." Because three people had to get to the top or we'd be out of the race. And it was the most scared I've ever been in my life, aside from almost dying in class 4 whitewater in Tibet.

Robyn Benincasa:

But that moment of you have to climb from 18 now to 20 with an O2 sat that was well, well below 70 at this point. I mean, the only way I could keep breathing was just to cry. For some reason crying helped me breathe. I don't know why, but I just had to keep crying and crying and crying. And my other two teammates got on the rope with me and, again, I have very little memory of it aside from all I was thinking was, "Don't die. Don't die. Don't die. Don't die. Every step, just don't die." And we got to 19,700 feet and all of us were a train wreck and we didn't even know whether we were going to be able to continue at all. And on the ninth day, we won the race.

Josh Linkner:

First of all, like I don't even know what to say. Okay. Observation number one, you are a total and complete badass on every objective measure. Observation number two, I'm a flea. I'm feeling so bad about myself. No, I don't actually, but you're just so amazing. Wow. And the fortitude. The one thing I did take away is I'm going to cry a lot more I think because-

Robyn Benincasa:

You have to. Yeah. Okay. So here's another thing. This is another Robyn-ism, but we established early on, on my team that when I get to the end of my rope, when I get dehydrated, when I get like just [goneski 00:32:13], I was like, "You guys, I'm going to cry." And I don't cry like on purpose. It just happens. I just cry. But they were just like, "We don't care as long as you don't slow down. Just cry while you walk." And I was like, "Good point. Okay, I can do that." So that was-

Josh Linkner:

Well based on [crosstalk 00:32:28] My five year old daughter is well on her way to becoming an extreme athlete based on her crying volume.

Robyn Benincasa:

Just tell her, she can cry as long as it doesn't slow her down.

Josh Linkner:

As long as it doesn't slow her down [Talia 00:32:39]. As long as it doesn't slow you down. So in our last couple minutes together, I mean, I could chat with you all day. You're just so impressive and humble and gracious with your time. I wanted to ask you though about Project Athena. I mean, not only are you crushing it out on the speaking scene and saving lives and fires and such, you are also philanthropically minded and this is your foundation. Would you mind sharing a little bit about what got you into this, what the foundation does, and how you're thinking about that as you continue on as a speaking professional?

Robyn Benincasa:

Okay. Cool. Yeah. Project Athena was a brainstorm one day after I started having my hips replaced, after my first hip replacement, I thought like just to myself, like, "Okay. Well I'm not going to really be an adventure racer anymore. What am I going to do now?" And I thought, "You know what? I can't really walk or hike right now because I'm recovering from this hip replacement, but I bet I can get in a boat and paddle." So all of the sudden it clicked for me. I was like, "Wait. There's all kinds of ways to turn setbacks into comebacks." Just because you've had this setback doesn't mean you're not strong and amazing and maybe you just have to find your comeback in a different way. And I thought, "Well maybe I can do this for other people." So what we do at Project Athena is we turn people's setbacks into comebacks.

Robyn Benincasa:

So people who've endured like life altering medical or traumatic setbacks, they apply for a grant and the money that we raise actually pays for them to train for and complete an adventurous dream as part of their recovery. So every year we take people on these huge ultra endurance adventures like hiking all the way across the Grand Canyon in one day. We do that at the end of August and we hike back the next day. So we do rim to rim to rim in two days. We do the Zion Traverse where we hike 45 miles all the way across Zion National Park in two days. We kayak and ride bikes 120 miles from Key Largo to Key West and we call that the keys to recovery. Yeah. So we do these like incredible ultra endurance adventures and they're badass for sure, but it's also something that just about anybody can do with our training program.

Robyn Benincasa:

So we started just taking survivors, but like their friends and their family and our friends and our family wanted to come. And so we're like, "Okay. Why don't we take other people and they raise money and we call them our gods and goddesses and they do the adventure right alongside the survivors?" So our groups are like half survivors, half volunteer/fundraising gods and goddesses. And we all travel as one big team. So there's no racing. There's no first and last. Like people get to experience like what they saw in my presentation. Like that kind of teamwork where we're all traveling as one big team. And if you're the strong one at the moment, you take care of somebody else. You go sing with them, you talk to them, you take their pack. If you need help, you're allowed to say you're sucking and someone come help and we take their stuff and we keep people moving.

Robyn Benincasa:

And the love, like the circle of love that we create in these things is so epic and amazing. Like people accept help for the first time in their life or they realize how strong they are after a big setback. And the coolest thing is like someone leaving home as the family's sick person or the person that everyone's always been worried about for however long and they come home as the family's badass after like four or five days being gone and they're like, "Wait. You did something I, who've never had a setback, like their family and friends are saying, "I would never even imagine doing that." And you having just had breast cancer or stage four lung cancer or whatever, like I can't even believe that you accomplished that and it's so cool to watch the emotional mental transition from setback to comeback for these survivors and yeah. It's the best, best, best thing in the whole world.

Josh Linkner:

What a beautiful place to leave the conversation. Well a couple things, one, on behalf of my partners at ImpactEleven, Peter Sheahan, Ryan Estes, Seth Madison, and of course little old me, we'd like to make a donation to Project Athena, a modest one I'm sure, but hopefully we'll get a little bit of help going for an incredible process that you're on. I strongly encourage others to check out not only your site, but also to check out Project Athena and consider supporting such an incredible cause. So my friend Robyn, adventure racer, firefighter, inspirational leader, and just amazing person, thank you for your wisdom today, thank you for the impact you continue to make, and thanks for helping us all enjoy a little bit of a mic drop moment together.

Robyn Benincasa:

Yay. Thank you my friend and good luck you guys. Everybody out there, you're going to be amazing on stage and you're going to crush it, just like my friend, Josh.

Josh Linkner:

Talk about some mic drop moments. Robyn is an absolute force of nature, inspiring, generous, compassionate. A few things that really grabbed me in today's conversation. Number one, even as a keynote speaker, which appears to be an individual sport, Robyn's focus on teamwork and collaboration has allowed her to reach the top of the field. Number two, with all her accomplishments and records, Robyn has earned the right to be arrogant, but instead, she's the total opposite. Robyn isn't there for the accolades or applause. She's there to lift others up and show them what's possible. She hopes others become the best versions of themselves and in the spirit of generosity, that's what makes her an irresistible choice for bureaus and meeting planners alike. And number three, Robyn's ability to transform painful setbacks into victories is just remarkable. And she inspires us to flip our own setbacks into comebacks.

Josh Linkner:

Next time I'm in a tough spot I'll follow Robyn's advice that stability comes from riding faster. You can tell a lot more about a person by what they give than what they get. I was already a super fan before I learned about Project Athena, but seeing how Robyn pours her resources back into the world to help others sets an inspiring example for us all. Whatever our own endurance challenges may be, we now have a new set of tools to power through and win at the highest levels. All thanks to the remarkable, resilient, reflective, resolute, and radiant Robyn Benincasa.

Josh Linkner:

Thanks for joining me on another episode of Mic Drop. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. If you love the show, please share it with your friends and don't forget to give us a five star review. For show transcripts and show notes, visit micdroppodcast.com. Mic Drop is produced and presented by eSpeakers. And a big thanks to our sponsor ImpactEleven. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks for listening and here's to your mic drop moment.