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Hello Guilty Feminists, this is Deborah. We are going to be at the Soho Theatre on the 7th of July and the 14th of July and there we are doing Edinburgh preview shows. If you can't get to the Edinburgh Fringe this year, this is an evening of microwave Edinburgh Fringe. You get to see lots of different acts on the same night previewing small parts of their shows. If you are going to get to go up to the Fringe, this is a great place to try before you buy. On 7 July we have Sarah Barron, Reb Day, Freya Parker and Anna Leong Brophy. And on 14 July we have Alice Fraser, Katie Pritchard, Rosie Holt and Jess Robinson. Both of those nights will be incredible. They will be entirely different so you can come to both if you can get to them. We are at Ventna Fringe on the Isle of Wight with Felicity Ward and a very special guest on the 18th of July and we're at the Edinburgh Festival on the 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd of August. August. For tickets to all of these go to guiltyfeminist.com and click on live shows. My book, Six Conversations We're Scared to Have is out now in paperback. Gillian Anderson said it was an essential guide to nuanced conversations in a polarized world. Who are we to argue with Gillian Anderson? You can afford it now. It's out in paperback. Go and get it wherever you get your books, online or in person, ideally from someone who pays their tax. And as always, don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. If you could right now, find the Follow button, find the subscribe button and click it. And if you enjoy this episode, forward it to somebody you think would like it or another episode. WhatsApp it to them. Post it on socials. If you review it and you talk about us, then it really helps other people find the podcast, which really helps us keep making more and doing more community action days. And now on with the podcast. We've got a very special episode today. Victoria Pendleton is a British former track cyclist. She is a former Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth champion. She won three Olympic medals, two golds and one silver during her career. She competed in 2004 in Athens, 2008 in Beijing and London 2012. After this she became a jockey and even tried jousting. Pendleton won nine world titles, including a record equalling six in the individual sprint. Between 2005 and 2012 she has written an absolutely terrific book called the Fear Opportunity. This game changing personal development book shows us all how we can benefit from reframing our everyday fears as opportunities and. And learn how to use stress responses in a positive way. It even has a chapter called Fear is a Feminist Issue. I read it and thought, gosh, this is really, really interesting and something we all need now in a world which is increasingly giving us moments of anxiety and fear just through the news, our everyday life, not knowing what the world's going to be or do in a way that previously in previous decades, we hadn't felt. And I thought, this is a really useful, useful book for anybody who is a feminist and thinks, I'd like to strike out more or I'd like to be able to better handle or better cope with the stresses, the fears, the anxieties that come my way and how do I do that? And I thought, who would know better than someone who's overcome so much adversity to the extent that they can go out and be on that Olympic podium three times and bring home two absolutely solid gold Olympic medals? Victoria Pendleton, thank you very much for joining us today.
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Thanks for having me.
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Oh, it's a delight.
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B
I've been excited about this one.
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Oh, me too. Me too. Now, in the book, you really go into your childhood and the assumptions that were made about you and how you came to be this elite athlete. Could you tell the guilty feminist listeners a little bit about you and who you are and what's brought you to here to brightening the fear of opportunity.
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B
So I actually lost my twin brother nearly three years ago now. And in kind of making sense of his death, I kind of thought about what being a twin really gave me. And. And having a twin brother gave me a sense of fearlessness because it pushed me to do things perhaps outside my comfort zone, because anything he can do, I can do better. And the games we played and having someone by my side definitely made some of the challenging and difficult things seem easier. Plus, he was a ferocious supporter. He was always in my corner 100%. And I realize now, having lost my brother, having lost my father, that I really value. And I really miss having, like, ferocious male supporters who would have had my back in any situation. Because I think we live in a world now where we're like, who. Who's gonna have. Who's gonna have my back now? Like, there's so much injustice and so much difficulty that we kind of feel like we want to have people, you know, standing there, cheering us on, pushing us forward, encouraging us, rather than making us feel trapped and backed into a corner for sure.
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And I'm so sorry that you lost your brother and Your father, that must be extremely difficult when you were growing up. How did having a brother who was exactly your age change the assumptions that you might otherwise have made about being a girl and what girls can do, do you think?
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B
Well, I was very fortunate that my parents are. Fairness is really important to them and equality. So we were brought up very, very equally. We were given the same presence, quite often, very gender neutral presence, like Christmas and birthdays. And at no point did my mother and father ever say, well, you know, that's for Alex and this is for you. We always were allowed to do the same activities, take on the same challenges. And actually I was growing up in a, in a home where I really felt that there was really no difference between what he could achieve and what I could achieve at all in the world. In fact, I thought genuinely I could beat him at most things. So I kind of had this probably like slightly false sense of security in many ways. And it wasn't until I kind of moved out and beyond my family life that I realized that the opportunities weren't quite the same. And it's just why I've spent my whole life kind of fronting up to all of them, looking people in the eye and saying, when you're just going to throw down the gauntlet and say, this isn't for me because I'm going to do it anyway. By the way, it really, it has given me a really strong driving force as a woman to kind of prove myself and prove a point.
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A
When you were a child, you were an excellent cyclist, and then you hit an age where they said, oh, this isn't for girls. Can you tell us about that?
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B
Well, actually, the year I was born in 1980, track cycling wasn't available to women. It was only a sport for men because I think the velodrome was too steep and dangerous for women to get involved. So it's strange that throughout my lifetime there haven't been a whole host of role models to look up to in my sport. I very much had to follow the, the male role models or follow the men in my team and sort of make my own path. And I spent a lot of my younger years racing against the men because there just wasn't enough women competing to create kind of heats or races. So I had, I was thrown in with the guys very much and just sort of tried to stay in contact with the groupers for as long as possible. But.
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And you said in the book sometimes you won and some of the men, you were like doing GCSEs and you would win and some of the older men would complain and say, oh, it's not fair because we were caught in the mud and, you know, we're heavier and, you know, and they'd blame circumstance. And you say in the book something like, yeah, tell me about.
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B
Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. You know, I ruffled a lot of feathers over the years and have learned that beating the men doesn't always make them happy. I also learned in my early years, which isn't in the book, I thought if I was really good at sports and beat all the boys, then, then they might fall in love with me. But it works out. It doesn't work that way necessarily. So trying to be better than the boys at school at sports.
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A
Yeah. Yes. There's a. There's a. Sometimes they're like, no, I don't. I don't want to admire me doing cycling. I don't want you to compete with me and I certainly don't want you to win.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so that was really, really interesting. And so at the time, it wasn't an Olympic sport. How did it become an Olympic sport? And how did you. Were you part of the campaign that made it an Olympic sport?
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B
So it moved into the Olympics. After the Seoul Olympics, they started to introduce a couple of the women's events, but. But it wasn't until 2012 that there is actually the same amount of medals available for men and women on the track cycling scene. The medals for women have slowly been building up in a period of time. At my first Olympics, there was only one sprint discipline available, and in 2012 there was three medals available. So, you know, I have experienced a massive transition in the sport towards equality. And I was one. One woman in a team of 10 men for a long period of time. And at the. In London 2012, there was an equal amount of women and men on the team. Exactly 14 members of our team cut down the middle, so it was entirely equal on both sides, which was something I thought I would never experience, actually, but, yeah.
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A
Did it, did it feel quite wonderful then to have sisters there with you?
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B
Yes, it does, because it's like we've. We would like a cut a little slice of that cake, please. Actually, let's have 50% of that cake, can we, please? Because you've been here, we've put in the work and it's lovely to see a sport move forward like that.
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A
There's a section in the book, Victoria, where you say you were told by a senior male coach, the women's races are only there, so there's something in between the men's races. They're there as decoration. It's just to kill time, basically, just
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B
to spread out the heat. So, yeah, they were in there to space out the men's events. And that was, I mean, when he said that, he kind of tried to say it in jest, but really I was like, that feels heavy because I know that's probably a deep rooted belief that you have, sadly. And it kind of shows how much value really they put on the women's side of racing, which was annoying to say the least.
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A
And what's the money split like where there is sponsorship or investment?
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B
Well, it's definitely, I mean, I have definitely in the earlier stages of my career come away from events earning maybe a third of what the men earn for doing the same events. But things definitely evened out a bit. But there isn't a lot of money anyway. When you do an Olympic sport like that, you don't necessarily get a paycheck. You get a medal, maybe a sash if you're lucky. But that's, it's not, there's not money
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A
to be made, really. Unfortunately, you also say in the book, and I'll read this bit, the many occasions on which I was asked by sports reporters about my plans for motherhood rather than, say, a possible 10th world title. Needless to say, they were not asking my male teammates when they planned to become dads. These manifestations of societal unfairness, clear sexism, angered me in the same way when I was 28 and the most successful female track cyclist of all time, as when I was 8 and the discipline didn't exist yet. A lot changed, but a lot didn't. I haven't adapted to it and I don't think I will until the world does too. So I feel like there, there are some really hardcore, really concrete examples of how different it is to be an elite female athlete as it is to be a male athlete. What did you learn? Why did you stick at it? And what did you learn that you've been able to put into the fear, opportunity and share with other people and often women and people of minority genders who are perhaps on the outside of things.
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B
I think, like, I have always been somebody who, if you say I can't or I shouldn't or, you know, When I was 16, I had a sports psychologist who I, I wasn't working with him, pipe up and say that I didn't have the mentality to be a champion and things like that. So I've always been kind of a Fallen victim to the opinions and the cultural beliefs of others. And I'm lucky in some ways that my upbringing at home very much gave me, like, a contrary streak. It's like, well, maybe it hasn't been done yet, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. And I'm very lucky in some ways that that's kind of very much a real, kind of deep characteristic that I have. I have always felt the extreme unfairness within sport and sort of commented on it, spoken about it, tried to champion women, tried to encourage women. I want to pass on the baton of encouragement, you know, I want to be that crazy, ferocious woman in your corner. I want to be that person going, you can do it, you know, you can do it. Just believe in yourself. Like, I want to be that person. And I can't bear it. I can't bear it when women want to kind of guard their territory in terms of, like, pulling up the ladder. They get to a certain point and be like, I'm not helping the other women out. There's not enough women here already. I want to see women in leadership roles in sport, I want to see women running government sports organizations, I want to see female coaches, I want to see so many more female faces within the sports scene. And it has changed a lot, but it's still not good enough. But, man, I just. I don't think I will ever accept it until it's equal, which probably will mean never. So I will just keep on fighting, quite frankly, and encourage women to sort of be bold and kind of stake their claim on what they deserve.
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A
And, yeah, well, the fight is never over. It's just the goalposts move sometimes, but the fight is never over.
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B
Yeah.
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A
What can say somebody like me? I'm not a sporting person. I really work hard to do exercise now and I love it, but I'm not a competitive sporting person. I was the kind of person at school that nobody threw the netball to because don't. I didn't want it and I'm going to drop it. But I learned a lot from the fear opportunity because although I'm not a team sports person, I am a person who needs to take risks, likes to take risks in other ways. And I think you're here talking about that mindset because there'll be a lot of people who go, perhaps my Olympic sporting window might have closed or never have opened in my case. But I. What can we take away from what you learned as somebody who was really shut out of something that they were good at and an Environment that was very competitive, full of risk. What can we take away from your experiences if we're not supporting people?
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B
Well, I hope and I tried really hard throughout the book to try and make the key advice and the takeaways as universal as possible. Because everyone has different things that they are fearful of. Whether, you know, I don't want people to go, well, she's an Olympic champion and she's, you know, tried to climb Everest, and clearly she's a. She's not like me. I want people to relate to me because I am actually a very ordinary individual who had an extraordinary upbringing, having a twin brother, quite frankly, at home. And I'm very. And parents that were very driven to provide equality. But I've just learned these survival mechanisms because I just don't want to give up. And I think anybody can have sort of commitment and willpower to a goal. What the worst thing you. The worst thing you can do is just not try, is think, oh, that's not for me, or that's not my arena, or that's not, you know, something that, you know, I would feel comfortable doing, or I'm going to feel embarrassed if I'm not much good at it. Or it should be about, like, taking what you want from a scenario. Like, I'm going to take small steps towards achieving something and I'm going to break it down and I'm going to know that it might take time, it might take consistency and effort, but I will get there. Just don't say not trying is the biggest failure. Just try it. Because I think most people would be really surprised at what they can achieve, and they're probably. Everyone is probably more capable than they think they are. And I think as a woman in general, you feel the social constraints of what you should and shouldn't do. And talking about, for example, in the book adventurers, people automatically think of a male adventurer rather than a female adventurer, mostly because there just aren't enough visible role models out there, or the balance hasn't quite got to a point where we. We think of a female being just as adventurous as a male. We've just got more examples because historically men have had more access and sort of opportunity in that area, and women are only just starting to make ground. So I'm just wanting to encourage the women to make as much ground as possible. Claim terms like adventurous, like be daring, like own that because it's available to everybody, you've just got to choose to take it.
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A
In many ways, you talk about testing yourself for adventure, like just having small Adventures, doing things. Well. One example, you say is signing up to simple thing. Not everyone will have access to this time or money or childcare. But as an example, booking in for some salsa classes on your own.
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B
That's it. Or even like, it could be something remotely like joining a book club and sort of speaking up and forcing yourself to be in the conversation if you're someone who's quite introvert. So there's lots of different ways, but yeah, hopefully you can find something.
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And what's the value? You break it down in the book, but what's the value in. Let's take the salsa class example, because that's something that if you've never done salsa, you think, I'm going to get the steps wrong. I'm not going to know anyone, I'm not going to be good. Other people will be brilliant. Like all of those things that go on in all of our minds, if we were to think about doing that, what is the inherent value in allowing yourself to think of all the worst things and then going and doing it anyway?
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B
So most of our concerns are almost like, we, like, it's very easy to sort of catastrophize, you know, I think, oh, it's going to be this, it's going to be that, it's going to be that before you even got there and experienced it. And it's almost like creating more barriers than necessarily there. So it's kind of thinking, well, you know, I might. I am going to be picking up this for the first time. I don't expect to be some kind of champion salsa dancer within the next week. Like, it's going to take time. I'm not being afraid to try these things. But also when you put yourself out there and in amongst a community of people who want to do the same thing or are interested in the same thing, more often than not, you're welcomed with open arms. It's not a judgy, overwhelming kind of situation that we kind of perceive it to be. The reality usually of the experience is very different and very rewarding. But it's how we kind of frame and sort of have like these negative almost perceptions of what we're going to experience. And being a beginner and learning that you can always plot improvement, however small. So there's always positives to sort of putting yourself into a growth situation. You're going to be better the next week and the third week you go, you're going to be better than the first week and you're going to pick stuff up. Like, there will be Progression and improvement and focusing more on that than going in there and immediately being successful at it, which is kind of unrealistic.
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A
You talk about this as a challenge mindset rather than a fear mindset, and talk about evidence for our bodies minds actually thriving on adrenaline, discomfort, challenge. We tend to think of those things as just things you want to avoid. Yeah, like, like, why would I put myself into a situation where I'm going to be distressed or anxious or uncomfortable? So whatever people find uncomfortable, they tend to avoid. They just go, well, I won't go there. And you say, actually there's a real positivity in the body. That's how the body learns, that's how the body grows. That's how the body gets inspired and challenged and the mind starts to get excited by it and get real sense of satisfaction. Satisfaction out of the fact that I couldn't do this and now I can do this. And you talk about really putting yourself into situations we might associate with discomfort or fear as a very positive thing. Can you talk a little bit about that?
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B
Yeah. So quite often when we are experiencing something that offers fear, we think of the somatic symptoms which our body will create. And it's very much the symptoms that we associate with being adrenalized. It's fight or flight. Or, you know, we might feel sick, dry mouth, heart racing, sweaty palms, needing to go to the toilet. Like, all these things are very normal physical flight or fight reactions. It's biology. We can't help it. These things happen. But these feelings that we get are the body's way of prepping it and priming it to take on challenge. So as an athlete, when I started to feel like my heart racing and my, you know, the breathing rate is increasing and you're feeling this, the butterflies, I think we got to a point where we were like, great, this is exactly what I need right now to be going to do. So it was more just changing when you feel those sensations, not immediately thinking, oh God, get me away from this, thinking, okay, I accept them, I sit comfortably with them. They're part of my body's natural processes to be ready and sort of alert and focused. So I'm going to welcome them instead. And just by changing the perception of those somatic symptoms, you put yourself in a very, very different mindset immediately. Like, I'm here and I'm ready. I've trained for this. Just watch me. Like, I'm glad of this. This is my body just waking up to the challenge that I see before me. It's not pushing me away. It's not deterring me. It's saying, let's go.
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A
That's what I found really interesting. When you were, you. You really talked us through all the mental steps of going to salsa class. And you think, okay, I'd like to try this. I'm going to need to get my partner to do the child care. Oh, I know. While I'm gone between, you know, for two hours on a Monday night, the whole house is going to get turned upside down by the children or whatever it is. And then, so you, you're thinking about all of the game plan, is this worth it? Then you see, it's three. Three classes, there's a discount.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And you think, you think, oh, well, I don't want to turn down the discount because if I go and I like it, all right, I'll commit to three. And you go through all of these things and on the day, you think, oh, it's. Everyone's going to be better. I don't want to. I don't know if I'm feeling that well. And, oh, I shouldn't have had such a heavy lunch.
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B
And, yeah.
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A
So you go through all these things. Perhaps I won't go. Perhaps you think, oh, I've committed to it now my partner's coming home especially early. I guess I better go. And so you then walk in and you think, and everyone else is stretching and warming up, and you don't know how to do that. They clearly all have been before. And so you're just sort of shaking a bit, you know, shaking your body a bit, trying to fit in. And then you start and you're not very good, but the other person's really smiley and really helpful and, like, you start to get it and you're like, oh, this is really, really good. And the next person you dance with clearly doesn't like the fact that you're new and they want to really go for it and they're trying to have to, you know, hold back for you or you're going the wrong way and that's set. That's disrupting them, and that's not such a nice feeling. And you, you talk through every single step of the downside as well as the upside, the moments that are quite even unpleasant and uncomfortable. But then next week you come back because you've paid for three and you find your feet have remembered some of this, and the person with you going, oh, you're really good now. And then you say, watching Strictly Come Dancing, and you show your partner a step, or your friends say, because You've told them, I've got to leave early today for salsa. And they say, your friends at work say, oh, how was it? And you go, oh, I felt like an absolute potato, but. But then I learned this. And you show them something and you. Sometimes I read what I would call self help or mindset books written by men, and they're basically saying, you need to get to this place where you walk into salsa with your chest out and you're in this positive mindset of growth and this is what you got. And it's like, that's not real. Like, what I really liked is that you went, yeah, you'll probably think, oh, this guy's really doesn't want to dance with me. This is really. Oh, this is really tough. Oh, no, I'm back with the nice person now. This is a bit better. And six weeks later, you're just in the kitchen while you're cooking and you're doing this little salsa and you've got the music on and you're loving it and your feet have found it and you get this thrill. That doesn't mean there'll be no more days when you go back and everyone's doing something and you just can't get it this week. Yeah, there will still be those disappointments, there'll still be those frustrations. There'll still be discomfort in the whole journey of your life, but the payoffs and the joy of choosing discomfort, or sometimes anxiety or even fear for this greater gain of learning and growth, because you can't grow unless you do things that scare you. But there'll always be those little voices in your head that's not going to go away. I loved that because I thought every time I listen to one of those podcasts that says you've got to have a growth mindset or something, you just think, gosh, you are in another world. You think achievement is everything. You think peak performance is the only thing worth having. And what you're saying, which I loved, is, no, going to salsa can be a joy. It will also be an embarrassment, but it'll be a bigger joy than it will be an embarrassment over a period of a year. And you can't grow without it. You can't grow without it. And what you say is, you're growing because you're better at salsa and that's great for your brain and it's great for your physical health and it's great for your confidence, it's great for your fitness. But you are also teaching yourself that discomfort brings growth, and that is Modeling for yourself something that you then will sit in a meeting of, something that may be very important for your career. Or you, you know, you need to talk to a very difficult teacher about your child's progress or you feel very angry about social injustice you've modeled for yourself with something as small as salsa, that discomfort leads to great gain.
- [27:16]
B
You've totally got it. And in overcoming some kind of challenge or, you know, some initial fear and anxiety of doing that small thing that maybe is a salsa class, that kind of agency, that kind of autonomy, that kind of like giving yourself time to feel that sense of achievement and overcome it is definitely transferable, as you say, in other areas of your life and other difficult things. And the more difficult things you do and the more challenging things you, you push yourself beyond and realize you've come out the other side of it. And it's been a difficult run, but I've, I've managed to work through the other side. Kind of allows you to feel more confidence when faced with something that out of the blue confronts you because you're like, no, I've done that before and I've also done this and I've spoken up to that person when I disagreed with what they are saying. It allows you to have that, that kind of self efficacy in the moment because you're like, I have all this history in my mind of things that I have chosen to do which weren't easy, which didn't go straightforward, you know, straight from start to finish by overcame them. I know I've got that ability. And I think self efficacy is so important. And you can do it by just building through these small experiences by yourself.
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A
So it's evidence that I can change, I can grow, I can be uncomfortable, I can feel challenged, I can feel scared and it can work out.
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B
Yeah. And also the feeling, not just the self efficacy, but the self confidence. And you know, when your work colleagues ask you about your salsa class and you can feel proud that, yeah, I have put myself out there and I have, you know, got better and I'm really enjoying it and you should try it too. And it kind of has that knock on effect as well. You setting an example to other people of what you could do if you put your mind to it, which I
- [29:04]
A
love and I love. It's not, it's not all about optimization. It's all about just small and steady growth, becoming comfortable with discomfort, and that these will be human moments. All your life there will be small human moments and all your life there will be achievements through pushing yourself into Areas that you're not comfortable with, and there will be great gains from it.
- [29:33]
B
That's my entire career actually put in one place. Because it's funny, because I was always told to act more like the men, to not show so much emotion. But I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I always have. It's the emotion I put into things that gives me that drive and purpose. Like, if I really want it, I will go to the. The bitter ends to get it because it means something to me. So in me, becoming robotic doesn't make me better at what I do. Me feeling my way through it and having to sort of challenge my best effort towards something. They're not all ginormous kind of heroic moments. Sometimes it's just removing the negative self talk. It's removing the small barriers that hold you back from taking that next step. Step. It's not about becoming, you know, untouchable and faultless. It's more about accepting you're a human being. And I'm going to find my own way to get around this. And I will get around it.
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A
Yes, you're not an optimized robot. You're a human being that will continue to feel a bit embarrassed, it will continue to feel a bit cautious, and yet you are going to see that as all part of it and get through. And then I learned to dance actually, in the Pandemic because I was locked down. And I thought, well, if I don't get up and do some exercise, I'll just, you know, I'll stay up too late working and I'll end up sleeping till. Sleeping late, going to bed at 4, and then I won't see any sunlight at all. And, you know, I just thought, better do something. And I wanted to learn how to dance because I always felt a bit awkward about anything that was choreographed. And it was such an achievement that by the end I could do like some West End choreography and I could learn it well enough to video it with my dance teachers and, you know, feel really proud that I'd got there, you know, and it did give me such a sense of achievement. But there were so many times when I get so frustrated and my teachers would say, there's no reason why you should be any good at this. You've never done it before. Like, you don't have to get it first time. It will take a while, but the gains that you make. I really miss it, actually. I really would like to go back to. It were so great that sometimes, you know, I went from being someone who would have to be shown every step to being someone that my tap dancing teacher could just tap a few bars and I would just be able to replicate what she did sometimes. And then I'd go, hold on. My feet know this now, but my mind doesn't know it. So if my feet fail me because it comes later in the sequence and I think, oh, God, which is this bit. I need my mind to be able to take over and go, oh, it's a step or change or whatever. So I'd have to say, can you teach my mind now what my feet know? And at the beginning, my feet would literally know nothing. So it was really good for, I thought, for my body and brain as well, and, you know, all of those sorts of things. It was such a big achievement at the time. I kind of continue to think that it was. And I think it did teach me. You don't have to start being good, you can start being bad and get a bit better. And that is its own achievement.
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B
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- [33:07]
A
You have a chapter on avoidance, which is really interesting. We often say on this podcast, quote Felicity Ward's psychotherapist, avoidance is the maintenance of any problem because you don't look at it. But you have a chapter on avoidance, and we often say on this show,™ Felicity Wards psychotherapist. Avoidance is the maintenance of any problem. When we don't want to look at something, we avoid it. And then that problem gets bigger and bigger and bigger and we avoid it more and more and more. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how it relates?
- [33:39]
B
Yeah, this is a very unique chapter in the book because it's more of a warning than it is an encouragement. Because I, in my attempt to climb Mount Everest, which came out of the blue, a difficult time in my life, I was sat next to Ben Fogel at a lunch somewhere and he was like, do you want to climb Everest? And I was like, yeah, would. I'm retired, I'm free. I can do that. I spent a couple of years training in mountaineering in the Andes, in the Himalayas and in Europe to take on this big challenge of climbing Everest. In hindsight, I could see a lot of flaws in my decision making, I only made it as far as Camp 2 because I got hypoxia. I hadn't acclimatized to the, you know, the really high altitude. And I had to kind of give up on a summit attempt. And it was an awful time for me, mostly because I was going through some difficult stuff personally. I was going through divorce. I kind of felt a loss of identity in many ways. Leaving sport and working out, what else am I good at in this world? I can just cycle really, really quickly round in circles. And I hadn't realized that in me accepting that challenge, it was very much not addressing my personal life and everything that was going on within me. It was just relying on the one thing that gave me confidence, which is my body delivering a challenge. In a challenge, I was like, my body, I trust my body and what it can do for me. My physicality is my point of confidence. So I clung onto it and just disappeared into the mountains happily and merrily carrying this additional burden unknown to me at the time. And when I look back on that experience and the decisions I made, I was like, wow, that was so naive of me to do it. But I understand why I made that decision to cling onto my physicality as a point of feeling good about myself in a time where I wasn't willing to address, you know, the struggles I was having at home.
- [35:37]
A
Interesting. So there's times when it looks like we're going up for a really big challenge and we're telling ourselves, I'm being really brave here. Wow, I'm climbing Mount Everest with another Olympic athlete. But in fact, what you're avoiding is something perhaps emotional and domestic that needs to be addressed. That's really interesting. Sometimes we're telling ourselves a story. And of course, what's interesting, hearing you talk about that is you saying, as a three time Olympic medalist, two golds, you're saying, oh, I was just feeling like, what can I really do? I can only ride around in circles really fast. And I'm like, we have the capacity to diminish anything, don't we?
- [36:19]
B
Yes.
- [36:19]
A
If we're having low self esteem issues, we can be reductive to the point of something that anyone else in the world would go, oh my God, that person is, you know, Olympic medalist, that person themselves. You yourself can feel like, what is it really? It's just, it's just riding in circles, whatever, you know. And it's so funny to hear that because, you know, as listening to this, as somebody who's, you know, has definitely never been a Sports person. I think, oh, my God, you're incredible. We all do that to ourselves. I find it actually really comforting to hear that because I can do that with my own achievements and my own life as well. I go, what am I really doing? What's the point of this? You know, am I any. Doing any good for anybody? And it's so easy to feel like that. And in those moments, we sometimes just don't make the best decisions for where the growth is. Looks like the growth's over here. Literally climbing Everest. That's the thing that people say you were literally climbing Mount Everest, but actually avoiding totally what was at home. Fascinating.
- [37:17]
B
And just going back to the whole thing about that whole negative, that kind of self deprecating, negative self taught, that kind of the chatter that goes on in your brain. At no stage in my professional career did I ever not have that, you know, being able to recognize and usually that, like, the best way to deal with it was to kind of replace the negativity, the negative self talk with something logical, practical. For example, you arrive at a competition and you look around and you think, oh my gosh, everyone looks really in really good shape here right now. And what am I going to do? And I know that always, you know, I'm so puny and small and I don't deserve to be here. And all this happened. And I'd be like, hang on, hang on a minute. I'd have to say, I'd have to recognize that thought because obviously you can't avoid those either. You have to fully accept when you say those things. Say, hang on, whoa, whoa, whoa. Say that again over and then go, but you've trained so hard for this, Victoria. So the other voice is saying, but you've trained as hard as you can. You've never missed a training session unless you were seriously ill or seriously injured. You never take shortcuts. You're a diligent individual. You do everything to the best of your ability. You're focused, determined, and you've trained really hard to be here. But it has. I was still telling myself this narrative in order to balance out the lack of belief in myself, even at the Olympics.
- [38:48]
A
It's fascinating, our capacity to diminish ourselves. You do something quite clever where you talk about how you can reframe those negative thoughts with the idea of the hero's journey.
- [39:00]
B
Yes. I love this as a concept.
- [39:03]
A
You make yourself, I guess, like the hero of the movie. And would the hero of the movie be the underdog or would the hero of the movie just be you know, the one that looks like they're going to win, well, they'd probably be the underdog. So you can sort of say, well, yes, I have just been injured, and that's why I'm the hero of this story. You know, you can. Yeah, I am the smallest one here, or I am the only one like this, or I know. I know my inner turmoil. Turmoil. But that's what makes me the hero of my own story. Can you talk to that a little bit? Yeah.
- [39:32]
B
So basically, perceiving your journey as a hero's journey is something that I didn't invent and I can't take credit for it. It's just something that I think is entirely wonderful. Even if you look back retrospectively at difficult times in your life and rewrite them, almost take a moment to think through and rewrite it, and rather you being as a victim of that situation, that difficult situation, you make yourself the hero. And heroes have to go through hardship. They have to overcome struggle in order to get to the end goal or whatever it may be, or even just to get to the other side of the challenge, even if they are not the victor. But in putting your personal self into your story as a hero is something we don't do very often, but it's incredibly easy and powerful and it's a wonderful thing. You can change something that seems quite dark and ominous and difficult in your life and quite disgusting. And you don't want to reference in something you feel really proud of because you overcame it. And looking at challenge and allowing yourself to be the hero, because a lot of us be like, oh, no, not me. I couldn't be the hero. Allowing yourself to be like, you know what? I am the absolute hero in this story and in my story today, and this is how I recount my experience to myself in order to provide confidence and in order to provide myself with a sense of achievement and worth and value. Because it's so easy to forget sometimes how hard we worked at difficult times to get through it and how difficult
- [41:03]
A
things were to overcome. Because every child knows the beautiful, wealthy princess marries the beautiful, wealthy prince, isn't a story that's not a story. But Cinderella, who's being bullied by her stepsisters, her stepmother, her father's died, she's being forced to work in a house, she's sitting by the fire covered in cinders, while the rest of the family goes off to the ball and bullies her on the way at the door, gets to that ball, overcomes that challenge, gets to that ball, meets that prince runs away from that ball due to some plot, and. And then the prince finds her because he loves what's great about her, and he doesn't care whether she's a servant or she's a. A wealthy woman in a beautiful ball gown and marries the prince because he really loves her. That's a story. The reason she's the hero of that story. I've actually just been working on some material for leadership in business because I think this is the greatest time, certainly in my lifetime, probably in living memory, for leadership, because leadership is all about vision. It's all about telling a story about what could we could be. A manager tells you what to do. A leader tells you the story of what we could be, how we could make a big change.
- [42:19]
B
We want to go on a journey.
- [42:20]
A
We want to go on a journey. And so this is the best time for leadership. And I always ask my groups, when I teach this in the corporate world about what's the one thing every hero has in common? And they say, well, they're very positive. And I say, well, Hamlet's not very positive. He is very unsure, and he's very negative. And they say they're very brave. And I say, there's a lot of, you know, indie movies about people staring at their shoes who can't ask anyone out. You know, they're not brave. Like, what's the one thing? All of these things are hallmarks of lots of heroes, of course. And I tell them that, you know, but what's the one thing? And the one thing that is true of every hero is that the person in the story who changes the most. And that's why Luke Skywalker is the hero of Star wars, because Princess Leia starts out as a princess in trouble and ends up as a princess who's victorious. And Han Solo ends up, starts out as a mercenary and ends up as a slightly less cynical mercenary. It's Luke Skywalker who starts out as a farm boy and ends up as a very powerful Jedi. But the reason he's the one that has to change the most is he is the one who is the most challenged. And how does change come through challenge? So we are looking at a time now in our future we do not know what's going to happen with. There's a lot of AI being inflicted upon us that is not ready, that is also sapping resources that I have massive problems with. And it's coming our way like a train. And there's lots of people who are having to adapt to things that are being, you know, it's being steamrolled into our industries, and we're looking at climate change, and we're looking at political upheaval, and we're looking at so many changes. There has never been a better time for the people that can tell the best story now and the most truthful story. What I loved about your book is it's not a fake story. It's not like I'm optimized for success. It's like, no, I feel scared. No, I feel like the underdog now. I feel, let's look at all these feelings and then we'll have a go at doing it in the next reasonable way. And then how do we feel now? Oh, a bit better or today a bit worse, you know, and over time, much better. And that's what I love about it, because it's. It's incredibly important at this time in history that we understand how to tell our own story of the future, a truthful story into really unprecedented uncertainty. And we, we were able to tell it for our communities, for our teams, you know, that we're working with, for our. Our industry, our. This particular project. We can tell it to somebody else. What I see in you, the vision I see for you, I'm sure you are an incredible mentor to young sports women and sports people. This book is telling me the story. You can go through challenge and change, and you will change and you will grow and you'll be really proud of it and you'll get stuff from it. That's what I loved about that section. Tell us more about that hero idea, the heroic idea.
- [45:12]
B
It's something that's kind of very easy to sort of in some ways to implement. I mean, because we all have an idea of what hero is, and we can all look at our challenges in our lives, and we will all undoubtedly come across some pretty unexpected, difficult, maybe even catastrophic, chaotic times. Like, we live in a very uncertain world. And the worst thing you can do is kind of shy away from all those things in many ways. And as you said, the person who changes the most is. Is the one who's likely to. Is the one who grows the most, is the one who's going to be the hero in the. In the story. But I think the very simple task of writing or rewrite, taking a moment to journal and writing or rewriting an episode in your life, if you've never put yourself in that position before, it could really change the way you approach everything else moving forward, like in an instant. It's a very. It could be a very sort of in the matter of an hour or so, you could have easily just reframed so much of, of who you think you are or how you're going to approach something. And it's free and it's there, so you might as well use it like it's just a really fascinating and simple kind of thing. You can do. A tweak tool that you can just. Yeah, easy.
- [46:32]
A
Put yourself as the hero of the story rather than the victim of a circumstance.
- [46:36]
B
Yes. Yeah.
- [46:37]
A
So there are no stories worth watching or worth reading where the hero isn't anxious, isn't scared, isn't facing a challenge beyond their capability, beyond their current capability. And the story builds their capability through adversity until at the end they can face that ultimate challenge and win.
- [47:01]
B
Yeah.
- [47:02]
A
Or lose with grace and a greater understanding of who they are and how important that challenge is. And those things are true to all of our lives. You know that it's interesting, you know, like when you, when you got, I mean, you got a long way up Everest, a great deal further than I'll ever get, but you didn't get to the summit. What did you learn by doing it and not getting to the summit that you wouldn't have learned if you'd got to the summit?
- [47:33]
B
For me was the first time in my life that I felt a sense of failure, of really true failure in terms of my body not. Not being able to deliver. But actually I had a really interesting experience coming down from Everest. I haven't written anything about this in the book because this is something that it didn't really come into the book itself. When I was coming down from base camp, I had to stop in Lukla before I go, which is the small last airport before you get down to Kathmandu. And when I was at the airport, we were waiting for a helicopter to take us down. Someone came to me and said, there's a. There's a woman and she needs to go to hospital. Kathmandu, this is an 11 day trek by foot. You can't drive there. Like, this woman was in need of transportation. She had a young family. She was probably mid-30s at the very most. And she was concerned, her doctor, that she had a heart condition. And they asked me, would you mind if she came in the helicopter with you? And I was like, of course, I don't mind. Yes, come bring her. And we actually flew down to Kathmandu. She was terrified because she'd never been in a helicopter before. And can I say, helicopters at high altitude do not feel safe at all. They're stripped out for weight. Because the air density means that's very challenging for them to fly. They almost sound like the propellers are missing a beat now and again. And you're skimming over the top of the mountains. It's quite frightening.
- [49:07]
A
No.
- [49:08]
B
And she. She huddled into me and I had my arm round her. I gave her my jacket, we shared my water and we didn't speak the same language, but in that moment of being there for somebody, in a moment of need, in the connection, she held my hand so tightly the whole way down and I was like, this is fine, we're going to be fine. And sort of comforted her. I had this, like, epiphany moment where I was like, oh, my gosh. Climbing a big snowy hill or helping a woman in need to get to Kathmandu in order to have a heart checkup up. When she's clearly terrified for her own health and for her family that she's left behind for the first time ever, her young children and I, it kind of was a bit like, no, this is life. This is the important stuff in life. Right here, right now. This moment where I'm having with this woman who I will never bump into ever again. I'm able to be there for her because there were other men on the flight and she was clearly quite uncomfortable with them sort of holding her and pulling her. So I was just like, she's. Thank you. And we sat together and I. It was a really beautiful moment, actually. And she got down and met her brother and, yeah, it was. It was nice to be able to be helpful in that small part of her journey.
- [50:24]
A
That is a wonderful story and it's something you would see in a movie because it is part of the hero's journey that you think the only thing worth getting to is the top of a mountain. But what's there, you know, like, what's there as opposed to what's here where I am, which is the opportunity to. To help someone and comfort them and get them where they're going without having a heart attack. Because if you've got a dodgy heart, then the last thing you need is the most terrifying journey in the world without any comfort. So no doubt she will remember that for the rest of her life as well. I mean, she was. And this is. Life is a great phrase.
- [50:57]
B
She was calling me like a sister, so, yeah, so she was calling me little sister, like Didi. And so I was like, yeah, it was a wonderful moment and a beautiful moment and I'm glad to have been able to help and support her right there. It was Something I could do.
- [51:14]
A
Yes. Do you think you'll ever go back to Everest?
- [51:17]
B
I would like to summit a mountain again. I would definitely want to do some more mountaineering, but I don't think it'll be Everest. I do like climbing the mountain because it challenges me in the opposite way to my professional career. It's like slow, steady suffering for many, many hours, as opposed to a few seconds blitzing around super fast. So it challenges me and my mindset a lot. And the views, obviously, when you get to a top of a mountain at sunrise is something quite spectacular. And made more spectacular by the physical and emotional effort you have to put in to get there.
- [51:50]
A
Yes, yes, very much so. You retired at 32 from your great passion, your big career, your big worldwide successes, your world titles. A lot of sports people have to retire early because the body can only take so much punishment and you can only be at the top of your game for so long. What's it like to have to retire at 32 and think, God, most of my life's still ahead of me and my major achievements are now behind me. How do you recalibrate in that way?
- [52:24]
B
It's definitely tricky. And I imagine, I mean, there's lots of athletes who do struggle because you're only really just starting to know yourself, only starting to know yourself truly and deeply. When you, I think you get to your 30s, still so much to learn, still so much to do, and suddenly the one thing that you pulled all your effort and heart and soul into is gone. It's pretty terrifying. It's pretty terrifying. And then trying to work out what your transferable skills are when you haven't done that kind of work on yourself before because they were irrelevant. Your transferable skills. We just wanted to know about your physical attributes, quite frankly.
- [52:59]
A
And presumably it's so focused, you just don't have time to be setting up your side hustle.
- [53:04]
B
It's interestingly, I was actively discouraged from putting any energy, thought or effort into what came beyond the final day of 2012.
- [53:15]
A
Wow.
- [53:16]
B
Don't distract yourself with the future. Need to be focused on just this thing right now. And in terms of like balancing careers and sports in back in my day, you know, they were just taking people out of their education in order to focus full time. And even reading a book. I was even. I got in trouble for reading a book once in the track center because I was, I was distracting myself.
- [53:40]
A
Lord.
- [53:40]
B
Thankfully, thankfully, they caught up with, you know, normal behaviors and have allowed the teams and they have now support teams that help encourage People to study alongside their sport or get qualifications or build towards other careers in order to help them. A bit of what you call it sort of career planning beyond sport, that didn't exist in my day.
- [54:05]
A
That was, it was just the prize by.
- [54:08]
B
Yeah, bye now.
- [54:10]
A
Yeah, have a nice life.
- [54:11]
B
Yeah, yeah, Crazy.
- [54:13]
A
And so how have you pivoted and how has that discomfort created a new strength and power in you by the, by the fear of leaving the sport and then finding a new life on the other side?
- [54:27]
B
Well, I really feel like I am somebody who is more likely to say yes and give something a go than not. And that is a sense of probably what I have achieved in my life so far. And just like I said, it's transferable. Well, I've done that. Well, I've been at the Olympics, haven't I? Won a gold medal. I'm sure I can have. Apply my best kind of self to this and get through it. So that in itself is a very transferable kind of belief in my, in myself and my ability. But I, yeah, I am someone who sees opportunities and I'm more likely to go, do you know what, I'm going to give that a go. And I may know nothing about it so far, but I'm willing to learn and try. And for me, it became into horse racing. A crazy email come through. Do you want to train to race at Cheltenham Festival in 12 and a half months, months time? And I was like, I've always wanted to ride horses, so, yeah, I could give that a go. And it was interesting because during a press conference in my preparation for Cheltenham, I got asked by a male journalist, so, Victoria, you've gone from being the world's best at what you do to an absolute novice. How does that make you feel? And the question caught me off guard because I was like, well, I've got to start from the beginning because this is a new sport to me. Like, I had. No, it hadn't occurred to me that being a novice was a terrible thing. I was like, yes, it's so crazy.
- [55:46]
A
You were like, well, I'm starting again, I'm starting. But presumably there are transferable skills from riding a bike to riding a horse and, you know, there's balance and agility and fitness and so many different things. But yes, that implication that society has is like, oh, you don't want to be less good, you don't want to be not optimized, you don't want to be not looks maxed and fitness maxed. And it's just like, that's not how human beings are. We are not robots. We're not. We bring our skills with us, we bring our fears with us, we bring our previous challenges and wins with us. And we, it's all part of the soup that makes a life. And you know, and, and to be able to write a book as well. I know writing a book is very difficult because I done it and it is, you get to a point, we think this is, is this anything? And it's all over the place. And this chapter doesn't lead onto this one, but you've done a great job. And, and is the book going well? Are lots of people reading it and getting something from it?
- [56:39]
B
I hope so. I've had some good feedback so far. You know, these are kind of books you come to when you're in need or when the, the kind of title speaks to you. And I just really, I've been given some remarkable opportunities in my life and as I said, I'm someone who's more likely to give it a go than not. And I just feel like, wow, think of all that I would have missed out on had I not had the confidence to go, yeah, I'll try, I'm going to try this. And that's what I want the book to do. I want it to give people, remove the barriers that stop them and hinder them maybe from, from sort of fulfilling their life's ambitions and dreams. Like, just give it a go.
- [57:17]
A
I always say this when people ask me about stand up comedy because sometimes, you know those people you only see at somebody else's birthday drinks? So they're your friend's friend.
- [57:25]
B
Yeah.
- [57:26]
A
And every year at Sally's Drinks you bump into the same person, you remember them from last year and have a chat. And I really noticed that there's, there's often people, you know, in my world, there's lots of actors and writers and things. And there'll be someone who'll say to me, do, you know, I've thought of much, just try a bit of stand up comedy. But I've never done it before. But, you know, I, I do. You know, my friends say that I think, they think I could be good and you know, it would be really helpful to have, be able to do gigs between acting jobs and, you know, or, yeah, they might be a graphic designer or something. I just think I should try it. I've never been on stage before. I think, I think I'd really like to. And then a year and I, so I'll sit with them and chat and say, oh well, this is what I would do. I always recommend you booking like not one gig because there's too much pressure. Book in six gigs and then because you won't enjoy it till the seventh gig because the first gig you're just having an out of body experience probably goes quite well because you, the audience is like, you know, seeing your, your zen, like, oh, I'm just in the flow state. Second one, you think pretty good at this and then you usually die. And then the third one, you figure it out and you know, but you don't really, I think, enjoy it till the seventh gig. So I would say get to the seventh gig as quickly as possible because that's where it starts to get fun and give them some advice. If they tell me some of their material like, oh, here, you could do this, or that'd be good. After that, or whatever, a year later I'll see them again at the same drinks and they'll come up to me and they'll go, just thinking I might start stand up comedy. And I remember this happened once with one particular person and I, I said to him, you know, in a year's time you could either be thinking about trying stand up comedy or you could have a year's gigs under your belt. But don't not do the first gig because it won't be as good as the hundredth gig. Don't not do the hundredth gig because it won't be as good as the 10,000th gig. There's only one way to get to 10,000 gigs and that's 1, 2, 3, 4. And you will get better or you will try it. You'll go, this really isn't for me. I'm not enjoying it. It's too difficult. Yeah, I don't love it enough to go through all the crap that goes on. I tried stand up comedy and you won't be asking me that next year. You'll know it's not for me. Yes, but you'll be really proud of yourself that you did. I love six gigs or your seven gigs. So you, you think, oh yeah. I tried startup comedy once. It was really great. This is what I learned, this is what I found. And even if you found a better rhythm for when you have to give a best man speech or a corporate presentation or, you know, whatever it is, it'll teach you something. And what you might learn is this isn't for me. But then you know that you're not on your deathbed going, I wish I tried. And very likely you'll find a great joy in it and you'll get better at it.
- [60:05]
B
I love so much. I love everything you're saying. I'm. I'm on. This is the bandwagon that I am on. Yay.
- [60:13]
A
And sort of because comedy and performance and writing and things, that's my bag and story. And you know that I wouldn't ride a bike in London because we're too scared that I get. Get knocked off by like I, I'm just so not your kind of, you know, in your wheelhouse. But I have the same philosophies about just go and do the difficult thing. I often think I'm quite scared of horses, but if I rode a horse every day for a year, it would just be what I did.
- [60:36]
B
That's it.
- [60:37]
A
You can't be as frightened of. You know, I always tell people, do karaoke sober. And just what is that experience acting? Go out as if you're really good, even if you're not a very good singer, and have a go at it. Because what will you learn from that? It will be scary, but on the other side, you'll go, ah. And if you did karaoke sober every day for or once a week for a year, it would just be what you did. You would stop being scared of it because it would. Your body's chemical reaction response to that would settle down because it would go, oh, I know this. I know what happens. I related to your book so much for so many reasons, even though I'm not sporty. But maybe I should try. Maybe you should teach me a bike.
- [61:18]
B
Maybe you should try after the hundredth go of riding a bike with me. I'm sure you'd be better than the first time you rode the bike.
- [61:24]
A
I certainly would. I mean, I can ride a bike, I can stay up, but. But speed has never been my friend. I was. I've always remembered my father saying, you're very graceful swimmer, but very slow.
- [61:37]
B
And she probably fasted than me because I'm a horrible swimmer, full stop. So, yeah, that's something you could definitely be faster than me at.
- [61:44]
A
I'm not going to be faster than you. As a swimmer, I will 100%. I will not beat you in an arm wrestle. I will. There is literally nothing physical that I would beat you at, but I have very much enjoyed sparring with you, talking to you, hearing your brilliant ideas and swapping my ideas with yours. It's been just a joy. Victoria, is there anything you came to say that you didn't get to say?
- [62:08]
B
No, I think, like, I've really enjoyed our chat. And I love. I'm, as I said, I'm on the bandwagon. I'm on the same one as you. Go out there and give it go. Because life is so short and it is so precious and we need to make the most of every experience that comes our way.
- [62:22]
A
It's so. It's so, so true. Where can we get your book, Victoria?
- [62:29]
B
Where can we get book? Anywhere. All the good bookshops, I always say.
- [62:35]
A
All good bookshops and some mediocre ones.
- [62:37]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [62:38]
A
Victoria Pendleton's Olympic Gold medalist How Feeling youg Fear Builds Strength and Confidence. The book is called the Fear Opportunity. Pick up a copy now. I think you'll be glad you did. Thank you so much, Victoria. Thank you for having. Thank you for coming on the show.
- [62:53]
B
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you, Sam.
- [63:30]
C
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses Setup required. Compatibility and availability various 18.