Why'd You Think You Could Do That?

Most of us will never see Antarctica. Even fewer will try to cross it. And almost no one will spend longer alone on that frozen continent than today’s guest.

In this episode, Sam Penny sits down with Aaron Linsdau, engineer turned polar adventurer, who became the second American to ski solo from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole, setting the record for the longest duration solo South Pole expedition: 82 days.
Aaron shares how an ordinary guy from San Diego transformed himself into one of the world’s most resilient explorers. From pulling sleds loaded with 160kg of supplies across endless whiteouts, to losing half his calories when his butter went rancid, to hallucinating in the silence of Antarctica - this is a story of endurance, mindset, and what happens when you refuse to quit.
But this isn’t just about ice, storms, and survival. It’s about the power of incremental action, the mental game behind big goals, and why bravery isn’t recklessness - it’s putting one foot forward when your whole body is telling you to stop.
Whether you’re chasing your own version of the South Pole - starting a business, running a marathon, or simply daring to step outside your comfort zone. Aaron’s story will show you what’s possible when you decide that quitting isn’t an option.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
  • How growing up in scouting shaped Aaron’s resilience and leadership 
  • The transition from a 20-year engineering career to becoming a polar adventurer 
  • The incremental steps that prepared him for Antarctica (and why small adventures matter) 
  • The reality of 82 days alone: whiteouts, hallucinations, hunger, and mental battles 
  • Lessons from near failure — including rancid butter and breaking gear 
  • Why bravery means putting your toe over the line, not chasing adrenaline 
  • Practical lessons anyone can apply to everyday life — from setting goals to facing fear 
Connect with Aaron Linsdau:
Connect with Sam Penny:

Quote to Remember:
"As long as you keep chipping away at it, you always have a chance. Quitting simply isn’t an option." – Aaron Linsdau

Creators and Guests

Host
Sam Penny
Sam Penny is an adventurer, entrepreneur, and keynote speaker who lives by the mantra “Say YES! to the Impossible.” From swimming the English Channel in winter to building and selling multi-million-dollar companies, Sam thrives on pushing boundaries in both business and life. As host of Why’d You Think You Could Do That?, he sits down with ordinary people who have done extraordinary things, uncovering the mindset, resilience, and bold decisions that made it possible — and showing listeners why their own impossible is closer than they think.
Guest
Aaron Linsdau
South Pole Explorer & Keynote Speaker

What is Why'd You Think You Could Do That??

They’ve swum oceans, scaled mountains, launched empires, and shattered expectations. But before they did any of it, someone, maybe even themselves, thought: “You can’t do that.”

Hosted by Sam Penny, Why’d You Think You Could Do That? dives into the minds of people who said “screw it” and went for it anyway. From adventurers and elite athletes to wildcard entrepreneurs and creative renegades, each episode unpacks the one question they all have in common:

“Why'd you think you could do that?”

If you’re wired for more, haunted by big ideas, or just sick of playing it safe, this is your show.

Sam Penny (00:00)
Most people will never see Antarctica. Fewer will try to cross it on skis and almost no one, absolutely no one will spend longer alone on that frozen continent than today's guest. Aaron Linsdau is an ordinary guy who once sat behind a desk designing embedded systems, but something in him wanted more, more challenge, more danger, more life. And so he quit. He trained, he saved.

And he flew to the south, to the edge of the earth. In December 2012, Aaron stepped off the plane at Hercules Inlet with two sleds, 82 days of food and no one else in sight. Over the next 1,130 kilometres, he faced whiteout, so dense he couldn't tell where the sky ended and the ground began. Temperatures so low that butter, his main calorie source, froze solid.

then went rancid before he could finish it. And silence so heavy it pressed on his ears. He didn't go for speed, he went for survival. And in doing so, he became the second American to ski alone from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole. And as his record still stands, the man who lasted the longest out there on his own. Since then he's crossed Greenland solo, skied Yellowstone in the dead of winter, attempted Denali

and turn those lessons into books, films and keynotes that push others towards their own edge. But this episode isn't about ice or mileage. It's about why an ordinary man said yes to the impossible and how you can too. This is Why'd You Think You Could Do That? And this is Aaron Linsdau Aaron, welcome.

Aaron Linsdau (01:40)
Hi Sam, thank you very much for having me on.

Sam Penny (01:42)
Mate, I'm really looking forward to this because I find your story so intriguing from the outside. It looked like you had it all. You had a stable career, a clear path, but there's a point in your story where ordinary life perhaps started to feel too small. And for you, that led to the coldest, emptiest, loneliest place on the planet. before we jump into some of your amazing adventures, take us back to San

What was childhood like growing up?

Aaron Linsdau (02:09)
Sure. Growing up in San Diego, I grew up in South San Diego in a community called San Ysidro. And I went to Southwest High, the most southwesternly high school in America in the continental states. unfortunately, just due to proximity where it is, it wasn't the best academic environment. So we did the best that we could with what we had, but there were certainly some challenges that my friends and I faced.

As we went through, ⁓ we actually became good at volleyball. so our coach called us the people who played well, but also studied hard. And that really set a structure in my mind, but also the Boy Scout program now called the Scouting program also gave me the outdoor and wherewithal because I'm also an Eagle Scout. I'm a recipient of the National Eagle Scout Award in the United States.

Those things have really set the course for my life. I mean, my parents were super adventurous. mean, my dad, he always jokes that he grew up and he literally lived, when people talk about a tar paper shack, he and his family, when he was growing up, that's what they had sometimes. He talks about the crank phone, how he spent time in a fire tower with his mom, my grandmother, literally watching for fires. On my mom's side,

⁓ she, came from a family were Japanese and my grandfather was actually in the internment camps in Poston during world war two So definitely in the family is there's definitely no lack of adversity. was originally born in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a super famous ski town and lived there. think I was at seven years or thereabouts.

And one winter it got to like minus 55 degrees Celsius. And my parents said, okay, that's enough. And they moved my brother and I down to San Diego, but the best climate on the earth from, from, I've been told. So from going from a wild history and family, very modest, ⁓ upbringing, we didn't have a lot of money at all. I mean, doing these expeditions is insanely expensive and

People ask, ⁓ did you come for money and all that? Like, no. In American English, we call it pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

Sam Penny (04:38)
So

your upbringing, there's obviously two parts here. There's your adventurous parents and also the Eagles Scout or the scouting movement. Which of those do you think shaped you the most?

Aaron Linsdau (04:52)
I'm definitely in the scouting movement. it gave me the vision of leadership, how to interact with people, how to make lots of mistakes in a relatively contained environment where the consequences weren't so bad that anybody died or anything horrible like that. And only about 2 % of the youths who go through the program ever make Eagle Scout. So it's a big distilling. Sure. So Eagle Scout is the highest award you can earn in the scouting program.

Sam Penny (05:14)
and explain what Eagle Scout is.

Aaron Linsdau (05:21)
And it used to be boys, now it's boys and girls and girls can also earn the Eagle Scout award, but you have to earn merit badges. have to go through programs and to complete the Eagle Scout award, you have to do a project and the project is the delineator between the scouts who succeed and who don't make it.

Sam Penny (05:42)
So you had an early life of adventure with the scouting movement, living in Jackson Hole but you worked 20 years in embedded systems engineering. Now explain what that is.

Aaron Linsdau (05:57)
Yeah. So, uh, all the computers that run aircraft that run air traffic control that are in your microwave, your car that run trains, uh, the backbone of the internet, that's all the computer stuff that isn't on your phone and your desktop or your laptop. The, just to give you a tiny snippet, the actual desktop and laptop world is only about 2 % of the total.

microprocessors used in the world. Everything else that you interact with has a microcontroller. And I wrote software for night vision systems for the Apache gunship, water quality testing, space systems, lots of military contracting. And some of my software still flies around the world in military theaters.

Sam Penny (06:45)
That's pretty cool. It doesn't sound like it's a very adventurous life compared to how you grew up. So did adventure live quietly in the background or did it just come out of nowhere?

Aaron Linsdau (06:58)
It definitely lived quiet in the background. Now growing up through the scouting program, we did hiking and camping, but nothing too crazy. I we had a scout troop in San Diego and it's not like we were going to Minnesota or Wyoming or Alaska to do a camping and things like that. But in my late twenties, I thought, you know, it's been a long time since I'd gone camping. Why don't I do something really interesting? So I went on a backpacking trip into the Sierras in California.

and had a great time and I thought, you know, I want to get back into this. And so I slowly evolved into, okay, how much farther can I go? What can I do in a weekend? I mean, I got to the point where I could do, I could drive from San Diego in the border with California, Mexico to central California in Sequoia National Park. I could hike 40 miles, 60 kilometers in a weekend, Saturday to Sunday.

And then I would drive back to six hours and be back to work. That was, that was my max. I mean, I literally didn't have any more time. ⁓ my best backpack, I think it was 80 miles or 120 kilometers did that in three and a half days. So I was really learning to push myself. And then I thought, I want to go something, somewhere bigger. And that's when I used to get the backpacker magazine and they had a top 10 in the world backpack trips.

And one of the top was the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland. And I thought, hey, now this was way before smartphones and everything. So you really had to do it on your own. had to buy maps once I got to Greenland and I spent 10 days crossing the Greenland Tundra by myself, a hundred miles or 160 kilometers, completely alone, no communication. If something would have happened to me, I would have been a very permanent resident.

Sam Penny (08:54)
That's absolutely amazing. Now, was there a lot of satisfaction in stepping outside your comfort zone that you got from all of this?

Aaron Linsdau (09:03)
yeah. mean, I didn't just go to Greenland on a wing out. That would have been a huge mistake because I went there late September, early October, and that's crazy late in the season. That's kind of dangerous in the Arctic. I probably wouldn't do it again, but, but I started out small trying to, okay, let's do a little winter camping with my brother overnight. With a car completely contained, we froze. It was terrible.

But I thought, hey, you know what? Okay, we survived and get frostbite. Let me push my limit a little bit. Cause that's one thing I see big mistakes people make in polar expeditions. ⁓ One of my sponsors, actually, him and his wife tried to go ski the same trip I did. And his wife had never cross country skied ever. They made it about maybe a hundred kilometers and they quit. Thank goodness that they would have gotten severely injured or worse.

So these things have to develop and evolve over time. You don't want to just go out and for instance, I've hiked across the Grand Canyon in 24 hours and back. So from the South Rim down to the North Rim and back, it's a round trip of 50 miles or about 80 kilometers, huge elevation gain and over 24 hours, no sleep or anything.

but I didn't start off with that. That would have been a mistake. I knew where my limit was. I knew what my capabilities were.

Sam Penny (10:29)
So one of the things Aaron ⁓ that I see recurring with all of my guests on here who basically ordinary people who come on and do batshit crazy stuff and say, yes, the impossible. You've already established this habit of stacking adventure on top of adventure. And one of my favourite sayings is when you get to the top of your mountain, find a bigger mountain. Now I want to jump into your South Pole expedition because this is what I call batshit crazy.

Training for the South Pole. It's not like training for a marathon. You can't just go out and do a few long weekends and show up at the start line. You are preparing for something that could potentially kill you, not once, but in a hundred small ways along that journey. So firstly, why Antarctica? And why solo ski from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole?

Aaron Linsdau (11:21)
Like a lot of my expeditions and travels, they always start as a kernel of, hey, I want to do something small. And then I start to read into it and grows and grows until it becomes this literal monster that consumes my life. And that's not saying it's a bad thing. It's just so many things of, only are restricted by your own vision and your own inability or energy to do things. Period. If you really have the vision to do something,

Maybe you have a disability. I worked with this author and he published a book called Defying Limits. And people literally who have no arms, no legs, still doing the craziest things ever. And so that really inspired me that not now nowadays, like just cause you don't have some ability. mean, I have asthma, have bad allergies. I am the worst candidate ever to do something like this.

I mean, yeah, you wouldn't call them like, yeah, let's get a guy who has asthma and go ski across a continent or something. But I did multiple expeditions across Yellowstone National Park in the United States in winter. ⁓ the first year it got to minus 40 degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit. My plastic cereal bowl shattered like glass. And so, yeah, I literally, and I was just tapping my cereal out, the, the, my cereal in the morning.

Literally froze as I ate it. So I literally eating crunchy ice crystals in my granola. And so the process in psychology is this is don't think, oh, I'm to go do this. But for me, I had the genesis of, I can go to Greenland. I'm confident about this. But in around 2000, gosh, was it 2001, 2002, there was an article in National Geographic and it was about Antarctica. And as a young kid,

I love Star Wars, Star Trek, the idea of going to an alien planet just completely enraptured me. But when I saw that article in National Geographic, the interior of Antarctica literally looks like an alien planet. If your viewers are familiar with ⁓ the movie Empire Strikes Back in the original Star Wars series, that planet actually exists and it's called Antarctica.

Sam Penny (13:42)
That's crazy. Now, was there a specific moment where you decided to leave your job and do this full time?

Aaron Linsdau (13:49)
Yeah, the stress was starting to stack up and this was during the ⁓ recovery from the financial crisis in 2008. And just over time, I was not being as much challenged, even though I was a senior staff engineer, I could do all the things. I used to write what's called bare metal software. I wrote my own operating systems. I loaded them on processors. I ran computer systems, everything. mean, when you talk.

to programmers who say, bare metal, they're like shocked. If you're in that world, you know, it's super exotic. But I'd done it so long, it honestly, it wasn't that challenging anymore. I knew exactly what to do. I knew what the plan was and I could crank it out. But I started to become listless and say, hey, what else is out there? And that was the genesis of, okay, let's see what else I can do.

Sam Penny (14:41)
So how do you even begin prepping for something like this? It's physically, mentally, and also financially. This is huge. How did you do all that?

Aaron Linsdau (14:53)
⁓ starting way back, ⁓ I didn't have the vision that I was going to go this far. Honestly, I shame to admit some people have this vision. I'm to go do all this. was incremental because until Sam, as you said, until you stand on that next summit, you can't see the summit above that. It's just a natural thing. Like in grand Teton national park and near Jackson hole, there is a summit called disappointment summit and you climb up it and.

There's this huge chasm between there and grand Teton, but you really can't see it until you get to the top and you realize, my gosh, this is incredible. But then you look up and I mean, something's towering two kilometers over your head. And all of a sudden you say, wow. But until you do the incremental challenges, it's too difficult mentally and physically to just jump into that next thing. I mean, I would never recommend just.

going and skiing across Antarctica. There was a lawyer in Colorado years ago who contacted me. He had, and he wanted to do this expedition. He had never done a long distance cold weather expedition. He'd done some other crazy stuff, but not like that cold and not by himself. He has a wife, he has a couple of young children and I warned him, you better go out and do like a Yellowstone trip or something.

10 days completely by yourself. Because it's not just the physical aspect, the mental aspect is huge. Like the woman who wrote the Ford and my book Hannah McKeon, she's got the world record for the number of skis to the South Pole, like probably 10, 12, I don't even know, it's been forever. And she said unequivocally, this thing is mental. As long as you don't get hurt and you can physically hold it together, it's probably 60 or 70 % mental. People say that.

I can 100 % guarantee that is truth.

Sam Penny (16:52)
there's obviously a recurring theme here of just cold adventure. What is it about cold that attracts you to the adventures that you do?

Aaron Linsdau (17:02)
Uh, the, isolation, the severity of, uh, the risk, and I'm not an adrenaline junkie at all. mean, I'm not doing wingsuit flying or, you know, para jumping or whatever, but the, the quietness of the experience. You can always, uh, you can travel over land that you simply can't travel over in the summer. And it's not a thematic thing.

That's absolute. It's just far more challenging because I've done tons and tons of backpacking, thousands of miles of backpacking over my life in the summer and the shoulder months. And that's no problem. But the quiet of the winter, when you're traveling through winter landscapes, there's nothing that can be hidden. When an animal tracks through, assuming there's not wind or a storm, there's always a story in that snow.

It's not like somewhere where animals could track through and you have no clue that they were there. But in the winter, I remember my last expedition with my friend, Terry Williams, we wrote the book, Two Friends and a Polar Bear about our Greenland expedition. And that last winter expedition we did in Yellowstone, we heard wolves howling at midnight, literally out of a horror novel or thriller novel.

We heard them closer and closer. I'm like, well, we've got a shovel and we've got some bear spray. That wouldn't have worked against wolves, but thank goodness nothing happened. The next morning when we got out of our tent, they had completely laid around our tent, slept there. I mean, they literally, we were surrounded by wolves all night. I mean, that was such a surreal experience.

Sam Penny (18:50)
It does sound like a horror film, that one. ⁓ Now, tell me, what is the skill set that brings everything together? I always like to, in my mind, picture everything as a Venn diagram. In 2019, I attempted to swim the English Channel in winter. The only person on the planet who's ever tried to do that. And my skill set there was, well, I've swum the English Channel, I've done an ice mile, so I'm good in cold water, and I'm a civil engineer, so I'm good at...

data analytics and I knew that start of December the water temp was going to be about 12 and a half degrees and those three things came together as my as my I can't believe you just reacted to 12 and a half degrees

Aaron Linsdau (19:32)
Water is a thousand times more conductive than air.

Sam Penny (19:36)
⁓

especially when you're only in a pair of Speedos. So what was your Venn diagram, your skill set that brought everything together to decide to go and do Antarctica?

Aaron Linsdau (19:48)
The engineering aspect was actually a big deal because even on this expedition, I brought a little multimeter so I could measure the voltage of my solar panels. figured out that in extreme weather, in extreme wind, I couldn't put my solar panels out because they would get destroyed. And so what I did is I used my electronic kit, put my solar panels in between the tent and then the outside shell. And if I ran them in parallel, all this electrical engineering stuff,

I could actually keep those solar panels safe even when it was 80 kilometer winds outside and charge my kit. So things like that, the engineering problem aspect is huge, probably more than anything else, because I broke my shovel on my Antarctic expedition. That forced me to have to kneel down and frostbite my knees a little bit. And I eventually figured out how to reattach the shovel to the handle. And I continued on. But the

The ability to say, okay, this is the pile of junk I have like the Apollo 13 ⁓ transit to the moon where, okay, this is all the stuff they have. Can you still live off of it? I love that. Then absolute challenge of, okay, here's a pile of junk, try and stay alive. But then the physical aspect too of how far can one push oneself until you just simply collapse and your body gives up. And I always love pushing that. And of course, you know, now I'm in my

early fifties that limit is that is limit is a little bit tighter than it used to be, which now that that's just how it is. But the aspect of attitude of realizing, ⁓ shak, Ernest Shackleton best set of ultimately problems are just things to be overcome. And if you can do that, you at least have a fighting chance.

Sam Penny (21:41)
I love how you bring all the nerd into it. And I think that today's discussion, you might inspire a world of engineers to go out and seek adventure. But what was the reaction from your friends and family when you told them that you're going to ski to the South Pole and back?

Aaron Linsdau (21:56)
Ooh, that's a touchy subject actually unequivocally negative. So, I mean, and that sounds terrible, right? I mean, I don't want to bash on my family, my friends, my loved ones, but the natural human reaction for people that you love when somebody is going to do something risky is to discourage the person from doing it. And it's a natural reaction. ultimately I appreciate it in retrospect, but at the time it was pretty crushing.

Sam Penny (21:59)
Ha

Aaron Linsdau (22:26)
Cause people would tell me, why would you want to do that? It's dangerous. It's cold. It's unbelievably expensive. mean, ⁓ us dollars at the time, a hundred thousand dollars to just even show up. And that wasn't the kit that was in the training that was in the travel. ⁓ yeah, it was, it was super hard to deal with, but I had a phone call with my grandfather and he was the one that was in the internment camp in world war two. And he told me he was 83 at the time. And he told me Aaron.

Just remember when you get to my age, the most exciting thing, assuming you don't fall asleep in front of the couch is if you can go to the bathroom today. Now, I mean, it's a bit coarse, but once you get to your eighties, you just kind of stop caring. And he said, look, if you're going to go, you better go because there's a day that will come when you simply can't do it anymore. And that's it. You will never be able to return. And so.

It's not to be wing out reckless and hoi, let's go jump off cliffs and hope we survive, but build up the skills, the physical ability and the wherewithal and the mental fortitude. And at least you have a shot, but the one person that made it possible emotionally was my grandfather. And he's since passed, unfortunately, but that, Japanese man, I mean, he

grew up in Indio in the Southern California desert. The, him and his family had a farm out there. They had a, ⁓ a produce store in Watts, which got destroyed in the sixties and the Los Angeles Watts riots. mean, they've been through some ringers. So that vision of, Hey, I've been through it all. Go for it was huge. That was massive. So if you, you, as your listener to say, Hey, I want to do this.

Do not get discouraged when people are not all ⁓ cheerleading for you because it's a natural reaction. People you love want to defend you.

Sam Penny (24:29)
Well, I think the most important point there, Aaron, is that you are your own greatest cheerleader. And one of the greatest pieces of passage that I think I've ever read is The Man in the Arena by Teddy Roosevelt, where, and you're probably familiar with it, I think it's a great piece of prose where until you are in the arena, when you're that person the arena fighting and being

the person on the adventures, it's then that anybody who has not been in the arena doesn't really have the right to comment, to criticize. And those are the people that you can then disregard what they say. Now, in grand adventure, there's a real gap between dream and reality. And Antartica

I can assume that that hits really fast. The cold, the endless white. So tell me about the first time that you realised that this might not go as planned. Describe day one on the ice. What's running through your mind?

Aaron Linsdau (25:35)
⁓ the 24 hour sun when I was dropped off after I arrived in Antarctica, I was there for a couple of days until I was able to get flown out to my starting location. And just having 24 hour sun was a mind bender because it's very easy to get disoriented when you wake up at 3 a.m. to ⁓ relieve yourself. That sun wakes you up and it immediately becomes a mental drain because

If you don't manage that, it will wipe you out because you think, I need to stay up. need to keep going. Actually managing yourself and giving yourself enough time to rest. The human body simply needs time to rest. You cannot go all out. And so I forced myself in a very military regimen to wake up at 6 a.m. Start skiing at 9 a.m. Finish skiing at 6 p.m. and night.

And then I'm in bed completely and sleeping by 10 PM. If I pushed it much past that, I could handle it for a few days, but I'd fall apart. so immediately, as soon as the aircraft dropped me off, there was a storm coming in 40 kilometer winds. And as that aircraft took off, as a motivational speaker, this is my opening story of I was 100 % abandoned on the edge of Antarctica.

I might as well have been on Mars other than being able to breathe. mean, just that plane leaving and me doing a 360 walk around like Tom Hanks in Castaway of I yelled hello and there was no response. There were no animals. There's not even microbes. I am literally on an alien planet.

Sam Penny (27:24)
Wow. Now you call this the longest duration solo South Pole expedition in history. 82 days out there solo on your own. Was that intentional or was it just the way events unfolded?

Aaron Linsdau (27:30)
Yes.

Oh, yeah, that

was not intentional. My original plan was to round trip. There was a three guys who did actually do the round trip. Alexander Gammay did a solo and then a duo from Australia and their names are Cass and Jonesy. That's what they call themselves. And I was hoping to recreate that, but on flying down from Los Angeles down to Chile and then on on to Antarctica.

I got a lung infection. developed bronchitis. I coughed up blood. was badly sick. Thank goodness I had antibiotics with me, but that completely ruined my chances of round tripping. was just, I would ski for 10 minutes and then double over like I'd never worked out a day in my life. And the emotional crush of, my gosh, I'm not making the miles. What's going on? Because the air is so dry in Antarctica.

You just constantly cough. It's just how it works. But I didn't completely convolve that with, Hey, I'm not feeling great. What's going on until I started coughing up blood and then my Oh dear Lord. So that's when things really settled in. And that was the day 16 or thereabouts somewhere around there.

Sam Penny (28:55)
Wow, so really early on then, you're having to carry all of your stores, all of your food, sleeping arrangements, everything like that. What was the weight of the sleds that you're pulling?

Aaron Linsdau (29:10)
The total weight was about 320 pounds or 160 kilos. I mean, I had all my supplies. had to have food for 90 days. I carried 70 pounds or 35 kilos of butter alone just to eat and have enough energy. That, that always gets people. actually do that on stage as a speaker. I literally have a brick of butter and I take a couple chomps out of it just to show that, yeah, this is legitimate. So I had telecommunication gear.

⁓ Two satellite phones, backup, a military transponder, only one tent, ⁓ lots of backup supplies, two stoves, two of everything, because it's very common for people to have their stoves fail on these expeditions. And the moment your stove fails, you can't make water and you won't last but maybe two, maybe three days. So I mean, that's a critical life support system.

Sam Penny (30:08)
Let's talk about the butter because I find that a little bit intriguing. Firstly, your butter froze, but then it went rancid. It was your main calorie source, the main source of your fuel. ⁓ Take us to that moment when you realize that your butter has gone rancid. What did that do to your morale and your energy?

Aaron Linsdau (30:27)
wow. Yeah, that was pretty crushing because the past couple days before they came to that realization, every time I bought Kerry gold butter as the main bricks, they're whatever they are, half a pound and maybe a quarter kilo. And I would simply just break up half one of those bricks, mix it into my cereal, eat. But I started to feel a little bit queasy. And then through the day, I would eat the other chunk of the butter and I just wasn't feeling great. And then one day,

⁓ in several days into this, ⁓ I was sitting down eating and I almost vomited. mean, I was like, my gosh, what is wrong? And so I, in that kind of cold, your sense of smell smelling or sense of smell and taste completely goes away. So I literally had to jam that butter under my nose and take a real strong sniff and I can smell it had gone completely off. had gone fully rancid. And at that moment I was like,

my gosh, I've been low grade food poisoning myself for over a week. Involuntarily, of course, no one would ever choose to do that. And at that moment I realized I'm going to lose more than half my calories because I can't consume it. I many bricks of butter and the same thing happened because in Antarctica, when the wind stops, even though the air is minus 40 degrees, the solar radiation is

so intense there, actually melts stuff. It melted my biscuits, my cookies, and I just, I didn't foresee that and there was no solution to it. So it was a hundred percent loss.

Sam Penny (32:04)
See you.

So you obviously can't have a backup to your food stores. What did you do?

Aaron Linsdau (32:14)
I simply ⁓ left the butter bee and ate the food I had left. So basically whatever I was eating, ⁓ 6,000 calories now is down to maybe 2,500. I was pretty much starving every day. There's nothing to do. mean, I was 100 % committed to the expedition financially. I I used every dime I literally had to do this. So if I said, Hey, quit, ⁓

call for an emergency evacuation, I would never return. It's just, was too expensive, too much of an operation. So I was like, well, I can always be hungry. mean, lost, I lost 15 kilos or 30 pounds on that trip. And not intentionally, if anybody ever needs a weight loss program, I've got a great one.

Sam Penny (33:05)
Ski to the South Pole. Now, when you're getting in the second half of the expedition and your food stores are low, you're effectively starving yourself, you've more than halved your rations for every single day. How many miles were you doing?

Aaron Linsdau (33:23)
Once things leveled out, I was on average 10 to 12 miles a day or about 16 to 18 kilometers a day.

Sam Penny (33:32)
So what did you focus on then? Because the whole challenge is so overwhelming. I'm gonna ski to the South Pole. How do you get up every single day and go out?

Aaron Linsdau (33:35)
Alright.

I treated it as though until I arrived at the South pole, I wasn't able to go home. And I knew this was probably a once in a lifetime experience. And so the, the joy and the challenge of doing it every day, because I had to be the cook, the commander, the navigator, the first aid medic, the repairman, everything. But when I'm, as I'm skiing along, I'm having to navigate by compass the whole time. And a lot of Antarctica is pretty featureless.

So if I didn't focus on ice lump on the horizon and I looked away even for a fraction of a second, I would lose it. And when you wander 10 or 15 or 20 degrees off, it adds a huge amount of distance to the travel. being absolutely obsessed of once I took a sighting and looked at an object, just to basically a lump of ice on the horizon, I had to focus on it 100%. Now,

One third of my days were 100 % whiteout, meaning I couldn't see anything but my skis and my sled. It felt out like I was floating in white space. I mean, I would fall over and I wouldn't know until the ground literally hit me in the head because it's so disorienting. And I learned and developed a technique where I ski, let's say 60 ski steps. And then I would course correct as I was skiing.

And I developed that technique to where I can keep on track pretty well. use the same technique in Greenland with my, my friend is a doctor and it took him all of it took him the entire trip to learn the technique, but with total concentration, I didn't have to stop and reorient because there was nothing to see. mean, I could see my compass, but I might as well have been blind. And so I was able to navigate across the continent and across Greenland.

using that technique, but I had to develop it. And it was, it really messes with your mind.

Sam Penny (35:47)
can imagine what's the sound and the feeling of being alone that long.

Aaron Linsdau (35:51)
⁓ if you ever remember your, ⁓ in America, have called elementary school or for you guys, primary school. When you were 10 years old, do you remember your teacher, the person who sat next to you in the desk? Those moments just appeared to me out of nowhere. mean, one time, so a couple of people who were experienced warned me I would have a out of body experience. I did right around Christmas, Christmas Eve.

I literally envisioned myself in my dad's church. Like I was fully there hearing hymns being sung with the Christmas candles, everything. And then a few months later I snapped back to reality and there I was. And I said, nah, that'll never happen to me. ⁓ I was wrong.

Sam Penny (36:39)
Do you feel that you're hallucinating in that moment or you just had flashbacks of memories?

Aaron Linsdau (36:45)
That one was a 100 % hallucination. I'm a pretty solid person, but in the absence of stimulation where you can only see white or if there is a clear sky, white and blue, your brain just starts making stuff up. I started seeing colored globs in the snow, bright greens, deep reds. mean, they're, not there, but I would start seeing amorphous shapes because my brain was just trying to latch onto something.

And I'm not doing mushrooms or some crazy thing like that. It's just that the human brain requires a certain level of stimulation. And when it's not there, it starts to make stuff up. I heard things. I got scared by my own shadow. have to, I hate to admit that, but I'm skiing along. But as the sun's swinging around behind me, eventually I see this motion to my left and I yell, my gosh. And it was simply my shadow.

Because there's no one else out there. There are no animals, no birds. mean, nothing. I mean, I would look up and I thought I'd see ravens in the sky. They weren't there.

Sam Penny (37:49)
with

With these hallucinations, did it bring a sense of relief, a break from the monotony of white?

Aaron Linsdau (38:03)
yeah. It was actually pretty entertaining because I knew subconsciously it was a constant battle because I, talked about this in my book, Antarctic tears, that it was a nonstop battle with my subconscious self and my conscious self. My subconscious self would literally make my hair hurt. I mean, of course that's not possible because otherwise you couldn't get a haircut, but it would literally, the brainstem comes up with any excuse.

to stop you and it messes with what's called your reticular activating system that filters out the world and it starts injecting the craziest things. My hair would itch, it would hurt, my thighs would hurt. mean, just, would start hearing things and then to test it, I would stop and rest for a moment and all would win, all that effect went away. And so I realized,

My subconscious and my body is trying to give me any excuse to quit. will, it will make up any reason. Just like what happened with that lawyer. He only made it halfway and then he got evacuated because he, and I speculate cause his blog got kind of fuzzy and then I didn't hear from him after, but knowing that the mental game is going to mess you up. Once you're conscious of that and you know that, Hey, this is just going to mess with your head a lot.

And you know that's going to happen. It's way easier to deal with. mean, same thing with your swim, right?

Sam Penny (39:36)
Yeah, it's certainly you get to a certain point where your mind's just starting to really tell you to stop. Now, in this expedition, you're going for 82 days. Was there a point in that where you thought, I might not make it?

Aaron Linsdau (39:51)
I don't believe so. I wrote about that in my book quite extensively and I do not remember saying, Hey, I'm going to quit. When I was first making terrible distance, I had a very bad feeling, but I had three months to come up with something. And I knew right, right at the beginning, the first couple of days, the snow was several meters deep. Normally in Antarctica, there's only about one inch of snow at most, but right near the coast because of the mountain range.

the snow swirls off the mountains and it piles up. So I would ski maybe 50, 50 or a hundred feet, maybe 20 meters. And my sleds would literally disappear into the snow. I would have to turn around. I would have to ski back, lift them up. And each one was 160 pounds or about 80 kilos. This is not easy. And then I would have to lift them out of the snow and I would fall down and my arm would bury into the snow.

And then I would have to ski forward, plow another 100, 200 feet, maybe 50 meters. And the same thing would happen. I had to do this for five days. I mean, I was only making two miles or three kilometers a day. I mean, it is the ultimate willpower test of I know I will get through this, but that was the big first test of, and I knew this happened to other people. And so I knew eventually I will clear it.

but I can't give up, just have to keep clawing along.

Sam Penny (41:23)
It's interesting, Aaron, when we start out on anything, whether it's a fitness regime or a new job or starting a new company, the first part is always the hardest. But if we keep our eyes on what the final goal is, what the prize is, putting up with that early part of it's slow, it's hard, I feel really uncomfortable, I might quit, it'd be easier if I just went and sat on the couch. It's amazing when you have that

goal and that vision of what you want to achieve, how you can get through those early days so much better. Now, 82 days, you finally make it to the South Pole. Explain to me that moment when you get to the South Pole.

Aaron Linsdau (42:09)
It was one of the most spectacular moments of my life and also one of the saddest moments of my life. And that really messes with people like, oh, that's terrible. Like, oh, okay, here's the reality. I had dedicated a decade of my life and every financial penny that I had to making this expedition. I reached the South Pole, I skied up, touched the, it's a literal candy cane stripe pole. I mean, it's really neat. And then I skied over to the true geographic.

⁓ GPS 90 degrees and it was super exciting but I realized my Odyssey was over. That was simply it. There wasn't enough time to ski back. I had to call for a pickup flight in a couple days and I got to enjoy exploring the South Pole Station. I got toured around. I it was a great experience. There's a couple guys that came out and met with me because they were following my expedition. ⁓

Jeffrey Dunn and Feld, if you're ever listening, thank you so much for being a friend. He took pictures, it was great. And I loved the experience, but I mean, it was gray, ultra cold. I had lost a huge amount of weight so I couldn't stay warm anymore. I only weighed 140 pounds, so maybe 70 kilos. And on a six foot frame or 183 centimeters, I was very thin.

I mean, there, wasn't a lot left of me. looked like a refugee. And so it was a most incredible moment. I skied around. I looked and enjoyed the moment, but I knew this part of my life was over an entire decade of poking and prodding and working on it. then like, wow, what in the world do I do now? I mean, I didn't have a vision of writing books, ⁓ starting a YouTube channel, becoming a filmmaker.

having a show on Amazon. I learned filmmaking from my dad. was a documentary guy, but I never, never had the vision of, I'll just go back to engineering. Instead. I became a writer. I've written 43 books. I've got a show on Amazon, got four different YouTube channels. I'm learning violin and piano. I've just started writing fiction to kind of fictionalize my adventures in a ⁓

Thriller sort of format and I've been super blessed with by making huge sacrifices to put myself in a place where I might have the chance to do something super grand. And now I'm a motivational speaker. People contact me to bring me on to share my story because when I stand in front of an audience, people look at me and I jokingly say, do I look like the hulking guy who could haul?

a refrigerator across the continent. And of course, adults don't admit it. And I say, it's okay. You can shake your head. No. And he gets a good laugh, but I just don't look like that guy. mean, the lady from Iceland, Wilbur Gusseteer, she was the first person the same year I did to ski from the coast to the South pole. I mean, she's a slight woman. She's maybe like five foot two. I don't know. ⁓

Sam Penny (45:06)
Hahaha

Aaron Linsdau (45:28)
maybe 140 centimeters, whatever that is. And she did it too. And it was a mental game and it changed her life as well. But she spent probably a decade building herself up there as well.

Sam Penny (45:41)
It's interesting, Aaron, a lot of my past guests are ordinary people. If you walk down the street, you would not believe that that guy has skied to the South Pole. One of my past guests, Lisa Blair, five foot two, holds the record for sailing solo around Antarctica. And also a tragic event where she was dismasted and having to make life or death decisions. But even

⁓ One of my other guests, Gerrard Gosens a blind athlete who decided one day that he was going to climb Mount Everest. And he got to about 8,300 meters and listeners can go back and listen to that interview with Gerrard Gosens because it's absolutely fascinating. one of the things I asked him was, what does Everest smell like? Does it have a smell? Now, how about the South Pole? Does South Pole, does Antarctica have a smell?

Aaron Linsdau (46:39)
No, no, there's, there's no sound. There's no smell. ⁓ there's no microbes. There's it's as lifeless as you can possibly get on earth because nothing can survive there. There's nothing to consume the actual South pole station. When I got in there, you had this antiseptic sort of smell because everybody's walking around in a hoodie or a jumper. And, you know, you only get to shower maybe once a week because they don't have

Just it's a supply issue. But the actual smell other than me, I mean, I wore wool clothing all the time and I never showered. mean, that was impossible. The best I could do was I would have Earl Grey or chamomile tea and I would use that to scrub my body down. It was a little bit chilly, but it worked as a sponge. So that's about the best I can do is you literally.

Wipe myself with a half frozen tea bag to try and stay clean.

Sam Penny (47:39)
So everything you've done from San Diego to the South Pole, it comes down to a single decision to try. Which brings me to the question I ask every guest, standing at Hercules Inlet on day one, looking out at that white horizon, why did you think you could do that?

Aaron Linsdau (47:57)
Oh gosh, that was so thrilling to actually see the coast, see the mountain range in there. Why did I believe I do it or I could do it? Because I had done so many other trips that it was, I mean, it was a substantial expense and it expands. But when I had skied the first time across Yellowstone National Park, I mean, it was so rough facing.

wind. had to ski at night for four or five hours to make the distance. I froze. No frostbite, but it was brutal. The snow would blow directly in my face. So the headlamp was very disorienting. And I almost quit. was like, my gosh. But I brought a journal, one those right in the rain journals. had one of those space pens so could write upside down at minus 40 and all this crazy stuff. And I started writing about my experience that night in the morning.

And as I wrote it out, I realized, well, I'm not injured. still have nine days to go and 11 days of food. ⁓ there there's nothing wrong with me. And I learned as soon as I got in my tent, that mental pressure just completely dissipated like a breeze. And once I realized, Hey, I can, once I get in my home, home being a tent and I collected myself, I went from, gosh, this is super rough to, ⁓ they'll be fine.

No problem. Because I always told myself that if I go home and I'm laying in my bed, the only thing I will think about is, dude, why didn't you keep going? I mean, I know I've, I've turned back on plenty of mountains. mean, I've, I've attempted climbing Denali solo five times. I had a climb on the bright horn and Zermatt, but my legs are so sore. couldn't complete the climb of the matter horn. And that's okay. mean, the last two times I was in Denali,

This year and the year before this year, the crevasses were so bad. didn't push for it all. Last year, 2024, I fell in several cravasses My sled almost fell in one. I decided the conditions were already too dangerous. I need to turn around because the mountain will always be there, but I want to be able to return to it.

Sam Penny (50:15)
So you reached the pole. You've got the record for the longest out there solo ski to the South Pole, but you also came back changed. And I don't mean physically, something shifted in the way that you see the world. How did the South Pole really change you as a person and also an adventurer?

Aaron Linsdau (50:34)
The greatest thing that popped into my head is just the possibility of, wow, what can I do with incremental effort? I remember Bill Gates, the guy who started Microsoft said that people way overestimate what they can do in a year, but badly underestimate what they can do in 10 years. And that is a truism I have lived with for a long time because I'm starting to write fiction now. I've got a couple of books out on Amazon, like the last echo I just released.

my new one, shepherd's code two, days ago. And people were saying, Oh my gosh, how'd you do all that? And I, you know, sales systems, all this other stuff. And I knew that as long as I keep, if you will, getting out my hammer and chisel and chiseling away, eventually I'll get through it. And just like that expedition every day, I'm making miles and making distance, but the game of, Hey, this is going to take

months to complete. It's so hard to wrap your head around it. But I knew that if I just kept picking away at 10 miles a day or 16 kilometers a day, eventually that adds up on my expedition across Greenland. My buddy Terry and I, came to the nearly the summit crossing over the peak of Greenland and he was getting really worried like, man, we are not making the miles because Greenland you have to

carry a weapon because of polar bears. The snow is way deeper. It's way hotter. ⁓ the weather's far more unpredictable. And he was really worried. And I said, Terry, just remember we're just about the peak and we're going to hit the downside. It's not much faster, but that psychological edge of chiseling away. We'll make it. I mean, we literally got to the end. He was out of food. had half a day's worth of food.

I mean, it was a bit of a hunger game again. We had to thin things out. Let's just tell it works. mean, at the time I was 48 and he was a sugey 68. mean, really old. We're I haven't been able to verify it, but I believe we're one of the oldest teams ever to do an unsupported crossing of Greenland. And I knew that as long as we kept, kept our attitude, right. We were worked well together. ⁓

Sam Penny (52:35)
Ha ha ha ha!

Aaron Linsdau (53:01)
Minded our pleases and thank yous P's and Q's we would do. Okay, it wouldn't be easy I mean ran across polar bear tracks that were fresh ⁓ he had a rain or he had Raynaud syndrome, so his fingers and hands froze all the time. So literally every day when we ⁓ Geared up put our tent down I would have to stand with my wind They're back to the wind and I told him ski right up to me and I'll open my jacket

And he would put his hands and gloves in my jacket so he could prepare his ski poles. Because I told him, look, if you get injured, we can't make it one or the other. We have to arrive together. And so, yes, I'm standing out there freezing, but I'll be okay. It was not comfortable. And we had to do it multiple times a day because food and bathroom breaks and such. And he felt guilty and said, Terry, this is a team effort. I'm, I'm fine. I'm not comfortable, but whatever. I'm not getting hurt.

And once he got past that, accepted this is okay. He said it was like being a two year old. So a man who's a doctor and has all this capability, it's a bit demoralizing. But I said, Hey, no, this is what it takes as a team to make it. That's the cost and I'm perfectly happy. So when I was doing it in Greenland, I had already done it in Antarctica. So it was not a big deal and I'm not downplaying it, but I knew exactly how it was going to go.

I knew we'd be wandering blind through white outs. I knew we'd be hungry. I knew there'd be challenges. So it was very palatable for me. But somebody who hasn't pushed themselves to the absolute limit where they're crawling with their fingernails, don't go too far. Trust me.

Sam Penny (54:50)
So Aaron, what has driven you to seek out these extreme environments?

Aaron Linsdau (54:55)
I enjoyed the experience of being out there where I am 100 % disconnected from everything. It's not that I don't like people. mean, I've been in a long-term relationship, got family, friends, and all that. But the ability to go out and be 100 % disconnected, no email, no phone call, no news, no nothing, is just awesome. mean, when I was in Antarctica, I didn't even know who won the presidential election in 2012. No clue.

Not that it mattered. mean, my opinion politic doesn't matter, but literally everybody on the planet watches that. And I was probably one of the only people on earth who had no idea. And I wasn't terribly concerned, but that ability to fully disconnect from the modern world and go all pioneer style where, Hey, I'm Magellan. I'm Christopher Columbus. I'm Neil Armstrong going to someplace where

People might've been sure, but I'm out there by myself or with people out there. I love it. Just the disconnect is worth every bit of work.

Sam Penny (56:06)
So your disconnects are quite extended. Antarctica, we're talking 82 days. Is it difficult returning to normal life? You've had mental isolation, physical isolation. Is it hard getting back?

Aaron Linsdau (56:19)
Absolutely. I was warned by the Antarctic logistics and expedition doctors that I wouldn't be right in my head because I basically did the most effective punishment other than capital punishment for humans is solitary confinement. And I put myself in solitary confinement under a forced labor camp under super severe weather nonstop with no guarantee of success or safety. And I didn't

know about that at the time. But boy, when I came back in a big room, I would be claustrophobic. I woke up yelling. I woke up in night sweats and I was warned, yeah, you better just go to a beach and read 10 books because that effect, it's just being human. That's just how it is. I remember there was this guy who ⁓ did one of those challenge shows where the

The show dropped him off on a Pacific Island for like 30 days and he had to survive. He came back and he thought it was okay, but his marriage went on the rocks. mean, it was going bad for him. So he talked and contacted a psychologist and the psychologist said the same thing of, you just put yourself in solitary confinement, forced labor with no guarantee of survival. You're going to be messed up for a while. And as soon as he learned that he was like,

And then he was able to be aware of what was going on. So the, the challenge of that, of it impacts you being solo that long in ways you were not aware of until you reintegrate with society. then, wow. I mean, when you ask people, ⁓ how long have you been by yourself? you know, a couple of days like, no, no, not at home, not this. mean, like literally.

know people for hundreds and hundreds of miles and that's it. It's virtually impossible to do that other than somebody sailing across the Pacific or you know by themselves. It's unbelievably difficult to do that in the world nowadays.

Sam Penny (58:26)
It certainly is. Gerrard Gosens a blind athlete who I had on a past show who I mentioned earlier, said that we're born with three fears. The fear of loud noises, the fear of falling and the fear of isolation. Now, Aaron, where's the line and do you have a line between bravery and recklessness?

Aaron Linsdau (58:40)
Yeah, absolutely.

yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've attempted Denali five times solo in the national park service, heavily, heavily discourages it because they've, they've had plenty of fatalities. every year I've been up there, there's, there's been a fatality and I look at, ⁓ I came back, ⁓ on one climb. went out with a guy from Australia. We could watch over each other. The, I'm not out there for the adrenaline pump or the reckless, Hey, I'm going to post this on social sort of thing.

That doesn't really do anything for me simply because you can't run on adrenaline for three months. That maybe works for an hour or maybe two, maybe a day, you if you're in the military and in a war zone, but that is not sustainable long-term. I go out there and I'm always looking at, okay, how am I performing? How fast am I going? ⁓ Where's my limit of how much time I have?

And I mean, can push myself crazy hard, but I'm going to push myself to the point where I'll catch a cold or feel sick for days. And I know, okay, that that's now the line. And I have to adjust for that because all human bodies have limits. And so I know I'm always like, like this morning, I walked around my neighborhood with a backpack up hills. I'm jogging every other morning. I lift weights and I'm always keeping myself.

as fit as I can, but always trying to push like, okay, let's run really hard for two kilometers and see how goes to say, ⁓ okay, I can see where my limit is. So I either need to build that limit up or accept, hey, that's the line. And at home, know, whatever, I can feel bad. But if I'm way, way out in the middle of nowhere and I push past that limit, I'm going to be in trouble. That is very hard to deal with.

Sam Penny (1:00:42)
Now...

Aaron, most of us aren't going to ski to the South Pole, but we all face moments where we step forward or we decide to pull back. What lessons do you think from your expeditions can someone apply in their everyday life?

Aaron Linsdau (1:00:59)
The lesson of realizing that this day shall end tomorrow, you get a whole other chance at doing it. Whether things go badly at your job or on a trip or with your family or whatever, you always can wake up and give it another role. It's not over. mean, yeah, I mean, obviously some things are over. get a divorce or a family passes away or whatever, but as long as you

keep working at it, you at least have a chance. mean, people look at all of the physical workout or the mental it's knowing that as long as you keep picking away at it. I mean, I just had a, good friend is a super famous lawyer in America. Jerry Spencer just passed away yesterday and I was working with him a week ago on his book. I mean, the man was 96 and still writing books still. I mean, he was super famous for.

⁓ defending Imelda Marcos from the Philippines. mean, all these crazy, crazy things. But he told me that as long as you keep chipping away and have that vision of, hey, you could succeed, you at least have a chance.

Sam Penny (1:02:14)
So then what's your version of a daily bravery practice?

Aaron Linsdau (1:02:18)
The daily bravery practice. ⁓ Getting out and jogging around the neighborhood or getting out and a lot of times I have a truck tire that I attached to my backpack and I tow it around the neighborhood. I mean, it's like one of those CrossFit things, right? It's not necessarily that that's bravery, but everybody in the neighborhood knows me now for better or for worse. And the

this social, not ostracization, but more of, that guy's a little weird. He's totally cool. But that, ⁓ that risk, because deep, deep inside humans is that fear of, if we get kicked out of the tribe and we get, you know, voted off the Island way back when, if that happened, you would probably die. And that has never gone out of humans ever. And people's like, you know, I, ⁓

and this and that. But if you really get kicked off the island and you're by yourself, life's going to get really hard very quickly. so the the vision of, do something, even if it's not socially rude or destructive or anything like silly like that, of course, but just push yourself and say, hey, I'm to run a little bit faster. Hey, I'm going to send the email like you said, Sam.

Well still thinking of the others feelings but knowing that sometimes you got to do the tough things and I've got a couple pending right now that boy Do I really want to have to deal with that? No, but the sooner I get it off my plate the better it is like right now Last year. I started learning to play the piano and violin. I'm now live streaming my practices

Boy, yeah, the piano kind of sounds okay. The violins oh my gosh, still terrible. But I'm live streaming that on YouTube to say, Hey, I'm completely out there. I mean, I'm a guy in my fifties learning to play violin and I'm not hiding away. I'm like, look, I want to do this. I want to show you my failure day after day. But my goal is to suck less 1 % per day. And as long as I keep doing that, I've gotten better. mean,

It still sounds bad, but I've gotten better.

Sam Penny (1:04:43)
It's interesting, Aaron. It does take courage to put yourself out there like that. And for me to start this podcast, I'd been wanting to do this for eight years. And I finally bit the bullet earlier this year, and just thought stuff it, I'm going to do this because there's so many great people out there who have amazing stories and we can all learn from them. What is one small act of courage that someone could take tomorrow that you think could change their trajectory?

Aaron Linsdau (1:05:10)
Make the plan and actually make a physical step of what you want to do next. But you actually, you can't be blue sky. It literally has to be a piece of paper and a pen, not even a pencil. Like write it in pen, get a post-it note. It doesn't matter what it is and just write it. Maybe it's secret. Maybe you got to hide from your spouse or whatever and write, I'm going to whatever by it has to be specific.

actionable and by a fixed date. You might totally miss your date because you don't know a thousand things, but if you literally take that piece of paper and I'm going to run a half marathon next year by June 26 or whatever, it doesn't even matter. But once you actually write that off physically on paper and the act of writing it, typing it into your phone doesn't work. Writing on your computer doesn't work. You have to get a real piece of paper and a real pen.

And once you write that down, your brain will actually treat it as a reality that is possible. As long as it's blue sky in the air, your brain doesn't actually treat it. And there's an actual psychological effect over once you write it down and you can physically hold it in your hand, your brain switches from yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah to, Ooh, how can I make that happen? And all of a sudden your brain will, your subconscious, you'll wake up

Like in the morning or you'll be in the shower, toilet or whatever. And out of the blue, you'll get the craziest thought of, maybe I can do that. But that is the number one psychological technique to, if you will hack your mind to make it happen, write it on paper, stare at it, tape it to your mirror and have it stare at you. Make it stare at you.

Sam Penny (1:07:04)
100%, there's a huge amount of scientific research that shows when you write something down, it exits your mind, it's on paper, it cements it, and it makes it more actionable, because if it stays in your mind, you can always change the story, can't you? Now, Aaron, we're gonna close with the Rapid Fire 5. It's the Brave 5, I like to call it. It's five questions.

Aaron Linsdau (1:07:23)
yeah, easy.

Sam Penny (1:07:31)
Answer them fast. Answer them with the first thing that comes to mind. You ready? All right, what's the most unexpected takeaway from your Antarctic expedition?

Aaron Linsdau (1:07:36)
Sure.

that I could become an artist and creator and still be a creator, but instead of technical, do it in a artistic literature and film sort of way.

Sam Penny (1:07:54)
Fantastic. Now what was the first emotion you felt when you reached the pole?

Aaron Linsdau (1:08:00)
Raw excitement. I mean, I literally whooped and jumped up and down, but my feet hurt so bad. I really couldn't do it. I would, I would jump, would cringe and I said, I don't care.

Sam Penny (1:08:12)
All right, one thing you wish you knew before you started.

Aaron Linsdau (1:08:17)
the impact it would have on my life. had no idea the places it would take me way beyond what I did.

Sam Penny (1:08:26)
You weren't ready for it?

Aaron Linsdau (1:08:28)
No, no, no, no. I fully admit I did not have a vision of the, mean, I literally had someone in Zermatt, Switzerland. I live in Idaho, ⁓ United States, literally come up to me. Hey, I've watched your YouTube. I've bought a couple of your books. Thank you so much. I've had people all across America. I mean, I'm not that famous, but the, the vision of random people that I have changed their life and I will never know who they are.

And that has been just a fully unexpected joy that, I will, I will change somebody's life. will never know. But somebody literally came up to me randomly in Switzerland. Hey, thank you so much. appreciate it. That has just floored.

Sam Penny (1:09:15)
Wow, that's absolutely amazing. Now, what is a habit or a mindset you think that's made the biggest difference?

Aaron Linsdau (1:09:22)
Believing that if I use incremental action and tune what's called my reticular activating system in my brain to filter on, hey, this is possible. Tell yourself it's possible. Keep doing it. Because when you walk through an airport, there's all sorts of chaotic noise. And all of sudden you hear, Aaron Linsdau please pick up the white courtesy phone. How did my brain filter all that noise and chaos? Because your brain...

is trained to do that. And if you train it, Hey, this is what I want to focus on. You can make it filter in stuff that will make you succeed.

Sam Penny (1:09:58)
What's the best advice you've ever received during one of these adventures?

Aaron Linsdau (1:10:04)
Be willing to cry a lot, except that you could completely fail. But the most important thing is to come back home alive.

Sam Penny (1:10:14)
Wow. ⁓ Now, well, it's amazing. These adventures, people think that, you you've got a David Goggins, all of this sort of stuff, but they're hard. There's so much emotion that goes into it and they break you down, but they also build you up. What does bravery mean to you?

Aaron Linsdau (1:10:16)
You

being willing to put yourself out there and take the risk and know where your line is and then be willing to slightly put your toe over the line and say, hey, let's see what it feels like in the other side. That bravery, whether you see an attractive person, you go up and talk to them. mean, ultimately remember what's the worst they can do. Take away your birthday. I mean, really they say no. well, you didn't have a date on Thursday before. You still don't have a date.

things really haven't changed. Or you ask for a raise at work or you know what, this job isn't cutting it. I mean, people say, oh, I'd rather stay with the devil I know. Psychologically, yes, but when you get to the end of your life, like my grandfather, you say, man, I wish I would have taken way more risks. Me too, I think I do stuff all the time, but I look back like, good gosh, I mean, what is the worst that could have happened, really?

Sam Penny (1:11:35)
Yeah, there's always regret on whichever path you take, you're going to regret something. So just accept that you're going to regret it. But take that brave step.

Aaron Linsdau (1:11:45)
Yeah, absolutely. Just even incrementally because people think, oh, that's small. Oh, no, no, no. You don't think a boulder starts rolling down the hill at 50 miles an hour instantly. It takes a while. You got to get that thing moving. But once it starts moving, things develop a momentum of their own and then apply the social pressure. Post on Facebook, Instagram, Hey, I'm doing this. And people ask, Oh, how's it going?

There's a writer in America. His name is Craig Johnson long story, but he's a He wrote a book that became the long Meyer series on I think Netflix or ABC and he talked to an officer about some details in his law in his law book and it's fictional ⁓ a Sheriff and then great and then ten years later He hadn't published it and he happened to run across that same sheriff and the sheriff said hey, how's that book going and ⁓

Craig Johnson said, well, I'm still not done with it. And being Wyoming sheriff, he said, hey, taking a little long, don't you think? And Johnson got so ticked that he went to his literal desk drawer, got that thing out, and now he has a series, he has a TV show, all because he put a little social out of, hey, I'm gonna do this. That peer pressure, it works, I promise.

Sam Penny (1:13:11)
Aaron, thank you so much for showing us that the edge of the map isn't some far off place. It's right where our comfort zone ends. What you've done trekking to the South Pole solo, skiing across Greenland, braving the extremes isn't about chasing records. It's about showing the rest of us what's possible when you decide that quitting simply isn't an option. And here's the truth. You don't need Antarctica, ice, endless white horizons to live a bigger life.

You just need the courage to take the first step into the unknown and keep going when it gets hard. Aaron, how can people connect with you and follow your adventures?

Aaron Linsdau (1:13:51)
Sure thing. I've got a couple of YouTube channels, but my main one is my first initial last name, A. Linsdau. You can find me on YouTube. I also have an author site, AaronRLinsdau.com. I am very easy to find online. That is not a problem. I've got a show on Amazon you can check out. I've got books. I write fiction books now. So please reach out. I love to hear how stories have touched other people and changed your life.

Sam Penny (1:14:07)
Ha

Aaron Linsdau (1:14:21)
I love because otherwise it's a completely black box and I'll never know. So if ever there was a favor to ask, please just reach out and say, Hey, thank you so much. Or, Hey, you know, you need to work on this or whatever. I appreciate criticism too.

Sam Penny (1:14:38)
Fantastic, and I'll obviously put all of those links into the show notes. And remember, no one's born extraordinary. We just get moments to say yes. One day, someone will look at you and ask, Why'd You Think You Could Do That? And you'll be able to smile because you'll have lived the answer. I'm Sam Penny. This is why you think you could do that. And until next time, keep saying yes to the impossible.