Struggle: The Voice That Says Stop

What if the thing standing between you and your dream isn’t the world outside you, but the voice inside your own head?

In this Struggle episode of Why’d You Think You Could Do That?, host Sam Penny takes us inside Aaron Linsdau’s 82-day solo expedition across Antarctica — where silence, hunger, and hallucinations weren’t his biggest enemies. The real battle was with the voice inside his mind telling him to quit

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How Aaron endured the relentless mental storms of Antarctica.
• Why fear and excuses are signs that you’re pushing into territory that matters.
• A practical exercise to shrink your struggle by naming it out loud.

Key Takeaway

The voice that says stop isn’t reality. It’s your brain trying to protect you, pulling you back to comfort. Recognise it, name it, and keep moving forward. Because the brave ones aren’t the ones without struggle — they’re the ones who walk through it anyway.

Power Move

Take the spark you wrote yesterday. Now write the fear that stands beside it. Start with:

• “I am afraid that…”

Then say it out loud. Struggles grow in silence. When you name them, they begin to shrink.

🌍 Explore Aaron’s full story, interviews, and resources at his guest hub: sampenny.com/aaron-linsdau

🚀 Ready to take on your own impossible? Work 1:1 with Sam at: sampenny.com/action

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.

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)
What if the thing standing between you and your dream isn't the world outside you, but the voice inside your own head? This is Why Do Think You Could Do That? I'm Sam Penny, and these short episodes are your power move, a few minutes to challenge your thinking, fuel your courage, and bring you closer to your impossible.

Yesterday, you named your spark, you wrote it down, you said it out loud. And today, we face the struggle that always follows, the moment your own mind tries to talk you out of it. You see, for Aaron Lindsdow, that voice was relentless. In Antarctica, he faced 82 days of silence, hunger, and endless white. He hallucinated, he heard things that weren't there.

His subconscious even made his body ache in ways that weren't real, anything to convince him to quit. And isn't that what happens to us? You set a big goal and almost immediately your mind starts inventing reasons why it's too hard, it's too risky, it's too late, too impossible. It doesn't matter if you're launching a business, running a marathon or changing your life, the excuses show up. But here's the truth.

Those voices aren't proof you should stop. They're proof you're moving into territory that matters. Aaron kept skiing because he knew that those thoughts were temporary. They weren't reality. They were his brain trying to protect him by pulling him back to comfort. And if he could endure them, the storm in his mind would eventually pass. And that's your struggle today.

to recognize that voice, to hear it for what it is, and to keep moving anyway. So here's your power move. Take the spark you wrote yesterday. Now write the fear that stands beside it. Start with, I'm afraid that, and finish the sentence. Then say it out loud, because struggles grow in silence, but when you name them, they begin to shrink. Tomorrow, you'll hear the breakthrough.

how persistence compounds and why the hardest moments often come just before progress appears. But today, your job is this, don't bury the struggle, name it, speak it, own it. Because the difference between those who stop and those who succeed isn't that the struggle disappears, it's that the brave ones keep moving through it.