218: Shailee Basnet Podcast

In today’s episode of ‘Finding your Summit’ podcast, host Mark Pattison, former NFL Player, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist and mountaineer who has climbed the Seven Summits, talks with guest, Shailee Basnet, a Climber, Keynote Speaker, Stand-up Comedian and the Leader of the “Seven Summits Women Team” shares experience on being breaking the stereotypes by becoming first female team to scale the highest mountain. They discuss how they started a survival training program & their future goals.

Listen to “EP 218: Shailee Basnet changing the world from Nepal” on Spreaker.

Episode Highlights

• 3.15 – As per Mark, “climbing seven summits was definitely a male dominant native, it is a male dominated society and so, for a girl to stand-up and say I want to go do this, is really bold and really strong, so he enquires to guest where did this whole thing of climbing seven summits come from?”
• 5.11 – Shailee highlights that fortunately all 10 of them reached the summit of Everest, which is kind of a rare success in mountaineering. They are probably the largest and the most successful women on Everest, they got a hero’s welcome.
• 7.15 – Mark asks, “Were these Nepalese companies helping you out, or were these individuals or were they from other countries that help you make this dream possible for you?”
• 9.47 – Shailee points out that fortunately they had the Government of Nepal support them, the United Nations World Food Program agency in Nepal was their first big supporter, and once they had them on board it turned out in the fundraising world.
• 13.07 – The guest says that there was some research which showed that Highlanders i.e, People who are born in high altitude for a long time have bigger lungs. There is some research that says that there is genetic advantage, but there’s also advantage of practice.
• 15.23 – Shailee says that the best dream her family had for her was probably of getting married by 20 or having kids, etc.
• 17.37 – Mark wants to understand about Shailee’s drive to help rebuild many schools.
• 19.50 – The guest shares, there was no land to build a school so for three years they had separate arrangements but that didn’t happen so eventually they decided to build the school themselves.
• 21.05 – Shailee points out that because of the Seven Summits mission they had made friends all over the world, and they were sending in funds, resources, money and whatever they could.
• 23.49 – Shailee shares what she has been busy with working with young women who are survivors of sex trafficking. They mentor them and train them for two to five years, provide them with education, self-confidence, outdoor skills, and the long-term goal to help them live dignified lives, get out of poverty and find them jobs.
• 25.32 – Sheilee wants her future clients to be part of the Survivor Training Program.
• 27.58 – As per the guest, what they experienced is so heavy duty, that if they can communicate that through comedy or through the language of comedy that would be such a big win.
• 28.57 – “I’m always inspired when I talk to other women who are out making a mark in the world, you’re certainly doing that you’ve been at the top of the world where I just was”. – Mark Pattison
• 30.01 – Sheilee shares, when she fails it hurts but the next day, she is like, yeah, let’s try that job, so it’s okay to fail and it’s okay to be whatever size, shape or mood.

Three Key Points

1. Shailee describes that the journey started in 2007 and that was the year when there were actually two Sherpa (Da Gomby Sherpa and Pemba Dorji Sherpa) they’ve been climbing partners and climbing mountains together. Together they came-up with the idea of organising an expedition for Nepali women to climb Mount Everest, and till 2007 there were only seven Nepali women who scaled the summit of Mount Everest.
2. Sherpa guides work on the mountains. They are the kings or the rulers of the mountains without their help, it will be very hard for other people to do it but they’ve been doing it again & again for so long. So, obviously, they get really even better at it.
3. Mark says to Shailee that they all grow, they all are mature and they are looking through the right lens of life on how to turn back around and help others. It’s so important and he thinks they all have a duty, in the big picture of life, to do that. That’s what really the meaning of life is all about.

Tweetable Quotes

• “We knew we’re a team and one person on top meant success for all of us” – Shailee Basnet
• “I actually haven’t made it to the summit of all seven summits, I was the leader, but as a team, we completed that mission of climbing the Seven Summits as a women’s team”. – Shailee Basnet
• “I think there have been very few women teams of any country or, you know, so there was a lot of apprehension about our team. People were betting how many of us were gonna die, etc, etc,”. – Shailee Basnet
• “Usually in developing countries you hear that the government does not support artists or climbers or, you know, sports people argue is exactly the opposite. The biggest check ever came from the Government of Nepal. So, we’re very thankful about that”. – Shailee Basnet
• “Let’s take the leadership ourselves and let’s try that next mountain, we didn’t have much reference or footprint to follow, we really know what we’re doing but we just knew we didn’t want to stop”. – Shailee Basnet
• “Our way-up we stopped to see a river and I saw the Dharahara and when we went back, I couldn’t see that structure anymore. I was like, oh my god this is bad”. – Shailee Basnet
• “It doesn’t give me a kick anymore to look at a mountain and be like, I’m going to spend $5,000 to get to the top of that mountain. It’s not as exciting anymore”. – Shailee Basnet

Resources Mentioned

Shailee Basnet Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter