Told by a Teen / Female Founder Stories
Holly Budge: Skydiving Everest, empowering women, and why adventure is just a platform
“I think that’s where the gold lies, when you set big, audacious goals that you don’t know if you can achieve.”
Holly Budge, How Many Elephants
Show notes
What is in this one.
- 00:00Who Holly is
- 01:07Expelled from school at four, and proud of it
- 03:01Deciding to get paid to jump out of planes
- 05:5447 days above 5,000 metres
- 08:26Setting goals you don’t know you can reach
- 09:09How her definition of adventure changed
- 11:45Why we only act on what we feel connected to
- 13:50What poaching actually looks like now
- 18:38Nature’s intelligence, and AI
- 20:17Using AI without losing your own brain
- 24:00Braiding design, conservation and adventure together
- 30:54Public speaking, and starting small
- 31:39Nothing is completely unique
- 34:56Being authentic when everything looks perfect
- 36:32What does success look like to you?
- 38:30My takeaways
The conversation
Holly Budge was the first woman to skydive Everest. She is very clear that this was never the point.
Expelled at four, and quite proud of it
She says she is proud of it. All the energy nobody knew what to do with is what eventually took her over Everest and out of a plane above it.
She spent 47 days above 5,000 metres acclimatising. That is the part that does not make the highlight reel.
Conservation without funding is just conversation
That is her line, and it is the whole business. How Many Elephants exists to fund the work rather than talk about it.
She said that if she can’t measure the impact, she doesn’t count it, and then listed the rangers, the farmers and the beehives. It was not an abstract point.
The summit was never the message
It is just what gets the message covered. She braided together everything she already loved, the adventure, the art and the animals, and jumping out of the plane is the part that makes people look up.
Her answer on the success question was three words. Success equals impact. She did not hedge it at all.
What I took from it
You have to have the rejections to then get to the yes.
- She braided together everything she already loved. The adventure, the art, the animals.
- The summit was never the message. It is just what gets the message covered.
- If she can’t measure the impact, she doesn’t count it.
From this episode
The lines worth keeping.
