Her own direction — Alison Levine
Does progress look linear? Does it move upward? Maybe you just look up.
That’s like most Americans who consider progress to evolve like time. Time or progress as a bigger digit or longer duration of something. That means you’re moving forward.
In 2002, Alison Levine was 270 feet from the summit of Mount Everest. She spent more than two months on the mountain. She had already climbed from base camp to camp one, back down to base camp to camp two, only to go back to base camp then up to camp three and back down to base camp. She acclimatized her body and mind to a sense of progress that was deeper than the eye.
She made ‘progress’ but spent more time on her feet going down. This double alpha-squared female vacillated up and down to get used to elevation. The 5’4, brown haired and green eyed, Phoenix, Arizona native was 270 feet from the summit of the tallest mountain in the world. She looked for something to fill the hole in her heart.
Bad weather hit.
Levine wanted to go straight up but it was a white out. She knew she’d be dead in a matter of minutes. She tells the audience on her TedX talk, “going to the top is optional, but going to the bottom is mandatory.” Levine turned around.
She faced a J.P Morgan executive upon returning to sea level, who told her “she didn’t really hike Mount Everest if she didn’t get to the top.”
For Levine, progress looked a lot like turning around.
Levine was born April 5, 1966. Unlike most babies, she was born with an extra electrical pathway between her heart’s upper and lower chambers that causes a rapid heartbeat. Her heart condition, Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome is life threatening and serious heart problems can occur. She also was found to have a neurological disorder, Raynaud’s Disease, that makes her extra prone to frostbite. She tells me, “You can’t control your experience.” Every decision she’s made since entering the world has been one to defeat her obstacles.
She replied to the man from J.P Morgan, “Are you the C.E.O of J.P?”
“No, I’m in fixed income trading.”
“Oh, but you’re not at the top of J.P. So that doesn’t really count.”
Levine doesn’t skip a beat.
On May 24, 2010, eight years later, the American mountain climber reached the summit of Mt. Everest and completed her Grand Slam bid. She ascended the highest peaks on every continent. She skied to both the North and South Poles.
Levine also went on to become the author of “On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme Environments.” She’s a graduate of Duke University’s M.B.A program and worked as an associate to J.P. Morgan’s rival, Goldman Sachs.
Levine doesn’t stay anywhere for long. She left Goldman three years later to tack on a more impressive position to her resume. She snagged the position as deputy finance director for Arnold Schwarzenegger in his bid to become governor of California during the recall election in 2003. By looking at her, you think she’s just an average suburban soccer mom but Levine isn’t afraid to play with the big guys.
Levine is a cast of characters. She continues to stretch her repertoire beyond business. She served as an adjunct instructor at US Military Academy in West Point, New York. Today, she’s the executive producer of a documentary, ‘The Glass Ceiling.’ Her documentary chronicles Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, the first female Sherpa (and first Nepali woman) to summit Mt. Everest. She’s a woman of many traits but her spunky attitude and tenacity remain consistent.
She worked as a hostess at a restaurant called Keatons in college when she received a call. The concierge from one of the local hotels asked if they could accommodate a large party of executives from Mattel later that evening.
“I think there were 10 of them — I don’t remember exactly. I told [concierge] to send them over.” This was one of the first opportunities for Levine’s entrepreneurial spirit to come alive.
“Before they arrived, I hopped in my car and went to 7–11 and bought a bunch of He-Man Masters of the Universe cups (because 7–11 was serving Slurpees in them to help Mattel promote their new line of action figures). I raced back to the restaurant and had the cups waiting on the table for them (filled with water) when they arrived. They sat down at the table and saw the cups and thought it was hilarious.
They asked, “Who did this?”
Levine isn’t one to evade the truth. She confessed. They replied by asking her what she was studying in college.
“Marketing.”
By the end of the evening, she secured a summer marketing internship at their headquarters in Los Angeles. Levine tells me now, “If you can talk to people in “their language” and show them that you understand what is important to them, you can build strong relationships with people fairly quickly.”
As a child, Levine was always obsessed with stories about the early Arctic and Antarctic explorers and early mountaineers. She’d read books and watch documentary films like “Man Who Skied Everest” but thought hiking was reserved for men. She didn’t think she was able to any of those places because she was born with a hole in her heart.
Levine’s leadership skills have stayed close to her heart today. She speaks with reverence and energy that only comes from a woman who stays close to suffering. She refuses to make her enemy pain. She had her second heart surgery when she turned thirty. For many people, this is a sign of defeat but Levine says with energy, “about 18 months later a lightbulb went on in my head.”
She thought, “Well, if those other guys can go to those places and have fantastic adventures, then why can’t I?”
Being a female mountaineer is no different from being a male mountaineer in terms of the skills that it takes to climb. The mountain doesn’t know or care whether you are male or female or any other gender. Climbing as a woman is not any different. Levine doesn’t see her gender or her health as a setback. It almost seems like an invitation for adventure.
In 2010, she made a return to the mountain. She went back to climb in honor of her friend Meg who had passed away in 2009 from a lung infection. Her journey isn’t self deluded. It wasn’t a mission for narcissistic satisfaction. She makes it clear that this journey is about others. She engraved Meg’s name in her ice axe to make sure that she was with her the entire time. Despite her sheer contrast to stereotypical mountain climbers, her personal obstacles remain out of the narrative.
Levine says, “I was working against the usual things that everyone works against on every mountain — harsh temps, wind, snow, tough terrain and altitude” as if the hole in her heart wasn’t a force of contention.
It was 6:30 AM on the South summit. Clouds came over. The visibility was horrible. She worried this was going to be another failed attempt. Levine tells the audience in her TedX talk, “I hit the wall. I didn’t have one ounce of energy left.” But she speaks on top of her words like she’s told this story a few too many times, like the trauma of reliving it and being with her words as she speaks them is too tiring.
She tells us, “I broke it down to smaller parts. I just needed to make it to the rock.” Then the rock turned into another rock. She took five more breaths. She was moving forward this time. Lateral, upward, forward.
Alison relishes in the physical joy while in the presence of danger. Levine tells me, if she could give advice to her younger self, she’d say “Don’t ever be afraid to fail.” Her message is clear, unlike the clouds that she hiked through.
“Failure is simply one thing that happens to you at one point in time.” Her self discipline and coolness under pressure is harnessed like a well kept flame. “It does not define you.”
She has an appreciation for the exhausting work behind the grandiosity of her accomplishments. When it comes to love, Levine thought she’d never marry. Her father was out of the FBI due to his run-ins with J Edgar Hoover by the time she was born. As far as how her parents influenced her, well, her parents never got along. They were never happy together, so the biggest way they influenced her was that she was convinced that she never ever wanted to get married. “I assumed that marriage ruins your life (because I saw both of my parents unhappy for the entire 53 years they were together).”
She hesitantly went on a blind date ten years ago. She figured out that marriage (or whatever kind of partnership you choose to have with someone) can actually make your life better if you are with the right person.
She tells me, “You might surprise yourself at what you can learn when you make yourself uncomfortable.” That was the night she met her husband, Pat Kern. She became married for the first time at age 52 and another part of her heart made room for him. Levine told me advice about change in the vein of the uncomfortable nature of changing career paths, but her wisdom is universal.
“Don’t be afraid to pivot.” Levine is adamant that you can lead a very happy life without marriage, states that her and Pat’s partnership is a way to share life together.
Levine isn’t on the mountain anymore, but her character is consistent. Levine pivots to another adventure. She’s currently in the middle of a public speaking tour. She admits that flying is a nightmare during the busy season. She’s often on a plane for twenty seven days out of the month. She clarifies to me that she’s not “gone” for 27 days, but actually, ON A PLANE for twenty seven out of thirty or thirty one days.
This adventure looks different from her trip up Mount Everest. She landed in Rhode Island, to her next speaking gig for the American Heart Association at 1 AM. She’ll be out of Providence by 1 PM. The moment she gets off stage, she whisks back to the airport. This is her fifth cross country trip in five days. Santa Barbara last week, New Jersey the day before and Portland the day before that.
Levine is typically in and out of cities in less than twelve hours but decides what direction is next. Her travels aren’t linear but she leaves the audience with a lasting message. Don’t be afraid to turn around.
