Episode 54: Climb Your Own Everest with Sara Safari, Advocate, Adventurer and TedX Speaker
“Start right now. Don't wait for anything to happen. Don't wait for the next car, the next house, the next relationship. Don't wait for something else to happen for you to start pursuing your dreams, to take one step towards your dreams.” - Sara Safari
Failed it! Fam, today we have an inspirational and passionate woman who converted sadness and darkness into a powerful, positive experience to help raise awareness, donate, and fight a cause that’s so important. Please give a warm welcome to Dr. Sara Safari!
In today’s episode, Dr. Safari talks to us about:
Outfluencer v. Influencer
Not letting fears make decisions
Women empowerment
Links from show discussions:
Improve it! Five Day Challenge - scroll to the bottom and enter your email!
Would you like to join Sara to the entire trip to Nepal?! Contact her at Sara@empowernepaligirls.com!
About the Guest: Dr. Sara Safari is an author, speaker, mountain climber, college professor, Electrical Engineer and advocate for women empowerment. She has received the award for The Global Citizen from United Nations Association in 2015. She is a board member and director of development in Empower Nepali Girls foundation. She also has received the award for Outstanding Practice with Broad Impact in the area of women and leadership from International Leadership Association in 2017.
Sara will be the first Iranian in history to climb the Seven Summits, the seven highest peaks in each continent. She is climbing to raise funds for seven organizations who are empowering women.
About the Host: Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the failed it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Episode 54 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Hey friend, are you a leader who is career-focused, goal-driven and possess a life long learner mentality? Do you dream about achieving your goals and spend hours Googling how tos and gurus? Does a side effect of your awesome, might I add, personality include perfectionism, the dreaded imposter syndrome and the ever-present fear of failure? Well, you've landed in the right place. We just became virtual BFFs. I'm Erin Diehl, the founder of the improv training company improve it! And a recovering perfectionist turned failfluencer. Inspired by the improv rule, there are no mistakes, only gifts, this podcast is the creative outlet you need to not only motivate you, but the people that you lead. Through interviews with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and even comedians, you'll walk away becoming a more empathetic boss by realizing that failure is a part of the journey and you must fail in order to improve. In the scene of life, we all have our own unique gifts that we bring to the world, and it is our mistakes that help to unwrap them. Welcome to failed it!
Erin (01:20):
Hey, failed it! Fam. Today's guest is so stinking cool! She's going to take us to new heights and also push us to climb our own mountains. Please welcome life coach, career coach, TEDx speaker, and influencer Sara Safari to the show. Welcome Sara.
Sara (01:45):
Hi Erin.
Erin (01:47):
Oh my God. Okay. First of all, I have so many questions for you and we were chatting before we hit record. You are fascinating and the work you do, the people you support and that you serve are just so exciting. So I'm so excited for you to share your journey, your fails, all the things with us today. I'm going to give the failed it! Family your bio, and then we're going to get to failin' it. Are you ready to feel all the love Sara? Because you're awesome. Are you ready?
Sara (02:19):
I'm ready! Thank you.
Erin (02:20):
You're welcome. Okay. So Dr. Sara Safari is an author, speaker, mountain climber, college professor, Electrical Engineer and advocate for women empowerment. She has received the award for The Global Citizen from United Nations Association in 2015. She is a board member and director of development in Empower Nepali Girls foundation. She also has received the award for Outstanding Practice with Broad Impact in the area of women and leadership from International Leadership Association in 2017. Sara will be the first Iranian in history to climb the Seven Summits, the seven highest peaks in each continent. She is climbing to raise funds for seven organizations who are empowering women. Sarah I'm speaking for myself and the failed it! Family. What an honor to have you on the show and thank you for the work you're putting out into the world.
Sara (03:23):
Thank you. It's such an honor to be able to connect with so many strong, amazing, powerful women around the world and hear their stories. So I, I feel honored and privileged that I have this opportunity.
Erin (03:37):
Oh my God. Alright. Well, I'm going to stop being so blah-blah-blah, I'm excited because I am. I'm just so stinking excited. I think you have so much to share with us. I know you do. I've listened to your story. I can't wait for our failed it! Family to hear it, but before we dive any deeper, this is just a fun question. What's one fun fact about you that we couldn't find on your website, your LinkedIn profile, your bio. What's something that we don't know about Sarah yet.
Sara (04:06):
I am a creative cook. I love cooking. I combine all kinds of recipes from Italian, Persian, Mexican. I always come up with a new dish. I'm just, I just love cooking. I'm a foodie.
Erin (04:23):
What's your favorite dish to cook?
Sara (04:26):
I have so many favorites. Every day is different. I can, I don't have just one favorite, but I love to come up with different kinds of pizzas.
Erin (04:36):
Oh my God. Can you come to my house? Cause I hate cooking. So if you could, my family would really appreciate it. So, okay. Well we have so much to learn for you today, but I want to start here. And I mentioned this earlier, so I call myself a failfluencer and you call yourself an outfluencer, which I'm obsessed with. So can you tell me what an outfluencer means to you?
Sara (05:04):
Yes. I'm always outdoors and I love being outdoors. I love outdoor activities. I promote people to go out there and do outdoor activities. Don't want to stay at home, push yourself out of your comfort zone. Try things that you've never done before. So I would say that's why I just substitute the in to out, cause I'm kind of sending people out all the time.
Erin (05:29):
I love it! When I read that, I was like, this is my girl, we're friends now we're friends. So let me ask you this. So I know, you know, in your bio, I just shared a big chunk of what you were known for today. But prior to this journey, you were an electrical engineer who worked for a very large corporation and a lot of our failed it! Family includes leaders, emerging leaders in corporate America. Tell us a little bit about what life was like for you in this previous career.
Sara (06:03):
Yeah. I studied electrical engineering and I used to really enjoy doing a nine to five job, making friends, but then after a while I just thought it's very limited. And I felt like the I'm going to be only doing that certain specific jobs, certain specific projects, meet only specific people for the rest of my life. And, and I'm making a difference by optimizing a lot of devices, electronics in the devices and designing new instruments that people use. It's gonna make their lives better. But I missed interaction. I kind of want to be more with people, do something out there, not just being inside my cubicle in front of my laptop all the time. At one side, it was good cause I was very introverted and I preferred to only hang out with my computer. But at the same time I saw it as a missing. I saw extroverted people out there, people who are doing activities that I couldn't even imagine before. Cause I grew up in a family, they gave me two options. They said, you either going to be an engineer or a doctor choose. And I hated blood. So I'm like, I don't know what to do with blood. I have only one option.
Erin (07:25):
Oh my God, you, we are friends. I hate blood too. That's why, that's why I do comedy and professional development. So, okay. This is so fascinating. You have this career prior to you considered yourself pretty, you know, internal, I would say instead of extroverted. So introverted versus extroverted, you're now an outfluencer, but you got this idea to climb Everest during a seminar where someone asked you to think of a project or challenge that seemed impossible. What made you say I'm going to climb Mount Everest and what drew you to that specific challenge?
Sara (08:09):
I was just sitting in my chair trying to think of something impossible. Cause he mentioned, think of something impossible, something that you can't even imagine, your wildest dreams and everything that came to my mind is it wasn't impossible. But somebody behind me started talking about Everest to her friend and I just heard the word Everest and I thought, perfect. I hate cold weather. I've never been camping before. I never slept inside the sleeping bag. I don't even have a pair of hiking boots. That's the definition of impossible I'm hundred percent sure I can write here and sign that I would never, ever climb Everest. And that then he said, come up with something impossible. And that was impossible for me.
Erin (08:56):
That is so funny. And it was almost like, okay, so, so you're in the seminar. They said, come up with something impossible. You said, this is in my head now. And I remember hearing in your Ted talk, you said, and then I went home and Googled how to climb Mount Everest. And so you decided to climb Mount Baker, the highest mountain in California before even starting training for Mount Everest. Right. So you did this alone. Tell us a little bit about what happened during that experience.
Sara (09:31):
Yeah. it was actually Mount Whitney.
Erin (09:34):
Oh, okay. Sorry about that.
Sara (09:35):
But that's okay. And then so yes, I showed up alone because I was really excited that there is a way actually to climb Everest and I tried it, I had zero experience. So I ended up alone at 12,500 feet. Nobody was there with me in the middle of winter. My sleeping bag got wet, my sleeping pad I made a hole in it. So I, and I didn't take it tent with me because my tent was five pounds and I didn't want to carry extra five pounds. So I thought who takes the tent and the mountain? I mean, that was very stupid. That was my don't do it. People don't do it. But yeah, I, I, and then that, that was it. That was a very kind of important moment in my mountain climbing because I thought that I'm dying on that elevation. It was my first time being on that elevation. I couldn't breathe properly. I was gasping for air. I was cold and I thought I'm dying.
Erin (10:37):
Is that where the video was made? Where you show your last, you know, couple of sentences, what you thought was your last sentences or when did that take place?
Sara (10:47):
Yeah, exactly. That's the moment that I took that video from my Ted Talk that I say I'm dying. I'm apologizing to my parents for making a mistake. I'm saying that I'm so sorry for doing that. And I'm saying that I love them. And then all of that, all the things that you say, when you want to say goodbye to your loved ones, I sent all of it and, and then I'm cold. I don't want to be here and all of that. And somehow I didn't die that night, which is a long story. I was exercising inside my sleeping bag to keep myself warm. And then finally at 7:00 AM, when I saw the sun, I started running down the mountain. Cause I, I thought, wow, I somehow survived. Now. I need to make sure that I find my way back to the bottom of the mountain, which I got lost a bunch of times. I was, I was inside the snow up to above my waist and I had to dig myself out. But then finally I found my way down the mountain and I rescued myself.
Erin (11:59):
Wow. Okay. And just for the failed it! Family, if you haven't seen her Ted talk, number one, we're going to link to that in the show notes. So the Ted talk is obviously a video, but there is a video that she plays inside of her Ted talk that actually shows what we're talking about right now where she thought it was her last days on earth and she recorded it on her iPhone or her camp, her phone, and played that for the Ted Talk audience and therefore for us. So everyone should watch it. It's so interesting and so amazing that you have this experience. And then you said I'm still gonna try to climb Mount Everest. That would have been enough for me. I'm not going to lie Sara, that you kept going.
Erin (12:43):
Okay. So then you talk about the transformation that, so after this experience, you went under this transformation and you trained and you prepped. Talk to us a little bit about this experience of training and then how you were introduced to the man who founded the organization, Empower Nepali Girls. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And I also want to know within that, what drew you to this organization and how did that impact your goal of climbing Mount Everest? Lots of questions, but then one question here, but just tell us a little bit more about that experience.
Sara (13:23):
So that night on the mountain that I thought I was dying, it was very important and transformational because I always had a fear of being alone, fear of extreme cold, fear of darkness and surviving in 12 hours of darkness, extreme cold, being alone on the mountain, I kind of real, I realized that how I allow my fears to stop me in my life and that turning point happened when I decided not to allow my fears to be so powerful and decide for me and make a decision for, for all these little things that I wanted a little or big things that I want to do in my life. So that was the turning point because I faced my fears that would stop me most of the time you might have. And, and then moving from that, I, I climbed a bunch of other mountains, but I never made it to the top of any of the mountains.
Sara (14:17):
So I decided to quit mountain climbing and sell all my gear. And the same day that I was taking pictures of my gear to post them on eBay and sell them. I got a new job offer, which was teaching electrical engineering and computer science at California State University in Fullerton. And I started teaching as a new teacher. I didn't even have time to train for anything. I couldn't even go to the gym anymore. And that was when I decided to completely forget about climbing Everest. But three weeks into teaching, I was asking around and looking for people who go hiking with at least. So I asked other faculty and somebody introduced me to Dr. Cutler who is the founder of organization Empower Nepali Girls. And when he shared with me about the girls who become victims of human trafficking, or are forced to get married at a very young age.
Sara (15:17):
And he told me the story of how he went to Nepal 20 years ago, and he realized that the girls become victims of human trafficking. There is this belief that men who are HIV positive, and they think that if they sleep with a virgin girl, their HIV is get treated and they get well. So they buy the girls really cheap, like 50 bucks. The girls get raped, they get diseases. And even if they survive and somehow go back to their villages, they can never have a normal life. So when I heard that, I couldn't go back to my normal life, knowing this is happening on the other side of the planet. I mean, this was 20 years ago. Now it is not as bad as back then, but at least there are some traces of it. And just that's, that's when I renewed my Everest climbing promise, which was, I, I promised the organization that I am gonna start climbing for Empower Nepali Girls to raise $1 per foot of any mountain that I climbed, including Everest. And I promised that I raised a $1 to provide prepared foods to provide for the girls to continue their education. And that gave me like a thousand times more motivation. I was very heartbroken, but I use that energy of sadness and anger and frustration that this is happening on the planet. I turned all of it into excitement, into fundraising and climbing and training again so that I could help the girls. And that's, that was the turning again, another turning point for my climbing career.
Erin (16:58):
Oh my God. You are amazing. I mean, a lot of people here said things that go on in this world and they don't take action. And this story resonated with you so much that you said I'm going to actually take action, do something about it, and I'm going to make a difference. And so you were doing now, you're a professor and you're, you're back in your training now, since you've, you've started to, to start, you know, raising money for this foundation, and you decided from this now to climb Everest as one of those fundraising opportunities, is that right?
Sara (17:34):
Yeah. Well it resonated with me because I grew up in Iran and like a lot of people might hear about this cause, but what really inspired me was that I grew up the same way as these girls. And I didn't want, I want them to have opportunities the same way that I didn't have opportunities, that my little sisters didn't have opportunities that my mom and my aunt, and I didn't want that to continue happening on these other girls on the other side of the planet, that I wouldn't even speak their language, but I knew the feeling of not having opportunities and wanting to do more and not being able to. And that frustrated me so much that I was kind of secretly helping my little self and my little sisters back in, in any countries who were experiencing such a thing, I was kind of saving all of us from it by doing it was very personal for me. I just, I was feeling it with every cell in my body that I'm doing this because I wanted somebody to do this for me back when I was little. And now that I can't, I have to do it. It was my responsibility. It was some source of saving myself.
Erin (18:56):
Sara, you are awesome. I mean, anyone listening right now can feel the passion in your voice. You can feel it in your soul when you talk. And the fact that you took all of this sadness, this darkness, and you brought it into a positive, powerful experience to help raise awareness and not only donate and help fight the cause is so freaking cool. I hope, I know you realize that, but do you realize that like, do you really in your heart know what, how cool it is?
Sara (19:28):
It was my self-expression. If I wanted to be true to myself, if I wanted to be real and really be the real person that I, it was just, I had to do this as a part of my self expression. Just really respecting myself.
Erin (19:44):
Yes.
Erin (19:47):
Hey failed it! Fam, are you looking for a challenge? Do you want more confidence, more bravery, more support, and more creativity in your life? Are you stuck in a rut and need a creative spark that will get you thinking outside of the box and help you see things with a new set of eyes? Well never fear my friends. The improve it! Five day challenge is here. It's a five day challenge sent to you five days in a row via email that gives you prompts to help you improve your confidence and be more brave. We also give you tips on how to better support your team as well as tricks to get the creative juices flowing. All of this is free. That's right free 99. We want you to experience the fundamentals of improvisation at work. So we are shining some light and a little magic on you and your inbox to sign up, head over to learntoimproveit.com and scroll to the very bottom of our webpage. You'll see a prompt that says, want to learn more about improve it? From there, enter your email, and you're all set and ready to rock this challenge. We cannot wait to improve your it, whatever it may be.
Erin (21:10):
I want to parlay this into, as you know, you're on the failed it! Podcast and we get this notion that failure isn't a fail. It's a gift. It comes from improv comedy, which is what I live and breathe by. And I'm a founder of a company called improve it! We use professional development, or we use improv to train professionals on soft skills. And that one of the biggest tenants is no mistakes, only gifts. That is what we preach on stage. I want you to tell us a little bit about one of the biggest gifts or AKA fails that you encountered during your trek of climbing Mount Everest. And then what you learned from that. Tell us a little bit about that through the lens of your failures.
Sara (22:01):
I have plenty of failures and at the beginning, maybe I made it mean that this is something negative for me, but throughout the time I made friends with them and I just, it became a part of success for me. But one of, one of the failures that I took me a long time to be able to see it, not as a failure, but as a gift was the earthquake in Nepal. When I finally climbed all these mountains and preparing myself and I was ready finally to climb Everest, and it takes 60 days to climb Everest. And on day 25 of the climb, there was a 7.8 earthquake while I was at 20,000 feet on a ladder, I was on a straight wall. And I was on a ladder on top of the fifth ladder. There were five ladders connected to each other. And I was on top of the fifth of the ladder when the whole wall is started shaking left and right, and imagine I just raised a lot of money for the girls to continue their education. And then 7.8 earthquake in a country like Nepal, that most of the buildings they are, they don't even have a plan like a building plan.
Sara (23:24):
They just is bunch of rocks on top of each other. And like, imagine me being at 20,000 feet, even without the 7.8 earthquake, that part of Everest called Khumbu Icefall is very unstable, very dangerous. Without the earthquake, it is very hard to climb that part. It's ice climbing with a lot of ladders over crevasses that deep, I see valleys that you can even see the bottom of the valley. And now I had to cross all those ladders. They're like 50 ladders we crossed. And we finally up at camp one and I was there when the 7.8 Earthquake has struck us. And I saw death. I was, I was at one point, I was sure that this is the end of it. And I'm going to die. There's going to be avalanches. There were avalanches. And none of them on me, it was around me.
Sara (24:20):
And I thought, they're going to hit me. I'm going to fall down. I'm going to be buried alive under the snow. And nobody can ever find my body. And that was that was the failure because I was dying and all the money that I raised are going to nowhere because there is no other, no schools anymore that the girls will continue their education. And it was a double failure. And it took me a long time to get over that trauma. And obviously I didn't die that day, but but when I came back out, I finally, after eight days of rescue, we came back down to Kathmandu, which is capital of Nepal, 10,000 people died that day. And I was extremely angry and worried because I just raised money for the girls to continue their education. Now they don't even have a home.
Sara (25:15):
They don't even have a school. They don't even have a food or water or restroom, nothing. And now I had to go search for them and make sure they're even alive. So that was it took me a long time to be able to see that failure as a way that I can give even more back to that country, to those people. I was extremely traumatized, but finally there was the start of it. I think it was like maybe a few months after the earthquake, which we send a group of people while I was very traumatized. I did a bunch of fundraising events and I have those videos and pictures. And I'm looking at myself. I feel like I'm only half present, that my other half was a steal in Nepal dealing with the situation and being with the girls. I felt guilty that I'm here.
Sara (26:09):
Even, I felt guilty that I'm alive because 10,000 people died on that day. And then after that after a few months, I was telling one of my friends that I'm really angry and really upset. I don't understand this why this happened. Why to me, why to the girls, they already had a really bad life. They didn't need a 7.8 earthquake. And and like I trained so hard. It was 750 days. I went to the gym twice a day. I was ready to make it. I was just really angry, really frustrated and really upset. And he said, even a 7.8 earthquake at that elevation on Everest, couldn't stop you. You're still fundraising, you already, while you're traumatized, you already have five fundraising events and all your girls are alive. What else do you want? And I just, it completely changed my view. I just saw it in a different light. And and that, I, sorry.
Erin (27:18):
You do not be sorry. I am sitting here listening intently. And I know everyone listening at home is also, and wow, Sara, that is crazy. That's crazy. People in their lifetime can't feel half of that trauma that you experienced. Some people don't, some people do. That is a lot, but you have really given back to that community by even still talking about it now, you know, you're still going after those goals, you're still trying to help those women and bring light and awareness to it. 750 days of training for a 60 day track is insane. That is insane. People, I mean, some people don't go to the gym in the morning. You know what I mean? Like this is, this is crazy, but so fantastic. And I, I want to ask you this question because, you know, as you and I both said, these aren't really fails. These are gifts. So to you, why are sharing your gifts, quote, unquote, with the world so important?
Sara (28:28):
Everybody, we are all struggling with new things every day. And, and knowing that there is somebody else out there who's been through this and they somehow survive this, knowing that I'm not alone knowing that maybe there's somebody else who can hold my hand for a little bit, maybe listening to their story might help me just a little bit to take just one more step. Just one more step. I think that's inspiring. That's inspired me. And I know it will inspire a lot of people out there. That's why even six years after the earthquake and the anniversary is coming up, April 25th was the day of the earthquake. So I know this is it kind of, it inspires me to be able to inspire other people. So I think it's very important to share my story.
Erin (29:20):
I think it's so important and you've done it so well and so eloquently. And I want to ask you this question. So after you've looked at your quote unquote gifts, if you will, what would you say is your it or your life's purpose? Because I also know you've talked about that. You've now climbed Mount Everest. You talk about your new Everest. What would you say is your new Everest or what your purpose is today?
Sara (29:47):
I would say empowering women is my calling and it's just coming from very personal experiences how I wasn't empowered myself and how I love to empower my little self. So when I see a woman either they're my clients or people around me or my sisters or my friends, the number one thing that effortlessly comes to me and doing so naturally and so easily, and I'll do it with all my heart. I don't even consider it, the work it's fully my passion is empowering women seeing that they can see their powers, helping them so that they can see their powers, their capabilities and believe in themselves and take on actions or goals or dreams out of their comfort zone. That really inspires me and empowers me. And I think that's, that's my calling.
Erin (30:44):
We are so aligned. I love this so much because you really, you have, so we say an improv get comfortable with the uncomfortable and I mean, you've really leaned into that, Sarah. Okay. You have leaned in and, Oh, it's so fantastic. And I can tell it's not really work for you. It's just your purpose. It's what you're here for. It's what you've been put on the earth to do. And it's so cool. And I'm so glad you've shared this story with us and I'm so happy you shared it with the world, but especially my little corner of the world here with the failed it! Family, I know is going to walk away with so many takeaways here. This wasn't something I planned on asking you, but it's just interesting. I love that you talked about you talk to your, your little self, your younger self. What is something that you would say to a member of the failed it! Family today if they are struggling to really lean into that voice within, what's one action item they could do today to really push themselves to get more comfortable with the uncomfortable?
Sara (31:54):
I would say, start right now. Don't wait for anything to happen. Don't wait for the next car, the next house, the next relationship. Don't wait for something else to happen for you to start pursuing your dreams, to take one step towards your dreams. A lot of times we let the outside to decide for us and I, this is what I want to tell you guys, like when we were kids, we never waited for anything. If you wanted to go play, we would go. We were playing like the second after, we never waited for anything. We were just right there. No, no, no. Nothing could stop us. So I would say just start right now, even for five minutes stages, take a step towards, maybe even writing down your goals, like taking, take a look at your fears. What are those fears that are stopping? You do something about it. You reach out to people who can help you find like-minded people who can support you along your way. Find a mentor, a role model. Somebody that can, you can look up to, you can research about, you can read about, or you can contact and ask questions. Like do something, do it even a little thing. Maybe for 5 to 10 minutes, do something towards your dream. Start now!
Erin (33:13):
I love that so much. And if you are that person listening today and needed to hear that, thank you, Sara. I needed to hear that. To be honest. I think we all do at times. So take that one step, one step. So Sara, this is a fun question, but I'm always curious to hear this answer. What would you do even if you knew you might fail?
Sara (33:37):
I would do the exact same thing.
Erin (33:39):
Yeah. I love that. I love that. It's so fun. I love that question because I feel like a lot of people who come on this show are rarity, pretty vulnerable people and are doing the things they want to do with their life. And I figured, I knew you were going to say that cause I'm like, she's doing it. She's doing it. Alright. So what did you fail at today? Today?
Sara (34:01):
I was actually thinking like, what are the things that I consider failing? And then what are the things I don't consider failing anymore? I would say in this environment that we are right now failing would be, if you don't take care of your immune system and you get sick, that's failing today. But then I think other than that, really other than health issues that we are dealing with nowadays, other than that, anything else is just a step towards success. And it's just a step to learn about yourself, learn about the situation and just take a better step next time. So I wouldn't call any of those failing, but I would say I didn't have my multivitamin today, I totally forgot that that's my fail today.
Erin (34:55):
And that is okay. That is okay. We're all taking steps towards goals. And I, you know, what's so funny? It's like health is wealth now, right? Like we all, it's so crazy how I feel like we used to like touch everything, jump on a plane, not think about all the, you know, people who've sat there before us. And it's just important to keep, to keep ourselves and our immune systems alive. But I agree. Every, I had, somebody asked me the other day, they're like, what's the difference between risk taking and failure? And I said, there is no difference. They are the same thing. If you take a risk, you have to be okay with the outcome could be failure. Right. So yeah. So cool. I love this. I'm going to end with something. This is fun. It's called the fail yeah lightning round. Okay. Sara, there's a little improv, a little thinking quickly on your feet, but you've got this. This is your life. So you're going to nail it. So I'm going to ask you a series of questions and then I just want you to respond as fast as you can with only one word answers. But no, you can't fail here. Safe space. Okay. But if you say more than one word, I'm going to give you a fail yeah. Just like that in a weird, weird voice. Okay. Alright, Sara, are you ready for the fail yeah lightning round?
Sara (36:19):
Yes I am!
Erin (36:19):
Here we go. Alright. One word to describe your early career.
Sara (36:24):
Boring.
Erin (36:29):
One word to describe where you're currently at in your career.
Sara (36:34):
Exciting.
Erin (36:35):
One word to describe your future self.
Sara (36:38):
Unknown.
Erin (36:40):
Oh, one word to describe your favorite boss.
Sara (36:44):
Motivational.
Erin (36:45):
One word to describe your least favorite boss.
Sara (36:47):
Lost.
Erin (36:49):
One word to describe your training style.
Sara (36:54):
Very interactive.
Erin (37:01):
Fail yeah Sara. Did you say very attractive?
Sara (37:04):
Interactive.
Erin (37:05):
I thought you said attractive. I was like, I could imagine you have cool workout clothes. Interactive. Very interactive. Okay. One word to describe your tracking style.
Sara (37:17):
Peaceful.
Erin (37:20):
Oh, and one word to describe this interview.
Sara (37:24):
Easy.
Erin (37:25):
Yeah. All right. Let me ask you this. How can the failed it! Fam find you? Is there anything that you want them to know about? Tell us all the things.
Sara (37:37):
Yes. My website's Sarasafari.com. Sara no H you can find all my, all my social media information. If you want to find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, anywhere um and now, nowadays Clubhouse, other than that, I I have this professional development workshop and bootcamp that I like to invite all of you to take it. Look at it on my website. It is coming off in May. The next point is a three-day one in May. Let me know. You can go to actually Sarasafari.com/iwanttoclimbmyEverest. And then you can write down your name, your email, and why do you want to climb your Everest? And what is your Everest? Or if you don't know your Everest, tell me more about yourself. And then you can even make a 15 minute call with me and we can talk about your Everest and how to explore your Everest, to find your Everest. And we can start climbing it together.
Erin (38:44):
Sara, you are awesome. And we will link to all of that in our show notes failed at fam. So just scroll on down and you can find all of those things she just mentioned. First of all, Sara, thank you so stinking much. I mean, truly this has been one of it's just so interesting, your life, the choices that you've made to step out of your comfort zone. I'm just so impressed. I know everyone listening is. You're truly moving mountains and we could not be more grateful for the work you're bringing to the world and how you're empowering and impacting women. So thank you again for being here today.
Sara (39:22):
Thank you so much. It's an honor.
Erin (39:25):
And to the failed it! Family fail yeah. Fail freaking yeah.
Erin (39:32):
Hey friends, thanks for tuning into failed it. I am so happy you were along for the ride. If you enjoyed this show, please head on over to iTunes, leave us a five star review and subscribe to the show. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show, please take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram at keeping it real deal and share it to your stories so we can bring more people to the failed it! Family. I'll see you next week, but I want to leave you with this thought, what will you fail at today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I'm so proud of you and you are totally failing it. See you next time.