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Lessons in Greatness: One Woman's Journey From Heart Condition to Climbing Mt. Everest In this podcast, adventurer and leadership professor Alison Levine discusses her personal struggles and the lessons she has learned along the way.

By Lewis Howes Edited by Dan Bova

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

When Alison Levine was a child, she used to tell her family that "it feels like there is an elephant on my chest." But they always told her, "toughen up."

Yeah, she came from a "tough love" sort of family.

At age 16 she passed out during soccer practice. While at the hospital they learned that she suffered from a rare heart condition.

Three surgeries later, she climbed to the peaks of the highest mountains on every continent and skied the North and South Pole.

This week on the School of Greatness, we have an amazing athlete, adventurer, professor of leadership and New York Times Bestselling author on the show. Please welcome the inspiring Alison Levine.

Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio or TuneIn

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

  • About The Adventure Grand Slam: The Seven Summits – Tallest Mountains on Seven Continents and The North and South Pole – Skiing to the Ends of the Earth
  • The amazing story of how health problems inspired her greatness
  • How to overcome heart surgery like a champion
  • Why Mike Krzyzewski seeks out big ego players for the USA Olympic Basketball team
  • How to identify and build teams around Performance Ego and Team Ego
  • Conversations about failure with Pete Dawkins
  • Differentiating those willing to fail from those who simply under perform
  • How the acclimatization process of scaling Mt. Everest is a metaphor for succeeding at anything
  • Why Alison sees power in practicing sleep deprivation (Sleep defender? Listen to Ameer)
  • How to simulate extreme conditions to prepare for uncanny adventure
  • Lessons learned from Kilimanjaro
  • Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome and recovering from 3 heart surgeries
  • Unbelievable stories of near death experiences
  • About the importance of team dynamics in physically demanding environments
  • What she realized at the top of Mt. Everest
  • Plus much more…

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Lewis Howes

New York Times Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur, Coach

Lewis Howes is a New York Times bestselling author of The School of Greatness and The Mask of Masculinity. He is a lifestyle entrepreneur, high performance business coach and keynote speaker. A former professional football player and two-sport All-American, he is a current USA Men’s National Handball Team athlete. He hosts a top 100 iTunes ranked Apple podcast, The School of Greatness. Howes was recognized by the White House and President Obama as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs in the country under 30. Details magazine called him one of “5 Internet Guru’s that can Make You Rich.”  Howes has been featured on Ellen, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The New York Times, People, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Men’s Health and other major media outlets.

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