I do not think about being beautiful. What I devote most of my time to is being healthy.
I'm lucky I had some teachers who saw something in me.
I think we all strive to push ourselves, to overcome our struggles. And when we do, we get to know ourselves better.
Growing up in a rural setting in Minnesota, I was raised with the outdoors and a sense of adventure.
I'm sort of a strange bird.
I wanted to be a teacher, but I was a lousy student, one of the slowest readers. It was a tremendous struggle. But I'm lucky I had some teachers who saw something in me.
I love that place where you get in running where you're just never out of breath and you just feel like you could go forever. I love that. I love feeling strong.
And then there's also this element of - some people would describe it as spirits or a presence that appears when things are very difficult, physically and emotionally. You know, when you're really putting out. So the third man aura is sort of an appearance. It's the yeti.
To push behind the dog sled and run in front of the dog sled. That was always an interesting job.
My first expedition was at about the age of eight.
Getting through high school and college was one of my greatest achievements.
This journey is not over. Our education initiatives have so much momentum, and we're committed to sharing even more stories from the Arctic when we return.
I love weights, but it's too far to get to the gym. So I make the farm my gym: I split wood and haul tires and do work on the farm, and that's sort of my weight training portion.
I think that women on expeditions often get sucked into giving 150 percent of themselves because they feel they have to prove themselves physically equal to men. We get ourselves into trouble and burn out.
My brother Bill, who is a year older, is a climber, and when I was in the seventh grade, he taught me how to rappel off the frozen waterfall in our backyard.
I have a whole, you know, pocket full of dreams I want to achieve. I don't know in which order they're going to fall.
The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they're too old to do it.
I get stubborn and dig in when people tell me I can't do something and I think I can. It goes back to my childhood when I had problems in school because I have a learning disability.
For me, exploration is about that journey to the interior, into your own heart. I'm always wondering, how will I act at my moment of truth? Will I rise up and do what's right, even if every fiber of my being is telling me otherwise?
Film critics said I gave a voice to the fear we all have: that we'll reach a certain point in our lives, look around and realize that all the things we said we'd do and become will never come to be - and that we're ordinary.
