Continuing the theme that extraordinary people are just ….. ordinary.
Another explorer …. who began polar exploration a little later than most of them, has a staggering story of “mind over matter”.
Ann Daniels is the only woman to have become a polar guide for groups walking to both the North and the South Poles. The stories on her web site are quite extraordinary and are told in such a disarmingly easy style that one needs to think 
carefully about what she is actually saying when recounting stories of:
- considerable pain and amazing stamina
- huddling for days beneath a tent which could not be pitched
- carbon monoxide poisoning
- winds lifting a person and 200lb sledge bodily from the ground and throwing them against a wall of ice.
It is very difficult to comprehend the leap that she took from having absolutely no experience to becoming a polar explorer.
She is the mother of four children who clearly had no idea what has ahead of her. When attending her first evaluation for this role, she had no equipment! So she ended up borrowing equipment from other people.
Despite immediately “getting the bug” for exploration and training very hard to prepare for it, when she presented herself at a later stage of evaluation, it transpired that she had not realised, and no one had thought of mentioning, that she would need to ski!
She had never had skis on her feet in her life. So between demanding evaluation sessions, while the other candidates were resting, she taught herself to ski!
She sums it up, as follows:
The personal strengths that I have used to achieve my Polar goals are no different to the strengths that people need to meet the challenges that they face at work, especially during this time of economic turmoil. People need to be focused, committed, resilient and able to perform at their optimum.
The truth is that if you had asked me what my strengths were before I embarked on my adventures I would have had difficulty naming any. Like many people, I had several self-limiting beliefs and low expectations.
That all changed when I was given an opportunity to become part of a female relay team going to the North Pole. I had many doubts but I suddenly realised I could do many things – and I did.
By the way, in case you are waiting for the “dogs” connection, there isn’t one: she does not use dogs. She and her teammates “man haul” everything on sleds that weigh up to 250 lbs, including over jagged pressure ridges of ice up to 30ft high.
She walks, skis and (wait for it…) swims to the poles!
In the following interview, she reveals a variety of aspects of her exploration:
One interesting thing did catch my attention in this interview: might she have uncovered the ultimate unbeatable product for the teenagers of the world? If you spot it, then let us know in a comment.
Oh, and she lives in Devon in the south west of England.
By John Lewis
Learning from Dogs 
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