Summary: "Adventure can be a powerful catalyst for personal change." - Toby Storie-Pugh The Bucket List Life Podcast #35 - British Explorer Toby Storie-Pugh What happens when you combine your quest for adventure and passion for exploration, with your desire to help others and affect positive change in the world? You end up living an ultimate form of The Bucket List Life! Our very first guest in 2015, on episode #35 of The Bucket List Life Podcast with Kenyon Salo is a 39 year old British Explorer based out of New York City. Toby Storie-Pugh leads world-class expeditions that are leveraged to create sustainable social impact. He is the Founder of a children's home and school in Kenya, called Flying Kites. He has also founded the Kenyan Everest Expedition where he is campaigning to help the first Kenyan climber to the summit of Mt. Everest, in 2015. And then, towards the end of 2015, Toby wants to be the first person to start walking the full length of the Congo River which will take about 12 months. Toby is with us today to talk about all of his exciting adventures, expeditions to come and how he is able to make a significant impact helping others around the world. Highlights of their podcast conversation: 4:45 Toby tells us the story of how he started Flying Kites with his two co-founders in Nairobi, and where their desire to manifest the best children’s home and school in the world which started seven years ago. “We felt that it was our moral obligation to give the very best care that one could give, because, if you did do that you had the chance of creating an incredible generation of leaders that, because of what they had suffered, were empathetic with those that were still suffering. We felt that was something that was still lacking in Kenya.” 12:00 Toby talks about how, looking back, he can see that even though things may have seemed devastating at the time and didn’t happen the way he planned in his early 20’s, they happened the way they needed to for him to develop his current understanding of the himself, the world and that there is so much value in struggle. 21:00 Toby compares the incredible feeling of accomplishment after summiting a formidable mountain with the feeling of helping others in his charity efforts. He says that climbing a mountain has a finite endeavor with an end point of achievement. Whereas, building a mission, like Flying Kites, never really feels complete or finished, it’s an on going project that he hopes never ends in his lifetime. 24:15 Although, Toby has not yet summited Mt. Everest himself, he has founded an expedition to help the first Kenyan climber to summit the mountain with him in a team of six. Toby talks about how his desire and ambition to accomplish this goal with a Kenyan representative came about in early 2012. After their initial attempt was thwarted due to a devastating and fatal avalanche in 2014, they plan to attempt a successful summit again in 2015. 36:15 Toby talks about where his aspiration to be the first person to walk the full length of the Congo River came from. He believes that the 4,700 KM will take at least 12 months and he looks forward to the challenge and sense of achievement that comes from doing something that has never been done before, such as walking from the source of the Congo river down to the sea. “You really only find out things about yourself when your backs’ against the wall and your in some kind of extremely difficult circumstance.” 55:00 What is something on Toby’s bucket list? He would love to go to and do a reasonably relevant masters degree at Cambridge University. 56:45 Toby would like to leave us with the final thought: “Don’t be put off, when things become difficult. When you feel weak, fragile, incapable or out of resources…. just accept that feeling, suck it up and find a way to move forwards.” Thank you so much Toby, for sharing your adventures, experiences and future aspirations with us all.
