23: Discover The Depths of Your Greatness with World/Deep Sea Explorer David Concannon

Summary: “If you can just follow your passion, the rest will fall in to place.” - David Concannon The Bucket List Life Podcast Episode #23 - David Concannon The life of travel, adventure and exploration is but a dream for most, let alone a paid reality. The stories and experiences of a Professional Explorer are what movies are made of, books are written about and the history of the world is conceived from. Our next guest on The Bucket List Life with Kenyon Salo, Episode #23 is a successful and well know Explorer, Adventurer and Lawyer. David Concannon has climbed the tallest mountains, rubbed elbows with astronauts and been to the depths of the ocean visiting the Titanic, discovering sunken ships and recovering the NASA Apollo Rockets. David was one of the youngest members of the Explorers Club and talks with kids around the United States about following their dreams and encouraging them that they truly can do anything they put their mind to in life. David has some great stories and adventures to share with us today about his work in exploration. Highlights in Their Conversation: 4:00 David takes us back to where he truly learned what he was capable of and his exploration days began, with Kenyon, in Camp Mowglis. After becoming a Lawyer, the General Council and one of the youngest members of The Explorers Club, his explorations, adventures and many expeditions around the world were consisted and non-stop. 8:00 Having led many small and major expeditions around the world, David has been down to see the Titanic four times and has given away his seat six times to people that he believed has earned it and deserve that. “I feel very strongly, that if we are privileged enough to have our health and have wonderful people around us that contribute to make us happy, that we should pay that forward.” 10:00 David shares with us his secret of balancing an extra-ordinary lifestyle with his humble nature. “I ask ‘WHY NOT?’ not ‘WHY?’” And this philosophy has taken him places all around the world. 12:30 David shares the incredible background story of how he became the go-to-guy to assemble and lead a team expedition to find and recover all of the NASA Apollo Rockets. 19:00 David shares one of the best pieces of advice he was ever given by one of his mentors, Sir Edmund Hillary at a luncheon in the presence of nine other household names was to “Get over yourself!” 21:00 As a natural leader, David shares his strategies in assembling teams and leading them to accomplish their expedition goals. The most important factor in a team structure is trust. His leadership philosophy is to instil in his handpicked team members the fact that “If you are not contributing on the team, you are taking away from it.” 23:30 Back to raising the NASA Apollo Rockets, David admits that he never had any doubt or fear that the mission was not possible. He always knew it could be done, that he had assembled the right team and he trusted them. So he was never afraid that the team wouldn’t succeed. The greatest challenge was not in finding one of the rockets, but identifying them when he found all of them. 29:00 David shows his own children the same lessons that he teaches to kids all around the world when he speak at various high school events. “If you can just follow your passion, the rest will fall in to place.” 32:00 Founded in 1903, based off the Jungle Book, Camp Mowglis truly is a one of a kind special place for boys to learn about camping, adventure and exploration. David shares some of his favorite memories learning what he was truly capable of climbing Mount Washington and learning to scuba dive. 35:00 David describes an expedition where they went to a depth of 16,000 feet in a Russian Mir Submersible to investigate an interesting anomaly that showed up on a sonar scan. That anomaly turned out to be a wooden wreck of a Spanish Galleon slave ship that floundered in 1810, carrying thousands of silver and gold coins and the bill of sale for slaves.