Before starting off on any expedition climbing some of the highest mountains in the world, Adventurer, Medic & Author, Jeff Evans, said that he had to establish what he termed the “expeditionary mindset”, establishing expectations and what success and failure looked like, which meant communicating efficiently, transparently, succinctly, not when he felt like it or when it was convenient to him.

“Conversely, it’s all of the time,” he confirmed. “You can’t turn the mindset off; it becomes a methodology for how we move forward.”

Sherpas have accompanied him on all his expeditions and Jeff said and they taught him a huge amount about climbing and subsequently about life.

“I think of it as the sherpa attitude,” he said. “They have been teaching me about it for decades... inherently, throughout this time. They work ultimately every day for the overall success of the team.”

“It’s style of leadership where you are coming at every decision and every team mate with every motion that you make you make with a service-based heart…I’ve seen it in the organisations that I go in and put my toe for just a second in every once in a while. I can feel the culture of an organisation,” Jeff said. “What is very clear to me is that when the individuals, the leadership and then hence the team all embrace this idea of a service-based approach, really lifting people up, then everything starts to peculate to the top.”

Characteristics such as trust, communications and managing adversity all come to the top as a result, creating a strong foundation. Productivity increases, creativity increases: people want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

“We all want that,” he confirmed.

Jeff spoke about befriending Eric, a blind climber, who he calls his best friend and with whom he began taking on mountain climbs as his guide, culminating in a climb to the summit of Mt Everest, which placed Eric in the record books.

“Guiding Eric has been an absolute gift to me. It has enhanced every aspect of my life. It has required me to reflect on his position multiple times…”

For Jeff, it meant focussing on Eric and not focussing on himself.

“If anything, that guy has taught me, it’s how to be prepared and manage environments and landscapes that change just like that. Where we have to evolve and adapt just like that.”

Jeff spoke about some of the incredibly stressful situations he had been in as an emergency medic, sometimes in war zones, and how his experiences had helped him develop patience and compassion and to understand how to work with the resources that he had to hand.

“What I really learnt was I needed to be the best version of me, because I’m not the only one going through this,” he said. “All these moments have made me a better dad, friend, husband, team mate, emergency person and have prepared me to be the best person I can be.”

Trust wasn’t behaviour that was characteristically handed out freely.

“"Trust me" are empty words...Trust is earned from sharing the same bandwidth, the same shared objective, and understanding that you're looking left and right knowing you're in it, we're in it. That's where trust is developed. Commitment to that process. We're doing this. We're in it together. We are going to push through,” he said.