Find Your Polar Bear | Mark Agnew

Key Takeaways

Hello. I am an adventurer and I'm going to tell you about adventure that I took a couple of years ago where three friends and I became the first people to kayak through the entire Arctic Northwest Passage. That's a feat that's so epic and so difficult, it's been compared to the first people to climb Everest. To wait wait wait. It was my mom who said that. But I get whatever testimonials I can. But before I tell you about this adventure, I'm going to tell you about my previous expedition. Prior to going to the Arctic, I wanted to row across the Atlantic. Now, rowing across the Atlantic, you typically row for 2 hours and then sleep for 2 hours taking it in turns with your teammates to keep the boat moving 24 hours a day. You row for 2 hours, you sleep for 2 hours, you row for 2 hours, you sleep for 2 hours, you row for 2 hours, you sleep for 2 hours all day, all night for typically 40 days. Yeah, obviously that sounds miserable. So, I I haven't So, uh I couldn't find any friends who wanted to come with me. So, I scoured the internet and I found a guy who posted an advert. He wanted to row across the Atlantic. He needed a crew and he wanted to set the world record. I didn't know that people set world records in adventure. I thought that was just for the Olympics, but now that I did, I wanted to be a world record-setting adventurer. Now, I know what you're thinking. Finding a stranger on the internet is a bad idea. But in this case, it was a terrible idea. And after just 48 hours into our expedition, I was rescued by helicopter. And before I'd even made it back to the UK, I found myself splashed across the tabloids under the headline "Captain Calamity and Crew Trapped in Spain after leaving passports on abandoned catamaran." A bad start to my adventure career. In fact, when I'd left the office on Friday, my colleagues given me a a ovation. This guy's going off to set the world record. When I came back on Monday, half of them thought I hadn't started, and the other half thought I'd smashed the world record. And this is when I became obsessed with resilience. I thought if I was going to do something bigger and something harder, I needed a different approach. I needed resilience through change and uncertainty. So, I started reaching out to psychologists, I read books and studies, and I came up with my own polar bear framework to thrive through change. We don't have time to go through all of them today, but we're going to look at pursuit, live with uncertainty, relationships, and accepting the challenge. And with this in mind, I went to the Arctic. I went to the Northwest Passage. And I joined my three teammates. West and Jeff, they're the first people to kayak the length of the Amazon River. Eileen, she has a list of ultra kayak record races as long as my arm. And me, I'd done two long weekends on the South coast of England and I felt pretty good about it. Now, the reason the Northwest Passage might be possible by human power is cuz the ice is disappearing. But when I say it's disappearing, it's not yet disappeared. There's still a lot of ice in the water. What you can see us standing on there is actually fast ice. It's fastened to the shore. It doesn't move. It feels like land even though it's the frozen ocean. And on the horizon, you can see pack ice, these huge chunks of ice that move around being pushed by the wind and the tide. Our plan was to launch from the fast ice, wiggle through the gaps in the pack ice, and head north. And whenever we needed to get back to land, we'd wiggle through the gaps in the pack ice again and set up our tent. We were very naive. We launched from the fast ice. We went round the pack and we started to head north. But very quickly, our plan started to unravel. The pack was far denser than we expected. The chunks of ice were much bigger and way more dynamic. The idea that we could just wiggle through the gaps whenever we pleased was ridiculous. So, we thought let's not do anything stupid here. Let's turn around, go back to the start. We saw some cabins near where we launched. We can wait there for 2 or 3 days until the ice conditions change. We turned around and to our horror My horror is actually sort of a recurring theme in this adventure. You might know the words by the end. To our horror, the pack had already shifted. The way we come from had disappeared. We were trapped. So, now we needed to head south get to the end of the pack and turn right to go back to land. But, that right-hand turning might come in half an hour, 2 hours, 20 hours. We had no idea. And to be honest I was scared. I was afraid of this immense amount of uncertainty. But, you can't do an adventure or life or even work without encountering negative emotions like stress and fear. So, if you can't change the fact that you will encounter negative emotions, then you have to change your relationship to those emotions. And I would have previously thought that was about pushing those emotions down so you can focus on what you can control. But, now I realize resilience is about accepting those emotions as normal. And we might worry that by accepting negative emotions, we invite more of them in. But, the truth is that when you accept negative emotions, their power diminishes. When you label them, validate your reaction as normal, sit with the discomfort, and then focus on what you can control, it's not just some pity phrase. It's actually neurology. The amygdala, the part of your brain that's responsible for the stress response, that calms down. The activity moves back into your prefrontal cortex responsible for decision-making and rational thought. If you want to live through change and thrive through uncertainty, don't fight the feeling, fight the problem. I accepted the emotions. I didn't fight them. And then I could focus on the problem. We start kayaking and kayaking and kayaking for hours and hours. And matters went from bad to worse when we became engulfed in this thick fog. And it turned everything gray. The sea turned gray, the sky turned gray, the ice turned gray. And perspective became utterly impossible to gauge. And time and time again, we'd come around a right-hand corner, I'd see cliffs 2 or 3 mi away, nothing between us and the base of the cliffs. I'd say, "We've done it. We've reached the end of the pack. In an hour we'll be at those cliffs. This nightmare will be over. Our salvation is at hand." And then the fog would clear. My eyes would focus. The illusion would lift. And I realized they weren't cliffs. They weren't 2 or 3 mi away. It was just a piece of ice maybe this big, 10 or 20 m away. So confusing was the perspective in this fog. And then we came around one corner and saw this huge bit of ice with 10 polar bears on it. I'd never seen a polar bear in my life. I didn't know they traveled in packs. And now I was faced with 10 of them about 300 m away. I was about to scream to my teammates, "Polar bears! Polar bears!" And then the fog cleared. My eyes focused. The illusion lifted. And I realized they weren't 300 m away. They were 5 m away. And they were seagulls. And the second my brain computed what they were, I couldn't imagine how I saw anything but seagulls. So confusing with this house of mirrors that the fog put us in. And on and on we pushed until finally we made it back to the fast ice. Not land, but at least something we could get out on. So we hauled the kayaks up, tied them around our waists, and began to walk across the ice back to the cabins. And after a while we began to relax, thankful to finally be back on the solid fast ice instead of the moving uncertain world of the pack ice. And just as we began to take a big deep breath of relief, crack! The ice gave way below me. I fell into the Arctic Ocean and just caught myself with my elbows before I disappeared. My teammates ran over. I said, "Don't come you'll fall in too." So they nosed the kayak towards me. I grabbed onto the bow. They pulled me out onto the ice. We saw this big black circle of soft ice that I'd fallen through and realized that everything in this environment was a threat. And we pushed on and after 14 hours we made it back to the coast. The final few meters of ice crunched against the coastline, frozen waves mid-motion stuck there in this ethereal beautiful environment. We went up into the cabins. This should have been the moment of peak humiliation. 14 hours of life and death struggle, zero miles. Another expedition, another failure. But instead my teammate Eileen turned to me and said, "We uh explorers." And we dived into a hug, bonded by our shared misadventure. And I realized at that moment I'd become too obsessed with the outcome, the world first, the world records, the headlines, and I'd forgotten what really mattered to me. And that was the adventure itself. And the irony was when I let go of the outcome and fell back in love with the process, with the adventure, then the outcome actually became more likely. Because of course I was going to go tomorrow because I was enjoying myself. And the day after that because I was enjoying myself. And the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, I'd get to the end as an inevitable byproduct. Because when you love to strive, you always arrive. And that truly is resilience, when you love the process. Now, it's just as well that I love to strive and not arrive because we were still trapped by the ice. And we hoped to be there for two or three days before we launched again when the ice was blown offshore. And we moved into these cabins, and we ended up being stuck there for 15 days. We tried to launch a number of times, and each time we get trapped in the ice. Without the fog, it's kind of beautiful experience, but we still made no headway. Till after 15 days, we put our foot down, went around the ice come hell or high water, and finally went into a new area of the Northwest Passage. Now, the reason the Northwest Passage has never been done by human power is because you only have 60 days to do it. Then the weather gets too bad, winter comes back, you have to get out. You have 60 days to do the whole Northwest Passage. After 21 days, we were here. Not a good start. But I wasn't worried yet. I thought as long as we could get to here, then we had a chance of completing the Northwest Passage. Because it's the other side of a 50-mi wide crossing called Prince Regent Inlet. And on the other side, everything would get easier cuz so much more was in our control. And so by hook and crook, we managed to set up on this side of the crossing waiting for a weather window. One came at 3:00 p.m. We launched, and we set off. 5 mi, 10 mi, 15 mi. All the while knowing in a few hours we'd get to the side and everything would get easier. 20 mi, 25 mi, 25 mi from shore in either direction. The most exposed moment of the entire trip. What's more, my life insurance only covered me up to 20 mi offshore. So, it was a very brief window where I couldn't die. And my teammates kindly agreed that if I did, they would drag me a few miles back before pressing the red button. I was very grateful. 30 mi, 35 mi, 40 mi, 45 mi. Just a few miles from shore and everything was getting a easier. We ate the last of our rations to give ourselves a boost to shore and we set off. And then, to our horror, this ice pack that we hadn't even seen, that had silently crept up behind us, suddenly engulfed us. And we've seen ice before that moves and shifts, but not like this. This was flowing like a river, spilling and crunching over itself like lava. And with just a mile or two to go, we suddenly found ourselves in this life-and-death struggle. We're trying to make decisions. Let's go this way or that way. Well, really the decisions were being imposed on us as the ice opened and shut. And after a few hours, we finally found this big piece of water, these two huge chunks of ice holding back the river around us. Not big enough for us to go anywhere, but big enough for us to at least rest and contemplate our predicament. And just as we begin to discuss, "What should we do?" these two bits of ice that had been keeping us safe began to close in on us. One square meter of ice weighs a ton. And each of these are 15 m across, coming towards us with an unstoppable [snorts] momentum. And Eileen and I aren't quick enough, and it slams into the side of our kayak. I was sure we were going to be crushed to death. And sure enough, it shut. It closed like we weren't even there. But instead of crushing us to death, it pinched the bottom of our kayak and lifted us up into the air. But the danger wasn't over. There was more ice constantly moving in. Eileen and I grabbed onto the ice, pulled ourselves forward, and slipped into the water. Now, West and Jeff in their kayak had been hit as well, and the nose of their kayak had been pushed up onto the ice. So, West in the front was actually out of the water, sitting on the ice. But Jeff in the back was being slowly lowered into his icy death. Now, Jeff is the most chilled-out Texan man you'll ever meet. So, as he faced his imminent demise, he shouted, "Uh Yormark, I'm going to need your help over here real quick." >> [laughter] >> So, I jumped out of the kayak onto the ice. I grabbed my kayak with Eileen still in it and pulled it up, sprinted over to them, grabbed onto the front, two fully grown men, the whole kayak, I heaved with all of my might, and they slipped out just in time as the ice closed around us. And we all stood on the ice. We stood there for, I don't know how long. Honestly, I can't process the memory. It could be 15 minutes, it could be 2 hours. But we waited and waited until the ice began to move again. And gaps appeared in the water, and we launched our boats and paddled like our lives depended on it, because it did. And after 17 hours, we exited the ice pack. The last 4 miles had taken us almost 8 hours. Just 100 m from shore, surely it was going to be easier from here on out. We all began to began to discuss, "Oh, what are you going to do when you get there?" "Oh, I've been saving a Mars bar just for this occasion." "How about you?" "Oh, I just want some dry clothes." And then, I saw two sheep. And I said, "Do you guys see sheep?" And my teammate said, "Oh, yeah, I see sheep. Are there sheep in the Arctic? Is this like a climate change thing? There's sheep in the Arctic now?" And then we saw a much bigger sheep. We realized it wasn't a sheep at all. It was two cubs and a bear. What are the chances after 17 hours that the 1 in of land we can make it to has a polar bear family on it? So, we turn left. We go for another hour, and finally we found a campsite. We set up our tent below this beautiful waterfall. And we do the only sensible thing we can do. We have a cup of tea. We've done it. We've done the crux of the expedition. It's going to get easier from here on out. Except, it doesn't feel like that. With more ice moving in every second trapping us against shore, it doesn't feel like it's going to get easier. It feels like we've actually put ourselves in the hardest position we found ourselves in so far. And under my old mindset, I might be overwhelmed by this, maybe even angry that the outcome, the records were all slipping away. But instead, I felt invigorated. If I wanted to get a suntan on a beach, I would have gone to a beach and got a suntan. I'd come on an adventure. The whole point is that it's challenging. So many of you have risen to leadership positions. You know inherently that a challenge can bring you that growth, that sense of satisfaction that you just can't get from something easy. And yet, when the challenge of change and uncertainty presents itself, we consider it a burden, something to endure. If you can reframe change as an exciting challenge, then you'll enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, you'll outperform everybody else who just sees an obstacle to endure. Tough things are tough. That's not the problem. That's the point. I'd come on an adventure and I'd got one. And now excited to go the next day, we launched our kayaks and we barely inched through as we navigated the ice. And what should have taken us a matter of hours took us a matter of days. And it was slow, but it was exciting and it was the point. And finally, after a few more weeks, we found ourselves within one day of halfway. At halfway, there's an Inuit village. For us, that represented warm beds, warm food for the first time in almost 2 months. We also heard there was a KFC there. And we spent literally hours arguing. My American teammate said, "KFC only does chicken." And I said, "Of course it does french fries as a side. It would be insane if it just did chicken. I'm going to get french fries." "Don't be stupid, Mark. It doesn't do french fries." When we got there, it'd been shut for 2 years. But before we got there, we had our final campsite. We set up our tent, we took some fun pictures, and everybody began to relax. But, you know, maybe we began to relax a little bit too much. Because when the alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. the next morning, nobody got out their sleeping bag. I'm not going to get out of my sleeping bag and make breakfast if he gets an extra 10 minutes in bed. Meanwhile, he's thinking, "I'm not going to get out of my sleeping bag and make breakfast if he gets an extra 10 minutes in bed." So, we all just lay there staring at the roof of our tent. And then, the tent began to shake. And I said, "I I think that's a polar bear." And my teammate said, "Will you shut up? It is 5:00 a.m. It's clearly just the wind." Not a totally unreasonable reaction. Being American, they were used to camping with grizzly bears or bobcats. Being British, the most dangerous thing I've camped with is an urban fox. Maybe I was being paranoid. So, I took a breath, I lay back down. And then the tent began to shake again. I said, "I really think that's a polar bear." Once again, they said, "Oh, be quiet." And they rolled over. And then we heard >> [groaning] >> And I said "I think that's a polar bear." So, I unzip the front of the tent, and sure enough, perfectly silhouetted against our rain cover was the outline of a bear. Its teeth so clearly defined in the shadow, it looked like the Jurassic Park logo. So, I grabbed the flare gun, and I put it out of the door. We'd seen lots of bears by this point, and usually a shout and a scream would make them run away. So, to put a flare next to its head, it would be an effective deterrent. So, I pulled the trigger. Bang! The flare went off. The sound ripped across the silent landscape. And the bear didn't move. So, I crawled out the back of the tent, and sure enough, it was there, and it turned to look at me. And I stood up to make myself look big, but it wouldn't run away. My teammates came out, and I said, "Throw stones! Throw stones!" So, we all picked up stones and started throwing them at the bear, but almost all of them missed because it turns out even when their lives depend on it, Americans are terrible at cricket. The occasional stone hit the bear. It twitched, but it didn't move. 10 minutes it stood there. 10 minutes being 1 or 2 m away from the world's largest apex predator on land. I was still the most paranoid. Now, I was saying, "Back up! Back up! Move away! Keep the rifle on it! Back up!" But, everybody else seemed to relax. 10 minutes was just too long to keep throwing stones. West even picked up the selfie stick and was saying, "I'm here with a bear. You can see it behind me." And then after 10 minutes it took a big step forward and suddenly the atmosphere changed again. And then it turned and walked away. Every now and then stopping to look back at us. I have to admit, I was too scared to take a photo. This is from the internet. >> [laughter] >> It was terrifying, scary, possibly the closest to death I'll ever come. And yet somehow it was also quite exciting. An amazing wilderness encounter, an incredible challenge to take on, an incredible social glue with me and my teammates. We weren't that keen to reflect on it at that moment. We got in the kayak and we pushed on quickly. The next day or two we made it to halfway. Now remember I said there's only 60 days to do the Northwest Passage. And at halfway, where everybody makes it after 60 days, there's an airport. And the airport can take you home. If you push on, there's no other exit routes. So if you run out of time, this is when you have to go home. Uh us, like everybody else before us, had arrived here around 60 days. We'd run out of time. It was time to go home. Except I don't remember ever having any kind of sensible conversation about it. We just decided we're going to keep going until we can't. And whatever that looks like, we'll deal with that problem when we come to it. So we got into our kayaks and we pushed. And we tried to make up the miles. 40 miles, 40 miles, 40 miles, 40 miles, day after day. But undeniably the weather was getting worse. We covered 40 miles for 6 days in a row out of Cambridge Bay. And then in the next 10 days we only kayaked twice cuz we were stuck in our tent as the weather was too bad. And it was getting colder, too. Each morning we'd wake up and our t-shirts had frozen solid. We'd have to crack them as we pulled them on. And then our frozen hats, pulled them over our head. And the suffering was awful. And the worst thing was we knew it was going to get colder, and the suffering was going to increase exponentially. And I thought to myself, "Yes. Yes." Who here thinks I'm crazy for getting excited about exponential suffering in the cold in the Arctic? Yeah, a couple of hands. Who here thinks uh I'm a motivational speaker, I have to say this nonsense, I wasn't really excited. Yeah, a few cynics there. Okay, well, different question then. You guys are in charge of culture at your companies. Who would like a culture of camaraderie? That deep sense of trust and excitement that [snorts] you get to take on challenges, that team spirit. Who here would like that camaraderie at their workplace? Of course. Of course you would. If you really do, then you better get excited about tough times, cuz friendship is formed when good times are shared, but camaraderie is formed when tough times are shared. And I saw in the next few weeks of suffering not an obstacle between us and the world record, a chance to fall at the final hurdle, instead I saw a chance to come away with something far more valuable than headlines and records, a bond for life. And my performance went through the roof when I started giving it for him and for him and for her. And I realized a far deeper, more powerful motivation, stronger than striving through nature, stronger than challenging myself, was giving everything for the people that I cared about. Comradery is formed when tough times are shared, but tough times were an opportunity for me to get something that I longed for. It was lucky that I longed for this because the tough times came. And when winter came, and it came overnight, it was savage. Everything changed overnight. We woke up in the morning and it was white from sea to summit. And it presented challenges I hadn't even anticipated, like all the fresh water had frozen. So I and I would kayak for 10 hours, and then we'd walk into the hills for another 4 hours trying to find water to drink. But, it was also beautiful. You could see those black spots on the mountains. They're actually burning with sulfur, and these smoke is billowing off them. It was incredible. And there was these localized storms, so localized you could anticipate them. Heads up, masks on, gloves, and tend to the storm. 3 2 1. >> Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane, the snow is glistening. What a beautiful sight we're having tonight. Traveling in a winter wonderland. >> And after 100 days, 40 days longer than anybody including us thought we could be there, we exited the Northwest Passage into the Beaufort Sea. And I tried to scream to Ileen, "We've done it. We've done it. We've done it." But, instead I cried, and I cried, and I cried, and I shook with tears. And isn't it great to see a man so in touch with his emotions? Except it's not so great when nobody else is in touch with theirs. So, they sort of had to sit and laugh like, "Oh, this guy's really crying. He's really going for it. Is he going to stop anytime soon?" I'm just >> [laughter] >> "We've done it. We've done it." So, when you see this video, what I want you to bear in mind is this is when I've calmed down. It was even worse just a few seconds earlier. >> Hey! Hey! We've just completed Northwest Passage. That's all right. That's all right. That's all right. First kayak expedition through the entire Northwest Passage for self-propelled. It's uh Single day 3:00 in the afternoon. Sunday, October 8th. And it was a hell of a ride. Great job, everybody. Everybody give me a yell. Ready? 1 2 3 Yeah! Further further north, the Northwest Passage. >> [laughter] [applause] >> If you look in the background of that video, you'll see there's no sign that says, "Thank you for completing the Northwest Passage. Please pick up your bags and go home." It's not really near anything. So, we had to kayak for another 3 days, where the suffering got even worse, until eventually we were picked up by an airplane that was so small we actually had to saw our kayaks in half to fit them in the airplane. And when I made it back to the UK, it was a big deal. People seemed to care about the Northwest Passage there. I was interviewed on BBC Breakfast, and then immediately ITV, then Sky News. I was interviewed on something like 250 newspapers. I launched this career where I give keynotes and workshops about resilience through change. I got a book deal. I even won awards like European Adventurer of the Year, which is an award I really didn't expect. Then I got Asian Adventurer of the Year, which is an award I really didn't expect. And had this happened after the Atlantic, it would have been everything I wanted and more. Records, validation, book deals. But I long since moved past that as my metric of success. And I now forget about the outcome, and I ask myself, "Is it a chance to challenge myself? Is it a chance to have a unique experience? Or is it a chance to have camaraderie?" And if I can answer yes to one or more of those questions, I consider it a success. The irony is, if I can answer yes to one or more of those questions, then the outcome that I've let go of is more likely to become a reality. And nothing represents the idea of reframing a threat into something exciting, like coming face-to-face with polar bears and somehow enjoying it. So, to remind myself of this, I no longer ask, "What's my next world record?" I now ask, "What's my next polar bear?" What change can you reframe as an exciting challenge? What uncertainty can you reframe as an exciting chance for camaraderie? What is your polar bear? Thank you very much. >> [applause] [music]