Louise McMahon is a climber, caver, diver, occasional photographer and a trans woman she/her. So says her Twitter bio, and I like the order she has chosen to list things in.

Once Louise had unpicked and identified the problems she faced, the big change of committing to transition was a sudden release and huge relief. Committing was, in the end, easier than hiding. And none of the worries she had beforehand came to pass.

I began this podcast to ask people about worlds that overlap with my own but are also very different. Louise's open, thoughtful explanations of realising that she was not living the life she wanted to lead - and then summoning the boldness to make a massive change - are the very epitome of what I wanted on this living adventurously podcast. 

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SHOW NOTES

• If you enjoy listening to this episode over a cup of coffee and think it might be worth the price, you can buy me a coffee here: www. ko-fi.com/al_humphreys
• Keep up to date with future episodes (and my other adventures, projects and books) with my free monthly newsletter: alastairhumphreys.com/more/subscribe
• Say hello on Twitter and Instagram: @al_humphreys
• Louise is on Twitter.
• Neither climbing or caving is scary - if you're scared you're probably doing it wrong.
• High consequence actions versus the low risk of those high consequences.
• The notion of consequences versus likelihood of happening are different things and useful in business
• Once Louise had unpicked and identified the problems she faced, the big change of committing to transition was a sudden release and huge relief.
• Committing was, in the end, easier than hiding.
• None of the worries she had beforehand came to pass.
• Humans are cautious creatures and we tend to focus a lot on the worries beforehand. Yet we don't realise what all the benefits might be until we have committed.
• Spin-off benefits and enhanced self-confidence.
• Living an authentic life is one less thing to worry about
• "Sometimes I think 'oh, I'd quite like to do it one day', then just say 'oh, sod it, and do it!'"

TRANSCRIPT

Below is the transcription of our conversation. It’s done by AI so is perhaps a wee bit ropey here and there. If these transcripts prove sufficiently useful then I will make the effort to clean then up and make them better. Do let me know if you think it’s worth my time to do that. (Or, better still, do it for me…!). If you’d like to listen as you read along you can do that here:

https://otter.ai/s/AIc7-qqzRgiT6zgYLoOhcQ

Alastair Humphreys 
we met via Twitter originally and on there you say you're a climber and a caver. which is more scary.

Louise McMahon 
I don't think either is scary.
If you getting scared you're probably doing it wrong or doing taking too many risks. Or not managing the risks well enough as like caving. If you get it wrong, it can be really dangerous.

Alastair Humphreys 
But you're not doing it for the adrenaline.

Louise McMahon 
no. I do the climbing because I enjoy it. So I like being out in the hills and the caving is exploration often find new cave and new new things

Alastair Humphreys 
Have you gone somewhere No one's ever been before?

Louise McMahon 
not no one's ever been before. But never in the last several hundred years. We do a lot in 17th century mines.

Alastair Humphreys 
Wow. That's a Amazing, isn't it? Well within an hour of massive city. how did you get into caving?

Louise McMahon 
I was a climber before that. And then so driving around the Peak District to these kind of moody people with harnesses with the equipment that looks a bit like climbing and I thought I'll give it a go. And so I found my newest book, to me is a technical psychological group and consultant. I went along and loved it just and just carried on doing it. And so I've been doing it unit now.

Alastair Humphreys 
decliners in cave is like each other.

Louise McMahon 
Hmm, interesting. I do both. There are the climbers in our club. And they don't tend to mix too well, because climbers like to get up quite early and got climbing and cables don't care what time of the day is and will drink until four in the morning because it's going to be dark anyway. So I'm a headphone, you know, having my in?

Alastair Humphreys 
what's the what's the difference in mindset between someone who is a good cave and somebody who's a good climate.

Louise McMahon 
I think good cavers are happy to suffer but also a doing it for a different reason. Often, we're doing it to extra, whereas a lot of climbers are just doing it because they like climbing and and that's fine.

Alastair Humphreys 
So it's okay. So it's more of a

bit more of a mission to Yeah, baby and purpose perhaps Yeah,

Louise McMahon 
yeah. You know, I am, before I started taping, I build things, I'll do th...