Tori is perhaps best-known as the first woman and first American to row a boat solo across the Atlantic Ocean, having accomplished the feat in 1999 after 81 days at sea.
A decade earlier, she became the first woman and first American to ski to the geographic South Pole during a 50-day, 750-mile expedition.
Tori is author of the memoir, A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean, which details her life and journey across the Atlantic.
The book is the basis of a stage musical, called, Row, which made its world premiere at the prestigious Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts in the summer of 2021.
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Show notes
Who is Tori
Growing up all over the east coast of the United States
Spending a lot of time outside as a kid
Having an intellectually disabled brother
Bullying that she and her brother experienced in the past
Going to Smith Collage and playing basketball
Meeting Rita Benson who had been at Smith since World War II
Learning to row and to ski
Skiing to the South Pole a few years later
Getting a degree in psychology
Working in the National Outdoor Leadership School in Alaska
Ending up at Harvard Divinity School
More details about her skiing journey
Falling in love with travelling in a very remote country
Applying for the expedition team to the South Pole at the age of 24
The 750-mile journey across Antarctica
Psychological challenges she experienced
Being the first woman and the first American to reach the Geographic South Pole
Having a cassette recorder and cassette tapes Solitude as the biggest challenge for them
Talking more about Harvard Divinity School
Wholeness in seeing nature
Changes to her after the challenges and adventures
Finishing Divinity School and returning to Louisville, Kentucky,
Working with homeless people in Boston
Going to law school
Working for the mayor of Louisville
Training rowing for the Olympic team
Being too slow to make the Olympic team
Signing up to do the Atlantic rowing race
Being asked by a sponsor if she would consider rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean
Getting into more detail about the sponsorship in 1998
Being hit by the hurricane Danielle
Hurricanes Dania and Earl
Having an overwhelming sense of failure
Spending almost a year working for Muhammad Ali Creating the Muhammad Ali Center
Being lifted up by Muhammad when she was broken
The difference between having a growth mindset and a fixed mindset
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt
Her fears on her second journey
Hurricane Lenny - first hurricane in recorded history to travel 1000 miles west-east
Getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere for weeks
Her book: A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean
Meeting and falling in love with her husband, Mac McClure
Adventures in her life at the moment
Final words of advice
Social Media
Website: https://spalding.edu/president/
Instagram: @torimurden
Facebook: www.facebook.com/torimurden
Twitter: @toriposu
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