Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so excited that you tuned in. I have such an incredible story to share with you. So picture this. You are crammed into the back seat of a pickup truck, and you are going with your family on an epic adventure that has been six months in the planning. You're on an eight-hour road trip. You're headed Baxter State Park, where the Appalachian Trail ends at Mount Kataden. And you have been planning this camping and hiking trip forever. You're super excited. The truck is packed. You've been in the car for eight hours. You're about to pull up to your camping site. The sun is setting. You're climbing Mount Kataden tomorrow, and you all of a sudden realize you have forgotten to pack the single most important thing that you need on this trip. Well, that's What happened to me last week? And boy, oh, boy, do I have one heck of a story and seven surprising lessons to share with you today. Hey, it's Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so excited to be able to spend this time together with you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to listen to this. Thank you for spending time with me. It's always an honor to get to be here together with you. If you're brand new, I want to take a moment and welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family and just say, I think it's really cool that you're listening to something that can help you improve your life or just feel a little bit better. And let me tell you something. Today's episode is going to make you feel better because I have one heck of a story to tell you. This is something that happened to me last week. And so I'm just going to jump right into it because I also learned seven important life lessons. Let me just set the table a little bit. My family loves to camp. Chris and I have been taking our kids camping forever. If you're familiar with Noles, the National Outdoor Leadership School, my husband is a huge Noles guy, and so we're just way into being outside. My husband has been wanting to climb Mount Kataden forever. Mount Kataden is this mountain that is super cool.

It's in Maine. It is about 5,200 feet. It is the tallest mountain in Maine. The The biggest thing about Mount Kataden is that it is the northern end of the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail is this continuous trail that begins in Georgia and runs through 14 different states and ends 2,190 miles later at the top of Mount Kataden. For years, our family has talked about climbing Mount Kataden together. We've done Mount Washington, we've done a lot of camping trips out in the Western United States. Mount Kataden had been on the bucket list, and we've been planning this trip forever. Not only because with adult kids, it takes a year in advance to get everybody's schedules aligned, but with Mount Kataden and Baxter State Park, you got to be organized enough, if you plan to do it, six months ahead to be able to log on to a website to, at a certain moment, reserve a camping site that is at the base of the trail, because there's only a certain number of them. So six months ago, We've got the dates cleared when we want to climb Mount Kataden. It is the first week of August.

Chris logs on at some ungodly hour, first thing in the morning, and he secures this campsite. We've got our plan. It's go time. Everybody's got the dates locked. I got to give props to my husband. If it were not for Chris, there is no way we would have pulled this off. The man spent three days getting us organized. When you really stop and think about a camping trip with five people, there's a lot of logistics, right? You got to pack in all your food. You got to pack in all your water. Yes, you're going to have your car next to the camping site, but you've got to have your tents and you've got to have your sleeping bags. You've got to have bugs. You got to have everything that's going to take care of five people for two nights at a campsite without cell reception, without drinkable water. You got to be able to make a fire. We love doing this stuff, but it is a lot of work. I haven't even mentioned yet fact that Mount Kataden is this extraordinarily challenging mountain to climb. It is, as I mentioned, 5,200 feet high. I don't even know what that is in miles, but it is freaking tall.

On average, it takes you anywhere from 10 to 12 hours to climb up it and climb back down. We're talking a big day. Mount Kataden is also a very, very steep mountain. I am somebody who He was terrified of heights. I really wanted to do this with our family, but I cannot be near a drop off. I get vertigo. I start to feel like I was falling. I was nervous about this climb because there's this section of Mount Kataden that is this big boulder field where you have to scale up these massive boulders, some of which are so steep that they have metal rods and handles and almost like ladders in the stone to help you go up and down them. That's how steep this thing is. I was like, I'm doing it. I'm in. As long as you take care of everything, Chris, I'm in. Chris spends three days getting ready, preparing the food, making sure we have everything. He has laid out all of our gear. He realizes, okay, our tents are pretty shoddy. Maybe I will go and I'll upgrade our tents. He goes down to the local mountaineering store in town, and he buys two new tents, and he buys us two new...

He is just going all in. We're getting all excited. Everybody is packed. There's stuff. You got to pack for two days and nights in a camp, and you got to pack for one full day of scaling this massive mountain. I'm thinking about all the things that I really want at this campsite so that I'm going to be comfortable. I got my Birkenstocks because I want to be super comfy after a long day hiking. I got my pajamas. In fact, they bring two pairs of pajamas because After an eight-hour drive, we are going to arrive at camp. We're going to be cooking dinner and then climbing right into our sleeping bags because we want to be on the trail by 5:00 AM. Because this is a 12-hour round trip ordeal. In case there's weather, we want extra time. I think, Okay, we want to get off the hike. I'm going to want to get out of my hiking stuff, and then I'm going to put on clean pajamas and my Birkenstocks and my super cozy socks. It's going to be fantastic. We wake up the morning the trip begins because It's five o'clock in the morning in Southern Vermont, and everybody's packed their stuff into the truck.

We hop in, and Chris and I are in the front of the pickup truck, and our three adult kids are sitting in the back of the pickup truck, and we blaze. We leave on time. Chris is thrilled. We are on the road. It's absolutely amazing. We drive 4 hours, and we stop in Portland, Maine. We get out in Portland, Maine, and the kids have now been sleeping for 4 hours. Chris and I have been awake in the front just talking. It's been a beautiful morning. We have breakfast at one of the best restaurants ever. You want a great breakfast? Go to Bread and Friends in Portland, Maine. Absolutely Fantastic. We also see a family friend in Portland, Maine. We're doing this road trip thing right. After a pit stop in Portland, we hop back in, we drive another 2 hours, and we stop a second time, this time to get a cup of coffee, buy water, buy ice, buy all the things that we're going to need, because it's another 90 minutes before we are going to get to the entrance of Baxter State Park in Maine. We want to just pull in because by the time we get there, it's now going to be five o'clock.

When we hit that campsite at five o'clock, we want to unload the pickup truck, we want to start cooking dinner, we want to get into our comfy clothes, we want to set out our backpacks so we can get ready so that when We get up at 5:00 AM the next morning, and boom, we can get right on that trail with our headlamps and gitty up and go. We got a lot to do. As we are approaching Baxter State Park, it's about five o'clock at night. We have been on the road since five o'clock in the morning. At this point, we're hungry. We're ready to get out of the car. We're ready to set up the camp. We're ready to, frankly, climb into our sleeping bags and go to bed so we can wake up and just bag that mountain Mount Qataden. I'm not going to lie, I'm starting to get a little nervous, right? Because I'm thinking, wow, it's 12 hours. It's going to be really steep. It's one thing to be thinking about this. It's another thing to know that there's the mountain and you can see it right there. It's freaking huge. I'm like, we're going to go up there in one day?

That's unbelievable. I'm in the back seat now at this point, and I'm working on my next book, The Let Them Theory, which is going to come out at the very end of the year. I cannot wait for you to read it. Oakley is grouchy and complaining. Sawyer is listening to her fantasy novel, and we pull into Baxter State Park, and you got to check in with a ranger. She says, Yep, well, the campsite is another eight miles down the road. There's no cell reception, so just follow the road all the way in because your GPS is not going to work. She explains, there's no running water, there's no this, there's no that. You got to pack everything in and pack everything out. Then she says, Have a great hike. As we pull away from the ranger station, this wave of panic hits me. I think, Oh, my God. Did I pack my hiking boots? My heart seized. I don't know if this has ever happened to you, where all of a sudden time freezes. As Chris is driving down this dirt road, because we got another eight freaking miles, and it's now 5:15 at night, I am feeling my heart seize and my mind start to spend backwards as I'm retracing my steps back to this morning at five o'clock in the morning, trying to frantically remember, did I put my hiking boots in the truck, and it hits me.

Oh, my God. They're on the back porch at the house in Vermont. The only shoes that I have with me are the Birkenstocks that are on my feet. I I want to burst into tears. I say, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. He's like, What? I said, I left my hiking boots in Vermont. He slams on the brakes and he's like, What? Are you sure? I said, Oh my God, honey, they're on the back porch. I can't even talk. There's no cell phone reception. We have not been anywhere near any type of town in 45 minutes, it is now 5:20. We have been in the car for eight hours. Kendall is in the front seat, and she turns around and gives me one of those looks. I swear to God, we had this little hatchet with us to be able to break up the firewood. If she had had that hatchet, she probably would have thrown it at me. You could just feel the searing anger. Are you kidding me, she says. And Oakley looks at me and is like, Mom. And Sawyer goes, You didn't. And I'm not even saying anything because my face is now on my hands and I am thinking about tomorrow morning and watching my family leave camp at five o'clock in the morning while I'm sitting in a tent alone, wearing my Birkenstocks, I'm just like, I can't let this happen.

I'm not going to let this happen. Chris, all of a sudden, just, you know when somebody turns a car like a U-turn and they turn it so fast, you feel like you're in an F1 race car. It's like,. Everybody's now just like, What? I'm like, No, I'll go alone. I'll go alone. He's like, We're all in this together. Then he slams on the gas. We drive back to the station, which is like a mile down the dirt road. We're going away from our our campsite. I pull up, I jump out, I go and I plead and I ask the lady, Oh, my God, I forgot my hiking boots. She's like, It's going to be really hard to go up Mount Catatan if you don't have hiking boots. I'm like, I know. Then I'm like, Where can I go? Where I go, and she said, Well, there's a store. When she tells me where it is, back by the highway, it's like 40 minutes from here. I don't have any cell phone reception, so I can't even call to see. They might have something. They tend to have something. We hop in the car and I'm like, Are you sure, Chris?

And he guns it. We go in the opposite direction with a fully-packed pickup truck after being in the car for eight hours, 45 minutes in the opposite direction. I got to say my family did their best to not say anything. At one point, I felt my daughter Sawyer's hand reach up behind her brother who was sitting in the middle, and I was sitting on the side in the back of the pickup truck, and she put her hand on my shoulders. I kept thinking, What am I going to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to do? When we finally get to the store, the store turns out to be more like a hardware or a local farm supply store. You know what I mean? I go into this thing, panic-stricken. This is my shot. This is it. I'm either going to find something in here, and I start to say to myself, I'm going to manifest a pair of boots being in here. I am going to make this work. I am not going to miss out on this thing. I walk into this store and I walk over to the shoe area, and there on display are muck boots and Timberlands and rain boots and things that you would wear at a construction site.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot one style of boots that looked like a hiking boot. I'm like, Oh, my God, thank you, thank you, thank you. There was one pair in my size. I put them on, and they were a little snug. I said to myself, I don't care what it takes. I am going to make these damn things work. But then I had a second problem. The world's worst thing that you can do is to go on a hiking trip or try to climb a mountain in a brand new pair of boots. Everybody will tell you, Don't ever do it. I hopped back in the car, and I was not going to allow myself to go south. There is so much more to this story, and I'm going to pick it right back up where we are after a short word from our sponsor. Stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. I'm talking about this unbelievable trip that I took with our family to climb Mount Catatan in Maine, and the life lessons that I learned along the way. Now, at this point, I now texted a couple of friends, You're not going to believe what I did.

I cannot believe I did this. And they're writing back, Oh, no. I hope you have moles skin. You're going to have the worst, worst, worst blisters. I'm like, I know, I know, I know. But I'll tell you what I did. I made a decision in the back of that truck as we were barreling back toward Baxter State Park and back down the eight-mile dirt road to our campsite so we could set up. I made a decision that I was not going to buy into the fear. I was not going to think about blisters. I was not going to get myself all worked up because here's the thing. I didn't know how it was going to go. If I were to sit in that back seat and say to myself, I'm screwed. You thought you were scared of the fact that this is going to be a really hard 12-hour climb, Mel, that's nothing compared to doing it in a brand new pair of boots. You are scared about the sheer drop offs and the boulders you got to scale this thing. That's nothing compared to trying to navigate all that in a brand new pair of stiff boots while you've got blisters the size of apples on your feet.

No, no, no, no, no, The people that I love so much that inspires me, David Goggins, the Navy SEAL, the just unbelievable force that he is. I kept thinking about his story and all the ultra marathons he was running and basically his feet falling off and him running through it and thinking, I'm just going to Goggins this thing. I am not going to let this stop me. I am going to believe that these boots are going to surprise me, that as I'm hiking tomorrow, I'm not going to get any blisters. I'm actually going to be so excited that I left my old hiking boots wet on the back porch of Southern Vermont, and I am going to envision a positive future. You've been around me for a while. You've heard me say, What if it all works out? I started texting my friends back, you know what? I'm just going to say these are little boots that could. I'm just going to say this is going to work out. I'm just going to say and believe that when I get off that mountain tomorrow, I'm going to text you and go, These are the best damn boots you could have ever bought.

I don't have a single blister. They were amazing. I'm going to get myself into that mindset because what What's the alternative? To live in the horror that this is going to be terrible, which is only going to make it become terrible. And so that's what I did. I wore them the entire drive back to the camp. I wore them all night in camp. I took them off to sleep, but I wore them as we made dinner. As we get back to the camp, everyone was in such a terrible mood. We had thought we'd get there, we'd be around the fire and talking about what we're grateful for and roast and smorech. We're screaming at each other and, Look at all these bugs. And poor Chris. Then, of course, Chris pulls out the new tents that he has bought for the trip. The place sold him one of the wrong tents. Instead of giving him two tents for two people. He had one tent for two people and a single tent, which means our daughter, Sawyer and Kendall, had to basically sleep like butt to butt or like, hugging each other all night. And so he was all mad about that.

I mean, everybody, I was just like on the verge of tears. I don't blame everybody for being upset. It was a unnecessary, frustrating beginning to this trip that we had been looking forward to for six months. I don't blame them. I don't blame them. How did the night end? We're all sitting around the campfire and Chris says, Guys, why don't you share the high and the low of the day. I'm thinking, Oh, my God. The low. I think we all have the same low. Something interesting happened. I shared my low, of course. I said my low was, of course, for getting the boots. But the real low was sitting in the back of the pickup truck as you were driving like 70 miles an hour. I just felt like this little kid who was in a lot of trouble. I don't know if you've ever had an experience like that when you were little and you made a mistake, you broke something, and then the adults around you were just like, ah, ah, ah, and then you were like, Oh, my God. I just felt so small as we were barreling down the road trying to find a store where I could possibly find boots, and no one's talking.

I just wanted to disappear. As I was sharing this, I got upset and I said, I just wish we would have stopped before everybody just exploded and made a plan. I wish that we could have all been a little bit more patient or kind in that moment. I realized that we all have a right to feel what we need to feel. But I just, in the silence for 45 minutes as we're barreling down the road, I just made me feel horrible. What was interesting is that Chris said, Well, Mel, I blame myself. I actually blame myself because I didn't ask everybody if they had everything. I didn't ask everybody, Do you have your backpacks? Do you have your boots? Do you have this? Do you have that? I should have done that. We We all just had our own version of it. I think the important takeaway there is they always say, Don't ever go to bed mad. I think Chris asking all of us the high, low, even though we all were pretty darn frustrated by the way the entire trip to Baxter State Park ended because of me. Talking about it just was like putting a pin in a balloon and helping the tension deflate.

We could unpack it all. Everybody was like, Well, if it had happened after a four-hour road trip, we probably wouldn't have been upset. If we weren't so angry, if we had had cell phone reception. We all know it was an honest mistake, but we all were just processing our emotions. The most important thing is that we were all in this together. Talking about it allowed us to just get it all out, have a big group hug, wipe the slate clean, say good night. Sawyer and Kendall Climbed into their one-person tent and snuggled up. And Oakley climbed into this really cool hammock tent that my mom gave him for high school graduation that's made by Haven. I love this tent. It's like a hammock hanging tent. And then Chris and I climbed into our tent, lights out. I'll tell you what, we were all fast to sleep because there's nothing like a giant eight-hour road trip that ends in a nightmare and a ball attention to wear you out. And 5:00 AM came faster than a blink of the eye. We wake up at 5 AM, and my kids are now like, Okay, we're all getting ready.

We're trying to be quiet because there's other people camping, and we're one of the first people up, and we're getting our headlants on. Our kids are like, How the boots, mom, you think you're going to make it? I'm like, Yeah, these are going to be great boots. You watch. They're going to be great boots. So off we go. We're walking on the trail. As we're walking in the dark, and I got my little hiking pulls, I start to get nervous because now I'm actually really on the trail and I'm testing these boots for real. They're a little stiff. I'm feeling my toes not being able to wiggle that much. I'm on the flat part. If I'm feeling like they're really stiff right now, and we're only 10 minutes into this thing, and it's pitch dark, and we haven't even started on the incline yet, and I got 12 hours of this, oh my God, Mel, am I going to make it? About 15 minutes later, I realized I need to reset. I say to Chris, Could you just pull the kids together and could we just do a little family huddle? He yells off to the kids because I knew if I yelled, they'd be annoyed.

So he yells, and they pause and they wait for us, and he goes, Come here, guys. We all stand shoulder to shoulder. Chris just tells us to take in a deep breath, and exhale. Here we are, standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle, and just taking a minute to all breathe in together and slow the pace of this down is exactly what I needed. I'm proud of myself for asking for it because normally I'd just be back there and I'd be suffering in silence. All right, I got to hit pause so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. But don't you dare go anywhere because I haven't even gotten to the best part of the story yet. I'm going to tell you that when we get back from a short break, stay with me. Hey, it's your buddy Mel. This is my own ad, and I took it out because I got something to say to you. You deserve to be happy. You deserve more time to put yourself first, time to breathe, and I want to help you get that time. So I've created a brand new zero cost workbook for you.

It's designed using the latest research to help you get clear about what you want. It's free, and it takes you less than a minute to get your hands on this puppy. Just go to melrobinds. Com/whatwhat. There's nothing more important to spend your time on than yourself, and allow this workbook to be your guide to define finding your next chapter. Just go to melrobinds. Com/what and see for yourself. Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. I'm talking about the things that I learned while our family climbed Mount in Maine. So as soon as we were done with our little puddle, Oak turns, Can we go now? Yep, we can go. And the kids start heading off and we start following him. And as we're hiking, this guy starts passing by us. He comes up behind us and he's cooking along and he's got a small backpack on and a long beard, and he has this yellow tag on his backpack. And my husband Chris recognizes is what the yellow tag is. It is a tag that you have if you are what's called a thru-hiker. Now, a thru-hiker is somebody who is hiking the entire length of the Appalachian Trail.

This is somebody who is hiking 2,190-some miles, going from Georgia to Maine. Chris says, Are you a thru-hiker? He says, Yes. He tells us his hiking name. He said, I've been on the trail for 172 days. And Qataden is the end of the trail. And so we all say, Congratulations. We hope you have an amazing hike up Kataden and finishing the trail. And he cooks on past us. And it was this incredible moment where you realize somebody was going to be climbing this mountain the same day as us and accomplishing and realizing this incredible dream. I mean, what an amazing accomplishment to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, to be out on the trail for 172 days, and for us to be getting up to the top of the mountain on the same day when somebody who's been doing this and achieving this goal. I mean, that is so cool. I felt this renewed energy I looked down at my boots and I'm like, giving myself this pep talk. It was just this amazing cool thing that we experienced. We hiked for a little bit longer, and then we get to the point where you get to the the Boulder field.

The Boulder field is where you get up above tree line and all of a sudden you're up and you're up in the open sky. It's these massive stones that are as big as a VW Bug car. Stones that you have to climb up and climb over and put your hands on and pull yourself. It is a super-physical hike. You have to reach on your titty toes to grab to the very top and then find a little cruck somewhere with your foot and haul the other one up on another ledge. You are scaling and hauling yourself up these things. I was so proud of myself and proud of my little boots for doing it. And going up, I'm thinking, Okay, I got this thing. I got this thing. So the long and the short of it is we get through the Boulderfield. I'm so proud of myself. And once you get past this super technical area, the last mile of the hike is all open. You're on the top of the mountain. It feels like sound of music. It's not even this big climactic thing where it's super steep. You're just winding up on the open face of this mountain.

It's extraordinary. As we are approaching the top, guess who's coming down? That's right. The thru-hiker with the long white beard that we had seen with the small pack. I didn't think he was a thru-hiker because he basically had a day pack on his back. He was coming down. He had just completed the trail. He had some friends that had clearly met him at the top. It was so exciting to see him coming. As he was coming down, I I put my hand on my hips and I said, Oh my gosh, congratulations. And he looked at me and said, Thank you. And you could tell he didn't want to talk. And I don't blame him. I mean, if I had been on a trail for 172 days, the last thing I'd want to do is stop and have a long chat with some stranger lady who wants to chat up a storm and bother you. But I said to him, I said, Can I ask you a question fast? I'm just curious. And he said, Yes, but I'll answer it as I walk by. And I'm like, No problem. What did you learn about life from being on the trail for 172 days.

And his friends looked at him and he kept walking toward and he was about to pass me and he said, Well, when I started this, I didn't think I had anything to learn. But I was wrong. And he said, The first thing that I learned is that you carry your baggage with you. And he didn't unpack that, but I'm going to unpack it. I'm going to tell you everything that he said, and then I am going to come Come back and share with you what I think it means. Then as he passed me and kept walking, he said, Patience. Never underestimate the value of patience. I said, Thank you. Congratulations. He kept on going down, and I looked up, and the top of Cataden was there, and my kids were about to reach it, and Chris and I were a couple of 100 yards behind. As we walked up to the top of the summit, Chris and I talked a little bit about that idea of thinking that you don't have anything to learn. Isn't it true that we all think we know it all? But there's always something to learn if you're willing to look at life that way?

I mean, life is the single greatest school you'll ever attend. There's always new things that you're going to learn if you have that mindset. The second thing, and I loved what he said about the fact that you take your baggage with you, and this is what I made it mean. You cannot outrun or outhike your baggage. Whether you're aware of it or not, all of the things that you've never dealt with, all of the issues from your past, all of the stuff that's buried in your subconscious, you're dragging it around through life just like a backpack that you carry on your back. It's not until you make a conscious decision that you are no longer going to carry it with you, that you have a choice to stop and to take that backpack off and to set it down and leave it at this moment in your life and walk forward without carrying that burden. How do you do that? Well, you do that by going to therapy. You do that by gaining self-awareness. You do that by listening to podcasts like this one and learning more about yourself and learning from experts that can help you understand the baggage that you're carrying and how it's still impacting you.

And simple ways that you can start to identify what it is and put it down. But I think the most important thing is that, yes, you will continue to carry that stuff with you. You can't out drink it, you can't outrun it, you can't be silent and think it's going away. You got to decide that it is no longer a burden that you want to carry. Pretty cool, huh? I thought so. We get to the top, we take a few photos, and then we head down. Now, we are 6 hours into this puppy at this point. As we're coming down, we see two more through-hikers. You know how I knew it? Because they have yellow tags. Now, I remember the trail names of these two. One of the guy's names was, I believe, River Run, and the other guy's name, I believe, was Wood. You could tell they were friends. The thing that was so amazing about these guys because I said, Hey, oh, my God. Congratulations. It's so cool. You're finishing it. Oh, my God. The one guy said, Yeah, I'm realizing a dream after 45 years. I was like, What do you mean?

Get this. He finished the Appalachian Trail after doing sections of it. Over the course of 45 years, he has chipped away. Isn't this so cool? Same with his friend, that they would meet up and do sections at a time, and they were finishing it that day. You could tell that they were just so overcome with emotion about what was about to happen. I asked them, I said, We just met another thru-hiker, and I asked them, What did you learn on the trail that has helped you in your life? If you don't mind talking, that's cool, too. He's like, No, I'd love to talk about it. I love what these two shared. I absolutely loved it. He said, Number one, keep moving. If you just keep moving forward, eventually good things come. Good people, good weather, good views, Good luck. Just keep moving and eventually, good things come. I freaking love that. I love that. It's true, isn't it? It's easy to think that you're going to be stuck where you are forever, but you just aren't. If you just keep moving, good things come. The next thing that he shared was that nature is the original healer.

That just being out in nature and seeing our beautiful country. I mean, the Appalachian Trail goes through 14 states. The research about being out in nature, we have covered it so often in this podcast. I'm not going to cover it right now, but so true. And this one I love. Here's another one. It's never too late. It's never too late to do something you've always wanted to do. I was sharing about the experience with my dad, and I remember a couple of years ago, my dad just casually mentioning that he had always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail. And so right before I jumped on the microphone to talk to you and tell you the story, I said, Hey, dad, tell me about the Appalachian Trail. Why is it that you've wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail? He told me this awesome story. One of his best friends was named Buzz. Buzz died very suddenly this year after a health diagnosis that came out of nowhere. It was just devastating. My dad told me this story about Buzz that I didn't know. Buzz retired at the age of 65. When he retired, he went down to Georgia and started hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I guess he got to Pennsylvania, and then there was a wedding. I think one of his kids was getting married. So he flied from the trail to the wedding. When the wedding was over, he flew up to Maine to Mount Kittaden, where I was with My family, right then, telling you the story about climbing Mount Cataden. He started there and then hiked back to that spot in Pennsylvania. He basically said, I went up to Maine after the wedding because if I didn't go to Maine first, I would have ended the hike at the end of November, and that would have been really awful to climb Mount Kataden at the end of November. Probably really, really dangerous, given the bouldering and the ice that you would experience. I was talking to my dad. I was like, Well, do you want to do it? He said, Well, at the age of 80, I don't think I could do all the sections, and I don't want to be gone from mom for 172 days in a row or 180 or the six months it would take me. I'm like, That's fair. Then I said, But you know, Chris and our son, Oakley, are so inspired by the Thru-hikers that I think they're going to start doing sections together.

What if you do a section with them? And his face lit up, and he's like, I'd love that. There you go. It's never too late. The final thing that Riverrun and Wood shared is the inherent goodness in other people, that at their core, people are good. They told me that there were just endless situations where they were moved by the goodness of other people, whether they were giving them the shirt off their back or handing them the last bite of a meal, just willing help. I think in a moment in modern life where it feels very isolated and polarizing, isn't that a wonderful thing to be reminded? That at their core, people are good. I just love it. We passed those guys. They got a little choked up. We got a little choked up. We wished them well. I mean, it's just so cool to think of somebody checking off a bucket list and witnessing them as they're about to do that. Then, We got to the Boulder field only this time we were in reverse. And so now I got to go down, which means I'm looking down at drop offs and the vertigo is kicking in.

I got to say, I'm really proud of myself because just like I was in the back seat of the pickup truck going, I will not miss out on this. I am going to solve this problem. And that is such an important mind mindset. This mindset where you don't succumb to the problem, you flip into problem-solving mode. I could have just as easily gone, woe is me, when I realized I forgot the boots and started crying and sulking and being a martyr and a victim and going, no, I'll just stay here in the tent. That's what the old me would have done, but not anymore. I'm like, I will solve this problem. This is not going to happen to me. I am going to figure this out. It is such a powerful declaration to make to yourself. I'm standing there on the top of this boulder field, and it's like shear drops and ledges, and I'm feeling the sensation of falling. I'm like, I am going to fix this. I am not going to let this be a problem. I hate the fact that I'm afraid of heights. I want to be doing adventurous things. I don't want to miss out with my family.

Five years ago, I would not have been able to do this, but I am determined to not let this stop me. I'm like, I have to fix this, and here's what I I can't do this on my own. I am so proud of what I did in that moment because I said to Chris, and I said to our son, Oakley, I need your help. That's a really important thing to be able to do in life, is to recognize when you need help and then to ask for it. I said, Oak, I need you to go in front of me because I need to know that you could catch me if I come tumbling down. Chris, I need you behind me. We It started that way. And so, Oakley would go down. And then what started happening is then Sawyer would go down after Oak, so I would see it twice, and then I would try it, and then Chris was behind me. And then I realized, actually, you know what I need? I need you, Chris, to show me step by step and to let me just go step by step with you. You do one step and then move, and then I do one step.

And I got down that mountain because Chris, step by step, helped me get down that mountain. I kept looking at the next step instead of looking all the way down, which looked like a freaking drop off. I, step by step, continuing to say, I can do this. I can solve this. I can take the next step. I am not going to let the anxiety or the vertigo or the fear or any of this stuff take me down. And by God, I got down. And I know what you're thinking, Mel, how are the boots? Those little boots were the best darn boots I have ever had in my entire life. Do you want to know how many blisters I had? Zero. You heard that right. A 12-hour hike in brand-new boots. Zero blisters. Were my feet sore? You better believe they were sore. Were my legs wobbly? You better believe they were wobbly. Absolutely, I was so insanely exhausted. But those were the little boots that could. And I am certain that if I hadn't flipped my mindset the second I got those boots from, I'm screwed, and this is going to be terrible, and I'm going to have blisters the size of Kentucky, and oh my gosh.

If I had not flipped my mindset and said, Nope, what if this works out? What if these are the best darn boots I've ever had in my life? What if these little puppies surprise me? What if this was divine intervention and I am shocked when I am done with this hike because I not only found a pair of shoes to get me up that mountain, but they turned out to be the best possible things I could have worn. And that's exactly what happened. So we stumbled down and We get down to the campground and the girls say, Oh, my God, I'd love a cold beer. Chris says, Oh, my God, I guess I forgot something, too. The girls and I hop in the truck and we drive 35 minutes down the dirt road to the one tiny store outside of Baxter State Park, where we bought two six-packs of ice cold beer and a bag of ice, and we drove Back toward Baxter State Park. As we were pulling closer to the park, there was this beautiful glistening lake right to our left, and our daughter says, Let's jump in. It looked like on Golden Pond.

I mean, it was just crystal clear, and the water was like starlight. It was like gold glistening with the sun because the hike had taken us 12 hours, and it had taken us 45 minutes to go get those beers. And so it was now close to 6:30 at night. Chris and Oak were back at the camp getting dinner ready. My daughters and I, we jumped in that water. It will be One of the core memories of my life, being in that gorgeous mountain lake as the sun was dropping behind the mountains and the light was just glistening like diamonds on this golden pond. It was just extraordinary. That brings me to the two final things that I learned during this trip. Number one, checklist. If you're going on an eight-hour road trip with your family and you're hiking one of the largest mountains in the Eastern part of the United States, make a checklist and had I used one, we would have remembered the beer and my hiking boots. And finally, just keep moving. Just keep moving forward, because when you do, good things come. Good people, good weather, good views, good luck. You'll have one heck of a good story to tell the people you love.

In case no one else tells you today, I wanted to tell you that I love you, and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. I am certain that these simple life lessons that I learned on the trail are going to help you do that. All righty. I will see you in the next episode, where I'll be waiting for you, and I can't wait to spend more time together. Okay, here we go. Are we recording? Yes, we are. Oh, my God. Okay, are you ready? But I've got my brand new stiff leather hiking, whatever type of boots on my feet, and I am texting my friends going, You're not going to believe what I did. I am the worlds, I can't believe this. They were like baby cakes, butter cups, amazingness on my feet. Bugs are all over the place. We're having to wear these net things over our heads. It was just awful. Not at all. The amazing thing that we had envisioned. There's my phone. Wait for that to get answered. And apparently, our daughters had to keep yelling at me to wake me up because I was snoring so loud.

Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Stitcher.