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Voice of the Mountains: Redefining Bravery with Melissa Arnot-Reid
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In this episode of Voice of the Mountains, renowned mountaineer and guide Melissa Arnot Reid shares her journey of resilience, leadership, and self-discovery. She reflects on how her turbulent childhood shaped her psychological development and relationship with fear. She speaks on how she has learned to transform discomfort into strength. Melissa opens up about navigating a male-dominated profession, the challenges of motherhood, and the evolving role of women in mountain leadership. Steve and Melissa explore the nuanced meaning of bravery, the role of agency in risk-taking, and the importance of resilience both in the mountains and in life. Her story is one of honesty, vulnerability, and redefining success on her own terms.
If you'd like to learn more about Melissa, visit her website at: https://www.melissaarnot.com/
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You can also write to us at coach@uphillathlete.com
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Transcript
Redefining Bravery and Courage
00:00:00
Speaker
It's time to ask the question, what does it mean to be brave? In the mountains, I believe we've come to mistake bravery for boldness, for rope lengths run out, for summit bids in the thinnest of air, and for storms survive. But what if bravery isn't found in those self-induced moments of survival?
00:00:18
Speaker
What if real bravery is something quieter? In this episode of Voice of the Mountains, Melissa Arnaud, Reid, and i attempt to explore a deeper kind of courage, the kind that doesn't shout in the kind that doesn't need a headline, the kind that asks you to sit with fear with your shortcoming and to keep showing up anyway.
00:00:38
Speaker
And we talk about fear, but not the clean kind, the corrosive kind, the kind that seeps in when you're alone. The kind we pretend doesn't exist because we've been told that bravery is the absence fear.
00:00:53
Speaker
And Melissa helps us to reframe all of that. Melissa is one of the most accomplished American mountain guides of her generation. She has climbed in Everest six times. She has summited without supplemental oxygen and successfully forged a path of her own in one of the most male-dominated arenas in the world.
00:01:10
Speaker
when I dug deeper into who she has become because of these experiences, I realized that her story is not about her achievements. Her story is about transmuting the accomplishments and those external validations into tangible self-worth, self-belief, and empowerment to be her best while not confusing competence with belonging.
00:01:37
Speaker
Melissa has crafted a different definition of bravery. Bravery as agency, bravery as choosing to act anyway. Bravery as being comfortable with vulnerability and bravery as acceptance.
00:01:51
Speaker
Bravery as being the very seed and source of our resilience. If the summit is just a moment and the dissent is the rest of your life,
00:02:04
Speaker
then bravery, perhaps, is what guides us home. My name is Steve House, and this is Voice of the Mountains.
Mountain Leadership and Personal Growth
00:02:24
Speaker
If you're enjoying the show and want to take the next step in your training, join our newsletter and receive a free four-week sample training plan. Head on over to UphillAthlete.com slash Let's Go, and once you sign up, you'll instantly get a link to try out some of our most popular training plans.
00:02:41
Speaker
It's a great way to get a feel for how we train our athletes for big mountain goals. Check it out at UphillAthlete.com slash Let's Go. That's UphillAthlete.com slash L-E-T-S-G-O.
00:02:58
Speaker
I want to start by saying that I really was looking forward to having you on this, on this in this part of this discussion that we've been having in Voice of the Mountains. Because one of the things that I really look up to you for is that you have been part of I mean, not just you, but part of a movement, I would say, that has been creating or redefining a new archetype around mountain leadership specifically, and maybe leadership more generally. and
00:03:30
Speaker
defining it more in terms of resilience and inclusivity and humility and reflection. And that kind of is very much aligned with what uphill athlete is all about, right? It's about the becoming.
00:03:43
Speaker
And then when you add in things like, you know, and you've written about this very nicely about like working within a male dominated domain, like mountain kiting, working with mentoring, you know, up-and-coming younger female guides, kind of harmonizing your personal dreams and goals with, you know, your own identity and who you really are.
00:04:10
Speaker
And i think that this, all right I feel very strongly that this is the ah new thing mountaineering, the new mountain sports, the new voice that is emerging.
00:04:27
Speaker
Where did, where did that reflection, you know, is there, is there, ah if you look back on your life, is there a place that that kind of started? I mean, I think it's super interesting because for me, it has always been that way.
00:04:42
Speaker
So I have never been a person who was good at having a single interest and keeping my sort of focus only on that one thing and not bringing with me my whole self and all of the various parts of me that are curious about different things.
Resilience from Childhood Experiences
00:04:58
Speaker
And the mountains represented a place to challenge myself, a place to have both... um immense discomfort and tremendous comfort and a real opportunity to have time to think through, you know, my, the big philosophical thoughts that are kind of always bouncing around in my brain around, you know, my purpose on this planet and all of our purpose on this planet. And, you know, also. have a purpose on this planet. Yeah. Yes. Do we have one? And, and so for me climbing, like I was never, I wanted to lean into a single focus of I am a climber, I'm a mountaineer, you know, whatever, but it didn't fit. It never quite fit because I always had this different relationship with the mountains. And so it was really foundational for me. And it's been lovely to see
00:05:49
Speaker
how I think partially because of just visibility and access, you know, 30 years ago, how did you find out about a mountaineer? It was like a news clipping or something. um You know, now with the rise of social media and like a very look at me culture, which has both positive and negative aspects to it, you do get this more broad understanding of, you know, you don't have to dedicate attention.
00:06:12
Speaker
your entire being to going on Himalayan expeditions to be a mountaineer, or even in my case, to be a mountain guide. I can be multiple other things as well. And this can look really different from maybe historically what we've believed it to look like.
00:06:28
Speaker
And that has been you know accidental in my work of like, it's become really a cornerstone of what I do, but it is just fundamentally also who I am. I've always been a person who has said, i don't know how upon my death, how will I be defined? Because it maybe I'll be a chef and people will be like, she was this amazing chef.
00:06:50
Speaker
And then someone will dig into the history of like, oh, you know that she also was a Mountaineer at one point or something? I mean, who knows? you know but It's sort of the the um lack of ability to have a single focus, which I think has super large benefits and challenges, obviously.
00:07:08
Speaker
One of the things that I happen to to know about you, but you also wrote about and and were very brave, I think, in writing about your childhood and you wrote about how you were around a lot of volatility and how that helped you build what you called psychological armor.
00:07:28
Speaker
who How did that, like, tell us about that. How How did you become that resilient child that was around that
00:07:40
Speaker
that instability but managed to come out of it in in a positive way? i mean, that can have you know that can go both ways for people, right? Like that can that can yeah that can crush people and it can turn into ah superpower.
00:07:55
Speaker
What was that experience like for you as a kid? It's interesting because I think that depending on which way you look at my life, you could argue that it had some really negative consequences.
00:08:07
Speaker
you know And just because I am conventionally successful in that, you know by societal standards, I have an achievement chyron under my name or something to say that I somehow turned to this really challenging circumstance into something positive.
00:08:22
Speaker
And it is also true. I did. But it's also really intertwined with, you know, personal negativity. So for me, one of the really foundational things looking back that I can understand is that I had a really confusing sense of relationships with power from my birth as far back as I can remember, and both power with women and power with men.
00:08:46
Speaker
And i am and power is a weird thing to say when you're thinking about a child, you know, because it's like you think about a power struggle with a toddler, but it was actually quite a lot deeper than that. It was this idea of your right to exist, which is sort of a power of its own.
00:09:02
Speaker
And foundationally, I had, i didn't have this idea that I didn't have a right to exist. But I had a very serious question about, am I deserving of existence?
00:09:14
Speaker
And so that was in on my interior self really caused a tremendous amount of conflict. And then I was looking at as far as I could possibly see as a child, which is essentially right in front of you, to your immediate surroundings, to your family.
00:09:28
Speaker
And then if you have school and support structure, maybe to that. And I could see that there was something consistent going on around me in that volatility. And it was that you it wasn't uniquely mine, you know, in my family structure. I wasn't the only person that was experiencing this type of challenge.
00:09:45
Speaker
And so somehow really early on, I understood And didn't fully ever accept even now. But I understood like this isn't my stuff. Like this isn't about me. And so I can get out of this.
00:09:59
Speaker
And also it looked like an impossibly long road as a teenager. Like I'm never going to get out of this. It feels like two years feels like a true eternity when you're 15 or 13. thirteen But I, I really had this idea, like, this isn't mine. And this is going to give me a specific skill set that will come in use in my life.
00:10:19
Speaker
And I had this understanding, as a kid, that I didn't have a lot of choices around challenging circumstances that I was going to find myself in.
00:10:31
Speaker
And so that's true for us all, right? Like as a child, however you grow up, whatever your circumstances are, you're going to find yourself in some discomfort that you didn't choose. And for me, i really leaned into that as this opportunity to practice being really uncomfortable and still somehow staying afloat.
00:10:51
Speaker
And it didn't always work. and And I think it goes back to that idea of like that multifocus, you know, like I was both present in my world, even as a very small child. And deeply lost in my mind, sort of thinking about the pontification of the universe and the purpose and what it all means. to paint a picture for our our audience and for me about what that was really like, what you something that you experienced as a child that you can share? Yeah. So...
00:11:18
Speaker
um My mother had a lot of interior challenges and she, that manifested in a way of,
00:11:32
Speaker
She seemed very self-confident to me as a child, but she was very, very vicious with her wounds and placing them on, well, I'll say me, you know, in my experience.
00:11:44
Speaker
And so how that might look is something that she felt really insecure about, um such as the security of her place in our family, like whether my father loved her and was going to stay committed to her.
00:11:58
Speaker
She would assign that to
Parenting with Resilience and Love
00:12:00
Speaker
me. and threaten my knowingness around the love in my family and assign like, you're, so you know, you are so bad that nobody is going to love you, including your father.
00:12:16
Speaker
He's going to leave you. And that was her wound, right? Like that was her fear. And she was assigning it to me. And so I would take this interior look at like, okay, what am I doing that makes me unlovable? I don't know.
00:12:28
Speaker
And then how do I fix it? And instead of, you know, folding into myself and and sort of collapsing on like, I can't fix it. I really was, you know, petulantly curious of like, maybe I can fix this. Or maybe this is just like, get through today, because I know for sure it's going to be different tomorrow.
00:12:49
Speaker
And it could be worse. and And it was often worse. But it also could be break. and and And then I might get some footing under me. there's this constant dance with you know, trying to understand, you know, and sometimes doing a really good job as a kid of understanding, like, ah can't do anything about this right now. And then also developing a deep well of personal questioning in my own life around unconditionality, you know, and it's something that I've struggled with forever is this idea of I didn't ever have a really good modeling experience.
00:13:24
Speaker
from my origin that there was such a thing as true unconditional love and what that truly looks like. and And even I would say unconditional love is like the deepest side of it, but unconditionality in anything, it's always felt like everything was temporary.
00:13:38
Speaker
Everything could be lost. And there's something really um activating if that's your mindset, right? Because you realize... there is this incredible impermanence to both good and bad.
00:13:50
Speaker
and that's the upside of that, right? Is that I could see that the bad was also impermanent. Hmm. Yeah, there's a a quote I like that I want to read right now. It says from a, I don't have the source right here, but it's, truth does not offer you a path that is frictionless and smooth and free of blemishes. Truth with a capital T asks you to be willing to lose everything to get closer to her, to have the courage to be demolished in her honor by opening up wider and wider to this staggering, awesome, complicated, heartbreaking, brilliant life.
00:14:25
Speaker
To bear witness to what is joyful, but also to what is painful with the same curiosity, respect, and love. Because we live in a world of darkness and light, and are both great teachers.
00:14:38
Speaker
and light and they are both great teachers This is really, this quote has been one, it's i've it's so handy for me because that is the theme for me of Bound this season of Voice of the Mountains. And you just like really, really dug into it eloquently there.
00:14:59
Speaker
What is it, you know, We're both parents. You you have two children. i have two children. Our children are actually some pretty similar ages, kind of elementary school, pre-elementary school, and they are forming their identities. They are starting to understand what you said, the conditionality, like, am I loved because I am doing, i don't know, my homework or cleaning up my room or, or those kinds of things.
00:15:30
Speaker
So, How does this experience that you've had and this processing that you've done translate into your present day role as a mother?
00:15:44
Speaker
It's very interesting because, you know, that my relationship with becoming a mother is complicated by the fact of my identity in the world as an adult has largely been, you know, a a feminine figure in masculine spaces.
00:16:00
Speaker
And mothering societally is seen as a soft skill. And I had long been fearful of becoming a mother, not because I didn't want children or to mother. I deeply, deeply did.
00:16:16
Speaker
i knew that that was something that was vital to experience in some capacity in my life. But I was so afraid that I already had to put on such a facade to seem strong enough to be, you know, for me to perceive that my peers see me as an equal, though, of course, that's never happened. It never is going to happen. It's i'm ah it's a different animal altogether.
00:16:40
Speaker
But I really feared that if I leaned into this mothering, it would be a soft season, as I have thought of it. And it has been a soft season, but not in the way that I anticipated at all.
00:16:52
Speaker
And it's been one of the most incredible experiences to witness for me, I, my first born is a girl, is a daughter. And, you know, I was very aware of the fact of coming from a background of a challenging mother relationship and me being a daughter, I didn't want to sort of like hand her my wounds.
00:17:12
Speaker
And of course, inevitably, I knew I would in some way, because that's just, you know, deeply the human condition. Our intentions and aren't going to save us from our natural way of doing that. And it's been done for all of, ah you know, history and time, I'm sure. But I was very aware of it.
00:17:28
Speaker
And, but awareness is the first step I would say, right? Like in changing the pattern. like Yeah. I mean, hopefully, right. It's like, again, I'm certain the, the wounds that my daughter is going to have from being in my family are going to be so far different from the ones of that I had from being in my family of origin. And, um,
00:17:49
Speaker
i don't you know People have asked, like do you have more perspective or respect for the plight of your own mother in becoming a mother? And yes and no, you know because my mother had a really challenging origin as well.
00:18:03
Speaker
And that created these really foundational wounds that made it very hard for her to be present and and give unconditional love. Like it's not a skill that she knew. And i deeply compassionately understand that that is not, you know, some vicious um and malicious flaw of hers that she's attempting to hurt her children. She can't not do that. And i feel compassionately about that.
00:18:25
Speaker
But I also was exposed to a really challenging set of circumstances. And I have created, i can say with great certainty, this container around my family where it's quite certain that the love is very reliable. And it's one of the really coolest things that happened for me was when my daughter was about two And had always heard through my therapeutic process, you know, how much of my interior voice was the voice of my parents.
00:18:52
Speaker
And I resisted that at first and I was like, no, it's not. And then I realized that like both good and bad, anytime that like my interior voice would rise, I'm like, wait, that is the voice of my parents for sure.
00:19:03
Speaker
And it didn't hit until I saw my daughter, you know, carrying this, one of those like inflatable bouncing cow things that you sit on as a toddler.
00:19:14
Speaker
And she wanted to take it upstairs and she was talking to the cow and she was saying, you know, come on cow, Kaya, and my daughter's Kaya. And she said, Kaya, like, you're so strong. You're so brave. You got this Kaya, you can do this.
00:19:26
Speaker
And I like went back downstairs and, you know, like wiped a little tear off my eye. And i I just thought of in the two years of her life, how many times those words had come out of my mouth to her. And it's like, okay, this is, I'm watching my voice become her interior voice.
00:19:42
Speaker
And I now see this power of importance. And so we have like a baseline set of family rules. And one of the family rules that feels most essential, and I write remind myself of it every day, and I remind myself for myself, is that we don't punish mistakes.
00:19:57
Speaker
Like mistakes have consequences, naturally. That's the whole premise of a mistake. There is a consequence. We don't punish mistakes. And so we're free to make those mistakes.
00:20:09
Speaker
And that's that idea of, you know, this essential dance with the truth. And I have been thinking quite a lot lately around, you know, the very common um reaction that I get to sharing my story, which is like, wow, this is really brave. And I'm very curious about why, what is, where is the bravery? Like, wherein lies the bravery? Is it, because it I, theoretically, if I just have survived, that's not the bravery we're talking about, right? It's this, it's this dance with the truth.
00:20:40
Speaker
And it's something that is, um, really, really scary because no matter what your background is and who you are, mistakes are scary. And the truth contains in it a lot of personal mistakes.
00:20:52
Speaker
And again, mistakes have consequences, but I really want to live in a life where there's not punishment. And I want to create that environment for my kids. And that's how I'm like viscerally experiencing this life of, you know, little people who i see as my teachers. And, um you know, I really am here to try to learn from them and, and create hopefully a container of learning for them as well to you know, make them happy humans in a society that lacks happiness.
00:21:22
Speaker
yeah I mean, you have some pretty good direct evidence that you are doing exactly that. So congratulations. I mean, that's that's amazing, first of all. And second of all, I wish that for all of us, right, that we can have that kind of level of of self-talk.
00:21:38
Speaker
And it's really hard. Can we just like say that it's really, really hard do that? I don't have it. I don't have it. You know, like personally, what I wish for...
00:21:49
Speaker
and and And also it's somewhat, I think, like personality dependent because my sweet, tender, sensitive son, who is almost three, it my voice to him is the same, right? If I say like, you know, buddy, you're so strong, you got this. He will always say to me, mama, I not strong.
00:22:07
Speaker
And it's like... He has this like, or he will he'll say like, i I not brave mama, I not brave. And I would say like, depending on what you, how you're quantifying bravery, does a different constitution of bravery than my daughter does, like inside of who he is. And so it's also caused me to have to like push the pause button and say, parent the person in front of me.
00:22:30
Speaker
I don't have a parenting method. I try to remember to wake up and look at the kid in front of me and remember that we're all like phenomenally dynamic beings and becoming and unbecoming constantly, all of us, no matter you know if we think this is our first time here or many times here.
Interplay of Bravery and Fear in Life
00:22:46
Speaker
like we There's a tremendous amount of unbecoming in the becoming.
00:22:50
Speaker
And i just have to try to look at it for what it is. But, you know. it's really hard. That's like a high lofty, don't anybody mistake the way I'm talking about my parenting as though it's not like, you know, I also am regularly told that my snappers are coming out too much and like, you know, feeding my kids Cheetos on Wednesday night because they will eat. So there's lots of imperfection in the pursuit of perfection for sure. in all Aspects of life.
00:23:16
Speaker
you know And I'm going to share a spoiler as my kids are just a little older than yours is what I experienced. Don't tell me. You're must. must. I've used this word brave a lot too with my boys.
00:23:31
Speaker
And now you know they're like friends. He's almost 10. And he asked me pretty recently, like, Daddy, what does brave mean? yeah Like he didn't really understand.
00:23:43
Speaker
I've used the word for now eight years. He's like, you know, if I really think about it, I don't know exactly what that means. Well, what does it mean to you? Because I have been engaging so deeply with this concept of bravery lately because I've been hearing it and it feels, it doesn't feel hollow, but it feels, i'm i feel I'm curious. I'm curious. What does that mean in context, of course, but like, what does bravery mean to you?
00:24:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question. i want to reflect it back to you. and And because one of the things I want to explore with you today is this idea of fear, because bravery is an anecdote in many ways, i would say, to to yeah and so And fear is ah is a theme in you know your thinking, your writing, has been in my thinking and writing as well. It's been a frequent theme on this podcast. It's People in the uphill athlete community are doing scary things almost by definition, whether it's running the first, you 10K or going to climb Denali or whatever it is. These are all, you know, things that are are scary for people.
00:24:57
Speaker
And what, how do you model this? Or first of all, maybe I should ask, how has that been and you share this in your book a little bit, but like how has fear and your self-talk around fear kind of started out? How did it start out for you?
00:25:16
Speaker
When you were, I'm going back to like when you're a teenager and in Montana and, you know, sort of starting to have these ideas of of really getting out of of that area and getting out of that situation.
00:25:29
Speaker
mean, that's already bravery in a lot of ways. And there's a lot of fear. You had you didn't know how the world worked. It was big. It was immense. You were small. Yeah. How did that, how did that, how did that work?
00:25:43
Speaker
Well, so it's really interesting. So, um if the idea of bravery is like to be courageous, so I think about what courage is and courage the idea of not being deterred by pain or fear that is never ah So on one level, quite actually, i was not deterred in so much that whether I felt pain or fear, I continued forward, right?
00:26:11
Speaker
But i actually think it's quite like complicatedly different where... I was deterred. the the like I was detoured, I'll say, instead of deterred, maybe, um by pain and fear. And so when I...
00:26:28
Speaker
you know i I talk about it in my book. I went through the experience just like a, you know, pretty average, challenging early childhood time of like a complicated relationship with a parent. Lots of people have experienced that. Mine was not like enormously exceptional in any way. um You know, I talk very about my own specifics. It was my experience, but it wasn't,
00:26:48
Speaker
you know, enormously exceptional or abusive or, you know, anything else. I, it was fine. And it laid this groundwork of a truly, really terrible, very exceptional experience that I had when I was right at the precipice of becoming a young woman at 11 years old, where a predatory adult took advantage of me in a multitude of ways and took advantage of me physically. And then also quite possibly more harmfully created an environment where, um, my parents were arrested at my,
00:27:18
Speaker
you know, my, I can't say my responsibility because it's really complex. And I talk about the complexity of it in the book and what happened, but, um, and I lost everything around the foundational aspect of even the unconditional love that I had of of my origin family.
00:27:33
Speaker
I now was quite called into question regularly as my whole family tried to reorient ourselves and find our feet underneath us. And Of course, at the time i was, you know, a preteen and a teen and I only had a view of myself. So I wasn't considering how it was impacting other people. Now as an adult, I can recognize that, you know, everybody in my family was really struggling to figure out how to exist in a new reality that they didn't choose.
00:27:57
Speaker
And so this required an element of courage. And so it was one of the very first truly deep experiences that I had interacting with discomfort,
00:28:09
Speaker
danger and pain and choosing how to proceed. And because of the fact that this danger, discomfort and pain of this predatory adult relationship that I was in as a, you know, a child and then a young woman,
00:28:27
Speaker
I didn't get to choose how to interact with it. I was not on a climb that I got to assess the risk of and determine that the risk was too great. And also, i think about that all the time now, like, do we ever know what the risk is? Because you only know the risk once you know the outcome, you know, and risk and consequence and what that all actually looks like.
00:28:45
Speaker
But I think about it all the time of like, I can quite clearly say now that I didn't get to choose to you know, engage with that discomfort. And so to be brave for having gotten through that was just to live, right? So the bravery existed in just existing.
00:29:04
Speaker
And it also shaped something inside of me that has been both, you know, very defining in my life and how I engage with challenge, danger, discomfort, pain, and extremely toxic in how I engage with, you know, challenge, danger, discomfort, and pain. Because I both knew I could survive ah really existence-crushing experiences that were completely out of my control.
00:29:33
Speaker
And I could get through it. And there is a terrible thing that can occur when you discover that at the age of 12. you know, your relationship to discomfort is incredibly skewed.
00:29:48
Speaker
And so I have always said this about myself in a very light way without any context of people ask like, you know, what makes you well suited for the mountains? Because I'm just, you know physiologically average. I don't have like some exceptional, you know, single skill. I have to try really hard to be good at any specific activity, sport or discipline.
00:30:06
Speaker
um My physiology at at altitude is all kind of just normal and unremarkable. But I have, I've always said, like, I have a really soft touch on the dial between discomfort and danger.
00:30:19
Speaker
And that's not true. I mean, it is true. But it's also a toxic manifestation of experiencing such intense discomfort that I actually have a very unhealthy relationship with danger and discomfort.
00:30:33
Speaker
And I will justify types of danger as discomfort because it is a soothing feeling to my own past to say, look, that wasn't true danger. That was just discomfort.
00:30:48
Speaker
I was just uncomfortable. It's like, well, actually, what is danger? Like, what is the consequence we're trying to avoid? If it's only death, if that's the only thing that we're quantifying as danger, that's a very narrow window. And guess what?
00:31:00
Speaker
You're not avoiding it So like, you know, that danger doesn't quite work for the avoidance of death because it is coming for you. and And so it's really complicated, you know, and it's like you can see the rabbit holes that exist within my brain in this topic.
00:31:14
Speaker
Yeah. And, and not just yours. Like I think everybody that is out there doing things that have a significant amount of risk, because as you say, you don't actually know the risk. You only know the outcome. So you only know the risk and in hindsight.
00:31:28
Speaker
And so... when And in mountaineering and in climbing and in alpinism, I think we often make it very binary, as you put it, in the sense of, did I live or die?
00:31:40
Speaker
and that is a ah gross oversimplification and ignores the fact that we're one day going to die. So in a way, it's ah it's a false win, if you will. You're just not going to die that day or today.
00:31:54
Speaker
And i think that, you know, Reinhold Mesner talks about, in some of his early books, about becoming what he called a creature of the wall.
00:32:06
Speaker
And I always loved that phrase because for me, like I viscerally understood that because I experienced that in my own climbing. And it was like, I got to a point where, you know at various times, not just like one day, but like many times throughout my my climbing, including as a young young very young climber,
00:32:25
Speaker
where I was just like completely comfortable with what was going on around me. And I was so sort of relaxed and, and that's, that's what he was talking about. Right. I was, I was, you know, stones were falling and, you know, there was like, you know, death was flying, potential death was flying all around me. And was just like, yeah, shoot eating my sandwich, having a sip, drink tea, you like I'm safe. Cause I've got this little 30 centimeter roof of rock over my head and, you know, I can just like tuck in here and,
00:32:52
Speaker
Same thing happens to people in war zones when they've, you know, and in other traumatic situations, we find these, these ways to, to sort of exist within that.
00:33:05
Speaker
I want to come back to the definition. So I have a very specific definition of, of bravery, which, and I would define it as ah the ability to act or find agency in spite of, or I mean, you can, or because of, or with fear.
00:33:28
Speaker
I think that this is how I talk about it with my kids. Like my, you know, if I take my boys climbing, you know, we do very easy climbs. They don't know anything about my climbing, right? Like I haven't told them anything yet. They're going to find out someday and I don't care. But the the only thing they know is I tell them that daddy is a mountain guide because that's the only way they frankly listened to me.
00:33:47
Speaker
But, um, When I talk to them, when they say, Daddy, I'm scared. yeah my initial reaction I used to do was like try to remove the fear and like wrap them up in a blanket of safety of some kind.
00:34:02
Speaker
And now I realize like, oh, that's that's just creating this need on their part for me to come over and like solve the problem. That's like, like I can't do, like that's that's a dead end, right?
00:34:12
Speaker
I can't always be there to solve their problem. So now, you know, they say, daddy, I'm scared. And I say, you know, that's that's good you're scared because this is dangerous.
00:34:24
Speaker
And what what action can you do next? What can you do? Can you can you step over to there? Can you reach that hole? Can you clip into that anchor?
00:34:35
Speaker
Those kinds of things. and i And I like this discussion that comes out of this with my kids much better than what I was doing previously where I would just grab the sling from the harness and clip them into the anchor myself. Right.
00:34:47
Speaker
And then tell them they were safe and show them all the ways they're safe. That was what I used to do. And now I'm really trying to be like, oh, wait, I need to teach them how to have agency and how to take action and how to break down the problem and get through it in ah in a positive, constructive way. Well, and what's interesting is your concept of bravery is really intertwined with the – and ah ah the end evolution, which is resilience, right? And so you see bravery in that really specific definition as the formation of resilience. And I think that that is totally correct.
00:35:24
Speaker
I mean, that is the exact, you know, very action and result-oriented way to think about This really um like loose concept that's hard to pin down because it is so subjective to the situation and and whatever. It's not so fixed and finite.
00:35:42
Speaker
And that's really beautiful.
Agency, Risk, and Societal Perceptions
00:35:44
Speaker
And I think that that I love because... ah you know I've personally interacted with like resilience is my goal. And resilience, it's my goal for my children. And it's my goal for myself.
00:35:56
Speaker
And resilience is really difficult to create in comfort. ah Because we have to, it's the knowingness that you can get through this moment. you know And it's again, like we're taking out the you know binary fact of like death and life is the end result. I don't know that that is the end result, but like like that end goal.
00:36:15
Speaker
um Right. But this idea of, and it's funny because with my daughter, i I watched it happen too, where it was like, what is I'm so brave? And like, what is my goal for her? And and we used to talk about it because she's like a really metaphorically driven thinker.
00:36:29
Speaker
And she would come up with like different examples of how i she was thinking about something I was trying to teach her. And this idea she would talk about when she was a little bit smaller, like around four, when she was really starting to ride her bike on a lot more varied terrain with more consequences.
00:36:45
Speaker
And she, we would go down the driveway and she said like, I'd so hard to miss all of these bumps. I can't do it It's just too small of an area. and I was like, girl, your goal is not to miss the bumps.
00:36:58
Speaker
Your goal is to figure out how to get down the driveway, hit the bumps and and not let it end your ride. You know you might fall off. You might figure out how to get over the bump and be like a little uncomfortable for a moment. And we she says it to me all the time of when we're having a tricky situation. She's like, this is just this is just the bumps. We just got to get over the bumps. And it's like, am i just I'm probably teaching my daughter how to like speak in cliche, which is a very correct thing of a mountaineer's child to do. But it is really beautiful
00:37:29
Speaker
to this idea of like, our goal is not to win. Our goal is not to you know, whatever that is, it is just to build this ability to hit the bumps and not try to, yeah, fix it. like Is it cliche or is it just a useful metaphor? I mean, doesn't, I think cliche is a useful metaphor. I think that's the beauty of it. Yeah.
00:37:53
Speaker
That's why it's a cliche for a reason. When you have talked about fear, um and specifically when you were writing about, i don't want to that spoil anything for your future readers, but after your ah there was an accident involving a crevasse, and you talked a lot about fear and how that, and and I've experienced this in my own at various times in my own mountaineering journey, like been involved in some a some situation that I didn't choose to be a part of, as you put it. And, um, and, and, and then you're there and it's terrible.
00:38:30
Speaker
It's absolutely horrible. It's the worst. And you have a lot of fear at the time. um, but you know there's there's different types of fear like what we've been talking about i think is kind of the nice clarifying fear like oh i'm scared of that so i'm going to avoid it or i'm scared of that so going to take this action but there's also ah like a corrosive fear like uh there's a ah ah fear that has like resentment in it like i didn't choose this like i didn't choose to be put in this situation
00:39:03
Speaker
You know, and then of course the logical next step is the blame step. Like you put me in this situation or you climbed outside of your experience level and ability and created this. and Now I have to blah, blah, blah.
00:39:17
Speaker
And, and this framing while super easy and super common and, and it appears to have a very lot, you know, based in logic, right. If then kind of logic.
00:39:31
Speaker
You know how how can we how can we as a community start to distinguish between oh fear and and experience and trauma that is constructive, that is helpful, that is that is a starting point for growth versus the kind that causes resentment, ah you know,
00:40:00
Speaker
Yeah, all the all the, not just resentment, but like actually kind of, I want to say hatred, like almost it's like really strong, deep, like f you kind of, you know, strong feelings.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's interesting because just as you're describing this, and I can think about those, you know, very more amoebic types of fear that have, you know, not just instantaneous consequences and outcomes, and then you, you know, take it, reflect on it and move on in your world.
00:40:31
Speaker
But it is this idea of um yeah you I don't think you're even aware when that's happening, like the the blame and the resentment and the hatred. and And when I was reflecting and deciding what stories of my life to share and put into this book that I wanted to have a really specific narrative journey, I tried to write in the voice of who I was at that time. it was really incredibly both...
00:40:58
Speaker
incredibly both ah informative and cringy and you know all of the things, and also healing, to go back to the voice that i carried inside of me at that moment when I was experiencing those types of fear and my reaction to it was, yes, to blame, defend, to to Because I think that this idea of agency, which is potentially like on a very big level somewhat of a fallacy, um that there's like there is individual agency in moments, but you know like I don't know.
00:41:37
Speaker
ah There's a lot of ah and interaction with things we're not choosing, but it's just a very... essential part. Yeah, I think that agency is a really like, um very sexy concept to be attracted to this idea that and autonomy. And like, I think it's what but I can speak for myself. It's what drove me in the mountains, because I had this sense of very clear, um,
00:42:00
Speaker
feeling and my, it's a feeling that I, that I could point to and i could show it to you of my agency, my choosing, my, you know, actions result in this.
00:42:11
Speaker
And also at the same time, like a bazillion other things are playing into this, including nature. And it's one of the things that's always felt so alluring to me about nature is this dichotomy of you get to have choice agency you know and autonomy, and you are interacting with a being that is completely dynamic and you get no notification of what's coming.
00:42:31
Speaker
And there's some, so that's where the fallacy kind of starts. And I think of that in, you know, that replicates in all relationships that we have in all spaces that we exist in, no matter who you or where you are, you have that experience going on.
00:42:45
Speaker
um And it's probably like the ego versus, you know, actuality of like what we believe we are controlling. And I think that, so that that relationship with fear specifically, where you have this resentful reaction to fear occurring is very ego driven.
00:43:01
Speaker
You know, it's very, it's, it's fear as failure. It's this concept that's societally, I think we've ingested for a really long time. And I think it was a function of surviving, ah not even surviving. It was a function of sending people into war and so that they would feel noble and the, that the fear, you know,
00:43:21
Speaker
and is this essential component and, you know, necessary and that, that, overcoming it or something is winning um or or being willing to die in the face of, you know, real actual danger is somehow noble.
00:43:39
Speaker
And so failing in some way um is less noble and not going in, not facing it. And it is this idea of, it's really entrapping idea, I think around like achievement and the mountains that is that how we celebrate people.
00:43:55
Speaker
in the mountains and how so deeply individual the experience is on a really like granular level for the person in the mountains. And you and I have it widely varying experiences from one another in the mountains that are super different.
00:44:11
Speaker
And our interior selves, we're having our own deeply personal experience there as well. But the world puts us in a category that's very adjacent um to one another, you know, of like, Achievement and failure and and so and our relationship with then fear and failure um and how the ego just really deeply plays into that and doesn't allow you to because ah the the the solving of that in so many ways is reflection right and there's a problem with that because in fear it's very hard to reflect it's very hard to have a reflective stance when something feels you know
00:44:44
Speaker
It taps into the dinosaur brain of our, we're being threatened. It's really hard to like open the philosopher side of your brain and ask like, what does it all mean? And what's it all for it? And to take out the necessary elements of fear that keep us, you know, alive, hopefully,
00:45:04
Speaker
And also don't keep us alive. Like, I don't know. I have all of the the conversations that I hear and I engage in, in especially talking about climbing and, um you know, this we've decided, I guess, like societally, a ah ah categorically risky activity that we're going to call it like mountain climbing. um And so you are a person who is now, you know, a fear seeking person or a person who has like a really different relationship with like adrenaline and you know, you know, this as well, like the adrenaline side of the mountains is really when shit is terrible, when it's gone horribly wrong. Like it's not what you're there for. And I don't say this to like activate. You're there to avoid.
00:45:45
Speaker
You're there to avoid. Yeah. And I'm not a gravity sports person. Like I don't enjoy like whitewater kayaking and like fast downhill activities because of I don't really like being in that spiked state of reactivity.
00:45:59
Speaker
um i like being in a really slow meditative state of reactivity, which is like, I want to walk a 360 degree, you know, full dimensional view around every choice and experience that I've ever had and that I ever will and analyze it. And, you know, speed doesn't allow for that. And so, and that's sort of like that fear relationship though, too, is that, um,
00:46:22
Speaker
you know It doesn't allow for you – when you're in that state of fear, it doesn't allow for you to analyze what that actually is or what your motivations are um and how you interact with it. So I think it's generally speaking like – also I want to acknowledge you know we are talking in a way um that does fall into some of the traps of – especially as climbing as a sport, all disciplines of climbing – has risen um in usership.
00:46:46
Speaker
Most people, it's not dissimilar to how we experience parenting, right? Like when our kids are experiencing fear, their fear is super real, even though we know the consequences to be whatever the consequences may be.
00:46:57
Speaker
And by and large, most people who are climbing aren't dealing with like true life and death consequences to their individual actions throughout their climb.
00:47:08
Speaker
You know, can that be different? It can, obviously. but you know, we really, we extrapolate these stories of like things going wrong and we look at that really closely. And I think it's a, again, it's soothing to ourselves. And you know, this as a person who's experienced, you know, ah the consequences of being in the mountains and things going differently than you thought they would and really having to confront all of the complex feelings that go into that and then how the world engages with your story as like a salve to their own decision making in the future um to to prevent themselves from experiencing that fear, pain, risk, um you know, which who knows that we can.
From External Validation to Self-Acceptance
00:47:48
Speaker
I want to go back to something you said and started us down this rabbit hole a little bit because I stopped you when you started to say, well, you know, we have agency, but then there's a. So I think of this agency and then the other stuff, I think of it as deterministic and probabilistic, like the deterministic is what you can make choices around.
00:48:08
Speaker
yeah And there's a lot of that in the mountains. And the probabilistic is what you were talking about, interacting with the force of nature and its rawest form and having to, you know, no choice but to accept what what happens and in that way. And in most cases, that actually determines far in the mountains, especially the big ones, that determines far more of the outcome than the deterministic choices.
00:48:34
Speaker
By the time you get to the level which you're trying to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen, the deterministic pieces have all been put in place. It's almost purely probabilistic beyond that.
00:48:46
Speaker
And i remember having this discussion with Vince Anderson right before we climbed Nanga Parbat because he was getting nervous because our acclimatization and everything, we were at the end of our time. And he was getting nervous that our acclimatization was kind of waning and we were losing our window.
00:49:02
Speaker
And we had this conversation and there was, it really calmed us both when we realized, yes, if we get the opportunity and everything lines up, we are a hundred percent sure we can do this.
00:49:16
Speaker
and it be that like, we will walk away from this base camp, never having stepped foot on this route and the world won't care, won't know. we won't, we'll, we will sort of be pretty sure, but we wouldn't have had that like proof. And as it turned out, of course, we had the opportunity to sort of prove that to ourselves and beyond that to the world.
00:49:37
Speaker
And so when you interact with the world, I mean, I think you have a different experience. I mean, obviously you're, you're younger and you're also ah different gender than I am. And so when you interact with the world and the world looks at your achievements in the mountains,
00:49:57
Speaker
How do you, what's that relationship between what I'll just say they see as your achievements and your value and what you see as your achievements and your value?
00:50:12
Speaker
And how do you balance that? how do you How do you maintain your own, what you feel truth of your identity when the narrative from them, I'll just say, yeah it be different.
00:50:29
Speaker
how does that What is that internal process like for you and how has that unfolded over time? ah yeah Essentially, that is the whole journey of my book, right? Is this idea of thinking that I could control what they saw.
00:50:47
Speaker
And if they approved of what they saw, then I could have self-worth. And like, that's like oversimplifying. And I didn't know that that's what was happening during that time. But that's essentially what my journey was of going through this experience of first thinking, you know, I don't feel belonging.
00:51:06
Speaker
for some foundational wounds that have nothing to do with anything, anyone else outside of me. And so what do I choose to do to find belonging? I choose to put myself into an environment where I am categorically different from nearly everybody around. So that's not rational. like That's a silly thing to do.
00:51:22
Speaker
But it has this really um mag magnifying effect of exceptionality. So if I don't think I can belong, then I'm going to strive to be exceptional. Because if I'm going to be not belonging, I'm going to be not belonging in a way that that I feel I can control, right? So if I'm not going to naturally fit into this peer group, I'm going to make myself the only girl in the room so that it's okay that I don't fit into this peer group because I have a reason for that.
00:51:49
Speaker
Or I'm going to be the youngest one or the smallest one or whatever. And then I'm going to need some validators, right? ah from them, external validators. And so what I experienced is like being a girl who was climbing mountains, I was you know already kind of that exceptionality was existing, but I didn't have any validators. So I needed the validators. So then I pursued you know leadership roles. So I want to be a guide. So now I have this automatic validator, but then it just created a whole new environment that I don't belong in. And now I need ah more of a validator and another one.
00:52:26
Speaker
And so then I'm going to go and I'm going to be 23 years old and I'm going to go and not just summit Everest, but I'm going to guide Everest as like one of very few women who had ever guided Everest at that point in time.
00:52:37
Speaker
And I'm going to reap the rewards of the validation of them. and I'm going to also slowly determine that it doesn't change at all what the interior way I see me is, right? Like I still am in need of...
00:52:50
Speaker
I want belonging. And so I'm pursuing exceptionality and validation instead. So I'm using achievement as ah a form of acceptance. And you know, I have come to learn in my life that that does not work. It does not work for anybody. It doesn't work at all. It's a, it is a, a extreme difference in, um,
00:53:09
Speaker
intrinsic and exterior motivations, right? I think it's okay to pursue achievement and to bask in the glow of that. I think that's totally fine, but it doesn't fundamentally change who you are internally.
00:53:20
Speaker
And it is really hard for it to change your view of yourself internally. So that is why I ended up on this journey where, you know, i summited Everest and immediately, I mean, before I even was like back at base camp, I had this idea of that's not enough. Like I need to go, I need to come back because there's not been there's one other woman who's ever guided multiple seasons on Everest. Like I need to be that woman. I need to meld myself with this exceptionality to prove my belonging.
00:53:49
Speaker
And then when i came back, um you know, that still wasn't enough. And now I need to do this in a way that um no one else is doing it. Who's like me, because that will prove my exceptionality. And then I would hear the things of like,
00:54:01
Speaker
you you know, you are not a real climber or she's just getting work because she's cute young girl because she is exceptional in the outlier space that that's, but she's not a real climber.
00:54:13
Speaker
And so then it's just adding, it's this like, you know, it but it's, it's mountain of its own that it creates outside when I'm waiting for them to tell me, that it's enough, i that I will always be able to find, including to this day, people who are will tell me that it's not enough. And if I choose to listen to that, I will forever be in pursuit of belonging through achievement and it can't work. And so my journey and my evolution was that I really did think like, if I can summit Everest without oxygen, without supplemental oxygen, nobody will be able to say that I am not a climber and that I'm not a mountain.
00:54:52
Speaker
Yeah. And guess what? Like within days of doing it, um ah a friend of ours, a peer of ours and said to me, like, yeah I, you know, I believe that you did this, but you realize no one's going to believe that you did this because you did this alone with a single climbing partner who is your boyfriend. And like, it's just, it does it seems sketchy that you've tried to do this all these years. And I've read between the lines of that. I'm like, you don't believe that I did this. Like, you don't believe that this happened and it doesn't matter. Like, I can't,
00:55:23
Speaker
And fortunately for me, i had already begun, i was an infant in that, but I'd begun this journey of understanding that I couldn't achieve this really big exceptional thing until I started to heal that interior side of myself that understood that my worth innately is not attached to my achievement.
00:55:43
Speaker
And achievement can feel good and validation can feel really good, but it's just a feeling. It's not who I fundamentally am. And so that has been my journey with, you know, quite on the interior side of how I relate to what they think of me versus who I am. And I've just recently gone through the craziest experience with that because I decided to do the thing that scared me the most, which was tell them all of the ways that I had tried to trick them into thinking I was something I wasn't over the years. And I decided to not just tell you the story of, you know, what was going on for me in my space, but to tell you what I did to try to make you see me differently and be really honest and be, you know, all the things that made me afraid in those years that I couldn't show
00:56:36
Speaker
I couldn't show you who I really was because if you found out who I really was, you would then know that I wasn't deserving and that I wasn't a real climber and that I wasn't deserving of being here. I hadn't, you know, all of my insecurities, i sort of had to like unveil and it's ah the actual paradox of what I would have imagined.
00:56:56
Speaker
thought You couldn't have explained this to me previously in my life because I wouldn't have understood i wouldn't have believed you. But it's like I only cared so deeply about what you that were the day thought of me when I was trying to manage what they saw.
00:57:10
Speaker
And now I've like really stopped managing what they see on some level. Of course, I'm always going to just be a human who's like wants to be perceived in certain ways and spaces. But I've like disarmed the big barrier that I was holding or the big you know facade that I was upholding. I let that down.
00:57:26
Speaker
And weirdly, I care far less what you you know what people, what the they think. like when I just heard that um somebody that I deeply respect had said something really um unkind about my place in mountaineering history. um and And the... um the worth of it or the worthiness of it.
00:57:50
Speaker
And it hurt, but it also, I understood it differently. Like it didn't cause me to think like, well, I need to now go, you know, back and climb Everest again without oxygen to prove that like I'm the only female ever to do it twice. Like who cares? It's not going to change anything from my little view in the world. And it has far, a far greater propensity to make me feel feed the seed of self-hatred and um lack of self-forgiveness than it does self-love. And there's that weird, again, that like paradox of when you're trying to live for what they see, like it's, it really will be the water and the seeds of insecurity in your own self. And you won't get the chance to like take a pause and actually appreciate the, who you really are in all of its complex and deeply flawed ways.
Microaggressions and Resilience
00:58:40
Speaker
Hmm.
00:58:43
Speaker
there's There's so much I want to want to go into there. no it's it's wonderful. and you speak And you speak so eloquently ah about these these ideas. And i want to think about, you know,
00:59:03
Speaker
a lot of what you were talking about. you can you Can you tell us maybe a story where something like that shows an example where there's there's there's a sort of subtle balance, right, that you're talking about between, we're talking about our peers or they, them, between like a microaggression, let's call it. think that's the the the current phrase versus something something that
00:59:37
Speaker
you know can be something but a microaggression, a challenge, can be something that builds like resilience and kind of hardens you. And you're like, oh, yeah?
00:59:48
Speaker
Wait, watch this kind of a thing. versus it be And that becoming what you're talking about is sort of, i would characterize as a quiet self-betrayal. Because you you you you're like...
01:00:02
Speaker
and how those things go hand in hand sometimes. And one of the things that there's this balance between you getting to a point as a human where, you know, they, they their opinions don't matter so much to you anymore and be where you, your self-worth is, is internal. And then it goes back to what,
01:00:30
Speaker
we started with, which is this idea that we don't have to earn love or that we don't have to qualify for it, that it's, That you whether your self-love or your love so love of your family or your love in the community is a is a given, is a constant, is is something something that's just there.
01:00:53
Speaker
And i think that so many times I'm thinking about myself, but also many of our listeners, I'm have perpetrated microaggression, i would call it and and not really, really given it any thought.
01:01:09
Speaker
Right. Like, and and i I fall victim to this all the time because it's it's like a ah reaction. Like I have a feeling and i'm going to let this person know what my feeling is.
01:01:20
Speaker
Without really thinking about like the impact of how that lands and what that, you know, I i can have that too and I can be empathetic, but I'm more of an empathetic person in hindsight, right? Like, oh yeah, I guess I have a hard time like doing it in the moment.
01:01:34
Speaker
And there's so much of that. and i And it's not just in mountaineering, right? It's in... It's in the world, it's throughout the world we live in. It's in human condition almost.
01:01:46
Speaker
So where is that, where can you tell us like a story, i think, actually of one of these aggressions, micro or macro, that, how that unfolded?
01:01:57
Speaker
Well, and I'll tell you, so you know, first, like to zoom out for me, um I became aware of this idea that the thing that i really disliked that could be really harmful for my interior voice and my interior sense of self was, you know, that them doubting me.
01:02:16
Speaker
And I became aware at some point that I also wanted them to doubt me, you know? So like I leaned deeply in to the parts of me that are really counterculture to mountaineering. So like, I love really girly things. Like I love like really nice heels. I love dressing up. i you know, that is just part of my personality and things I do love. And I would enjoy leaning into it and causing people this reaction of like, whoa, you know, you're a mountaineer. And I also would allow that to corrode my sense of self.
01:02:52
Speaker
And I realized at some point that it had something to do more with like who was saying it because, and I had this conversation with my husband at one point where I said like the very sentence, the very sentence you can say to me, which is you don't look like a mountaineer.
01:03:09
Speaker
I, I like giggle at, I'm like, I know it's so fun, you know? And we like laugh about it and like go about our lives. And then, you know, this per, this most likely, you know,
01:03:21
Speaker
middle-aged male that I'm sitting next to on an airplane and it's like, oh, we what do you do for work? And I'm like, I'm a mountain guy. And he's like, oh, like you drive the bus around and take people on tours. And I'm like, no, I do glacier mountaineering, like climbing peaks such as Everest. Oh, have you ever gone Everest? Oh, yes.
01:03:35
Speaker
Ever gone to the top? Yes. All the way six times. Oh, well. you know And he's like, you don't look like a mountaineer. And i i it fills me with anger. And it's all this context of like the intention behind it, but I'm interpreting the intention behind it. and I used to be far more sensitive to my interpretation of the intention behind it, right? Of like, you're trying to cut me down by saying you're trying to exclude me.
01:03:58
Speaker
in a negative way rather than uphold my exceptionality, as I was saying before. And so that is back to this idea of resilience. And so all those are bumps that I'm hitting. And the new way that I have you know over the last really almost 10 years like practiced interacting with that is with a far more resilient approach.
01:04:17
Speaker
interior being which is that i can like in that moment laugh or feel because i'm not i'm a human who's like deeply sensitive as well and people's opinions of me can feel crushing but i'm remember that it's an opportunity to practice my resilience And it's an opportunity to let it crush me and feel that crushingness and also remember that it is not who I am. It is just another person's opinion out there about me. And I understand it because I am an opinionated person about others. You know, like I live my life...
01:04:51
Speaker
ah with a, an eye of judgment. And it's something I'm always sort of like trying to be more aware of and try to, you know, make sure that I'm engaging with that judgmental eye with kindness, um, and, or, or and, or you know, in a healthy way that is the, the,
01:05:08
Speaker
range of complexity that I have. But, um you know, so that's like the very macro side of, you know, how I've experienced the, that, the them. um And I just have so many endless examples of um the micro aggression experience of being on and I think unintentional. and not It's not unintentional. it's um It's like almost, it's whatever's just right between conscious and subconsciously um treated in a really specific way. And so what that would look like in my earlier days of guiding is as I started to...
01:05:49
Speaker
climb more peaks and have more of a resume that was sort of like, I didn't have to tell you my resume because now my resume was leading in front of me. And i I started to experience even more with my peers or people who were potential mentors of mine that I deeply respected.
01:06:08
Speaker
i started to interact in a way with them where it was like, yeah Oh, you guys, client I mean, a good example is like a person who had a long history of working in the Himalayas and ah had, you know, tremendous level of different experiences there.
01:06:27
Speaker
And after my second summit on Everest, um and as I was planning this upcoming trip that I wanted to go to Makalu, which had always been like my dream mountain, they said to me like,
01:06:40
Speaker
you know, Makalu, you've gotten really lucky on Everest and you've been inside of the structure of like working as a guide and basically everything being done for you. And Makalu is nothing like that. And so you need ah you need more experience to do that.
01:06:55
Speaker
And I was like, well, that's what I'm doing. I'm here, I'm getting more experience. And it was, I think like... yeah that again, that space between conscious and subconscious, like I don't think they were consciously trying to like cut me down and exclude me from this environment. But I think subconsciously they were because we all live in such a delicate dance with our own exceptionality that if somebody else is doing what we do and we don't view them as worthy of it, then it crushes, you know, our deservingness of being special. Because if someone else can just do what you do, and I think that's the current era. I mean, it's ah like a hard right turn with this thought, but like it's the problem with, um,
01:07:31
Speaker
the sort of like armchair spectator coliseum aspect of how we watch mountaineering in current day. And we decide who is deserving and undeserving of going to the summit. And some of the loudest voices in the undeserving category of like Instagram, you know, it's a tourist destination and people taking pictures.
01:07:48
Speaker
That's very nuanced, complicated and somewhat true. But it also, the fundamental thing you're saying is like, it's taking value away from this thing you did And because this person who's doing it differently or looks differently than you or you decided is less capable or less deserving of doing this thing is doing it.
01:08:08
Speaker
And that takes some specialness away from you doing it. And you know I'm very curious about that because I think it goes back to this bigger question of like internal versus external motivators.
01:08:20
Speaker
And if you're going to the mountain to go to the summit, you know then getting to the summit is all you're there for. And then there's other people that are going to the mountain for a different reason. And I don't right now in my current life think one of those is – I don't think that's a hierarchical thing.
01:08:36
Speaker
like way of being. I think, you know, I have a personal preference for what the mountains are and how to interact with them, but I don't think that I'm like fundamentally better than somebody who is going to the summit and mountaineering is not like a craft. um It's just an activity that they're doing. I don't think that like I am innately better than them. And that comes born from having those experiences of, you know, people discrediting what I might want to do or or be curious to do or be capable of doing or my deservingness of like you and i remember I got told um somebody said to me like a the old old stalwart of mountaineering and in the Himalayas who said like, you know, this is no place for a cute little girl like you.
01:09:20
Speaker
and I was like, I don't, I'm at, I was like, ah yeah what do we what do I say to that? Like, what do you do with that in what way, in what way? Like it's, I, and both also I could like, you know, again, giggle about that and be like, I know, isn't it so fun? A cute little girl like me is just hanging out here. and Climbing these mountains just like you are, big gnarly dude.
01:09:45
Speaker
But I think that one of the things of ah you know how that showed up for me is that I chose this pursuit of competence. right So like I wanted to um really uh, have this like defense of look at me, even if I'm young, even if I've only been climbing for this amount of time, like I can do it to to this level. Like I'm going to, my show is really tight.
01:10:11
Speaker
My, I'm going to bring a level of, um, competence in a special way, like my medical experience and skills. I'm going to make sure that that's something that's always above what my peer who has more experience in an other area might be able to bring.
01:10:24
Speaker
And, um, I, um that's my own That's not for anyone else. That was for me. And that was for me to be able to sleep at night and look at this face in the mirror each day and say, even if I am here because somebody was celebrating my exceptionality only,
01:10:41
Speaker
i am doing the best job that I can do to be here. And so I feel really good about that. Like if whatever whatever reason I'm here for, i know that I'm doing the best job I can be to be here. I'm not taking it for granted. i'm I'm pursuing this craft in the way that feels correct for me and what I want to get out of this and how I want to interact with this place. Yeah.
01:11:03
Speaker
And yeah, it's making me think of, um, it's making me think of a the winter that we were both, um, in Smith rock, uh, the 7,212 years ago. And, yeah um, I had just been told probably, that like, if I was going to be taken seriously as a rock climber and, you know, like you, I think probably were having some of the same, even though I didn't think anybody didn't take you seriously. I think you were having some of these same, you know, desires to be taken seriously in a range as a climbing athlete and not in like these little specificity. Maybe I'm just projecting that onto you, but, um, you know, you were pursuing these like five 14 projects. And I was told, like, if you even want to be taken seriously at all, you have to be able to climb five 12. And so I had this like little,
01:11:51
Speaker
in my world, a very big project that I was trying to, to send to prove that I was like a climber. And it was such an amazing experience. And I loved it so, so much. And I loved measuring progress and I loved the element of luck that went into it. And like all of the things I love about mountaineering, I loved in that too. And when I achieved my goal of climbing this like very specific route that I learned and learned how to make it work for me,
01:12:16
Speaker
Somebody said like, you oh, I said, oh, I'm going to climb, I'm going project like this 512 next. and And they were like, you know, you should really just go and climb all the 510s in the park. That would probably be a good goal for you. It's like, again, it was that realization that, yeah, i can't be doing this for the them because the them isn't going I don't have any control of how they're going to see by you know, worth and belonging.
01:12:38
Speaker
a And I mean, you may be projecting, but you're also projecting well because, you know, it's it's not that – so that was really interesting for me. Yeah.
01:12:48
Speaker
One of the things that I want to dig into a little bit here with you is this – and you touched on it earlier, but in the mountains, we frequently come in contact with grief, loss,
01:13:04
Speaker
And we also frequently go to the mountains to heal from grief and loss. We go to other places as well. So what what do you think it is that is unique or maybe helpful? Maybe it doesn't have to be unique.
01:13:21
Speaker
about being in the mountains that helps us process and and be we never fully, i and I have a theory that we never really actually heal. I don't like that word. I think we just adapt. I think a scar ah a scar, but scar has a very negative connotation. I think it could also, we need a word for scar that has a positive connotation.
01:13:43
Speaker
ah like I think about scars a lot. And I think about how the process of reflecting internally, and I do a lot of this reflection in the mountains, is it's how we discover what is a scar, which is you know a mark of an injury that is healed.
01:14:00
Speaker
And what is a scab, which is a mark of something that is healing. And even though like the word scab is a yucky word, it's like it's a beautiful thing.
Impermanence and Personal Growth in Mountains
01:14:08
Speaker
It's your body's own ability to protect itself while it's in the process of healing.
01:14:13
Speaker
And to me, the mountains so much are exactly that. They are this illuminator of what is a scar and what is a scab and where we are in our in our process of self-repair, as it were, in in whatever capacity that we can be. And i think that what's the draw for me that I've recognized over time is that it feels a little bit good to be in a place that provokes your vulnerability as a requisite part of being there.
01:14:45
Speaker
And there's far greater healing potential when you have a risk of being hurt again. It's this idea of like you can heal from, we'll just say like a a personal relationship, right? So where your heart is hurt um or you have like human betrayal, you can heal from that alone. But I can assure you that in re-engaging in a vulnerability with another human with all of the fear that you carry with you of what and the memory and the pain and the grief of what has happened,
01:15:16
Speaker
it's a far more comprehensive process when you're engaging in that same vulnerability. And so I think that how the mountains interact with us as these like incredible sanctuaries for our souls, they have the potential to elicit, you know, yes, as you say, really correctly, ah grief and pain and fear. And they also allow us to exist within that and know that we're, we can survive. you know And I think that that is the incredibly deeply healing power of being in an area that demands such vulnerability.
01:15:54
Speaker
you've ah You had this beautiful line in your book that said, the summit is a moment and the descent is the rest of your life. This idea of impermanence, I felt like was one of those themes that you, you know, pull that thread that you pulled through your whole book.
01:16:12
Speaker
And we've, it's been pulled through this conversation.
01:16:18
Speaker
How does that experience of impermanence exist? in the mountains where, you know, we have so many examples, right? Like the trail gets covered by snow, the, the, the glacier melts, the crevasse gets covered, the rope frays, you know, there's all this sort of beauty in it. There's also this sort of, I'd say melancholic longing, like things are, things are changing, things are disappearing.
01:16:47
Speaker
How do these, how do the, how does this like experience of impermanence sort of ripple through your life? I mean, I think that that, similar to what you just said, the most beautiful things are the things we can't contain and keep.
01:17:07
Speaker
You know, and there's this, and I watch it in my children, right? Like this moment, like they want to hold, i mean, it's the first grade classroom, right?
01:17:18
Speaker
that taking the caterpillars and letting them become butterflies and letting the butterflies go and experiencing the um pain of impermanence, but the beauty and the reward of witnessing something that goes through a true metamorphosis and metamorphosis and like getting to experience how the beauty is contained in the evolution and the lack of it being permanent. And I think about it on a way less poetic level of, you know, I live in a town that you have lived in and i have access to very limited food besides the food I make for myself. And I i love food and I love making
01:17:59
Speaker
great food. But I also used to live in a town that had an amazing food culture. and i stopped appreciating really amazing food that was made for me with love and care by chefs and creativity, because it was just available to me every day. And I engaged with it every day. And I didn't care anymore. And I just was noticing this week when I was in the city traveling, and I was like, I would far rather have this experience that I have now where I can barely ever have the thing and i savor it.
01:18:27
Speaker
And so I think that you know That's like a very unsophisticated example of that exact same feeling of what the mountains and this idea of beauty is actually in the impermanence of it. And it it doesn't it loses all of its... And I don't know, I guess I feel like unsatisfyingly, this to me is what the the beauty of life is. And I sort of started out by saying that like all of the things that we will experience are impermanent, both the good and the bad.
01:18:59
Speaker
And there is such an immense anxiety in that, I guess, if you lean into that side of things all ways. but this incredible value and this beauty on the unkeepability of this moment that you're in.
01:19:13
Speaker
And if you really stop and notice it, because all of us can do that right now, like wherever you are, you can just stop and notice where you are and appreciate in whatever way it feels to you, the complete impermanence of this moment.
01:19:29
Speaker
You won't be able to be in this moment as this person, the way you feel ever again. And that is what makes it special. And I think that i have gone to the mountains because it illustrates it in such a completely, you know...
01:19:46
Speaker
illustrated and absolutely non-ignorable way that the dynamicness of nature. And we we have like, as society has really lost our rhythm of observing nature and observing the cycles of nature and how it plays into our, you know, brain cycles and thinking cycles.
Life's Journey and Shared Experiences
01:20:03
Speaker
And I like being reconnected to that and remembering that it's not something to like grip tightly with resistance, but it's something to try to be in flow with. um And that it's far more satisfying to be in flow with it.
01:20:14
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah, and I can really relate to what you said about, you know, being in a natural environment. And it does force you to slow down. It does force you to kind of connect with your thoughts, with your feelings, with your body in ways that, you know, we have lots of we have lots of distractions, let's just say, in the modern world in ways to stay disconnected from those things. And I think that that's that's very true.
01:20:41
Speaker
I had the great luxury or the great pleasure of traveling to London last week, one of my favorite cities in the world. And I was able to speak. I was i was i was asked to speak at a start at a conference for startups.
01:20:56
Speaker
And it was really interesting to meet a bunch of these people and to talk to them both from the stage, but also in a bunch of conversations afterwards about risk. Because i was speaking about grit and resilience. That was kind of the theme.
01:21:11
Speaker
and They came back to me like just totally blown away by, you know, and I did tell some headliner stories that, you know, played up the risk factor for sure because, you know, I wanted to please the audience. Yeah, what's there to do. they ah Part of the job. But ah they were really...
01:21:33
Speaker
And they were really gravitated towards that part of the story. And I kept saying to these guys, and these guys are like a lot of, the and and women, men and women, they're all in their 20s. And these are all funded founders of software startups.
01:21:49
Speaker
And they're, know, they built companies in two years that are in some cases worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And they said to me, I said to them,
01:22:03
Speaker
Like, yeah, but you're taking all this risk. And they're like, yeah, but if my company fails, I don't die. Like, if my company fails, I just go get a job or I start another company. Like, that's i'm all the risk in this is, like, in with kind of other people's money. Like, this venture fund is giving me x number of dollars and I have to get to ah functioning product with money.
01:22:26
Speaker
traction and with customers before that amount of money wears out and how many of those people I get determines how much money I get on the next round. And they sort of explained this game to me and it makes sense. Right.
01:22:38
Speaker
But I always kind of held them up on this pedestal like, oh man, you're taking, you're doing such a hard thing. You're taking so much risk. If this fails, it's going to take you down. But they had this almost playful relationship with it, which I thought was really interesting. And then I started to ask them like, wow.
01:22:57
Speaker
How do you understand risk then? like If that's not dangerous to you, if that's not risky, trying to do this thing, trying to create this basic company out of thin air, out of code, then then than what is? and they're like you know Mostly they didn't really have much of an answer except there was one guy – He's doing a software startup that built software for robots.
01:23:21
Speaker
Okay. Like amazing guy. He's a legend. He's like 27 years old and he's kind of ah has this international reputation. And what he said is he's most afraid of is his losing his reputation. Hmm.
01:23:36
Speaker
Because everything in this and this immediately brought me to like thoughts of of your stories and of my stories. like And I was like, oh, he's identifying with his he's identifying with his sense of self. like Who is he?
01:23:49
Speaker
What does he have to achieve? like Think of the expectation. like People are giving him... People are throwing blank checks at this guy thinking this company is going to be worth a lot of money in a few years.
01:24:01
Speaker
And he's like, takes that really seriously, right? Like that's his identity. That's his worth. That's his value. That's his purpose. Like it's all of those things. And there's nothing more dangerous to risk than your sense of self, I'd say, because without that, what are you?
01:24:16
Speaker
how you Just an empty vessel in a sense. And That was when it clicked why they were for me, why they were so fascinated with the physical risk. Because they were taking a risk, but it was with their identities, with who they were. Because these people, that's all they were. They were computer scientists.
01:24:36
Speaker
And that was their whole world. Yeah. you know That also turns out to be a very small world, very judgmental. lot of like, oh, that guy's good or that person's bad or they did this. I heard one guy say, that person is a black stain on computer science. I was like, whoa. Wow, yeah. You're in the drama of it all. Yeah, right? Like, I mean, like, even this world has, I mean, heard things like that, like, you don't belong, like, you don't belong, you don't deserve, need more experience before you climb Makalu, or she's not a real climber. I mean, these are, it's the same...
01:25:12
Speaker
We're all experiencing, I mean, that what you're getting to the heart of is what I have been aware of and really have embraced much more deeply, which is this idea that we all have different stages that we're playing out our lives on, but we are all the same character in our own story, which is the lead character who has a journey to go on. And none of us are a secondary character in our story. You know and so lots of different stages lots of different settings lots of different um secondary characters we are all playing the lead role and so we're all going through like a different manifestation of these same things and it is kind of coined and novel i ah because i sort of like to diminish um you know my my experience in the mountains as like this silly little thing i do where i like go and walk to a spot and then turn around and like walk back down and then i do it again
01:26:04
Speaker
And I like somehow also conned people into paying me to take them to the spot and then walk back down. And like fundamentally, that is what it is. And also it is an intertwined part of my identity, but my whole identity is far more aligned with, you know,
01:26:24
Speaker
the tech bros in london probably like i have far more in common with them in every other way than these like really specific little nooks that we all inhabit where we you you know like to exercise our feeling of competence because it reminds us that there's a purpose um or it tricks us maybe into thinking mean there's a purpose to this day because we've developed competence in this one little like corner of the world and it feels good to feel those feelings but worst we go back to that big stage and have that same experience and, you know, bring all of the other characters in with us. And it's a, um it's a beautiful and torturous and, ah you know,
01:27:02
Speaker
really predictable story that we're all living. And it's all going to end you know, very predictably um with some little spikes of drama here and there that are our own personal, you know, story arc. And I don't know, there is something that's, it's interesting, I guess, for me as a person who really in my most unhealed state of being in the world, so deeply craved that exceptionality. And I've arrived to a place where I'm like, well, there's no such thing. Yeah. You know, like it's that there's no, there's exceptional moments for us all, but they're equally available to all of us. And it kind of only matters if you care.
01:27:41
Speaker
Like it's only exceptional if someone's looking, you know, and otherwise you're just doing the same thing everybody else is. And that's lovely because you have a lot of people who understand what you're going through.
01:27:53
Speaker
Back to that quote, to bear witness to what is joyful, but also to what is painful. yes exactly yeah yeah to be witness you know that's in um in a way is like living your life and observing your life simultaneously it's sort of like a really fun exercise to do yeah You had this wonderful comment are wonderful passage in your book about summits being beginnings in disguise.
01:28:22
Speaker
And we've talked about this on a pilothlete in many formats in the past because so many people, whether they go to run an ultra go to a mountain and they come back and they're like,
01:28:35
Speaker
there's this big hole in their lives. They don't know what they're doing. There's just often this big kind of letdown sort of post expedition depression, almost. i mean, very real sense for sometimes you've, you've reframed that with ah that phrase beginnings in disguise. You've reframed this into something that's a, a threshold or ah have passage, which I really liked.
01:29:03
Speaker
And kind of honors this idea of impermanence that you, we keep talking about.
01:29:12
Speaker
How do you, how did you come to that insight and how do you move through your beginnings in disguise now? Like how, how do you, when you go, when you move through that threshold, that place, how does the world look differently?
01:29:34
Speaker
I think because i didn't get the opportunity for my origin to be one of... and And I will say, nor do I think maybe any of us fully do. um I didn't get the chance to have a predestined path, right? Or an expectation really even on me of what I should do or who I should be in the world.
01:29:56
Speaker
There was a lot of open freedom to that. And I think a lot of young people can relate to the paralyzing nature of endless possibilities because it's hard to know. how to contain yourself and who to become if you don't know what your goal is of where you're going, if you're not if you don't feel called to model yourself after your parents' path or they haven't prescribed a path for you.
01:30:16
Speaker
And because I didn't have that, I didn't have parents that you know expected me to go to college or expected me to replicate their lives in some way. I didn't have like an interior, you know, i talk about it in the book as like my soul journey, but I didn't know like what, I didn't know which road I was supposed to be on. So I had to try out all these different roads and what ended up happening for me in that process of really feeling completely unanchored into a path and a single direction of where I would go.
01:30:44
Speaker
is I always was very reactive. And I think we tend to think of being reactive as a passive quality, as a um beta quality, as something that's not ah ah pursuit. You don't want to pursue to become a reactive person. I mean, there's a lot of different contexts of that word.
01:31:00
Speaker
But it is the frame of you know beginnings in disguise. It's that if you don't see anything as a destination, then everything is a vantage point of where you're going.
01:31:14
Speaker
And so there isn't this arrival. There isn't this idea of when this, then that. That never happens. It never will. And so everything just becomes a vantage point to react and see where to go next.
01:31:29
Speaker
And that truly has been... why I am where I am. i didn't start out with a prescription to become, you know, Melissa in this room today. I'm just, and I still am just reacting to what's in front of me and and using this life in this moment and that summit and that experience and that failing and that pain as a, as a vantage point to see where to go. Yeah. And that stage, that podium, that Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just look around.
01:32:00
Speaker
And it's nice to see, like, I realized um vantage points are very important to me. And, you know, the metaphorical um being in the, not even in the planes, but being in like ah you know, rolling canopy of trees and standing below them is a, is perhaps the most terrible place for me to be, you know, metaphorically and actually, because it's impossible to know where I am. And I have no clue where I want to go because I just really can't see out of this, like, you know, low shroud that should be easily overcome, but it's not. And I can't see where I am and where I am coming from and where I'm going. And, you know,
01:32:39
Speaker
i ah I try to, I just recently had that experience, which is why it's in my mind. But I, yeah the metaphor of that is like, gosh, there's something I need to learn in that for sure. That like climbing out of it to see isn't always the way, you know, like there's got to be some way to find a vantage point within it as well.
01:32:59
Speaker
That's a lovely little cone that you're leaving us with here. Yeah.
Life's Vantage Points and Legacy
01:33:04
Speaker
I think that fundamentally that's why people climb mountains is because it's obvious where the point is that they should go.
01:33:11
Speaker
Like it's defined. mean, there's a a beautiful painting of a mountain right behind you and it has a clear peak. You know, it's like, that's, that's it. That's where you got to go there. You know, and we use that's why it's a metaphor and so many things, but the rolling forest, as you put it, there's, there's no like, people aren't like going out in the forest being like, yeah, there's that one ponderosa pine at Latin 47 degree, you know? Yeah.
01:33:34
Speaker
that we have to all go to like that doesn't happen right so it's yeah not creating that that kind of magnetic light that like the ah light that the moths come to the flame type light yeah exactly melissa how do you want to be remembered i You know, i hope that in all the best and worst ways, they, they, the them, the bit them close to me and those who know nothing personally of me will say curious.
01:34:13
Speaker
You know, i really hope that the impression that I've left in this life that I'm living is that i had questions that I was curious and far exceeding any single achievement that I may have, you know, and gotten put on the board done, put on the board. Yeah. Um, you know, that it is just this, like the, a life in pursuit of,
01:34:42
Speaker
Lots of curiosity. I hope that that's how somebody remembers me, um that I was really – I had questions. And as you answer, I realize the fallacy of my question because I'm by nature putting it in terms of them.
01:34:57
Speaker
It's sort of – it's a combination of how do you want – but it's implicit them to remember you. So i almost need to ask, like, how do you want to remember yourself? Although i don't think we can, personally don't think we could do that. Yeah.
01:35:13
Speaker
Well, and I also, it's interesting because I am getting the really both fun and deeply unfun um experience of getting to like receive people's feedback about my book, which is a book about my interior self.
Authenticity and Creative Feedback
01:35:26
Speaker
And it's sort of me trying to prescribe the legacy of how you might remember me.
01:35:30
Speaker
And I also fall prey to all of the natural traps of ego of like, I want people to You know, what I don't want is them to like encapsulate me in perfection. And I and I have, I think, highly effectively prevented that from occurring by sharing the complex nature of who I really am.
01:35:49
Speaker
um And so that like already feels pretty good because i I'm like, OK, I like when when somebody says something um in feedback of of my book of like how terrible I was, I'm like, oh, good. I'm like glad you understood what I was trying to say.
01:36:03
Speaker
um But then there's this other side of it, which is like, I want to be a mirror in all the things I've learned that you can look at yourself and maybe just get one reflection that you didn't see before, that you don't have to go and cut yourself to bleed to learn. And I can't, right? Like we have to all have live our own journey. But i i gained tremendous um growth and learning from witnessing others. And it's part of that judgmental aspect of me of like, the voyeurism that I have on the world is a deep curiosity of avoidance of certain types of pain or
01:36:43
Speaker
getting the opportunity to imagine what that would be in my life as well. Um, and how it pertains to me. Cause you know, we're all just like cruising around thinking about ourselves 99% of the time. and And I am too, but I, it is kind of all goes back to that, you know, just,
01:36:59
Speaker
i I think that what I have wanted more than anything that I could not articulate because I didn't know that it's what I really wanted. But on my journey of trying to be known and climbing and trying to like, you know, be taken seriously, all I really wanted to do was be seen.
01:37:16
Speaker
I wanted a chance to show up and be seen as the complex human that I am. And i have, I'm getting that right now. um And so it doesn't, you know, to go back to this concept of like the bravery of sharing our stories, it's like so much of sharing your story, whether it's a story you're creating about yourself or it's your actual fully flawed true story you you know it has to do with this deep desire that i think we all have to be seen and then next understood and it's incredibly it doesn't feel as brave as it feels liberating and that's the idea of like i i guess i feel somewhat liberated from worrying about what my legacy is that how people how the they sees the me that i am
01:38:04
Speaker
Yeah, i love that. And, you know, one of the, we we we talked about bravery and courage quite a bit. And one of the fundamental qualities of someone who is brave is someone who is vulnerable. And, you know, you've certainly achieved that in a positive way and in a way that is meaningful. And as I said in the very beginning, kind of can recast and make people re-examine that how we how we define things like you know success, how we define things such as leadership in the mountains, how do we define things as as qualifications.
01:38:47
Speaker
And you know that's that's ah that's quite a legacy, I would i would say, no matter no matter what happens. Yeah. Well, I'm still very much on the journey. And I have to say, I, my, this has been lovely to be able to um have connection with you. And like, I just remember, in my own deeply interior journey,
01:39:10
Speaker
And in climbing, you know, when you and i had a moment to connect at a time when I think you were in this like very liminal space um of becoming like we all kind of are in some way, but it was really this really present to you.
01:39:24
Speaker
And I had so much respect for the way that you engaged in the like interior conversation with yourself around like self identity, exterior and interior motivations, and, and legacy, you know, trying to think about like procuring and, and I know that you've still always continued on your journey of figuring out how to be the person that you want to be and this continuous evolution and resilience. And, um you know, why your voice, I think resonates for so many people is your willingness to engage with this idea of,
01:39:56
Speaker
constantly looking really honestly at the self and how we are and and which spaces we're and being also curious about other people in their own spaces and how it all kind of like mingles together to be what it is. So it's, i think you are somebody who I remember being surprised at the depth and admiring of the willingness to like explore the,
01:40:19
Speaker
both sides of resilience and the pursuit of achievement and everything else. And so thank you for your voice in the space and and sharing your stories and, um, you know, curiously engaging with others. Cause I think it's truly, really meaningful for people to hear that.
01:40:32
Speaker
Thank you. We'll say that really means a lot. And I was going to, make several points that popped into my mind as you were talking.
01:40:43
Speaker
one is the bringing you back to your own idea of vantage point that, you know, you've written this book and you've had, you're getting this feedback and it's a moment in time. It's a vantage point. It's a threshold.
01:40:55
Speaker
It's a summit that doesn't mark the end, but rather a beginning. And that is, i know it's, I've been there and the The classic thing with with writing is the the first story you tell is your own.
01:41:11
Speaker
And then you kind of, at one point, will look up put your head up and look around be like, okay, yeah, that now that I'm done with that, like, look at all these other stories, look at all these other people. I mean, that's for me, a lot of what voice of the mountains is about. It's not about me. It's about, it's about bringing you in. It's about bringing, you know, many of our mutual friends. I've been on this, on this show and, and giving, helping to draw out the,
01:41:38
Speaker
the The hard-earned knowledge and the hard-earned wisdom and the hard-earned vantage is vantage points ah that they hold or have have stood upon and and viewed the world of.
01:41:49
Speaker
So that's that's absolutely critical, and I'm sure you're going to couldn't continue on that.
Connection and Upcoming Events
01:41:55
Speaker
How can our guests that want to connect with you, find your book, find you in the World Wide Web, how do they do that?
01:42:03
Speaker
Yeah, everything pretty much under Melissa are not. So all of the handles on all the socials is Melissa, A-R-N-O-T. And then that's my website. And um yeah, I'm doing some fun events that people can participate in if you're into that sort of thing over the next year. And, you know, I'm i'm out there in the mountains. I'm working as a mountain guide and climbing and traveling and engaging in these spaces that have taught me so much. And I i am not done learning, that is for sure.
01:42:31
Speaker
Yeah, you and me both. Well, thank you for your time. And it's been a pleasure.
01:42:48
Speaker
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01:43:05
Speaker
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01:43:18
Speaker
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