7 Lessons To Learn Once That Will Improve Your Life Forever

(01:01):

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

 

(01:47):

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

 

(03:00):

So six months ago, we've got the dates cleared. When we want to climb Mount Kadin, it is the first week of August. Chris logs on at some ungodly hour first thing in the morning and he secures this campsite. We've got our plan. It's go time. Everybody's got the dates locked, and I got to give props to my husband. If it were not for Chris, there is no way we would've pulled this off. The man spent three days getting us organized. And when you really stop and think about a camping trip with five people, there's a lot of logistics, right? You got to pack in all your food, you've got to pack in all your water. Yes, you're going to have your car next to the camping site, but you've got to have your tents and you've got to have your sleeping bags. You've got to bug spray, but you got to have everything that's going to take care of five people for two nights at a campsite without cell reception, without drinkable water.

 

(03:54):

You got to be able to make a fire. We love doing this kind of stuff, but it is a lot of work. And I haven't even mentioned yet the fact that Mount Kadin is this extraordinarily challenging mountain to climb. It is, as I mentioned, 5,200 feet high. I don't even know what that is in miles, but it is fricking tall. And on average it takes you anywhere from 10 to 12 hours to climb up it and climb back down. So we're talking a big day. And Mount Kain is also a very, very steep mountain. And I am somebody who is terrified of heights. And so I really wanted to do this with our family, but I cannot be near a drop off. I get vertigo. I start to feel like I was falling. And so I was nervous about this climb because there's this section of Mount Kadin that is this big boulder field where you have to scale up these massive boulders, some of which are so steep that they have metal rods and handles and almost like ladders in the stone to help you go up and down them.

 

(05:05):

That's how steep this thing is. And so I was like, I'm doing it. I'm in. As long as you take care of everything, Chris, I'm in. So Chris spends three days getting ready, preparing the food, making sure we have everything. He has laid out all of our gear. He realizes, oh, okay, our tents are pretty shoddy. Maybe I will go and I'll upgrade our tents. He goes down to the local mountaineering store in our town and he buys two new tents and he buys us two new, he's just going all in. And so we're getting all excited. Everybody is packed. Their stuff. You got to pack for two days and nights in a camp and you got to pack for one full day of scaling this massive mountain. So I'm thinking about all the things that I really want at this campsite so that I'm going to be comfortable.

(06:36):

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

 

(07:40):

So we want to just pull in because by the time we get there, it's now going to be five o'clock. And when we hit that campsite at five o'clock, we want to unload the pickup truck. We want to start cooking dinner. We want to kind of get into our comfy clothes, we want to set out our backpack so we can get ready so that when we get up at 5:00 AM the next morning, and boom, we can get right on that trail with our headlamps and giddy up and go. So we got a lot to do. So as we are approaching Baxter State Park, it's about five o'clock at night. We have been on the road since five o'clock in the morning. At this point, we're hangry. We're ready to get out of the car, we're ready to set up the camp. We're ready to frankly climb into our sleeping bags and go to bed so we can wake up and just bag that mountain Mount Kain.

 

(08:30):

And I'm not going to lie, I'm starting to get a little nervous because I'm thinking, wow, it's 12 hours. It's going to be really steep. It's one thing to be thinking about this. It's another thing to know that there's the mountain and you can see it right there, and it's freaking huge. I'm like, we're going to go up there in one day. That's unbelievable. So I'm in the backseat now at this point, and I'm working on my next book, the Let Them Theory, which is going to come out at the very end of year. I cannot wait for you to read it. Oakley is grouchy and complaining. Sawyer is listening to her fantasy novel, and we pull into Baxter State Park, and you got to check in with a ranger. She says, yep. Well, the campsite is another eight miles down the road. There's no cell reception, so just follow the road all the way in because your GPS is not going to work. And she kind of explains, there's no running water, no this, there's no that. You got to pack everything in and pack everything out. And then she says, have a great hike. 

(11:09):

And he goes, and he slams on the brakes. And he's like, what? Are you sure? And I said, oh my God, honey, they're on the back porch. I can't even talk. And there's no cell phone reception. We have not been anywhere near any type of town in 45 minutes. It is now five 20, and we have been in the car for eight hours, and Kendall is in the front seat and she turns around and gives me one of those looks. I swear to God, we had this little hatchet with us to be able to break up the firewood. If she had had that hatchet, she probably would've thrown it at me, and you could just feel the searing anger. Are you kidding me? She says, and Oakley looks at me. He is like, mom. And Sawyer goes, you didn't. And I'm not even saying anything because my face is now in my hands, and I am thinking about tomorrow morning and watching my family leave camp at five o'clock in the morning while I'm sitting in a tent alone wearing my Birkenstocks.

 

(12:27):

And I'm just like, I can't let this happen. I'm not going to let this happen. And Chris, all of a sudden just when somebody turns a car like a U-turn and they turn it so fast, you feel like you're in an F1 race car. It's like, and everybody's now just like, what? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I'll go alone. I'll go alone. He's like, we're all in this together. And then he slams on the gas. We drive back to the station, which is a mile down the dirt road. So we're going away from our campsite. I pull up, I jump out, I go and I plead, and I ask the lady, oh my God, I forgot my hiking boots. She's like, it's going to be really hard to go up Mount Katten if you don't have hiking boots. And I'm like, I know.

 

(13:10):

And then I'm like, where can I go? Where can I go? And she said, well, there's a store. And when she tells me where it is back by the highway, it's like 40 minutes from here. And I don't have any cell phone reception, so I can't even call. They might have something. They tend to have something. And so we hop in the car and I'm like, are you sure Chris? And he guns it. And so we go in the opposite direction with a fully packed pickup truck after being in the car for eight hours, 45 minutes in the opposite direction. And I got to say, my family did their best to not say anything. At one point, I felt my daughter Sawyer's hand reach up behind her brother who was sitting in the middle, and I was sitting on the side in the back of the pickup truck, and she put her hand on my shoulders, and I kept thinking, what am I going to do?

 

(14:03):

What am I going to do? What am I going to do? And when we finally get to the store, the store turns out to be more like a hardware or a local farm supply store. You know what I mean? So I go into this thing, panic stricken, this is my shot, this is it. I'm either going to find something in here and I start to say to myself, I'm going to manifest a pair of boots being in here. I am going to make this work. I am not going to miss out on this thing. And so I walk into this store and I walk over to the shoe area, and there on display are muck boots and Timberlands and rain boots and things that you would wear at a construction site. And out of the corner of my eye, I spot one style of boots that look like a hiking boot.

 

(14:54):

And I'm like, oh my God, thank you. And there was one pair in my size and I put 'em on and they were a little snug. And I said to myself, I don't care what it takes. I am going to make these damn things work. But then I had a second problem. The world's worst thing that you can do is to go on a hiking trip or try to climb a mountain in a brand new pair of boots. Everybody will tell you Don't ever do it. And so I hopped back in the car and I was not going to allow myself to go south. Now at this point, I now texted a couple friends, you're not going to believe what I did. I cannot believe I did this. And they're writing back, oh no, I hope you have moleskin. You're going to have the worst, worst blisters.

 

(15:37):

And I'm like, I know. I know, I know. But I'll tell you what I did. I made a decision in the back of that truck as we were barreling back toward Baxter State Park and back down the eight mile dirt road to our campsite so we could set up, I made a decision that I was not going to buy into the fear. I was not going to think about blisters. I was not going to get myself all worked up because here's the thing, I didn't know how it was going to go. And if I were to sit in that backseat and say to myself, I'm screwed, you thought you were scared of the fact that this is going to be a really hard 12 hour climb, Mel, that's nothing compared to doing it in a brand new pair of boots. You are scared about the sheer drop-offs and the boulders.

 

(16:26):

You got to scale on this thing. That's nothing compared to trying to navigate all that in a brand new pair of stiff boots while you've got blisters the size of apples on your feet. No, no, no, no, no. I could not allow myself to do that. And so you know what I did? I literally thought of one of the people that I love so much that inspires me. David Goggins, the Navy Seal, the just unbelievable force that he is. And I kept thinking about his story and all the ultra marathons he was running and basically his feet falling off and him running through it and thinking, I'm just going to goggins this thing. I am not going to let this stop me. I am going to believe that these boots are going to surprise me, that as I'm hiking tomorrow, I'm not going to get any blisters.

(17:48):

And so that's what I did. I wore them the entire drive back to the camp. I wore them all night in camp. I took them off to sleep, but I wore them as we made dinner and as we get back to the camp, everyone was in such a terrible mood. We had thought we'd get there, we'd be around the fire and talking about what we're grateful for and roasting, like screaming at each other and look these bugs and poor Chris. And then of course, Chris pulls out the new tents that he has bought for the trip and the place sold him one of the wrong tents. Instead of giving him two tents for two people, he had one tent for two people and a single tent, which means our daughter Sawyer and Kendall had to basically sleep butt to butt or hugging each other all night.

 

(18:37):

And so he was all mad about that. I mean everybody, I was just on the verge of tears. And I don't blame everybody for being upset. It was a unnecessary, frustrating beginning to this trip that we had been looking forward to for six months. I don't blame them. I don't blame them. And so how did the night end? We're all sitting around the campfire and Chris says, so guys, why don't you share the high and the low of the day? And I'm thinking, oh my God, the low. I think we all have the same low. And when something interesting happened, I shared my low, of course I said my low was of course forgetting the boots, but the real low was sitting in the back of the pickup truck as you were driving like 70 miles an hour. And I just felt like this little kid who was in a lot of trouble.

 

(19:39):

And I don't know if you've ever had an experience like that when you were little and you made a mistake, you broke something, and then the adults around you were just like, ah. And then you're like, oh my God. I just felt so small as we were barreling down the road trying to find a store where I could possibly find boots and no one's talking. And I just wanted to disappear. And as I was sharing this, I got kind of upset and I said, I just wish we would've stopped before everybody just exploded and made a plan. And I wish that we could have all been a little bit more patient or kind in that moment. And I realized that we all have a right to feel what we need to feel, but I just in the silence for 45 minutes as we're barreling down the road, I just made me feel horrible.

 

(20:41):

What was interesting is that Chris said, well, Mel, I blame. I actually blame myself because I didn't ask everybody if they had everything. I didn't ask everybody, do you have your backpacks? Do you have your boots? Do you have this? Do you have that? And I should have done that. And so we all just kind of had our own version of it. And I think the important takeaway there is they always say, don't ever go to bed mad. And I think Chris asking all of us the high low, even though we all were pretty darn frustrated, by the way, the entire trip to Baxter State Park ended because of me talking about it just was like putting a pin in a balloon and helping the tension deflate and we could unpack it all. And everybody was like, well, if it had happened after a four hour road trip, we probably wouldn't have been upset if we weren't so angry if we had had cell phone reception.

 

(21:37):

We all know it was an honest mistake, but we all were just processing our emotions. And the most important thing is that we were all in this together. And so talking about it allowed us to just get it all out, have a big group hug, wipe the slate clean, say goodnight. And so Sawyer and Kendall climbed into their 1% snuggled up, and Oakley climbed into this really cool hammock tent that my mom gave him for high school graduation that's made by Haven. I love this tent. It's like a hammock hanging tent. And then Chris and I climbed into our tent lights out. I'll tell you what, we were all fast asleep because there's nothing like a giant eight hour road trip that ends in a nightmare and a ball attention to wear you out. And 5:00 AM came faster than a blink of the eye. So we wake up at 5:00 AM and my kids are now like, okay, we're all getting ready.

 

(22:36):

We're trying to be quiet. Other people camping. And we're one of the first people up and we're getting our headlands on. Our kids are like, how are the boots bomb? You think you're going to make it? And I'm like, yeah, these are going to be great boots you watch. They're going to be great boots. And so off we go. We're walking on the trail, and as we're walking in the dark and I got my little hiking poles, I start to get nervous. Now I'm actually really on the trail and I'm testing these boots for real, and they're a little stiff and I'm feeling my toes not being able to wiggle that much, and I'm on the flat part. And so if I'm feeling like they're really stiff right now, and we're only 10 minutes into this thing and it's pitch dark and we haven't even started on the incline yet, and I got 12 hours of this, oh my God, Mel, am I going to make it? And so about 15 minutes later, I realized I need to reset. So I say to Chris, could you just pull the kids together and could we just do a little family huddle? And so he yells off to the kids. I knew if I yelled, they'd be annoyed. So he yells and they pause and they wait for us. And he goes, come here guys. And we all kind of stand shoulder to shoulder. And Chris just tells us to take in a deep breath and exhale.

 

(23:55):

Here we are standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle and just taking a minute to all breathe in together and slow. The pace of this down is exactly what I needed, and I'm proud of myself for asking for it because normally I'd just be back there and I'd be suffering in silence. So as soon as we were done with our little puddle oak turns up, can we go now? Yep, we can go. And the kids start heading off and we start following him. And as we're hiking, this guy starts passing by us. He comes up behind us and he's kind of cooking along and he's got a small backpack on and a long beard, and he has this yellow tag on his backpack. And my husband Chris recognizes what the yellow tag is. And it is a tag that you have if you are what's called a through hiker.

 

(25:03):

Now, A through hiker is somebody who is hiking the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. This is somebody who is hiking 2,190 some miles going from Georgia to Maine. And so Chris says, are you a through hiker? And he says, yes. And he tells us his hiking name. He said, I've been on the trail for 172 days, and Kain is the end of the trail. And so we all say, congratulations. We hope you have an amazing hike up Kain and finishing the trail. And he kind of cooks on past us. And it was this incredible moment where you realize somebody was going to be climbing this mountain the same day as us and accomplishing and realizing this incredible dream. I mean, what an amazing accomplishment to hike the entire Appalachian Trail to be out on the trail for 172 days and for us to be getting up to the top of the mountain on the same day when somebody who's been doing this and achieving this goal.

 

(26:07):

I mean, that is so cool. And so I felt this renewed energy and I looked down at my boots and I'm like giving myself this pep talk. And it was just this amazing cool thing that we experienced. And so we hiked for a little bit longer, and then we get to the point where you get to the boulder field. And the Boulder field is where you get up above treeline and all of a sudden you're up and you're up in the open sky. And it's these massive stones that are as big as a VW bug car and stones that you have to climb up and climb over and put your hands on and pull yourself. It is a super physical hike. You have to reach on your tippy toes to grab to the very top and then find a little crook somewhere with your foot and then haul the other one up on another ledge.

 

(26:55):

You are scaling and hauling yourself up these things. I was so proud of myself and proud of my little boots for doing it and going up. I'm thinking, okay, I got this thing. I got this thing. So the long and the short of it is we get through the boulder field. I'm so proud of myself. And once you get past this super technical area, the last mile of the hike is all open. You're on the top of the mountain. It kind of feels like sound of music. It's not even this big climactic thing where it's super steep. You're just kind of winding up on the open face of this mountain. It's extraordinary. And as we are approaching the top, guess who's coming down? That's right. The through hiker with the long white beard that we had seen with the small pack. I didn't think he was a through hiker because he basically had a day pack on his back.

 

(27:41):

He was coming down, he had just completed the trail. He had some friends that had clearly met him at the top. It was so exciting to see him coming. And as he was coming down, I put my hand on my hips and I said, oh my gosh, congratulations. And he looked at me, he said, thank you. And you could tell he didn't want to talk. And I don't believe him. I mean, if I had been on a trail for 172 days, the last thing I'd want to do is stop and have a long chat with some stranger lady who wants to chat up a storm and bother you. But I said to him, I said, can I ask you a question fast? I'm just curious. And he said, yes, but I'll answer it as I walk by. And I'm like, no problem. What did you learn about life from being on the trail for 172 days?

(29:19):

As we walked up to the top of the summit, Chris and I talked a little bit about that idea of thinking that you don't have anything to learn. And isn't it true that we all think we know it all, but there's always something to learn if you're willing to look at life that way. I mean, life is the single greatest school you'll ever attend. There's always new things that you're going to learn if you have that kind of mindset. 

(31:24):

You can't be silent and think it's going away. You got to decide that it is no longer a burden that you want to carry. Pretty cool, huh? I thought So we get to the top, we take a few photos, and then we head down. Now we are six hours into this puppy at this point. And as we're coming down, we see two more through hikers. And you know how I knew it? Because they have yellow tags. Now I remember the trail names of these two. One of the guys' names was I believe River Run, and the other guy's name I believe was Wood. And you could tell they were friends. And the thing that was so amazing about these guys, because I said, Hey, oh my God, through congratulations. It's so cool. You're finishing it. Oh my God. And the one guy said, yeah, I'm realizing a dream after 45 years.

 

(32:16):

And I was like, what do you mean? And he get this, he finished the Appalachian Trail after doing sections of it over the course of 45 years, he's chipped away. Isn't this so cool? And same with his friend that they would meet up and do sections at a time. They were finishing it that day, and you could tell that they were just so overcome with emotion about what was about to happen. And so I asked them, I said, we just met another through Hiker. And I asked them,