Redefining Bravery

Steve: [00:00:00] 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 storm survive. But what if bravery isn’t found in those self-induced moments of survival? What if real bravery is something quieter? In this episode of Voice of the Mountains, Melissa, AAU Reid and I attempt to explore a deeper kind of courage. The kind that doesn’t shout, and the kind that doesn’t need a headline, the kind that asks you to sit with fear, with your shortcomings and to keep showing up anyway. 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. ’cause we’ve been told that bravery is the absence of fear and Melissa helps us to reframe all of that. Melissa is one of the most accomplished American mountain guides of her [00:01:00] generation. She has climbed Everest six times. She has summited without supplemental oxygen and successfully forged a path of her own and one of the most male dominated arenas in the world. But 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, Melissa has crafted a different definition of bravery. Bravery as agency. Bravery is choosing to act anyway. is being comfortable with vulnerability and bravery acceptance and bravery, as being the very seed and source. Of our resilience. If the summit is just a [00:02:00] moment and the descent is the rest of your life, then bravery perhaps is what guides us home. My name is Steve House and this is Voice of the Mountains. CTA: 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 uphill athlete.com/ let’s go, and once you sign up, you’ll instantly get a link to try out some of our most popular training plans. 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/letsgo. That’s uphillathlete.com/letsgo. Steve: I wanna start by saying [00:03:00] that really was looking forward to having on this, on this, in this part of this discussion that, 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 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. 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 guiding, uh, working with mentoring, you know, up and coming younger female guides, [00:04:00] kind of harmonizing your personal dreams and goals with, you know, your own identity and who you really are. I think that this, or I, I feel very strongly that this is the, the new mountaineering, the new mountain sports, the new voice that is emerging. Where did, where did that reflection, you know, is there, is there a, if you look back on your life, is there a place that that kind of started. Melissa: I mean, I think it’s super interesting because for me it has always been that way. 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 and the mountains [00:05:00] represented a place to challenge myself, a place to. Have both, um, immense discomfort and tremendous comfort a real opportunity to have time to think through. You know, 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. 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 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 [00:06:00] 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 your entire being to. 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. 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, I’ll be a chef and people will be like, she was this amazing chef. And then someone will dig into the history. They’ll be like, but you know, that she also was a mountaineer at one point or something. I mean, who knows? You know, like it, it’s sort of the, the um, lack of ability [00:07:00] to have a single focus, which I think has large benefits and challenges obviously. Steve: Mm-hmm. 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. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: did that, like, tell us about that. How, how did you become that resilient child that was around that, that instability, but managed to come out of it in a positive way? I mean, that can ha you know, that can go Melissa: Hmm. Steve: for people, right? Like that can, that Melissa: Yeah. Steve: can crush people and it can into a superpower. Melissa: Yeah, I mean. It is interesting because I [00:08:00] think that depending on which way you look at my life, you could argue that it had some really negative consequences. You know? And just because I am conventionally successful in that, you know, societal standards, I have an achievement Chiron under my name or something say that I somehow turned this really challenging circumstance into something positive. 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, and. I And, 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 [00:09:00] exist, which is sort of a power of its own. And foundationally I had. I didn’t have this idea that I didn’t have a right to exist, but it had a very serious question about am I deserving of existence? And so that was in on my interior self, really caused a tremendous amount of conflict. And then I was looking, uh, 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. 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 it wasn’t uniquely mine, you know, in my family structure, I wasn’t the only person that was experiencing this type of challenge. 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. And also it looked [00:10:00] like an impossibly long road as a teenager. Like, I’m never gonna get out of this. It feels like two years feels like a true eternity when you’re 15 or 13. But I, had this idea like, isn’t mine and this is gonna give me a specific skillset that will come in use in my life. And I had this understanding as a kid that I didn’t have a lot of choices around challenging circumstances that I was gonna find myself in. And so that’s true for us, all right? Like as a child, however you grow up, whatever your circumstances are, you’re gonna find yourself in some discomfort that you didn’t choose. for me, I really leaned into that as this opportunity to. being really uncomfortable and still somehow staying afloat and it didn’t always work. And it, and I think it goes back to that idea of like that multi focus, you know, like I was both present in my world, even as a very small child [00:11:00] and deeply lost in my mind, sort of thinking about the pontification of the universe and the purpose and what it all means. Steve: you paint a picture for our audience and for me about what that was really like what you, something that you experienced as a child that you can share. Melissa: So, um, my mother had a lot of challenges and she, that manifested in a way of, 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. 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 gonna stay committed to her. She would assign that [00:12:00] to me and threaten knowingness around the love in my family. assign like, you are, you know, you are so bad nobody is gonna love you, including your father. He’s gonna 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’s makes me unlovable? I don’t know. And then how do I fix it? And instead of. know, folding into myself and, and sort of collapsing on, like, I can’t fix it. I really was, you know, Petly curious of like, maybe I can fix this, or maybe this is just like, get through today. ’cause I know for sure it’s gonna be different tomorrow and it could be worse. And, and it was often worse, but it also could be break and then, and then I might get some footing under me. So it was this constant dance [00:13:00] with, you know, trying to understand, you know, and sometimes doing a really good job as a kid of understanding like, hoof, I can’t do anything about this right now. And then also developing a deep well of personal questioning in my own life around 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. 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, everything could be lost. And there’s something really, um, activating if that’s your mindset, right? Because you realize there’s this incredible impermanence to both good and bad. And that’s the upside of that, right? Is that I could see that the bad was also impermanent. Steve: Hmm. Yeah. There’s a, a [00:14:00] quote I like that I wanna 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 the staggering. Awesome, complicated, heartbreaking, brilliant life 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, because we live in a world of darkness and light, and they’re both great teachers. This is really, this quote has. Been one. It’s, 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. What is it? [00:15:00] You know, we’re both parents. you have two children. I have two children. Our children are actually sim pretty similar ages, kind of elementary school, pre elementary school. And they are forming their identities. They are 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. 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? Melissa: It’s very interesting because, you know, the, 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] 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 two mother, I deeply, deeply did. I knew that that was something that was vital to experience in some capacity in my life, I was so afraid that. I already had to put on such a facade seem strong enough to be, you know, to, for me to perceive that my peers see me as an equal. Though of course, that’s never happened. It never is gonna happen. It’s, I’m a, it’s a different animal altogether, 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, and it’s been one of the most incredible experiences to for me. I, my first. [00:17:00] Born as a girl, as 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. And of course, inevitably I knew I would in some way because that’s just, know, deeply the human condition. Our intentions aren’t gonna save us from our natural way of doing that. And it’s been done for all of, you know, history and time, I’m sure, but I was very aware of it. And ended up, Steve: the first step, I would say, right? Melissa: yeah. Steve: the pattern, like. Melissa: Yeah. I mean, hopefully, right. It’s like, again, I’m certain the, the that my daughter is going to have from being in my family are gonna be so far different from the ones of that I had from being in my family of origin and, um. 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 [00:18:00] my mother had a really challenging origin as well, and that created these really foundational wounds that made it very hard for her to be present and, and give unconditional love. Like I, 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. But I also was exposed to a really challenging set of circumstances. And I have created, 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. I had always heard through my therapeutic process, you know, how much of my interior voice was the voice of my parents. 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 [00:19:00] rise, I’m like, wait, that it, that is the voice of my parents for sure. 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. 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 Kaia, you can do this. 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 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 remind myself of it every day and I remind myself for myself, is that we don’t punish mistakes. Like mistakes have consequences [00:20:00] naturally. That’s the whole premise of a mistake. a consequence. don’t punish mistakes, and so we’re free to make those mistakes. And that’s that idea of, you know, this essential dance with the truth. And I, 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, theoretically, if I just have survived, that’s not the bravery we’re talking about, right? It’s this, this dance with the truth. And it’s something that is, um, 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 and. Again, mistakes have consequences, but I really wanna live in a life where there’s not punishment and I wanna create that environment [00:21:00] 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. Steve: mean, you have some pretty good direct evidence that you are doing exactly that. So Melissa: Yeah. Steve: I mean, that’s, that’s amazing, first of all. Melissa: Yeah. Thank you. Steve: all, I wish that for all of us, right, that we Melissa: I do Steve: have that kind of level of, of self-talk and really hard. Can we just Melissa: so. Steve: say that it’s really, really hard to Melissa: I don’t have it. I don’t have it. You know, like personally what I wish for, and, and, and also it’s somewhat, I think like personality dependent because my sweet, tender, sensitive son, who is almost three, it, my [00:22:00] 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. It’s like he has this like te or he, he’ll, 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. He, he 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, not, 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, like we, there’s a tremendous amount of unbecoming in the becoming 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 [00:23:00] not like, you know, I, I also am regularly told that my snappers are coming out too much and you know, feeding my kids Cheetos on a Wednesday night ’cause that’s all that they will eat. So there’s lots of imperfection in the pursuit of perfection for sure. all aspects of life. Steve: you know, and I’m going to, uh, share a spoiler as my kids are just a little older than yours is, Melissa: I know. Don’t tell me, don’t tell me. Steve: most, you’re most, I, you know, I’ve used this word brave a lot too with my boys, and now, you know, like F friends. He is almost 10. And he asked me pretty recently, like, daddy, what does brave mean? Like, he didn’t really understand, like, I’ve Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. He is like, well, what are you talking about? Yeah. Steve: like, you know, if I really think about it, I don’t know exactly what that means. Melissa: 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 [00:24:00] 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? Steve: Yeah, it’s a great question. I want to reflect it back to you and, because one of the things I want to explore with you today is this idea of fear. Because bravery is, is a anecdote in many Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: say, to to Melissa: Yeah. Steve: And so, fear is a, 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 Melissa: Of course. Steve: the first, you know, 10 K or 50 k or going to climb Denali or whatever it is. These are all, you know, things that are, are scary for people. And what, how do [00:25:00] you model this? Or first of all, maybe I should ask, how has that. You share this in your book a little bit, but like, how has fear and your self-talk or around fear kind of started out? How did it start Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: you were, I’m going back to like when you’re a teenager, Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: in, 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. I 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. Melissa: Yeah. Steve: did that, how did that, how did that work? Melissa: Well, so it’s really interesting. So, um, the idea of bravery is like to be courageous, so I think about what courage is. And courage is the idea of not being deterred by pain or fear. That [00:26:00] is never, uh, so on one level quite actually I was not deterred in so much that whether I felt pain or fear continued forward. Right? But I actually think it’s quite like complicatedly different where I. Was deterred, the, the like detoured I’ll say instead of deterred maybe, um, by pain and fear. And so when I, you know, I, I talk about it in my book. I went through the experience just like an, 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, 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 [00:27:00] becoming a young woman at 11 years old, where a predatory adult 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, you know, my, I can’t say my responsibility ’cause 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. 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 pre-teen 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. And so this required a [00:28:00] element of courage. And so it was one of the very first, deep experiences that I had interacting with danger and pain, and choosing how to proceed. 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. 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 of what that all actually looks like. But I, 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 [00:29:00] was just to live right. So the bravery existed in just existing 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 a really, um, existence, crushing experiences that were completely out of my control, 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 is incredibly skewed. 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 [00:30:00] exceptional, you know, single skill. I have to try really hard to be good at any specific activity, sport or discipline. Um, my physiology of 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 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. And I will justify types of danger discomfort because it, it is a sa soothing feeling to my own past to say, look, that wasn’t true danger. That was just discomfort. 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 [00:31:00] guess what? You’re not avoiding it. So like you know that danger doesn’t quite work for the avoidance of death ’cause it is coming for you And, Steve: yes. Melissa: so it’s really complicated, you know, now it’s like you can see the rabbit holes that exist within my brain in this topic. Steve: 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 in, in hindsight. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: 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? And that is a, a gross oversimplification and ignores the fact that we’re one day going to die. So. In a way, it’s a, it’s a false win, if you will. You’re just not gonna die that day or today. And I think that, you know, RiNo Meer [00:32:00] talks about in some of his early books about becoming what he called a creature of the wall. 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 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. I was just like, yeah, shoot. Eating my sandwich, having a sip drink of tea, 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 same thing happens to people in war zones when they’ve, you know, and in other traumatic situations we find [00:33:00] these, these ways to, to sort of, uh, exist within that. I wanna come back to the definition. So I have a very specific definition of, of bravery, which, and I would define it as, uh, the ability to act or find agency in spite of, or I mean you can, or because of, or with. Fear. 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 gonna find out someday and I don’t care. But they, the only thing they know is I tell them that Daddy is a mountain guide, because that’s the only way they frankly listen to me. When I talk to them, when they say, daddy, I’m scared. Melissa: Yeah. Steve: I, my initial reaction, what I used to do is like, try to remove the fear and Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: them up [00:34:00] in a blanket of safety of some kind. Melissa: Yep. Steve: I realize like, oh, that’s, that’s just creating this on their part for me to come over and like, solve the problem. That’s like, I, I can’t do, like, that’s, that’s a dead end, right? I Melissa: Yeah. Steve: be there to solve their problem. So now, they say, daddy, I’m scared. And I say, you know, that’s good. You’re scared because this is dangerous. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: And what, what action can you do next? What can you do? Can, can you step over to there? Can Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: reach that hole? Can you clip into that anchor? 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 because, and then tell them they were safe and Melissa: Yeah. Steve: 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 [00:35:00] problem and get through it in a, in a positive, constructive way. Melissa: Well, what’s interesting is your concept of bravery is really intertwined with the end, uh uh, the end evolution, which is resilience. And so you see bravery in that really specific definition as the formation of resilience. And I think that that is totally correct. I mean, that is the exact, you know, very action and, 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 that’s really beautiful and I think that, that I love because. 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. And resilience is really difficult to create [00:36:00] in comfort, 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 that end goal. Um, but this idea of, and it’s funny ’cause 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 ’cause she’s like a really metaphorically driven thinker. 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. And she, we would go down the driveway and she said like, it’s 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. Your goal is to figure out how [00:37:00] to get down the driveway, hit the bumps, 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 gotta get over the bumps. You know, 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 child to do. But, um, it is really beautiful 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 the fixing it. Steve: or is it just a, a useful metaphor? I mean, doesn’t, Melissa: Yeah, I think cliche is a useful metaphor. I think that’s the beauty of it. Steve: yeah. Melissa: That’s why it’s a cliche for a reason. Steve: When you have talked about fear, um, and [00:38:00] specifically when you were writing about, uh, I don’t want to, spoil anything for your future readers, but after your ac uh, there was an accident involving a cavas and you talked a lot about fear and how that. I, and I’ve experienced this in my own at various times in my own mountaineering journey, like been involved in some, 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. It’s absolutely horrible. It’s the worst. And you have a lot of fear at the time. 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 gonna avoid it, or, I’m scared of that, so I’m gonna take this action. But there’s also a, like a corrosive fear. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: uh, there’s a, a, a, a fear that has like resentment in it. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: I didn’t choose. [00:39:00] Like, Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: to be put in this situation, know? And then of course, the logical next step is the blame step. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: put me in this situation, or you climbed outside of your experience level and ability level and created this, now I have to blah, blah, blah. And, and framing while super easy and super common and, and, and to have a very lo, you know, base in logic, right? If then kind of logic, you know, how how can we, how can we as a community start to distinguish between, uh, fear and, and experience and trauma that constructive? That is helpful. That is, that is a, a starting point for growth the kind that causes resentment. Uh, you know, um, [00:40:00] yeah, all the, all the, not just resentment, but like, actually kind of, I wanna say hatred, like, almost like strong, deep, like you kind of, you know, strong feelings. Melissa: It is interesting because just as you’re describing this, and I can think about those. Very more aeic 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. 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. Um, 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, you know? And it’s, it was really incredibly [00:41:00] both. Informative and cringey 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, to defend to. Because I think that this idea of agency, which is potentially like on a very big somewhat of a fallacy, um, that there’s like, there is individual agency in moments, but you know, like, I don’t know, there’s a lot of, uh, inter interaction with things we’re not choosing, but it’s just a very 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’s, 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] feeling in my, of 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. 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 and autonomy and your interacting with a being that is completely dynamic and you get no notification of what’s coming. 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 or where you are, you have that experience going on. 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 the, that relationship with fear specifically where you have this resentful reaction to fear occurring is [00:43:00] very ego-driven. You know, it’s very, it’s, it’s fear as failure. this concept that’s societally, I think we’ve ingested for a really long time. And I think it was a function of surviving, uh, not even surviving. It was a function of sending people into war so that they would feel noble and the, that the fear, you know, this essential component and 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. And so failing in some way, um, is less noble 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 the, how we celebrate people in the mountains and how deeply individual the [00:44:00] experience is on a really like granular level for the person in the mountains. And you and I have widely varying experiences from one another in the mountains that are super different. And our interior selves, were 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, 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, it taps into the dinosaur brain of our word being threatened. It’s really hard to like open the philosopher side of your brain and ask like, does it all mean and what’s it all for? And to take out the necessary elements [00:45:00] of fear that keep us, you know, alive, hopefully. 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, a categorically risky activity that we’re gonna call it mountain climbing. Um, and so you are a person who is now, you know, seeking person or a person who has like a really different relationship with like And, you know, you know this as well, like 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. I, and I don’t say this to like activate somebody who’s a. Steve: avoid. Melissa: You are 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, that spiked state of reactivity. Um, I [00:46:00] like being in a really slow meditative state of reactivity, which is like, want to walk a 360 degree, you know, dimensional view around every choice and experience that I’ve ever had and ev 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, 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 wanna acknowledge, you know, we are talking in a way, um, that does fall into some of the traps of, um, especially as climbing as a sport, all disciplines of climbing Steve: Mm-hmm. Melissa: risen. Um, in usership most people, it, 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. And by and large, most people who are [00:47:00] climbing aren’t dealing with like true life and death consequences to their individual actions throughout their climb. You know, can that. 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, 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. Steve: I wanna go back to something you said and started us down this rabbit hole a little bit because I, 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 [00:48:00] then the other stuff. I think of it as deterministic and probabilistic. Like the Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: is what you can make choices around. Melissa: Yeah. Steve: There’s a lot of that in the mountains, and the probabilistic is what you were talking about, interacting with the force of nature its rawest form and having to, you know, no choice but to accept what, what happens in, in that way. And in most cases, actually determines farm in the mountains, especially Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: mountains that determines far more of the outcome than the deterministic choices. Melissa: Yeah. Steve: time you get to the level which you are trying to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen, the deterministic pieces are all been put in place. Melissa: Yep. Steve: purely probabilistic beyond that, and. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: I remember having this discussion with Vince Anderson right before we climbed Naga Parbat ’cause he was getting nervous ’cause our acclimatization and everything. We were at the end of our time and he was getting nervous that our acclimatization was kind of [00:49:00] waning and we were losing our window and we had this conversation and there was 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. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: it can be that like we will walk away from the space 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 And as it turned out, of course we had the opportunity to sort of prove that to ourselves and beyond that to the world. And so I. 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 different gender than I am. And so when you interact with the world and the world looks at your achievements in the mountains, how do you, [00:50:00] 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, and how do you balance that? How do you, how do you maintain your own, what you feel truth your identity when the narrative from them, Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: may be different? Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: what does that internal process like for you and how is that unfolded over time? Melissa: Essentially, that is the whole journey of my book, right? Is this idea of thinking that. I could control what they saw 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’s what was happening during that time. But that’s essentially what my journey was [00:51:00] going through this experience of first thinking, you know, I don’t feel belonging. 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, but it has this really, um, mag magnifying effect of exceptionality. So if I don’t think I can belong, then I’m gonna strive to be exceptional because if I’m gonna be not belonging, I’m gonna be not belonging in a way that, that I feel I can control, right? So if I’m not gonna naturally fit into this peer group, I’m gonna make myself the only girl in the room so that it’s okay that I don’t fit into this peer group ’cause I have a reason for that. Or I’m gonna be the youngest one or the smallest one or whatever. then I’m gonna need some validators from them, external validators. And [00:52:00] so what I experienced is like being. 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 validator. So then I pursued, you know, leadership roles. So I wanna be a guide. So now I have this automatic validator, but then it’s, it just created a whole new environment that I don’t belong in. And now I need a more of a validator and another one. And so then I’m gonna go and I’m gonna be 23 years old and I’m gonna go and not just Summit Everest, but I’m gonna guide Everest as like one of very few women who had ever guided Everest at that point in time. And I’m gonna reap the rewards of the validation of them. And I’m gonna 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. I want belonging. And so I’m pursuing exceptionality and validation instead. So I’m using achievement as a, a form of acceptance. And I, you know, I have come [00:53:00] 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 diff a, a extreme difference in, um. 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, 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. 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 [00:54:00] would hear the things of like. 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. And so then it’s just adding, it’s this like, you know, it, it’s its mountain of its own that it creates outside. When I’m waiting for them to tell me that it’s enough, I will always be able to find, including to this day, people who 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 journey and my evolution 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 mountaineer. Yeah. And guess what, like within days of doing it, um, a, a friend of ours, a peer of [00:55:00] ours, um, said to me like, I, you know, I believe that you did this, but you realize no one’s gonna 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. 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. 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 [00:56:00] 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. really honest and be, you know, all the things that made me afraid in those years that I couldn’t show. 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 the actual paradox of what I would’ve thought. You couldn’t have explained this to me previous, to me previously in my life. ’cause I wouldn’t have [00:57:00] understood, and I wouldn’t have believed you. But like all, I only cared so deeply about what you, that were the, they of me when I was trying to manage what they saw, and now I’ve like really stopped managing what they see on some level. Of course, I’m always gonna 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 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 place in mountaineering history, um, and, and the, um, the worth of it, or the worthiness of it, 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 [00:58:00] again without oxygen to prove that. Like I’ve the only female ever to do it twice. Like, who cares? It’s not gonna change anything from my little view in the world. And it has far, a far greater propensity to make me, um, 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. 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. Steve: Hmm. There’s, there’s so much I want to wanna go into there. No, it’s, it’s wonderful. And you speak, you speak so eloquently about these, these ideas, and I want to think about, know. [00:59:00] A lot of what you were talking about, you’re, can you, can you tell us maybe a story where something like that shows an example where there, there’s, there’s a sort of subtle balance, right? That you’re talking about between, we’re talking about our peers or they, they, them between like microaggression, let’s call it. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: think that’s the, the, the, the current phrase versus something that, you know, can be something, a microaggression, a challenge be something that builds like resilience and kind of hardens you and you’re like, so like, oh yeah, you 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. [01:00:00] ’cause you, you, you like, 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 B, where you, your self-worth is, internal. And then it goes back to what started with, which is this idea that we don’t have to earn love or that we don’t have to Melissa: Yeah. Steve: for it. That it’s you’re, whether you’re self-love or your love of your family or your in the community is a, a given, is a constant. Is is something, something that’s just there and. I think that so many times I’m thinking about myself, but also many [01:01:00] of our listeners have perpetrated, microaggression, I would Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: and, and not really, really given it any thought. Melissa: Yeah. Steve: Like, and, and I, I fall victim to this all the time because it’s, it’s like a, a reaction. Like, I have a feeling and I’m gonna let this person know what my feeling is 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, you know, I have a hard time like doing it in the moment. 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. So where is it? Where can you tell us like a story, I think act of one of these aggressions, micro or macro that and how that unfolded. Melissa: and I’ll tell you, you know, first, like to [01:02:00] 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, the, them doubting me 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, I, that is just part of my and things I do love. And I would enjoy leaning into it and causing people this reaction of like, whoa, you know, you are a mountaineer. And I also would allow that to corrode my sense of self. 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 [01:03:00] with my husband at one point where I said, like the very sentence, the very sentence you can say to me, which is, don’t look like a mountaineer. 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, middle-aged male that I’m sitting next to on an airplane. And it’s like, oh, where, what do you do for work? And I’m like, I’m a mountain guy. And he is like, oh, like you drive the bus around and take people on tours. And I’m like, no, do glacier mountaineering, like climbing peaks such as Everest. Oh. Have you ever gone to Everest? Oh, yes. Ever Gone to the top? Yes. All the way six times. Oh, well, you know, and he is like, you don’t look like a mountaineer. And I, I, it fills me with. Anger it’s all this context of like the intention behind it, but I’m interpreting the attention 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 a negative way rather than [01:04:00] 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 interior being, which is that I can like in that moment or feel ’cause 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 crushing this 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 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 [01:05:00] sure that I’m engaging with that judgmental eye, with kindness. Um, and or, and, or, you know, in a healthy way. That is the, the 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, I just have so many endless examples of, um, the microaggression experience of being. Unin, 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, um, 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 [01:06:00] experience even more with my peers or people who were po potential mentors of mine that I deeply respected. I started to interact in a way with them where it was like, oh, you guys cli, I mean, a good example is like, um, a person who had a long history of working. the Himalayas and it had, you know, tremendous level of different experiences there. And after my second summit on Everest, um, and as I was planning this upcoming trip that I wanted to go to Alou, which had always been like my dream mountain, they said to me like. know, Makalu, you’ve gotten really lucky on Everest and you’ve been inside of the structure of like as a guide and basically everything being done for you and, and Makalu is nothing like that. And so I, you need a, you need more experience to do that. And I was like, well, but, but that’s what I’m doing. Like I’m here, I’m getting more experience. And [01:07:00] it was, I think like. 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. ’cause if someone else can just do what you do. And I think that’s the current era. I mean, it’s like a hard right turn with this thought, but like, it’s the problem with, um, the sort of like armchair, spectator, Colosseum aspect of how we watch mountaineering in current day and we decide who is deserving an undeserving of going to the summit and some of the loudest voices in the undeserving category of like you know, it’s a tourist destination and people taking pictures. 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. because this person [01:08:00] 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. that takes some specialness away from you doing it. And know, I’m very curious about that because I think it goes back to this bigger question of like internal versus external motivators. And if you’re going to the mountain to go to the summit, 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 ha is I don’t think that’s a hierarchical 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 who is going to the summit. And Mount Nearing 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 [01:09:00] 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, somebody said to me like a, the old, old stalwart of mountaineering in, in the Himalayas who said like, you know, this is no place for a cute little girl like you. And I was like. I don’t, I’m at, I was like, uh, what do we, what do I say to that? Like Steve: do you Melissa: in what? Steve: Right Melissa: 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, um, but I’ll climb in this. Yeah. Steve: gly? Melissa: But I think that one of the things of, um, you know, how that showed up for me is that I this pursuit of competence, right? So like, I wanted to, um, really. Uh, [01:10:00] have this like defense of look at me even if I am 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 gonna, my show is really tight. My, I’m gonna bring a level of, um, competence in a special way, like my medical experience and skills. I’m gonna make sure that that’s something that’s always above what my peer, who has more experience in a other area might be able to bring. And, um, I, I, 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 I am. Doing the best job that I can do to be here. And so I feel really good about that. Like if, whether 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 tr I’m pursuing this craft in the way that feels correct for me and what I wanna get out of [01:11:00] this and how I wanna interact with this place. Um, 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 of the 7,212 years ago. And, um, I had just been, been told probably, um, that like, if I was gonna 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 s. 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 wanna be taken seriously at all, you have to be able to climb five 12. And so I had this like little 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 [01:12:00] 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, somebody said like, oh, I said, oh, I’m gonna climb, I’m in a project like this five 12 next. And, and they were like, you know, you should really just go and climb all the five tens in the park. That would probably be a good goal for you. I was like, again, it was that realization that, yeah, I can’t be doing this for the them because the them isn’t gonna, I don’t have any control of how they’re gonna see my. You know, worth and belonging. Steve: Hmm. And I mean, you may be projecting, but you’re also projecting well because you know, it’s, it’s not that. that was really interesting for me. Melissa: Yeah. Steve: 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 [01:13:00] come in contact with grief loss, and we also frequently go to the mountains to heal from grief and loss. We go to other places as well, Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: so. What? What do you think it is that is unique or maybe helpful? Maybe it doesn’t have to be unique 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. but scar has a very negative connotation. I think it could also, we need a word for scar that has a positive connotation. Melissa: Well, Steve: uh Melissa: 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 [01:14:00] healed 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. It’s your body’s own ability to protect itself while it’s in the process of healing. 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, you know, self, um, repair as, 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 in a place that provokes your vulnerability as a requisite part of being there. And there’s far greater healing potential when you’re 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, [01:15:00] or you have like human betrayal, you can heal from that alone. But I can assure you that in reengaging, 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, 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, uh, 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. Steve: Hmm. You’ve, uh, you had this beautiful line in your book that said the summit is a moment and the [01:16:00] descent is the rest of your life. This idea of impermanence, I felt like, was one of those themes that you know, pulled that thread that you pulled through your whole book, and we’ve, it’s been pulled through this conversation. How does that experience of impermanence 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 cava gets covered. The rope phrase, 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. How do these, how do the, how does this experience of impermanence sort of ripple through your life? Melissa: I mean, I think that that, similar to what you just said, the [01:17:00] most beautiful things are things we can’t and keep, you know, and there’s this, and I, I watch it in my children, right? Like this moment, like they wanna hold, I mean, it’s the, I. grade classroom. Ha 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 go through a true metamorphos 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 great food, but [01:18:00] 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. 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 this to me is what 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. And [01:19:00] there is such an immense in that, I guess if you lean into that side of things in always. But this incredible value and this beauty on the unep ability of this moment that you’re in. And if you really stop and notice it, ’cause ev all of us can do that right now. you are, you can just stop and notice where you are and appreciate in whatever way it feels to you, complete impermanence of this moment. 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, I think that I have gone to the mountains because it illustrates it in such a completely, you know, illustrated and non ignorable way that the dynamicness of nature and we, we have like as society’s really lost our rhythm of observing nature and observing the cycles of nature and how it plays [01:20:00] into our, you know, brain cycles and thinking cycles. 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. Steve: 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 Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: with your body in ways that, you know, we have lots of, we have lots of distractions, let’s just Melissa: Yes. Steve: world, in ways to say disconnected from those things. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: And I think that that’s, that’s very true. 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, and it was really interesting to meet a bunch of these people and to [01:21:00] talk to them both from the stage, but also in a bunch of conversations afterwards about risk, because I, I was speaking about grit and resilience. That was kind Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: They came back to me like just totally blown away by, know, and I did tell some headline stories that, you know, played up the risk factor for sure, because, you know, I Melissa: It’s what you’re there to do. Steve: Yeah. What there to do, uh, part of the job. But, they were really, 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 twenties. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: funded founders of software startups. And they’re, you know, they, they’re, they’ve built companies in two years that are in some cases worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And [01:22:00] they said to me, I said to them. 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, 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 a functioning product with Melissa: Yeah. Steve: 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 he sort of explained this game to me and it makes sense, right? 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 gonna take you down. But they had this almost playful relationship with it, Melissa: Hmm. Steve: which I thought was really interesting. And then I started to ask them like, how do you [01:23:00] 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 BA company out of thin air, out of code, then, then, then what is, and they’re like, you know, mostly they didn’t really have much of an answer if there was one guy who’s doing a software startup that built software for robots, okay. Amazing guy. He is a legend. He’s like 27 years old, and he’s kind of a, has this international reputation. And he said is he is most afraid of is his losing his reputation Melissa: Hmm. Steve: because everything, and, and 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? 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’s gonna be worth a lot of money in a [01:24:00] few years, few years. And he is like, takes that really seriously, right? Like Melissa: Yeah. Steve: 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 just an empty vessel in a sense. That was when it clicked why they were for me, why they were so fascinated with physical risk. ’cause they were taking a risk, but it was with their identities with who they were. Because these people, that’s all they, they were computer scientists and Melissa: Yeah. Steve: their whole world. And you know, that also turns out to be a very small world, very judgmental. A lot of Melissa: Hmm. Steve: oh, that guy’s good or Melissa: and. Steve: person’s bad, or they did this, or they’re, I heard one guy say, that person is a black stain on computer science. I was like, whoa, okay. Melissa: Wow. Yeah. Steve: That’s some, Melissa: You’re in the drama of it all. Steve: Right. Like, [01:25:00] I mean, like even this world has, I Melissa: Yeah. Steve: things like that, like, you don’t belong, like you don’t belong, you don’t deserve, you need more experience before you climb makalu Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: not a real climber. I mean, these are, the same Melissa: 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 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. And novel I, because I sort of like to diminish, um, you know, my, my experience in the mountains as like this silly [01:26:00] 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. 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, the tech brows 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 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 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 we’re, 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 [01:27:00] torturous and, uh, you know. Really predictable story that we’re all living and it’s all gonna 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. 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. 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 ’cause you have a lot of people who understand what you’re going through. Steve: back to that quote, to bear witness to what is joyful, but also to what is painful. Melissa: Yes, exactly.[01:28:00] Steve: Yeah. Melissa: Yeah. To be witness, you know, that’s in a, in a way is like living your life and observing your life simultaneously is sort of like a really fun to do. Steve: You had this wonderful comment or wonderful passage in your book about being beginnings in disguise, and we’ve talked about this on a pill athlete in many formats in the past, because so many people, whether they go to run an ultra or go to a mountain and they come back and they’re like, there’s this big hole in their lives. They don’t know what they’re doing. There’s this often, this big kinda letdown, this sort of post expedition depression Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: And I mean, very real sense for sometimes you’ve, you’ve reframed that with the, that phrase beginnings in disguise. You’ve reframed this into something that’s a, a threshold or a [01:29:00] passage, which I really liked and it. Kind of honors this idea of impermanence that you, we keep talking about. How do you, how did you come to that insight and how do you move through your beginnings in disguise now? Like Melissa: Yeah. Steve: do you, when you go, when you move through that threshold, that place, how does the world look differently? Melissa: 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. There was a lot of open freedom to that, and I think a lot of young people [01:30:00] can relate to the paralyzing nature of endless possibilities. ’cause 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. 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. Anchored into a path in a single direction of where I would go 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 a, a pursuit you don’t wanna pursue to become a reactive person. I mean, there’s a lot of different context of that word, [01:31:00] but 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. 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. 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 and 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. Steve: Yeah, and that stage, that podium, that, Melissa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just look around [01:32:00] it’s nice to see, like I realized, um, points are very important to me and, you know, the metaphorical, um, being in the, not even in the planes, but being in like, uh. 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 wanna go because I just really can’t see out of this like, you know, low shroud that should be easily overcomeable, but is not, and I can’t see where I am and where I am coming from and where I’m going. And you know, I try to, I just recently had that experience, um, which is why it’s in my mind, but I, the metaphor of that is like, gosh, 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 gotta be some way to find a vantage point within it as well. Steve: That’s [01:33:00] a lovely little cone that you’re leaving us with here. Melissa: Yeah, Steve: I think that fundamentally that’s why people climb mountains is because it’s obvious where the point is that they should go. Melissa: yeah, for sure. Steve: I mean, there’s a, a beautiful painting of a mountain right behind you and it has a clear peak. it’s like, that’s, that’s it. That’s where you gotta go there. You know, we use the, it’s why it’s a metaphor in so many things, but Melissa: Yeah, Steve: 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 latitude 47 degree, you know, Melissa: yeah, Steve: we have to all go to, like, it doesn’t happen, right? Uh, so it’s, it’s creating that, that kind of magnetic light that like the, the light that the m come to the flame type Melissa: yeah, Steve: Hmm. Melissa: exactly. Steve: Melissa, how do you wanna be remembered? Melissa: Uh, you know, I hope that in all the best and worst ways, they, [01:34:00] they, the them, the, they, them close to me and those who know nothing personally of me will say curious. You know, 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, gotten achieved, done, put on the board. Yeah. Um, you know, that it is just this, like the a, a life in pursuit of lots of curiosity. I hope that that’s how somebody remembers me, um, that I was really, I had questions. Steve: And as you answer, I realize the fallacy of my question because I’m, by nature putting it in terms of them. of, you know, it’s a combination of how do you [01:35:00] want. 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. Melissa: Yeah. 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. And it’s sort of me trying to prescribe the legacy of how you might remember me. And I also fall prey to all of the natural traps of ego, of like, I want people to, 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 sharing the complex nature of who I really am. Um, and so that like already feels pretty good. ’cause I, I am like, okay, I like when, when somebody says something, um, in feedback of, of my book of like how terrible I was. I’m [01:36:00] like, hoof good. I am like, glad you understood what I was trying to say. 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 But I, I gain 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 be 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, know, just, I, [01:37:00] think that. I have wanted more than anything that I could not articulate ’cause 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. wanted a chance to show up and be seen as the complex human that I am. And I have, 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 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 about what my legacy is that how people. How the, they [01:38:00] the me that I am. Steve: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. And 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, know, you’ve certainly achieved that in a positive way and in a way that is meaningful. And as I said, in the be very beginning, kind of can recast and make people re-examine how we, how we define things like, you know, success, how we define things such as leadership in the mountains. Melissa: Yeah. Steve: define things as, as qualifications and. You know, that’s, that’s a, that’s quite a legacy. I would, I would say no matter, no matter what happens, so. Melissa: I’m still very much on the journey and I have to say I, my, [01:39:00] this has been lovely to be able to, um, have connection with you and like I just remember in my own deeply interior journey. 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, um, vis really present to you. 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, um, and, and legacy, you know, trying to think about like procuring and, and I know that you’ve still always 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 constantly. Looking really honestly at the [01:40:00] self and how we are and, and which spaces we are in, 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 it, you are somebody who I remember being surprised at the depth and admiring of the willingness to like, explore the 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 because I think it’s truly really meaningful for people to hear that. Steve: Well, thank you. Well say that really means a lot. And I was going to make several points that popped into my mind as you were talking. One is this 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, it’s a summit that doesn’t mark the end, but rather a beginning. And [01:41:00] that is, I I, I know it’s, I’ve been there. And the, the classic thing with, with writing is the, first story you tell is your own. And then you kind of at one point will look up, put your head up and look around, be like, okay, yeah, that, that I’m done with that, like, look at all these other stories, look at Melissa: Yeah. Steve: 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 Melissa: Mm-hmm. Steve: been on this, on this show and, and giving. Helping to draw out the, the hard earned knowledge and the hard-earned wisdom and the hard-earned vantages vantage points that, that they hold or have, have stood upon and, and viewed the world of. So that’s, that’s absolutely critical. And you know, I’m sure you’re going to con continue on that. How can our guests that want to with you find your [01:42:00] book, find you in the worldwide web? How do they do that? Melissa: 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, um, you know, I’m, I’m out there in the mountains. I am 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. Steve: Yeah, you and me both. Well, thank you for your time and it’s been a pleasure. CTA: One of the most common questions I get is, how should I get started with training? Well, they say the first step is the hardest, so let’s make that easy. We are offering free four week samples of our [01:43:00] most popular training plans for mountaineering, trail, running, climbing, and more. Go to uphill athlete.com/ let’s go to sign up for our newsletter, and you will not only get monthly insights on training for uphill athletes, but you’ll also get a sample training plan. It’s totally free, so why wait? That’s uphillathlete.com/letsgo.