7 Lessons To Learn Once That Will Improve Your Life Forever

0:00Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.

0:08I am so excited that you tuned in. I have such an incredible story to share with you. So picture this. You are crammed into the backseat of a pickup truck and you are going with your family on an epic adventure that has been six months in the planning. You're on an eight-hour road trip, you're headed to Baxter State Park where the Appalachian Trail ends at Mount Katahdin. And you have been planning this camping and hiking trip forever. You're super excited. The truck is packed. You've been in the car for eight hours. You're about to pull up to your camping site. The sun is setting. You're climbing Mount Katahdin tomorrow.

0:49And you all of a sudden realize you have forgotten to pack the single most important thing that you need on this trip. Well, that's what happened to me last week. And boy, oh boy, do I have one heck of a story and seven surprising lessons to share with you today.

1:19Hey, it's Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so excited to be able to spend this time together with you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to listen to this. Thank you for spending time with me. It's always an honor to get to be here together with you. If you're brand new, I want to take a moment and welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family and just say, I think it's really cool that you're listening to something that can help you improve your life or just feel a little bit better. And let me tell you something, today's episode is going to make you feel better because I have one heck of a story to tell you.

1:53This is something that happened to me last week. And so I'm just going to jump right into it because I also learned seven important life lessons. And so let me just set the table a little bit. My family loves to camp. Chris and I have been taking our kids camping forever. If you're familiar with Knowles, the National Outdoor Leadership School, my husband is a huge Knowles guy. And so we're just way into being outside. And my husband has been wanting to climb Mount Katahdin forever. And Mount Katahdin is this mountain that is super cool. It's in Maine. It is about 5 ,200 feet. It is the tallest mountain in Maine.

2:29And the coolest thing about Mount Katahdin is that it is the northern end of the Appalachian Trail. And the Appalachian Trail is this continuous trail that begins in Georgia and runs through 14 different states and ends 2 ,190 miles later at the top of Mount Katahdin. And so for years, our family has talked about climbing Mount Katahdin together. We've done Mount Washington. We've done a lot of camping trips out in the Western United States. And so Mount Katahdin had been on the bucket list. And we've been planning this trip forever, not only because with adult kids, it takes a year in advance to get everybody's schedules aligned, but with Mount Katahdin and Baxter State Park, you gotta be organized enough, if you plan to do it, six months ahead to be able to log onto a website to at a certain moment reserve a camping site that is at the base of the trail because there's only a certain number of them.

3:28So six months ago, we've got the dates cleared when we want to climb Mount Katahdin. It is the first week of August. Chris logs on at some ungodly hour first thing in the morning and he secures this campsite. We've got our plan. It's go time. Everybody's got the dates locked. And I got to give props to my husband. If it were not for Chris, there is no way we would have pulled this off. The man spent three days getting us organized. And when you really stop and think about a camping trip with five people, there's a lot of logistics, right? Like you got to pack in all your food. You got to pack in all your water.

4:07Yes, you're going to have your car next to the camping site, but you've got to have your tents and you've got to have your sleeping bags. You've got a bug spray, but you got to have everything that's going to take care of five people for two nights at a campsite without cell reception, without drinkable water. You got to be able to make a fire. We love doing this kind of stuff, but it is a lot of work. And I haven't even mentioned yet the fact that Mount Katahdin is this extraordinarily challenging mountain to climb. It is, as I mentioned, 5 ,200 feet high. I don't even know what that is in miles, but it is fricking tall.

4:42And on average, it takes you anywhere from 10 to 12 hours to climb up it and climb back down. So we're talking a big day. And Mount Katahdin is also a very, very steep mountain. And I am somebody who is terrified of heights. And so I really wanted to do this with our family, but I cannot be near a drop-off. I get vertigo. I start to feel like I was falling. And so I was nervous about this climb because there's this section of Mount Katahdin that is this big boulder field where you have to scale up these massive boulders, some of which are so steep that they have metal rods and handles and like almost like ladders in the stone to help you go up and down them.

5:33That's how steep this thing is. And so I was like, I'm doing it. I'm in. As long as you take care of everything, Chris, I'm in. So Chris spends three days getting ready, preparing the food, making sure we have everything. He has laid out all of our gear. He realizes, oh, okay, you know, our tents are pretty shoddy. Maybe I will go and I'll upgrade our tents. He goes down to the local mountaineering store in our town and he buys two new tents and he buys us two new tents. He is just going all in. And so we're getting all excited. Everybody is packed. There's stuff. You got to pack for two days and nights in a camp.

6:12And you got to pack for one full day of scaling this massive mountain. So I'm like thinking about all the things that I really want at this campsite so that I'm going to be comfortable. I got my Birkenstocks because I want to be super, super comfy after a long day hiking. I got my pajamas. In fact, I bring two pairs of pajamas because after an eight-hour drive, we are going to arrive at camp. We're going to be cooking dinner and then climbing right into our sleeping bags because we want to be on the trail by 5 a.m. because this is a 12-hour round-trip ordeal. And in case there's weather, we want extra time.

6:43So I think, okay, we want to get off the hike. I'm going to want to get out of my hiking stuff. And then I'm going to put on clean pajamas and my Birkenstocks and my super cozy socks. It's going to be fantastic. So we wake up the morning the trip begins because it's five o 'clock in the morning in Southern Vermont and everybody's packed their stuff into the truck. And we hop in and Chris and I are in the front of the pickup truck and our three adult kids are sitting in the back of the pickup truck. And we blaze. We leave on time. Chris is thrilled. We are on the road. It's absolutely amazing. And we drive four hours and we stop in Portland, Maine.

7:27And we get out in Portland, Maine and the kids have now been sleeping for four hours. Chris and I have been awake in the front just talking. It's been a beautiful morning. We have breakfast at one of the best restaurants ever. You want a great breakfast? Go to Bread and Friends in Portland, Maine. Absolutely fantastic. We also see a family friend in Portland, Maine. Like we're doing this road trip thing right. So after a pit stop in Portland, We hop back in, we drive another two hours and we stop a second time, this time to get a cup of coffee, buy water, buy ice, buy all the things that we're going to need because it's another 90 minutes before we are going to get to the entrance of Baxter State Park in Maine.

8:11So we want to just pull in because by the time we get there, it's now going to be five o 'clock. And when we hit that campsite at five o 'clock, we want to unload the pickup truck. We want to start cooking dinner. We want to kind of get into our comfy clothes. We want to set out our backpacks. We can get ready so that when we get up at 5 a.m. the next morning and boom, we can get right on that trail with our headlamps and giddy up and go. So we've got a lot to do. So as we are approaching Baxter State Park, it's about five o 'clock at night. We have been on the road since five o 'clock in the morning.

8:48At this point, we're hangry. We're ready to get out of the car. We're ready to set up the camp. We're ready to, frankly, climb into our sleeping bags and go to bed so we can wake up and just bag that mountain, Mount Katahdin. And I'm not going to lie, I'm starting to get a little nervous, right? Because I'm thinking, wow, it's 12 hours. You know, it's going to be really steep. Like it's one thing to be thinking about this. It's another thing to know that there's the mountain and you can like see it right there. And it's freaking huge. I'm like, we're going to go up there in one day. Like that's unbelievable.

9:16So I'm in the backseat now at this point and I'm working on my next book, the Let Them Theory, which is going to come out at the very end of the year. I cannot wait for you to read it. Oakley is grouchy and complaining. Sawyer is listening to her fantasy novel and we pull into Baxter State Park and you got got to check in with a ranger. She says, yep, well, you know, the campsite is another eight miles down the road. There's no cell reception. So just follow the road all the way in because your GPS is not going to work. And she kind of explains there's no running water. There's no this, there's no that.

9:52You got to pack everything in and pack everything out. And then she says, have a great hike. And as we pull away from the ranger station, this wave of panic hits me and I think oh my god did I pack my hiking boots my heart seized and I don't know if this has ever happened to you where all of a sudden time freezes. And as Chris is driving down this dirt road, because we've got another eight freaking miles and it's now 5.15 at night, I am feeling my heart seize and my mind start to spin backwards as I'm retracing my steps back to this morning at five o 'clock in the morning, trying to frantically remember, did I put my hiking boots in the truck?

11:05And it hits me. Oh my God, they're on the back porch at the house in Vermont.

11:17and the only shoes that I have with me are the Birkenstocks that are on my feet and I want to burst into tears and I say Chris Chris Chris Chris oh my god oh my god oh my god And he's like, what? And I said, I left my hiking boots in Vermont. And he slams on the brakes and he's like, what? Are you sure? And I said, oh my God, honey, they're on the back porch. I can't even talk. And there's no cell phone reception. We have not been anywhere near any type of town in 45 minutes. It is now 520. and we have been in the car for eight hours and Kendall is in the front seat and she turns around and gives me one of those looks.

12:18I swear to God, like we had this little hatchet with us to be able to like kind of break up the firewood. If she had had that hatchet, she probably would have thrown it at me. And you could just feel the searing anger. Are you kidding me? She says. And Oakley looks at me like, mom. And Sawyer goes, you didn't. And I'm not even saying anything because my face is now in my hands. And I am thinking about tomorrow morning and watching my family leave camp at five o 'clock in the morning while I'm sitting in a tent alone wearing my Birkenstocks and I'm just like, I can't let this happen. I'm not going to let this happen.

13:03And Chris, all of a sudden, just, you know, when somebody turns a car like a U-turn and they turn it so fast, you feel like you're in an F1 race car. It's like, and everybody's now just like, what? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'll go alone. I'll go alone. He's like, we're all in this together. And then he slams on the gas. We drive back to the station, which is like a mile down the dirt road. So we're going away from our, our campsite. I pull up, I jump out, I go and I plead. And I asked the lady, Oh my God, I forgot my hiking boots. She's like, it's going to be really hard to go up Mount Katahdin if you don't have hiking boots.

13:42And I'm like, I know. And then I'm like, can I, where can I go? Where can I go? And she said, well, you know, there's a store. and when she tells me where it is back by the highway, it's like 40 minutes from here. And I don't have any cell phone reception, so I can't even call to say, so they might have something, they tend to have something. And so we hop in the car and I'm like, are you sure, Chris? And he guns it. And so we go in the opposite direction with a fully packed pickup truck after being in the car for eight hours, 45 minutes in the opposite direction. and I got to say my family did their best to not say anything.

14:25At one point I felt my daughter Sawyer's hand reach up behind her brother who was sitting in the middle and I was sitting on the side in the back of the pickup truck and she put her hand on my shoulders and I kept thinking what am I going to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to do? And when we finally get to the store The store turns out to be like more like a hardware or a local farm supply store. You know what I mean? So I go into this thing panic stricken. This is my shot. Like this is it. I'm either going to find something in here and I start to say to myself, I'm going to manifest a pair of boots being in here.

15:03I am going to make this work. I am not going to miss out on this thing. And so I walk into this store and I walk over to the shoe area and there on display are muck boots and timberlands and rain boots and, you know, things that you would wear at a construction site. And out of the corner of my eye, I spot one style of boots that look like a hiking boot. And I'm like, oh my God, thank you, thank you. And there was one pair in my size. And I put them on and they were a little snug. And I said to myself, I don't care what it takes. I am going to make these damn things work. But then I had a second problem.

15:50The world's worst thing that you can do is to go on a hiking trip or try to climb a mountain in a brand new pair of boots. Everybody will tell you, don't ever do it. And so I hopped back in the car and I was not going to allow myself to go south. There is so much more to this story and I'm going to pick it right back up where we are after a short word from our sponsors. Stay with us.

16:19Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. I'm talking about this unbelievable trip that I took with our family to climb Mount Katahdin in Maine and the life lessons that I learned along the way. Now, at this point, I now texted a couple of friends, you're not going to believe what I did. I cannot believe I did this. And they're writing back, oh no, I hope you have moleskin. You're going to have the worst, worst, worst blisters. And I'm like, I know, I know, I know. But I'll tell you what I did. I made a decision in the back of that truck as we were barreling back toward Baxter State Park and back down.

16:54the eight mile dirt road to our campsite so we could set up. I made a decision that I was not going to buy into the fear. I was not going to think about blisters. I was not going to get myself all worked up because here's the thing. I didn't know how it was going to go. And if I were to sit in that back seat and say to myself, I'm screwed, you know, you thought you were scared of the fact that this is going to be a really hard 12 hour climb, Mel, that's nothing compared to doing it in a brand new pair of boots. You are scared about the sheer drop-offs and the boulders you got to scale on this thing.

17:30That's nothing compared to trying to navigate all that in a brand new pair of stiff boots while you've got blisters the size of apples on your feet. No, no, no, no, no. I could not allow myself to do that. And so you know what I did? I literally thought of one of the people that I love so much that inspires me, David Goggins, the Navy SEAL, the just unbelievable force that he is. And I kept thinking about his story and all the ultra marathons he was running and basically his feet falling off and him running through it and thinking, I'm just gonna Goggins this thing. I am not going to let this stop me.

18:04I am going to believe that these boots are gonna surprise me, that as I'm hiking tomorrow, I'm not gonna get any blisters. I'm actually going to be so excited that I left my old hiking boots wet on the back porch of Southern Vermont and I am going to envision a positive future. You know, you've been around me for a while. You've heard me say, what if it all works out? And so I started texting my friends back. You know what? I'm just going to say these are little boots that could. I'm just going to say this is going to work out. I'm just going to say and believe that when I get off that mountain tomorrow, I'm going to text you and go, these are the best damn boots you could have ever bought.

18:39I don't have a single blister. They were amazing. I'm going to get myself into that mindset because what's the alternative? to live in the horror that this is going to be terrible, which is only going to make it become terrible. And so that's what I did. I wore them the entire drive back to the camp. I wore them all night in camp. I took them off to sleep, but I wore them as we made dinner. And, you know, as we get back to the camp, everyone was in such a terrible mood. Like we had thought we'd get there, we'd be around the fire and you know talking about what we're grateful for and roasting s'mores we're like screaming at each other and look you know these bugs and poor chris and then of course chris pulls out the new tents that he has bought for the trip and the place sold him one of the wrong tents instead of giving him two tents for two people he had one tent for two people and a single tent which means our daughter sawyer and kendall had to basically sleep like butt to butt or like hugging each other all night.

19:41And so he was all mad about that. I mean, everybody, I was just like on the verge of tears and I don't blame everybody for being upset. It was a unnecessary, frustrating beginning to this trip that we had been looking forward to for six months. I don't blame them. I don't blame them. And so, you know, how did the night end? We're all sitting around the campfire and Chris says, so guys, why don't you share the high and the low of the day? And I'm thinking, oh my God, like the low, I think we all have the same low. And when something interesting happened, I shared my low, of course, I said, you know, my low was of course, forgetting the boots, but the real low was sitting in the back of the pickup truck as you were driving like 70 miles an hour.

20:37And I just felt like this little kid who was in a lot of trouble. And, you know, I don't know if you've ever had an experience like that when you were little and you like made a mistake, you broke something and then the adults around you were just like, and then you're like, oh my God. I just felt so small as we were barreling down the road, trying to find a store where I could possibly find boots and no one's talking. And I just wanted to disappear. And as I was sharing this, you know, I got kind of upset and I said, I just wish we would have stopped before everybody just exploded and made a plan.

21:21And I wish that we could have all been a little bit more patient or kind in that moment. And I realized that we all have a right to feel what we need to feel, but I just, in the silence for 45 minutes as we're barreling down the road, I just made me feel horrible. And what was interesting is that, you know, Chris said, well, Mel, I blame myself. Like I actually blame myself because I didn't ask everybody if they had everything. I didn't ask everybody, do you have your backpacks? Do you have your boots? Do you have this, you have that. And I should have done that. And so we all just kind of had our own version of it.

22:03And I think the important takeaway there is, you know, they always say, don't ever go to bed mad. And I think Chris asking all of us the high low, even though we all were pretty darn frustrated by the way the entire trip to Baxter State Park ended because of me, talking about it just was like putting a pin in a balloon and helping the tension deflate and we could unpack it all and everybody's like well if it had happened after a four-hour road trip we probably wouldn't have been upset if we weren't so angry if we had had cell phone reception like we all know it was an honest mistake but we all were just processing our emotions and the most important thing is that we were all in this together and so talking about it allowed us to just get it all out, have a big group hug, wipe the slate clean, say good night.

22:57And so Sawyer and Kendall climbed into their one person tent and snuggled up and Oakley climbed into this really cool hammock tent that my mom gave him for high school graduation that's made by Haven. I love this tent. It's like a hammock hanging tent. And then Chris and I climbed into our tent, lights out. I'll tell you what, we were all fast asleep because there's nothing like a giant eight-hour road trip that ends in a nightmare and a ball of tension to wear you out. And 5 a.m. came faster than a blink of the eye. So we wake up at 5 a.m. and my kids are now like, okay, we're all getting ready.

23:39We're trying to be quiet because there's other people camping and we're one of the first people up. We're getting our headlamps on. Our kids are like, oh, the boot's bomb. You think you're going to make it? And I'm like, yeah, these are going to be great boots. You watch. They're going to be great boots. And so off we go. We're walking on the trail. And as we're walking in the dark and I got my little hiking poles, I start to get nervous because now I'm actually really on the trail and I'm testing these boots for real. and they're a little stiff and I'm feeling my toes not being able to wiggle that much and I'm on the flat part.

24:15And so if I'm feeling like they're really stiff right now and we're only 10 minutes into this thing and it's pitch dark and we haven't even started on the incline yet and I got 12 hours of this, oh my God, Mel, am I going to make it? And so about 15 minutes later, I realized I need to reset. So I say to Chris, could you just like pull the kids together and could we just do like a little family huddle? And so he yells off to the kids because I knew if I yelled, they'd be annoyed. So he yells and they pause and they wait for us. And he goes, come here guys. And we all kind of stand shoulder to shoulder.

24:46And Chris just tells us to take in a deep breath

24:55and exhale. And here we are standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle.

25:08and just taking a minute to all breathe in together and slow the pace of this down is exactly what I needed. And I'm proud of myself for asking for it because normally I'd just be back there and I'd be suffering in silence. All right, I got to hit pause We can hear a word from our amazing sponsors, but don't you dare go anywhere because I haven't even gotten to the best part of the story yet. I'm going to tell you that when we get back from a short break. Stay with me. Hey, it's your buddy, Mel. This is my own ad, and I took it out because I got something to say to you. You deserve to be happy.