Video summary
In May of 2016, Melissa Arnot Reid became the first American woman to summit Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.
She has a wonderful new book out called Enough. (I LOVED the book. It’s one of those rare books that pushes you forward from page to page.) Buy it here.
The book is about much more than mountaineering and Everest. It’s about Melissa’s fascinating life journey, what pushes us to do great things, why hardship can help us grow, and more (think part Wild and part Into Thin Air).
I spoke about the book and Melissa’s life, work, and the lessons she’s learned from the mountains.
Watch our conversation above. We covered:
Why Melissa climbs mountains.
How Melissa delineates between discomfort and danger. She explains the wild training strategies she’s used to push herself in training to thrive and stay safer in the world’s highest, most dangerous environments.
Why nature isn’t your competitor, but your best teacher.
What it was like reaching the summit of Mount Everest without oxygen—and what it was like after.
The “arrival fallacy.” We think that by reaching a big goal, we’ll “arrive,” and all will finally be well. But life doesn’t work like that—and that can teach us a lot about growth.
What Melissa learned from her failed attempts on Everest and how they were necessary for her to finally reach the summit without oxygen.
Why mountaineering is a metaphor for life.
How Melissa leveraged the hardships of her childhood to find a suitable path in life.
What Melissa has learned from the Sherpa people of Nepal.
Melissa’s thoughts on the popularity of Mount Everest, whether it’s overcrowded, and how to put that in context (I found this really fascinating given all the media around overcrowding on Everest).
How Melissa learned to get out of her own head.
What her experiences were like mountaineering and guiding, which is a largely male-dominated sport, and advice she’d give women entering male-dominated pursuits.
What men can do to support women in male-dominated fields.
How Melissa trained to climb the biggest mountains in the world.
Melissa’s most indispensable piece of gear not stuff.
Skills that every outdoor person should have.
Housekeeping
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Audio/Podcast version
Transcript for the readers
Michael Easter
First thing I want to know is: of all the things a person could do, why do you climb mountains? What does it give you?
Melissa Arnot Reid
You know, I have always said that what makes a good mountaineer is somebody who has a deep sense of self-hatred and a belief that they deserve to suffer. And I'm only partially joking. You know, for me, the mountains and climbing mountains has always represented this very intense and very tangible type of independence and freedom and also a constant confrontation of humility.
that nature gives you of this knowingness that you are not in control and no matter what you do, you cannot be in control. And I personally think that for me, and I think a lot of other people as well, whether they're aware of it or not, I am drawn to the mountains because that joke of like, I deserve discomfort, it's more of I really want to interact with discomfort in ways where I feel like I'm choosing that. So that the discomfort that I don't choose,
I feel a little bit more resilient when it comes. And that's what being in the mountains has given to me.
Michael Easter
Yeah.
One thing that I was just kind of running through my mind and all these scenarios you write about in the book is like, how did you learn to delineate between discomfort that was necessary in order to complete a climb versus, I might be putting myself at risk. And so how did you kind of balance that where it's like, this thing is going to be hard. know this, but at a certain point, like people can tip into stupid hard, right? And so how did you find that? Cause you're still alive. So something's working. Tell me about that.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Yeah, well, I always think about it like the dial between discomfort and danger, and it's like really super sensitive dial. And the only way to get to know where that click in between discomfort and danger is, is to like rotate the dial, you know? So you have to push yourself into what I have always considered controlled discomfort, right? So I simulate deep physical discomfort in ways that are objectively safe. So for example,
prior to going and trying to climb an 8,000 meter peak without supplemental oxygen, where I know my physiology is going to be extremely challenged, I'm gonna try to challenge my physiology in really controlled ways. And I'm going to also try to challenge my mental space in those same controlled ways because that's an extreme conflict, right? Like when your physiology is, you're more likely to allow that mental challenge to pull back.
from the physical challenge that I think that, you know, without being controversial, like that's one of the evolutionary tools of being a human, is that we're not apt to push beyond the discomfort because your brain is so powerful and the mental discomfort is much louder than the physical discomfort before you get into the physical danger. But I would do things like set out on a, you know, after a season of training, set out on a 24 hour physical endurance push, which might include climbing,
between 10 and 20,000 vertical feet without food or water or rest during that time. So that at any moment, if I feel like I'm in a actual physical danger, I can stop safely and go back home. But I'm challenging myself to recognize that discomfort is survivable and that this discomfort, I'm gonna feel it and I'm also gonna be okay. And I can recover from that discomfort or to know, right? Where it's like, wow.
Actually, I thought that I would be able to endure that either mentally or physically and I couldn't. And now what can I modify to make that or what can I change about my goals to make that more acceptable?
Michael Easter
Yeah, so you're doing that to basically mimic, because you're have moments like that in the mountains and if you haven't put yourself there, you may not be able to figure out, am I in danger or am I not in danger? So by doing that, you can go, okay, this part feels dangerous versus, this is just part of the bind.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Right, and my work as a mountain guide, often think about like, I'm, the relationship I'm engaging with my clients is they're letting me hold the dial for them, right? Because they don't know how to turn the dial, how sensitive it is, where the danger really is. So they've handed me the dial. So I already spent quite an irrational amount of time with control of that dial and thinking about, you know, how do we get, so that we just tip right up against what is danger? Because a lot of amazing,
personal growth and progress and magic happens in that little narrow teeny space between discomfort and danger, but you have to be at the, you don't always, like I don't wanna say that all the magic happens when you're like at supreme discomfort, but often that magical little sliver between just being really uncomfortable and being truly in danger is, I think that's what, if I were to quantify it, that's potential, right? That is our potential exists in that space, but you have to get into that space.
And again, your mind is really powerful and most people's minds will not allow them to get into that space. And I think that's like evolutionarily important. So you really have to consider like, do I want to overpower a human evolution of survival by ignoring all these like alarms going off on the motherboard and continuing just to prove that I can? You know, like you really have to be clear on what you're doing in that situation if you want to talk about it scientifically that way.
Michael Easter
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so I'm gonna bring up a footnote, because I love them. Okay, you wrote, and I'm gonna quote you here, it would take me years to learn that nature isn't your competitor, but your teacher. So tell me about that.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Yeah.
Melissa Arnot Reid
I mean, I think that especially in mountain climbing, it's such a like conquering, innately conquering activity of like you get to the summit, you know, the language we use to talk about, especially like Everest is like really colonial conquering language. And you're, it's also like, you know, you defeated the beast, like this, this really particular ideology around what that is. you know, nature is not your competitor. Like you are your competitor.
but it requires being in nature to learn that. And that to me is like nature as the teacher. You just realize like it's not, I would guess it to be any really good relationship with a really good coach where you feel like you are in competition with them, but actually they're just teaching you. And so it took me a really long time to realize like fundamentally I can't win. Like there's no winning. know, like it's not about arriving at a destination. It's not about a certain summit or a.
conquering or anything else, it is really about like the process of learning this journey, both life and the mountains.
Michael Easter
Yeah. What was the feeling when you finally reached the top without oxygen? What was it like there and then after?
Melissa Arnot Reid
You know what's really interesting is that my journey to try to climb without oxygen took me a number of years. You know, it took me about eight seasons on Everest over the course of nine years. And I, in the majority of that time, thought that if I am capable of climbing Everest without supplemental oxygen, then everything will be available to me in the world. Like then I will be deserving of all the worldly things and non-worldly things. And the truth was that I had to
do some really intense personal work to recognize that just existing made me worthy of having big dreams and that I wasn't going to go and achieve some accomplishment that was gonna allow me to then be deserving of all the other very tangible and intangible things that I was seeking. Love being the big one and belonging being the other big one.
And so for me, by the time that I ultimately was successful and I got to the summit without supplemental oxygen, I'd already embarked on the beginning of this really worthwhile journey of healing. And so getting there just felt like a continuation of this new existence that was you are allowed to have big, audacious dreams and you can achieve them and you don't have to beat yourself there. You don't have to punish yourself into being deserving and
and belonging in this place. also the actual feeling on the summit was like sheer terror. I had everything to lose. You're like out in the ocean as far as you can swim and you have to swim back. And the only way that any of this accomplishment really matters in the sphere of accomplishing things is if you swim back to shore. And so at that moment on the summit, I felt like in disbelief that it had actually all kind of come together and also terrified that I had everything to lose and I had to really keep my wits about me.
and keep things moving and descend. And then once I descended, I could kind of relax into this amazing realization again, that getting to the summit without oxygen didn't make me worthy of anything. I had to like really understand and accept my own worthiness to be able to get to the summit without oxygen.
Michael Easter
In that sense, because you've done this done sort of the personal work, are you in a way glad you didn't reach the summit on those initial attempts? Like, would you change anything?
Melissa Arnot Reid
my, do you know what kind of atrocious human I would be in the world right now? Like you do, because you read the books, so you know like some of my instincts are not the best that I have to fight with all the time to be like a high character person. But I can only imagine if in 2009 on my second climb of Everest, you know, I climbed, I got to the summit of Everest six total times in my Everest climbing career, but on my second summit, I intended to climb without oxygen. And if I had at 24 years old achieved that, I would be a nightmare of a human.
And so yeah, I am like endlessly thankful. Like I got the journey that I needed, not the one I thought I wanted, but I definitely got the journey that I needed.
Michael Easter
What are some metaphors from climbing that you think apply to the average person's life?
Melissa Arnot Reid
Michael, like it is, I trip over the cliches of metaphor in mountain climbing. Yeah, there's so many. mean, I think that particularly on Everest, one of the things that I personally have found continuously, weirdly I like always am in awe of it, is this idea that the expedition takes so long to do in a traditional way. It takes about 60 days. And then you add to that 60 days, like all the training, all the other expeditions you have to do to get there. So you're in this like really, really, really long-term grind and the actual climb to the summit, it's just like incredibly beautiful but like unsexy, not glamorous. Like nobody's taking selfies on the trail as they're walking and being like, you know, look at me, celebrate me. And you can't actually see the summit until summit day on the south side of Everest. And so you really have to be like putting in the work towards this really big thing that you don't even get.
to see until you're almost there, until the work is almost done. And so this idea of like really short term focus and action towards a really long term goal, like in so many ways that is life, no matter who you are and where you are. It's like, how do we balance the personal motivation to take that really unsexy step forward, knowing that like, yes, it's getting me there, but like also I'm gonna have to go back down like eight more times before I even get to see where there is. And you know, where do we find that motivation? And I think,
For me, that's like the ultimate question of life, right? So like, what is our internal driver that's pushing us forward toward the thing that we can't see and making us just keep going when it's like really, you know, there's nobody clapping for you walking along the trail. But the whole journey is made up of just like walking along that trail. Like the summit is one millisecond of the whole journey, so.
Michael Easter
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So you had a, I'd say your upbringing was a little rough, had some hurdles in your life. What did that teach you? And how did it, if you were to kind of look back, how did it shape you into who you are now? And what benefits did you see from that? Even though it was challenging in the short term.
Melissa Arnot Reid
I mean, think it's sarcasm as a coping mechanism is probably the best gift I got from that. It's, you know, in reality, I think that I was born into a situation that was one of those discomforts that I didn't choose. And I, from as long as I can remember, from as far back as my memory goes, I was calculating like how uncomfortable can I be without being in danger? And so I have chosen a life now.
that allows me to utilize that skill set that I learned at a very young age, which was how do I interact with discomfort and know that I can survive, that I maybe will survive, that I will survive. And that, for me, was one of the most important and biggest things that I've learned. And I live a life where I tend to believe that the trials that come our way are sort of like in preparation for what's next if we so choose. And I've...
been able to live a life where I've gone through some really objectively traumatic things both in the mountains and in life. And I feel like a person who's equipped to handle them, know, imperfectly for sure and still learning and figuring it out for sure. But I'm so grateful in so many ways for some of the early challenges that I faced because, you know, it gets into it in the book, but like the very earliest challenges I faced were nothing compared to like my really like... adolescent life challenges that were coming.
Michael Easter
What do you think is the sort of delineator where some people raised in challenging environments, it's almost like they can't get out of that. They're stuck there. What do you think is the sort of it factor where people who are able to sort of leverage that for the future, what do they have?
Melissa Arnot Reid
I mean, I think that there can't be one answer to that. Like, I wish I knew. I tend to personally believe just from my witnessed experience and from experiences peripheral to my own that I've seen is that one of the biggest differences in somebody who experiences really, you know, non-chosen discomfort and it just destroys their life and the possibility of them thriving in whatever way thriving means versus like somebody takes that and they are able to thrive.
I really do think that it has to do with just one voice of belief in you. And I think, like, it's unsatisfying for me to say that because it's not controllable always. We can't just make one person have a voice of belief in us, but what we can do is give somebody a voice of belief. Because it really only takes, one person believing truly in their core that you are worthy of dreaming big dreams and doing big things and that your dreams are worth pursuing.
to give you permission to maybe climb out of whatever place of, know, unchosen discomfort that you might find yourself in. And I don't want to be like, you know, too opaque about what I'm saying, but I really do believe that is like the biggest differences. You know, I was really challenged as a very young child to, you know, prove that I had worth in this world. And I also had one person who told me like, you don't have to do anything to deserve to do everything and that made all the difference for me personally.
Michael Easter
On the topic of help and how people can help us, what have you learned from working with the Sherpa?
Melissa Arnot Reid
my gosh, you one of the most amazing things about the Sherpa culture is that it's incredibly rooted in Buddhism, typically, and Buddhism is incredibly present minded, and that's like this lofty high ideal that's not as tangible as like, be present, what does that mean? But on a really beautifully pragmatic way, they live with such presence. And it's just this idea that like, we aren't investing.
money or anything else into the future because we have this today. Like what is, what are we gonna just like spend all of our time not being in today? And I'm imperfect at that because I have a very hyperactive brain and I like to like be 37 steps ahead and like also I'm like incredibly self-reflective and I like to like mire around in the mud of the past. But it is one of the things I've learned from being so close with Sherpa people is like this incredibly liberated state of being present minded.
Michael Easter
So I've seen recently, I was just reading about Everest and I see these photos of like bottlenecks towards the summit. What's your sense of the state of Everest and just mountaineering in general with it becoming more popularity, popular safety concerns. Like, where do you stand on all of that? And how do you think about that for people who might be interested?
Melissa Arnot Reid
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think one of the most interesting conflicts that I have felt in my life and career of working on Everest is that the only pictures that people pay attention to are like the horrific ones because by and large climbing Everest is like pretty but boring. There's just nothing salacious about it and that's most of what it is. So there are these snapshots of crowded lines of people or stories about, you know,
people stepping over, dying people to get themselves to the summit. And it would take me like a whole book to explain the nuance of what that environment is like up there and how each person is particularly capable or incapable of helping another person without creating more problems and blah, blah. But my first year, summiting Everest was in 2008. And that was for the next eight years, the
busiest summit that I ever had. this, was, it was in conflict with what the media was starting to portray because social media was born right around that time and then iPhones were around and people could snap pictures and everybody's saying like Everest is overcrowded, but it was actually the total numbers of climbers were descending each year until it kind of started climbing again and spiked in 2019 and then has descended again every year since. And so our perception of it and the reality of it maybe aren't totally aligned.
Melissa Arnot Reid
And I think it's important, like Everest is the biggest mountain in the world. It is a very vital and important economy for the people in Nepal specifically. You the other routes on Everest are through Tibet and China and it's less important part of their economy. But, you know, there is a desire to have an Everest industry and one of the traps of being a present minded type of people is that it's really hard to like plan for sustainability, because sustainability does not factor into present-mindedness. And I believe that the people whose land that is on should get the first say in how to manage the place, whether I agree with that or not. So my feelings around that are like a little bit conflicting. But I also think it's really important, and anybody who like has a lot to say, like armchair mountaineers are...
robust out there and I like bless them, I love them. But also, I'm so fascinated by how many people have opinions of this place that they really don't know. Like Reddit, Mountaineering threads are like one of my favorite places to go just to like enter a social experiment. Yeah, because I'm like, I'm so intrigued by the opinions of people that like have no sense of, maybe I'm that way too, maybe I would come into your office and like arrive with a million sort of like opinions about your workplace without taking in any of the nuance of what actually goes on there. But if you look at just the numbers of, I'm curious, I don't know what they are, but like the numbers of total climbers summiting Mount Blanc, Mount Fuji for sure, Mount Rainier in a day and then in a season of, you know, roughly equal length to the Everest season, you might get a sense of like, Everest is not the most crowded mountain. Like, I have had days on Mount Rainier where I stood in a line.
You know, that was really long. But I also think like the nuance of it is really important and you know, art is overcrowding avoidable. Yes, one of the things that people don't really know about again, because it's not very sexy to talk about as much as it's like inexperienced mountaineers, you know, bogging down the mountain and causing death. And it's like, well actually,
Technology has advanced. now have internet at base camp. have really advanced forecasting models. Everybody wants to summit on the best day and not just a good day. And 10 years ago, 15, 20 years ago, we didn't have models that could predict the weather to that accuracy. So everybody would just pick a day and climb. And that would disperse throughout the season. And now everybody's really narrowed into these really, and that's just one example of what's contributing to it. It's not just more and more climbers are climbing each year.
Michael Easter
That's a great answer. How have you learned to get out of your head? I think early in the book you talk about how you spend a lot of time inside your head and kind of doubting yourself and what has been sort of the actions that you've taken to avoid that, or at least maybe reframe it in a way.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Yeah, I mean, think one of the things about me is that I like to be alone in my thoughts. I like to think about things from all the possible angles and then think about them again. I think that one of the things that has really helped me is framing my own thoughts through a lens of curiosity instead of knowing. Whether it's my negative self-talk, which I think we're all quite prone to having, or maybe occasionally positive self-talk, which I think we're all prone to occasionally having.
I try to receive it with a level of curiosity of like, what if that was true? What next? And then follow that path down a little bit further and just trying to understand where is that coming from? And often I end up at this place of like, and so what? If my worst instincts are true, that is equally as so what as if my best instincts are true. It's like, and I'm still just here walking uphill slowly.
Michael Easter
What have your experiences been like climbing as a woman in this world and sport that is very male dominated? And the sort of follow up to that is what advice would you give women who want to get into sports that tend to be more male dominated?
Melissa Arnot Reid
You know, I have a really funny journey with being in mountaineering because, you know, as you know from reading the book, like, one of the reasons why I was drawn towards climbing and climbing big mountains was because there was some soul thing that happened inside of me that made me feel like I belonged when I was in the mountains. But then objectively you look at it, it's like...
Well, I decided to go and take a job working in an environment where I look like nearly nobody who I'm working around. Everybody's going to question, like just on a physical level, I'm 5'3 and 120 pounds, like, and very young when I started guiding. Am I even capable? Like this environment that is one of like no chance of belonging just on the objective ways that we like choose how to group items together or not be in that group.
But for me, again, curiosity has always been a really important value of mine. I feel like early on, I was in pursuit of proving that I could belong. I was proving that I can be different and still be just as good.
And if you've ever been a person trying to prove your way forward, you know how well that works out and really not well at all. But I got the opportunity to learn that like, instead of proving my way forward, could like curiously and persistently just show up. And by doing that, I would change the landscape. And so the landscape of distribution of male to female climbers hasn't changed drastically since I started guiding 20 years ago. It's still like 10 ish percent of the professional climbers guides, mountaineers are women.
But it's just more normalized, right? I think that every room I can show up in front of, every audience that I can show my face in front of, I just invite them to close their eyes, imagine a Mountaineer. Imagine what they look like, what their hands look like, what their face looks like. Now that Mountaineer has climbed Everest. That Mountaineer has climbed Everest six times. That Mountaineer has climbed Everest without oxygen. Look at how they look, how they carry themselves, and then open your eyes. .
You know, and that helps to deconstruct like what we think people are capable of by what we see with our eyes. And so my advice to like anybody wanting to get into some environment or place or activity where they are feeling like, I'm not like anybody else there is like, well, that will never change if you don't take that courageous step of just being the first person. And then when I think about what a Mountaineer is, me, Melissa, I think of myself. Like when I think about what somebody who climbed ever six times looks like.
I think of myself. And so I am changing that and that collectively changes things. And I think that's a really important small step to make and just know that it has value. And also, it can be really hard, but it has value.
Michael Easter
Yeah. What advice would you give man?
Melissa Arnot Reid
I think about what? So much advice for men.
Michael Easter
Just fire it all away. How much time do we have? Where do we start?
Melissa Arnot Reid
I know, this is a whole different podcast about women in mountaineering or men getting into mountaineering, you think, or like...
Michael Easter
About women and mountaineering. I think this applies to a lot of different worlds that are kind of male dominated. It's like, how do you make being inviting in a way that is not pandering at the same time? It's like kind of a line that I think guys struggle with where on one hand you have guys who are just totally oblivious, and then on the other hand you have guys who are like trying to help, but they kind of suck at it. And so I think that just like asking you can give us good answers.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Yeah, I mean, I think that the truth is that sort of no matter what you are doing or trying to do, like one of the most powerful things as a human to receive is acknowledgement. And I think one of the first things like we often avoid acknowledging something that's uncomfortable because we don't wanna draw attention to it. And so as a man in a very male dominated mountaineering space, maybe with one female partner, client, whatever.
drawing attention to that, like she is the solo female might feel like, don't wanna draw attention to that, I don't wanna make it weird. It's like acknowledging it, just like, wow, this must be a really different experience for you to like pretty much always be surrounded by just dudes, immediately alleviates and opens the opportunity for her to get to be vulnerable. And I'll tell you right now, like I go on a lot of trips where I am the only female and I like those trips far better than all female trips.
And the all-female trips I don't tend to like as much because there's this like weird external pressure of like, okay, now that it's all women, can just like, we're, it's, I don't know, it's different somehow. It's gonna be, you we can talk about the play. And it's like all that matters for us to be able to have allyship and have a space where you can talk about the play of being often the only woman. But I think it's far better when we're in like mixed gendered groups where, you you get the opportunity to
reframe and re-believe who is intrinsically a leader and who is a follower. Who is this, who is that, who is the caretaker, who is the whatever. We can deconstruct all of those things much easier when we blend groups with gender. so I think that just being willing to be curious allows there to be vulnerability and acknowledge what exists. Don't try to act like, well, we're all dudes here. it's like...
We all can see what's happening. And the best thing I think about mountaineering relationships is that they're really accelerated because there's this sense of danger. We're working in environments that are truly dangerous and they require trust. They require communication. And so you get this fast-tracked vulnerability if you're willing to call things as they are.
Michael Easter
So a lot of people who read 2 % are really into exercise. How do you even begin to train for something like Everest and all these other big climbs you've done? What does that look like?
Melissa Arnot Reid
I think there's two fundamental things. One is the physical training, which is do whatever you can to mimic the activity that you're mostly gonna be doing. So, mountaineering, climbing big mountains is a lot of walking uphill slowly with a really heavy pack on your back. that's, well it varies depending on how supported you are.
Michael Easter
How heavy?
Melissa Arnot Reid
As a guide, you're mostly carrying between 40 and 70 pounds on your back. And so practicing that, incrementally starting to add on more and more. So adding more weight, adding more distance, adding more incline, maybe adding more speed though in mountaineering, pushing harder is typically your enemy. You're starting to stress your physiology, create excess fluid in your lung spaces that you don't want excess fluid in. So figuring out how do I mimic this activity to the best I can and make it digestible and repeatable so that I'm
actually making progress in my training. And then I think the far bigger thing for something like mountaineering is the mental training. And so, you know, just talking about that idea of like discomfort and danger in that very narrow space. So how do you teach yourself how to be uncomfortable? And it's a little bit of resilience training, like the Navy SEALs do something similar in a different way, which is, you know, think of an essential thing to your comfort first. It starts with comfort and then moves to survival and take that away for some amount of time. So anybody can do that right now.
Practicing listening where they are or in their day. It's like I don't like the temperature that I am And so what am I gonna do if I'm in my car? I'm gonna reach down and change the temperature. I'm in my house I'll you know change it naturally or change the temperature of the heating system Just don't just don't and just stay and I realize like if you live in Florida and it's air conditioning like I'm asking a lot of you to just not Do it, but just just yeah, totally It's like, you know, it's not the same as like my nice temperate mountain environment, but just don't for a while and then just feel the discomfort and then realize that you will adapt to discomfort that's not fatal quite quickly. And knowing that you can adapt to that is the confidence to allow you to grow and push forward. And that training I think is by far the more important training.
Michael Easter
How important was nutrition on these climbs? Like, did you put a lot of thought into that or was it like, I just got to eat whatever I can eat.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Gummy bears and Snickers bars, baby. I mean, have, as an athlete, I've given far more thought to nutrition in my post-Everest years than I did in my Everest years. know, it's something that you really quickly learn about climbing at very high altitude is that your body tries to get itself to a place where it can survive and your muscles take a lot of oxygen and there's not a lot of oxygen there. So you're gonna shed unnecessary muscle off your body like,
Michael Easter
Love it. Amazing.
Melissa Arnot Reid
quicker than you ever could imagine. So trying to be a beefcake mountaineer is like, that doesn't work well. Yeah, and it's also really hard to digest protein at very high altitude. It takes oxygen to digest food, and harder to digest foods take more oxygen. So your body quite quickly will tell you lots of simple carbs, lots of simple sugars, more calories. You can't even ingest lots of fats, because it's just.
tough on your body and you're just in a state of like dying slowly. Yeah. But so I didn't pay a lot of like nuance to it. It was like, if I can stomach it, if I can eat it, get it in my body and call it good and then worry about my nutrition the rest of the year. And so that's what I've always adhered to of like really high nutrient dense food … really thoughtful consumption of calories in my training era so that I'm like really fueling this body and knowing that it's just gonna go into a state of degrading during this longer activity. But you know, that's not sustainable to do forever. But gummy bears and Snickers bars. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Easter
Yeah, that makes sense. Gummy bears and Snickers. Sounds like an ideal diet to me. What are some gear items that you can't live without?
Melissa Arnot Reid
Hmm, that's a good question.
Michael Easter
This can be both like on the mountain and also just in your everyday life.
Melissa Arnot Reid (34:16.039)
Yeah, mean, I think like, I don't think I could survive without my running shoes. Like, I just think that running, walking, that activity is just such a gateway to all the things I love, like getting to be outdoors, getting to move your body, getting to challenge yourself. So if I was only allowed to have like one piece of equipment that I could have with me for the rest of my life and that was the only one, I think I'd take my running shoes so that I could... Yeah, you know what? I do. They're kind of funny, but...
Michael Easter
What would you got to go to?
Let's see them. Now it's the fashion show.
Melissa Arnot Reid (Showing shoes on screen)
So yeah, I know it's a fashion show. This is, so La Sportiva, they just came out with this new model, which is like their Hoka-esque. Cause I do end up running like a lot of really long miles in the mountains, but they're new and they're awesome. They're maybe like the favorite shoe I've ever had. So they're called the Prodigo.
Michael Easter
OK, I love it. Let's see what else. What are skills that you think every outdoorsy person should have?
Melissa Arnot Reid
I think that whether you're planning on ever doing anything with anyone else or not, communication is the number one first thing. And I know that's awkward because a lot of outdoorsy people end up that way because they're kind of awkward people and not good at communicating. figuring out how to develop that, whether it's through time spent alone or with others. And then really honest reflection on your own capabilities.
and the ability to be self-reliant. So I think self-reliance can be kind of toxic in its worst way, and I talk about it in the book, I went down that path myself, but in its best way, it's you constantly, clearly and honestly assessing what you're capable of, and what are you gonna do if things don't go well? And I think no matter what your outdoor activity, no matter what your adventure is, those two things will get you further than anything else.
Michael Easter
What are some courses that you would recommend for people? I mean, I you've taught a ton of different types of courses. What's a good on-ramp for people?
Melissa Arnot Reid
Mm-hmm. I mean, I think if you're interested in the outdoors and outdoorsy stuff, one of the first things I do is just take a two-day in-person, if you can, wilderness first aid course, because you're going to meet other people who are aware of the need to have some medical training and skills, but it's not so time-consumptive, or it's not such a long course that you're only going to be surrounded by professionals. That gives you access to community.
And then beyond that, it's like if you're interested in mountaineering, introduction to mountaineering courses or beginner level glacier climbs on glaciated peaks, like those tend to be really, really high return on investment experiences for people.
Michael Easter
Yeah, how does writing a book compare to climbing a mountain?
Melissa Arnot Reid
I love this rapid fire question. I'm so impressed with all your questions here. Writing a book to climbing Everest or just climbing in general? You know, I mean, think climbing, most of the work is in just the long, boring path to get there. And the summit is just what people take a photo of. And for me, writing a book is that as well, right? Like the toil and the putting together of the story and that story and the connecting and the digging deeperness of it and the like.
The book writing is all like incredibly unsexy and nobody really wants to hear about it. But like that's where the journey was, was in those days and not at all in, you know, April 1st pub day.
Michael Easter
What did you learn about yourself as you wrote the book?
Melissa Arnot Reid
You know, I had thought, so I waited some time. I'd been approached numerous times throughout my career about writing a book. And again, like, thank God I didn't do it earlier on, because like, insufferable book that we would just have to burn right now. But I really wanted to wait until some time had passed since I had achieved the goal, if I was going to talk about this goal of climbing without oxygen. But also, I really knew that I wanted to be well on this journey of healing before I tried to like write about it.
I thought that I was in a really good place to start that. And then in the process of writing the book, you realize what you thought were scars were scabs. And there's areas that could still bleed. And it really encouraged me to do more work. And I think it's a piece of advice I have that feels like just a lofty piece of advice to any person. But I think write your memoir, because you will learn, even if no one ever reads it, even if it just lives in a drawer in a Word document on your computer, who cares?
Write your memoir because you will learn so much about yourself and you will have the opportunity to say just to yourself things that you need to say.
Michael Easter
So what are your big next steps after the book comes out?
Melissa Arnot Reid
My whole question with being a mountaineer, a high achieving mountaineer, is why is it that when you do something really amazing, the first thing everybody wants to know is what's next? Like, can I girl just get a minute of rest? No. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Easter
I can identify with that when I put out my books they go okay well what's the next one you're like … Jesus the next one is I'm gonna go on like some you know Norwegian cruise and just sit on my ass and eat for a week.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Just be a monk and not talk to anybody at all. Yeah, exactly. No, for me, what's next is I have lived somewhat, if you know about Mountaineering at all, I may have been in your public purview, and my image has been really controlled by brands I've worked with, by myself and how I wanted the world to see me. And putting out this book is a huge personal risk to me. I'm really getting incredibly vulnerable.
about the good and the bad and it's an opportunity for me to, you know, tell the whole story of my journey and what it takes to do these really big and hard things. And I think that in the process of writing the book and feeling really clear that I wanted to put this book in the world, it became very clear to me that like I want to bring others on that journey because I believe that there's a lot of power.
in admitting our mistakes, flaws, imperfections alongside our achievements and getting to see each other as these whole and complete people. So this next phase of my journey is really a continuation of that. And in many ways, it's getting to stand as my true self in front of the world for the first time.
Michael Easter
Well, it's an amazing book. Everyone check it out. It's called Enough. What I loved about it and very few books do this for me is that I wanted to keep reading. And I loved how you kind of like interwove the past with some of the climbs you've done. was just like, it was really like, I just wanted to keep reading and very few books do that. And you landed the plan on that. So good work.
Melissa Arnot Reid
I'm excited to hear that.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Thank you.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate that. I always say it's like, you don't have to care about Everest at all to really appreciate this book. Everest is like a really weird uncle that is on your mom's side of the family that people talk about but no one really knows about in this book. And so I'm going to let you in on Uncle Everest's secrets. But it's a very human story that I hope people can find a lot of relativity of their own lives in. And again, the metaphors, we trip over them throughout the whole book.
Michael Easter
Well, Melissa, thanks so much.
Melissa Arnot Reid
Thank you so much, Michael.
Have fun, don’t die, be like Melissa.
-Michael
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