Beyond Limits: Lessons from Mountaineering with Melissa Arnot Reid (Podcast)

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).

Michael spoke about the book and Melissa’s life, work, and the lessons she’s learned from the mountains.

You can watch our conversation at TWOPCT.com or listen here. 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.