You Experienced a Failure. Before You Blame Yourself, Do This.

Robyne Hanley-Dafoe: Have you ever failed, come it short, made a mistake, or dropped the ball? Okay, so if you are still listening, you have, then you know, you are human. That's amazing. And for folks who are like, Robin, I have never made a mistake, okay, this episode is not for you. This is the episode that is all about how we are able to learn from experiences and that hard-earned wisdom and how we're able to integrate it, how we're able to process it, and what is the secret ingredient for us to never waste a mistake. So this episode I take a deep dive into my recent experience with an ultra endurance event that didn't have the outcome that I was anticipating, but I definitely had an education every step on that mountain. Welcome to today's episode of Perspective Shift. Now, this episode is a tricky one because I am sharing some pretty vulnerable pieces of what it feels like to essentially come up short on a goal. Now, for folks who are new here, perhaps you haven't heard the story yet, I was able to participate in the 29029 challenge that was hosted in British Columbia in Whistler. On the most beautiful mountain, Blackcomb Mountain. Now, what this challenge is, is to climb multiple times, eight to be specific, Blackcomb Mountain, which is the comparable distance to the elevation of Mount Everest, and you do it in 36 hours. So imagine this: you basically show up at the bottom of the mountain, you climb up, you summit that mountain that is just approximately 3.9 miles vertical. And then you gondola down, turn around and do it again. And you have 36 hours to try and get eight of these summits completed. Now, 29029, it is an amazing community. These are groups of this is a program that's run, it's hosted in many different places and spaces. ⁓ Mark and Jesse Itzler, like there's some really cool people behind it. And I was so excited. I've been training for this program. I've been training to be able to do this challenge since last April. So I'd been putting many miles on ⁓ on these feet to be able to be ready to take on this endurance event. And even just to give you perspective, I think in July and August, ⁓ even just like kind of a four-week piece before I started tapering back, ⁓ I think I'd gotten up to about 300 miles that I had put in logged in training. So I I'd I'd done my work to get myself ready, had a great coach, ⁓ Nikki from Colorado, who was helping me through it, planning my strategy. Okay. So All of this is unfolding at the end of August. Now, thankfully, my family was able to come and crew me, which was so special because having a hunter Naven Jacks makes everything better. So the kiddos were there. And I even remember saying to them, it's like, yeah, I'm going to do this experience. And there wasn't even hesitation. They're like, Mama, we are coming with you. You have never missed any of our stuff. We're going to be there to cheer you on whatever you need, come what may, we're in your corner. And Jeff thankfully was able to hold down the fort at home with the puppies. And that was so helpful for me, knowing that the puppies are okay. Plus, he can't travel right before startup at the university, which I totally get. As somebody who also was never able to travel during startup, I get it. And I was really excited to experience this. And I was very open that my goal ultimately was to learn. And that mountain. That mountain, let me tell you, every single moment on that mountain was an education. So bit of a spoiler alert, I did not, I did not finish the event. I got pulled after my sixth summit. Now, to give you context as to what happened, and here I am, the person who likes studies resiliency and high performance, and you set out with this big lofty goal and you came up short. First to acknowledge that I Tore my meniscus on the begin at the beginning of my third ascent. And I didn't see that coming. Obviously, I didn't anticipate tearing a meniscus. And that was an experience in itself, realizing that all of a sudden I was dealing with a health challenge that I wasn't expecting that I was going to have to navigate. So blew out my meniscus at the beginning of lap three. So at this point, I had already climbed ⁓ comparable to about I've already climbed comparable ⁓ to about eight miles vertical. And so I'm climbing these eight miles vertical and here I go, lost my I blew out my meniscus. I was able to finish summit three at this point and I was able to go to the recovery space and get checked out. ⁓ they were able to tape me up. I was able to take some ⁓ some precautions just to see whether or not I was able to wait bare enough to be able to continue and made the decision that I was going to keep going. So at this point, I was able to do lap four. And as the world always I trust this so deeply, how the world unfolds. At the beginning of lap four, I met the most lovely person. Her name is Kat from Atlanta. Never met her before in my life, never even like our paths had never crossed whatsoever. And all of a sudden, she literally was like answered to prayer. And we were at the same pace. And we were able to like, we were just chatting, and we were able to have this like amazing experience summiting the mountain for the fourth time. This point, we are like, gosh, I'd say it's like later afternoon. We've been going since 6 a.m. We finished summit four, Kat and I, and then basically ⁓ gondola back down and here we go for the next, next, next summit. And so hit summit five. This time it's early evening by the time all of this is unfolding. Each of the summits were taking between like two hours, two and a half hours to be able to do. And then the gondola rides like 20 minutes, which is where you re feed. It's where you warm up in this particular case because the weather was a little bit uncooperative, lots of rain and winds and whatnot. And of course. Higher you go up the mountain, the more cold it gets. And so here we are. We do five. We have to do five together again. I learned all about her why as she's doing this. I'm meeting other people on the mountain. The pain is pretty substantive, but I'm I'm managing it. So the pain, if you imagine from a psychological perspective, I'm like putting the pain inside a cage. And I feel it, I've named it, I see it, I bring it with me. I literally am doing the climb. Equivalent called or equivalent to like a pirate. Okay, because I can't actually now bend my leg. Thankfully, my crew, Ava Jackson Hunter, ⁓ between summit three and four, they actually were able to get me a knee brace. So at least now it's braced, it's taped. I'm on anti-inflammatories and painkillers, and here I go keep going. So I get into the sixth summit. At this point, it's about 9:30 at night, and Kat and I made the decision that like we're gonna go for this. And I had originally started climbing with someone else who had since moved on. So they just kind of continued. That was their prerogative. Lots of feelings about that. But again, teach their own. So now I all of a sudden I have this person who I couldn't even have wished for. Here she is. We're doing the summit. And I'll tell you, the weather changed very, very quickly. Like it was cold rain, it was coming in sideways. And I was I was hurting. Like I the knee was hurting, but then all of a sudden I started just really getting a wee bit disoriented. And I was trying to kind of just focus on my breath. I knew I was dehydrated. I knew that I was underfed. And I just kept thinking I just have to finish the summit and then I was gonna take a 90 minute break and I'll knock out the next two. That was the plan. And I communicated that with my kids. And thankfully another very, very dear friend, my Westy bestie. ⁓ Dustin Woodhouse, who some of you might have known from know from the Be the Better Broker world, he had come, he was in Whistler that weekend and he had basically spelled off the kids for that sixth climb. So they had been there since six in the morning. Now it's 9:30 at night. So Dustin's like, hey, kiddos, I got your mama. I'll make sure she gets back. ⁓ she's gonna take a break after the summit. All will be well. So the kids at this point have gone back to their hotel. So I look down at my clock and I I want my watch and I realized that my first mile into Summit Six has taken me two hours. Like, I mean, like this is like literally the slowest climb that you could possibly imagine. And it was getting colder and it was obviously pitch black. We have headlamps on. And I kept saying to Kat, And also somebody else we picked up at this leg of the journey. ⁓ his name was Andy from Tampa Bay with his three little ones, and his wife just had a baby and three and a half months old. Like these are all the things you learn when you're in these moments with people. You hear lots of their stories. And anyway, they were adamant that they were not going to leave me behind. And I kept on saying, like, please go. Like, I could just get to another aid station. I was just gonna basically, if it took me six hours to do that summit, I was just gonna go slow and steady. And I just didn't like the feeling of holding other people back. So I was like begging them to keep going. And they're like, we're not leaving you. And Andy actually said, I've known you for 10 minutes and I'm not leaving you on this mountain. So all of a sudden now I'm starting to get pretty emotional because the elements are changing. ⁓ the pain is just getting out of hand. And I know I my body's failing. My body is really, really struggling. And here are these two strangers who will not let me be left behind. So we keep progressing, and the two miles, I kid you not, the two miles almost like again, it's taking hours to do just the first two. And the back half two miles or 1.9 miles at the top of the summit, those are the hard grinders. Like that's gnarly terrain, and it is raining and it is slippery and it is windy and it is cold and it is black. It's pitch black and that because the tree cover in this ancient forest is like blocking out any of the mood light or any of the light pollution from Whistler. So like you are in it, and all you really hear is breathing, right? It's your breath, their breath. It kind of sounds like a bit of a horror movie at moments. Anyway, so we're progressing. We get to aid station two, and actually, right before I get to aid station two, the three of us. ⁓ I had fallen back a wee bit because at that point I started to go into significant issues with my kidneys and my stomach. My body stopped being able to retain water. So I would take some electrolytes, I would take some water, and then this started without sorry, just kind of graphic, but then it literally started the vomiting. And I would walk two steps and I would puke. I puked like 30 times just getting to Aid Station 2. So my body is shutting down, the cold is taking over, I am shivering. And I barely can even make a sentence together. Things are not looking very good. I get to aid station two and I'm rinsing my mouth out with water and just like trying to regroup to think, okay, I have 1.9 miles left. I've been walking and hiking at this point for 19 hours straight. And I was just like, okay, 1.9 miles. And I was again encouraging them to please leave me behind. They're not leaving me behind. And as I'm standing there, all of a sudden I feel like again, you have to realize I'm like shivering. And then I feel these two hands on my shoulder. ⁓ it was so emotional. And all of a sudden I looked over and there's Dustin standing there with all his gear on. He has a backpack on and a flashlight. And he said, Your dot was going very slow. So Dustin had told my kids he'd be at the top of the mountain and he was watching my tracker. And so he knew where I was. He knew by how slow I was going that I was in distress. So he went and got a bunch of his gear. He was able to get a bunch of stuff from his truck and where he was staying in Whistler. And he rode up the gondola halfway where you're not actually supposed to get off, but they do open the door just to have Blackcomb set up. And he actually jumped out and he like ran up the hill. Like literally ran up a mountain. And he was able to find me there at aid station two. And he said to Kat and Andy, like, I got her from here. And he looked at me and he's like, here I got you some dry gear. He put it on ⁓ brought me a down jacket and a vest and warm mittens and he said well well do you want to call it and I said I I don't like I wasn't even able to determine like am I supposed to call this and he said to me he said you know you're one point nine miles ⁓ we can take this as slow as you need to and then I disclosed to him I'm like Dustin that's awesome I'm like I can't believe you're here. Thank you thank you and just so you know I can't stop vomiting and he's like that's cool let's go. If you want to go let's go. As in like we can keep going. Dustin spent over it took us two hours and 40 minutes to go that last bit. And we actually ended up kind of doing this wee bit of a detour where it was a bit safer because I wasn't coherent enough to climb up the side of the rock face. And we took this little part of the service road. And I was sick multiple times. And he just kept talking as if it ain't no thing. Like this is what he does on every, you know, at one in the morning in Whistler. Like He didn't judge me. He did not make me feel embarrassed or shamed. If anything, he told me that I was a beauty of a beast and he was pretty impressed that I was still on my feet. And Dustin helped me finish. And I was able to get to the summit for summit six. Now, when I got to summit six, I realized at that point, because my body wasn't taking in any more fluid and I was shaking so significantly, and it which just only proceeded to get worse. ⁓ that it was not advisable for me to continue. So I took the gondola down and Dustin again had kept an eye on me. I was having a hard time staying awake and I was struggling a wee bit. I couldn't even figure out how a zipper worked, just to give you perspective of how my brain was failing me in that moment. And what happened was basically Hunter I was at the bottom, met Dustin, handed me off, and then I was able to get to the kids where they were. ⁓ and once again, ⁓ my gosh, my wish for each and every one of you is that you have people in your world that if you are ever in a medical crisis, that you have somebody like Ava. Because let me tell you, 20 year old Ava Activated, she handled this crisis like an absolute champ. So did Hunter. They were calm, they were just basically Ava's runners. They got everything that Ava said that we needed. And I was able to ⁓ I was able to get my temperature up very, very slowly. I still wasn't able to take in fluid, so we had to navigate some of that. ⁓ but ultimately I did not finish, I wasn't able to get back on that mountain to finish the next two summits. Coming up short when you had outputted like 20 hours of consecutive climbing and 20 just shy of 24,000 feet of elevation. 24 miles and coming up short, it's tricky to process. And the reason I'm sharing that with you, and sorry for giving you like so many details, I just kind of wanted to paint the picture of what we were navigating. There were so many lessons that I learned during that experience, but also after that experience. Now you might be wondering, perhaps it's a reasonable thing to wonder, is like, why are you doing this anyway? I think there's something fascinating about the fact that the human condition that when we are put in challenging circumstances, that we figure it out. My entire belief system is based on the idea that we can do hard things. And from my own personal experience, the hard things that I have navigated in my time and I have supported other people navigating in lots of different capacities have essentially been things that have happened to us. They They are things that we had to try to figure out. We didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up to experience grief that brought me to my knees when I lost my mother. I never signed up for a catastrophic car accident or addictions or abuse or any of the things that I have navigated. I I never signed up for that, knowing that this is what I was going to have to overcome. There was some part of thinking about when we choose heart. Like when we put ourselves in situations that really test us, that really kind of are beyond our comfort zone. Like our comfort zone is not even in the same stratosphere anymore. Like if we do something that just kind of strips away everything and we choose it, what does that experience reveal? Now we know that when you choose hard and when you experience hard things that you didn't sign up for. The same parts of your brain circuitry are activated. Okay. So whether you choose hard or hard happens, your interior cingulate cortex, which is essentially the part of your brain that says Robin can do hard things, that you can do hard things, that interior cingulate cortex that strengthens to give us the confidence, the courage, the efficacy. It allows our nervous system to operate in this space. Where we're able to see the challenge, see the threat, and we're able to persist. So this very particular circuitry in your brain is so important to have that really fine-tuned. And I love that what we're learning in neuropsychology is that it happens when we get through hard things that are forced upon us, but we also are learning that it can be activated and strengthened and forged and really, really deeply integrated when we choose hard things. So this is this is one of the reasons I wanted to experience what would I meet about myself? What would ⁓ what was the experience going to be like on the other side of this? And I wanted to activate this part. So that was why I signed up in the first place because I wanted to have this experience is an experience of chosen hard. Now there's a few kind of key ideas that I brought into this experience. A, I did the training. This wasn't something that I just jumped in at a whim. I wasn't reckless. I did the training. I put in the work. And I also talked it to a lot of trusted people to make sure that I was doing this safely. Because at the end of the day, this is what I promised my family. Summoning eight times is optional. Coming home is mandatory. Like I would not put myself in a situation where Where my safety and my ability to like be okay, like, yeah, I can be hurt. Yeah, I can get pretty maimed. I can have a tormeniscus, but I would not put myself in a position where I would die willingly. So I made the promise to my family that I would come home. That's a non-negotiable. If I don't finish, ultimately it's optional. It's not that I gave myself an out. I just knew what mattered most. And I also went into this experience. being open to A, it's gonna hurt and it's gonna be hard. I never thought that even with all that training that this was gonna be easy. I was, I was pushing against the limits of my physical well being, my physical aptitude and my ability to do this. And the other part I brought into it is that essentially it's like everything is education. Everything is learning. My goal was experience. And when your goal when you're trying something new is experience, you can't fail. So yeah, I didn't technically complete it, but I don't feel like I failed. And this is the really big idea that I want to bring to this conversation. And first and foremost, thank you for listening. It's not very often that I I kind of go on these tangents, one track to be like, hey, let me tell you in exorbitant amount of detail how magnificent this failing was in some ways. But these are the things that I know. And this is the big piece that I want to share with you. There's research from a neurological perspective that talks about how we process failure, disappointments, or mistakes. Now, when we look at a situation like this and define it as a mistake or as a failure, it activates the part of your threat circuitry that is on guard. It's scared, right? So if our inner critic If our inner critic is really harsh and really mean and super judgmental and does a whole bunch of like what if games, like, well, what if you would have stopped at five and then got medical attention and then you could have finished three more summits? Like if I get into these like mental gymnastic games or this critic is like really harsh with me, what's really fascinating is the brain cannot differentiate if it's an inner critic or if you are being criticized by somebody else. Isn't that fascinating? So feel like just take a moment to think about the last time somebody criticized you. Like I bet you fed it in your bones. Like I bet you just felt that like all consuming if somebody criticizes you. Like we just want to like just wish the floor opens up and it just sucks us down and we just disappear, right? We just get so small and we feel so exposed and so vulnerable. That's if somebody else critici criticizes us. What happens neurologically is that when we have that inner loop, that inner critic, we're having that same visceral visceral reaction, but it's all internal in the sense that like we just keep going through it and our body is having that reaction, but it's even scared to acknowledge how scared it is or how threatened it's feeling. So when we think about what happens with like how we process things like this, and again, it doesn't have to be shortcomings of a mountain. It could be even just Let's say that job interview didn't you didn't knock it out of the park or it didn't land, or maybe it's the ⁓ relationship that failed or didn't again end up how you anticipated or how you had hoped. Whenever there's something that comes up short with what you expected or what you set the goal to, if we're able to meet ourselves with radical self compassion, this is the key to be able to learn from our mistakes. Radical self-compassion. Self-compassion. Because what happens is if we are critical, it activates our threat system. That amygdala is fired up. We are on the defense. And we can't even be honest with ourselves because we are so scared of how the truth is going to be interpreted because we are in threat mode. But when we meet ourselves with radical self-compassion, What happens is the caregiving circuits in our brain get activated. The oxytocin gets activated. The parasympathetic nervous system starts to take over. And then the blood will flow greater to the prefrontal cortex, which, my friends, is the sacred spot in our brains that learns, that analyzes, that reflects, that allows us the privilege of not wasting a mistake. We're able to learn from our mistakes. We're able to get this ability to integrate and retain the knowledge that is given to us that we have earned through our hard work. So again, I want to recap that because that is such a big idea. When you meet a mistake with criticism, with harsh judgment, with that awful way that we talk to ourselves when we think nobody's listening, but hey, we're always listening. When we meet that, we're not learning from it because our threat system is trying to mitigate the shame and the embarrassment and the vulnerability. It isn't even being processed in the parts of the brain that allow us to reflect, to have that spaciousness, to be able to heal and listen and to be able to integrate those important lessons. So that's a really, really important differentiation. So after this event, One of the places I desperately wanted to spend energy and focus on first and foremost was a physical health, making sure that I could get my levels back up, that my kidneys were working again and I could get my mis my meniscus addressed. ⁓ and also address the ⁓ dehydration and the hypothermia. Like that was physical health number uno. What was also super important is that I stayed open to having connection and conversation with my people. Like being able to still maintain eye contact with Hunter Avon Jackson, to be able to update Jeff back home and to the other people that were checking in on me. And also just to hold such deep gratitude for Dustin for reading the room, aka the mountain, and then acting. So he took in information, realized I was going too slow, that it was dangerous, and he he put himself in the situation to be able to be an ally, to be able to literally rescue me from the side of the mountain to allow me to be able to get to where I needed to go so I could get aid. And again, I spent so much energy and focus and inviting my thoughts to stay there. Stay with the people that were surrounding me, stay with the miracles that unfolded. Again, once again, I just have a moment where I was like, I was praying so hard for the strength to be able to finish that climb. And how my prayers were answered was in the form of Dustin. It was literally like the big brother who showed up and said, You don't have to do this alone. I got you. And let me tell you, that was so significant. knowing that someone was looking out for me and somebody showed up. And this continues to strengthen my belief system that there are amazing, mysterious, wonderful moments that we will never understand. ⁓ but all of this is interconnected. As Jung said, it's that synchronicity that there are all of these threads that are tying our lives together. And I believe in a lot of divine intervention as well. So here's that moment where afterwards when I realize that I'm not going to, you know, Get the metal. I'm not getting the, you know, even though I've surpassed like Kilimajaro and some of the biggest mountains in the world, I did come short of Everest at 24,000 feet of elevation. So as I'm noticing this, it's just factual. I did not come to I did not meet the full v elevation. And these people were there. And I realized that meeting that challenge or not, at the bottom of the mountain, I was still enough. Things that matter most to me, I still saw them. I was able to maintain perspective, which was super important. And it also reminded me of the power of being able to hold self-compassion when we are facing a mistake or a shortcoming. Now, just to be clear, self compassion does not mean we are lowering our standards. It means that we are putting ourselves in a psychological state. That stills allows us to learn from our mistakes. I made a bunch of mistakes now that I see in my training. I didn't necessarily train the way that perhaps I could have. I absolutely didn't hydrate and feed myself. And I knew feeding myself was going to be an issue. And I know I dropped the ball usually at the fourth summit where my feeding started, my feeding schedule got off. So like I know where I dropped the ball, I know where I made mistakes. I also know that yeah, if I would have stopped at five, that I probably would have had a different experience. But I also am not staying in that what if place because the reality, my knee was approximately the size of a soccer ball. It could have been way worse if after a 90-minute break, right? So I'm not getting caught up in this like crystal balling how it could have unfolded. I just recognize that yeah, I could have made different decisions. But I also Are reminding myself of the things that I did put in place. I had my red light system where I literally had point form, red light, yellow light, green light. And if I met this criteria and I gave myself a green light, I would go to the next summit. If these were the criteria, if it hit yellow, and these were just point form words on paper, because I knew my brain would not be making good decisions at this point. Point form, if I hit yellow, I would stop for 20 minutes. If I hit red, I would stop for 90 minutes. Like I am proud of myself for doing those pieces. And I see that there was other elements that I didn't factor in. And and again, I'm okay with that. I can accept that because I was able to process that shortcoming or that again, not completing the complete challenge. I was able to process that in a place of radical self-compassion. And that is my biggest invitation for you when you look at shortcomings, things that didn't unfold the way that you had hoped that they were going to unfold, that you're able to put yourself in that place where you are able to learn from our mistakes. And again, I can say I dropped the ball here and I can look at that and I don't feel the shame or the guilt or the vulnerability. It's more just a good to know for next time. So instead of saying like, ⁓ my gosh, I totally screwed that up, I'm able to say, okay, you know what? That didn't go the way I had hoped. That didn't unfold the way I had anticipated. And this is what I know I learned. This is what I know to be true. But ultimately, if the goal is experience, if the goal is experience, you never can fail because you'll always get experience. Now we know our perspective grows in relation to our lived experience. By perspective on doing an ultra event is completely grown. Because of that experience of what happened on those 20 hours on the mountain and especially the time off the mountain. I learned as I said, every step of that mountain, every single step of it was an education. And when we show up that way, it absolutely allows us to have the spaciousness to be able to still strengthen our interior cinglet cortex. So mission complete, I still was able to strengthen that part and I was also able to look and process it in a way that my brain didn't feel threatened by. So it was open to learning because this is fascinating. Our brain, our inner dialogue, it's not just context, it is also tone. Our brain will pick up on the tone of our thoughts. So again, we want to make sure that we're setting ourselves up where we can have these big experiences and we are able to. Build our perspective. We can activate our our deeper sense of knowing when we are able to show up in a particular way. Now, there's one quick little story. First of all, again, I a huge shout out to Dustin, Ava, Jackson, Hunter, and all the folks on the mountain, Kat and Andy, and all those heroes and those moments who showed up for me. I'm so grateful. And I do want to share this one little moment that was so special. This was when we were, it was my fourth summit. We were just coming up. ⁓ we were about maybe two, three hundred feet from the top. And Kat and I met a woman by the name of Michelle. Now, Michelle was on her third summit, and Michelle's goal in the 29029 was to complete these three summits. She was going to do it three times. And she was like you could literally see the top of the mountain. Okay, she was so freaking close. And she was stopped. And because it's me, this is what I do. I wanted to like as it Michelle, like, Michelle, my name's Robin. How are you? Yes, I have a Tormeniscus. Kat and I are still grinding up this hill on our four summit. But I as soon as I saw Michelle, I wanted to know more about Michelle. And we started chatting. And she said that she didn't think she was gonna be able to to finish this last part. And I'm like, woman, like sister, like it's here. We got you. And she said, ⁓ please pass me. I'm so slow. And Kat and I both said, No, no, we're slow. Like, join us. We're not slow. We're steady. We'll be steady with you. Would you may we may we finish this with you? As we asked her. So again, this was Michelle's third. It was our fourth. We said, Can we finish this leg together? And she said, I'll just hold you back. And I was like, No, no, no, like we're we got you. So we learn about Michelle in that those few minutes. And Michelle's why. Because let me tell you, when you're doing an endurance vent, you need a bag of whys to get through it. And her big why, though, as to why she was doing this, is because Michelle had lost her two brothers. And she was doing three summits for each one of them. She did a summit for her brother Michael, she did a summit for her brother Mark, and then she was finishing the summit for her because she could. And I'm Bawling at this point. And I'm hearing about her brothers, how important this grief experience is for her to be able to do something that they can no longer do and do it in their name, to do it in their honor. And we had the privilege, Kat and I, to finish that last leg with Michelle. And let me tell you, watching someone conquer something, it's so powerful. My heart is still smiling. Thinking about Michelle and what her experience was and how she brought her fear, her grief, her struggle onto that mountain and had this beautiful, every size recognition and tribute to her two brothers who had she had lost. And again, so many people do different things for different reasons. And just being open to it being more than just. one finish line or one desired outcome. And knowing that in that experience this past weekend, you know what, Kat was able to get back on that mountain and she was able to finish her next two the next day. And she got her second red hat for summiting two massive challenges, one last year and one this year. My buddy Andy, that I haven't seen again since, but I did see on social, he also was able to finish his eighth summit the next day. And Michelle was able to get hers and That some other people, Brian and Bruce, and Bruce was walking for and hiking for in memory of his son who he lost a year ago in a motorcycle accident. And again, there's just the hearts that were on that mountain that day. That to me is just, I feel so honored to have spent time in conversation with those people and hearing about their struggle and their triumphs. And again, if you are looking for community. Finding it. It's out there. People who are strangers become so connected when you had these shared experiences. And I just want to offer so much gratitude to all of the organizers of 29029, all the coaches, all the aid stations, all the volunteers. It is a remarkable thing when you create a space where people feel that they belong and they can participate and they're able to write chapters of their own stories in the most meaningful ways. So Thanks for listening to this episode. I know that was a lot, but that is ⁓ I would say shockingly an abbreviated version of what happened. There were lots of other kind of experiences, but all in all, that was the pieces that I wanted to bring to you today to share. And again, just please, please, please trust that when we meet ourselves with radical self-compassion, that's when the learning can happen. Integration is possible, and we can take that home. Hard earned wisdom and pay it forward. Thanks for listening. I look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you for listening to this episode of Perspective. It means the world to me that you spent time listening to this idea, these conversations. Now, if you have found something useful or helpful, please share it with someone else. Something that I know it means the world to me to know when something has landed and then you Pay it forward. Another way you can support the podcast is to rate and review this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you and I look forward to connecting again very soon.