Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 96: Climbing Mount Whitney: What a Big Mountain Taught Me About Self-Trust

Transcript

96: Climbing Mount Whitney: What a Big Mountain Taught Me About Self-Trust · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Hey superstars, welcome back.
• 0:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Polly here.
• 0:29
  Samantha Pruitt: And Sam Pruitt.
• 0:30
  Samantha Pruitt: What's up, beautiful humans?
• 0:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Hello, hello.
• 0:32
  Samantha Pruitt: We have a fun topic, Miss We always do.
• 0:37
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 0:38
  Samantha Pruitt: We always do.
• 0:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, what is it this week?
• 0:41
  Polly Mertens: Mount Whitney, the wonders discovered on Mount or on the way to, on the way to and on Mount Whitney, right?
• 0:48
  Polly Mertens: And you might be surprised.
• 0:49
  Polly Mertens: So yeah, you can obviously think like, oh, beauty and you know, this and that, but there were more surprises than that, right?
• 0:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, of course, you know it's gonna be a wonder and a wonderful experience, well, with a lot of suffering, slash, uh, climbing Mount Whitney.
• 1:05
  Samantha Pruitt: But also what you really want to dive into today with your story, since you're the one that just climbed this big ass beast, is the amount of wonder you discovered inside yourself and through the process of preparation and just you know, internal reflection now about what that really was for you, what that looked like.
• 1:25
  Samantha Pruitt: And so we're gonna walk through it together.
• 1:27
  Samantha Pruitt: But I'm so excited for you to share this story.
• 1:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Mount Whitney is freaking awesome.
• 1:32
  Polly Mertens: Well, we have to tell them what it is, because I didn't even know what it was until you told me about it years ago.
• 1:36
  Polly Mertens: But what so Mount Whitney is the tallest mountain in the continental lower United States, 14,505, 6,000 feet of elevation gain.
• 1:47
  Polly Mertens: If you take the route that that I took, which a lot of people do, that's like the Whitney Portal one.
• 1:52
  Polly Mertens: Um, and it's pretty challenging.
• 1:56
  Polly Mertens: She's a she's a bit of a beast, you know.
• 1:58
  Polly Mertens: And she is a beast, isn't she?
• 2:01
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:02
  Samantha Pruitt: I climbed it on my 50th birthday.
• 2:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, is that what literally on my 50th birthday?
• 2:06
  Samantha Pruitt: It was August 2nd.
• 2:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, super fun.
• 2:08
  Samantha Pruitt: That that I did that with a group of people.
• 2:10
  Samantha Pruitt: That was my Whitney experience.
• 2:11
  Samantha Pruitt: I haven't been back since.
• 2:13
  Samantha Pruitt: But when you said to me that you got invited sort of last minute, I was like, what was my first response?
• 2:18
  Samantha Pruitt: I said, You said yes, right?
• 2:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:20
  Samantha Pruitt: You're like, you're that's a good idea.
• 2:21
  Samantha Pruitt: That was my meeting.
• 2:22
  Samantha Pruitt: That's a yes.
• 2:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Zero, zero hesitation.
• 2:26
  Samantha Pruitt: That's a yes.
• 2:27
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so this is this is from my experience.
• 2:29
  Polly Mertens: So I so I have a friend that I work out at the gym with from you know, for years, I've known him and stuff like that.
• 2:35
  Polly Mertens: And I hadn't seen him in a while because I'd been on my RV trip this summer.
• 2:39
  Polly Mertens: And I go into the YMCA, and you know, it's like 6 or 7 a.m.
• 2:43
  Polly Mertens: in the morning, and I hadn't seen him.
• 2:45
  Polly Mertens: I was like, Oh, hey, how are you?
• 2:46
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 2:46
  Polly Mertens: And he has his Spartan shirt on, and we're like, Oh yeah, Spartan, you know, because and um he's like, Well, you know, I have a spot on my Whitney team.
• 2:52
  Polly Mertens: You should do Whitney with us.
• 2:53
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, and I had known, you know, months ago he had gotten the permit for it because you have to have a permit to do this, you don't just climb Mount Whitney whenever you feel like it.
• 3:02
  Polly Mertens: It's like, you know, it's pretty hard to get, right?
• 3:04
  Polly Mertens: He had been trying.
• 3:04
  Polly Mertens: He actually had a permit for it the year before.
• 3:07
  Polly Mertens: They were gonna go, and I think the night before the weather was negative 20 degrees and 30 degree, 30 mile an hour winds, and they canceled.
• 3:17
  Polly Mertens: They said, okay, detour.
• 3:18
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, not good, not good.
• 3:20
  Polly Mertens: And that's just the nature of big ass mountains like this is you know, stuff comes through and or it's super hot, you know, like some people have too much heat and too much wind, too much cold, whatever, slicky ice, all sorts of stuff, right?
• 3:34
  Polly Mertens: So yeah, so he's like, you should do this.
• 3:36
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, uh, yeah, that that's I mean, you and I have talked about Whitney.
• 3:41
  Polly Mertens: It was like, okay, it was on my radar, but not like, I can't wait to go to Mount Whitney.
• 3:45
  Polly Mertens: I can't wait to go to Mount Whitney.
• 3:46
  Polly Mertens: And when he said this, I was like, well, when is it?
• 3:48
  Polly Mertens: And he's like, October 8th.
• 3:50
  Polly Mertens: And this was like three and a half weeks.
• 3:52
  Polly Mertens: I was like, there's no way.
• 3:54
  Polly Mertens: I was like, uh, all right, send me the date, you know, let me let me think about it.
• 3:58
  Polly Mertens: He's like, you can do it, come on, you should do it with us.
• 4:00
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, all right, so I walked out that morning, texted you, and I was like, Alan just invited me to go to Mount Whitney.
• 4:08
  Polly Mertens: And you're like I didn't even hesitate.
• 4:10
  Polly Mertens: That's a yes.
• 4:11
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 4:12
  Polly Mertens: Okay, you're going.
• 4:12
  Polly Mertens: So part of this is the, you know, part of the what I wanted to share is where my mind stopped me.
• 4:22
  Polly Mertens: You know, it was like it didn't stop you.
• 4:24
  Polly Mertens: You hesitated.
• 4:25
  Polly Mertens: I hesitated, or it would have stopped me if I didn't like reach out and say, you know, reassure me, is this a crazy thing to take on?
• 4:33
  Polly Mertens: Like, is this m pure madness, or is this like, yeah, it's gonna it, it'll teach you something, you know?
• 4:38
  Polly Mertens: And you're like, you're hell yeah for that.
• 4:40
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, and then it was like, I'm launching a program, I've got, you know, this pro other program I'm in, I'm in a leadership.
• 4:47
  Polly Mertens: I was like, where is the time?
• 4:49
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you have all this spare time, zero, zero time for any of this nonsense, right?
• 4:55
  Polly Mertens: Totally, totally what was beautiful is like only having three and a half weeks.
• 4:59
  Polly Mertens: I was like, okay, can I just like squeeze this big rock into my life?
• 5:05
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 5:06
  Polly Mertens: Literally.
• 5:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, totally.
• 5:08
  Samantha Pruitt: That was part of the challenge, really, right?
• 5:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and so how did you process this?
• 5:13
  Polly Mertens: Well, and part of it I just want to say is I hadn't, you know, the elite athlete that I am and have been for years, you know, I'd keep myself in good shape.
• 5:21
  Polly Mertens: Well, this summer I was on a nice little RV trip having a little more fun and working on the road and not doing a whole lot of hiking and exercise.
• 5:28
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's a little bit hard.
• 5:30
  Polly Mertens: A lot of driving.
• 5:31
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, a lot of driving.
• 5:32
  Polly Mertens: Like three days of 10-hour day driving sometimes, right?
• 5:35
  Polly Mertens: So I was like, not in my peak fitness.
• 5:38
  Polly Mertens: It was like, well, maybe this would have been good, you know, if I was working out every day.
• 5:42
  Polly Mertens: But that was just nonsense.
• 5:44
  Polly Mertens: That was just nonsense.
• 5:45
  Polly Mertens: So good to just go, okay.
• 5:48
  Polly Mertens: And I just like bit it off and went, all right, I don't know how it's gonna get done, when it's gonna get done, if I'm ready for it, but you know, just click yes.
• 5:57
  Samantha Pruitt: So and you did get strategic right away because that's who you are.
• 6:01
  Samantha Pruitt: You're one of the most organized, dedicated people that I know, super disciplined.
• 6:06
  Samantha Pruitt: So you're like, okay, I have this much time.
• 6:08
  Samantha Pruitt: What can I do and what will work, and that's what I'll be doing.
• 6:14
  Samantha Pruitt: And you got right on task doing that.
• 6:16
  Samantha Pruitt: You didn't fuck around, excuse my French.
• 6:19
  Samantha Pruitt: You were like, okay, I'm committed, and I now I go all in.
• 6:23
  Samantha Pruitt: That's your nature.
• 6:24
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:24
  Samantha Pruitt: And it was like, but most people wouldn't have three and a half weeks, and that includes tapering, to get them out with me.
• 6:31
  Polly Mertens: I know.
• 6:32
  Polly Mertens: And I the big message for me and for everyone, I would say, of that, like what that created, that confined time.
• 6:40
  Polly Mertens: That no, you don't have time to do it perfectly.
• 6:43
  Polly Mertens: You don't have time to do the training that six months, you know, like I would have normally said, you know, like when I trained for Trans Rockies, A, this happened a little bit like what happened for Alan is I trained for six months, it got shut down during COVID.
• 6:55
  Polly Mertens: Next year, trained again, you know, and okay, I was per I was ready and whatever.
• 6:59
  Polly Mertens: It was challenging or whatnot.
• 7:01
  Polly Mertens: But but this time was like, okay, can you and I was like, you know what?
• 7:05
  Polly Mertens: People get up to some amazing stuff and they don't like boast about it, or it's not just, you know, like I see the people who were posting videos that I learned from and um that were just out hiking and sharing their hikes, and it was like it's it's it's not as hard as we set ourselves up to think it is, right?
• 7:25
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I do want to say 16 and a half hours is what it took us.
• 7:29
  Polly Mertens: If you had told me it's gonna take you 16 and a half hours when Alan said, I didn't even want to do this, I've been like, ouch, right?
• 7:38
  Polly Mertens: But yeah, it's yeah, it it's surprising how not that those hours just fly by, but um it was not pure suffer fest for 16 and a half hours at all by any stress.
• 7:48
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 7:49
  Polly Mertens: By any stress.
• 7:50
  Samantha Pruitt: I guarantee you had your points, and we'll, you know, that were, and we'll get into that and how you recovered from those moments.
• 7:55
  Samantha Pruitt: But during this short training window and you getting on task and doing what you could do physically, you know, you did some physical preparations, but again, that's not a lot of time to be doing big miles without getting injured or burned out.
• 8:10
  Samantha Pruitt: And you know, you have to, it's very nuanced when you have a small window too, right?
• 8:14
  Samantha Pruitt: You have to be very strategic and intelligent and use your body wisely because you can easily push yourself over the edge and end up with an injury or a burnout cycle or overuse and all that kind of stuff.
• 8:27
  Samantha Pruitt: But you were very wise and tactical about it.
• 8:29
  Polly Mertens: Well, I was a little naughty too, because I remember the first time I went out on a trek and and you know, I hadn't hiked more than like two hours for the whole summer, you know, for like six months or something, like two hours like the max I was out.
• 8:41
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, okay, I know this is probably a minimum 10, it might even be a 12 hour.
• 8:47
  Polly Mertens: This is before I really started looking into it.
• 8:48
  Polly Mertens: I was like, okay, so like that kind of time on your feet takes being on your feet, like being used to that endurance of like moving your body, not just lightly, like a walk, but like up a mountain and down a mountain.
• 9:00
  Polly Mertens: So I was like, I need to push my body a little bit right away and see where I'm at, right?
• 9:06
  Polly Mertens: And so you're like, I think you had told me, don't be out more than four hours, maybe five.
• 9:12
  Samantha Pruitt: I said, yeah, five, no more than six, and then go the next day two or three.
• 9:16
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I think that's right.
• 9:17
  Polly Mertens: And so I was out on a hike and it was a little bit warm.
• 9:21
  Polly Mertens: It was this wasn't like 90s or anything, but you know, hiking in 70 degrees with the sun beating down on you, it was it was pretty warm that day.
• 9:27
  Polly Mertens: Um, and I wasn't at the 10,000 feet elevation, I was in my my local beep, you know, beach community.
• 9:33
  Polly Mertens: So I was maybe at 1,500 feet above sea level or something.
• 9:36
  Polly Mertens: And, you know, I was just like, I'll go a little further.
• 9:39
  Polly Mertens: And also I end up I'm out there for seven hours.
• 9:41
  Polly Mertens: You know, I came home, I was like, oh, whoops, I I went a little farther than I thought.
• 9:46
  Polly Mertens: But it was good, you know.
• 9:47
  Polly Mertens: A, it was good to be on my feet that many hours.
• 9:51
  Polly Mertens: The heat definitely was more of a factor than any of the other training that I did, even on Whitney, like being hot, it's draining.
• 9:59
  Polly Mertens: You know, it was surprising how draining that was.
• 10:02
  Polly Mertens: Um, but that showed me I was like, okay, I was a little beat, but like felt good next day, felt great.
• 10:08
  Polly Mertens: I was all, look at me.
• 10:09
  Polly Mertens: And then I was like, okay, what else can I do as a stepladder to that?
• 10:14
  Polly Mertens: And I think the next weekend we planned a trip.
• 10:17
  Polly Mertens: I think yeah, it was the following weekend.
• 10:18
  Polly Mertens: We're like, okay, we're going up to 10,000 feet and we're gonna do a 10-hour hike.
• 10:23
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, like, I'd never I don't think I think Iron Man was the most I'd ever moved, and that was nine hours, right?
• 10:30
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, 10 hours at 10,000.
• 10:33
  Polly Mertens: What the okay?
• 10:34
  Polly Mertens: And and we did it, and it was magnificent, you know.
• 10:40
  Samantha Pruitt: You loved it.
• 10:41
  Polly Mertens: You loved it.
• 10:41
  Polly Mertens: I think that's when you came back with your wonder.
• 10:44
  Polly Mertens: I I it wasn't, it was actually like in between those two weeks, the first training week and the second.
• 10:49
  Polly Mertens: I was out on a hike in my local area, just on a morning hike, and I was listening.
• 10:54
  Polly Mertens: I'm so into like philosophy lately.
• 10:56
  Polly Mertens: Like Alan Watts is my new little happy place to hang out on the, you know, down one of my rabbit holes.
• 11:03
  Polly Mertens: And his experience of metaphysics and Taoism and Buddhism and Zen and all things why we're here and consciousness, it just gives makes my mind so happy to just be off in that while I'm moving my feet.
• 11:15
  Polly Mertens: So I'm in my little church and I'm walking up this mountain, and he starts talking about wonder.
• 11:20
  Polly Mertens: And the way he explained it and expressed it as like consciousness and like all these things.
• 11:26
  Polly Mertens: I just like stopped on that trail.
• 11:29
  Polly Mertens: I remember like it was yesterday.
• 11:30
  Polly Mertens: I stopped on that trail and I just went and I just started crying.
• 11:34
  Polly Mertens: I was like, wonder.
• 11:36
  Polly Mertens: Like, and then I re and then I got present to like the the immensity of that word and how I was just in wonder right then and there.
• 11:44
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, This is my word for the year.
• 11:46
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 11:46
  Polly Mertens: It it took oh yeah, I was inside of wonder, and then and then I just put on those glasses of wonder 360, inside, outside, 360 in every area, like I did with Joy Beauty and Magic, you know, a few years back.
• 12:04
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, wow, and so I hiked up that mountain, and I was just like walking around in wonder, like childlike, like pure nature, show me your beauty.
• 12:14
  Polly Mertens: People show me how wonderful you are, you know, like and me, like wondering about myself and could I get up to this, right?
• 12:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 12:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, by having that opening in nature and how that swallowed you into that idea, that concept, that experience, that feeling, that emotion, absolutely did that internally.
• 12:38
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, so we think of it as external, like wow, everything's beautiful, and look at nature and the birds, and da-da-da.
• 12:43
  Samantha Pruitt: And we do that and we love that, and that's why we're nature freaks, right?
• 12:46
  Samantha Pruitt: But we're really doing that internally at the same time, with maybe not as much awareness generally, but you had full awareness at that moment of like, hey, I am a reflection of nature, and nature is a reflection of me.
• 12:59
  Samantha Pruitt: If there is wonder outside of this physical body and this brain, it's inside me because we are one and the same.
• 13:07
  Samantha Pruitt: It's so freaking amazing.
• 13:09
  Samantha Pruitt: And I mean, we can't really express to people enough how important these experiences are.
• 13:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Why in the hell do you freaking exist?
• 13:17
  Samantha Pruitt: How do you even know who you are if you don't go out and explore these things?
• 13:23
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 13:24
  Samantha Pruitt: It's so powerful.
• 13:25
  Samantha Pruitt: I love this.
• 13:26
  Polly Mertens: I think we're gonna do a whole series or something on the teachings of Alan Watts and some of the things, the concepts that he comes up with, like the way he play he metaphorically tells stories about what humanity is and what this whole game is that we're up to.
• 13:42
  Polly Mertens: It's you know, he's like, well, you know, um, you can't have an organism without a background or like, you know, like a setting, right?
• 13:50
  Polly Mertens: And so, you know, it's like black and white, like you can't see the light without the darkness, like it that it creates it, it creates that background to see it.
• 13:57
  Polly Mertens: And so this this planet is part of our backdrop for us to see who we are, and vice versa, you know, for us to see the backdrop of a tree or or whatnot, you know, the landscape.
• 14:11
  Samantha Pruitt: It's and these are all living things around us, and we're part of this living, you know.
• 14:17
  Samantha Pruitt: We're an extension of this planet, yeah.
• 14:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 14:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, we're the leaf on this tree.
• 14:22
  Samantha Pruitt: A hundred percent.
• 14:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 14:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Anyway, we could go off on a riff.
• 14:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's keep on your story for now, this wonder.
• 14:28
  Polly Mertens: We will, yeah.
• 14:30
  Samantha Pruitt: First of all, you wondered if you could do this insane thing, and then within a week or two of these two training events that you put yourself through that were totally fucking next level.
• 14:41
  Samantha Pruitt: I love that.
• 14:42
  Samantha Pruitt: You're like, yeah, let's just go.
• 14:44
  Samantha Pruitt: You had you went from I wonder if to a sense of wonder.
• 14:50
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 14:51
  Samantha Pruitt: As you really uncovered your own beliefs about what was possible for you and about you didn't know how it was gonna go.
• 14:59
  Samantha Pruitt: There was no guarantee of success or ever making the summit and all those things.
• 15:03
  Polly Mertens: 70% don't.
• 15:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 15:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Didn't matter, fully committed to the process.
• 15:07
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 15:07
  Polly Mertens: And that's where I think you know, the underlying message that you and I are conveying here is not about go do Mount Whitney or do something that it looks anything remotely like that.
• 15:17
  Polly Mertens: If that's your thing, if that's your jam, if that lights you up, do it.
• 15:21
  Polly Mertens: If it doesn't, what lights you up?
• 15:24
  Polly Mertens: Is it creating a community event?
• 15:26
  Polly Mertens: Is it ecstatic dance?
• 15:28
  Polly Mertens: Is it, you know, spending time with your family on a family vacation that's really magical or something, you know, like whatever lights you up, creating those experiences, creating that thing, and then the journey along the way.
• 15:41
  Polly Mertens: Like I thought Mount Whitney would be like, you know, it's kind of like people going to the race to get the metal.
• 15:46
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, yeah, there's gonna be other things going on, you know, like you as an ultrarunner and all their ultrarrunners out there know it's a fucking spiritual journey.
• 15:55
  Polly Mertens: I'm sorry, metal, buckle, whatever that's in the background, right?
• 16:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally.
• 16:01
  Samantha Pruitt: You don't you don't even care about that at that point, right?
• 16:04
  Samantha Pruitt: You're just trying to get 50% of people are not gonna finish this thing.
• 16:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Can I just get to the starting line?
• 16:10
  Polly Mertens: Yes.
• 16:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Can I just get to the starting line?
• 16:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, because my, you know, and as we say, you know, in the work of landmark education, they say that you're when you buy your transformational weekend or your program or something, that's when it begins.
• 16:25
  Polly Mertens: Like you you buy the ticket and you'd be surprised whether it's a it starts in a weekend or it starts in six weeks or six months.
• 16:32
  Polly Mertens: The transformation starts to happen, right?
• 16:34
  Polly Mertens: It's like I said yes to Whitney.
• 16:37
  Polly Mertens: I wasn't on the top of Mount Whitney or had completed that or you know, anything, but like it was already backwards transforming me, having me see new things about myself of what was possible, having me uh discover the word wonder and like this whole new opening that was part of the journey, not physically on Whitney, but to Whitney.
• 16:58
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, that's what all this is about, is like we we set up these random seemingly random challenges, challenges or experiences, or go on vacation, or join a a club or a paint group, or you know, whatever.
• 17:13
  Polly Mertens: But to stay in the curiosity, don't you know, like one of the Alan Watts quotes is like we don't listen to a symphony to get to the last note.
• 17:21
  Polly Mertens: That's not why we listen.
• 17:23
  Polly Mertens: Like the the joy of the symphony is like I'm going to the symphony and the experience of it, not because I want to get to that last note and then walk out and go, I knew what the last note was.
• 17:33
  Polly Mertens: Who cares?
• 17:35
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 17:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 17:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 17:37
  Samantha Pruitt: What I love about the process is that you're through these things.
• 17:41
  Samantha Pruitt: And I would say from my experience, is like an accumulation of these things, starting from small and getting progressively bigger.
• 17:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Because you and I started small when we started making challenges for ourselves and picking these grand adventures or committing to new business endeavors and all the things that we've done, right?
• 17:58
  Samantha Pruitt: We started small and then we chip, chip, chip, chipped away at building this muscle of possibility.
• 18:05
  Samantha Pruitt: This muscle got progressively stronger through all of these experiences, and that's why at three and a half weeks you can say, Whitney, yes, right?
• 18:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, but for the listener, they might be starting at whatever point.
• 18:19
  Samantha Pruitt: But we're here to build this muscle because that muscle is imperative as a structural element to actually you living your best life.
• 18:29
  Samantha Pruitt: If you don't have these muscles and this connective tissue, it will not manifest, it's not gonna be magically happening that you'll have your best life.
• 18:39
  Samantha Pruitt: You're in charge of your damn life.
• 18:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, you're in charge of all of these decisions, and then taking the actions to make it happen.
• 18:45
  Samantha Pruitt: So, this is really an invitation, what you're giving the audience today of like, here's my experience.
• 18:50
  Samantha Pruitt: We're gonna get into what you experienced and learned along the way, also.
• 18:54
  Samantha Pruitt: But like, it's so beautiful to make that commitment to yourself one step at a time.
• 18:59
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm worth this.
• 19:01
  Polly Mertens: You know what it reminded me, I don't know why this metaphor just came up, but like this morning I went through the car wash, right?
• 19:06
  Polly Mertens: And they you pull up and then they say, Oh, put it in neutral, and then it'll coast you through the car wash, one of those kind of things, you know, do-do-do, and like the things are going by, and you know, I'm like, do-do do, versus getting in my car, opening up the glove box, finding a map, and saying, Where am I going today?
• 19:22
  Polly Mertens: Okay, this is where I'm going, or in whatever, or planning a trip, however you want to say, but like the difference between living your life in neutral and just having the little swooshy things go by, the TikToks, the life experiences, the people in your life, or getting your damn map out, your inner compass, where am I going?
• 19:42
  Polly Mertens: And what journey do I want to be on?
• 19:44
  Polly Mertens: And navigating your way there with the breakdowns and the breakthroughs and all that transformation is why we go on these journeys, not to get it done, right?
• 19:53
  Polly Mertens: And you've got to stop sitting in these little coasting cruising lives and expecting light the swishy things to go by to like light us up.
• 20:02
  Polly Mertens: It's like much more fun when you put it in drive, you've got a destination, you get lost, you meet people along the way.
• 20:09
  Polly Mertens: It's not all just brought towards you.
• 20:11
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 20:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally.
• 20:12
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, just uh I don't want to get too far off topic, but with me having my gut injury that if or gut uh illness, if some of the people have heard the podcast, this has been a weird health year for me.
• 20:21
  Samantha Pruitt: But then that getting out of that and then going immediately into this back and hip injury that I currently have has been really crazy, wild year for me emotionally, because I have a certain lifestyle and all these things that I do, and this has really been, you know, changing all of that for me.
• 20:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, but now being at a point where I just finally got a real diagnosis as to what's going on structurally with my back and hip, many people would take the path of, well, that's happening to me, and I'm going to just, you know, survive the process until I somehow heal and get out the other side, and then we'll just take it from there.
• 21:02
  Samantha Pruitt: That's not a proactive way of living.
• 21:04
  Samantha Pruitt: It's not going to ever be how I live my life, but I want to also impart, this is similar to kind of what your story is like I'm consciously now going to choose how this is going to go and take control to, and not control in a controlling way, but empowered, be empowered to do the right actions, make the right decisions, do the right things in order to facilitate healing.
• 21:26
  Samantha Pruitt: So I can still then go about reaching my goals of next year, having my 125-mile race in May.
• 21:33
  Samantha Pruitt: And many people would say that's ludicrous for me to even have on my radar be thinking about, but I made a commitment to doing that race because I like to have these big audacious things hanging out for me because I will stay on task and work myself towards that goal.
• 21:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Do I know whether I'm going to actually make it to the starting line and to the finish line?
• 21:51
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, what the fuck?
• 21:52
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't know about any of that.
• 21:54
  Samantha Pruitt: That's not even important.
• 21:55
  Samantha Pruitt: What's important is I'm committed to the journey.
• 21:58
  Samantha Pruitt: And that's showing that I'm invested in myself and the process.
• 22:01
  Samantha Pruitt: That's really what it boils down to for me.
• 22:03
  Polly Mertens: And I think this is the first time you've mentioned that you're in your, you know, you signed up for that race.
• 22:07
  Polly Mertens: So we will do another podcast in the future because you have a disc out of place that is causing tremendous pain that needs to get healed.
• 22:17
  Polly Mertens: And so your window, like my six-month training window for Whitney, ideal, is gonna get shrunk to some level of shrunkness, right?
• 22:25
  Polly Mertens: And what we talked about before we hit record was you've got the ultra mindset, right?
• 22:31
  Polly Mertens: You know what it takes to get through a race like this.
• 22:34
  Polly Mertens: You've got the preparation, you know.
• 22:35
  Polly Mertens: And it's just like, oh, guess what?
• 22:37
  Polly Mertens: Mount Whitney, you don't have six months, you have three and a half weeks, you know, and you're gonna be like, oh, guess what?
• 22:41
  Polly Mertens: You don't get nine months.
• 22:42
  Polly Mertens: Oh, you get whatever you get, 48 weeks or third, whatever it turns out to be, right?
• 22:46
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, holy shit, okay.
• 22:49
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm lucky I'll get 20 weeks, but that's still fine by me.
• 22:52
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, that but I built that muscle and you built that muscle.
• 22:56
  Polly Mertens: And it's right, and it focuses you right.
• 22:58
  Polly Mertens: It's like, okay, well, you know, and you know, there's a line in management's theory that's the project will grow to the size of the time allotted to it.
• 23:07
  Polly Mertens: You'll dick around, add things to it, so much more money will get spent, like all this stuff if you have a lot of time.
• 23:14
  Polly Mertens: It's like, nope.
• 23:15
  Polly Mertens: And I used to say this to my startup students, is like, well, okay, if you had a million dollars, great, you'd you'd probably spend a million dollars, you know, getting your business off.
• 23:24
  Polly Mertens: But like, what if you had zero dollars?
• 23:26
  Polly Mertens: What would you do first?
• 23:27
  Polly Mertens: Like constrain things as much as possible to be as strategic and as smart, as focused as possible.
• 23:33
  Polly Mertens: So you're, you know, you can do efficient.
• 23:35
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, efficiency.
• 23:37
  Polly Mertens: So yeah, it was surprisingly efficient.
• 23:39
  Polly Mertens: I was like, okay, you know, clear the decks these three weekends, this is what I'm doing.
• 23:43
  Polly Mertens: All right, gotta make that checklist.
• 23:44
  Polly Mertens: And I consulted with you a couple times.
• 23:46
  Polly Mertens: Thank you, sister, for you know, you you hire those you hire those professionals, you bring people in on your team that give you exact that injection that you need, you know.
• 23:57
  Polly Mertens: Like I could have spent, like Alan was my my my friend who invited me, God bless him, had studied so much about altitude sickness because he'd had it, right?
• 24:06
  Polly Mertens: Like he had this big fear of it and all this stuff.
• 24:07
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, let's talk to Samantha.
• 24:09
  Polly Mertens: I was like, let's get the nutrition thing and uh whatever.
• 24:12
  Polly Mertens: And like, because you've got this experience, you talk to people that are professionals or have had the experience, and you get that injection of strategic guidance.
• 24:20
  Polly Mertens: So it's like, woof, right?
• 24:23
  Samantha Pruitt: And it it basically diffuses the fear because a lot of these ideas are just ridiculous emotional chaos we have raining inside of our heads, ruminating over and over and over.
• 24:33
  Samantha Pruitt: You have to diffuse that, you know, release that, and then talk about okay, strategically, let's do XYZ, and then you're gonna be fine.
• 24:40
  Samantha Pruitt: You're gonna be fine.
• 24:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, some shit's gonna happen, and here's how you're gonna deal with it when it does, and then you're gonna keep moving.
• 24:45
  Polly Mertens: Next, next.
• 24:46
  Samantha Pruitt: You might not be smiling for a little bit of it, but you can do this and keep moving.
• 24:50
  Samantha Pruitt: So for you, walk me up to you went to high altitude before a few days to acclimate, and you were still working and you know, keeping up with things and doing some hiking and stuff.
• 25:01
  Samantha Pruitt: But that was really when you had gotten through this very short training window, and then all of a sudden, get in the car and go.
• 25:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Get up.
• 25:07
  Polly Mertens: You know, I I so the so there's five people that were gonna do this hike together.
• 25:12
  Polly Mertens: One lived in Denver, so and she hiked five 14ers like in her sleep, right?
• 25:16
  Polly Mertens: So I was like, all right, not worried about her.
• 25:18
  Polly Mertens: The other ones had been with Alan several times in the prior months.
• 25:22
  Polly Mertens: They had been doing treks up the a sister to Mount Whitney.
• 25:26
  Polly Mertens: Literally, like you could see the two mountains, uh, forget what it's called.
• 25:29
  Polly Mertens: Mount Langley, which is like right near it.
• 25:32
  Polly Mertens: That was a shit show for them.
• 25:34
  Polly Mertens: Like, as anything that could go wrong, not a confidence booster.
• 25:38
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 25:38
  Polly Mertens: So he was like, uh, not sure how I'm gonna do it.
• 25:42
  Polly Mertens: This altitude thing.
• 25:43
  Polly Mertens: And so um, you know, me having done races in Colorado and just had done a lot of spent a time at altitude, whether I was acclimating for this or that, I was like, you go there as early as you physically can, financially can, whatever you want to call it, to help yourself with that.
• 26:02
  Polly Mertens: You know, what they did with Langley is they literally went from sea level to, and Langley is 14,000.
• 26:08
  Polly Mertens: It's not 14.5, but it's 14,000.
• 26:10
  Polly Mertens: So very close.
• 26:12
  Polly Mertens: The night before they got in at like 10:30, 11 o'clock at night, slept, got up, and did Langley, started to sni uh hail, whatever, rain, all sorts of nasty things.
• 26:24
  Polly Mertens: He was sick, altitude sick, all this stuff.
• 26:27
  Polly Mertens: Um, and I was like, well, so I looked at my week beforehand, and they were gonna get there on like Monday night late.
• 26:34
  Polly Mertens: So it was like Tuesday and then Wednesday at 2 a.m.
• 26:37
  Polly Mertens: we're gonna hike.
• 26:38
  Polly Mertens: I was like, I ain't doing that.
• 26:39
  Polly Mertens: I was like, you know, if I could, I would have gone a week before.
• 26:42
  Polly Mertens: You know, that just would have felt spacious.
• 26:44
  Polly Mertens: But there's like, nope.
• 26:45
  Polly Mertens: So I had a commitment Friday night, uh, locally.
• 26:48
  Polly Mertens: Okay, can I get in the car Saturday morning?
• 26:51
  Polly Mertens: Yep, great.
• 26:51
  Polly Mertens: So we went up to, and I was like, how high can we go?
• 26:53
  Polly Mertens: Like Alan and I was like, all right, what else can we?
• 26:55
  Polly Mertens: Can we go up to Lake Tahoe?
• 26:56
  Polly Mertens: Who do you know that has a house?
• 26:57
  Polly Mertens: You know, we were like looking left.
• 26:59
  Polly Mertens: I was like, maybe we should go down by Samantha, get up high up there, you know, like whatever.
• 27:03
  Polly Mertens: Like, like just speculate what was possible.
• 27:06
  Polly Mertens: And I've been to Mammoth a year before, and I was like, Mammoth is pretty damn high.
• 27:10
  Polly Mertens: So, and it's two hours away.
• 27:12
  Polly Mertens: And so I was like, it's like two hours away.
• 27:16
  Polly Mertens: It's at almost 8,000, the base of it.
• 27:19
  Polly Mertens: So you'd sleep at eight, and you could go up higher if you wanted.
• 27:22
  Polly Mertens: I was like, hey, Alan, I think we should do this.
• 27:24
  Polly Mertens: Leave on Saturday.
• 27:25
  Polly Mertens: And he's like, Yeah, I think you're right.
• 27:27
  Polly Mertens: So they, you know, they did their thing.
• 27:29
  Polly Mertens: They came in on Monday night, and Alan and I got all day Saturday.
• 27:33
  Polly Mertens: Well, we drove Saturday, but like we were there Saturday afternoon.
• 27:36
  Polly Mertens: So slept Saturday night, Sunday night, Monday night at Mammoth.
• 27:39
  Polly Mertens: Tuesday night we were down in 4,000 where the base of it was, and then we got up to Langley or sorry, Mount Whitney the next morning.
• 27:46
  Polly Mertens: So it was and he thanks me.
• 27:48
  Polly Mertens: He's like, you know what?
• 27:49
  Polly Mertens: I think that made a difference in him being able to complete it, you know.
• 27:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Dude, it does require strategy and some knowledge and wisdom and understanding and support, right?
• 28:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Like getting, oh, is this the right decision?
• 28:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's discuss it, come up with consensus or whatever.
• 28:05
  Samantha Pruitt: We're not just pulling it out of our rear end, right?
• 28:08
  Samantha Pruitt: And everybody's different, they're gonna do their own thing their own way.
• 28:12
  Samantha Pruitt: God bless you, okay.
• 28:14
  Samantha Pruitt: But if you want to stack the chips in your favor of succeeding, then there's no shortage of information and knowledge available to you to make these wise decisions.
• 28:24
  Samantha Pruitt: So kudos for you for not just going along with the crowd and doing whatever the hell they're doing, but being like, hey, this is what I'm gonna be doing, this is what I'm comfortable with.
• 28:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, it was good.
• 28:34
  Samantha Pruitt: It was good.
• 28:35
  Samantha Pruitt: So you get to uh lone pine, you stayed the night in Lone Pine, and then what time did you start this epic day?
• 28:42
  Polly Mertens: So we were up at midnight, or I was up at midnight.
• 28:45
  Polly Mertens: I think they got up a little bit.
• 28:46
  Polly Mertens: So we were to be on the mountain, like chart, you know, like let's go at 2 a.m.
• 28:51
  Polly Mertens: And it was about a 30-minute drive.
• 28:54
  Polly Mertens: Uh so up at around midnight, final packing, a little bit of nutrition, and then off we went and we just raced up that mountain.
• 29:02
  Polly Mertens: I literally, I think we started at 1:59 a.m.
• 29:05
  Polly Mertens: I was like, sell your flocks, and here we go.
• 29:08
  Polly Mertens: I was like, check us out.
• 29:10
  Polly Mertens: I was like, this is a great.
• 29:12
  Samantha Pruitt: It's one of my favorite places to go because you know I love Death Valley, and of course Mount Whitney, that whole area or whatever.
• 29:17
  Samantha Pruitt: But when I think about like the Mount Whitney portal, and that's where this hike starts.
• 29:22
  Samantha Pruitt: So you know the road that you drove to get up to Mount Whitney.
• 29:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, you know, I did that at the end of the Goodwater 135.
• 29:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, that's where I finished was at the portal of the Mount Whitney trailhead.
• 29:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, dang.
• 29:36
  Samantha Pruitt: And I have some just amazing memories and just some great pictures that my husband took of me, just literally going up this fucking road at the end of after going 134 miles or whatever it was.
• 29:47
  Samantha Pruitt: It's so incredible there.
• 29:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Don't you feel like you dropped into this magical portal literally of like, what the hell is this?
• 29:55
  Samantha Pruitt: You go through the Alabama Hills and you start hiking to the portal, and it's just so the beauty.
• 30:02
  Samantha Pruitt: So, didn't you just feel like you were going into this magical bubble of I don't know what's gonna happen today, but like there's something so the energy.
• 30:11
  Polly Mertens: Well, so the I'll say two things about that.
• 30:14
  Polly Mertens: One is so we drove down from Mammoth to the Airbnb on Tuesday afternoon.
• 30:19
  Polly Mertens: Afternoon.
• 30:19
  Polly Mertens: So we came in in like early afternoon time.
• 30:22
  Polly Mertens: And we're driving in, like you said, the Alabama Hills and our Airbnb was a little bit kind of 10 minutes outside of town, windy road.
• 30:29
  Polly Mertens: And I'm just looking around at the all this geology.
• 30:31
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, what's going on here?
• 30:34
  Polly Mertens: Like, you know, you know, like Vortex.
• 30:37
  Polly Mertens: That's what's going on.
• 30:38
  Polly Mertens: I was like, and and Alan's like, wow, this is really cool.
• 30:41
  Polly Mertens: And then so that night when the the other folks came and I was like, do you guys know what the story is about the geology?
• 30:47
  Polly Mertens: Like, because right outside of our Airbnb, like within like 200 yards, was like this huge, beautiful rock formation.
• 30:52
  Polly Mertens: I was just like, this is amazing, right?
• 30:55
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 30:55
  Polly Mertens: And they're like, I have no idea.
• 30:57
  Polly Mertens: I was like, you haven't even like been curious.
• 30:59
  Polly Mertens: I was like, Alabama Hills, what is this Alabama Hills place we're in?
• 31:02
  Polly Mertens: You know, why is it called that?
• 31:03
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, what are these rocks made of?
• 31:05
  Polly Mertens: You know, here I am just fascinated.
• 31:08
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 31:08
  Polly Mertens: And thankfully, because I was like, it's so weird to see that kind of beauty, just this deserty pink dust, and then these giant, you know, rocks coming out of it.
• 31:18
  Polly Mertens: And started to be houses.
• 31:20
  Polly Mertens: I was like, oh no, no, no.
• 31:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Why are we having houses right up against but then the extreme of looking up and seeing Whitney and that whole range, and but yet you're down here in Death Valley, really.
• 31:31
  Samantha Pruitt: You're I mean, you're just exiting Death Valley.
• 31:33
  Samantha Pruitt: You're so you have this really it's so extreme and it's so magnificent.
• 31:37
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 31:37
  Polly Mertens: So I didn't I didn't have the experience because I didn't see it during the we thought it midnight.
• 31:42
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it was midnight going up, but coming down.
• 31:44
  Polly Mertens: I was just like, whoa, this is yeah, so beautiful.
• 31:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So you get to the portal and you got on at 1 59 a.m.
• 31:51
  Samantha Pruitt: a.m.
• 31:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 31:53
  Polly Mertens: And I just, you know, I like so Alan, I could feel his, you know, a little bit of anxiety and like what was going to happen, how is this gonna go?
• 32:01
  Polly Mertens: And the other guys were just like a lot, they're like, we're good, you know.
• 32:05
  Polly Mertens: Like I never had a well, I had a little bit of doubt because I did hear the dad um he had struck he had torn his calf muscle about a month before.
• 32:14
  Polly Mertens: So I was like, oh, is he gonna be a risk to a thing?
• 32:17
  Polly Mertens: You know, is that gonna flare up or whatever?
• 32:20
  Polly Mertens: Um, so you know, we're in the dark, and I know from lots of races, people get out way too fast.
• 32:27
  Polly Mertens: You know, I was like, here we go, up the mountain, and they're just like fueled and fired up and whatever.
• 32:33
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, you know what?
• 32:35
  Polly Mertens: I'll I'll be the leader, you know?
• 32:37
  Polly Mertens: And so I stepped up out in front and I just set a just I was deliberate about the calm, consistent pace.
• 32:46
  Polly Mertens: I was like, okay, there's no rush, like you've told me before, you'll do it in however long it takes you to do it, right?
• 32:52
  Polly Mertens: And I knew the backpack of nerves that a lot of us had, you know.
• 32:57
  Polly Mertens: I was like, okay, let's just make some consistency here and get into a groove.
• 33:02
  Polly Mertens: And that's where we did for four hours in the dark, you know, and it was magical as it sun started to rise and you start to see glimmers of the mountain.
• 33:09
  Polly Mertens: This is where the awe and the wonder just started to be like, where are we?
• 33:14
  Polly Mertens: What is happening?
• 33:16
  Polly Mertens: You know, and it's dark, so it's like, I know there's beauty here, and you're just like, I don't know what I'm missing yet.
• 33:21
  Polly Mertens: And then it you could and oh, and we had one day off of a full moon, super moon.
• 33:26
  Polly Mertens: Oh, that's right.
• 33:26
  Polly Mertens: Super moon.
• 33:27
  Samantha Pruitt: That's right, that's right.
• 33:28
  Samantha Pruitt: So it was almost like and I know you're gonna get into the weather, but like you didn't have a storm coming in.
• 33:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Between so lucky.
• 33:36
  Polly Mertens: We went up on a Wednesday, it had stormed the Friday before, so there was snow, and then we're like, oh shit.
• 33:43
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 33:44
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 33:44
  Polly Mertens: So I'm like, what do what else do we need?
• 33:46
  Polly Mertens: You know, and so Alan was actually the gal from Denver had said, Oh yeah, we don't need clamp ons or anything like that.
• 33:52
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, I'm back.
• 33:53
  Polly Mertens: I had a friend who's an REI, whatever, not you, but like my friend is like, she's got all the REI gear.
• 34:00
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, Okay, I need this, this, and this, you know, micro spikes.
• 34:03
  Polly Mertens: I borrowed a micro spike, so I had them, right?
• 34:06
  Polly Mertens: And this gal, I had watched her.
• 34:08
  Polly Mertens: There's a great Facebook group about this, just so you know, you can learn all the things like what's going on to the day, right?
• 34:13
  Polly Mertens: People are here's my experience.
• 34:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Whitney.
• 34:15
  Polly Mertens: Yep, for Whitney.
• 34:16
  Polly Mertens: You get you join the group, and so we joined the group, and I was like, this guy was like, the 1.2 pounds of micro spikes was fucking worth it.
• 34:26
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, you know what?
• 34:27
  Polly Mertens: Packing those bad boys.
• 34:29
  Polly Mertens: So as we get there, reading people's review of like how the trail was and stuff like that, and they're like, sure glad I had my micro spikes, bringing the micro spikes, and I never worn my, I didn't even know how to put them on.
• 34:40
  Polly Mertens: The night before I was like, I think I should try these on, just you know, just to make sure, you know, like that was probably that could have anyway.
• 34:47
  Polly Mertens: But Alan didn't have them.
• 34:48
  Polly Mertens: So he they were the team was uh coming over from San Luis Obispo, but they went to REI that morning, bought him some just in case.
• 34:56
  Polly Mertens: Uh-huh.
• 34:56
  Polly Mertens: He's like, he's like pretty conservative.
• 34:58
  Polly Mertens: He's like, Well, I'll keep them in the pack in case I don't need them and then return them if I don't need them.
• 35:03
  Polly Mertens: We got up, you know.
• 35:05
  Polly Mertens: So we we actually didn't do micro spikes, so we we hit the 99 switchbacks and it started to get icy and you know whatnot.
• 35:12
  Polly Mertens: I was like, okay, just go slow.
• 35:14
  Polly Mertens: I think we can do this.
• 35:15
  Polly Mertens: And and it was okay coming down though.
• 35:19
  Polly Mertens: It just felt yeah, it felt sketchy coming down.
• 35:22
  Polly Mertens: So I put the micro spikes on about you know, right after the summit, and they were like a godsend.
• 35:28
  Polly Mertens: I was like, How do I not know about these things?
• 35:31
  Polly Mertens: This is amazing.
• 35:32
  Polly Mertens: Like, I I wasn't like flying down the mountain after that, but I was so much more assured because it's like exactly.
• 35:38
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, and you can get really hurt.
• 35:40
  Samantha Pruitt: You slip off one of these trails, and you know, when you went to the saddle to the summit, that trail literally you're like, What the hell am I doing on the side of this mountain?
• 35:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, yeah, uh a couple slips or a trip, big time, you're really injured or worse.
• 35:56
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, there was guys saying, Um, that on the switchbacks a couple days before, people hadn't had them.
• 36:02
  Polly Mertens: And he's like, People, prepare for what you're coming out for, like know what's on the mountain, you know, as best you can, or like get some intel and like be prepared.
• 36:12
  Polly Mertens: People were slipping and sliding all over the place, he said.
• 36:15
  Polly Mertens: I was like, I'm not gonna be that, right?
• 36:18
  Polly Mertens: Because that's one of the things that like my fear is like you just you know, you can be strong, or you can be courageous and stuff, but if you make a false move or if you're not paying attention, or you you know, you think you're on it and you're not, off you go.
• 36:33
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and it's it's there's some danger, some real ass danger if you miscalculate up there.
• 36:39
  Polly Mertens: It's not totally not just like, oh, I fell and I hurt my knee.
• 36:43
  Polly Mertens: Like you could go down 1500 feet, you know.
• 36:46
  Samantha Pruitt: But if you do fall, hurt your knee or whatever, you can that's the end.
• 36:49
  Samantha Pruitt: And by the way, how are you getting off the mountain?
• 36:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, you know how much it costs to get helicoptered off a mountain unless you have one of these insurance policies.
• 36:56
  Samantha Pruitt: So, anyway, all right, not to be negative, but here you are.
• 36:58
  Samantha Pruitt: So you're going up the mountain, 99 switch packs.
• 37:00
  Samantha Pruitt: How fun was that?
• 37:01
  Polly Mertens: Well, I'll tell you two things I want to talk about in the hard part.
• 37:04
  Polly Mertens: So we so four hours in the dark, you know, just looking at this little trail with a light and whatever, and we get to the point where it was the final place to get water, right?
• 37:16
  Polly Mertens: And it's very strategic on this mountain about like how heavy, like, do you bring all the water for the whole thing, or do you bring whatever?
• 37:21
  Polly Mertens: So I brought enough water to get to that point and a little more.
• 37:24
  Polly Mertens: And then he was like, Oh, you got to get in this, not in, but like get into this lake.
• 37:28
  Polly Mertens: And I swear, uh like you know, two minutes before we got to this lake, the wind, like some people were coming down and they were just like, like you could tell they just had all way more layers than we had on going up, A, because we're going uphill and they're going downhill.
• 37:43
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, Oh, how's the weather?
• 37:45
  Polly Mertens: And you're always asking people like conditions, right?
• 37:47
  Polly Mertens: Which is smart, right?
• 37:48
  Polly Mertens: He goes, Oh, when you get to trail camp, wind really picks up, right?
• 37:53
  Polly Mertens: And then it picks up again at the saddle, right?
• 37:55
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, Oh, shoot.
• 37:56
  Polly Mertens: So we get to the saddle, or sorry, we get to the trail camp lake, and the I swear you could see crests on the water.
• 38:03
  Polly Mertens: It was like almost white caps.
• 38:04
  Polly Mertens: I was like, what is happening right now?
• 38:06
  Polly Mertens: I mean, just wind, you know, I'm like throwing on layers and pulling my gloves out of my pack.
• 38:11
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, I have to go down to this lake now and like get my water.
• 38:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Filter water takes forever.
• 38:17
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like and I, you know.
• 38:20
  Polly Mertens: So I get down there, dig my hand and, you know, getting water, getting water.
• 38:23
  Polly Mertens: Comes up, wind just whips it and it just freezes it.
• 38:26
  Polly Mertens: I was like insta freeze on my hand.
• 38:28
  Polly Mertens: I was like, oh I'm like, okay, let me go back and like huddle up with you know the team.
• 38:33
  Polly Mertens: We're hiding behind this big rock, and we're just, you know, like the wind's whipping by and everybody's throwing on laders, putting hoods on, putting on gloves.
• 38:40
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like, oh my god.
• 38:42
  Polly Mertens: And you just we did the wag bag, that was a first, you know, like pooping out in nature into a plastic bag and storing that up and good times.
• 38:51
  Samantha Pruitt: That was my favorite.
• 38:53
  Samantha Pruitt: But that moment of being sheltering behind the rock in the crazy wind, you and the team there, right?
• 38:59
  Samantha Pruitt: Filtering water, that's a come to Jesus moment.
• 39:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, where many people would assess I don't think I can do this.
• 39:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Did you have that thought?
• 39:09
  Polly Mertens: We uh I had been talking to Alan, we both did.
• 39:11
  Polly Mertens: Like, we didn't talk about it right there.
• 39:13
  Samantha Pruitt: Nobody verbalized it.
• 39:14
  Polly Mertens: Nobody well, one uh one gal, um, she said she's is her sixth summish or sixth attempt.
• 39:20
  Polly Mertens: I think she'd made it like three or four three times or something.
• 39:22
  Polly Mertens: She's like, Y'all are gonna earn it today because like this wind is gonna take something to and this chill factor is gonna take something.
• 39:29
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, oh dang.
• 39:30
  Polly Mertens: I was like, man, if it's this cold, because that's like one of my things is can I stay warm enough in the conditions, right?
• 39:38
  Polly Mertens: Like, did I pack enough?
• 39:39
  Polly Mertens: Am I warm enough?
• 39:40
  Polly Mertens: And because not that I don't like I'll be okay on with some uncomfortable cold, but is it dangerous cold kind of thing?
• 39:49
  Samantha Pruitt: And when we're, you know, menopausal females.
• 39:52
  Samantha Pruitt: So to be honest, we're very, very heat and cold sensitive because our hormones have changed and lots of things within our body chemistry.
• 40:00
  Samantha Pruitt: And you know, you learned from your Iron Man experience that once you get cold, there's no coming back.
• 40:05
  Samantha Pruitt: And I mean that real bone chilling to your core.
• 40:08
  Polly Mertens: That Iron Man experience.
• 40:09
  Polly Mertens: You know that.
• 40:09
  Polly Mertens: It took me two hours to warm up after that one swim I did.
• 40:12
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 40:13
  Polly Mertens: So I was like, whoa, I was all okay.
• 40:16
  Polly Mertens: So, and like we talked before we recorded, is like that wasn't the moment to give up.
• 40:22
  Polly Mertens: Nope.
• 40:22
  Polly Mertens: That wasn't the moment to give up, it was the moment for the brain to go, what the fuck?
• 40:26
  Polly Mertens: But I was like, all right, let's just go.
• 40:28
  Polly Mertens: And I had knew about the switchbacks, and everybody talked about how they were just mind-numbing, you know, all this stuff.
• 40:34
  Polly Mertens: And so I was strategic and I said, Well, my hands are freezing, but I'm gonna put my damn earbuds in.
• 40:39
  Polly Mertens: Nice, put my earbuds in.
• 40:41
  Polly Mertens: I oh, and this was the other thing.
• 40:42
  Samantha Pruitt: So get ready for the pain cave.
• 40:44
  Samantha Pruitt: That's an indicator.
• 40:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, here's the thing.
• 40:47
  Polly Mertens: So I had so like in all of our preparations, we had all these notes.
• 40:50
  Polly Mertens: I was like, I'm a Pandora user, and my Pandora was crap on some of these hikes because it like the offline mode would sometimes work and not work.
• 40:57
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, I there are some places on this mountain where I am not gonna want to just be like hearing my breath for two hours, right?
• 41:05
  Polly Mertens: Kind of thing.
• 41:05
  Polly Mertens: I was like, all right, how can I help myself through that pain cave?
• 41:08
  Polly Mertens: We're driving up to Mount Whitney, up that road you talk about, and it was like, shit, I didn't download Spotify.
• 41:14
  Polly Mertens: And so, like, you know, we're getting less and less, you know, signals.
• 41:18
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like, here, Alan, download Spotify for me, you know.
• 41:21
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like, he's like, what songs do you want?
• 41:22
  Polly Mertens: You know, we're like rapidly downloading just all these, you know, hopefully pump up songs or whatever.
• 41:28
  Polly Mertens: So put in my earbuds at that point, and that you know, everybody put on gloves and more layers and all this stuff.
• 41:34
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, earbuds and locked and loaded.
• 41:37
  Polly Mertens: That was a piece of cake for me.
• 41:39
  Polly Mertens: Like it never bought, like I was just I was listening, the sun was coming up, and it was getting a little bit warmer, the lake, the view, like the I was watching the snow on the mountains.
• 41:51
  Polly Mertens: I was just in awe and wonder for two hours listening to YouTube, Beautiful Day, and all these like amazing songs.
• 42:00
  Polly Mertens: I was like, this is nothing.
• 42:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Like if the funny thing is, this is two hours of climbing without stopping.
• 42:07
  Samantha Pruitt: 99 switchbacks means 99 switchbacks.
• 42:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, most people are not really sure what we mean when we say when you get to the 99 switchback.
• 42:14
  Samantha Pruitt: No, that's the real count of the switchbacks climbing the mountain.
• 42:18
  Samantha Pruitt: So for two hours, you dropped into the pain cave willingly, okay, and just said, This is gonna take something from me, but I am showing the hell up and capable of delivering the goods.
• 42:32
  Polly Mertens: And I took care of myself.
• 42:34
  Polly Mertens: I made my, you know, I made sure I had my water before we left, got my earbuds in because I know that I'm better, you know.
• 42:40
  Polly Mertens: Like anytime I'm whatever, doing something that's strenuous like that, hearing my breath and like the dysfunction that the brain could be like like that's like that's not motivated.
• 42:51
  Samantha Pruitt: For other people's suffering.
• 42:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Other, yeah.
• 42:53
  Samantha Pruitt: For me, that's part of it too.
• 42:54
  Samantha Pruitt: If you're in a group thing, I'm like, oh I can't listen to Sally because she's unraveling and I just energies too much.
• 43:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 43:01
  Polly Mertens: So I was like, so I just set myself up for success.
• 43:04
  Polly Mertens: I like not glided up that part, but super careful.
• 43:08
  Polly Mertens: I was like, this is you know, because we didn't have the I didn't think I was like, well, maybe I won't take out the micro spikes.
• 43:14
  Polly Mertens: Nobody's really wearing that.
• 43:14
  Polly Mertens: Well, some people had them on coming down or whatever.
• 43:17
  Polly Mertens: Anyway, I I think I was fine.
• 43:20
  Polly Mertens: You know, it was good to experience that.
• 43:23
  Polly Mertens: Like I never felt unsafe with those without them.
• 43:26
  Polly Mertens: And then, yeah, we glided up that, but uh yeah, it was it took something.
• 43:31
  Polly Mertens: And then you saw this couple coming down, and they were in another level, and they were taking jackets off.
• 43:36
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, they're like, Oh yeah, right up here is where it gets super windy again.
• 43:39
  Polly Mertens: I was like, Damn.
• 43:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 43:42
  Samantha Pruitt: And you'll be on the side of a big mountain on a very small trail that basically one person can be on this trail at a time.
• 43:49
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and this is where I would say, you know, the the coach in me, the the leader servant was like, okay, I'll I'll be nervous about this, right?
• 43:59
  Polly Mertens: Like, because I've done Angel's Landing and I've done some other high trucking kind of moments, right?
• 44:04
  Polly Mertens: And I have some strategies that work for me.
• 44:06
  Polly Mertens: And I just knew that Alan, like he had a fear of heights.
• 44:10
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'm I'm scared, but he has a fear, like a phobia-ish.
• 44:14
  Polly Mertens: And so he was right behind me and I said, Alan, your job is to look at me and behind me.
• 44:19
  Polly Mertens: Do not be looking down this mountain right now.
• 44:21
  Polly Mertens: It's not gonna serve you at all.
• 44:23
  Polly Mertens: Me and the steps in front of you, and that's all you want to do.
• 44:26
  Polly Mertens: And we just, we just, you know, and I was like, I look off to the left and I'm like, Fuck, that's pretty, you know, that's pretty gnarly down there.
• 44:35
  Samantha Pruitt: And you don't need to do that to yourself, right?
• 44:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Too, you know, some people in the little saddle because you know that's where the John Muir trail comes in and connects.
• 44:43
  Samantha Pruitt: So when you see the John Muir trail exiting off the saddle, and then all the lakes down below and whatever, so you're dropping into the whole John Muir wilderness and all that.
• 44:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my god, that area is pure magic, dude.
• 44:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Pure magic.
• 44:55
  Polly Mertens: Unreal.
• 44:56
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 44:56
  Polly Mertens: Awe, wonder, beauty.
• 44:58
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 44:58
  Polly Mertens: And we got to the top, you know, and I think your summit and various people's summits I see are like, oh, they're out there in shorts and whatever.
• 45:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Mine was August 2nd.
• 45:06
  Samantha Pruitt: It was the middle of summer.
• 45:08
  Samantha Pruitt: So by the time we got up there, yeah, we were like in a, I think I was in a sleeveless shirt, and I don't know if I had shorts on, but yeah, whatever.
• 45:16
  Polly Mertens: It was windy.
• 45:18
  Polly Mertens: So it was uh 19 degrees, 25 mile an hour winds, you know, that little hut up there.
• 45:24
  Polly Mertens: We were like huddled up there.
• 45:25
  Polly Mertens: I was like, just want to get out of the wind.
• 45:27
  Polly Mertens: Like it's amazing how when you're in the wind for that many hours, you're just like, I just want to get out of it for a little bit.
• 45:33
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, it wears on your nervous system, that's why it's uh really heavy energy for your nervous system regulation.
• 45:40
  Polly Mertens: Somehow, yeah, it was like, you know, I I I've been in heat and I've I've flipped the switch for myself what heat means to me.
• 45:48
  Polly Mertens: And you know, like I don't get as disempowered by it.
• 45:51
  Polly Mertens: Like I can, you know, kind of get through it.
• 45:53
  Polly Mertens: Wind, I haven't had that much experience with.
• 45:55
  Polly Mertens: So this was like, oh, so it's like, take the pictures, take the pictures, okay, let's go, you know.
• 46:00
  Polly Mertens: And I'm thinking of my social media gal.
• 46:01
  Polly Mertens: She's like, take lots of pictures.
• 46:02
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, this damn foot, you know, I can't, I've got two layers of gloves on, I can't use my phone.
• 46:07
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, screw it, yeah.
• 46:08
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, I get the pictures and video I get, and the rest gonna be what it's gonna be.
• 46:14
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, so and then you worked your way back down, and then put the my I was like, I'm putting these damn micro spikes on, I'm gonna try these bad boys out, and I was so glad.
• 46:24
  Polly Mertens: And then uh Alan also did, you know, and he was he's a little cheap about the money.
• 46:29
  Polly Mertens: He's like, Oh, well, you know, I'll just take them back.
• 46:31
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, dude, you're putting these on.
• 46:34
  Polly Mertens: And then he was like, I'm he goes, those were a lifesaver, you know.
• 46:38
  Polly Mertens: So it was huge, it was huge.
• 46:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and we just when you got down, it it took you hours and hours to get down, so it's not like you can climb up and then be down, people.
• 46:48
  Samantha Pruitt: It's this is an all-day affair.
• 46:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, going down, you have to be careful, and it's very technical and all that.
• 46:54
  Polly Mertens: It's like seven hours down, I think, still.
• 46:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Hell yeah, hell yeah.
• 46:58
  Samantha Pruitt: So at what but but when you have summited and you know you know you're on your way back down, there's this, you know, like deep breath of the hard work's over, even though it's not at all.
• 47:11
  Samantha Pruitt: But psychologically, you have this release that is allowed to happen, you know, like I've made the summit, and many, many, many people, I don't remember what the numbers are, you said whatever they were, but you don't make the summit.
• 47:23
  Samantha Pruitt: And the group I was with, two of us made the summit out of I think seven of us.
• 47:28
  Samantha Pruitt: The rest only made it to the saddle.
• 47:30
  Samantha Pruitt: And due to altitude sickness and all kinds of other things, basically you had to go back down.
• 47:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, so I think that's very common.
• 47:37
  Samantha Pruitt: So to be able to even make the summit, fucking kudos, dude, congratulations, because it's legit.
• 47:42
  Samantha Pruitt: It's legit.
• 47:43
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 47:43
  Polly Mertens: Well, and you know, I, you know, and I think I've said this on a previous episode where I told some friends, I was like, I have a body that is supposed to be doing these things because I don't get affected by some of the things that people get affected by.
• 47:57
  Polly Mertens: I don't get hot spots, I sometimes get sore muscles and things like that.
• 48:01
  Polly Mertens: I don't get out, you know, or I prep and I don't get altitude sickness, like all these things.
• 48:06
  Polly Mertens: Um, I've never had heat.
• 48:07
  Polly Mertens: Well, I had dehydration, but never heat stroke.
• 48:09
  Polly Mertens: So it's like either I'm good at preparing, I have a good functioning physical body, I take good care of it, I do the preparations, all that stuff.
• 48:18
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like, bring it fucking on.
• 48:20
  Polly Mertens: Like, let's go.
• 48:21
  Polly Mertens: Like, what's next?
• 48:23
  Polly Mertens: What's next at least is the Camino.
• 48:27
  Polly Mertens: And that's not like some the Santiago.
• 48:29
  Samantha Pruitt: So people, you you want to tell them what that is, real quick?
• 48:31
  Polly Mertens: Uh briefly, and I'm learning about it.
• 48:33
  Polly Mertens: So this is uh uh this is all discovery.
• 48:35
  Polly Mertens: It's like Mount Whitney, like I know a little bit about it, you know.
• 48:38
  Polly Mertens: Um, so the Camino is it's a pilgrimage, and it's pilgrimage.
• 48:43
  Polly Mertens: I think the original one was from France into Spain to the town of Santiago.
• 48:48
  Polly Mertens: I don't know enough about it yet, but I just I've had multiple friends that have done it, and it is like it's epic, it's worth it, you know, and it's it's um uh spiritual, very spiritual, just like the you know, Whitney can be, or you can turn anything into that.
• 49:05
  Polly Mertens: And so the friend that had invited me, she's doing 40 days on it.
• 49:09
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, okay, let me see how I'm gonna like fit that into my life.
• 49:13
  Samantha Pruitt: She's gonna do the whole length from village to village and stay in the little hostels or whatever they go.
• 49:18
  Polly Mertens: Like there's six possible routes, I think, or maybe a little bit more.
• 49:22
  Polly Mertens: And there's like this one or this one, and so you you know, pick one, and there's one that's like very populated, like a lot of people, and then there's ones that are like a lot of freeway or like on a busy road, and so we're trying to pick a quieter, you know, less people route to allow us to drop in instead of you know, it's not like the social hour or something.
• 49:42
  Polly Mertens: But yeah.
• 49:43
  Polly Mertens: So I love this.
• 49:44
  Polly Mertens: That's next June, May, May June time frame.
• 49:47
  Polly Mertens: So, and then you've got Coca-Dona.
• 49:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, for your Whitney experience, so before we end that conversation, yeah.
• 49:55
  Samantha Pruitt: What are your key takeaways?
• 49:57
  Samantha Pruitt: What's the most valuable insights that you discovered either within yourself that were new revelations and or maybe just some rebirths of what you already knew to be true?
• 50:09
  Polly Mertens: I think the the having wonder glasses on, um, like that being part of this journey, this this discovery that I discovered on another trail, not on Whitney, and I took it to Whitney and into the Sequoias.
• 50:24
  Polly Mertens: Um, I know it's gonna make a profound difference in the next 12 months, or if I continue this word beyond that.
• 50:30
  Polly Mertens: So having something that lights you up, because there's so many years of my life, Sam, that were words like progress or success, or like, you know results, results, results.
• 50:42
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know, there's this theme of like um, I saw a women's like big, big, big women's conference, and it was like, be unstoppable or something like that.
• 50:51
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, is that what really women want to be right now?
• 50:55
  Polly Mertens: Like is that or me, like maybe you know, I'm just in a different face, season, whatever.
• 51:02
  Polly Mertens: Um, but I thought about being unstoppable.
• 51:04
  Polly Mertens: Was I unstoppable and winning?
• 51:06
  Polly Mertens: Fuck yeah, like look out.
• 51:08
  Polly Mertens: Like I I wouldn't have wanted to do it twice, but like my body was like, we got this, right?
• 51:13
  Polly Mertens: But having wonder while I was doing something hard and scary instead of I'm unstoppable, like that's already like kind of baked into me.
• 51:24
  Polly Mertens: I've had maybe that's it.
• 51:26
  Polly Mertens: Maybe I've had those years of challenge, and I'm just in a different place of what is true meaning and joy in these hard challenges instead of just grinding it out, if you will.
• 51:38
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:39
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, having the unstoppable mindset can be um self-destructive and it can be problematic, right?
• 51:47
  Samantha Pruitt: But having a mindset of resiliency and capability and an inner knowing of like, I can do this, I believe in myself, I'm committed to this, and I could do this, is very compassionate and loving at the same time as it is a call to freaking action to show the hell up and get the shit done, do the work.
• 52:06
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 52:07
  Polly Mertens: I wonder if I can, I wonder if I can do more than Whitney.
• 52:10
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'm not, you know, like, oh, that's it.
• 52:12
  Polly Mertens: And all I'm like, what else could I get up to?
• 52:15
  Polly Mertens: Like Whitney was right, it was a challenge, right?
• 52:18
  Polly Mertens: You know, Jill also wants to do the John Mirror Trail, right?
• 52:21
  Polly Mertens: Oh, that's happening next summer.
• 52:23
  Polly Mertens: Off we go.
• 52:24
  Polly Mertens: I know.
• 52:24
  Polly Mertens: So that, and I would say um I love how only having three and a half weeks and just getting the damn focus.
• 52:35
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, where else can I apply that in my life that I'm expanding, you know?
• 52:39
  Polly Mertens: It feels like right now with my program coming out in December, Return to the Light.
• 52:43
  Polly Mertens: I hope you guys, if you haven't read seen that, check out, you know, there's all kinds of stuff I'm promoting about that.
• 52:48
  Polly Mertens: Like, I feel like I've got this compact window, you know, to promote it.
• 52:53
  Polly Mertens: It seems like, oh, you've got like more than a month, but all the things that it takes, it's like, holy smokes.
• 52:59
  Polly Mertens: So I feel like I'm doing a uh a six-month thing and about four months, right?
• 53:04
  Polly Mertens: So I've compacted it, it's like get to the heart of it.
• 53:07
  Samantha Pruitt: So people should take that program with you that's open now for registration if they're interested in getting up to something epic next year.
• 53:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Because in order to make space bandwidth capacity for the epic things, you need to let go of the past year, you know, with respect and appreciation and gratitude and all the things, take the lessons, clean the plate, move forward in the right direction, and you take them through that process.
• 53:38
  Samantha Pruitt: So if people are interested in like an epic way of being next year, then sometimes it's gonna require this little bit of housekeeping first to make that transition, right?
• 53:50
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 53:50
  Polly Mertens: And I would add, you know, that's that's a big part of it.
• 53:54
  Polly Mertens: And what I'm like, I was out on a hike this morning and I was like pumping up with some teammates, and I was like, get that light turned the fuck on inside you and take that into your life and into your day.
• 54:08
  Polly Mertens: Like, so many people are depleted and just like stretched and like overgiving and people pleasing and not resourced, right?
• 54:18
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like, girl, girlfriend, please do they're not resourced because they're giving away their power on the daily in so many different ways, shapes, and forms that are unnecessary.
• 54:32
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, that's why you get coaches like you and I, right?
• 54:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Like there's so much unnecessary, but until like a uh outsider, if you will, can compassionately, lovingly walk you through taking that inventory and doing that process of elimination and creating capacity, you just don't know.
• 54:48
  Samantha Pruitt: You get stuck in the wheel, right?
• 54:51
  Samantha Pruitt: And we're saying that that's not necessary.
• 54:54
  Polly Mertens: So and don't wear it like a badge of honor, like I'm so I'm so busy, and you know, like that, like hold up, hold up.
• 55:02
  Samantha Pruitt: No, that's yeah, that badge of honor is not gonna be um feeling very good or very attractive when you're laying in a hospital bed.
• 55:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, or something else happens in your life where things fall apart and they can't be repaired.
• 55:14
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, resource you and then bring that light out into the world for sure.
• 55:17
  Polly Mertens: That's a biggie.
• 55:18
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 55:18
  Samantha Pruitt: So, Mount Whitney, congratulations.
• 55:21
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm stoked for you.
• 55:22
  Samantha Pruitt: I never had an inkling that you weren't gonna get it down done and sum it 100%.
• 55:28
  Samantha Pruitt: And I'm so thrilled that you gave that gift to yourself.
• 55:31
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, thank you.
• 55:32
  Polly Mertens: And thank you for believing in me and just being that reflection and that moment of doubt.
• 55:36
  Polly Mertens: Like, oh my god, three weeks.
• 55:38
  Polly Mertens: You're like, that's a yes.
• 55:39
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 55:41
  Polly Mertens: I texted him, I was like, Samantha says I'm doing this.
• 55:43
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 55:44
  Samantha Pruitt: It speaks to having your A team, which we talk about all the time.
• 55:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Right?
• 55:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Your A team is your very small core group of people who believe in you 1000% when the minute you hesitate or you just don't know, or you have any hesitation or confusion or whatever, the A team is like, I got you.
• 56:02
  Samantha Pruitt: We got this, we got this, whatever it's gonna require.
• 56:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, we're doing this.
• 56:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 56:06
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, it's we have to have our own back, and that requires time, investment, self-compassion, process, growth, the work, right?
• 56:15
  Samantha Pruitt: But you gotta also have people who have your back.
• 56:18
  Polly Mertens: So yeah, hang out with eagles and you will soar, right?
• 56:22
  Polly Mertens: They will always keep you at an elevated state and soaring.
• 56:26
  Polly Mertens: If you hang out with ducks, you're gonna swim on the pond.
• 56:29
  Polly Mertens: If you want to be soaring, it's like get up there where the eagles are, and like people who are like, Oh, you want to do what let's go to Whitney.
• 56:35
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, Oh, okay, there's an eagle moment.
• 56:38
  Polly Mertens: Let's go.
• 56:38
  Polly Mertens: There's an eagle moment.
• 56:40
  Polly Mertens: That's good.
• 56:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes.
• 56:43
  Polly Mertens: So I love it.
• 56:44
  Polly Mertens: Thank you, sister.
• 56:45
  Polly Mertens: All right, what do we want to wrap our wrap up with our beautiful humans and remind them as we always do?
• 56:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 56:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, we have to remind them of the basics, how their life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 56:56
  Samantha Pruitt: That should be foundational at this point, and literally they should have that tattooed on their arm right here.
• 57:02
  Polly Mertens: Yes, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.