From Envy to Empowerment: The Hike Like A Women Summit
Apr 04, 2024
Rebecca Walsh
Overcoming adversity can lead to extraordinary outcomes, a truth I've lived firsthand. My battle with illness and the mental toll of chemotherapy sparked a transformation.
I went from scrolling through social media with a heavy heart to planning a virtual summit to celebrate and amplify the voices of inspiring women. The path has been both challenging and rewarding.
On today's show I take you behind the scenes of putting together our first virtual summit.
Overcoming adversity can lead to extraordinary outcomes, a truth I've lived firsthand. My battle with illness and the mental toll of chemotherapy sparked a transformation.
I went from scrolling through social media with a heavy heart to planning a virtual summit to celebrate and amplify the voices of inspiring women. The path has been both challenging and rewarding.
On today's show I take you behind the scenes of putting together our first virtual summit.
Sometimes I make bad decisions and take on really big projects, and today I want to talk about one of those decisions. I don't know if this is a bad decision or a good decision the jury's still out but I'm going to talk to you about our upcoming virtual summit next month. The summit came to be because a few years ago, I was really sick and I was starting to feel sorry for myself. It was a combination of going from strong and healthy to really sick all of a sudden, and I wasn't able to get outside. I wasn't able to go on adventures, I wasn't able to go to work. I was so miserable and I was feeling really sorry for myself and that's not something that's typical for me, but I was really depressed. I was at a really low spot in my life. In fact, I remember one time I finished a chemotherapy treatment and I came home and after chemo, my husband would always just put me to bed with a bucket. I remember laying in bed and I was trying to fight this intense sickness in my stomach. That always happened after chemo infusions, and sometimes, if I could just get my mind on something else, then I wouldn't feel so nauseous, and so I was scrolling through Instagram and I was getting really angry because I just kept seeing everybody on my Instagram feed out in the mountains having really fun adventures. And, of course, I was just looking at the highlight reel. I was just looking at the image that people were trying to put themselves of themselves on social media, but I was getting annoyed because I didn't have a strong and healthy body anymore to get out and do those things and I was feeling discouraged, thinking, oh my gosh, am I ever going to be able to get outside and do those things? Am I ever going to be healthy again? Am I ever going to be strong again? And I was so. The more I scrolled on Instagram, the more depressed I became, became because I just was not in a healthy and happy place.
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Well, the next day, when I was feeling a little bit better, I decided that I needed to change, that I needed to look at social media with a different lens and, instead of being jealous of the adventures that everybody else was on, I needed to be excited, and I needed to be excited for those women who were sharing their adventures online. And I realized as I was scrolling through Instagram, that there are so many amazing women doing really, really amazing things. And they're not necessarily women with huge social media followings. There's just a lot of really cool women out there and I decided that when I was healthy and strong again, I was going to find a way to amplify those voices, to amplify the voices of women who are doing badass stuff in the outdoors, amplify the voices of women who are doing badass stuff in the wellness space, amplify the voices of women who are doing amazing and incredible things in the health and wellness space. And the idea came to me to put together a virtual summit. That idea came to me after I'd finished chemotherapy, so after I'd been so sick for so many months, I started to just gradually take walks around the block to build up my strength. And those walks around the block turned into walks around the neighborhood and that turned into a half mile and then that turned into a mile and I was as I was building up my strength and as I was walking.
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I was still going through radiation treatment at this time, so I wasn't 100%, but I was able to start to get strong again and I was listening to a podcast episode. I don't even know what the podcast was. The guest on the show was talking about a virtual summit that she does and she actually does an audio summit, so it's just podcast type materials instead of video and she's talking about this virtual summit and how it was really amazing for her community and how it was fun for her to connect and to interview guests and all of these things. And I'd actually participated in a virtual summit back in 2015. And I had a lot of fun participating in a virtual summit, but I thought that this was old school and that no one was doing virtual summits or virtual conferences anymore. I tend to not really follow the trends when it comes to what's cool and what's not cool here at Hike.
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Like a Woman, I decided that I was going to host a virtual summit. There was only one problem, and that was that I just didn't have time to put it together because at that time I was getting back to work. I was getting my ski shop ready for the winter. I was working long hours last winter and so when I sold my ski shop this November so November of 2023, I was I needed a project because, all of a sudden, I found myself with a lot more spare time than I was used to, and the answer was to put together the virtual summit that I thought about a year before.
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In order to do that, it required a lot of preparation up front. First of all, I had to figure out how I was going to even host a virtual summit. I had to figure out how I was going to reach out to women to potentially present at the summit and I had to figure out how to market the summit a system for collecting talks, social media promotion, sponsorship all of these things. It's been a huge, huge project. Our virtual summit is going to be May 8th through the 12th. If you want to learn more about it, head on over to our website, hikelikeawomancom.
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That's kind of the why, that's the reason for the summit, and I just want to share with you a few of the women who are going to be presenting at our summit and I want to share the stories that they're going to be sharing, and I just want to talk about what you can expect. If you look at our website hikelikeauburncom and click that button, then we'll take you over to our virtual summit. You'll see that we originally started off with 41 speakers from seven countries. We actually have about seven women at the time of this podcast recording who I haven't heard from, who haven't gotten their presentations to me, who've really just kind of ghosted us. So I hate to have been promoting talks that don't exist. But that's been a little discouraging for me when when people committed to providing a presentation and then just ghosted us. Right now we're looking at 34 speakers from seven countries, which is still amazing, and this conference is virtual. So it's five fun filled days and then you're going to have, on demand, access to all of the presentations until October 1, because we realized you don't want to spend five days just hanging out in front of your computer, and so you're going to have access and you're going to be able to watch these presentations over and over and over again until October 1st. So we're very excited about that.
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This summit is going to be inspiring. We guarantee that. There are going to be moments in it when you want to stand up, clap your hands and cheer. I know this because I've already listened to all of the presentations, because I've been putting the summit together, and so on the backend there are times when I've been like, oh my gosh, the world needs to know this message. So a few of the topics that we're talking about we're talking about risk management, body positivity, fitness through hiking, wellness, empowerment, outdoor parenting, outdoor education, grit outdoor parenting, outdoor education, grit, forest bathing, backpacking, hiking with pets all of these amazing things. Some of our speakers here are talking about topics like feeling your adventure cup in motherhood. That's Liesl Alexander. We're going to talk about hiking as a catalyst for transformation.
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Marina Blackford is a very special woman to me. She is a cancer coach. She's a two-time cancer survivor, she has a YouTube channel that really got me through treatment and she's going to be talking about how to live an empowered life. Kyrie is also known as the confident mompreneur and she's going to be talking about empowering yourself in the wild. Brianne is talking about finding your audacious bravery, allison. So Allison, the founder of she Dreams of Alpine I love, I love Allison. I love her mission. I love she Dreams of Alpine.
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She's going to be talking about the three biggest mistakes that hikers make as they transition into overnight backpacking. Kim is going to be talking about yoga empowerment. Natasha's talk is going to be very special. Natasha is a mental health expert and she's going to be talking about invisible injuries. Dee is the introverts in Fetencer Club. She is talking about her unexpected journey. She's autistic. She is a domestic violence survivor. She's amazing and you're going to be so inspired by her story.
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Debbie is going to be talking about forest bathing. Conchita is going to be talking about what it's like hiking the camino de costa rica, and conchita actually put together a panel discussion talking all about this trail. Nicole is going to be talking about community. Reagan is going to be talking about learning to play again. Marianne is going to talk about how age is just a number.
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Annika is one of our resident Canadians and she's going to be talking about hiking the West Coast Trail in Canada. Erin is the founder of Backcountry Foodie and she's going to give a little tutorial on how to plan your backpacking meals. Pat is just going to share a story about her experience as a Kansas State professor, as a state 4-H program leader and just as she's seen the outdoors kind of flourish and evolve in the past 60 years. Pam is an author and advocate. She's going to share a message about how you're stronger than you realize. Stacey is going to talk about hiking with dogs. Ash is going to give you some tips for planning a national park trip.
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Renee is going to be talking about hiking with intention. Julie is going to talk about how to take a sabbatical and embrace a nomadic lifestyle. Elle Sanderson, one of my dear friends, is going to be talking about how to manage the chaos. Yvonne is going to talk about women's fitness adventures. Zoe is going to talk about women's fitness adventures. Zoe is going to talk about the art of connection and conversation. Sydney Williams is going to be talking about hiking your feelings. Regina is going to talk about how to hike the Camino. Santiago. Allison has an amazing presentation about how life is wide and how the trail teaches us resilience. Mandy and Amy are going to talk about why moms need adventure too.
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I didn't mention everyone, but those are the talks that I have in so far, and they're going to be spectacular. This is one of the most amazing things that I've ever done in the online space. It is by far the most labor intensive thing I've done. I think it has the potential to impact the lives of every single person who attends, and there is absolutely no way that you can listen to the women who I just mentioned and not be inspired. So if you want to learn more about the summit, if you would like to join us, we would love to have you join us, and I have some really cool stuff to give away. So head on over to our website, hikelikewomanomancom, click that summit tab and register today. Our summit begins on May 8th, so we're just about a month out and it is going to be incredible. If you have any questions about it, you want to learn more hit me up. You can always find me hikelikeawoman at gmailcom. This is Rebecca signing out. Thanks so much for hanging with me today and I'll see you next time.