Main Theme
Our minds are conditioned to create chaos. They often convince us to quit long before we reach our goals. Unless we can gain awareness and interrupt these "chaos" scripts early, they will consume our thoughts and drive us towards decisions we will regret. This book will give you the ability to open your awareness, apply several tools to calm the chaos, and increase the momentum towards your goals. Regardless if you are a long-distance hiker, SOF operator, extreme athlete, first responder, medical specialist, parent, student, or just a human being, this book will enable you to tame your mind so you can savor whatever journey you find yourself on.

Background
People love the thought of breaking the shackles of their Matrix life and going for a long-distance hike. I do, too. There is something primal about strapping on a pack filled with only the necessities and going on a long walk. I think it’s coded somewhere deep inside our DNA. Hiking seems to be a perfect means to create a union between the natural world and the human soul. We were meant to be in nature, not confined to the safety and comfort of our Matrix lives. If we can become still enough, we can hear the whispers of the mountains calling us to their soil.

I became addicted to thru-hiking because it uncovered parts of me I didn’t know existed. It took me to deeper levels of awareness and fulfillment that seemed inaccessible before the experience. However, like all good things in life, this growth was only accessible through suffering and sacrifice. To absorb the true lessons in life, we must confront the main impediment standing in our way - our chaotic minds.

Stats show that roughly three out of every four thru-hikers quit their journeys short of their intended goal, and I argue it is because they couldn’t handle their chaotic minds in this new environment. This is a statistic I want to help change.

Our minds tether us to the parts of life that no longer serve us. It limits our growth and our ability to find contentment in our lives. When we are alone with our minds for hours, days, weeks, and months on trail, we fall prey to its conditioned patterns nudging us to seek safety and comfort. At the first sign of pain and struggle, our mind tries to convince us to return to our comfortable life inside the Matrix. It tries to keep us safe at the expense of our growth and fulfillment.

We must learn how to strengthen our minds so we can adapt more quickly and efficiently once our long-distance journey begins. That’s where this book comes in. It’s complementary to previous works on the mental side of long-distance hiking, but we will dive a little deeper underneath the hood to reveal why our mental struggle happens in the first place. If we can gain awareness of why these struggles happen, then we can learn to use some basic strategies to decrease the mental chaos and increase our forward momentum.

This book is not just for hikers. It’s for anyone undertaking a long-duration journey where the mind will inject itself as the biggest obstacle in our path. It could be during a military deployment, during an ultramarathon, attending a sports training camp, enduring an assessment and selection course for special operations, entering a police or military training academy, grappling with a large project at work, enduring the challenges of parenthood, or any other journey where our minds become the largest hurdle on the way to our goals.

It's time to break free of the fetters that keep you clinging to safety and comfort. It’s time to find the part of you that is waiting to be discovered. It’s time to learn how to keep pushing north towards the things you dream about but haven’t been able to reach.