My sister Lori sent me a link to a Mel Robbins podcast. That’s how this episode started. I was driving out of Chattanooga on New Year’s Eve — for the first time in about forty years not setting up a lighting rig somewhere in Palm Beach — and I put it on and started thinking out loud.
The framework Robbins walks through is simple enough: scroll your camera roll from the past year as a starting point, then work through six questions. What did you learn about yourself? What do you want to stop doing? What do you want to start? What do you want to continue? What’s been a success? And finally — what’s one action step you can take right now?
I did it on the road. I’m sharing what came out of it.
What I Learned
The alcohol-free year was the clearest answer. Started it as Dry January, felt so different by February that I just kept going. The math eventually got too obvious to ignore — three glasses of wine and the next day was gone. Lethargic, foggy, half-speed. The alcohol-free version of me produced ninety-three episodes of a project that didn’t exist a year ago. I’m staying on this path.
The camera roll confirmed the rest of it. Travel from Washington and Oregon through New England, across the Dakotas, down through the south. A lot of cat pictures. Some screenshots of things that didn’t matter. The ratio of meaningful to noise was better than I expected but not as good as it’s going to be.
What I Want to Stop
Sharing my opinion on things that don’t require my opinion. This came out of a longer personal reflection I won’t go into in full, but the short version is that I’ve landed in a place where I’ve stopped needing to weigh in on everything. Mel Robbins has a book called Let Them — the thesis being that you can let people have their opinions without it costing you anything. I’ve been applying that and life has gotten quieter in the best possible way.
What I Want to Start
Connecting more. This is the one that’s hardest for me and the one I know matters most. Frank talks to strangers like it’s nothing. For me it requires a gear shift. I’m more introverted than I look in these videos, and the conversations I’ve had on this trip when I’ve pushed past that — TZ the valet in Chattanooga, BJ at the historical society in Lewes, the fisherman at the dock in Narragansett — those are the moments that stay. Not the drone shots. Not the scenic drives. The people.
I want to tell the stories of others. I got a taste of it with the Kim Kahana documentary, watching him hold back tears when we screened the director’s cut at his house. That’s the thing. Not the views, not the algorithm. That moment.
What I Want to Continue
The project. The momentum. The process. Twenty states left after this one. More episodes to make, more places to be, more questions to ask in more parking lots and on more fishing docks.
And something new.
Chasing Light and Story
One of the action steps I wrote down on that itinerary printout in Chattanooga was this: build the website.
I’ve been working on it since, and I’m ready to share it. The site is called Chasing Light and Story, and it’s going to be the central hub for what comes after 50 at 60 finishes. The next project is visiting all 63 National Parks, and this is where that story will live. Not a bucket list tied to a year. A deeper exploration into light and story, carried forward for as long as there are places worth going and people worth meeting.
50 at 60 is one spoke in something larger. This is the wheel.
The Olympic Whitewater Stop
I can’t leave out the fact that somewhere on the drive between Chattanooga and Gatlinburg I stopped at a section of river and was told by a woman in the parking lot that the 1996 Olympic canoe slalom event was held here. I did not know canoe slalom was an Olympic sport. I was informed it is. It’s apparently on YouTube. I wrote that down.
Gatlinburg
The traffic into Gatlinburg on New Year’s Eve turned out to be exactly what you’d expect if you had stopped to think about it for thirty seconds before booking the hotel. I did not stop to think about it. I’ll see you on the other side of the drive next episode.
Thanks for being here this year. All of it. The long ones and the short ones and the ones where I forgot to turn the microphone on.
