I was scared at first because I was like, how am I going to do 52 hikes in a year when I was not a hiker?

But then I remember thinking about that and going, you know, if I take this big idea and I just focus on one hike for the week.

That's all I have to do.

Then it took away the pressure of thinking about reaching 52 right away.

When you think about a wild idea, it can be easy to get overwhelmed.

Climbing a mountain or running an ultramarathon feels like a huge endeavor.

There's so much training and preparation that has to happen before you set out to actually do the thing. About a decade ago, entrepreneur Carla Amador set her sights on completing 52 hikes in a year.

She wasn't at all outdoorsy, so it helped to break down her goal into small, actionable steps,

like hiking at least one mile each weekend.

She called this project the 52 hike challenge.

Ten years later, she's turned it into a national company that encourages thousands of participants to get outside.

I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living,

an REI Co-op Studios production brought to you by Capital One.

When Carla Amador was a teenager, she was not interested in spending time outside.

Even though she grew up near Griffith Park in L.A., she usually preferred to be indoors.

At age 18, Carla's reality changed drastically when she got married and had a child.

I was very young when I got married, and 12 years later, in 2012, I realized that relationship was over.

And, you know, being young and not really having a lot of the tools I have now,

I was going through really like the worst time in my life.

So I'll kind of cut to this really impactful moment where, you know, I'm like

heartbroken and I meet this wonderful lady who walks up to me and she says, you know, if you could

do anything right now, what would you do? And I remember kind of sitting in a meditation and visualization with her.

...