How to Build the Life You Want (Even When You Feel Overloaded, Exhausted, & Uncertain)
Mel Robbins (host), Kellie Gerardi (guest), Narrator
In this episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast, featuring Mel Robbins and Kellie Gerardi, How to Build the Life You Want (Even When You Feel Overloaded, Exhausted, & Uncertain) explores astronaut Mom Reveals Blueprint For Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things Mel Robbins interviews astronaut and bioastronautics researcher Kelli Gerardi about how ‘ordinary’ people can deliberately make themselves capable of extraordinary things. Gerardi traces her journey from working coat check at the prestigious Explorers Club to flying scientific missions in microgravity and space, emphasizing reputation design, relentless mindset work, and proximity to your dreams.
Astronaut Mom Reveals Blueprint For Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things
Mel Robbins interviews astronaut and bioastronautics researcher Kelli Gerardi about how ‘ordinary’ people can deliberately make themselves capable of extraordinary things. Gerardi traces her journey from working coat check at the prestigious Explorers Club to flying scientific missions in microgravity and space, emphasizing reputation design, relentless mindset work, and proximity to your dreams.
They discuss motherhood, criticism, IVF, and recurrent pregnancy loss, and how Gerardi chooses openness over secrecy to reduce shame and create support. Throughout, she shares practical mental frameworks—like “Why not me?”, removing self-imposed limiters, and treating failures as data—that help people build a bigger life even when they feel overloaded, exhausted, or uncertain.
Key Takeaways
You can consciously ‘adjust the limiter’ on your imagination.
Gerardi argues that most limits are self-imposed: instead of assuming extraordinary lives are reserved for special people, intentionally zoom out your vision 30–100x and allow yourself to picture being in rooms, roles, and possibilities you currently believe are off-limits.
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Design your reputation on purpose, starting with the job you have now.
In every role—even coat check—Gerardi writes down the adjectives she wants colleagues to use about her (e. ...
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Seek important work, not just glamorous work, and give 150%.
She credits her leap from coat check to chairing a major fundraising gala and later joining the Explorers Club board to treating ‘small’ tasks as critical, showing attention to detail and follow-through long before high-status roles appeared.
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Use the question “Why not me?” as a quiet, disciplined confidence tool.
Rather than entitlement, she frames it as: if I work hard enough for long enough, why couldn’t I be the one? ...
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Separate guilt from regret when juggling family and ambition.
Gerardi and Robbins describe feeling momentary ‘mom guilt’ when leaving for work trips, but noticing they don’t actually regret pursuing their dreams; recognizing this distinction helps them honor kids’ feelings without self-sabotaging their own futures.
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Sharing your struggles doesn’t make you a burden; it unlocks support.
Through IVF and multiple miscarriages, Gerardi learned that friends, family, and her audience wanted the chance to show up for her; hiding pain for others’ comfort only increased her suffering, while transparency acted as a pressure-release valve and reduced shame.
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When you hit a brick wall, change your approach—not your goal.
Whether in fertility treatment or career, she treats failures as data: alter the protocol, the strategy, or the route, but keep the destination if it still matters, accepting that resilience often looks like being willing to ‘fail more times than others are willing to try.’
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Notable Quotes
“Ordinary people can make themselves capable of extraordinary things, and it is never too late for you to do that.”
— Kelli Gerardi
“You can rewrite your limits. The only one applying the limit on your imagination is you.”
— Kelli Gerardi
“You can design your own reputation if you put in the work to make it true.”
— Kelli Gerardi
“Sharing your struggles does not make you a burden to the people who care about you.”
— Kelli Gerardi
“I didn’t get lucky. I was just willing to fail more times than someone else was willing to try.”
— Kelli Gerardi
Questions Answered in This Episode
If I removed every perceived limitation, what would my 100x expanded life vision actually look like in practical terms?
Mel Robbins interviews astronaut and bioastronautics researcher Kelli Gerardi about how ‘ordinary’ people can deliberately make themselves capable of extraordinary things. ...
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What three adjectives do I want people to honestly use about me at work, and what behaviors would prove those true this week?
They discuss motherhood, criticism, IVF, and recurrent pregnancy loss, and how Gerardi chooses openness over secrecy to reduce shame and create support. ...
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Where in my life am I bracing for disappointment instead of allowing myself to feel hope and excitement, and what would change if I chose openness?
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Which ‘balls’ in my life are truly glass versus plastic right now, and am I treating them accordingly?
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What goal have I quietly given up on after a brick wall, and how could I change my approach instead of abandoning the goal entirely?
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Transcript Preview
(instrumental music plays) Today's episode is an invitation to explore possibilities that you may have thought were beyond your reach. Astronaut and bioastronautics researcher, Kelli Gerardi, is here to hand you her blueprint for dreaming bigger, starting today.
We've all seen images of the earth from space. You would think that I would have the words by now and I, I just don't. It's a forced perspective shift that you are such a small part of something so much bigger. Ordinary people can make themselves capable of extraordinary things and it is never too late for you to do that. You can rewrite your limits. We have astronaut Barbie dolls and American Girl dolls and we wanna make sure our girls know they can be anything, until they grow up and become mothers with children of their own and then it's like, "How dare you pursue those dreams that we said were so important?" What would it look like if you removed every single limitation that is currently in front of you or that you perceive to be in front of you and you take a look at your life and you think, "In a perfect world, where everything went right, what would my life look like?"
Oh, well, let's just launch right now. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. (instrumental music plays) Kelli Gerardi, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
Well, we're excited you hopped on a plane-
Yeah.
... not a spaceship-
Yeah, exactly.
... and came here, and we cannot wait to dig into your story and the amazing things you're gonna share.
Thank you.
I'd love to start by having you speak directly to the person who is with us right now and just share a little bit about what might be different about their life if they take everything to heart that you're about to share with us today and they apply it to their life.
Yeah, absolutely. I used to look at people and the success reel of their lives and I used to look at those accomplishments and those successes, the ones that felt most unrealistic for me and out of reach, and it was very easy for me dismiss those and to write it off as extraordinary things are reserved for extraordinary people. And I think the much more interesting truth is that ordinary people can make themselves capable of extraordinary things, and it is never too late for you to do that. And I think that's something that has helped me adjust the limiter on my imagination and it might be something that can help you adjust the limiter on your imagination as well, to give yourself permission to dream bigger dreams.
Oh, well, let's just launch right now. I, uh, uh-
(laughs)
First of all, let's highlight that, that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
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