TEDx – You Are Never as Lost as You Think You Are. Life Lessons from a Navigator.
Emily Miller, Rebelle Rally Founder and Director
Filmed December 7, 2024 at TEDx Belltown Women in Seattle, WA. Posted March 7, 2025.
Feeling lost can be terrifying. But the typical response and spiral—panic, freezing up, or blaming—are NOT inevitable.
Honored to be asked to speak at TEDx Belltown Women, my navigation journey “started” in 2009—lost just north of the Algerian border during an endurance rally. In that moment, my teammate and I made classic mistakes as panic set in: rushing decisions and breaking down communication.
I unpack my personal story, and the important, hard-earned lessons learned along the way—as a competitor, adventurer, coach, and rally director watching others go through similar situations. Through a practical, tactical 3-step process and fundamental truths found in nature and within ourselves, we can stop the spin, regain control, and confidently reach our goals, destinations, and dreams.
So we’re 30 miles north of the Algerian border in an endurance rally and the sun is starting to set. I’m driving and one of my best friends, Wendy, is navigating. Earlier in the day, things were going great—we thought we could win. We saw a team stuck in the dunes and stopped to help them, knowing we may need the help later. It’s hot. We shovel them out and hop back in. The clock was ticking, and now we had to get back on pace. The mistakes start. We are in a hurry, and we stopped hydrating, eating, and communicating. Based on our odometer, we should be driving right into the checkpoint. Where is it?
It should be right here! IT CLEARLY IS NOT.
I could see her mind spinning.
Wendy felt even more lost because, honestly, I was too clueless to fully understand the situation.
As the driver, I wanted her to figure it out. I could see her blood sugar was in bad shape, so I tried to get her to eat, and she lost it. She told me exactly where I could put that granola bar.
I pointed to a peak and said, “You should use triangulation.”
“WHAT IS TRIANGULATION?” she yelled.
At that moment, I knew we were lost – and it spiraled from there. We felt we could be anywhere on the map, on the globe.
We were overwhelmed, panicking—lost in a remote place, in the middle of the Sahara Desert, we don’t speak the language and soon it would be dark. What do we do now?
Obviously, we made it back, and we are still great friends. But it was NOT pretty…We started with finding north… That wasn’t the last time I’ve gotten lost, but that was the moment I realized I never wanted to feel that way again.
As an off-road racer and driver I’ve been fortunate to see some of the most amazing places and terrain on our planet. For the past 15 years, I’ve trained almost 10,000 people to drive and navigate. And I spend countless days in the backcountry operating the longest competitive off-road rally in the U.S. It just so happens to be for women.
8 days of competition, 12+ hours a day, with a compass, map and roadbook. No GPS, no cell phones, no personal support crews – just a driver, navigator, and vehicle.
It seems so crazy that we have these powerful GPS and navigation tools in our pocket, but somehow we seem to be more lost than ever. Literally and figuratively. But that doesn’t have to be our reality.
What if I told you could be a better life navigator by becoming a better land navigator?
I absolutely LOVE driving, but navigation skills are the most important skills I’ve learned. And I’ve learned the hard way. The lessons have been humbling, but every mistake taught me something so important. Through the process of becoming a better navigator I actually became a better DRIVER but more importantly, a stronger teammate, leader and partner. It made me better at my job.
You don’t have to be a rally racer to relate. Every day, we drive and navigate and both are extremely powerful metaphors for life. I want you to learn from what I took years to learn so you can fast-track your success – whatever your journey is – reaching your goals or navigating a challenge.
So back in Morocco. What happened?
Feeling lost is really powerful.
Feeling lost is being lost.
Turns out, there is a physiological response to feeling lost.
Your heart rate rises, blood pressure rises, breathing changes, start to sweat, we lose the ability to concentrate – to think straight. The more intense the feeling, the greater the physical response.
What happens next?
We do a few consistent things:
- Stop—not in a good way, but paralyzed. We cannot move.
- Drive in Circles—and in competition, you drive faster. At 60 mph we are moving 88 ft. per second, 880 ft. in 10 seconds, and 1 mile in 1 minute—getting more lost, faster.
- Blame—That dirty word. You blame your technology, your teammate, your friend, yourself. You say things you can’t take back.
These reactions were not getting us unlost any faster.
So what do we do to fix it? How do you become a successful navigator?
There are three critical components that build a platform for success:
1) Preparation and Building Skills.
Nothing replaces preparation. We must learn the physical skills and tools. When, why and how to use them. And what to do if the tool fails.
I skipped learning critical skills because I didn’t understand them when they were first taught to me. Like plotting a coordinate on a paper map or finding north without a compass. (Turns out, you can use some sticks and rocks.)
I took the same classes as Wendy, but I didn’t do the work. I checked out and in my mind I said “that’s the navigator’s job, I’m the driver.” Because I did this, I was a bad teammate. I let her down when she needed me the most.
When it comes to necessary skills, “You can’t fake it ‘til you make it.”
2) Build the Roadmap.
Start / Finish / route plan to get there / set periodic checkpoints in between to verify. Determine your heading and distance. Be precise.
Now, make the mental map. Visualize it. It will keep you from taking the wrong road, the easier path, or turning south when you should have turned west. Following others. “She’s a better navigator, I’ll follow her.” The mental map is always with you – when your map blows out the window, or the GPS fails.
Finally, don’t bury your head in the map. Look up. Read the landscape. Keep your eye on the prize.
3) Prepare to Get Lost.
Because it will happen. Building a PROCESS will calm that physical response and get you back on course.
We prepared for everything to go right. We didn’t prepare for things to go wrong. No plan ever goes 100% right, 100% of the time.
If we had a process, it would have looked like this. We would have stopped the moment we didn’t know EXACTLY where we were. Taken a breath, hydrated, and fed ourselves. Used our compass to find north. Gone back mentally to our last known point, and the data we knew, verified our heading (270° into the afternoon sun) our distance (or if the odometer breaks, the approximate time and speed we were traveling (30 minutes @ 50 kph/30mph), and narrowed the possible on the map, eliminating the impossible. Making the problem feel smaller. Something we could handle. Turns out we weren’t that far off, we just felt lost.
It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s how we handle our mistakes. Identify and correct quickly. Don’t let fear or ego get in the way. I see it all the time, people strive to be perfect, but perfection isn’t always greatness.
There are no shortcuts to mastering these three fundamentals. Take a shortcut, and eventually, you will get lost.
When you walk away today, I want you to turn off the tech and focus on your journey.
Find north first. Maybe your north is your goal, your dream. Put your eyes on it. Build your map, and break it down into reachable checkpoints that keep you on track and give you confidence to continue.
The beauty of navigation is there are fixed truths found in nature (not on your cell phone) that we can always count on: The sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. True north is true – a fixed point the world spins around. And when night comes, the north star is your guide. It stays in place like a beacon. And if the clouds cover it, the sun will rise again.
We have been navigating for centuries. Yes, without an app. Even if the compass breaks, you can find your way. You are your own compass. You have an internal GPS. Turn it on! And remember that you are never as lost as you think you are.
