Wild Ideas Worth Living: How Nature Teaches Us Resilience With Shelby Stanger

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day, we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markell and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change.

Proof.

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to the Change Proof podcast. And it's Adam Markel. I'm so happy to spend a little time with you today. I've got an incredible guest, Shelby Stanger. She's a neighbor of mine. I didn't really even know this until recently, but she's in the next town over. She's at Cardiff by the Sea, this beautiful little town, Southern California, North County, San Diego area. If you don't know Cardiff by the Sea, it's definitely a place you're going to want to visit. But for now, Shelby Stanger is the host and creator of the hit podcast Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI co op studio production. Over the years, her work has appeared in everywhere from Outside Magazine to espn. She's spoken to organizations like the Girl Scouts of America, npr, and Creative Mornings. She's always chasing adventure herself. Shelby is surf from Canada to Costa Rica, sandboarded down desolate dunes in Cape Town, paddle down a remote portion of the Amazon river, got so many bug bites, by the way, and interviewed countless CEOs, athletes, activists, and thought leaders. She regularly consults with highly motivated individuals and brands to tell better stories and even launch their own podcasts and wild ideas. She is amazing. So buckle up, have fun right now with me and Shelby Stanger. All right, Shelby, I'm already just salivating at the idea where we're going to take our conversation today. And just at the outset, what's one thing that's not part of the introduction that you hear quite frequently that I just read out loud? What's one thing that you would love for people to know about you that's not a part of your standard bio or intro?

That I love people and I have a lot of energy, but I will talk to everybody and I just, you know, some people like dogs. I love dogs, but I really like people. So that's probably something you should know.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's a good thing to know because I don't think everybody does love people. I mean, I'm not going to be. I don't have any statistics to prove that or back that up. And I'm not a cynic or anything, but, I mean, there's some people out There that, as evidenced by their behavior, their attitude or whatever, you just go, they don't really dig people, you know, and then I've also known people, as you probably have, too, that you thought. Thought kind of liked you, but in the end, they were, you know, not so much.

You know, I just think that everybody has a really unique story and they should tell it or. I want to hear it. I. I just love how people go through life, and I love finding out what they're passionate about.

So. No, why do you love people? I mean, I thank you for sharing that. And. And I guess what I'm really getting at is, was there a time in you either didn't love people so much or people on you or whatever, and now this is how you just, you know, you're living a better life by loving lucky.

Lucky. No, I grew up really lucky. I had a mom who just talked to everybody at the grocery store, at the gym. I mean, the guys who bagged our groceries. There was a Vons in Salana beach, where CVS is now, and they came to my birthday parties growing up. And I think I just learned at a very young age that, like, everybody. Everybody is really unique and has a cool story and, you know, if someone doesn't have a place to go for Thanksgiving, we should invite them. So. My mom was a professor at San Diego State, and often Thanksgiving dinners growing up had a very motley crew of personalities, from her students to the people at the gym to the guys at Seaside Market or Vons or wherever, someone she met on the beach. And I think what's great about that, and I didn't realize that until probably like this year or a couple of years ago, is that it made me really good at interviewing people and just good at my job. So I love people, and, I don't know, I'm able to kind of talk to all sorts of people and figure out what makes them tick. And I think that's, you know, people always ask me, what's your superhero power? And I'm just a very average surfer, maybe an average writer, average podcaster, but I think I'm really good at connecting to all types of people and finding goodness in them.

Yeah. And so you're. You're genuinely curious about that.

Super curious.

And their lives and. Yeah. Wow. You know what? Just thinking how important it is. So we're going to talk today about a lot of things, but change and resilience and. And the Darwin quote comes to mind. You know, a lot of people, when I ask about resilience and how they. They think about it. And I'm almost always in. In a context of a keynote presentation to a more corporate audience when I'm asking that kind of thing or in a. Like a workshop or something. And I'll say that. And they'll go, well, you know, it's a. Survival, the fittest thing. That's what we know about Darwin or one of the things, you know, we remember. And I go, well, it's interesting that, that. Because that's not really what his quote is all about. That's not what he said. He's. It's not the survival of the fittest or the smartest even. It's the survival of the most adaptable. It's the people who adapt to their changing environment that are the ones that will be around the longest. And I feel like to be able to fit in or find yourself curious enough to want to fit in even around people that are so different or just having a different experience, that. That is a superpower. And you're making me think about why it is that, you know, if I travel to Alabama for. For an. Something like that, I literally fall in love with Birmingham. You know, I'll be there for three, four days, and I'll love everything. I'll just so, like, literally vibe with everybody I meet and just enjoy the whole thing and be sad when I leave. And then, you know what, a week later I might be in Springfield, Missouri, and it's like, totally different, but I still love it. So are you that way? Do you love to. To just wherever you are? Are you like a chameleon or. How do you relate and connect to people that are so different than you so easily?

I don't. I don't know. I had different. My sisters and I are really different. And so I had to live with people really different than me. I don't know. But I can tell you that I do like going to different places and trying to find goodness in them. But I tend to like places with beaches or mountains or trees. I don't always like cities, so maybe I'm a little bit more biased when it comes to places than people, but I think writing a book was really lonely for me and hard. And what was hard about it, someone asked me about that yesterday, was that there weren't enough people around when I was writing. It's such a solo activity. And when I grew up, I played soccer really competitively. Olympic development onto college. I ended up playing at the only Division 3 school I applied to. I was going to go D1, but I wanted to also be a journalist and have a life and party and maybe join a sorority and volunteer. So I ended up going to Emory University. But what I learned is that I like being the goalie. I was the goalkeeper, so I'm used to being like the hero or the villain, and I'm okay with that amount of responsibility. It sucked, but I don't ever want to play goalie again. But I like having a team in front of me. And writing a book for me was a little tricky because it was just me. And I have a podcast too. You know, I have a podcast all about adventure, but I have a team. So, yes, I'm just the host, but I have all these really great people at REI and our production company that I work with to tell stories. So I don't know, I just like having other people around.

Yeah, I love having a team that is a part of the whole thing that we're doing too. Like, it's just remarkable how not just how important that team is, but like, literally, you know, how much more enjoyable the whole process is. Like, podcast. For people that don't know, there's a lot of moving parts to a podcast. I mean, we're just, you and I are just vibing. We're gonna have a conversation here, but there's so much went into getting this thing set up. The post production on this is going to be its own, like, you know, universe of stuff. Then there's the how we'll get it out to the world and what that looks like. And that's its own thing. I mean, there's so many things that are part of it, including it getting transcribed and turned into show notes and turn into blog fodder that gets on the website for SEO and blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? There's lot of moving parts of this simple conversation that we're having. And if I was to do that alone, I'd be burned out. I'd be be pissed off. I know me, I would just be like, I would never do it.

You know, I'm the same. Our podcast, the one I host for REI, which is now called, which is REI's podcast. They own it now. I sold it to them. It's called Wild Ideas Worth Living. We also script it now, which is really cool. So we'll do like an hour and a half, two hour long interview and then it'll become a 30 minute show.

Oh, yeah. Oh, that's nice. And Rei, what a great collaborator. What a great company to be aligned with. I imagine that's why you did it, because it's very much a values alignment for you.

Yeah, yeah. I, you know, when I was a kid, I wrote down on a piece of paper, encourage other people to kind of go for it. I was 15. I wrote that as like, my own little mission statement. And I was always a mainstream sports athlete. I played soccer, Iran cross country and track. But I found the most joy through outdoor sports and nature. Surfing, to me, was really the first outdoor sport I'd ever done. My parents weren't outdoorsy. They're from New York and Pittsburgh. They didn't camp. They were like, camping. You want to go camping? I didn't camp till I went to camp when I was a teenager, and I fell in love with it and rei. When I started my podcast, I had a long career as a journalist and then as a marketer. I worked for Vans. I did international sales and marketing. I did women's marketing early on when I was very young, quit to be a journalist, was freelance writing. Also moved to Costa Rica to teach surf lessons, which my mom thought I was absolutely crazy for doing. Then I went back to consulting, worked with brands like Nike and Prana to tell better stories and body glove. And in 2016, I'd been freelance journal, being a freelance journalist. And, you know, magazines were getting smaller and smaller. And I loved Tim Ferriss podcast. And I. I just had like, a big crush on Tim Ferriss podcast. But I wish he'd interview more people who were adventures, because that's just the lens in which I saw the world in which I connected to. And I wished he interviewed more women. So that's why I started a podcast called Wild Ideas Worth Living. And I wanted to interview people who had this wild idea and made it a reality. And ever since I was a little kid, I've been fascinated by people who took the road less traveled and who are kind of outliers who did their own thing, didn't have a direct path. You know, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids. I was always interested in people who did it a little differently. I grew up in the south part of San Diego. And you. Do you know who Slow Mo is?

No, I don't.

Slow Mo is this guy who is a doctor, but he like rollerblades in slow motion down the boardwalk. And I was fascinated by people like him who are just these caricatures of themselves. You know, he was like this mainstream doctor, and he rollerblades down in the boardwalk and slow motion and PB on the Bishop Bay boardwalk. And, you know, when I was 19 years old, I was a journalism student at Emory University.

And by the way, just going to parenthetically say, for people who don't know that area, you gotta go, you gotta check it. It's. It's worth the trip to San Diego for. Among other things, that. That environment, it's kind of like a bit of a. Of a.

It's kind of like Venice, but not really.

I was just gonna say it's like a cleaner Venice, but it's not that clean either.

But it's so funny because, you know, every. As a kid, I'd run down the boardwalk, and at Thanksgiving, there's this other guy who would be, like, mostly naked, and he'd have, like, a turkey, like, coming out of his Speedo and. Or like, something ridiculous for every. Every holiday. And I just thought it was awesome as a kid. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I've always been fascinated by people who took a different path. And there's been a lot of. There'd been a lot of times in my life where I felt stuck or scared and afraid to take a path that made zero sense on paper. And for me, I always got my best answers not from writing a pro con list, because those gave me anxiety and stress and made my stomach go in knots, but by going outside in nature, in nature, I mean, science proves that in nature, our blood pressure relaxes, our nervous system chills out. There's a study in 2019 in Frontiers in Psychology that proved that, you know, just 20 minutes a day in nature can reduce the stress hormone cortisol. And I don't think I realized that as a kid, but for me, nature has always been really cathartic and a really good place for me, like basically a petri dish for me to harbor wild ideas of my own. I got the best ideas when I was out in the water. Sometimes I got the best ideas when I was swimming in the middle of the ocean in La Jolla Cove, which is so inconvenient because who carries a pen and paper when they're swimming? So I'd have to, like, memorize this idea that would come to me or these words. Yeah, I just. I find that nature is really healing, and it's where our best ideas come from. And all of us are coming off this pandemic, which sucked, and a lot of us are really struggling still with mental health, but most of us are starting to travel more. We're starting to do stuff. We're starting to gather more, which to me is, like, joyous, because I love people which is why I'm lo doing these podcast interviews. And for me, I wrote this last book because I just wanted to encourage people to go do a wild idea, especially one in nature, because I think it'll improve your life and maybe even change it.

Yeah, well, I, When I'm tracking there, it's so many things. I wrote a book some years ago called Pivot, which was about my movement out of a conventional profession. I was a lawyer for 18 years and doing something pretty rad, pretty different, and that people have often thought was nuts. You know, especially other lawyers are like, oh, what do you. I mean, A, how did you do it? Tell me. And B, I don't know, like, how could you give up that golden whatever, you know, and that kind of thing? So the pro con list, I couldn't agree more like it on that. Ball it up. I mean, I mean, maybe it works for some people, but for me, ball it up, throw it in the circular file. Because that's not the process for figuring out whether you're going to take a, you know, make a pivot. And that pivot, by the way, too, doesn't have to be a giant leap. So I'm going to not push back. But I want to offer another perspective on this wild side thing thing. Right. Because, you know, for me, getting in nature, getting a nature mind or having ocean mind, which is my nature more than it is the woods, I love to walk in the woods. And I live in a, in a tree house in Martha's Vineyard on one coast and on the, you know, near the beach on the other coast, one town away from you. Because we're neighbors, funny enough. But the, the, the way my mind responds to nature and where it certainly responds to the water is that it just creates all this space. It creates this, it, it quiets it. The classic sort of meditative also creates all this space, and then space becomes creative itself. So, yes, the greatest ideas, the inspirations for books and everything, all these things, they come from that, from that time when you, you get into nature and have a nature mind or an ocean mind or whatever. I so agree and invite people to, yes. Explore what that wild, wild adventure might be and might just be like. You said that you carve out 20 minutes a day, like legitimately 20 is all you need, like getting the research clear on that to just go walk in a grove of trees or if got, you know, a bit more time, you can, you know, toggle your day so that the morning or some part of the morning or some part of the afternoon, you get to be near the water or in the mountains or, you know, again, in the forest. Wow. What that will do for your mental health and for your creative juices and so many things. So, yeah, way cool.

I agree. I mean, I think that's what's so great about nature is it forces us to be quiet and it forces us sometimes also to surrender. Like, there's no ego in nature. Nature doesn't care what you look like, how much money you have, your bank account, what you do for a living. Like, it doesn't give an F. You're so tiny, you're forced to give a F about yourself because nature doesn't care. But it also is really good at holding space for you. You know, like in the water it's so big and it's so vast. You talk a lot about resiliency, but, you know, a lot of people are trying a lot of things right now to improve their life life. But here's what some of these other things, like taking a substance or, you know, just going to therapy doesn't give you that. Nature does and an adventure does. Think nature gives you an adventure. Nature gives you the perspective. Like, think about just watching. So one of the things I suggest people to do, you don't have to go hike the Pacific Crest Trail or bike from Alaska to Patagonia. I'm not going to do that. I'm never going to climb Mount Everest. Just watch the sunrise or the sunset for a week or a couple times a week. And that in itself is pretty powerful. And we know that just looking out into the horizon from a mountain vista or just looking at the ocean at the horizon increases our perspective physically. And I think that helps us increase our perspective, you know, mentally as well. You get this space like you talked about, that you don't get inside four walls of a house or a cube or an office when you're outside. And I actually.

Or a computer screen or. Or a cell phone.

Exactly, exactly. That was also why writing a book was so hard, because I was writing it on a computer and I was like, ah, how can I make this computer waterproof in the middle of the ocean and right on my surfboard. I couldn't figure that out. I didn't want to figure it out. I mean, it would have been cool. But yeah, I don't know.

It's a solitary experience, just like you said. And yet even in that having. Having written a few books in one last year that that came. Actually had three books came out last year, which is insane. It just all the way the Pandemic worked. It's how machine. No, hardly. But it was a team, so that's what I was getting at. I didn't do it. I wrote alone a lot of times, and then I also wrote in collaboration, but the editing was a beast. And there were a lot of people involved, from the publishing house to, you know, family and friends and stuff. Like, it was just such a. A community, like a. What does it say it takes a village? Like, it takes three villages to write a book. And yet it's still crazy that this book. I will get people to say, you know, there's a typo on this page. Like, there's still. After 15 edits of the thing, there's one or two typos that are in this book. And so it is humbling. I mean, the whole experience is just like. Like you are in nature. As you said, you're so small in the midst of this vastness that it puts for me. And I think you feel the same exact way. It takes what is your ego, which is a part of us. It's a necessary part. It's vital to our. Our survival. It's vital to our success. But a lot of times, at the worst of it, it's not in. It's oversized for what we're doing in the world. And by that, I mean it. We need a perspective on our own egos, and nature affords that. You know, what else affords perspective on your ego is. Is falling down, is up, is getting, you know, getting slammed in the water. Right? As a surfer, you and I both know what it's like to get slammed and have, I don't know how many tons of water, you know, over your head and pounding and stuff. And yes, that. It's a great experience. And it's somewhat optional, too, don't you think? Like, you could go out in and get your ego in check, kind of. That's a lot easier on you, on your body and your mind, your heart, your soul, than to allow, you know, the forces of nature to slam you because you're a little out of control. Like your. Your ego's a little out of control. What do you think of that? Have you known anybody like that? That resonate with you at all?

I mean, I think there's, you know, ways to have a relationship with nature, and you can go to her in different ways when you need it. So if you just need healing, lying in water is really healing. Watching the sunset, going for a quiet hike is great. Think nature offers a lot of chances to be a great teacher. And that can include going surfing or going rock climbing or doing an adventure where you're gonna fail and you have to get really comfortable with it. You're gonna fall off your surfboard, you're gonna fall rock climbing. And, you know, usually the consequences aren't that bad if you're locked in with rope. If you're not, you're high consequence. I think that's the point of nature. You know, when you talk about being slammed by water. There was a time where I was teaching surf lessons in Costa Rica and I would just paddle out every day. Whether Orlando.

Where were you?

I was in Nosara.

Okay.

And I lived in Nosara and I taught surfing before it was crowded and filled with really rich tech executives that have changed the town. But it's okay. It's still a great place. And, you know, every day I would surf whether it was big, whether it was small and mostly was big because it was summer and it was south swell. And, you know, the waves used to scare me. And then it's sandy bottom there. The consequences are small. The risk is really not that big in the scheme of life. You can get hurt if you don't know what you're doing, but not like going to Indonesia or Hawaii or somewhere like that. And so I just treated each WA wave like finally it was just giving me a massage and I was like enjoying the beating of being held underwater. I just changed my relationship with, you know, with things that were gonna be heavy and tumultuous. And I think that's how life is like, if you can just relax during tumultuous situations, like going through the rinse cycle after a wave breaks on your head and you're rinsed underwater and you're going upside down. If you can relax through it, you'll come up for air and you'll get a chance to break, take a breath. If you panic while you're getting rinsed through the rinse cycle of the ocean, you're going to lose your breath and it's going to be high consequence. So it's a good metaphor to then take to your everyday life. And I think this is why I felt so called to write this book, is that nature's been the best teacher. And ever since I was a little kid, I teach surf lessons to women. And women would come for like a weekend clinic. I taught at Surf Diva, the first all girls surf school. Women would come for a weekend clinic at La Jolla Shores. This was, you know, before there weren't many surf schools. Now there's a lot or they'd go for a week long clinic in Costa Rica and I'd get a call from one or two of them every single time a few weeks or a few months later, and they'd say something like, hey, Shelby, I quit my job. I ended my dysfunctional relationship finally for good. Or I'm moving across the country to a place with a better beach, often by me. And their life would never be the same again. And their changes they would make for the, would keep going for the positive and the positive and the positive. And what I learned is that even a little time in nature, doing something wild, whether it's wild to you is what it matters, can really propel someone to massive positive change. And you talk about resiliency, which is like my mom's favorite word. My mom happens to be an interventionist on drug addicts and people with mental health, substance abuse. She's one of the top interventionists in the country. And we've had a lot of trauma growing up. My dad died when I was young. I'm the fourth child of three. There was a son that she had that died of son infant death syndrome at eight months. And so they really protected me as a little kid. They're always afraid I was going to die, which she's like, maybe that's why you do such crazy stuff, because you're raised in so much fear that you have to, to keep breaking out of it. And I'm like, maybe, I don't know, whatever, I'm gonna let it go and. But, you know, I think that being in nature teaches you resiliency as well. Trees are really resilient. And what's so cool about some trees is that even in fire, there's certain trees that will only seed during a wildfire and then only sprout new seeds and new trees if they're burned. So I don't know, I just, I just love that you talk a lot about resiliency because, like, nature is the ultimate teacher at building courage, gaining perspective and gaining resiliency.

And to me, metaphors are super helpful. So what you said earlier about, about being, you know, put through the rinse cycle in surfing and stuff like that reminds me of a conversation I had with Dave Kalama, who's a big wave surfer out on.

I've been with him on a paddle board in Fiji. He's really cool.

He is. He's a good, good guy. In fact, I remember we did that podcast. He ended up in the book, he ended up in awesome in Change Proof because the book starts out with this metaphor of the ocean in particular of a rip current. What we used to as lifeguards back in the day called sucks. And so the beginning of the book is about a suck and how people respond to it. It is very similar to what you just said, which is that when we don't relax in the face of the threat of the change, the threat of the like, the change being, I'm not on my surfboard anymore, I'm underwater, I could die here. All this is dark and scary and unknown. And we're living in that world right now. We're living in a very, you know, time that for a lot of people is just. Just filled with darkness and unknowns and uncertainty. And so again, if you can relax, as you pointed out, what ends up happening is the wave will release you. The conversation with Dave was interesting because he was surfing out at, out at the site, you know, in Jaws, which Maui's famous for this, you know, 60 foot wave over there and that Laird Hamilton has made famous, among others. And, and he said he got. It was a day when Laird wasn't around for whatever reason, he was out doing something, some other crazy thing. And so he was the favorite to win this competition, which was just, you know, would have kind of changed his career a bit. In his ego. What we were talking about earlier was such that, that he just sort of expected, you know, which is a good thing. You know, I'm expecting I'm gonna win. I'm visualizing myself with, you know, the celebration, all that. He was there and he finds himself on whatever 50, 60 foot thing, you know, and he's on the face and the next thing you know, and he's already sort of passed it, he's already finished the wave and he's celebrating and next thing you know, he's literally sliding on his back at God knows what speed. You know, you're just sort of like almost like a rock that's skipping across the water. He's just like skipping down the face of this massive, you know, whatever six story building of water and then it breaks and, you know, puts him under and he got a breath and he was good. And then there was a second wave that he got in, in the wash and they couldn't get him, you know, with the Jet Ski. And so a second wave got him and now he's under two waves and he's literally, if he does not, he comes up and if he's the Jet Skis there, his partner's there to get him and he realizes, look, if I don't hold on. If I don't get out of here with this jet ski now, I'm dead. I'm, I don't have any more air left to survive, you know, another wave that's going to put me 40ft under the, you know, under the surface. And he talked about just this relaxing his body when he was under, following the bubbles because it's so dark and he's so deep that you don't even know which way is down versus up. But it was the bubbles that were going to the surface that he knew how he could swim to get there. And it's just so reminiscent of what you're saying, which is that when we fight it, when we're tense in the midst of what is scary, we're actually defeating, we're defeating our energy. We're limiting the creative opportunity that exists in that space. And that was the same thing with the rip current. You know, if you just relax and lie on your back, the rip current will spit you out. Yeah, you may have some swimming to do from where it spits you out. That's true. But you will not have exhausted yourself to the point where your, your lactic acid and everything is, is seizing your muscles and your, you're, you know, ready to drown if somebody doesn't come get you. So I think right now, in the time we're living in, people have to relax. We all probably have to get a dose of relaxation. Nature does that too. It gives us that moment to relax. I want to just go back to something you said earlier too, which was you talked about these companies that you've been associated with and aligned with, etc, including rei. But my question is, what's the best culture? If you could answer this question for me, of all the companies you've worked with, including Nike, etc, were you able to get a front row seat for what the culture at those organizations was like? And, and can you tell us what you which was the best culture you've ever been a part of?

I mean, I've really only spent the most time at Vans and at rei. And at rei, I'm just a contractor, but they just won basically an award by Forbes that they're the most social conscious and eco conscious brand out there and it's cool. Their culture is amazing and friendly and bright and you know, I don't get emails at like after a certain hour. Nobody emails me really on the weekend. They really value also going outside. My coworkers on my team do crazy adventures and we talk about it. It. Vans was awesome. I mean I was there early and I actually had this really unique opportunity right after college. I was the first female journalist for this thing called the Vans Warp Tour, which is a 60 day punk rock concert series that goes to 60 cities in 60 days with 108 vans personalities, skateboarders, motocross riders, and a motley crew of people at every single stop. And it's this traveling punk rock circus with massive chaos. And I was this young, one of the only females on the tour, journalist, and I was 22 years old, which. What a summer for a 22 year old. Awesome. It was like almost famous. And the founder of Vans is a guy named Paul Van Dorn. And his son Steve was really like the face of the company. He and I shared a bunk bed on the tour bus. And he's this jolly guy. He's never had a drink in his life. He would get dessert before dinner. He was just fun. He would be out there selling T shirts, talking to people all day from like. I just had to write two stories a day and take 108 photos, which was hard because it meant I needed to find a phone line at the end of the day to send the photos because There was no wifi in 2002, which meant I needed, you know, Warp tours are held at dirt parking lots at fairgrounds, so there was no phone line except for ones occupied by tour staff. You didn't want to mess with them. They were dealing with tickets. They were scary. They had mohawks and tattoos that were intimidating. They ended up being the nicest people, but they were scary to a 22 year old girl. But Steve was out there all day, like selling T shirts, selling shoes, helping people, getting excited. And then, you know, we would pull into like a Truck Stop or McDonald's in some random town. Some kid would recognize him, do an ollie show ste, and he'd be like, what's your number? What's your address? And the next day that kid would have a fresh pair of vans on his sidewalk and he'd make time for everybody. And I just learned, you know, from Vans, like to show up and be kind and that kindness is such a game changer. I mean, I learned a lot at Vans. It was, it was awesome. I was there up until 2009 and the culture there is really strong. I don't work in house at rei, but I can tell it's a wonderful company. And, you know, they make gear that gets people outside in nature. I don't know what's really better than that. I didn't really have a ton of insight. And then I Nike, I was pretty young, I got to work at Body Glove for a while. It's a family owned company. They would crack open a bottle of wine at five and go sailing and scuba diving and surfing at lunch. And that was probably like one of the most fun companies I've ever worked at. And they're really cool. The whole family still works there. Oh my God. And the Maestrals, their grandpa were the people that founded Body Glove. They were like some of the first scuba divers. They had this like amazing collection of shells. So I think at in surf companies and outdoor companies, you know what's really cool is a lot of these outdoor companies are really trying to expand who belongs in the outdoors? Because I think for a while it was pretty insular. At the time I was probably one of the few girls at a lot of these companies. And now I think you're seeing a lot more diversity, which is really cool. But they're all founded by this passion, you know, this passion to do the thing that they sell so that you can do whether it's going outside and sleeping in a tent under the stars or climbing a mountain or going surfing or riding a skateboard or like Body Glove, you know, know they create wetsuits so that you don't freeze when you're surfing. So I've always been lucky that I've worked with really kind, cool companies. And then I consult with a lot of companies. So I don't know, those are probably the top three that I've worked with that are the most interesting.

I mean, I love the word kindness. Doesn't get enough credit, I don't think.

You know, kindness is really big, right?

In corporate fun.

I think you gotta be fun because if your company is fun then your culture will be fun and customers will associate you with fun. And everybody wants to have more fun. We all take ourselves too seriously. And I don't know, I also really appreciate companies with a sense of humor and I think that's really important. I think that humor is actually really important in nature and the will to wild. Because there are going to be so many times when you're scared and you don't know what you're doing. And I think humor can be a.

Great pause and just literally laugh at yourself. I mean, here's a call to action for everybody today. Listening to this, like find a moment today or seize a moment. How about that? Where it's possible to laugh at yourself for a second second. Like just have a chuckle at yourself.

I mean I was young when I worked at Vans, so I would be in these executive meetings, and I was probably one of the youngest ones. And they would be like, we're going to penetrate the market. And I would just giggle, like, at the word penetrate. I was very immature. But, you know, sometimes there's some words that just make you laugh. You just talked about Jaws. I was actually at Jaws. I got invited to cover Bethany Hamilton, the surfer who would be one of the first to surf Jaws. You know, it was quite remarkable to watch waves at Jaws. She was towed in on a Jet Ski, and it was just incredible to watch her. And I was on the boat with her. She turned to me right before going out into the water and was like, can you put my hair up in a ponytail? And at that moment, I was like, oh, my gosh, she's doing this. And she has one arm. And you never. You never realize that about Bethany because she's one of the top surfers in the world, regardless of the fact that she only has one arm and she surfed these three waves. It was incredible. We went back to the boat, she grabbed her son and started nursing him because she was a new mom. And it just drove home the fact that she's a badass no matter what. The next day, she decided to paddle surf jobs without a Jet Ski. And she wanted to feel what a beating at Jaws felt like. And so she did it. She surfed on her own, then got one on the head. And she came up laughing. She came up laughing after one of those beat downs that, you know, Kalama had. And I think that's the point is, like, if you can laugh, I mean, look, some things in life are going to absolutely suck. Suck. And they're sad and they're horrible, and there's things going on in the world that absolutely suck. But if you could try to at least laugh at yourself when you suck, that's a game changer.

Oh, yeah, let's replay that one. I mean, holy smokes. Yeah, she is. To me, if there was. I don't know if there was a poster for what badass is. She's on it in my book, people. Bethany Hamilton. If you want to just check her story out, Google her. And I don't even know if I'm gonna say it here. If you don't know, you need to go find out. So I'm not. I'm not going to be the source of info here. She has got one of the most. The most utterly insane stories of resilience, of being change proof. She is. She's Just, yeah, like just an epic human and athlete. And as you said, mom, you just name it. This is a person with, you know, if I was saying, oh, so what's the, What's a through line for somebody like that? To me, it would be this attitude word, like the word you probably heard when you were a kid. My dad would be saying to me sometimes he said, change your attitude. Attitude. I'm like, I don't know what that means. Change my at. Like, what is my attitude? You know, you're just like being a little, you know, whatever head right now, feeling sorry for yourself or whatever, the, you know, thing. And I didn't know how to change my attitude. And it's a funny refrain because, you know, it's been a long time since my dad told me to change my attitude. But we've got to be able to change our attitude. And, you know, when you, when you have the life experience that she had, it would be fine to have an attitude of this, this sucks, this sucks. And that's it. Just, this sucks. So don't expect any more from me. I don't have to expect much because who even survives something like that, right? Let alone picks up their life and is stronger? So to me, that's. Resiliency is not about bouncing back. We often will say this when we're, when we're doing our work in the world, we talk about it as bouncing forward because it's, it's bouncing back stronger. It's not a going back to the status quo quo. When life changes things in a radical way. It's because what existed was no longer tenable. And it's our job to adapt to that new environment and surf it, if you will.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, my mom also, you know, part of why I wrote a book is I watched my mom write this book during the pandemic so fast. And I was like, how did you just do that? She publishing company contacted her to write a book called Addiction in the Family. But her book before that was called Falling Up. And she has the saying that, you know, you have to fall up. You're going to fall down a lot in life, but you have to learn to fall up. There was a lot of hardships that she went through besides my dad, like her own life. And, you know, life is going to throw things at us, but we have to fall up. And that is part of resiliency perspective. And I think nature also teaches that very well, very fast. When you surf a wave, you're going to fall a lot. When you rock climb you're going to fall a lot. And I think what's so cool is that you fall and fail enough times. Times you try more and you try more and then the failing becomes less and the trying gets easier and then the success becomes more present and more commonplace. So I always recommend people who are afraid of failure to try bouldering or go to the climbing gym because you have to fail.

It's part of golf.

Yeah, that's painful.

It's for the mass.

I don't recommend that. Yeah, golf is cool, but I don't feel like there's enough nature in golf. It feels a little manufactured. My parents like golf. I. I just, I like golf.

You're walking out in the woods for three hours. What do you mean?

I like. I mean kind of. But you got manicured grass and you could. Well, it is pretty nice. You could have like a drink. I like that. You can have a, a cocktail or a snack. I'm really a big fan of snacks. And I tell. It's part of the book. I say you have to create your own. You need to bring your own trail candy on the trail, whatever that looks like for you. It doesn't always have to be a suffer festival like bring. If you enjoy kombucha or watermelon, which is totally inconvenient to bring in your pack. I say bring it. As long as it's safe and you're not in bear country and you do the things that you're supposed to do. You got to pack your own trail candy.

Oh, man. A last question today and then I would love to pick this up again another day too, because I feel like we're just getting rolling here. You've worked with young women a lot in your life and I would like to just get your, your, your thoughts on how, on how girls are doing today. I have. I'm a daddy and have three of those as young women today. 22 is our youngest, the 30s our oldest, and. And then we have a son as well. But just having spent so many years in watching young girls grow up and develop into these amazing women and my wife being just the, the most amazing role model for them. I want to get your thoughts on how girls are doing today because even our girls, while the youngest is 22, she certainly. Yeah, they've, they've all been involved in social media. They've all had a, like a smartphone since, you know, whenever. But it feels like anxiety, depression, suicide among teens. Not just girls, of course, but high incidence of these things in that teenage demographic of young girls. That is not just. It's disturbing, it's confronting. It's something I think we need to be alert to. And. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are on what's going on. And, you know, are there, you know, for people listening to this right now who have either young. Young girls in their home, you know, they have daughters, or they have friends or family, you know, that they're looking at and maybe are concerned about how they're doing, you know, any thoughts that you could share on. On that? I know it's a really broad question. I apologize for that.

No, I wish I had better answers. I feel the same about you. And I have a lot of empathy for young women growing up today, and I think that's kind of going to be my next move, is to go back to working with young women. It feels like it's needed right now, and I don't know if I'm the one to do it, but everybody who has a mom that's a teen somehow puts them on me. So I think I just have this maturity level of a teenager, and so I tend to relate to teens really well. I think we just have to be kind as adults and show kindness and compassion. I think we need more humor. We've lost that. And kids used to be more funny. I think the pandemic was hard on a lot of children. Social media. Yeah. I mean, it's not going anywhere. So the only thing we can do is, is teach kids another way. And I always believe that, like, nature is such a good thing to take kids into. Not every kid loves nature, but most kids really like time in nature. You just have to do it in the way that they want to experience it. You know, bring yummy snacks, make it fun. You know, maybe they don't like walking in the woods, but most kids like taking a zip line through a bunch of trees. And, you know, there are zip lines in California. Go on cool hikes, take them kayaking, enter them into surf lessons if they want to. I think that's one of the cool things about outdoor sports is they really build courage and confidence. And, you know, I have a friend whose kid surfs, and she's, like, really well adjusted. You know, other kids at school are vaping and sneaking out, and, you know, this kid's like, whatever, I'm a surf nerd. She calls herself a surf nerd. She likes to study and she likes to surf. She has her head on glued pretty tight. But I also think parents have to give themselves breaks because a lot of I see A lot of parent friends beat themselves up and like, look, it's just hard. Like we're in a really different time than when we grew up and all we can do is be nice to ourselves. And I think that's the biggest thing. We need to show kindness to ourselves to model that for other kids. Yeah, I actually the probably the most interesting woman I've ever interviewed is Edith Eager. She's the oldest person I've ever interviewed. She's a Holocaust survivor. And she says self love is not selfish, it's self care. It's not narcissistic. And all of us have to be better models of, of, you know, a lot of us adults have anxiety and stress and we show it to our kids and all we can do is our best self love, self care. We have to say nice things about ourselves as women. It's tricky. Like, I'm getting older, I'm getting wrinkles. All my friends are talking about them and I'm just like, I'm gonna have a lot of wrinkles. I spent 30 to 40 sitting in waist deep water, pushing girls into waves, staring at the sun, squinting like it's just part of my life and I have to embrace it. And I think, you know, trees don't judge themselves for being wrinkly. And I'm not saying we all have to be like trees, but I think that we have to be better role models as adults to kids and be nice to ourselves, say nice things to ourselves as women. We got to support each other. I also think we need to be nice to young men. You know, I think it's really hard to also be a young man today. I was a product of title nine, so doors just opened for me as a woman. I got away with murder because I was one of the only women who could kind of ride a skateboard. I push manga, which is like, not cool. And I got the job at Vans. Like, yes, I had a great journalism degree and I was smart and had a little bit of charm that probably got me the job and some skills. But, you know, being a woman actually has kind of helped me in my career. So I think we just have to help everybody and treat. You know, there's a spectrum of people right now, and it's really cool. We're entering an age where there's all sorts of different people, they identify with different things. You know, I'm like torn on labeling anything. I just think that we're all people, we're all pretty close to the DNA. If you look up at stars, which is why I recommend going outside. So often you see that we are just, just a small dot in this wide universe and we're much more similar than we think we are. Whether we have different beliefs about politics or whatever, we're all just this small dot in this giant universe. And so, I don't know, go outside. It teaches you to have more love and to surrender.

Yeah, I mean, growing up we just didn't have a lot of, of things that were interesting inside the house, I guess. I don't know. I grew up in an apartment. Small little apartment, shared a room, tiny room with my brother and you know, and we had tv. I didn't grow up like, you know, in the ice age or something. Yeah, like that. But, you know, we were outside a lot and we were outside without a tether and we didn't have a phone. And so our parents didn't know where we were and we didn't know where they were, although they were at work, you know, so we knew that much or whatever. But. And we had to be home for dinner and if we didn't get home for dinner, you know, you could get, you could get. It could be dicey if they had to come out looking for you, you know, but it was a different world. And I'm not doing, oh, the world was better back then thing. I'm, I'm not going there. There are things from the past that we would love to have back today and there are things that from the past which sucked and which sucked for a lot of people that we don't want to revisit. So, you know, it's a mixed bag, as you said. But it's interesting looking at, at other people parenting their kids now and my wife and I being a little further removed from that, having just paid my last tuition bill and congrats, that's incredible. Ucsd, we have a ucla, we got, you know, we managed to get into a bunch of UC schools, was fun. And so in that perspective I see know that filling up the kids schedules endlessly with things, thing after thing after thing after thing, not having space, like we said earlier, to close that loop space is creative. It can be. When you create space, it becomes a creative thing that kids maybe don't have a lot of space and they don't have a lot of time when they're not being observed. You know, the quote helicopter parents out there and they maybe also don't know what it's like to fail to go back to something else you said because they're constantly being made, made to feel Successful. And regardless of whatever outcome they get, I think these are things that we have to. As parents. If you're listening out there, you could take a pause, take a. You know, take a beat for a minute, even a second, and just think, you know, do I need to. Do I need to hover? Do I need to plan? Do I need. Can my kid have some unscheduled, unsupervised, you know, whatever time? And if that means, you know, inside, in front of a screen, I would say, you know, no. It's like, the only rule is get out. Get out of the house. I don't know. That could be completely tone deaf to the world we're living in today.

Because I don't know. I mean, my friend and I have, like, this joke podcast that's parenting advice by people who aren't parents, because we're not parents. And so I give my sisters who are parents all sorts of advice, and they just roll their eyes because they're like, you're not a parent. So I have to say, if you're a parent, just give yourself a hug. You're not that powerful enough to totally screw up your child. That's the other thing. Like, don't give yourself that much credit. Just be nicer to yourself. You're not going to f up your child. All you can do is model Kai.

All right, so you said it about your sister. So I'm going to call out my own family on this one. I say this to my brother, go, you know, dude, your kids are amazing. And my nieces and nephews, they're just the most amazing, amazing beings. I go, but you're so hard on them. I'm like, so let me just understand something. Where did. Where did our parents, who screwed up plenty and are not perfect people, and. And none of us. None of us are. So I'm like, they clearly, they screwed up really bad because you're doing so poorly that you would have to. To be such a different parent than they were with you. And it's like, what do you like? He's a super successful guy with four amazing, healthy kids and a great marriage. He goes, so where did they f up so badly that you need to, like, ride your kids so hard? Like, oh, no, they didn't ride you a tenth as hard as that. So I don't know. It's funny thing, right?

I don't know. My sisters, I'm lucky. They're really good parents. I watch them. I have friends who have really good parents. I live in this community. I don't know if you heard kids chirping outside, but a lot of people had babies during COVID So Johnny and I, my partner, we are like aunties and uncles to a lot of kids. And I don't know if we're gonna have kids of our own. Like, I'm at that age where I probably need to make that decision, but I definitely want kids in my life. And, you know, if you don't have kids of your own, being that auntie, uncle to other kids, I think is important because it does take a village and we have to support our parent friends. So good on you for raising four kids. Like, that's a lot, Adam. And I'm impressed.

Well, this is why I look the way I do. And my wife and I were exhausted.

We're exhausted. You look great. You look great. Well, thank you so much for having me on your show. I really appreciate it.

It a pleasure. And quick note to the audience out there, if there are some things in this show that would really not just resonated with you, but might help friend, family member, colleague to listen to, please, as always, share the episode. And that what that does is, is it helps us get this to a larger community. Of course. And I don't know how the algorithm works. We just know the algorithm's in charge. So sharing it is great. Reviewing it, leaving a five star, similar, other star review makes sense to you. Please do that. You can leave a comment or question for either Shelby or myself by going to AdamMarkel.com podcast. Leave that comment or question and it'll be us that answers. No bots, no robots, no AI. It's just real humans doing it. So we'd love that. And with that, I want to just say again, Shelby, thanks so much for being on the show today and wherever you are listening to this right now, think about some of the things that Shelby said she shared. Maybe just make a moment, just a moment today in nature and take a pause and feel, you know, feel stillness or something. It's going to be really beneficial to you. And again, thank you all for being here. As always, I'll say ciao for now. Holy smokes. I love that conversation with Shelby. She is somebody, you know, clearly just has had an epic life. A leading by example. Loves, loves, loves nature and what nature does for us, how it opens us up. We talked today about the creative opportunities that come from creating space for opportunity, space for creativity. We talked about how it is that we create great cultures, business culture. She shared a little bit about her experience working for Vans and with Other profound brands. Along the way, we talked about about how it is that our attitudes are such a big impact on the experience that we have and how we can sort of change. Or at least we brought up the question of how do you change your attitude? That was something I shared for my personal life and my dad that would sometimes say to me when I was a kid, hey, change your attitude. It's like, I didn't know what the heck that meant. Like, how do I change my attitude? And yet what I realize now is how important it is that we are the ones who are in charge of our attitudes, that we get to choose our attitude, choose it in the moment, and even choose it for the day. That's a life changing capacity, ability, the capability to do that. It's transformational. As a leader, as somebody who's living, wanting to live a great life, you've got to be able to be in charge of your own attitude. If you can be in charge of your own attitude, my view is you can be in charge of your own destiny. We talked about Wild Ideas Worth Living, which happens to be the name of our podcast. We talked about the Pro Con list and whether that that thing actually works for us. We talked about nature mind, developing a nature mind. And for both of us, she's a surfer and I'm a surfer and we love the water, in particular the ocean. We talked a little bit about developing an ocean ocean mind as well. She's got an epic book that's out that I think everybody's going to want to get their hands on and, and it's Will to Wild. And you can find more information about her book, Shelby's book, as well as the work she does in the world and has done in the world in our show notes. So please go to the show notes to click on links and find out more about, about Shelby and her experience. And yes, please go and buy that book. I would say right now more than ever before, I think we've really got to challenge some of the conventional wisdom that's around us, maybe even within, and be willing to get out there and do something wild. We chatted a little bit about, you know, how big a leap are we talking about here? Does it have to be a massive life threatening leap or one that, you know is a leap that brings up, that creates fear, tremendous fear, like, you know, the proverbial jumping out of an airplane or climbing mountain ever. And you'll have to see whether that resonates with you. I my personal belief is that it doesn't have to be. And it's the little changes that we, that we make and the little changes aggregated over time that produces this exponential transformational change that that is, is possible in any business. It's possible in any relationship. The relationship we have with other people, the relationship we have with ourselves is possible in our bodies. So that's the long game that I'm playing. That's the resilience training work that we do in the world, that our company workwell does in the world, helping organizations and leaders create that longevity within their teams so that we're creating cultures that are work cultures of resilience and work cultures of wellness, as opposed to cultures of burnout. And there's so many work cultures of depletion and exhaustion and burnout that I couldn't even begin to name a list if I was even inclined to do so because it's more, it's more the rule than it is the exception. And that's old paradigm thinking. That's 20th century thinking. And we're in already well into the first quarter here of the 21st century. And that paradigm has to shift and has to be different. And that is why I love and I'm so committed to, to the, to the work well way. So if you want to check for yourself just how exhausted or resilient you're feeling even now in this moment, all you have to do is go to resiliencerank.com resiliencerank.com three minutes and you will get your own personalized score in four specific zones of resilience. Mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual. And it's yours for the asking. It's entirely our gift to you. It's free, as well as the resources that, that you'll get as a follow up to that. So take advantage of that. Let us know what you think of the podcast. Podcast, we'd love to get your five star review. We'd love to get your comments. For Shelby myself, you can go to AdamMarkel.com/forward/comment, leave a comment there. And again, as promised, it will not be any AI. There'll be no bot. They'll only be a human responding and that'll be myself and or Shelby. So we'd love to hear from you. For now, just enjoy. And of course, if you love this episode, as always, my only request is that you share it with a friend, a family member, a business or colleague. Okay, take care and thank you so much. As always, thanks for listening.

We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become Change Proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building Change Proof teams, visit Apple adammarkel.

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