Shelby Stanger, WILL TO WILD: Adventures Great and Small to Change Your Life
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[1:03]Shelby Stanger is the author of Will to Wild Adventures Great and Small to Change Your Life.
[1:08]Shelby is a long time adventure journalist, speaker, and podcaster.
[1:11]She's most known as the host of REI Co-ops Wild Ideas Worth Living Podcast.
[1:17]In extremely popular podcast, she started in 2016 and sold to REI Co-op in 2020.
[1:23]And it stayed on as the host.
[1:24]Her motto, A Little Adventure, is Life's Antidote.
[1:27]Welcome Shelby.
[1:28]Thank you so much for coming on mom's ton of time to read books to discuss Will to Wild.
[1:33]Adventures Great and Small to Change Your Life.
[1:36]Thanks for having me, Zippy.
[1:37]You have like an OG version.
[1:39]I love that, but it's been changed a little bit.
[1:41]How's it?
[1:42]Oh, yeah.
[1:43]This is the galley.
[1:45]So I'll send you the original.
[1:47]It's much better.
[1:48]galley had like a few errors.
[1:50]As you know, when you're writing a book, I had no idea what a process it was, but it's
[1:56]an adventure itself.
[1:57]Yes.
[1:59]The real ones out in the world, it's been really fun.
[2:01]Wow.
[2:03]I don't know.
[2:04]I love the galleys because they're always paperback and I can bring them places easily.
[2:07]And I don't know.
[2:08]So I tend to put aside the hard copies even if they arrive sometimes.
[2:11]I'm a fan of paperback as well.
[2:13]Shelby, your book is so inspiring because it starts with your own journey of how you basically
[2:19]got unstuck and rediscovered adventure and got yourself out of a bad place.
[2:23]But it's much less like an adventure guide book and much more about like living your
[2:29]best life, honestly.
[2:30]It's kind of the bigger message of the whole book.
[2:33]So anyway, tell me about writing this book and just anything you want to say about it.
[2:38]Well, thanks for having me on Zibi.
[2:40]I love what you've created.
[2:41]I started podcasting around the same time and I ended up wanting to do a podcast about
[2:46]adventure.
[2:47]And then this book is because over the years, I started writing an adventure column on
[2:51]his 19 and the San Diego newspapers.
[2:54]And I've always been fascinated with the power of adventure.
[2:57]As a little girl, I taught surfing at this all women's surf school called surf diva,
[3:02]which if make your way down to San Diego, we'll get you a lesson.
[3:05]And women would come for like a weekend or a week long clinic and a couple of weeks or
[3:10]a month afterward, I'd often get a call from one of them and they'd say, Shelby, I quit
[3:15]my job that I needed to quit or I ended a relationship that was no longer serving me
[3:20]or they were moving across the country to a place with a better beach.
[3:23]And their life would never be the same again.
[3:26]And I think that it stuck with me and resonated with me so much that I inadvertently
[3:30]made it my life's work to study people who chased adventure full time.
[3:34]And then I started this podcast in 2016 years later that I ended up selling to REI called
[3:39]Wild Ideas Worth Living.
[3:42]And I'd read into a lot of adventure books and most of them glorified venture and glorify
[3:47]the finish line, but they don't tell you how to go out and do an adventure and the
[3:51]power of adventure.
[3:53]And what happens when everything goes wrong and what to do if you have self doubt and
[3:57]fear and a posture syndrome and how to get unstuck and like to me doing an adventure
[4:03]even a small one and an adventure is an adventure if it's adventurous to you.
[4:08]So I know I look like an adventure and I've got all these surfboards in the background,
[4:12]but I'm never going to climb Mount Everest.
[4:14]I'm never going to ride my bike probably more than a hundred miles or I don't know.
[4:18]I mean, even a little hike, making commitment to watch the sunrise every morning.
[4:22]There are small adventures you can do that can have a profound effect and so I wanted
[4:27]to create the best of everything I'd read in a book.
[4:30]I'm not a huge reader.
[4:31]I know that's embarrassing to say on your podcast, but I wanted like punchy fun stories.
[4:36]I wanted to share stories of other people I've interviewed.
[4:39]I wanted to tell a little bit of my story, the more raw or vulnerable ones, which to be
[4:45]honest, I wanted to puke when I was writing them, but I'm sure you can relate.
[4:49]And then I wanted to have these pro tips at the end of each chapter.
[4:51]So like if you're busy and you're a mom and you don't have a lot of time, you can just flip
[4:55]to the page and be like, okay, this is what I need to do because I think a lot of us
[4:58]have a decision fatigue in our lives.
[5:01]And I just wanted to give pro tips like here's a great way to go out and do one and like
[5:06]here's here's some numbers to break it down into so that you can scientifically, if you're
[5:11]like very analytical, get your brain around why you should go do something now.
[5:16]And I think we can all relate to looking up at the night sky and that feeling, which creates
[5:24]awe is such a game changing feeling.
[5:26]And I think that's one of those feelings that adventure brings to you.
[5:30]You know, you can feel small and yet more connected at the same time.
[5:34]You often feel grateful.
[5:36]And like if you weren't a bad mood before you go out in the wild into nature, maybe
[5:42]you had a bad day at work, maybe you were stuck in traffic.
[5:45]Usually afterwards you kind of forget about your bad mood and your in a good mood again.
[5:50]So I don't know, there's all these great things that nature provides and that doing
[5:55]an adventure provides that almost creates a synergistic effect.
[5:59]I know I'm a little bit rambling, but there's a lot of books about nature, right?
[6:02]And we know that being outside in nature is good for us.
[6:05]It chills out our nervous systems and most of us are pretty like intense nervous systems.
[6:11]It helps us lower blood pressure, sometimes it boosts our immunity, we can relax.
[6:17]And then when you do something outside of your comfort zone and do an adventure in nature,
[6:21]I think it creates this like double effect.
[6:25]And so this book is sort of a guide book on why and how to do it, but using a really
[6:31]wide range of adventures.
[6:33]So there's everyone from body positive runners to a woman who was going through menopause.
[6:40]There's a pretty funny story about that.
[6:41]She was crossing the South Pole with her husband and they became the first married couple to do
[6:46]so unsupported and unaided, which meant they were carrying all their own gear.
[6:51]The first outdoor drag queen is in this book.
[6:54]Alex Hanul, this guy that free soloed El Capitan.
[6:57]There's a mention of Cheryl Strayed because you know, she's a legend.
[7:01]And then there's people you've never heard of from a guy who started doing art outside
[7:06]and it changed his life and he became this like TikTok star to a really famous TikTok gardener
[7:13]who started having a relationship with plants.
[7:15]And I just wanted people to use this book as a ticket if they were already an adventure
[7:22]to say, hey, husband, wife, friend, boss, I need to keep adventuring.
[7:27]Or if they were a little stuck in scared to maybe consider using adventure as a way to heal
[7:34]and maybe make a change.
[7:36]So you can go to a therapist, you can take psychedelics,
[7:39]lots of people are trying all sorts of things.
[7:41]But nothing builds courage like doing an adventure.
[7:45]Amazing.
[7:46]Well, that was wonderful.
[7:48]In the book, you talk about signs where you really need an adventure, right?
[7:54]Emotional signs.
[7:55]Like, are you snapping at everybody you now?
[7:57]Like, are you having a hard time figuring out like what to have for breakfast or that
[8:01]wasn't your example?
[8:01]I can't remember what you said.
[8:02]No, but that was it was like fish tacos, fish on my tacos or not.
[8:05]Yeah, sometimes it's like arguing with a customer service agent from like AT&T or your electrical
[8:11]company.
[8:12]If you find yourself getting in a fight with like the, I get it, customer service is painful.
[8:16]But if you're fighting with them, you need to question why.
[8:19]So yeah, sometimes signs will point you to what you do need to do.
[8:24]And sometimes the signs are telling you to stop, pay attention, and go a different way.
[8:30]Just like when you're actually walking on a trail, like dead end, you're going to run off of a cliff
[8:35]or keep going that way.
[8:37]Maybe it's a little longer and windier, but you're going to see this epic view and maybe a waterfall.
[8:42]So I'm a really big believer in signs.
[8:44]It's like the most woo-woo thing that I do in my life.
[8:48]But I think when you're especially stuck, it's hard to pay attention, because our egos get in
[8:53]the way, but that's where nature is so good, because nature doesn't let you have a big ego.
[9:01]And it really chills you out in a way where you can listen better.
[9:07]When is it?
[9:08]Do you think we all forgot to keep adventure in our lives?
[9:12]Like where does that end?
[9:13]Because when you're a kid, it's important.
[9:15]Right?
[9:15]You're always like, let's go on an adventure and like you go to the dentist and you try to make it
[9:19]fun.
[9:19]You know, like let's go, you know, like when does that end?
[9:23]I don't know.
[9:25]I don't know.
[9:25]I've really tried to keep it in my life as much as possible, because life can be hard and messy
[9:31]and it can take twists and turns.
[9:33]And I don't know.
[9:33]I just wrote my last newsletter on big K energy.
[9:36]And I think we've heard of what big D energy is.
[9:39]Like big, can I say penis on your pot, big dick energy.
[9:43]It's funny, right?
[9:45]But I was thinking like it'd be really cool for us to lean into big kid energy.
[9:50]And when we go outside, it's pretty easy to tap into it.
[9:54]One is I think we get in our lives a little bit trapped into this like I have to do everything and
[10:00]to do it really well.
[10:01]I'm guessing the listeners of your podcast
[10:03]are like, I know I don't look like it,
[10:06]but I'm a bit of a perfectionist
[10:08]and had this giant overachieving complex growing up
[10:11]was really rewarded a lot in my family
[10:13]for getting an article in a newspaper
[10:16]or getting into some good school
[10:18]or getting a great job.
[10:20]And I think I chase these things a lot in my life,
[10:24]but adventure teaches you to be a kid.
[10:27]If you go surfing, you're gonna fall.
[10:30]They're gonna fall a lot.
[10:32]And you have to be able to laugh at that
[10:34]and you have to be able to embrace failure.
[10:36]So I think the cool thing about nature
[10:38]is there's parts of nature that are just funny,
[10:41]like going to the bathroom in the wild kind of sucks,
[10:45]but it's always funny.
[10:47]And those stories are always funny.
[10:48]And the one thing about adventure is
[10:51]something will always go wrong.
[10:53]It's like inevitable,
[10:54]but that's where the fun stuff happens.
[10:57]So I don't really know where that ends.
[10:59]It ends for all of us in different places,
[11:02]but I really like to keep things joyful and fun.
[11:05]Like life is heavy.
[11:07]And so you might as well enjoy it as best as you can.
[11:11]And I guess for me,
[11:12]I learned the lesson really young.
[11:14]When I was 11 years old,
[11:15]my dad died of a sudden heart attack.
[11:17]And he took me in and he said,
[11:18]Gennie, I love you.
[11:20]And then I never saw him again.
[11:22]And my sisters and I were different ages.
[11:23]One was about to go to Stanford.
[11:26]Another one was out of college.
[11:28]And they took the need to be financially responsible.
[11:31]But I did not.
[11:32]I took the need.
[11:33]The life is short and that you just never know.
[11:36]Tomorrow is not guaranteed.
[11:37]So that's not saying you should be irresponsible.
[11:41]But that is saying that you should try to find joy
[11:43]where you can.
[11:44]Because you don't take all of your achievements
[11:47]to the grave.
[11:48]And yeah, I don't know.
[11:50]That's where I'm at with that.
[11:51]And I think all of the people in the book
[11:54]have taken a path that is not traditional.
[11:57]And for me, that was like the biggest question
[11:59]I wanted to help people get to.
[12:01]There's so many decisions I made where if I did
[12:05]what I thought was right on paper,
[12:07]through a pro-con list, I never would have done it.
[12:11]And sometimes you have to make these decisions
[12:12]that are really hard.
[12:13]That makes zero sense on paper.
[12:15]But end up being the best decision of your life.
[12:18]And for me, I found those answers through surfing
[12:23]and hiking and just having a little bit deeper
[12:26]relationship with nature.
[12:27]I live in a city.
[12:28]I'm not like some outdoorsy like paddler mountaineer.
[12:33]I live in San Diego.
[12:34]We luckily have a beach kind of really near our house.
[12:37]But other than that, my parents were East Coasters
[12:41]from New York and Pittsburgh.
[12:42]And they didn't even like the sand.
[12:44]So I had to find adventure on my own.
[12:47]Wow, tell me a little bit more about post.
[12:51]So you have this revelation in your life,
[12:54]your interrelationship, you're not happy about,
[12:57]your depressed and you have a family history of mental illness
[13:00]and you are sort of like terms with that.
[13:02]You don't love your job even though it's like really awesome
[13:05]from the outside to working for vans
[13:07]and like having childhood dream job.
[13:09]But it's like maybe someone else's dream, right?
[13:12]It could be, you know who's dreaming it.
[13:13]So you had this moment in the beginning of the book
[13:16]where you are on this wave.
[13:18]And for the first time you catch the wave
[13:20]I'm probably using the wrong terminology.
[13:22]And it changes like, it's like the pivotal moment
[13:24]in your life that you can actually do this.
[13:26]And after you come from this experience,
[13:30]everything changes and you're ready to make all the changes
[13:33]in your life and then you go ahead and do them.
[13:35]What are some of the moments for other people
[13:37]that you interviewed for the book or you talked to
[13:39]or you've just talked to, you know,
[13:42]as you've gone through all of your adventures
[13:44]that are pivotal moments like that
[13:46]when people should pay attention and like let in
[13:50]the new, the unstuck feeling that might come after.
[13:53]Thanks, you read the book, awesome.
[13:55]So I have a friend, Steph Jagger,
[13:57]who's also a really good author and reader.
[13:58]I interviewed her.
[13:59]Oh, she's awesome, right?
[14:00]Yeah, and I think she has like one
[14:02]of the most classic moments.
[14:03]She is 29 years old, which is the same age I was
[14:07]when I was like massively stuck.
[14:08]And there's a history of mental illness in my family.
[14:10]So I was really scared and I was an athlete
[14:12]and nobody was really talking about it
[14:14]in the athletic space.
[14:16]But Steph had her moment when she was also 29
[14:20]and she had a job that she loved on paper
[14:22]and she had just bought a house in Canada
[14:25]and she had loved going to Whistler Mountain as a kid
[14:28]but she could no longer ski on the weekday.
[14:29]She had to ski on the weekends with friends.
[14:31]While she was on the chairlift,
[14:32]she was like, what if we could just ski on the weekdays
[14:36]or maybe ski around the world?
[14:38]And her friends laughed at her.
[14:40]And it was a crazy idea that everyone said
[14:42]she was stupid for doing.
[14:43]Just like they told me I was stupid for quitting my job.
[14:45]And long story short,
[14:47]just as she was about to get off the chairlift
[14:49]to go down the mountain on her skis, she saw a sign.
[14:52]And the sign said, lift your restraining device.
[14:55]And it just referred to the metal bar on the chairlift
[14:58]that you have to lift up to ski back down.
[15:00]But she took that sign with her as a sign
[15:02]that she needed to lift the restraining device
[15:04]on her entire life.
[15:06]And it was pretty powerful.
[15:08]There's a story that didn't make it in the book
[15:09]with Chris McDougall who told me
[15:12]this Chris McDougall's author of Born to Run.
[15:14]And he had this crazy epiphany when he kind of quit his job
[15:19]at the last minute and kept seeing signs
[15:22]for the Tara Humara to write this book about running.
[15:26]And the sign just didn't leave him.
[15:28]There was another guy who just read a book
[15:30]called Running on Empty about a guy
[15:33]who was the fastest run across the United States.
[15:36]And when he read that book, it just lit him up.
[15:39]And he couldn't stop reading that book.
[15:41]He read it over and over and over.
[15:43]And he started entering marathons,
[15:45]which turned into ultra marathons.
[15:47]And then a couple of years later,
[15:48]the guy is like the fastest broke the record
[15:50]for running across the United States.
[15:53]And I don't know, signs hit you differently.
[15:55]There was another guy who's just,
[15:57]he was a commercial artist.
[15:59]And he wanted to draw outside because it was sunny.
[16:03]But he couldn't take his drafting table outside.
[16:05]He was from Michigan.
[16:06]It was rarely sunny.
[16:07]And when the sun popped up, he wanted to enjoy the sun.
[16:10]So he took a box of chalk.
[16:12]And he started drawing in the sidewalks.
[16:14]And he noticed that the sidewalk was not a blank canvas,
[16:18]because blank canvas is terrified him.
[16:20]And he started doing these like doodles and shapes.
[16:22]And the guy now gets paid a lot of money
[16:25]to go around the cities and draw like monsters and characters
[16:29]around manholes, which become cookies and, you know,
[16:33]sprinkler heads that become eyes.
[16:35]And he crushes it.
[16:36]And he's found so much joy through doing that.
[16:38]So I think people find these moments
[16:41]when they're either stuck at rock bottom,
[16:44]or they're just paying attention
[16:45]and something brings them so much joy that they can't eat.
[16:48]And they forget about eating.
[16:49]Like I love food and if something makes me forget about eating,
[16:52]I pay attention.
[16:53]Everybody knows the feeling of having a crush, right?
[16:55]Like I once got up at an ungodly hour
[16:58]to go surfing a wave that was so terrifying
[17:01]to meet up with a guy at a crush on.
[17:02]And I'm sure you listening have had a moment
[17:05]where you had a crush on someone
[17:06]and you did something that you would never do.
[17:08]So when we have these crushes on ideas,
[17:11]that's when we should also follow them.
[17:14]I love it.
[17:15]And I do a crush.
[17:16]Yeah.
[17:17]When I do a crush, like what would I follow?
[17:20]You started a podcast.
[17:21]I'm pretty sure that's a wild idea.
[17:23]And then you launched this book and bookstore
[17:26]and a publishing company.
[17:28]I was actually really bummed.
[17:29]I would have totally published my book with you
[17:30]had I known.
[17:31]Oh, sorry.
[17:32]To my culture.
[17:33]But I think it's really cool what you do.
[17:35]I think it's cool that you have everybody come together
[17:38]like camp, writing books.
[17:41]What I learned is pretty lonely.
[17:44]I didn't realize that.
[17:45]And podcasting, at least you talked to someone,
[17:48]maybe it's just through a screen,
[17:49]but I have a team at REI that's awesome that I connect with.
[17:53]And I have friends that live in San Francisco
[17:55]and they have big groups of writing friends
[17:57]and their writers tribe, which is awesome.
[17:59]But I wrote this book during the pandemic in San Diego.
[18:02]And I was lonely.
[18:03]And I could only work at the coffee shop so much
[18:06]during that time and talk to people.
[18:08]It's cool that you do that.
[18:09]I went to the San Diego Writers Conference last year.
[18:11]Have you been?
[18:12]I saw you there.
[18:13]Yeah, that's actually what I think.
[18:14]I think I connected with you there.
[18:16]I'm so sorry.
[18:17]It's OK.
[18:17]Don't worry about it.
[18:18]I'm at your husband.
[18:19]He's friends with a mutual friend.
[18:22]Deacon.
[18:23]Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
[18:25]I have to go there this year.
[18:26]And it's totally cool.
[18:27]Yeah, I liked it.
[18:28]And then I actually met those writers after I was too late
[18:31]in the game to connect with them then.
[18:34]But they're really cool.
[18:35]And it's fun.
[18:36]That's awesome.
[18:37]I'm sorry, I hit originally.
[18:38]I was literally wondering when we got together.
[18:40]I feel like there was a connection.
[18:42]Was it my son's school?
[18:43]Was it there was something that I couldn't remember?
[18:45]So someone went up to me today and was like, Shelby,
[18:49]I've heard your voice.
[18:50]And I had no idea who they were.
[18:52]It's fine.
[18:52]You meet a lot of people.
[18:54]And she was stoked.
[18:55]It's all good at me.
[18:56]Wait, tell me more about starting your podcast,
[18:59]how you agree with your podcast, how you sold it to REI,
[19:01]and everything about it now.
[19:04]Well, I actually have two podcasts.
[19:06]I want called vitamin joy that I started
[19:07]during the pandemic.
[19:08]I'm really interested in the intersection
[19:10]of mental health and adventure and mental health and humor.
[19:15]And vitamin joy is about mental health and humor.
[19:17]But I put it on pause because writing a book
[19:19]and having two podcasts is insane.
[19:21]But and I'm a really big believer in resting in self-care.
[19:24]And even though I really want to do it all, I can't.
[19:28]I know myself.
[19:29]I have an autoimmune condition.
[19:30]I have to listen to my body.
[19:32]While it is worth living, I'd been a journalist for many years
[19:35]in 2009 after I quit my job at Vans.
[19:37]I was writing for ESPN and outside.
[19:40]And it was cool, but articles were getting smaller in magazines.
[19:43]And I was working with a lot of like, dude editors.
[19:45]And honestly, I love the interview process
[19:47]of writing the best.
[19:49]I don't necessarily love writing, but I love talking.
[19:52]And it was like, you should start a podcast.
[19:54]And I loved him fair as a show,
[19:55]but I wish he'd interviewed more adventures and more women.
[19:59]And so I said,
[20:00]started a show and I'd been a business reporter
[20:03]in the outdoor and action sports world.
[20:05]And I knew most of the CEOs and executives in the industry.
[20:09]And a friend of mine was like,
[20:10]you should pitch REI right now.
[20:11]They're doing this Force and Nature campaign
[20:13]about women in the outdoors.
[20:14]And I'm like, I'm a woman.
[20:16]I've been getting women in the outdoors since age 16.
[20:18]Like this is what I didn't call.
[20:19]This is what I did.
[20:20]My whole life, I worked for the US Women's National Team
[20:23]the first year they won the World Cup.
[20:24]Like, I've done triathlon.
[20:25]I've worked for Nike.
[20:26]I was like, shoe it.
[20:27]They're going to say, yes,
[20:28]they're going to subsidize my show.
[20:30]So I found a contacted REI and he was really lovely.
[20:34]And he's like, Shelby, you're great.
[20:36]We are not doing podcasts right now.
[20:38]We sell tents.
[20:39]And I was like, OK, well, let's stay in touch.
[20:42]And I went ahead and just ran my show on my own.
[20:44]I got other sponsors.
[20:45]I pitched magazines.
[20:47]They didn't want to get into the podcast space.
[20:49]And I was like, you should get in the podcast space
[20:50]and turn off those magazines or either dead
[20:52]or they have a podcast, which is great.
[20:54]And we stayed in touch.
[20:56]And I think sometimes a no is not now.
[20:59]And six months later, I hit up REI.
[21:02]And they've been so hard to get a hold of.
[21:04]And they called me right back.
[21:05]And they're like, we're actually getting into the podcast
[21:06]game.
[21:07]We should talk.
[21:08]And so they licensed the show for a couple of years.
[21:10]And then they wanted to buy it in 2020.
[21:12]And I was like, I don't really want to sell it.
[21:14]But I had written, I'd taken an accelerator business course.
[21:18]I really wanted to start a business.
[21:20]And at the time, I used the podcast as an idea
[21:23]to start a business.
[21:24]And that would be my first product.
[21:26]And on the original business plan, I said,
[21:27]sell to a company within three years.
[21:30]And I thought it would be so easy.
[21:33]And that was the first thing I've ever done.
[21:34]That was kind of easy.
[21:35]But it wasn't easy.
[21:36]Like it was really hard.
[21:37]It was a certain amount of work.
[21:39]I was kind of early in the podcast game.
[21:41]But my goal was to get people to use
[21:43]adventures, a catalyst, to change their lives.
[21:46]And no brand did it better than REI.
[21:48]So it was hard for me to make the decision
[21:50]to give up this baby.
[21:52]I'm still sometimes sad about it.
[21:54]But I really love REI.
[21:56]And they've continued way past the contract's date
[22:00]to keep me honest, the host, and grow the show.
[22:02]And truthfully, I've connected with people.
[22:04]I probably wouldn't have connected with if I just
[22:07]run the show.
[22:07]I was really interviewing surfers and skateboarders.
[22:10]And they've brought me in touch with some incredible people
[22:14]doing wild things that I didn't even know about from San Diego.
[22:19]So it's been really great.
[22:20]Wow.
[22:20]So yeah, you can listen to wild ideas worth living
[22:23]anywhere you get podcasts.
[22:24]And vitamin joy is on hold.
[22:26]But I'm actually thinking about starting a podcast
[22:29]that you might laugh about.
[22:30]It's about parenting from people who aren't parents.
[22:35]I give my sisters, much unsolicited advice
[22:38]about raising their kids and nothing
[22:40]drives them absolutely crazier.
[22:41]And a girlfriend of mine is a comedian.
[22:43]And we just joke about this podcast we have
[22:45]when we're giving tips to parents.
[22:47]And we're not parents.
[22:49]It's funny, but I don't know.
[22:50]Your listeners might get the kick out of it,
[22:52]or they might just be like, oh my god,
[22:53]these guys are such jackasses.
[22:54]But it sounds funny.
[22:56]Momming is hard.
[22:58]I've learned as an aunt and watching
[23:00]there's so many little kids that are in our lives right now.
[23:03]And it's really hard.
[23:05]So kudos to all of you moms listening.
[23:08]It's the gnarliest job.
[23:09]And the most wild of wild ideas to be
[23:12]a parent in 23.
[23:14]Very true.
[23:15]Very true.
[23:16]Yeah, I don't know.
[23:17]One of my kids is going to come
[23:18]marching through the door at any moment.
[23:20]So you'll see just how wild it is.
[23:21]Play tennis or pickle ball.
[23:24]I play tennis.
[23:25]Awesome.
[23:26]Like, tell your outfit looks very tennisy, pickle bally.
[23:28]You know, I was looking for leggings this morning.
[23:33]And I opened up my workout drawer.
[23:35]And I realized that I had put this dress in it forever ago.
[23:40]And I forgot I had even ordered it.
[23:41]And I was like, it's so cute.
[23:42]I'll just for that today.
[23:43]Even though I'm not doing really any of that.
[23:46]I like it.
[23:47]It's more of a dress.
[23:48]I went on a walk and I did this and did that.
[23:51]So anyway, sometimes you just need to invest in gear
[23:54]to get out the door.
[23:56]Yeah.
[23:57]That's true.
[23:58]I think it's great.
[23:59]And if you're in the palisades, there's amazing hiking near there.
[24:02]That's true too.
[24:03]Yes.
[24:04]You're coming about meeting other authors.
[24:05]So I'm working on like new ways to get all the authors
[24:09]from this podcast together in person.
[24:11]Because like, cool.
[24:12]I used to do that a lot in the beginning.
[24:14]And then after the pandemic, I just like never brought it
[24:17]back up again or started it up again rather.
[24:19]So I don't know.
[24:20]I might want to do some big meat up or something fun.
[24:24]I think you should do like a one day festival,
[24:26]like kind of like the Idaho writers festival,
[24:29]but you add some adventure into it.
[24:32]I'd love to help you.
[24:33]Interesting.
[24:34]There's like breathwork and ice baths and yoga and wine
[24:37]and all the things that writers like, like coffee.
[24:41]Yeah.
[24:42]And alcohol.
[24:43]You do dancing.
[24:44]You do the ice baths.
[24:45]I will do the coffee and wine.
[24:47]Done.
[24:48]That's easy.
[24:49]Ice baths, running, hiking, whatever you want.
[24:53]That's the cool thing about riding a book.
[24:54]The coolest part has been connecting with people in real life.
[24:58]Yes.
[24:59]And meeting people who read it and said, this book changed me.
[25:01]Or I resonated with this part, or I'm taking my mom on a trip
[25:06]because I realized I did the numbers thing.
[25:08]And if your mom is 80 and maybe the average age is 85
[25:12]and you only see her twice a year,
[25:13]that might only be 10 visits left.
[25:15]Like, and they book trips right then.
[25:17]I think that's pretty cool.
[25:19]And also, it's just fun to connect in real life with people.
[25:21]I mean, I've seen people from college, from soccer teams.
[25:25]Like, people come out of the woodwork to come to your events.
[25:28]And yeah, I wish events were more of a thing
[25:31]that publishers were like really pushing.
[25:33]I think a lot of publishers have leaned back on it.
[25:36]But I've been doing some events with REI
[25:39]and we're going to start doing more.
[25:40]And I think it's really fun to connect in real life with readers.
[25:44]I totally agree.
[25:45]Wait, what's an example of a son REI event that you did?
[25:48]Well, we're gonna try to do a one that's like hiking
[25:51]and then hanging out.
[25:53]I have an idea to do this like running event
[25:56]where we run and then we go back and we talk books.
[25:59]It hasn't happened yet.
[26:01]No, you need to talk to Ali Frank in Sun Valley, Idaho
[26:04]because she wants to do the exact same thing.
[26:06]Great.
[26:07]I'm going to put you two in touch after this.
[26:08]Awesome.
[26:09]Yeah, she lives in Sun Valley
[26:10]because she said she had the idea.
[26:12]I do all these retreats,
[26:14]but I haven't paired it with an activity
[26:17]other than like retreat type stuff.
[26:19]Anyway, she was like, I want to do a running retreat
[26:20]that also develops books and I was like, okay.
[26:23]But okay, I'm going to put you in touch.
[26:25]Florence Williams, who's a great author who's in my book
[26:27]and was really influential in helping me figure out
[26:29]the science of the nature part and awe.
[26:31]She actually is leading retreats with writing
[26:34]and forest bathing and studying awe and nature.
[26:38]And her book Heartbreak just won a pen award
[26:41]and it was also on my podcast.
[26:42]Oh, and she's just cool.
[26:44]Yeah, I for some reason know a lot of like writers.
[26:47]It's crazy, but they're just a good bunch of people
[26:50]and people read books tend to be,
[26:52]I think what they all share is they're curious.
[26:54]Yeah.
[26:55]And I'm a really curious human.
[26:56]I want to know exactly why you do what you do
[26:59]and how you got there and what makes you tick.
[27:01]I'm like obsessed with people.
[27:03]Some people are obsessed with animals.
[27:04]I like could have pet people.
[27:05]Like I just love people.
[27:07]I know.
[27:07]Someone said, when I was starting a podcast,
[27:09]like you're going to have to talk about
[27:11]whatever the topic is all the time.
[27:12]And I was just like, well, I never get tired
[27:15]of learning about people.
[27:16]I mean, there's no way that I could ever meet a person
[27:20]and not want to hear their story.
[27:22]I'm always like, okay, give me your story.
[27:24]Let me hear like where are you from?
[27:26]How do we get here?
[27:27]You know, all that.
[27:28]So it is cool.
[27:29]It's interesting.
[27:30]Yeah.
[27:30]Well, it's a good thing for a podcast or a second.
[27:32]Yes, we found ourselves good thing.
[27:34]It's a good thing.
[27:35]I could do it for a long time.
[27:36]What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[27:39]The advice I'd give writers is get outside in the nature
[27:43]away from your computer.
[27:44]I think that's where some of the best ideas will happen
[27:47]when you're walking in the trees
[27:49]or staring at the sunset or you're in the ocean.
[27:52]It's sometimes inconvenient if you're actually swimming
[27:54]in the ocean because you don't have a pen and paper.
[27:56]But if you can remember your idea,
[27:58]that's a really good idea.
[27:59]But yeah, I mean, get outside.
[28:01]And then the second advice is read books.
[28:03]Books you like, books you don't like.
[28:05]I think that was a mistake I had when I wrote my book.
[28:07]I probably didn't read enough that year.
[28:09]I was pre-focused on writing,
[28:10]but now I'm reading again.
[28:12]And I just have so many ideas.
[28:14]I hope that helps.
[28:15]Shelby, thank you so much.
[28:16]Welcome, Kyle.
[28:17]Thanks for the fun chat.
[28:18]And I appreciate it.
[28:20]I'll see you on email.
[28:21]Awesome.
[28:22]OK.
[28:22]Bye.
[28:24]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[28:26]Don't have time to read books.
[28:28]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zibi Owens.
[28:31]And at Moms, don't have time to read books.
[28:33]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[28:36]and sign up for my virtual book club
[28:37]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[28:40]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[28:41]in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[28:44]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[28:46]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.