2022 was a pretty amazing year for Wild Ideas Worth Living. We released fifty episodes this year and interviewed some pretty awe-inspiring guests. Our guests taught us that age is nothing but a number, that there is activism in pursuing joy outdoors, and that nature can bring people together. To all of our guests and listeners this year - thank you.
2022 was a pretty amazing year for Wild Ideas Worth Living. We released fifty episodes this year and interviewed some pretty awe-inspiring guests. We learned so much about healing in nature, being present, the value in moving our bodies, and creating equal access to the great outdoors. We talked about food and plants and gear, about mountains and caves and trails. Our guests taught us that age is nothing but a number, that there is activism in pursuing joy outdoors, and that nature can bring people together.
To all of our guests and listeners this year - thank you.
Episodes to listen to:
Shelby Stanger:
Here we are. It's the end of another year. It's hard to believe that we're wrapping up our sixth season of Wild Ideas Worth Living. 2022 was a great year for the show. We interviewed 50 incredible guests this year, and I was blown away by the diversity of people who I spoke with. It was a big year for me personally too. I spent a month doing an artist residency in Costa Rica to work on a writing project that will come out next year. You can probably guess what it is, but I promise to tell you more about it soon. I'm Shelby Stanger and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living an REI Co-op Studios Production.
Our guest this year reminded us of some important lessons, like the fact that age is just a number, that being present outside can be extremely cathartic and that any of us can start an adventure today. But one of my favorite lessons was from author Diana Helmuth. She told me that the outdoors is a great place for cultivating humor and pro tip, leggings can make for great hiking pants, as long as there aren't any giant mosquitoes. Diana wrote the book, How to Suffer Outside, and she has a refreshingly relatable take on adventuring outdoors.
Diana Helmuth:
I don't know if you felt this, if you're having a really bad day and you're just like, man, everybody on the planet sucks. I'm going to go talk to the trees, and the trees hilariously are like, "LOL, okay. You can come, but we're not going to be nice, by the way." That's my favorite part about nature is that she doesn't love you and accept you for who you are. She just doesn't give a shit about you, so you're forced to give a shit about yourself.
Shelby Stanger:
For me, Diana's episode was one of the funniest we recorded. We laughed a lot during that interview. On top of sharing her hilarious but practical tips, Diana also talked about how going outside doesn't have to be scary. You don't have to have the most expensive gear or years of experience. You just have to go and you can do so with what you have now.
Diana wasn't the only guest who talked about finding peace, fun, and healing outside. Guests like Evelyn Escobar, Raquel Gomez and Florence Williams, have all found healing outside in nature and are encouraging others to do the same. From starting organizations that get young women outside, to writing books that tell their powerful stories, our guests have shown us the role that nature can play in changing not just their lives but others as well. Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, a mountaineer and author of the book, In the Shadow of the Mountain, climbed the highest summits on all seven continents, including Mount Everest. Doing so helped her heal from her own trauma and build strength and resilience. Now she takes groups of young women up to Everest base camp to help them overcome trauma of their own. In our conversation, Silvia talked about what she learned from developing a relationship with nature, especially with the mountains, by honoring them and treating them with reverence.
Silvia Vasquez-Lavado:
Climbing was never so much about overpowering or conquering. Even the very first time, when I trek to the base of Everest and I came across the Himalayas, that possibly was the beginning of my healing. It was the very first time that I saw my place in the universe and being so tiny, such a little miniature, I felt I had bumped into something that was stronger and more powerful than me or than any human.
Shelby Stanger:
Along with Silvia, some of our other guests like Eddie Taylor and Erin Parisi climbed the tallest mountains in the world, while others connected with nature closer to home. Indigenous artist Louie Gong has found healing and joy in the outdoors. After becoming one of the most prominent Native artists in America, Louis has turned to nature again and again to reignite his creativity, dissolve his worries, and bring him back to the present moment.
Louie Gong:
I think a lot of people know how the water is cleansing. You probably recognize how when the wave washes over you, it can feel really, really cleansing, and the same is true walking through the lush foliage here in the Cascade Mountains. If I'm walking along a trail that has ferns growing on the side, I often put my hands out and let the ferns brush pass my hands in the same way that water can take away the things that are worrying you, so can those plants.
Shelby Stanger:
We know that nature can teach us a lot, and I love hearing from listeners and guests about the lessons they've learned while getting outside. Author Steph Jagger talked about how the seasons in our own lives - of growth, of productivity and of rest - mirror those of the natural world. TikTok plantfluencer, Marcus Bridgewater, has learned a lot from plants about letting go of the things that don't serve us.
Marcus Bridgewater:
I see self-care in plants all the time, and I try and mimic what I do and how I treat the plants in a little way, to how they would have their natural environment. Plants are always spreading roots and letting go of the leaves that are not necessarily getting sunlight anymore. A plant being outside is going to go through the natural cycles, and if it's in a place where it's going to be exposed to the seasons, it's going to let go of different parts of itself in each season. Again, that's a part of self-care. Something again, I don't think we are doing enough of. How much of our lives are so regimented, we do the same thing every day, regardless of the season.
Shelby Stanger:
The best way to learn the lessons that nature has to teach us is by being mindful when we're outside. Author Katie Arnold, who won the Leadville 100 the first time she ever ran it, talked to me about how running outside was her way to be present. When you spend time outside, especially for extended periods, you get to focus on your basic human needs. For guests like Emily Ford and Tom Turcich, that meant simply walking, sleeping, and eating outside. Tom had one of the wildest ideas of anyone we met this year. He walked all the way around the entire world. The journey took him seven years and he covered 25,000 miles with his dog, Savannah, by his side.
Tom Turcich:
The day-to-day is very simple. You wake up, walk and try and find a place for breakfast. Walk some more, try and find a place for lunch. Walk some more, maybe find a place for dinner or have pasta outside the tent. Find a place to sleep, go to bed and do it again. The scenery changes around me. Sometimes I'm in the jungle of Costa Rica, other times I was in Denmark in snow and in Germany in snow, but it's simple. I walk and then I find a place to camp, and then I do it again the next day.
Shelby Stanger:
Though his daily routine sounds simple, it led Tom to become the 10th person to walk around the world and the first person to walk around the world with a dog. Pups make everything better, don't they? One thing he talked about was the rhythm of continuous repetitive movement. It can be a kind of meditation and that in itself, can be incredibly powerful. Professional skier, Connor Ryan, can relate when he's skiing down mountains. Connors' experience is a meditative, almost spiritual experience that connects him to his deeper self and to his Hunkpapa heritage.
Connor Ryan:
Those same elements that are present at a sweat lodge ceremony, are present when I go out and ski. The intention is to sweat, to breathe and to purify yourselves. I think that's part of what led me to seeing skiing as a ceremony and a dance of its own for me. When I'm there, I show up with an intention, I breathe and I sweat. That's for me, what helped me to understand what it is really, that I'm doing as a skier and give me a whole different context for approaching something that to a lot of people might just be a sport, but to me, is part of a way of life.
Shelby Stanger:
Climber Mario Stanley, also told us about how finding climbing helped bring him a sense of focus, clarity, and peace, at a time when he was feeling lost.
Mario Stanley:
When I started climbing, I found myself having to be extremely present in every part of my body and everything that was going on. It honestly gave me a little bit of peace. Especially in a time of my life where I had left school, I was on my own for the first time living in my own apartment. I wasn't in a relationship, I was just beating myself up. I would say this, I was on the road to nowhere, really fast. To me, sometimes if you're on the road somewhere bad, at least you have a chance to course correct. But if you're on the road somewhere good, it's good. But if you're going on the road to nowhere, that means you're blind to what's happening and you're just on autopilot. Climbing for me, really saved my life and that mentality, where it gave me a little bit of purpose.
Shelby Stanger:
Climbing helped Mario find his footing and pursue a new career. Mario now works as a guide and he founded a business where he leads climbing expeditions in Texas. Spending time outside inspired many of our guests to launch wild ideas, including starting businesses. Gloria Hwang makes helmets with their brand, Thousand. David Sacher, who biked from Alaska to Patagonia, started Vital Climbing Gyms and Davis Smith founded the gear company, Cotopaxi.
Davis Smith:
I'd made a New Year's resolution that I wanted to find a way to change somebody's life. It was May, I was feeling a little discouraged that honestly, I'd spent 10 years of my life building businesses and I hadn't figured it out. It was discouraging. I was frustrated that I wasn't doing something more meaningful. As I laid in bed, I started having some ideas come to my mind around how I might be able to blend this passion for entrepreneurship with this passion for doing good. Over 36 hours, I got out of bed that night. I sat on the couch all night, all the next following day and the next night. Over that 36 hours, the idea for Cotopaxi came together.
Shelby Stanger:
Davis' business strategy was an alternative one. He ended up bringing llamas to a local university, throwing outdoor events and scavenger hunts, and building a community behind his brand. Community was a theme that came up over and over again in our episodes this year. Guests like Noami Gravenberg, Mauricio Artiñano, and Nicol Hodges all created opportunities for people to come together outside. Mauricio Artiñano's idea of using rafting has helped foster peace in Columbia, in an area that had been rife with conflict. On a local level, Iman Wilkerson told me this story of how her local run club impacted her own confidence and sparked her idea for the Rundown app, so others could harness the power of their own local running communities.
Iman Wilkerson:
I went to meetup.com and I found something that was close by. I was living in the upper West side and I just showed up one day by the bridal path in Central Park. These people were, they're not super athletic trying to win races, but they wanted to just run and drink beer. So we all would meet up once a week and do that. Through that, I was building confidence within my own self of running a 5K successfully. I'm meeting other people who are doing half marathons and marathons. Then through this confidence that I'm seeing within the company of this community, I can go back to school, finish school, get good grades, graduate, do all these things. It was like this parallel that I was noticing. It just reinforced all the good things in my life. Then everything that was bad and negative just sloughed away.
Shelby Stanger:
Moving our bodies and getting outside can bring us all sorts of new ideas and boost our self confidence big time. Guest Marley Blonsky talked about how getting a bike and commuting around Seattle opened a whole new world of cycling to her. Now, Marley's pursuing a career that she never even knew existed: advocating for body inclusivity in the cycling industry and running her organization, All Bodies on Bikes. No matter what our bodies look like or what our abilities are, we often have to push ourselves out of our comfort zone, at least a little bit. 56-year-old mountaineering guide, Laurie Watt, talked about this in her episode about adventuring at any age.
Laurie gave us some great tips on how to stay limber and strong as we get older. Like doing 10 jumping jacks every hour, going on a walk on your lunch break, and taking time to stretch every night before bed. Regardless of the mainstream narrative, Laurie reminded us that we can gain flexibility and strength even as we age. This year, we had people of all ages doing some pretty wild things. Some of my favorite people I met this year were the Boogie Board Wave Chasers, a Boogie Board group with members ranging from 56 to 96 years old. These women showed me that as long as we keep adventuring, we'll always stay young at heart.
Laurie Watt:
I think the beauty of Boogie boarding is that it's ageless. As one woman said, the confidence of Boogie Boarding has given her is that she felt as she's getting older, it's harder to do things. She doesn't know if she's got the physical ability to do things. When she tried boogie boarding, she said, "Okay, I'll just try it." She was amazed at how much her body moved. She never felt her whole body move that much. The more she boogie boarded, it finally led into confidence that she started hiking. It gave her the confidence to try riding an e-bike because she thought, if I can do this in the water and I can still get up from my knees, because think about it, when you boogie board, you land on the flat beach. You have to get up with your knees intact. She thought, if I can do all this stuff, then I probably can do this also. So she started hiking, going downhill hiking, and she started to ride an e-bike. That's the confidence in her own physical ability that Boogie Boarding gave her.
Shelby Stanger:
As we do every year, my team has pulled some clips to keep me humble. They have me on tape making an absolute fool of myself, and of course they save them for this special time of the year. Sometimes I just forget that I'm still rolling.
Okay, one more for the money. Well, the money and because I'm hitting the cord. Sorry about that. Oh, we're going to say long, long, long, long, long, long. Okay. There's no monkeys outside yet. That is a monkey outside. I just recorded the whole thing so well and it was plugged into the wrong one. So here we go again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Genitals. Yeah, yeah, Bevis, yeah. Okay. One more time. I know you're going to make me redo that part.
If any of the guests you heard today made you perk up your ears, head to our show notes to find all the episodes featured. Next year is going to be a big one for the podcast. We're going to do another 50 shows and we already have some pretty interesting and legendary guest coming up, including Mountaineer, Conrad Anchor. But before that, we're taking a little break and we'll be back with fresh episodes on January 10th. In the meantime, get out there and enjoy winter like Emily Ford, the only person who has ever made me so excited about getting out in below freezing temps.
Emily Ford:
So winter, here's the thing, there's not as many people on the trails and it's awesome. It's a fun way to move across the earth. Skiing, cross country skiing or moving your body that way. Dog sledding, you can walk on water. So this past winter trip, I just skied across lakes. You get to fish in it, you can skate on it. There's so many good things. There's sledding, there's tubing, there's snowboarding, there's fat tire biking, and then you can live in the snow. You can build shelters out of snow. You can bring so many different foods with you on your expeditions because they never go bad and it's awesome. Then you can build fires on the ice. Look, the list goes on forever.
Shelby Stanger:
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger. Over winter break, I'll be hiking with my niece and nephews and ice skating, maybe even training to hopefully go ice climbing. The show is written and edited by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers-Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Annie is a master at baking pies, she literally made eight pies for Thanksgiving. We can only imagine what she'll cook up this winter. Sylvia Thomas just got out of frigid Minnesota for the winter, don't tell Emily Ford. She's spending three months in Brazil where she's training in Capoeira. Sam is busy climbing at one of our favorite places, Vital Climbing Gym in Brooklyn, New York. Our associate producer is Jenny Barber who just moved to sunny Southern California and our senior producer is Chelsea Davis, who is currently hiking in Hawaii.
Special thanks to Chelsea Davis. Chelsea's been with the show for five years and she's been an instrumental and incredibly valuable member of the Wild Ideas Worth Living Team. This January, she's leaving REI for some adventures of her own, including we recently heard a trip to thru-hike through Mount Blanc and more. We will miss her a ton, but we're super excited for you Chelsea, thank you for everything. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola, who is a Christmas lights hanging master, and Joe Crosby, who just finished a wonderful season coaching his kids' football team. Yeah, our executive producers are rad dads, and of course, Joe's team won. What wild ideas are you all up to this winter? Please let us know by leaving us a review and telling us about your adventures. As always, this show is a labor of love. We love doing it, we love hearing from you. We appreciate when you follow this show, rate it, and review the show wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.