Wild Ideas Worth Living's host Shelby Stanger gives us a behind the scenes look at her wild journey to becoming an adventure journalist, host of an REI Co-op podcast, and now author of her brand new book, Will to Wild.
Wild Ideas Worth Living's host Shelby Stanger gives us a behind the scenes look at her wild journey to becoming an adventure journalist, host of an REI Co-op podcast, and now author of her brand new book, Will to Wild.
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Shelby Stanger:
One common denominator with wild ideas is that they all have scary components, but we have to pursue them anyway. Failure is often our biggest fear. For many of us, it's rare that our wild ideas will take us to the side of a cliff or swimming across water known for having an abundance of great white sharks. We are usually more afraid of going broke, leaving the familiar behind, embarrassing ourselves, not being accepted, or even failing at the thing we told everyone, including ourselves, we wanted to do.
Sylvia Thomas:
That's our very own Shelby Stanger, the creator and voice of Wild Ideas Worth Living. She's reading from her new book, Will to Wild, which comes out today. It's a total page-turner with great stories and practical advice. So to celebrate the book launch, we're flipping the script and interviewing Shelby. I'm Sylvia Thomas.
Annie Fassler:
And I'm Annie Fassler. Sylvia and I produce, write, and edit Wild Ideas Worth Living. I've been working on this podcast alongside Shelby for six and a half years. The first episode I ever edited was episode 12 back in January of 2017. The show has grown and changed a lot since then. I've heard Shelby interview some of the most fascinating people; Conrad Anchor, Rue Mapp, Chris McDougall, Emily Ford, and many, many more.
Sylvia Thomas:
Even though Shelby has helped so many people share their stories, we've never gotten a behind the scenes look at her wild idea to become an adventure journalist and an author. So let's get the show on the road. I'm Sylvia Thomas.
Annie Fassler:
And I'm Annie Fassler. And this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production.
Sylvia Thomas:
3, 2 1. Shelby Stanger.
Shelby Stanger:
That was a good one. That's my name. Don't wear it out.
Annie Fassler:
Shelby Stanger, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Shelby Stanger:
It's exciting to be on the other side, guys. I love it.
Annie Fassler:
Okay, we're going to take it back all the way back to the beginning, Shelby. All right. Tell us about your childhood and where you grew up and how you started getting outdoors.
Shelby Stanger:
I grew up in San Diego in this small little beach town called Cardiff-by-the-Sea, which at the time was kind of a working class neighborhood. Lots of greenhouses, farmers, teachers, plumbers. My dad was a dentist, my mom was a teacher at San Diego State University. They were not outdoorsy. They did not enjoy camping or even going to the beach. My dad didn't like sand, but my mom had the insight, I had a lot of energy as a kid, to send me to camp. And there was this camp in San Diego called the Mission Bay Aquatic Center, and you got a discount if you're a teacher, and in the morning you could take water-skiing, sailing, surfing, kayaking, or windsurfing. Then I got my courage to take surfing, and eventually I figured out how to stand up on whitewash. And then one night my mom let me go to an overnight camping trip with them and with the campers, other campers and instructors, we got to sleep on the beach in the sand in sleeping bags.
We ate pizza out of cardboard boxes, roasted marshmallows, then went surfing and went to bed with like Graham cracker crust and s'mores all over our hands and sand all over, in our hair. And I remember waking up and this really cute kid, I must have been 12 years old, sleeping next to me at the time, looked at me and said, "Hey, Shelby, when you were sleeping, you were smiling the whole time. It was so weird and kind of cool." And I think after that moment, I kind of realized that the outdoors was the place where I felt most happy.
Sylvia Thomas:
So the outdoorsiness and surfing came pretty early on in your life. How did you get into writing?
Shelby Stanger:
So when I was 15, my English professor told us we'd get extra credit if we entered an essay into the Union Tribune essay contest, and that if we won, we would get an automatic A and she'd get a $100 gift card to Nordstrom's. Well, I wrote this story about this leadership program called Aaron Price Fellows Program, and it was about diversity, and I won. And the next year my sister was working in DC and met these people who started a magazine for, by, and about kids, called 360 Degrees Magazine. And I wrote a story for them about a family member's battle with addiction, using alcohol and other drugs. And addiction runs pretty deep in my family. My mom's an interventionist, and I wrote about a family member getting sober and how it affected us. And I remember being at soccer practice and everybody, I handed out the magazines to some friends and a couple of days later, this one girl, Danielle, who was kind of a partier, she came up to me and she's like, "Hey, Shelby."
She's like, "I shared your article with my boyfriend and he decided to get sober." And I was 16 years old, and I was like, wow. And that was a pretty young age to learn how far words can travel. So I was like, I'm going to be a journalist. So I went to Emory University to study journalism, and all through college I had jobs as a journalist.
Sylvia Thomas:
How did you get a job in journalism as a 18-year-old?
Shelby Stanger:
I had incredible professors. I had this one professor who said, "If you guys do anything, go home and get an internship at your local newspaper." So I walked over to my local newspaper, at the time we were living in La Jolla, and the newspaper was called The Beach and Bay Press, and it was this little coastal newspaper. And I gave him my resume and I was like, "I'd like an internship." And they hired me. And within four weeks I came in there one day and they're like, "Hey, Shelby, open page six. There's a big error." And I was like, "Oh crap." I was so nervous. And I opened page six and they had given me my own column. And I had pitched it, but I didn't think I'd get it. So I found people to write about who were adventurers, and it was called Breaking News, like as in a breaking wave.
And so I was 19-years-old and I wrote about exactly what I talk about today, and I always wanted to make that a career. So I continued that internship every year I was home for summer in San Diego. One summer I went to South Africa though, and while everybody else had to file and fax papers in my group, the very first day I went out on a boat and covered this big wave surf contest in Africa the second year they ever had it. To me, adventure was really the lens in which I saw the world.
Annie Fassler:
So you finished these internships and you graduated. What was the next step? What did you do next?
Shelby Stanger:
I tried to pitch the LA Times and the San Diego Union Tribune when I graduated college that I should be their adventure reporter. And they kind of laughed at me and they were like, "There's no job as an adventure reporter." I asked CNN as well. CNN was like, "Listen, we're covering wars. We're not covering adventure." And so someone introduced me to Vans. I stayed in touch with them, and then I kept calling the guys at Vans saying, "Hey, do you guys know of anything?" And one day someone at Vans called me back and they're like, "Hey, Shelby, we have this idea. There's a job to be the journalist for this thing called the Vans Warped Tour," which is a punk rock concert series that travels to 60 cities in 60 days with 108 Vans at every stop and a motley crew of musicians, performers, activists, skateboarders, and the journalists that they had scheduled for it wasn't going to work out.
So I was like, "When are you guys hiring for it?" And he's like, "I don't know. The VP of marketing is leaving town today in a couple of hours." And I was like, "I can be there in two hours." And I literally got in my shower, put on my clothes, at the time I had moved back home and my mom immediately was like, "If you're going to live here, you're paying rent." So I was trying to get out of there. I needed to get the heck out. So I convinced Vans to hire me as the first female journalist for the Vans Warped Tour. The summer I turned 21, I was on a tour bus.
Annie Fassler:
Sylvia and I know a little secret about Shelby. She has a superpower. Shelby isn't afraid to approach people for help with her wild ideas, even if it feels risky. She puts herself out there and it works.
Sylvia Thomas:
Shelby totally used the superpower to get that job at Vans, and she also used it to book interviews with big name celebrities on the Warped Tour. Over the years, she's met people in restaurants, grocery stores, at the beach, and she's convinced them to support her on her next project.
Shelby Stanger:
So as soon as the Warp tour ended, I decided I was going to move to Colorado to a town called Breckenridge, which is a ski town. I'd never snowboarded my life. I never had spent time in the snow. And I figured I'd covered a lot of skateboarding, I covered surfing, I would become a journalist who could also cover snowboarding. And I moved there on a whim, packed up my car. My mom was like, "You're absolutely crazy for doing this." And I waited tables. I know this sounds crazy, but all through college I had real jobs and I wanted to wait tables so bad and no one would hire me because I had no table waiting experience. So finally this guy at this restaurant called Mi Casa, which put ketchup in their salsa, it was like disgusting, but a great restaurant otherwise, hired me. And I was a terrible waitress. But the first day I was waiting tables, I noticed the local TV host was in someone else's section.
I traded them and I convinced him that I should host a TV show with him. And he's like, "Actually, we might be looking for someone. Come to the station and try out." And he was looking for an entertainment reporter to talk about the nightlife. And I convinced him that I should also talk about action sports in the town because there's a lot of good action sports athletes in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Annie Fassler:
Okay. So yeah, I feel like this is the beginning. This is the first mention of this, your superpower. So you have this ability to meet someone and you convince them that you're the person or that you have the thing, or you seem to be unafraid of just asking people and not being afraid of hearing no. Can you talk about that? Because it's something that we've experienced it with like, you reaching out to guests. I mean, when you contacted REI about the show, there was that. So what made you feel like, I'm going to get this person to give me a job, I'm going to convince this person that I'm right for this?
Shelby Stanger:
I get this overwhelming feeling that something is absolutely right and meant to happen. I think that's the first thing. Sometimes there's no chemistry, but I feel chemistry, kind of like when you find someone that you have a crush on. You see them and you're like, "Yeah, that person." And I have to credit my mom. When I was a little kid, my mom talked to everybody. The guys at the grocery store who bagged her groceries, they became our friends and they were invited to my birthday parties. I have pictures with Jerry, the guy who bagged her groceries at Vaughn's at my birthday party when I was eight. But as far as convincing them to work with them, I think that if I feel like I have something to offer and I can help someone and we match, then I'm not going to be afraid to ask.
Also, with journalism, you pitch a lot and you get a lot of nos and you get really comfortable hearing no. It's just part of it. But I think I'm a really scared person. I know that sounds crazy, but I think every day I have to do something scary to get over that. I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of not being perfect. I'm afraid of getting rejected all the time. But I also love people and I love stories. Some people love dogs. I love dogs, but I love people like people love dogs. I think everybody has a really cool story to tell, and I always love hearing stories of how people got unstuck to finding a different path or a different way. To me, those have always made me tick because there's been a lot of times in my life where I've felt stuck and scared and I've had to find a way.
Annie Fassler:
Moving through fear is a theme that comes up again and again in Shelby's book. Going after what we really want can be terrifying. Over the course of her career, Shelby has heard a lot of nos, but she's also learned that you won't hear a yes unless you ask and ask and sometimes ask again.
Sylvia Thomas:
When we come back, Shelby talks about using humor to overcome fear, her own wild idea to start this podcast and the process of writing her first book. Before the break, Shelby Stanger was talking about her path to becoming a journalist. She had wanted to write about outdoor adventure for a long time, but it wasn't necessarily a lucrative career. The stability of a traditional job with a steady paycheck and benefits was pretty appealing, so after hosting that TV show in Breckenridge, Colorado, Shelby got a full-time job with Vans in international marketing. She got to travel all over the world and meet interesting people, but she really missed writing.
Annie Fassler:
Shelby worked for Vans for five years before she mustered up the courage to quit. A friend invited her to move down to Costa Rica. It was the perfect place for her. It was cheap. There was good surf, and she could pursue freelance journalism remotely. Plus, she had a side hustle teaching surf lessons.
Sylvia Thomas:
You have a story in your book about someone who you were teaching to surf, and she was an athlete and she had a lot of expectations for herself, and she really thought that surfing was going to come easy. And sure enough, everyone else in the group who had much lower expectations for themselves was able to surf much quicker.
Shelby Stanger:
I taught surfing a lot. After I quit my job at Vans, I did this crazy thing. I moved to Costa Rica to teach surf lessons, which was not a lucrative decision, not a responsible decision. I was like, this is crazy. But it's sort of what I quit my job to do. I wanted to teach surfing and write, but I dealt with women every week who had a lot of fear. Fear for just arriving to Costa Rica, fear of bugs, especially fear of catching waves. And I just learned what worked, what didn't. And a lot of times, people who were in their heads, especially athletes who thought they'd be good, they sucked. They were really bad at just standing up because they thought it would be so easy, and surfing is not easy.
And this woman was really upset. She happened to be a drug cop. She was so gnarly, and yet she wasn't standing up on her surfboard. So I looked at her and I asked her to think of something that made her laugh. She couldn't think of anything. So I was like, "What about your kid?" Anything, crickets, nothing. And finally I looked at her and I said, "I want you to think of a big penis," and I pushed her onto a wave, and this wave was perfect. It was like the perfect whitewash. It was straight, it was beautiful, it was glassy. And I couldn't see her because I was now behind the whitewash, which had exploded in front of my face.
And I see her kind of start to rise, and she's standing on the wave. And then I hear this squeaky noise out of the back going, "Penis, penis." And there's a lot of birds and weird animal noises in Costa Rica. So I wasn't really sure what she was saying. And then I could see it as clear as day. She's holding her arms, waving them in the arm, yelling, "Big penis. Big penis." I don't even know if the big part's in the book, but that is definitely what she said all the way to the beach. And I don't know, I mean, after that I was like, "Yep, nothing a big wiener joke can't cure."
Annie Fassler:
That's one thing I like about you, Shelby, is that you're not afraid to be the person to make the wiener joke, to get everyone to loosen up and be comfortable. You always, when you're talking to guests or whomever, you can tell when people need to break out of fear or they're nervous or whatever. And I think that's another incredible skill you have.
Shelby Stanger:
Thank you, Annie. I think I beat myself up a lot. It's this really deeply ingrained pattern that I've been trying to shake for years, and I still do it. I'm doing it through the whole book launch process. I've been doing it. I've got TEDx coming up, and humor is really my answer. I just have to take myself less seriously and I'm human. I get caught up in it. I think that's what's cool about adventure though, right? When you do an adventure that takes you out of your head and out of your comfort zone and you actually accomplish it, and even if you fail a little bit along the way or you've completely failed, you did it. You went for it. It gives you this amazing amount of courage that you can't get taking a drug, going to therapy, or really anywhere else.
And that courage will translate into the rest of your life. And I think that's what's so cool. You have this big deposit of courage in your bank account of your life, and it just keeps going and going and going to the next thing. And you're more brave too. Let's say you've learned how to surf. I think that translates off the trail or out of the water into the rest of your life. Maybe you'll be less afraid to pitch someone an idea or ask someone you like out or make a change in your own life that's scary.
Annie Fassler:
So that's actually a perfect transition into, so you're working at Vans, you got the courage to leave, you did some freelance journalism. And then talk to me about where the idea for the podcast came from and starting it.
Shelby Stanger:
Well, at the time, magazines were shuddering, and I did this story about Wim Hof. I was one of the early writers to write about Wim Hof. I mean, Vice Magazine had already done their incredible documentary on him, and I was convinced I was going to go to Iceland and interview him. It didn't happen, but I had this great interview with him and interviewed all sorts of people that remain in my life today. But that story got edited in a way I didn't love. That was one thing that really, I was kind of annoyed by that experience. And I think being annoyed can be itself a sign. And everybody was like, "Shelby, you have the skills to start a podcast, just do it." But I was terrified because there's a lot of tech. And literally I was surfing and this girl I was surfing with, I was telling her I kind of want to start a podcast, but I wasn't sure.
She's like, "You should take an entrepreneurship accelerator class." And I was like, "For a podcast?" She's like, "Yeah, it's a business." And I was like, "That sounds amazing." It was a class run by a woman, for only women. It was in San Diego, but it started that day and I was in the water salty. I took the next wave in. The girl got out with me. My friend, her name is Steph, she gave me the woman's number at this entrepreneurship accelerator program. The woman answered the phone. She's like, "We started class an hour. Come whenever." I came straight from surfing to the class. I had no food with me. I had no water with me.
The professor, Silvia Mah, gifted me her salad. I had wet hair, and I started that entrepreneurship class that day. And day one was "Write Your Business Plan". And I had never thought that starting a podcast would be a business. But because I was in this structure of a class that was a business class, I decided to create my podcast as a business. And why Wild Ideas? It's just the thing that has been making me tick since I was that 19-year-old journalist writing about adventure for the Beach and Bay Press.
Sylvia Thomas:
So when Shelby started the podcast, REI was doing a campaign that supported women adventures, and Shelby thought that Wild Ideas Worth Living would be a perfect fit for them. So she pitched the show to REI and she got yet another no. But after years of back and forth and staying in touch, her persistence worked out. REI licensed the podcast in 2018, and two years later they acquired the show altogether.
Annie Fassler:
With REI behind it, the podcast has grown to inspire new listeners around the world. Shelby has interviewed mountaineers, swimmers, climbers, cyclists, and authors who are doing incredible things. She's written countless articles and recorded hundreds of podcasts, but she had always wanted to write a book. When did the idea for the book come to you and kind of why then? And then what was the catalyst for actually starting to write it and pursue it?
Shelby Stanger:
I wanted to write a book since I can remember as a kid, but I've always been really scared. And I always wanted to write a memoir. I started writing one immediately when I quit my job. And some of the stories you read in this book are 29-year-old Shelby's writing. Those are the parts that absolutely make me cringe, but I wanted that story to live in its real raw form. And then during the pandemic, like many people, my mom was writing a book and she just busted it out. She had this publisher call her and she got this sweet deal and she just wrote with a team and it went really fast. And I sort of thought my writing process would be that. Nobody called me and said, "Hey, Shelby, we want you to write a book." This took me pitching and getting a lot of nos and then getting one big important yes. All you need is one yes.
Sylvia Thomas:
I think that it's so cool too that you've chosen this really interesting format for your book, where it's like a guide and stories mixed together. So tell me about that. Why did you decide to do that format?
Shelby Stanger:
I kind of fought tooth and nail for it, but really this is the book I wish I had every time I was scared to quit my job, every time I was scared to pursue a wild idea. When I wanted to move to New Zealand with a guy I'd only been dating for a couple of months, every time I've ever had this idea that either I myself thought was kind of crazy for doing, or someone else told me I was crazy for doing. And to me, stories are my love language, but also I needed advice. So I wanted to mix stories with practical advice at the end, and that's how this book is laid out. I also wanted to include a myriad of examples. So there's a lot of extreme examples. For example, there's a guy who rode his bike from Alaska to Patagonia. I'm never going to do anything like that.
I'm not even going to ride my bike to downtown San Diego. But I think these stories give people a barometer for what's possible and show you how to plan a wild idea whether your wild idea is biking from Patagonia to Alaska or from Alaska to Mexico as another person did, or if it's just to make a commitment to watch the sunrise every morning. The other thing I wanted to do was include a little bit of science, but make it digestible. And then I wanted some funny stories and I wanted people to be able to just turn the page, go to a chapter they wanted to, and just start from there. So we'll see how it goes.
Sylvia Thomas:
I think that that's what it is. No, I really think that that's what it is. It's like to me, it's a page-turner. Also, I'm with you. To have something tangible where you're talking about some of the real life things that actually do happen when you go after a wild idea, like thinking about, am I stuck and how to get unstuck? Or thinking about the way things are when things do go haywire and that that's just part of the process, or that at finish lines, it's great you finish the thing, but it's also really tough. And so being realistic about that, for me, it's just like, oh, it's really grounding to have a guide and also the support of all these other characters who've also done these amazing things. So I'm really happy that you made this. And I'm also really happy for our listeners too, because this is an opportunity for people to be able to access so many of the different people that you've interviewed over the years in their hand.
Shelby Stanger:
Thank you, Sylvia. I think also I've always wanted someone to just tell me what to do when I'm stuck. When we're stuck, we're so in our heads we sometimes can't think clearly. And it's a big book, but you can turn to certain pages and it's like, "This is what to do."
Annie Fassler:
What's your favorite advice from the book? What's your favorite thing that readers will take away from it, like nuggets that you hope that stick with them?
Shelby Stanger:
Don't beat yourself up. And start. Like, you're never going to be ready enough. I know that sounds cliche, but that's one of the biggest things. And the next is just go outside. So many wonderful things happen to your brain and to your body when you get outside into nature. Those are really the nuggets. Like go outside, do a wild idea. You will gain so much from it, and it's exponential. And the last thing is be kind. Kindness is a game changer, and it's a huge part of living wildly, and that's not just being kind to other people, but being kind to yourself.
Annie Fassler:
I've learned a lot from working on this show. Wild Ideas has encouraged me to think about my life differently. I make it a point to get out into the woods or to spend time in my garden getting my hands in the dirt. I've also applied lessons from the show to my family life. My son, Simon, was born nearly three years ago, and from the beginning, I've made sure that he gets outside as much as possible in rainy Portland, Oregon. I'm even teaching him to identify plants in our neighborhood.
Sylvia Thomas:
Shelby, congratulations on your new book. I know it's been a long time coming and we're so excited that you've made this wild idea a reality. If you are thinking about picking up Will to Wild, this is our endorsement. It's full of great stories and all the motivation you need to infuse your life with a little adventure. You can get a copy of Will To Wild at your local REI, or wherever you buy your books. To get updates on events, readings and more, you can follow Shelby on Instagram at Shelby Stanger. That's S-H-E-L-B-Y S-T-A-N-G-E-R.
Annie Fassler:
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. This episode is hosted by us, Annie Fassler and Sylvia Thomas. It was also produced by us and our teammate, Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber, and our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we appreciate when you follow, rate and review the show wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.