317 Shelby Stanger - Your Ego Is Not Your Amigo, Let Go & Surrender to Your Wild Ideas

So, Shelby Stanger, my longtime podcasting peep, thank you so much for joining me on Podcast Junkies.

Harry, it's such an honor. You're the reason and how I got my start. Oh, my God. We have to take a screenshot of this. It's so cute. Wait, hold it up. Wait 2 seconds. Sorry, friends, but Harry is a dear friend. He's the one who got me my start in podcast, and it led to a podcast that Rei Coop now owns and now this, this book that he's holding in his hand will to wild adventures great and small to change your life.

So, Harry, you're the man.

We'll do a Squad cash shot. They've got a cool tool here, so I'm going to do it here now. It's called a Squad shot, and so it should count it down. And then let's see.

Let's try it.

Cute.

I love it.

Yeah.

Hopefully my mouth isn't open or something like silly like that. Oh, it's a good shot. Okay, cool.

Cute.

Yeah. Oh, you saw it, too?

Yeah, it's cool.

It's letting me download it.

This is awesome.

Yeah. I'm an advisor to the team, so this QuadCast team have been working with them for years. This is one of those suggestions I give to them early on. I'm glad to see they finally implemented. It just this idea, it gets it more social. Like, people talking about getting excited about the software they're using. Hey, we're on Squadcast, and it helps them talk about that stuff.

So I don't even know where to start.

We've been friends for a long time, but I guess maybe I'm thinking about when you had the idea for the podcast, where's the first place you thought of? Or even before that, what even made you think of starting a podcast? Were you listening to them?

How did they come on your radar?

Yeah, I was a longtime journalist in the action and outdoor sports industry, and my stories started shrinking. But also I loved the interview part of journalism the best, and I'm like, I wish I could just do interviews without writing the stories, but there was no medium for that. And then I listened to podcasts, and I loved Tim Ferriss's show. I just think he's I still love his show, but I'd always wished he'd interviewed more women and talked about adventure because that's my love language. And a bunch of people were like, you should start one, you should start one. And I was a bit of in a transition at that time. I had left corporate America to kind of be this adventure journalist, which was not a lucrative decision, but a really fun and rewarding decision in my life. And I took this thing called a strengths finder test. You can get them online. Gallup, I think, runs them, basically told me that I had all the skills needed to start my own podcast, but I was scared. I had no idea how to use audio equipment I had no idea how to hold a microphone. The whole zoom recorder intimidated the heck out of me. Me. In 2015, when I had that idea, there weren't a ton of podcasts. People still didn't know what they were.

And I was surfing, and I was telling a friend, she's like, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm thinking about starting a podcast. And she's like, you know, you really should take this entrepreneurship accelerator program run by a woman named Sylvia Ma, who, you know Harry.

Yeah, shout out to Sylvia.

She used to run the entrepreneurship program at UCSD. She had this all women's entrepreneurship program. And it was twelve weeks. Day one, you write your business plan. The last day of class, you present your business to a team of investors. And I didn't even really think about starting a podcast as a business, but I called the woman out of the water, dripping wet, and she was like, Class starts today. And so I literally showed up dripping wet. I had to change of clothes, and I had no food. She gifted me her lunch and we started writing our business plan that day. And I just kind of shuddered all my other PR clients and said, I'm diving in full on to podcasting now.

This is where I met you.

Yeah.

I needed to have this podcast ready in twelve weeks, which mean I needed in the podcast world. The idea was to launch with a trailer and three shows, but I was not going to be able to learn how to edit a show, produce it, and get it onto a podcast app in that amount of time with all the other things I needed to do and still keep my day job that I had. So she's like, you should just hire this guy, Harry. He's going to help you. And you were an investment at the time, and I was really scared to invest in you. And it was the best investment I made. And I think that's what I learned is that the best investment you'll ever make is the one you invest in yourself. You have to invest in yourself. It's scary. One, you'll show up. Like, think about the times where you pay a personal trainer to go to the gym. If you're paying $100 to go to a gym, you're going to show up, because nobody wants to lose $100. And I measure everything by surfboards and surf trips. So if I'm going to be paying like, a couple of surfboards a month to invest in Harry, I'm going to get everything I can out of our relationship and really show up, give it my all, pay attention, and yeah. So you helped me launch my first couple of shows.

Actually, I think we worked together till like, show 15. You got me off the ground, and then immediately I thought of so from day one, you also coached me like, hey, Shelby, think about your audience. Think if you want to have sponsors. And we did it. And I always wanted to write a book as well, and I didn't know that a podcast would be my avenue to a book. But it's been great because I was able to interview so many people and learn about a topic that I'm really passionate about, which is adventure, incredibly, deeply over six years. And so this book is a result of six years of deep research into adventure, an adventure mindset.

And yeah, it's been really cool.

So much to unpack there. So let's get into the book, we'll get into Rei and all that sort of stuff, but I want to learn a little bit more about you and it might be stuff that's new to me or maybe stuff we haven't talked about. You mentioned you have a nine to five job, so talk about even before then, your obvious first passion. You can see the surfboards behind you. I can't even count how many you've got there. Where's the yeah, what's the total count you have for the benefit of listening?

Probably a dozen.

And there's more, like other places I like surfboards.

First time surfing, like how did that start?

I grew up in this little town called Cardiff by the Sea, California, and not many women surfed, but a lot of my classmates did. And dad was from Brooklyn, New York. My mom was from Pittsburgh. They didn't know anybody who surfed. And it just looked so free and so fun. And I went to this little water sports camp as a kid and you would take sailing or water skiing, kayaking, windsurfing, or you could take surfing in the morning and then you would do all those activities in the afternoon, just different days with your own age group. And taking surfing was intimidating. It was all boys, but I really wanted to do it. So one day I signed up and I fell in love. Actually, the first time I ever surfed was in Hawaii on like a twelve foot long board. My grandma lived there and a guy pushed me into a wave and I stood up straight like a ballerina, like terrible stance, and I just loved it. And I loved boogie boarding. As a kid, my parents wouldn't buy me a surfboard, they didn't really get it. And then my dad passed away suddenly when I was eleven of a heart attack, and it was a bummer, but he had agreed to take me boogieboarding every Saturday the day he died. And that summer my sister bought me a surfboard.

It was too small for me, it had broken in half and someone sold it to her. And I honestly just realized that this year I'm like, you got sold a buckled board. I still have this board. I slept with it in my bed. I could barely ride it, it was too small. But I just loved being in the ocean. And I think there's a lot of things that surfing has that other sports don't. I was a competitive soccer player, played Olympic development from a young age. And soccer has rules and lines and it's stressful and you have to rely on other people. And I was a goalie, so if I messed up, it was my fault. It was a lot of pressure. And I played through first two years of college when I was like over it. But surfing didn't have any of that. There's no rules, there's no lines. It's free, it's fun.

And I think in the ocean, like nature, there's a lot of places to experience beauty and awe. And awe is what happens when we see like a dolphin leap out of this ocean and just out of nowhere, so much of our life is now predictable. Back then it wasn't as much, but awe can really take us out of our heads and make us present. So in the ocean, I had a lot of fun, I gained a lot of courage, but it also gave me time to heal. I'm from a really busy family that's high achieving, and there's a lot of do do. And I think surfing as a sport, an activity, a passion, sort of taught me to relax and go with the flow. And I was able to take that to other areas of my life. Yeah.

So I found surfing young.

Yeah. And so it sounds like you almost built this, established this connection with the ocean, and you came to find peace in going out there. It's almost like I've heard it described as a meditative experience, as a calming experience. And it's something that once you start and you start to develop that relationship and it's almost like it's something you need to do for your own health on an ongoing basis. Is that what you found? The more you started doing it, the better you got and the more experience you had surfing.

I'm still really a bad surfer, so it's crazy. One of those sports you're really lucky if you get good at it.

Yeah, but I would say I still.

Have the same amount of joy I had at eleven as I do now. And now it's a sport I can enjoy with my friends. It's how I met my partner. I mean, he was surfing in Costa Rica, and I really cute, and I cut him off. And then eventually he started talking to me and eventually six months later, we ended up together. But I think surfing is just a really unique activity. It demands you to be present, demands you to go with the flow. And you're never going to be that good at it unless you're really lucky.

And I think that's the point.

It seems like one of those things that from the outside would appear to be a solitary activity, but from I remember I would go down to in a previous job, I had to travel down to San Diego a couple of times, and we actually got to meet in person, which is awesome, which is so fun. And I remember those trips from La. To San Diego, and there's a stretch, and I forget what town it is.

But you can see the surfers out there.

San Clemente pretty much all the way down.

Yeah. And you just kind of I think it's 07:00 A.m. Or maybe even 06:00 A.m. Sometimes. But it's so interesting once you're in that routine and imagine what it's like, it's just like there's no other place you'd rather be when you get up and just grab your board and just get out there. So it's a solitary experience, but there is what seems to be like a.

Strong community of folks who are out there every day.

Yeah, I mean, there's different surfing communities all over, but surfers are a unique breed. Some surfers don't like to talk to other surfers. I'm one of those people that likes to talk to other people a little too much, and some people might be annoying, but I don't care.

So coming out of college, it definitely wasn't going to be soccer. Were your thoughts, like, what did you want to do? You mentioned journalism. Is that what the focus was going to be?

So I went to school for journalism. So at a young age, pretty much after my father passed away, I started writing. And writing was also I really started doing the things that I'm doing now. After he passed away, I started writing, and I started surfing. And when I was 15, an English professor was like, hey, if you guys enter this essay contest, I'll give you extra credit. If you win, you get an automatic A. And English was easy for me, so I was like, okay, bring it on. And I didn't think I'd win, but I wanted extra credit because I was a nerd and an overachiever. So I did the essay contest, and I won. And my teacher got $100 to Nordstrom's. I got $100 check, which felt like a lot of money back then. It's really not. And I was like, this is so cool. And that kind of catapulted my journalism career. So at 15, I had this clip in the San Diego Union Tribune.

And then my sister was working in DC. And she's like, Shelby, there's people starting a magazine for, by and about teens. You should write a story for them. And so I did, and I wrote about a family member's battle with alcoholism and addiction, and it was like this really raw, heavy story. My mom worked in alcohol and drug prevention, and addiction ran in my family. And when the magazine came out, my whole soccer team had a copy. And there was this girl who totally partied. I didn't even think she read books or magazines. She just seemed like she had no interest. And we got in trouble because she was still reading the magazine. She put it away, and a couple of practices later, she came up to me and she's like, hey, Shelby, I got to tell you something. And I was like, what? She's like, I shared your story with my boyfriend, and he decided to get sober. And I was like, wow, I'm 16. Words can be powerful.

So I was like, I'm going to be a journalist. I'm going to write about this stuff and change lives. And then I went to journalism school. I worked at CNN. I worked for a newspaper in South Africa. And I kept like, I'd have to cover, like, fires and crime and just awful stuff. And I hated it. But I really loved covering adventure. And through adventure, there's racism, there's depression, there's success, there's failure. And that was kind of the lens in which I enjoyed writing harder stories, but also I just wanted to do as many adventures as I could and get other people to pay for them. So it was also selfish. So I pursued adventure journalism pretty full on. I had an adventure column in the local newspapers in San Diego. I taught surfing at a surf school called Surf Diva. And there was no jobs to be an adventure journalist.

I hit up the la. Times. I hit up The New York Times. They're like, who are you? But you sound enthusiastic, but we don't have a job like that. And someone said, you should talk to Vans, the shoe company, but they sponsor this action sports series and the X Games and the Vans Triple Crown. And I did. And I ended up getting a job as the journalist for the Vans Warp tour, which was a 60 day punk rock concert series that traveled to 60 cities in 60 days. I got it the day I turned 22. I started the tour, and it was wild.

Wow. So you went on tour with them?

Yeah, and I was one of the only women nice. And it was a very fun summer.

I did not hook up with any punk rock stars.

Hey, what happens on the Vans tour stays on the Van's tour. What was that experience like? Because it's almost like when you're on a tour like that, you get swept.

Into the fun of the experience and.

What everyone's doing, but you're there to work, right? You have to a job and you have to get stuff done. And how do you find the motivation? And did you know what you were going to write about? Or you just kind of like let each day come as it came and.

Just figured it out from there?

I mean, I had no direction. It was like, write a story every day and send us as many photos as you can. Now the biggest obstacle, which actually wasn't that hard, there are other people who had to sell t shirts all day long in the hot sun. And Warp tours are held in fairground parking lots. So there are these dirt parking lots or stadium parking lots, but there's no phone line. And this was 2002, so there's no WiFi. I know I sound ancient, but, like, the hardest part of my job wasn't taking the photos or getting the stories. I learned how to do that in college. I felt confident going up to strangers getting a story. I wasn't afraid to ask rock stars for their stories. I'm just fascinated by people, so there's always stories to tell. What was hard was sending those stories at the end of the day back to Vans. It meant needing to find a phone line, which meant needing to either hitchhike with somebody who looked like they weren't going to kill me to a kinkos or to their parents house to use a phone line, because the only phone lines that were available were held by the tour staff. And the tour staff, oh, man, was scary. Have you ever been in the music industry?

Like, people who work in the music industry, if you're 22, they're gnarly. They're, like, very abrasive. They have to get ticket sales or they're scary looking. They had, like, really intimidated Mohawks and tattoos. And I later learned that some of the guys that were the scariest looking.

Were the absolute nicest sweetest yeah. But yeah.

So it was a good experience of being resourceful and not judging someone by their appearance and just being very flexible, because every day something new would happen. And it was wild. It was controlled chaos. I couldn't do it. Now, like, even when I smell tour bus fumes, I sort of get a little PTSD. Like, I can't do it.

60 days is a lot.

But I also really enjoy if anybody's, like, playing loud punk rock, I just have this crazy urge to jump in a mosh pit and start dancing really wildly.

Any stories that stand out that you can repeat from that tour that you remember?

I think there's some sweet stories. Like, I had to interview Greg Graffin of Bad Religion, and we were in Montreal, and he's, like a professor of religion. He actually really preaches what he sings about. And so we went to bookstores and did, like, a summer reading list for kids. That was fun. I think hanging out with Steve Van Dorne, whose dad founded Vans, and his daughter Christy Van Dorne, was a really beautiful experience. I haven't met many people in the world like Steve and Christy. They just have hearts of gold. Steve doesn't drink, and he's like a giant kid. This was the guy who had, like, an executive position at Vans, and we would go to different tour stops, and he'd want to get dinner, but he'd order ice cream before dinner. And it was like before to a kid. It was awesome. And I remember people would come up to him and they'd be like, oh, my God, are you Steve? Can I show you how to do an Ollie. And he'd be like, yeah, he was so enthusiastic.

And he'd call up someone from the corporate headquarters, get the kid's address, and, like, a fresh pair of vans would be sitting on that kid's driveway the very next day. And he's just that kind of guy that's really kind. So he's just the kind of guy that's just really kind and really cool. So being with people, like, that was really kind. I mean, there was definitely times where I would take a shower, and the shower situation at these places is always very awkward. There's definitely, like, a rock star with some other girl in the women's shower. And I was like, oh, hey. And I saw things that, like, to a 22 year old were eye opening.

So that was fun.

That's awesome. So the tour wraps up.

What are your plans after that?

I had no idea what to do next, but I was like, I need to go write about snowboarding because I know how to write about surfing. I know how to write about skateboarding. I just worked with Vans. I wrote about tons of skateboarders that summer. I'm like, I want to live in the mountains. And I had a friend from the Warp tour moving to Breckenridge, Colorado.

Oh, nice.

So I packed up my stuff, and I wanted to wait tables. And my mom was like, what? I just sent you to Emery University and paid for this expensive college, and you're going to go wait tables in Breckenridge, Colorado? And she was pissed. And it was kind of the first time I had a fight with my mom. And when I was there, I immediately got a job waiting tables. It was hard because I didn't lie like everybody else did. They lied and said they had experience, but I was a bad liar. So I was like, look, I've never waited tables, but I've worked at CNN. I've done all these things, and most people wouldn't hire me. But finally a guy hired me. He asked Steve Van Dorne, the guy from fans, for a reference. Steve gave it to me, and he's like, Shelby's great. Just hire her. It was a Mexican restaurant.

I spilled like they put ketchup in their salsa. So disgusting. But on day, like, first week, I was waiting tables. There was a guy in my friend's section, and he hosted the local TV show. And I was like, hey, can I trade you sections right now? She's like, yeah. And I went up to him, and I was like, hey, I love your TV show. It was like the local cable access ski show. And I asked him to I was like, hey, I'd love to be a host for your show if you ever need a co host. And he's like, actually, we're hiring. And they were hiring for an entertainment reporter. And I literally showed up at the station and got the gig, and I sent it to my mom at Thanksgiving, and she was so proud. She's like, okay, I get it. You're using your degree, you're hosting a TV show. I got a job writing for the newspaper.

I did PR for the resort. And I'm not going to lie, in 2003, when you're a woman in the Mountaintown with a big education, you could get away with murder. I think back then, there were a lot of ski bums that didn't want to work or just chill, and there weren't a lot of women, so they needed women to fulfill jobs. It's changed. Breckenridge is like an expensive town now, but, yeah, it was fun.

So that was that.

I think if the listener is paying attention, there's a common thread that's running through this. It's this idea of you're almost making your own adventure and you're creating your own opportunities. You have this, like, go getter attitude. Is this something that you've always had since you're a child? If I ever had a chance to talk to your dad or talk to your mom, would they have said, like, oh, yeah, no surprise.

That Shelby?

I think so. I think I just wasn't great at following rules and always wanted to do it a little bit differently. I don't know. My mom was really resourceful. Like, after my dad died, she kind of had to figure it out, and she created opportunities for herself. And she had a lot of, like, a trauma growing up, and her dad passed away of suicide, and she lost a son that was born before me, after my sisters. So I was very protected. But I always had a lot of fear because they were scared I was going to die. So I grew up in fear, but with a lot of protection. So I was fearless and afraid at the same time. And I think I've always chosen to do things that were scary, to rip away that fear. And I don't really talk about it in the book because it was kind of heavy, but if I had to do it over, I would have talked about that in the book. But, yeah, I think I always was, like, unafraid. And also at that young age, I took with me the lesson that life is not to be taken for granted. Like, my dad was super healthy, and he just died suddenly of a heart attack at age 47, and that was shocking to an eleven year old.

So I always believe that you get to create your own destiny. And you're right. Like, I've never been able I haven't really ever gotten a job by just, like, filling out a LinkedIn or, like, resume post. It's always been like, hey, I know you're hiring for this. Do you need me to also do this? And then showing up over delivering and being easy to work with, I think that's, like, what I tell anybody is like, be fun to work with, be easy to work with. Don't make your boss's life hard. Make them look good. Even if you don't like what they're doing, they're taking a chance on you.

You got to over deliver.

Yeah. As a business owner, and I'm sure this is something you can relate to now. It's so hard to find people that you can trust to work with you and even work ethics nowadays, and you see it now, especially with this, like, what happened post COVID, the shift to remote work. And people are just like, now being picky about where they work and whether they're going to want to go into the office, and that's fine, and that's the way things are. We can't turn back the clock like the cat's out of the bag, whatever the appropriate phrase there is. But I think it's harder and harder to figure out people's work ethic and their desire to do a job and to take pride in their work. And I think it's hard to find people like that. And so I applaud you for being for having that work ethic early. I had a similar work ethic as well, to just try to over deliver because I didn't finish college, I didn't study a specific degree. So every job I was into where I got offered, I'd be like, yeah, I can do that. I'd sort of, like, let them know that I could figure it out or I could do it, and then I'd just get I remember I took a job on project management. I didn't know it, so I went to the library or Barnes and Noble at the time. I'm dating myself now, too, and I bought three books on project management. I'm like, okay, I'll figure it out. So it's kind of that same vibe of just like, if you give me the opportunity, I'll show you that I can meet your expectations or exceed.

That's awesome. Yeah. I think I also grew up at a time where you didn't take things for granted and you didn't act entitled. You had to sort of be grateful for whatever job you were given and over deliver. I think the generation today, I have people that work with me younger, they demand a lot. I'm like, what do you mean? I never ask for any of the things that you're asking with. It freaks me out, but good for them. I think that the younger generation is really smart and savvy, and sometimes when I work with people younger than me, I want to be like, dude, you're so lucky. You have no idea. And it is what it is. It's good. We can learn from both the old.

And yes, I think so, too. Some people would see it as like, who are you to be asking this? But there's something to applaud in terms of their desire to want more and to expect more and to push and to see what's possible, which I think is awesome. So we'll fast forward. Through your whole corporate life, and then obviously a lot of writing going on. So you get this idea for a podcast. We start working together. How do you figure out who you want to start having conversations with? Did you have people in mind or.

Talk a little bit about that process?

Well, I knew I wanted to cover people with wild ideas. And I just remember one of the first guys I randomly had, the New York Times, and there was a guy who ran across the country and was the fastest guy to ever do it, broke a record that had been held since the 80s, pete Costellnick. He was one of the first guys I ever interviewed, and I just randomly pitched him, and his agent emailed me back, and she just happened to be living in San Diego in my same town. I'd absolutely love for you to interview Pete. I still keep in touch with Pete and his old agent today. Or she was like his publicist, but she was so kind and so cool, and he's a big part of my book because that was a really wild idea. I mean, running he did full for his gump thing, ran across the country from San Francisco to New York and broke a record doing it. He was averaging, like, so many miles a day. It was crazy.

Like, definitely well over a marathon.

Did you have an idea of what your style was going to be like when it came to being, like, a host or being interviewing or obviously had a lot of experience because you did a lot of interviews before. So did you feel natural in that space?

I was nervous, but yeah, I felt pretty natural. I feel like I can talk if I have one superhero power, it's that I can talk to anybody about anything. I've had so many different experiences in life, and I grew up with two older sisters. They're so different than me. And then I played on so many soccer teams. So I've always been in situations with people that are vastly different than me that I feel like I can get along with a lot of different types of people.

So talk about the different phases of the show. You get into a rhythm. You start finding people because everyone who's been doing podcasting for a while knows that you get those first few under your belt and you start to build momentum, and then people can see that you've interviewed other people. So now you can just show them the names and you're like, oh, I've interviewed this person and this person. Did you find that more doors started opening up for you in terms of.

Who you wanted to speak to?

Yeah, I think it was pretty natural. I think I was lucky at the time. I didn't have a lot of competition, and I had a lot of context because I had so much experience as a journalist and talking to athletes. So I basically started with the people I knew who were my friends or who I really wanted to interview. And, yeah, some people said no. Like Cheryl Strade said no or didn't respond back, but years later, she said yes. I think that's because Rei helped me. But I didn't get too many no's back then. I got some no's, but I just didn't take it personally. Like, you're going to hear a lot of no's, and sometimes a no I tell people is not now or maybe it's later.

And so you started working on you started having the interview. You start producing this show. Talk about when you started having those conversations with Rei. Was there someone else before Rei, or.

How did that whole process start?

So, day one, even you gave me this advice. You're like, you have it sponsored. Oh, God, who's going to sponsor it? It was great because I needed to pay you, so I needed money to pay you. So I hit up brands that I knew. I was lucky. I worked as a journalist hovering CEOs of Brands so I could hit up a lot of brands. I knew a lot of brands in the outdoor space, and I actually pitched magazines, and I was like, hey, don't you guys want a podcast? You could just acquire mine. And one of the first sponsors I pitched was Rei. And I found a really nice guy at Rei. It took me a really long time to find the right person to pitch. And when I pitched him, he said, Shelby, you sound really great. Your podcast sounds great. We are not in the podcast space.

We sell outdoor gear. I was like, cool. I'll stay in touch. I was kind of gutted because Rei had just launched this Force of Nature campaign where they were showcasing women in nature. And I'm like I'm a woman. I've been interviewing women in nature for years. Of course they're going to fund my podcast. And they said no. So I went and got other brands to sponsor it. I was like, you know what? That's okay. There's a lot of brands. And I was taking on PR jobs on the side to pay my bills. And finally Johnny was like, stop. Stop pitching for other people.

Give 20 pitches a day for yourself. And when you do that, then you're allowed to complain to me if you've had no success after, like, 150 pitches.

That's great advice.

After you pitch enough people, you start hearing some yeses, I had the podcast sponsored enough to cover my bills. I just was kind of scraping by, but it was working. And six months later, I hit up Rei, and I was like, hey, do you want me to send you this beautiful pitch deck I just created about the podcast? And they're like, Actually, no. But we do want to talk. And they never called me back that fast. And we talked that afternoon, and they gave me a proposal to license the show. So they were a license of the podcast for a couple of years, and then in 2020, they're like, Shelby, we want to acquire a podcast. And I was like, my baby.

I don't know if I want to.

Sell it, but I went back to that original business plan, and it was like, in five years, sell to Rei. And I was like, what? I did this. I manifested it. And honestly, there's a lot of things I tried where I didn't have this much success. I've tried all sorts of things and just ran into walls and didn't go the fastest I wanted to go or the speed I wanted to go. And I think that was what was so cool about the podcast, is it felt so good and so natural, and I was so passionate about it. And doors started opening where I didn't see doors. I also just didn't get in my own way, and I worked my little tail off, but I genuinely loved what I was doing. It was the first time that I found something that I was so excited about. There's been other things that I've done that I have not been that excited about, and I grinded on, and it just didn't work out.

So this was one of those things that worked out.

Talk a little bit about that process, because I think podcasters who've been doing their shows for a while, they always think about what the outcome is going to be, what's the exit going to be? Is it going to be what you experience with the sale of your show? Is it going to be even landing a sponsor is a big deal for podcast because they're happy now, because if it's a passion project, it's being paid for, and if they're lucky, they're even making some money out of it. So the big milestone is obviously the conversation with Rei. But how do you think about this idea of you talked about it as your baby? And I can relate, and I have two shows, and the second one is picking up steam as well. So I've been thinking about what's the.

Outcome for that look like?

How do you make a decision like that? This is something that you've grown from zero, and you've put your blood, sweat, and tears into it, and then for someone to come and appreciate the work that you've done, but also to know that there comes a point when they can be able to make the decision that wild ideas worth living is no longer Shelby. At some point, it could be someone else. So that's, I'm sure something you thought about long and hard, you cry.

It's really hard to make those decisions. I wrote a pro con list. I talked to people. I've really struggled. And eventually, I had someone say at a dinner party one day that it doesn't matter how your idea gets into the world just matters that your idea gets into the world. So I had to remove my ego and let go of the fact that Wild Ideas wasn't going to be mine and I wasn't going to make billions and billions of dollars from residual stuff. I told them I wanted to write a book and I wanted to keep that. And ultimately my goal with Wild Ideas was to get more people outside and use nature and adventure as a catalyst to heal and improve their lives. And Rei could just do it better than I could. I thought, like, I'm one person and I like being the goalie, the weirdo in the back that takes a lot of blame but also gets a lot of prompts if they save the goal or wins the game. I'm okay being the hero or the villain, but I like having a team in front of me, and podcasting can be really lonely. Rei provided a rock star team. They had the best people working on my podcast with me, and they're cool and I really like the people I work with and I really like that brand. There's a lot of brands out there that do just weird stuff, and Rei is a good brand. They get people to experience joy outside without having their tent, soak in the middle of the night they let you be safe in the outdoors.

And they're really nice. They're just a nice brand. I wanted less stress, like podcast junkies, a lot of work. And I thought maybe there was a chance that free time in my life was something I valued and I could do something else with that time. Now, I don't suggest anybody writes a book if they want more free time because it's way more work than I ever imagined. But yeah, I think it's been a really good partnership and they've actually signed on for more years, which is great. Originally we were just going to do a couple of years and the show is really good for Rei, and so we continue to keep it going. We've changed the show. We've made it 50 shows a year, which is a lot. We have this awesome production team that I originally was working with and they hired and they've gone on to produce tons of other shows and it's been really cool. I don't know why it hasn't won a million awards, but it's a great show and when people find it, they really like it. We don't submit it for awards. That's like a whole game that we should probably play, but we haven't yet.

So it's all good.

Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. There's a lot of ways you can get visibility for podcasting that actually don't cost a lot of money, and so you probably should speak to them about the podcast apps. They're always looking I've submitted shows to PocketCasts, for example. They're always looking at categories of like, nature, Earth Day, just conversations with interesting folks. They always have these weird categories and I look and if I see a show that fits or one of my clients shows, I'll submit it. And podcast Junkies got picked recently, which is great because we're coming up on the 9th year anniversary of the show. But it's interesting because as a podcaster, or even as a podcast team, you do have to do the little things to get visibility, to get visibility to the show. And obviously there's always paid opportunities as well so that we work on clients with. But there is a lot of free stuff and all these apps, all these directories are always looking to highlight shows, women led shows, obviously. So it's taking advantage of National Women's Month or something like that, just what's happening, where they're looking for content and just being aware, putting those on the calendar and just being reminding yourself to submit the show.

It's so funny.

I really rarely get props for being a woman led show that have almost an equal amount of men who listen as women, which I think is really cool. I've never tried to just play the woman card, but I think it's really helpful. And Apple has been really kind in featuring our podcast and that's huge. So thanks, Apple.

Podcast.

How have you grown as a host.

Since starting the show?

I used to be kind of neurotic about my question and answer interview process. And I'd have Johnny pretend like he was a guest, and we would go back and forth as if he was the guest and how they would answer. And I'd ask a certain question. And now I really just try to have, like, four things I want to discuss with a guest, and then I try to be really present, listen and take the conversation from there. And I've just changed a lot that way. How else I don't get so nervous anymore, which is great, but I still get nervous on some of the bigger ones and the guests have changed. I used to interview just like surfers and authors and people who really I was most interested in. And now Rei picks a lot of the guests and they pick a lot of people that I never would have thought about interviewing. And so it's pushed me to interview people that are completely different than me, who live different lives, who are pushing the outdoors in ways that I'm not used to. And it's been really cool for me. It hasn't always been easy, but it's been really enjoyable and I've met really interesting people.

Very cool. So you mentioned that the idea for the book had always been in mind and did you see that the interviews themselves were going to play an important part in the content for the book? Or was there a lot of your personal story that you wanted to bring in or a mix? How did you think about that writing.

Process when you got started, I just.

Thought it was going to be easy, and it wasn't.

Just write the just take the transcripts of the shows, piece them together.

That did not happen. I had to go back and kind of re interview everybody. Having transcripts was really helpful, but I broke the book into themes on how to have a wild idea and really make it happen. So what's your will to wild and what that giant theme was. So it's really a book on the mindset of how to have an adventure and pull it off when things go wrong. I also wanted, at the request of my publisher, to include adventures that weren't so daunting. So I have, like, big adventures that are just case studies. I'm never going to paddle on a paddle board from Alaska to Mexico, or ride my bike from Alaska to Mexico, or ski across Antarctica like a lot of the guests, or free solo up El Capitan like Alexander does. I'm probably not even going to bike across California. Maybe I'll just hike my local hill. But I think that an adventure, even a small one, if it's big to you, can have a profound effect on your life. So I don't know. It was a mix, really. I started with themes. I was like, okay, these are the chapters I want to talk about.

These are common themes that aren't always talked about in adventure books, like how to deal with self doubt and Fear. And then I think one of the biggest things that I wanted to talk about was during an adventure, when you finish a big one, a lot of times people have, like, post adventure depression and it can be debilitating. So I had to find stories that fit, and not every podcast fit, and some fit better. And it was really hard. I just had a lot of outlines. I tried some things and I wrote the book and then I rewrote it and then I rewrote it again. And I didn't realize how much rewriting would be involved. It felt like writing 100 articles for Outside Magazine. That's what writing this book felt like. But it's done.

I'm stoked.

I think one thing I wanted it was to read like an adventure where the middle is going to be really exciting and you're going to get some resolution. And I also wanted to be able to turn the page and just turn to whatever you really wanted to work on and have there be tips to help get you through. Of course, I could have kept rewriting this book for five more years, but books have deadlines and so do adventures, and that was part of this process. The book was like a giant adventure, and one point I just had to hit send and write the end and turn it in, and that was really hard. Just like, some point you're going to have to start your adventure and you're never going to be as ready as you want to be. You're never going to be as ready. You can always have more gear, more education. You could always make your boat better to sail across an ocean, but eventually you got to untie the dock lines and go. I learned that writing a book, it was hard.

Did you have post book completion, depression?

I think I will when I'm done with the book tour. I'm not there yet. I'm in the fun part now. It's done. I get to talk to people. They get to read it. I'm terrified of what people are going to think. I have a lot of anxiety about, like, oh, my God, what if they hate it? A lot of the book I wrote, for those of you listening who maybe have read the book, I wrote some of it when I was 29 years old, in the middle of massive depression, of wanting to quit my job and having all this anxiety. And the voice of this angsty 29 year old is in the book, and I don't really like that angsty 29 year old. And maybe readers won't either. And I just left it in there because I'm like, you know what? That was my story then, of course, and it's evolved, and I kind of kept it really true. And then I think the most fun part of the book is, like, probably where I talk about fear and how I got over fear, and there's some funny stories and a good old fashioned wiener joke. And humor, I've learned, is a really good sav for fear.

Yeah, totally.

Because it can help deflate the fear and get us out of our heads and make us realize that it's not such a big deal after all. Even if it is a big deal, if you can have humor, you can.

Sort of get through.

So how long was the entire process, would you say, start to finish writing a book?

Probably like two and a half to three years. And it felt long. I'm used to being a podcast. Your deadline is, like, kind of fast. The podcast comes out maybe, like, a couple of months later. Max magazines, three months time. Newspapers are like, you write an article, it comes out the next day. Websites, same way. So this length was really challenging for me. I think part of it was because my opinion kept changing on things, and that's really natural. That's human nature. Your ideas change and morph. And I kept getting these interviews that I would do, and I'm like, oh, my God, that would have fit better for this chapter. And I'd do another interview the next week, and I'm like, Can I rewrite? And my editor was just so over me.

I feel bad for them, but that's their job.

It's never done.

Yeah, it's never done.

Yeah.

So now you're on the official book tour.

Now you're kicking off the book tour.

Harry Duran I've done one other podcast interview. I'm going on Gabby Reese's show, which.

Will be oh, that's awesome.

On Thursday. Yeah. She and Harry Hamilton want me to go in their sauna and work out with them. I don't know. Just kidding.

Hopefully just do it all surfing.

Yeah, I'm excited. I really like connecting with other podcasters. We're a weird bunch. We like stories.

Yeah, totally.

I think it's cool because I relate to other podcasters, so the podcast part of this is the most fun. I'm also doing a TEDx the same week of my book launch, which was kind of a wild idea, but maybe not the smartest one. I'm dying right now, but I'm going.

To get through it.

You doing it. It's going to be in San Diego.

TEDx san Diego. So there's TEDx's all around the world. And this one is really interesting because they took only people from San Diego to do TEDx San Diego. And it's the first of its kind that's ever done.

That.

Very cool.

Yeah, it'll be cool.

So that's going to be sometime. Book is launching.

This is on sale here June 6.

Book is on sale June 6. TEDx is June 11. And you can get tickets to live stream it. My talk is on the same topic as the book.

I will definitely be live streaming that.

Thank you.

That was so kind of you.

So exciting to hear, especially since we started working together. Remember those early days, how nervous you were about getting started with podcast? But what I knew for sure is that you had the passion, you had the drive, you had the skills to have these conversations because of everything you had done in the past. So I think I just really had no doubt that you were going to succeed and it's been so happy to kind of see your success. And as people hear the story here on the show, it's probably no surprise that you have this drive that's always been present, whether it's been with soccer or surfing or journalism or putting yourself in uncomfortable situation. So I'm just really proud of you and just kind of excited to see where this journey continues to go because I got a feeling there's a lot more adventures in store for you.

I hope so.

Well, thanks, Harry. You've been a really good coach, and you're always willing to pick up the phone when I need you, and I just so appreciate that. I tell everybody, like, if you need a coach to get you through podcasting, hire because you're really good about getting us unstuck out of our heads and actually recording a podcast. I think a lot of people get held up with fear of actually, am I good enough? Do I have impostor syndrome? Yes, everybody has impostor syndrome. It's totally normal and you just got to go for it. It's not going to be perfect. I think that's why I like podcasting, is I'm such a perfectionist and you can kind of mess up on a podcast and then another one comes out the next day. Books are brutal because I think I was really afraid to mess up writing the book. And so I don't know if the writing is as like as my I think it's fun. There's definitely some really fun part. But the process wasn't as fun as podcasting because I was so scared the whole time. And books feel really finite and even the reactions from people in the book were totally different than people who reacted. Being on my podcast, like, no one really cares what they say on a podcast, but they really care about what they say in a book.

I found that to be very it's more permanent.

It's so interesting because I had a similar idea when I started podcast Junkies and I took I think I hired someone on fiverr and I paid them like $500 and they took the transcripts of the first five. I published a book called around the Podcast Campfire, but it's more of like an ebook. It wasn't really like something you can hold in your hand. And I've always really felt at some point that I want to publish something, especially telling my story from the podcast space. What I'm doing there, and I always talk about podcasting, is helping people find their voice and so it'll be around that topic of finding your voice again. And I think people worry sometimes like, oh, my story isn't done, so I maybe shouldn't write the book, but I don't think anyone's story is ever done. And I think just finding a moment in time to share what's real for you in that moment that you're writing the book and then if you got.

Something else to share, you write another book.

Totally.

I think that was my biggest fear is I was like, why am I writing this book? Like, my story isn't done. I don't even know what it is. Everybody has a story to tell. And I told a lot of other people's stories which think made it a little hard, but I wanted to showcase other people adventuring in a lot of different kinds of ways. So there's all types of adventures in my book, from the first outdoor drag queen, to a guy who found sidewalk chalk art outside, to a grandma who relearned to surf at age 85. A group of Latino women who started the first run club for Latino women in San Diego and just won best Run club. A highliner a slack liner, paddle borders. Guys that are like super gnarly and rock climb up crazy mountains without ropes. A mom who started becoming a guide and started teaching people to ice climb at age 55 after having a full career. So there's all sorts of types of people adventuring in this book and the goal is just like, hey, wherever you are, go outside in nature and it.

Might change your life.

Well, I'm excited to read that, and I think it'll definitely get me out a bit more. So I'm going to be setting aside.

Some time to dig through that couple.

Of questions as we wrap up.

What is something you've changed your mind about recently?

Writing a book?

It's a good one.

Yeah. I think just actually what we were talking about, your story doesn't have to be done to write one. And also, if you're going to write one, you have to really, really want to write a book. So that's probably something I've changed my mind about. A saying that I've been using a lot is, your ego is not your amigo. I've never thought your ego was your friend, but just something that's really, as I go through a book tour is like, let go.

Yeah, that's a great one.

Like surrender. I used to think you needed to kind of like, claw your way up a mountain and no, let go and surrender to the elements and the forces around you. If it's meant to happen, it will. You just have to have a little bit more grace. So that's probably the biggest thing I've changed my mind about, like, not efforting as much, more like going with the flow.

I'm writing down your ego is not your amigo. That would probably be the episode title.

Your ego is not your amigo.

I love that.

What is the most misunderstood thing about you?

Oh, I think people think I'm really chill and I am, like, really fun. I love people, but I can be like a little neurotic about and perfectionist about myself, which is something I'm trying to work through, which was the book was a good exercise and kind of letting go of perfectionism. There's some errors in the book, probably even in the final copy. And it is what it is.

You got to let it go.

Got to let it go.

But I think guys meet me and they're like, Shelby, you're going to be so chill. And they're like, oh, no, she's not that chill. She's pretty eye strong.

I can vouch for your chillness and a bit of your narrative as well as we were working through the podcast, but it all ended up being for the good, because I think what the reason behind that and the drive behind that. And maybe if it comes across as narrative is also your you take a lot of pride in the work you do. You also know that you want to do the best possible. And I think that's that drive that pushes you to always kind of be the best version of yourself, that's what comes through.

So that's what I appreciate.

Well, thank you, Harry.

I totally appreciate it. And thanks for all of your help. You're part of this will to Wild.

So I appreciate you.

Well, it's been so fun to watch a journey. Can't wait to read the book. Where do you want to send folks? You. Got the book, you got the podcast. So where's the best place for folks.

To connect with you?

Just go to my website, Shelby Stanger.com, and then follow me on Instagram. Shelby Stanger. That's probably where I have the most up to date information about events, about the book, about the podcast. The podcast can be found anywhere. Podcasts are there's wild ideas worth living, and I also started one during the pandemic that is on pause and will be coming back soon, called Vitamin Joy, about the power of mental health and humor. And it's really good. So I highly recommend there's an episode with my mom who is an interventionist that I think has been helpful to a lot of people.

It's about addiction, so we'll make sure.

We include all those links in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on. This feels like it was long overdue, but it came at the right time because I felt like we have such a great story to tell. So I appreciate your friendship and appreciate you coming on and looking forward to getting another visit in at some point down to San Diego.

So thanks again.

I appreciate you.

All right, I'll talk to you soon.

Okay.