Shelby Stanger is the host and creator of the hit podcast, Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production and the author of the new book Will To Wild. Shelby started the Wild Ideas Worth Living podcast on her own though and it became SO popular and influential that REI purchased it in 2020.  Like her adventurous podcast guests, Shelby is a true badass and trailblazer whose trails have led her to major wild outdoor adventures, writing a book, large speaking engagements and even most recently a Ted Talk.

Over the years, her work has appeared everywhere from Outside Magazine to ESPN, and she has spoken to organizations all over the world. Always chasing adventure herself, Shelby has surfed from Canada to Costa Rica; sandboarded down desolate dunes in Cape Town; paddled down a remote portion of the Amazon River; and interviewed countless CEOs, athletes, activists, and thought leaders. She regularly consults with highly motivated individuals and brands to tell better stories and even launch their own podcasts and wild ideas. As a matter of fact she helped me on several occasions when I attended her no bullshit podcasting workshops back when there was little to no support.

She is a genuine enthusiastic, joyful, curious fun, stoked, and insightful human!  And even more so in person. All of that energy is infectious. After following her and interacting with her virtually for like 10 years when I finally met her in person, it was hard to just stick to one avenue. I mean she is my favorite host of my favorite podcast and her new book has enriched my life and motivated me in seriously profound ways! Her adventure roots have grown into something really magnificent that is branching out in all sorts of exciting new directions . I felt like there was so much to explore in such a short amount of time and I wanted to go in so many places!  So …I just let us free flow, we had a fun nonstructured expression session and I think we took the most beautiful scenic route in conversation. We had a blast…Enjoy our talk on the wild side!

To learn more about all things Shelby I really encourage you to visit http://www.shelbystanger.com

Photo with Mic by Jianca Lazarus(Photo)/ Outside Magazine

Photo with surfboard by Sarah Lee

Enjoy:
“To enjoy something is to take delight or pleasure in something.”

Upcycling:
“The act of taking something no longer in use and giving it a second life and new function. In doing so, the finished product often becomes more practical, valuable and beautiful than what it previously was.”

Ed Lewis started his first business in 1996 right out of college and since then his goals have shifted significantly. In the beginning work was all about self and making a living… admitting that in his twenties he couldn’t see too far past himself.

photo credit: Nate Perraccini 

In 2005 after experiencing the birth of his daughter, something shifted for him and he suddenly had a view of the world that was less about self and more about others.

In 2010 he cofounded Enjoy Handplanes with the mission of making products from other peoples trash. It was a cool way to save broken surfboards, old wetsuits and production waste from going to the landfills while creating products that are fun to use and environmentally responsible.

He describes this time as an awakening that got him thinking seriously about the environment and how doing business could actually have a positive impact on his community locally and globally. In the process of doing business he also became a filter for community and became a resource for people to drop off their trashed products.

Over the past 10 years he has been a pioneer in the space of converting trash to beautiful, functional products and his business became a lab for him to think more and more outside the box. In this experience, he has learned valuable lessons along the way and has helped to inspire others around the world to do the same.

His latest venture is Enjoy the Farm.
Enjoy The Farm is a 9.5 acre upcycled maker space, learning center and regenerative rare fruit farm located in North County San Diego and is focused on DIY regenerative – food, water, energy, materials, shelter and soils.

This passion driven endeavor created a space to come learn how to incorporate upcycling and holistic land management into lives and businesses, and most importantly cultivate community.

This is definitely not just a story of a business evolution. Can we also upcycle what life tosses at us and to us? Yes Indeed, and Ed is the perfect example of an evolution of personal growth through regenerating experiences. This up cycled energy is infinite and will germinate and spread like collards.

Enjoy!

https://enjoy-the-farm.com/

https://www.enjoyhandplanes.com/

Instagram
@enjoy_the_farm
@enjoyhandplanes

Intro Music: J45 & Dime by Will Kimbrough
Episode Artwork Photo Credit: Alia Lewis

A couple of years ago I started following a social media account Salted Spirit because I was so drawn to the beautiful images of this cool waterwoman podcasting and serving tea at the beach from my ultimate dream recording studio – a vintage Westfalia named Salted Carmela.

This beautiful salted spirit is Stacie Vanags and she was creating something way deeper and more comprehensive than just beautiful images. Her mission was to make her way around Southern California, hosting Salted Spirit podcasts, workshops and cultivating COMMUNITY for waterwomen.  Her workshops focus on techniques and strategies for work/life balance, pursing passions, mindfulness and resilience.

Turns out Stacie has a background in mental health and the abbreviated version of her full time job is to help large companies develop innovative plans that prioritize the mental health of their employees.

So …everything this generous salted spirit is offering through social media, workshops, newsletters and websites is completely from her heart – pure organic passion projects. Amazing and selfless huh?!!!  Well It gets even better and more fun and she is sharing even more as she takes the world along with her and her husband in an unvarnished evolution to design a happier, healthier and more sustainable life. Stacie invites the world to join them in this pursuit via the creation of Teaquila Farm.

Teaquila Farm documents their journey building an urban farm in Ventura, California as they lean into sustainable urban farming practices, gardening, composting, planting for biodiversity, raising backyard chickens, and more! More indeed… In doing this she is really really expanding her community. A community of folks that are creating foundations together rolling their sleeves up getting their hands in the dirt, getting grounded, creating healthy nourishing gardens, creating growth root to rise growth and hope for the future.

I love my garden so much – it grounds me and nurtures me and feeds me.

Through Teaquila Farm it has been super fun to connect with others that have so many seeds of wisdom and tools to share.

When we connect, even if it’s virtually, we create community gardens and right now we need grounding and a lot of community!

I love this snippet from Teaquila Farms latest newsletter:
“You take a bunch of selfies with a strawberry and immediately forget about all the time, money and energy you invested to get a single strawberry, and it’s aaaaaall worth it.

Life is sweet, you’ve officially started urban farm life.

These small victories in the garden keep us encouraged, but nature also keeps us humble.

Nature reminds us we cannot control the outcome or speed things up to meet our human timeline. There is a basket of lessons just waiting to be dished up to us over time if our hearts are open to listening. Audrey Hepburn said to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”

Thanks Stacie and Teaquila Farm for the hope, light and heaps of fun!
Planting New Thoughts, Weeding Out the Old – GoodTherapy

http://www.teaquilafarm.com

IG
@teaquilafarm
@salted_spirit
@mindandsoil

http://www.mindandsoil.com

To learn more about gardening’s mental health benefits check out Mind & Soil’s guide to Mindful Gardening.

Music: Mahana by Abe Lagrimas, Jr.

Best selling author David Magee, formerly a columnist for Newsweek, a former daily newspaper and magazine publisher, and the author of many books about businesses and sports figures began to shift his focus when he wrote wrote an article for the front page of the local paper in 2016. This personal article ripped the bandage off a wound, to air out and share for a greater good and healing all around. It began with these 2 sentences:

“A new freshman class started at Ole Miss this week and I wish I could tell them ALL this story.

It’s about my oldest son William, who was a freshman in 2008, he would gladly tell you himself if only he were alive.”

By the next morning the story had gone viral and read by millions of people not only coast to coast but all over the world!!

The ripple affect of this article turned into waves of conversations, community and brainstorming about the why’s re: drug overdoeses, substance misuse, addiction and mental health…evolving into tangible solutions with the opening of the first wellness center of it’s kind on a college campus – The William Magee Center For Wellness.

David decided to go deeper turning his focus inward, layers kept coming off and a lot of these layers were dark and uncomfortable yet he kept going. Peeling off layers of intergenerational trauma, addiction, loss and shame. Shedding these old personal heavy layers of responsibility eventually uncovered truth and lightness of self discovery and the joy out weighed the darkness of the past until they reached a personal and family core, and pages were made. He and his supportive family became fully vulnerable and discovered a bright heart center at that core and new found space for more light and love to hold and shine back out to the world.

These pages and this journey of self discovery is now a best selling book:
Dear William: A Father’s Memoir of Addiction, Love and Recovery.

Dear William began as a grassroots movement in order to push the healing message farther to those who can benefit. This has also branched into public speaking, Ted Talks, National News, round table discussions…the branches are limitless

In my opinion there is a reason this book became a best seller in just a couple of weeks and book stores all over the country are hustling to keep it in stock.

What David has done with this book is bust down the door of shame and free everyone that was locked behind it to share their own stories and to discuss topics normally considered taboo, weak, embarrassing or sordid. Free people to breathe….I am not alone…free people to make their OWN decisions…free people of peer pressure….free students to care about and help their peers…free us all to dump all of our, now uncorded, de-stigmatized shame, crap and laundry out in the open. We are all now free, chains cut weights lifted, able to move forward to discuss and sort through all this old uncomfortable stuff together and finally use it to problem solve. It frees my generation to stop the cycle of silence and walls and what our parents considered airing dirty laundry in public. W are free to come together as a community to create some solutions to foster compassion, healing and brainstorm about solutions.

Thank you Magee family for sharing how to take tragedy, struggles and dark truths into light, strength and hope.

I have had THE most profound, deep and beautiful conversations after sharing this book , I can’t wait for you to have the same experience after reading and sharing

https://www.daviddmagee.com/

https://www.squarebooks.com/book/9781953295682

https://magee.olemiss.edu/

https://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs-mornings/video/lmmx_SS55y_eHF9wJR3TV7u38etaSkYW/david-magee-s-new-memoir-dear-william-details-family-s-trauma-with-addiction-loss-and-rebuilding/

Guitar Music by Will Kimbrough

On June 11, 2020 I recorded Episode 25: Healing Trauma Through Surf Therapy and Waves of Love With Natalie Small LMFT and Leanne Tibiatowski.

Groundswell Community Project a sisterhood of inter-sectional womxn holding safe & brave space for individuals and communities to find their healing, power, and belonging in Mother Ocean’s Waves.

Since our last podcast GSCP realized that the world was in need of a specific resource for processing grief.

Waves of Grief:
Their Waves of Grief community drop-in groups were birthed out of response to the various types of personal and communal grief that resulted from COVID’s impact on our lives. They welcome women and their families who are grieving loss of loved ones, jobs, homes, and normalcy. The in person or virtual group sessions integrate grief practices that include movement, art, and the ocean to honor and grieve what has been lost. After time in circle and setting of intentions, everyone is invited to interact with Mother ocean’s waves and notice what she teaches you!

I am joined to discuss this program with:

Captain Natalie Small LMFT, the founder of Groundswell Community Project and an active facilitator live from Costa Rica

Tracey Chester LMFT, Certified Grief Counselor, Certified Surf Therapy Facilitator &
Waves of Grief Facilitator / San Diego County
Founder and Clinical Director of San Diego Pain Trauma Institute

And

Kelsey Ellis
Kelsey is stoked to represent and grow the roots of Groundswell in Northern California! Kelsey is a Grief Facilitator in Half Moon Bay, California who lost her twin sister to COVID-19 and is turning her grief to impact by healing women through surf therapy. After the sudden loss of her twin sister in 2020, Kelsey formed Waves of Grief surf therapy groups in her community to honor and address collective grief, isolation and stress experienced during the pandemic through the Groundswell Community Project.

National Geographic’s IMPACT is a short-form documentary series that follows the powerful stories of six women who are making an extraordinary impact on their communities around the world. Kelsey’s profound story is featured in this series. This documentary is extremely powerful – please please watch it to see and feel the comprehensive magnitude of the healing effects of Kelsey’s processing her grief and healing others at the same time.

Audrey Marie Ellis Foundation: The Audrey Marie Ellis foundation was recently founded in honor of Kelsey’s twin sister Audrey, a nurse who died of COVID-19. The foundation provides direct support for women and healthcare workers while creating safe supportive spaces to gather and honor collective grief and love. The Audrey Marie Ellis Foundation is the starting point for inspiring Audrey’s biggest passions: health, wellbeing and community.

https://www.audreymarieellis.com/

https://www.groundswellcommunity.org/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/shows/impact-with-gal-gadot

https://youtu.be/F3LS8CQJW4A

Music by Josiah Samadhi

John Abate is a returning guest from Episode 13. In Episode 13 John discussed how he integrated his mindfulness based stress reduction practice as a large part of his recovery from a horrible hit and run incident on his bicycle. He not only recovered but got back up stronger than ever and went on to win and crush cycling events.  He also became committed to providing hope and support to other accident survivors.

This year John took his mindfulness practice next level and became a MBSR certified instructor. In this conversation we discuss his journey to be more connected to the earth and to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).

We both agreed that this is a crucial time to spread awareness of the benefits of mindfulness.

Being able to use our mindfulness tools as we emerge and sift through the dust and debris of 2020 will be more important than ever on so many levels!

Thank you @johnjabate for shining your bright light, sharing your warm grounding energy, the amazing conversation and the generosity of your time.

Follow -> @mindfulfoundations101 to learn more and visit mindful foundations.org for more details about MBSR and an 8 week course with John.

—–
Music credits:
Chris Zabriskie – Everybody’s Got Problems That Aren’t Mine
CC BY 4.0
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Thoughtless/Chris_Zabriskie_- _Thoughtless_-_01_-_Everybodys_Got_Problems_That_Arent_Mine