Breaking Trail

I am happy to introduce you to Sarah Panus because I feel like in a way we are kindred spirits which is coincidental because her business is named Kindred Speak, LLC. She, like me, had a dream to go into fashion. She pursued that dream farther than I ever did. Life took her in another direction (like it did for me) and after a series of jobs, she left her corporate position to launch her business.

Sarah Panus has nearly 20 years of experience helping billion-dollar brands drive leading ROI through brand storytelling. She is a Minnesota mama, content strategist, podcast host of Marketing With Empathy, and owner of Kindred Speak LLC. She's on a mission to humanize brands; help content marketers reduce overwhelm/confusion; and raise money to fund child trafficking rescue missions.

She spends her days working one-to-one with brand clients and is newly getting into the online course space where she'll teach you how to think like an Editorial Director and build winning brand storytelling strategies.

Before starting her own consulting biz, Sarah spent the majority of her career leading content strategy on the corporate side and understands the pressure in those roles. She comes from a world managing up to $10M budgets but knows how to get scrappy too. Along the way, she figured out how to feel empowered, creative, and less overwhelmed in her roles (while driving amazing results), and wants to help others feel the same. www.kindredspeak.com

What do we talk about today?

• Taking her own big leaps like moving to NYC sight unseen
• Leaving her corporate position and starting her own business
• What empathic branding is
• Our communications pet peeves
• Lessons learned

With that, let's listen in and gear up for what's next.

Where to find Sarah and other links:

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Pivot book by Jenny Blake
• Deluxe Corporation's Small Business Revolution branded video show (Emmy nomination)
• Brand Storytelling Academy by Sarah Panus
• Rescue Kids

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.

This is a story about not letting our circumstances define who we are. If today's guest can do that, we can do it. She is not paying it forward. She came from a place of extreme poverty to start this global nonprofit Days for Girls International.

Celeste Mergens is the founder and CEO of Days for Girls. She has led the organization since its beginning in 2008, driven by twenty years of nonprofit and business management experience. She holds a Master's Degree in Creative Writing and Literature and audited a second in Global Sustainable Development. Days for Girls is a two-time Girl Effect Champion, won the SEED award for gender equity and entrepreneurship, and was named by the Huffington Post as a 'Next Ten' Organization poised to change the world in the next decade, and won the 2020 ORG of the year award. Celeste has been featured in Oprah's O Magazine, Forbes, and Stanford Social Innovation Review. She was awarded the 2017 AARP Purpose Prize Award, named Conscious Company Global Impact Entrepreneur Top Ten Women in 2018, 2019 Global Washington Global Hero, and Women's Economic Forum's Woman of the Decade.

She is married to her best friend Don and has six children and 15 grandchildren and was named 2015 American Mother of the Year for Washington State.

Also, today is International Day of the Girl – Donate with matching funds with a goal to reach 50,000 girls. Go there now and support a girl – $10

How an idea in the middle of the night gave her profound purpose. Why washable feminine hygiene is so important. 2015 – Nepal – one of the five things they asked for urgently was washable menstrual solutions How to get an idea off the ground. We are not our circumstances. It's our response that matters.

So, with that, let's listen in and gear up for what's next.

Where to find Celeste and other links:

• ​​daysforgirls.org
• Instagram

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.

What happens when you think you have eight years left to live and then you find out it's actually probably going to be ok? I learned so much from Leigh Bercaw of Blue Fingers Farm for the season finale of Breaking Trail podcast. First of all, Leigh was super career-focused when a health prognosis meant she more than likely had only 8 years at the most to live. You're going to learn how this changed her outlook on life and therefore, her life. How something so seemingly terrible turned out to be really kind of awesome maybe in the end. (I'm not sure - …..)

Today, you're going to learn more about where your food comes from and I hope it makes you think about the decisions you make next time you're at the grocery store vs the farmers market. We're going to talk about the farce that is organic farming and what we really want to see- regenerative and small-scale farming. You'll learn about carbon sequestering and why the U.S. has a super productive, yet highly unsustainable food system right now. We need to make a change. And it starts by eating and buying local.

We wrap it up by getting philosophical on life using skiing as a metaphor. It doesn't get any better and this is where I'd like to take the show for next season – so if you have guest ideas, please send them my way. I am always looking for guests who are blazing their own path, breaking trail if you get what I mean, and finding solutions to save the world.

So, with that, let's listen in and gear up for what's next.

Where to find Leigh and other links:

• bluefingersfarm.com
• Instagram

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.

Ryan Egan started Movement Gym, well, if we're being honest, as a Plan B. His original plan was to be a pro snowboarder but that didn't go well for him in many ways. And now, after years of beating and battering his body, he helps you, me and everyone, keep your body in shape so you can keep going out and doing adventures and share connection with your kids, grandkids, younger friends with a focus on joint mobility.

We're going to talk about how life led him here; about the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people; and that it's ok to help yourself before helping others.

Then we geek out on joint mobility. How it affects your life, your body, how to detect it, what to do about it.

So with that, let's listen in and gear up for what's next.

Where to find Ryan and other links:

• Movementgym.com
• Kinstretch Online Membership
• Instagram

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.

The Director of Outreach at Tilth Alliance, and lead staff for the Eat Local First Collaborative a multi-partnership collaboration between food system organizations around the state.

An established communicator and narrative storyteller, Sheryl is recognized as a builder of strategic partnerships with career experience in the non-profit, corporate, civic, and media sectors. She is a passionate advocate for sustainable agriculture and consumer education promoting local food and farms.

She is also a highly regarded singer, songwriter, and musician. In 2017 she launched Pie + Persistence, a Seattle-based house-concert series that has raised over $40,000 to date for social, food, land, and environmental justice.

A few of her quotes that I loved:

• Meet people where they are, not where you want them to be.
• Progress moves at the speed of trust.

We talked about resilience, storytelling, music and she does it all with this writer's voice that brings everything to life in a beautiful way.

With that, let's listen in and gear up for what's next.

Where to find Sheryl and other links:

• sherylwiser.com
• SoundCloud
• LinkedIn
• eatlocalfirst.org

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.

Typically, I talk to people who have already sort of found their path. After things have landed together for them. Today's conversation is a little different because with Beth Norton, things haven't landed into place yet, but I found Beth's story to be so remarkable I wanted to share it here. But really, if you think about it – we are all in the middle of our stories because we are all currently ALIVE. And that means we will still have a next chapter.

Beth Norton currently works in Boise for state government where she is a secretary to a pool of legislators. Beth is part of the 1 to 3 percent. The 1 to 3 percent of kids who age out of the foster care system and go on to graduate college. That's how many people manage to pull their lives together and get a degree. I'm not saying getting a college degree equates to pulling your life together but suffice it to say, getting a college education is a rare thing in Beth's world. Many others just don't have the opportunity to do so.

Her story takes you inside childhood trauma, the foster care system and all its shortcomings, and how someone can manage to survive it. Beth talks about how comedy provided an amazing outlet for her and the clarity and focus backpacking brings to her life.

Today you'll learn about :

• How the foster care system is failing our youth in need.
• The role theater plays in childhood trauma (and apply it to our own life challenges?)
• Foster care reform
• How the outdoors helps

With that, let's listen in and gear up for what's next.

Where to find Beth and other links:

• Instagram
• bethnorton.com
• The Body Keeps the Score (book)
• Her story story — this link takes you to direct to her portion about 44 minutes into it.

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.

Can you think of a time where you've tried something new and felt like you have no business being there, doing your thing. It's intimidating, the environment feels unwelcome? Some of us have only experienced it here and there but this is a place many grow up in. Raheim didn't let that stop him from doing the things he loves. And is now doing work to pay that forward with his work with younger adults and his filmmaking. So we talked about things like changing the story you tell yourself, the downside of comparison, learning to bring yourself into everything you do. And also how he fuels his creativity.

Raheim is a creative director, producer, and climber born and based in New York City. Spending more than a decade in fashion marketing and branding as well as outdoor brand consulting, he is now using his diverse expertise and knowledge to push the outdoor industry to create safe spaces for black and brown youth in underserved communities in New York.

We talked about storytelling, creativity, diversity, and inclusion in the outdoors.

With that let's listen in and gear up for what's next – we dive in immediately in our conversation where Raheim remarks about the transition from working for so long behind the scenes and now finding himself in the spotlight and what that's like.

Where to find Raheim and other links:

• [email protected]
• Instagram
• Climb Your Dreams

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.

What are your travel plans? Maybe not much or something pretty local? Maybe something in the backcountry, our best bet as we hopefully wind down on this COVID era. I miss going to Canada, big time. I miss international travel. I will say though that I have found one silver lining in this time. I have discovered many spots within a five-hour drive, of where I live. I am guessing that might be the same for you.

In that vein, I wanted to replay an episode from years ago you might have missed (or could use a refresher on what to carry in your backpack.

Jeff Thompson, who is a ski patroller and also executive director at Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center, shares with us what he takes on a summer backcountry trip. I'm guessing most of you will be camping and traveling nearby, and the summer backpack, particularly for the overnight backpack, I should say. It's always nice to hear what other people carry just in case, including the Oh shit jacket which I adopted after having this conversation with him, so I will leave it at that and learn about what Jeff Thompson carries when he goes camping in the wilderness.

With that, let's listen in and gear up for what's next.

Where to find Jeff and other links:

• Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center
• Nalgene Drink Tube and Bite Valve

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.

John Grollmus opened his first restaurant a long time ago. Today, he and one partner have five restaurants in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene. He is also a writer and a ski guide. Here's what I love about his story. He had to scramble hard to get funding to start that first restaurant. At one point, they had successfully grown to six restaurants and two partners. They could have kept growing. There were opportunities to do so. We talked about maintaining consistency through growth and happiness. And how he knew he wanted to pursue these other passions: writing and ski guiding, obviously not for the lucrative careers these two things provide but for the joy. We explored what that looks like, giving up some control and freeing up space. Because that's what every guest on this show has in common. Success is based on how we define it for ourselves. It's about breaking our own trail.

So with that, let's listen in and gear up for what's next.

Where to find John and other links:

• https://wedonthaveone.com/
• https://www.pinterest.com/jgrollmus/writing/
• Instagram

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.

I'm taking this week off, and we're running a replay of an interview I did in 2018 with Kikkan Randall. Kikkan and Jessie Diggins won the gold medal in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang exactly three years ago. They are the first-ever cross country skiing gold medal in the women's team sprint. Kikkan Randall won 17 U.S. national titles, she's made 16 podiums in the Stage World Cup, five trips to the Winter Olympics, and had the highest finish by an individual US woman at the World Championships. She was the first American female cross country skier to take a top 10 finish in a World Cup competition, to win a World Cup race, and to win a World Cup disciplined title. Unbelievable. It was so great to have her on.

If you have not seen her and Jessie Diggins' Olympic gold medal finish, I encourage you to check it out. It is pretty dramatic and awesome.

We covered quite a bit in this episode. I was curious to know how she handles big performance days, because I know it's pretty stressful for me when I'm taking the stage to do a talk or these days on the zoom stage. What is it like to handle that kind of pressure? She actually walked me through what the morning before an Olympic gold medal win looks like. We talked about her training program at a high level. We also talked about her battle with breast cancer, which she learned she had shortly after winning that gold medal so it was quite a year for her with some pretty serious ups and some pretty serious downs.

Lastly, I asked Kikkan about her community engagement. So many athletes are inspired by her, and she really pays it forward. She was inspired by so many athletes when she was growing up, so she talks a bit about how important it is to pay that forward.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to our conversation in 2018. Whether you heard it years ago or are new to the show, you'll enjoy it, I'm sure.

Let's listen in and gear up for what's next.

Where to find Kikkan and other links:

• NBC coverage of Kikkan and Jessie bringing home the Gold for the U.S.
• Kikkan's video blog
• Fast and female
• Website

BEFORE YOU LEAVE - If you are enjoying the shows, I hope you'll subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends! About Lisa Gerber: Lisa advises CEOs and senior-level management on how to use the power of storytelling and effective communication to influence action and bring ideas to life. She guides companies through the digital maze of constantly changing tools to build discovery, loyalty, and ultimately help them achieve their own big leaps. When she is not in her office, she might be out skiing or trail running. This is where she does her best creative problem-solving. To learn more about booking Lisa for consulting, speaking or workshops, visit www.bigleapcreative.com.