Smart Risk Taking with Barry Blanchard

How can you know when to actually take a risk on a personal or professional level? What would a good risk, or a smart risk look like before and after?

In this episode Chris and Jordy are joined by world renowned Alpinist, ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide, speaker, author and friend of the show, Barry Blanchard to discuss what a Smart Risk looks like.

Barry Blanchard taps into his long career of risk taking and guiding to share the essential elements of what good risks look like, and what we should be wary of.

Barry is a recent recipient of the Order of Canada and is an honoured member of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. He is respected for his ability to complete technical, high-risk ascents on a personal level and leading others as professional guide.

Barry has worked on numerous movie projects as a stuntman including Cliffhanger and Vertical Limit. He is the star of his own documentary called Spindrift: The Barry Blanchard Story.

He is also the author of The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains. Barry has another book coming out in 2026 called The Echo.

Always engaging, thoughtful and honest, Barry shares some dark moments he has had in his career and many of the highlights. Along the way we define what makes a Smart Risk to take.

Key Takeaways:

Smart Risks: Are calculated, acceptable, necessary and prepared for. They are risks we can justify in the moment and after the fact because they are carefully considered, acceptable, needed to be taken and we were ready for the choice that we made.

Calculated Risk: Calculated risks are ones that are well analyzed weighing the potential consequences against the potential for both positive and negative outcomes. The hazards are known and if you decide to take it, the benefits outweigh the potential costs.

A calculated risk is a risk worth doing based on careful analysis.

Acceptable Risk: Acceptable risks are the ones we can justify to ourselves and others. They should fall within everyone’s risk tolerance. They should also prioritize your safety ahead of safety or providing service someone else. Acceptable risks for professionals fall within industry best practices.

Acceptable risks fall within personal, professional and legal responsibilities and limits.

Necessary Risks: Necessary risks are the ones that need to be taken. They add value to the experience and contribute to towards achieving the objective. They are also the best option for what needs to get done.

A risk might be acceptable to take, but also unnecessary.

Prepared for: These are the risks we are ready for because we have prepared and built in an adequate margin of error. Worst case scenarios have been considered and planned for.

Not Taking the Risk: This is also a risk. Smart Risks are the ones we did take for the right reasons.

Guest Bio

Barry Blanchard is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide, author, speaker, and sometimes movie stunt man. Barry has recently been the recipient of the Order of Canada and has just been recognized as an honoured member of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides.

Both of these awards have been given in recognition of his numerous complex and demanding ascents in the Rockies, the Alps and the Himalayas, some of which have not been repeated. For more than 40 years, Barry has been a guide, resource and mentor to countless mountain enthusiasts.

Barry is one of North America’s top alpine climbers. He has spent his life pushing the standards of highly technical, high risk alpine climbing and ice climbing from the Himalayas to the Canadian Rockies. Barry is also renowned for his ability to guide complex, high risk alpine ascents.

Some of the movies that Barry has been in or has worked on include Cliffhanger, Vertical Limit, This Mountain Life, Reality Bath, Extreme, Not Alone and Spindrift – The Barry Blanchard Story.

Not only has he contributed so much to the climbing community as a guide and mentor, but he has also authored an award-winning book called The Calling, a Life rocked by mountains. He also has another book coming out in 2026 called The Echo.

Guest Links

You can hire Barry Blanchard to be your guide by contacting Yamnuska Mountain Adventures

The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains: Find it on Amazon, Find it on Chapters Indigo

Spindrift: A Barry Blanchard Story: Trailer

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When it comes to delivering adventure, the difference between control and chaos can be as little as one small mistake. A situation can seem to be under complete control one moment and the next it can be spiralling away.

The worst-case scenario for leaders often starts with something small. It can be a trip, a fall, a moment of butter fingers, or some other unforeseeable fumble or mistake.

In this episode, Madeleine Martin-Penney shares a situation where a small misstep from one of her guests put her and her group in a potentially tough bind. Madeleine walks us through what happened and how she reacted to keep control.

Madeleine Martin‑Preney is a certified ACMG Ski Guide, Hiking Guide, and Apprentice Rock Guide based in Revelstoke, BC. Born and raised in Nelson, BC, she earned her full ski guide certification in 2018. An avid backcountry adventurer, she completed the first full ski traverse of the Selkirk Mountains (520 km, 43 000 m elevation) and participated in the Bugaboos‑to‑Rogers Pass expedition featured in the film Mind Over Mountain. 

Guest Bio

Madeleine Martin‑Preney is a certified ACMG Ski Guide, Hiking Guide, and Apprentice Rock Guide based in Revelstoke, BC. Born and raised in Nelson, BC, she earned her full ski guide certification in 2018. An avid backcountry adventurer, she completed the first full ski traverse of the Selkirk Mountains (520 km, 43 000 m elevation) and participated in the Bugaboos‑to‑Rogers Pass expedition featured in the film Mind Over Mountain. 

Madeleine has served on the ACMG Board of Directors with Chris and I for the past nine years. She is also involved with Mountain Muscox. Mountain Muskox is a community-based organization that provides peer support circles for individuals who have experienced loss or trauma in the mountains. 

Guest Links

Madeleine’s Instagram: @madoalpine

Geary’s Guiding: https://gearysguiding.com

Mountain Muscox: https://www.mountainmuskox.com

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How can we improve the decision making in others? When we are delivering adventure to others, it isn’t just the leader that needs to have good judgment. In every activity, there is a degree of decision-making skills that participants are going to need to be able to have, and if they don’t, the odds of achieving a good outcome start to go down.

There is of course another dimension to this in that many guides and instructors aren’t just leading guests, friends or family. They may also be supervising or working with other guides or instructors.

In this episode, we are joined by master guide, instructor, outdoor educator and friend of the show Bruce Wilson. Bruce returns to Delivering Adventure to explore how we can help others to improve their decision-making skills.

When it comes to outdoor education and leadership training, Bruce is literally a Jack of all trades. Bruce is an ACMG Hiking Guide. He is a sea kayak guide and guide trainer for the Association of Sea Kayak Guides. He is an avalanche educator for Avalanche Canada.

Bruce is a certified instructor in the Wim Hof Method, he has a master’s degree in leadership, and is a Vision Quest instructor, just to name a few of his many qualifications and certifications.

He currently instructs the Outdoor Recreation Management Program at Capilano University in North Vancouver. He also provides coaching and guiding through his company Warrior Wolf Guide Services and Coaching.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, Bruce shares key strategies that leaders can use to help others to improves their decision making.

Key takeaways

How can we help others to make better decisions?

Trust Them: Whether we like it or not, we have to trust the decision making and judgement of others. Micromanaging everything is not a sustainable option for anyone in a leadership position, and it can be argued that that isn’t even leadership!

Create Opportunities: We need to give people the opportunity to make decisions. Decision-making is a skill. To develop skills, people need time on task to practice.

Right Process: Teaching them the right process can help to set them up for success. Part of this requires us to model and then explain what a good decision-making process is.

Go to Completion: It is important to let people bring their decisions to completion: this allows them to see and experience the consequences firsthand. This increases learning.

Take it Seriously: Treat every moment as if it is real. This can eliminate the risk of developing bad habits. It also maximizes the learning.

Guest Bio

When it comes to outdoor education and leadership training, Bruce is literally a Jack of all trades. Bruce is an ACMG Hiking Guide. He is a sea kayak guide and guide trainer for the Association of Sea Kayak Guides. He is an avalanche educator for Avalanche Canada.

Bruce is a certified instructor in the Wim Hof Method, he has a master’s degree in leadership, and is a Vision Quest instructor, just to name a few of his many qualifications and certifications.

He currently instructs the Outdoor Recreation Management Program at Capilano University in North Vancouver. He also provides coaching and guiding through his company Warrior Wolf Guide Services and Coaching.

Guest Links

https://www.snowolf.ca

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How can leaders use self-reflection as a development tool with others? Self-reflection is one of the most effective learning and development tools that a leader can use with themselves and their team members.

Self-reflection can help everyone to learn from any mistakes that were made, flaws in systems that were uses, and to analyze actions that were taken.

When guides and instructors use reflection with their guests, they create an opportunity to become aware of and to address problems. It also creates an opportunity to highlight learning opportunities and to ensure that everyone leaves with an accurate memory of events.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, Bill Mark joins Jordy and Chris to explore how leaders can use self-reflection with others.

Bill Mark is a CSGA Certified Ski Guide and Guide Trainer. He has spent over Forty years in the ski industry working in ski patrol and as a guide. Bill’s current role is the Assistant Director of Ski Operations and Senior Lead Heli-Ski Guide for Mike Wiegle’s Heli-Skiing.

Bill has extensive experience working with large teams of guides in high-risk environments where self-reflection is an essential tool for learning and development.

Bill shares how leaders can use self-reflection with themselves and others effectively to improve sharing and leverage learning.

Key Takeaways

Using self-reflection as a leader effectively requires:

Developing a Culture of Self-Reflection: Self-reflection is an essential component of developing a responsible risk-taking culture within teams. It is also one trait that can separate amateurs from true professionals. To leverage self-reflection, teams need to create a culture where self-reflection is encouraged and the time for it is set aside. This means scheduling it into the day and finding ways to make it a sustainable habit.

Create Phycological Safety: Self-reflection only works if people are forthcoming and truthful with events, actions and thinking. To create an environment of open and honest communication, team members need to feel safe. To accomplish this, people should be rewarded for sharing mistakes instead of being punished or shamed. This is an essential component of creating psychological safety within the group.

Look for Trends and Patterns: Humans are creatures of habit. When using self-reflection with others, leaders should be actively looking for unhealthy patterns or weakness in systems regardless of the outcomes. Correcting negative patterns, biases in decision making or poorly constructed or executed processes early, is an essential part of preventing future mishaps.

Mentorship and Training (up for success): Leaders may need to train mentors and trainers how to use self-reflection effectively. It is a mistake to think that people in leader positions know how to use self-reflection effectively. Leaders may also have to train team members on how they can be mentored more effectively. This includes coaching them how to ask the right questions, how to learn from feedback and where to access mentorship.

Guet Bio

Bill started his career in the adventure industry working as a ski patroller in New Zealand before moving to Whistler for what was meant to be a season. Bill joined the Blackcomb Ski Patrol in 1987. He liked it so much he started doing back-to-back winters shuttling between the Whistler and working ski patrol in Cardrona in New Zealand, where he went on to become the ski patrol director.

In 1991 he joined Mike Weigle’s Heli Skiing as a ski guide. Bill is now the Assistant Director of Ski Operations and Senior Lead Heli-Ski Guide for Mike Wiegle’s Heli-Skiing.

Bill is CSGA L3 certified and has ISIA full certification (from NZ). He also instructs on CSGA courses and on CAA Industry Training Programs.

When it comes to using self-reflection as a skill development tool, Bill has a unique perspective. Mike Wiegle’s is the largest Heli-ski operator in the world and Bill is responsible for overseeing a large team of guides that operate in higher risk environment.

Guest Links

https://www.wiegele.com/

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How can we use self-reflection to improve our decision making, performance and experience delivery?

One of the best ways to undertake personal growth as an individual, a risk-taker and leader is to build self-reflection into our day.

Self-reflection can help us to improve our performance, decision making, our delivery of information, and our relationships. While experience can be an essential tool for a guide, instructor and coach to have, experience itself is only good if we learn from it.

In this episode, Jordy and Chris are joined by Tracey Fraser to discuss how we can harness the power of self-reflection more effectively.

Tracey Fraser is the training manager at the Whistler Blackcomb Snow School. She is a certified CSIA Level 4 and PSIC Level 4 ski instructor. She is also a PSIC Level 4 LPT trainer which means that Tracey is certified to train ski instructors at the very highest level.

Tracey shares how we can build self-reflection seamlessly into our day, how we can use it and what it can teach us.

Key Takeaways

How can we use self-reflection on a personal level effectively

Adopt a Growth Mindset: This means approaching situations from the perspective that you want to know how to make them even better in the future, regardless of how well it did or did not go.

Make Time to Reflect: This can include stepping away from others to think about what just happened, making time to ask other people for feedback or taking time at the end of the day to analyze high and low points.

Be Curious with Yourself: This can include asking yourself if there is anything you would want to do differently, asking what went well, what were the challenge points, and what did not go well.

Look for Patterns or Tendencies: We all have ways of doing things that could be problematic and may not be effective. These can include cognitive biases that can compromise our decision making. It can also include flaws in our systems and ways of doing things. Addressing negative patterns is an essential step to improvement.

Embrace Being Vulnerable: It is okay to admit that there is room for you to do things better or to improve. Being vulnerable is not a weakness, it is a strength that you hear in most of our guests.

Be Objective: To do this we have to focus on the facts by being non-judgemental. This includes avoiding the trap of rationalizing our actions to the point that we miss the opportunity to spot weaknesses in what we did.

Guest Bio

Tracey Fraser is the training manager at the Whistler Blackcomb Snow School which is one of the largest Snow Schools in the world with close to fifteen hundred staff. She is also involved with the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada and has worked with the Canadian Ski Instructors Alliance where she Chaired the CSIA Women in Skiing Committee.

Tracey has represented Canada at Interski twice. She is a certified CSIA Level 4 and PSIC Level 4 ski instructor. She is also a PSIC Level 4 LPT trainer which means that Tracey is certified to train ski instructors at the very highest level.

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How can you keep control over a group without creating conflict? This is something that even the most experienced leader can find challenging. 

When people trust their leader’s decision making and are content to follow the leader’s directions, being the leader of the group can be easy.

However, most people are not willing to blindly follow their leader’s direction. An important human need is to retain a sense of control. This need for control can often be driven by our ego. It can also manifest itself as an anti-authority mindset where we can want to do things our own way. 

Joining us to explore key strategies that leaders can use to keep the right amount of control over their group is Madeleine Martin-Preney.

Madeleine Martin‑Preney is a certified ACMG Ski Guide, Hiking Guide, and Apprentice Rock Guide based in Revelstoke, BC.

Madeleine shares important insights from her guiding career on how she manages to both give and keep control when she is leading. Knowing how to give and take control is an essential skill for every adventure guide, instructor and team leader to master. In this episode, we discuss how you can do it more effectively.

Key Takeaways

How can a leader maintain the right amount of control over a group?

Having too little control: Can lead to people making decisions for themselves. This can cause people to go in different directions. When the leader does not have control, it can also erode trust in the leader. 

Having too much control: Can cause people to push back. Having a measure of control is an important need and when we do not give people some sense of control for themselves, they can rebel. People want to feel that they are part of the experience instead of just feeling like they are being led or managed.

Right Balance: Give people control where you can so that you can take it back when you need to.

Building trust early: Can help the leader to avoid having people challenge their control.

Creating systems: Having everyone understand how systems work and how they can contribute to the system or work within it can be a really powerful tool.

Guest Bio

Madeleine Martin‑Preney is a certified ACMG Ski Guide, Hiking Guide, and Apprentice Rock Guide based in Revelstoke, BC. Born and raised in Nelson, BC, she earned her full ski guide certification in 2018. An avid backcountry adventurer, she completed the first full ski traverse of the Selkirk Mountains (520 km, 43 000 m elevation) and participated in the Bugaboos‑to‑Rogers Pass expedition featured in the film Mind Over Mountain. 

Madeleine has served on the ACMG Board of Directors with Chris and I for the past nine years. She is also involved with Mountain Muscox. Mountain Muskox is a community-based organization that provides peer support circles for individuals who have experienced loss or trauma in the mountains. 

Guest Links

Madeleine’s Instagram: @madoalpine

Geary’s Guiding: https://gearysguiding.com

Mountain Muscox: https://www.mountainmuskox.com

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What stops us from practising good self-care even when we know we should? What can we do about it? We all know that practicing good self-care is important. Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, Sarah Janin returns to share a story of a time where she inadvertently neglected her self-care which led to some fairly serious consequences. This leads into a great discussion around some of the obstacles around practicing good self-care for us and the people that we may be leading.

Sarah is a certified American Mountain Guide Association (AMGA) Rock and Split Board Guide and an assistant AMGA Alpine Guide. Sarah is on the final leg of working towards becoming the first IFMGA certified Mountain Guide who has type 1 diabetes. Based in Boulder Colorado, Sarah currently works as a full-time guide and one of the head guides at the Colorado Mountain School.

Sarah joined Delivering Adventure in Season 2 to share her perspective on the importance of self-care. As a type 1 diabetic who leads an extremely athletic lifestyle, Sarah has a unique perspective on the importance and challenges of self-care.

Always candid, Sarah shares her real-life challenges and learnings. This is a fantastic conversation.

Key Insights

What are some of the obstacles to practicing good self-care and how can we avoid them:

Common Self-Care Obstacles: Cost, pressure to prioritize service to others ahead of safety to us, and embarrassment as we may be holding others up.

Macho Attitude: This is where we or the people we are leading may believe we can handle the consequences of not looking after ourselves

Recognizing Experience as an Obstacle: If we are inexperienced or younger, we may may not appreciate the long-term effects of not practicing good self-care.

Projection Bias: This is where it becomes difficult to predict how we might feel based on how we are feeling in the moment. This can also be a reason why we do not prioritize self-care.

Prioritizing Self-Care: Recognizing that self-care needs to be a necessary part of our day that needs to be prioritized. This is really step one. Being disciplined and holding ourselves accountable can help with this.

Importance of Routine: Following a routine can be extremely beneficial – of note is that one danger sign of neglecting our self-care is when we break from our routine.

Guest Bio

Sarah Janin is a full-time mountain guide at Colorado Mountain School located in Boulder Colorado. She is the only full-time female guide at this time and one of their head guides. Sarah became one of the first certified female splitboard guides in America this March of 2024 making history.

Sarah is on the AMGA track with one more exam to complete this summer. Her goal is to become the 19th certified female American Mountain Guide. Sarah will then have to pass a ski movement test in order to become IFMGA certified which will be her focus this winter.

Sarah has worked as a guide for a decade after getting to experience a few different careers before settling on her true passion. Sarah is also a type 1 insulin dependent diabetic and has been for over 43 years. She will potentially become the first diabetic certified guide this year.

Guest Links

Colorado Mountain School: https://coloradomountainschool.com/guide/sarah-janin/

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How do you build trust? The ability to build trust is an important skill for anyone who wants to build and maintain relationships. It is also essential tool for a coach, instructor and guide to have if they want to help the people they are leading to achieve adventure.

When people do not trust their leader, they are more likely to challenge decisions, question intentions and second guess direction. People are also far less likely to believe in themselves if they do not believe in their leader.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, Brenna Kelleher returns to share some of the secrets to building trust. Brenna has developed a successful career as an outdoor athlete, instructor, guide and realtor. She has been an NCAA ski racer for Montana State University and claimed the 2001 Junior World Championship as a freestyle kayaker. 

She has guided horseback trips in Yellowstone Park and has coached freestyle kayaking. She has also traveled to Africa leading a group of high school girls, as an educator in a semester abroad program; teaching math, travel journalism, and physical education in the distant outdoors.

Brenna is a member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America’s National Alpine Team. In addition to being a PSIA Ski Instructor Examiner, Brenna is a ski instructor and guide at Big Sky Resort where she leads advanced women’s and youth-specific clinics.

Brenna joined us back in Season 2 to explore how we can build more resilient teams. In this episode she shares what it really takes to build trust as a leader.

Key Takeaways

Building trust requires us to:

Develop rapport early: This can include finding points of connectivity by finding things everyone can relate to or has in common.

Identify the Best Communication Style: Trust building involves determining how people are likely to respond to different communication styles. This also includes identifying their needs and aligning expectations.

Be Right Early to Build Credibility: Being right early by delivering value can also help to build trust at the start of a relationship. One strategy that works well is to see if you can solve a problem that someone has early in your relationship.

Maintaining trust requires us to: Deliver on promises, this can include showing up on time, meeting timelines and objectives.

Be Flexible: Keep adjusting as situations often change. Keep checking in with the people you are leading to see where expectations, needs and your relationship with them stands.

To avoid losing trust: Under promise where possible, be on time, own mistakes and respect people’s egos.

About Them: If you can make people feel good about what they have accomplished and how they have accomplished it, they will feel better about you.

Guest Bio

Brenna Kelleher has developed a highly successful career as an outdoor athlete, instructor, guide and realtor. She has been an NCAA ski racer for Montana State University and claimed the 2001 Junior World Championship as a freestyle kayaker. 

She has guided horseback trips in Yellowstone Park and has coached freestyle kayaking. Brenna has traveled to Africa leading a group of high school girls, as an educator in a semester abroad program. She is currently a member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America’s (PSIA) National Alpine Team.

In addition to being a PSIA Examiner, Brenna is a ski instructor and guide at Big Sky Resort where she leads advanced women’s and youth-specific clinics.

Guest Links

Brenna’s website: www.bigskybrenna.com

Instagram: @brennakelleher

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How do our human needs affect our judgement? What happens fro our decision making if our needs are not being met?

Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Bruce Wilson joins Chris and Jordy to discuss the relationship between needs and judgment.

Bruce Wilson is an ACMG Hiking Guide, a sea kayak guide and guide trainer for the Association of Sea Kayak Guides. He is an avalanche educator for the Canadian Avalanche Association.

Bruce is a certified instructor in the Wim Hof Method, he has a master’s degree in leadership, and is a Vision Quest instructor, just to name a few of his many qualifications and certifications.

Bruce currently instructs the Outdoor Recreation Management Program at Capilano University in North Vancouver. He also provides coaching and guiding through his company Warrior Wolf Guide Services and Coaching and teaches avalanche and survival courses for Canada West Mountain School.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, Bruce walks us through the intricacies of how needs affect judgment using real life stories and examples. This is a thoughtful and engaging conversation that ends with a look at how some First Nations peoples have prioritized human needs in relation to how we contribute within a community.

Key Takeaways

How do our needs affect our judgement?

Needs Checklist: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs works like a checklist that we can use to help us to identify where people are at and what needs to happen to enable them to reach their full potential.

Psychological and Physiological Needs: When these needs are not being met, our entire focus can become consumed trying to meet them. This can cause us to develop tunnel vision as we work to get warmer or more comfortable. Being low on energy or being dehydrated can also erode our ability to collect and analyze information accurately.

Safety and Security Needs: Our risk tolerance can cause us to perceive the risk around us in ways that are not accurate. If we do not feel that we are in a physically or psychological safe space, we are more likely to ignore our other needs like feeling connected socially to a group.

Communicating Risk to Others: It’s important to ensure that we are using language and framing information in a way that allows our audience to understand the risk accurately. This can help to improve their ability to make more informed choices.

Love and Belonging Needs: People inherently want to feel that they are a part of the group. If they do not feel they belong to the group, they are more likely to make decisions that cause them to behave in a way where they are trying to increase their popularity. This can cause people to become manipulative or to undertake other attention seeking behaviours.

Esteem Needs: If our esteem needs are not met, we are going to feel that we are not respected, and we may be less likely to trust others. When esteem needs are not met, we can start to develop self doubt. This can lead to us to second guess our choices. If our confidence is being eroded, it will directly undermine our competence.

Self-Actualized Decision Making: This is when we can make reasoned and objective decisions by being open to the fact that we may not know everything. When we are self actualized, we are aware that we may not have all the answers and instead of having this undermine our confidence, it actually increases it.

Guest Bio

When it comes to outdoor education and leadership training, Bruce is literally a Jack of all trades. Bruce is an ACMG Hiking Guide. He is a sea kayak guide and guide trainer for the Association of Sea Kayak Guides. He is an avalanche educator for the Canadian Avalanche Association.

Bruce is a certified instructor in the Wim Hof Method, he has a master’s degree in leadership, and is a Vision Quest instructor, just to name a few of his many qualifications and certifications.

He currently instructs the Outdoor Recreation Management Program at Capilano University in North Vancouver. He also provides coaching and guiding through his company Warrior Wolf Guide Services and Coaching and teaches avalanche and survival courses for Canada West Mountain School.

Guest Links

Warrior Wolf Coaching and Guide Service: https://www.snowolf.ca

Before Maslow’s Hierarchy: The Whitewashing of Indigenous Knowledge:

https://shanesafir.com/2020/12/before-maslows-hierarchy-the-whitewashing-of-indigenous-knowledge/

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How can we improve our ability to read people? Being able to accurately interpret the people we are leading so that we can see things from their perspective helps us with decision making and problem solving. It can also help us to build trust and to recognize when their needs are not being met.

In this episode, Lee Povey joins Chris and Jordy to discuss how we can al improve our emotional intelligence so that we can better empathize and understand others.

Lee Povey is a high-performance leadership coach specializing in working with founders and start-ups. As a lifelong entrepreneur, a former elite cycling athlete, and Olympic Development Program Coach for USA Cycling, Lee has a deep understanding of what it takes to lead at the highest levels.

Through coaching hundreds of World, National, and Olympic champions, Lee has gained invaluable experience in developing World-Class leadership and people. 

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, Lee shares practical advice and strategies developed through years of coaching high performance athletes.

Key Takeaways:

How can we improve our ability to read people:

Lead With Curiosity: Often we want to make assumptions by guessing or anticipating the feelings or thoughts of others. Instead, we should be asking questions with an open mind as to what the answers might be.

Ask the Right Questions: When we do ask questions, we need to make sure they are structured to reveal what we are looking to learn. Using a number system to identity how someone is feeling is one way. Another way is asking questions that are designed to generate discussion.

Learn the Person: Everyone is different. Approaching each person as an individual and learning their tendencies, needs and how they react in certain situations can help us to recognize patterns of behaviour. This can allow us to interpret what they may be telling us more accurately.

Training Them to Self-Analyze: When people can self reflect they can understand what is going on themselves.

Check for Understanding: Often we give people instructions, explanations or feedback and assume they understand what we want them to take away or to do. What we really should be doing is to get them to tell us in their own words what they understood.

Reading Body Language: This makes up a large part of how people communicate. Recognizing the behavioural patterns in the people we are interacting with can greatly enhance our ability to empathize and to interpret the thoughts, feelings and behaviours in others. Like every skill, improving our emotional intelligence so that we can better read others, takes purposeful practice.

Guest Bio:

Lee Povey is a high-performance leadership coach specializing in working with founders and start-ups. As a lifelong entrepreneur, a former elite cycling athlete, and Olympic Development Program Coach for USA Cycling, Lee has a deep understanding of what it takes to lead at the highest levels.

Through coaching hundreds of World, National, and Olympic champions, Lee has gained invaluable experience in developing World-Class leadership and people. 

Lee helps leaders and high-achievers understand how to motivate, lead, give feedback, and empower their teams to incredible growth and performance. He breaks down the human experience in a relatable way, sharing tips, skill sets, and valuable mindset insights, allowing us all to perform like Olympians while retaining a strong focus on happiness and long-term fulfillment. 

Guest Links:

Lee Povey: www.leepovey.com

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