What does it actually take to lead a team, run an international guiding business, and still choose the hard line when it would be easier to stay comfortable?

Juliet Jacobsen Kastorff is co-founder of Endless River Adventures, owner of Rio Quijos Ecolodge in Ecuador, and founder of the nonprofit Need More Outdoors. She's been teaching and guiding whitewater kayaking in Western North Carolina and internationally since 1991. On this episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna Levesque talks with Juliet about leadership, building a guiding business that outlasts you, and staying uncomfortable on purpose after three decades in the outdoor industry.

This conversation is really about what it means to lead well: building a team you can eventually hand things off to, taking responsibility instead of making excuses, and noticing when your own expertise has quietly turned into a comfort zone.

If you lead a team, run a business, or coach others and want to hear how a 30-year industry veteran keeps growing instead of coasting, this one is for you.

In this episode, you'll explore:

• Why staying in your comfort zone as an expert, running the same line or the same rapid, can quietly stall your growth

• How Juliet builds leaders who could replace her, and why that's the goal, not the threat

• The hotel industry lesson that changed how she handles mistakes and hard conversations

• Why "a bad moment, not a bad day" changes how you show up after things go wrong

• What three decades of guiding in Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Chile taught her about community over ego.

Whether you're leading a business, coaching a team, or just trying to get comfortable being uncomfortable again, this conversation will meet you there.

Listen now, and start noticing where your own comfort zone might be holding you back.