20: How Serial Entrepreneur Davis Smith Built "Gear For Good" Apparel & Experience Brand, Cotopaxi

Legendary Climber, Flyer, Speaker, Writer, Steph Davis joins Emily and Jonathan on The Stokecast to talk about her life's wild and passionate pursuits. On the agenda? Balancing risk and comfort, creating a career as an athlete and storyteller, Steph's take on the vegan diet, creating and leading climbing clinics, coping with loss, and what it's like to fly.For more from the episode, visit https://exploreinspired.com/steph-davis/

On episode 24 of The Stokecast, Ladies AllRide Founder and Survivor survivor, Lindsey Richter, joins us to chat about how to overcome your fear-based mindset and learning to change the thoughts that just don't serve you.On this episode:- "No bad weather, just bad gear" - Why where Lindsey grew up helped nurture her tolerance for suffering (6:30)- Learning how to choose your attitude and create your own sunshine (11:00)- Why Lindsey took to mountain biking as a way to get her fitness back (14:00)- Surviving "Survivor" and the reality TV fallout (15:30)- Coping with all the faces of fame (27:00)- The difference between physical and emotional pain and how to deal with both (32:00)- How sport helps humans change thoughts that don't serve them (38:00)- Why Emily is afraid of mountain biking (41:00)- Lindsey's inspirations for founding Ladies All Ride camps (42:00)- What STOKE means to Lindsey (56:00)For the show notes from this episode, visit: https://exploreinspired.com/lindsey-richter

Professional climber, skier, reader and tale-teller, "human being in process," Sam Elias takes to The Stokecast to chat with Emily and Jonathan about soulful pursuits of mind and body, nurturing your life's narrative, finding family, and trusting how you feel inside.On this episode:- Life as an athlete and body breakdowns (6:30)- Selfishness vs Selflessness (8:20)- When to put in the work and when to let it ride (11:15)- What can happen once you develop a wisdom about yourself (17:00)- Float spas, sensory deprivation, and Get Out (21:45)- How climbing transformed Sam's life (24:00)- Sam's relationship with his real family, his climbing family, and the gap between (25:40)- The path to becoming a professional climber, via collecting outdoor industry work experience while building skillsets and a network (28:30)- Advertising and selling yourself - the behind the scenes work of an athlete (38:45)- Rooted: Climbing Lebanon - Sam's exploratory documentary connecting family, the middle east, and climbing (44:00)- Sam's top book recommendation (54:00)For the links mentioned in this episode, visit the show notes page at https://exploreinspired.com/sam-elias

What is a food forest? You'll have to listen to find out!On this episode of The Stokecast, Emily and Jonathan chat with adventure photographer, writer, farmer, conservationist, and National Geographic Explorer, Becca Skinner.For Becca's take on permaculture and sustainable ranching, her experience of building a career as photographer and storyteller, her top tips for car camping/living (learned from 32,000 miles on the road with her pup and a camera!), and her feelings about business, busyness, and balance, dive in!For the show notes from this episode, visit: https://exploreinspired.com/becca-skinner

Kit Deslauriers is a Jackson-hole based ski mountaineer, the first person in the world to ski off the top of the highest mountain on each of the seven continents (famed Seven Summits), an author, speaker, activist, and mother. That's quite the impressive resumé and we were honored to chat with Kit for episode 21 of The Stokecast!For the show notes: https://exploreinspired.com/kit-deslauriers

In episode 20 of The Stokecast, Emily and Jonathan recap the joys and pains of their recent experience running the Trapp Lodge Mountain Marathon in Stowe, Vermont. After, they have a deep conversation about building businesses with social impact with Cotopaxi Founder and CEO, Davis Smith.Also on the show, learn:14:32 - How Davis runs his business AND his family by defining values and building an organizational culture16:00 - When and why Davis learned to embrace his entrepreneurial spirit 18:45 - How Davis started and scaled his first business, going digitally native and selling pool tables online 24:20 - Why you shouldn't hire your closest friends first or at all 29:35 - How to identify ideas that are going to work and stick with it 34:38 - How to compete in a crowded market 41:14 - Why he started an adventure race series called Questival and hired two llamas off Craigslist to launch Cotopaxi 49:31 - How Cotopaxi is empowering creativity within their manufacturing facility in the Philippines 53:55 - What is a Benefit Corporation and how does it work? 56:33 - The benefits of bootstrapping vs. raising capital 58:29 - Davis' work to promote gender equality with GirlUp and Women's Leadership Institute1:05:00 - How he balances professional and personal life by managing both like a business 1:11:06 - What Cotopaxi is doing to aid the refugee crisis and one incredible story of the impact made For the show notes from this episode, visit: https://exploreinspired.com/davis-smith

Tim Burke was an airport operations manager at Boeing Field in Washington, overseeing the safety of everything happening on the airfield. He loved his job and he had worked so hard to get there. So why then did he walk away from everything stable and certain to pursue the roads of the world with his camera and a motorcycle?In episode 19 of The Stokecast, we chat with Tim Burke about:- His decision to leave his job and start living on the road- What place, after nearly 2 years of travel, has left the biggest mark on his soul- The realities of life and travel without deadlines or destinations- How he makes money on the road and is building his business as a photographer and journalist- Brand relationships and competing on social media- Why you don't need the best gear to take the best photos (and Tim shares his sketchy shooting setup)- The struggle to return home after long-term travel and connect or find common ground with anybody at home who can't relate to your experiences- Why you just need to send it and figure it out!For more on this episode and ways to connect with Tim, visit: https://exploreinspired.com/tim-burke

Sanni McCandless is a life and transition coach for outdoor-minded individuals seeking more intentional lifestyles, as well as the co-founder of the Outwild festival series.On this episode learn how to embrace career and lifestyle changes, deal with vulnerability on display, and start asking yourself, "what is it that I want from life?"In this episode:- How to overcome mental barriers to start embracing transitions in your life or changes in your career- Lifestyle design and how much life experience do you need to be a life coach?- Believing in the power of connection to bridge the gaps in finding your calling- Knowing how to recognize when you've felt balance, and how to go back to that- Honing the mindset to turn failure into opportunity within a long-term vision- The importance of micro-challenges to boost your confidence- Vulnerability on displayFor the show notes: https://exploreinspired.com/sanni-mccandless

Have you ever thought about climbing Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, or starting a global expedition guiding company specializing in rapid ascents on the world's biggest mountains? Adrian Ballinger has.If you're a total logistics nerd (like Emily and Adrian) and obsessed with operations, or if you're just drawn to pursuing crazy challenges, listen, learn, and be inspired as Adrian shares his story.On this episode:- Learning to trust your team and delegate tasks when you start to scale beyond yourself- The grind of growing guiding company, Alpenglow Expeditions- Balancing a career as a professional athlete with running a business and keeping relationships alive- How Adrian got his start as an adventure athlete- Learning to reframe failure as success- Altitude training systems and big mountain speed ascents - The Lake Tahoe Via Ferrata and Adrian announces his quest to climb K2 without oxygen!For the show notes: https://exploreinspired.com/adrian-ballinger

If you've been wondering how much work it takes to become a professional outdoor athlete, working on building your base of physical fitness, your personal brand, and keeping your mind on track, you're going to want to tune into this one. TJ David is a professional skier and Aspen-based plant-powered endurance athlete with experience on both sides of the lens. And he's also still hustling to make it work - because let's be real, it's rare to be a full-time athlete in this industry!Listen and learn:- How new opportunities emerged for more athletes to have viable careers when they started creating social content- The way TJ approaches building his Instagram audience and curating moments- How focusing on trail running has improved his skiing- The importance of having a meditation practice grounded in stillness- What TJ's plant-based training diet looks like- TJ's take on being a paid athlete and still having a normal jobShow notes: https://exploreinspired.com/tj-david