Episode 17: From Viral Rock Climber to Neonatal Flight Nurse | Rachael Lee Sortor | NICU & Adventure Athlete
Rachael Lee Sortor has built a life where grit meets grace. A neonatal ICU flight nurse and lifelong rock climber, she’s faced high-stakes challenges both on the job and on the side of a cliff. When a video of her 8-month-old daughter Ellie climbing at their local rock gym went viral, everything changed, Ellen Show appearance included. In this conversation, we get into her journey from competitive climbing to the NICU, what it takes to trust your intuition, and how adventure shapes resilience. She opens up about balancing family life with a demanding career, chasing mastery without losing humility, and raising a daughter who’s fearless in the best way possible.
“For me, rock climbing was a sanctuary. It was a beautiful place for me to retreat to. To be myself, to find myself, to grow and explore life.”
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ONA - Oregon Nurses Association
14 yr old boy home schooled TED Talk
Ellie & Rachael’s Ellen Show Episode
World Cup Circuit Rock Climbing
First 4 Things She Removed From Her Diet:High Fructose Syrup
Hydrogenated Oils
Fake Sugars
MSG
To Start Climbing Tomorrow:Pros & Cons of Travel Nursing:
It can pay well if you’re willing to go to places where you’re needed
You need to know to ask enough questions about the hospital, patient ratio, etc
Ability to pick up and move often
Ability to determine your schedule and locations
Typically the locations you want to be don’t pay as well
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Becoming a neonatal ICU flight nurse
01:15 Growing up as a competitive rock climber
03:10 Ellie’s first climb at eight months old
05:05 The viral video that changed everything
07:20 Life after an Ellen Show appearance
09:45 Building a home climbing wall
12:00 Balancing motherhood and high-pressure work
14:30 Lessons from travel nursing and living in an Airstream
17:00 Minimalism, movement, and choosing adventure
19:15 Trusting your intuition on and off the wall
21:40 Staying humble while chasing mastery
24:10 Outdoor adventures that keep her grounded
26:45 Raising a fearless daughter
29:15 How climbing teaches resilience
31:00 Advice for starting your own climbing journey
And for me, rock climbing was, um, a sanctuary. It was a beautiful place for me to retreat to and be myself and find myself and grow and explore life. And I wanted to pass that on to my child. That's
Rachael Lee Sorter and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I'm your host, Kara Duffy, and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast where I invite my favorite humans, the awesome, the up to something, and the extraordinary to come and share their story. These are people that inspire and remind me that everything is possible. I hope that you will be left, entertained, inspired, and moved to take action towards living your most powerful life.
Rachael is a neonatal ICU flight nurse and has been a competitive rock climber since she was a teenager. She's focused, intentional, and committed to her family living their best lives. She's also a mom and a wife at eight months old before she could walk her daughter, Ellie started to rock climb. One day Rachael posted a video of Ellie climbing at the local Rock Gym to share with their family.
Within 48 hours, the video was internationally viral. Soon the Ellen Cho called and their lives changed. All of that coming up. But first, this episode is brought to you by Powerful Ladies, one Day of Giving. We are here to talk about how you can host your own event in your community and how simple it is to do it.
If you've been following us on our website, the powerful ladies.com, bo slash events, or on Instagram, you see that they're posting about how many amazing fun events are happening around the US and around the world. Just this past Monday, we were in Bend for Rachael's rock climbing clinic. It was so awesome.
It was so great to be with her in person, to hang out with Ellie, to be with Amber, and to be with the amazing people of Ben Rock Gym in the community. And then tomorrow, on Thursday, we have two events in Portland. We have a women's skateboarding, um, skate session and panel, and then we have a Powerful Ladies of Portland meetup in the evening.
You can have events like this too, and they don't need to be complicated. Do you often have friends over for a wine tasting or a girls' night or, um, maybe a dinner party? Perfect. When your friends come over next time, say that it's a one day of Giving Powerful Ladies event and ask them to give five, 10, $20 to support what we're up to.
It's that simple for you to be a host in your own community and be part of our ambassador team. We would love to have you so that we can sponsor even more women@womenforwomen.org.
Well, welcome to the Power Ladies podcast. Thank you for having me on the show. Of course. So let's. Start by introduce yourself, tell people who you
are and what you're up to. All right. My name is Rachael. I am a 31-year-old, um, rock climber. I'm also a neonatal ICU flight nurse, and I am the mother of a really beautiful, adventurous five-year-old.
And she is how I found you, um, ages ago, you had released a video that you thought you were sharing with is your family. It quickly became viral because it showed your daughter, um, rock climbing when she was, how old She was approximately 15 months old at that time. Yeah. So she could walk and now she could rock climb.
And I was so impressed with it because to me it symbolized what it means to be a powerful lady. It's passing on everything that you love and you know how to do, and you find joy into, um, not just your family, but the people you love in your life. And to see like how much fun she was having doing it. I was like, this is amazing.
Like I wish more people, um, allowed their kids at such young age to. To try activities like that. I have another friend who, their son's been snowboarding since before, almost before he could walk. And it, it's just not a big deal to him. It's like taking up a language. Um, how did your daughter get introduced to rock climbing and how did that video come to be from your perspective?
So long before Ellie was born, I was competing at the elite level in competition rock climbing. It was something that, um, helped kinda carry me through. Um, the later part of my childhood. I grew into loving the competition aspects as an athlete. Um, growing from being a girl into a woman, it was helping to define, uh, the muscles within my body.
It was giving me strength, it was giving me confidence, all of these things that, um, I really needed to find to help become who I am as a person. And for me, rock climbing was, um, a sanctuary. It was a beautiful place for me to retreat to and be myself and find myself and grow and explore life. And I wanted to pass that on to my child.
So before Ellie was born, I had kind of been talking about and thinking about having a baby one day. And I didn't know if it would be a boy or a girl either way. I was gonna pass on my passion and my love for climbing. And um, when Ellie was born, I continued to rock climb. I had to wait about two weeks until after delivery.
And then I was able to get back in the gym again, and I would bring her into the climbing gym. And a lot of the climbers would be really accepting of her being in the climbing community. Um, we would put in like a little baby swing and we would hang it from the Olympic rings. And if I was rock climbing and doing my workout and getting the work done that I needed to as an athlete, and the swings would like slow down once in a while, another rock climber would come up and be like, Ellie, how you doing?
And like, kinda talk to her in that like cute little baby voice and give her another push and keep her content. Um. She just became a part of the community. You know, if I was climbing, another climber would probably like hold her, pass her off to another climber. Eventually she'd come back to me, I'd breastfeed her, hand her off to someone else, and it was just this big community-based friendship of her being in the climbing community.
She was very welcomed there. And then when she. Um, was probably like two or three months of age. We built a little climbing wall for her in her room and she was able to use that as she got older to kinda grip the climbing holds and get a concept for what they were. And with her feet on the ground still, she was able to traverse low on the wall and start to feel out the holds.
And eventually, even before she was starting to walk, she would start to get that concept of moving up the wall. She saw me do it. She tried to do it and mimic it. Um, and then she was usually walking probably by about 10 months, um, of age. And then right around that same time also taking off on little kids climbing walls.
Yeah.
How, when you see her appreciation for rock climbing, like
what
does that give to you? When I see Ellie rock climb, um, the very first thing that I think is, is this truly from her own heart? And is, is this passionately what she loves and what she wants to do? I wanted to be very aware of not pushing my passion onto my child.
I wanted to gift that to her. I wanted to show her what I loved and hope that she also loved it. Mm-hmm. And I was kinda standing back making sure that I wasn't forcing something upon her. And then it was just spontaneous from her own heart. And what I have found is that it has been, yeah. And especially with her going viral and that video being all over the world and all the attention that we got, I was really cautious to take things slowly and make sure that I was first listening to my child mm-hmm.
And making sure that this was something that she desired and she wanted to do. There was one summer when she was around, I think three years old, and I could tell that we maybe needed to take a little bit of a break. We went to Hawaii, we played at the beach. We just did one-on-one mommy daughter time, um, kind of listening to her and her needs.
And then after that we came back and I reintroduced her to the climbing gym after about. Being away from it for a month or two, and she took to the wall immediately. She just wanted to be there. She took off, she remembered it. And I could tell right then and there that she truly loves climbing from her own internal, um, self.
Mm-hmm. And that it wasn't something that I was pushing onto her. So that was really important for me. And then to see her climb up the wall, um, with the strength that she has, her little muscles we're building, I mean her back. You look at this little toddler's back and you're like, oh my goodness, you have muscles.
This is what's carrying you up the wall. And uh, yeah, it's really inspiring as her mom to watch her be as strong as she is at such a young age and enjoy it and have fun with it, and just mostly giggle during our workouts.
Yeah. Like I really love, um. Through what you see within social media like her mm-hmm.
She has a, such a personality and SAS about it. Yeah. And I really appreciate that, like when you can see that she is five and already knows she's a powerful lady, like physically and mentally. Yeah. Um, it's, it's really cute to see that.
I really wanted that for her. I talked to her at a higher level than I think most people would talk to their children.
And I know that some of it's above her head. Absolutely. But I also think that it's important to give children credit for what they can take in. Yeah. And even she might not say high level things in return. She is listening, you know, she is listening, she is processing. And to treat her with respect as another human being, um, who has the ability to feel, who has the ability to make choices and to express themselves.
I wanna encourage all of those things for her and to be able to facilitate that kind of empowerment for her at a young age, will only make her stronger when she gets older. I want her to be confident. Um, I want her to have good manners. I want her to also be able to speak for herself. Breast herself. And if she doesn't agree with something I'm saying, I want her to be able to strongly and politely say, Hey mom, I'm gonna challenge you on something.
Yeah. And for her to know that I'm here to listen and be like, okay, kiddo, let's, let's go back through what I just said and see if mom's wrong. Sometimes mom's wrong. Yeah. Let's talk this out. Um,
our sister, um, who's in between us in age has two, uh, sons and they are obsessed with animals right now. And of course, kids also make up silly names for things all the time.
Mm-hmm. And so my nephew is like, oh yeah, that's, and I'm making up whatever he said, but it was like, that's the poopy head shark. And my sister's like, that's not what he is called. And sure enough they found some like book in later and that was like the actual name of the shark. And she's like, oh shit, my son is now smarter than I am and we're in trouble.
Yeah. So it's really amazing how they do absorb everything so quickly like they do. And I've really
tried to take the time and the energy to be when she asks me a question, not just be like, I don't know it's that way because it's that way, but be like, mm-hmm. Okay, I see where your brain's at. I don't know if I have the best answer, Ellie.
Let's go ahead and research this. Let's think about who the best expert is and who can we consult to get you an adequate answer to help keep that creative mind flowing. Yeah. And continually dig for, for more creativity to flow into her brain so that she can be the best version of herself that she can possibly be.
How did you discover rock climbing? Um, high school, I was about 2002. I was a freshman in high school. Um, my dad was really big into sports. He's an athletic trainer, really wanted me to play basketball. Um, I kinda wanted to please him, so I was like, okay, cool. I'll play basketball and internally and silently.
I was like, I hate basketball. I don't like this. I don't like groups. Sports. Um, I don't like the concept of sitting on a bench and if you're not the best that you won't be a part of the starting five and you're not the coach's favorite. And just feeling like you're never really quite enough and you didn't get the time and the experience on the court to ever progress.
Mm-hmm. It was like you're just simply a bench warmer. And that's kinda where I was at with basketball and I wanted something where, um, I could just jump into it on my own, put the hard work in, and allow the work that I put forth to speak for itself. Mm-hmm. So I was really looking for an individual sport.
Um, I stumbled into rock climbing and I had never looked back. It was one of those things where I found it, it clicked and I was in the gym literally seven days a week for the first four years. Yeah. Um, over training, you know, not taking adequate rest days, didn't care. Um, when you first start climbing, your skin takes a really big hit.
Mm-hmm. And you start to get blisters and they're bloody and they're. Um, things that you have to maintenance and I didn't care. I just taped right over 'em. Yeah. I let my fingers bleed. I pushed harder, I pushed stronger. Um, the skin healed. I got stronger. I saw the progress and I craved it, and, uh, I wanted more.
Mm-hmm. So that's
what I did. It became my life. How much do you, um, how much time do you slip between indoor and outdoor? Uh, training. Yeah. So I'm known
as a gym rat. Um, I absolutely spend probably 95% of my time indoors, rock climbing. Mm-hmm. That is what I loved. Um, that's what I fell in love with. I was very competitive.
Mm-hmm. Um, I love going to competitions and that's where my heart was. So I trained indoors mostly. Um, I also love climbing outdoors, and I think that I'm gonna probably shift to climbing outdoors more as I get older. Mm-hmm. Because I am less focused on the competition realm at this moment. I'm more focused on my career and my child and my family, you know, supporting her climbing more so than just being selfish and training for six hours a day and, uh, you know, ignoring everything else around me.
Yeah. Yeah. Point in my life where I can't do that anymore, but what I can do is I can go outside and just enjoy it recreationally. Mm-hmm. And so I think that I'm gonna be doing more outdoor climbing as I get older, but right now, um, I am definitely more focused in the gym. And five, 10 years ago, it was almost exclusively in the gym while dabbling outdoors when I was in between competitions and could afford to lose the skin on real rock.
Mm-hmm. I, I think it's really, I'm really excited about the attention that rock climbing is getting right now. Yeah. Um, thanks to Alex and his amazing movie. Um, did that win in, um, he did get an Oscar. Oscar. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Him and Jimmy Chin. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have so much compassion for the team that had to film that because, you know, watching it in the, you know, big IMAX theater, like our palms are sweating like Jesse's next to me, like can't look at the screen and like, we're so far removed from the experience.
Yeah. But to be his friends and to. You know, witness that live and not know if you're gonna watch your friend die. Yeah. Um, is so crazy to think about, but I'm just so happy of how it's highlighting the community. And, you know, you, you mentioned it quite a few times, talking about Ellie and how it's a different tribe of people that.
And from my experience, you can let me know if it's different, are very much a community, very much an extension of family. Absolutely. And the passion that they have.
Yeah. Um, you know, the climbing world, especially back when I was first starting and climbing back in 2002, um, it was a very small community.
Mm-hmm. I used to know Alex Ho, not personally, he wouldn't necessarily know who I am, but we would be at the outdoor trade show, um, which used to be in Salt Lake City. Yeah. It's now in Denver. And we would show up to the out outdoor, you know, the outdoor trade show. All the athletes would get together. I would usually be there to compete in some of the competitions.
Um, Alex Holl would be there signing posters. I'd go up and chitchat with them a little bit. I'd be like, you're a strong climber, you're cool. And then all of a sudden, three, four years later, I'm like, dude, you are all over National Geographic. You're going big. You've got free solo. You just won an Oscar.
Like, yeah. Holy. What are you doing with climbing? This is amazing. Mm-hmm. You're pushing the bar higher and that's so cool to see, you know, the generations that come in and push that bar higher and higher and help spread the love for climbing is a good thing. Yeah. It's, it's a very small sport in the United States.
We're growing, we're growing fast. Mm-hmm. And it's gonna get even bigger with all these gyms coming in. And the Olympics is now picking up climbing. Um, and I'm excited to see that growth in the United States. Um, Europe, it's a completely different scene. Yes. Yeah. In Europe it's, it's commonplace. And I think that it will become that for the United States with time.
Um, and we're watching that actively mm-hmm. Right now in the moment. And Alexon
is pushing that. Well, and there's so many different, um, ways that you can participate in climbing. So, um, maybe for listeners who dunno anything about climbing, do you maybe wanna go through what some of those options are? Like if they wanted to start tomorrow?
Yeah, what could they do? If you wanna
start tomorrow, um, I'll tell you what to do and what not to do. The best thing not to do is get on Google or purchase a book and attempt to read about it and go out to the rag and do it yourself. It's just not safe. Learn from the best. Mm-hmm. Learn from the experts.
Um, if you have a good climbing gym within your area and you have people that are certified to teach you how to climb appropriately, you can start indoors. You can learn how to manage the ropes, do something called belay, or hold the rope for the other person. You can learn proper technique on the wall.
Um, you can learn how to manage your rope so that when you go outside, you're not stomping dirt into it and get an super gritty and weakening it. And then if you're excited about that, if you like what you're doing indoors on the wall and you've learned the basics. Take that outdoors, get a guide, go outside, have someone teach you, um, from the ground up, the proper techniques of rock climbing.
Take the right steps to do it well, because climbing can be dangerous. Anything's dangerous, right? Yeah. Walking down the sidewalk I've always said can be dangerous. Um, climbing comes with risk. Mm-hmm. But you can mitigate that greatly and it does not have to be a great risk. It can be mitigated. You can have adequate amounts of knowledge to make it safer.
Yeah. And if you take the right steps, it can be a phenomenal sport for people of all ages.
Yeah. And I I love that it is also a whole body sport. Yes. Because there are a lot of sports that, um, you get so narrowly focused on one part of the body and over training and, um, you end up having to put so much work into balancing your body outside of the actual sport activity.
Mm-hmm. But in climbing you, it's head to toe. You have to use. Everything. Absolutely.
Yeah. I was actually just projecting a route in the gym the other day and, uh, someone was asking me like, what, what is your weakness on this route? What are you feeling the most? Are your hands giving out? Or, um, you know, is something just not feeling right for you?
And I said, it's my core. Mm-hmm. It is the core tension that I'm putting into the movement on this roof. Everything within me is engaged at 110% to stay on the wall. And if I let go in any way, shape or form with my core, I will be off the wall. Mm-hmm. In a split second. So you try so hard, you engage so hard.
Um, you almost like kii. If anyone's familiar with martial arts and they kii, you're almost like key eyeing move to move and really focused on your breath and synchronizing everything because you are engaging everything together in unison to be able to pull off these extremely difficult moves. And I absolutely love that about climbing.
It challenges your entire body.
And in addition to a climber, you're a nurse. Yes. And you're a fancy nurse that gets to be in a helicopter often, correct? Yep. Um, so explain to people what that is and how you ended up there.
Yeah. So, um, we can get into this a little bit more too in the podcast later, but after Ellie, um, went kinda worldwide famous with their video and we were on the Ellen Show and we had all these media offers, we decided to hit the road and travel around the country in an airstream.
So we packed our things up, sold our house, we embraced minimalism, jumped in an airstream, and traveled all over the country. And, uh, while we were doing that, I was working as a travel nurse. So I'd work anywhere between, uh, six weeks and three months. And then I would take anywhere between two weeks and six weeks off and we'd go to national parks, we'd hike around, we'd explore the country.
Um, we'd go to climbing areas and we'd do something called boondocking. So like Bishop California was one of my favorite places. We would just pull up to the desert, drop our Airstream, open up the front door. Elliot would run around, play in the desert. Um, we'd climb and that's how we did it. We took some time off.
I worked as a nurse a little bit, that eventually led us to Bend, Oregon, which is where I'm currently living. And I came to Bend Oregon as a travel nurse and they asked me like two or three times, Hey, we'd love it if you stayed and flew with us on our flight team. And I was like, I'm love and traveling. I think I'm gonna just keep doing this.
That's a really generous offer, but, you know, I'm really liking, uh, life on the road, going to different climbing areas, living in the Airstream. And finally by like the second or third time, they were like, well, can you at least just jump in the helicopter and uh, see if you like it? And I was like, yeah, sure.
I'll jump in a helicopter for helicopter ride. That's cool. And uh, I remember just like strapping in to my jump seat in the helicopter and the pilot was giving me the ins and outs and introduced me to the team and the way that the, the helicopter works. And the second that it started to pull off the helipad, I was like, here's my resume.
I would like an interview and I wanna fly with you guys 'cause this is awesome. Um, so right now currently I'm working full-time in Bend, Oregon as a neonatal ICU flight nurse. Um, you don't get to fly babies all that often. Mm-hmm. You know, sometimes I might get two or three flights in a week. Um, sometimes two or three weeks might go by and I don't get a flight at all.
Mm-hmm. It just depends because we're a remote location and the community needs are constantly shifting. So what I actually get to do, instead of just sitting in the hangar waiting for an activation to go out and fly a baby, I get the best of both worlds. So I'm working in the neonatal ICU and I don't necessarily take a patient assignment.
Mm-hmm. But what I do do is carry a pager to go to high risk deliveries. So I'm able to go, um, attend high, high-risk deliveries, resuscitate babies that need resuscitation, and then help support moms and dads through those first beautiful moments of getting to meet their little one. Mm-hmm. Whether that's helping them latch the breast and breastfeed or do skin to skincare.
And then I also carry another pager where when they need me to fly and pick up a baby in the community and bring it back to our hospital, I get that opportunity as well.
How does that feel to know that you're getting paid to be a superhero?
Well, first of all, I would say I love being there for the people of our community.
Um, I love attending deliveries and seeing and sharing those beautiful moments. I feel very fortunate that other people, um, let me share those moments of their lives that are so special to them and support them through those. Those, uh, memories that they're building for them and their family. Um, additionally, neonatal flight nursing is fairly new to me.
Um, I've been doing this for, going on right about two years. Mm-hmm. And so I still have a lot of growth to do within my own profession. Um, I really believe in best practice, continuing to read the cutting edge articles that are coming out, figuring out how our industry is changing, um, assessing where my weaknesses are.
Mm-hmm. You know, if there's a procedure that I need to dial in a little bit stronger, you know, going back and taking the time to get the mannequin out and, um, work towards mastering that skillset. So I love that about nursing. I love being able to continually improve, continually, um, gain more and more knowledge.
And I plan to continue to do that for the rest of my profession. I'm never gonna be, um. To the point where I am just 110% confident with what I'm doing. Mm-hmm. I think that that's a scary place to be as a nurse. Um, so I do love what I do. I do feel like I help the community. I love responding to emergency situations within the hospital when they occur.
Um, yet I also know that you need to stay humble in this profession. Mm-hmm. And you need to continue, um, to grow, to be the best nurse you can possibly be.
Well, it sounds like you're just taking everything, you know, from rock climbing and putting it through the nurse filter, right? Yeah. Because just if you're a rock climber and you're like, I got this, you, you're like, Nope.
That's,
it's a terrible attitude. And then you get complacency. Yeah. And you're not being the best version of yourself. Mm-hmm. If you start to have that attitude and, and I think that
applies to whatever somebody is up to. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. For people who don't know what is a travel nurse, because I'm, there's so many people today who are interested in living the schooly life or, you know, traveling tiny homes and wanting to break out of a traditional, uh, career.
Yep. And. I don't know if many people know that there's an option out there called travel nurse.
There is something called travel nursing. You have to be a nurse for a few years. You have to be proficient within your profession. So for example, I had to be a neonatal ICU nurse for, I think it was a minimum of three or four years.
Mm-hmm. Before they would accept me in the travel nurse industry. The reason for that is because you're going to different hospitals that have different policies and procedures, different ventilators, different monitors. Um, they function similarly because we. All follow a general workflow throughout the nation for caring for neonates, but yet every hospital does things slightly different.
So I need to be able to be strong enough in my neonatal nursing skills to step into a completely new environment and be able to work with the equipment at hand. That might be completely foreign to me. Um, so you need to be a fairly proficient nurse before you step into travel nursing, and then you end up needing to be able to cope with the fact that you're in a new environment.
You might not know who your support team is or how it works exactly. You have to be flexible. You have to be, um, willing to ask for help when you need it. Mm-hmm. Um. And you have to be willing to learn at a fairly quick pace. You don't come in and get, you know, six months of training like you would at a new job.
You come in and some places you get one day of training. This is where the alcohol swabs are. This is where you can pull your blood gases from. Mm-hmm. You're on your own go. Mm-hmm. And so you have to have that kind of flexibility and you have to be okay with that. Some nurses, um, are way too type A for that.
They're like, Nope, I need six months of training before I'm comfortable on the job. For me, um, I definitely am type A in my nursing care. Yeah. But I also had enough flexibility to be able to step into travel nursing and uh, just kind of go with the flow of it. There are pros and cons to travel nursing. Um, for me, I love the flexibility of being able to come in, work a little bit and then take some time off.
Um, the contracts can pay well. Mm-hmm. If you're willing to go to specific states and specific hospitals, but yet you have to find the balance of. Inter not only letting them interview you to see if you're the right nurse for the fit that they need, but also interviewing the hospital. Mm-hmm. And saying, what are my patient ratios gonna be?
Um, you know, am I working with a nurse practitioner? Am I working with a neonatologist? Um, what are some of the charge nurses? Like, what is the support system gonna be when I get to this hospital? And what I found was there's a very strong love hate relationship with travel nursing. And part of the reason that I also chose to stay in Bend beyond the desire to be a flight nurse, which was a long-term dream that I had had.
I also love nursing. In Oregon, we have the ONA, which is the Oregon's Nurses Association. Um, the patient ratios are very safe. Um, I feel like us as nurses are fairly well cared for. Mm-hmm. And it ended up being a beautiful state to work in. California's kinda similar, um, from what I hear, I've never actually worked in California, but states like that I wanted to partner with.
I strongly believe that if I'm gonna be a nurse, I need to be an ethical nurse. I need to be in a safe state, um, that is really well supported. So. Yeah, I think that with travel nursing, it's possible if you love, if you're a nurse and you love that type of, um, kind of like spontaneous movement on the road and you can adapt really well to different situations and you can pick up and move frequently and often it can be a really great gig, especially for a couple of years.
Or maybe as like the end of your retirement. It can be really cool. You can go to Hawaii. Mm-hmm. You can be a travel nurse in Hawaii for three months and enjoy the beaches. Um, but you also have to navigate that. Sometimes it pays really well. Sometimes it doesn't pay really well, and the locations that you typically wanna be in don't pay.
Super great. Yeah. Um, so yeah, settling in Bend was the right choice for me. I like having a base camp and uh, kinda working from there and settling into one hospital, getting to know the system really well, and then taking vacations from time to time outside of my home.
Well, and it's such a great, um, mix for everything that you care about.
Mm-hmm. There's, uh, so many great just outdoor activities in general in Central Oregon, having this great nursing career option there as well. And. Everyone that lives there loves it.
Yeah.
And then also wants me to tell everyone listening, don't move there. Um, yeah. So when I first moved to Bend, someone said,
oh, welcome to Bend.
Don't tell anyone else. Yeah. Don't invite your friends, please. We're growing way too fast. I read an article that Bend is actually one of the fastest growing cities, um, in the nation.
Mm-hmm.
And I don't know how much truth that holds. I haven't looked at the statistics or where that source came from, but I do believe it.
We're a very fast growing town. Um, my house is kind of in the heart of Downtown Bend and we are 20 minutes away from the Cascades. Um, there's great ski resorts right there. We've got the river downtown. Ellie loves going to the beach and playing at the river. We'll pull the paddleboard out and go up to these big, beautiful lakes in the summertime.
Um, you've got the winter sports, the summer sports, the water. Yeah. There's rock climbing. You've got Smith Rock. And in general, it's a very outdoorsy town. I find a lot of like-minded parents and families. Um, and it's a really great community. I'm really happy I fell in. In love with it.
Yeah. Who have been women that have inspired you in general and then within the rock climbing world
in general?
Um, the first woman that comes to mind is Brandy Carlisle. Okay. And I think a lot of people probably know who she is. She's a big name, has gotten a lot bigger in the last couple years here. Um, she's basically an American singer and songwriter. And I think what I love most about her is, um, her honesty. She, the way that she talks about the problems that we face, um, in our lives and kinda like the ebb and flow of the highs and the lows, and then writes that into her strong, into her songs is, uh, is she does it in a really beautiful way, in a really inspiring way.
She had a concert this last fall. Uh, kinda like in August actually, so like late summer, early fall, um, in Bend, Oregon, it was the last concert on her tour that season. And I took Ellie. Mm-hmm. We got tickets and we were out there on the field and Ellie was running around dancing in her little dress. And, um, Brandy Carlisle had her kids running around in the grass as well.
They had this wild child hair that was super beautiful. Her kids were like barefoot running through the grass playing tag. They had these personalized capes on their back and they had this imagination to them and this creativity and this like fun childlike, um. Energy that was just really beautiful to watch.
And then at the end of the show, she played one last song and invited her kids up on the stage and they were all dancing up there having a blast. And uh, I love people like that. People who can be, um, kind of at the top of their industry, but yet are so humble and still so true to themselves. And she has inspired me in very, in many ways.
So yeah, she's the first person that would come to mind, um, who's impacted my life in the recent years.
Very cool. When the, you know, women's movement has been obviously around for over a hundred years at this point. Mm-hmm. Um, but it's really take taken up steam in the past couple of years since the last presidential election.
How has that impacted your life, um, you know, on a personal scale? Is it something that you're following? Like what is your general perspective about it?
It's something that has been gaining. Significant attention lately.
Mm-hmm.
Um, I think that, I think that, Hmm. Can I think about that for a second? Yeah. No, and it's,
it's, um, every woman who's been on this podcast Yeah.
Has paused at this question. And, and part of the reason I think that there's the pause Yeah. Is that for so many of us, we're glad that people are getting their voices and are feeling their power Yeah. And realize that they're not alone and we're glad that people are up and participating.
Yeah.
And like what we're doing every day is the same thing we've been doing every day.
Yeah. Which is getting up and doing our thing and doing it the best way we can and trying to fit in all the things that we love about life before bedtime. Yeah. And so I think it's really interesting to, especially having a group like who the guests are in this podcast being powerful women who haven't been stopped by whatever has come up in life.
Yeah.
Um. I think it's, it's a tricky question because there's compassion for the people who, um, have gone through things
mm-hmm.
That, um, we're happy are getting a voice and realizing they have a community and it's like, okay, yep. That's going on. And we gotta, we gotta move. Like we're too busy. Like we are, we are acting every day.
Yeah.
In our most powerful way. So it's not like it's flipped a switch for us to be like, oh, we can be powerful. Like. Yeah. Didn't even register that I couldn't.
Yeah. Yeah. I think in many ways it's a really beautiful movement. Um, I love seeing women come together and support each other. Mm-hmm. I love seeing women finally find a voice when they didn't realize that they had one, maybe.
Yeah. And they didn't realize their full potential. And feeling that encouragement from other women and feeling like they can be themselves and, uh, start to be true to themselves, and then from there, grow and explore how much potential they really do have in their lives. Mm-hmm. Is a really beautiful thing.
Yeah. And I love that about this movement. Um, I am a strong supporter of equality. I would say that one of the hesitations that I have with this movement is because I'm such a strong supporter in equality and because I have so many strong men and women in my life. Mm-hmm. I would. Hesitate or, um, not, I would, I would be, I would not wanna see the pendulum swing.
Yeah. Too far in the wrong direction. I believe that women need to be empowered. I believe that we need to all feel like we have a voice. I feel like we need to be here for each other and stand strong together. But I also don't wanna neglect the fact that I have a lot of amazing men in my life as well.
Yes. So I wanna find the balance and come to the center where equality is truly equality. Yep. Um, that said, we all know that women have kind of been on the bottom end of that for a very long time. Mm-hmm. So, without overshooting it, I want us to step all the way up to that plate and meet everyone at the same level and find true equality.
I couldn't have said it better myself. That's a hundred percent. Um, you know, how I feel about the equality angle of it. Mm-hmm. You know, like it's, there's a part of me that worries about. Are young boys getting enough attention to also become their most powerful, especially in different communities around the world and in poorer communities in the US right now?
Yeah,
there's, I think, a lot of voices for, um, like you go into the, I went to Barnes and Nobles recently mm-hmm. To get, um, some books for a gift and you go into the kids section and there's a whole area of girl power mm-hmm. Books and it's awesome because like when I was a kid, my girl power was like Shera and she technically isn't a real person.
So yeah. It was cool to see like highlights of all these like women through history and like, you can do it too. And then like there wasn't that on the other side.
Right.
There's already, there's all the, um, statistics about how many women are going to college and men that aren't, and that there's these like partnership gaps in different socioeconomic, uh, groups where like women can't find someone on their same level.
Yeah.
Because there's just this fall off between, you know, if you're looking for somebody who has. XY degree and you want them to be this certain ethnic group. Like it might not be available right now.
I recently had a friend show me a video online and it was two little boys. They were probably about seven years old.
Um, one was African American, one was Caucasian, and they were best friends and they went to get their hair cut together. Mm-hmm. And they said, let's get our hair cut the exact same way. And then when we go to school, our teacher won't know the difference between us. So cute. And it was the most adorable video I've seen in a very long time, and that's where I would like to come with equality.
Mm-hmm. The other day on social media, I saw a company talking about how they're a hundred percent, um. Fe they, they, they employ a hundred percent females. Mm-hmm. And I think for some companies, you know, maybe that is the right thing for one reason or another, but as a whole, I don't wanna get too far going in that direction, you know?
I'm like, well what about the men? We can't leave the men behind. Yeah. I wanna get to the point where it's like, we're not talking about men or women. Mm-hmm. We're talking about human beings who all have the same amount,
um, of value. Yep. No, it uh, honestly, that's why it's taken four years to have the Powerful Ladies podcast, because I've been uncomfortable with the name.
Mm-hmm. Interesting.
Like, there's so many men that I wanna have on the podcast, and I asked one of my guy friends and he was like, fuck it. Just have the guys on too. I'm like, okay, thanks. I just needed that permission. Thank you.
That is an excellent idea actually. Yeah.
Yeah. We've already had one guy on the show and there'll be more.
And there's so many people, like within the spectrum of gender. Yeah. That it's like, okay, yeah, we're called powerful ladies because that's how I refer to people that are in my social group. Yeah. But it's powerful everybody. That's a beautiful concept. I love that you're doing that. Thank you. No, 'cause it's, that's really what matters.
Yeah. It's, it's, everyone needs to find their power. 'cause if everyone stepped into what they're capable of and what really lights them up Yeah. Like, it would be a completely different world that we're living in. Absolutely. It's, it's, um, there was some crazy statistic that I heard yesterday about 70% of people hate their job or wish they were doing something else.
Oh, I believe that. And I'm like, yeah. What, what, what? Like, this is also confusing me when I hear people talking about, like, I hate where I live. I'm like. We are so lucky in the US that you can literally move anywhere you want. Yeah. Like you wanna, where do you wanna go?
It's true. One of the, um, biggest concepts I'm trying to instill in Ellie as a, as a young child is take action.
Mm-hmm. If there's something you don't like, if there's something that you wanna change, take action. You have the power to do that. Yeah. Instead of melting down, instead of throwing a tantrum, take action. Mm-hmm. Use your words, explain to me what you need and we will get there.
There's an amazing video of a 14-year-old boy who was homeschooled by, um, by his family, and he did this Ted talk about all the things that he's not okay with in the world and what he's gonna do to change them.
And I was like, all right. Like, this is what I want every kid to get. Yeah. Like, it's po like nobody that changes the world or starts a business or achieves something that they care about, like waited for permission to do it.
Yeah.
And so I, I look forward to more people. To your point of listening to those little things that either make you mad or make you excited, like if it causes a reaction in you
mm-hmm.
Like, think about why and what, what could you do about it?
Absolutely. I'm a big firm believer in listening to your intuition. If something tells you that, um, you know, it's, it's a stressful situation or it's something that's negative and needs to have more attention, I think put more attention there. Put more thought to it.
If it's something that you're like, well, that seems like a really great step, and I can't pinpoint exactly why, but my intuition is driving me in that direction. I trust my intuition. Mm-hmm. And very rarely does it lead me wrong. And I think that that's a really important piece for me to carry me forward with the choices that I make in my life.
Mm-hmm. I think that's a great segue to talk about when Ellie's video went viral. Yeah. Like what, what was it like to go from. An average everyday person and mom to suddenly having, like you shared a great story, which I would love for you to recreate Absolutely. Um, about getting that first phone call.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so to answer your question in one word, it was overwhelming. Yeah. I, uh, filmed that video on a standard climbing day in the climbing gym. Um, you know, just a mom filming her child. Nothing to do with climbing. Just, Hey, this is my kid. She's young, she's never gonna be as little as she is right now.
I'm gonna pull the video camera out. She was rock climbing, um, as she always does, as she always has. And I was filming her and I was like, that's kind of cool. And almost deleted the video 'cause I've got lots of video of her on my phone. But then I was like, you know what, my grandparents haven't seen her climb in a while.
So I went ahead and posted it to my Facebook page, woke up the next morning thinking nothing of it. Someone had gotten a hold of it, shared it to the right or the wrong person, depending on how you wanna look at it. It hit some news station on social media feeds that spread to thousands, literally thousands of other news stations, and then was international within the matter of 24 to 48 hours.
That video on social media had over a billion views within a very short amount of time, and there was no stopping it. Right? I could not control it. I was like, that's not my dog. That's my baby. Yeah. My brand new baby that I absolutely love and want to protect, and I have no control over the video that I just posted on my own personal social media page.
Mm-hmm. No intent to be famous. No intent to put her out there and say, Hey, look at me. I was completely overwhelmed and probably a little bit terrified. Um, the phone calls started coming in. You think your phone call, your phone number is private? It is not private. Every news station in the country has your phone number.
Um. Everyone who wants to get ahold of you can get ahold of you. And everyone was trying to get ahold of me. My phone was ringing off the hook. I was getting emails, text messages. Um, I didn't know how to control the influx of information that was being fed to us. And we had offers coming at us faster than we knew how to, um, sift through them and decide what to accept and what to decline.
And you just had to step back and take a deep breath and realize where you're at and that you can't stop it. And then you have to make the best decisions you can to move forward while not selling out your child in the process while maintaining the authenticity of who we were as a family, um, while staying true to ourselves.
And while not tainting what climbing is to me. And I didn't want it to become something that was a negative in our life. Mm-hmm. I wanted it to continue to be my sanctuary. The place where I could go to, um, recover, release, stress, um, and find my enjoyment. Mm-hmm. So I tried to maintain all of those things while this influx of attention was coming at us.
Um, I had days when, um, a news station from Phoenix, Arizona, which was three hours away from where we were living at the time, had sent a media truck up to our home, knocked on our door, had video cameras in our face, and were pushing through the front door, wanting to film our lifestyle, wanting to know how we lived, wanting to ask us questions, thinking that we'd be like, oh yeah, it's the media.
Of course we wanna be on the media. Of course we wanna be famous. Right. And we were really hesitant to kind of jump into that. Um, we had to take everything one step at a time, and we really slowed down. Luckily, my husband and I are on the same page with, um, how we wanted to approach things and it went fairly smooth.
Mm-hmm. I have very few regrets, if any, um, from that time in our lives, but it changed our lives drastically.
What were the big changes before and after besides exposure?
Um. Before was time management. Um, my husband at the time was in nursing school and he was gonna join me in the nursing profession and we had so much media to control that he had to step out of nursing school, um, basically to protect our family.
Mm-hmm. Um, which I'll be forever thankful. He's four. He's a really great guy, a wonderful father, and he had his head on straight when he made those decisions for our family. And that's a big sacrifice. He's actually back in nursing school right now to get that degree and uh, it's five years later. So that's a huge sacrifice that he made, um, that I'll forever be thankful for.
Um, that was one thing that changed. He had to step outta nursing school. He basically became a stay at home dad for a number of years, and we put Ellie first. We made sure that she was protected. Um, we went on the Ellen Show, which I never thought would've been on my bucket list, just because you think it's unobtainable, right?
Yeah. You're not like, oh yeah, I one day wanna be on the Ellen Show. It's like, that's not gonna happen. And all of a sudden I was at my fingertips. I actually had said when this video went viral, I was like, man, all this attention we're getting, I better get a call from the Ellen Show. And I said it as a joke, and sure enough, we got a call from the Ellen Show.
And uh, and I was able to check that, that box on my, um, bucket list that I didn't even really know I had. It was kind of cool to dabble in Hollywood for a little bit and get that experience. Um, but again, took it with caution. You know, I remember sitting in the room at the Ellen show and saying. You know, if Ellie doesn't wanna climb, we're not gonna climb.
We're gonna just walk off stage. It's not that important to us. Mm-hmm. And I remember us being kind of calm and collected and the person that was working with us behind the stage was like, are you guys okay? And I was like, yeah, I'm just kinda like in that, you know, calm state of mind, like I am before a competition.
Taking deep breaths, going out with like, you know, the best focus and mindset that I possibly can. And if you look back at the video, which I haven't watched very much, but if you look back at the video, I actually was talking pretty fast and I was a little bit nervous. Mm-hmm. That's just inevitable. Um, and thankfully Ellie did want to climb.
I don't think she climbed her best on the show. There was a big crowd, lots of cameras and lights and she didn't climb her best on the Ellen show, but she did wanna climb and it was something that she was inspired to do. And so it made for a really cute little documentary and I'm so happy that we engaged in that process.
Um, they were absolutely phenomenal to work with. I think someone during that process of being on the Ellen Show had said, I just want you to be aware of the statistics, um, and don't quote me, but they said something along the lines of like, 80% of the families like you that are on the Ellen Show will end up moving from not just on the Ellen show, but on shows in general, will end up moving from their home within a year.
Mm-hmm. And we were like, oh yeah, well that's not gonna be us. And sure enough, we sold our home, we got an Airstream, and we hit the road because it changes the way that the community around you perceives you. Mm-hmm. And I didn't want, um, people to think that I thought that I was better than them or that my child was.
This little goddess rock climber. Yeah. And that she had some God-given talent that no other child had, because she simply had the exposure that I gave her. She had a rock climbing wall in her room. Mm-hmm. She had a mom that was an elite level rock climber. She had a dad that was an extremely, um, well-rounded rock climber and competed elite as well.
Naturally, my child's gonna be a rock climber. That's what she's exposed to. Yeah. And so I tried to keep that in the light, you know, and tell people like, there's nothing special about Ellie. We don't think we're extra special. I know we're getting a lot of tension right now, but believe me, we're trying so hard to not change who we are as a family.
And we tried to hold onto that throughout the process, but naturally people see you differently.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and we learned really quickly who our true friends were. Yeah. The friends that, um, that really knew us at heart stayed strong and they were like, we're here for you. This is a wild ride. I am so excited for you.
When things get hard, let me know. I'm here. You can lean on me. And those people, I'll forever be the grateful for. Um, nevertheless, it's time to just kinda, you know, change the sale to a different direction and hit the road and live in an airstream for a little bit. And that was a very big change for our family.
It was an incredible, uh, year on the road. And, uh, I don't regret it by any means. I think it was a really great highlight. I asked Ellie. Two Christmases ago, I said, Hey Ellie, what do you want for Christmas? And she goes, I want my Airstream back. And I was like, oh, you're breaking my heart, babe, because here I thought I did a good thing settling into Bend, finding community that would be consistent.
You know, being able to put her in sports and find little friends that she could play with on a day-to-day basis and get to know long-term. And she just wanted to still travel the country in her Airstream and open up the front door and run around in the desert. And I like her style. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
And then after all of that, um, yeah, there's been a lot of changes that have happened since then as well. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
When you are preparing for a competition
Yeah.
Like what is, how would, how does your day look different than a day when you're in training versus preparing for a competition?
Um, I'll be honest, as an athlete, probably one of the biggest things that I regret is not having taken my training more seriously.
Mm-hmm. I trained very ad-lib. If I felt like training hard that day and I had the mindset to push my body hard, I would do it. If I felt kinda like I had overeat the day before and I was bloated and I wasn't feeling the best I would train as. Much or as little as I felt my body needed in that moment.
And I really probably needed a stronger training regimen. Mm-hmm. So, in hindsight, I wish that I had, had my coaches pushed me a little bit harder. Mm-hmm. I wish that I had on a personal level, pushed myself a little bit harder. There were days when I pushed myself really hard and I loved it, and I would end the day and be like, wow.
That's why I love rock climbing. That's why I do this. Um, but there were also days when I could have probably pushed myself harder and become an even better athlete than I was. Um, your question
was just your what? Your daily routine. So now daily routine? Yeah. Like what, what, how has your routine changed from, you know, when you were on the road?
Yeah. And then now that you've settled in and now that you're kind of also. Transforming what rock climbing is to you, like Yeah. How does it keep changing from a
I've had a lot of big, big transitions with that. So back in the day, climbing was extremely important to me. You don't miss, um, a day in the gym.
Mm-hmm. You know, you're there, you're training hard. It is what you're living for. Um, you go to competitions, you're willing to spend the money to get there. You're willing to, um, sacrifice your body and go through the sore muscles and the torn up skin. And you love it. You love every single moment of it.
And that's what I was living for. I had a point within my climbing where I could have chosen to live on the road out of a van, like many climbers choose to do, get really strong, possibly push myself hard enough in the competition realm to go and compete in the World Cup circuit. Like some of the women that I was competing with chose to do, or I had to go to nursing school.
Mm-hmm. And I felt at the time that climbing was small enough and the probability of me being able to make, um, a lifelong career out of it would've been very difficult. So with the voices in my head telling me that I should take the safer path I went to nursing school. Mm-hmm. I have had days where I regret that.
Yeah. And I think I should have followed my heart. I was so in love with climbing. I could have been a better climber. I could potentially be, um, you know, competing in the world circuit right now and competing with these women that I once knew. And now I'm feeling a little bit out of the scene because I have legitimately been outta the scene for a few years.
And there are days when I really wish that I had taken the other path. But I would say overwhelmingly most days I love what I'm doing within neonatal nursing and I don't regret it. Mm-hmm. And right now, the way that that's shifted for me is I'm still a climber. I do still compete. I am not competing at the elite level anymore.
I'm doing more recreational, fun, local competitions, and I am enjoying that. I am not as strong as I once was. And I'm coming to terms with being okay with that. Yep. One of the ways that I stepped out of that process was. Doing a sport that was completely foreign and new to me, and that sport was martial arts.
And I wish that I had found martial arts 15 to 20 years ago because it changed my life in incredible ways, and that helped me be okay with still being an athlete. But starting from the beginning of a system, not knowing anything about a sport, being a complete beginner, being completely humbled, um, by not being able to do, um, complex movements within that discipline and having to start from the ground and work your way up.
That was really good for me. That allowed me to step away from competition climbing. And be okay with it. Which martial arts do you practice? Um, so I trained in Bend, Oregon at Soer, Beto, Kai, and they do a mix of different disciplines. Primarily it was shotokan. I did Juujitsu a couple nights a week. Um, there was a little bit of woohoo mixed in.
There was a little bit of TaeKwonDo, um, a keto, there is a couple disciplines that kind of got mixed in, but I would say primarily it was Han. And what is Choto Khan for? Um, I didn't study it long enough to give you a really clear answer, but my best understanding is it is a traditional form of karate from Japan.
Okay. I think, I think with, um, MMA, that like Jiujitsu, people are grasping with that as way more than they would've in the past. Yeah. So people know karate, they know kickboxing and they know ju Jiujitsu. Yeah. And then everything in between there, they're like, I don't, I don't know. Like, where does it fall on that spectrum?
Yeah. How, how has it
changed their life? Martial arts? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Martial arts, um, for lack of a better explanation, humbled me. It made me be a brand new athlete. It made me, um, realize that I still have significant weaknesses, specifically in, um, flexibility.
Mm-hmm.
And having to put the time and the attention and the patience towards fixing those weaknesses.
And so flexibility was one thing that I heavily focused on. Um. Being asked to do a basic sidekick and being able to execute that movement and be like, boom, there you go. I did a sidekick. But then watching the video feedback and be like, oh my goodness, that was a really terrible sidekick and my form was horrific and I have so many areas that I can improve upon.
And then putting the discipline forth to be able to do a more beautiful kick by repetitively practicing that sidekick, um, was a very methodical process that takes focus and dedication, and it's a very emotional and mental process to go through. Um, martial arts and become a martial artist. It's not just a physical process.
And I really loved and appreciated that about it.
We we're a big, um, mixed martial arts house. Okay. Um, came from Jesse. He trained Juujitsu for a long time and is a huge MMA world. Like he's obsessed. Yeah. So I know more about athletes in UFC and Bellator and all the other levels of You probably know more than I do then.
Yeah. It's crazy. But, um, I've never practiced myself. Okay. He's always like, go to jujitsu, go to Jiujitsu. Yeah. And I'm like, Ugh. I don't know if I wanna be choked. Like, I don't know if that's something that is gonna bring me joy. Yeah. So, so I think I would love to find another path through martial arts because I love the balanced approach to it.
Yeah.
That you have to, it's, it's mental and physical combined and that there's progression. Plus I like getting awards and you get. New belts or shorts or whatever you get, which is a motivator for me.
My sensei would often say, it is important for you to get in that position where you're being choked out and if you're panicking to calm yourself down mm-hmm.
Realize the position you're in and know how to execute what you need to to get out of that position. And that is actually something that I want for Ellie as she gets older as well. Mm-hmm. I'm not gonna ask her to focus heavily on martial arts unless it's in her heart to do so, but there are basics that I know we want to pass along to her.
Yeah.
So that she can be a stronger individual for herself if she found herself in one of those situations.
Well, you just gave me the best pitch bees for why she would be in Juujitsu, so Jesse will probably say thank you later. I think
everyone should dabble in Jiujitsu just a little bit.
Well, yeah, I mean, and I think that there's so much fun in taking on.
Similar to rock climbing like sports that allow you to feel like a warrior. Yes. Like, you know, there was someone who was talking about doing the, um, the pushup move. I'm, I'm gonna mess up the name of it, but it's, it's a, uh, it's a CrossFit move where you pull yourself up and then push yourself on top, like exactly how you climb onto a roof.
Yeah. Like a mantle, almost a muscle up. Maybe. Muscle up. Yes. Muscle up. Yeah. And that is a move that I've always wanted to do. Yeah. But I've put zero. It's like I'm interested, not committed. I've put zero effort into figuring out how to actually get my body to do it. But I'm like, one day that's how badass I'm gonna be.
Like I'm gonna be able to do that. Yeah. So I just that and you know, the getting choked out and getting out of it or in that space of like, I would love to do that. Yeah. And I'm a little bit intimidated what it's gonna take to get me there. Yeah. And how that fits into my life right now.
To me, I have found, as I've grown older, there is no better feeling than to be comfortable in your own skin.
Mm-hmm. To know that you are strong in your own body. Yeah. Um, to say that's a rock face. Go ahead and climb up it. And being able to do that, to say, that's a pull-up bar. Go do five pull-ups. And being able to do it to say, I'm not feeling great and I've got some stress to release, I'm gonna go run three miles and come back and feel incredible.
Mm-hmm. Just a couple basic things. Yeah. Where you just feel good in your own body and you feel like you can move and you have good control of your balance and just a general base level of strength mm-hmm. To me is extremely important.
Yeah. When you look at, uh, your lifestyle, how does, um, what you put in your body like relate to how you prepare your body physically?
Um, I focused on diet fairly heavily over the years. Um, I love to source organic local foods. Um, I had been strict vegan for five years. The way that that started was, um, we were working for, my husband was working for Red Bull at the time. Mm-hmm. And they were focusing on the ingredients within the can of Red Bull.
One of their big selling points was we don't have high fructose corn syrup. Mm-hmm. And I was like, what's high fructose corn syrup? This is all the way back in like. 2000. Mm-hmm. And I was like, well, what's high fructose corn syrup? And if you're not putting that in there, what are you putting in there? So I started looking at the sugars that we're putting in our foods.
I started looking at the level of processing that we're doing. I started looking at things like hydrogenated oils and MSG and uh, fake sugars and added chemicals. And so I started by eliminating like five things. And I can't exactly remember what they all were. I know for sure it was high fructose corn syrup for sure.
Hydrogenated oils, MSG, and there was two others on the list. Fake sugars was one of 'em as well. And that kinda got me started on this concept of, oh, you don't have to just eat anything in front of you. You can actually make choices. And sometimes some choices are healthier than other choices. And I was young, I was in high school at the time, but I liked that concept.
I liked the concept of having control over what I put into my body and how it fueled me. So from there I was just curious about, um, a plant-based diet and being young and wanting to explore. I went strict vegan for five years.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, I loved it. I loved the concept of, um, being challenged by making more.
Nutritious meals and fresh fruits, fresh vegetables. Not just like the vegan processed patty that you buy in the freezer at the store. Mm-hmm. But like, legitimately making your own food from Whole Foods and getting the most out of your macro and micronutrients. Um, from there as an athlete, I started to play with the idea of reintroducing eggs into my diet.
Mm-hmm. And so then I started realizing that you can also source your eggs really well. So I sourced my eggs well and I started adding them back into my diet and I felt incredible. Mm-hmm. And I felt like, ooh, this is something I've been missing. And I'm always trying to stay open-minded. And I think that, you know, when you're like, boom, I've got it with diet, you know, and you're like, I nailed it.
This is where I'm at. It's not gonna last forever. Mm-hmm. It's always constantly changing for me. Well, 'cause we are. Yeah, we are. Absolutely. And so adding eggs back in was huge for me. Um, there were like a staple food within my diet. I still eat mostly plant-based. I will eat a little bit of grass fed beef from time to time mm-hmm.
While caught fish from time to time. Um, but overall anymore, I just try to source my food as best as I possibly can. Yeah. I eat by choice, maybe a little bit lower carb, um, than most people, um, or than most people on like a standard American diet. But if I have a competition the next day and I need to fuel, I'm not afraid of carbs either, I will carb up mm-hmm.
And, uh, allow that to fuel my body. I have played with the extremes, like, um, going into ketosis. Mm-hmm. And I haven't stayed there for a very long time. I've heard that women have trouble, especially with the hormone fluctuations that we have mm-hmm. With maintaining, um, ketosis. And I did start to feel the electrolyte imbalances and had heart palpitations.
And it was just kinda getting to a point where I was like, as an athlete, I don't wanna dive into this world of ketosis too deeply. Mm-hmm. And so after a few weeks I would pull out of it and just go back to eating. Kinda like that 80 20 diet. Yeah. Where you eat as clean as you possibly can, little bit lower carb, unless you're really training hard and you really earned them and you really need it.
Mm-hmm. Um, for me, my diet is all by feel. Yeah. I can't give you a, you know, standard line of what I eat and why. It's just constantly changing. I
think that's what is the reoccurring theme for a lot of people who have gone through a lot of different diet exploration. The whole point of eating is to fuel your body and rejuvenate your cells and to feel awesome.
Yeah. And being tapped into what makes you feel that way and what doesn't. Mm-hmm. You know, if you're getting sick a lot, if you're lethargic and tired, like it's probably something that you're putting in your body
Yeah.
Whether you realize it or not. And, um, I think a lot of people are swinging, right? Like, ketosis is so trendy right now, and there's so many chats about, um, what is vegan and being, and veganism.
And it breaks my heart when you look at what things qualify as vegan and you're like, you should never eat any of those things, right? Mm-hmm. Like, you know, whether it's, um, you know, there's Vienna fingers. I remember being one that the cookie is vegan, and you're like, if it's vegan, what's in it?
Yeah, absolutely.
Just because it's vegan does not mean that it's healthy. Yeah. You really have to pay attention to what is in your food. Yeah, quality, quality is very, very important.
Yeah. And, and it's when you see those different, like I love looking at food on Instagram because when people do it right and it looks so beautiful and so colorful, like your, your body reacts away.
It should to seeing it and I'm like, yep, I want that, and that and that. And there are ways, I think for. To listen to your body and figure out what works and doesn't.
And when I've dabbled with extreme diets, I've found also that I always come back to the concept of, you know what? Food is really enjoyable.
Yeah. It is one of the things that I greatly love about being a human being. I love to eat food. Yeah. And so to be on a ketogenic diet for a long term would be a disservice to myself as far as my level of happiness. Yeah. Could I do it? Sure. Would I be pretty fit? Sure. But would I be enjoying food on a daily basis?
Not really. And that's actually really important to me as a human being. So I think that for me, I found that there's a balance. Eat well. Um, enjoy your food, be healthy. Um, don't overeat, don't eat a bunch of junk. Mm-hmm. But don't go to such extremes that you're depriving yourself of those pleasures of eating all the delicious food that is at our fingertips these days.
Especially when food is what builds community. Yeah. Like the value of having dinner together and the, the amazing conversations you can have over food and, um, even just the cooking experience together. Um, I also think that, you know, the philosophy of the 80 20 rule, like it works in everything and should work in food because absolutely, it's, it, the 20% gives you grace.
To, you know, realize that in different moments you can't make a hundred percent perfect decisions. Right. And it's okay if you're like, I just want a cupcake
today. That is one of the hardest challenges for me was when I was so strict with my diet. I would show up to my family's house back in Illinois and I'd be like, oh, here comes Rachael from the West coast and she's coming in and she eats differently and she's probably not gonna eat the food that we put on our table.
And it's really hard for me to not offend them. Mm-hmm. But also maintain the diet that I've been following. And as I've grown older, I've become more appreciative of people cooking food for me and trying to ease up a little bit. Mm-hmm. Not all the time. I still need to stay true to myself. I still need to eat well.
Yeah. But once in a while and in the right moments, I will ease up a little bit and just be grateful for what's in front of me. And especially for the piece of. Being with community. Mm-hmm. Having great conversation over the dinner table and just being present in the moment.
Yeah. And, and I'm a big traveler and when you go to other countries and communities, like the foods is just different.
Like, that's what's beautiful about traveling and seeing different places and being honored by people who want to serve you whatever is local and whatever brings them joy.
Yeah.
Like you, it's not a, like you say, no is not an option.
That's a huge piece of travel for me. Mm-hmm. I'm planning to go to Japan in the new future and I'm going to eat so much sushi.
Yeah. And I'm not gonna ask if it was wild caught. I'm gonna just be thankful for whatever the chefs there create for me. Yeah. And I'm gonna enjoy that
moment. You're gonna have so much fun. Yeah. Um, when, you know, a lot of what we're trying to do in Powerful Ladies is give people. Practical tips of things that they can start today.
So, um, you know, people come for different commitments, right? They wanna either start a business or, um, transform their career or their lifestyle, or just focus on the things that bring them joy. What advice would you give of how people can start to take on their life, you know, within a day that could start making some of those changes to discover their purpose or just to light some of those things up for them?
I would say, um, start with yourself. Don't think about what your partner would want you to do, or what your kid would want you to do, or what your parents would want you to do, or your best friend. Start with yourself. Um, really get in your own head and say, what is important to me? What is it that I'm passionate about?
And write down a couple things that come to mind. Mm-hmm. And if you can't think of anything immediately. That's okay. Sit there. Yeah, sit there with that until you do think of something because it's down there. Mm-hmm. And you might just be clouded by all of the chaos of everyday life, but you can find it, find what's important to you, what would touch your heart, what would motivate you and launch you into a meaningful life.
And then take little steps to kinda start to build upon a bigger purpose within that vision that you have.
How do you know when you're on the right path or doing like what you're meant to be doing? Intuition? Yeah. It's
all about how I feel about it. Um, again, I lead very strongly with my intuition and if something doesn't feel good, I'm an overthinker.
Mm-hmm. I will sit back and think. Okay, what's going wrong? Where am I imbalanced? How can I fix this? And if something is going right and I feel good, I can be on top of the world. I can be like, this is awesome. My life is in balance. I am doing everything that I want to do right now in this moment. It does not last forever.
You know, we have hurdles that are thrown at us that we have to come overcome, um, on a weekly basis. And sometimes they're big. Sometimes they're little. When they do come and they do hit me, I don't suppress 'em. Mm-hmm. I attack 'em head on and I'm like, what's going on? Why am I unhappy? Why am I imbalanced?
And I have to work to get out of that place and get to a better place. And I think in general, the trajectory of that is going in a very positive direction. Mm-hmm. Um, it doesn't mean that I'll say, Hey, that's the problem. And now that I see it, it's, it's done. It's over. I've conquered it. Sometimes it takes weeks to emotionally work through something.
Mm-hmm. And that's okay. You need to be, um, forgiving of yourself that it takes time to work through those weaknesses. You need to allow yourself to think and rethink and constantly reassess and reevaluate and refine yourself and be okay with being in that space. Mm-hmm. But continually move to the place that you want to be in.
And you'll start seeing little progress over time and becoming the person that you truly want to be.
You know what, so often, um, you know, tuition is what people, um, rely on. And for some people they don't know how to separate either their fears or their ego talking versus their intuition, um, talking. So how, what advice would you give them to distinguish the difference and how does it show up for you?
Like, is it a, is it a physical feeling? Is it, um, like for someone to know, like, no, that's your intuition talking. Like how would you guide them?
I have a lot of conversations, um, with my partner about. I feel this way. I know this thing. Yeah. About the way that I feel. Yeah. I feel this way. I know I shouldn't feel this way.
I'm sorry, I feel this way. Mm-hmm. Can you help me work these feelings out? So you have to understand what is knowledge and what is emotion. Mm-hmm. And then you have to understand where those emotions come from. Um, I had a very difficult childhood. Mm-hmm. I have things that I get hung up on for reasons that I can't explain.
Yeah. They're negative set pathways that I have to overcome. And at the age of 31, it is incredibly frustrating to be like, wow, this issue that I'm dealing with is actually not a big deal. But to me it struck me wrong. Mm-hmm. Because it hits back to that same key that I had in childhood. Mm-hmm. And I need to now recognize that, be bigger than the problem, overcome the problem, and help myself move beyond it.
And so being able to understand what's emotion and what's logical or not logical is kind of where I start. Yeah. And you have to break it down and it really does help. To talk to someone else about that. Mm-hmm. And I have someone who's really supportive and really awesome who we get really deep in conversation with.
And if you have someone who's willing to listen, willing to understand that you might feel a certain way and you might not be able to explain it, but give you the opportunity to kinda work through that process of conversation and help guide you to what you're trying to find. Mm-hmm. That can be a really beautiful thing to go through.
Yes. It, it's why I wish in the English language we had what Spanish does of the, um, uh, Sarah and a Star. Mm-hmm. Because they, they're m like I am is the translation. They have an Im always and an Im currently. Ah. And the distinction I think is so big because it gives you freedom to. You know, if you're like, especially for women, like you can feel really sad right now.
Yeah.
But you're not sad all the time. Right. Um, like I have red hair, it's not gonna go away. Right. So hopefully like doesn't start falling out, but like that would be an I am always thing.
Yes.
But your emotions aren't I am right now. Yeah. And the fact that we don't have that language distinction I think sometimes causes people that, um, we interact with or even ourselves to layer it on as a fixed way of being and it doesn't have to be.
Right. And so it prevents you from really saying how you feel in the moment and uh, it also prevents you from knowing that just 'cause you felt that way at one point means that you'll ever feel that way again. Yeah, absolutely. So I miss that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, we ask everyone on the show where you fall on the Powerful Lady Scale, um, zero being, uh, average human and 10 being Wonder Woman, powerful lady.
How do you feel on average and how do you feel today?
Okay. Um,
so zero is an average person. Yes. Which again, there's nothing wrong with an average person. It's a Okay. Yeah. I see. It's fictitious scale. Sure,
sure. Um, I am a firm believer that not everyone deserves a blue ribbon, so I tend to score myself very low.
I'm fluctuating somewhere between the two and the four range. Okay. Just because I think that there's always room for improvement. Mm-hmm. There are so many things that I could do to make this world a better place to influence women in even stronger ways than I already do. Um, I was recently at a competition in Eugene and I was really close to winning that competition.
I was one move away from the finishing hold. That would've solidified the win for me. I ended up being extremely exhausted on that move. My endurance was zapped and I fell and I ended up in third place instead of first place. But it was still an amazing night. I had an incredible time and after the competition, um, many people had come up to me and said, you were so composed out there.
We just loved watching you compete. We loved your focus, we loved your stoicism. And to me that was a huge compliment. Mm-hmm. I love when people come up to me and tell me that they appreciated watching me as an athlete. And so yeah, I would put myself somewhere in that two to four range, um, leaving plenty of room for me to grow and become a better person and influence the world
and even greater ways.
What, so what are things like that, that are on your to-do list for say, 2019?
For 2019? Um,
what's next for you?
Yeah, that's kind of a question that I am finding. I am visiting often at this point in my life. Um, I've had a lot of life changes in the past year and I know that right now the things that are important to me is continuing my career.
Um, I wanna push further in my profession. One of my regrets that I have is not going back to school to be a neonatologist. Mm-hmm. I was told as a child that I was a C student and I believe that. I was like, okay, cool. I'm just not good at school. I'm a C student and that's okay. And then I found when I went to school.
Um, nursing school proper and made that choice. I graduated as one of the top four in my class because I absolutely loved medicine and I was intelligent. But it took time for me to figure that out, to realize that I can study, I can be intelligent, I can be an incredible nurse and make an impact in this world.
That blows my mind knowing how competitive you are and driven and disciplined that like, I can't, I, it's hard for me to visualize you accepting, like not being able to get to number one if you wanted to.
I came from very dark places. Mm-hmm. And I think that a lot of the strong women that I know in my life have come from dark places and learned how to work their way through.
That difficulty and get to who they truly are at heart mm-hmm. And who they want to be. Mm-hmm. Um, so back to what I'm doing currently, um, I want to continue to push my education higher. I don't know what that's gonna look like. I don't feel like it's fair to Ellie for me to go back to med school and become a neonatologist.
I would be gone from her too often. Mm-hmm. And I don't wanna miss her childhood. So I really wanna be present in Ellie's life. I really wanna be a strong, um, mother for her. Someone that she can look up to, someone that she can look back on and say, I had an amazing childhood. My dad was incredible, my mom was incredible, and I am well loved.
That is prime primary for me. Mm-hmm. That is my very first priority. Um, secondary to that would be in some way, shape or form. Um, either maybe getting my master's in nursing or maybe something like a neonatal nurse practitioner. Mm-hmm. Could be in the future for me as well. That would be far more manageable than med school.
Um. And it's a stepping stone. And it's a stepping stone. Mm-hmm. And I feel like that would be adequate for me within my profession as a nurse from an athletic standpoint. That's my struggle right now. You know, I stepped into martial arts trying to figure out who am I as an athlete, because competition climbing defined me so heavily that I was scared to let go of it.
Mm-hmm. If I'm not an elite climber, what am I? Yeah. And that's a bad place to be. That's not a good, healthy mindset. And uh, I had to work through that. I am still today working through that a little bit, but also coming to terms with, um. That, that's not what I need to hold onto to be worthy.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and I can verbalize that, but it's different feeling that, right?
Yeah. Letting go of competition climbing and watching people go to the Olympics that I had once competed with, um, is not easy on an emotional level. Mm-hmm. However, I can tell myself it's okay. Yeah. You, you can move beyond this. You can be a nurse, you can be a mother, you can find value and meaning in life beyond climbing.
Going back to women, like, I think that when you have success in an area and we forget that it is a flowing state, right. Success. It doesn't stay with you. It, it comes and goes and moves on to the next person, it'll come back to you. And there's something about hanging our identity on those victories, whatever they are, and, and not giving ourselves credit for everything else that we do.
And that we are, like, I think about how many people. Must be so thankful that you decided to become a nurse based on how you've saved their child. And if you hadn't have made that choice, like who knows what would've happened, right? Yeah. The entire butterfly effect. And you know who you are now as a mom.
So I think that's a big thing for women to look at is like our lives transform so often. Yes. I think there's like at least seven phases of career that most people have and being okay with one ending and one beginning and mm-hmm. The hardest part is that transition period. Absolutely. For anything. So, another foundation of powerful ladies is, you know, we believe that powerful ladies help other powerful ladies rise.
Like it's this full circle of empowerment of we help you, helping you, helping you. And like it all comes back. What does that look like for you in your life and the impact or legacy that you wanna, uh, leave?
I think for me, with the whole experience of Ellie going viral and the feedback that we got from other families and specifically new parents, um, was that they looked up to us as an inspiration for how they wanted to raise their children.
They had lots of questions for us about what we were doing, how we were getting Ellie outside and active, how we were mitigating risks, but yet giving her opportunity and experience. And that was a path that I could have gone down. Um, we could have opened up her website, um, even bigger than it was at the time, and we could have marketed ourselves really hard and we could have had a foot in the outdoor industry as an outdoor family.
To me at the time, I wanted to really focus on nursing, so I didn't take that path. However, I think that it would be interesting in the future to somehow weave that back into my life, especially now that Ellie's older and will have a voice of her own and can have some say in the process as well and inspire other families to get their kids outdoors and active.
And whether that's through just being an awesome mom, getting Ellie outside on adventures and documenting them through videos and photographs and blogging or whatever else I can weave into it to make it a beautiful project. I'm not sure what that would look like in the future, but I think for me it would be very fulfilling to inspire other families and.
Incorporate them in some kind of mutual platform where we can all share our experiences because it's not just me out there raising one rad little kid. They are everywhere. They're all across the world. And I want to hear from the other families that are doing that as well. And I want us to share our experiences and be able to celebrate the highs and the lows of raising children and raising little outdoor athletes and, um, forming a community that loves to keep in touch with each other.
Yeah. I think that we so often focus our attention on the things that don't work. Yeah. And, you know, getting to celebrate families that do work.
Mm-hmm.
And the fact that you can work full time, be athletic, um, eat healthy, uh, have quality family time, like it is possible to have all of those things.
Yeah.
Um, so I would love for you guys to go down that path and share that with people.
You know, part of what inspired me to ask you to be on the podcast was. Following your path since you know, wife got introduced on social media and, and knowing you had moved and like seeing the nurses, like seeing it all and I'm like, how do you make this work? Because like, I have a hard time fitting in like an hour workout.
Yeah. And that yet here you are guys as a, as a family, making it a priority within your lives.
That's, that's the key. What you just said is it's a priority. Mm-hmm. Our athletics are a priority. You climb before anything else. You get Ellie outdoors before anything else, and it just has to do with what's important to you.
To me, climbing is important. Being an athlete is important. Raising a child that is happy is important. So everything else revolves around that. Mm-hmm. Um, we haven't climbed in two days because we've been on the road traveling. We're back in Bend. We have to get to the gym today. Everything else can fall in place around that, but we will get to the gym today.
What, what is something that you think a typical family would. Include in their priority list that, you know, you've taken off. Like these are things that we don't worry about or that aren't in our top priority list. Things that other
families worry about that we
maybe don't need
to worry about. Is that what you're saying?
Yeah. Like, like you guys made a choice to take on a minimalist lifestyle so you could, you could travel around the US Yes. Um, I know other families who have just made the decision, like, we don't care if our house looks like a mess. Sure. Because that's not a priority of ours. Um, because we're doing these other things.
Yeah. Like, this is what real life looks like.
So for me, functioning in a house that is clean and well put together mm-hmm. Is my best state of being. Mm-hmm. If I can walk into my home and everything is where it's supposed to be, and the dishes are done and the laundry is fairly caught up and Ellie's toys are put away, um, as she often does.
She's such an incredibly great kid. I function better. Mm-hmm. I can sit down and be creative at the table and write the blog that I need to write or dive into whatever it is that I need to dive into if the rest of my life is in order. So I'm a very orderly person in that respect. If the house is a mess, that's actually probably my first priority.
Yeah. We're gonna clean the house and then we're gonna go climb because it's gonna make me a better climber. Yeah. Because it's gonna make me a better mother, a better creative mind when I'm doing my projects. Um, so with that in mind, we live more minimally. Mm-hmm. And we learn that through living on the road in an airstream.
So you walk into my house and there isn't things everywhere. Mm-hmm. It's actually fairly clean. So when I do need to clean, it's a small space, I can clean it very quickly. Yeah. It doesn't take me the entire day. Um, I can keep my living space clean and orderly and then get on with what's important to me.
Mm-hmm. Which is spending time with my child, which is going to the rock climbing gym and training, which is going to work, and getting that paycheck and bringing it in. Um. So that would be the first thing. Living more minimally, living in a smaller house, being able to clean well and then giving in other ways.
We're not that. That we're not that traditional family that sits down to dinner at 6:00 PM every single night.
Mm-hmm.
Um, sometimes we are so sporadic with our day and our activities that we're hungry at different times. So a lot of times we'll just feast off of really high quality leftovers in the refrigerator.
Mm-hmm. You know, and Ellie's not that kid who's like, Hey mom, when's dinner? She's like, Hey mom, I'm hungry. And I'm like, okay, cool. Let's go look at the fridge and let's get you a really well-rounded meal. And it's always there. We eat really well. We don't eat, you know, a ton of processed packaged food. We have really great leftovers in the fridge.
Um, and we do do meals together where we sit down and they're almost even more beautiful and meaningful when we do sit down and eat together as a family, because it's not always something that we do. Yep. We do it often. Mm-hmm. We do it a couple times a week, but we don't mandate it. And the world doesn't fall apart if we don't do it every single night of the
week.
Yeah. It, I mean, I think in. Having to manage multiple people and schedules. It's almost impossible today. So,
yeah. And we have a very different schedule. You know, I'm a nurse, I work three days a week. I have four days off. Um, our meal together might be breakfast in our pajamas. Yep. And you know, it might last an hour and we might have a bunch of giggles and eggs and sweet potatoes and that's our moment where we bond.
Mm-hmm. Or it might be grilling in the backyard and slack lining and letting Ellie get catchable over her fingers and run around in the grass.
Yeah.
Um, it just kinda comes as it comes and we just kind of go with the flow and to me those are the most meaningful moments. Beautiful.
Last question for today.
Okay. Um, what advice and nuggets of wisdom do you want our listeners to know? Hmm.
Be true to yourself is the very first thing that comes to mind. Um, don't be afraid to follow your intuition. Don't be afraid to listen to your heart. If there's something that is on your mind and you don't think it's obtainable, put more thought to it.
Kind of break that down. Figure out why you don't think it's obtain, and write out the rationale for your thought process, because that process breaking down what you're thinking is gonna make you think in new ways. It's gonna open up new pathways in your brain to start sparking interest in other areas, and it's gonna get the gears turning.
To help you progress in the ways that you wanna progress. And if you can do that, you're gonna be more content with you who you are as a human being because you're being true to
yourself. I lied. I have one more. Um, what are practical things that you recommend from books, podcasts? Like what are tools that you would, um, give our listeners as well?
Okay. Couple books come to mind. Um, I recently read in the last few years, the Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday. Mm-hmm. One of my favorite books. I highly recommend that I am a big fan of stoicism and I've studied a little bit of Marcus Aurelius work. Mm-hmm. And I love the concept of stoicism. It's something that I bring into practice in my daily life.
I could probably use a little bit more of it. Um, I love meditation. I think some of the most successful people, um, spend a little bit of time every day meditating. It's one of those things that I will dabble in and then I'll forget about. And then when life gets chaotic and my mind gets too busy, I kind of come back to that.
I always try to come back to myself, and the best way to come back to myself is by quieting the mind and doing a little bit of meditation. And even if it's just guided meditation. It can do wonders. So yeah, meditation Stoicisms big for me. Um, the Obstacle is The Way is a great book that has impacted my life significantly.
I'm currently reading the Hy the Happiness Hypothesis. Mm-hmm. And that's by Jonathan Height. Maybe. I'm not sure. We can
include the official thing in the show notes too.
Okay. Excellent. Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing his last name correctly. Um, and then like a fun book that I've enjoyed recently, um, was Love Her Wild by Atticus.
He's a, um, Canadian poet. That's kind of on the rise at the moment and he has really beautiful work and love Her Wild is surrounding it's poems surrounding women and it's really inspiring and beautiful.
I'm gonna check that out. Just the title alone is, is um, I like as a quote, all by itself. It's good stuff.
Mm-hmm. Well, it has been such a pleasure to get to know you and meet you in person and hear your story, and I'm so honored that you are Yes. To letting me share about you with the Powerful Ladies community, and I can't wait to see what we're able to collaborate with on next. That sounds great. Thank you.
Of course.
I hope you all enjoy getting to know Rachael, learning more about her story and hearing her words of wisdom. She's such a great mom and I'm inspired by her drive for excellence balance with giving herself grace and time to appreciate the moment. Plus, I'm definitely motivated at this session to incorporate more warrior activities into my life.
Who else is ready to take on something that scares them, like rock climbing or jiujitsu or, I don't know, just being able to do a pull up for crying out loud tag powerfully on Instagram to show us what you're taking on to be a warrior to follow, support and connect with Rachael and Ellie. You can. Follow Rachael on Instagram at Rachael Lee 87 and it's Rachael, spelled R-A-C-H-A-E-L.
You can follow Ellie on Instagram at Little Zen Monkey. You can follow Rachael on Facebook at Rachael Lee and email her at Rachael sorter eighty7@gmail.com. You can go to powerful ladies.com/podcast, find episode 17 with Rachael, and there you'll have links to the episode when they're on Ellen and all of the other show notes from today's episode.
If you'd like to support the work that we're doing here at Powerful Ladies, there's a couple of ways you can do that. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Leave a review on any of these platforms. Share the show with all the powerful ladies and gentlemen in your life.
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Go to the powerful ladies.com. I'd like to thank our producer, composer, and audio engineer Jordan Duffy. She's one of the first female audio engineers in the podcasting world, if not the first. And she also happens to be the best. We're very lucky to have her. She's a powerful lady in her own right, in addition to taking over the podcasting world.
She's a singer songwriter working on our next album, and she's one of my sisters. So it's amazing to be creating this with her, and I'm so thankful that she finds time in her crazy busy schedule to make this happen. It's a testament to her belief in what we're creating through Powerful Ladies, and I'm honored that she shares my vision.
Thank you all so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. I can't wait for you to hear it. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
Hey guys, did you know that there is a way that you can show powerful ladies some real love? You can be a Patreon of The Powerful Ladies Podcast. Go to patreon.com/powerful ladies. There are over six choices for you to figure out how you would like to support us from $5 all the way up to unicorn support.
Really, that's what it's called. You can be a powerfully unicorn. Who doesn't wanna be that? The great part is by your contributions. You get more cool free stuff and access to new and exclusive opportunities. Everything from hidden podcast to free merch to free coaching what you can be a unicorn and get free coaching or win a trip to LA paid for by us.
That sounds amazing. You want a hug, don't you? So go and support powerful ladies on Patreon today. Thank you.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
