Your Story is More Valuable than a Cashed Check
The place where I feel most alive is the intersection of pushing my body, being in the wild, and sharing it with others.
And that’s how I got to spend my Saturday: hiking with 6 other women to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back up. I was co-guiding a fundraising adventure for The Cairn Project in an effort to raise $10,000 for women’s wilderness scholarships.
When we host or amplify adventure fundraisers like these, we of course care about donations, but the biggest impact is the storytelling around the adventure: the WHY, the struggle, the catalysts, the ripple effects. (That shit’s way more meaningful than mileage or speed.)
But when I chat with women about sharing the stories of their adventures, they usually start with: “I’m not elite, so I don’t think anyone will be interested to hear about this.” “I’m slow, so nobody’s looking to me for advice.” Even “I’m not on social media, so no one will find my words anyway.”
GIIIRRRLLL. Those are the stories we need. The stories about not being a pro athlete but figuring out how to get it done. The stories of all paces, all bodies, all personalities, all cultures breaking barriers to get out there. The stories that are deeper and IRL at a coffee shop instead of a pretty highlight on Instagram.
When a woman Googles “can I run a trail half marathon” at 11PM, I want your first-time trail experience to pop up. When a college kid thinks about hiking the Washington section of the PCT, they need your tips on managing your period out there. When a kindergartener sees a YouTube commercial on their iPad, they should see a real-life, non-photoshopped body sweating outdoors, perfectly imperfect and putting in the work without making it look effortless.
So if you’re not elite, good. If you’re slow, fantastic! If your mom’s bragging to anyone who will listen that you just ran a 5k, amazing. Your voice is shaping the future adventure, making all its benefits more accessible to all.
And if you struggle to share your voice…