Transcript
Annalisa Holcombe (01:34):
This week we are joined by Brody Leven, professional adventure skier and storyteller. As he describes it, Brady was born and raised in flat Ohio but dreamed of mountains. He moved to Utah for college where he studied economics. After gradation he found a way to turn his passion for the mountains into a career, and since then he has skied in six of the seven continents, biked across the United States, lobbied Congress, appeared in magazines, and spoken in many venues. Today we will be talking about authenticity. Underneath all the pretty stuff that you tell people about, who are you? That's the question. If we remove work, school, volunteerism, I'm going to take for you, social activism, take that away, what are you most proud of about yourself as a human being?

Brody Leven (02:37):
I think I was raised to know that I can kind of do anything I really wanted to, and I think that started when I had this little mobile DJ business when I was younger, if you remember that. I had it from when I was nine until I graduated high school. I owned this business and my parents were super supportive of it. I supported myself, and that was a really successful company. I think ever since then, I mean that was kind of against all odds, a nine year old starting a business and hiring people when he's 14, and DJing weddings when he's 13 and whatever.

Annalisa Holcombe (03:16):
I have no idea how you even did that.

Brody Leven (03:19):
Yeah. I think a lot of it was really supportive parents. They really just encouraged me. They would never just say no, pretty much. It was like, "Hey if that's what you want to do, you can do it. You need to figure it out on your own, but you can do that." You know? There weren't limitations and rules. I think what I'm most proud of is continuing that, because I think when you frame things with those limitations and rules, I could have easily framed, "Brody you can never be a professional skier because you're from Cleveland and you have never skied west of Indiana until you were 19 and at Westminster." I think that would have been really easy to put those rules around myself, and what I ended up making a career out of, and I'm really happy to be a person who can set my mind to something and usually not give myself a plan B, to be honest.

Annalisa Holcombe (04:23):
Wow, really?

Brody Leven (04:24):
Yeah. I mean I'm not a goal oriented person. We can talk about that, but I'm not a goal oriented person at all. I can work really hard, I'm really self motivated and I know that if I do that I will kind of achieve the best that I can do, period.

Annalisa Holcombe (04:42):
I love that. What you're the most proud about yourself for is that, that you'll set your mind to it and do something that you want to do.

Brody Leven (04:49):
I think so, yeah, and the ability to see past all of the really obvious barriers that exist, whether they're barriers to entry or financial barriers to whatever they are. I think I'm privileged and I've had plenty that I haven't had to overcome in my life, but in many ways I have a lot I have had to overcome as well, or just continually deal with.

Annalisa Holcombe (05:13):
I'm interested. Well I want to get to a couple of things, so maybe the first thing I should get to is to ask you, while I know that you are, you do interviews. Part of your role is to talk to people, and so of course it's a little intimidating to me, as I told you earlier, but I'm also interested because our audience that will listen to this may not understand. What does a professional adventure skier do? What is that?

Brody Leven (05:43):
I graduated from college and my student loans came due very quickly and I said, "I need to pay them back and I can either get a job, job," which I wasn't very interested in because I had never had one because I had only worked for myself, or I can chase this dream of becoming a professional skier, the guy from Ohio against the odds trying to make that happen. I decided to pursue it with 100%. I did not apply for other jobs. It's kind of like when I applied for colleges. I didn't have a safety school back home that was 20 minutes from my parents house, you know. It was like, "No I'm going out west." Now it was, "No I'm going to become a professional skier and if I don't, well there isn't a plan B so I kind of have to." But I also wanted it that badly.

Brody Leven (06:33):
I didn't know what that looked like at the time because most professional skiers were the best. They were the best skiers, period, and I was absolutely not. I have lived in the mountains for four years, and so I decided to try to create a job where a job did not exist, which was a professional athlete for someone that wasn't the most naturally gifted athlete. At the time that looked like self-producing a lot of videos. Social media was just taking off and I embraced that early, professionally. I went all through college without a Facebook account but as soon as I realized it could help me professionally, I jumped in with two feet.

Brody Leven (07:15):
It's evolved overtime. It's a lot of traditional media and social media. It's a lot of public speaking and appearances. I work closely with a handful of big outdoor companies that create the kind of equipment that I like to use, and do product testing and product development and a little bit of photography and videography of product. Mostly my job is to go on these adventures that I come up with, and it's kind of four season adventures. It's bike packing, so camping by bicycling, and it's alpine climbing, ice climbing, rock climbing, skiing, white water kayaking and specifically ski mountaineering, so steep skiing where I climb up the mountains and then I ski back down them.

Brody Leven (08:07):
I haven't ridden a chair lift pretty much since I graduated from college in 2010. Even though I go skiing every single day, we like to say that we earn our turns, so every vertical foot that we ski down we had to hike up. I'm much more a professional hiker than I am professional skier because it takes way longer to hike up the mountains than to ski down them.

Annalisa Holcombe (08:30):
I can only imagine. How many runs can you get in?

Brody Leven (08:33):
Yesterday I skied for eight hours and 54 minutes according to this little Garmin watch that I use, and I skied, it was two runs. I was going to say maybe one and a half but I guess you could call it two.

Annalisa Holcombe (08:48):
That's fascinating. I have so many questions to ask you about that and I think related to that is probably to get to the heart of what we want to talk about today, which is authenticity, because when you talk about this is what your job is, of course I'm personally really interested in how do we live an authentic life, what does that look like and how has that looked for you. Now because of what you just said I'm really interested and didn't even know I'd be interested but what does the role of imagination play in creating a real, authentic life? I mean I feel like you allowed yourself to be imaginative about what your life could look like, in ways that so many of us don't.

Brody Leven (09:32):
There's this concept of life design. I've spoken at a couple events where the concept of an event is life design. It's like how you want to design your life around something like the outdoors, or a certain industry or something like that. I very much decided to design my life around the outdoors. At the time, I guess I didn't even really realize I was doing it. I was that passionate about it. I think I chose to embrace that authentic approach of, "This is what I like to do so why would I not try to figure out how to pursue this?" There wasn't a model of athlete, influencer person that wasn't actually that talented.

Brody Leven (10:16):
You know, I make a living as a skier, I can ski well, but the typical professional skier is extremely, extremely talented, and they're typically riding helicopters, jumping off big cliffs. This is the model, the Warren Miller professional skier who's in the films, right? That wasn't me and I didn't have interest in pursuing that. It's traditionally a short lived kind of career. Your body fails you, or whatever it is, right. I knew this was what I wanted to do. I didn't have some trust fund to fall back on. I knew somehow I had to do it in a sustainable way.

Brody Leven (10:57):
I knew that if I, at least I thought that if I could create, I could design this life model that could also be a career, but I kind of had to develop it as I went. Since then it's kind of become a model that other folks have followed, and it's very much a more normalized way to become a professional athlete now, but at the time I didn't have that role model to look at, I didn't have that do A, B, and C and you will become this, you know what I mean? I was kind of creating it as I went.

Brody Leven (11:30):
Yes it has worked, but I think it's worked largely because I'm really interested in more than just skiing. I'm really interested in more than just sports, to be honest. I think this diversification of interest and diversification of income, and while it all ties back to my skiing, the activism that I do, the other activities that I do, the public speaking that I do, all of these things really resonate with me just as deeply as the skiing does.

Annalisa Holcombe (12:00):
Was there one of these things came before the other, or were they all inherently part of who you were right from the start?

Brody Leven (12:09):
Yeah they were inherently part of who I was. I think some of them hurt me and some of them did help me. My sincere interest in a sustainable lifestyle and the future of our planet is something that I've held close to me for a very long time, since I was a child. It happens to now be in Vogue, in the outdoor industry, to care about the planet. Fortunate for me, I have followed this space for a very long time, and I volunteered actively in it for a very long time. That's great. That's something that helped me.

Brody Leven (12:44):
Something that hurt me is this pretty much disallowance of riding chair lifts, which are the typical way to go skiing. Because I don't ride chair lifts, I don't get as many runs in a day. Because I don't get as many runs in a day, I'm not as good of a skier as I could be because I don't have the practice. Something else that hurts me is that-

Annalisa Holcombe (13:06):
But you're darn physically fit, as a result.

Brody Leven (13:08):
It's true. I have this obsession with fitness in general. In the ski world that is not held highly. It's more about again, how good of a skier you are. While I have this diversified set of interests, everything like I said, from rock climbing to skiing, maybe that's not that diversified really, it's all kind of the same, but I have this diversified set of interests and you are rewarded in the industry that I work in for being a specialist at one. The jack of all trades is not typically held high. It's the master of one. That's something that has held me back, but it's also allowed me to stay a little truer to myself, and avoid the burnout, which I think is very, very real, likely in any industry I assume.

Annalisa Holcombe (13:59):
Super interesting. I had this conversation with somebody on a prior podcast that was about entrepreneurship. Andrew Taylor talked about risk, and that you have to take risks in order to set your own path, and you clearly did. You just told us nobody did what you did, and you had to find a way. Andrew said something like he had read, and he really believes that entrepreneurs, which I consider you to be one, have to start off with a bit of a chip on their shoulder. There has to be something that they're like, "You know what? I am not going to do that." There's a little bit of a, "Watch me," or something. Do you think that's true?

Brody Leven (14:46):
I definitely don't disagree with that. I'm trying to think what my specific chip would be is. I think I came into this role, I didn't come into this role, I created this role very much knowing that the difficulty for me likely wouldn't be the physical activity as much as it would be the practicality of living across the country from my family, traveling the world, not having a source of income to fall back on, and also not having a specific skillset to fall back on. I mean I studied the philosophy of economics, right? I didn't work in an industry and then fall into this job. I pursued this with everything I had. It has been kind of a lifelong pursuit.

Brody Leven (15:35):
I understood that, and I still do, that this could be taken away from me pretty easily by injury. It could be taken away from a shift in the industry. While I want to stay dynamic, I think the chip on my shoulder could be that, it's almost like I've done harder things than having the climb these mountains. It's such a selfish pursuit, just going up these mountains. I've found a way, not because I look for it, because I've genuinely found a way to have other meaning to what I do, whether it's the social activism that I do, or it's the writing or content creation that I do. It's more than just about I want to climb that mountain and ski down so I will go climb that mountain and ski down.

Brody Leven (16:23):
Overtime that is becoming less and less part of what really draws me to it. It's not just about the skiing. I've skied a lot now. You're still just sliding down snow on some sticks, right? I've been really fortunate in that I've been able to find meaning and being outdoors, introducing other folks to the outdoors, folks from different backgrounds, and also finding ways to hopefully give back in addition to just all that I take.

Annalisa Holcombe (16:56):
I am really excited about, and I think it has something to do with your success. I want to bring up something. I remember, so you were just starting off in your career, and I remember asking you if you would speak at something or come to something, it was about success. It was about being successful or something like that. I remember at the time you were probably experiencing some, who knows, maybe you had some imposter syndrome, but you were like, "I'm not sure that I'm the definition of success the way that your business school folks or something might think of the definition of success." I remember talking to you about how I see you and most people would, as the definition of success because you have crafted, and like you just talked about, designed a life that is authentic to who you are. I'm interested in how you might have felt back then, how you feel now, and then also if you give any advice to people about what that's like for them when they're experiencing either the crisis of confidence, or how could you help people find their authentic path.

Brody Leven (18:17):
I feel the exact same way now as I've felt then. I graduated from college in 2010. I instantly had to start doing this.

Annalisa Holcombe (18:27):
You hustled.

Brody Leven (18:29):
I dove into it and I started, the hustle was so real. Eleven years later the hustle is still so real. Yes in a nutshell you can quickly say, "Yes I have been able to live this life now for 11 years." I think I would see success as different than what I have, to be honest. I think in so many ways, I can see why you would say that, and that means a lot to me and I appreciate it, but I also can see every day I wake up and I'm like, "Oh god, how is this going to work?" Yes it is working. I have a house I'm living in now. That's wild, because I was living in my car for a long time, but at the same time...

Brody Leven (19:22):
Gosh. I think even in the ski world, people could say I've found success. The skiers will be like, "You've been on the cover of the major ski magazines and in the biggest ski films, and you have these giant companies that pay you to go skiing." If you really condense it and you brush away everything else, yes that is true. I think all that stuff that you would brush away is actually what's important.

Annalisa Holcombe (19:47):
Talk about that.

Brody Leven (19:48):
I mean it's the lack of job security, it's the lack of benefits, it's that my job is to risk my life, truly, and I still have to buy my own health insurance, you know, because that's not provided from these companies who use me to put on this pedestal of someone who risks their life, you know. I think all of that superfluous stuff-

Annalisa Holcombe (20:17):
Fascinating Brody. That's fascinating.

Brody Leven (20:22):
I think if I were to, 15 years ago if I were to see where I am right now I would say, "Yes I think that is success," but being in those shoes now, I have a really hard time thinking that. I do a lot of public speaking, as I said, and the main concept is imposter syndrome. It's not like I get up there on stage and I talk about how rad I am to ... I've climbed and skied mountains on six continents now, including many that I was the only person to have ever climbed and skied. Wow, that's really cool. 20 year old Brody thinks that's awesome.

Annalisa Holcombe (20:58):
It is cool though, that is very cool.

Brody Leven (20:59):
It is cool, and the reason I'm doing it is because I think it's awesome, totally. I love it. It's no longer like this is a hobby for me. I had a major sponsor fire me in 2017, drop me as we call it in the ski industry. They're like, "We no longer need you on our team. Nothing in particular. You're a little more outspoken about saving the planet than we'd like, but otherwise yeah, we no longer need you on team." It's kind of like, "We need some more money on our budget so here's Brody, he gets paid that exact amount of money. Let's just cross him off our list."

Brody Leven (21:36):
Well you know, this isn't just a hobby anymore, and I have real bills to pay. This is actually how I sustain myself and how I've made a living. I didn't really think about that when I started. I was like, "Oh you're a professional skier. You get paid, you live in your car or whatever," but that's not the case for me. I have to have retirement accounts, and these things, I think they come with age, they come with responsibility, they come with maturity, and as they have, they're often, I think, overlooked by the typical professional athlete who is often in a much more privileged position than I am.

Brody Leven (22:19):
When that's the case, they're able to maybe overlook some of these things that I'm not able to overlook, so something like losing a sponsor, or being unable to go on an expedition because of COVID, or whatever comes up. These things have very real repercussions to me and I can't help but when I feel those repercussions be like, "Wow I could have become an economist." Or, "Wow I could have done anything else with my life," because as times get tough and there's so many highs and lows in this career, and when I hit a low I'm like, "Oh geez, I don't have a skillset to fall back on." On one hand it's like, "Oh I could write, I could produce videos, I could be a public speaker guy," but I couldn't be a financial advisor. I couldn't be a professor. I couldn't be the things that I would love to have in my back pocket to be, you know?

Annalisa Holcombe (23:16):
I also though think that, as you crafted your life, you must have somehow thought through your own skillset because as you mentioned, you're not a professional skier and that's all you do and then you're done in five years. I mean I even saw in your bio, you say you're an adventure skier and a storyteller, and that ability to write and to communicate, I think, is probably for you, just as important as the ability to ski and to mountaineer.

Brody Leven (23:53):
Yeah I go back and forth whether it's important to me or it's something I realize that has allowed me to sustain this, and I genuinely don't know which it is. I don't particularly like writing. I don't particularly like producing these videos and spending all this time in front of a computer or whatever. It's like the more, "Professional skier," I become, the less I actually ski, and there's this other element to it. I think a lot of people-

Annalisa Holcombe (24:21):
There's something to that with all careers too. There's that background of you have to do the stuff in order to be able to really do the stuff.

Brody Leven (24:28):
Totally, yeah. I'm Brody Leven incorporated now. I am a small business that I run. I hire employees and I do the whole thing. That is so cool for me, but at the same time it's like your personal life and your professional life have literally no dividing line at all. It's not like it's blurred for me. It's like my job is being Brody Leven.

Annalisa Holcombe (24:53):
Do you get to be somebody else besides Brody Leven sometimes?

Brody Leven (24:57):
It's like I have to be on all the time.

Annalisa Holcombe (25:00):
I'm exhausted for you.

Brody Leven (25:01):
It's like I'm walking around the farmer's market with my girlfriend and my dog and it's like, "Oh nice to meet you, you're Brody, hi. I really appreciate that video you were in about running or whatever." I'm already on, as soon as I hear that. It's like, "Hey, hi I'm Brody, really nice to meet you. Tell me about yourself. Are you a runner as well?"

Annalisa Holcombe (25:23):
You're famous in the outdoor industry and you live in Utah.

Brody Leven (25:29):
Yeah I mean Utah, if you're going to have any notoriety in the industry this is where you probably live. That is my dream. My dream is not to be famous, but my dream is to have been able to make a career in the outdoor industry doing what I love, which is what I have done. It's definitely not everyone's dream, but it was mine.

Annalisa Holcombe (26:05):
If this conversation has caught your attention and you want to join in on conversations like this, check out our website at Connectioncollaborative.com. Welcome back. You're listening to 92,000 hours. Today we are talking to Brody Leven, let's jump back in.

Annalisa Holcombe (26:40):
I love to study leadership and one of the aspects in the research of authentic leaders is that they are very self-aware. Do you think that your self-awareness has been important to you during the course of this career so far?

Brody Leven (26:57):
I've also studied leadership for a long time and I've actually never heard of this concept of authentic leadership and I like it. I think my self-awareness is a bit different than probably how it's frequently perceived, what the concept of self-awareness is. Something that would be really helpful in my career, for example, would be to have, you can name any professional outdoor athlete and I can kind of tell you the stigma, I guess, associated with them in the industry. Do people like them, do they not like them, are they friendly, are they not friendly, are they successful, are they not successful, are they in it for the long run or did they peak early? All of these things kind of come to mind for me pretty quickly.

Brody Leven (27:45):
I don't have the self-awareness to say what that stigma is for myself, for example. I don't have the self-awareness to know when I run into someone who recognizes me at the farmers market, when they walk away with their friends do they say, "Oh that's Brody. He actually kind of sucks at skiing." Or do they say something positive, you know. I don't have the self-awareness there. I have self-awareness in regard to my fitness, which is an important element of what I do, and to be honest of my happiness and kind of wellbeing, that is a huge part of it for me.

Brody Leven (28:25):
I have a self-awareness in so far as I know that I have to work for what I have. I don't think I have to work as hard as some people because privilege is inherent in who I am. I think I have to work harder than other people for the same reason. I think that those things, if anything, all of this self-awareness I think contributes to knowing that I need to work really, really hard. It is where I find self-motivation that I've fortunately had my whole life, and it's why I'm confident doing something like taking on a massive remodel of this house that when I started I had no idea what I was doing.

Brody Leven (29:15):
As soon as I start tearing this wall down and tearing this floor up and tearing these cabinets out, I'm like, "Oh I bit off more than I can chew but you know what? That's kind of more just a figure of speech. I am going to chew this because I have no option. I have to be able to do this." I have to be able to contribute to my IRA. I have to be able to do these things because otherwise I'm going to have to move back to Ohio and live in my parents basement. I don't have the option. I think the self-motivation comes from the self-awareness and that is kind of the root of what's allowing me to continue to live the lifestyle that I want to live.

Annalisa Holcombe (29:52):
I think it's important to, and I want to reflect this back to you just so you know is that your self-awareness that you come out with, "I am the kid who's not the best skier there ever was, that I grew up in the place that had little hills not big mountains." You are self-aware. You're not going out into this industry saying, "I'm the best skier than ever lived," but some people might if they were not so self-aware. You have been able to say, "I know who I am and I like it. I like who I am enough that I'm able to go out there and say this is who I am and this is what it looks like when I do my thing."

Brody Leven (30:33):
I think you're totally right. I don't think about skiing in particularly ... Skiing is apart of what I do, but there's so much more to it, but let me talk about skiing for a second. I've climbed and skied mountains, like I said, on six of the seven continents. I have not been to Antarctica yet. I kind of specialize in skiing these mountains that no one has ever skied before, and maybe never even climbed before.

Annalisa Holcombe (31:06):
Which has to be also dangerous.

Brody Leven (31:08):
Totally. I mean talk about self-awareness. Risk and consequence are something that I am weighing all the time.

Annalisa Holcombe (31:16):
Can I also say that I love that you actually put on your, I think it's on your website that says out loud, "I am terrified of avalanches."

Brody Leven (31:27):
Terrified of them, yeah. Part of the problem with these mountain experiences are that you have this positive feedback mechanism and you don't get negative feedback until you or your partner is buried in the avalanche or falls off a cliff or falls into a crevice and most of these end that, because the consequence of the type of skiing I do aren't, "Oh you break your wrist," or maybe you tear your knee, but it's more like if you fall you die. That's the skiing that I specialize in. Thus I'm very particular about it. I have, knock on wood, only had pretty positive experiences.

Brody Leven (32:06):
I volunteer to teach these avalanche classes, for example. Everyone's first question, "Have you ever been in an avalanche?" I'm like, "No because I've made a series of good decisions," but in reality the way avalanches work, have I possibly made 1,000 bad decisions that I was just one inch left of hitting that right snowflake that triggers the avalanche? For sure. You get this positive feedback mechanism where you're like, "I'm the man. I'm doing a great job. Everything is going right, I'm continually succeeding," until something tragic happens like you lose a friend. I've had those tragedies. I've lost friends. Where was I going with these? Yeah. I mean there is this positive feedback and it's scary because you know, statistically, the more time you spend out there the more likely it is that you're eventually going to run out of positive feedback.

Annalisa Holcombe (33:04):
Super scary.

Brody Leven (33:07):
I will look at mountains that I wanted to climb, or look at mountains that I want to ski, and there's a reason I have not been to the Himalaya yet, or the Karakoram. People much less experienced than I have gone there. They've climbed Mount Everest and they've skied in the Himalaya. I've never even set foot in Nepal, which sounds like a crazy statement to make because most people have never set foot in Nepal, but for someone whose job and passion it is to climb mountains, that is a very obvious place to go. There is reason I haven't done that, and that is because I personally, based on what I know of those mountains, I'm not ready. Have I skied more dangerous things here in the Wasatch and other continents perhaps, but it depends what you consider dangerous. Is it the distance from a rescue facility, is it the altitude that you're working at? What is it that makes it risky and how does that risk weigh with the consequences?

Brody Leven (34:12):
I do think I'm self-aware to not have gone there yet, and maybe I'll work my way up to it or maybe I will never go there, or maybe my perception of it is actually wrong and I could have gone there and I should have gone there already, right? But at the same time, the lack of self-awareness dictates what I do choose to do. It's a weird situation or position to be in because-

Annalisa Holcombe (34:44):
It totally makes sense though.

Brody Leven (34:45):
Okay.

Annalisa Holcombe (34:46):
It totally makes sense because you're wanting to make sure that you are ... I know that I'm prepared for this, but I'm not sure. Unless you're sure-

Brody Leven (34:54):
And it's impossible to be sure.

Annalisa Holcombe (34:56):
Yeah.

Brody Leven (34:57):
Like I said, the same goes for buying my house, or choosing to go on a big road trip, or whatever it is, or speaking out about Black Lives Matter, or about the planet or whatever it is. Your self-awareness only gets you so far before you just have to dive in and see were you ready for it or not.

Annalisa Holcombe (35:18):
Can you talk to me about that just a little, because you brought that up and I think it's important. It's really important for me to talk about, because we're living in this time that is much more about social justice, and what we are all thinking about, right. I just want to say we're recording this right now in the middle of the George Floyd trial. In this outdoor skiing industry, talk to me about what it feels like for you to be activists. Now I've seen you be activists, and so I'd like to hear about it in any of the ways. Activism with regard to climate change, which is so important. Activism with regard to social justice areas, and I saw, like you have Black Lives Matter listed on your social media, et cetera. Talk to me about that. How is that part of being authentic and do you have any advice for people about how to manage their career and their activism?

Brody Leven (36:23):
I mean I don't think I can hold myself any higher than anyone else as far as the way I've managed it, just to answer the second part of your question first. I do think there is a real fear for people to speak out about the things they care about. In my experience, it's always better to speak out about them than not.

Annalisa Holcombe (36:46):
Right. What has your experience told you?

Brody Leven (36:50):
There are negative repercussions that are always personally outweighed by the potential positive, or at least neutral impacts. Even if something isn't heard by the people who need to hear it, even if it's not benefiting you positively or negatively, at least you're getting out there what you care about, which in my opinion actually is a positive outcome of it. Have I lost sponsors because I'm outspoken about these issues that are for some reason controversial? Sure.

Brody Leven (37:22):
Again, I can sit here and say so proudly, "Yes I'm willing to lose those sponsors for that reason," but remember those sponsors are genuinely how I support my livelihood. My entire life is based on these sponsorships, right? I need to appease them. Then I'm weighing the pros and cons of well do I hold back what I truly feel and what I think I know is right, or do I speak out about it and risk these negative repercussions that may be very real negative repercussions? The social ramifications beyond the professional ramifications, again they can be positive, neutral, or negative. I think if it's what you truly feel like what you feel like is the right thing, I honestly think the negative are outweighed.

Brody Leven (38:19):
Do I get the mean messages on social media? Yes, for sure. Do I consider the well-spoken articulate arguments, so to speak, against what I'm saying? Definitely. But have I thought through this before I speak out about it? Absolutely. In my world, in the past two years, that has shifted largely from centering myself in this narrative of, "Woe is me. Climate change is effecting my job and my industry. It's an 887 billion dollar industry nationally. Climate change does have very real ramifications but listen to the pro skier who is seeing climate change firsthand tell you about that," right. In the past two years has that shifted to de-centering myself and trying to elevate and uplift stories, or voices of people telling different stories than the traditional white guy going skiing doing this extremely expensive sport with extraordinarily high barriers to entry? Right, yes because are there other ways to tell that story that have the same outcome but a diversity of voices attached to them? Absolutely.

Brody Leven (39:44):
Is that hard to do when a huge part of my job is centering myself? If I'm not centering myself that means I'm not centering my sponsors. If I'm uplifting the voices of other people does that necessarily mean I'm diminishing my voice? That's something I still fight with. They would say no that doesn't, that is what people want to hear, that if you're uplifting someone else, what is it, ocean tide, all the ships come up, right? I still struggle with, in my career, is that necessarily true, because there is only so much space at the table. There are only so much marketing budget to go around. But am I doing it because I think it's the right thing? Yes. Am I doing it the, "right way?" Well I think fortunately and unfortunately there's not necessarily a right way. You can talk to two experts on it and they will have two different opinions of it. Do I try to take the general consensus of the right way to elevate, uplift, and support voices and faces that are different than mine? Absolutely.

Annalisa Holcombe (40:56):
I just have to follow up and ask. When you're talking about controversial activism that you do, where do you find the most controversy and what type of activism?

Brody Leven (41:08):
As far as what topics kind of?

Annalisa Holcombe (41:09):
Yeah mm-hmm (affirmative).

Brody Leven (41:12):
I mean climate change is my big ... I kind of rank ... My activism, the top three things I focus on are avalanche education, public land stewardship, and climate advocacy. Those are the three things. Public land, extremely controversial, typically along party lines because it's like, "Okay do we want to exploit these lands and "utilize" their natural, blah, blah, blah, or do we want to leave them pristine and wild?" That is hugely controversial. Is that directly related to climate change because the way that these lands are typically exploited usually contributes to climate change? Absolutely. That controversy continues to the climate change sphere.

Brody Leven (41:54):
Avalanche education, it seems like what could possibly be controversial about someone who has spent 15 years in the back country avoiding avalanches successfully trying to help others learn about that. Turns out, that's controversial too because people are like, "The more you teach people, the more crowded the back country is going to get, the more crowded the back country is going to get is the more likelihood that someone above you on a slope is going to start an avalanche and it's going to come down on you." There's always kind of two sides to this story, right?

Brody Leven (42:24):
Recently has all of that tied in because climate justice is social justice and vice versa, does all of this intersect and the people who usually disagree with you on one are going to disagree with you on all of them? For sure. The avalanche side of things kind of aside, all of the other topics are so interwoven that people just man, they are-

Annalisa Holcombe (42:52):
Fascinating, really. Totally and that makes sense because climate justice goes along with social justice goes along with being safe wherever we are. I think that's really, that-

Brody Leven (43:04):
Annalisa think about it. I could keep my job, probably not have it adversely affected at all, just keep my lips sealed and avoid all of the negativity that I receive, which I don't want to make it sound like it's this crazy amount, but does it take emotional labor to get over this, can some of it be kind of traumatic? Absolutely. Are people awful on the internet? For sure. Couldn't I just keep my mouth shut and just be a skier, because you know what, a lot of pro skiers are just talking about how much fun they're having shredding pow and getting paid to do it. Definitely, but that's just not me.

Annalisa Holcombe (43:49):
That's not authentically Brody. That's not authentically you.

Brody Leven (43:53):
That is not authentically me.

Annalisa Holcombe (43:54):
I think there's something really important about our ability to operate in a world authentically and being true to our own personal value system.

Brody Leven (44:01):
Yeah. I don't know if the difficulty of that is elevated by having-

Annalisa Holcombe (44:07):
Followers.

Brody Leven (44:08):
... a premier platform, yeah, because that is the world that I live in. My girlfriend's got the same platform, most of my friends are these influencers with the same platform. I'm surrounded by that a lot. We all complain about the negativity we receive, blah, blah, blah, but we're also all really outspoken about what we care about. Which is not to say that it's easier to be outspoken with what you care about when you're just among your colleagues in your office, or on your Zoom call and you want to bring up the fact that your colleague is sitting in their car idling during this Zoom call. All of these things, they come up and I don't necessarily think one is easier than the other but since I do have the platform, I can definitely speak for that world which it is not easy.

Annalisa Holcombe (44:59):
Yeah that totally makes sense. I do want to ask you, because you did say ... I'm interested in, when you describe yourself as a storyteller, the reason I want to bring that up is because I think it goes to something that I am personally super interested in which is how do you feel about the ability to tell the story as a way to authentically connect? I mean it's called Connection Collaborative. I'm really interested in really knowing someone, authentically connecting. What is the role of storyteller in your career in terms of connection?

Brody Leven (45:37):
I think if I look at my peers and my colleagues, you'll see kind of a spectrum of people that shine the spotlight on the glory days and the powder turns, and the helicopter that drops them off on the top of the mountain, and these activities are fun. It's all about fun, fun, fun, fun, positive smile, high fives. Then you'll see people that are kind of on the other end of the spectrum by trying to be authentic, and they want to connect in such a way that it's almost contrived. I can sit here and talk how I don't come from a family of skiers until my face is blue and how that made skiing a difficult sport for me to enter and how I had to pay my own way through a small, private liberal arts college, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just really tear at the heart strings, you know what I mean? That I think is kind of the other end of the spectrum, which I also don't think is authentic.

Brody Leven (46:42):
Those stories can be true, and the high fives and the smiles can also be true, but I think for most of us our authentic selves fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. The stories that I tell, whether they're traditional or social media or public speaking or these podcasts or whatever it is, those stories ideally fall somewhere in the middle of these spectrum. I have received feedback from my sponsors saying, "Hey a lot of these podcast interviews you do tend to, you kind of harp on the down parts of your job." I'm like, "Am I really harping on them, or are you just hearing kind of both sides of my job that are very real?"

Brody Leven (47:24):
I don't like to pretend that it's all roses, and I think the grass is always greener but at the same time I do like to connect to people on the level that we're all doing what we're doing probably because we think it's the right thing to do. I wouldn't be advocating for the climate if I thought it was wrong. As much as people may try to convince me that it's wrong, and I consider their opinions, if I keep doing it, it's because I keep considering it the right thing for at least me to be doing.

Brody Leven (47:54):
I'm not one to hold back, you know. I respond to every single social media message that I receive of these people, and I tell the ups and the downs of these expeditions that I go on, and I talk about the personal relationships I have with my mountain partners and my sponsors and the photographers and the videographers, and I talk about the way that those impact my decision making, my risk versus consequence balance, all of these things. I talk about them because I would want to hear about them and I'm a huger consumer of the type of media that I also create. I watch all the films and I listen to so many podcasts, and I read all the magazines cover to cover, and I read the books that the climbers come out with as soon as they're published.

Brody Leven (48:45):
I'm a huge consumer of it first of foremost, and I think because of that I have a good grasp on what I like to hear. I think like all of us in life, we like to take the best qualities from the people that we meet and incorporate those into ourselves to hopefully make each of us the best person that we can be. As I do that, personally and professionally, I also like to do it with the way that I share the stories of the experiences that I have.

Annalisa Holcombe (49:13):
I love that you do that, and I'm not sure that a lot of people do that who are in some ways professional storytellers. I think what we look to people to do is to tell us the very super sexy parts of their jobs or their lives, and not the parts that are the boring, or unattractive, the sucky parts that we talked about, the stuff that you have to do but it's not sexy. I would always tell my students when they were thinking about careers, that if you're going to ... We always think of job shadowing. I would say to them, "If you're going to go job shadowing make sure you do it on the most un-sexy day, because if you still want that job after then that's the job for you, but if you only want it when it's sexy, you probably shouldn't go that direction."

Brody Leven (49:56):
In my industry we talk about a lot of aspirational and inspirational marketing, and maybe that crosses over to other industries, I'm not sure, but it's the inspirational marketing is like, "Hey I'm going to go on a little run today. That should hopefully get you off your couch and you go on a little run today too." Then there's the aspirational, "Oh Brody is in Africa skiing the third highest peak in the continent. I didn't even know there's a mountain in Uganda but it turns out I don't aspire to do that," but it's kind of in that world, you know.

Brody Leven (50:28):
Again, I think in order to really relate to folks, which is what I like to do personally, that's nice for me, is to fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I don't think I can make a living just by being inspirational athlete. I have to go do these things that are slightly beyond the reach of I think most people, and I've worked really hard to make them within my reach or just out of it, but it's the reason that I love meeting folks and I love hearing their stories. When I do meet them at a movie premier or whatever signing, it's like, "I want to hear about you because if you're here, you know my thing. I'm a skier, that's great, but what is it about you that makes you care about these things?"

Annalisa Holcombe (51:16):
What ask ... I have two more questions for you and then I'll let you go, but the one I just feel like I have to ask, which is, it has to do with, and it's probably my fan girling that is about going to Paris to work on the climate accord, or speaking to Congress about climate change. Talk to me about what that is like, and do you get those moments where you're like, "I just did this." Do you have some, "Pinch me," moments?

Brody Leven (51:45):
I definitely have those moments but do I ever say ... I'm pretty bad at being in the present and realizing that, I think, and taking that step back. If I was better at that Annalisa, I think I'd probably be a much happier and more successful person. I'm so lucky, and the life I get to live is so incredible. I try to do that at least when I'm in the mountains here, because I have this trail head less than five minutes from my house and it is what I dreamed of as a kid in Cleveland.

Annalisa Holcombe (52:20):
That makes me so happy though Brody because when you are pinching yourself, I mean see how smart I was to have you talk about authenticity, because I'm like, "Aren't you thinking you're super cool when you're at Congress?" You're like, "No I'm thinking that I'm super cool and I have my pinch me moments when I'm on the mountain."

Brody Leven (52:39):
Yeah that's really what it is, yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (52:42):
That's really super beautiful.

Brody Leven (52:44):
Thank you, yeah. It's the truth. I look out my kitchen. I just got these big windows in my kitchen. Now I can see Mount Olympus. That is kind of what I wanted, to live this life that allows me to be in mountain.

Annalisa Holcombe (53:00):
Awesome. Well thank you so much. Thank you so much for all of your time. I appreciate it. It's so good to see you.

Brody Leven (53:05):
Oh yeah, it's good to see you too Annalisa. It's a really common question in this world to be like, "What's the next big thing you're planning on doing? What's your next expedition?" So much of this is just trying to stay above water, you know. I have a hard time thinking, "Okay what am I going to do for training tomorrow and how is that going to work with the install of the cabinet guy?" You know? It's really good to step back and think about, yeah this is still the only job I've ever had. Pretty cool.

Annalisa Holcombe (53:38):
Yeah. You really do, I mean even though I joke about the personal, you are BrodyLeven.com so you do have a board of directors somehow. It's just the people that you turn to when you need something.

Brody Leven (53:51):
I think you're right, yeah. I think there's only, I don't know, a couple dozen people in the world that make a living kind of doing the same thing.

Annalisa Holcombe (53:58):
That's amazing. That's so amazing. Thank you mister.

Brody Leven (54:02):
I'm doing it. Take care.

Annalisa Holcombe (54:03):
Good to see you. See you later.

Annalisa Holcombe (54:21):
I want to express my gratitude to Brody for being so authentic with us. You can learn more about him on his website BrodyLeven.com. You can find him on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Next week I'll be joined by Alana Dunnigan. Alana is a policy advisor and researcher. Her intellect is matched by her humor. We will be talking about communication. I hope you'll join us. As always, thank you for listening to 92,000 Hours. If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe and leave us a review. We really appreciate your support. If you're interested in integrating the personal and professional through authentic conversation just like you heard on our episode today, please check out our work at Connection Collaborative. You can find us at ConnectionCollaborative.com, or send me an email at annalisa@connectioncollaborative.com. Thank you and see you next week on 92,000 Hours. 92,000 Hours is made possible by Connection Collaborative. This episode was produced and edited by Breanna Steggell. Lexie Banks is our marketing director, and I'm your host Annalisa Holcombe.