Transcript
Speaker: She spent 46 days in the wilderness on alone, but surviving isn't really the most interesting part of Jesse Krebs' story. Jesse is a survival instructor, former seer specialist, and passionate educator who believes that wilderness skills can change how we see ourselves and what we are capable of.
Speaker: This is the Outdoorsy Educator Podcast.
Speaker: Jessie Krebs, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you? I am doing fantastic today. How are you doing? Wonderful. it's it's I'm down in the Dallas area and it's a little cooler today for some reason. It's overcast, so i am I'm having a great day because I'm ready for the summer heat to be done.
Speaker: Yes, me too. It's been really nice having some cooler nights now to open up all the windows and have a nice and cool in the evening. We are almost there. Won't be long and we'll be joining you. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker: Sure. So I'm Jessie Krebs. I'm originally from Michigan. I live in Colorado now. I'm a former Air Force SEER instructor, which stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. and My job in the military was basically teaching people what to do if their plane went down, particularly behind enemy lines and how to get back home safely. So that was pretty cool. I wasn't shooting people. I was helping people survive. That was really nice. Right. Yeah. Yeah, and I've been on a few TV things and I have a masterclass at masterclass.com. And now I run a women's survival school as well as doing custom courses and speaking engagements and team building. And I just added firewalking to the regiment. So that's going to be fun.
Speaker: all right, firewalking. I'm scribbling that down because I'm going to have to ask you all about that because that sounds terrifying yet kind of exciting.
Speaker: Definitely. Now, I want to take you back to the beginning. I've read a little bit about you and you spent time in the outdoors as a child. And what were you finding in the outdoors, do you think, that you weren't finding anywhere else when you were little?
Speaker: Safety. Right. That was a big part for me. And did you grow up sort of in a rural area or was it more sort urban and then you had to go somewhere? how how did that look What did that look like?
Speaker: I grew up in a small town, and I would – my mom's a big traveler, so, like, she took me to Europe when I was 12, and we spent, like, six weeks just tooling around Europe, going to Greece and Germany and Italy and, um yeah, all over the place, which was really nice, and i I enjoyed that. So she always had the travel bug, and she loves camping. She's a master gardener. So we would do a lot of camping and and a fair amount of traveling when I was a kid, and I – I have a very odd family. So I have several sets of parents, basically. So I have adoptive parents and step parents and biological parents. And so, you know, when I was getting married, I said, you know, asking my future husband, hey, so who do we send in invitations to? And he's like, tells me two sets of grandparents. And I'm like, yeah, so what about the rest of them? And he's like, right just normal people only have two sets of grandparents. I'm like, Oh, you're right. How weird. So I was always jumping around from household to household. So that was a big part of growing up. So some of my relatives lived more in suburbia. Some lived out in the country somewhere. We you know have cabins up on the lake and go water skiing for the summer. you know So just I had a lot of variety in my life as a child. Do you see that as a positive? i imagine there's probably pros and cons as there is to everything. But looking back, is was that a positive experience?
Speaker: I really think it was for me. Absolutely. ah I really got to see, you know, each household is different and has different rules and beliefs and concepts. So it was really awesome for me, I feel like, to to see all these different perspectives on the world and on life and on religion and politics and all of it. I thought it was really cool, actually.
Speaker: Yeah, that sounds like something that would be tremendous for all of us to to live through, because I assume that shaped who you are today. It did. it did. And there was there was parts of it that were scary, of course, as well. Like um and it it is does create a lot of turbulence in life. And especially since, you know, one of those homes had a pedophile. So and that wasn't that wasn't cool, right? But that that is also, I like, I think Oprah Winfrey says, turn your wounds into wisdom. And so there are wounds there, but those from those wounds, that's where we probably learn the most. So...
Speaker: Yeah, that's a really, really good phrase. I like that one. I'm going to think about that more when we're done. Have you always felt comfortable on your own? I was curious when you went into the woods, was it you and a a gaggle of other children or did you quite like exploring by yourself?
Speaker: Most of the time I was alone, but I remember being – lived in Lansing, you know suburbs of Lansing when I was like, I don't know, five, six, seven. And i had other neighborhood kids, and I remember being kind of the ringleader and going out and like speaking with the plants. And so I'd pick up a plant, and I would come up with all these things of like, this is what this plant can do. you know this is the these is the This is the herbal remedies, plant. you know as a little as a little kid, you know i don't I didn't know anything. But Maybe I did, actually, because there's a part of us that's very intuitive. And so maybe the plants were speaking to me and telling me um stuff. So it was a little bit of both. Absolutely. Maybe you knew more than you realized you knew. Exactly. it It sounds almost full circle-ish to me that you've kind of come back to that. I think that's just wonderful. Do you think that being comfortable, being I'm assuming when you were out by yourself, you were feeling you were comfortable. Has that become a strength later in life for you?
Speaker: I definitely think so. Yeah, I like being alone. it's how I'm an introvert naturally, so that's how I recharge. So I travel around the country teaching courses all over the place, and I'm often with a lot of people when I'm out in out in the nature. So it's nice for me to just go home to my little off-grid house and go on little hikes and kayaking trips with my cat and and just be alone that's how I recharge and then I can go back when I start teaching you know a week and like in a week I'm going to be doing a big women's beginner backpacking trip in Hermosa New Mexico and so I can jump into that and be like feeling charged and ready to go because I've had my alone time I love that the the visual of the kayaking trip with the cat just makes me grin you're grinning like that's just a wonderful soul charging visual that you've given us I don't think it gets much better than that
Speaker: He's quite the little adventure for sure. i love I've done it with, ah I'll take, but we've got a couple of dogs and one of them will come kayaking because she's tiny once in a while. And I think she likes it. I haven't quite figured out, you know, she's terrified or she likes it. She sits on the edge of it, edge of it. Something I wanted to ask you about, you have a degree in educational psychology and you spent a lot of your career teaching survival. What have you learned about teaching people that you didn't really learn from simply becoming really good at survival. How did how did those skills, you know, could it's one thing to be good at something. It's another thing to be able to teach it. And I was curious about that transition and and how you took your skills that you forged yourself into a career as an educator.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. That's a great question. At SEER School, we had an acronym called ICE, which was Intensity, Credibility, and Enthusiasm. And it was our method of teaching. And we tried to make things engaging and interesting. And so that's really how I was taught at 18 how to teach.
Speaker: I think since then, i working in wilderness therapy, I did that off and on for about 11 years. And that's where I say that was my becoming human phase. Right. Right. Because before that, I was very robotic. Emotions weren't safe. I was I had never dealt with the trauma from childhood. And I was I had trouble connecting with people of of really being open and authentic and and talking about mistakes and issues. And I just couldn't do that kind of thing. So I think over my course of time working in wilderness therapy, I i became human. i was able to understand finally that the way people connect best is actually through their mistakes, through their issues, through their troubles, through their trauma. That's how we connect as humans, not through being perfect. And I kept thinking as a child that if I had been perfect – then I wouldn't be punished, right? Because I was getting all this abuse.
Speaker: And so I must not be good enough. I have to be better. And so I put on this facade, this mask of perfection, thinking that that was going to save me from the abuse. And of course, that's not the way it works. So I was in my late 30s before I started to figure this out, right? um And so I think that going through wilderness therapy and becoming a ah ah good wilderness therapy um instructor, wilderness guide,
Speaker: That is really what took my teaching to the next level and I think made me really has made me a really good instructor because now I can laugh and joke and I can talk about my mistakes and I can share stories and I can engage and and just do it. And I speak. you know I speak loudly and i can but I can alter my voice and do all kinds of things that just make it a lot more interesting and fun. Yeah.
Speaker: I love that. And I'm thinking now, and and please excuse my naivety here, because I don't know much about the military world. It's not something I've ever ever immersed myself in, so I don't pretend to to understand it. But i imagine they are so different. I imagine...
Speaker: for want of a better phrase, you have to be militant. It's you know and not so you know filled with the the personal relationships and the peeling back layers when you are serving. So i imagine it just must be almost like two different versions of Jesse from then to now.
Speaker: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Back then I was, again, I was very robotic and I didn't really know how to relate to my students and it really wasn't part of the curriculum. It's, it is very much like you're here to learn and to keep your butt alive. So there was definitely intensity there and we would put them through their paces. it wasn't, nobody wanted to go through SEER school. I shouldn't say that. There was like 1% the population who thinks it's going to be kind of cool and fun and challenging but the rest them are like oh oh i don't want to have to go to serious school so no and it so now it's like i i tell people i'm going to teach you the same ba like things the same skills but we're going to do it with a lot of fun we're going to goof off you know i'm not going to scream at you or make you you know do push-ups in the mud like that's not what we're doing right and everyone breathes a sigh of relief yes oh thank goodness yes
Speaker: So in education, we talk a lot about, so I mean, I think it's fairly universal. We talk about, you know, building confidence through small successes. You don't have to climb the mountain all at once. And I was curious what that looked like. And I assume that principle applies to wilderness, wilderness training. utri If somebody comes in and says, I know nothing, I've literally lived in the city my entire life and I've never been to a state park, let alone anything else, I'd like to learn.
Speaker: where Where does it kind of start? First, i let them know what the difference is between survival and everything else because there's a lot of confusion even in my industry about what that is. So a lot of people are calling themselves survival instructors or survival schools when they're actually teaching really cool stuff. It's bushcrafting, ancestral skulls, homesteading, that kind of thing. The purpose of the goal of all of those is to live in the woods.
Speaker: That's not survival. Survival is something went wrong. I'm a domesticated human. I want to go back to the barn, please. Right? That's survival. Survival. And it's it's wilderness, but it also, I'm standing on the roof of my house as the water is rising. And I'm trying, there's,
Speaker: 100, 200, 500 other people out there standing on the roof of their houses waiting for search and rescue. How do I get help? How do I get out of here? Right. Or I slid off the car off the road in my car and I i just dropped 20 feet down the embankment, but I hit a tree and I'm pinned in the vehicle. I got a whole survival kit in the trunk.
Speaker: Not doing me any good now, right? So survival is something went wrong, right? Or the typical, I went out hiking and I fell off something. you know Falling is the number one cause of death in backcountry unless there's water around when it becomes drowning. So its survival is different than all those other things. So I'm not teaching you a bow and drill friction fire for survival.
Speaker: That is not a survival skill. That is an ancestral skill. It's really cool. It's awesome to learn. And I can teach you because i did I've done thousands of them because I worked in wilderness therapy. But it is not survival. So I would really make sure that they understand that there's a difference between those two. That's the first thing I talk about. And then we go into the five basic needs. What are the needs of a survivor?
Speaker: And one of the biggest ones that's not mentioned in all those other schools and is rarely talked about at all is signaling because that's my ultimate goal. I don't want to be here anymore. I'm not having fun anymore.
Speaker: I want to go home. Right. right And what does that look like? i mean, what if you just get in a nutshell, of course, if somebody goes like myself, I didn't think you were going to say signaling. If if ah a light goes off my hand and goes, of course, what's the thing? What do you tell people if they are stuck in the woods?
Speaker: I mean, I'm asking you to, again, put this into a nutshell. I know it's more complicated than that, but what's a nugget of information you could share with us about signaling? Sure. There are three primary types. One is pyrotechnics. So flares, fire, smoke, that kind of thing. A second is ground-to-air signals. And a lot of people think of a strip signal like an SOS. Don't do SOS.
Speaker: SOS is curvy. It blends into Mother Nature's curves. doesn't stand out. i don't know about your artistic skills, but trying to do a 30-foot S on the ground that actually looks like an S from the air, little challenging. So a strip signal would be a V or an X. There's also things like C dye marker, which is a dye you can add in water, turns it fluorescent yellowish green. And there's signal mirrors. Those are all tha underground air signals, right? Different types. The third category is electronics, right? And electronics are getting better and better and nothing works as well as electronics unless they don't work, right? If they don't work, you better fall back on the other ones. A lot of people think a whistle is what's going to save them. Helicopters a quarter mile away.
Speaker: Hovered right there, quarter a mile away. It's not going to hear that whistle. There's a road right there. Right? Road right there, quarter mile away. You can blow your head off on that whistle. Nobody's going to hear it. So people don't know effective signaling. And you look at story after story after story after story of people in survival situations that never signal.
Speaker: Again, because media and everything else, it's not the cool, sexy skill, right? Right. Right. So they think they're going to they think they're just going to they don't even it doesn't even occur to them to to do some signaling. They're focusing on firecraft and finding water and putting up a shelter. They're focusing on all this other stuff. It's like that's not your main mission. Right. Your main goal is to leave, man. Help search and rescue find you. You know, and we just it it doesn't even occur to us because we never see it anywhere.
Speaker: That's so interesting. Again, you're not trying to homestead where you fell and broke your ankle. You're trying to get out. And if I took nothing else away from this conversation, and I'll take many things, it's the SOS. I've never thought about that, how that would blend in.
Speaker: that And this is stuff that drives me crazy because we learned it 35, I learned it 35 years ago in the military. 35 years ago. And it's it was around well before I was there. And so we teach this to our military members.
Speaker: Why hasn't hasn't any of this information been disseminated to the general public? And people are dying out there, right? Dying or getting themselves in trouble for no reason. It's just education. We just need to just we need to get some more education in there, man. Right. Absolutely. Well, I am all, hence the name of the podcast. I am all for that. I'd love to sort shift gears a little bit now. You were on the show alone, one of one of my favorites, and I've now connected with several people. And it's just been a tremendous experience. Could you walk us through a little bit of that journey from the the first phone call to reflecting on it now?
Speaker: Yeah, um it's kind of funny, actually. i I ended up doing another show in 2015 called Migrations with National Geographic. And at the same time, I was in the process of trying to get onto that show. And we hiked across the so the Serengeti, and it was really cool.
Speaker: And I get this call right when I'm in the process about a month before I'm supposed to hopefully head off to Africa. And it's it was alone. I didn't know that at the time it was the first season. And they're trying to find people for the first season. And they contact me, and they're like, hey, Would you like to do a, you know, this show? We got this going on. They tell me a little bit about it. Don't mention the money, for one. But they also say it's going to be up in Washington State and you're going to get a backpack full of stuff and you're going to see how long you can stay out there.
Speaker: Well, all my training was in Washington State. Right. Right. Like that's that's where Air Force Sears School is. So I'm like, well, this sounds boring. Like, what do you mean? I don't need a vacation right now. Like if there's any place on the planet, I can survive for the rest of my life. Right. For the next 50 years, it would be in Washington state. So I don't understand the question. Right. And so I'm like, well, that sounds boring. No. Why would I do that? I'm going to go to the Serengeti and hike across the Serengeti. Of course. Right.
Speaker: And so I get back in 2016, you know, and Migrations come out and season one of Alone comes out. And I'm like, wait a minute, they didn't mention no 500. And how come it's all men? How come there's not a single woman on there? Right. And I, you know, and I loved Alan who won it. It was great, you know, especially when Broken Opera. That was my favorite part. But, um you know, i was just like, what the heck? And so later then it was like two years later or something. i I put in an application for it. Right. And I didn't hear back and I'm like, yeah, whatever. And then i don't know for season nine, think.
Speaker: wild hair, I decided I'd try it again and put in my application. So I got a call back from them this time. And I had just finished that my masterclass had just come out. So I think that was a big part of why they they reached out, actually, um is that already had publicity in another forum. um So yes, they reached out. It was during COVID. So everything was through Zoom and online. rented a hotel room in Denver because I live in the middle of nowhere, which is the story for a lot of us, a lot of the contestants, right? Yes.
Speaker: So I had to rent a room for a week to to go through the the initial process of weaning it down from like, I don't know, 50 people down to like 25, 24. And then got selected from that and then keeps going down and everything was online. So I'm in front of Dave Holder on on Zoom, right? Doing my bow drill. Right. Answering questions and everything, you know, the psychology. We're taking photos or video of us jumping into a swimming pool with our clothes on and showing we can swim certain distances and blah, blah, blah. So yeah, that was the...
Speaker: The beginning, at least. That's fascinating. And one of the, you kind of touched on this a little bit. One of the things that it just warms my heart is I've now spoken to several people who have been on the show or involved with the show. Getting hold of them is is generally really difficult.
Speaker: because they'll they'll send me a message back and say hey i'd love to chat more but i'm off to the woods for six weeks and i just love it it just speaks to the authenticity this you know the the these weren't actors who were suddenly given a crash course in survival and it it just warms from my heart the the ah yeah the authenticity that this show brings Yes, absolutely. I was actually really intimidated with the 25 of us initially when I'm in the hotel room. I mean, and we call it the Survival Olympics, but really they're looking for a group of people um that are all about the same level, right? And that that's a real juggling act because they have to look at our mental state, right? Who's more comfortable with being alone? Have to look at are they coming from ancestral skills, bushcrafting, survival, like, and And where are there different skill levels when it comes to plant knowledge versus, okay, there i'm I'm not that great with plants. Edibility tests, sure, I know some things. But fire, I'm really good at fire, right? Right. um so you So you have to – so trying to figure out – it's –
Speaker: competition, right? That's what the show is about, even though most of us who are on the show are like, don't really want to compete with you. Want to be friends? Right. That's how we all are. So it's kind of funny that way. think most of us who are on to see it as a competition with ourselves versus a competition with the rest of the group, which is really sweet as well. So yeah, I don't, I think a lot of us are just, we're just really good folks and really good people to get along with. And I lost my train thought, but I think you get the idea. It happens to me all the time. I love the way you phrase that. Of course, you're exactly correct. It is a competition. There is one winner at the end. But because of the format of the show, it truly is competing with yourself.
Speaker: And I love that. it is That actually leads into something I wanted to ask you. um To sort of paraphrase yourself, you sort of said that it's really a test of can you handle boredom, isolation, long-term discomfort. How did you deal with that?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I kept myself so busy for the first bit. um Hodgepodge Lodge was was quite the fortress. um So was I was keeping working on that pretty hard. And I feel like as time went on, like I would have just wanted to explore more. My property was pretty street steep, the area that I was in. and But Labrador is so beautiful. Man, just so cool. The landscape there is absolutely phenomenal. So I would have liked to have to have done more hiking around and seen more. um And creating more and and figuring out, getting to know that what wildlife there was. it did mostly with squirrels around where I was. There were a lot of squirrels. And that was the main thing that I had to connect with. But there was, you know, there's a fox who started lingering around. he was, he was, he snagged at least one of my squirrels. Right. chewed up one of them that he was trying like holy heck to get that thing off the snare was it was up high and he just deep put needle holes all through it it was pretty funny um so just getting to know the environment better i think and and i don't i don't really feel loneliness all that much and i'm rarely bored because i'm always finding something to do even if it's watching ants or something i don't i don't care you know like I think that's a wonderful skill to have, you know, to be able to be, yeah, to not be bored by finding the joys in the small things. What a wonderful thing. I was curious if you have rewatched or watched your episode and if there was anything that made you kind of go, oh, I wish I hadn't done that.
Speaker: I haven't seen it since it came out. ok I haven't looked at it again. i I chat once in a while and we have like a special face group for us that are have been on alone. um And so i'll I'll check that out once in a while. And when I go to some of the gatherings, I'll meet up with other folks, you know, um and we'll we'll all talk and reminisce and talk about our various experiences. But I haven't really i haven't watched mine all that much. um Was there anything that you think we, you wish the audience had seen that you know wasn't on the show?
Speaker: I think i one thing i I would have liked for people to know was what why I got sick, what happened, what was going on there, because I don't think that's widely known. So it it just shows us getting sick you know whenever when anybody comes off, but it doesn't really show, we never go into why. um And so for me, it was acid. I literally do some more acid than most people. And it was a very acidic environment. So as soon as I started boiling and drinking the river water, which was brown with tannic acid, Right. That's that's when I started having problems. And I had had issues on migrations, actually, um as well, where nobody else had nobody else got we started eating again. And when you start eating again, your body dumps acid. Well, I dump way more than most people. Interesting. And I didn't know what was i didn't understand what was happening. But on migrations, I literally at the end of the show, everybody else started eating and seemed pretty fine. i was writhing on the ground in absolute agony. And we're up in the middle of nowhere, Tanzania, by the Mar River. And somebody finally tracked down a bottle of Pepto-Bismol and threw it in the tent. And I chug half the bottle and then I can start to function again. And for days, mean, it took me six weeks to get back up to like a size 10. I went from size 14 before I went in. I usually am i around a size 10. So I was at 14 before I went in because i was eating as many calories as I could. i went down to a size four.
Speaker: on the show, right? So we were hiking and I lost more weight on migrations over 35 days than I did on alone over 46 days. Right. Because we weren't allowed to hunter gather anything. um So I went from size 14. Everybody else was back to their pre-show weight.
Speaker: Within a couple of weeks, it took me six. i was I was terrified of food and I was in agony. so And all that had happened, but I never understood what the problem was and I never fixed it and i never did anything about it. And so when something – didn't happen the same way, but things started happening on a loan and I started belching. I'm like, i don't belch. What is going Right. What's happening here? And then that happens for a few weeks and then i start the nausea and then I start vomiting. and I'm like, I don't understand what's going on. If I'd known what was happening, then I could have possibly done something to – remedy it but i didn't i didn't know what was going on gosh i mean that just sounds so scary because i'd imagine you're suddenly aware of i'm in the serengeti there's not pepto-bismol around the corner and yeah yeah i'm grateful for your military training which i'm sure gave you a meant a healthy mental approach to these situations yes as well yeah oh good i'm glad you're better because yeah I'd love to shift gears just a little bit. Could you tell me about owls
Speaker: Yeah. Outdoorsy women learning survival skills. Yeah. So that's really my passion now. I really love it. I was just, i just got out of a marketing meeting actually where um my, my helper Agatha is like, Jess, I know that's your passion, but we really should start looking more at custom courses and speaking engagements and everything else. Cause, cause I just, you know, especially um right now, I think people are, are a little on edge, a little, and people are holding onto their money right now and I don't blame them. Um, People just seem a little worried about situation of of the world. And so people aren't signing up for open sign-up courses as much um last year and this year. And she's like, you know, because I'm not one who tends to – I don't tend to chase money. Again, I don't think most of us on a loan are. um But she's like, I think you should be looking at other things because getting a group of women together and teaching survival skills, that's my passion. Or any marginalized demographic, really. If I got BIPOC, LGBTQ+, like – People who have been told their whole lives that the wilderness is not for them. It's for strong, you know, burly men that that's who it's for. And I love getting those people together who are like, really, can do this? And I'm like, hell yes. Yeah, you can. Let's play! right Get that fire! Ten minutes! Yeah! Right? Like, I i love that kind of thing. That's really where my passion lies, is is teaching those people that feel like it's just, they've always been curious or interested, but didn't think it was something that they could ever get into. And so many of the survival instructors out there do have that more militaristic, like, get down, bro! You know, and it's like, let's go play.
Speaker: That's not how Jesse rules. That's not it. Yeah. So these so these ah you women or people from marginalized communities, they come in and you're going to equip them with these skills. I'm curious about the internal changes you see in people because, yes, external is wonderful and needed and it's great.
Speaker: But, you know, you you can't start a fire in your office, but you can take what you've learned internally back to your office, back to your school, back to your home. What changes do you see on the inside of people?
Speaker: Oh, it's so empowering. I love it. And really, I feel like that's what I'm doing. I'm just using survival skills as the medium, but I'm really empowering people. That's my goal. And I want them to feel like something that looks scary or intimidating, they can accomplish it. They can do it.
Speaker: And it's not that hard. We can break it down and make it really simple and easy so they can go through the steps and they can they can make it happen. And not craft is one of favorites. favorite with this, my favorite things to teach.
Speaker: it's It's crazy how just a simple piece of string and people see the knot and they're like, really? Okay, what's this for? And then they tie the knot and they're like, whoa, hey, I did that. Yeah, and this is this is a trick to untie it. and This is you know and this how you can use it. And there's few things I see. I mean, firecraft is awesome as well, but knots are so simple and I can do it anywhere. And that's really what we're doing, right? We're empowering them and they're seeing, okay, if I can accomplish this thing that I thought was really hard, But we broke it down into steps and now I can do it. And it's not it's not hard anymore. That's empowering. And now I can take that back to, I call it the world of myth, actually, right? We call it the real world, but I argue that concept. Which one is real? Yeah, yeah no, the wilderness is real, man. The office and Bitcoin and I don't know, all this stuff and technology. you I don't know.
Speaker: doesn't fit in my reality all that well. couldn't agree more. It's so funny you brought up knots. I did a ah wilderness weekend, you know fairly low key. It was designed for, i just went myself, but there was a lot of parents with children who were really just looking for something to bond over. It was a beautiful thing.
Speaker: And we learned you know starting a fire, this that, and the other. And there was all these things. But and there was, I think, four instructors. Man Alive, when the subject of knots came up, people got the instructors got fired up.
Speaker: about the best knot, the this knot, the that knot, like nothing else. they were There was this passion that was lit. i It's a whole world I don't know about. Hacking time of shoes, that's about as far as it got. But they were into knots, like it was quite something.
Speaker: Yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible to me what we can do in knots. There are thousands of knots and so many different ways to tie them and modifications like I can lift a car, me by myself. I can lift a car with a knot. Right. I can tie splits and I can lower off a cliff and ah I can build a raft and push off into the ocean. and you know, like so much you can do with a rope.
Speaker: I love it. i Again, now i' I'm scribbling down to look up knots. You know, I've got that on my notes. um I'm going to forget if I don't ask now, you brought up Fire Walk. I enjoyed the TV show The Office and one of my wife's favourite scenes from the whole the whole series is a character called Pam, know you've ever seen it, walks across fire.
Speaker: And ands it's all about what it represents because suddenly after she's done it, she speaks freely. She tells people how she feels. It's about the fire but not about the fire. Talk to me about your fire walk. Yeah. I did it 25 years ago at a ah women's retreat in Vermont, and it was it was fantastic. I'd already, you know, at 25, because I'd already been in the military, I'd already done so many things that ah that I thought were kind of impossible that I realized that so much of it is – we say mind over matter, but I like how –
Speaker: how they put it in our training that it's not it's not mind over matter. It's mind with matter. And I like that saying better um because for me, it's a relationship with the fire. And if I try to dominate it or say, I'm going to do this and it's me against the fire, that doesn't work for me. Then I'll get a blister, right? But if I say, let's play fire, we're going to have fun together. We're going to play.
Speaker: Then it's me with the fire. We're working together in a relationship, literally. And now I can go across with no problem. Right. So I did it 25 years ago and I was like, that was absolutely insane. This is incredible. Right. right And we as far as we know, it's been like at least 4000 years. People have been firewalking and cultures all around the world, all around the planet.
Speaker: Some people can, in in some tribes, literally pick up the hot coals, put them in their mouth, rub them on their skin with no no effects, no problems, right? We don't know how it works. like People can say, like, Mythbusters did a thing.
Speaker: It was full of crap. they don't know what they're talking about. it was nonsense. We don't know how and why it works. But something about our mental state changes our reality.
Speaker: What is more empowering than that? Right. I mean, that's, that's mind blowing that that's, that's possible. It's incredible. yeah Yeah. So I did that 25 years ago and it has been on my bucket list ever since to do it, to become a facilitator. And last year I met a woman named Heather Ashamara. She's written like 10 books. Most popular one is Warrior Goddess Training.
Speaker: Yeah. like Right. Yeah. And so she's been doing firewalk instructor training for 20, 30 years. And so I met her and she's become a really awesome friend. And so now I went down to Mexico this last June ah for their firewalk instructor training. yeah. And Peggy Dillon is called a the mother of modern day firewalking. And this was her last firewalk instructor training that she was doing. So it was really a really special thing.
Speaker: I'm so excited to see where this goes and and and just see you in your element with it. I think that's just wonderful. I love it. As we round the corner to the end of this conversation, I did tell you I would have three questions for you without telling you what they are.
Speaker: I was curious how you view or even define success and if that has changed over the years. What's it mean to be successful to you? i feel like I've always been very childlike and never really thought much about success or accomplishing things. It's it's never actually been on my radar.
Speaker: So I don't know that I would have even defined it um for the first 30, 40 years of my life. Right. I feel like now I feel successful in that I have a plethora of amazing, beautiful, deep, connective relationships.
Speaker: um My ex-boyfriend called it social capital. Yeah. Which seems like a very cold way to put it. um But it's it's having those relationships and that community with people all over the place where it doesn't matter how many years go by, right, that you can drop in immediately and be like, how?
Speaker: How are you, beautiful soul that I haven't seen in 10, 15, 20, 30 years? How are you doing? It's so good to see this soul again. How's this this manifestation of your of your reality been going? you know um And just connecting on really deep ways and being able to, and I think part of this was wilderness therapy, right? I wasn't human before my forty s I didn't have an emotional connection, right? Emotions weren't safe and I couldn't connect that way. So it was hard for me to define anything in in those terms. But now, you know one of the best compliments I finally got in wilderness therapy after a few years was, you're so authentic. I was like, Wow. I am? That's so cool. So I think success for me is being able to be in connection with my authentic self and help others connect with their authentic selves. And through all of that, building this community um of humans that is able to share our traumas and our mistakes and our joys and our laughter and our experiences. And that's success to me.
Speaker: I love that. yeah it's It's sort of off the topic completely, but I think it's the power of language and using just certain little words. I've got a friend who, and I've never actually told him this, I've just noticed he does it.
Speaker: if When in talking about money or finances, he he never says rich and poor. He always says money rich or money poor. Because you can be money poor, but be rich and abundant in other places. Or you could be money rich and and be poor in other aspects. So he qualifies what being rich or poor means because it's not the be all and end all, the amount of zeros in your bank account. And i always think that one little wand, and you've just kind of done it there. It's just the language we use training our brain and how to think about things.
Speaker: It's so powerful. So powerful. Speaking of powerful, I wanted to ask you about the most impactful book you've ever read. It could be the best book. It might not be the best book you've ever read, but one that has left you thinking, one maybe you think about long after you've read it, the most impactful book, or just choose one if there's been several.
Speaker: Holy cow. Yeah, that's a hard, that's a hard one. think I'll go with the one that I've read the most recently that I found the most hopeful. It's one of the most hopeful ones I've read in a long time. um And it's called Entangled Life. And I can't even remember the author's name right now. But it is, it's about mycelium.
Speaker: And it's so hopeful because he basically outlines that so many of the world's problems we can solve with mycelium and working with mycelium.
Speaker: We could replace all plastics with mycelium. ok we can We can grow edible mushrooms off of du off of disposable diapers.
Speaker: We can, I mean, there's mushrooms in Chernobyl eating radioactivity, literally breaking down radioactivity. It is incredible to me.
Speaker: And we know so little about them, right? right We think we've maybe documented maybe 7% of the mycelium on the planet. And they can they can mutate, they can change, they can modify so fast, so rapidly that I don't know how we we could ever have a handle on all of them and what they're capable of.
Speaker: And how they link everything right that they are the network. That's the concept so behind like Avatar, and the the network connecting the whole planet. That's the mycelium man. And so it's one of the most hopeful books I've read in a long time. but God, there's so many. It's really hard not to tell you some more books. Tell you some more. Well, the the deep, dark secret of this podcast is it's creating my my reading list um because everyone's so passionate about the books that that they love. So I'm always scribbling them down and I'll get to them all one day. I i always ask a final question that I kind customize to the guests. And I spent a little while thinking about yours and I'm throwing out the window because...
Speaker: I'm changing it because of something you've said. If you could teach somebody how to do fire walking, I don't know how long it takes, let's just say a weekend or a week, and you had that person all to yourself and you could pick their brain, talk to them about anything, and then you get to walk the fire at the end of it. And this could be something you know, you don't know, dead, alive, anyone that's ever existed. Who would you like to spend that time with, teach them about fire walking and get to pick their brain?
Speaker: yeah them posting you on the spot Yeah, the first person that comes to mind is my my mother's father, my grandpa, JD. Right. ah he was He was a very powerful figure in my life. And he was he was very disciplined. um He was very religious, which I think of myself as being more spiritual. But he was he was such a big...
Speaker: um part of my life as a child. He really was my father figure in a lot of ways. And um yeah, I would love to just spend more time with him. And I think it would be fun to explore the concept of spirituality versus religion and He was so disciplined, right, that being able to see what that would do, if that would change, and not not lose the discipline, but be able to open up to more of the unknown, the more spiritual part. You know, he would take out his false teeth and play the ukulele and sing songs and stuff, too. So he was silly, but I don't know. I think I just I i miss my grandpa, J.D. So I would love to spend that time with him. I love it. JD sounds like an awesome gentleman. I love it. If people have questions for you, they want to find out more about owls, if they have yeah just want to get in touch with you, what might be a way they could do that?
Speaker: Sure. Usually the websites, I've got three a landing page and then two websites. So trainwithjessie.com is for custom courses and speaking engagements, that kind of stuff. Owlskills.com is for the women's general sign-up registration kind of stuff. And jessiekrebs.com is the landing page to go to either one.
Speaker: I love it. Well, Jesse Krebs, this has been just a joy. I feel like I'm grinning from ear to ear. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Very much a pleasure. It was great to join you. Thank you so much for doing this. Of course. Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you again to this week's guest and I hope today's episode was as enjoyable for you as it was for me and perhaps even inspired your next adventure. If you did enjoy the show, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review or follow us wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more information at theoutdoorsyeducator.com or follow us on Instagram, TikTok or Facebook. Until next time, thank you so much for listening to The Outdoorsy Educator Podcast.
