Imagine this you sum up all of the courage you have to do things that the most the dearest most close people in your world are telling you not to do, you know in your heart. It's the right thing to do. Of course Society is telling you know, your job your parents some a lot of people in your life. Will you care about and respect they're saying don't do it. You sum up the courage you
Make the decision and you start to go you leave you wave. Goodbye to everybody. You're literally it's your last day at the job. You're you're you know waving on your way out the door. You close the door behind you you turn around and as you first you first two or three steps away from walking out of your job walking out of your entire previous life in a way and then the phone rings you pick up the phone and in that one phone call Everything Changes.
That is just one fraction of something that I cover with our guest today in the show. You are going to love this woman Jody McDonald is an absolutely spectacular photographer an award-winning photographer. She is no stranger to Adventure and exploration National Geographic list. Jodi is one of the nine female Adventure photographers who pushed the limits Men's Journal name's Jody one of the 25 most adventurous with
Of the past 25 years and the list goes on in the furthest the most Untamed corners of our planet. She spent her formative years get this in Saudi Arabia before sailing around the world of multiple times over the course of a decade. She's been to more than 90 countries. She's trained hopped in the Sahara and paraglide in the Himalaya if you want to talk about a remarkable life and a
A very very non-traditional life you are going to just melt when you listen to Jody McDonald tell her story so many stories Adventures around the world adventures both externally and internally wrestling with life's biggest questions. You are going to love this conversation with Jodie so much. I can't wait. You're just gonna you're gonna melt I'm gonna get out of the way. But before we do just a super quick word from our sponsor and then you'll be off with Jody.
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All right friends. Let me set the stage here. I'm with Jody McDonald in some hotel in Boulder, Colorado. Yeah, we are we both been summoned here by our community and our dear friends together for the Rome Awards which ROM is an adventure community and it has a heart of gold and a solo Adventure but also photography and film video and the
Word are some core tenants of this community. And that's one of the things we're here to celebrate. We're going to hand out some awards and with you and I both being photographers and my appreciation for Jody and her work and the causes that you've been a part of I've been admiring your work from afar from for a long time. So for those of you listening at home, we are like again literally in a in the corner of a cafe here and I'm just super grateful to get to spend some time with you and I want to say thanks for being
On the
show. I'm so excited to be here Chase and it's great to finally meet you. And
yeah, it's weird that never know face-to-face contact until
now and actually I was on a summit at sea boat with you what? Yeah, and I saw you I saw you from like across the room or something, but you know those things this things are so
crazy. There's like 4,000 people on the boat, right?
Well, here we are and I always have to confess at some point because there there's there's a conversation that happens as we get the gear setup and as the camera started rolling, but I'm so fascinated by a your life story and be the most recent Arc of your career, which you've got a couple of curveballs that I want to touch on. But before we do for people who are new to you or your work go take us back to the beginning a little bit about how
And you got started in photography and how you chose that as a means of expression. And I know you were had a childhood that was spent in a different part of the world. So for those folks who were new to your work, give us a little
background. Yeah. Well, I'm fortunately I'll have to take you back to the very beginning that's where we want to go. And I think that's where it all really starts for me, but I was born in Canada and I moved to Saudi Arabia when I was 2 years old my my dad worked for a Canadian telephone.
Company and they got a big contract to set up the telephone system there. So I moved at the age of two and I live there to 216. Wow. Yeah, so all my you know, all of my formidable years were were there and one of the perks that my parents got for going over there to work was the company gave my dad and allowance to go on vacations. So and my parents always said when they wanted
Make some money they would go on vacation because the company would give them a certain amount of money and then they would just fine. They like the discounted deals and everything but my parents had never been anywhere there. So they were like we're taking full advantage of this. So every you know school break Christmas holiday summer holidays, my parents were like we're going somewhere around the world different country. We're just we're going to do it. So by the time I left when I was 16, I Tina really big part of the planet.
And I think that really I think combined with living in Saudi and getting to see a lot of different cultures and countries really instilled In Me This Love Of Travel and Adventure, but just how incredible the world is. Yeah, and it always say it kind of reminded like it made me want to become Indiana Jones. Like I just was like, you know, where can I go in the next adventure and I want it to be like remote and are you no justice. Yeah, so
Wow, what a huge impact on your whole life, right? I guess his formative years being. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah. And so when I moved back to Canada and I was 16, I tried to integrate back into school and you know, none of no kids had been anywhere and you know the stuff we were learning the textbooks. I was like, oh, yeah, I've been there and I you know, seeing it
first assemble sure. I
know yeah. Yeah, and so I actually made me have a hard time relating to a lot of my classmates and
And a lot of them didn't even want to travel anywhere like they would kids would say to me like why do you want to go somewhere
else? We're going to Canada. It's awesome.
And I was like, yeah and I was like, wait what? I mean, how do you even say that? How could you not want to go at all these other places? So there was you know readjusting back into you know, Canada the Canadian landscape with our school. It was really challenging for me and then but I still always really into Adventure.
And sports when I was in high school played a ton of sports and then in University I ended up getting a bachelor in outdoor recreation because I really just wanted to do something that I was really passionate about and that was the closest thing to it and I wanted to be an outdoor guide and and then when I was doing that I took an elective in photography and growing up to at always really been into art. So my main things were art in sports and then when I took my photography elective
If it was just like lightning striking I was like, wow I can I can combine my love of, you know art an adventure. I can document these outdoor experiences on having so if I'm rafting or kayaking or climbing or skiing or whatever I can you know, these amazing places. I'm going to I can I can document them. So yeah, that was really I mean I instantly fell in love with photography and then being in the dark room. I just loved I loved all of it the whole process of it.
And I really love the immediacy of it because I'm a perfectionist. So when like I do a piece of art it would take me forever to do it and that would drive me crazy and it would prevent me from doing it because I was like, I don't want to spend six months on drawing something. Yeah, you know, but photography it was just like bam.
It's an freakish how similar our backgrounds are really like I was Art and sports. Yeah. I never could get them to go
together. Right and well in a hard thing to go together it
for sure and he actually growing up in the time and place.
And whatever the culture that I was in that they were like oil and water and so part of the my challenge was trying to figure out how to represent those two parts of me and I literally took me until my 20s to figure that out. Right but I was also curious of what you said is that just putting these two things together like I like Adventure and I like photography and I could put them together. Right? Did you was there a lot of
pushback? Yeah. I mean I think you know, so
Already in general, you know is always like, you know, you got to get a real job, especially I would say in University, you know kids are so there's so much pressure for them to major in something that they're going to pursue as a career. Yeah, and so kids were like I'm going to be a going to be a teacher because I only have to do a year of to get my teaching certificate and then it makes my Summers off and I was just like wait a second.
That doesn't you know that the tail wagging the yeah, I was like that doesn't that doesn't work and I definitely don't want to do that. So I was seeing examples around me of what I really didn't want to do and I didn't want to waste money my my well my parents money to be there. You know. I was like I want to do something. I'm really passionate about it. And so when Society is it's like an indirect pressure, right,
but it's significant. I don't care about a lot right,
but I think my
Is my childhood was very non-typical? Yeah that it allowed me to give the confidence to just go up screw screw you yeah, you know, I'm just going to I'm just going to do what I love and to me I know that that is the most important thing and that's still drives me like constantly today every day really?
Well I was at these like that was familial or was that you the human and you were strong enough and confident enough.
And yeah, I mean, I think I've been fortunate.
Enough to have this amazing family
and just the willingness to move overseas when your kid is too.
Well. Yeah, and you know when I talk to my parents about that now I was like you must have had huge pushback moving to the Middle East during that time and my parents said yeah, everybody friends family. Nobody wanted them to go and it was my mom actually was just like we're going yeah, we're going for it so that you know, definitely I have that.
Fun see ya and I'm very fortunate to have that influence for my
family. And that's a very telling and beautiful story that I that regardless of those folks who are listening right now, like whether your passion is photography or design or you know, whatever something that you are passionate or connected to but isn't really socially approved or the social pressure is points away from the thing that you're passionate.
About rather than towards it right you're thinking specifically is obviously fascinating to me and I think to a lot of folks but to keep this sort of thread of the non traditional lifestyle alive. Let's put a pin in that's a beautiful way of discovering photography that you could document these things. Was it an was it a lightbulb moment when you just like literally step foot in this class, or was it a did you have to try on like where the where the the suit of armor of Photography or
On a handful of different Journeys and find out you could actually do it and you could combine them and that was a great way of documenting and then how did you figure out the business side of it? Like that's all very non-traditional and it wouldn't sound like you went to you assisted. And you know, now what was your path very different path. So keep chronicling
that a lot of its self-taught but I just wanted to mention though quickly like even though I did have the support of my parents don't get me wrong. Like they were scared shitless the whole time saying like, you know, oh man, are you sure you know like we
Really want you to get a real job did bunny, you know, if that's my parents generation to you get a good job you hold on to it and you you know get the benefits and the security behind that so yeah, don't get me wrong my parents were supportive. But also, you know, I'll strike mattock. Yeah, very pragmatic. So but in terms of Photography, yeah, I mean I think on one level, you know looking back at it was a lightbulb moment, but at the same time, I think it grew very
Clay for me, so because during photography class they give you assignments and because I was majoring in outdoor recreation. I was going on, you know, a one-month climbing trip and so I could go do the projects for my photography, you know on the trip. So and if you can't came together very quickly because of that relationship that was happening and and then after school, I just kept I became a guy
guide and I started Raph guiding and Alaska and doing these trips and always I was always trying to you know, looking back it off the beaten path and and do something a little bit different than most people were doing I didn't want to be where the crowds were. I didn't want to you know, go to all the climbing spots that everybody was going to I wanted to kind of venture off the beaten path and I always thought that was more interesting and then to be able to document that was always just really excited
about it. So the
Question, there are two paths two things I want to pull on one is great. You want to document that but who are you documenting it for? That's one thread. And then the second thread is there's a clear like a clear pulse of wanting to do something different and wanting to live in like an alternative lifestyle. And so I want to take each of those in turn. So let's take the first one first, which is great. You want to document your rafting and you're climbing and but when you're
Documenting it a you just accumulating slide film and putting it in your drawer or are you know, what was your first sort of
experience? I think initially which was great was because I had the class was giving me purpose behind the photography
got it. So I was lineman always had
assignments. So then when and and and that's everything I think when you're when you're being a photographer you need that purpose. You need like an assignment even it's a self assignment you need to and
Yeah, so that was great and that gave me purpose and then after that I think it was a lot for myself. Yeah, I think it was a lot to show other people and then I think it was also about sharing how again how amazing the world is like the stuff
that Lisa that growing up right beside diversity
and just experience like the places. I'm going to it's just like I want to share that it's just magic, you know, and you want to you want to share that with people and I so a lot of it was
Going to wear a lot of it was going and drawers after college, you know, but I still was so passionate about it. That could not not do it.
So that's fascinating. So if you what's the transition for you because I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the people listening to this and they're they're either bought in and they are already doing the things that you're doing and they say yeah, they're saying yes exactly or they're curious right and they're saying hmm. How do I apply that to my
My world so clearly they has to be this jump off point or this transition where you go from putting your slide film in drawers or you've showed it to a few people. Like here's my, you know, climbing trip and Moab and here's my diving trip in Belize. Yeah, you know dot dot dot fill in other places you've been and seen and things you've done. Yeah.
But hand what's the transition for you from making it from the being a rafting guide? Yeah to identify not necessarily as a guy but as a professional Creator,
right and I get asked this question all the time because that everybody wants to know that secret, right? So for me, I eventually moved to Vancouver Canada and I started working at Mountain Equipment Co-op, which is Canadian version of REI and I
found out who the photography editor was any we became really good friends and I kept asking about the job and asking about the job and like what you know, what's it like and what do you do and all this stuff and then he was leaving and he said hey, you know, this job is coming up as photo editor for Mountain Equipment Co-op and I was like, I don't know if I can get it, but I'm you know, I'm going to apply for it and I ended up getting the job and so I became a photographer photo editor for the company and I work that
Job for years. So I got a that was I would say that connecting point where I was in the back end. I wasn't being a photographer. I was just editing but that was a huge learning curve for me on the back end. Yeah, and then I happen to start dating this paraglider and Bush pilot who was a surfer and Bush pilot in Alaska, and he was just really gregarious guy and he when I started dating him, he would come visit me in Vancouver because he lived down in
Again, and he would say if man this you know office work is sucking your soul like you they called it the cave where I worked in the cave because I was like in the basement of this building and he was just like me and you you know, you got to get out there and live like this is not good and after working there for four years. I had wasn't being challenged anymore. Like I need the job really well and I thought you know, he's right. I'm like, I'm not learning anything anymore, and I'm not challenging.
Myself anymore. It's time to move on and then I was so I quit my job. I packed up all my stuff. It was getting ready to go and we were just going to do a road trip. We were going to drive down the West Coast. We were going to paraglide and Surf and just and I was going to give myself like three for my or who knows. How long just to figure yeah, figure it out right as my last day of work twelve o'clock. He's actually paragliding in Sun Valley and I was going to leave at like 2:00.
I was done. Everybody was saying goodbye and I get a phone call that said he had died like half an hour before in a paragliding accident. And so my life just was like whoa, like this is crazy. And so I went through that whole process of grieving of course, and then I had just quit everything given up my apartment and so I would didn't know what to do and everybody was pressuring to need to just get my job back.
And just get my life back and I was like, I can't do that. I had already closed the doors on that. That would be me working backwards. Yeah, and I can't do that. I need to move forward and I don't know what I'm going to do next. But yeah, I just I got to keep going and so after the funerals and everything, I just decided to do the road trip that we were going to do, but I did it by myself and I just took that time as like healing and grieving process and you know, I don't think you can ever.
Or he'll from a death. It's not you know, there's no definitive point to that. But during those those like critical months or first year after you have a close person that dies like that those are critical months. And so I yeah, I just spent that just being alone and a lot of it being alone and meeting new people who didn't know the backstory. Yeah, which was really really important for my healing process fascinating because if I was around anybody who knew me and knew about
Send his death. They just felt sorry for me and it brought it brought it also moved me backwards. Yeah, and so I kind of wanted to be a well. I definitely want to be around people who didn't know who didn't know my story who didn't know what happened who just treated me like normal. Yeah, and that really really helps me and then I'll try to go through this really quickly, but then I moved to Sun Valley and there's a weird Crescent died and I I was a paraglider.
As well and there was a great paragliding Community there and they didn't treat me any differently there and I just felt really healthy. Anyway, I ended up living there for a little while and then I met another guy who said hey I run a sailboat charters in the South Pacific. Do you want to come with me it and I was like, you know what I've got nothing to lose. I can always I can always come back to whatever I'm doing here, but I can't always have the opportunity to go sale in the South Pacific.
So yeah, I'm gonna go for it and I went and we the boat was on the hard in New Zealand when I went there and we were living out of a box Wagon in the shipyard trying to do all this repair work and I was just like this is
really shitty. It's like not what is this is not a
picture is not good. And then so we did that for a couple months and then so we then then we start our first Charter and
Is 10 days and we were going to Vanuatu and I was he sick the whole time and it was brutal. And then I don't know. I did a TED talk about this but then the very next trip from Vanuatu to feed you. We had to get to feed you because we had some clients coming on board and that was definitely the worst sale I've ever done in my life. We we had we were stocking everything that could go wrong we plotted to
To crash the sink the ship try to get insurance money out of it because we needed it to end it was like the worst. We're it was the worst ten days ever and when I got to Fiji the guy was like I'll never see you again. I know that I know I'll never see you again and it's really funny. I checked myself. I had to get off the boat. It's the way and I checked myself into a hotel just to like a get some sleep. I hadn't eaten for 10 days. You know, we're not
Eating where nothing, you know, and so anyway II I was like, I got to keep going I gotta keep going and I went for 10 years. What? Yeah. Yeah with him with him. No way. Yeah. Yeah,
so you can see the couple nights apart.
No. No, it wasn't it wasn't about that is it was I couldn't I knew if I quit I would regret it. So the boat is a tool for exploration.
Ation, I really hate Salem. I really really hate it and I see sick all the time. But as a tool for exploration, it was just Priceless
and of document and then
so it became my platform for my photography career God because I was in all these different places and all really remote and you know, we were just an incredible places all the time and I was like if I don't take this as an opportunity to be to go back onto the it like the other side of the line.
And start taking pictures. I will regret it for the rest of my life. And I was like this is it
okay before I want to unpack a couple of things in there but transitions us from now you have this platform to explore your taking pictures. How do you then start to call yourself a professional you starting to sell your
work? Yeah. That's so like that took time. It was in that's an interesting process. So I we started have a lot of professional athletes on board. I created with my that partner Vibe we
We sold that boat that Charter Business and I said, I don't want to do Charters anymore. Like it's this is a horrible business model. It's really bad. I don't want to do it. So we sold the boat in Thailand and then he said, okay. Well we said what's next and I said, I don't know but I'm not doing that and so he said, okay. Well, let's try to make a business model where this works and I was like, I don't know if that's possible. So we just it was crazy, but we just were living in Thailand at the time and we just kind of
Wrote down on a piece of paper like all the things that we really hated about the Charter Business and then the things that we loved about being out of sailing around the world and we came up with this business model that was basically like a timeshare which was five-year World kiteboarding Expeditions on catamaran.
And it worked like a timeshare so people would buy into a cabin and it would solve all the downside. It solved all the downside of the previous Charter Business. So we gave ourselves a year and we had sold the boat in yeah in Thailand. So we after Gavin paid off his debt to his dad for that boat. We use the remainder which was like, you know, I don't know fifteen thousand dollars and we gave ourselves a year to put that business model together and we
If we don't sell 70% of our shares because that's what it would take to go in that year. Well, then I'm not gonna do it. Well, it won't work. But hey we tried. Yeah, and we learned a ton in the process. Yeah, and we had nothing to lose at that point and everything to gain and I think that's such an amazing position to be in. Yeah, and we worked we ended up moving to Hood River because that's like one of the the cabinet when you have when Capital so it's like kiteboarding Mecca.
In the United States anyway, and we just worked on trying to raise money to buy a catamaran that we didn't have and we we just worked our asses off trying to do it and then so that year comes up and we were I think 60% sold. So we were selling a dream. We were a hundred percent selling a dream. We didn't even have the asset like that's how crazy it was. We had two dogs two hundred bucks left between the two of us like we were eating canned beans and
You know nothing. Yeah and sleeping on people's couches. And so we then we were 60% and then are we had to notify our members or owners for the timeshare? It was like we didn't make it to 70 we unfortunately we'll have to you know, your mother find your money because we'd put it off shore into an account and just you know didn't touch it. And we said we'll have to remove it won't unfortunately we can't make it go and then finally one of our members just said, what do you need to make it go?
Oh and we said, oh, well, you know we need 20 grand. Well, no, like I was it like a hundred thousand or something and then he's like done and then it just got real it got so real, you know went to Italy we bought a boat within like three days sailed it across the Pacific to Trinidad and Tobago. There was nothing on it. Like all Gavin had was a Leatherman for Tool and we just we just made it go.
And worked our asses off and then it grew and grew and grew and so yeah, that's I don't know. I kind of went off on a side tangent there, but
that's that's part of the narrative. And so how do you translate that
into? Yeah, so part of that business because we were doing kiteboarding trips all the time in remote places. We had a lot of professional athletes come on board and I took that as an opportunity to really with my photography like, oh I can photograph these famous.
Asaf Elites and it's crazy places. So it's like magazines will definitely take that like as be coming from the photo editing side. I know, you know, I kind of knew what would what would work and what would one wouldn't work and then yeah, so I just slowly started submitting two different magazines that I thought were relevant to the work. I was shooting and then they were just slowly starting to get published and then that just that just keeps slowly going and then you know,
You get published more and more and more than the more you get published. And then also I was in I was in places that most people weren't didn't have access to and weren't seeing so that that was also gold it was different content. Yeah, and I think if you have different content that photographed well, it's like it's the secret
sauce right different different not better as well
like the different not better and but not shitty work either for sound so it's
to have that combination to it and it and the thing is that not that my work was really good. But I was always just trying to make it better. I was always just trying to work on how can I make my shots better? I was like constantly analyzing them comparing them to other work I liked and trying to understand composition and go out and work on it, you know just try different things and really and I think that's so important. You know, you just always trying to get better. Well, you know wow.
Understanding, you know the different the content is different but also trying to get better.
I'm sitting here in my mind telling myself weird little story of how freakishly I mentioned a second ago, but freakishly aligned our universes are really so yeah, you you worked at Mountain Equipment Co-op. Yeah. I worked at REI what the way the way that I got into the photo industry was by looking at all the imagery they were using I had I lived in Steamboat before and was taking some photographs.
Submitted them and I got you know, 500 bucks in a pair of skis with one picture, but I went back to Seattle to go to graduate school to do what everybody else thought I should do and I was working in the ski shop part-time and REI and I was looking at all the stuff on the walls and saying like I know I can take better more interesting pictures. These are just generic trash, right? So it was like, how do I be different? Not just better than those folks and it was free. I versus Mountain Equipment Co and I didn't take an actual. Yeah, I had a job, but it was just telling Allah
World. Yeah, no I did not but then fast forward to like I just want to get better and I noticed that it's about having the right people. I was deconstructing the work that it looked liked and it was like amazing cool people who are doing what they love. They were the best in the world at that in Crazy locations that other people weren't really willing to go or didn't have the means to go and I was willing to eat tuna fish and be nice to figure out a way to get to this, you know to the Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland to take pictures.
Or someone do is I am crazy. It's fascinating. Yeah, and so part of what I know about my journey makes me want to ask this next question, which is
there's a gap between when you are then your primary mode of being is in a timeshare parasailing
now, Tara says repair guys are selling the Align button for the
redness paragliding and kitesurfing all the things that you're doing and then there's another one which is the your identity right as a photographer.
And so I think you know, I like think the words that we say to ourselves are very important and the labels that we give ourselves are really important. So talk to me about because there is there a line in the sand where you recognize that you know, and I am a photographer and primarily and the you know, you said earlier the boat was a vehicle what there a shift in your mind at some point where you went from I am a guide on this tour boat or providing these experiences.
For our guests or am I entrepreneur? Yes,
that's what I was at the time. Yeah, and I I didn't intend to be an entrepreneur. It was just it was what I needed to do to go travel around the world on the boat and remote places and do my photography. Yeah, you know take a take advantage of this crazy experience. Yeah. Yeah, there was definitely I would say a few years in I started as my
If you became publish more and more and I started to get more demand that started to consume more of my time. And because it's my passion, I I let it yeah, you know, so then all of a sudden you see the baby's yeah, and and so all of a sudden I was you know for a long time the internet wasn't great in a lot of these places. I remember I was you know, he's going trying to go to shore to try to find some place that had internet and like hiding in bushes with my laptop trying to send out file image files that I mean. Sometimes I'd be there.
Or like, you know 12 hours. Just trying to get a file out and then I was like screw this like I really want to do this. So I you know, I would fly back to the States for a couple months. I started flying back to Seattle actually raise your friend of mine lives some good friend of mine lives in Issaquah. So I'd go hang out in Issaquah and just do like two months of of all that work photography work and then fly back to the boat so that started happening and then and then I I think my self-identity really
It's shifting. Then when people said what he what do you do? I would say I'm a
photographer because I felt more
aligned with that then then the more connected than being an entrepreneur. So yeah crazy fast and then we start to get first. It's a whore like, it feels wrong to say your photographer you feel uncomfortable with it. And then, you know, then then you get tickets more it
gets like anything that this time you try it on.
Yeah. Yeah and you feel like an impostor the whole time like even still
Like, you
know, I don't think yourself. Yeah, I don't know in Boulder judging a photo contest, you know entries in from all over the world. Yeah. Wait a minute. I'm the one who's picking. Yeah, the winner of this thing. I should be the student. I should be submitting right because you
always feel like you're learning for sure never stop. Yeah. That's why it's great.
Okay, so that's I think the first thread that I wanted to explore if you remember the second one was around just the willingness to
To live a non traditional lifestyle but part of that. I need I want to interrupt because you just said this thing about an imposter always learning like how much of that is still true for you today.
I mean, I think I think a lot of it is and I wouldn't say so much in the actually the photography realm and I think it's more on the business side of it round like
I think it's artist. I'm a Suman here, but I think most of us we love do making our art but we don't know anything about the business side of it and then but that's such a huge side of it. Yeah, I mean you can make the greatest photographs in the world. And if you don't get them out into the world properly, you know, nobody's going to know who you are. And then that's the biggest challenge and so for me that's a hundred percent the biggest challenge and but because it's such a large.
Majority of what I do? Yeah. It keeps me in that impostor syndrome all the
time, right you asking for ridiculous rates for who's gonna pay me 50 Grand to do fill in the blank. And then when they write the check, you're
like, yeah, you're like what like I would have slept in the ditch. Yeah, like in suffered typhoid fever to the just probably go do the experience that it's about the experience is right. Yeah.
Alright that's helpful also.
Oh in there, you talked a little bit about submitting your photos and sitting in the bush and sending it, you know photos back. I've been moving back to Issaquah to do that, uh, you know intervals where you can actually interact and makes me want to think about I've heard you say in under other interviews about how people should look at their work and submit it. Right and here we are judging a photo contest and you know from around the world and more Colorado and it occurred to me as I was doing my judging we both reviewed like I don't know how many
They take it from 3,000 down to 500 photographs or something. Right? I saw mistakes there that I was making as a young aspiring artists and to me this isn't about a photography contest, but it's about sort of understanding your own work and how others might see it in this is true. I think for any discipline design or even entrepreneurship and trying to sell or pitch an idea like how important packaging and selection and what you're going to
To focus on what you're going to submit for example, so I've heard you talk a little bit about it. I was intrigued by your answers. I was wondering if you could share because there's so many people who the gap between where they are right now and where they want to be has to do with getting their work in front of the right people, right? So, how did you think about that for your you know transition to becoming a full-time Creator and how do you think about it
now? Well, I can't I think I always emphasize that I can't emphasize it enough. Is that being critical of your own work? I mean, I think that is the most
Important thing that a lot of people don't do very well and it's a really hard thing to do. When you have an emotional
connection you were there at the moment and you were like, I remember what I was thinking and feeling and
people around and experience that was happening
photograph is maybe not the yeah. It doesn't capture that.
Yeah. So I think you know, it's a really hard thing to do, but it's it is so important. I mean only put forth your best work. I mean even get other people to look at it, but not just anybody.
Be like, you know want to get your family and friends and people are just going to praise you for it. You want somebody who's actually critically going to give you honest feedback and has an eye for it to look at it and help you if you're if you're don't feel like you're good at it. And I think it's a challenge for everybody like it's still a challenge for me because again, we have these emotional connections to it, but being a photo editor, I mean you get submitted stuff all the time and people like, you know, our times our most valuable asset on this planet and I
Want to look through 3 400 photographs of the same frame or your whole ski trip or your whole whatever your Expedition is, you know like that. It is to me. It's so hard to take. I actually think it's really hard to take great photographs. You know, when you talk to really amazing photographers, they'll say I'm might have seven out of my whole career that are really great and I firmly believe that because I
I'm so critical of my work that for me to get one that I like is I don't want to say impossible but it's hard. That's right. You know, it's so hard and so, you know, I hear this this comment all the time with oh it everybody's a photographer nowadays, don't you? You know, like how does that make you feel and I said well, yeah, I mean there's a lot of people taking pictures but in my mind there's a lot of people not taking it. Well, yeah, you know
So yeah, and then so I would get all these hundreds of photographs and I was just like you're not you're not putting yourself in my position. And so I think that's one of the things that I always tell people try to Envision yourself being the editor and receiving thousands and thousands like what would you what would stand out in your mind? Like, what would you want you would want to really tight edit which is very telling of the photographer as well. If you can do that be really critical don't waste my time.
Now and I often when I when I was a photo editor people would come up to me all the time. And so even social situation. What do you do and I was like, oh, I'm the photo editor for mac and they'd be like
Oh, I just did this amazing Backcountry ski trip and I have incredible photos from this trip. I'm going to send them to you and I knew instantly that would suck. Yeah, I knew instantly because of somebody's going to tell me they have great photos like a bunch of them like even even doing this, right? Yeah. I'm you knew they were bad, but if somebody came up to me and said, oh I just, you know recently did this, you know Expedition or whatever and I've got some pictures. Could I send them to you? I'd be way more intrigued Yeah by that comment than I ever would buy.
On me they get damaged because I think when you when you become when you evolve as a photographer and you're critical of your work, it is hard to I don't know many people who say they have great their own photographs are great. Yeah, you know, it's just like that's crazy. Yeah my idea.
So that's amazing. I think amazing color the way that you know, if you're the average of The Five People You spend the most time with and if you're like the way that I think and talk about photographs and I want to get your take care.
There is if you send me you know, 10 photographs and three are really good worthy of publishing in something three are mediocre in 3 stock. Semi 9 photographs. Let's say I'm I put you as a photographer in my eye catalog you as a mediocre with maybe some
Talent. Yes, exactly. And then so you're you're you're you're getting there.
Yeah versus if you just sent me those three that are amazing right like oh my God I need
Meet this person. I want to get more of their work. Exactly exactly. Well, you would
probably go in Instagram right away. Yeah, check out their feet. Yeah, it
seems like that is a that criticality is a gap or an opportunity for a lot of people. Who and again we're talking about photography. But this is true with anything in anything creative. Is that especially if you're trying to get your work seen or out there like just put how about how important is put your best
foot forward? Yeah. Yeah and well for this for a photo competitions now,
Now I I judge a few and I wish we would have put the caveat in in the room one don't know photos of Iceland because
there were
even if I see a photo of myself in this like, you know what again? This is a really important thing. It's like don't shoot what everybody else is shooting? Yeah, you know everybody I mean how many photos of Iceland did we see in this
column of the 500 whittled down from 3000 was
probably too long. I know it's an incredibly.
For place I'm not knocking it but you know, that's this
is the time photographs from the same exact location looking at the waterfalls. Like yeah
that I can't donat submit. Don't do whatever you what you're seeing on Instagram. Like do not do that. Yeah follow figure out what's weird about yourself what your little weirdness is
the view that you have my life exactly ancient
exactly because it's all unique and then just start, you know, I was like,
Go off topic a little bit, but I was recently at Adobe Max and I heard this great interview with M Night Shyamalan the director, but he was talking about the creative process and how he's kind of use it as there's two columns. There's one column that of stuff that we create that we have control over and this the column that we don't have control over. So when you create something and put it out into the world you have total control of that, but you don't have control of how
Receive it. Yeah, right. So sometimes you create something and they love it and if you create it again, they love it. And so you start to get a little especially if you're successful you start to get a little jaded where you think that you can control this by doing this and so he you know, he talks about how it's so hard because then you if you make something and then people don't like it then you start to think. Oh do I have to make something where people like
like it and then you start losing yourself, right? Because then you're you're making it for the wrong reasons. And then that's where the worst work ends up coming out now your best work and I thought that was a really interesting way to
think about. How do you manage it?
How do I manage? It's super hard is really really hard. I think especially with social media now and you know comparison really is so bad and I have this Love/Hate relationship with so
Media on the one hand. I really struggle with it and I get a lot of weird feeling sometimes when I look through social media. Like I'm not get you know you I think it evokes those senses of jealousy and you know, oh I need to be doing that and not enough and yeah, you know and I think the very nature of social medias to it's not enough right?
So totally we're social animals also our chemistry is
Find to try and get us to fit in
but at the same time it's this amazing tool to share stories and you know a storytelling tool that is incredibly powerful. So yeah, I have this really love hate relationship with it. And I think how I try to check myself in those boxes is a lot of times is kind of like taking a break from social media and and revisiting like my core.
Values and what I really like what really gets me fired up. I'm a big proponent of listening to that's the thing in you when you see something that gets you really excited a lot of time you got to pay attention to it, you know, a lot of people don't pay
attention to it. We actually taught to ignore
it exactly exactly but I I try to really hone in on that if I noticed myself like really excited or happy by looking at something or experiencing something or hearing something I try to
I too like wait a second. I got to pay attention to this. Like what is it? And then I try to analyze it I try to think about what is it about this that gets me like what boxes is this checking and then so when I'm to try to keep myself in this column, I'm trying to revisit those those core things that get me really excited whatever they are. And what's really important to me. And another way that I do it is. My brother is actually a bush pilot in Alaska and
Lives off the grid and he is the most amazing human on the planet and he lives this incredible life and for me whenever I get I go there to get a to get a reset because he just spending time there and you kind of really learn what's really important and what to focus on and every time I come back from there, I'm always like oh, yeah. Okay. I can shut out the bullshit now. Yeah, I can I can focus
speaking of
Reset, yeah, you recently had a major resetter you're in process, right? Yeah, rather process of sort of re-establishing a new true north or I don't want to put words around. I'm gathering from conversations that we had before we started recording. I'm wondering if you can walk us through the process that you just went through after deciding to well. I'll just leave it at that. So you're in the middle of a reset. What is what is a reset?
And and was it voluntary or involuntary because we all go through this and I'm trying to help you know in the in your particular story. There's so many people who are listening who are going through a transition in your life. And and as someone who's achieved as much as you had achieved and lived this extraordinary non-traditional life, what does a reset look like in King? Tell us about yours?
Yeah. I mean, I don't I mean, I don't know if it's a reset. It's just the word I'm using because it feels it seems like the most appropriate word.
Word. But yeah, I'm having I having a crazy year this year in this this summer. I was I ended up breaking my tailbone. I was train hopping for a research for this project. I fell off the train and I broke my tailbone and then I was recovering from that and I earlier in the year. I had started not feeling very well and I had a ruptured ovarian cyst and which when
Options causes a ton of pain so I went to the doctor got an ultrasound and he said oh, you've got a couple of other sis, but, you know most women get them and they just go away on their own and so just keep an eye on it. And anyway, so then I think over the year. It's been a up and down of me feeling. Okay and not okay and I kept thinking I was a very insists and then I broke my tailbone and and then finally a few months ago. I was like something's really wrong like
Like I don't I don't know if it's assists or what it is. But something's really wrong and then went and got an ultrasound and they found like two gallons of ascites in my abdomen which is Al is a fluid which is commonly associated with the tumor. And then so I got a CAT scan and they found a tumor. Yeah off my ovary and then so they basically said like I you know, I have anywhere from one to four years to live.
And we don't know for sure until we operate and remove the tumor and do pathology on it and they told me in the middle of the operation. Yeah, we won't know until we get it out and when you know, right then we'll know yes or no if it's malignant or benign and if it's malignant will have to remove, you know, give you a full hysterectomy and remove whatever else we think we need to remove and then I came out of the operation and they you know, I said doc like what?
The status you know, what's he's like, well, we still don't know. He's like we have to send it back you promised you told ya I mean, you know, there's it's so stressful going into that situation because it's just the unknown right? It's just - I mean, I normally love the unknown but when it's with your health, it's like yeah, it's really really really scary. And then so yeah coming out. I was like, what do you mean you don't know and he said yeah, we don't know we got to send it to Harvard to get it, you know looked at more.
SLI and he said now probably take about two weeks and I was like what like what you know, I got a you know, wait two weeks and you know potentially go back in
and helmets of life or death. Yeah weeks is
like, oh man, it's yeah and then finally I want then I had internal bleeding and then they had to open me back up and give me some blood transfusions. And so the recovery from that was was really brutal and then and then ten days later he called me and he's like you're you know, it's totally benign your
You're okay. Have a good night. Have a good life. Yeah, it would just you know from one moment. I had ovarian cyst to one to four years to live to. Oh, no your we got everything else. It's all good. You're going to be okay.
All right, so I'm gonna now ask the question. I think it's on certainly on my mind that I'm guessing. It's on our listeners Minds. So you have lost some people Close to You Chris in particular you then took that trip and that led to the best stuff in your life living a different life than getting out of the cave that you were into the photo editor.
Right, and now you were faced with your own mortality and you've just now come out of that you realize that you in fact aren't going to dine you don't you have more than one to four years to
live right? Well, then, I'm actually okay. Yeah like that.
So what you know, what about those moments has how do you look at those moments? Are you acutely aware of them now are you looking at?
A defining or are they important or not important? And what are you going to do differently now that you've had those
experiences? Yeah. I mean it was it was really funny as I was starting to heal and just kind of the initial stages of leaving my house. The people that started leaving your house would go because I can Chris is no no with this recent operation with the tumor. Yeah, sorry.
Yeah, I was recovering and I was stuck in my house for a while covering. I started leaving and then the people who found out about my tumor started feeling sorry for me and I triggered it was so much a trigger. Oh wow of when I was recovering from from Chris's death, and it instantly it was funny because instinctually I was like what like I don't want you to feel sorry for me like you don't understand. I have a renewed sense of living and life.
That is invaluable. It's precious gift precious precious precious because you can't no amount of money can buy this you can't make this up like you there's nothing you can do to get this fundamental deep life lesson of how you know, how short life is how pressured how precious it is and how to like not waste your time on things that make you unhappy, you know, I think and I knew that
That with Chris's death and that that was one of Hit the greatest gifts. I got from his death. It was incredibly hard, but it was one of the greatest gifts and again that ties into my sailing like I seasick for ten years man. That is that sucks. But you know what it was the most profound. I learned so many incredible lessons from that and and then again during this tumor thing and get you know, I'm really really really fortunate.
To come out of it unscathed. I know a lot of people don't and but the fact that I did it it, you know, we need these reminders. I knew I knew it from Chris but you know as time, you know, one of the one of the things as humans we do really well is it dapped so you very quickly kind of in doubt adapt into your old ways again. So this was just another wake-up call for me. I knew it and I knew it but this is like it's a fundamental reminder and it was
For me it was looking back and go. Okay, Jody, you gotta stop do again. Stop with the bullshit like realist. Let's just reset. Let's revisit. What do you really want to be working on? Where do you really want to spend your time on? Who do you want to spend it with? You know, the experience is what kind of experiences do you want to have? So I'm I'm yeah definitely in that place right now, and I'm really really fortunate to be in that place. I'd it is precious. This is a precious time for me.
Right now and I'm really excited because it really does feel like oh, yeah the world's my oyster. What do I you know, what am I gonna do? You know that that has the most meaning for me and hopefully, you know, meaning for other people as
well amazing. So while you're in this process of evaluating your next steps, I want people to be able to track you and follow you on the internet and through the next challenge.
In chapter of your life. So what are some coordinates some places where people can go to track and listen and find out what you're up
to? Yeah, I would say the main one now is Instagram and that's at Jody McDonald photo to photo of Donald or McDonough. It's Mac. It's a Mac Donald. I'm Scottish, not Irish Twitter at Jody photo/video dir. Why why Jody
Weis? I know these things I'm just getting yeah,
Jody.
Donald photography.com is my website. So, you know, if you hit any of those you will you will find
me. Thank you so much for sharing this great story and it's incredibly inspirational and thanks for helping us understand that the hardest parts in life. There's the biggest and most powerful messages. We got to learn to look at those.
Yeah also is so great chatting with you. It was so it was a lot of fun. I could keep chatting about the stuff forever. So
thank you and and Folks at home, you know where to find Jody's work now and
You also do so much with conservation and awareness and with a handful of different projects. So if you want to get involved and help support her there are lots of mechanism for doing so in your world and Instagram and on your website. Thanks so much for sitting down with us and and here in Boulder. I'm looking forward to tonight's.
Yeah. I'll be fine. Thanks, Jason.
Thank you.
All right, that about wraps it up. But hey before you bounce two quick things actually I'm going to go three quick things thing one a thank you so much for being a part of this community and I'm not quite sure how you land on this podcast. It doesn't matter to me the fact that we're all in this together and that were able to have a conversation is awesome. I feel honored to be in your ears right now and that you've paid attention to what I've been doing what creative lives been doing for some time and whether it's been a day or 10 years. I just want to say thank you. It's also really important to know.
The back that that I'd do a lot of responding to comments. So hit me up on, you know direct message me on on Instagram or Twitter or at me. I try and respond as much as possible. So let's have a conversation that transcends me just being in your ears here. Let's try and do it somewhere out there and on the internet land that's thing one thing two again. I'm not quite sure what channel's you pay attention to me and my work but please go check out. I'm at Chase Jarvis or / Chase drivers or whatever on all the platforms and it's really important to me.
Also, if you wouldn't mind checking how creative live it's something that not only myself but a hundred and twenty other committed hardcore badass people come to work every day to build the place where creators and entrepreneurs learn. So check that out there just slash CreativeLive or a crate of live all over out there on the internet. All right until again, probably tomorrow. I hope I'll hear you. I'll be in your ears maybe tomorrow and I'll look for comments on the internet's. Bye.
