The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Empowering Women Through Outdoor Skills and Connection Retreats with Kiara Loucks

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Empowering Women Through Outdoor Skills and Connection Retreats with Kiara Loucks Heroutdoorjourney.com About the Guest(s): Kiara Loucks is a distinguished corporate athlete who has represented the U.S. and Canadian bobsled teams globally. She plays a significant role in the ad tech industry, engaging in data modeling for major corporations. Her athletic journey extends to bodybuilding and Olympic weightlifting at national levels. Recently, Kira has partnered with Her Outdoor Journey, a unique initiative that empowers women through outdoor skills and experiences. This collaboration exemplifies her commitment to teaching survival skills to women in both urban and wilderness settings, allowing them to gain confidence and independence. Episode Summary: In this episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss engages with Kiara Loucks about her multifaceted career and her recent collaboration with Her Outdoor Journey. The discussion spotlights Kiara Loucks's experiences as a corporate athlete and insights into the world of ad tech. Listeners are taken on an enlightening journey through the expansive realms of physical endurance, corporate achievements, and survival skills designed to empower women. Kiara Loucks dives into the mission of Her Outdoor Journey, detailing how the organization is revolutionizing women’s engagement with nature through survival retreats and skill-building workshops. From fire-starting to foraging, these retreats offer practical teachings that lead to increased confidence and preparedness for unpredictability, such as natural disasters or personal crises. With Kiara Loucks's unique perspective on suffering with grace, the podcast illustrates the transformative impact of marrying athletic discipline with outdoor competence, ensuring women are equipped for various challenges life may present. Key Takeaways: Her Outdoor Journey empowers women by equipping them with valuable outdoor survival skills for both urban and wilderness settings. Learning survival skills can significantly boost confidence, leading to a sense of agency and autonomy in unpredictable scenarios. Kiara Loucks emphasizes the importance of incorporating survival skills into daily life routines for mental resilience and preparedness. Personal growth opportunities at Her Outdoor Journey retreats can provide unique settings for building profound connections and fostering community. The potential to leverage skills learned in environments void of technology fosters a deeper understanding of human connections, away from the distractions of digital devices. Notable Quotes: "The theme throughout it all is, for some reason I think God put me here to learn how to suffer and how to suffer with grace and to share that insight with other people." "We want to connect these women who maybe are just getting into it with the women who have been in it and develop those relationships and make the semblance of a community." "It's so important whether you're male or female… to expose yourself to situations where you have to creatively problem solve." "Once you turn that off and you turn a different part of your brain on, which is that part that connects with other people, it is so much fun." "Having these baselines that you can come back to, whether it's a skillset or a routine, because life is extremely hard for everyone."

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Because you're about to go on a moment. monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Osses Voss here from thecris Foss Show.com. Well, ladies, gentlemen, and our lady sings in the mix official, welcome to 16 years, 24 and episodes of the Chris Foss show. As always, we're always having fun over here and doing our things, but help us share the show with your family, friends, and relatives.

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Kiera Luke's joins us on the show. She's a corporate athlete. Kiera, did I get your name right? You absolutely did. And it's so good to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. We really appreciate.

Give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Yeah, easy enough. You can actually find me at kiara.lux at on Instagram or kiarlauqs.com. So give us a 30,000 overview of what you guys do there at her outdoor journey. Yeah, so I've actually just recently partnered up with her outdoor journey. I'm believing that there's a link that'll go out as well in the episode link. However, I really started a ways back as an athlete always have been at an extremely high level.

So I've competed all over the world, including on the U.S. and Canadian bobsled teams. I'm also very high up in the world of ad tech. So if you think of any advertisement you've ever received on your phone or TV, whether that's in a social media environment or elsewhere, I do all of the data modeling on the back end of that for major corporations and holding companies around the world while competing at a high level. So like I mentioned, have been on Olympic teams, have competitively competed in national, national showings for bodybuilding, Olympic weightlifting, you name it, have kind of been all

over. The theme throughout it all is for some reason I think God put me here to learn how to suffer and how to suffer with grace and to share that insight with other people. So my story has really been written with unfortunate events. I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. That has forced me to kind of refine my reaction, my preparedness for those things, both mentally and physically. And that's really translated well to a transition here, actually, in the backwoods of Montana right now. Yeah, and I'm very thankful that we have Wi-Fi. I didn't know for sure if that would happen with the group that you just mentioned, which is her outdoor journey. And they actually specialize in taking care of our women population, really showing them how to have agency

over their own survival, whether that's in an urban setting or here in the backwoods. So everything from hunting, gathering, foraging for food, setting up shelter, understanding safety, and the function of firearms, you name it. This group is absolutely phenomenal, so I'm really happy to be here and actually promoting them as I've recently partnered up with them to help from a strategic direction. So is that helpful? That is definitely helpful. You got it all nailed down there.

Yeah. You got to love it. So this organization basically helps women. You guys go out and teach them on retreats and events that you hold where people can, where they can go, they can learn some of the different aspects of adventure, horse trips, wellness trips, some of it's guided hunting and fishing trips, archery camps, and meet and greets. Yeah, so it's all headed up by Courtney, and she's a world-renowned outdoors woman, phenomenal hunter, and she's sitting down on the lawn now, teaching some ladies how to build shelter with little space blankets. So, yeah, just a phenomenal group of women. What a great picture you guys have here on the front cover of the events. You've got all you guys in two boats, and then there's a grizzlese pair of you guys on them.

Their adventures are absolutely highly, and I can only speak to a few of them because my time with them has been short to be. But, yeah, they're all over from Alaska to Montana to tropical environments, you name it. And Colorado, they're all over. Yeah, being close to these beautiful animals, these grizzly bears or bears, I'm not sure what type of bear it is. But, I mean, do you get paid to be in that pick? So that's awesome. You wouldn't even have to pay me to be in a picture like that. Oh, yeah, yeah, with that grizzly bear there?

Oh, man, he's just sitting there going, why are these two boats of women hanging out here? Yeah, so fun enough, we actually are, it's just the opening of elk season up here in Montana. We're trying to get one before tomorrow because we're taking the ladies through a butchery class. So somehow getting an animal out in the wild, how do you dress it, how do you eat it, how do you prepare it, and how do you cut that carcass up in a way that's usable to you and your family if you should need it? Yeah, I have my elk steak medium well, or medium, no, not meeting well, Jesus, what are I? I would say, savage, medium rare. Medium rare.

Now. Medium rare. I don't know. You might eat elk maybe more rare than medium rare. I don't know. Very similar to a beefsteak. Yeah. I've had ranch elk that was raised on ranches in Australia, I think.

Okay. I haven't in Wyoming at Jackson Hole. Oh, that sounds terrible. It's really hard to, you know, live there in that environment of beautiful food and a lot of cool people. But no, that's awesome. Do you find, I mean, what are the lot of the women that are drawn to this sort of thing? I mean, you know, some women are like, ooh, fishing and, you know, they, you know, if you put a fish up on your Tinder profile, it guarantees your loneliness is a man for eternity. That's very true.

From what I understand. I do think it might be different for women, though. Yeah. Well, yeah, I've, and I've actually, I live in Utah and I've been on Tinder, and there's actually some women that will put up their fishing shots. And I'm like, wait, this is a double standard. Exactly. Yeah, no, it's super interesting, actually. And I think that there is a misnomer around the persona who engages with events like this.

And there's a stigma, especially with women, maybe more intimidation than there is stigma about that avatar, about who would be, you know, down in the grass building a shelter right now. But I think what we've seen is a really cool evolution, maybe even in the last five years since COVID, whereas I think there was a lot of complacency before to be comfortable with, you know, maybe it's a spouse who's. a caregiver or someone that you rely on to provide for you, whether it's safety, shelter, food, or anything else. However, in the last five years, I think we've come to realize a lot is unpredictable, whether it's natural disasters or pandemics or anything in between. And so now we're starting to see more of a magnetism across the board of demographics within that female population who are attracted to events like this. So I can tell you on an event like this, where you would maybe read the description and see that they're shooting or, you know, talk about hunting and

fishing and you've never done it. You didn't grow up around it. It's very uncomfortable for you and you think it wouldn't be something for you, even though it says beginner. There are women here who have hiked or just enjoy being outside and they want to learn just in case. What if you do stray from the path and you can't find your way back? So what does that look like from a survival standpoint, how do you provide for yourself? How do you take care of yourself? And then even from the firearm standpoint, so I think there is, again, a ton of stigma in our culture right now here in the U.S. around firearms. And that's okay. This is not commentary on either side of the political spectrum. However, knowing that you have a tool at your disposal and it is a tool to be used, whether it's in

the back country and there's an animal that you cannot defend your own. yourself with these guys, what are you going to do? Or it's in an urban setting. And as a last resort, that is a tool that you need to rely on to protect you or your kids. It's much better to go into those circumstances knowing and understand how to operate those tools that we have than to say there's a staggering statistic among men and women who get concealed carry licenses and then never get training to understand how to use them. So now you have people carrying them concealed on their purse and not knowing how to safely operate one or the steps to avoid ever needing to use one, yet they're out there in society carrying them. So all that to say, there is the

whole spectrum. We have women down there who shot a gun for the first time in their lives after about 12 hours of education this week. We have women who are professional backwoods hunters. So it's anything in the gambit, if you have interest in this vertical, if you enjoy, being outside, we strongly encourage you to look at any of the programs we have and not all include firearms. So there are some that focus a little bit more on survival or we have mother or daughter retreats on the coast where you have back riding with your mom. I mean, it's just really getting people out back into nature to primally connect with one another at the end of the day. And it is also talking about the use, the functional use of things like hunting

and fishing to break down some of the stigmas and really understand from a conservation standpoint from several different areas and lenses, how it serves a purpose still in our society. So does that answer your question? Boy, that sure does. Very thoroughly. You know, you have archery too, so people can learn that. I know. I've seen a lot of...

I've picked up a bow. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen a lot of women that great archers. In fact, I was seeing the one, she goes to, like, games and stuff, the NFL and stuff. and she can she's like almost a ballet sort of gymnast sort of gal and she can shoot the bow and arrow curving back with her feet oh my gosh yeah it's like really talented i don't think any of us are quite on that level so don't be intimidated for not just like okay well i don't think i'm ever doing

that move because my spine will go out but uh yeah it's it's pretty cool now so how often do you guys hold these retreats? Yeah, so we actually only have a couple left for the fiscal year of 2025 before we start getting into planning around October for what's going to come down the pipe next year. I can tell you that we have seen increased interest in a lot of these events. This is one of our longer events, so it is a little bit more difficult for, say, the moms and ladies who have really demanding jobs. This is like six days. We do also have ones that are, say, two, three days, a little bit shorter, but really content packed. I can't remember what your question was.

How do you guys do? Okay. So, yeah, maybe once, maybe once a month, every other month, somewhere in that time frame, usually only a couple weeks between events. And then you guys have a podcast as well. So you guys talk about some of the things you're doing on the podcast there? Yeah, absolutely. So that's definitely more in our founder's vein.

Her name is Courtney Preet, and she's just a phenomenal outdoors woman. But she'll talk to everything from actual tactical strategies, whether it's for survival or otherwise she'll interview incredibly powerful women in the community who may specialize in a niche. So whether that is anglers of the world or the fisher woman or you have the survivalists who can really help with all of your go bag items and setup, or it's things in different journeys that Courtney herself has been on. She's traveled all over the world, primarily hunts in the backwoods of Alaska, actually, but she's made it down even to the furthest parts of news for different hunts and understands all of the different nuances to those environments.

So it's an incredibly fascinating story, whether you're male or female, very practical applications. Well, you can get involved with all the different variants and stuff like that. And, you know, learning new skills is kind of fun. It's kind of fun to know that you can learn skills that, like, if you had to survive, you could. Absolutely. And they're not difficult.

I think it's funny to watch women light up. For example, we are learning how to build a fire. And so I think probably majority of your audience has never actually built a fire. It's usually a flip switch or someone else has the cool party trick. They can light the fire. But if your life depends on it, are you able to light a fire? And it's truly not that difficult. But it is super fun showing ladies how to use things like a ferro rod, which you can generate a spark with in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a knife.

And now you have your fire and you understand how to kind of piece it all together. But it sounds complex in certain areas. Some of them are incredibly nuanced. By and large, surviving safety protocols, things are very much like something you could teach to a small kid. So a lot of these women are moms. So gun safety we talk about through the application of nerve guns. If you're handing a nerve gun, you should have them operate it like it is going to hurt someone. So they're not going to point it at people or anything that they don't mean to destroy or kill.

understanding safety around those items as a parent. So it is actually really easy to digest, especially because you get to put your hands on it and do it right there on the spot. So it's very cool. That's really neat. You know, it's 20, 25 people, and AI is coming. So we all got to be ready for the Terminator.

That and you see floods left and right and see. Yeah, floods, left and right, lions and tigers and bears. Exactly. And you cannot count on EMS or first responders to be there when something like that happens. Especially if you're in the backwoods, yeah. And then you've got the Terminator bots, the AI Terminator bots bearing down, and you know, you've got to keep running. Exactly.

It's kind of where we're at in 2025. You never know. You know, inflation's coming with with 2025. So I've been happy that I learn how to do intermittent fasting. So having these skills really helps, you know, that way I can avoid the breadlines. Oh, yeah, I just need some protein drinks to keep me going. But, no, learning to start of fire, you know, staying warm, surviving, you know, shelter. You know, there's all sorts of these tornadoes and hurricanes and all sorts of things that come in.

And they can really tear up a whole town overnight. And there's no shelter. There's no, their car is gone, you know. You might have to figure out how to survive a day or two until FEMA shows up or, you know. And some of these things are really important. Dress a wound. Maybe do you guys get into some of that stuff? Yes.

The boys got how to dress wounds and turn to get some of that. While we have dinner here in a bit, we will be talking about what are the critical items you should have in your medical kit. Someone get injured or have an allergic reaction to something. We also take the ladies. We yesterday went out with a phenomenal woman named Jess Caldwell. She has her own business as well. Survivorist has been on several shows. Just outside of that, loves the outdoors and has a great appreciation and knowledge for it.

So she took us on about two-hour walk just here in the mountains, not planned, and you take a couple steps, then you identify what that plant is, what you can use it for? Is it edible? Is it not edible? How do you harvest it? And if it is medicinal, how can you apply it to a wound, like an abrasion? Also, how do you test if you're allergic to it before you take a big chomp out of it? So, yeah, definitely super practical. You lean in and you roll around for a bit and hope it's not poison ivy. Yes, exactly. 100%. That was what we learned yesterday, the hard way. Got that poison ivy the hard way before. Usually it was snipe hunting in our Boy Scouts thing.

Someone would always end up in the Poison Ivy. Yeah. Do you guys ever do the snipe hunting? I don't personally. I think some of the other ladies who are here do. They're all getting ready for the fall hunting season. A lot of them in way. So you know what snipe hunting is?

What you do, we used to play this game in Boy Scouts. You wait till night when everything's dark. Okay. And then you find the new members of the troop that you need to haze. Okay. And you take them snipe hunting. You tell them you're going to go hunting for snipes. And they're just out in the bushes.

And so what you do is you've got to go walk around in the dark and just yell, snip, snip, snipe, here's snipe. And then as the nubes go out and do that, you all do that with them. But then you all sneak back into the camp and laugh at the campfire. And so you just hear them wandering around the hillsides getting lost and wandering through the poison ivy yelling snipe here. No, I will say as funny as that is, and I do have an appreciation for it. We are incredibly gentle here. So there is a ton of respect because a lot of these ladies are coming out being vulnerable,

owning that they've never done any of this. So if you even so much as, you know, make a snide comment or sarcastic remark, you never get to land with someone. And we don't want to the lady's off. So we see that, like, the third trip. And then we started using people, yeah. Well, if you go's full Karen on the trip, but I'm sure they don't, just do the snipe hunt with them.

Yeah, yeah, we'll keep that in the pocket. There are some that come out. And we're using cues, folks, when you're out the event. I don't know, we used to have so much fun with that. It was always the new guy. We're going to be a snipe hunt. What's a snipe? You'll find out.

Man, you guys had way more fun in Boy Scouts than we had in Girl Scouts. Yeah, you know all boys. You got better snacks? Yeah, you guys have better snacks probably. And yeah, I don't know. You know, if I ever had a wife or girlfriend who knew how to carve something up, like a bear or an elk or something like that, I'd probably mind my piece of cues around her.

Exactly. You're going to watch out. She knows how to bag me, cut me up into pieces and bag me. I think the other cool piece that we see that's a little bit more anecdotal is that women walk out of these camps and these retreats with their shoulders a little bit broader, their chin a little bit higher, your chest out, I think there's a ton of confidence that you can take care of yourself if you had to and learn something new, proving to yourself that you're able to learn something new that's really out of your comfort zone, especially,

you have a nice little dose of confidence on your way out the door and you probably want a little bit more. So it's a cool opportunity, I think that there are very few of anymore. Now, you know, knowing, you know, having these tools and skills, I mean, this is one of the things we learn when we fail or things happen to us and recover from them is we get those tools and then the next time you know stuff happens to us we have more resilience and we're more you know like hey i i can survive this i survived it before come at me bro worse the last time so exactly yep a hundred percent i mean that's what you have to do is like back at your track record and you're willing to look at yourself in the mirror and say i'm still here i made it through the last thing

we're going to make it through this thing, even if it's not fun. Yeah. And this way you're good with a knife. And that's the plus side. Yep, you'd always like to be better off knowing how to you know. That's true. That's true. You guys do wellness retreats too as well where people can go there and do a deep

relaxation and self-care, meditation, breathwork, things of that nature. Women tend to really enjoy those things. Yeah, and I think honestly everyone does if they're willing to admit it. But you have events that are not focused on. any of the tactical applications. It's much more of a mindfulness concept, more holistic wellness. So there is one actually coming up on the 20th of August in Colorado, the beautiful rocky mountains. It's actually an equine retreat. So you're going to go up in the mountains. If you were to go on the trip, hang out with some beautiful mountain horses, do some horseback

riding. We got yoga. We have journaling, guided meditation. You name it. Really just getting women to connect both with themselves and with nature. So opportunities really for everyone. We just want to get people outside, talk with each other, and putting this thing down. Damn. There's some gals on here that are holding some giant. They look like they might be trout, a rainbow trout. Oh, they are. These are some of the rest of women.

Let me tell us. Those are huge. And I don't know if this is sea fishing or if this is lake fishing in a really big lake. I can't see the shore. But yeah, really cool stuff. You guys are hunting, archering, you know, learning all this thing. What's the big vision for this? I imagine to expand and hold.

more events and get more women out, I guess. Yeah. So actually, in comes the conversation of how I kind of ended up here and how I'm really representing them. I make no money from them to date as of this very date. But my career has really been a blessing in that I've picked up skills to help other businesses grow, scale, impact more people with missions like this that are extremely powerful.

So what the vision is, I would probably have to corner, Courtney, I don't want to speak on her behalf. However, generally speaking, this is getting as many women out into nature as possible to understand what it provides for us, how to sustain ourselves in it, how to survive in it, how to connect with other women again. So one of the coolest things, we have 10 ladies down there who had never met. And you watch these connections form because we truly on this trip have zero service. So we are setting up fire and you get to know people extremely well when you're around these environments where you're learning new things around a campfire, you're eating breakfast together. It's very much a camp-like environment on this one specifically, but we want to connect

these women who maybe are just getting into it with the women who have been in it and develop those relationships and make the semblance of a community who can enjoy the outdoors together, educate one another, and kind of dive down this rabbit hole together. So it's really getting this to as many women as possible. It's opening up more events. It's opening up more geography. It's opening up more geographies, more of the activities that women want to know or learn that we get feedback from. So butchery, I do believe this is their first butchery course. So like I said, they literally downed an elk. They're going to actually bring it back up here. And then tomorrow we're going to sit down with the ladies and kind of talk through what are the different cuts, how to feel

dress. What do you do if you actually get an elk to prevent a bear, you know, another animal a predator eating it. So how do you sling that thing up in a tree if it's a, you know, a thousand plus pound animal and all you have is a big bag and some rope. But you got to get it off the ground and you got to keep it away from the tree so that those animals don't climb up the tree and then eat it. That's a new one based off of feedback. So it's just really expanding the program offerings and accessibility.

I noticed that the mother daughter is sold out. That's probably really popular. We have actually a lot of them sell out. And to note, these are not massive groups of 20, 30, 40 women. This is an extremely intimate environment. So it does sell out whether it's a solo trip like this, people come with their friends, though, too, or a mother-daughter where you're taking up to a friend. So it's really pretty intimate.

And that's so that the teacher-student ratio is as lean as possible, and the constant absorption is as high as possible. do people have a hard time live without their phones? We actually had the internet go down here at the house. I think it was yesterday or the day before for like three hours. They had, I don't know, somebody hit a poll or some crap. And so we were down

for like three hours. Yeah. And, well, I was like, I didn't know what to do with myself. I was hard time. You got to get creative. I'll tell you that. You can play pick up six. At least I, you know, I got my cell phone with AT&T, so you know, I could at least use my phone. But, you know, if you're

out there, like you said, with no service, There's literally nothing but this very room in this very spot that the Wi-Fi happens to work in this one cabin. Really? It's an adjustment. I think kind of like when you go on vacation, even if you do have your phone, it might take you a day or two just to turn your brain kind of off to enjoy the vacation that you paid a ton of money for and that you've had to run away to. Very similar concept. And for people who haven't ever actually gotten away from their phone for any extended period of time, it takes a second. it's uncomfortable you feel like you might be messing out on something extremely important

and that does not include major news like breaking news because nine times out of 10 it does not affect you so it's understanding that life goes on it's okay if that thing is off excuse me but once you kind of turn that off and you turn a different part of your brain on which is that part that connects with other people it is so much fun getting to learn all of these all of the back stories behind the women that come out here why they're here what their favorite part was that stood out to them we have so many deer here it's outrageous so we've been playing with the deer and practicing our new skills and last night before we had a fire downstairs just this is actually a functional cabin and they have a restaurant

on the first floor where well is out of town we're up in the mountains but it is a place people sometimes frequent for dinner we had a random visitor who was actually the son of evil caneval it was evil can you know entertainment is in no short supply if you can just put this thing down and learn to see where the opportunities are for that entertainment and connection and you know we found with environments like this we used to do we used to do a little get-together at different events with our friends that were in technology at c s and south by southwest we go up to uh yeah we go up to uh yeah yeah old gary uh shapiro who runs it is on our show. We're good friends. I think he's been a show out of Las Vegas. Huh? Out in Las Vegas? Yeah, out of Las Vegas.

And we used to hold one up in Jackson, not Jackson Hole, in Idaho, Sun Valley. Yeah. Up at the hotel where the billionaires hang out at the Allen meeting. And so we would hold these small groups, usually they're about eight to ten people, and we call them serendipity groups. And we'd always invite an artist. and but these little groups everyone put their phone away and these little groups would get together and the serendipity of just making new friends for sometimes a lifetime interacting being human

you know just there was just magic that comes from that scenario getting rid of the phones getting rid of the notifications and crap and you know learning about other people sometimes people get up and share stories and do stuff and i'm sure there's probably some of that goes on with some of the interactions you have. You know, one of the problems I have is we have huge dating groups and we hold these meetups for dating. And when people come to the meetups,

a lot of times they just sit and look at their phone, both men and women. And you're just like, hey, put the phone down. You guys need to mingle. And a lot of people are afraid to come out. They're afraid to socialize other people. I think COVID had a real big case of that. So eventually

struggling as a society pre-COVID to actually genuinely find connection with other people because of the phone, because of social media, very quick reactionary engagements with people where we don't know how to initiate a conversation. We don't know how to ask questions. But as soon as we do, I think two things happen and tell me if you've seen something different with your seredipity groups. But I think you realize, first off, you have so much in common with nearly everyone.

Like it takes a lot of work to find someone. You don't have at least one thing in common with. And those conversations are so powerful because you realize. maybe you've had similar circumstances in life, but you've processed them differently, and you've picked up now something from someone else that can help you in those situations. The second is the seven degrees of separation. So you find opportunities where you may know mutual people and you just had never connected one-on-one yourselves, but you realize how small the world is and how important that connection is with those other people. Yeah. It really does make a difference.

And we talk about this all the time in our dating groups. You know, people, you need to build these skills because if you can't interact with people on an intimate basis, I'm not talking sexually, you know, just, just have a, you know, a conversation about another human being and connecting and, you know, giving them a hug and you're sharing experiences together and your, you're, overcoming challenges, you know, out there in the woods, that builds character. And it gives you muscles and, you know, this whole phone thing, I just hate it. It's everywhere you go. It is why you can make a great career in sales. at this day and age

because no one can talk to someone let alone tell them on something. Oh, yeah. I mean, you even try calling dates to set up a date and they're just like, well, I'm afraid to get on the phone. And you're like, how are you going to function in a relationship?

Yeah. Are you just going to text together? Whether it's a friend or a potential spouse. Yeah. And I think we see all these really fragmented relationships because of that. And so I think going out and doing these things, getting rid of that durn phone for a while,

get a, you know, So many people are addicted to the dopamine hit, you know, the foma of, oh, what's that ping? And so, you know, and then getting these life skills because, you know, you never know what's going to happen. I mean, you know, right now it's 2025 and Putin and Trump are busy in Alaska. You know, everyone's threatened nuclear war and nuclear this, that, you know. I had no idea. This told me and, you know, how much our lives probably are different because of it, probably very minimally.

In fact, if nuclear drops happen, you probably got the best position right now to be. I'm very confident. Way from ground there, hopefully. Yeah. So anything more you want to discuss or tease out about what you guys do there and how you do it? Yeah, I think whether you find a program like her outdoor journey or you find another program or it's a simple routine that you implement in your daily habits, I think it's so important, whether you're male or female, this goes for everybody to expose yourself to situations where you have to creatively problem solve.

You have to kind of put yourself in a place. of agency. So you're comfortable flexing that muscle. And so I really encourage people even prior to my joining up with this group to really find those opportunities, whether it's a daily routine in the morning where you're able to physically move yourself. You're nourishing your body with good foods. You're getting outside and getting sunlight. I think some people may take that to the extreme now because we hear all these people with 10 hour routines in the morning. That's not necessary. But I think just having these baselines that you can come back to, whether it's a skill set, or routine because life is extremely hard for everyone. So I have tons of experience,

both in my family nucleus and otherwise with mental health. And I think the conversation around having the resources before someone is at risk of potentially heart harming or hurting themselves because life is so hard, it's a critical conversation that a lot of us are missing out on because it's uncomfortable. But something is, you know, maybe silly to you as coming out to the outdoors and learning some skills can really help put you in a position to take agency in other areas of your life. So things like your workouts that you haven't been doing, but you know you don't feel well. So maybe we start moving just intentionally every day and it's not killing yourself at the gym. It's just moving your body because you have one of

those. And so taking care of it is so incredibly important from a proactive standpoint, from, you know, a health angle and from a preparedness standpoint. So I just really encourage people to seek out those kind of controlled burns, if you will, things that are difficult and push you outside of your day-to-day to continue evolving as a human and to just kind of refine your skill set all the way around mentally, mentally, physically and emotionally to be as prepared for the day-to-day as much as your abnormal major life-changing events. Yeah. Yeah. If you've, you come across the bear on the trail and you survived, you know, a lot of Monday morning Zoom meetings look easy.

Exactly. And you can create those controlled burns without any bear in the mix. Ideally, we never cross paths with one of those, especially the one on the site, which is a nice little grizzly. Ideally, you never cross those situations, but whether it's a death in the family, a divorce, or a bear on the trail, they all suck. And they suck less when you're prepared and you're able to take care of your. yourself and build those skill sets that you can fall back onto when those things do happen in life. Yeah. I have bear sprayed sitting right here on the desk just in case any podcast gets out of hand or, you know, you never know what bears are going to come over. You know, it's like Goldilocks. I always breaking into your house or something.

I don't know what that means. Trying your bed out. So give us the dot coms as we go out. Where can people find out more about you on the interwebs? Yeah. So most importantly, I'd really like to promote her outdoor journey. com you can look at all the upcoming events you can sign up so you frequently ask questions and then my personal is kiara laux.com or kiara dot laux on instagram so thank you kiara we certainly

appreciate you coming on the show absolutely my pleasure to be here thank you so much for having me thank you and thanks for honest for tuning in go to goodrease dot com four chest chris voss lincoln com, Fortress, Chris Foss. Chris Foss won the TikTok and all those crazy places to the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. Put those damn phones down. But don't, not if you're listening to the podcast, though. Finish the podcast first.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Finish the podcast first. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.