She's Bold with Beth Whitman – Details, episodes & analysis

Big announcement ~ I'll be taking a break from podcasting until I can return with more in-person conversations with amaaaazingly BOLD women.

Take a listen to hear a bit more about it...

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Beth

Today’s guest is Stasia Honnold.

Stasia is an adventurer. But not just any kind of adventurer – she’s a human-powered adventurer. So what does that mean? In short, she bikes, she hikes and she runs. And rarely does she use a car do to any of those.

She’s a woman who makes up her own adventures and figures out how to execute on them with lots of planning and organizing.

As Stasia says, she lives by a set of values and makes her life choices based on these values – doing no harm – and in doing so, she’s living simply as well as on her own terms.

It was my intention to highlight Stasia for being Stasia. And not mentioning her family ties because she deserves recognition in her own right for what she does. But talk about her family came out naturally during our conversation. And what I’m talking about is the fact that her brother is Alex Honnold, who free solo’d up El Capitan and who you can learn all about the Academy Award winning movie, Free Solo.

Her mom, by the way, is Dierdre Wolownick and I’ve had Dierdre on the podcast a couple of times. That was episodes number #127 and #83 so you can go back and listen to those to get a fuller picture of the family.

Stasia writes about her adventures on her blog, carfreerambles.org and I encourage you to read her beautiful writing there.

With that, please enjoy this conversation with Stasia Honnold.

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Connect with Stasia

Blog

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PATREON! (join our growing community!)
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Be Bold,

Beth

Enjoy these uplifting and positive conversations? Support the podcast through Patreon and get access to special audio and written content, be part of a private Facebook group (ladies only) and enjoy other benefits only for supporters of the podcast!

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This conversation is with author and holocaust survivor, Laureen Nussbaum.

This was recorded in-person almost four months ago, at the end of February. It was one of my last in-person conversations that I had for the podcast prior to the pandemic.

Under most circumstances, four months would feel like yesterday. But so much has happened since then that it feels like eons ago.

I was all ready to publish this episode in early March but then things just started to shut down, at least here in Seattle. As I re-listened to this conversation during the editing process, Laureen’s description of not being allowed to go outside when she was growing up (as a Jewish person), just hit too close to home for me. For very different reasons, obviously, I understood that feeling of not being allowed out.

And, really, a few months ago, we were all getting used to having our freedoms restricted, it was a new concept for us, so to hear someone describe how it was happening to her, was really difficult for me as I suspect it might have been for listeners. So I just didn’t feel like the time was right.

Now, with the murder of George Floyd and the spotlight on so many other people of color who’ve been killed in similarly tragic ways, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Manuel Ellis here in WA state, as well as other murders, such as Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, whose killers are only now, months later, being charged, I felt like this was a good time to finally get this episode out. This conversation highlights what happened to Laureen, growing up Jewish in the early years of Hitler’s regime. She knows quite well what systemic racism feels like.

By and large, this is Laureen’s story. We talk about her family’s escape from Germany and their time in Amsterdam, and that includes their ties with Anne Frank and her family.
But we also talk about her new book, Shedding Our Stars: The Story of Hans Calmeyer and How He Saved Thousands of Families Like Mine.

Hans Calmeyer, by the way, is credited with saving more Jewish people than Schindler. It’s believed he saved about 3,700 people.

In this conversation, there’s hope and there’s optimism. It’s a reminder that even as we move through terrible times—be it a pandemic OR unimaginable injustices thrust upon people of color or other marginalized segments of our population—even with all that, there’s hope. Because there are things we can do to stand up against injustices. In both large and small ways. We can help by simply speaking up. We can help those around us.

You’ll hear Laureen talk at the very end of our conversation about our need to protest. I’m sure she never imagined the level of protests that are going on today but I believe that this kind of response is what she had in mind (minus the violence, of course).

OK – with that, please enjoy this conversation with Laureen Nussbaum.

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Have a burning question and want to be featured on a future episode? Call 877-280-5170 and leave a message or email me here.

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Mentioned in this episode
Laureen Nussbaum (Wiki)
Shedding Our Stars (Amazon)
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Amazon)
Ursula Le Guin
She Writes
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

Connect with me:

PATREON! (join our growing community!)
Facebook
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WanderTours
Be Bold Facebook Group (women-only)
Twitter

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe then tell a friend!

Be Bold,

Beth

Enjoy these uplifting and positive conversations? Support the podcast through Patreon and get access to special audio and written content, be part of a private Facebook group (ladies only) and enjoy other benefits only for supporters of the podcast!

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Join me for this week's episode as I do a deep-ish dive into what's been keeping me going and how I'm coping during this pandemic as we are three+ months into sheltering in place.

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Have a burning question and want to be featured on a future episode? Call 877-280-5170 and leave a message or email me here.

Connect with me:

PATREON! (join our growing community!)
Facebook
Instagram
WanderTours
Be Bold Facebook Group (women-only)
Twitter

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe then tell a friend!

Be Bold,

Beth

Enjoy these uplifting and positive conversations? Support the podcast through Patreon and get access to special audio and written content, be part of a private Facebook group (ladies only) and enjoy other benefits only for supporters of the podcast!

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As you may know, over these past couple of months, the podcast has taken a bit of departure from my usual long-form, in-person conversations with guests. Instead, I’ve been addressing different aspects of dealing with this pandemic and recording (remotely) episodes that are a bit shorter. If you go back, you can hear how to be happy during a pandemic, how to stay fit, how to journal, how to boost your immune system. All sorts of useful info to help you get through this trying time.

This week is yet another slight departure. You’ll recall that a few weeks ago I shared a Q&A about travel that was recorded with “my” tour people via Zoom. I invited past and future WanderTours participants to join me so that I could answer their questions about travel.

Well, I had a second call with my tour people on May 5 and I wanted to share that conversation here as well.

In this Q&A session, I start out by giving some behind the scenes info about how things work with WanderTours—and why the company is in such good financial health. We also talked about what might happen if a person were to get stuck at a destination, we talked about the best time to purchase travel insurance, and there was even a question about my races that I was to run this year (and how my approach to those is how we all might consider approaching our circumstances right now).

Please enjoy this Q&A episode that is all about travel.

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Have a burning question and want to be featured on a future episode? Call 877-280-5170 and leave a message or email me here.

Connect with me:

PATREON! (join our growing community!)
Facebook
Instagram
WanderTours
Be Bold Facebook Group (women-only)
Twitter

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe then tell a friend!

Be Bold,

Beth

Enjoy these uplifting and positive conversations? Support the podcast through Patreon and get access to special audio and written content, be part of a private Facebook group (ladies only) and enjoy other benefits only for supporters of the podcast!

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Today’s guest is Dierdre Wolownick.

You might remember Dierdre from episode #83. She is the author of The Sharp End of Life (as well as many other books), she’s the oldest woman to have climbed El Capitan (she happens to have a great teacher, her son Alex Honnold, to thank for that) and she’s a lifelong journaler.

I’ve been journaling the majority of my life and, for me, it started nearly 30 years ago when I began traveling. I’ve documented all of these trips I’ve taken but I also journal even when I’m not traveling. And it’s been a wonderful way for me to get my thoughts down during this pandemic.

Dierdre and I talk about how journaling can be an excellent way to get to get to know yourself and to help you get through difficult times, such as during a lockdown. But she also talks about how this simple tool can help with other parts of our lives—how there’s a crossover there—and she gives some great tips on how to get started.

I hope this inspires you to set pen to paper and start to journal for the first time if you never have done so before or to recommit yourself to it if you’re not already doing it regularly.

By the way, you can order a copy of Dierdre’s book, The Sharp End of Life, and get 25% off by going to Moutaineersbooks.org and enter TIMETOREAD (all one word) as the promo code at checkout.

With that, please enjoy this conversation with Dierdre Wolownick.

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Have a burning question and want to be featured on a future episode? Call 877-280-5170 and leave a message or email me here.

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Connect with Dierdre

Website | Facebook

Mentioned in this episode
Dierdre on Episode #83
Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (Amazon)

Connect with me:

PATREON! (join our growing community!)
Facebook
Instagram
WanderTours
Be Bold Facebook Group (women-only)
Twitter

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe then tell a friend!

Be Bold,

Beth

Enjoy these uplifting and positive conversations? Support the podcast through Patreon and get access to special audio and written content, be part of a private Facebook group (ladies only) and enjoy other benefits only for supporters of the podcast!

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How are you all dealing with this? It’s kinda crazy to see how we’re all going through this health crisis and how it’s different depending on where you live, what your days are like (are you working overtime or are you sitting idle) and also what stage you are in in your lockdown (if you’re locked down at all!).

So, when they say we’re in this together, I don’t feel like that. It’s just all too different for each one of us. And I think most of us are feeling lonelier than ever, right?

But I think no matter what phase or stage you’re in, there are some things we can definitely agree with. We’re trying to find happiness, stability and some sort of normalcy each day.

And even then, I know there’s guilt with feeling happy right now. We have a small win of some kind and we may not way to celebrate publicly because we know most people aren’t feeling those wins right now. Most people are really struggling. It’s difficult to find happiness and when we feel it, we’re keeping it to ourselves.

And I’m not saying that that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it just is. But I think whether you choose to share your happiness or not, we know that happiness comes from within. And whether a crisis is big or small, we do have control over how we respond to it. The question is, how are YOU responding to this virus?

Today’s episode is all about happiness.

Laura Musikanski has been on the podcast previously on episode #79 which was early last year, early 2019. Laura is the Executive Director of the Happiness Alliance. Her data collecting around this topic was borne out of Bhutan’s philosophy of gross national happiness. She conducts surveys about people’s level of happiness and then dissects that information to better understand what’s happening in communities, universities and groups. And you can take that survey at happycounts.org.

So, in this episode, we do talk all about happiness and, specifically, how it relates to Covid-19. Laura shares some of the more recent data she’s collected and the trends that she’s seeing. But she also gets personal with how this health crisis has affected her and how this time has provided her with a chance to examine her own mortality and how she’s at peace with it.

At first glance, this may not seem like the most uplifting message but it’s all very Buddhist. This idea of focusing on death and accepting it so that one can live a more fulfilling and mindful life. So please keep that in mind, especially toward the end of this episode when she gets into that message a bit.

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Have a burning question and want to be featured on a future episode? Call 877-280-5170 and leave a message or email me here.

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Connect with Laura

Website | Email: Laura@happycounts.org

Mentioned in this episode
How to Be Happy
Sarah Tuttle (on She's Bold Podcast)
Color the Universe - Astronomy Picture of the Day
The Happiness Policy Handbook by Laura Musikanski (Amazon)
Happiness, Well-being and Sustainability by Laura Musikanski (Amazon)

Connect with me:

PATREON! (join our growing community!)
Facebook
Instagram
WanderTours
Be Bold Facebook Group (women-only)
Twitter

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe then tell a friend!

Be Bold,

Beth

Enjoy these uplifting and positive conversations? Support the podcast through Patreon and get access to special audio and written content, be part of a private Facebook group (ladies only) and enjoy other benefits only for supporters of the podcast!

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I’ve got a special treat for you this week. It’s neither my usual long form conversation, nor my temporary method of recording remotely during a pandemic conversation. This is a group Zoom call that I did with some of my tour people. These are folks who have either been on a tour with me or are scheduled to be on a tour in the future.

I wanted to make myself available to them to answer any questions that they might have either about WanderTours as a company, about upcoming tours and then just about travel in general.

There were nearly 40 of us and we spent more than an hour and a half on this Zoom call.

What I did for this podcast episode was extract some of the Q&A’s and kind of stitch them together. It’s a combination of questions that had been sent to me in advance and also questions that came up spontaneously from people on the call.

So you’re going to hear some back and forth dialogue here as well as some resources and information that come directly from the community.

One thing that you might notice when you listen to this is that there are just as many things that I don’t know compared to what I do know right now. And that is really just the nature of what’s going on in the world right now.

But I think the value here is in the questions that people are asking because you might be asking the same ones. And they include questions about the future of travel, flights and if tour companies, hotels and activities are going to be able to weather this crisis as well as lots of questions about travel insurance.

And for reference, this was recorded on April 23.

I held a second Zoom call this past week, also with past and current tour people, which I may also post in a few weeks. But if YOU are interested in getting on a Zoom call with me, I am going to schedule one that will be more for my community at large—so you don’t have to have taken a tour with me to be included on that one. Just send me a note at beth@shesboldpodcast.com and let me know you’re interested and I’ll get you the details for that.

Please enjoy this Q&A episode that is all about travel.

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Have a burning question and want to be featured on a future episode? Call 877-280-5170 and leave a message or email me here.

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Mentioned in this episode
Forbes article (about airlines)
Allianz Travel Insurance
Insure My Trip

Connect with me:

PATREON! (join our growing community!)
Facebook
Instagram
WanderTours
Be Bold Facebook Group (women-only)
Twitter

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe then tell a friend!

Be Bold,

Beth

** If you find yourself struggling and need something to lift you up, the Be Bold Facebook group (for ladies only) has been a wonderful way for us to encourage each other. Normally we post the things we’re doing to Be Bold but over the past few weeks, we’ve been posting each day the things that we’re doing to stay happy and healthy right now.

There are some great ideas that others have shared so please join us!

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Today’s guest is Janet Rhoton. Janet’s been a mental health professional for 40 years and has worked in a variety of capacities, as you’ll hear in this episode.

Janet is a friend of mine and we recently connected because a mutual friend of ours passed away. While our friend did not die of the coronavirus, I believe her death was a result of it, as Janet calls it, it was a death of despair.

And this kind of death has been a concern to me since this whole virus thing started to go down. I’m so concerned about how people are going to make their way through this situation when people are feeling so much fear and uncertainty and we have a crashing economy.

While Janet and I were corresponding with each other about our friend’s passing, I started to realize that with her deep background in the field of mental health, she could really offer some great feedback and information to listeners.

This health crisis is affecting everyone in one way or another. And, as Janet says, we’re already seeing a rise in mental health issues that are being triggered by or are a direct result of what’s going on right now. And we’re going to see those issues far and wide, from health care and other essential workers dealing with PTSD, to those in the service industry who feel pressure to work in unsafe environments just to keep their jobs, to those who have had to remain in abusive homes during the lockdown to those struggling financially. It’s going to be rough for a long time to come.

I hope this episode with Janet helps either those in need of help now or in the future or helps you to identify someone who may need help. This is a time when we all have to be watching out for each other.

Janet lists emergency mental health services at the end our conversation (and you can find them below) and I’ll link to those in the show notes as well.

With that, please enjoy this conversation with Janet Rhoton.

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Have a burning question and want to be featured on a future episode? Call 877-280-5170 and leave a message or email me here.

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Get Help
211.org
Disaster distress helpline - 1-800-985-5990
U.S. suicide hotline - 800-273-TALK (8255)

Connect with me:

PATREON! (join our growing community!)
Facebook
Instagram
WanderTours
Be Bold Facebook Group (women-only)
Twitter

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe then tell a friend!

Be Bold,

Beth

** If you find yourself struggling and need something to lift you up, the Be Bold Facebook group (for ladies only) has been a wonderful way for us to encourage each other. Normally we post the things we’re doing to Be Bold but over the past few weeks, we’ve been posting each day the things that we’re doing to stay happy and healthy right now.

There are some great ideas that others have shared so please join us!

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Today’s conversation is with Jannell MacAulay. You might recall Jannell from episode #53. Boy, this was going on nearly two years ago now and it was just as she was retiring from her 20-year career in the air force where she was a pilot and combat veteran.

She’s now a mindfulness specialist and wellness educator (among other things) and helps others optimize their performance while in a high stress environment. Something we could all use right about now.

She has a really great approach in terms of how we can best navigate through these trying times. These are simple tips that are accessible to everyone, not just high performers or military personal.

One side note - we recorded this a couple of weeks ago and she does mentioning getting outside into nature. For many of us, while we can still go outside and get exercise, actually getting into nature—such as a park or on a trail—that is no longer possible.

With that, please enjoy this conversation with Jannell MacAulay.

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Have a burning question and want to be featured on a future episode? Call 877-280-5170 and leave a message or email me here.

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Connect with Jannell

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

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Links/books/people mentioned
Compete to Create

Connect with me:

PATREON! (join our growing community!)
Facebook
Instagram
WanderTours
Be Bold Facebook Group (women-only)
Twitter

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe then tell a friend!

Be Bold,

Beth