David: 0:01

What if someone told you to take a hike, and it was actually really good business advice? We'll find out on this episode of Shift Shapers.

Announcer Lady: 0:11

This is the Shift Shapers podcast, connecting benefits advisors with thought leaders and entrepreneurs who are shaping the shifts in the industry. And now here's your host, David Saltzman shifts in the industry.

David: 0:27

And now here's your host, david Saltzman, and to help us answer that question, we have invited Jessica D'Angelo, who is you've never heard of one of these before. She is the Chief Hiking Officer at Hike2Become and we'll get into all of that. Welcome, jessica.

Jessica: 0:38

Thanks for having me, David. I'm excited to be here.

David: 0:41

Our pleasure. So we always ask people kind of how they got into doing what they're doing. I know you transitioned from global sales and strategy at Fortune 500 firms. What led you to make that change?

Jessica: 0:55

Oh, such a great question. I'm going to answer it with a little bit of a story. Back in, I would say, 2020, we all remember what a fun year 2020 was. I was working for a large corporation. I was working as a global account director and some of my clients were the largest companies in the world I want you to think smiley face boxes and fruit logos and it was my job to create the global strategy for how we were going to sell into those companies and partner around innovation and sustainability and then manage sales teams all over the world to execute my strategy, david. So to say that I was under like a little bit of pressure would maybe be an understatement.

David: 1:35

Just a tiny bit.

Jessica: 1:36

Tiny bit. And to add to the fun, I had just become a mom. I had welcomed my daughter that same year. So I'll never forget. I was sitting in front of my computer one day. I was waiting for my eighth Zoom call of the day, and it wasn't even lunchtime yet. Do you remember those times, david?

David: 1:53

Oh, I do indeed.

Jessica: 1:55

It's crazy. And I just had this moment where I looked out my window, my office window, overlooked Forest Park, which is the largest urban park in the United States, right outside of Portland, oregon, and I had this thought I couldn't remember the last time I had been for a hike, and so I canceled the next meeting. I drove out to the trailhead and I went for a walk in the woods. I left my cell phone in the car and it was like I could breathe for the first time in months. I couldn't hear my daughter crying and feel the insane mom guilt that the nanny would have to get her because mommy was too busy working. I couldn't hear the incessant dings of my cell phone you know the Teams, the Slacks, the WhatsApp, the emails and I started to just sort of come back to myself again. And that day I made myself a commitment that, no matter what it cost me, I was going to show up on the hiking trail every day. So that was the start of the pivot to what I do now.

David: 2:50

Well, you mentioned your daughter, so let's fast forward to December 2023. Yes, you were on a hike and your daughter gave you a very like kids do gave you a very simple instruction. What'd she say and what did that mean? Gave you a very simple instruction.

Jessica: 3:04

What'd she say and what did that mean? So right before this hike, on December 23rd 2023, a few days earlier I had been in our family loft playing pretend restaurant with my kids, which is such a fun game. But I was at the height of building my consulting practice, my phone dinged. Wish I could say, david, that I didn't look down and answer it, but I did, and the room had gotten really reallyed. Wish I could say, david, that I didn't look down and answer it, but I did, and the room had gotten really, really quiet. And I realized now you're a parent, david, so you know the kind of quiet I'm talking about. You're either about to like save a life or get an unexpected home improvement project.

Jessica: 3:36

But I was surprised when I looked up. My daughter Brynn, was just still standing right in front of me and she looked at me with the most adult expression and she said mom, get off your phone. That was. That was really hard for me, because it was a moment where I was faced with here. I am very much present in my kid's life, but not connected. Even though I was like present in body, I wasn't present with them and that that was, but it was instructive.

Jessica: 4:05

Yeah, she's very instructive. Yeah, she's very instructive.

David: 4:08

Children can be that way. Sometimes they can. They can so at a 20,000 foot level. What you do is convince all these corporate bigwigs and executives and teams and whatnot to get out in the woods. But it's not. It's not kind of like one of those Kumbaya you know, fall backwards and somebody will catch you thing. It's a little bit different, but I'm curious because you did a TEDx talk and you talked about how people are afraid to step into nature. What's that all about and how do you help people overcome that? Then we'll talk more about what goes on in the woods.

Jessica: 4:41

Yeah, I love it. So what transpired is I decided to bring hiking back into my life after my daughter called me out for being on my phone and being distracted. And then I started to realize, david, that I brought back this daily hiking practice, which I always practice unplugged from technology. And a couple of weeks in I had this epiphany why am I not hiking with my clients? This is helping me so much, not just from, as you mentioned, like a woo-woo state of mind, but I started having really great business ideas as I was hiking, and so from that moment on, I just really started incorporating hiking with my clients, whether it was consulting I sometimes get hired as a keynote speaker or even one-on-one coaching.

Jessica: 5:26

And so you asked me I explore in the TEDx this concept that people are afraid to be alone with their own thoughts. A lot of people think that they're too afraid to go into the woods because they're scared of maybe wild animals, right, or getting lost or I don't know, falling off the side of a cliff. But what I uncovered? The past two years I've spent inspiring hundreds, if not thousands. I've lost count of people to practice what I call this Hike 31 challenge, and as I follow up with them. I start hearing a familiar pattern that people are afraid to be alone with their own thoughts.

David: 6:00

That's fascinating, but you know, if you think about it, anybody who's been in a business meeting has gotten lost, dealt with wild animals and fallen off a cliff, so it's not really all that different.

Jessica: 6:10

That is a very valid point, David.

David: 6:12

You know, so you call this the Hike 31 Challenge. Let's talk about it in a little bit of detail, what that's all about and what goes on.

Jessica: 6:21

Absolutely so. When I had this kind of big epiphany myself about how do I bring myself back in my life, kind of get clarity on my business and how I'm showing up, I committed to hiking for 31 days straight in the month of January in 2024. It changed my life and so now I've developed what I call the Hike 31 Challenge, where anyone can sign up. I can give the prompt in a second to join this challenge on their own and practice on their own. I also do it as a follow-up with any corporate teams that hire me to come in for an experience. But essentially what it is is four parts, david, super simple. I renamed the acronym Hike.

Jessica: 7:00

I'm very science and data driven so I needed to understand why this was working so well. So the first part is H and that stands for hike or walk. Basically, the idea here is you need to be in movement. Movement creates bilateral stimulation and it helps the right and the left hemisphere of your brain talk to one another. That's really important when you're trying to come up with cool business ideas. The second part is I, which stands for in nature, and I've looked at a ton of studies. Being in nature for a period of time will help you reduce stress and anxiety, enhance emotional well-being and improve your cognitive function.

Jessica: 7:41

But the thing everybody gets wrong most of my high-level business executive clients. They always tell me, david, I totally practice Hike. Well, let me tell you about K. K stands for keep tech off. And all those high-level business executives. Probably the one big shift I kind of forced them all to make is to get rid of these earbuds, get rid of the smartwatch and the cell phone and practice it without technology, because technology will stop all the amazing benefits of the first two parts of hike. It'll stop those benefits. And so, finally, e stands for every day. You're going to practice this every day for at least 30 to 40 minutes for 31 days and people have had some pretty transformational experiences just doing that.

David: 8:27

You said that it changed your life. How so?

Jessica: 8:31

It reminded me who I am. It reminded me to be fearless about what's important to me. It reminded me to embrace what makes me sort of different or crazy in the world of business. To embrace what makes me sort of different or crazy in the world of business, and it has, honestly, david, it's inspired a movement. I'm about to release a book. This fall I've given a TEDx and there's so many people that I think this has had a positive impact. But I was like patient zero. I was the first person. It forced me to spend time alone with my thoughts so that I could get to know myself again. And once that happened, the ripple effect throughout my entire life, whether I was being present with my kids and playing with them, having dinner with my husband or meeting with my clients, I started showing up in my life, no longer burnout and disconnected, but fully present, and that's a big shift.

David: 9:23

So this is kind of a Walden Pond kind of a thing.

Jessica: 9:27

Yes and no. So I think the biggest reason so nothing. So to be clear, I don't think anything I'm doing is like radically new or innovative. I'll be very clear about that. If anything, I'm a guide to remind people that this is how humanity has existed for hundreds of thousands of years. I don't know, I'm not the expert, but only in the last 150 years have we kind of moved towards working inside offices, tethered behind desks, behind a computer, constantly connected to cell phones, and we're losing sight of the beauty of the human mind. And in order to uncover our brilliant business ideas, we're going to have to break the mold of the way we work. So is it Walden, Sort of inspired, but Steve Jobs, one of the greatest business minds of all time? When he was stuck on an idea, David, he would go for a walk, often barefoot, before the iPhone was even invented. And there's countless other examples like him of some of the greatest business minds today, even practicing what I advocate for, which is walking in nature.

David: 10:34

So when you take groups out, are there structured activities? Is it just kind of wandering around aimlessly or aimfully, I guess, would be a better word. You know what does that look like. Are there exercises, goals, objectives, tasks, et cetera?

Jessica: 10:49

So there's two experiences I curate. One is called a hike to become experience, and it is. I typically come in and I work with an executive team. We do a campfire chat where we talk about the problem of disconnection and feeling the pressure of constantly having to be connected, and we discuss that the inverse is often true. And then the next morning I get everybody up early and we go for a guided hike and I pair people up together. We go through some specific prompts on the trail.

Jessica: 11:18

But this is really important, david, I do not spend our time on the trail yammering at people the whole time. No one wants that. The whole point is to allow them to connect with each other. And then there's a specific point in the experience where I guide them through a forest bathing exercise that they practice by themselves. I've had executives tell me that it's the first time they've been alone with their thoughts and they can't even remember when that forest bathing exercise. And then, after all of that so that's the hike to become experience this fall I'm releasing what's called the wild advantage experience, which is all of that, except after we get done the hike, we do the number one thing that the team has to accomplish in their company offsite.

Jessica: 12:02

Typically it's like strategic planning a business challenge, figuring out how to launch a new product or service. They keep me around because at that point, after I've taken them through the guided hike, their brains are totally turned on and ready to function differently. And then we tackle their top business challenge and I use my background and strategy to help them do that. So that's the wild advantage experience.

David: 12:23

I think one of the things that you talk about, a key theme in your work, is inviting people to ask what if? How does that work?

Jessica: 12:31

So I think so often we get trapped in this loop of I think I know what I should be, I think I know what I should do for a living, I think I know how I should act, and we kind of get stuck there and my business has completely changed. The moment I basically asked myself what if? And it started with what if I took my clients hiking? And the stuck loop would have told my like. I would have told myself like no, that's silly, no one will go for it. But I kept pressing the what if and I called a CEO who had already hired me for a keynote and he's awesome, he's a dear friend now and his name is John. I said hey, john, what if I took your team hiking in the middle of the keynote?

Jessica: 13:20

Now, normally I wouldn't have been that brave, david, it was sort of a nutty idea. And you know what John said to me Sure, let's do it. And that was the very first hike to become experience. And it started with me asking myself well, what if? And the question was simple Listen, you've spent lots of years in corporate America and you understand. You get trapped in these keynote situations or these meetings where you're like I just want to leave the hotel conference room. I just want to see nature. And I my question. There was well, what if I could change the experience the way? I wish someone had changed it for me when I was in corporate. It kind of led me down this path it for me when I was in corporate.

David: 14:02

It kind of led me down this path. So what kind of changes are people reporting to you? What are you seeing and you know be? If you have some examples, that'd be great. But be as expansive as you can so we understand kind of what that transformation actually is and what happens.

Jessica: 14:13

Absolutely so. I would say the number one thing that people experience when they're with me is some level of clarity. Typically, there's either a problem that they're wrestling with, or maybe it's a career change, perhaps it's not knowing what to do next. By practicing this method whether it's with me during an experience as the catalyst or during our own Hike 31 challenge people have moments of extreme clarity on what's next, just by quieting the noise and spending time alone with their thoughts. The other thing that is being reported and really makes me feel actually somewhat emotional David is high-level executives, actually somewhat emotional. David is high-level executives.

Jessica: 15:02

I'm talking people that are working 16, 18-hour days, that have global teams that report to them, or sending me messages that say things like I had an executive coaching client several weeks ago send me a message that he was traveling in San Francisco and he went for his hike, which included no tech, and he spotted fireflies and it was the first time he had caught a firefly since he was a kid and that really, you know, hit me hard. I had another global executive tell me that, you know, she went for a hike in the rain and we're not talking a drizzle, but like a rain downpouring everywhere, and she shared a picture with me yesterday and it made my heart so happy because she was drenched, but she was so happy. It's two parts, I would say. It's the catalyst for clarity, absolutely, but it's also this experience of remembering who we are again. And then there's, I guess, a third piece, and that's the breakthrough business ideas that are happening on the trail.

Jessica: 15:59

Lots of people are experiencing these moments of like. I said, what if they push themselves a little farther? They dare to dream again, and I think that it is the catalyst for lots of disruptive business ideas. And one quick example, david, not necessarily related to my work, but there's a rumor that Netflix's founder, reed Hastings, came up with his disruptive business idea when he went for a walk at night because he was mad. He got a $40 late fee from Blockbuster. There's something to this and my clients are experiencing it and it's very exciting.

David: 16:38

Do you find from the information you're getting back from them, from the feedback, that they're making changes in business decisions as well, and maybe directions or processes, or is it impacting their teams?

Jessica: 16:52

Yes. So let's kind of tackle them one by one. So the first thing I would say people are reporting after an experience with me for their executive team or a team doing some real off-site challenging work, that they are making faster business decisions. They're exploring ways to do things, that they do things that they don't think would have come to them. Naturally are two things. And they're having discussions they wouldn't normally have. I talk a lot about this and give specific examples in my book. There's a place of kind of exploratory vulnerability that people have post an experience and so their brains are turned on in a different way and they're willing to say that sort of crazy thing in the meeting room where before they probably would have held back and been like that's too nuts, I'm not going to go there. But this is the birthplace of disruptive ideas. So that's the first, maybe answer to your question, but I think the other thing you were alluding to is like ROI for teams.

David: 17:48

Yeah.

Jessica: 17:49

So one of the clients I interviewed mentioned after. So they did a Hike to Become experience with me last September. I'm actually going to be with them again this September, which is so exciting and I asked her the executive leader who hired me. I said what did you see with your team? So they did the experience, david, and then the entire team of about 10 people participated in the Hike 31 challenge by themselves for a month. Afterwards. Here's what she said to me Jess, if you save just one of my leaders or this experience saved one of my leaders from resigning due to burnout because they're learning how to manage this kind of sacred time alone with their thoughts, get out in nature and hike, but then also their members of their team, and now all of a sudden, the ROI is almost you can't quantify it because it's kind of a domino effect of saving.

Jessica: 18:50

You know, putting the oxygen mask on the leader first and then their team. The other thing that has come up in that interview is she mentioned this whole process has given her and her team a new language. So she'll have one-on-ones with direct reports and maybe they're stressed out or wrestling with something. And her first question now, david, is did you go on your hike today?

David: 19:08

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Jessica: 20:46

Sure. So the book is called the Wild Advantage, why your Brain on Nature is your Boldest Business Move, and the premise of the book is that the way we work is broken today. Our relationship with nature is also broken, as is our relationship with ourselves, and I offer a methodology, if you will, to start to change all of that. I really you know this book was such a labor of love, david. I've been writing it for over a year and I just shared with you that I signed off on the final manuscript last night, which felt really exciting.

Jessica: 21:26

Yes, so in the book I call it part adventure story, part business strategy, and what it is is it stories throughout my life of not just me hiking, but now hiking with my clients? I've interviewed a bunch of clients about their experiences and what the hiking trail has unlocked for them in business and in life. And then I also share a lot of anecdotes from some of the top business leaders that we all know Phil Knight, one of the founders of Nike, steve Jobs from Apple, and other business examples that remind us that maybe, in the age of artificial intelligence, the number one thing we can do is remember how to think like humans again, and I offer some practical advice to do that.

David: 22:08

That's awesome. Now we'll put your contact information in the show notes. But if people want to reach out to you, what's the best way to reach you?

Jessica: 22:14

Absolutely so. If they want to join the Hike 31 Challenge, it's very simple they can text the word hike H-I-K-E to number 33777, and that will get them in the Hike 31 Challenge. They can also find me on my website it's just JessicaD'Angelocom, and that's probably the easiest way to reach me, and I'm also very active on LinkedIn, so there's three options.

David: 22:38

Jessica, thanks for a fascinating conversation. We look forward to having you back once the book is out.

Jessica: 22:43

Sounds great, David. Thank you.

Announcer Lady: 22:48

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