About Me
This is my passion.
I’m an Adventure Guide & Coach who is passionate about exploration and self-discovery.
I’m also a partner (to Courtney, my wife of 17 years) and father (to Joelle, 15, and Charley, 13).
I have spent the last 20+ years traveling the world for work and play, by myself and with my family. Experiencing new places, trying new things, and getting outside my comfort zone led me to redefine my understanding of what was “normal” and find my own path, marked only by health, balance, purpose, and meaning for me and my family.
I’ve found daily practices that help me find balance and health in the midst of life’s inescapable difficulties, irritations, and frustrations. I believe mood follows action, so I do the things that set me (and the people I love) up for success.
Out There is the culmination of what I’ve learned so far and is my humble offering to a world that has taught me so much.
The outdoors has challenged, shaped and changed me for the better.
Trying new experiences and going to new places has changed the way I see myself, others and our planet.
A favorite moment:
Watching the sunrise over Mt Everest from a neighboring Himalayan peak in Nepal.
Something unforgettable:
Coming face to face with several Great White Sharks while cage diving in the sharkiest place on the planet - Mossel Bay, South Africa.
For us nerds:
Myers-Briggs: “The Adventurer” ISFP (at work I’m more of an ISFJ)
Enneagram: Type 7
Business Owner & Entrepreneur: 20 years and counting
Family man: our story is here. Married: 17 years. Kiddo Qty: 2
Daily practices: get outside, move the body, still the mind, find gratitude, connect with a buddy, and learn something new.
Favorite… Food: Sushi Beer: Pilsner Sport: anything to do with water (surf, dive, sail, swim, etc) Wild game to eat: moose Fish to eat: freshly speared halibut Hobby: photography Camping: overland style or vanlife, Best Season: Fall
Words I try to live by.
GIVE A DAMN
About myself, others, my community, and our world. Including my health, mental wellbeing, and my contributions (positive or negative) to people and planet.
MOOD FOLLOWS ACTION
We’re meant and made to go, but it’s too easy to stay put. Move the body, still the mind, and rise to life’s challenges. It never gets easier, I just get better.
LOVE OVER FEAR
Love for others, myself and even for my own fears. Love is the final word and the glue that keeps us together when all else is falling apart.
I DO ME, YOU DO YOU
We all have something special that makes us unique. The purpose in my life is to express that humbly and authentically. To be who I genuinely am! Same goes for you.
QUESTIONS > ANSWERS
We don’t have to have it all figured out… in fact, we probably never will! But the more comfortable we get with that fact, the more present we can become and the more we can really live.
KEEP DOING THE WORK
The secret of making change in my own life is to focus all of my energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
My role & my ‘why’:
WHAT I DO HERE:
Simply put, I take men on transformational outdoor adventures. The kind of experiences that excite the soul, energize the body and focus the mind. A journey that will bring your weary bones back to life, reigniting that spark within.
I am both an Outdoor Adventure Guide: curator of good vibes and exciting outdoor experiences, and a Men’s Health & Wellness Coach: helping ambitious men find a healthier mindset & lifestyle that unlocks the best of themselves.
The truth is you don’t need more external advice, you need internal clarity! As your Adventure Coach, that’s precisely what I help you do.
HOW I DO IT:
These outdoor experiences get you out of your everyday routines and habits. You’ll get to explore your life through helpful conversations and personalized outdoor activities that create opportunities for meaningful personal growth and transformation.
It’s a rich, deep and varied way to come to a better understanding of yourself. And it’s tailored to you.
We go outside to explore what’s going on inside. This powerful combo will challenge and inspire you to action, and prepare you for whatever life throws at you next. B/c life doesn’t get any easier, we just get better - one step closer to our full potential.
I am on a mission to help men tap into the transformative and clarifying power of nature, adventure, fun, and meaningful connection with other courageous men.
THE ORIGIN STORY OF OUT THERE:
My life has always been filled with adventure as I’ve wandered the globe in search of experiences to shape me and challenge me (from the bushlands of Africa, to the tallest peaks in Asia, and everywhere in between), but it wasn’t until life became really difficult that those experiences became more than just “fun.”
Adventures were easy when I was young and single. Travel and the outdoors offered an amazing way to experience the world and rise above the everyday difficulties of life. But when life got more complicated with the addition of a family the difficulties became too big to rise above. Pretending like everything was fine—like I was fine—wasn’t an option anymore. I got bogged down in life’s challenges because I was trying to glide over them instead of finding a way through them.
Nature, it turns out, often offers a path through our problems by clearing away the fog so we can see ourselves and our situations more clearly. Science actually proves this—a truth I learned from my therapist during a particularly dark time of life. She told me I could take meds to help me cope… or I could go outside everyday and do the practices I knew would help me show up in life. Present and willing to rumble with the difficulties and darkness that arose.
Getting outside every day (challenge the body, still the mind), combined with proven well-being practices and deep connection with other people, is my medicine.
That permission—that push even—is not often offered to men. Instead, we’re told to bootstrap our mental health. To just be stronger and pull it together - man up! Or even worse, we numb or distract ourselves from our actual reality. But that’s not how we humans are designed to work. We’re wired for nature, for connection, for presence, and to rise to a challenge. We’ve simply lost those in the midst of this comfy modern life, overstimulation, ridiculous hustle culture (glorification of busy), screen addictions, and toxic cultural norms.
I’ve aways loved adventure, but in the last few years it has become more than just an optional, fun thing from time to time. Outside has become my lifeline. A deeply restorative, necessary part of being.
Throughout my life I have genuinely loved creating beautiful outdoor experiences for my family and friends. It fills my own cup and is my way of giving back and investing in the relationships and places that matter to me.
Now, it is my great joy (via Out There) to share connection, nature, and meaningful practices with men as we journey together through this crazy season of life.
That is the origin of Out There and I can’t wait to share it with you, too.
Comfort is a slow death.
My passion led me to freediving. Freediving led me to my breath. My breath led me here.
It started in 2014 with a free diving certification course. I started practicing long breath holds in order to spear fish deeper in the ocean and unexpectedly, things started to click and change in my mind.
I never could have predicted it, but working with my breath fundamentally changed the way I showed up in the real world. It heightened my mental clarity. It increased my sense of openness, peace, gratitude, calm, and connection. It helped me fight my depression, fear, and anger. In short, it helped me feel more alive and more in tune with myself than I ever had before.
For most of my life, I was not very aware or accepting of my reality. My tendency to distract from life’s challenges (rather than accept or embrace them), combined with the traditionally masculine idea that Doing More = Being More was pretty destructive to both my mind and body.
I was constantly doing, but I didn’t even know how to just be. I was either thinking of the future (worry/want) or stewing over the past (regret/resentment) which didn’t leave much room for actually being here. To be present with who I am, how I’m showin’ up each day, and how I’m affecting those around me—whether positively or negatively.
It paved a direct path to the worst kind of burnout. Until I found my breathing exercises and daily practices.
After tapping into my breath, I started seeing most things in my life differently. From how I thought about myself and how I viewed others, to my partnership with my wife, how I parented my kids, and what I gave my time and energy to. I began learning new ways to be here.
Learning to control my breath taught me to be more comfortable with uncertainty, to make friends with my fear, to control what I can and let go of what I can’t (which has allowed me to find a calm in life that didn’t exist before). All of these lessons helped me learn to remain present and connected… despite the challenges, the mystery, and the discomfort of it all.
My breath ultimately helped me see the endless invitation to question, examine, change my mind, and reconstruct my life. To move from fear to joy, from control to letting go, from leading to serving, from scarcity to abundance, from darkness to light, and from division to unity.
It was my passion for doing—for adventure—that led me into the watery depths of the Pacific Ocean in search of bigger fish, but the real discovery of holding my breath for those deep dives was the unexplored depths of myself, human connection, and the gift of truly being.
How do you wanna get out there?