How do you deal with challenging people on an adventure? This is a challenge that can test even the most experienced and prepared leader.

When it comes to delivering adventure, people can be grumpy. They can have unrealistic expectations. They can show up to an adventure with personal issues. They may not have the resiliency needed to manage or overcome challenges. Some people are socially awkward, while others are just rude. In some cases, people may have anger management issues. In other cases, they may not want to be there at all.

While most of these situations are not a leader's fault, they often do end up becoming the leader’s problem.

In this episode, we are joined again by master guide, guide trainer and author, Colby Brokvist. Colby joins us to explore some of the strategies that we can all use when we find ourselves dealing with challenging participants on the adventures we are leading.

Colby Brokvist is a professional guide who leads worldwide expeditions for some of the most acclaimed companies in adventure travel. He has guided trips around the world including in Greenland, Antarctica, Africa, and Patagonia, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. Colby currently serves as the Chair of the Polar Tourism Guides Association.

Using his expertise and extensive experience, Colby has written The Professional Guides Handbook – How to lead adventure travel trips and expeditions. This is a great resource for anyone leading others. Colby has also recently launched the Waypoint Guide Academy.

Key Takeaways

How we can better manage difficult people:

Unmet Needs: If you can figure out what needs are not being met and meet them, you can unusually create a situation where they are easier to deal with.

Aligning Expectations Early: This is essential. People tend to get what they expect, so ensuring expectations are known to everyone and are realistic can address a lot of problems before they arise.

Pulling Difficult People in: Gives an opportunity for leaders to build relationships with them. It’s important to remember that people can usually tell when people other people don’t like them. If someone is being difficult and they don’t feel the leader is getting along with them, resolving the conflict becomes that much harder.

Leading with Empathy, Patience and Curiosity: Can help leaders to build healthier relationships with the people they are leading. When people are being difficult it can be very valuable to try to discover why. This can take some empathy, and some detective work.

Guest Bio

Colby Brokvist is a professional guide who leads worldwide expeditions for some of the most acclaimed companies in adventure travel. He was inspired to pursue guiding as a career during a through-hike of the Appalachian Trail in the summer of 2000. Since then, he has led hundreds of adventure travel departures as an Expedition Leader, ranging from backpacking and trekking adventures to mountaineering and rock-climbing trips, sea kayaking and sailing voyages, and wildlife safaris. His work has taken him to destinations as far-flung as Greenland, Antarctica, Africa, and Patagonia, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. His current basecamp is Boulder, Colorado.

When not actively leading trips in the field, Colby assumes a variety of managerial, operational, and consulting roles within the adventure travel sphere. His work centers on developing and facilitating guide training courses and programs as well as trip program consulting and field-based guide team management. Colby also serves on the board of directors for the Polar Tourism Guides Association and is a certified Senior Polar Guide through the same organization.

Guest Links

The Professional Guides Handbook – How to lead adventure travel trips and expeditions -

How can technology enhance our adventure experiences on skis? Is it possible that ski coaches, instructors and guides can be replaced by technology all together?

In this episode we touch on these questions as we explore Carv with Morgan Engel and Alex Jackson. Carv is a small device that skiers can affix to their ski boots that analyzes their movement patterns as they ski. The data that Carv collects is uploaded to a user-friendly app on a Smart Phone. From here, users can either analyze the data and metrics themselves. Users can also select one of the coaching modes that provides targeted feedback. This makes Carv the largest ski school in the world by hours taught!

Alex Jackson is the VP of Marketing for Carv and is based in the UK. Morgan Engel is a PSIC Level 4, CSIA Level 4 and PSIA Level 3 ski instructor and a PSIC Level 4 Licensed Professional Trainer in Whistler, British Columbia. Morgan has been working with Carv as an Ambassador and Advisor for the past six years. Morgan has also helped develop the Carv Instructor Certification offered through the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada.

Morgan has been working with Carv as an Ambassador and Advisor for the past six years. Morgan has also helped develop the Carv Instructor Certification offered through the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada.

Alex Jackson and Morgan Engel share their insights on what Carv is and how it can be used as a development tool for not just skiers, but by instructors, guides and coaches.

Takeaways

Innovative: Carv is definitely a well thought out skill development tool for skiers that adds the possibility of gamifying skiing by trying to reach higher and higher scores. It is also nice to have a tool that measures your performance objectively with weight being placed on your performance instead of your style.

Does Not Replace Snow Sports Professionals: There is still an important role for instructors when it comes to interpreting and communicating the data and structuring development. Carv also isn’t going to tell you where the best snow is on a given run or how to prepare for what you are going to encounter before you get there.

Adventure Enhancer: Carv is an excellent example of where technology can enhance the user experience. Other technologies that I can think of are apps like Stava and Gaia and devices like GoPros and even Smart Phones.

Importance of Milestones: To keep us motivated and in a positive space, we need be able to break progress into small pieces. The one thing that Carv does well that other similar technologies should take note of is pointing out each time the user has reached a new level. It might be improving a certain metric or achieving an improved score.

Guest Bio

Alex Jackson is based in London, UK and is the co-founder and VP of Marketing for Carv. Alex has enjoyed a very successful career in technology. His passion is products that can change the way people behave.

Morgan Engel is a PSIC Level 4, CSIA level 4 and PSIA Level 3 ski instructor who has over 35 years of teaching and instructor training experience. Morgan started his ski teaching career at Hidden Valley in Alberta. He is currently teaching at Whistler Blackcomb. In addition to teaching, Morgan is also PSIC Level 4 Licensed Professional Trainer.

Morgan has been working with Carv for the past six years as a Carv ambassador and advisor. He has also used his experience with Carv to develop the Carv Instructor Certification for the PSIC.

Guest Links

Carv Website: https://getcarv.com/

Carv Pro Deal for Professionals: https://getcarv.com/lp/pro-deal-2024

PSIC Carv Instructor...

How do you stay positive under duress? It doesn’t matter how adventurous, fit, risk tolerant or determined you are. At some point, you will find yourself in a situation where it becomes hard to stay positive or even to find the will to keep going. It could be as simple as sitting on a cold wet chairlift, riding your bike on a long climb that feels endless or out on a hike that seems to go on forever.

Joining us in this episode to explore how we can effectively manage our mental state in the face of discomfort is Cyril Derreamaux. Cyril is a long-distance solo kayaker, adventurer and speaker.

Cyril has just completed solo kayaking, unassisted across the Atlantic Ocean on his way from the Canary Islands to Martinique. This 3000-mile journey took Cyril 71 days, 14 hours and 57 minutes.

Cyril has also paddled his custom-made kayak solo from California to Hawaii. This is a trip that took him 91 days which he completed in 2022.

Cyril is a two-time World Record Holder who has several other long-distance trips under his belt including being part of a four-member rowing team that also paddled from California to Hawaii.

Cyril is an epic speaker and is perhaps one of the most passionate guests we have had on our show and he offers some excellent advice!

Key Takeaways

How do you maintain a positive mindset in the face of adversity:

Self-Awareness: If we want to coach ourselves, we need to be able to recognize when our discomfort is becoming an anchor that is dragging us down and what is needed to push us forward.

Being the Self Critic: Requires us to ask ourselves if the pattern of behaviour that we have is good or bad. For example, is how we feel negatively impacting our performance and becoming a barrier to success?

Getting a Third-party Opinion: This means asking others for their feedback. Sometimes we need to reach outside ourselves to get an objective assessment of how we are doing. This can involve asking our friends, colleagues or even feeling out our guests.

Reframing: This involves confronting the situation in a way that helps us to change our perception from something that might be negative to something that is more positive. This can help us to adapt more effectively mentally.

Adapt and Execute: Means putting all of this into action and moving forward. Once we recognize this, we can start to take steps to manage our mental and emotional state so that we can better cope with our situation and keep us going in the direction that we need to be headed.

Guest Bio

French born, now American citizen, Cyril Derreumaux considers himself a citizen of the world. Fluent speaker of 6 languages (and counting!) Cyril is attracted to learning and discovering new cultures and places all the time.

This natural curiosity of people and places led Cyril to backpack around the world at 25 for one year. With $7,000 and a can-do attitude Cyril embarked on this life changing experience that permanently changed his outlook on life and how he wanted to live it.

A move to California following his profession in the wine business led Cyril to begin exploring the world of outrigger canoeing and kayaking and reignited a childhood passion for windsurfing and all things water related. He soon began pushing his limits further and further in ultra-endurance water events. A serendipitous find of the Great Pacific Race which advertised “you don’t need to be a rower to row an ocean” led Cyril to embark on his biggest challenge at the time, rowing in a team of 4 men from California to Hawaii which resulted in in a Guinness Record for the fastest ocean rowing crossing of a team in 39 days and again changing Cyril’s perspective on what was possible.

Always a dreamer, Cyril soon found himself thinking about his next expedition. Inspired by the stories of maverick ocean explorers, Cyril began to...