The Outdoor Education Podcast With Rob Carmichael
Jun 6, 2026 · 1 hr 7 min · 17 segments
In this episode of **The Outdoor Education Podcast**, Rob is joined by **Jeannette Stawski**, founder of **Leading Valiantly** and author of *The Outdoor Leader, Resilience, Integrity and Adventure*…
Jeannette StawskiGuest
Rob CarmichaelHostNo entities detected.
Like, what are we telling people they need? And then what is their lived experience to be the best outdoor educator they can be?
And I do think that we need to develop more in the way of, you know, maybe consistent pathways as well, because it's not always been there the entire time.
But one of the things that you bring up is something that you and Lee Chan, who I serve in the board with Offsies for, talked about is that idea of rejection and failure of not getting into the program or going for an instructor certification in our early career and not meeting the standard and getting shot down and how the impact of failure can actually serve to drive us even further.
And I think it's a skill that we need to remind young people of a lot and not always young people as well.
And failure is, I mean, again, you've heard me speak, but I think failure is truly where all the magic happens.
And so I do think that we can't, we not only have to tell those that follow our lead that that failure is OK.
So we can't just talk out of one side of our mouth and saying and expose failure is good and you're going to learn from it if we're always removing the things that are hard.
And so and so we have to allow someone to forget their rain jacket and feel the cold and wet.
You know, we need to allow someone to not have the fire start and have to deal with that.
We have to allow someone to have to miss out on that experience because they were late, because that actually is the true gift.
If we can keep on making that, those paths and those bumps minimal, then they're never going to gain the skills that we're really trying to give them.
But what I will say is you highlighted in the beginning of what you started there was failure and then learning.
But one of the things that I highlight with the students that I teach is you're welcome to feel.
Like, what are we telling people they need? And then what is their lived experience to be the best outdoor educator they can be?
And I do think that we need to develop more in the way of, you know, maybe consistent pathways as well, because it's not always been there the entire time.
But one of the things that you bring up is something that you and Lee Chan, who I serve in the board with Offsies for, talked about is that idea of rejection and failure of not getting into the program or going for an instructor certification in our early career and not meeting the standard and getting shot down and how the impact of failure can actually serve to drive us even further.
And I think it's a skill that we need to remind young people of a lot and not always young people as well.
And failure is, I mean, again, you've heard me speak, but I think failure is truly where all the magic happens.
And so I do think that we can't, we not only have to tell those that follow our lead that that failure is OK.
So we can't just talk out of one side of our mouth and saying and expose failure is good and you're going to learn from it if we're always removing the things that are hard.
And so and so we have to allow someone to forget their rain jacket and feel the cold and wet.
You know, we need to allow someone to not have the fire start and have to deal with that.
We have to allow someone to have to miss out on that experience because they were late, because that actually is the true gift.
If we can keep on making that, those paths and those bumps minimal, then they're never going to gain the skills that we're really trying to give them.
But what I will say is you highlighted in the beginning of what you started there was failure and then learning.
But one of the things that I highlight with the students that I teach is you're welcome to feel.
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