Sliding in better late than never this week (DAMN POWER OUTAGE!!) with my fabulous new friend, Tarin O’Donnell of the Tarin It Up Podcast.
Tarin and I met through a women’s podcasting group, and even before I listened to her podcast, I realized I had to have her on because she’s been living a life that a lot of us glamorize and feel a little bit envious of…. Picture snowy woodlands, gorgeous mountains and lakes, skiing, snowmobiles, yoga, avy training at a craft brewery... It’s Lake Tahoe for crying out loud. You know the jam.
But - the reason I wanted to invite her on was NOT to give us an even worse case of FOMO - it’s because Tarin also keeps it totally real when it comes to talking about the hard and challenging things that can be part and parcel of “living the dream”.
There’s so much good stuff here - Tarin has spent almost her entire life tearing up the list of traditional expectations that society tries to guardrail girls and women with (spoiler alert: yes, she's a wrestler!!). She’s also been super creative in the way she’s crafted a life she can live on her own terms - up to and including recognizing and problem-solving for the burnout and financial challenges that pop up like annoying whack-a-moles as a result of her seasonal, outdoor-oriented lifestyle.
So listen up! And if you agree that Tarin would be the coolest online fitness coach and trainer ever, you can check out her offerings on her business site, TKOYogaFit.com, or connect directly with her on Instagram @tarin.k.o , she’s TKOYogaFit on Facebook, or TarinODonnell on LinkedIn.
And you most definitely should click on over to the Tarin It Up Podcast right now and subscribe or follow, maybe even queue a few up for this weekend’s drive up to whatever adventure you’ll be getting at once this stupid weather blows through. You’re welcome for introducing you to a new adventure bestie in your earbuds!
Lots-o-Links:
Hope to see you at Guides Gone Wild's Tuesday Meetup - April 23, 2024 @ 6:30pm - True North Ale Company, 116 County Rd, Ipswich, MA - head over to GuidesGoneWild.com/meet for more details!
Sliding in better late than never this week (DAMN POWER OUTAGE!!) with my fabulous new friend, Tarin O’Donnell of the Tarin It Up Podcast.
Tarin and I met through a women’s podcasting group, and even before I listened to her podcast, I realized I had to have her on because she’s been living a life that a lot of us glamorize and feel a little bit envious of…. Picture snowy woodlands, gorgeous mountains and lakes, skiing, snowmobiles, yoga, avy training at a craft brewery... It’s Lake Tahoe for crying out loud. You know the jam.
But - the reason I wanted to invite her on was NOT to give us an even worse case of FOMO - it’s because Tarin also keeps it totally real when it comes to talking about the hard and challenging things that can be part and parcel of “living the dream”.
There’s so much good stuff here - Tarin has spent almost her entire life tearing up the list of traditional expectations that society tries to guardrail girls and women with (spoiler alert: yes, she's a wrestler!!). She’s also been super creative in the way she’s crafted a life she can live on her own terms - up to and including recognizing and problem-solving for the burnout and financial challenges that pop up like annoying whack-a-moles as a result of her seasonal, outdoor-oriented lifestyle.
So listen up! And if you agree that Tarin would be the coolest online fitness coach and trainer ever, you can check out her offerings on her business site, TKOYogaFit.com, or connect directly with her on Instagram @tarin.k.o , she’s TKOYogaFit on Facebook, or TarinODonnell on LinkedIn.
And you most definitely should click on over to the Tarin It Up Podcast right now and subscribe or follow, maybe even queue a few up for this weekend’s drive up to whatever adventure you’ll be getting at once this stupid weather blows through. You’re welcome for introducing you to a new adventure bestie in your earbuds!
Lots-o-Links:
Hope to see you at Guides Gone Wild's Tuesday Meetup - April 23, 2024 @ 6:30pm - True North Ale Company, 116 County Rd, Ipswich, MA - head over to GuidesGoneWild.com/meet for more details!
So I was always hopping around to these jobs where it put me in the experience, because that's the only way I could have the experience.
Jen:Welcome to the Guides Gone Wild podcast. What is Guides Gone Wild, you ask? This is where you'll fill your ears and minds with the stories of everyday, extraordinary women who will inspire you to take your outdoor adventure game to the next level. Whether you're starting your journey from the couch or the trailhead, this is the place for you. So let's get a little wild.
Jen:Welcome to Guides Gone Wild. This is Jen sliding in better late than never this week with my fabulous new friend, taryn O'Donnell from the Taryn it Up podcast. Taryn and I met through a woman's podcasting group and even before I listened to her podcast I realized I had to have her on because she's been living a life that a lot of us or maybe it's just me glamorize and feel a little bit envious of. Picture snowy woodlands, gorgeous mountains and lakes, skiing, snowmobiles, yoga, avi training at a craft brewery it's Lake Tahoe. For crying out loud, you know the jam. But the reason I wanted to invite her on was not to give myself an even worse case of FOMO. It's because Taryn also keeps it totally real when it comes to talking about the hard and challenging things that can be part and parcel of living the dream in air quotes.
Jen:There's so much good stuff here. Taryn has done a great job of tearing up the list of traditional expectations that society tries to guardrail girls and women with. She's also been super creative in the way she's crafted a life she can live on her own terms, up to and including recognizing and problem solving for the burnout and financial challenges that pop up like annoying whack-a-moles as a result of her seasonal, outdoor-oriented lifestyle. The thing I love most about doing this podcast is the sheer volume of amazing people I've been able to connect with through it, and another thing I love almost as much is bringing amazing people together as a result of Guides Gone Wild. So, without further ado, it is my great pleasure to connect you with Taryn O'Donnell of TKO Yoga and Fitness and the Taryn O'Donnell of TKO Yoga and Fitness and the Taryn it Up podcast. We're total pros. Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. All right. Well, taryn O'Donnell, welcome to Guides Gone Wild this fine morning.
Tarin O'Donnell:Thank you. I'm so excited to chat with you, Jen, outside of our little Wild Women podcast, our little pod pod, I know yeah.
Jen:So, taryn, I kind of got to know about and we don't know each other very well. So this is going to be fun because I wanted to keep it fresh, because you, taryn, and I are in a podcaster's work group with some women that actually we probably both got into around Emily Holland, who was a very early guest on this show and now lives out west, and somehow you knew about her too, right, or?
Tarin O'Donnell:was it or did you know?
Jen:Angie first.
Tarin O'Donnell:Well, I met both of them separately actually, so it was kind of cool that they knew each other too. I met Emily at an outdoor media summit in 2022. We were in like a little group together. She did some talking there, a little monetizing I think it was on social medias or a podcast thing or something. It was a quick chat she had, so I met her there and then we were in a group together like doing the scavenger hunt thing and then fast forward to fall of 2023, this past October I met Angie in person because I helped organize the group. Well, I helped organize, tried to help organize some podcasters coming to the event as well. Put on the outspring.
Tarin O'Donnell:And so I reached out to Angie about coming and chatting, and so I got to meet her in person there, and then at that event I did quick little interviews with all the vendors and speakers and stuff there with a handful of them, rather, I shouldn't say all and so then, yeah, it came out that Angie knew Emily and so I started following them both and that's how I found the Wild Woman Podcast Society.
Jen:And actually that's probably how I found Outspring in the first place, because I was maybe listening to one of yours. So, yeah, it's just an interesting environment. And part of the reason I wanted to have you on is because you are not an East Coaster and I almost exclusively interview people who are from the East, and I do think that a lot of us have this like whole vision of what it's like to live in like Tahoe or you know Denver or whatever, like whole vision of what it's like to live in like Tahoe or you know Denver or whatever, and it's totally fueled by amazing pictures on Instagram, you know, and but then you know I'm old enough to realize that nothing is as it seems on social media usually. But also you do, you know there is, it's beautiful out there. I mean, there's no getting around it.
Jen:But what I love about you, now that I'm, you know, just kind of getting to know you very, very ancillary satellite, is just like there's always a story behind the story and you're somebody who has so many interesting things going on in your life and yet I also think you share my struggle of like you have too many things you're interested in, not enough focus, you know, totally always frustrated with yourself about not getting shit done, but yet you still have so many interesting things going on in your life and I want to hear all about it, because I'm like then I looked at your frickin LinkedIn page and I'm like good Lord, she's got like 27 other things I didn't even know about going on, so all right. So here are the things that I'm hoping we'll talk about today. Yeah, so first off, karen, you live like do you live in a trailer in the back country.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yes, I mean I don't consider it super back country, you know we're well. No, I mean it looks beautiful right now it's freaking gorgeous.
Jen:It's not like it's like a janky place, but I'm like I saw you I saw a picture of you holding like a like, like a septic, like, yeah, like clean out pipe.
Jen:I'm like what the hell is? You're surrounded by trees and beautiful snow and everything all right. So there was that one thing. So I'm gonna give a quick overview and then I want you to dive into all these things. Then I know that you're a wrestling coach, which to an east coaster I don't know, maybe I'm totally oblivious to this, but like women involved in wrestling out here, I don't think is like if it's happening at all, it's like super new and I'm like it's probably happening more over there than here honestly, but like it's a little bit southern like yeah like new york yeah, like okay huge.
Tarin O'Donnell:But yeah, I was like what oh?
Jen:that's cool and you know, and like your personal trainer, you, you, you worked on it in on a fishing boat in alaska. Like you have this great podcast that you talk to all these people like you. I've just been listening to the like the last couple episodes you had these like amazing guests on that you have access to out because you live where you live and it's like amazing and you do what you do and I'm just like I can't even get over it. So I want you to tell me a little bit, like how did this all happen? And you know, but, but I don't know, from the perspective of an East coaster, like there's all this stuff looks so interesting and like so much, which I'm sure it is, but I don't know. I just want to hear all about it.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, well, I guess if we dive in kind of from the beginning, is wrestling is probably gonna be the first topic, just because like that's kind of the order in which things happen in my life, because I started wrestling at eight and where are you from originally?
Jen:where were you born? Where were you raised? Like little kid?
Tarin O'Donnell:Washington State, so in Tacoma, washington, just a little bit south of Seattle. I think a lot of people know of Tacoma because the airport's like SeaTac, if you're familiar with Washington State at all. But so, yeah, I grew up there and my brother started wrestling when he was eight and we're four years apart, so by the when I was four years old, you know, we got into it pretty, pretty fast, dove in as a family, and so those four years between when I started and he started, I was just around it all the time and on the mat and you know, kind of like his little practice dummy, and I actually started out. I was a cheerleader you know this is a four and five-year-old like cheerleader, not too much, it's just sitting on the mat looking cute. And then, yeah, I decided I wanted to do it myself.
Tarin O'Donnell:There was a couple, a family that was heavily involved in the team we were on, who had two girls and they were wrestling too before they were five, I think five and six years older than me, so they were wrestling. So I'm like, okay, I see Tricia and Selena doing it, like I think I'm ready to try, and my dad was, I think, a little like oh, hesitant, like at first, but not, not much. He wasn't going to tell me, no, that's for sure, and neither was my mom. And so, yeah, I started wrestling as well and we kind of, like I said, we dove in. We wrestled almost year round for quite a while, because there's a lot of different styles of wrestling Well, not a lot, but there's folk style and freestyle.
Tarin O'Donnell:Freestyle is the Olympic, what they do in the Olympics, one of the disciplines they do in the Olympics. So folk style is like what we do in the schools and like middle school, high school and things like that. So, yeah, we just we did that, I wrestled. I actually stopped wrestling in high school for the first couple of years just because of where I was with weight and there wasn't many girls at all.
Jen:I was going to actually ask like so when you're like an eight, nine, 10 year old, is it just co-ed, like you're just wrestling kids that are your size? Basically it is.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, it's still co-ed. So it's girls wrestling has come really really far. In the last, I mean since I graduated, washington State was one of the first sanctioned states, meaning that they had a girls wrestling program and team and things back in I think it was 2007 or 2008 that they actually did it. But yeah, I got to high school and I'm like 140 pounds and I'm like man. Once you get to high school, you know it's between freshmen and senior boys there's they're all in those weight classes. I'm like I could be wrestling. You know, a 17, 18 year old guy at 140 pounds. He's going to be built a lot differently than I am at 140 pounds. And so my brother was in high school then too. So I was a man and I managed the team, I knew how to score and all that. So I was the team manager.
Tarin O'Donnell:And then the end of my sophomore year, they this is when they initiated the first Washington state women's state and one of my coaches came to me and asked me like hey, you want to, you want to do it, and I'm like what? I haven't like been on the mat in almost two years. I'm not about to. I didn't want to like go out there at the end of the season and try and wrestle in this. But then my junior year I was like, okay, I came back onto the mat and yeah, so I wrestled just because I knew there was an opportunity for state um.
Tarin O'Donnell:But throughout the season I wrestled boys and yeah, it's 160 pounds. Then wrestling boys it was not easy because my, it was a whole ego thing like I went from wrestling from young winning, doing very well that. I was like I don't want to just take this switch now and lose because of where I'm at, like the physiological differences. I wasn't ready to. I didn't want to take that on. But yeah, in my junior year I was just like, whatever, let's give this a go, yeah that's like it's.
Jen:It's interesting that it parallels like things like STEM education and all this other stuff where, like you know, girls and boys are just like and then all of a sudden, you know, girls feel, you know, like they can't do it and boys are, you know, yeah, yeah.
Tarin O'Donnell:Well around that. I mean it actually starts in middle school. That that's where you see the biggest drop off of girls in sports, because the puberty starts to happen and things start to change. And it could be obviously interest of social constructs and things like that where girls start to like oh, I want to. You know, I don't want to be this way or that way, I want to be a quote, unquote, tomboy or athletic or you know whatever. So many reasons that it happens that. I mean I still played sports. I played softball and soccer as well.
Jen:Yeah, but wrestling.
Tarin O'Donnell:I never stopped doing those when I was young.
Jen:Yeah, but wrestling a boy in middle school, it's like, okay, I'm getting boobs and my period, yeah, I'm going to get on a mat with these kids that I see in class every day, maybe not, yeah.
Tarin O'Donnell:So that's where it's awesome now to see the growth in it. I think there's 45 sanctioned states now in the country and so that means in high school there's girls wrestling teams or divisions and obviously, depending where you're at like, there's not a lot of. You might not be wrestling other girls the whole season. You still may be wrestling co-ed, but they have like girls regionals that go into state now, whereas when I the state tournament when I first started it was just a round robin. Like everyone goes to state and there's so much competition. I mean it's grown so much in college it's the fastest growing NCAA sport, I think, and multiple Division One schools now, because when I left high school I did get an offer to go to a college in Oregon Pacific University. It was a D3 private school and so they didn't. They couldn't offer any athletic scholarships. I could try to get like academic and things like that. They were the one of the top 10 schools in the nation for women's wrestling because they did have some college opportunities, but nothing like today.
Tarin O'Donnell:But at that point you know I'd been wrestling around it since I was four that I was like you know what. I was ready to just kind of go off to college and not have any commitments. I played sports, like I said, like year round. I definitely was kind of burnt out and looked at college as like I'm going to fuck around and I did that and yeah, you can look back and be like shoot, but that's just where I was at that point in time. It's like I didn't, didn't want it, but but yeah, it was a, it was a journey.
Tarin O'Donnell:So wrestling has been super important in my life. I mean, I think it built, had a large part in building who I am, in my character and things like that. And so when I came to Truckee fast forward to, like you know, a decade later or and I found the Truckee Wrestling Club, I got involved and so, since like 2017 or 18 or something, I was involved with the youth program and then eventually, when the high school program kind of kicked back up after COVID, I was asked to be an assistant coach there. So I've spent three seasons helping out with the Truckee high school team, but unfortunately we had one girl two years and this year we had no girls, but we'd really like to build the girls program there. But overall, for me it's just this I think the sport can do so much for for people and kids, and especially kids these days. I think it's a really great kind of self-discipline and mental tough, mentally tough sport that it could do a lot of good in our children's society today.
Jen:Yeah, yeah, and this is coming from somebody who's not old like me making those comments, so that's an interesting perspective. All right, so we got the wrestling which is still like pretty, pretty freaking cool. If you ask me, I'm guessing that the Alaska sidebar was next.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, pretty much. That was the next big thing. So then I spent a few years I went to just community college and after I got my associate's degree and was trying to transfer to a university, I didn't get into the school of my dreams. I got denied twice from Western Washington University. It was around this time that they had really gotten kind of stringent on things. I did not have the best grades because, like I said, I totally went into college of like no one's telling me what to do anymore.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, I really really did a 180 there and not the best way, but I made it through. But anyways, I wanted to go to Western Washington University in Bellingham, washington, to study kinesiology and when I didn't get in, like twice, I was like, okay, well, what, like what now? And my best friend at the time was going to the University of Washington, tacoma had a campus. She's like just go there because it's like it's so easy to get in and like just keep you know, don't lose your momentum or steam or whatever. So I was able to transfer there and I had they didn't have many offerings for majors, just general ed, and I went for the first quarter and I was paying out of my own pocket. My parents were like they paid for community college but they were like anything else you know we can't cover. You got to figure it out and I was like.
Tarin O'Donnell:I did have to take a couple of classes that I just didn't, that didn't transfer over or something. So it wasn't at the point of taking courses I really wanted to or cared about, but also they didn't have a degree that I wanted. It was all just going to be kind of general ed. So I was like this is so dumb, Like I am working, going to school, paying for something that I don't even want to do. I'm not into this. So I took a break from school and I then ended up moving up to a ski resort, living in a trailer, and to Crystal Washington, worked a season up there and met a bunch of people who had worked at a zip line course in Alaska, and then I ended up doing that. I went up to Alaska for a summer and worked up in Ketchikan, Alaska, at a zipline course, and I did that two years in a row and then after that I mean it's a huge spiral to get to where I am.
Jen:Yeah, but I think why I'm loving listening to this? Because actually, you know, like my kids are, my older daughter is in the throes of like applying I have nowhere to go, I have nothing to do. I'm such a loser. And I'm like, if you're open to opportunity, I mean so far, I'm like wishing that I spent my 20s doing all of the things that you did, because, like, instead of you know, I mean, granted, I had I had fun in college too, but you know, I was very much a nose to the grindstone. Oldest child got to make this happen. You, you know, gotta go here, gotta do this, gotta get a job. And and then you look back on it like whatever, 30 years later and you're like, why was I in such a hurry to, yeah, have like a mediocre life?
Jen:I don't know, but that's what you don't have that perspective when you're young, but it sounds like you kind of did and just like, went with it, which is awesome.
Tarin O'Donnell:I did and I was really lucky to have support you. You know, my one of my really really good friends, she. She went straight to college, got her bachelor's, almost double majored, and then found snowboarding. And you know I started snowboarding not much longer yeah, not much longer before her, but at 17, because we were in the city so it wasn't like super easy, easily accessible in the sport and it was expensive, you know. So anyway, she graduated and then found it and her parents were like okay, have a year, go have fun. And after that, you know, she fell in love with that lifestyle and the outdoor industry and kind of being around that.
Tarin O'Donnell:But they were like heck, no, we paid for this education, like you need to get it together, girl, and find a job and whatnot, almost like a you owe us kind of thing. And I mean, I understand parents, I get it, you paid for it. Especially generational wise, you have a perspective of this is what your child needs to do to be successful in life. But obviously we know success looks so different, it's different to everybody else and that's the thing is. Generationally it was like a linear path and that's kind of what my podcast is all about is these paths aren't linear and it doesn't have to be a linear path. But yeah, I was really lucky to have parents that, except they told me in the first place with college like we can't pay for it. My dad is an electrician. He was like super open about trades and you know that that's an opportunity for us to go into and very much kind of follow the wind. They were really young parents too, so I think they had that perspective of we didn't get the chance to go do any of this by you know 21,. They had one kid and another one not far behind, so I think that they kind of got to live vicariously through me. So I had the support there to take these chances and whatnot, and not getting into the school I wanted.
Tarin O'Donnell:And following this kind of linear path is where I really got to sit and think about like what do I want to do? And I saw people I knew a couple of people like river rafting and guiding and doing that kind of thing and I was like how the heck do I do that? It felt so far away, you know, being in a city and not having done that myself, that I was just constantly trying to figure out how the hell do I get in the outdoor industry? How do I crack it? And so it was amazing.
Tarin O'Donnell:Once I moved up and started working at the ski resort and met these people, I'm like wow, I'm like one step closer. And then got into it and it feels like once you can crack that door, it's networking. Everything in life is like networking Really. You meet people and you're just exposed to things you weren't exposed to before. You find these opportunities that you didn't even know existed. So it was really awesome. I got into yoga when I was up there in Ketchikan and I decided I wanted to go get my 200-hour yoga teacher certificate. Decided I wanted to go get my 200 hour yoga teacher certificate. So I found a program or school in Maui and after I left Alaska I went there and did a month in Maui.
Jen:All right. So another example of like okay. I want to be a yoga teacher, so I could go down the street to the yoga studio that is offering the teacher training, but this could be an opportunity to do something yet again, even cooler. So you go to freaking Maui to get your yoga education. Yeah, I mean.
Tarin O'Donnell:I didn't want to take the plunge of going to like a full-on country, going to India A lot of people do that or Bali or something, and that was more expensive, I see I found it cost-wise. I was like this is amazing and for me I needed to be fully immersed. I know you could do the weekends and do a long standing thing kind of do after work. I was like that's not going to work for me. I had to go be fully immersed in all of it for it to really stick. And yeah, in that point I mean I'd been working seasonally already, like with the ski resort. I worked at a golf course before that too. So it was kind of like yep, this is, I worked all summer to pay for this and go do this.
Tarin O'Donnell:And, like I said, being in my you know, earlier twenties, I didn't have a fear of like, well, after I spent all my money, what happens? I had the cushion of, okay, go to mom and dad's reset and move somewhere else. There'd be a week, a few weeks to a month that I would kind of be like what am I doing, or something, and then I'd go off somewhere else, which is kind of what happened. I got back from Maui and it wasn't too long after that I started looking for. I was just working in a coffee shop back in Tacoma and looking for opportunities for the next summer and I found a yoga teaching job in Nicaragua for the summer, so I went there.
Jen:I didn't even know that. Yeah, oh my God, that's freaking awesome.
Tarin O'Donnell:I didn't speak a lick of Spanish and I was like, well, let's go give it a go. And this yeah, I went to this little resort. It was interesting, a lot of people own the homes there and then so it's like timeshares. Actually it wasn't like a hotel or anything this little gated community with a nine hole golf course on it, right off the ocean, about an hour hour and a half from the main city. And, yeah, so I spent three months there, making $8 a day and living off a credit card that I didn't physically have, because I could just type the number in at the little surf shop that we had there to get a few provisions. But because I could only get to town once in a while and I'd, yeah, lived off some, uh, frozen bananas and Gatorade that I'd watered down so I could make it last longer because I could get to the store like once every three weeks or something. And, yeah, then it was after Nicaragua again, I come home. I'm like, okay, what's next? Get the opportunity to come down to California with a group of friends and we decided to go up to Tahoe to see there was a job fair for winter. So we're like, well, let's go, let's go see what happens there. Everyone got jobs and we're like, all right, we're all moving to Tahoe for winter because we were all trying to ski bum and yeah, that was 2014.
Tarin O'Donnell:And then I haven't left Truckee full-time. This is here where I met the A gal, a friend of mine, who was a fisherman, is a fisherman in Alaska. She runs her own boat and her boyfriend or fiance also did and does. And yeah, I got hooked up with a friend of hers working on a tender and I went up to Alaska for the summer. I didn't think I was going to come back to Tahoe, but then I was like, yeah, I want to go back there for the winter and did Alaska again for the second summer. And, yep, just kept coming back to to Tahoe, where I thought it'd only be winters. But no, now it's been almost. This was my 10th winter. I would always count the winters because I was gone a couple summers right, but you're essentially there year-round now oh, I am, yeah, yeah.
Tarin O'Donnell:Since 2017, I've been here year-round.
Jen:Yeah, okay, and yeah, there's like it's just so interesting, you know. I mean, I just like, granted, you know both of us benefit from a lot of privilege, even if we're not from, like, wealthy generational wealthy families. You know we're both white women, you know like bad things haven't happened to us, so but like and and and lots and lots of people have that same privilege.
Jen:But yet feel like they don't have privilege because they don't have money, or you know their parents are in the trades or you know they have to go live in a basement somewhere or whatever. But like that in itself can be viewed as an enormous privilege, like you have somewhere to go and so you can actually do these things and take these risks and just like and you're right, you never know where those are going to go, and like I just love it. But I also know that it sounds awesome, but there's, there's always like, but there's a lot of struggle that goes along with that and you have to be a pretty resilient person to keep doing that, because you know even the best person, even the person who's got like is the most resilient person, is the most flexible person. Like all that moving around, all that change, all that you know like lugging shit in a fishing boat.
Jen:I mean, there's some nasty days and weeks and months. So, yeah, let's talk a little bit about the background stuff that maybe doesn't make itself. I love you because a lot of it does make its way onto Instagram and wherever, because you'll talk very much more openly. Like you know, my generation is like God forbid.
Jen:We admit that we need help doing anything and we're going to pretend everything's fine and then we're just going to like be silently suffering our miserable existence for way too long before we do anything about it. I love the fact that women these days are a little bit more open about stuff, talk a little bit about the background and then also maybe why you got to the point where you wanted to start the podcast.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, well, the background, as far as like, struggles in it all.
Jen:Yeah, I guess like what. So we've, you know we've. We've gone to Hawaii, you've gone to Nicaragua you've gone to Alaska and a million times you live in.
Tarin O'Donnell:You live in Tahoe like what are the parts of it that are like well, but you don't really stop to think about this when you see the pictures of the beautiful snow and the non highlight reel yoga harness that, you know, and I'm living eight bucks a day.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, I mean as we know, right life is so much of a highlight reel on social media but, like you mentioned as well, I do try to share the other parts of it. Um, it's not all happy-go-lucky and obviously, from what I did for so long, you know, I was in the opposite position where I looked back at a point and I was like, wow, I, I fucked up here. Sorry, I don't know if you, as long as I throw my expletive on there, I'm like you can say whatever the hell you want.
Jen:I'm like as soon as the f-bomb comes out or anything even close to it, I'm like, okay, done, yeah, now my now my friends know not to listen to it in the car with the kids in the back. It's fine.
Tarin O'Donnell:Well, I messed up. I was thinking because I didn't go to school. Here I am in my later 20s, slowing down. I've been in Tahoe now a couple years, at this point where I'm starting to really have these thoughts of, okay, what's next? Now I'm not just hopping around seasonally. I have, in my opinion at the time and I still go through these it's like nothing to show for it, obviously experiences, right. But when you have a resume that at this point seems 10 pages long and the longest thing is like three months, it's like okay, so who's going to hire me? Because they're thinking I'm just going to jump on the next train out of here and go do something else as soon as the wind changes or something.
Tarin O'Donnell:So that was kind of hard just thinking about. Like, so, like, what's next? What do I want to settle down and do? Because now I've done all these different things and, like you said in the very beginning, have so many different interests, but I had no idea how to kind of funnel it all into one thing. And if I did, how long was that gonna last? You know, like, was that gonna be something I could stick to forever? Because you still, even though I did all these different things and had all these experiences. The end goal still was like get a steady not end goal. But you know what the what's put on you society? Wise vision was like get a job that has a salary, get a house, married, kids. You know all that. So I'm 28 or something, 29, like oh, that seems really really far away.
Tarin O'Donnell:You haven't figured out that all of those things are overrated yet yeah, totally, but you know that was just hard to kind of think about. Like I said, I don't have a bachelor's degree, so what kind of job am I going to get now in my later 20s? Because everything says bachelor's degree, bachelor's degree and great, I've gotten it. Nor do I have the experience in that, like in any of these salary jobs or whatnot, so it really just kind of messes with your head. Obviously, I know now that I just apply anyways and experience can count so much more and you can relate a lot of things to each other Customer service, like what I did, being with people all the time and all these things. I had really good people skills and communication skills, but that took a long time for me to realize how I could get that, because you still need to get the opportunity to talk to someone, putting things on paper. You know that's usually the first step still, and if you can't get past that, then my chances were, your chances are lower and all of it, of course, was hard work.
Tarin O'Donnell:It's, yeah, it seems amazing to be a guide and teach yoga and all that, but it was also. It's physically and mentally demanding working on a fishing boat, obviously, you know I worked on a tender so we bought the fish, which meant also that the fishermen are out all day fishing usually and then they start to come into us towards the evening and night. So it was a and we're kind of on call. We might be working all night, but a fisherman decided he wanted to go to bed and so he's going to come first thing in the morning to sell his fish. So sleep is very interesting and it's not always like consistent. And in the height of the season and in July, you know, I think our longest workday was 20 hours just straight of.
Jen:I was going to say there's no darkness to like. Cue everybody that like. Maybe let's like back off for a minute, you know.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, it took our captain falling asleep at the crane like mid transfer to the oh, we're done, we got're done, we need a break. We're going to go sleep for an hour and then we'll come back out, because it was just a crazy day. And then you're on a boat. I was on a big boat and I'm lucky enough to have my own stateroom because of it being a tender. But yeah, it's hard work and, again, mentally challenging because since we were kind of on call, we didn't have days off. Really, if we got to go to the paddle, to the beach, cause we were just in the ocean the whole time, we rarely docked and yeah, you couldn't really get away and just feel like I've got the whole day to myself or whatever. That becomes mentally challenging. And talking to your friends who are having fun, cause again you're like at this point, mid twenties, oh, I'm not like biking or camping and having so much fun with my friends, but again, that all sounds a little trivial.
Jen:And no, it doesn't, because there is not a single person on this earth, including the people I live with, that I gave birth to in some cases, that I could tolerate 24, seven, yeah, for like months on end, no way.
Tarin O'Donnell:I got really close to leaving one time, just breaking down, calling my dad, and we had another tender tied up to us as going to town. I was like I'm getting on that boat, I'm out of here, Like I was cause, yeah, like you said, being around the same people 24 seven, I was had it over over my captain done with you because he couldn't say no to anyone. It was always, yes, we'll do this, yes, we'll do that, like no, we need a break. But yeah, there's that side to everything and like through it all because of the way I was living, it's not like I was like stacking cash. First of all, this conversation has been more popular and talked about lately to use finances and especially women with finances. I don't think it's necessarily for me like a woman thing, but just from where I came from and my upbringing, my family said, yeah, we didn't have a lot of money and we lived kind of like paycheck to paycheck. So, yeah, I never really got taught kind of saving in this and that. So it was paycheck to paycheck.
Jen:And when I didn't have that job, I was like, okay, got to go work again no-transcript point to bring up, because I do think that you know some of us take for granted because and you know, like in my cases, like my parents were not super great with money either, but it's like but I had my first couple of jobs as horrible and boring and not engaging as they were like for what you know, somebody would come talk to you about the opportunity for 401k or something, or they'd like essentially force you to put like 1% of your check into something you know, and it's like at the time you don't think anything of it. And then you know, flash forward to being in my fifties, I'm like God damn it, thank God, you know what I mean. I could totally see like you just start doing that. And I have friends that are in the same boat, like they just they've had amazing lives and experiences and I don't feel like it needs to necessarily be one or the other.
Jen:But it would be helpful if you got the right kind of education at the right time in your life to like make it so you could have both, you know, so that's a really really good point that I don't think a lot of people appreciate.
Jen:It's like okay, you know, that's awesome, I was living out of my Tacoma or whatever, but like I also had no access to any of the things that can compound and make my future better. And so, like you know, and I mean I'm living through right now paying for my own healthcare and that health insurance and that's a bitch and a half. You know I mean, that's a piece of it that nobody tells you either.
Jen:Like oh wow, that's really expensive. And then you have kids and you really can't decide. You can't take that chance to go without, like health insurance, even if you're healthy.
Tarin O'Donnell:You know, it's just like, yeah, that's only 28 thinking that, but it's because here, you know, in the US we hit that. I'm not sure what it is now, but for me it was at 25 and it was like 26, yeah, yeah, 26 yeah, because I'm yep I so I knew at 26 like, yep, no more health insurance.
Tarin O'Donnell:And yeah, like I said, didn't have this bachelor's degree in my back pocket or anything. I didn't have a cushion as far as money. My sense of security has always been that I can now move back in with my parents. But you know, like I can always go there, at least I have a roof that I can go to if I need it.
Jen:But you get to a certain age and that's just like not what you want to do either. You know you have a life and it's like yeah, my mom, but it was still like here I am with my friends and my boyfriend.
Tarin O'Donnell:And it's like, of course, how lucky to have that security, to know that, if any, if shit hit the fan, that I could go there, like I said, have a roof over my head and be able to be fed. But they sure as heck weren't going to be like here, I'll pay.
Jen:I moved back in forever.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, and like here I can have a sandwich, you know, and dinner, but I still need to figure out how to pay my bills. So, yeah, I like said that was that was always the biggest struggle. None of this was ever like big money making things. As most people know, who do these things in the industry, guides and stuff like that you're doing it for largely for the experience, if you enjoy doing whatever. That is like my second job in Alaska.
Tarin O'Donnell:The second summer that I was guiding, I was sea kayaking as well and zip lining and so, yeah, I got to be on the ocean and like every day I mostly did the kayaking and occasionally some bike tours. So so it was always hopping around to these jobs where it put me in the experience, because that's the only way I could have the experience, because I wasn't going out and doing a yoga retreat and enjoying that side of things. I wasn't going on this tour or going on a big bike packing trip or something like that, because I never was able. I didn't have that financial like security to do that. I had to have the experience while working.
Tarin O'Donnell:So that's where, again, a lot of I still think like that's kind of what's engraved in me. I feel like to get into anything I want to do or have an interest in, I end up working in, in or around it first, because that's just what I'm used to is working it and seeing it from that side, and still not really on the full point of vacations and totally enjoying something. You know, every time I've been to Utah it's because I'm helping work a retreat and I barely have a day there where I get to go hike or bike or something on my own. So I'm hoping to get to that point someday.
Jen:Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's another awesome.
Tarin O'Donnell:I want to go to Utah for the weekend to bike myself, not because I'm going to work this retreat and I'm driving eight hours working the whole time, driving eight hours back and then straight back to work, Like no, no time in between. That's again just something kind of ingrained in me. I do love to be on the working side of things. I like to put it together because I like to give people the experience and I just keep putting that as the priority over, like trying to have my own.
Jen:Well, and that's like, and that's exhausting. I mean like it doesn't matter how much, how many people, people, skills you have, like holding space for people and being responsible for somebody else's good time all the time yeah, exhausting, like even a period of time. It's exhausting. So it's like even if you did tack on a day at the end, like I find that when I go to events, it's like, even if you did tack on a day at the end, like all you do is like sleep you're not enjoying it because you're like wow, I am like tapped out exactly like it's the emotional part.
Tarin O'Donnell:And so even with being a personal trainer which is kind of like you said in my later 20s, where I came to, when I started to think what am I going to do now? I'm in Tahoe like full-time and I went back to, you know, maybe going back to school for that kinesiology degree. I never got being a physical therapist. Tahoe is a mecca of athletes. I was like that's who the people I'd want to work with if I was a physical therapist is athletes and healing them through injuries and getting them back on the bike on the snow, snow or whatever it is. But let's see, you know, let me dip my toes back in kind of the learning environment and I'm going to get my personal training certificate and I found I really, really enjoyed that and loved doing that. But yeah, it was again just another thing. That's like something I enjoy.
Jen:So I turn it into work like working out and fitness and all of that, which is, I mean, I guess it's a good thing that, like, you've continued to enjoy these things enough, but it's true that, like, once you turn something into work, then it's work, it's not playing.
Tarin O'Donnell:Well then it leads to burnout. So what are you doing now too?
Jen:Tell me, like how this whole thing is like come together to like where you are at this point in time.
Tarin O'Donnell:So I was personal training, working at several different gyms in the area, and then COVID hit and I also, through that, I was teaching yoga as well at the same time, and one of the yoga studios I worked at did pad offered paddleboard yoga and it was awesome. I we used a company's paddleboards um Tahoe city kayak. They do kayak tours and rentals and whatnot, so we worked together with them and I was in Truckee, tahoe city. It's like I don't know 25 minutes away or something, not a huge deal, but I would like drive there in the morning, do a tour, come back to Truckee, work in the gym or something, and just so much back and forth. And I love being on the water, which is also why I went and became like worked on the fishing, the fishing boat, like it's crazy that you think my love for water doesn't mean I want to work on a this crazy hard work on a commercial fishing boat, but I tie all these things in together, like I said. So, anyways, I I wanted to kind of do it on my own and it was. So it was before 2020 that I bought some paddle boards and I was still working with the same yoga studio, but now we had the capability of going elsewhere and not just stationary at this one beach, like we could do private events and whatnot. So it was kind of, yeah, contracting, getting contracted out through them. Then COVID hit and I had to kind of completely figure it out on my own. The gym's obviously closed so I started doing bootcamp classes outside, working with my clients just at my house. At this point it had been a couple of years that I was able to start collecting some of my own equipment, obviously way less than in a gym, but yeah, I just had people come over to my house and work outside. We had a big driveway and yard so I had plenty of room there and I'd do classes at the park and then with paddleboard, yoga and fitness, obviously you're outside. So it was much easier to do the like, social distancing and all of that. And I did that for a couple summers and I was just exhausted after just two years of it.
Tarin O'Donnell:And again, the financial thing super unstable. As a personal trainer you know clients come and go. You have more regularity in classes. People will weekly go to the same class forever and ever. But personal training I mean the goal is not to do it forever, the goal is to get your client to a point that they can do it on their own and they're getting their own routine. And you know, some clients would go on their own and they come back just to kind of touch base and get back on track or something or reach new goals and then go off on their own again.
Tarin O'Donnell:But I was just so stressed financially with the insecurity of it that I was ready to kind of find something more permanent. And I was also working at a gear shop just on the floor as a sales associate at the same time of all this and the opportunity came up to take a bigger role in doing the marketing and being on the sales floor and so I eventually I took that it was split between working the sales floor and doing the marketing, but it was full time and salaried and I kind of put all the training and stuff on the back burner because I was like I just need to for once in my life do one thing and have a regular paycheck bi-weekly, know exactly that I'm getting paid. So I know these bills are getting paid and it's not every month's a surprise. So I did that. But it was very quickly that I was like, oh, I miss doing 500 other things, so I'm still with that store I'm still, but it has that has moved to full-time marketing.
Tarin O'Donnell:Well, 32 hours, I was I, because I wanted to have some extra time to do my things on the side. So, yeah, in that I train. I haven't been training clients much lately, especially here in the winter, but I'll mostly do remote training. Now come up with a program for people and I use different apps that they can get the workout they go to the gym that they want. I didn't want to be affiliated with a gym anymore after like getting burnt by some and just the construct of what it is to train at a gym. And so today I am mostly doing the marketing for this store and I have my podcast, which I'll talk about how it got started, and every once in a while I end up picking up another odd job for a short amount of time helping put some events together, working with retreats if that opportunity continues to come up and maybe in the summer again doing some more paddleboard, yoga and training outside.
Jen:Yeah, and how do you feel about that? How is it making you feel to have that a little bit of stability in the background? I mean, is that a positive thing overall?
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, it's definitely been positive. So it's like and I hate using this word, but there's just nothing else like the balance, right. So finding some balance where you have some stability, security, but you also have room for flexibility and freedom, and that's just. Yeah, you know, things change when you work for someone. It's always I've always struggled with that aspect too, of working for one person for an extended amount of time that I just, ultimately, the dream would be to like just work for myself, and obviously in a freelance way, where I can choose clients or people that I work with, but just to have more flexibility and be able to do different things and not feel locked down in one or guilty about my time over here or there or whatnot.
Jen:But you are in a unique position to know what the challenges around that are. I mean I think that it's like there's there's trade offs to everything and you know it's like you. You had a very, extremely long, great run of really interesting, unique, different experiences, and so I would think, for me at least, I would need a little breathing room once in a while to just be like yeah okay.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, and so it definitely allowed me that. You know, and, like I said, I did that for a bit and then I was like, okay, I do miss having some other things, but learning to find out, I guess, what those kind of side hobbies could be without having to make everything a job is hard. So I had wanted to start a podcast for years and years, like almost a decade. Me and a couple of friends used to always talk about it, and then, you know, I moved to Tahoe and I still thought about it on my own, but I didn't have these two buddies around that where we would just like talk about random stuff. We had no idea what we would do, we just wanted to talk to each other. But then, yeah, I, I. It was always in the back of my mind and one day one of my other friends she was starting a podcast. I was like, oh my God, like I was so proud of her and I was like I had no idea she ever even wanted to start one, like that's so cool and she's just doing it. And then I was like, well, why don't I just do it? And, yeah, I was like, okay, I want to do it.
Tarin O'Donnell:I started thinking of a name and but I was like I don't have one topic, cause, as you've all heard from my life, obviously I don't stick to one thing. So I was like how the heck can I have a podcast when I don't know what? Like I can't, it's not going to be about one thing, and how will anyone find it? Or if it's different every week? Like you know, everyone says niche down, niche down. So I just had no idea.
Tarin O'Donnell:It took me a while and, like I said, finally I called a friend and I was, uh, I was going back up to Washington. I was like, hey, will you just have a conversation with me? Like can we just record it and let's just see, see what happens? And so we intermittently like recorded and just like shooting the shit, talking about our, our lives, kind of just to get reps under our belt of what it felt like to talk to the ether, because it feels kind of weird at first, and then, especially, the weirdest and hardest thing is like actually hitting, publish and letting people hear your voice out there, and then, especially when you're like I'm just rambling what the heck? But yeah, it took us a little bit before we got.
Tarin O'Donnell:I think this was October 2021. And so it was. We'd go a month without talking, it'd be a two weeks, three weeks a month super random and we finally got into a weekly cadence. And then we started by asking people we knew really close to our circle, our friends, to be on the podcast. And eventually I just started reaching out to people. Because of what I've done and been in the outdoor industry so much and have a lot of connections, I just started reaching out to people and they were saying yes, and I was like, wait, what I know, I'm like do you know?
Jen:do you know that, like not that many people listen to this? But yeah, I'm always kind of like oh.
Tarin O'Donnell:Well, exactly, you're thinking about these people, are you know they could be on such a larger stage than what I have to offer them. And then they're not even asking for those things, like for your numbers, your downloads, this, that or the other. So I'm like, ok, that's awesome. But then I just get in my own head of they should be heard by the masses and they're not. So then I almost feel bad or guilty, like I should wait until I have a bigger audience so that they're actually heard.
Jen:But the thing about podcasting and this is why, like I mean, obviously, as you know and we talked about it or not but like it's, it's a grind, like once you start getting into it, when you want to be consistent, and I've definitely backed off my cadence lately just because I've been doing it for four years and I just don't like, I'm not structured enough, I just, and I don't want to put out crap. So I'm kind of like, all right now, when I have something to say, or when, you know, when I have got somebody that I want to share, I'm going to and I've almost started thinking about it more, like because you know the downloads will go up and down, up and down, because I don't do anything to market it and I'm just I suck at a lot of things and I self-sabotage, but I'm also like you know what Podcasting is an amazing medium because it's out there in the ether forever, like it's out there forever.
Jen:So it's like like me, you talk to people and it's pretty evergreen, like you're having conversations with these people that, like, are just going to be just as relevant.
Jen:And, you know, six months a year, two years, like I mean, there's been a few people who have, like you know, gone on to a different business or maybe change the name of their guiding or whatever. But, like, bottom line, there's still cool people who have something to say and there's still something to be taken away from it. And I'm like you know what I get people that will listen to stuff that I recorded like four years ago, like they find one podcast and then they'll listen to like every biking podcast that I've ever done or whatever. You can see it, you know, and I'm like all right, that's cool.
Tarin O'Donnell:It's a cool thing. Well, and that's what they say all the time. They say, like the podcast experts, often and I do this myself when you find a new podcast and maybe you listen to that first episode right, whoever sends it to you, or you found it, whatever, and it might be right in the middle or the latest one but then you're going to go back like, well, let's see, I mean, I started podcasts from the beginning that are years old because, like you said, these kinds of conversations, these are the podcasts that I listen to as well. So it's still. Maybe there's a few things that are irrelevant. Like I just had Cassie Abel of Wild Rye on my podcast. So when she talks about her spring 24 launch and someone listens to that, you know, next year, like that's not going to be relevant to them, but everything else, the story behind the business is still going to be the story behind business.
Tarin O'Donnell:Doesn't make her any less cool, exactly, and if anything it's going to make, okay, the next time she's on there. Now they're like, okay, we're caught up, what's happening now in the business, but again those things aren't going to become completely irrelevant down the line. And it's just funny being, you know, just have to remind yourself that because again it's just getting in your in your own head and doubting yourself about these things and kind of finding any reason to like not do it or whatnot. So, yeah, we've been two and a half years now recording. I said it wasn't until really the first full year that we were on that weekly cadence, largely focused around the outdoor industry and women. Because, as I say, it's like when my co-host and I, amber, when we just have our TNA episodes we call them where it's just us talking about life.
Jen:You know, our goal is just to be able to relate to people, which is the best theme name ever, and actually we should say and I will say this in the intro as well, but like we haven't even said, the name of your podcast yet.
Tarin O'Donnell:It's called Taryn it Up. Taryn it Up, I love it. Yeah, yeah, I love a good pun. Yeah, totally so. But you know, our goal is just to relate to people and talk about every day. Like I said, it looks like maybe things are great, pictures are great. I live in a beautiful place, but, yeah, it's not always smooth sailing, that's for sure.
Jen:I know Well, and I just like I actually really enjoy listening to you guys talk to your I shouldn say, I say you guys, because that's what yeah, women of my age, but I mean you ladies.
Jen:Um, it's just fun listening to the two of you talk to each other because you know it's like over time, you know it's like getting a window into just like where you are in your lives and and it's relatable, even if I'm not having the same struggles that you know. Maybe you or Amber are having it's like oh yeah, yeah, you're right, like that, you know.
Jen:Maybe you or Amber are having it's like oh yeah, yeah, you're right, like shit happens, you know and you have good intentions or you want to do this and then you can't or like, yeah, you know, I mean cause Amber's got a kid and she's going through a breakup, and like, just listening to all that stuff, I'm like, oh man, that's like. And you just, I don't know, I, I just love. I guess that's why I just love listening to podcasts, because I just like the storytelling behind it. Yeah, not necessarily telling a story, but you're learning a story about somebody else.
Tarin O'Donnell:You know, yeah, just the real, the real stuff, right that? And even if you're not going through it right now, maybe you have and maybe it hasn't been the exact same, but you can relate to the feelings that it creates, that that story creates, or you know, you might go through that like down the line, right, it's just a little nugget to remember that, hey, other people obviously go through it, and those are just things that we never think about when it's happening to us or it's only happening to us.
Jen:It's never happened to anybody else. Exactly, you're not alone in having that experience Like pretty much nothing is new in this world. Like every bad thing or good thing that happens is probably going to happen to somebody else at another time.
Tarin O'Donnell:So I held back from saying it was like an outdoor centric podcast for a long time because it was just us talking. But then you know, after talking with other people and kind of trying to find an elevator pitch or whatnot, it's like Amber and I love the outdoors and I just say it's kind of people, the souls are rooted in it. We might talk to folks whose business isn't in the outdoor industry you know, a mental health coach or something but they themselves we relate to them because that's what we do to get out of our heads and to have fun is be in the outdoor spaces. So it's a yeah, like I said, it kind of centered around the souls, outdoor souls. But not every podcast is just strictly talking about the outdoors or outdoor industry or or bike riding or snowboarding or anything.
Tarin O'Donnell:I know, I know, but like when you're talking about like training for things or like setting goals, or you know, and it's like all right, so maybe you don't listen to every single one, but like there's definitely things that you can pick up in each one, that just make it like oh that was really fun or that was a good, you know, I mean because, like, not everything has to be educational, not everything has to be like you know um, if you're driving or working from home, it just feels like people you know you're just listening in with your friends, right, you can laugh along with them and just in the moment that you're listening makes you feel like you're not just sitting alone or doing whatever. Because, yeah, I work from home in my trailer, in our wheel, pretty freaking sweet actually.
Jen:Like that thing is like way nicer than my house. I'm just saying, yeah, it's pretty nice. There's a reason.
Tarin O'Donnell:My background is great okay well, this is like it's probably a little bit hard to tell, but there used to be like a, some doors on there and a tv, but a bear got in this summer and tore that all apart, tore our door off, tore that pantry open, ate everything. Were you there? No, we were out of town. Oh my god, thank god you weren't there. Yeah, well, if we were here, I town.
Jen:Oh my God, thank God you weren't there.
Tarin O'Donnell:Well, if we were here I don't think you would have come, but the first year we were here we didn't have any problems. We obviously know that we live in bear country here in Tahoe, especially where we are. We're not completely in the back country, but we're a bit out there. We have a lot of land around us and we know the risks, but we live here full-time so we're gonna have food in here, right? But we hadn't seen much bear activity at all in the summer or anything and um until then. And he went to our neighbors too at a different time. Both the two of our neighbors hit them, you know, when they're just gone at work or something. So it bears break into houses here like full-blown and this is like.
Jen:This is like actually disturbing to me because, like I remember, we went to yellowstone and my husband kept trying to tell me oh yeah, well, you know, if you have a hard side, you know there's like those hard side camper, like places that you camp, but now you're telling me it doesn't fucking matter, if you have a hard side, nothing's just gonna come in.
Tarin O'Donnell:Oh yeah, like in your Like in your trailer, if you look, I think it's on. I think I had on one of the Instagrams I can't remember if it's my personal or um the podcast like it looks way worse than it was, cause it's just a mess, cause literally any any kind of food is everywhere in the door. It was the front door that was so bad Cause he literally just tore through it, um and and ripped it off. But so we lived with a plywood door for a month or two and bungeed that shut to our sink and he came in during that time too. But we put cameras up and everything and all our neighbors were on alert because, like I said, they were getting into well, once he gets in, once, then it's like you know they always tell us a fed bear is a dead bear.
Tarin O'Donnell:I would hear about, like you, know it was feeding season, for sure. You know he's getting ready to get as full as he can to go hibernate. But yeah, in town, you know we'd have them in our yard all the time eating our apples and, like I said, around Tahoe you'll see them in like mansions. Okay, so, no matter what a bear is going to get in, because a lot of people tried to give me flack on the internet and I'm like dude, no, we know what we're doing. If this was a full blown you know the house of our dreams we have built here he still could have got in, cause if no one's home and food's in there, he's going to find a way to do it. And no one empties their entire house when they go to work or on you know a couple of day vacation or whatever. But yeah, but yeah. So we're.
Tarin O'Donnell:We live on our, our property that we got in 2020 and then in 2022, we finally made the move up here, bought the fifth wheels, because we were like nothing's going to get done if we're not there. So it's just been a bunch of dirt moving right now because it's completely raw. Um, so we have a solar generator and then a gas generator and, uh, starlink satellite internet I was gonna say and you have some pretty kick-ass wi-fi, I gotta tell you, yeah, well, actually hot spot on zoom, because on it's we can stream all day on this starlink and whatnot.
Tarin O'Donnell:But as soon as I put zoom on it likes to randomly cut out. So usually a hot spot, but but yeah, it's, uh, it's fun. Well, it's been almost two years that we've been in the trailer. We always, you know, have hopes of getting a bigger structure up soon or this summer, but it's obviously lots of, lots of work. Our land is not the easiest to dig in or move. We have a lot of rock and slate and things to get through. But yeah, we're figuring it out, having a good time, and last winter was the biggest winter, I think, like ever, almost in a long, long time here.
Jen:And it was like a hundred million inches of snow, wasn't it I?
Tarin O'Donnell:can't remember off the top of my head how many inches we had last year, but for like a month it seemed like we just had back to back four foot, you know storms. This year we haven't had as much at all, but lots of snow removal. We have a tractor with a blower on it, though, so that because our road from where we're at, like our driveway, where our cars are in front of our trailer, to the pavement is a half a mile and we're not responsible for the whole half mile.
Tarin O'Donnell:we, our neighbors, split part of that with us, but between us and one of our neighbors like my boyfriend and one of the neighbors and his brother, they do the most of that snow removal. This year they got a big break with it, but, yeah, lots of shoveling and whatnot in the in the winters, cause we're at 7,300 feet.
Jen:Wow, lots of roof raking. I would imagine. Yeah, totally. We don't need the the things to start coming in through the top too. Yeah, exactly, that's nuts. So that explains why. And tell me a little bit about, and I won't keep you too much longer, because we're already going on and on, but the Dovetail Alliance. So you interviewed them recently, which is so awesome, and you are. Are you an ambassador? Are you working for them? Like just kind of have?
Tarin O'Donnell:I'm an ambassador for them and I also work for them. So I became an ambassador first, and then opportunity came up to be a sales rep in the Southwest territory, which is California, arizona and Nevada, and I took that on the side and so, yeah, I do a little bit of that too. So it's I love them. I mean, I found the brand, I think, in 2019. And then, when the opportunity came up to be an ambassador, I was like heck.
Jen:Yes, I want to order some pants or something, cause I'm like those look awesome and uh, I need to upgrade my work wardrobe for sure.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, yeah, they are. They're so great, so great and the company is awesome. Um, kate day is the founder. She's a co-founder, but she's the one that I had on the podcast. We weren't able to get Sarah, one of the other ones on, but Kate's amazing.
Tarin O'Donnell:I had the chance to meet her when I went up there, went up to Washington last summer because their headquarters are in Portland, oregon, so on my drive up, well, I just drove down there one day to be able to meet her in person because I was working for her now. So what a cool day to be able to meet her in person because I was working for her now. So what a cool, cool opportunity. Again, just thinking about the it is a plus of doing 500 things is I've gotten to meet so many people and now, with my podcast and kind of again not niching down per se, but realizing I have these connections and using them to my advantage, instead of feeling guilty about it or that I'm using people or something because I just think way too much but, yeah, taking advantage of those relationships, I mean, because that's and that's what it's for.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, that's exactly your network, exactly these different things and so, yeah, it's. It's been really great finally, kind of putting all the pieces together and I'm just continuing to do that. But Dovetail makes women's workwear and it is just the best. It's so comfy. Every pair of pant has like stretch to it so you can actually move in it. The most difficult thing I have is with sizing and times, just because between different styles with any pant or company, rather with different styles and fits the size might be a little bit different.
Tarin O'Donnell:But they've always been so great with kind of figure helping figure that out.
Tarin O'Donnell:And I mean if they're in a lot of retailers now too, and so we say this a lot on our podcast. But if you go into a store and you're looking for a brand, the biggest thing you can do to help a brand out, to get more exposure for them, is to tell that store, that local store that you love, like hey, do you carry Dovetail? And putting it in their brain like that. Because if they hear it straight from the customer that it's wanted, then they're more likely to reach out. Because as a rep you know I got a cold call stores and they're like yeah, no, but then someone comes in and asks for it and they're like, hey, what was that girl's name again, right. But yeah, a lot of companies obviously are trying to still be in the retail space and not just direct to consumer. And yeah, any brand that you love and you want to see in a store, the most helpful thing to do is go into your local stores and ask for it.
Tarin O'Donnell:For sure, yeah, cause I don't know off the top of my head where you could find some around you.
Jen:Jen, I know I'm going to have to look online. Maybe, I need. Maybe I need to be a sales rep for New England on the side if they don't already have one, so where? Like what is their range?
Tarin O'Donnell:What's their size range?
Jen:that they Triple zero to 28.
Tarin O'Donnell:Wow, I believe that's not bad at all, that's yeah. And then they also the more kind of. The less common thing is their inseams are 28 inches to 34. Um, you do not see those options, those in women's, a lot actually gosh, I have a weird feeling they might have went to 36 even in a couple of pairs in SEMA is, but I know 34 is for sure.
Jen:That's awesome. That's awesome.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah, a big range, and they actually just did a whole retool sizing, which means from size 16 and up. They changed their size grading because they were getting a lot of feedback that those bigger sizes, especially like in the twenties, were not true to size. They were smaller. So they took that feedback and they have retooled it so that it is truer to other brands and things, which I think is amazing because it just shows how they are listening and made the changes. So and I can attest that I tried a 16 and it was definitely like a size bigger than it was before. So I'm like, okay, yeah, they, they listened here and hopefully it is truer in those bigger sizes, like in the twenties, but having a brand who's actually listening I mean, the founders themselves are reading the reviews.
Jen:Yeah, that's awesome.
Tarin O'Donnell:That's the joy of a small business and, on one hand, on the pro side, is that they're directly involved with the customer feedback and whatnot and they're listening, so yeah yeah, no, it was cool.
Jen:It was cool listening to that, the podcast that you did with them too, because it is I like, I just I love. I love listening to business stories in general, and so you've had a lot of good ones on lately. So I'm going to link it up and make sure everybody checks out. Tearing it up podcast. So all right, what did we forget to talk about? I don't think anything. I think we covered a lot of ground. I have one more question I'm going to ask you.
Jen:Well, yeah, I'm not even going to talk about Sturdy D dirty, because I was just listening to that earlier and I'm like all all excited right now and I'm like I gotta start my own like little fun. Doro race around here maybe not an indoor race. It sounds a little hardcore, but I'm like that would be fun. You should do it anyway. I'll save that for another day. Um favorite piece of gear that you own. You paid less than 50 bucks for less than 50 preferably.
Tarin O'Donnell:This is okay this is gonna be hard because I have to. Being in the outdoor industry, I do have access to a lot of deals, right, so I god, preferably not something you use a proteo on. I know, that's why, I think, that's why okay, you got to think about some things here. I mean, I'm like looking around just looking around. What is here like honestly this? I feel like this is so little, but uh, a headlamp is not little at all.
Jen:That is actually. That is actually a very common answer because they are really, yeah, could you really it's hard to think of anything that's, yeah, not more useful.
Tarin O'Donnell:Honestly yeah, and under 50, even those these days't. But I keep one in my truck all the time and often when I go travel, even when I'm like going somewhere for a work trip or I'm going to be in a hotel or going home, I put one in my bag because I'm like I never know when you know the power might go out. I've got my headlamp. So my headlamp and Leatherman. You know I try not to to leave without- yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
Jen:But put your Leatherman in your check bag, not in your backpack.
Jen:I lost one that way. Yeah, no, that's a really good one and actually it is a good recommendation. I was traveling with my mom not that long ago and we were in this hotel room and we accidentally like pulled the whole freaking outlet out of the wall and were plunged into darkness and like there's really nothing darker than an like inside hotel room. Yeah you know, I'm like, oh my god, this is really troubling. And then you have to just sit there with the door open to the hallway and wait for someone to come.
Tarin O'Donnell:I mean, I guess these days, obviously, like a lot of people have a flashlight on their phone, but if you're actually trying to do something with two hands, yeah, it's pretty hard to use that, and a lot of headlamps these days are also rechargeable, so you're going to have a block of some sort, or outlets have USBs in them now too, or you can charge it in your car or something. So I always go for the rechargeable headlamps now, what's your brand of choice? Black Diamond, black Diamond, yeah, all right.
Jen:Yeah.
Tarin O'Donnell:Petzl's good, but I think Black Diamond was just the first one that I came across that had the recharge, and so I've just stuck with Black Diamond and I love our Black Diamond reps also, so I just love them.
Jen:Well, this has been awesome. I appreciate you spending all this time with me this morning because this is fun and it was cool to get you to hear get to hear you talk about all this stuff, because, I don't know, I enjoy listening to you talk in our little meetings and stuff too, but we got to do more of a deep dive because most of the time we're just sitting there listening.
Tarin O'Donnell:So yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like we've been able to. We connected, you know, months ago, but, like you said, we don't know each other super well, so I'm really grateful that you asked me to be on so I could talk to you more, and now it's going to have to be your turn on my show.
Tarin O'Donnell:Please, you've had this podcast for four years. I'm sure you've talked to obviously amazing people and to see where your journey is and what you're doing now too, cause I'd love to hear, yeah, how you talked about kind of a linear path in the beginning of for yourself and but my linear path is yeah, let me just give you I'll give you a fast track on that one.
Jen:I have all those credentials and I still can't find a real job. That.
Tarin O'Donnell:I like so don't worry about it, you're good. Yeah, I'll forget about the paper for now. I think I'm over it now.
Jen:Exactly All the the paper for now. I think I'm over it now. Exactly all there. Any job I've ever had that's been worth having. I've gotten through a relationship, not the resume.
Tarin O'Donnell:So, yeah, that's like networking people, people, so fun. So I love LinkedIn, for I've been really connecting through a lot of people. That's been an amazing resource. So I think anyone out there who is trying especially in that well, any industry, obviously, but this is like outdoor industry here that we're talking about there's a lot of people in the outdoor industry on there. It is a really really great way to to connect to people.
Jen:It's not just for old people working for like Intel, like lots of people in lots of different industries.
Tarin O'Donnell:It has changed so much in the last few years. So I highly recommend, if you don't have a LinkedIn profile, that you spend more time on there than any other socials, if you're really trying to break through and start reaching out to people and just following them so you can connect with them on somewhat of a personal level. It's still way more business, but again you're not just like it doesn't feel as much of a cold call. You're like okay, we relate on this article that they shared or something like that. So really cool platform. So if you're trying to make moves in the outdoor industry from wherever you're at or break in like get on there and just check it out.
Jen:Get on there, find some other cool women doing cool shit and then connect with them. Yes, absolutely All right, Taryn. Well, take it easy. Thank you again and listen to the Taryn. Up podcast on any podcast player that you I don't know that you listen to.
Tarin O'Donnell:Yeah totally Awesome, awesome.
Jen:If you agree that Taryn would be the coolest online fitness coach and trainer ever, you can check out her offerings on her business site, tkoyogafitcom, or connect directly with her on Instagram at Taryn KO. She's TKYogaFit on Facebook or Taryn O'Donnell on LinkedIn. And, of course, you most definitely should click on over to the Taryn it Up podcast right now and subscribe or follow, maybe even queue up a few for this weekend's drive up to wherever you're going to be adventuring once the stupid weather blows through. You're welcome for introducing you to a new adventure. Bestie in your earbuds.
Jen:And before I take off, a little change of plans I wanted to alert you to, if you're listening to this, in April 2024, we are changing up the Guides. Gone Wild last Tuesday, virtual meetup this month because I've got some work travel. So instead of being on the last Tuesday, we will be gathering the second to last Tuesday, april 23rd, and instead of Zoom, we will be meeting in person at the True North Taproom in Ipswich Mass. I'm taking a page out of Taryn's playbook and throwing in a little local business support Plus coming off Trish and my cold dip on International Women's Day, I want to find some crazy locals to do some local dipping with me, so I hope some of you will join us in person at True North Ale Company, 116 County Road in Nipswich on Tuesday April 23rd. I'm thinking we can start a little earlier than usual at 630 because it's a Tuesday, so the place closes at eight. Eight and I don't want to be one of those jerks who overstays are welcome. So head on over to guidesgonewildcom slash meet for more info. That's it, we've done the thing. Hope you'll join me again in a few or more inspiring words with another Guide Gone Wild.