Vote for Hiking Your Feelings at SXSW
Now that we’ve wrapped up the cover reveal and story of how Hiking Your Feelings: Blazing a Trail to Self-Love came to be, it’s time for a big announcement:
We’ve submitted a proposal to SXSW to be able to host a book reading at the festival!!
This would be a huge opportunity for us to share this book with some of the brightest creative minds, and we need your help! Community voting accounts for 30% of the PanelPicker process.
SXSW has been a major milestone on my Trail of Life. I met my first mentor - Aaron Strout, who now sits on our board of directors - at SXSW in 2009. That year, I also got my first job from someone who retweeted me during the SXSWHealth panel. In 2010, I spoke at SXSW for the first time with four of my Gen-Y counterparts on a panel called "Why Gen-Y Wants to Work With You vs For You". In 2011, I spoke at SXSW again, this time about mentorship with Aaron.
Fast forward to today, and I'm hopeful that my book reading will be accepted and that I will be able to launch my book, Hiking Your Feelings: Blazing a Trail to Self-Love at SXSW 2024.
In the years that have passed since my first steps in the convention center in 2009, I've been through a lot - I climbed the corporate ladder, then took a four year break to skydive competitively for four years - during which 23 of my friends died. I returned to agency life only to burnout again, resulting in a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. I left Corporate America to join my friend's startup as Chief Marketing Officer, only to suffer from panic attacks twice a day during our seed round of fundraising, completely wrecking my mind, body, and spirit. At that point in 2018, I didn't know what was next, but I knew what I was doing wasn't working.
So I quit. I was in the midst of training for a backpacking trip when I realized I had been hiking my feelings instead of eating or drinking them. The diabetes diagnosis had stripped me of my chosen coping mechanisms and served as a major catalyst for change.
After the backpacking trip, my husband and I sold everything we owned to buy a 1998 Chevy Van and tour the country, sharing the story of how hiking helped me heal my mind and body, and all the lessons learned along the way. I self-published my first book on the road in 2019, started a nonprofit (also called Hiking My Feelings) and was a week into my book tour through the US and Canada when the pandemic struck, cancelling everything I had on the calendar and bringing the momentum we were building for our movement to a standstill. But we persevered, pivoted, and came back stronger than ever. Since we started in 2018, we’ve hosted more than 400 events around the US and have introduced thousands of people to the healing power of nature, and we’re just getting started!
In every way, launching this book at SXSW and reading it at the conference would be the epitome of second chances, full-circle moments, and the adventure of a lifetime.
At my reading, you can look forward to three takeaways:
How to turn a devastating diagnosis into a catalyst for positive change in your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.
A ritual to help you tune into your body's messages and release what is no longer serving you.
A framework for understanding how trauma manifests in our minds and bodies, and how the outdoors can help us heal.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
If you're struggling with your mental health and seeking new ways to cope, this book is for you.
If you've burnt out before, are in the middle of it now, or on the brink, this book is for you.
If you're one of more than 200M Americans who are pre-diabetic or living with diabetes, this book is for you.
If you need some inspiration and a framework to help you put one foot in front of the other when life gets tough, this book is for you.
If you're an HR professional looking for employee wellness initiatives, this book (and the events we host via Hiking My Feelings) is for you.
Thank you for your consideration, and I hope to see you at SXSW in 2024!
IN THIS EPISODE:
Sydney and Barry discuss the new book, how it came to be, what it's about and why you're going to love it
Sydney shares about her history at SXSW, how her career started at the festival, and why she submitted a proposal for a book reading at the event in 2024
Please vote for Hiking Your Feelings: Blazing a Trail to Self-Love on the SXSW PanelPicker and help us launch the book at one of the most epic gatherings of creative minds on the planet!
LISTEN HERE:
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Please note, we use Otter.ai to transcribe episodes and while the technology is impressive, it’s not completely accurate. Please excuse any missed words, nonsensical sentences, and missed interpretations of foreign language below:
Announcer 00:04
Welcome to Wellness in the Wilderness. Come with us on the trail of life as we inspire you to take a step outdoors, to disconnect from the distractions and reconnect with yourself. Sydney Williams and her guests will motivate you to get active and get well. Now, here's Sydney.
Sydney Williams 00:23
Welcome to Wellness in the Wilderness. I'm your host, Sydney Williams, author and founder of Hiking My Feelings, and I'm so glad to be back. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back to Wellness in the Wilderness. It has been months since our last episode. And on our first season, when we were with the Voice America Network, we were talking about something that I just couldn't talk about yet, like we kept teasing, and I was like, this is the episode where we get to do it. And then at the last minute, every time couldn't talk about it. But today, we get to. But before we get into all of that, and revealing the things that have been teased for months, I wanted to just kind of bring you up to speed and set up what we've got going on for this season. So last season, we were with voice America, we have decided to go independent. And as much as I loved having an executive producer, and a team and an engineer and all the support of the Voice America Network and our listeners that we got from that network. They invited me to extend but the terms for renewal were 52 episodes - an episode every week. And if I had signed up for that back then guys, I wouldn't be here today. So I thank you so much to voice America for such a great foundation from which to build this show. It has been an absolute honor and privilege to join the hosts from different walks of life on the network. And now that we're independent, we're doing things a little bit differently, we're going to put this into a schedule that works for us and hopefully brings more value to you as a listener and part of our community. So for this mini season, we're doing five episodes, well, technically six, maybe seven, but definitely five, where we're having five conversations with five women that have been a really important part of the formation and start and continuation of Hiking My Feelings. So you can look forward to that on the future episodes of this mini season once again, brought to you by Sawyer Products. Thank you, Sawyer, for all of your support. And as we get ready to do this, we're talking about five years of Hiking My Feelings and a lot has changed. In the last five years, we have hosted more than 400 events around the US we've introduced 1000s of people to the healing power of nature. All of this started with a book called Hiking My Feelings stepping into the healing power of nature. I wrote it in 2019 on the road. It was the story the book version of the story I was giving on my speaking tour in 2018 and 2019. All the stories of how two hikes across Catalina Island helped me heal my mind and body. All the lessons learned along the way. It served as the foundation for the programs and experiences that we now deliver today to people from all walks of life looking to find healing from the things that they've been through and step into the best version of themselves. And today to help me with this very special announcement is Mr. Barry Williams. Hello, Barry.
Barry Williams 03:16
Hello, Mrs. Williams. This must be special because you had to bring me in.
Sydney Williams 03:20
Yeah. Where are we?
Barry Williams 03:21
We are well we're sitting in a parking lot at Woolverton picnic area in Sequoia National Park at the moment.
Sydney Williams 03:27
Okay, so what have we been doing in Sequoia National Park?
Barry Williams 03:30
Well, as of yesterday, we were yesterday was our date day we try and have a very specific day daily at least once a week where we just hike as much as humanly possible, staying in shape getting ready for Kalispell in the fall, and so we hiked down to Alta Meadow, which is about 15 miles roundtrip absolutely stunning. And then we had we killed our hiker hunger for a bit and then we went and watch the sunset. And moonrise at the same time for more rock with our friend Rebecca from the Sequoia Parks Conservancy. So yeah,
Sydney Williams 04:10
woof. That was a day
Barry Williams 04:11
that was that was a big day.
Sydney Williams 04:12
It was a really big day. So here in Sequoia National Park we are hosting at a historic campsite This place has held space for the indigenous communities used to come through here like the Western mono the yokuts Tabatalottle Western Shoshone Paiute people and the Boy Scouts of America and for a brief time and artists colony and now for the Volunteers in Parks program. So this is where we hosted our retreats last year. This year we're back hosting more retreats and serving as volunteer camp hosts. And it I first of all, my nervous system has never been so regulated in my life.
Barry Williams 04:50
Yeah, how about your allergy system?
Sydney Williams 04:52
Let's talk about my allergies where where my nervous system is regulated now my allergies are have gone haywire. I've been sniffling and blowing my nose for the last two weeks straight. And I've got a little cut on my nose from how dry it's gotten. But that's neither here nor there. This is a very special important announcement day. Mr. Williams. Are you excited?
Barry Williams 05:10
I'm very excited. This has been a long time in the making.
Sydney Williams 05:12
Should I tell them? It really has been
Barry Williams 05:15
Go ahead, lay it out there.
Sydney Williams 05:16
Okay, I'm gonna lay it out there. Can I do a drumroll? Is this a one time I get to tap on the counter? Yeah, Okay. Drumroll, please. All right. So the thing that we've been teasing, since last season, since the beginning of this year, is my second book. It's called Hiking Your Feelings: Blazing a Trail to Self love. And today, I want to tell you the story of how this book came to be what it's about, and ask you for a favor. Because if you've been paying attention, and you follow us on Instagram, or Facebook or follow me or Barry on LinkedIn, we've been teasing the cover reveal of this book and tearing sharing the story of how the book came to be. Because today, I'm asking you for a favor. So we're going to talk about what Hiking Your Feelings is the evolution from Hiking My Feelings to nowHiking Your Feelings. And this very special favor. So very, where should we start?
Barry Williams 06:14
Well, I suppose we just talked about how this book came to be.
Sydney Williams 06:17
That's fair. Okay, so I'm gonna just gonna be real with you. This is a book I was too scared to write in 2019. And I say that because I had this really powerful, incredible experience on this island. And I went around the country talking about it. I, we hosted a bunch of hikes to get people out there feeling it like if I'm going to if you're going to take time out of your busy life, to come listen to me talk about how hiking helped me heal my mind and body. I want you to feel this. So we hosted these hikes, we did all these things. And even still, I knowing that what happened to me was real and true. I was too scared to write this version of the book. So I wrote the story. That was the book version of my talk that I gave in 2018 2019. That's what we published. But as a reader, I really dislike reading books, where the memoir is so powerful, and there are so many great things happening. But there's nothing about like how to do this. And so it was like, Well, I don't want it to just be a memoir, I want it to be like a memoir plus. So I use some of the journal prompts that I used at those specific points throughout my story. And put those at the back of the book I worked with one of the gals that we met on the road in 2019 to develop the coloring page Joyful Juniper creative What up girl love you, Catherine. We did all that. And I am so deeply proud of that book. And for all the reasons that I already shared like it is the reason why we have the programs we have it is the reason why we've done everything we've done, it's served as the foundation, this story has served as a foundation, there have been so many things that we've been able to pull out of it, and create experiences around or programs around to help teach these lessons. But truthfully, everything that is included in this new book, none of this is new, like this is a an opportunity that we found that is giving me a chance to give this story and give this community and everything that we're building more juice. Because while I used to say as of yesterday, I used to say in 2019, we got robbed because we were a week into the book tour in 2020. When the pandemic happened, and that just tanked book sales, Amazon stopped printing books and started selling more hand sanitizer, and the book sales never recovered on the trajectory from which they had started. And I used to say that we got robbed but Barry and I were having a chat yesterday and I don't think we got robbed, I think we were redirected. And I'm thankful for that. And I'm thankful for this book. And also, I was too scared to write and include the insights that are now covering the pages of Hiking Your Feelings. So that's kind of what it's about. But that's not what you asked me about. You asked me about how it came to be. So.
Barry Williams 09:20
Right.
Sydney Williams 09:21
that's fine. Sometimes you got to go around the block to get next door. That's how Sydney tells stories.
Barry Williams 09:25
Right. So let me ask you again, how did this book come to be?
Sydney Williams 09:31
You know what, Barry? That's a great question. born from the ashes of the burning book that was in 2020 Just cut off at the knees for the pandemic, though all all all together divinely guided into a place that brought us exactly to where we need to be today. This book came first and foremost from a friendship and the friendship was that that we share with Melanie and Kaleo Wassman . Melanie and Kaleo are our Co-creators for Hike + Heal Catalina Island, they were the first people that we ever co created a retreat with. They are absolutely iconic legendary human beings. And when they're not hosting retreats, and Kaleo's other life, he is a musician. And he's a good one. And he was playing at a festival and he was like, bring your friends to work day. So we came to the Cali Roots Festival. And on the day that we had the passes to go see Kaleo and all of his glory, we had backstage access. So we were just kind of milling around, we were reconnecting with folks that we hadn't seen since before the pandemic artists that we had collaborated with, either at events or on the virtual campfire podcast, there's a lot of like, first in person hugs for several years, due to the downtime that was caused by the pandemic. So we're rolling around backstage and we're looking at the schedule, we see our pal Kyle Smith is going on on the acoustic stage. So we head over there, looking to catch some shade, we find a shady seat on the side stage, there's a nice little couch there. And we're just sitting there, you know, on our phones, planning out the rest of our day trying to figure out how we want to go about, you know, getting the most out of this experience and seeing everybody that we can and all the bands that we want to see. And this sound tech this woman long, beautiful dreadlocks. She's really up like a chord for a microphone or a speaker or something. And somehow she like drifted over like in my mind, it's like this angelic float over to the couch. And she we just started talking and she asked about what we do. And we told her about our retreats and how we collaborate with musicians and dad. And she was like, Oh, well, I'm on the board of this retreat center. You guys should go check it out. And so I was like, sounds great. She's like, Yeah, you can scout it, we'll put you up for the night. You can stay in one of the accommodations, see the grounds, we have hiking trails, all this stuff. And I was like, wow. And I just remember being so excited. I was like, I came here to like, see our friends play music. And here we are, like, getting like we're networking. And I was like, oh, like it was the first time especially after the pandemic, but the first time in, I think in my Hiking My Feelings journey where I was like, Oh, I forgot that I'm good at this. Like I have been networking since the beginning of my career. I love talking to people. I love hearing stories. Like, I forgot that I have this, this capacity to connect with people in this way. Like how neat that we're learning about retreat centers at a music festival. So we go. A couple of weeks later, we toured the the retreat grounds. And so the place is called Mandala Springs is up in Cobb, California. We meet up with this woman, Susan, who's going to be giving us the tour. And we pull up and like the grounds are stunning. It's like this long, windy road through like rural North Northern California, passing through some of the wine country and other areas. And then we come up to this gate and we go through and we're driving onto the grounds. We parked the van. And there's like those, like rainbow like Tibetan prayer flags, and a Yoda statue like this is the juxtaposition of the vibe of this place. Like there's Yoda in the garden and prayer flags. And so we go and we sit down with Susan and she's like we're facing the office building. And she's in front of us and then behind us is the grounds so we're like looking at the grounds eyes pan back around like this in my my mind movie. I'm like Yoda grounds pool garden. Susan, look up banner Red Banner caught my attention. What is it, say? Mandala Publishing. So mandala Springs, as we come to find out is owned by Mandala Publishing. So naturally, I'm trying to bring my first date personality to this meeting and not go straight for marriage, but like, I can't help myself. I'm so excited. I was like, Okay, so what's up with the banner? She's like, Mandala Publishing owns the place. We're building an office for the publishers on grounds. And I was like, Okay, so like, do writers ever host retreats here? Do I need an agent? Do you accept submissions? Like I just go straight into it. And she was like, next steps are I introduce you to the team. And I was like, it's so simple. Like, this is just so wild. So the book came from a side stage conversation that wouldn't have been possible without the generous friendship and love that we share with our pals, Melanie and Kaleo Wassman, and then rippled out from there. So we go to this thing. Or we go to the retreat center, we meet Susan, we tour the place. They have these meditation spots around the grounds. And so Barry and I were on a hike the morning that we were getting ready to do checkout and leave. And there's these meditation spots with like these tags and Sharpies and you can like write your wishes or your dreams or your manifestations on these tags, and then put them in the trees and then you like hit the gong, and it's like a whole ritual. And so we go up there and I see these things. And so I write on a tag I was like you can do hard things Hiking My Feelings. June 16 2022. And then I took another one and I wrote Blaze Your Own Trail to Self-Love by Sydney Stardust. It was like first of all, that's not my published name, but it's fine. This is Sydney Stardust will be writing this book and then on the backside of that I wrote and so it is my next book will be published here. Thank you universe. And I remember showing Barry and I took pictures of these and I posted these as part of the cover reveal story of how this book came to be because like I was just so certain. And I haven't been that certain about anything in my life probably since I met you. And probably since like the idea of Hiking My Feelings like there's very short punctuated periods in my life where I'm that sure about something. And when I wrote my wishes on the trees that day, I was very sure. So then we had a meeting with the publisher, I'm sitting in front of Christie's clinic Flow Integrative in Encinitas, getting ready for my third of six ketamine assisted psychotherapy programs, my personal program through that protocol was to set an intention for each session. And the intention for that session was intention. So I have this meeting with my first ever meeting with a publisher. I'm telling them about how we work, he's telling me about the publisher, and all the things that they do. And I like, give him the idea for what I think my next book should be. And he loves it. And I was like, Okay, so I'm putting like this, this intention, I'm putting it out into the universe, like, this is the book, I want to write it, I want to write it with the help of this publisher. I want to make beautiful book babies with these people. And then I'm gonna go into this session, and anything that I need to see to help bring it to life will be shown to me. And as we creep past the one year anniversary of that therapy program, everything that I saw experienced set intentions for in that six treatment session period of time has come true.
Barry Williams 09:31
It's like a portal,
Sydney Williams 09:42
including this book into the future. It's like a portal
Barry Williams 09:52
into the future.
Sydney Williams 11:42
So good. So the book. That was a that's how it all came to be. So we went we had the meeting with the publisher, they loved it. They invited us to come up to the office, life got in the way we had. We lost Barry's Mom, we had a retreat to do so on the way back from Barry's mom's funeral. Let me just like this was the craziest 24 hours of our life. So we fly up to New Hampshire. We do Barry's mom's service. We take the first available flight out of Boston the next morning, straight to San Francisco, California. We rent our rental car. We were supposed to have the publisher meeting the day after we arrived in San Francisco. So we go we check in our hotel, and I get a message and they're like, hey, the owner will be here today. Can you do the meeting this afternoon? And I was like, I haven't showered. I've been up since two o'clock no, midnight Pacific Time to catch this 5am Boston time flight to get here today. So I'm not I'm not clean. I haven't slept. But diamonds are made under pressure. So here we go. So we went and we had the meeting. How did the meeting go? I don't want to talk about the meeting. I'll let you tell the meeting part. Because Barry got to go to the meeting too. Yeah. And I don't know, is that normal? Do most authors go to pitch meetings with their husbands? Or their partners?
Barry Williams 17:56
I don't know. I don't know. First meeting, too. So yeah. Well, the interesting so I did my best James Bond, and I was trying to take pictures underneath. Like the boardroom table, like capture the moment because I knew this is gonna be important in your in your lifetime story. So, but I think the fun fact is like you went in there and pitched a totally different book.
Sydney Williams 18:19
Yeah, that's true. Oh, yeah. I completely left that part out. Yeah.
Barry Williams 18:23
Well, yeah. So
Sydney Williams 18:25
well, here actually, should I tell that that connection part about the Wellness in the Wilderness show and in the book and in the thing, or
Barry Williams 18:32
no. Okay. Save that one.
Sydney Williams 18:33
Yeah. So one book to hype at a time. But the book that I ever also, I can say this, the book that I originally pitched to the publisher last year is not the book that I'm writing now, but it will be my third book.
Barry Williams 18:43
Right.
Sydney Williams 18:44
So that's fun. So we go to this meeting, Barry is taking his stealthy pictures. And I'm like, so here's this book, I'd like to write and I was like, Oh, and by the way, I self published this book in 2019 is called Hiking My Feelings. It's the like foundation of everything we do. I feel and at the time, I was still telling the I think we got robbed story. But I've since reframed that, thank you, pandemic. I feel like this book didn't get it to do justice. So I'd like to do it again. So if you guys would like to acquire my self published title, and do that, too. That would be great. Let me know. And that's kind of where things left off before the holidays.
Barry Williams 19:16
Yeah. Which is a big bold leap, because everything that the internet says and people say is don't self publish, because you're never gonna get a traditional publishing contract. If you do that.
Sydney Williams 19:26
That's true. And I barely knew enough about how to self publish. I certainly didn't know anything about traditional publishing when this was all going down. So that has been just a joy, like the team that I've been able to work with has been really, really cool.
Barry Williams 19:41
So how different is this book from Hiking My Feelings? Is this going to be a re, reboot?
Sydney Williams 19:49
Ah, I think
Barry Williams 19:50
or what, are people going to enjoy this that read the first book?
Sydney Williams 19:54
Oh, yes, that's a great question. So if you have read the first book, Hiking My Feeling stepping into the healing power of nature, should you read Hiking Your Feelings. Girl honey. Yes, ma'am, please. Absolutely you should, because this is the book that I wanted to write. I don't know, Was I too scared to write it in 2019? I don't know. But all the things that I thought about that I knew were important that I wanted to include, but was for whatever reason, too scared in 2019. All of that is looped in here. So here's how here's how this actually happened. So I gave the publisher my manuscript for Hiking My Feelings. And I gave them the workbook for a program called Read and Reflect that I developed in the weeks after I published the book, because I realized I still had more to say, it was like an 80 Something page workbook. I gave them both of those. And then Tonya Caselle, my beautiful, spiritual, transcendental, absolutely iconic developmental editor, Frankensteined, the ever living bejesus out of both of those documents. What she gave back to me was this like, sliced and diced and copied and pasted version of my first book with all the great stuff from the workbook weaved into it. So she cut out like 10s of 1000s of words from the first manuscript and didn't, and pick the strongest parts of the workbook to include and then was like here, now go write the rest. So if you've read the first book, The story if you know my story about the hike in 2016, the hike in 2018, that hasn't changed, obviously. But the insights and the work is different. So we use the strongest parts of the first book, to illustrate the concepts that we have been teaching for the last five years. So each chapter is like the story. And then there's the trail of life section, which kind of zooms out from my particular experience, and brings it all together for this like universal experience that we all share. Because none of this is specific to me, let's be honest, like my, my unique version of the story is, but like the themes throughout are things that every human deals with, it's something like grief and loss, relationships, like all of these things are things that every human will encounter at some point in time or another. So we have the story that like, get you in it. And then trail life, which like brings your story into it brings those concepts together. Mindful Miles are the journal prompts that we use, or this prompts for self reflection. So the theme, the idea is, you go out, you take this chapter with this book with these specific prompts and you go out for a hike, much like we return to the breath and a seated meditation, when our mind starts to get squirrely, we use our mindful miles prompts in that same way. So it's questions to help you recenter on the experience that you're having while you're going on in hiking in a mindful and intentional way. And then we have the next step section, which is like a ritual or an activity or like a action to take to further drive home, the points and lessons from that chapter. So it's more like if the first one was like a memoir, and then like a little bit of stuff at the end. This is like a memoir plus self help. And I think what they call it in the publishing industry is like prescriptive memoir. So that sounds kind of cool. It's a prescriptive memoir. And also, like, I know, I don't need to say this, but I feel like I should, I recognize that hiking is not the only way to heal. So like if you're out there, and you're like Sydney says that hiking is the only thing to do that it's not true. This has worked for me. And now I'm hoping that it'll work for other people. And that's probably the most exciting part, it was also the most difficult part for me, because we named the organization Hiking My Feelings after the thought that I had on a mountain. also inspired by the title of the book, and the title of the presentation, like the way everything laddered through, like we just incorporated as Hiking My Feelings. And that's the way it's always been. So when they suggested a title change when they acquired the title, and we, you know, made it stronger for the reader and really brought in the lessons we've been teaching the last five years. They suggest that we move it to Hiking Your Feelings. And that took me a second to get my head wrapped around because not because I'm like, No, this is mine, and you can't have it. But because we've arrived at this place that like I genuinely didn't know if we would get to, especially after the pandemic because to Barry's point like we weren't robbed, we were redirected, I was a mess. I cried all the way home from our first canceled event in Joshua Tree, cried at the ranch in the van for two weeks and then kept crying for as long as I needed to until I felt okay about it. But in those two weeks after the between, like the pandemic and like when I got my shit together, I genuinely didn't know if this organization was going to make it. And I didn't know if I would have the opportunity for this to get to be bigger than my story like it has had to have been my story to get things going. That's where it started. But since the first book came out, and especially over the last five years like this is bigger than me. This is Hikking Your Feelings. This is taking what I've learned and not just like sharing my story and hoping that you can like pull the nuggets out of it to apply to your own life but like explicitly pulling out lessons and giving direction on how to do this. If this is something that feels like it might be good for you. So the migration from Hiking My Feelings to Hiking Your Feelings, I'm so proud that we made it to this point. Like we've, we've sacrificed a lot, personally, individually, collectively, to get to this point. And the fact that we made it in and of itself, like, I am so proud of this book, it's the book I've wanted to write for the last five years. It's now it's, it's here, it's, I can't hold it in my hands yet, but I will be able to soon. And I just, I'm so proud that we got to this point to where we can say Hiking Your Feelings. And that it's, it's got the support of Mandala Publishing, which is an imprint of Insight Editions. They work with a bunch of different bigger publishers, like the big five for distribution and sales and all that stuff. So like, we have all the support that I thought that I needed in order to do better on my first book, I have that support now. So now there's, there's no excuse like, it is what it is. I'm, I'm so proud of this. And like, I want to say I don't care how it does. But I do care, because this is Hiking Your Feelings. And I want everybody that could be helped by this to know about this. And this is the best shot we've got. Which I think is probably a really great way to talk about what I want to do with it.
Barry Williams 26:20
Well, I just want to say a couple of things.
Sydney Williams 26:22
Yeah,
Barry Williams 26:23
if you may indulge me, that Hiking My Feelings was ranked as like one of the best hiking books, and it was up there with Cheryl Strayed. And if you can do that self publishing, and recording in a pint glass, and a microphone, and me editing it, and mastering it. And now you get this whole team behind. I can only imagine how this is gonna do. The other thing is your developmental editor has letters behind your name.
Sydney Williams 26:25
I will Yes, yes. True
Barry Williams 26:58
to that node. So you always said it was the book I was afraid to write because I didn't have letters behind my name, blah, blah, blah. And now you got somebody with letters behind the name that absolutely loves the book.
Sydney Williams 27:08
Yes.
Barry Williams 27:08
So I'm really looking forward to see what happens on that.
Sydney Williams 27:11
Yeah, thank you. And thank you for bringing that up. Because it's true. And, and the part about for anybody that's out there that has a story that they're thinking about writing or that they've already written and they're worried about how to put it out there. If self publishing is what's accessible to you, there is literally nothing wrong with that. If traditional publishing is what is accessible to you, there's literally nothing wrong with that. I won't know until on the other side of the Hiking My Feeling Hiking Your Feelings book launch how this performs, we are in a completely different position than we were five years ago. So it's not even fair to compare the two. But I will say statistically, the the percentage of people that self published they get traditional publishing deals is miniscule. It's in the single digits of percentages. But that doesn't mean that it's not possible. And when I heard that, and when I read that, I was like, maybe that's true. Maybe I'll self publish, and I'm sending myself into a self publishing spiral. And that's what I'll do for the rest of my life. But I couldn't help but think about that documentary Heal that we saw, where there were people that were diagnosed with cancer, and chronic illnesses, and all these things. And they were like, they got these, like single digit percentage chances of survival. And they were like, Okay, but what if, like, why couldn't that be me. And so in this case, and for anybody that's listening, that's thinking about publishing or wants to write a story or whatever, it could be you too, and like, and I don't think that there's one that's better than the other like I we did a tremendous amount of good with the book that we self published. And my hope is that with all of this network behind us and enthusiasm behind us that we'll do even better on this next one.
Barry Williams 28:50
So to that point, we've been trying to tease this thing says, What February, we've been like, this thing is gonna be coming out. It's gonna be Yeah, you know, sign up for preorder things like that. Right. So it's, so that was like February. So we're talking about well, let me just ask you, what is this book coming out?
Sydney Williams 29:10
March 12 2024.
Barry Williams 29:13
All right. So now we're talking over a year to put this thing out, right. So when we self published before Yeah, it was like boom, boom, boom, done, like month out Yeah, covers designed everything. But so we got a year to really kind of put some effort behind this thing. Yeah. And we got a lot of big things planned.
Sydney Williams 29:35
Yes, we do.
Barry Williams 29:36
So what do we how do we want to kick this thing off? This is obviously a big deal.
Sydney Williams 29:40
Yeah.
Barry Williams 29:40
How do we want to kick this thing off?
Sydney Williams 29:42
Okay. So it's being published on March 12 2020. For what up Mandala Publishing what up Insight Editions. So I was, I came to like I learned of my actual Publication Date while we were in the orbit of Aaron Strout. We were house sitting, and I was saying, my next book is going to be published March 12. He's like you should submit a panel for South by Southwest. And I was like,
Barry Williams 30:07
What is South by Southwest?
Sydney Williams 30:08
Oh, that's fair. That's a good question.
Barry Williams 30:10
for us, you know, older generation that may not be hip.
Sydney Williams 30:14
Well, and also this is pre Barry.
Barry Williams 30:16
Right? PB.
Sydney Williams 30:17
Yeah. Yeah. South by Southwest is PB in my life, right. So before I met Barry, I was kind of a big deal. I love saying that. So South by Southwest is it's a conference. It's a festival. It used to and I think the format is still pretty close to the same. But we have film interactive, and music. And so musicians come and do music stuff and talk about the music industry. Films are debuted there. It's like a its own mini Film Festival. Interactive for me is where I got introduced to South by Southwest. And that's where all of like Twitter was launched at South by Southwest Foursquare, if you're familiar back in the day launch at South by Southwest. It's where PR marketing social media in like the 2008 2009 2010 2011 Like, it was poppin. And so in 2008, I was still in college, I had gone to a national conference for the public relations, Student Society of America. And I met the keynote speaker there. Her name was Penelope Trunk. And she suggested that I go to South by Southwest and treat it like a job fair. So I went back at the time I was living in Tampa, I was still at the University of South Florida. I hadn't graduated yet. I was like working on, you know, my last semester or two of credits, going for a degree in mass communications, emphasis on public relations, self directed senior study on social media, because that wasn't being taught in schools yet. And I went to the conference in 2009. And I did exactly that. I treated it like a job fair. And I ended up getting my first job from South by Southwest in 2009. I was live tweeting a panel, do you know what live tweeting is?
Barry Williams 32:10
What?
Sydney Williams 32:12
See back in the day, this platform called Twitter, and
Barry Williams 32:15
formerly known as Twitter.
Sydney Williams 32:16
formerly known as Twitter, and when people would talk with their mouth holes at a conference, for example, people with their phones in their thumbs would tell the rest of the world on the internet what the people with the mouths were saying,
Barry Williams 32:28
fascinating.
Sydney Williams 32:29
We called it live tweeting. So I was live tweeting a panel at South by Southwest in 2009. I apparently had a smart comment about something the speaker had said, and this guy, Adam Keats, shout out Adam What up dude? retweeted me and then asked if we could meet up and he was like, You're smart. And I was like, Yeah, welcome to the party. I'm smart. We should work together. So we ended up getting a couple of job interviews out of that. I also met Aaron, which is why this is so full circle. We were at Aaron's house, he suggests that I submit a panel picker, I met Aaron at South by Southwest. So my first and longest standing mentor, I met Aaron in 2009 It's 2023 now, he's been my mentor for 14 years. I met Aaron at South by Southwest in 2009. And then in 2010, I came back and I spoke at South by Southwest with my friends. Nisha Shital Elisa Ellis, Ben Smithy and Ryan Pa. And we had a we did a panel discussion called Why Gen Y wants to work with you versus for you talking about Gen Y in the workplace and our collaborative nature and that we'd prefer to work with you. And everybody brings their strengths and their personal lived experience and their unique perspectives to the table to deliver excellence for whatever we're trying to create together. Versus like, do this, here's your list of to-do's and like, check in with me as you do each one and make sure I micromanage you, we just want to collaborate. So we had this really awesome panel discussion back then in 2010. And then in 2011, I came back and I spoke with Aaron and we did a dual presentation called the road rules for mentorship, what's appropriate and what's not. And we just talked about our mentoring relationship, and how other people could emulate that and what it looks like to have a sponsor, not like financial sponsor, but a career sponsor, somebody that is invested in helping you succeed, and just sharing some stories about how Aaron and I had supported each other along the way in the couple years that had passed them. But now 13 years later, dude sitting on our board for Hiking My Feelings. bringing me back to my roots of South by Southwest greatness and encouraging me to submit a panel and that's why we're here.
Barry Williams 34:36
So you can apparently launch books like they have author stuff or like book readings or something.
Sydney Williams 34:42
Yeah. So the that is correct. I the format and here's here's the here's the favor. I've been buttering you up for whether it's while you've been listening to how this book came to be, or for the last 12 days, while we've been revealing the cover on the internet I'm, what I need is for you guys to vote for this submission. The panel picker process works as follows people that want to present at South by Southwest submit their submission idea, a certain percentage of what gets you in is based on the South by Southwest team, their programming team, and then also public votes. So the panel picker submissions are open today, August 8, through August 20 2023. So what needs to happen and what I would just be so, so grateful for would be the opportunity to launch this book at South by Southwest. When I left there in 2011. I had just quit working at the agency. I had just moved out of my apartment in Austin, and I was getting ready to go embark on what would turn out to be the events that led to the discoveries I made in the book that I'm getting ready to launch. Because all of the things that happened from 2011 When I started skydiving full time, until 2016 On that first hike, and then all the lessons learned along the way between the two hikes themselves are encompassed in this book. And everything that I've been through since I left South by Southwest. This would just be like the cherry on top, the sprinkles on top, the icing on the cake, like all the things that are good that go on top of things. That's what launching this book at South by Southwest would be for me.
Barry Williams 36:26
Fantastic. You don't just want to go to Ginny's little Longhorn saloon do ya?
Sydney Williams 36:30
Well. There is chicken shit bingo, at least there was 12, 13 years last time we were
Barry Williams 36:34
boiled hotdogs with Hormel canned chili, Mmmmmmm
Sydney Williams 36:38
if Ginny's little longhorn saloon is still doing chicken shit Bingo, we should probably have a book reading at Ginny's little Longhorn saloon,
Barry Williams 36:43
I think that would fit in quite nicely.
Sydney Williams 36:46
So if you are part of this community, and you've benefited from this work, and you've read the book, and it moved you, I need your help. If you've been to one of our experiences and or one of our retreats or programs, and you've had a life changing experience, I need your help. If I've done anything nice for you over the course of my lifetime, and I haven't asked for help before. Or if I have asked for help before I'm asking it for the first time or again right now. Because this would be a tremendous place for us to get this book off the ground and the way that I wish that we had the resources to do in 2019. But for whatever reason, everything is lining up the way that it's supposed to line up right now. So the South by Southwest panel picker submissions are open today, August eighth through August 20 2023. In order to find mine, the easiest way to do that is to go to hikingmyfeelings.org/vote and there's a big fat button you can click to go vote, it takes like 30 seconds tops. This is one of the most like we've been asking for help here and there throughout and like sharing all the different ways you can help Hiking My Feelings move the mission forward. This is by far the easiest and most significant way that you could help us move this forward. Because if we are accepted into South by Southwest, there are 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of people that go to that festival, there are so many attendees that would even if they don't go and listen to me read, they will be aware that it is happening and it like the even just the phrase Hiking Your Feelings might unlock something for them. And maybe that'll be years down the road. Maybe it'll be the next day. But like the I can't think of a more impactful place for us to be able to do this then at South by Southwest personally impactful for me, but also the volume of people. This is the most people we will have in one place of any thing that we've ever attended or created that could potentially help us get the word out about this book. And I just want to share Hiking My Feelings with as many people as possible. And the way that we're going to do that now is through this book. Hiking Your Feelings. So if you haven't already, if you because like I'm assuming you're just so eager to help us out but you've already voted. But if for some reason in the last 45 seconds to two minutes you haven't go now hikingmyfeelings.org/vote.
Barry Williams 39:13
And it costs you nothing
Sydney Williams 39:14
cost you nothing.
Barry Williams 39:15
And please like send it to all your family friends have them vote.
Sydney Williams 39:19
Yep.
Barry Williams 39:20
And should we even talk about pre ordering the book?
Sydney Williams 39:23
And like Yeah, sure. You know, because like that's important too. But like honestly, there's a we got lots of time to get folks stoked about pre orders. If you are interested in this book. Yeah, go ahead and preorder two, there's no reason not to. You won't have it until March. And we've got a lot of stuff between here and there. That's going to help you bridge the gap along the way. But yeah, hikingmyfeelings.org/vote. You'll find the big fat button for pre for voting today. And then you'll also find a nice little button where you can go preorder too, so
Barry Williams 39:54
fantastic.
Sydney Williams 39:55
Yeah,
Barry Williams 39:57
we got anything else?
Sydney Williams 39:58
I think that's it.
Barry Williams 39:59
All right. Well, we'll Got a another mini season coming up?
Sydney Williams 40:02
Yeah. So coming up next are five conversations with five women that have just been absolutely influential in the first five years of Hiking My Feelings and I am so excited for you to hear these conversations. These are some of the women that have just for me personally and or for our organization have been instrumental in keeping us inspired to keep going when it's hard, inspiring, different ways of thinking about things. These are just some of the greatest humans that I know. And I'm really excited to share these conversations with you. So Mr. Williams, thank you for joining me today. Stay tuned for the next season are for the next episodes of this season. Shout out to Sawyer Products for all the support and sponsoring this mini season of the podcast. Thank you for tuning in for this week's dose of Wellness in the Wilderness. We hope that this has been a breath of fresh air. Until next time, take good care of yourself take good care of each other dream big and be kind.
Announcer 40:55
Sawyer is more than an outdoor company. Every solar product you buy, contributes to our common humanity, bringing Sawyer water filtration systems to people in need all around the world. In just 2022 alone. 260,000 households in over 45 countries received clean drinking water through Sawyer filters. Over the past 10 years, we've teamed up with over 140 charities in 80 countries to provide long term sustainable relief domestically, internationally and in disaster situations. Together, we're saving millions of lives. Thank you. Ready to find your Wellness in the Wilderness? Look no further than Hiking My Feelings through a combination of community and self discovery. Our programs are designed to give you the space and support to connect life starts. If you're looking to figure out who you are underneath the stories you've been given, and are ready to redesign the map of where you're headed with actionable steps and opportunities to dream big. We're here to walk alongside you. Whether you're a seasoned adventure enthusiast, or brand new to the healing power of nature. We've got your back. Visit hikingmyfeelings.org today to download our free Trail Thoughts worksheets and learn more about Hiking My Feelings thanks for joining us on this week's show. We hope this episode has been a breath of fresh air for you and has inspired you to find your wellness in the wilderness. We will reconnect with nature and new again next week.
