Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada

Survivorman Les Stroud: The Difference Between Surviving & Living

• Paul Estrada • Season 1 • Episode 27

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The cold is honest. That’s one of the first lessons Les Stroud shares as we dig into what real survival feels like when there’s no crew, no scripts, and no second takes. Beyond the legends of Survivorman, Les opens up about pain, boredom, and the quiet clarity that only arrives when you’re truly alone—and why those moments matter for anyone feeling stuck in a world of endless noise.

We dive into the craft behind his solo expeditions: a full week learning from locals, absorbing edible plants and fire skills by passion, not by notes, and then deliberately trying new techniques on camera so the outcome stays real. From there, the conversation widens to what nature does to our minds and bodies. Les explains how time outside reduces stress, sharpens thinking, and heals, and how solitude can feel both awe-inspiring and cripplingly lonely. That tension becomes a mirror, exposing fragility and building humility.

Fear shows up too, not as a roar but as laziness—the insidious kind that keeps you from starting. Les shares simple, physical resets to escape doomscrolling, plus a practical survival kit for modern life: breath work, a walk in the woods, and one small action completed before touching your feeds. We also talk late blooming, the joy of completion, and the timing of ideas, tracing the long path from an early concept to the right cultural moment for Survivorman. Along the way, we swap parenting stories about cultivating independence through calculated risks and letting kids learn by doing.

If you’ve been craving focus, meaning, or just a reason to step outside, this conversation will nudge you there. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Then take a breath, go for a walk, and tell us: what’s your wilderness?

SPEAKER_00:

What do you think is so cool about survival?

SPEAKER_04:

Well the thing is, like they they do it because most of them say they're a family of hunters.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they so they grow up doing stuff like that, right? And so it's kind of they train and it's almost like you with baseball, right? But it's instead for them, let's say practicing baseball, they're practicing how to build huts and they're practicing how to start fires and hunting. It's just different, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. When you think of do you know the have you ever heard of the word survival?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

What does that mean? Do you know?

SPEAKER_04:

To stay alive.

SPEAKER_00:

To stay alive, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And do you think you survive in your life every day? Yeah. Yeah? How do you survive every day?

SPEAKER_04:

Because I eat food.

SPEAKER_00:

So I put food on a plate for you and then you eat it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's surviving, right? Last Saturday, after Damien's soccer game, you guys asked if we could go on a hike.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so we went, and I think it's kind of like survival in a way where you know we took a backpack and you go out on a dirt path and you get to explore, you know, the forest, and that you we found like a little pond, and you guys found these hills and rocks and all this stuff. So what is it like when you when you get to go out in nature and just kind of spend time out there?

SPEAKER_04:

It definitely makes me feel better.

SPEAKER_00:

Why is it really? How does it make you feel better?

SPEAKER_04:

Because like it's basically fresh air where I don't have any headaches.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Because sometimes I can just get like just like a little too much learning or something, and then and then I'm just stuck with this air.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you think it was relaxing?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Why why do you think it was relaxing?

SPEAKER_04:

Because you were under a shade and it was just a walk. We're just walking.

SPEAKER_00:

But do you think there's something about just being in nature and just being surrounded by trees and maybe, you know, different animals and stuff, and just being away from buildings and cars. And do you think that that made does that kind of make it relaxing?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

It's just not as noisy. I just hear like animals like chirping or something. Sounds nice.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Every now and then it's really nice to like disconnect from our house and stuff like that and just kind of go out into nature, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Like baseball.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean like hiking and like going out into nature.

SPEAKER_04:

Baseball's kind of that.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Hi, let's ride listeners. It's your friend Paul Estrada. If you've gotten any value out of any of the episodes, I'm here to ask you to pause this episode and take a moment to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to this podcast. If you're a real go-getter, please take a moment to leave a review of the podcast. I'd be indebted to you forever. Thank you for supporting and listening to the show and for going on this journey with us. Pause, subscribe, and let's ride. Our guest today has spent weeks alone in the jungle, sleeping in the mud, shivering through the night, and filming every second of it for year entertainment. Today's guest isn't just a survivalist, he's a storyteller, a teacher, and one of the most authentic voices ever to grace the Discovery Channel. He's been on the Joe Rogan podcast, and you might know him as Survivor Man. He's the first and only person to head into the wild completely alone, no crew, no scripts, no second takes. But this conversation goes way beyond survival. We talk about what it really means to disconnect in a world addicted to distraction, how solitude exposes who you truly are, how fear quietly hides inside laziness, and how perseverance, not luck, is the real superpower behind a meaningful life. He's a musician, a filmmaker, a philosopher of the outdoors, and his story proves that surviving and living are two very different things. And our guest today is Les Stroud. Ended up being, I don't know how closely you followed it, but it was a pretty massive up and down emotional roller coaster. So what's it been?

SPEAKER_01:

Still my hair. Still not here. Okay. Um just uh ever since childhood. I mean, ever since childhood, I have to admit it, I just always would rather play sports than watch it.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. So you weren't no investment whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm like the worst. Um I'll be like, oh, the Toronto Maple Leafs are in the playoffs? Okay, I'll watch.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I'm not any any family members that were emotionally scarred by it or just no involvement whatsoever. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Don't not even on the same planet. Uh uh, I mean, ask me. I'll tell you about the Ted Lasso game I watched on season three, but that's that's as close as I get to sports.

SPEAKER_00:

It was uh I won't go into too, but I just I'm a huge baseball fan. I just I was I felt like I ran three marathons. It was that kind of game.

SPEAKER_01:

I did go see the Yankees and the Red Sox, Yankee Stadium, and my father-in-law, and I actually said to him, I said, Okay, you gotta tell me what's the attraction? I don't get it. I'm bored, it's crap. And so then he, you know, we spent the whole game and him explaining to me, you know, it's the small game less. It's the small game. That's exactly he's just going through it. And so now when you get into that, I I totally understand it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh still not my thing.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. But I totally uh I totally understand it. Fair enough, fair enough. Well, I gotta tell you, so I was uh my brother and I growing up were huge fans of yours, um, you know, watching you on the Discovery Channel. It had been some time since I had seen your epis uh some episodes, but over the last week in preparation for this, um, you've graciously have put uh quite a few episodes on YouTube, and so I went back and watched some. Last night I watched the episode of you in the Australian Outback. Uh, I don't know, that was season three. Um, you had flew a plane in. I'm like, okay, Les is also a pilot. So, I mean, on top of all the other things that you do. And then, you know, obviously you went about your business. You ate some grubs and some trees, you found some crawads in a little uh pond. And I mean, it it looked like you were thriving in a big way, but I guess that's what we see on TV, right? And so um, just to kind of set the foundation, can you just give us some insight into what that looks like on the back end and just kind of how you're mentally preparing yourself to put yourself in in a very challenging situation.

SPEAKER_01:

When you say the back end, do you mean during the week, what's going on, what you don't see, or do you mean preparing to go?

SPEAKER_00:

In preparation for it, and then once you're actually in it, just kind of how you preparation for it is the is the most fun part for me.

SPEAKER_01:

And often, you know, you know, there was certainly nothing to hide, that's for sure. I would go and because you have to remember my goal was education. My goal was to teach people wilderness skills, and my agenda was that they would learn these wilderness skills so that it would be able to feel confident and comfortable out in nature and therefore connect to nature better. So there's a whole line of you know reasoning there. And so if I'm going to go to Costa Rica or Australia, uh it's not like I can naturally know what plants I should eat or what, you know, insects I could catch. I mean, there are generalities to survival that carry across the globe for sure. Right. But I still don't know which plants are gonna kill me. So I would go ahead of time and spend a week learning on location. Okay. And I loved that. That was actually probably, no, not probably, that was my favorite part of the entire 20-year experience was the week I got to spend on location learning survival skills from a local who knew what they were talking about.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And then I would absorb all of that. And often I'd get kind of like like you never I you never take any notes. I never took notes not because I'm a genius, but because uh I loved the skills so much that if you told me this is a, you know, a certain type of leaf and you can eat this if you do that. I just remembered because I just love those particular skills so much. I didn't have to make notes, you know. So then I would go out the next week armed with all this new information and skill instruction. But now it's like, you know, now I kind of go back in time a bit. Now I'm adopting the role of just the person who's just like stuck out here. What do I do now? You know, and so I would know some stuff that I could show. And then there would be certain skills that I could do there. But let's say I've never done the skill like fire starting that way before. I would purposely not practice it because I don't want to just be a know-it-all guru. I want to still be in the role of someone who's stuck in this position, in this situation. And someone who's stuck in this situation, you know, probably did not learn how to do a fired bow in the Amazon jungle. It's gonna be all different than doing it in Ontario, Canada. So I would then do it on camera and you'd see the real deal of me getting it or failing at it. And so if I failed, it was real. If I got it, it was real. And it was palpable, you could tell, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that's fascinating because I think around that time there was the gimmicky show called Naked and Afraid, right? Literally kind of, I guess, in the same vein, but literally people going naked, and there's there's a gimmick to that.

SPEAKER_01:

I got interrupt, like, you know what? Arrogantly, I will say, let's not put am I allowed to swear on your podcast, or do you keep it clean? Go, go right. No, go right ahead. Yeah. So I I'm not cool with comparing my show to anything else that came after after my show. Man versus wild, dual survival, naked and afraid, alone, on and on and on. It goes, manufactured, scripted, set up. Now, alone is different. Right. So I want to say that right now. Alone's a little different. Yeah. Um, and the people on alone are very cool. They know what they're doing, they're trying really hard. But that said, there's a lot of other stuff they're not allowed to say, such as how often they really see a paramedic and really have the production team come in. And you have to understand what you know. In season one, I had um producer come in halfway through to grab get my camera cards, and it was such a massive intrusion into my process. I said, no fucking way am I ever doing that again. Nobody sees me for my seven days. No interruptions, no giving cards away, no exchanging batteries, right? All that has to happen on these different shows. Right. Now naked and afraid, and they're totally scripted. And man versus Wilde always stayed in a hotel. He never not stayed in a hotel or a lodge or whatever. You know, so those shows, I will speak, you know. I'm not being pompous here. I'm being factually confident and not arrogant. But they don't hold a candle because I'm still the only person who actually did it alone for real, no interruptions. If I get bit by a snake, I'm a dead man. If I do the right things, I don't get bit. So that's the difference when those shows came on. Sorry, so I interrupted your question, but I did want to clarify.

SPEAKER_00:

I appreciate that. I love watching other people seemingly suffer while I'm sitting on my couch, uh, you know, having a copy uh under a blanket. Um, but but in in all seriousness, there is this long, almost like this longing of, I really wish I had that in me. I respect the heck out of it, whether and some of it's fake or whatever, but I know what you're doing was not. And I respect it. And man, some there is something that pulls at me that wishes that I could just, you know, get in my car and go up to Big Bear Mountain with a blanket and figure it out. But I know realistically I'm not gonna do that, right? What do you think it is about that show that or those types of shows? Because I'm sure I'm not the only one. There's a reason why they're so popular, right? That you feel is like this pool of people that are so fascinated by what you do.

SPEAKER_01:

Right from the very beginning, it is that sort of very primitive, you know, feeling of I I in the end, it's kind of like you're watching me or something, and you're I wonder if I could do that. You know, and you just I wonder if I could, you know, comfortable in your couch and you've got your cold beer and you've had dinner and all that, you know. And you think, man, uh, but I'll tell you, there's a pretty big chasm between the couch and a shelter in the middle of nowhere, especially when you're completely alone. One of the things that I like to point out about Survivor Man, and this isn't a complaint and it's not a whine. The truth of the matter is, survival out in the wilderness with very little to keep you comfortable is incredibly painful. It's painful. You do not sleep, it's psychologically difficult because of that. The boredom is crushing, crushing boredom. Right. I almost had a bit of a cheat in that I was filming myself, and that filming of myself would take up time and ease the boredom. So I you know, but nonetheless, I still had times crushing boredom, painful, I mean, cold, wet, shivering. You know, most of your nights it feels like you have the flu. You know, it's an awful feeling. I mean, you let it on the mud and the rots and your chest and your biceps and now your buttocks and now your calves, and you you're doing all this just to try to get warm because you're shivering. Right. And you can't stop the shivering. There's nothing you can do to fix the shivering unless you've been able to get a fire going. And now you're not sleeping, you're sitting up by the fire hanging over top of it. It's really rough. And I think people, I don't uh it's not sadistic for you know, for those of us who go to do it, we're not sadists about it. It's just more, it becomes it's like the ultimate challenge. You know, uh can I survive in the wilderness? Can I be Tarzan? It's the ultimate challenge, and it gets gets us back to nature.

SPEAKER_00:

I think so. When I watch that show, one thing I think about is again, I'm I'm used to all the modern comforts, love them. I don't even camp as like a hobby with all the you know things you would need to camp. But one thing that I do find myself going back to is there was a time I had there's ancestors that I have that were capable of doing the things that I'm watching on TV. Um so it's in my blood somewhere in there, and I'm not special. It's for everybody, right? We're all we all come from that lineage. So there's also something there too, like almost like this connection, possible connection of it's in there somewhere. If I really, really wanted to, I could probably get it out. Do you think that's true or not? Or am I am I lying to myself? I don't think it's got anything to do with DNA.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. I think it's got to do with personal challenge, and I think that surviving alone in the wilderness is a kind of a representation of the ultimate personal challenge. It echoes of our primitive selves. Other people might look at different sports and challenges and things as also challenging yourself. So I'm a nature nut. I'm a wilderness nut. I connect everything to the natural world. I wish everybody did. But you know, there not everybody does. So for someone else, it might be doing an Iron Man marathon. That's their ultimate. Right. You know, they don't give a crap about nature. Right. Or trying to be pretend they're Jeremiah Johnson in the mountains somewhere, you know. So I think if it's in you, it's in you because of your desire to be challenged, not because of your desire to be Jeremiah Johnson. One is the DNA and one is cultural. For everyone like me, there are people who could give a crap about nature. Right. So their challenges are gonna be different.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, so I and I'm thinking back actually just to last week, I went out to uh lunch with a coworker and I said, Hey, what are you doing this weekend? She said, I'm gonna go on a camping trip. And I'm like, Oh, that's great. Like, what is the appeal? Like, can you explain to me for someone that hasn't done it, why is this something that you are willing to drive two, three, four, five hours, you know, lug all your gear there and back, not shower for a couple days? Like, is it, you know, I could see I could think of a couple things like, okay, you're out in nature, so um, I could see stars that I can't see, like I could see that being pretty cool. I could see the longing uh once you actually get home and like jump in the shower after not showering for three or four days, that's probably a pretty good feeling. Um, but I said, can you explain to me like what is the what what draws you to that? And she really paused and she's like, um, she's like, I never really thought, I never really thought about that. And so just curious, like what for you personally, other than the the self-challenge of it, like put that putting that aside, just what are people like me that what are we missing by not doing that? Or at least connection to the natural world, and what what does that have to offer? I know that's kind of vague, but what does that have to offer? Real life itself. Can you when what do you give us an example?

SPEAKER_01:

We come from nature, cliche. Without nature, we're nothing, cliche. Everything we make, including the computer I'm talking on, came from nature. Captain Obvious. You know what? It's like experiencing love. How do we describe the experience of love? Very, very difficult. Uh, the old joke of um uh how do you describe uh pornography? You can't, but you know it when you see it. And it's the same thing, alternatively, with love. It's very difficult to say what you know why I love my wife or my son and daughter, my dogs for that matter. It's very difficult to explain that, but I do. And the connection with the natural world, the connection with nature is on that level. It's on the level of love. And when you're in nature, and this is science now, science studies, you become less stressed, more intelligent, neurons are connecting, you recover faster from ailments, you heal quicker. They've shown that a patient that is just able to see a tree through their window in the hospital room will require less painkillers and will recover faster than one that can't. So to me, nature will do for you these kinds of benefits, whether you want them or not. You know, you go into nature angry or stressed, it's going to work for your benefit. There's no negative. Having a wonderful, loving relationship, what's the negative? There isn't one, you know? Right. And my wonderful and loving relationship is with nature. And I think it's inherent for all people to have that. Because going back to your first question, now we get into where I think DNA matters and counts. It's not the struggle that is part of our DNA, it's being connected to nature that's part of our DNA.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, uh, so when you say it from that perspective, again, in my head, the idea or the concept of shutting the Wi-Fi off for a couple days sounds super appealing, right? Because what am I doing when my mind has a moment to think? I'm like, oh wait, I'm thinking. Let me grab my phone so I can start scrolling and stop thinking, right? And so that is very appealing to be able to go out and turn that off. And you mentioned something earlier about solitude and that in the context of, hey, that's actually a big struggle when you're by yourself. But I guess leading into that, it's like the ultimate form of shutting off your devices and just kind of being stuck with yourself. I mean, maybe given that you're not with, let's say, somebody else, right? So what has solitude taught you about yourself that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise learned?

SPEAKER_01:

Probably that I'm more fragile than I care to admit.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

There's a machismo and mythos around Survivor Man, and I've taken out, you know, strapping jacked athletes. They can barely do a night, you know. So I I proved my toughness, you know, over them when I'm in my zone, which is the wilderness. But it's the aloneness. The aloneness exposes for me. You asked it with reference to me. In for me, it exposes my fragility.

SPEAKER_00:

Where's the power in that? And in understanding that?

SPEAKER_01:

Rebooting your system, getting back down to zero, getting back down to base level, you know, recognizing and understanding that I am fragile, no matter how cool I think I am, how many skills I teach and show, how many awards I win with this film I'm making, it doesn't matter, you know, in that moment. You know, what I had a little thing I used to do when I would be on Survivor Man episodes, not deep, when I'd be filming Survivor Man somewhere. Any of the jungle, and for a brief moment, I would zoom up and out of where I was, as if going to a GPS, you know, Google Maps and going the satellite image, and I go way, way, way, way up. And then I'd think, oh my God, I'm this little speck down here in the middle of the Amazon jungle. And um, it wasn't intimidating, it wasn't overwhelming. I guess part of me found it awe-inspiring, and part of me found it cripplingly lonely.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you feel like you let's say you go in in there with maybe there's been something that's on your mind and you go in as part of that survival journey of seeking clarity on something? Like you hear these stories about, you know, the Native Americans, right, going on these these journeys and looking for this spiritual awakening. Is there some legitimacy to that? And have you experienced anything like that?

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Um several times. You know, whether it's just with nature itself and that sort of cleansing, healing kind of perspective, whether it's ingesting plant medicines like ayahuasca, going that whole bore, you know, but still sort of connected to nature in a way. Yeah, I I mean that's the short answer is yes. I mean, you know, I'm not gonna have a lot of clarity sitting here in my kitchen or my living room. You know, I gotta really sort of focus. But a walk in the wilderness, walk in the wilderness changes everything. Uh sometimes. Not always. There's a lot of bees buzzing in your head, but sometimes they calm down while you're out there and start buzzing in unison, and that's when you you get your ideas, you get your um inspirations, you get your revelations. Yeah, it's a real thing. I mean, you're gonna have a revelation in Times Square in New York? I don't I probably not. But in nature, almost most definitely.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I know you've got uh two kids. Um how what has been your message to them and how you raise them and how they interact with nature? Have they kind of grown into how you view it? Have they taken a different approach? Like are how's that been as a father?

SPEAKER_01:

I think it's still a little more in their the superficiality of their lives in terms of it's a place to go adventuring. They're both uh really good at that. Um they they're not little survival experts or anything like that, well, not a little at all anymore. Um, you know, they're they're they're adults and you know lead professional lives. Um, but I would say for sure, you know, I had an influence on them not being afraid, you know, and moving forward, take a chance, try this, try that, live live in a different location, you know, that sort of wanderlust and all of that. Uh definitely my lifestyle was an influence on them that way. And I also fostered it very much. I mean, when they were 10 years old and we went into an airport, you know, I gave them their passports and said, go check in. And they went, and what that meant was, you know, after from then on, they knew how to be in an airport. Should they ever become separated from me or anything like that, which would happen later on in life, you know, they're great. Like I remember getting a text from my daughter one time, you know, this is even recently. She went somewhere far away and she said, Dad, I am so glad that you taught me how to travel because my friends are idiots, you know, because you know, people who've never been out of the house sort of thing, and now they're going to France or something, and they don't even know how to check in at an airport. So I taught them that stuff, and I think it it really sunk in. They're really good at it, but they're they could give a crap about survival. That's not their thing. That's my that's their dad's thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's I think so. I've got a my oldest is seven years old, and you just got me, it just this thought popped in my head where I try to be self-aware of that helicopter parenting, and I see the value in what you're describing. And I remember, you know, just last week we're in a line at Costco, and it's you know, the line's like eight people deep, and my son's like, I gotta go to the bathroom. And I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, hey, just you gotta wait because it's gonna be probably 15-20 minutes before we get through the line, and then the bathroom's over there, I'll take you. That was what I initially said. And then, like, after a minute of thinking about it, I'm like, you know what? I can see the bathroom. It's yeah, it's maybe a hundred, 150 feet over there, but what's the worst that can happen? I mean, you know, there's people watching the exits, like, there's cameras everywhere. Like, I feel like this is a good calculated risk. And yeah, sure enough, you know, he goes, he comes back three minutes later, and he remembered to wash, wash his hands on top of it. And I'm like, I put these and I put these restrictions, and the reality is that our kids are far more capable than we give them credit for. Um, and so yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I mean, okay, if we're gonna if we're gonna discuss parenting, I mean, yeah, I could go on all day, but even this recently in in an airport, I watched someone and I was I was really happy to see it. It was a woman with her young son, son's probably five years old. He wanted to play on the on the flat escalators in the middle of the airport, and he went over and he got on one and he was gonna ride it all the way down the end and then come back. She didn't get up off her seat. And I thought, good for you. You're giving him some free. She's watching like a hawk. Yeah. But she's giving him some freedom. By the same token, I've gotten on airplanes and watched, you know, gruffy fathers with three teenage kids and his wife, and he's holding everybody's ticket and everybody's passport. And the kids are 17, 18, and 15, probably. Yeah. And I'm looking at the kids who look downtrodden. And I'm just thinking, you dick. Like, good lord, you really gotta be that much in control of your family. How sad, you know. As I said, when my kids were 10, take your passport and you go check in. You know, you got any questions, you can look back at me, I'll help you. But otherwise, you go for it.

SPEAKER_00:

I I like the walk, so that walking escalator, that res, I mean, uh, resonates with me really well. You know, I think part of me as a parent, this is my again, my own maybe my own shortcoming, is I'm perfectly okay with with my kid doing that. It's just part of me is like fearful that he's gonna run in, you know, he's playing around, he's not paying attention to where what his body's doing, he's gonna hit the wrong person that's gonna get most strangers are fine, they get it, they understand, but every once in a while you do run into that one that's just like not understanding and you know, gives you that look, or worse yet, maybe even comes up and confronts you. And so I see that in other parents too. It's like more so I want to give my kids this freedom, but I I don't know. One, do you think I'm not parenting because I'm not watching them closely enough, or two, you've got this grumpy person that wants nothing to do with the kid and you just interrupted their day for five seconds.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, but it but but it's nuanced, and you describe two different scenarios that are radically different. One is your son's being generalized, he's just this and that, maybe everything's all good. It's cool. Little stumble bumps into somebody and they're gruff about it. Well, that person's an asshole. The other one is the kid screaming and getting in people's way and and shrieking and this and that, and you're doing nothing about it. Well, now you're an asshole parent. So there's two different situations. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's fair.

SPEAKER_01:

And the one you can control is the one where your child is, but you know, I remember when my son was like five, six, and I and he'd be uh climbing on rocks and we'd be doing a little tr uh walk or something. This would maybe be with my ex-father-in-law. My ex-father-in-law was hyper-vigilant on safety, and he'd go running over. I'd yell at him one time and said, Leave my son alone. If he falls off the rock, he falls off the rock.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

He's six years old and he's a boy and he's having fun. Yeah. And it could be a girl, so I'm not. He's having fun, he's six years old. My both my kids are are they actually both athletes now. So, but there was that hyper-vigilant uh helicopter grandparenting in this case that was not welcome in my own.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I did do that. I mean, and unfortunately, that fall led to a broken arm.

SPEAKER_01:

So what? We'll go now. Let's go on a tangent there. I mean, I got I've had broken clavicles and ribs and punctured lungs and wrists, and I got aches and pains, but the aches and pains I have is from a life well lived. I could be in just as much pain from having sat in a cubicle my whole life. I'm happy and I do not regret the broken bones I have.

SPEAKER_00:

So love it. Perfect response. Okay, a long thing, because we're kind of talking a little bit about fear. I'm talking about parenting fear and grandparent fear, but there was one quote that I saw of yours, and it did have to do with fear, and it said, You've talked about fear as a teacher. How can fear actually sharpen decision making instead of paralyze it? And I think you're kind of on that tangent already. It doesn't.

SPEAKER_01:

It doesn't sharpen decision making.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

It's in the way. Fear is in the way. Fear as a teacher, in that you can learn, you know, other roots around your problem. But fear itself is gets in the way big time. And I'll tell you one of the ways it gets in the way that is really insidious and rarely recognized. Laziness. Laziness is fear. And now we might give it a better word. Oh no, it's procrastination, and this means actually you're a thinker. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not talking about procrastination. I know procrastination very well, but I still get the job done eventually. Laziness is another story. Laziness, you never get the job done. You just sit there watching the baseball game with a beer. Okay. And it's fear that I think I think it's fear that prompts that laziness.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, fear of failure, maybe, fear of rejection, fear of not getting what you want, fear of not getting where you want to go. So you know what? It's a lot easier to go watch the new Bruce Springsteen movie tomorrow night than to work on that project. Right. And I consider that, you know, I love movies and stuff, but I'm using it as an example of we manifest laziness through things like watching movies. That so my one of my weaknesses is TV because I grew up in the 70s. Uh-huh. And that TV addiction can feed my laziness, which has been fostered by my fear of do I really want to work on this project? I'm not sure if it's going to work out. Right. When really I should be working working on the project. So that's the problem of fear, I think. I mean it fear causes a lot of other things, but but it I believe that it causes also laziness. And I think that is an insidious little issue that we kind of we let go. We don't think about it. We should.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, you're clearly one that pursued your passions and your dreams. You know, one thing that I find fascinating about your story, I know you had a life before Survivor Man. I think what stood out to me the most about your career is the way most people have come to know you through that show didn't happen until I believe your 40s, your early 40s, mid-40s, something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Correct.

SPEAKER_00:

So you had a whole life before that where you're in your 20s, 30s, probably facing whether it's a wife or family members, like, what's Les doing? Like he's got to get his life together. Like he's got these ideas of wanting to do this show or whatever the things that you were wanting to do, but you must have stuck with it to get to your ultimate vision of what you were trying to accomplish for yourself. So if you could take a moment, one to talk about, you know, what it's like for those that maybe are also in their 20s or 30s that feel like society has told them you've got to have one or figured out your life by now and how they can maybe stay true to themselves and continue to pursue what they're trying to accomplish.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, there is no you should have this by now that it even exists. I just never stopped. I'm still pursuing. I have a phone call next week with a record label for signing a record deal. And look at me. Do I look like this middle-aged white guy from Canada should have a record deal? But something I've wanted since I was 14. I'm still trying. For me, perseverance has been my superpower.

SPEAKER_00:

How long have you known you had that superpower? When did you recognize that about yourself? Pardon me wants to say, well, after I became successful.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh I don't know that I've even taken the time to to s to to really articulate it as I just did. I mean, I have, I've certainly I've said I have a lot of perseverance. I've said that before, but so I come from an extremely dysfunctional background. So zero mentorship, zero government. Guidance, nothing. I'm not exaggerating. Zero zilch matter. When I was about 19, um, I took it upon myself to start reading self-help books, reading success books. And it took me, you know, uh I spent my, you know, the many years reading all these books. And um, and through that, I discovered that you can have this instinct to be successful. You can develop it, you can use this instinct to figure out which way to go and what to do. And a lot of that rests on the concept of simply having an idea.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

A lot of people don't have ideas. I'm one of those people that gets too many ideas. Granted, but I know people who only get I even do a talk on helping people to get ideas. And because I think you should have a shotgun approach in the beginning. Lots of ideas. Put them all on the on the piece of paper with a sharpie. I spent my 20s learning about that.

SPEAKER_00:

Last we've got my sorry, sorry to cut you off. Yeah. Because there's a really important point, I think it's important, which is you said you had zero zilch, not ins or anybody guiding you, mentoring you, anything. But you you just made an important comment, which was with even with none of that, something prompted you at 19 years old to start reading books. Was there like a a defining moment where you snapped in and said, Okay, I gotta figure this out? Or like, because again, you and you mentioned it earlier, there's a a big majority of people that would just say, Oh, well, life dealt me this shitty hand, and you know, I'm just gonna keep doing this. You, on the other hand, at 19, something click, and then you continue. So if you could just in a little bit more detail speak into you, was there like a life event or something that prompted that, or how did that even come about?

SPEAKER_01:

Real answer. I don't have a freaking clue. I don't know why there's been a fire inside. I don't know why. I come from an extremely dysfunctional background. I had to escape abuse and dysfunction. When I was 16 years old, I saw a therapist who on the third meeting vindicated for me my feelings, and that was the first time in my life an adult vindicated how I felt, and it changed my life. I thought, oh my God, I'm not crazy. It's not me. I'm just a 16-year-old boy in the suburbs of Toronto. Okay, all right. Now three more years of torture and being teenage angst, and at 19 breaking free. And but why I did it, I've never truly been able to answer the why question. I don't know why. I can feel the way I do and see the problems that need to be solved and want to work and why not. And I've got friends who will simply say, I don't know, there's nothing I want to do. I'm like, Do you think it was like I don't even know how they can say that sentence?

SPEAKER_00:

Was it like uh do you think it was something that was momentum that was building over time? Or do you feel like it was more like you literally woke up one day and you're like, all right, last, it's time to snap into gear. Neither. Neither.

SPEAKER_01:

It was a slow gradation uptick, step by minuscule, step by minuscule step, over and over again, a couple slips back, and then some more steps. It's been a constant degree of steps. Now I will give one moment of an epiphany that did change my methodology. And I was 30, it was right before Survivor, man. Late, late, late bloomer. Say I was 38, maybe 39, and I had finished my first CD, my album, my debut album, CD of music, and my first documentary film, Socies in Solitude. And I had a CD and a DVD in my hand. That was the first time in my life I actually ever completed what I started. When I did that, I became euphoric. And I thought, this is the joy of completion. I want more of this. And I've been on that train ever since. The joy of completing what you started. Don't you go down the wrong road and you do need to back up and get on a different pathway? Yeah, that happens. A lot of times I'll freaking complete that thing if it kills me, because I said I was gonna finish it. And I often finish things, and it's never or very rarely is me completing something been for naught. Once in a while, it's like, okay, it's done. I I kept my promise, you know. So the joy of completion was that was an epiphany, and look what I said I had a late 30s, you know. So so everything else leading up to that, it was really honestly just this slow pathway in my life.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I sorry, I cut you off because I really wanted to hit on that 19-year-old you. And he was starting to get into the 20s and 30s. So again, if you can just continue that story of okay, so now you you're reading these books, then what how does that so I spent my twenties learning about skill sets of instincts and success and so on.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I you know, reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and getting to yes and think and grow rich. And I started with the road less travel. Actually, it was a Christian book. You know, I started with all anything that was gonna make me be a better human being or be more successful, or you know, and I had to change through. I had another epiphany, interesting epiphany one time to do with money. And when I was into my 30s, up until then, me and money and I had a horrible relationship. I hated it, great disdain for money. I don't want I just wanted to be like a hippie. It's like, we don't need money, we should just like operate on a, you know, here, I'll I'll give you uh some plants and you give me a dead hog. I don't like I was just like in that fantasy world. And and then one day I just changed all of that. And like literally that was sort of an overnight where I said, okay, you know what? From now on, this society revolves on money, whether we like it or not. It really does revolve on that. So money could be helpful. So I just changed and said, Okay, you know what, from now on, money likes me. And it did. It just kind of that almost changed overnight. So that was an epiphany. So there were epiphanies along the way, but each one was more of a medium to low medium epiphany that changed a certain perspective I had. There was no one big moment. I don't know that there's ever one big moment. It's like saying they were an overnight success. Yeah, well, they spent 13 years working on it. Uh, it's the same sort of thing for me, you know. Yeah, you were right. I mean, people don't realize that. And for example, Survivor Man hit when I was about 41, 42. I'm on Jimmy Fallon, The View, Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I'm doing all that stuff and I'm still living under the poverty line. I was 46 years old, family afford home, international television star, and I was still making less than$60,000 a year. Yeah. That's the reality people don't get. They think, oh, you're on Jimmy Fallon, you must be rich, you know. And true, they sent a limo, so I came in a limo.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I flew business class, and I was freaking making less than 60 grand a year, but I was working on my my creation, my TV series, my Survivor Man, you know. That's the truth. Yes, the payday did finally come in, but 46 years old, still making less than$60,000 a year with a family of four. Think about that. I can't.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm I mean, that all lends itself to somebody that, and you you mentioned um another thing that you said that stuck with me. You said a fire inside, and I thought of that because I was a big punk rock kid growing up. There's a band actually called AFI, which stands for a fire inside. So when you said that phrase, I'm like, oh yeah, I love that. You have that I'm gonna call that like a self-motivation, this fire inside and this vision, and and you had to have confidence and belief in yourself that even though you are well into your 40s with this family of four that you're talking about, making uh, you know, below the poverty line, yet still pursuing on because you're like, hey, you know what? This is gonna work out, right? I mean, that had to have, I would imagine that had to have been like you weren't questioning that, right? It's just like, hey, this is gonna happen. It's just a matter of time.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it comes down to really having faith and trust in the idea that you have, the idea that you're banking all this on, the idea that you're working on. And you know, it's that thing where where you're sitting around a group of people and you're trying to maybe, maybe trying to figure something out. And maybe you just watch the game. And you go, you know what'd be cool? So right there I would stop and say, yes. Whatever you're gonna say, yes, it would be, you know, and that's the thing. We just stop there. We say, you know, it'd be cool. It'd be really cool if they could figure out a way to blankety blank blank. Oh well. Then you go back and watch the game, right? Well, so for me, I'm like, you know what would be cool? Yes, it would. Okay, can we work on it? Uh let's work on what would be cool. And so a lot of faith and confidence in these little ideas. You imagine anybody listening to this, most people will say, I thought about this one thing. I thought it would be really amazing. And six years later, all of a sudden it was like a big thing and they were selling them all at every Walmart. Like, you know, I wish I'd done something with it. It's like, you know, and it's in the air, right? It's just there with the energy of these ideas. You know, I've had a you know, a hundred like that. I'll give you a weak example. Okay. Way back in the days, I'm just teaching survival, I'm an outdoor guide. And I just thought to myself, when you walk across the ice if you're snowmobiling or snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, you go, you know, there's always this danger of breaking through the ice, right? And so at home, we would all just kind of manufacture these little ice picks that you could stick in the ice and pull yourself up out of the hole. Oh my god, you fell through, you know, but this is your emergency grippers to get you out of a hole in the phone. Okay. So I remember thinking, and I made my own and everything. And I thought, man, these things should be manufactured and sold to the snowmobile market. 10 years, 12 years later, exactly that happened and they sold in the millions. You know? So that's just me having, but we all have these little ideas, these things. So Survivor Man, Survivor Man was me looking at really crappy survival films made by amateurs on some standard equipment, thinking in 1987, you know what would be a good idea? No, you know what would be cool? It'd be cool if I actually went out and had to survive, but had to film myself so nobody's with me, and that way I can really teach you about this fireball because I would need it. 13 years later is when I started pitching it. Ideas have to have their time and place. You can be too soon, that was too soon. We might joke and say, I was ahead of my time. You kind of were. You know, idea was too soon. You can be too late, that's already being done. Everybody's doing it. Oh shit, really? I thought I just had that idea. Didn't realize, but I did a Google search and everybody's doing it. Or you can be right on time. And when I finally pitched my idea from 13 years previous, it was right on time. And Survivor Man was born.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, a couple, these are kind of uh we've we've gotten really deep, and I appreciate the degree with which you've been willing to share. I'm gonna go not so deep down and just ask some really silly questions. One of which, what is something that you've eaten that most people would find disgusting that is actually really delicious? Oh, Scorpions. Is that the whole taste like chicken, or what does it taste like?

SPEAKER_01:

Little crispy, like the little crispy ends of a chicken wing. You know, your little pointy crispy ends sometimes on a chicken wing, on good chicken wings. Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. What is the hardest of all the different environments you've been in? What's been the hardest um for you to survive in?

SPEAKER_01:

It's not about environment. It will always be about temperature. Is it cold or isn't it? If it's cold, it hurts. If it's not cold, you have forgiveness time. Cold will always be the greatest, the most challenging survival circumstance. So you can put me in a, you know, the side of a mountain that's rugged and rocky, but it's 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Good, I got time to figure this out. You can put me on a beautiful flat forest with lots of stuff around and everything that I can use, but it's minus 20, I'm in trouble. It's cold.

SPEAKER_00:

What is maybe a couple things that people should leave in their car in case they get stranded somewhere and need a couple things to survive, maybe a night.

SPEAKER_01:

Power bars, a way to get a fire going, a way to communicate to the outside world is huge. If you want, and those are my top three.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, perfect. All right, so back to the deep stuff. We're gonna wrap up with hopefully some good um polish here to wrap up um all these great discussions we've been having. So uh, and these are pre-written, so I don't normally like to do this, but I just feel like this is really important. So question is we live in an age of abundance and distraction. What's the modern version of getting lost in the woods, and how do we find our way back?

SPEAKER_01:

I'd say social media absorption, doom scrolling. I'm thinking when you ask that question, I'm thinking loss in the pejorative. And so you're swallowed up by social media, by means, by advice, by videos, dog and cat videos. Shout out to the guy called Rockstar and his dog dog voices. I love him. But the way you pull back, which I think you asked, yeah, is um it's almost like there needs to be a slight physical step.

SPEAKER_00:

Like for those that didn't see, he just picked up and threw his phone. Right, literally.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you sit you're in bed and you go see who texted you, but then you click on Instagram, throw the phone across the floor. Yeah, and throw it off the bed. You know, make it a physical, like you make it visceral to pull yourself back and then okay, you know what? I'm getting out. I I said I was gonna work out this morning. I said I was gonna do a cool plunge, I said I was gonna do my Wim Hop breathing, I said I was gonna make a nice breakfast. I said screw the Instagram, the YouTube, the TikTok. Physically throw the phone across the floor and go do that stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Love it. Make sure you have insurance on that phone or a case just so it doesn't break. But I love maybe or let it break. All right. If someone's listening is stuck, burned out, overwhelmed, unsure of what's next, what's the one survival principle they can practice today to start moving forward?

SPEAKER_01:

Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. Breath work, breath work, breath work. It's key to life. And then take a walk in the wilderness. Doing what? Just walk. Just go and sit. Just go and sit. Give it 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_00:

Just breathe and walk in nature. All right, and then we're gonna end on this last one. What's the difference between surviving and living? Surviving, I think, is what most of us are doing now.

SPEAKER_01:

Living is opening up and expanding your mind, your intelligence, your emotional awareness and emotional intelligence so that you can then percolate what you've learned through a hundred different methods and apply it. Living is applying. You're applying to life. It's like in the secret life of Walter Middy. There's this little throwaway line by Kristen Wig. And she says, and it's a little, it's a double and dye. She says, I thought I would apply to life. She means life magazine. The character does. Right. But it's not lost to me that no, she's applying to life, period, by making a change. So these are the things we can do. But you living is applying yourself to life. Or now I'm gonna be negative and dark. Or don't, because I don't care. Nobody cares. Your sister doesn't care, your mom doesn't care, your wife or husband doesn't care, your kids don't care. Don't care, don't do it. Who cares? It's on you. So they may all love you and they may all support you, but they're gonna be happy with whatever you do. So it's up to you to apply to life for you. That's the difference between living and surviving.

SPEAKER_00:

You heard it from the man, the myth, the legend, Les Stroud. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, this is a joy.