Still Curious
Curiosity is a gift we start with but often lose. So what about those people who are still curious? Grokkist founder Danu Poyner meets people who insist on relating to the world with curiosity and care and talks to them about the red thread that runs through their life story and which ultimately empowers them to flourish as their unrepeatable selves. Find out more at https://grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast
Still Curious
Free yourself from external validation: unschooling, outdoor adventure and That Mountain Life - Erich Leidums | S2E13
Erich Leidums is the content creator behind That Mountain Life, where he documents his family's outdoor adventures and parenting journey in a small mountain town in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. We discuss the importance of building a fulfilling lifestyle that aligns with your values.
Key Topics:
- The importance of building a fulfilling lifestyle that aligns with your values, freeing yourself from the need for external validation
- Erich’s experiences growing up in Canada and his squiggly career journey through outdoor education, adventure tourism, paramedicine, and becoming a full-time content creator.
- Being an unplanned dad and the challenges and rewards of combining parenting and adventure
- Embracing risk and the power of giving someone a supportive nudge when they are at their edge of their comfort zone
- Why playing poker is a form of meditation, and the one book Erich read in high school that forever changed his life
Full Show Notes
Visit the Grokkist podcast hub for a full digest of this episode including highlights and links to stuff we discussed: https://grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast/s2e13-erich-leidums/
Recorded 3 August 2022
Website: grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast | Email: podcast@grokk.ist | Socials: @grokkist
Music: Kleptotonic Swing by Tri-Tachyon
I had a moment when I was 17 or 18, like go to school, work, retire, and die? Like, That's it?! I didn't want that. And I was set on this path of, oh, like it's probably going to be a lot more fulfilling to work or live a lifestyle that you want to be doing instead of just sacrificing yourself for a job or subjecting yourself to a boss that doesn't treat you well. I didn't want to be unhappy doing what I did. And so all of my jobs were wired with let's make sure we're enjoying what we do.
Danu Poyner:You're listening to these Still Curious Podcast with me, Daniel Poyner. My guest today is Eric Leidums, who is the content creator behind That Mountain Life, where he documents his family's outdoor adventures and parenting journey in a small mountain town in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. Today's conversation is all about risk, play and reward. It's about celebrating effort as well as outcome, learning through experience and adventure and building confidence and resilience over time to ride out the inevitable bumps along the way. It's about showing up in the world, building a fulfilling and integrated lifestyle that aligns with your values and freeing yourself from the need for external validation.
erich_leidums:I stopped caring about grades. Grades were dead to me. Just didn't matter because I didn't need or want that external validation from a teacher. And so if I wasn't into an assignment and it didn't feel aligned with me, I didn't want to do it. And probably why I'm unschooling my kids now. Right?
Danu Poyner:Eric has been a go getter from the get, go enterprising and with a background in adventure tourism, outdoor education, river guiding and leading youth on wilderness trips, as well as working as a paramedic. Now he's busy making videos for a living. But for Eric, all the hustle is really about creating a lifestyle that's fun, interesting and fulfilling for him and his family.
erich_leidums:Mountain life is slower. It's got movement built in as a value we're surrounded by mountains. So not only do you have this awe and this awesomeness that's the nature around us. You can also play and interact on the mountains and with the mountains. It snows 20 centimeters and the shops are closed because the shop owners and staff want to go ski the powder. It's this idea of working to live and not living to work. A lot of people are here for the lifestyle, not just to make a ton of money and maybe have a big career.
Danu Poyner:Eric's work and lifestyle is all about combining parenting and adventure. The content he creates through that mountain life explores themes of conscious parenting, unschooling and pushing and stretching our comfort zones in supportive ways.
erich_leidums:one of the most rewarding things I feel like as a mentor a coach is to be present at the birth of another human, being in their flow state or their edge, like at their edge. So the nudge is when a human is at their edge and maybe they have a story in their head, and they're saying I'm not sure I can do this or I'm scared. I find the nudge is to be that supportive voice.
Danu Poyner:As usual, this is a conversation that goes on all sorts of tangents while being packed full of surprising substance throughout. We talk about being an unplanned dad. The business mechanics of being a full-time content creator. Why playing poker is a form of meditation. And the one book Eric read in high school that forever changed his life. Enjoy it's Eric litems coming up after the music on today's episode of the still curious podcast. Hi, Erich, welcome to the podcast. How are you?
erich_leidums:I am great. Thanks for having me here.
Danu Poyner:So you're the content creator behind That Mountain Life, where you document your family's outdoor adventures and parenting journey in a small mountain town in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, your videos on YouTube and Instagram cover outdoor adventure, family, conscious parenting, homeschooling, risky play, and small town, mountain lifestyle among other things. And, after about three and a half years, you're now a full-time content creator and social media influencer navigating the world of digital marketing with over 850,000 followers across all platforms. What would you say is the most important thing for someone to understand about you and what you do?
erich_leidums:Where I am today and creating content full time is awesome. It's creative. That's something I'm really grateful for and it comes with a lot of work, a lot of struggles, a lot of uncertainty. I feel like it's easy to be scrolling on social media and say, I want to do that or be like that. It's a great position at the end and, it you know, the there's pros and cons to it. I've never worked harder to pay the bills this way, even though I have a significant following, it doesn't just land on my lap.
Danu Poyner:No, there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, I think. Maybe let's talk about that mountain life, the channel. How would you describe what goes on there and who it's for?
erich_leidums:Yeah, I just started documenting our outdoor adventures. It started in the winter, following my kids with the camera, skiing down ski runs, and I wanted to learn how to make videos. And so I taught myself just with YouTube tutorials, how to start vlogging. The videos are for anybody that enjoys the outdoors, anybody that's a parent, used to be a parent of young kids, or maybe might become a parent. I feel like I have people watching me from teenagers to grandparents. So, the content is wholesome. Family centered. A lot of outdoor activities is the main theme, and there's adventure and challenges that we overcome, and then also just a lot of fun. It's a lot of action-packed joy. I feel like, at the end of the day, what I'm doing is sharing my joy and love that I have of the mountains with my kids. And then I just share that with the rest of the world as well.
Danu Poyner:I've seen your videos. Wholesome is definitely the word for it. I've seen some of the ones where you miked up your daughter going down the slopes and so articulate and confident and fun. It's really interesting just to see that vibe. What's the response been like?
erich_leidums:The miked up videos of Attia, she's our youngest and she's now four. Those videos were when she was a big two. So she was like two and three quarters that winter, before she turned three and the internet loved her voice and just her articulation and really helped connect with viewers in terms of just, like there was this cute young girl who is very competent at skiing and, when she's comfortable and in her flow state, she babbles and talks and self monologues in a very adorable way. And that was the hook that grew my following, or that was the sort of the viral videos. And, February 1st of 2020 or 21, but I had 3000 Instagram followers and by the end of March, two months later, we had 120 K. So it just blew up over two months of these videos getting spread.
Danu Poyner:Yeah. Wow! You've got a business diploma in adventure tourism, and you've done ski patrol, river guiding and leading youth on wilderness trips. I understand it's that latter that really lights you up. Can you share what gets you excited about witnessing young people gain an appreciation for wild places?
erich_leidums:Working as an outdoor educator is by far one of the most enjoyable occupations I had as a young adult. I think it's because I was able to play myself while I was still working. There's something about stripping down life to more of the basics. There's a lot less excess when you're out on a multi-day canoe trip or backpacking trip, trecking, whitewater rafting, flatwater canoeing. If you can pack up what you need for 10 days or 20 days into a 30 liter dry bag or a small backpack, and that's all you need. And then you go out as a community, as a group, you are this mobile community. You're forced to face more of the basics of life. I feel like that provides perspective for young people and it instills confidence and builds resilience and people get to learn a lot about themselves when they're in those environments where you move away from some of those creature comforts that our society gives us all the time. So I feel like there's real value there, and it's not a suffer fest by any means, but I feel like it's a real opportunity for youth to just grow and learn a lot more about themselves.
Danu Poyner:Great answer. I can feel the enthusiasm for this radiating off you and as someone who enjoys their creature comforts a little too much, perhaps, it's almost inspiring me to get out there. I'm not sure if it's going to quite tip me over the edge, cause I'm pretty set in my ways, but outdoor curious. Let's put it that way. You mentioned this phrase just then as an outdoor educator. One of the things I always do on the podcast is ask people to explain a term of art as if to a 10 year old. I'm wondering if you can explain what outdoor education is to a 10 year old.
erich_leidums:I think I would say, outdoor education is about going outside into nature to experience that nature and yourself in it. You can learn about the plants and the trees and have experiences with wild animals and that in itself is almost a holistic experience and very memorable at times. And there's something very serene and peaceful about being in that environment. And then you can also learn again about yourself in that more interpersonal, soft skill way, solving problems, you know, the outdoor environment is nowhere near short of opportunities and things to cause a problem or you know, an obstacle in your way, whether it's inclement weather or just a tree you want to climb or a rapid, you want to navigate down a river and you want to do it safely. And. I just realized I lost the ten-year-old. I started off with a ten-year-old definition, but, uh, kept going.
Danu Poyner:Thank you for that. I'd be really interested if you've got any examples you can share from those trips about some of those problems and challenges that arise that are unplanned, I guess.
erich_leidums:Yeah, like a really good, simple example would be if somebody goes to bed in a tent, let's say you have a couple of 13 year olds on a canoe trip. And, as an instructor and as the leader, you explained to them the importance of taking care of their stuff. That's a value that's really important. And maybe they go to bed one night in a tent and they leave their rain jacket on the rocks and the wind picks up at night and all of a sudden they're no longer with a rain jacket because it got picked up and blown down the river and so what do we do for the next six days where, maybe the weather is going to be friendly and they get away with it. Maybe it gets cool and rainy, and now you have participants offering to share their rain jacket, to help out with this person. And I guarantee you that very experiential lesson with a real consequential outcome of choosing to do it their way or whatnot, it's just an experience where they get to learn. I think that's a good concrete example of what experiential education is. You can maybe say it and state it as an educator or a teacher or instructor, but until you live it and experience the consequences and you want to obviously mitigate and not have consequences be too dire and drastic. And I feel like that's one of the key roles as an outdoor educator is to, make sure you're objectively assessing the risks and that the group is still within a reasonable tolerance of staying safe. Right.
Danu Poyner:A really good explanation. Thank you. I had another guest on here talk about experiential learning as having an undeniable experience, which I think is a nice way of capturing that kind of consequential thing you're talking about. On the education front, are you doing anything to reflect on what they take out of those experiences? Do you have a debrief or is there an activity about what they learned or how does that work?
erich_leidums:Yeah. Communication is an essential soft-skill interpersonal skill to develop when you're out as a team or a group navigating the wilderness or an outdoor setting. And so, we're constantly debriefing and even front-loading parts of a day or an activity. And then stepping back and not intervening when it's optimal and then stepping in when it's necessary and of course, reflecting and debriefing anything that needs to happen.
Danu Poyner:I'm interested in the way that your videos can combine education and parenting and adventure. And I'd love to talk a bit about your philosophy of parenting and education, I guess I hear you say a fair bit. Don't bubble wrap your kids. What does that phrase mean to you?
erich_leidums:Well, yeah, that's an adage that I think I even heard that phrase as a kid a little bit here and there. I never really gave much thought to it. You know, the term helicopter parenting is a relatively new term. I think in the early two thousands, there's some academia and stuff, talking about studying social sciences of different parenting techniques and talking about risk and being risk adverse. You know, the road to hell can be paved with the best of intentions is a quote. And it's very instinctual on one level to want to protect our kids from the world's ills and harms and not just physically, but also emotionally and psychologically. I quickly could see how, I don't know what it is. It's just a cultural kind of awareness I had, that if you avoid risk all the time and try to stay out of harm's way, then you're not embracing the full human experience of what it means to be alive, which has risks built into it and even harm and pain and loss and suffering. All that is part of our human psyches. I'm a dad, I'm wired to keep my kids safe and provide for them physically, emotionally, psychologically. I want to provide like nothing else. But in that I realized that I think the best way to provide is to not overbearingly protect them too much because they need to build resilience and skills to be able to become atonomous young adults who are going to be able to be confident, navigating the pain and suffering and sadness that comes with life when things don't go as planned.
Danu Poyner:Is it significant that there was such a big response to your videos at the time around the start of the pandemic? Given what you're saying about risk being built into life? Or is that an overreach?
erich_leidums:Yeah, I think that's just coincidence in terms of that. I feel like this is deeply ingrained in a lot of Western culture. I mean, If you're in poverty and in war torn countries and in rural environments. And I think in much of the world, the west is almost an exception in the level of comfort and excess that they have. And I feel like helicopter parenting is more prevalent in America and Canada and maybe some of the other Commonwealth type nations, even in Europe, in Germany though. There's subtle cultural, nuanced differences where that's not as prevalent. My wife read a book about a mom who moved from the U S to Germany, and she was just baffled at how many kids were walking to school and taking public transit blocks and blocks away from home at a very young age. So there's this cultural, deeply ingrained thing that's happening on a generational level in the west. when people watch the videos, they're like, oh, there's this dad doing it this way. That's not overprotecting his kids. And that kind of resonates and lands.
Danu Poyner:I heard you say, kids thrive when empowered to take risks, navigate challenges, and learn what they're capable of. You're about celebrating effort, not just the outcome and your approach is to give kids as much opportunity as possible to make their own choices, even when it's not exactly what you would choose to do. I'm curious how you came to that philosophy. Was it part of your experience growing up?
erich_leidums:I was a nineties kid in a small town in Canada. I'm in a mid-sized town. And I, I was able to roam around and play freely in my neighborhood, on a bike with my friends in the neighbourhood. Impromptu hockey games, exploring the forest, you know, went to summer camps and there was lots of free time and play. And played hard and really enjoyed a lot of unstructured play. At the same time, I was also highly scheduled, went to school and I got a lot of praise and attention and love from my parents or adults when I did well in school or sports or extracurricular. That achievement external validation. And so as an adult, I've done some work to be aware of those patterns and trends of putting too much emphasis on the outcome and the achievement. And then I also really related to my upbringing of having space to roam around and be free. I'm very reflective. And I like to think about things and ask questions as you do. And I'm curious. And so one way I describe how I parent is I'm reflective. I like to reflect on our parenting strategies and techniques. And so when our young kids, every six months they grow and change and then we're just always reflecting on how can we meet their needs the best, and maybe what we did last year isn't the best for them this year, because they're older and we need to adapt. And I'm just constantly reflecting on what we could do to meet our kids' needs.
Danu Poyner:Was there ever a time that you played really hard and had to meet some of the consequences of your actions that you learned from, like on a trip?
erich_leidums:I had lots of big crashes on the bike. I remember one time, I was probably 12, racing around the block and we slipped out on some gravel on the pavement and I was just covered in road rash and abbrasions and cuts from head to toe. There we were 11, 12 years old in the neighborhood and I'm a block away from home. And I remember my mom sticking me in a bath full of hydrogen peroxide and it's just stinged and burned. And I mean, I have, I think, lots of minor to moderate injuries as a kid, right. When you're kind of going hard as a boy playing, but fortunately nothing significant.
Danu Poyner:I like this idea you have of nudging, pushing and stretching someone's comfort zone in a supportive way. What can you tell me about that idea of nudging?
erich_leidums:I'm really starting to love this concept. I think as a parent, I often see myself as a coach or a mentor, uh, especially when there's an activity involved or a task, and maybe they are learning at their own pace. It's one of the most rewarding things I feel like as a mentor a coach is to be present at the birth of another human, being in their flow state or their edge, like at their edge. So the nudge is when a human is at their edge and maybe they have a story in their head, and they're saying I'm not sure I can do this or I'm scared. I find the nudge is to be that supportive voice. Our son, August the oldest, he's actually quite reserved. And on the timid side, when it comes to outdoor adventure sports, he doesn't have a high competitive drive. He doesn't have that killer instinct to want to be the best and send himself off lifts or jumps. I'm totally okay with that because it's just one less thing I have to worry about. I know he's going to make a conservative decision. And when I was teaching him how to ski, I was attuned to the days where he wasn't open to being pushed and we would just cruise and have fun. So if we go skiing 10 days in two weeks, which wasn't uncommon or in maybe a 20 day period, we go skiing 10 times eight of them we do what he is comfortable and what he knows, and we're singing and dancing and playing and having fun. And we're just enjoying it and there's no push or nudge, but then on day nine, maybe the conditions are good. And he's just got a lot of practice over those previous eight days. And so day nine is the day where he's ready to get nudged to the next thing. And he's not even so sure that he might be able to do it, but it's coming from him, he's showing interest. And then I can nudge and say, yeah, but I think you can do this. That's what the nudge is all about to me.
Danu Poyner:Yeah, that's really powerful. A lot of the stories that people tell me on this podcast about moments that have really opened them up and sent them down new pathways have been about those nudge moments, where they had someone in a supportive and nurturing relationship who really saw them and then just gave them a push at the right moment. That stuff really changes lives.
erich_leidums:In the parenting realm, there's the old school, or maybe the more abrasive, less empathetic way of like, you know, your eight year old child doesn't know how to swim or your 10 year old and you throw them off the dock and you say, figure it out. And then the over-protective way might be you have a 15 year old, and there's nothing wrong with never having learned how to swim in a vacuum, but, if you're going to always just stay comfortable, as a parent, you're just going to comfort them in that and that's all you do, then they're never going to dip their toe in the water because you've never nudged them to. And so the nudge is the balance between those two strategies. I don't want to throw my kids off the dock and force them to be uncomfortable and scared.
Danu Poyner:I liked the way you framed that as holding it in balance between two extremes, but there's a lot that goes into reading that balance. I think. How do you tell when someone's ready for it?
erich_leidums:Yeah, I think it's attunement to their energy and being aware of their skill. So remind my son that I will never suggest him to try something that I know he's not ready for. Like with a child walking. When they're first learning how to walk, they fall down so many times, but like five days into their first steps, maybe they took a break and they they don't want to continue doing it. 10 days later, they're back into it. And it's just amazing how incrementally, especially young kids under seven every week, every month is like this. They're sponges and they're growing so fast. I feel like it's just this balance of wanting to support them and meet them at their comfort zone and then paying attention for when they're ready. And a lot of the time it can just come on their own and they just do it experientially without a nudge because they're just growing and they're gaining their own confidence. When they fall down and have a little crash, usually there's a psychological confidence drop, which makes sense. And that's a good, healthy balance. I fell trying this jump. I now have road rash. They're not going to try that jump again the rest of that day or the next week, maybe because they need to regain their confidence. So as somebody paying attention to when are they ready for the nudge? I don't know. I feel like a lot of what I do. It's hard to describe because it's just this attunement and presence and love that goes into it.
Danu Poyner:I'm interested in the story that connects the outdoor education work you're doing to the content creation work you're doing now. Content creator is not a category that's existed for that long. Did you have a plan A when you were little?
erich_leidums:I was a straight A student in school, I was being groomed to go to post-secondary education. Grades came easy to me. I enjoyed school. I read a book when I was 17 called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and I almost dropped out of school. if you're familiar with Chris McCandless and the movie, Into The Wild, or the book by John Krakauer. He's a kid in the U S that basically is disenfranchised with the establishment and just goes off the deep end and moves into Alaska, lives in a school bus. He basically starved in the wild trying to survive, like a modern day, Henry David Thoreau, gonna move into the woods and say, see you later society. I had a moment when I was 17 or 18, like go to school, work, retire, and die. Like, That's it. I didn't want that. And I was set on this path of, oh, like it's probably going to be a lot more fulfilling to work or live a lifestyle that you want to be doing instead of just sacrificing yourself for a job or subjecting yourself to a boss that doesn't treat you well. And all this stuff, I didn't want to be unhappy doing what I did. So I loved skiing and I moved to the mountains to start ski patrolling and, That was after I was an educator and worked at summer camps. And so all of my jobs were wired with let's make sure we're enjoying what we do. Our first child August was unplanned. It was a woopsie. That was where I was like, okay, maybe I'm going to need to up my game here a little bit. I'm not going to be able to just be a raft guide and ski patroller forever. But with that being said, I was really good with money and being frugal. And I became a paramedic because it was the natural progression after ski patrolling and doing first aid. I love helping people and navigating tough situations and problem solving and being a first responder has that. Just thinking about work and reflecting on creating a living, I had this drive to be an entrepreneur. I thought about Instead of just exchanging my time for a paycheck forever at a job, what could I do to become an entrepreneur? And so this idea of like starting a side hustle, side hustle culture on the internet is everywhere. And I think there's a lot of BS and smoke screens for a lot of it. I ended up following Gary Vaynerchuk. He's not loved by everybody. He's critiqued a little bit of maybe being too much hustle culture because he's just a go getter. But he instilled this idea of when it comes to social media content creation, it's about documenting your authentic self and your story, not creating. And that is what made me realize it's all they have to do. Use a GoPro or my cell phone and just record what happens. And I can pull little snippets from that to tell a story from our skiing day or our mountain biking adventure. I read more of Gary's work, his guide to growing on Instagram. And it was just this idea of instead of watching Netflix at night every night and relaxing, what could I do to invest in myself to maybe learn some new skills that I could monetize as a side business, along the way, which would help provide for my family. Again, I want to do it with something that I love doing and that's fun and interesting.
Danu Poyner:It sounds like that drive to be an entrepreneur was sitting there for a while, and then you were looking for something to attach it to. How did that moment of realization happen? Was it a sudden flash or did it creep up on you?
erich_leidums:I didn't know. So personal finance was interesting to me investing and entrepreneurship is a lot about generating cashflow and solving problems and providing value. And then you monetize that and whether it's a product or a service or an artist, you are providing value that people pay for. And I didn't know what business I was gonna run or do. I just always knew that it was something that I wanted to do and is really rewarding. Cause there's no ceiling there like there is when you're an employee. It took me a couple months, maybe even, almost a year. When we went viral on Instagram and then Tik Tok to come into it and realize, okay, how can I make money doing this now that we have a big enough audience? I was kind of paralyzed with what to do first because when you run a business and you're making content, there's lots of stuff to do behind the backend. And I didn't know what to prioritize my time doing. That held me up for a little bit and I kept getting in the ring and doing stuff and trying stuff, even hired a couple of people to help me that didn't work out. Now. I have two people, an amazing team, and they're doing all the right things, helping me and I can just focus on content creation a lot more. So it's good.
Danu Poyner:All of these ideas sound like very well-packaged reflections that you've become comfortable with over a long period of time. But I want to go back to that book that you were talking about when you were 17. What happened? Tell me, Tell me about this book and where were you when you read it? It's very unusual to hear a story like that.
erich_leidums:Grade 11 biology class and it wasn't even part of the curriculum. The teacher that assigned it, assigned it because the head of the science department would assign this book when he was teaching this grade biology class. I read the book and just had so many aha moments that I think philosophically and culturally, I hadn't really been introduced to before. It just struck a chord. It just pulled at my heartstrings and I had to read a two page assignment. It probably took me 15 minutes to write my two pages. I remember we had a class discussion about it the next morning, Danu, and I thought that like everybody else was going to be on the same page. It is an epiphany moment where my life was one thing before that. And afterwards it set me on a path to realize I can question societal and social norms. I can question institutions. It helped me become curious again. I felt alone. I was in school. I was on basketball team. Nobody really wanted to talk about it. And he, you know, I'm obviously passionate about it. Eventually I, you know, I got suspended because I'd sang a gold finger song that was all about anti schooling and factory farming. And I dropped an F-bomb at a school cafeteria music thing, got suspended. So I was sort of like, rebelling and coming into my own and for a good four or five years, I just was pretty like antiestablishmentary. There was three or four teachers at my school that were like, right on Eric. You are on your path now and I can see you. And a lot of other teachers were like, what happened to you? You used to be such a good student.
Danu Poyner:What an incredible transformation. It sounds like this teacher who assigned that book outside the curriculum, might've been a bit of a rebel as well. What was his deal?
erich_leidums:Yeah, Dr. Carly. He's on Vancouver island, I think full-time, I haven't been in touch with him in a while, but, yeah, he was obviously I think probably in his forties, maybe. At that time as a teacher and was a heck of a lot more calm and centered and had more years under his belt to reflect on all of our society's issues and our cultural issues. He helped me afterwards and had me over for afternoon tea and stuff to like, just keep thinking and discussing stuff after a little bit. So that was good. He was a bit of a mentor for sure, in that stage of my life.
Danu Poyner:You said something really interesting. You said it helped you rediscover your curiosity and you were 17 and you were doing really well in school. What had happened to your curiosity? You were doing well, but you weren't curious.
erich_leidums:I knew the playbook. I knew what was expected of me from my teachers and parents to be successful. And so it was a game, I could pay attention in class, I kind of was efficient at studying, a new homework can easy to me. I was very efficient and studious and absorbed, whatever. And then I had to regurgitate the test on paper and that was easy to me for whatever reason. It wasn't challenging. I was a product of my environment and my socialization and culture. I wasn't me. I mean, I was me and I was, you know, I was still there, but I wasn't fully me because I was unconsciously being programmed to fit the mold and do the playbook because that was going to be the most successful thing.
Danu Poyner:So, what would you have done if you hadn't read this book, do you think? What would Eric be doing now?
erich_leidums:I don't know because there's obviously no shortage of authors and artists and musicians and jesters and other works that are poking at and critiquing the status quo. Maybe it was alive in me in some way that would have come out in other ways or whatnot. And maybe I would have gone to university and gone down that path and would have been like a lot of post-grads who end up with a degree and they're still not sure what they want to do with themselves. I embraced the uncertainty a lot earlier. It's almost like I had my midlife crisis at 17.
Danu Poyner:I'm still picturing you rushing into class the day afterwards full of enthusiasm. And then the reaction to that. What happened to your friendship group and what did your family make of this?
erich_leidums:Yeah. My parents were a bit worried. My mom was worried. I think I adopted the poor me thing. Like I felt really alone. I felt disconnected from the friend groups and people in my whole life that I had built my identity around. I literally felt like I didn't want to be a part of that anymore. It wasn't leading me to where I authentically was maybe destined to go. I mean, I didn't use that language back then, but, yeah, I, I felt alone. I definitely found new friends that I could philosophize with and talk about stuff and have some more intellectual conversations about society and school. And I shifted gears. I stopped caring about grades. Grades were dead to me. Just didn't matter because I didn't need or want that external validation from a teacher. And so if I wasn't into an assignment and it didn't feel aligned with me, I didn't want to do it. And that's probably why I'm unschooling my kids now. Right?
Danu Poyner:yeah. What does unschooling look like for them?
erich_leidums:Well, our kids are four, seven and nine. And so, only in the last year or so do we feel like our oldest might need a bit more or we can structure our day to give him more support to nourish his inner spark and curiosity and interest because under the age of seven, if I was to pick a arbitrary age cutoff, seven and under. Play play, play, play play is what we value, play is the work of a child, and so much learning is happening through play. So my wife started and founded a forest school, which is an outdoor experiential type space for kids to be in a group. It's mostly unstructured free play. We love just giving space for our kids to play. And unschooling is going to shift and change for us a little bit as we get into the middle years of our kids now. August is going to be 10 next year and so it's going to shift a little bit for him when it's not gonna be the same as what it has been so far.
Danu Poyner:It strikes me how intentionally you're going about this and again, the reflectiveness really comes through. You said that you were kind of a a unplanned dad and you were pretty frank about that. How did your life change as a result of that and did that all start immediately. Tell me about that, if you don't mind?
erich_leidums:Yeah. I mean, I've made up a YouTube video on it. There was a mountain love story contest. And so I shared our story of, you know, conceiving a child and not planning it. The long and short of it is I had just gotten out of a different relationship, move to this mountain town Fernie, no plans to commit to another relationship anytime soon or in the near term. But I met Courtney and we had a great time and had a connection, enjoyed our winter together. And then I was off galavanting around, working down in the states, doing some river trip work. And when we reconvene that following fall, we picked up where we left off with our attraction and connection, and we conceived a child by it, unplanned and Courtney thought she couldn't get pregnant. That was incorrect and that's more than okay. It was obviously a huge pivotal moment. I was 25 years old when I found out, 26 when I became a dad and I was just 120% on board with whatever Courtney wanted to do with her decision for that situation. For whatever reason, I have this deep acceptance of even if we could no longer be together in a relationship, I was going to show up for that kid and make sure I took responsibility for my actions. I don't know. I just felt called to do that. So I wasn't worried. No matter what direction or what came of that situation. I knew that everything would work out and Courtney bless her heart. I love my partner so much. She also operates from this deep trust of like, everything can work out, everything's going to work out. So we both operate from this lens and we subconsciously always come back to that anchor point, like everything's going to work out. And so that's the premise we started our family
Danu Poyner:Can I ask you a bit about paramedicine work? That seems important. What's it like being a first responder in a tight knit community?
erich_leidums:Yeah. I think it's easier being a paramedic in a small town than a big urban environment. I'm in rural BC, a town of 5,000 people. There's back roads that are named after families that I have helped their grandparents. Their aging grandparents are the ones that maybe they or their grandparents, the roads are named after them. So you get to see a lot of the same faces. I mean, We're not a tiny town of like 500 people. you know, There's people that we don't know in this community. But it was a very rewarding job. It was flexible hours. I could work as many or as little shifts as I wanted, and that played a key role in our lifestyle because we loved our mountain town lifestyle more than just the careers we were doing and having. And so paramedicine, the way the schedule worked out here was I could work 30 days in a row or I could work three days and have 10 off. So I could do what I wanted and that helped design the lifestyle we wanted.
Danu Poyner:So tell me about what you really like about that lifestyle and the community where you're living and the landscape. What can you share about it for someone who maybe hasn't experienced that?
erich_leidums:Mountain life is slower. It's got movement built in as a value for most people. You can go for a walk along the river and the trails or the forest, or you can go trail running or mountain biking up every mountain we're surrounded by mountains. So not only do you have this awe and this awesomeness that's the nature around us. You can also play and interact on the mountains and with the mountains. You can just go for a 45 minute bike ride before you start work. It snows 20 centimeters and the shops are closed because the shop owners and staff want to go ski the powder. I've been to Costa Rica too, that pura vida. It's this idea of working to live and not living to work. A lot of people are here for the lifestyle, not just to make a ton of money and maybe have a big career.
Danu Poyner:I love the facility you have for words, and how you package these thoughts up and I'm just reflecting on what you said before, play is the work of a child and right at the start, you said that you wanted to play while still working. Is the content creation play, or is it a lot of work? Sometimes what happens to content creators is there's a lot of burnout there and I'm curious about that.
erich_leidums:Yeah. I'm being mindful of that. And I'm kind of catching myself in a phase of checking in again of, well, how much time do I really want to spend in an office editing? I'm also realizing like if I'm not eating that well, and then I don't sleep as well, I come into the office and I'm not nearly as efficient with my time as I could be. There's lots of stuff that as an entrepreneur, as a freelance, creative working for myself, you know, maybe I build in my schedule that day is like, I got the kids for three hours in the morning and Courtney is doing something that she needs to do or wants to do. And then I got my afternoon, I get in the office and then sometimes I'm not in my creative flow, I don't feel like editing, but that was my five hours where I kinda need to. And I feel like any creative out there can relate to that. I'm having some success monetizing since April and the moment that I can outsource some editing work. I'm going to do that. That makes sense for me. But I'm excited winter's coming around the corner and no time, and I'm going to be not ski patrolling for the first time in 14 winters. And I'm going to be a full-time YouTuber. Our winter ski content has the most eyeballs and I'm going to triple down next winter. And I want to be efficient with my editing and also feed the YouTube algorithm machine as much content as I can.
Danu Poyner:Where do you see yourself going with it, but also what does success look like along the way? Because it's not just the outcome.
erich_leidums:yeah, success for me is being able to sustain our necessary living through this. And so by that metric, I'm successful. It's working. It's only been three or four months, so there's going to be some uncertainty and maybe months or stretches that are a little bit leaner than other times. I want to just continue refining my messages and our values and be able to articulate and tell stories in a more effective way that can really impact and inspire others. I feel like much of what I'm doing is telling a story, telling my story, documenting a story. And based on the feedback I've gotten from some followers and comments and DMS, there's a lot of people getting value from the stories that I'm sharing and telling. That motivates me to keep going. I just built a recent website with some help of the two people that are helping me with my business backend. And I want my website and my YouTube channel to be a source of family and parenting inspiration for all things outdoor and maybe adventure travel as well. And so I'm really excited, where, you know, I feel like my family is going to get a bunch of opportunities that we probably never would've had before, with even international trips and all sorts of adventures that could be really cool. Continue experimenting, weaving more meaningful conversations into my content around unschooling. really poking that bear a bit, the modern day schooling assumption of, if you don't teach your kids top down, they're not going to be successful. I have all the faith in the world that my children are going to be well-rounded individuals that know who they are and are going to have skills and the ability to learn whatever they need to learn, to pursue whatever they want to pursue. And at the end of the day, I feel like every parent wants that for their kids. My kids are only gonna be young and cute for so long and the internet finds that adorable. But I know that I have more of a message and meaning that I want to keep telling stories about.
Danu Poyner:I'm coming back to how articulate your daughter comes across in the videos where you have her miked up. In one of them she asks if you can carry her so she has more energy for the turns on the ski slope. How conscious and how involved is she with her role in the way you're documenting your family adventures?
erich_leidums:Yeah. I think I really started making videos when she was a baby. And so she knows that daddy makes videos. That's a part of our lifestyle and you know, the camera's not in their face 24 7. I'm mindful and I'm grateful that the camera is not on more than it is off. If that makes sense. Yes. I'm documenting a lot of our outings and days, but like at the end of the day, there's story time and puzzle time and we're coloring and we're biking around the neighborhood at night. And I don't bring a camera or a phone. And, l love that I'm mindful of that. The kids don't watch the Instagram short clips or the Tik Toks. They have no idea about views or likes or followers. What we tell them is daddy makes videos and some people like watching them or daddy make videos, and this is his job. And we're really grateful we get to do this together as a family. And she knows no different.
Danu Poyner:I wonder You said some people like the videos, do you ever get any pushback or negative responses from people about the ideas? What does that look like and where does it come from?
erich_leidums:biggest pushback or the most common form of it is just in terms of risk. There are people out there that deem what I'm doing is unacceptable and totally inappropriate for the safety of the child and that I'm possibly even doing it for the views. And Knowing myself, the videos are truly documentative in nature. And, for example, our two year old, all of our kids at two skied off polar peak at Fernie Alpine resort. So it's the top of the mountain. And I always did it in spring and it's almost like a Rite of passage in our family and I did it with August when I didn't make videos. I think I had Luca, maybe he was three and I filmed it but I was already doing these like by some people's standards seem crazy things or outrageous things. It's just who we are. I've learned that a lot of people who are out there creating and doing big things, or just following their hearts, they're not doing it without ruffling some feathers in some way, shape or form. I'm not actively looking to be confrontational, but at the end, you're never going to be able to please everybody. So when Attia went viral, her stuff got picked up on ESPN, CNN, and Barstool sports on Instagram. And when you started reading the comments of the viral pages that picked up my pages, I started reading them and I feel like 90% of them were overwhelmingly positive. And then there was a good 10% of like, this is ridiculous. This is outrageous. I can't believe people are celebrating this, like this dad should be in jail. Like You get all sorts of stuff.
Danu Poyner:I can see in your videos people who meet up with you on the slopes and being inspired by your content to go outside and have their own adventures. What's the most surprising thing that's come out of this for you so far?
erich_leidums:One of our income streams right now is to go on trips and document our adventures. And so we'll partner with a tourism organization, predominantly, are the ones who have a marketing budget and they're going to spend it on professional videos on Facebook ads on traditional marketing. And then they're also going to allocate some of it to social media, influencer marketing. So we get to now go on trips with restaurant food budgets. The cocktails are included on them if we want a lot of the time. We're kind of getting wined and dined and hosted as a family at these resorts. Our lifestyle is around doing these adventurous, outdoor things where it doesn't cost that much money because it's integrated into our lifestyle and it's our value. Whereas I feel like if you're working and you get vacation weeks, you're working a career in an urban environment and you enjoy the mountains and mountain biking or skiing, then you're going to be the one to go and spend a week at a resort at a hotel and buy the tickets. We could even really afford to travel and go experience these things that costs a lot of money to do. So now with that mountain life, having a following, we get to go experience a lot of cool things in our outdoor niche and in our traveling interests that we never would've had before.
Danu Poyner:Was there a moment when you kind of kick back and went, Hey, this is working?
erich_leidums:It's really just recently, the last few months where booking a few trips that paid and then landing a few new sponsorship deals. Cause in the world of social media influencing, what's really prevalent is, Hey, we'll give you our product for free and you make a video and you use it as you see fit. And oftentimes there's no obligation, no set amount of deliverables and content you have to make. It doesn't help me buy groceries or pay the mortgage. And I don't just want endless amounts of stuff in our house. So this spring and summer, we've been successful at being able to pay the mortgage and buy groceries and cover our costs as a freelance creative, and it's working and I have a team of two people, Katie and will, I'm so grateful. They're a business to business, backend automation. They help people become more efficient with all their business issues on the backend. And they're SEO experts, and they're really good at what they do. So they're helping me with the backend and a good chunk of my monthly cashflow is going towards them, but it's all going to help me hopefully build a more sustainable website and business and profit model where we can generate some income. YouTube it's like writing a book. You make a YouTube. Nobody watches it. But three years later, all of a sudden people are watching videos you made three years ago. And now that video has made you a hundred dollars and I didn't get paid at cent when I made it. Right. So it's it's pretty cool.
Danu Poyner:I'm interested how you think about filling your cup now, given that your lifestyle is also your work. What do you do to fill your cup?
erich_leidums:That's a really great question and something I'm actually working on with my own life coach right now. I've just had this realization, that much of what I do, even for my own time and recreation, I'm always on, right? Like I'm on. I enjoy playing poker and that's not a very relaxing game. It's a very mentally intense game. Same with going mountain biking or skiing. You're just physically, always doing something. And I've never had a problem in filling my own cup in terms of doing some recreation activities to do what I want to do, but I'm just realizing how I need to and want to pay attention to being off, just as a doer and as a provider and as a dad. You can tell by how I talk. I'm a zestful ball of energy and wouldn't change that for the world, but I need to make sure I'm able to turn off and I'm working on that.
Danu Poyner:You mentioned poker and I have to go on that tangent for a moment. What do you like about that?
erich_leidums:The hardest game I've ever played. It's a game that's taught me a lot about myself because you can do all the right things and lose in the short term and have a negative outcome. Or you can do all the wrong things and get rewarded in the short term. And that psychologically and emotionally is really challenging.To be successful at poker you have to be disciplined and patient, and you have to do all the little things right for a long enough time. You need a big enough sample size. Everyone gets the same cards. It's a strategy game. In many ways. I feel like it's a microcosm of capitalism. You know, love it or hate it. It's definitely has its downsides, but it's a game. And it's played with adults who are consenting to play this game with money and the chips and money are, how you keep score. And I've just really have been gravitated to poker because of how challenging it is. I used to play chess as a kid. And when I found poker, I was like, oh, this is even harder. Emotionally and mentally, maybe not strategically wise, but there's that emotional aspect.
Danu Poyner:Do you take any of those lessons into other parts of your life that you've learned from poker?
erich_leidums:I think I, did because I do, because I, in philosophy in high school, I remember I wrote a paper on the similarities between poker and life and risk for sure is in that and also outcomes like showing up in the ring and doing your best and then still losing. Realizing that you can come back the next day or take a break and you still got to show up. Again, poker's a game of mistakes and, you know, he who makes the least mistakes, the chips come they're way more, but in the short term, the chips can go anyone's way and you gotta put in the effort and it show up time and time again. Poker is almost a meditative thing for me too. I'm so in the moment and in the zone, it feels like time flies when I'm playing poker, in a live game paying attention to people's nuances and their behaviors and just watching. And then I've also learned a lot about life at the poker table just having conversations with people about their careers or what they do, and just the chit chat and the table talk of hanging out with a bunch of other humans. It's a really neat environment that I really enjoy. And I feel like poker is going to be a part of my life as a recreation, as in a serious recreational player for many years to come.
Danu Poyner:Amazing. I'm so glad I asked about that. I liked this phrase you use as well about showing up, and I hear that in your videos as well. It's about how kids are going to show up in life. Is that an important idea to you?
erich_leidums:Yeah. I mean, for me showing up is related to getting in the ring and doing and trying. And again, that's like something Gary V talks about. If you're aimlessly unsure about what direction you want to go in life, It's easy to sit there and scroll, especially like maybe even in your early twenties or as a young adult or at any phase in your life, I feel like there's a lot of value that comes from doing and just showing up. If you're doing a new task and committed to starting a business or content creation, you have to show up regularly to do that. It's not even going to the gym, you got to show up three times a week at least to get any of those results. I equate that to, you know, teaching my kids how to ride a bike. We would do five minutes a day for learning how to peddle bike for 12 days or 10 days. And then they were off, they figured it out, right. Because you just showed up consistently. It's the 10,000 hours thing. Anything you show up for consistently, you're going to become more proficient at, and if you're not sure, it's your thing, at least you're learning that it, wasn't your thing by showing up.
Danu Poyner:You're doing the paramedicine stuff. You going great guns with the content work. What are you focusing on at the moment?
erich_leidums:Personally, I'm doubling down on unschooling. I'm really enjoying listening to other podcasts, talking about unschooling and alternative ways of learning for families and kids. I want to, I think, learn a little bit more about some of the acadamia and even the psychology and some of the science, what some of the professionals are starting to point at in terms of best practices for how people learn and how kids learn. It's no surprise that I think our schooling institutions of today are going to be slow movers to adjust, even when there's significant evidence that, Hey, you know, actually people learn best not sitting down for six hours a day. I want to keep exploring and learning a bit more about that. And then also experimenting with telling stories about our unschooling journey in our content. So that's something that's on the forefront of my mind.
Danu Poyner:It's certainly the unschooling conversation that has connected us. I have all these conversations with people about experiential learning and schooling and alternative education, but those conversations are often quite theoretical and scholarly. There's something about the physicality of what you're doing and just seeing it there and seeing your kids. It just communicates all that in a much more direct and relatable way.
erich_leidums:Awesome. Thanks for that. Yeah.
Danu Poyner:So that leads me into my last question, which is what I ask everyone who comes on the podcast. If you could gift someone a life-changing learning experience, what would it be and why?
erich_leidums:It would be related to not being afraid to follow your heart. As cliche as that sounds, I think in a more concrete way, it's directly related to not being afraid of what other people will think of you. That life lesson for me, hands down has unlocked a power and my gifts, it's connected me to my authenticity and to not be afraid to be me and follow what's in my heart.
Danu Poyner:That is a great answer. When you were talking about that you didn't need grades, you didn't need external validation from a teacher and the freeing sense of that, it seems to be really connected to this idea of unschooling, cause grades seem to be about that weight and that burden of external validation and commodifying the soul. It's been a wonderful conversation with you, Erich. I'm so glad we had the chance to chat.
erich_leidums:no, It's a pleasure. This is a enjoyable conversation and I love hearing about what you're up to with your platform and exploring curiosity. I think it's really valuable and, yeah, I hope that we might be able to connect or work on something together in the future in some way, shape or form to with whatever uh, you build up.
Danu Poyner:I feel that way too and I hope that will be the case, whatever it turns out to be. Thank you so much for the conversation. It's been great connecting with you and all the best with the coming winter. I hope that gives you everything that you want it to with your content creation. I look forward to
erich_leidums:Awesome. Thanks Danu.
