Episode 157: Team Pattie Gonia

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Episode 157: Team Pattie Gonia

Sponsored by Hoka One One, Betterhelp, and Peak Scents

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Pattie Gonia can come across as larger than life in her namesake social media platform. In person, strutting through the halls of an industry that is often stuck in its ways, Pattie is indeed real, showing up in the flesh as if to say, change is here, it’s been here. Don’t look away. Pattie is a drag queen who embraces that change, as well as working together to further community in the outdoors.

In this episode, we meet the Pattie Gonia team, talk about growth, creativity, and allyship, contemplate femininity, and dream a bit about what’s possible in the outdoors. As you listen, we hope you’ll reflect on teams in your own lives and the ways in which reaching out and working together have helped you fulfill a collective vision. Sometimes it feels like you have to do things all on your own, but often the most rewarding projects take shape when shared.

Full transcript available after the photos and resources.

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Featured in this episode: Wyn Wiley, Dayna Turnblom, Jenny Dugan, and Katie Nash

Hosted by Gale Straub

Ad music in this episode is by  Josh Woodward, Swelling & Lee Rosevere using a Creative Commons attribution license.

Music is also by Eric Kinny via MusicBed.

Resources

Sponsors and Discount Codes

Team Pattie Gonia

(L-R) Wyn, Dayna, Katie, and Jenny on a team trip to Bend, OR in February 2020

When Pattie Gonia married Wyn Wiley, dress by Dayna and her mom

Pattie Gonia

Pattie kicking her heels up in Scotland

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TRANSCRIPT

Gale Straub – Narration:

The first time I saw Pattie Gonia in person, she looked ethereal in a 100% recycled white dress that showed off her legs and shoulders. It was late January 2019, and she strode through Outdoor Retailer, the biannual industry trade show, in heels that add another 6 inches to her over 6 foot frame. Pattie can come across as larger than life in her namesake social media platform. In person, strutting through the halls of an industry that is often stuck in its ways, Pattie was indeed real, showing up in the flesh as if to say, change is here, it’s been here. Don’t look away. Pattie is a drag queen who embraces that change, as well as creativity, and working together to further community in the outdoors. Out of drag, Pattie’s creator is Wyn Wiley, a cis white man who uses he/him/his pronouns. But as Wyn explains, it’s not all about him, or even Pattie.

Wyn Wiley:

One of the most like unexpected things about Pattie and about what we’ve created so far is that like, it really is a team effort behind the scenes. It is this unbelievable crew of women that I get to build this with, that have really stepped up to the plate and beautiful, different, and super authentic ways throughout the year. And this journey with Pattie to come into this, to like add their superpower to the mix too.

Gale Straub – Narration:

Pattie Gonia was born when Wyn brought a pair of platform heels on a backpacking trip back in October 2018. He started the Instagram handle and followers delighted at the novel sight of a drag performance in the outdoors. But Wyn is quick to acknowledge that what he’s doing isn’t new.

Wyn Wiley:

It’s not like I’m saying that, like I am the first person to do this. I am literally standing on the heels of the greats here. I also can and only do drag because it’s been integrated into pop culture and accepted on the heels of literally so many people of color, specifically in the queer community who pioneered drag over the last freaking hundred years. So I’m only able to like encounter being a queer person and a queer person that does a drag because it’s already accepted as much as it is nowadays too. So that’s been a huge thing for me to realize as well. So, but I would love to see more queer people do drag and outdoors, and there probably are a lot more people than I even think it’s just about finding those people. I feel like in authentic ways in my life,

Gale Straub – Narration:

Wyn’s alluding to the history of ballroom culture in Black and Latinx LGBT communities, which shaped what drag looks like in mainstream culture today. I met up with Wyn and his team mate Dayna Turnblom in New York City at the end of 2019 to do part of this interview. A couple of lifetimes ago, really. In today’s episode, we get to meet the Pattie Gonia team, talk about growth and creativity, contemplate femininity, and dream a bit about what’s possible in the outdoors. As you listen, I hope you’ll reflect on teams in your own lives. The ways in which reaching out and working together has helped you fulfill a collective vision. Sometimes it feels like you have to do things all on your own, but I’ve found that the most rewarding projects take shape when shared. Dayna walked me through the team of four, by describing their enneagram personalities.

Dayna Turnblom:

We laugh about it like how randomly we were thrown into each other’s lives, but how it also just makes so much sense. We’re always like joking about our Enneagram numbers, because we’re all so different, but it kind of makes sense when you look at them, how we all fit in and have these different roles.

Dayna Turnblom:

I am definitely more of like the helper and the two. And Wyn is the three, the achiever and just the complete dreamer and brain explosion of ideas. Jenny is very, she is a five, so a little bit more analytical and logical and is constantly trying to puzzle piece things and how they work together. And she has the most incredible logistic brain and blows my mind. And then we have Katie that is a seven. So she’s very like fun motivated and like, Hey guys, look over here. Let’s go do something fun. Let’s party. Also with that. So creative and just like can dream up the world and know that we can make it happen.

Gale Straub – Narration:

If Dayna, Jenny, Katie, and Wyn are points on an enneagram star — Pattie is the energy that holds them together. I talked with each of them about how they got involved with the team, and there’s a kind of openness to trying new things that accompanies each of their stories. Jenny Dugan, the logistics genius, is the mom of two teenage sons and was looking for change.

Jenny Dugan:

Me working with them has really kind of came about because I was on a little bit of a journey, but, you know, I would think it was probably maybe almost two years ago now that I just felt like I was in a little bit of a rut with family and raising children and with my job. And I was just looking for something new to do. So I kind of came up with this mantra that I was going to just be a lot more conscientious with what I was saying. Yes and no to, and that I try a lot.

Jenny Dugan:

Harder to, you know, say yes to things I might’ve said no to out of fear or because I didn’t think I had time because of all these other responsibilities in my life. Um, you know, and start saying no to things that I was just doing out of obligation. So that was really what led to that first decision to even go on the first shoot. And so it kind of is just, you know, one, yes, it was kind of led to another needing them and going on these shoots and helping out has really kind of propelled that whole process of my journey forward of just being a more conscientious about what I do with my time. Um, I think in terms of the outdoors, I mean, I grew up doing a lot of outdoor things. You know, my family was the family that was always off, you know, camping and hiking and bringing other people camping and hiking.

Jenny Dugan:

And I’ve tried to play that same role in our little community. You know, it’s myself with my kids, you know, taking their friends, you know, hiking into the beach and exploring and things like that. Um, so I’ve always had that drive with me to get outside, but I’ve definitely, it’s definitely opened my eyes to the fact that not everybody feels like I do not everybody grew up with their parents taking them hiking. And I knew that to an extent because you know, some of my friends and some of my kids’ friends have never been on a hike or camping without me, but just beyond that, it’s really opened up, you know, other reasons why maybe people didn’t get outside, you know, maybe it wasn’t just because of family history or family experience. Maybe they just don’t feel comfortable there because they’re a person of color or they’re queer and that they just don’t feel like it’s a safe space for them. So those are the kinds of things that I hadn’t really thought too much about historically and just definitely opened my eyes, you know, working with the Pattie team, you know, it really has.

Gale Straub :

Has working with the Pattie team made you think about femininity in the outdoors or gender expression in a way that you might not have thought about it otherwise?

Jenny Dugan:

And it’s interesting because I consider myself to be a very athletic person and it’s rare that you’ll find me and heels or a dress or with makeup on or with my hair out of a ponytail. And that’s just kind of me. And sometimes I kind of think of heels and makeup and a purse. It’s like a little bit of a, I dunno, it sounds funny, but almost like a little bit of an oppression, like, well, I don’t want to do that and nobody can make me do that. And so it was really interesting cause I remember sending, I remember sending when a text, like a month after that first shoot and saying, I went to a party and I got dressed up and put on makeup and heels and I had my hair down.

Jenny Dugan:

Nobody can believe it. And it was actually really fun. It was just funny for myself to even go, Oh, I should try that once in a while that looks like fun. And it kind of goes back to what wind says or, you know, even what RuPaul says about, you know, everybody know you’re born and then from there it’s just drag, it’s all drag. So what is your drag? And it’s not like I’m wearing makeup or heels or a dress on a regular basis, but it’s fun once in a while it’s its own expression. And that’s, that can be fun.

Gale Straub :

Yeah…hahaha. It is a complicated thing. I hear you a bit on the oppression side of it…so it can also be freeing to make the choice for yourself.

Jenny Dugan:

For sure.

Gale Straub – Narration:

Katie Nash is a makeup artist and friends with Jenny, who actually suggested that Katie answer an open call Pattie put out for Julie Andrews themed video shoot.

Katie Nash:

It was kind of like a little bit of blind faith. Like we’ve never met each other and we’re just going to collaborate on this fun creative project. And I was, you know, I just had one stipulation that Jenny who had tipped me off and like, she’d been the one that I, you know, discovered Pattie through. I was like, well, she needs to come along. So she came along as a production assistant and brought trail snacks and we literally did his makeup on a park bench up on Mount Tam and then kind of hiked in and, and filmed this video. So that was the rest has been history. It’s just, we’ve become friends and team mates. And yeah, it’s been a lot of like growth and introspection and questioning on my part because the beauty industry is, is such a weird world and it’s easy to get caught up in some of these standards that are just totally imposed.

Gale Straub – Narration:

There’s also a theme of reaching out of comfort zone for the Pattie team. Here’s Katie.

Katie Nash:

You know, you know, these like kind of ideal beauty standards and particularly like as a woman. And so it’s been really fun and interesting journey to explore the masculine and the feminine in the makeup world. Before that my experience was pretty much mostly with women and female clients. And even we did this look for the Tony awards that when was asked to attend, it was the, it was a play on Botticelli’s the birth of Venus, but we called it the birth of Shenus. And if you have a chance to look at that, look, it’s incredible. And this designer zero waste Daniel in New York created this gown that like mimics the painting. And then we created this really androgynous look, but with full drag makeup and it was definitely a play on the masculine and the feminine. And it’s super fun as a, as a makeup artist to really question like, as I’m doing makeup, I’m like, Oh, okay, well we want this to have more of a masculine feel.

Katie Nash:

Well, what does that actually mean? You know, what does that mean to me? Or what does that mean to someone? And does that have to mean that it’s just like, I think a really, I think it’s important to question those things and Pattie is definitely doing that and it’s been amazing. We’ve played with looks that are more drag we’ve played with, looks that are more understated. And I think it’s been a, a learning experience for, for Wyn as well, just in terms of like, how do I want to show up as Pattie? And then also just like seeing yourself in a different form that may be more feminine, maybe more masculine, like there’s, there’s a lot of self realization and growth that comes from that, I think.

Gale Straub :

Okay. So I’m gonna refer to my questions because I was like,

Wyn Wiley:

I love questions.

Gale Straub :

I’ve gotten off track.

Wyn Wiley:

Great. This is great. Yeah.

Gale Straub :

Um, okay, so this is like a really broad question, but it obviously relates back to she explores. So, um, what for you, does it mean to embrace femininity in the outdoors?

Wyn Wiley:

Wow. Um, it’s a big question. It’s a beautiful question. Um, I mean it means everything. Pattie would be nothing without the expression of femininity. I think that my life experience before Pattie like BP and then AP, like before Pattie, after Pattie, before Pattie is like, there are so many things I was doing in my life as a gay male that were so toxic and overly masculine. And I didn’t even know it in, uh, one of the big things of that was like going to nature or to the outdoors as a space to flex your masculinity as a space, to be outdoorsy as a space to conquer or to be in control of. And with Pattie, like all that’s been checked at the door and femininity and beauty and rhythm and expression and emotion has come of that. So that’s really beautiful to me. And now with Pattie, like mixing up, taking elements from masculinity and femininity feels very important to me because I don’t think that it, like in my daily life, I totally present with super feminine characteristics all the time.

Wyn Wiley:

So I think there is like a masculinity to represent my drag as well also because I just don’t really like the categories of like masculine traits or feminine traits either. Because if anything, I found more women in the outdoors, the carry traits that are from both. And I find men that carry both too. So I think that I just don’t like the binary, but I’ve only grown up with the binary before this past year. So like I have to undo that a lot in my own mind, you know, cause like is strengthened masculine or feminine quality? Like why are we trying to gender that? But I think in my head, because of the way I was raised, like I view that as like a traditionally masculine or male quality when really it’s like, who were the most strong people on this earth and like ballet dancers who are literally embracing the most like graceful beautiful, but also powerful like strength there is. So it’s weird. It’s like a, it’s a weird dichotomy to me. So figuring it out.

Gale Straub – Narration:

Wyn and Pattie are still evolving, but know that the outdoors is a place where they feel best expressing themselves.

Wyn Wiley:

I think I’m just learning at the end of the day that it’s important to always embrace all sides of you no matter what. And all sides exist beyond like femininity and masculinity and all sides in between. Cause that’s beautiful. And I think that nature and the outdoors has a space where you can truly do that. Or I have learned is the space that I feel like I can truly do that. And that feels important to me. And I feel like the outdoors and mother nature doesn’t judge me. It just lets me be me.

Gale Straub – Narration:

We’ll hear more from the Pattie Gonia team after this.

Gale Straub – Narration:

We’re back.

Dayna Turnblom:

I am not the best Utahan, Utah, you know, not the best local to Utah. Uh, and I need to still need to I’ve I’ve done a lot better the last couple of years, but be more of a tourist in your own hometown and just explore the places that you’re from.

Gale Straub – Narration:

Before the break, we heard from Jenny, Katie, and Wyn about how Pattie has challenged their notions of gender expression. This is Dayna, who gave us the whole intro to the team at the start of the episode.

Dayna Turnblom:

But yeah, I’m from Utah and I’ve been skiing once in my entire life and I’ve been to a lot of the national parks, but not all of them.

Gale Straub – Narration:

Dayna grew up near Salt Lake City in Utah and connected with Wyn through the wedding photography world. While Wyn feels most himself outside, Dayna’s just finding her footing. Which is pretty cool, too.

Dayna Turnblom:

I definitely have done outdoor things, but there’s such like that stigma behind being outdoorsy, quote unquote, outdoorsy that you feel like if you don’t hit those certain markers, you’re not outdoorsy, but I love going outside. I love, you know, exploring local places, but before this, I wasn’t truly someone that sock going outside on a regular basis. And so it’s been really nice to have this be more of my lifestyle and be kind of reminded of how beautiful that is and to experience it in new ways. I mean, with Pattie, It truly is a big part of Pattie’s mission to make the outdoors approachable and somewhere where everyone feels welcome. So yeah, it’s been really beautiful to kind of deconstruct that in my own personal life as well. Yeah.

Gale Straub :

Yeah. It’s funny. Like he said, quote unquote outdoorsy, and I think that’s the way I always refer to it now. Like that’s the way I think about it has to be in air quotes because it’s so subjective and there’s also this really tired narrative that I think people are getting away from in terms of like how they identify as outdoorsy or how they define outdoorsy.

Dayna Turnblom:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of silly, but I feel like hopefully we’re, we’re learning and it’s becoming a lot more accessible, not only physically, but visually to see different kinds of people in the outdoors and realize that it’s it’s for everyone.

Gale Straub – Narration:

One of the things that the Pattie team has tried to do over the last year and a half has been to model learning, and to share that learning — whether it’s on the Instagram handle, or in their personal lives.

Dayna Turnblom:

I growing up in Utah was raised LDS Mormon. And so it has been kind of an interesting intersection there, but it has been so beautiful to myself, be opened up to this whole entire world of outdoors and LGBTQ spaces and to be able to bring those conversations home and, and open up some beautiful, beautiful conversations with my family and to help kind of open their eyes and, and educate them and just learn together.

Wyn Wiley:

I grew up in suburbia, everything is beige Lincoln, Nebraska in the middle of a cornfield. And I love that life and that life is so good. And I’m so thankful to be from that place. But I didn’t meet a lot of people that were very different than me and I was, I wasn’t even out in high school, but I was one of maybe three or four other gay people. I knew whether they were closeted or not. And this Patty journey has shown me how many, even different walks of life there are on planet earth and how many different walks of life there are in the queer community as well. Like I had never met knowingly a nonbinary person until this past year. I’m sure I had before, but I had no idea. So even pronoun thing is a new thing to me because I got to only view things in the binary coming from my life in the Midwest.

Wyn Wiley:

And again, like I’m not putting that down. It would just wasn’t even in my life experience to use they them pronouns or to even consider pronouns as a thing to be considerate of. So I’m encountering that as well. Um, in big ways and in big ways that make me feel like I will never know enough. And so like why even do anything? Or there are just other people who deserve all the mic time in the world. Like why is this white kid from Nebraska? Who’s at every privilege in the world, which I will admit knowing ways is a huge thing that I look at and see in my life is the privilege I have, especially in the queer community and outside in this outdoor industry as well, like acknowledging privilege, it has been huge. But then also realizing like, am I the one that needs the mic time? Or like, can we pass it along to other people in creative ways too?

Gale Straub – Narration:

The Pattie Team would never say they have it all figured out when it comes to advocating for people and planet. A big piece of having the privilege that Wyn acknowledges – and that his team holds too – is using it for good.

Wyn Wiley:

I’m learning. It’s really important to bring other voices to the table to try to use it. Like Pattie as a platform as well to share what other voices and people have to say and to use it as like truly a conversation, like a dialogue between people. So yeah, that feels like fun to export to what does advocacy look like? Like how do you approach advocacy online and on the internet and like in your daily life? I think that we can all be advocates. I think that we can all be activists in our own ways, but it’s about figuring that journey out for myself very much as win and then applying that very much to like the Pattie community as well. You know, cause like I am literally does encountering this stuff too. So

Gale Straub – Narration:

When I was with Wyn and Dayna in New York City, they’d recently launched a huge fundraiser for 5 nonprofits — Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii, marine Debris Research, camp Brave Trails, TCH Project, and Ali Forney Center. I’ll link them all in the show notes, but they support range of causes – environmental, LGBTQ youth, and children. Pattie Gonia ended up raising over $100,000 dollars, with 20K going to each nonprofit. In early June the Pattie team helped raise over $115,000 for 6 black led outdoor nonprofits. Now, I’m the first to say that I can feel jaded by social media sometimes. But the Pattie community is real and engaged. That’s powerful.

Gale Straub – Narration:

When I talked with Wyn late last year, he was thinking a lot about what it means to be an advocate.

Wyn Wiley:

I am just here to figure it out alongside everyone else. And maybe that’s figuring it out with a, with a different size platform or in different ways or through doing dragon outdoors. But that’s just the way that I’m encountering, you know? And I think that there’s a really kind of crazy dichotomy between like, like where we want it be, or also like seeing these perfect, these people who are doing like zero waste perfectly or people that are doing all these things perfectly online. And that seems to me when I encounter that like, well, I can never be that. So it turns me off to that. That might be so great to meet some people where they’re at, but I, I would want to follow someone who’s going to tell me about like when they are failing, what’s going through their head, how they are actually like encountering this and also like really struggle with these things or how they’re also not necessarily at the point to go all in.

Gale Straub – Narration:

When it comes to environmental advocacy, Wyn is especially interested in not modeling perfection.

Wyn Wiley:

Like, I felt so much pressure over the past year to like now that I care about plastics, I need to go vegan and I can’t care about the earth unless I do these other three things too. Or like, Oh, do you realize all the hidden waste behind even your meal, you’re eating at this restaurant and it’s like, it’s overwhelming or I can just start somewhere. You know, like change is really hard, but starting isn’t, you know, and I think that that is a thick, just a theme that’s run true and true and true is like, I’m just going to try. I’m probably going to fail a lot. I’m just going to try again, like I’m just going to figure it out. There will be mountain tops. There will be the Valley lows, like, but, uh, but I think that the most important thing is just to know one, what you stand for, like the enemy is indifference to me. And the second thing is to, is to really just be honest with yourself, like be honest with yourself all the time and the more you can kind of do those two things. I think that you can really allow yourself to like mess up and give yourself grace, which is like something that I don’t think we do enough either. So

Gale Straub :

Are there any examples of like times that the Pattie community, your followers have constructively helped you course correct?

Wyn Wiley:

All the time. Like Pattie’s DM inbox is truly a beautiful place for people to bring their ideas and their knowledge to the table. It’s crazy. Cause I wish I could just share it all all the time. And I really want to, when I want to find out more ways to truly do that, like, I don’t know if you’ve seen the guides I make, but trying to do like, like user generated guides that I can release through through our platform could be a really beautiful thing. But knowledge is everywhere in this community and people know so much about the most interesting things and I love learning and realizing like how far I have to go, but also like I love constructive feedback. I think that’s a really beautiful thing. So especially that someone took the time to do that. I think the journey with Pattie has shown me how important it is to pass the mic and how important it is to do that in really creative ways.

Wyn Wiley:

I think one of the biggest ways is just in like realizing how much like equity is important. Every like there’s nothing that I can make that doesn’t involve other people, like truly, unless I’m sitting there and just like Instagramming selfie, like someone’s taking a photo of me, someone’s taking a video of me. Someone is spending their hours of their time to edit this video for me, or to also lead this group hike with me or on the, behind the scenes, on like my team, the countless hours it’s it takes Dayna and Jenny and Katie to, to do the things they do so well so that I can do the thing I do so well. So I think what I’m learning is that we all have superpowers. And how do I choose to like value that when it comes time to like publish content, to pass the mic to them directly, to do a story takeover or to help coauthor a guide with me?

Gale Straub – Narration:

If you head to the Pattie Gonia Instagram, you’ll see that the team has followed through on their goal of creating guides in collaboration with folks who are experts. These include guides on practicing pronouns and whiteness in the outdoors. I imagine there will foresee more of these guides in the future, more uplifting of voices from across the outdoor community.

Jenny Dugan:

One of my favorite things from last year was when, when would do these Friday posts where he would highlight, you know, a person that was very inspiring, it was doing real work in whatever community was their community. You know, whether that was, you know, in an indigenous person, trying to get people out, hiking more, a differently abled person, you know, getting people out hiking or, you know, a trans person who was, you know, kind of breaking through barriers, rock climbing, uh, Nikki for instance, that he highlighted last year. And I loved this so much and they’ve kind of fallen off the wagon a little bit, you know, as we got really busy the last few months, but I want to see more of those. I want to search for those people and, you know, help them tell their story on, on the Pattie accounts. I’d like to do more of that.

Gale Straub – Narration:

A question that’s always worth asking ourselves is how can we pass the mic? How can we use our influence to help educate and uplift and offer opportunity to others? We’ll hear more from the Pattie Gonia team after this.

Gale Straub – Narration:

We’re back. Of course, like all of us, sometimes Pattie just wants to have fun – and has a gift for doing it both tandom with advocacy as well as for fun’s sake. It’s helped push the team creatively. One of my favorite of their video shorts is satire – Wyn marries Pattie.

Gale Straub :

That made me laugh the most was the, um, the wedding video.

Dayna Turnblom:

Yes, yes. I love it. Um, fun story. The wedding video in classic wind fashion. He, we were on the phone and he calls me and he’s telling me this idea for a video. And he’s like, yeah, it’s going to be like total cliche allotment video, and a play on like graffiti world and how hilarious that is and whatever. But anyways, Pattie’s going to get married and wear a dress. And uh, do you think you can make a wedding dress? I want it to be the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, uh, you mean, you want me with my own hands to make something that looks like something that people pay thousands of dollars for sure. Sure, sure. So I went to, uh, the fabric store with my mom who is a very talented seamstress. We bought a whole ton of tool and we made a wedding dress. So the wedding dress in the wedding video was made by my mom and I and our basement. Yeah. Yeah. So that has been special as well, to be able to have that fun creative project with my mom.

Katie Nash:

I it’s interesting. I met when, uh, like a very interesting time where I was feeling a little stuck creatively and I definitely feed off of other people’s energy and creative energy and creating with others.

Gale Straub – Narration:

This is Katie again, who has done makeup for a lot of Pattie’s special looks. I love how she speaks to the ways the team has helped push each other to grow creatively and try new things. We should all be on the lookout for those people in our lives.

Katie Nash:

I think I just had not had much opportunity to kind of let loose and play, and that’s really important to me. And so, you know, as these things sort of kind of come into your life as you need them, this opportunity presented itself. And, and I just didn’t realize how impactful it would be. And I think it has been, I know that I’ve been feeling increased creativity and inspiration through the projects that I’ve done with Pattie.

Katie Nash:

And also through just in general, I think it spilled into other parts of my life and I feel this kind of resurgence of that energy. And I definitely think it’s related to the work that we’ve been doing together. Um, and then I, you know, I’ve told when this, but one of the things that I appreciate the most about him and that I learned from him all the time is this sort of like this fearlessness and not that it doesn’t come up for him, but he is always like learning and putting himself out there in a very authentic way and he’s not afraid to make mistakes. And when he does, he learns from them and he moves forward. And I think that that, that is very inspirational to me because sometimes I can either be too much of a perfectionist and not even want to start something if I don’t, if I can’t see the finish line and know that it’s going to turn out a certain way. And then also, you know, you can, I can sort of beat myself up about that didn’t go, right. Or that I didn’t do perfectly, or like kind of live in the past. And I think that when has been a really great teacher in letting it go and learning from it and moving forward.

Gale Straub – Narration:

Reflecting on the last year, Jenny shared something she’s grateful for about the Pattie Gonia team.

Jenny Dugan:

I think I would say that, you know, I’m just really excited by the opportunity to, you know, it’s kind of, it’s, it’s giving me a way to help protect the outdoors. You know, that I’ve always loved and you know, it’s giving me a new way to help draw people to the outdoors and, you know, people that haven’t been there before, and that’s all just very meaningful to me. You know, those are things I’ve done in my life, as I mentioned, kind of on a very small scale. And so to have the opportunity to do that on a bigger scale and impact even more people, um, that’s, what’s got me really excited about working with Pattie and the team.

Gale Straub :

Do you have any personal hopes for, for the next year? Like thinking about your work and you don’t have to get too specific if you don’t want to, but like when you look out ahead to twice the age of Pattie.

Dayna Turnblom:

That’s a really great. And really hard question.

Gale Straub – Narration:

Dayna, as we talked about, the start of the show is a two on the Enneagram chart or a helper. So she admits she’s challenged by questions like these.

Dayna Turnblom:

So the questions like that are, are really hard for me because I, I definitely prefer to like focus on other people’s projects and things of which is really great for Pattie life, because I just am like, yeah, let’s do it. I’ll give all my energy to that sounds really healthy. Right. But, um, I it’s difficult because there are things like this with the social media age that we’re in and the gig economy that we’re in, that it’s easy to see other things that kind of come to life and then they have their little flicker moment and then they’re gone and the next thing comes along. And so it is not impossible that this is one of those things, but I do know that who, when is and who our team is and the way that we think and work together, if anything can have a long life effect and truly grow Pattie through retirement, I think our team would be the people to do that. And I, and I truly hope that that does happen because I think there is so much more left to do.

Gale Straub – Narration:

I want to wrap up this episode with an evergreen prompt from Wyn about building community,

Wyn Wiley:

Something I want to like say at this point for anyone listening, is that like, what I have learned is if there is something you want to see in the outdoor space or in the outdoor community, make it, cause there are people out there that are just waiting for that to happen. Truly. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned with this journey with Patty as a community is that like I didn’t form this community, this community already existed. People just didn’t have little fire to gather around. So if I can be that little fire, that’s beautiful and that’s great. I also don’t want to overvalue that because there are so many people building literal little fires and their life as well. And I just don’t, I don’t mean for people to like go and create like an Instagram account that’s for whatever it just could be like, is there a group of people you think could enjoy the outdoors together in some way, what’s a way you can get them together. Like what’s what is something that you could combine two worlds you love into one thing.

Gale Straub – Narration:

Thank you so much to Wyn, Dayna, Jenny, and Katie for taking the time to talk. Follow along with Pattiegonia on Instagram. I’ll also link the nonprofits they’ve supported over the past year, as well as some of the videos we talked about. Thanks to our sponsors Hoka One One, Peak Scents, and Betterhelp. You can find She Explores on social media, our website, and wherever you listen to podcasts.. You can find me on Instagram @galestraub. If you enjoy listening, there are different ways to support us. You can subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend. And if you’d like to connect, join us in the She Explores podcast facebook group! Ad Music in this episode is by Lee Rosevere and Swelling using a Creative Commons attribution license. Additional music licensed through MusicBed. She Explores is a production of Ravel Media released Wednesdays. Until next week, have fun out there.

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