How to Find Your Nature Swagger with Rue Mapp: Episode 15

The Caroline Gleich Show

“Good leaders really center the person and the relationship before the business. So often our leadership can be oriented around earnings, around vanity metrics, how many likes you have, and these are things that at the end of the day don’t really matter to your true sense of well being and impact. Those are key values: really centering people and the needs of individuals and relationships as key components to successful leadership across any domain.”

That's a quote from Rue Mapp -the Founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, the nation’s leading, cutting edge network that celebrates and inspires African American connections and leadership in nature. With 80 leaders in 30 states, they connect over 35,000 people to the outdoors.

Rue is an awarded inspirational leader, writer, speaker, public lands champion and a self-proclaimed good cook!

From its grassroots beginning, Outdoor Afro is recognized by major organizations for its role in addressing the ongoing need for greater diversity in the outdoors. Rue’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Backpacker, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, on Oprah!, NPR and many others. Rue has a smile that lights up the room and I always look forward to seeing her, whether it’s in Washington DC, on the trails or in the halls of the outdoor retailer tradeshow.

On this episode, we talk about leadership in the outdoors, the power of connection and relationships, learning to trust your intuition, how to find your nature swagger, climbing and being outdoors while Black, and the role that outdoor adventurers can play in activism.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from the show:

"We are nature. You don’t have to get into your car and drive someplace to be connected to nature. That connection to nature starts with the awareness of your heartbeat and the awareness of the water that makes up most of your body. And how governed we are in the same way tides are by the moon. Being aware of who you are as nature and the representation of nature that is in the houseplant you can take some time to get to know a little better right now or the birds that are still doing their mating thing this time of year right outside your window. There’s so much juiciness about nature that I really want people to know is absolutely at hand and not remote from who you already are.”

Check out Rue and Oprah hiking: https://www.ruemapp.com/media/oprah

Support Rue's work at Outdoor Afro: https://outdoorafro.com/

Thanks to Avery Sandack for his help editing and to Rising Appalachia for graciously providing the music for today's episode:

https://www.risingappalachia.com/