Transcript of You are Losing 27 Years to this... - Robin Thurston

Welcome to the Proven podcast, where it doesn't matter what you think, only what you can prove. Our guest today is Robin Thurston, CEO of Outside Interactive Inc, a technology and media executive who has built and scaled digital platforms by combining data, community, and outdoor lifestyle brand into powerful business ecosystems. Robin has proven that strategic innovation and audience-driven platforms create lasting competitive advantage. The show starts now. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Robin, I'm really excited to have you here.

Thanks so much for having me.

For the four or five people who don't know who you are, let's give them an idea. Who are you? What have you done?

My name is Robin Thurston. I'm the CEO and founder of Outside Interactive. Outside is a platform to help people get outdoors. That's really the core mission premise and vision we have around the organization, is we just want people spending as much time as they possibly can in the outdoors. But I've been in tech and health my whole life. I started very young and cycling. I came up through the national team system and went to Europe and raced and then spent a bunch of years in finance, and then started my first company in health and wellness, MapMyFitness, in 2005. And we just got really, really lucky, and we had two of the first 100 iPhone apps in the App Store in July of 2008. And those apps did incredibly well. I was able to sell that business to Under Armor more recently, bought that business back from Under Armor. So I owned that business back at Outside. Again, Mount My Fitness, we bought back from them last year. And then I ran a consumer genetics company in between after I left Under Armor because I had a non-competent, and then wanted to get back into the outdoors.

And so I started Outside Interactive. I started acquiring distressed media assets. I started putting other parts of this puzzle that we're building together, really to inspire people, ultimately, activate them, and then have them celebrate what they're doing in the outdoors.

There's a lot that you talk about what you did publicly. What you don't talk about privately is you give people statistics that make themselves pee on themselves for about the last two, three weeks. Because when we had our first call, we first connected. You gave me a statistic that terrified me because we all know that we spent about a third of our life, sleeping, which we get that, and I have tried to slim that down as much as I can. God bless me in an insomniac, which is not healthy. Don't do it, kids. But you gave me another statistic that made it even worse. Can you give and ruin it for everyone else as well, what is that other statistic that we're talking about?

Well, unfortunately, a child born today is going to spend about 30 years on a screen. I think that is really mind boggling when you think about it. I mean, the average American is spending seven to eight hours a day on a screen. The kids are only getting four to seven minutes a day outdoors across the US. This has resulted in a whole bunch of health impacts, like myopia, which used to be less than 25% of the population is nearing 50% of the population because people aren't staring out into the horizon. They're not spending time outdoors adjusting their eyes to looking at something like the horizon. But then you have really serious health impacts, certainly mental health right now, I think globally, I don't think you can talk about it just in the US, is really in a bad state. I believe that that's been primarily driven by people on screens, social media, mobile. All of these things have had a serious impact to us as humans.

When you told me that statistic originally, it shocked me. It's been a conversation amongst my group that we've been talking about for a while. One of the guys came in, we talked about when Einstein died, they dissected his brain. The main thing they found is that he had more folds, or for those of you who played at home, wrinkles in his brain. They said, Well, this must be something that leads to more intelligence. We find that when we dissect intelligent brains. If they have more folds, they are normally more intelligent. We're finding with children now that, and this isn't direct causation, but there's less folds the more time you spend on screens. That might be because you're sleeping a third less or your dopamine hits or whatever it is. I'm not saying screens, if you stare at them, are going to make your brain smooth, but it's all the habits that go in with it. So when you talk about getting outside, it isn't just a cure off for that as much as the screen isn't the main issue. It's all habits that come with it. Am I close on this one?

Yeah. I mean, even something like taking your shoes off and walking in the grass. You don't have to go to a big hike or some massive adventure. Just taking your shoes off and walking in the grass will reduce your blood pressure in 15 to 20 minutes. So just literally connecting to the planet through basically the ground will have a material impact on you. And I think if you look at all of the... There's things like in Japan, they call it forest bathing, where you're just out in nature. Now there's a trending on TikTok as like touch grass, this idea that never in human history have we spent as much time indoors as we do right now, ever. And I think that people are realizing that we are part of this planet. Like, literally, we have the same makeup and fundamentals from a DNA perspective as other creatures and certainly other people and humans on this planet, but we are connected to it. And I don't think that in our current society, That recognition about what it means to really touch grass means for people on a day-to-day basis and just how important it is. But fundamentally, if you look at some countries like Sweden and Canada, we're starting to issue prescriptions for outdoor of time.

Doctors are prescribing it. I think that that's a real, I think, testament to how important it is for us as a society to spend some of our time outdoors.

When you're talking about going outside, this isn't Because I know you're an avid cyclist, and we were going to do this on a bike. It just didn't work out right now. We'll do this. Next time. Next time. We'll do it on the bike, and I'll just hop and pop the whole time. I have to prep for six months. When you're talking about this, you're not talking... I'm a triathlete. You're not talking be a triathlete. You're not talking get out there, hop it out there. You're literally talking about take your shoes off, go outside, stand for 20 minutes.

Yeah. I think there are things, really simple things. One of the things that during COVID was that there was a pet boom. People got a lot of dogs, right? And that meant that they had to walk them. And that is, frankly, very good for you. The process of taking your dog out for a walk, and whether that's a or that's two mile, and it's relatively slow, it doesn't matter. Again, you don't have to be a hardcore, what might be visually considered somebody that's an outdoors person, right? I think it's just more being outdoorsy, just wanting to go out and breathe the fresh air and connect in very, very simple ways.

What are the ways that... You're full of these statistics that make me lose sleep, so thank for that. What are some of the ones that are more positive? Are there things like, we've talked about you're going to be inside, we're moving away from these little tablets, these little bricks, and we are going towards glasses-based. I was talking to a guy from Google DeepFake, and he's like, yeah, phones are, it's over. Phones are not going to be here anymore. They're all going to be glasses, and it's all going to be basically HUDs or heads-up display. We're heading towards this. We know screens and tech isn't going away, and we know that telling people that it's never going to happen, to deal with it. It's tech. What are the ways that you can, when you are stuck inside, then you can mitigate some of this.

Well, I mean, obviously, we're not suggesting that every minute of activity that positively impacts you has to be outdoors. You just said you're in five inches of ice, right? I would still advocate a treadmill run or walk, jumping on an indoor bike. Certainly, strength training really has proven to be one of the most critical things that you can do to extend not only longevity, but just the quality of life, right? Just that. And especially after 50. I think it's so important. And all those things are things that you can do indoors. Then there are other, I think, very easy things that people wouldn't necessarily consider exercise, things like just even meditation of some Everybody has a different form and version of that. But just to calm your mind, to not be looking at the screen and staring at it, constantly switching from one screen size to the next, whether you go from your phone to your laptop to your TV, whatever it might be. And the positive statistics are pretty clear. I mentioned just 30 minutes outdoors will lower your blood pressure. Basically, you can see for just 30 minutes outdoors, you can see a 45 five % increase in productivity.

And the way that to me, that's measured, if you think about during the day, I don't know about you, but I spend some of my day on phone calls rather than Zoom, just going for a walk while I'm talking to someone rather than Zoom, because I know that when I get back, I'm going to be more productive, more mentally alert if I've been outside walking around for that 30 minutes with someone on the phone rather than being on Zoom all day long for seven, eight hours staring at people, right? And so I think the other big thing that... Look, I know there are some people in the world who think that they're going to get off of this rock called Earth. I don't think I will be off of this rock. I think I'm going to be here my whole life. And I think that one thing about being in nature that's very positive is I think that people quickly realize that they are a part of it and that they want to take care of it. And I think that's another big thing that we see, whether it's kids, whether it's adults, spend time in the outdoors.

They just feel a greater connectivity and think about things like sustainability a lot more than if they aren't spending time outdoors.

I think it's beyond just that as well. You're a very successful entrepreneur. You mentioned that you went back and you bought your business back and you've done these things. How have you integrated this? Because I agree with you, I will schedule entire blocks of time where I'm like, I'm going to get my steps in. There's no way around. I'm getting my steps in every day, even if there's five inches of snow or solid ice outside Kershaw, Lexa, Kentucky. I'm going to get it in. When you're doing this, how have you integrated this into your org? How are you doing this when you're setting up in senior command? How How does that work for you?

Well, I think first on a personal level, and I think this really does extend out to not only my direct team, but how I think about the flexibility that we have as an organization to do these things. But at a personal level, I think for those of your listeners and viewers that know about finance and how dollar cost averaging works. It's probably one of the most powerful things in investing that has ever been created. You put a dollar away a week, and then all of a sudden, 20 years from now, you look up, and because you put it in, whether you put it directly in Google or you put it in some other stock or whatever you put it in, you're surprised at the compounding effect of that, right? Well, health and wellness is really similar. You can't cram, right? What I'd call somebody... Let's say you're in a marina marathon. If you try to train two weeks before the marathon, you're not going to have a great event, right? You have to lead in and build into it. And so the way that I think about fitness, and you just said you just got done being active.

I just got done off the bike, is that I personally try to do it early in the morning when I'm certainly fresh, cognitively fresh, and can feel like I'm in a meditative state, whether that's indoors or outdoors. And again, then during the day, how do I take not necessarily breaks where I'm sitting around, maybe eating something, but where I'm actually out doing something, right? Another thing that's been proven is even a 20-minute walk after you eat is really, really critical, right? For just your whole digestive system and everything. And so Those are some of the things when I think about personally, how to keep that consistency going, right? How do you just keep thinking about paying yourself first rather than all of the other things in your ecosystem, whether it's your family, whether it's work. When it comes to outside, I mean, one is we have 15 national holidays. Two of those happen to be outside days for the staff. One is in the spring, one is in late summer, where we actually give the day off for team to spend time going to do something that could be skiing, cycling, whatever it might be.

We are a company that does flexible time away, which means the ultimate flexibility for employees to choose when they are going to take a break. And so we don't mind if someone's out doing something at lunch, and then they're back for meetings. And then certainly we lean in with benefits, residual stipends for people to get things like gym memberships or equipment or things like that. As part of the overall benefits of the company. And then obviously, my view is that, luckily for our team, we have about 400 people that are spending all of their time thinking about also how to get other people outdoors. So often they get inspired themselves, right? They see visuals, they're telling a story, they're doing something, they're at an event, and they're like, Well, I want to come back and do this, or I'm going to tell friends about it. So I think that we have set the company up in a way that really gives people the latitude to be able to think about outdoor time and how they think about their health and wellness. Not saying we don't work hard. We have lots of goals and KPIs just like any company.

But ultimately, I think our team is very aligned with what we're trying to do for the customers that connect with our platform.

I think there's a blueprint there that a lot of founders are a little nervous about. When they go through and they have this conversation and they look at it like, Hey, I see what he's saying. I want to do This makes sense, but how do I tactically do this? What is the ROI that happens off this? If I'm going to sit there and I'm going to give my team the ability to do A, B, C, D, whatever it is, what is the ROI that happens with this? How does the culture change? How do we handle that along with integrating AI into this? Because now with AI, I think there's two very specific camps. There's the fear of migrating, Oh, my God, this is going to purge everything. We're all going to die. Then there's the, Holy shit, this is really just going to performance-wise, radically increase our ROI. I think that's the divide. When you're doing this, is there a specific ROI you could talk about that has come from giving people this? So other founders will be like, okay. And then also teaching other founders how to do this and how to integrate this into their systems.

Yeah. I think, again, if you go back to something like the very basic research around productivity, just like, if people do this, that they are going to be more productive. I think that's, at least for me, why when we talk about it with the team or when we put certain benefits in place, I really lean back on to those statistics. But then ultimately, we're fully remote, all 400 people. We have a few small offices, but we are fully remote. I look at last year's performance, and if I look at us as an organization, we were up 23 % year over year. It was the first time for our organization, we're well over $100 million in revenue. It was the first time for our organization to be profitable. And so to me, I guess the main thing I would say is that the flexibility that we provide and give people the latitude, as well as celebrate the fact that we want people to spend time outdoors, ultimately for us, has translated into success for the business. Now, Charles, I'm a typical entrepreneur. Things could always be better, right? I could always... But I do think it's a balance.

And I I don't know. There's so many... We went through this phase, if you think about the workplace where everybody was like, work-life balance is so important. And I would say that to me, it's like building a company is like, whether it's running a marathon or doing a major event. It's like there are periods where you are at rest. You are out doing the things that make you feel good. And there's other periods where you are going very hard. You are pushing yourself to improve. And I think That, in my mind, is the way to build a company. And the other thing I say to entrepreneurs all the time, Charles, is like, don't forget to celebrate. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily good at it, and I haven't been in building companies before, but now I think about it a lot. It's like, When you have moments of success, make sure that your team knows that those are moments of success, because if they don't, they get trained to just think that it's everyday life, and then they're not really raising those moments and saying, Wow, that's something that we want to do again.

Absolutely. I think it's a curse of being an entrepreneur. We're constantly thinking, This could be better, and what's next? Because we just grind and grind. I remember I became a Wall Street Journal seller. I was like, . I was with my aunt and uncle like, This is amazing. I'm like, Yeah, but it's not NYT. I was like, What the hell, man? And I was like, But I want NYT. It just became this constant loop. When you're hiring people, so I love that you... Because we had transitioned to this, and we are in an extinction level event for employees the way that it used to be. Things are changing with AI. We know this. But people are having a hard time hiring for individuals who can be productive at home because it's a mind shift. We went from, No, you have to be here. I have to physically touch you. We have to be in meetings. Then COVID got rid of that, and then the entire global workforce became everywhere. Now we're in a situation where people are like, How do I hire the people? Hold them accountable. How do I get them to show up in a way that we can hit $100 million?

Because you're completely remote. You guys are doing $100 million a year. For Most founders, most business owners, they're like, We didn't think that was possible. So you're one of the myths. Again, this is why I wanted to have you on here. You keep people's minds with what's possible and also what's happening. Terrifying statistic still. What are the ways that you hire? How do you do this where you're like, Hey, I know this person. I know Bob, Susie, Jimmy, whatever it is. They're going to execute at home, even if I give them all this freedom. How have you found a way to process that?

Yeah, I mean, one is I've I really believe in people, and I really believe in people, even what I call as AI starts to permeate more and more, I still think the humans are essential in this ecosystem that includes technology, right? But I really... I mean, there's a couple of things. One is, I think you have to find people that are incredibly curious. That's something like when I'm interviewing people, and I don't get to interview everyone that we hire now, But a lot of them I do. And I really try to understand, is this person naturally curious? Are they thinking about not only the world around them, but how they can improve themselves? And some of that might be from The activities they do, some might be in terms of the discovery and education that they do on their own. But that's really important. And then I think for us, it's really understanding how invested this person is in thinking about whether they're building a product for us, they're writing content for us, whatever function they're in. Frankly, I don't care if it's in finances. Are they really behind our mission and thinking about ways that we are going to transform these current statistics into new outcomes?

So I would just say that it's hard. Once a quarter, we're trying to get the teams together. The teams have budget to basically call them offsites, onsites, whatever you want to call them, into areas where a grouping of people get together. But I just got back from one in Tucson for our maps team, and We were together for two and a half days. We did two big hikes together. Everybody was out there really using the tools and understanding, looking at it from a discovery and recording perspective. But it also was a real social bonding moment when you're out there hiking that then makes the rest of the interactions that you're having even easier, right? Like, whether it's in a conference room, whether it's out in other settings. And so I do think it's really important in a remote culture that you reserve the budget, even over hiring the next person, reserve the budget that allows you to get together in person. And it's something, frankly, we've struggled with the times, but this year, it's really important and high up in our goal list for how the teams are going to interact this year.

Getting together, having to play together, there's team building exercises. But how do you measure curiosity? Because I haven't had someone talk about this before in the hiring process. How do you measure If they're curious? Because I measure effectiveness, I measure speed, I measure are they intelligent enough? Can they find the answers? Because for me, it's always out into an outfasting, which is either either find a way or make a way. I'm going to figure this out. That's something that I always look for. I'm like, Here's a problem that I know you don't know the answer to because no one knows the answer to. What do you do now? That's always the litmus test I use. When you talk about curiosity, what is the litmus test do you use for that?

Well, I think, again, I think as you're talking to candidates, how they ask questions, how they think about a problem, how much maybe discovery that they've done on their own. That could be things like travel, that could be local discovery, it could be any number of things. It could be how engaged they've gotten in a certain activity. And that doesn't necessarily need to be an outdoor activity, but any activity. How have they learned about that? How much studying did they do around that? How curious were they about that subject, or was it just surface? And I do think it's very hard to measure. It's very hard. It's much easier to measure whether it's looking at somebody's experience. Like, okay, they had X number of years at this company, did this thing. And the same is true of other work that they've done. When you start to ask people about the work that they've done, how deep do they go into that question? How naturally curious are they about the subjects or the tasks that they were given even at prior roles?

When you get curious about certain things, one of the things I'm curious about is what outdoor activities have you seen that have the best ROI? What are the statistics that show ABC? Because, Again, as a triathlete, I love running, but I'm going to miss my knees when they're gone. So I've had to stop running. The bike's okay, but I've found that swimming is just... It's home for me. It's what I love more than anything else. I just get in the water and just put my head down and rock and roll. Now there's waterproof headphones, so I can actually listen to a bunch of things when I'm going, or I just Zen out. I adore swimming more than I could possibly tell you. But what are some of the things that you found? Because again, this is what you do. This is what outside does more than anything else. You guys study this, and you guys are curious about these things.

What are the ones that you recommend? There are categories that are exploding right now. If you look at something like trail running and gravel cycling, they've absolutely exploded. I know this sounds funny. Disk golf is on fuego, right? Certainly, pickle ball. If you look at the growth of pickle and all the outdoor pickle ball courts. I think what you said, Charles, is maybe the most important thing, which is you started with something like triathlon, and you got to experience three different types of activities, right? And you found one that absolutely is your... Whether you want to... Your Zen, your spiritual moment, it's like you can get into that and just be super focused without the noise, right? And I think that's the most important thing. It's like if you're hiking and you're just looking at your phone the whole time, which, by the way, is hard outdoors. There's a reason it's hard outdoors to actually look at your phone with the sun bouncing off of it. But if you're just looking at your phone the whole time, that might not be your Zen activity, right? So it might make sense to try some other things.

And again, that could be something more social. If you look at the explosion with run clubs right now, maybe you need a run club to keep you motivated and keep you focused while you're out there. Other people, it might just be as simple as walking out your back door and doing a two-mile walk, right? And that might be a moment where you can disconnect everything. So I think the big thing that I say to people is, yeah, for me, it's cycling. It always has been since I was a little kid, and I was lucky to find it early. But try things and try to find that thing that's going to create what you just said, which is that very Zen moment for you that is something that you can retain.

And I think when you're finding your Zen moments, one of the reasons I like swimming so much is you can't lie. Because if I'm walking, I can turn, I can half-ass it. Or if I'm cycling, I can do it, especially on triathlons, I mean, as long as you can sneak the motorcycle in and the officials don't think it's a bike, you're fine. But you can't do that with swimming. Swimming is one of those rare opportunities that If you try and half-ass, you drown. If you're like, Oh, I don't want to kick anymore. You're going out.

You're going to drown or you better get the edge.

You better figure this out really quickly. That's why I love swimming. I'm not hauling butt. I've one of those endless pools that just keep going. It's like a treadmill, basically, in water. I love them. But it keeps me focused, and I have to be completely centered in my body of what's going on. And I'm very lucky.

It's interesting. I'm not a big climber, Charles. I'm not a big rock climber. But people say exactly the same thing about rock climbing. Because literally, if you fall, you're in big trouble, right? You are so zeroed in and focused, right? Yes. Whereas there are other activities, like walking, running, and cycling. I agree with you. That you can zone out of it, right? Now, hopefully, you're not doing that in traffic and other places. But I totally hear what you're saying about swimming, which is you will sink to the bottom or you will just literally put your feet down and you're done because otherwise, you're not going anywhere.

And the reason I added in waterproof headphones was because it gave my brain something to chew on sometimes. Because there are times where my brain's like, Okay, I've been staring at water. Can we do something else, please? And I'll just We do an audiobook and I'm like, All right, whatever. A buddy of mine, he carved out the bottom of his pool and he put a TV there. So he'll sit there and watch YouTube or whatever it is while he's swimming with it and he just sitting there just watching it as he's going. I was like, That doesn't count, dude. That doesn't count. What are you doing? He's like, I got to do it for an hour every day. I got to do something. I was like, God bless you, man. God bless you. You've also done something that a lot of people haven't done. You've acquired a bunch of assets or a bunch of companies that were marketing that were failing. Can you walk me through that? That's something I didn't know prior to having this conversation. When you go in and you're acquiring things that are not as optimized as one would think, how do you evaluate those and how do you make sure that you then integrate them into your folder of business?

Well, to be clear, there was two reasons why we ended up looking at things that were distressed. One is that we have five brands that are older than 50 years old, like the Ski magazine magazine is over 80, Warren Miller is almost 80, Climbing is over 50, Velo is over 50, Outside is over 50. But the media business, forget about more recently with AI, even more stressed. Us because of what's going on with AI. But the media business has been in a secular decline really since, I would say mobile and social came out, right? Like just new ways for people to get information. But the brands had a lot of equity in them and a lot of big libraries, great stories that were part of these platforms. And we had to make really hard decisions. There was one of the ideas of bringing multiple media businesses together was to create scale, which in turn allowed us to switch from being one, primarily advertising, but advertising within what we would call an endemic category. People like North Face and REI and Specialized Bicycles used to be the advertisers of the outside brands, right? Today, our largest advertisers are autos, and they're travel companies, and they're insurance companies.

So we diversified away from being really, really dependent on the core outdoor category. Those people, of course, are still advertisers. But the other big thing that we had to do was we had to switch from really being dependent on advertising to being more dependent on reoccurring revenue streams. And so we've gone from at one point, more than 70 % of the business was in advertising, and I would argue more than 85 % of the business was in non-reoccurring businesses. Today, of our revenue, 40 % is advertising, 60 % is in reoccurring either SaaS businesses or subscription businesses. And we had to make that transition. But we knew that those businesses had great brand equity, they had great teams, they had people that were part of them that knew how to storytell and knew these categories, whether it be climbing or running or whatever category one might be in the outdoor space. And by bringing that all together, to me, we've created an ecosystem that has much more sustainability into the future than maybe what it had before.

So I was about to ask how you did that. How did you transfer into that? How did you pivot over into that SaaS model where you went away Because, again, Specialize, I wrote on those for years. They saved my took us many a time. They're great bikes.

They're great bikes. And by the way, they're still advertisers. It's just different level of emphasis to what they used to do. One is, again, scale, bringing the companies together had a part of it. But then we rebuilt the tech platform, and we started asking people to log in, and we launched a digital subscription, and we had to get rid of a lot of the print. We only have one print magazine left, which is Outside magazine. We don't have Yoga Journal. We don't have yoga journal. We don't have climbing. We don't have any of those anymore because those were really in distress. I mean, most of the media publications, the standalone print magazines, were losing a million bucks a year each. I mean, it wasn't... It was like they were losing a lot of money. And so we had to go through that. And it was, I would say, a painful transition. I mean, we certainly had reductions in the team over the last three or four years. There were challenges with doing it, but ultimately, to get us to this point where we have a very sustainable business that the business mix really can support these amazing brands and media that we have today as one of the divisions.

Have you seen that transition from print, physical copy into SaaS as an option, and now that we're heading into an AI-first model, and when I try to explain this to people, Amazon was an internet-first business, period. Everybody else tried to catch up. Then they tried to do a mixed model, and they just got crushed. We're heading towards now an AI-first organizations, and that's where we're going. Where do you see outside heading towards? How do you handle that next onslaught? How do you handle that tidal wave that's coming?

I think what we've tried to do internally as we've tried to educate the team, we've tried to give them the tools. Again, in the idea that hopefully we have very curious people on our team that are inspired to get people outdoors, you want to put the right tools in their hand, and hopefully then they'll start to really learn learn and figure out ways to leverage that into our own business. And so what we're seeing is that whether it's from engineering to marketing to even our GNA categories, things like legal, is that there's a lot of experimentation in the use of it. There's a lot of people thinking about ways to maybe accelerate certain parts of things that they did so they could spend more time on There are areas that are of potentially higher value. But I think for what I'd call non-AI-first organizations, which, by the way, there aren't many. There are only so many organizations that started within the last three years that are really AI-first. Every other business is going through a transformation about how do you use these tools and how do you integrate them. Where do I think we are?

Certainly, it's a bit messy. I wouldn't say it's easy. I think that Again, I think you try to educate and put the right tools in people's hands, and hopefully good things come out. Then I think on the hiring front, you try to find people that are thinking about AI first. But as an example, there are places where it has amazing use for us. One example is something like text to audio. Now all of our articles have audio because of AI. That's leverage from our perspective. Or text to text in every language. If I had I tried to do that a decade ago, Charles, it would have cost me millions to do translation. Now, essentially, it's close to free. It's the tokenization and cost to convert a 3,000-word article just isn't very expensive to do that in every language on the planet. But on the flip side, we also have been very, very clear we don't want, as an example, our written content to be written with AI. We want storytelling to be real storytelling. And so, again, there are places in our business, it's quite an accelerant. And there's other places where we want to cautiously go into some of the uses and really understand the tools before we implement them at a broader and broader level.

I just think, again, it goes back to that curious thing. If you have people that are curious, they will start to use the new tools. I don't care if it's mobile, I don't care if it's things like social. All of them, they'll start to use them. That's what essentially Really, I would say that our organization is trying to do and go through that transition right now.

People who are curious to get outside and to really start doing this and start changing it because they're seeing things changing, what are some of the statistics? Because we know this all the time. If I put a million dollars in a room and make it really hard to get to the million dollars, you're probably not going to go after it. If I release a bunch of lions to chase you to go get in there, you're going to go get in that room. It doesn't matter about the million dollars anymore. Sometimes we need to take that hammer versus the hug in order to get people where they want go. You're the king of telling me some of these things. And before we started recording, you gave me more. What are some of the things that if someone's on the cusp of, Yeah, maybe I don't want to go outside, or all of that, that you get, the him in and hauling. What are some of the things that you're like, Hey, this is what we're seeing, because you know this better than almost anybody I know. What are some of the things that are going on?

Yeah, I mean, I think we're in... I believe 2026 is the year of the digital detox. Whether you look at something like touch grass as a hashtag on TikTok or Instagram. There's articles, and I'm not saying our publications, writing about how unplugging is the new luxury. Getting that It's a good time. And I do think there is a bit of AI backlash in terms of just technology. But when I think about the real benefits that people need to think about is this, like outdoors is medicine. And I do think, Look at Gen Z, they're not drinking, Charles. And they're not drinking because they understand the data better than they ever have, right? What's happening to them, whether it's sleep and these types of things. And so when I think about what's happened, I think we have hit peak screen time, and people are thinking about ways, and specifically escapes. If I look at the outside ecosystem, the average person in our ecosystem is going on 14 15 days of trips a year. They're going somewhere, and they are trying to find places to detox. They're trying to find places where they might be offline, they might be disconnected.

And again, from my perspective, that's what's so important, is Again, it doesn't matter that you're doing an Ironman, right, Charles, or a marathon. If you want to go do that, that's a great way to really have a disconnected type of experience. But I'm using an example. If you decide to go on a trip, pick somewhere that is close to nature. Pick a place where you can easily just get out for a little mini walk or a hike, or go down into the local town where you might do some sightseeing and some souvenir buying. But make it far enough away that you have to pick yourself up and get out of the bed and get away from the hotel to go do that, right?

Yeah, it's the conversation of Blue Zones, where we talk about some of the things that are in Blue Zones that make people so healthy. And One of the ones they found was getting outside, but there was a certain incline. If your environment forces you to walk up a certain incline in order to get food, you're going to be healthier than if you have to go downhill. It is what it is. Having those and forcing it, it's really, really simple stuff.

In that book, there's a really good example of, I believe it's Sicily, where there's a ton of stairs in the town, right? It's the exact town I was thinking about. Everybody has to walk up and down the stairs. And again, to your point, Just putting yourself in that situation, your blood's going to start pumping. You're going to start using muscles that maybe you don't use when you're just sitting around on the couch, typing away on the laptop.

I think you said it earlier really well. We live in a society right now where we are spending more time inside than we ever have in humanity, and our bodies haven't evolved for this, so it's unbelievably unhealthy for us. It really became a challenge for a bunch of us. We sat down and we're like, Okay, let's all commit to being accountability partners. We're 20 minutes a day of what's known as a Navy Seal burpee, which is a little different than a regular burpee. We're like, We're going to do this. We were all slacking off on it. We just weren't doing it. I'm just being honest with guys. We just weren't doing it. I was like, That's it. Enough. We have a Zoom call every morning, and everyone gets on their stupid things, and we're like, All right, let's bang them out. We're just ripping on each other because we're just having fun. We're just going through 20 minutes, and it's a bonding exercise. I remember when we first started this, I am so glad those calls were not being recorded because it's some the most embarrassing things I've seen with my dear friends falling all over the floor trying to do these burpings in a boxers and just like, This is embarrassing.

But it became this bonding exercise.

But it's that social accountability I go back to, if you are not good at getting yourself outdoors or doing some type of activity, the social thing will have an impact. So again, find a run group, find a walk group, a hike group, a swim group. Find a group that is going to allow you to get some of that social connectivity, but also social pressure to help you go do those things, because it does make a big difference, right? That's why, to me, I think we're seeing booms in these social running clubs, and hike clubs, and pickleball clubs, and all of these things is because the social, I don't know, pressure, anxiety, whatever you want to call it, is real and will help you, right?

It's just longing to connect. Just because you join a group, just for everybody listening, doesn't mean you have to stay. Remember, I joined a climbing group and we were working on something and the guy put his hand in a crack and then turned it and made a fist, and then he locked himself in there and he was working on something else. I was like, Uh-uh, absolutely not. I'm doing that. I'm like, You're out of your mind. I was like, Wait, if you let go of me. I'm like, I'm not doing that. I was like, No. Finding what works and what doesn't work. I love swimming because it allows me to Zen out. I used to tell people this all the time. The reason I became a scuba diver was because my cell phone didn't work underwater, which the truth was my Pager didn't work underwater, but it makes me all.

If that works to get you off the phone, I'm all for it.

To get you outside. Are there any things, are there any beneficial things that are on the phone that you could sit there when you are on a screen, be it wearables or some of the scientific data that you're seeing?

Look, you look at some of even our core applications like GaiaGPS or Trailforts. Having a map to help you discover where the trailhead is, how far it is, where is that hike from your house? Yes, there are nutrition trackers and other things on the phone that certainly... I mean, if you're wearing a wearable like an Aura or a Whoop, you go get the data on the phone. So I'm not suggesting that there is no use for this technology, and you should give it up altogether. But I'm just saying that we are out of balance, Charles. We are not connecting and spending as much time as we should be on away from our phones. Again, even socially, families with the outdoors, all of these things are just so important. I just think it goes back to, how do you create more balance, and how do you create that accountability?

How is outside making the balance between tech and outside? You mentioned a couple of pieces of software there. What are the things that you found like, Hey, we're very intentional. I know this about your org. You're very intentional about what you deliver and how you get created as you're trying to Not only does it have your company thrive, but also have your customers thrive. What are some of those balance integrations that you guys are doing?

I'll use something really, really simple. Look, obviously, we write a lot of content. We create shows around the outdoors. We license films and obviously, want people to be inspired through big adventure storytelling and things of that nature that people might watch or read on one of the publications. But I think what's What's more important for us now is that we create the connection to somebody actually going to do that thing. So as an example, if you see us write an article about the top 10 hikes, we will embed the maps directly in it so that you can download those maps, and then we can see, did the inspiration of that story actually drive you to go do that activity? Go out because you've now, you've discovered it on one of the mapping tools, and then you've gone out and logged it, whether that's in GEA, Trailforks or Map My Fitness, that you're out there experiencing it. That connection is super important. Or another example is like with our travel software. We built it so that we could... If we write an article about the top 10 ski resorts that were directly getting you to book that trip right out of the article, so that that experience is really seamless, because there's nothing more than we want to take you from that moment of inspiration, like, Oh, I really want to go to a steamboat and ski, to actually booking it and going to do it, Charles.

That's what's most important to creating that connection between the use of technology and then actually, separating yourself and going to do that actual activity.

So I selfishly want to know, When you say, Hey, these are the top 10 this or the top 10 that, because I've scooped it over for a very long time. I'm like, Oh, these are the top 10 places. I'm like, No, those are not the top 10. I'm like, Who wrote this? And I get authentically angry at this. When you guys are creating these lists, how do you guys never for this down? Because I'm authentically curious. How do you decide these are the top 10 hikes or the top 10 this or top 10 that?

Yeah, look, I think you can debate. I could debate with other cyclists about the top 10 rides in the world, right? And It's based on my experience, right? I happen to believe that places like Switzerland and Northern Italy have some of their best cycling in the world, right? But I will tell you, I just got back from Maine, from the Maine Tourism and Outdoor Conference, and I can tell you that there are amazing places to ride in Maine, right? But to me, a lot of this is... If you're talking about us writing and curating these things, some of it's based on data. We'll look in our database, and actually, because we know where people are hiking, like whether that be in national parks or other places. We'll pull from that data and then use that data to disseminate into storytelling. Hey, here are places that are popular, or here are places that are not popular but beautiful because we have great photos and things like that from them. But ultimately, it does come down to some personal experience. So I think you can always debate whether or not your top 10 scuba diving places are the same top 10 that I would have, right?

But I think more important than anything is putting that out there for people that maybe have never experienced it and don't know where to go, that they can find places.

I think the one exception to the rule is Switzerland. Switzerland just wins across the board.

Switzerland. It's Switzerland. I lived there for four years. It's beautiful. It's an amazing city.

We're in Switzerland, were you?

I lived two years in Neuchâtel and then two years in Lugano.

God, Lugano. Oh, my God. All right. Switzerland wins. Just for everybody's paying attention. We could create outside online Switzerland, and we just go to Switzerland. It is what it is. When we're going through this, you're a cyclist. Some of the things that are proven for you and some of the things that rack out for you, if you were like, These are the top 10 tools, because everyone will kill me if I don't ask you this. It's the one thing when I told everyone that I was interviewing He's like, All right, get his stuff on cycling. We want to know what are his top 10 tools that he loves more than anything else when it comes to your favorite bike or your favorite this. What are the 10 things with cycling that you're like, You got to do this. This is your thing.

Well, I'll start with the broader health and wellness things. I love 8 Sleep, the product for your mattress and how it helps you sleep. I've been an Aura user, Aura Ring user, since the very beginning. I have over six years of data daily data in Aura, and I use it... The score that you get every day, I use specifically to think about my cycling, like how hard I ride on a specific day. There are certainly other... I've used Garmin forever. I use, whether that be on the bike or even from a watch perspective. The nice thing about the new Apple Watch, one thing I love, I I don't love things on my wrist. That's why I prefer something like the Or ring. But one thing I do love about the new Apple Watch is that it has a UV sensor on it, so it can tell you how much time you're outdoors. It literally can measure how much time you're in sunlight. So I love that just from a ability to give you insights on, are you spending time indoors or outdoors, and the impact that's potentially having on your health and wellness. There's a lot of...

I mean, look, I could go into detail about things like continuous glucose monitors and some of the devices that are coming in the future. Core body temperature matters a lot when you're training and doing certain types of activities. But the tools and equipment you have are really essential. So what bike do I ride? I ride road, mostly in gravel, but I ride specialized. I ride a crux for gravel, and I ride a tarmac on the road. So the tools are super important to me about having that great experience when you're out there, no matter what it is that you're doing. Same thing in running. I would say that, as an example, I just got this new pair of Brooks Glycerin Flux. It's like their brand new shoe. It's like an amazing shoe, right? So having the right tools, no matter what you're doing, whether you're hiking, climbing, riding, walking, whatever it is, is really critical so that you keep coming back, because if you have a poor experience because of the equipment, then you probably won't do it again, right? So it just matters a lot, no matter which activity you're in, that you have the right equipment.

And by the way, it doesn't mean you can't buy used equipment, because there's a lot of good used equipment out on the market, too. So if you're thinking about it from a sustainability or cost perspective, there's lots of places. We have this big marketplace called Pink Bike Marketplace, which is the largest mountain bike transaction marketplace, like eBay for bikes. I think right now we have 60,000 used bikes listed on Pink Bike Marketplace globally. So there's lots of places to find great used equipment, no matter which category or discipline you're in.

I think there's also two things that was subtle in what you just said was you got six years of data on your aura ring. That's got to have a better idea. If I got an aura ring right now, it's not going to have the same tenacity or same data in there because you're basing off yours, which is an algorithm based off of six years, versus I'm based it off what would be a couple of months. There's that. But I also think there's the concept of there isn't one versus the other. For example, when I scuba dive, I use Siegel. I like them because I prefer my secondary on my chest. I use a Siegel ranger because I know that what's going to probably kill me down there is not going to be a fish. It's going to be the other diver, ripping my first stage out of my mouth. I'm expecting that. So normally when someone runs into it, we'll spit the rag, which means I literally, and then it'll fly to the other person, and then I could take my secondary, which is a foot away. I mean, it's eight inches away from my mouth.

You're not going to take it away from me. So it's a matter of what comfortable. And the first one I ever had was a gift. It was a used one, which was wonderful. So it doesn't have to be brand new. It's just the gear you're using that makes you feel safe and makes you want to go outside and makes you want to execute. That, I think is going to be really important. Some of the last type of things, you have access to stuff that most people don't. When you're talking about core temperature and you're talking about maybe glasses that we're using, maybe blue light glasses. Are there other tools tools that, God, I wish people would use this or things that you're like, I use these every day, and I can't imagine my life without them?

I'm a huge advocate for things like saunas, even red light saunas. I know there's a lot of debate about real saunas versus red light, but we have a red light one, and I use it, I'd say, regularly. I wish I used it more. Cold bundling is another thing I think is really... If you think about, let's say you're doing a fairly intense workout. There's a lot of inflammation. So something like cold blunching really can help that. If you're out riding two, three, four, five hours and you get back, it's really good to do. So there are things like that that certainly I would say, not only do we write about, and certainly I advocate on a personal level, but I also think there are many, many apps that people can download, whether it's for meditation, like I said, whether it's for food tracking, whether it's for different performance and training things. But there's also a case to be made for really listening to your body, almost disconnecting from the wearables at times to understand What is just... If you listen closely enough, what is your core saying to you? Are you tired? Even if your ring is saying, Hey, Robin, you're ready to go get it today.

Your recovery score is awesome. But I just feel feel crappy. You got to listen, too, because oftentimes your body will tell you things that maybe the devices don't have 100% perspective into.

I think for me, when I found out that I could just do blood work, get my biomarkers back. That was huge because I was ice-plungeing like crazy. They were like, Hey, you've got... You grew up in South Florida, therefore, there's an immense amount of mold in your system. I was like, Whoa, whoa. We said, Okay, stop ice-plungeing. I was like, Why am I stopping? They're like, Go get an IR sauna, sit in it. Every single day, twice a day, you got to detox this stuff out. You got to open your body up so you can get this. It takes time. Getting those other data sets, getting those numbers that you can only figure out, figuring out where your DNA is and your snips based off your DNA and figuring out how your body reacts to certain things and gluten and histamines and all of these things across the board, that data is above and beyond. I think, to your point, the best way to do this, and I know this is going to sound... Get outside. My body, I can hear my body It's better when I'm outside, I'm hiking in Switzerland, than I can anywhere else.

This just became a promotion for Switzerland. Go to Switzerland.

Amen. Sponsored by Tourism Switzerland.

Yeah, exactly. That's what it is for now. Go to Lucerne and just walk up and down. You'll be fine. You'll feel much better. You'll feel much better. If people want to feel better and they want to learn more about this and they want to track you down and get more information about you, Robin, how do they track you down? What's the best way to get a hold of you?

We have so many sites and so So many products. I always tell people to just go, like one of our largest ones is outside online. And if you go into the NAV, you can see everything that we have to offer. But create accounts, sign up for a membership, start engaging with the content and the services that we have. Sign up for an event. That's a big way to get you through the learning curve. And that could be everything from a 5K to a 10K to whatever endeavor you might want to sign up for. But sign up for something because it will motivate you to do that. But you can find all that at outsideonline. Com.

Robin, I really appreciate it. It's always fun talking to you. Thank you so much. You too.

Thanks for having me.

That's a wrap on another episode of The Proven podcast. Community builds momentum, data builds direction, execution builds results. Stop watching trends, start building ecosystems. While others chase attention, you could be creating platforms that last. Remember, if your strategy doesn't create real value, it was never proven to scale.