We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chez Chesak. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chez below.

Chez, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my entire career has been built around accumulating experiences more than wealth. I’ve always gravitated toward roles that provided me with opportunities to experience the world, be it via international travel, exploring local and regional communities, engaging with unique and diverse peoples, etc.

The creative side was always there though, running parallel to whatever I did until I realized that I could meld the two together. Now, in my role at OWAA, I’m able to help guide a community of creatives and provide them with new opportunities for craft improvement and professional development, and able to do so most effectively because I’m doing the same work as they are, as a freelance writer.

First, I gravitated, out of passion, to the outdoor industry which eventually lead me to the adventure travel side of the tourism industry. Then I realized that I could (and should) be writing about all of my experiences so added that layer onto my work. Then when the opportunity to become ED of OWAA came along, I found the perfect blend of my past experiences with my future vision and was able to braid together all my past work experiences leading passionate communities through nonprofit work as well as leveraging my own creative endeavors.

Chez, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

It started with a ski trip to Colorado that inspired me to shift careers to step away from publishing to get into the outdoor industry. I started with a part time job at an REI. Then I networked my way toward a position at a hiking organization and from there was able to step up to larger nonprofits and bigger roles. Eventually (after taking a little trip to Iraq with my Army National Guard unit), I was able to leverage my experiences and connections and started working for an adventure travel association which ultimately, eventually, led me to OWAA.

Every association is about service to its membership and I’m just so excited whenever I hear from one of our members that they got a new outlet, new gig, or new friend via our virtual networking calls, annual conference, press trips or other program. (The ultimate example of that is having had a few instances where people met at one of the events I was managing, hit it off and even got married. I can proudly say that there are even some new humans roaming the earth because of events that I’ve helped run!)

Modern outdoor storytellers, no matter their medium, are presented with a broad swath of challenges and hurdles. Our job is to guide them around those challenges and provide them with the tools, data, information and connections necessary to take their career trajectory up a notch or three.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

With an extremely limited budget and equally as restricted amount of time available, word of mouth continues to be our best recruiting tool for new members to OWAA. That means then that we have to really ensure that our programs are hitting the mark and providing new, positive and – ultimately – profitable opportunities for our members. If we can serve them and help make them be successful, then they are naturally going to tell their other creative friends about our programs, resources, events and other opportunities to help them accelerate their career trajectory.

We even have a few members who have evolved into true evangelists for us now, with two in particular very much responsible for many of the new members and leads in our sales funnel. I wish I could clone them!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I hope this doesn’t sound egotistical at all, but the thing that drives my creative journey really is me. It’s just who I actually am. While I, in theory at least, could have taken my degree from an uppity school in New England and perhaps gone to Wall Street to make scads of dough, I also knew that attempting to do that work would have crushed my soul entirely. So I never even considered such things. I am, by nature, a storyteller and that’s just what I do. I love telling stories to friends (and am, I admit, sometimes a little too enthusiastic to do so), have started storytelling events in the outdoor/travel industry, and absolutely love sharing information about a new, emerging, or even bypassed or forgotten destination with an audience of travelers, hopefully inspiring them to try something new – or emboldening them to visit a place that’s been (usually erroneously) maligned.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.chezconnects.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clchez73/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clchez73
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cchesak/
• Other: https://muckrack.com/chez-chesak

Image Credits

Profile pic – Juliana Broste
Samalayuca Dunes (Chihuahua) pic – Paul Queneau