We recently connected with Shayla Paradeis and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Shayla thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

They recognized that I was delightfully crazy because I’m made out of both of them. Though there were things that were outrageously different for me than the expectations they grew up with, they supported me. My mother believed in me as a musical theater actress. My father was proud of me when I announced my first thru-hike. They both show unwavering support for me as I shape all of my amblings into a career. Which is no small feat, since they were encouraged to get jobs with good benefits and live life on a rigid path without deviation. Both of them have been inspired and excited to watch me blaze my own. I believe that parents of millennials have held a door open, like a portal. They really alchemized a new way of life by wanting us to live in a way they couldn’t have dreamed of. And it’s an extraordinary gift.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I went to school for musical theater in Manhattan; a teenager with a dream and a suitcase fresh off the boat from the Midwest. It was my lifelong dream, but lost its luster as I pumped through a sort of theater boot camp, encouraged to approach the industry with a mind for image and business. It did not resonate with me. I had loved theater as a platform for supporting humanity and understanding the art of being human. Haunting images of Glacier National Park, Montana, a place I had visited many times, began to fill my inner vision. Life. Real life. In a sudden burst while standing in line at an audition, I had a breakthrough that changed everything. I turned around and left, making my way toward northwestern Montana.
I soon became deeply fulfilled by hiking alone in Glacier. No amount of hiking was too much. Before long, I had signed up for my first thru-hike, the Appalachian Trail in 2011. My love for nature only grew. I hiked the Pacific Crest in 2013, the Continental Divide in 2015, the Te Araroa across New Zealand in 2017/18 and again on the Appalachian Trail in 2021. A career came together as I embraced the music in me, performing songs and poems I had written while hiking. Tighter still, my life as a writer and walker was bridged by my first born book, Footprint of a Heart: 18,000 Miles of Stillness that Moves. I have been traveling the country singing, reading from my book, and sharing stories about nature and our need to connect.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Slow down. Be Present. And listen to each other. Make sure you have time for that. It is entirely false that we don’t have time. We were born with everything we need. Art is a way of being that lives in everything, not just everyone. When you hear a singer in a bar that takes you out of your conversation, it’s because something is connecting you to yourself. Like you remember a seed of what’s in you. We need that.
Take time to look at a painting on a wall, to listen to a musician on the street, to appreciate the intentions that went into a homemade craft. When you do this, we all thrive.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

It’s remarkable that my business thrives when I’m being myself. The guide for that is joy. When I try to fit some sort of model, brushing up my social media, promoting myself with all the do’s and don’ts suggested by some website or class that I took, I sell less books. I reach less hearts. I get frustrated and sometimes hard on myself.
Then I take a step back and look for the joy. It jumps out, easily. I know what to do next. That is my guide. I follow my joy. Doing what I love is a guiding light for others and the way that we are able to connect, heart to heart, is a gift beyond measure.

Contact Info:

• Website: atkiddo.com
• Instagram: @greatgreyendeavors
• Facebook: Greatgreyendeavors
• Linkedin: Shayla Paradeis
• Youtube: @shaylaparadise1873

Image Credits
Illustrator Sasanka Wilson Photos by Shayla Paradeis