I was petrified of who will I be if I don't have my mother holding a mirror up to kind

of cast my identity back to me.

My mother, her presence is and will still be a really big part of my life, but there's

really no other mother that's bigger than her outside of Mother Nature.

Steph Jagger's mother, Sheila, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2015.

Like many of us, Steph's relationship with her mom is complicated.

Watching Sheila's personality and memory disappear only added to the complexity.

As an author and coach, Steph is skilled at going deeper and examining her own identity.

When she realized that she would be slowly losing the woman who showed her who she is, she

decided to turn to another maternal figure for guidance and comfort, Mother Nature.

I'm Shelby Stanger and this is Wild Ideas worth living.

Steph Jagger was my first ever guest on this podcast back in 2016.

She's the queen of turning her wild ideas into a reality.

In 2010, she left her home and career behind and went on an incredible journey around

the world.

She followed winter through five continents and she set a world record by skiing more

than four million vertical feet in a single year.

It's the equivalent of going down Mount Everest from summit to sea level over 130 times.

A lot has happened since that trip around the world.

Steph married the wonderful Chris Rutgers, the guy who founded Outdoor Outreach.

She wrote a book about her ski expedition called Unbound and she became a life coach.

But in 2015, Steph's family was rocked by her mom's Alzheimer's diagnosis.

...