Meet Alexa Jo Schafer

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

Hi Alexa Jo, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.

The risk-taking aspect of my life is definitely something I grew into. I used to be very scared to break rules, get in trouble, or feel unsafe. So to now be someone who travels the world as a woman alone, signs up for dangerous adventures, and deciphers when a rule can do with a little bending, it’s kind of surprising! I do think a bit of it is ingrained in me and I just had to grow up a bit and grow a thicker skin to embrace it. But I really do owe a lot of it to my struggles with mental health. I first started solo traveling a few years ago after coming out of a major depressive episode. To put it bluntly, the scariest thing to me isn’t risk or dying, it’s depression. Once you’ve been in a place so low and so dark where you don’t want to live AND crawled your way out if it, it makes the other scary things feels easy. It really shifted my perspective on how I wanted to live going forward. My biggest fear now is getting to the end of my life and realizing I went through the motions but didn’t live it to it’s fullest. I don’t want to waste the potential to have had an amazing life. So I just trust my gut. Sometimes it tells me to jump out of a plane and sometimes it tells me to cozy up on the couch and watch tv and I just trust that either way it’s protecting me and pushing me towards what I need. In short, going through low points and learning to trust my intuition has helped me most in developing the ability to take a risk.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I do a couple of things! I’m a writer, podcaster, and on the side I’ll take on contracts for media consulting services like project management, social media design, and program development. My podcast, Lila: The Podcast, has been super fun because each episode is a different guest, many being cool people I’ve met traveling. We talk about a whole range of topics from mental health, to travel, to life lessons, to social issues. I even turned that into now helping someone else get their podcast designed and launched. Soon I’ll release season 2 of my podcast and then I plan to close it out. I love podcasting and being a host, I would love to do it again someday if the opportunity presented itself.

More recently I’ve been focused on my writing, shifting more toward novels and away from my blog. It’s tough to make a decision to step back from something you built with passion but I also think it’s a strength to know when something is pulling your energy and to shift your goals. I feel really proud of my brand and how I built it myself from the ground up, but I decided to take a step back and see what else is out there waiting for me.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Looking back I think the three things that have been most impactful on my journey are curiosity, bravery, and reflection. These have made me grow the most. When I say curiosity I mean being eager to learn, openmindedness, and willingness to listen. This has driven me to seek out different countries, conversations, skills, and friendships. I’m curious! I remember one time in high school I was messing around and broke something in science lab due to my curiosity getting the best of me. It had to do with gas and a bunsen burner and I was scared the school would burn down overnight if it wasn’t fixed. I sheepishly went up to the teacher and told her what happened. All she said to me was “curiosity killed the cat” with a chuckle. She didn’t even get up out of her chair. I was relieved not to be in trouble, but also that it wasn’t my ninth life. I was sooo scared and then it was no big deal. Just like when I went up to a group of people at my first hostel and said “hey mind if I join?”
Don’t be afraid to ask questions, try different things, fail, apologize when you’ve done wrong, and get involved. Be a little curious, it probably won’t burn the school down and you’ll learn a lot.

Which leads me to bravery. I remember calling my dad in panic from the airport in some foreign country far away from home. I sat there with all my belongings in a backpack next to me, anxiety eating me up inside, and crying to him about how I was scared and just wanted to come home. He told me he was proud of me and my bravery. To which I replied, “I’m sitting here crying. I don’t feel very brave.” He had some super wise way of teaching me a life lesson I don’t remember the exact words of, but essentially I learned that bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s being scared out of your mind and doing it anyway. I have learned to trust myself and that’s given me more peace. I’m not saying I’m anxiety-free now, but I am both anxious and brave and that, I can be proud of.

Lastly, reflection! I spend a lot of time in my head. Always thinking back on did I react how I wanted to? Was I kind? Was I respecting myself? What kind of person do I want to be? What did I learn from that? It fuels my creativity and propels me forward.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

I have to give credit to two people here. I can’t answer this question without acknowledging both my dad, and my former boss Teresa Kittridge.

My dad has always been supportive, stable, wise, and comforting. From a young age he instilled in us accountability, strong work ethic, and goal setting. I’m a self starter because he taught me how to be one. I know I can always go to him to help me figure out whatever problem I run into. He is so wise and always thinks about the impacts on both sides from whatever decision I make. He knows when to call me out when I’m wrong but also knows that I’m his daughter so I’m probably always right. He’s so supportive of me and all my big dreams and crazy ideas and it’s given me the freedom to go after them!

Teresa Kittridge was my boss for a few years at a nonprofit called 100 Rural Women where I started as an intern. She has given me so many opportunities to try what I wanted and expand my skill set. I never could have done all that somewhere else. She’s always looking to help connect me with people and open doors for me to get the experience I’m looking for professionally. She is a great inspiration to me and I’ll always look up to her and be grateful for what’s she has done for me.

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