When a 'Phase' Turns into a Career + Community with Anna Levesque Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Have you ever made a decision so crystal clear that it was almost alarming? What is it in those moments where we're defying expectations that keeps us moving forward in the direction of our dreams, despite the criticism and doubt? For Anna Levesque of Mind Body Paddle, the decision was to get a summer job at a whitewater rafting company when she was in college. Her parents dubbed this choice as a "phase" and despite their best intentions for how she'd live her life, Anna found her way to the water and never looked back. Now living the life of her dreams, these waters weren't always calm. Even with all of her success on the competitive kayak circuit, she struggled with self-doubt and lack of confidence. Like many elite athletes, she would put a lot of pressure on herself to perform and when she didn’t live up to her own exceptionally high expectations, she would feel like a total failure. The self-doubt didn’t help her confidence paddling difficult Class V whitewater with mostly male colleagues. She loved kayaking and yet she would often come away from those days feeling disempowered. She realized, after connecting with other pro female boaters at the time that she wasn’t the only one. It occurred to her that female paddling stories weren’t being told in the whitewater kayaking world and there were no resources specifically for women, so she produced the first whitewater kayak instructional DVD for women and called it Girls at Play. She launched a video tour across the US and Canada to offer low-cost, community based kayak classes for women. Even still, vulnerability and terror showed up at the premiere of Girls at Play only to receive a standing ovation from respected peers. So how did Anna navigate her way through male competitors calling her the "femi-nazi of kayaking" to where she is today? Tune in to find out!