Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing

What role do parks play in the health of a community? For many of us, parks are places to walk, play, or spend time outdoors. But what if they're also part of the infrastructure that helps communities become healthier, more connected, and more resilient? In this episode of ROOTED , I sit down with Martin Sampson, CEO of the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association, to explore how parks and recrea...

Resilience is one of the most common words in conversations about leadership, wellbeing, and life. We celebrate resilient people. We encourage one another to be more resilient. But what if we've unintentionally reduced resilience to simply "bouncing back"? In this Walk with SMB episode, I share a question that's been following me as I prepare a workshop on mental reset and resilience: What story a...

What if nature isn't somewhere we go, but something we live within? In this conversation, I sit down with Nevin Harper—counselor, professor, outdoor educator, and co-author of Nature-Based Therapy and Kids These Days —to explore how the environments we inhabit shape our wellbeing, relationships, and sense of belonging. Growing up in northern Canada, Nevin experienced nature not as a destination, b...

What happens when the path you carefully planned is no longer the path you're meant to follow? In this episode of Rooted, Susan sits down with friend, leadership advisor, and AI educator Cheryl Thompson for a conversation about career reinvention, burnout, self-agency, and the stories that shape our lives. Cheryl shares her journey from automotive manufacturing and engineering leadership to entrep...

What if nature isn't simply good for us—but foundational to human health and wellbeing? In this episode of ROOTED, I sit down with naturopathic doctor and NatureQuant advisor Dr. Owen Wiseman to explore the growing evidence connecting nature exposure to better physical health, mental wellbeing, resilience, and quality of life. But this conversation goes beyond individual health habits. Together, w...

As we approach the summer solstice—the longest light of the year—nature offers a quiet reminder: belonging isn't something we earn. It's something we already have. In this Sit with SMB episode, Susan reflects on the loss of a beloved hundred-year-old white pine that stood in her yard for decades. A triple-topped tree with deep roots and a steady presence, it became an unexpected teacher about grie...

After getting sober in her twenties, Breezy Nowlan found herself navigating the often-complicated world of recovery housing. That experience led her to create Taste Recovery, a platform that helps people find safe and supportive sober living options across the United States. But as the platform grew, something still felt missing. In this episode of Rooted, Breezy shares the question from her fathe...

In this WALK episode of ROOTED: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing, Susan Morgan Bailey reflects on her personal experience with stress, burnout, anxiety, and the role nature has played in helping her reconnect with herself. Inspired by Mental Health Awareness Month and this year's theme — More Good Days, Together — Susan explores how chronic stress can quietly become normalized, especially for hi...

Modern life makes it easy to assume that access to nature is simply about proximity. A nearby park. A trail down the road. A place to go. But what if access is more complicated than that? In this conversation, I sit down with public health researcher Jen Roberts to explore the intersection of nature, equity, and belonging. Together, we look at how our environments—both built and natural—shape not...

  A ten-minute break outside turns into a reflection on awe, wonder, and the quiet intelligence of the natural world. In this solo Walk with SMB episode, Susan shares how spotting a perfectly camouflaged sphinx moth on a tree outside her home shifted her attention completely away from work, stress, and mental noise — and back into observation, curiosity, and presence. Through stories of a robin bu...

I expected this conversation to be about coaching and vision quests. It became something else entirely. Early on, Ryan said something I couldn't move past: There is grief in the gap between who we say we want to be and who we are becoming. What followed was a grounded, honest exploration of grief—not as something to fix or move past, but as something to be with. Ryan is a transformational coach an...

Today is Earth Day . And while this practice is offered in honor of this moment, it's not limited to it. This is something you can return to any day you feel the need to slow down… to reconnect… to remember that you are part of the living world. This guided walking meditation is an invitation to pause and remember something easy to lose in the rhythm of modern life — that we are not separate from...

What happens when you step out of the environment that shaped you — and into one that reveals you? In this conversation, I sit down with Cory, a leadership coach based in rural Japan, whose work brings individuals and teams into nature not as an escape, but as a catalyst for clarity. After years in Tokyo's corporate world, Cory found himself living and working in the mountains of Minakami — a plac...

  As the seasons begin to shift, it's a reminder that change doesn't always come from trying harder — sometimes it comes from changing conditions. In this solo walk episode, Susan reflects on how much our wellbeing is shaped not just by what we do, but by the environments we're part of. Drawing on both nature and her experience in organizational wellbeing, she explores a different lens: what if fe...

Jessica DeAngelo joins me for a conversation about what happens when we step outside, move our bodies, and give ourselves space to think differently. After a pivotal moment with her young daughter, Jessica began a simple experiment: 30 minutes a day in nature, without technology. What followed wasn't a quick fix, but a shift — from scattered attention to clearer thinking, from constant input to so...

On a morning walk, three blue jay feathers stop Susan in her tracks — a small moment that opens into a deeper reflection on change and possibility. In this solo episode, she shares the story of imaginal cells — the cells inside a caterpillar that carry the blueprint for a butterfly. During transformation, the caterpillar doesn't simply change form. It dissolves completely before something new begi...

Nature is often treated as a luxury — something we visit when we have time. But public health researcher Jay Maddock has spent years studying something different: what actually happens in the body when we spend time outside. In this conversation, Jay shares the research behind what many of us intuitively feel. Within minutes of stepping outside, blood pressure drops, mood improves, and our nervous...

What environments shape your day? In this walk episode of Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing , Susan explores a simple but powerful idea: most of us move through three environments every day — the natural environment , the built environment , and the artificial environment . Nature surrounds us with living systems that regulate and restore. Built environments provide the structures that or...

What if you've never been a "nature person" - but nature is exactly what you need? Claudia Kraut spent decades in organizational health and wellbeing, just like Susan. She called herself an "interior gal" - someone who only went outside when she was made to. Then at 50, she tried something new: a trail run. It changed everything. In this conversation, Susan and Claudia explore how there are so man...

  What if the steadiness you've been searching for isn't somewhere you need to go — it's something you already are? A lot is changing right now. For many of us, it feels like standing in a rushing river, the current pulling harder than we expected. The instinct is to move faster, do more, strategize harder. But what if the most powerful thing you could do is plant your feet? This is a Sit episode...

Micah Mortali, founder of the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership, introduces the concept of rewilding—not as running off to live in the woods, but as reclaiming lost connections with our natural habitat. In this conversation, Micah shares the idea of nature as "the green mirror"—a counterbalance to the black mirrors of our phones. When we look into the green mirror, we see who we actuall...

What if the deepest root cause of burnout isn't just stress or workload—but forgetting something essential about who we are? In this opening episode, Susan shares the Camino revelation that sparked this podcast: We ARE nature. Not separate from it. Not visitors to it. When we lose connection to the natural world, we feel incomplete—tired, lonely, half-present. This is the story of how patience, ob...

Welcome to Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing. If you've been following along, you might notice something's different—we have a new name. What started as The Growth Collective has evolved into Rooted. In this episode: Why the shift from Growth Collective to Rooted happened The Camino revelation: we ARE nature, not separate from it What "rooted" actually means and why it matters now Where t...

This episode features an organization that is truly doing the deep work necessary to evolve culture.    My guests, Mychal Coleman Associate Vice President of Human Resources at Grand Valley State University and Lindsey DesArmo, Interim Director of Talent Management at GVSU, began the journey of culture evolution when they realized a few years ago, they were losing what had made their organization...

Dr. Marcus Collins is back on the podcast to talk about his new book For the Culture: the power behind what we buy, what we do, and who we want to be. Listen in a Marcus highlights why it's essential to be clear on what you stand for as an organization and the importance of being intentional about building culture;   why we buy the things including why we buy including the idea that showing up to...