Episode 28: Tod Sebens; What If You Treated Your Life Like A List

Send us Fan MailSomething is off about a guy who can casually mention getting lifted by a humpback whale and then move right along to the next story. Tod Stevens has spent decades stacking real adventures the hard way, through mechanical skill, odd jobs, and a stubborn willingness to try things most of us only talk about. We sit down and follow the thread from growing up between Virginia and California to joining the US Army as a marine diesel mechanic, including the pride of helping train the first woman to become a senior marine diesel mechanic in his track.From there, the conversation veers into the kind of lived history you can’t fake: basic training incidents that still haunt him, a cross-country breakdown that turns into a lesson in human kindness, and a surprising stint promoting country music shows that puts him face-to-face with famous performers in unfiltered backstage moments. Then Alaska takes over with Talkeetna bush life, small-town stories, and a six-month sail around Mexico where boat repairs pay the bills.We also get into the Haines years: starting Denali Boatworks, directing community theater, upgrading DMX stage lighting at the Chilkat Center, and doing special effects work on the film White Fang before heading south again. Tod’s Antarctica seasons with the National Science Foundation bring the scale up to eleven, from McMurdo to remote camps, deep ice cores, and the weird reality of color deprivation. Along the way, we talk risk, recovery, shark conservation, solo bicycle travel, side-scan sonar and ROV work, whale disentanglement, and the wake-up call of surviving sepsis and double pneumonia.If you like Alaska stories, Antarctica jobs, whale watching, hands-on trades, and travel that doesn’t gloss over the danger, this one is for you. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share it with a friend who loves a good true story, and leave a review with the moment that surprised you most.