A Passion-Driven Career with Chris Benchetler

Do It For Yourself Podcast

This is The Do It For Yourself Podcast. Each week I sit down with someone who is doing it for themselves and chasing a dream they just couldn’t suppress. This is often speakers, entrepreneurs, or athletes. They all share one thing in common, they are overcoming challenges and never giving up. Someone who is Doing It For Themselves is not selfish in their pursuit, they are simply chasing a dream or working towards a goal because it is something THEY want to do. They are not forging down a path because society or someone is telling them it’s what they should be doing.

This week my guest on the show is professional skier Chris Benchetler. Chris is much more than a professional skier though, he is an artist, a director, filmmaker, dad, surfer, and the list goes on. Through all of this though, Chris is ALWAYS doing it for himself. This started from one of the first deals that Chris made with Atomic skis. Christ wanted to create a new ski for Atomic that would highlight features necessary for backcountry skiing. Along with being part of the design of the construction, Chris wanted to have design control for the ski graphics because of his passion for art.

This was the start of 10 years worth of ski graphics and design coming from Chris and Atomic. Along the way, Chris was able to convince his sponsors to come on board for a Sprinter van conversion used in his film project Chasing AdVANture. Chris took the shell of a Sprinter can and completely outfitted it to travel up and down the west coast, surfing, skiing, and climbing at some VERY iconic spots.

Following this project, Chris was connected with the Grateful Dead because they were interested in doing a ski graphic. Along with convincing Atomic to allow Chris to create this graphic he convinced both sponsors and friends to create his latest project call Fire On The Mountain. This is a ski and surf film with the entire soundtrack being Grateful Dead music. This project was completely passion-based and a lot of the initial funding came out of Chris's personal pocket. Chris has never faltered from doing things purely out of passion.

It was such an honor to sit down with Chris and I am very happy to share his story of how he is doing it for himself.

I hope you enjoy this weeks episode!

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