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Breathtaking: A Field Guide to Living Your Epic Life
“This book is a breath of wild, clear air in a world drowning in distraction. Read it and learn how to live again.” –Alexia Brown, Attorney (Ret.)/School Board Trustee
Shelli didn’t set out to write a book. She set out to examine her life.
A longtime wanderer, she has walked an estimated 35,000 miles over the past 15 years—on wilderness trails, during coaching calls, through daily life, and across breathtaking landscapes in the U.S. and abroad.
She lives on the frontier of Wyoming and works from a 100-year-old sheepherder’s wagon beside the Popo Agie River. The wilderness has long been her platform and her refuge. It’s where she’s done her deepest work.
An entrepreneur, coach, keynote presenter, leadership consultant, writer, adventure guide, and founder of Epic Life Inc., Shelli has coached hundreds of individuals and leaders—helping them reflect deeply on their lives and paths. She has also worked with numerous leadership teams and groups, inspiring insight, connection, and transformation.
In an age when we spend more time indoors—sedentary, distracted, on our devices for work, and turning to our screens for inspiration—Breathtaking is a call to return to ourselves, and the wilds, for what truly matters.
Drawing from a lifetime of lived experience and nearly 15 years of deep work with others, Shelli offers eight trail-tested lessons. These compass points form the scaffolding of her work at Epic Life Inc.— lessons shaped, tested, and lived by her clients and by herself, again and again.
This isn’t a “how-to.” It’s a “walk-with.”Living your epic life could be a great adventure. It could be breathtaking.
Let this be your field guide.
"This book from Shelli Johnson is one of the best manuals you'll ever discover for an adventurous life lived in holistic communion with nature." –Jon Dorn, CEO, Teton Gravity Research, author, and former Chief Entertainment Officer at Outside
Shelli didn’t set out to write a book. She set out to examine her life.
A longtime wanderer, she has walked an estimated 35,000 miles over the past 15 years—on wilderness trails, during coaching calls, through daily life, and across breathtaking landscapes in the U.S. and abroad.
She lives on the frontier of Wyoming and works from a 100-year-old sheepherder’s wagon beside the Popo Agie River. The wilderness has long been her platform and her refuge. It’s where she’s done her deepest work.
An entrepreneur, coach, keynote presenter, leadership consultant, writer, adventure guide, and founder of Epic Life Inc., Shelli has coached hundreds of individuals and leaders—helping them reflect deeply on their lives and paths. She has also worked with numerous leadership teams and groups, inspiring insight, connection, and transformation.
In an age when we spend more time indoors—sedentary, distracted, on our devices for work, and turning to our screens for inspiration—Breathtaking is a call to return to ourselves, and the wilds, for what truly matters.
Drawing from a lifetime of lived experience and nearly 15 years of deep work with others, Shelli offers eight trail-tested lessons. These compass points form the scaffolding of her work at Epic Life Inc.— lessons shaped, tested, and lived by her clients and by herself, again and again.
This isn’t a “how-to.” It’s a “walk-with.”Living your epic life could be a great adventure. It could be breathtaking.
Let this be your field guide.
"This book from Shelli Johnson is one of the best manuals you'll ever discover for an adventurous life lived in holistic communion with nature." –Jon Dorn, CEO, Teton Gravity Research, author, and former Chief Entertainment Officer at Outside
271 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 19, 2025
5 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Shelli Johnson
24 books221 followersFor decades, I was a yo-yo dieter with an eating disorder — weighing over 300 pounds at my heaviest. I have had a weight loss transformation, losing over 160 pounds naturally and maintaining that weight loss for ten years and counting.
I’m an internationally-recognized expert in the fields of obesity and weight management. I’ve been featured four times in PEOPLE Half-Their-Size issue, PEOPLE TV, FOX TV, National Public Radio, The Charlotte Observer, among others. My work has been published in The Plain Dealer, Thrive Global, Authority Magazine, and more. My books, Start Where You Are Weight Loss® and Start Where You Are Weight Loss® Playbook, were both a #1 Amazon Bestseller.
My weight-loss program is built on over a decade of looking at weight loss differently.
I help you make peace with food and make peace with yourself so you can become the person you envision yourself to be. I empower you to create a life that you love and a body that feels like home to you.
Let me show you how at: shellijohnson.com
I’m an internationally-recognized expert in the fields of obesity and weight management. I’ve been featured four times in PEOPLE Half-Their-Size issue, PEOPLE TV, FOX TV, National Public Radio, The Charlotte Observer, among others. My work has been published in The Plain Dealer, Thrive Global, Authority Magazine, and more. My books, Start Where You Are Weight Loss® and Start Where You Are Weight Loss® Playbook, were both a #1 Amazon Bestseller.
My weight-loss program is built on over a decade of looking at weight loss differently.
I help you make peace with food and make peace with yourself so you can become the person you envision yourself to be. I empower you to create a life that you love and a body that feels like home to you.
Let me show you how at: shellijohnson.com
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 13, 2026
POV: you’re tired of loud self-help books telling you to “do more” and this one gently says… come walk with me.
Breathtaking isn’t here to fix you. It’s here to slow you down and honestly, that’s the real plot twist.
Shelli Johnson has walked over 35,000 miles and somehow turned all that movement into deep stillness on the page. The writing feels lived-in, thoughtful, and calm, like reading someone’s voice notes after a long solo hike where everything finally makes sense.
This is not a “10 steps to glow up” book. No hustle culture. No fake motivation. Just eight trail-tested lessons that feel more like quiet reminders than advice. It’s reflective, grounding, and lowkey emotional in a way that sneaks up on you.
The nature elements? Elite. The wilderness isn’t background décor, it’s part of the message. In a screen-obsessed world, this book softly reminds you that clarity often shows up when you step outside and listen.
If you’re feeling burnt out, disconnected, or craving a slower kind of healing, Breathtaking might be your next comfort read. Read it slowly. Let it sit. Let it change you gently.
Breathtaking isn’t here to fix you. It’s here to slow you down and honestly, that’s the real plot twist.
Shelli Johnson has walked over 35,000 miles and somehow turned all that movement into deep stillness on the page. The writing feels lived-in, thoughtful, and calm, like reading someone’s voice notes after a long solo hike where everything finally makes sense.
This is not a “10 steps to glow up” book. No hustle culture. No fake motivation. Just eight trail-tested lessons that feel more like quiet reminders than advice. It’s reflective, grounding, and lowkey emotional in a way that sneaks up on you.
The nature elements? Elite. The wilderness isn’t background décor, it’s part of the message. In a screen-obsessed world, this book softly reminds you that clarity often shows up when you step outside and listen.
If you’re feeling burnt out, disconnected, or craving a slower kind of healing, Breathtaking might be your next comfort read. Read it slowly. Let it sit. Let it change you gently.
April 16, 2026
A gentle self-help book that takes the reader into nature to heal. The book follows Johnson on her journey of not only physical but mental health while acting as a friend instead of feeling like you are being helped by an old dusty textbook. I loved the inclusion of exercises and friendly yet stern approach on all of the topics to help one become better than they were the day before.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews