Forrest Galante Is Still Alive (And Wrote a Book About It)

I get sent a lot of business and motivational memoirs to review. And while I appreciate the incredible effort it takes to sit down at a keyboard hour after hour, day after day, month after month and keep banging away until you type the words "the end," the results can sometimes be...well, to be brutally honest, brutally boring. 

But then every once in a while, a different kind of memoir crosses your path, one that begins with a story of a guy hanging off a cliff while a rattlesnake lunges at his face, and you can't help but turn the page to see what happens next.

Such is the case with Forrest Galante's Still Alive, a memoir tracing the truly wild professional path of this biologist, adventurer and conservationist. Galante is the host of Animal Planet's Extinct or Alive, which finds him scouring the far reaches of the globe in search of animal species long thought to have vanished, and Discovery's Shark Week, where he swam (cageless!) alongside nature's perfect predators.

As adrenaline-pumping and downright terrifying as some of his adventures have been (he has been attacked by more lions and hippos than the average entrepreneur), there is a bigger purpose to the madness. Galante has dedicated his life to bringing attention and much-needed research funding to the preservation and conservation of our planet's ecosystem. His exploits in the wild are equally insane and inspiring.

Galante appeared on a recent episode of Get a Real Job to talk about his exciting book, his dangerous career and the giant egg that was in the background of our Zoom conversation. Hope you enjoy, and thanks as always for listening!