This new REI short film might inspire you to run, but it will definitely make you cry
Rob Shaver is a 49-year-old retail worker who recently had a streak of running at least 1 mile every day for three years. He’s also been living with Stage 4 bone and lung cancer for more than 20 years.
Shaver’s commitment to living in spite of illness is chronicled in the short film The Life We Have, which uses his life as a lens through which to examine questions at the heart of the human experience: What gives life meaning when time feels fragile? How do we keep moving forward when suffering feels endless?
Though profoundly sad, the film, directed by Sam Price-Waldman, is also thoughtfully inspiring. We see Shaver on his good days, running and spending time with his brother and mom. We see him on his bad days, at the hospital for chemo, or pulling out his hair at home as a result of his treatments. Smiling on the road. Crying at the kitchen table. It’s a quiet film, built on moments of happiness and hardship.
Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of the project is that it’s produced by REI, and Shaver works at the outdoor retailer’s San Antonio store (as do his mother and brother). Up until now, The Life We Have has been screened only at film festivals, but on February 18 the brand is launching the film on its website and YouTube channel.
Paolo Mottola, VP of brand marketing at REI, says Shaver and his store manager just cold-called him a few years ago. They liked what REI Studios, the brand’s content division, had been doing and thought they had a story to tell.
While REI Studios has done more traditional outdoors action-based work, it’s also produced more narrative-based work like Frybread Face and Me. Executive produced by Taika Waititi, the comedy-drama is about a boy who spends a summer with his grandmother on a Navajo reservation. REI Studios also put out Canary, a documentary feature that follows adventurer and climate scientist Lonnie Thompson.
“We want to tell human stories that people can empathize with and resonate with,” says Mottola. “This story [The Life We Have] isn’t about achievement or accomplishment in the traditional outdoor sense. This is an achievement and an inspiration by someone doing something really, really hard in a hospital bed, or getting out of their own bed to just jog a mile. It’s about that connection to each other and that connection to the outdoors and how we’re better people for that.”
Life worth living
Director Price-Waldman and producers at Wondercamp have been documenting Shaver’s story since mid-2023. Joe Crosby, REI’s director of brand and content marketing, says that based on initial conversations REI Studios wanted to make the film, even if it would be viewed only by the brand’s roughly 15,000 employees.
“That was inspiration enough for us to tell the story,” Crosby says. “As Wonder Camp plugged in, they were embedded, and his health circumstance was changing while they were producing the film. It took on a different life through the production and execution of the film into what you’re seeing now, and it will now see a wider audience than our employee community.”
Over the course of the 25-minute film, Shaver’s illness recedes from and steps into the spotlight, conveying the unpredictability of his everyday life. The role of running, even if it’s just a mile, in affirming his purpose and providing him with joy is clear.
“Everyday, be thankful for your body, be thankful for your mind,” he says.
Over the past year the film has received numerous awards, including Best Short at the AmDocs Film Festival, the Audience Choice Award at the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival, and Best of the Fest at the 5Point Film Festival.
REI challenges
The film lands at a time when REI could use an inspirational story of its own. It’s faced financial declines in the past few years, with sales down 2.4% in 2023 and 6.2% in 2024. In October 2025, the company announced it would be shutting down its Soho store in Manhattan, as well as locations in Boston and Paramus, New Jersey.
CEO Mary Beth Laughton joined REI a year ago to help right the ship that has been rocked by employee unrest over the company’s reported efforts to slow unionization, as well as a damning internal report on racial equity within the company.
Mottola says the brand’s broader film work is not just a marketing effort, but also a way to advocate for the best parts of the company’s internal culture. He sees work like The Life We Have building on REI Studios’ consistency of telling employee stories like 2020’s The Mighty Finn, about Cleveland store manager Ethan Sheets and his 7-year-old son Finn.
“Our role is to build the brand and keep people excited about it, and keep audiences and our members engaged in the brand,” Mottola says.
Evolving studio
As hyped as brand entertainment is these days in marketing circles, REI was in relatively early on establishing an internal division devoted to content and entertainment. Originally launched in 2021, REI Co-Op Studios has projects on Netflix and Hulu, and produces everything from short films to weekly podcasts and an online newsletter.
Mottola says the strategy has shifted based on those early experiences. The brand is being more selective in the long-form projects it chooses to invest in, and is focused on retaining distribution control. “It’s been a huge learning curve for us the last few years,” he says. “But I think we found the partners we like to work with, understand the ecosystem we need to work in, and the time we need to take to get a story from concept to audience.”
This week, the brand is launching a nationwide “Run for Rob” screening tour with regional run clubs and raising funds for local nonprofits including Cancer Support Community. Screening events have already been hosted in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, and the tour continues in Denver on March 1 and additional cities in the coming weeks.
It’s not often (or ever) that brand content can be described as profound, but Shaver’s story and how he’s able to articulate his journey certainly qualifies. It’s a message any viewer—and the brand itself—can take to heart.
“It’s about so much more than running,” Shaver says in the film. “It’s about making a choice every day to live deeply and thoroughly. And with beautiful effort. Not for results. Not for money or fame or lifestyle. But for the richness of being alive.”