He’s hosted a popular radio show, served as a mentor on American Idol and took home the top prize on Dancing with the Stars, so what could possibly be next for Bobby Bones?

Apparently, it’s taking on daring adventures, all for a TV show.    

He admits about his new venture that he, “hated doing a lot of these actual missions, but there was never a second that I was gonna not do them. But [I believe] I'm supposed to hate them. I believe you don't grow unless you're uncomfortable. I've grown about ten feet tall after [doing] this.”

He’s talking about Breaking Bobby Bones, his new series in which cameras follow him as he crisscrosses the country to meet everyday heroes who have extraordinary jobs, hobbies, and abilities. In every episode Bones gets a crash course in their specialized skills with the goal of revealing each person’s unique life story.

These adventures include working with a stuntwoman, climbing with an Adaptive adventurist who is blind, and literally hanging out in the Grand Canyon with a rope access technician and instructor.

He says, “I come home stressed out. But it is great, I'm really proud of it, and that means a lot coming from me because I'm not really proud of anything I do.”

Bones explains what drew him to do the show, saying, “I wish I could say it was my plan to fail a whole lot and learn as I was failing. But, I mean if I don’t believe in myself, nobody will. It’s taken trials, tribulations. It’s taken me screwing up a lot and learning, but also I think the best thing that I have in my career, in my tool belt, is empathy.”

He points to his past as what pushed him in this direction. “I always felt alone in how I grew up; meaning, I grew up with a mom who was an alcoholic, who died in her 40s. I never had a dad. He left when I was young. I went through so much struggle. I'd gone through all the stuff and I always felt like, why me? And I was resentful of that until I got older and started to realize [that] this is the reason I'm able to go out and share my story.”

He continues, saying, “Well, as I started to not feel alone, I thought there have got to be other people out there that have been through a bunch, come out the other side, and want to help others as well. And that was the root of this idea.”

Being introspective, he surmises, “I think just getting down to the core of it, it's probably just searching for some sort of love. For me that's why I got on stage to do comedy. That's why I was able to get behind a microphone and do radio or even TV now. I didn't have a lot of love growing up and I started to find love in these places. I [also] started to see that I wasn't alone.”  

Now is the perfect time for the show, says Bones, explaining, “I think so many people have been through so much and there just really isn't some outlet to go, ‘Hey, look at all that I've been through.’ Mostly it's like, ‘Hey, let's look flashy on Instagram and show our best of the best,’ but this show isn't about that. It's about the best but it's about, hey, most of us have come through some crap to get here. And we're proud of that crap, it's made us stronger for who we are.”

He says that the show isn’t just scary because of the challenges, that it has humor as well. “This show's funny too, mostly ‘cause I'm an idiot and I'm in extremely uncomfortable situations, and when I get uncomfortable, I crack jokes.”

One of the nutty things Bones, who’s extremely afraid of heights, does, is hanging off the edge of the Grand Canyon. He describes the experience, saying, “I was getting kinda dragged off the edge of the Grand Canyon, [and] I was so scared because you just have a trust a rope, a rope!  And if that rope gives out, that's 4,000 feet you're falling!  So that, to me, was really awful.”

But he says he’s happy he did it. “I've had every day since then to look back and go, ‘Man, I did that? And I can do more.’”

That’s what Breaking Bobby Bones is really about says its star. “It's about being able to be myself, and be awkward and uncomfortable, but also being with people that inspire me and hopefully we, together as a group, can inspire others.”

‘Breaking Bobby Bones’ debuts Monday, May 31st at 10e/p on Nat Geo.