Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everybody.
My name is Ranger, and you are listening
to the first episode of the NeverPeak Project podcast.
In this episode, I'll be talking a bit
about my walk across America, my plans now that I finished,
and what will be happening to my social media accounts,
podcasts, and more now that I am no longer
walking across the country.
2024 has been a big year for me.
I proposed to my fiance in January,
I left my comfy government job in February,
and in March, I started my walk across America.
On March 10th, I took my first steps out
of the Atlantic Ocean and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,
mile journey across 10 states, which included South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas,
New Mexico, Arizona, and finally, California.
A question I would get asked every single day,
multiple times even, was why?
Why leave my fiance in California?
Why leave the comfy government job?
Why spend six months putting my body
through such incredible feats and honestly a lot of pain
and a whole lot of other things?
And to briefly answer that, I was
inspired to walk across the country by an artist and singer named Mike
Posner.
He's the guy that took I took a pill on Ibiza, Cooler Than Me,
and a few other hit songs, mostly popular in the early 2010s,
but I'm not actually a medical artist, not really
and really honed in on my own why and reasons for walking.
And my reason for the walk, my walk,
was to highlight, learn from, and work with people
in the US that were truly making a difference
in their communities.
I did that by hosting the Within Range Coaching podcast
where I interviewed entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders
about their organizations, their stories,
and their impact that they're making in the world.
And one of the hashtags and beliefs that I used
and carried with me throughout the entire duration
of the walk was there are good people out there.
And that is a concept that was proven over and over
and over again, in and day out.
It was something that held true whether or not
I was at the beach in South Carolina or California,
whether I was in a big city, a small town,
or in the middle of nowhere.
And that was because throughout the entire journey,
people were consistently offering me their home to rest in,
giving me donations on the side of the road,
or were just willing to share a conversation with me
wherever I happened to be where they were.
And throughout the entire journey,
it took me 175 days, 2,600 miles through the 10 states,
and it eventually came to an end on August 31st
in Los Angeles, California.
The finish line was decorated with friends and family
that had pizza and non-alcoholic beer ready to go.
And after jumping into the water,
I got to pack up all my gear,
pack up some stuff with my mom, with my friends,
with my dad, throw out what wasn't needed anymore,
and eventually get on a plane with my fiancee, Julie,
get on a plane with her and fly to San Francisco,
and really just get ready to start our life together
with our kitten walker.
And we're only a few days out from August 31st,
from the end date,
and it's interesting how quickly things change,
how quick questions that people ask you change
or priorities shift, right?
And what makes me say that is that big question
of why walk has shifted to what now?
Which is a very natural progression of questions to ask,
just as natural as it was for anybody to meet me,
would ask why did I walk or why am I walking?
It's very natural now that I've ended
for people to say, well, what now?
And it's always funny because it feels like
there is an expectation of something else that's big,
something else that's grand or exciting or crazy.
And when Mike finished his walk,
he immediately started training to climb Mount Everest.
And I've seen other people start,
after they finish their walk,
they start making a bus that they can live in
and refurbishing that or these other crazy,
adventurous things.
And to kind of, I don't know,
ruin that question for some people,
like I do not plan on climbing Everest.
I don't plan on living off grid or anything.
This question will be answered in more detail
throughout this podcast,
but I'm not gonna do anything
like walk across the country again.
I'm not going to do something like that,
but I do think that I will be doing a lot of things
that are adjacent or similar in other aspects,
but I'll get more into that later.
And to continue to answer that question,
I wanna give a saying that I have spoken a few times,
even before the walk started,
and that is that the walk will never truly end.
While I may not be physically walking across the country,
I do think that a lot of the key factors
that made the walk what it was for me
will continue to hold true throughout my entire life.
And that's because the way that I designed
the entire walk's purpose was to align heavily
with my life coaching business's mission,
which is to help more people help more people.
And that's why it was so important for me to highlight,
learn from and work with people
that are making a difference throughout our entire country
was because like what better way to learn
about how to help more people
than to talk to people
that are actually out there doing the work, right?
It just made sense to me that if I was going to,
I don't know, walk, talk the talk,
like I needed to quite literally walk the walk.
And to continue answering that question of what now,
briefly, I will be taking all of the information,
lessons and experiences I gained from the walk,
and I'll be packaging it into this podcast,
my school community and coaching programs.
And the reason for that is one of the things
that I heard consistently throughout my walk
while talking to people on the side of the road,
while having those road talks,
is kind of what I called them or road conversations,
or even just in interviews that I had with media
or other, just, this is something
that people said consistently.
And they said that they wish they could do something
like that, I wish I could do something like what you're doing.
And every time I heard that,
it really just brought me back to that moment
that I first saw that Posner was walking across the country,
that I had all of these beliefs
and I described all these meanings to his walk
and how that didn't relate to my life,
how I couldn't do it,
that I wasn't rich and famous enough,
therefore it wasn't in the cards for me,
or that I just didn't have that thing
that it factored needed to get across,
or just all of these other reasons and excuses
that were getting in the way of me taking those first steps.
And again, that was just something that came up so often
that as soon as people heard that I was walking,
they began making those reasons for themselves.
They began doing that same thing that I was doing.
And I just thought that was such an interesting
phenomena that was happening.
It was so natural for us to just immediately find
how we are different from the people
that are doing the things that we wanna do.
And I really truly believe, and I'm a case study for that,
that if we can get past those self-limiting beliefs
and take action towards those wild, crazy, amazing dreams
that we all have, that the world would be such a better place.
And to really make that vision of mine a reality,
I'll be doing a few different things.
And I kinda have them in phases in my head.
I don't think phases is the right word,
because they're all kind of happening at once.
But really that first phase is
what you're listening to right now is this recording.
And that's gonna be that I'm switching
the Within Range Coaching podcast
over to the NeverPeak project.
And really this podcast is dedicated to entrepreneurs,
nonprofit leaders, and anyone committed to lifelong growth.
And I wanna make that very clear
is that this isn't just a business podcast.
This isn't just a client acquisition cost
and profit and loss statements
and all these different things.
That will be a part of it,
because I really truly believe
that entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders
are some of the most influential people in our society.
They're the ones that really make a difference
that can create magic.
They take their ideas, their vision for the world,
and they're able to make it a reality and help people.
And again, that is something that I saw very consistently
throughout my entire journey.
I mean, I have 30 episodes
of the Within Range Coaching podcast.
That is just proven over and over and over again.
I have people from every single state
that I walk through on that podcast.
And all different backgrounds and missions and visions.
And it's just, it's there.
And what I really wanna do with the NeverPeak project
is challenge that traditional,
long overdue to get rid of mentality,
that is what I kinda call the peak mentality.
And that is the idea that there's only one pinnacle
of success in everybody's life.
That everybody has one achievement
or thing that they've accomplished throughout their life
that really defines their entire life.
And the reason for that is because I have so,
I've heard so many people say things like,
I peaked in high school or my best days are behind me,
or just again, during conversations
I've had on the side of the road,
after hearing my age, an older person on the walk
would say something like, well, that's why
you're still young enough to do these things.
My best days are behind me, I could never.
And I really wanna challenge that belief,
the belief that once you do one great thing
or you reach a certain age or a certain level of ability,
that that's it, that that's all you can do.
And I just do not believe that that is true.
Because personally, I really truly believe
that my best days are ahead of me.
And that's the same belief I have for everybody around me.
And again, a lot of the imagery that I use
is around mountain, never peak, within range.
The mountains are such an important thing to me
because that's where I grew up in Northern California.
And the way that I kind of see it in my head
is that life isn't just one singular peak
it's a mountain range.
And there are so many different mountains to climb,
so many different things to do,
so many different sites to see,
that to just get to the top of one mountain
and sit there for the rest of your life,
for me, it just feels like a waste,
that you just stay there and you just never
move towards something different.
I do think that there is a level of,
you need to sit in that moment and celebrate
and acknowledge those accomplishments,
but you learn so much about yourself
and about the world by climbing
whatever mountain you're reaching for,
that it seems, I feel selfish isn't the right word,
it seems wasteful to not use that to get somewhere else
or help somebody else get to the top of theirs.
And that's really what I wanna get across
with the entire never peak.
The entire never peak project podcast,
which is how to build a mountain range of achievements
throughout your life, with each peak representing
a new milestone that you yourself have reached,
created, declared and seen through to the end.
And I'll be doing that by each week,
posting a few different episodes
with the general schedule of Monday, Wednesday and Friday,
and each day is gonna have a different theme
for the most part.
And Mondays are going to be general coaching topics.
It'll be different learnings from the walk,
mindset work, et cetera.
And some of the very first episodes
will be the importance of why,
the frog and the lily pad approach to goal setting.
If you wanna know about the fields, ask the cows,
trust your horse, a lot of animal metaphors
I came up with while I was walking across the country.
And those will be more tactical ways for you
to apply different concepts to your life.
My intention with those is to present a story
from the walk or my life,
the learning or the tool,
really flesh it out during that episode.
And then at the end, try to give you a way
to actionably use it in your life, starting immediately.
I don't want it to just be us talking the entire time,
or you listening and you not doing anything with it.
I feel like a lot of people in the self-improvement space
end up consuming a lot of information,
or not doing a whole lot with that information.
And I wanna do the best that I can
to present that information in a way
that you feel empowered to use it in your life immediately.
And that's why also on Wednesdays,
I'll be going from an alternating week
to a weekly schedule with this one as well.
But Wednesdays will feature industry experts
from multiple different fields.
And the idea is that I'm going to have coaches,
leaders, nonprofit consultants, agency owners,
and just a whole bunch of more people on the show
to share their knowledge and magic with all of you.
I want this to be a way for us
to really pull nuggets out of people
so that you can use them to work in your life.
And it'll be a way for me to network as well
and get my own questions answered.
And I have a few different ways for you to ask
your own questions of these guests as well,
but we'll get to that in just a second.
But then Fridays are going to be kind of a,
you know, a this week in Rangers life.
I'll be talking about, you know, business, personal goals,
a few other things, kind of my own,
what is it, like a web diary, like a,
what is a word, what is the word?
Like a vlog, there we go.
Like a vlog of my life and what I'm up to.
And I think it'll be kind of interesting
because it's gonna kind of go from, you know,
Rangers journey of walking across America
to my journey of starting and running a business in America.
So a little bit of a different kind of walk
with different stakes and different roadblocks
to get past, right?
And, you know, I just moved from Modesto to San Carlos,
so Central Valley to the Bay area of California.
I think that that'll also be an interesting little tidbit
that I have to navigate and get across.
So I hope that my rocky cut scene,
as I will refer to it in the future,
will be interesting to you guys as well.
And really my intention with the Friday episodes
is to do something very similar
that another podcaster named Alex Hormozi does.
So in the game podcast by Alex Hormozi,
in one of his intros, he says that he is trying to build
a billion dollar thing with acquisition.com
and he wishes that Warren Buffett and Musk
kept track of their journeys on their way
to creating billion dollar businesses.
So he is doing that for the rest of us.
And what I kind of wish there was,
was which I think that he kind of does it
like in the very beginning, but not quite for my industry
and for my learnings and what I want to build,
is keep track of my journey.
I want to be able to look back at myself and say,
you know, this is where I started.
These are the things that I've learned.
This is what I've documented.
And I hope that by sharing my struggles,
it inspires somebody else or other people
can share their learnings
and how they got past different things.
And really just be another resource for people
as they build their business
or the life that they've always wanted to live.
And a lot of his podcasts and a lot of his content right now,
he's already a millionaire,
he's already doing his hundred million dollar thing.
I really want to show that journey,
those struggles from the very beginning,
because I'm literally going from zero,
trying to get to one.
And he's at a hundred million,
trying to get to a billion, which is great.
But I want to kind of show that story again,
from zero to one and then one to a hundred thousand,
I feel like is the common number
that people use for business, right?
Everybody wants to make a hundred thousand dollars a year.
And I want to show that journey
and that struggle and those lessons.
So that's what Friday episodes will be dedicated
to is all about me.
And also we talking about weightlifting, running,
rock climbing, all those other fun things that I get to do.
And the other fun thing I'll be doing
is running a school community called
NeverPeak The First Step.
And this is one of the first official communities
for the NeverPeak project,
where listeners of the show can come together
to learn from, network with,
and help others in the community move towards their goals.
I've already uploaded some courses
that will be useful in terms of flushing out your why,
getting past roadblocks and working towards the goals
that you have in your life.
And a lot of it will be, again,
taking the things that we talked about in this podcast
and doing something with it.
And I feel like being able to be in a network
in a community of like-minded individuals
that are all working towards their own goals,
for me has been so impactful.
So I'm creating a community that does just that
for those that are listeners.
And I mentioned this earlier,
but in the community, I'm going to be finding a way
to bring in the guests that we have
on the NeverPeak project,
for you to ask your questions to in a live Zoom setting,
where we can get our individual questions answered,
one to many, one to one.
So that we can, again, continue to NeverPeak.
So if you are interested in getting into that community,
as of recording this right now,
there are 10 free spots left.
And after that, it will switch to a paid community.
So if you wanna get in either free
or at the cheapest it'll be,
head to the link in the show notes and join.
I'll be there.
I'm more than happy to answer any questions you have
before you join, after you join,
while you're in it, whatever,
to make sure that the community is as strong as possible.
I'll also be doing some one-to-one and small group coaching
for those that would like a bit more
individualized attention,
but we'll talk more on that later.
Check out the link in the show notes as well
to answer a few questions there.
And another thing I'll be doing,
especially over the next year,
is writing, a whole lot of writing.
Over the next month or so,
I'll be working on my Walk Across America journal
to get that wrapped up and available for download.
And the journal is going to be a day-to-day account
of my Walk Across America and include things like,
the start and stop points, miles walked,
or the decisions I made, why I made those decisions,
and so much, so much more.
It'll be pretty lengthy.
I think right now it's already at about 100 pages,
and I'm only about 40 or 50 days in
out of 175,
but it will be basically an unabridged account
of the five and a half month journey.
And the reason I want to post the unabridged version
and the unedited day-to-day accounts
is because I wanted to be kind of a way for folks
to read through it or look for the highlights,
look for the things that resonate with them,
and see what lessons others pull out of my journey.
Of course, I'll be looking at everything
through the lens of Ranger,
but I hope that maybe there's a way for other people
to kind of share what their takeaways are with me
and the community as well,
so that we can all learn from each other
and, I don't know, do something else with it.
I think it'll be interesting,
kind of like the idea that everybody has their own meanings
or they pull apart different meanings
from different pieces of art.
All of that will really be in preparation for the book.
The next book, which will be very much a self-help,
life coaching-esque narrative,
will be one that goes over different mental models,
tools, and lessons from my walk across America.
And I think that's also why I want to see
what other people think of my journey first here and there,
is to see what would be the most impactful
and useful for this project.
I'm not sure what I want to name it just yet.
I'm still working through a few title ideas that I have,
but I think that it will be a way for me to really,
I don't know, just put everything together
in a way that can be kind of mass produced
and to say, here, here's the information,
do with it what you will.
And I think that it will take a very similar approach
to the Monday episodes of the podcast,
in that it's going to be, here's the story,
here's the tool, here's the model, here's the lesson,
here's how you can apply it.
If you can't tell, action is very important to me
and those that I serve in this community,
whether it is a one-to-one client, a small group group,
or people in the school community or on the podcast,
I really think that, what is it, what is it?
Ideas without action are worth nothing more
than the brain cells that they occupy.
I hold that to be extremely, extremely true
in everything that I do,
and I want that to be at the center of this community.
But when it comes to that book,
I have no clue when it will be out,
but my first goal is to have a draft done
within a year of my end date.
So by August 31st, 2025,
my goal is to have the first draft done and go from there.
So if you'd like to be updated about that,
it'll be every Friday,
I'll be talking about it here and there.
Yeah, I'm sure a lot of lessons
will be learned in that as well.
But professionally, between the podcast,
school community, coaching, and writing,
that's really all I have planned professionally for now.
I do have a few different side gigs,
I'll be doing that here and there,
but other than that,
my plan is to go into coaching full time,
and I am excited to take all of you on that journey with me.
On the personal side, I have a wedding to plan,
so that'll be fun, ton of workouts to do.
Again, I'll be getting into weightlifting,
running, and climbing.
I have a bunch of friends I wanna hang out with,
family to see, and I'll also talk about that here and there,
but that is a majority of what I have planned.
Oh, I'll be getting my animals soon.
I've talked about this here and there,
but I am super into reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates,
so snakes, lizards, frogs, spiders, mainly tarantulas.
And right now, at the time of recording this podcast,
those are all still with friends and family
in varying locations,
and pretty soon I will be able to see them again,
and I am so excited to have them back
and interact with them,
so I'll be posting about them here pretty soon as well,
and talking about some lessons that I learned
when I was running a reptile rescue
prior to leaving for the walk, so more on that.
Before I jump on any more tangents,
I just wanna thank all of you for tuning in
for the first episode of the Never Peak Project.
I am super excited to see where all of this goes,
and for those of you that have been watching my journey
across the country or joined before that,
during, or right after,
thank you for your time and attention.
I know that those are two of our most valuable resources
and things that we can never really get back,
so thank you for sharing a little bit of that with me.
And I am really excited to see the next adventures
on the horizon have for all of us.
So now that we're at the end of the first episode,
I wanna leave you all with this.
Remember that the best is yet to come,
as long as you are willing to take that first step
and never quit.
I'll see you all in the next episode.