Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening everybody and welcome to episode two of the Never Peak Project Podcast.
My name is Ranger and I will be your host for today's episode and most episodes going forward.
Like I mentioned in the first episode, Fridays are going to be a week update for my entrepreneurial journey.
Kind of like a this week in self-employment.
And I'm going to be talking a little bit about the things that I've learned, what I did this week to move my business forward,
and the roadblocks or things that got in my way and how I overcame them and kind of sharing those learnings from there.
Things that I want to keep in mind and I hope that are valuable to you.
And something that I'm going to be doing for these Friday episodes is since it's the end of the week,
the idea is that now I get to relax a little bit going into the weekend,
even though honestly I will still probably be doing a lot of work on the weekends.
But in order to celebrate getting through another week, I'm going to be drinking a different non-alcoholic beverage every single time.
And this week is going to be the All Out by Athletic Brewing Company.
So we're going to get that ASMR hard crack.
Solid.
Kind of reminds me of a black cold brew coffee.
But anyway, to jump straight into it, this week in self-employment.
One of the main things that I figured out this week is how to podcast a little bit better.
Not perfect, but better than I have been.
Now the podcast that I'm doing is on video and audio,
and that is because I was able to figure out how to use something called, oh my goodness, what is it called?
Not proximity play, it's something else.
Basically, I can use my iPhone as a camera instead of the webcam that I have been using.
So the video quality is much better.
Even just looking over here at the screen.
I don't know, you can actually see things and it's not super blurry or weird or gross.
Yeah, that's one of the things I've been doing this week is setting up my office space.
As some of you may know, I am currently living with my fiance and her parents down in San Carlos, California.
So a lot of new changes this week, especially in the days just past the walk.
I've been setting up what I have been calling my corner office,
which is this small space in between her sister's childhood room, bed and wall.
So yeah, I got her graduating from college stuff behind me.
And yeah, I'm just kind of tucked away over here.
I ended up finding a pretty decent table off of Facebook Marketplace.
It was 20 bucks, not bad, not bad, using a folding outdoor cushion chair right now instead of a fancy office chair.
So we're making the slow upgrades as time goes on.
But something I'm really trying to look for and figure out is a whiteboard
because I think that that would be useful for me when I'm explaining concepts
or making more content for my school community, more on that later.
It will be a little bit better to kind of show those visuals.
So upgrades are in the process.
It's not perfectly where I want to be, but working on getting that one percent better every day.
And with that, one of the things that I learned how to do is make a teleprompter.
So until I get a little bit better at podcasting, I can remember things more.
I'm going to be using this just as a way to stay on track
and not get too lost in the sauce of the things that I'm talking about.
But the format for these can kind of go day by day, picking up where I left off the week before.
So I'm just going to jump straight into it.
So September 2nd, Monday, it was a day after we got back from the walk finale celebration.
I spent most of the putting away clothes, putting everything into her sister's room
and kind of game planning on what my space is going to look like,
where I'm going to work, how it's going to look, where I'm going to put the lights,
where I'm going to put the camera, where I'm going to, you know,
sit down and work for 8 to 12 hours a day while she is at work and even honestly while she is home.
And we ended up deciding on this little space between the wall and the bed.
And honestly, I don't need a ton of room.
So I think it's working out just fine so far.
And I'm able to do what I need to get done since most of the business stuff that I do can be done from a desk.
I just need somewhere where I can sit down and actually work.
And one of the issues that I, one of the issues I have is if I am not in a designated work space,
I have a really hard time focusing.
And that's something that we'll kind of get into later as well.
But what I really wanted to do was find a space where I don't like eat, I don't sleep, I don't, I don't know,
scroll on social media that when I am sitting in the spot, I am working and that is it.
That is something that is important for me to make sure that I am as productive and focused as I can possibly be.
So I'm glad that we're able to make this work.
I spent some of the day measuring out the section between the bed and the wall, looking on Facebook Marketplace,
trying to see what I can figure out.
But the thing with Facebook Marketplace is people, buyers and sellers are extremely flaky.
So I kind of had a hard time nailing a few things down.
And a few weeks ago, I reached out to the San Mateo Chamber of Commerce and I ended up figuring out that they have
something called a business referral network, which is basically just where a bunch of business owners get together.
You know, you hear about each other's business, you learn from each other, you network, get to know each other,
know, like and trust.
And the idea is that you'll be able to kind of send referrals to one another.
So if there's a plumber in there, I'll get to know the plumber, know how his business works,
know, like and trust him.
And when a friend, family or another colleague needs help with their plumbing, I'm able to just kind of shift that information off to them.
And it's just a good way to make friends professionally and also drum up some business.
So when I found out that they had something similar to what I was in Modesto, which was called Gold Star here in San Mateo,
I was like, great, I'm going to do that.
So a few weeks ago, I reached out, talked to the president or the CEO of the chamber.
She connected me with the president of the business referral network, BRN, for the chamber and was able to set up that I can be a guest.
And I talked to them the week or last week and had to be like, oh, hey, like I'm not able to attend this week because I'm still walking across the country.
But I'll be there next week. And I didn't get a response.
So I figured everything was fine. Foreshadowing.
And really, Julie and I just did some errands, went to go run a couple of Amazon returns, saw the new Deadpool movie and went to the gym.
After the movie, she dropped me off at the gym.
I tried to walk in and it was closed.
So thanks, Planet Fitness.
Glad you care about your employees, I guess, but I was looking forward to working out for the first time in six months.
And we went to Target. And while we were in Target, I realized that I didn't have anything that was business appropriate.
So I ended up having to get a pair of khakis.
And, you know, we were there for like 20, 30 minutes trying them on, trying to figure out what size I am now, because for the last six months, all I've really worn were the hiking pants I had for most of the was that southeastern states.
So that when I got to Oklahoma, I got rid of those hiking pants and I ended up just wearing swim trunks and tights, basically tights.
Just call them tights or yoga pants kind of material, spandex, whatever you want to call them.
So I had to buy a pair of khakis. That's fun.
And I already have my within range coaching polo. This bad boy right here made it with a cricket.
This shirt's from Costco. Gotta do what you got to do.
So, went back home, had dinner, checked the location, spent a few minutes ironing the clothes and went to bed.
So September 3 Tuesday, it really felt like that was the first day of being self employed.
I felt a little bit more nervous going into this day than I did even going into a walk. It felt different, you know, just being like, okay, now I need to either do the thing or not.
Not, I guess, you know, very much sink or swim.
So I got up bright and early. What I liked about this club is that it is first thing in the morning and I've learned that if I have a reason to get up early that is external from just wanting to get up early, I will get up early.
Otherwise, I have a super hard time with it.
So got dressed, made coffee in my French press for the first time and went to the beating location.
And what ended up happening was I got to the building where it was in, in a some kind of bank, I think it was like the building attached to the bank.
So a bunch of offices of financial experts and professionals.
And I went inside, couldn't find anybody, nobody was there. So I walked around the first floor for a few minutes.
Like I said, I was 15 minutes early, 1515 or one five. And while I was in there, I sent an email to the guy I had been talking to.
Hey, I'm here. Where exactly do I go?
And I looked at the email and I saw that there was a name of one of the speakers from last week and I went to the directory and I found their office was on the fifth floor.
I was like, OK, I need to go to the fifth floor. Went to the fifth floor, found the office. It was dark and locked. The lights were off and I couldn't get in.
So then I thought it is a day after a holiday. I wonder if they're not having it.
So I ended up calling the guy and he said, oh, hey, Ranger, you know, I was just responding to your email.
We don't meet the Tuesday after Labor Day.
I forgot to tell you, you're not in the group chat or the group email thread.
I was like, I get it. I should have double checked. I understand.
So he ended up saying that when I get back from my trip, I'm going to be on a cruise for the next couple of weeks that then I can come and attend either on Zoom or in person.
So that was kind of like a good first major roadblock in the way is showing up to a meeting that wasn't actually happening.
And I don't know, my first big learning is double check and confirm meeting times and locations over communicate.
Don't make assumptions. Just verify that it's actually happening.
So I kind of continue with the rest of the day. I went to the gym. It was kind of weird being back in and not just doing walking or cardio all day.
Definitely feeling a little bit weaker in the arms and the chest and the back area.
So I'm going to have to start pretty low and low to my standards and my experience and start kind of working my way back up on weight wise.
And Tuesday was kind of a weird day. It wasn't really. I didn't do everything I thought I was going to do.
I didn't do as much as I thought I was going to do. And I wasn't really I didn't know what to do.
I didn't get very much done. So I think that might be the issue there. Right.
So what I end up doing was a little bit of busy work. So I archived a lot of Instagram posts and I had a call with my life coach.
And what I brought to her was that sometimes like I just said I feel like I have a lot that's going on.
I don't know what to do. And it kind of ends up being an almost like an analysis paralysis situation.
And what I told her was it kind of feels like I am Dorothy caught in the tornado atoto.
But instead of a small woman I am a large man and instead of a dog it is a cat named Walker.
So kind of went off on this metaphor for a second and then she asked me well what are your Ruby slippers like what are the things that bring you back out of that craziness back home to be present and focus on where you want to be.
And I just thought that was a great question and it was a really great metaphor to kind of run with.
Like what is my what can I use as my thing that focuses me in and brings me back to center on what it is that I want to do and where it is I want to go.
And I said that it would probably either be my acquisition dot com hat.
So shout out Alex Hermosy or my within range coaching hat because I wore that hat during a majority of my walk across the country.
I just feel like it really does represent where I want to go and what I want to do.
So after kind of talking about that for a second I was like you know like if I'm wearing this hat I can't screw around I can't dilly dally I need to get work done.
And I kind of compared it to the backpack that I wore during the walk because it felt like as soon as I put the backpack on it was game time like I needed to walk I needed to go no matter if my legs hurt if I just didn't feel like walking that day.
Once I got the backpack on the excuses went out the window.
And the was the NLP the neuro linguistic programming term that we use for that is it's an anchor. And it was a really good connection for me being like oh that's a great example of an anchor like I've used that with other clients or with other people in my life.
But it's always so interesting when you kind of reteach yourself certain things. I think that's another good quote from somebody I can't remember who it was I think Alex Hermosy says it but I think he's quoting some
somebody else. And it's that people need to be reminded a lot more than they need to be taught.
So, it's not necessarily about learning new information, it's just about keeping certain information at the top of your mind and finding ways to reintroduce it into your life and put it back in where it needs to go.
And that works for me but hopped off the phone, and I started working on the podcast, I began updating the art, the description made a few posts about it, and I ended up subscribing to an AI platform called Opus clips.
And what does is it chops up long form content and makes a bunch of shorts from it.
And I use the free trial version for a couple of episodes of the within range coaching podcast, specifically for the certified pies episode and the San Diego pepper company episode.
And I liked what it popped out I thought it was good I got good traction and, you know, some good likes and comments and interactions with those.
But the issue is that when you upload those they have the watermark on them, and I don't think the quality is as good as it could be. And I figured that the more content I can kind of divvy up from this longer form stuff, the better.
So I ended up subscribing to it I think they had a pretty solid trial or discount rate going on by paid for a whole year upfront. So hoping that it stays relatively cheap or as good as it was before.
And on this day I also ended up working on some content and courses for my school community never peak the first steps, which is one of the official communities for this podcast and never peak my goal is to help you reach your goals.
And we do this by helping you get clear and where you want to go figure out what the next steps are and hold an atmosphere and community of accountability to where you feel empowered and supported to move towards where you want to be.
So on the school platform in never peak there's a course there's community and there's going to be weekly coaching opportunities, so that you can really figure out the peaks you want to reach and make actual legitimate strides towards those goals.
We believe that you can reach whatever peak you want to reach, as long as you're willing to take that first step.
Also, if you want to check out the community, there's a few free spots left and if they're not free it's going to be the cheapest is ever going to be as we reach certain membership levels, it's going to go up and up and up and price so be sure that you get in as soon as you can
so they can take advantage of whatever price it is currently. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email at ranger at within range coaching.com, or you can just reply straight on this podcast in the comments or DM me on social media.
There's always a place for you to get in contact with me and make sure that this community is actually right for you, and that's pretty much wrapping up Tuesday, September 3, and moving into Wednesday.
This day was a little bit more productive. I woke up went for a walk made Julia nice and breakfast and I took her to work dropped her off came straight home.
My schedule that day was a 30 minute conversation with a reporter from Myrtle Beach, Adriana, as a follow up for my walk across the country, and around 3pm I had a call with one of my clients.
And up until the call with Adriana, I was reading into a few different software is an editing platforms for the podcast because what I've been doing for the most part is using zoom to record the audio and video, and then I sent it off to an editor with a company
that I thought was a little bit better, but they're value. And that was great. It was just getting a little bit expensive for doing the podcast. And I figured that now that I have a little bit more time, I could figure out how to do it on my own.
If I had some good product or system in place in order to actually do the work.
So I did a little bit I messed around a little bit with a platform called Riverside. And once I saw that you can edit specifically based off of the actual transcription from the podcast episode rather than listening to it and then going back and trying to figure out
where you said what you just kind of delete the words and it deletes the video to. I was like, Yep, game over. We're, we're signing up for it.
So like I said, I was using a program called or a business called Bear Value and they were doing one minute per $1 per minute of audio editing, which was great. It was the cheapest I ever found and it was pretty solid overall like the podcast that I was doing was, it sounded good as
good as I was sending it, you know, and getting all the filler words making it sound pretty all right. But when you're doing 30 to 60 minute episodes once a week and since I want to up the amount that I'm creating.
I just felt like it would get expensive very fast kind of go from about 200 bucks a month to nearly 500. And that is just not what I want to be paying for that right now.
So I think this is about 30 bucks a month. And so far so good. I've been really enjoying it is a bit more work on my part, but it is what it is.
If you don't want to do your own editing, I would still recommend going with Bear Value I'll put their information down the show notes, but you know their customer service was always great there were a few times I screwed up on submitting audio files, I would send the wrong ones or, you know, not include
certain things and there are always hey I think you meant to send them the music to or you didn't send in the other person's audio you know they, they were on top of it with me so I really appreciated that.
And I would still be with them if I could afford more from them, and I also wasn't. I still didn't have time to do all the editing myself.
And with Riverside I recorded the first episode of this podcast, spent about 30 to 45 minutes editing it. And I hit something like AI enhance audio, and it sounded pretty decent in the very beginning and it got out some background noise so I was like cool.
We're good so I began downloading it. And once it was done downloading I uploaded it to opus clips, so that I could get some clips from it. And I also started to upload it into my RSS feed for the podcast so that I could blast it on to Spotify, Apple, and every other platform
that people listen to podcasts.
And I didn't get it up into opus clip until around 230. And it was only about 65% done uploading by about three, I think the internet was just a little bit slow at that time, and I was asking it to do a lot all at once so I think that was my fault also.
So the hour clock hit and I got on the call with my clients. And something that came up with their call that has come up with other people and even myself was that whole idea of anchor objects.
And with them, it was specifically the way that they are looking at certain situations is through a lens that is non resourceful and doesn't really work for what they're trying to create.
And that's something that came up with another client about a year ago with me was that the metaphor that we use was you know when she's talking about her business and her goals everything is great.
And it's so exciting and everything's perfect and going wonderful. And then the more she says positive things.
The lower switches to extremely negative. So she would say it's good. It's great. It's wonderful. And it's terrible. I don't know what I'm supposed to do and everything is just so overwhelming and I messed this thing up, and I said, you know, it kind of sounds like out of nowhere like this
filter just goes over what you're saying.
She's like, What do you mean? I'm like, Well, it's almost like you know how when you have glasses on your forehead. And the more you move and the more you talk, they kind of start slowly falling down. And it's not like they slowly go over your eyes.
They kind of slowly go go go and then they drop. And it sounds like that's what's happening for you right now. And that was similar to what I discussed with my client the other day.
And both of them like you know that that makes a lot of sense like I'm like, Well, how do you want to see the world or what do you want to do when you notice that those glasses of negativity kind of fall down over your face.
And for one of them, it was, you know, I just got to take them off and put them in my purse like when I feel that is happening, I'm going to take them off, put it down.
And for the other client, it was carrying around a physical pair of glasses that were, you know, very fun and exciting and very, I don't know, like 80s pop star esque right and it was kind of like that physical reminder that
Hey, if you're falling into those glasses of negativity, try putting these magic ones on and whether or not she physically puts them on or not, it doesn't really matter. But it's just kind of like seeing that thing will bring them back into that space of resourcefulness, curiosity, presence and confidence.
So I thought that that was another interesting little tidbit that perhaps somebody listening to this could use in their life as well. So after the call, I went back to Opus clips and I saw that it was done uploading, which was fantastic.
But the issue was is I didn't hit the button to create and generate the clips. So I had to click that and then wait another 1015 minutes for that to finish processing.
So I didn't really have a whole lot of time between finishing processing and picking up Julie because the call ended around for the clips weren't done until about 415 and I had to get in the car to get Julia around 445.
So, as I was going through them, I started downloading the clips and listening to them, and they sound a little bit choppy. The audio quality wasn't the greatest. So I looked at the Opus clips on a page that showed all the clips, and it said, Oh, you know, lesser quality.
Download an HD. So I figured that that meant for the audio and video. So I kept downloading everything, making the cover photos for Instagram, and I started uploading them to the gram.
And I uploaded one and I listened to it once it was done and the audio was terrible. I could barely understand what I was saying. It was kind of cutting in and out. And I went back to the edited audio file so one stage cooked from the pure raw file.
And I noticed that the audio there was bad. So I thought, dang it, I just wasted, you know, 3030 credits of Opus clips on this bad product, right, it was bad to begin with, and it just continued to stay bad.
But I went back into Riverside and I figured out what the issue was. And that was that I had clicked that AI audio enhancer button, and it said on there that it's still experimental that it might not work and to listen before you download, which I didn't do.
I just downloaded it, assuming that it was fine and went for it.
So, I had to read download it and re upload to Opus clips. And by the time that I had figured that out and started to re upload it, it was time to leave. So I had to jump in the car and go get Julie, it took about 45 minutes to get to where she was going and get back in total about 45 minutes.
And it was during that time that I, when I was waiting for her in the parking lot, found that that Half Moon Bay has a Chamber of Commerce as well. So there's a San Carlos Chamber or the San Mateo County Chamber, and then the Half Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce.
So I was looking at them a little bit and I think I might end up joining both chambers just as a way to get out there and start interacting with more people.
So, I picked up Julie went back home, everything was done uploading, and I was able to click the little button to start generating the new clips.
And when I was sitting there going through it, it reminded me of a book that I had read in college and one of my management classes called The Goal.
And it's by a gentleman named Eli Goldorat.
And it's a really good book about management practices resource allocation, and there's even some good tidbits in there in there about relationships and family and communicating with your partner and your kids so it was really solid overall.
Really, really, really, really good audio book I listened to it a couple times on the walk as a good reminder of things to focus on.
But really the point of the book is the main character Alex is a manager at a production plan for equipment pieces, and the production plan is failing and it's kind of on the chopping block to be shut down.
So his goal is to change the manufacturing system and basically figure out ways to make it more productive in terms of the goal of the company which is to make money.
But it's really just his journey of hitting rock bottom hitting that breakdown and moving towards breakthrough.
And one of them was to put the quality control system before a certain point in the process to prevent bad raw pieces from wasting space in the quantity limited value added portion.
So, basically, instead of saying like here are these raw parts. Here's the furnace, here's quality control. There's a chance for them to send bad parts into the furnace, which waste time, energy, labor resources, and then check the quality which they're
going to be using to get the raw parts out of the furnace. So they were able to find the raw pieces, throw those out, so that when they put those pieces into the furnace, there's a much higher chance that all the pieces that come out the furnace were of the proper high quality that they were trying to create.
So what I had done was put quality control after the furnace. So instead of making sure that I had my video and audio on point before putting it into Opus clips and wasting my time, my credits, and the, I guess, labor and production value of Opus clips.
So I could have just cut out that portion and that second waiting period by making sure that it was good to begin with. So, that's a good learning is really just make sure that quality control is in a place that makes sense, so I don't waste more time.
On our way back home, you know we talked about our days. We had dinner I pitted around the computer for a few hours, and I was able to upload a few reels to Facebook and Instagram so that was exciting.
And I was able to prep for Thursday, today.
So Thursday, I attended my first Toastmasters meeting and about seven years or so, and it was great. Toastmasters is a national or international speaking organization, where people come together to improve their public speaking skills, you know there's evaluations
different types of speeches speech contests and something that I really want to do is get involved in the speaking contest. So, as time goes on. We'll see how that goes.
So the speaker today talked about a few observations he's made in his life, and how those experiences brought a new sense of faith and understanding of his religion and humanity in general.
So it was a nice little, a nice little talk I really enjoyed it he had a really good way to acknowledge the audiences interactions and emotions, while still keeping them invested in the story I think it did a really good way to bring people in with humor,
bring them even further in with emotion, and kind of hold them there with some good captivating stories, so I thought that was really great.
So I went to the gym, picked up a dress for Julie, and came home and started writing this episode.
And today is really just a prep and batch content as much as possible kind of day, because the next couple weeks, I'm going to be on a cruise and I won't really have great internet or work capabilities.
So I'm hoping that these podcasts and these episodes that I'm recording, I'll be able to properly schedule out ahead of time so that we're good to go and there's no issues.
See how that goes.
And my main goal for the cruise work wise is to do a good amount of journaling for the walk across America journal.
I thought that to kind of be the unabridged, this is what happened during my days, weeks, months walking across the country. And currently I'm at day 47 out of 175.
So I still got quite a ways to go. And I'm hoping to make some decent progress or at least some progress, while I am away on vacation.
So with those, I still have a few podcasts to record and clips and emails and other drafts to do. So I'm going to go ahead and hop off now, but thank you for listening to today's episode of the Never Peak project.
Remember that the link to join the Never Peak school community is down in the description and the show notes. And if you'd like to get yourself some athletic brewing company beer, be sure to use code Andrew K20 at checkout for 20% off of your first order.
If you have any questions, feel free to let me know. But remember that the best is yet to come, as long as you're willing to take the first step and keep going.
I'll see you guys next week.