Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening everybody, and welcome to episode three of
the NeverPeak Project Podcast.
I'm your host, Ranger, and today is Monday.
And as I mentioned in the first episode, Mondays are going to be something along the lines
of a mindset Monday, a tool Monday, a mental Monday.
I'm not really sure what I want to call it just yet, but the idea is that I'll be sharing
a story from my life, whether it is from my walk across America, some other aspects of
a learning that I've had or an experience that I went through that taught me something
I think might be valuable to everyone.
So to kind of kick off this episode, every Monday, since I'm going to be doing these
first thing in the morning, I am going to be drinking coffee throughout the episode.
And today I am drinking coffee from my friends over at Cold-Blooded Caffeine Company.
I am still working through my other bags, this one is still sealed, but this is my barrel
age blend from Cold-Blooded Caffeine Company and it is their US ARC specialty bag.
And the cool thing about Cold-Blooded Caffeine Company is that a portion of all their proceeds
go towards wildlife and native habitat restoration projects.
So about 10% of their proceeds go towards the Rainforest Alliance.
And they sponsored me throughout my walk across America.
I'm still drinking them because not only do I align with their mission, but I think they
have some damn good coffee.
So if you guys want to get some coffee, go ahead and head to the link in the show notes
and use the code down there to get 10% off of your order and sit back, relax, grab a
cup of coffee and let's get into today's episode.
So for today's episode, I'm going to be bringing this back about 10 years.
Just over a decade ago, I had my very first paid job in high school.
I was in my junior to senior year.
It was that summer.
The senior advisor called me into her office, me and another guy that was in my class.
And she said that a local ranch needed a couple of people to help out over the summer.
And since we were both at the top of the class, she picked us to take on the role.
And it was at one of the local ranches, one of the local farms, one of the cattle ranchers.
And basically the job was picking up pieces of a barn that had blown down.
So a big rain gust came through and knocked down this over 100 year old barn.
And all we had to do was pick up the pieces, not get stabbed by any of the rusty nails
that were on the ground.
And we would get paid the killer wage of $8 an hour, which for a kid in the middle of
nowhere was pretty fantastic and really helped me with my FFA, supervised agricultural experience
project, which went from being a intern at the local vet clinic to being a salaried ranch
hand.
So during that summer, I ended up being the only one of the two of us that stayed for
the entire duration.
The other guy only lasted, I think he lasted a day.
I think he got through the full shift at least, but it was basically me for the entire summer.
And that was the summer that I discovered how iTunes worked.
So I was able to download my first few albums of songs and listen to them on repeat over
and over and over and over again.
And some of those songs are still on my playlist.
But because of the songs I listened to over and over and over again, and the fact that
I showed up every day for the full summer, Jim and Mary, the Janassis, thought that I
had done such a good job that they invited me back to work there again.
The following year, they said that I would have more responsibilities, fewer splinters,
and they would give me a raise.
So I got through my senior year, called them back up, said, hey, I actually graduated.
I'm good.
Do you guys still need my help?
They said, sure thing.
And brought me back onto the ranch.
One of the very first tasks that I had that summer between driving the swather, loading
up hay, feeding the cows, gardening, raking, doing pretty much anything that they needed
on the ranch, one of those very first jobs was to remove some bull thistle from the fields
where they kept the cattle.
Jim, the head rancher, explained that it was necessary because they each have spikes on
them.
The thistles have little spikes and it'll hurt the cows if they eat them.
It can cause issues with their mouths and stomachs and it's painful for them and expensive
for us.
And typically, the cow's stomach can kind of digest things and they have those dental
pads in their mouth where they can chew things and get things down.
But the risk just wasn't worth the potential issues that could arise.
So he asked me to grab a couple of shovels, some leather gloves, and some old seed sacks.
We jumped into his old pickup truck and made our way down the bumpy drive into the field
right behind their house, the back 40, as some people call it.
Then he outlined the different steps.
First things first, you need to pull the purple flower off of the plants.
That's where the seeds are.
And if they hit the ground and open or they get blown away, it'll just spread the problem
and make it way worse.
And it's just going to be a sea of purple and that'd be a pretty big problem.
So Jim went over with his thick leather gloves, grabbed the flower, pulled it off.
It came off pretty easy.
He threw it in one of the old seed sacks that he had.
Next thing is to dig the plant outs by the roots.
I asked why that was necessary because we'd already removed the flower that had the seeds.
So what was the point in doing this extra step when it'd be faster just to do the seeds?
And he said, yeah, you're right.
The flower is the main concern.
But if we don't dig the plants out by the roots, the thistle could just grow back and
all that work will be for nothing.
Then if it comes back, we haven't actually solved the problem.
And just because you've gotten rid of the part you can see doesn't mean that the problem
is truly gone.
This is about thistle and this is not about thistle.
So Jim took his shovel, drove it into the ground around the thistle, and pulled it out
from the earth.
Finally, Jim added one small personal touch.
After removing the flower and digging out the roots, he said, I like to chop up the
stem with a shovel.
It just makes me feel like it's really done and gone, he said with a laugh.
Jim showed me how to do a few more and took off in his beat up pickup truck, leaving me
with my water, lunch, tools, and seven songs on iTunes for the entire day.
I looked out at the field of seemingly endless acres and purple flowers and got to work.
I went from plant to plant and pulled the flower off, threw it in the sack, stabbed
the earth, and chopped up each plant.
It wasn't easy.
Each flower had barbs that would occasionally poke through those leather gloves that I was
wearing.
They were old.
They didn't really do the job the way I needed to.
I think Jim had the good pair.
The soil around the thistle was pretty rocky in some spots, thus why it wasn't great for
growing a whole lot, but it was great for cattle.
That just really made it difficult to remove from the earth.
Unfortunately, I still ended up getting a couple splinters from the old wooden shovel
that I was using.
Despite not having to pick up the barn anymore, I still had to deal with that aspect.
When I was walking, I passed a field of those purple thistles, I think in Texas, maybe Oklahoma,
Texas, right around the border.
When I saw them, I swear I could still feel the tingle in my hands and fingers.
It lasts.
Once you feel them, and you're doing it all day, every day, we'll get to that in a second,
you can just feel these things.
It just triggers that physical response.
By the end of the day, I was able to look out at this field, purpiless.
All the thistles were gone, the cows looked happy, and I was like, man, I did it.
I saved the cows.
I never have to do this again.
Right when I finished, I gave Jim a call, told him that I was good to go.
He came and picked me up.
He asked me how it went.
I said, good.
I'm pretty sure I got them all, and I threw all of the seven or eight sacks of flowers
into the back of the pickup truck for him to burn later.
It definitely hurt a bit, but I was extremely glad to be done with it.
He said, good.
Tomorrow, I'll take you to one of the other fields so that you can do the same there.
That's when I realized that that wasn't the only field that I was going to be doing.
I said, one of the other fields, I said, as he explained that there were at least seven
or eight other spots that I needed to attend to by the end of the week.
So I got to sit there, slump back, and drive the rest of the way back to the house, hop
in my Jeep, and head home for the day.
Now I'm sure you're probably thinking, Ranger, why are you telling us about your job?
Is this like a weird way to put your resume out there?
Why not just post this on LinkedIn and say you know how to pull a thistle out, right?
And that's because in my experience as a coach, leader, friend, human that walked across the
country, this is a prevalent issue that I've noticed throughout my own life and the lives
of those that I've talked about too.
And it just really stems down to how we deal with problems.
Fixing problems is hard.
It's not easy.
It can hurt.
It can last too long.
And it's not really a fun thing to look something that is bothering you or bugging you straight
in the eye and do something about it.
There's typically a weird action to pain threshold that needs to be met, such as with the cattle
and the thistle, it was worth the pain to remove that thistle rather than deal with
the pain of the repercussions down the road.
And I know it's not a theoretical pain because Jim told me in some excruciating detail about
what has happened to some of the cattle that got affected by the thistle that he hadn't
pulled out before.
So it's really knowing what those consequences of, in this case, potential inaction could
lead to.
So what I'm really getting at here is I want you to think back to a time you've thought,
you know, this is a problem in my life, but it's not that bad.
There's only one thistle in the field of your mind, right?
It's painful, you know, it's kind of bugging me, but it's not, it's important, but maybe
it's not urgent.
And then you kind of ignore it for a while and you come back a few days, months, years,
whatever later, only to realize that that one purple has turned into a entire sea of
purple.
And it's just kind of affecting all these different areas of your life.
Maybe it was an issue with how you manage your money.
And then you realize later on down the road that this issue that you're having in your
financial realm was affecting your relationships, which was affecting your physical health,
affecting your mental health.
And it really just spreads to all these different aspects of your life.
And it's really just gotten to the point that it's so out of control, you don't even know
where to start or how to get rid of the problem.
Or alternatively, it could be a situation in which you solved a problem, but it came
back for some reason.
Like in what the new Star Wars movie, you know, somehow Palpatine returned, like you
didn't get down to the root of the issue.
And it's kind of like with the thistle, right?
If I had only removed the head, the flower, the part that had the seeds, there was a solid
chance that those roots would just pull nutrients from the soil and cause another flower to
bloom.
Thus, repeating the cycle and the circle remains unbroken.
And that's just because you've only removed the part of the problem that you can see,
the part that is visible to yourself or others without getting deeper into the realm and
into the issue that was affecting your life.
And when it comes to how these different aspects affect your life, I've really weaved them
into the entire branding of within range coaching, my coaching practice.
My colors are orange, blue, and purple.
Orange represents purpose, fire, we'll get into that one another time.
The blue represents the process, the mission, what it is that you're actually doing, the
action.
And the purple represents the problems, the issues that arise, the roadblocks that come
into your way.
And there might be a part of you that's thinking, well, why would you in your coaching practice
where you're supposed to help people get past their issues, want to have the problems
so deeply ingrained into the being of your practice?
And the reason for that is because I do think that when it comes to issues or problems you
want to resolve or areas you want to improve on, that purple needs to be at the very forefront
of your mind.
It needs to be constantly in your face reminding you that it is there.
And there's also that aspect of you being brave enough to face it head on.
And it's really just that it's a reminder that yes, these issues are there, but there
aren't something to be ignored or hidden down or turned away from.
And that they're just really meant to be acknowledged.
Because only when you actually acknowledge and face those problems, dig them out by their
roots, get rid of what is actually arising as an issue, can you really move towards having
a clear field and happy cows.
Or in this case, a clear mind and a happy you.
And to really wrap this up, I have three questions for you.
What thistles are you coming up against in your life?
How are they affecting you?
And what will it take for you to take a moment to dig them out by their roots?
And if you have any issues answering those questions, I do want to invite you to jump
on a call with me.
I do free one-to-one coaching calls.
It's kind of like a trial run.
We do one free call and if you want to continue, we can discuss it from that point.
But if there's something in your life that you want to work on digging out, but you can't
quite figure out what tools you need, your shovel may not be the right type, you may
not have the right gloves to do it, you aren't sure how to approach it, I would love to sit
down with you for an hour long conversation and see what we can figure out together.
So if you'd like to take me up on that chance to have a one-on-one call with me, go ahead
and hit the link in the show notes right under book a call with me and we'll set up a time
that works for both of us to sit down and figure out the best way for you to clear up
that field of your mind.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
My email is ranger at within range coaching.com or you can always DM me on my social media,
which again will be down in the show notes as well.
And until next time, remember the best is yet to come as long as you're willing to take
the first step and never quit.
I'll see you next week.