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Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening everybody, and welcome to episode three of

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the NeverPeak Project Podcast.

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I'm your host, Ranger, and today is Monday.

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And as I mentioned in the first episode, Mondays are going to be something along the lines

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of a mindset Monday, a tool Monday, a mental Monday.

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I'm not really sure what I want to call it just yet, but the idea is that I'll be sharing

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a story from my life, whether it is from my walk across America, some other aspects of

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a learning that I've had or an experience that I went through that taught me something

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I think might be valuable to everyone.

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So to kind of kick off this episode, every Monday, since I'm going to be doing these

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first thing in the morning, I am going to be drinking coffee throughout the episode.

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And today I am drinking coffee from my friends over at Cold-Blooded Caffeine Company.

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I am still working through my other bags, this one is still sealed, but this is my barrel

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age blend from Cold-Blooded Caffeine Company and it is their US ARC specialty bag.

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And the cool thing about Cold-Blooded Caffeine Company is that a portion of all their proceeds

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go towards wildlife and native habitat restoration projects.

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So about 10% of their proceeds go towards the Rainforest Alliance.

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And they sponsored me throughout my walk across America.

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I'm still drinking them because not only do I align with their mission, but I think they

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have some damn good coffee.

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So if you guys want to get some coffee, go ahead and head to the link in the show notes

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and use the code down there to get 10% off of your order and sit back, relax, grab a

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cup of coffee and let's get into today's episode.

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So for today's episode, I'm going to be bringing this back about 10 years.

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Just over a decade ago, I had my very first paid job in high school.

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I was in my junior to senior year.

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It was that summer.

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The senior advisor called me into her office, me and another guy that was in my class.

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And she said that a local ranch needed a couple of people to help out over the summer.

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And since we were both at the top of the class, she picked us to take on the role.

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And it was at one of the local ranches, one of the local farms, one of the cattle ranchers.

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And basically the job was picking up pieces of a barn that had blown down.

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So a big rain gust came through and knocked down this over 100 year old barn.

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And all we had to do was pick up the pieces, not get stabbed by any of the rusty nails

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that were on the ground.

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And we would get paid the killer wage of $8 an hour, which for a kid in the middle of

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nowhere was pretty fantastic and really helped me with my FFA, supervised agricultural experience

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project, which went from being a intern at the local vet clinic to being a salaried ranch

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hand.

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So during that summer, I ended up being the only one of the two of us that stayed for

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the entire duration.

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The other guy only lasted, I think he lasted a day.

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I think he got through the full shift at least, but it was basically me for the entire summer.

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And that was the summer that I discovered how iTunes worked.

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So I was able to download my first few albums of songs and listen to them on repeat over

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and over and over and over again.

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And some of those songs are still on my playlist.

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But because of the songs I listened to over and over and over again, and the fact that

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I showed up every day for the full summer, Jim and Mary, the Janassis, thought that I

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had done such a good job that they invited me back to work there again.

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The following year, they said that I would have more responsibilities, fewer splinters,

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and they would give me a raise.

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So I got through my senior year, called them back up, said, hey, I actually graduated.

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I'm good.

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Do you guys still need my help?

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They said, sure thing.

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And brought me back onto the ranch.

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One of the very first tasks that I had that summer between driving the swather, loading

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up hay, feeding the cows, gardening, raking, doing pretty much anything that they needed

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on the ranch, one of those very first jobs was to remove some bull thistle from the fields

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where they kept the cattle.

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Jim, the head rancher, explained that it was necessary because they each have spikes on

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them.

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The thistles have little spikes and it'll hurt the cows if they eat them.

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It can cause issues with their mouths and stomachs and it's painful for them and expensive

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for us.

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And typically, the cow's stomach can kind of digest things and they have those dental

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pads in their mouth where they can chew things and get things down.

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But the risk just wasn't worth the potential issues that could arise.

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So he asked me to grab a couple of shovels, some leather gloves, and some old seed sacks.

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We jumped into his old pickup truck and made our way down the bumpy drive into the field

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right behind their house, the back 40, as some people call it.

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Then he outlined the different steps.

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First things first, you need to pull the purple flower off of the plants.

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That's where the seeds are.

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And if they hit the ground and open or they get blown away, it'll just spread the problem

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and make it way worse.

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And it's just going to be a sea of purple and that'd be a pretty big problem.

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So Jim went over with his thick leather gloves, grabbed the flower, pulled it off.

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It came off pretty easy.

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He threw it in one of the old seed sacks that he had.

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Next thing is to dig the plant outs by the roots.

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I asked why that was necessary because we'd already removed the flower that had the seeds.

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So what was the point in doing this extra step when it'd be faster just to do the seeds?

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And he said, yeah, you're right.

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The flower is the main concern.

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But if we don't dig the plants out by the roots, the thistle could just grow back and

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all that work will be for nothing.

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Then if it comes back, we haven't actually solved the problem.

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And just because you've gotten rid of the part you can see doesn't mean that the problem

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is truly gone.

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This is about thistle and this is not about thistle.

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So Jim took his shovel, drove it into the ground around the thistle, and pulled it out

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from the earth.

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Finally, Jim added one small personal touch.

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After removing the flower and digging out the roots, he said, I like to chop up the

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stem with a shovel.

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It just makes me feel like it's really done and gone, he said with a laugh.

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Jim showed me how to do a few more and took off in his beat up pickup truck, leaving me

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with my water, lunch, tools, and seven songs on iTunes for the entire day.

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I looked out at the field of seemingly endless acres and purple flowers and got to work.

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I went from plant to plant and pulled the flower off, threw it in the sack, stabbed

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the earth, and chopped up each plant.

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It wasn't easy.

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Each flower had barbs that would occasionally poke through those leather gloves that I was

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wearing.

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They were old.

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They didn't really do the job the way I needed to.

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I think Jim had the good pair.

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The soil around the thistle was pretty rocky in some spots, thus why it wasn't great for

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growing a whole lot, but it was great for cattle.

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That just really made it difficult to remove from the earth.

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Unfortunately, I still ended up getting a couple splinters from the old wooden shovel

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that I was using.

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Despite not having to pick up the barn anymore, I still had to deal with that aspect.

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When I was walking, I passed a field of those purple thistles, I think in Texas, maybe Oklahoma,

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Texas, right around the border.

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When I saw them, I swear I could still feel the tingle in my hands and fingers.

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It lasts.

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Once you feel them, and you're doing it all day, every day, we'll get to that in a second,

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you can just feel these things.

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It just triggers that physical response.

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By the end of the day, I was able to look out at this field, purpiless.

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All the thistles were gone, the cows looked happy, and I was like, man, I did it.

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I saved the cows.

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I never have to do this again.

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Right when I finished, I gave Jim a call, told him that I was good to go.

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He came and picked me up.

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He asked me how it went.

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I said, good.

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I'm pretty sure I got them all, and I threw all of the seven or eight sacks of flowers

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into the back of the pickup truck for him to burn later.

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It definitely hurt a bit, but I was extremely glad to be done with it.

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He said, good.

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Tomorrow, I'll take you to one of the other fields so that you can do the same there.

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That's when I realized that that wasn't the only field that I was going to be doing.

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I said, one of the other fields, I said, as he explained that there were at least seven

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or eight other spots that I needed to attend to by the end of the week.

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So I got to sit there, slump back, and drive the rest of the way back to the house, hop

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in my Jeep, and head home for the day.

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Now I'm sure you're probably thinking, Ranger, why are you telling us about your job?

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Is this like a weird way to put your resume out there?

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Why not just post this on LinkedIn and say you know how to pull a thistle out, right?

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And that's because in my experience as a coach, leader, friend, human that walked across the

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country, this is a prevalent issue that I've noticed throughout my own life and the lives

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of those that I've talked about too.

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And it just really stems down to how we deal with problems.

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Fixing problems is hard.

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It's not easy.

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It can hurt.

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It can last too long.

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And it's not really a fun thing to look something that is bothering you or bugging you straight

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in the eye and do something about it.

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There's typically a weird action to pain threshold that needs to be met, such as with the cattle

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and the thistle, it was worth the pain to remove that thistle rather than deal with

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the pain of the repercussions down the road.

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And I know it's not a theoretical pain because Jim told me in some excruciating detail about

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what has happened to some of the cattle that got affected by the thistle that he hadn't

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pulled out before.

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So it's really knowing what those consequences of, in this case, potential inaction could

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lead to.

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So what I'm really getting at here is I want you to think back to a time you've thought,

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you know, this is a problem in my life, but it's not that bad.

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There's only one thistle in the field of your mind, right?

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It's painful, you know, it's kind of bugging me, but it's not, it's important, but maybe

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it's not urgent.

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And then you kind of ignore it for a while and you come back a few days, months, years,

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whatever later, only to realize that that one purple has turned into a entire sea of

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purple.

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And it's just kind of affecting all these different areas of your life.

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Maybe it was an issue with how you manage your money.

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And then you realize later on down the road that this issue that you're having in your

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financial realm was affecting your relationships, which was affecting your physical health,

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affecting your mental health.

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And it really just spreads to all these different aspects of your life.

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And it's really just gotten to the point that it's so out of control, you don't even know

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where to start or how to get rid of the problem.

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Or alternatively, it could be a situation in which you solved a problem, but it came

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back for some reason.

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Like in what the new Star Wars movie, you know, somehow Palpatine returned, like you

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didn't get down to the root of the issue.

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And it's kind of like with the thistle, right?

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If I had only removed the head, the flower, the part that had the seeds, there was a solid

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chance that those roots would just pull nutrients from the soil and cause another flower to

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bloom.

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Thus, repeating the cycle and the circle remains unbroken.

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And that's just because you've only removed the part of the problem that you can see,

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the part that is visible to yourself or others without getting deeper into the realm and

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into the issue that was affecting your life.

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And when it comes to how these different aspects affect your life, I've really weaved them

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into the entire branding of within range coaching, my coaching practice.

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My colors are orange, blue, and purple.

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Orange represents purpose, fire, we'll get into that one another time.

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The blue represents the process, the mission, what it is that you're actually doing, the

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action.

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And the purple represents the problems, the issues that arise, the roadblocks that come

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into your way.

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And there might be a part of you that's thinking, well, why would you in your coaching practice

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where you're supposed to help people get past their issues, want to have the problems

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so deeply ingrained into the being of your practice?

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And the reason for that is because I do think that when it comes to issues or problems you

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want to resolve or areas you want to improve on, that purple needs to be at the very forefront

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of your mind.

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It needs to be constantly in your face reminding you that it is there.

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And there's also that aspect of you being brave enough to face it head on.

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And it's really just that it's a reminder that yes, these issues are there, but there

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aren't something to be ignored or hidden down or turned away from.

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And that they're just really meant to be acknowledged.

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Because only when you actually acknowledge and face those problems, dig them out by their

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roots, get rid of what is actually arising as an issue, can you really move towards having

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a clear field and happy cows.

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Or in this case, a clear mind and a happy you.

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And to really wrap this up, I have three questions for you.

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What thistles are you coming up against in your life?

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How are they affecting you?

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And what will it take for you to take a moment to dig them out by their roots?

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And if you have any issues answering those questions, I do want to invite you to jump

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on a call with me.

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I do free one-to-one coaching calls.

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It's kind of like a trial run.

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We do one free call and if you want to continue, we can discuss it from that point.

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But if there's something in your life that you want to work on digging out, but you can't

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quite figure out what tools you need, your shovel may not be the right type, you may

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not have the right gloves to do it, you aren't sure how to approach it, I would love to sit

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down with you for an hour long conversation and see what we can figure out together.

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So if you'd like to take me up on that chance to have a one-on-one call with me, go ahead

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and hit the link in the show notes right under book a call with me and we'll set up a time

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that works for both of us to sit down and figure out the best way for you to clear up

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that field of your mind.

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If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

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My email is ranger at within range coaching.com or you can always DM me on my social media,

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which again will be down in the show notes as well.

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And until next time, remember the best is yet to come as long as you're willing to take

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the first step and never quit.

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I'll see you next week.