Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening everybody,
and welcome to today's episode
of the NeverPeak Project Podcast.
Once again, my name is Coach Ranger.
I'm a holistic success coach with Within Range Coaching,
and in today's episode, we're gonna be talking about
another little bit of an adventure I had
on my walk across the country,
and more specifically about how,
if you're looking to do something,
you're looking for help, you should look for the cows.
And when I say look for the cows,
I'll explain the story of how this metaphor came to be,
but really what I'm saying is look for the experts.
Look for the people that have truly done the things
that you wanna do, that you need help with,
and seek them out.
So as a little bit of a background,
a little bit of a backstory
leading into my walk across the country,
I made the commitment to walk in July of 2022
after seeing that Mike Posner
walked across the country in 2019,
and Mark Dudek and Andrew Kivett walked around 2021, 2022.
And basically from July 2022 to March 2024,
I was prepping for the walk.
I was saving up money.
I was getting myself in better shape.
I was losing weight, building wealth.
I started running half marathons, 5Ks, 10Ks,
and weightlifting a whole heck of a lot.
And leading up to the walk,
a lot of what I was doing was Google.
I would Google, I straight up asked Google
how to walk across America.
And it pops up all these different articles.
I even have, I found a WikiHow at one point.
And what I noticed about the articles,
the general advice from people
that just kind of wrote these things,
it didn't really make a lot of sense.
There's a lot of very basic concepts
such as wear good shoes.
Okay, obviously.
Be prepared to walk a lot, build up your cardio,
get good supplies, plan your route.
It was just very basic steps that I knew I needed to take.
I knew that I was working on,
but it didn't really offer a whole lot
in terms of specific recommendations for the actual endeavor.
So it kind of left me at a loss.
I even tried chat GPT at one point.
And I think one of the very first things it said to me
was this is something that's dangerous
and you should consult a professional.
And I was just kind of like, well, duh,
that's why I'm trying to Google these things
and ask the internet and a robot.
But as I was saying,
a lot of that information was just difficult.
And what I ended up doing eventually
was I went to a few different stores
and I was asking specific experts
about various aspects, what they thought.
And that started to help a little bit more.
I still got some weird looks.
I still got some recommendations
that I didn't quite agree with knowing what I know now.
But for example, with shoes, I walked into a store.
It was Shields in Sparks, Nevada.
And I walked into the shoe department.
I told the woman that was in the area what I was doing.
She did a couple tests with my feet
and she was able to figure out
which shoes and inserts I needed.
And they ended up working pretty well.
The first pair I got were Keen Hiking Boots
and I think Arc-Terex, Arc-Terex Insoles.
And those worked pretty well.
But then about a month later,
about two or three months before actually starting the walk,
I built up enough courage to actually reach out
to Andrew Kivett and Mark Dudek,
the gentleman that I mentioned before
that had actually walked.
And the difference in conversation that I had with them
compared to people on the internet,
I mean, I went to a few Facebook groups and Reddit threads
and that was miserable.
Zero out of 10, I do not recommend asking for help
for most things on Facebook or Reddit.
It's just kind of like the separation of the screen.
I feel like people don't give the greatest of advice.
I was told at one point that if I'm asking for help,
I shouldn't do it, which I thought was kind of crazy.
But I ended up DMing Mark and eventually he saw the DM,
responded, we set up a phone call.
And as I was saying, that caliber of conversation
with Mark was insanely different.
We were having very specific, you know,
the specific shoes, how we actually slept.
There was, you can just tell when there is experience
involved in the conversation.
There wasn't any guessing, it was more so
he was just telling me what he did and that was fantastic.
Then I had a conversation with Andrew Kivett
and after a couple of weeks, I found another gentleman
named Kenny Mintz that also walked across the country.
And being able to talk to three experts through experience
that actually walked across the country,
that had actually done the thing,
was insanely influential and impactful for me
actually walking across the country.
And I maintained that conversation with Andrew and Mark
in a little group chat throughout the walk.
And I talked to Kenny on the phone a few times.
And I don't know, just having specific recommendations
for things like shoes and carts and gear
just took the load off so much.
And that's kind of the background,
but what really solidified this entire concept for me
was one of the days I was walking through Oklahoma.
It was a little bit warmer that day,
I just passed a field of bull thistle,
which I've kind of talked about the metaphor of thistle
in another episode, which I'll link down the show notes.
But I passed the sign, I saw a billboard up ahead,
probably about a quarter mile.
And what I read from there was,
if you wanna know about the field, ask the cows.
And I just kind of started thinking about it,
there's not a whole lot else to think about
other than not getting hit by cars when you're walking.
And I was like, what do you mean if you wanna know
about the fields you ask the cows?
What does that mean?
And as I got closer and closer,
I realized that the sign had actually said,
if you wanna know about the feed, ask our cows.
And it was a feed billboard ad for cattle.
The idea of, if you wanna know about the fields,
ask the cows really stuck with me.
And it kind of made me think that it wasn't until I asked
the people that were really truly in it,
when it comes to walking across the country,
that I got actual advice,
that I was able to actually do something
with the information that they provided.
Just like I feel like if you were to go to a field of cows,
if you asked a cow about the field,
it could tell you where the best food is,
it could tell you where the best spot to lay down is,
the best place to eat, rest, I don't know, drink,
where to hide, it could tell you everything about the field
because it's in it 24 seven.
Whereas somebody just passing by in their car every day,
they might be able to tell you a few things about it,
but they won't know truly what is going on.
And then it kind of got me thinking,
where's the farmer or the rancher in all of this?
And thinking about knowing,
growers, farmers and ranchers,
they are very much the scientists,
the nutritionist, the expert,
they know every aspect a little bit better than the cows.
But I would almost say for the sake of this,
for this metaphor,
that the cows would know more about the field itself.
So I kind of had to break this down in my head
of who were these different characters
when I was asking for help walking across the country.
If the field itself is the walk, right?
The cows would be people
that had actually walked across the country,
like Mark, Andrew, Kenny, myself,
and a bunch of other people that are doing it right now.
They're the ones that have been in the field,
they've done the work, they know what worked for them,
they know what didn't work,
and they can offer actual, actionable advice.
Whereas the farmer,
that might be the experts for specific aspects of the walk.
Maybe I could go to someone at REI,
which if you know anything about my walk,
you know that REI was basically
one of the biggest reasons why I got through it.
But you go to REI and you tell them what you're doing,
you ask the backpack expert for advice,
you ask the shoe expert for advice.
Just all of these different people
know more about these very, very, very specific aspects.
Using the cow thing sounds funny,
but they've talked to other cows
that have done very cool, amazing things.
These marathon runners, hikers, et cetera, et cetera.
They're very specialized in various aspects,
but not exactly the field itself.
Whereas the passerbys are kind of like those people
in the Facebook groups or on Reddit,
where when I ask for help, they have no experience,
they've never done anything close to it,
but they're still trying to offer their opinion
or their advice based off of nothing more
than just a quick assumption
or their own worldview or beliefs.
And to break it down one more time,
the cows are the people that have actually done it,
that are actually doing it,
that can offer advice from experience
for the specific endeavor.
The farmers are the people that are specialized
in various activities that are related to the field.
And then the bystanders and the passerbys,
those are people that might offer questions
or they might have ideas,
but you've really got to take what they say
with a grain of salt.
And I just saw this consistently throughout the entire walk,
whether it was people on Facebook, on Instagram,
on social media, and I really started
kind of categorizing people in these different categories
based off of the topic that was at play.
But it's just about knowing where people
are at a specific point,
and it's kind of being able to recognize
where you are at a specific point.
Because for me, I think I very much went through
that whole, I don't know, trajectory from passerby,
seeing Mike walk across the country in 2019
and learning about Mark and Andrew
and kind of diving into the whole rabbit hole
that is a through hike through the nation
into a farmer that knew a lot about the information.
I started cultivating my knowledge.
I started learning all the different aspects of it
and seeking out other farmers
that could kind of share their knowledge with me.
And now that I have started, done, and finished the walk,
I'm kind of in that cow category
where I have that experience and I have the knowledge
of how to do this very specific, specialized thing.
And I guess what I wanna kind of get through
in this episode is if you are looking for help
in something specific, if you are looking to learn a skill,
if you're looking to get help
or have somebody on your team that is specialized,
be sure that you look for the cows.
Be sure that you look for the people
that are day in and day out doing the work,
learning everything they can,
and just really have that specialized knowledge
and information.
And I was reading the book,
I'm still reading it right now, I'm in the middle of it,
Rich Dad Poor Dad.
And Robert Kiyosaki, right now,
where I'm at a point in the chapter
where he's talking about building a financial team.
And he's talking about how you should have
a general baseline understanding of how everything works.
And I would say kind of be a farmer in multiple fields.
But what he was saying was that
that's just to have the conversation,
to kind of know what's going on,
to have an educated discussion about the situation at hand.
But he also very much recommends
that you find experts in their field,
the cows in this case,
and you get as many of them around you as you possibly can.
Because when you have multiple cows, multiple experts,
such as a expert real estate agent,
an expert attorney, accountant, bookkeeper,
et cetera, et cetera,
all that does is make your herd stronger.
So that's my, I guess, challenge,
what I'm leaving you guys with today
is what does your herd look like?
Is it a field of skilled, dedicated cows
that are experts in their field?
Or are there some that you need to cull?
That you need to kind of move to a different field,
say, hey, thanks for what you've done here,
but maybe go to farmer John's field for a bit.
Let me know.
And really, with that being said,
let me know what you guys think about this episode.
Let me know if this metaphor makes any sense to you.
Let me know what you think about it.
Ask for clarity,
because I wanna be able to take these concepts
that I've been thinking about since the walk ended
and really rework them as much as I can
for them to make as much sense as possible to more people.
God, I hope that made sense.
But anyway, guys, thank you again
for listening to today's episode
of the Never Peak Project podcast.
Once again, my name is Coach Ranger,
and until next time, remember to have fun,
stay safe, be yourself, and never quit.