Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening everybody,
and welcome to today's episode
of the NeverPeak Project Podcast.
My name is Coach Ranger.
I walked across America in 2024.
I'm the owner of Within Range Coaching
and the host behind the NeverPeak Project Podcast.
I'm very excited for today's episode.
Today, we're gonna be diving into one of the tactics
that I used to actually walk across the country.
A question that I got before, during, and after the walk
really revolved around how I planned to plan the walk itself.
How was I going to decide where I was going to go?
How did I know what cities and towns to aim for?
How did I deal with the overwhelm of such a huge goal?
It's not something that can be done
in a day or two or three.
It took me five and a half months to get across.
How did I figure out ways to chunk down that huge goal
into manageable steps?
How did I keep myself motivated and stack up wins
and a burden of proof that I was capable
of doing something as crazy as walking across the country?
Well, today I'm going to be talking about the strategy
that I used, which I call a frog in a pond.
Now, the idea for the frog in a pond, how it came to be,
it was about two or three months
before I actually started walking across the country.
I was sitting in the lunchroom of the county office
that I worked in at the time talking to one of my coworkers
and I'd already told her that I was planning
on walking across America.
I told her that I had all these ideas
and that I was feeling pretty overwhelmed
about the whole thing in general.
We were chitter-chattering about it a little bit
and eventually we got to the point
of why I felt so overwhelmed.
It was such a huge goal.
There were so many moving pieces.
I had just never really done something this big
and while we were talking, I noticed that she had
a little cartoon frog sticker on her water bottle.
I said, you know, it just kind of feels like I'm a frog
and I have to jump over this huge pond
to get to the other side.
She said something along the lines of,
do you need to do it all in one jump?
And that just stuck with me for the rest of the day.
When I got home that night, I went straight to my laptop,
I opened up Google Maps and in the starting point,
I put Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
and in the endpoint, I put Los Angeles, California.
I hit route and it showed me an entire route walking
from South Carolina to California.
It said it was something like 2,600 something miles
and again, that feeling of overwhelm came over me.
I just felt just exhausted thinking about it almost, right?
I pulled out a piece of paper, drew a circle on it
for those on video, very simple, just one circle.
Then I drew me on one side that said start
and a flag on the other side that said end.
And being able to see it so simplistically
on that piece of paper, that started even alleviating
a little bit of those negative feelings that I had,
those doubts, that self-critic that was kind of overcoming
what I was thinking about.
And I kind of looked at it and I said, okay,
if I was a frog, how would I get from one side
of the pond to the other?
And I thought, okay, well, if I was a frog,
I would just jump from lily pad to lily pad.
So that's what I drew.
I drew little circles on the pond just like this.
And even just that made me realize, okay,
it doesn't need to be this huge goal all at once.
I can chunk it up into smaller goals.
So then that's exactly what I did on the map.
I went into the map, I looked at the big cities
that I was passing by.
So for South Carolina, it was Columbia,
moving to Atlanta, Georgia, into Alabama, Mississippi,
Arkansas, so Little Rock.
I had some family in Okmogie in Oklahoma,
so that was the next one.
Then Oklahoma City, then Amarillo,
and then a few places in New Mexico, in Arizona,
and to Prescott, and then Joshua Tree
leading into Los Angeles.
So I was able to pick all these major cities,
areas where I had friends or family that had already said
that they'd be willing to help me out.
And just that was able to reduce it
from this 2,600 mile journey to a few hundred miles
at a time, which is still pretty significant.
Then I went back, I was able to add smaller lily pads.
So instead of having only five or six big lily pads,
I then had 12 to 13 sub-lily pads along the way.
What I noticed is that even after adding these lily pads
of smaller sizes or shapes or whatever,
is there was still going to be space in between those pads
that were anywhere from 40, 60 to 200, 300 miles.
I couldn't find anything else between those lily pads
to add places that for sure had hotels or campgrounds.
But what I sat there and pondered for a little bit was,
okay, if I was a frog and I jumped from one lily pad
to the next, and I knew that the space in between
those two lily pads was too far for me to jump at once,
what I would do is swim.
I would get in the water, swim for a few seconds,
get out at the next lily pad.
And being able to think of it that way,
that swimming for a frog,
hopping and swimming are so natural to them,
all I had to do was translate that to myself.
Okay, this is what a frog would do,
but what would a ranger do?
What would I do?
How would I tackle that situation where there's no,
for sure, hotel or campground or host in between the space?
Arkansas was a big one that I was worried about,
especially that east side from the border up to Little Rock.
What I realized is the things that were natural to me
were walking, of course, that was the main thing
I needed to do every day to get through that area.
I could also post on social media.
I could reach out to my friends and family.
I could reach out to non-emergency lines.
Being able to go from that non-resourceful,
overwhelmed state to being able to focus on that space
between those lily pads was insanely impactful
and useful for me.
It was able to take the overwhelm out of it
and put action in its place,
to take that feeling of victimhood
and put empowerment in its place.
Really being able to see it for what it was,
that it wasn't this big, scary, dark spot.
It was just a place I needed to be more resourceful,
where I needed to take action and do more.
Now, you might be thinking,
how am I going to apply this to my business,
my organization, my life?
I think it really just starts with defining where you are
and where you're going.
Just like on the map, I had to put that I was starting
in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,
and I was ending in Los Angeles and California.
You have to know where you are and where you're going.
So let's say you're starting a business
and you're starting at $0.
You don't have any monthly recurring revenue,
you don't have a single customer,
but you're trying to get to the point where you're able to,
let's say, make $100,000 in a year.
I feel like that's the typical number
that entrepreneurs focus on.
You know, the nice six digits.
Just try this.
Right on one side, do the same thing that I did.
But instead of putting a start or stop,
just put zero on one side and put 100,000 on the other.
Super cute, super simple.
Now, when it comes to those lily pads,
what are the most important actions that you need to take
to get from zero to lily pad number one?
In this case, it might be something along the lines
of starting the business, figuring out a name,
figuring out the information.
It's a lot of information gathering at the very beginning,
in my opinion and in my experience.
Then the next lily pad could be get your first customer.
But you realize there's a bigger gap
between having a name for your company
and getting that first customer.
What can you do to bridge that gap?
Maybe offer your services for free for a friend or family
for testimonials and feedback.
Maybe talk to the local paper or media
to get your product in front of people.
Maybe figure out a way for you to advertise
or offer lead magnets or any of these other resources
you can to get customer number one and make your first dollar.
Then what's after that?
Keeping the customer, getting more customers,
developing a referral program for your company.
There's all these different things that you can do
to move you forward and going from one side of the pond
to the other.
And I think really that is the main takeaway
is when you have this huge giant goal in front of you,
when you're trying to climb the mountain,
let's switch from the lily pad to the mountain thing.
If you're at base camp, right?
You're not gonna be able to get from here
to here in just a few steps.
There's thousands in between.
But it's really at the end of the day,
knowing what those waypoints are,
what those checkpoints are
and celebrating them when you get there.
That was something else I wanted to touch on
is every single lily pad that I made it to,
it was just another stack in that burden of proof.
It was another piece of evidence to myself
that I can do the hard thing,
that I can do the thing that I said I was going to,
that I am progressively moving forward
and really just making it happen, right?
It's these small wins on the way to the big win.
Because I think that a lot of humans
can benefit from that gamification,
from adding ways to celebrate their victories,
no matter how small.
Because that first step that I took from Myrtle Beach,
not even out of the water just yet,
but being able to walk in the water and begin walking out,
five and a half million steps away from where I was going,
that was worth celebrating.
That was a moment for me where I was able to
just quickly in my head acknowledge myself
for getting to the starting line.
Then when I made it to Columbia,
I knew that I made it to my first big town.
Then when I made it to the Georgia border,
I still remember making it to my first state line.
I was on the phone with my friend, Bryant,
and it was just such a cool moment to share with someone.
And then making it to my family in Oklahoma
and my friends in Amarillo and beyond and on and on, right?
Every single lily pad that I made it to
was an opportunity for me to celebrate myself
and look back to see what's working and what's not working.
What gear did I need to change?
What tactics did I need to switch up
in order to make it to the next one?
But if I could really just distill this down
into a few steps, I would say that step number one
is being honest with yourself and clearly stating
where you are and where you're going.
The next step is figuring out
what those chunks in between it are,
what those lily pads you need to get to
in order to get to that bigger goal really truly are.
Then it's deciding what those everyday actions
you need to take to get from lily pad to lily pad are.
Just like for me to get from one city to the next,
the smallest item, the smallest action I needed to take
on the daily basis was one more step.
Focus on the next step, the one that I'm taking right now,
and keep moving forward.
Then above that is posts on social media.
Ask for help, have conversation,
and really just develop those meta skills
of communication, of entertainment on social media.
Being able to build on that over time,
again, increased my leverage for every single post
that I made, for every single day that I walked,
every opportunity that I had to make a connection.
Really focusing on the action you're going to take.
Then the next one would be to celebrate and reflect.
Celebrate when you've made it to those points.
There's a friend I have named Marcus,
and he's also a coach.
One of the things that he does is little fiestas.
Whenever he hits a small goal, no matter how small it is,
he'll kind of think to himself, close his eyes and go,
yes, I did it, moving on.
A celebration doesn't need to be this huge,
elaborate party you throw for yourself.
It can be just metaphorically throwing confetti
in your mind and continuing to progress.
Know where you are, where you're going, chunk it down,
figure out the daily actions you need to take,
and celebrate and reflect.
That is the process of being a frog in a pond.
If you'd like to learn more
and meet with me a little bit more on a one-on-one
and a group setting, all of this information
is also in my school community
called Never Peak the First Steps.
This is a community for entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders,
and social impact driven community members
that want to make a difference in the world.
I'm organizing all of my lessons,
my teachings that I got from my walk across the country,
and I'm putting it into this group.
I've also just started doing something just this week,
which is weekly accountability calls.
Every single Wednesday at 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time,
whether or not one person shows up or 50,
I'm going to be on the call in a Zoom room,
making sure that I'm helping you stay accountable
and hold yourself as capable from moving toward your goals.
So if you're interested in adding
a little bit of accountability to your week,
if you're interested in having a more detailed look
at my walk across America and the lessons that I learned,
the ways that you can apply
to your own business, organization, or life,
that is the place that you want to be.
So just head to the link in the show notes,
school.com forward slash never dash peak.
Just SKOL.com forward slash never dash peak.
There's going to be a lot more content posted in there,
a lot more learnings, but I wanted to just say,
thank you guys for listening to today's episode.
If you have any feedback for me
in terms of how the information is presented,
how the visuals kind of help out or don't help,
please let me know.
I want to make sure that I am able to express these lessons
in the clearest way possible so that they are as impactful
and honestly valuable for you as they possibly can be.
So as always, thank you guys for listening
to the Never Peak Project podcast.
And as always, remember to never settle,
never quit, and never peak.
I'll see you guys next week.