Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening,
everybody, and welcome to the Never Peak Project
Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Ranger, Mindset
Coach Speaker, and the guy who walked across
the entire country with little more than a backpack
and a whole lot of grit. This podcast is about
what it takes to build a life worth remembering
and how to keep climbing even when you feel like
giving up. So if you ever felt like the goals
you care about are just too far away or too big
to start, this episode is for you. What if the
mountain you're trying to climb isn't as overwhelming
as it seems? What if it's not about doing something
massive, but doing something small, consistently
over time? That's what we're diving into today.
How to stay consistent with goals, even when
they feel far away, even when you don't feel
motivated, and even when the results aren't showing
up. I want to take you back to Fort Smith, Arkansas.
I was a few months into my walk across the country,
and honestly, I hadn't been paying as close attention
to the numbers as I should have been. One of
my buddies made an Excel sheet for me. He's an
engineer, so very number, big number guy. And
I was putting in my numbers every single day
of how many miles I walked, how many steps I
took, what time I started and stopped. But I
hadn't been keeping track of the main number.
I had it on a separate page so I wouldn't get
too bogged down in it. So I was logging my miles.
Some days were 20, some 25. There was a couple
tens. There were some highs. There were some
brutal lows. But I just kept walking and logging.
And one day I was doing a site tour of Hopesbridge
Inc., which is a sober living home with one of
my walk friends, Austin Coates. who you might
remember from season one of the podcast. He was
on an earlier episode. That show will be linked
down in the description. But Austin was giving
me a tour and the local news crew was there and
they were asking some of the usual questions
like, why are you doing this? What have you learned?
When are you going to finish? Et cetera, et cetera.
Then they asked me how many miles I'd walked.
I opened up my tracker and I was just past 1
,000 miles. And I stood there a little bit stunned,
not because I didn't believe that I could do
it, but because that number had snuck up on me.
Now, there wasn't a big confetti pop. I didn't
get a reward for walking a thousand miles, but
it was there and it was done. And the other thing
is I hadn't crossed a thousand miles walking
across the country in one day. It wasn't one
massive sprint. It wasn't all at once. It wasn't
some grand gesture. I got there by going one
step at a time. 20 miles here, 30 miles there,
5 to 10 on the rough days. And that's when it
really hit me. Big goals are built from small
repeated actions over time. The mountain is made
of pebbles. So nowadays we live in a culture
that glorifies fast success. You see overnight
successes everywhere on TikTok, Instagram, etc.
How I built this in 16 days, how I made millions
overnight. And I get it. I used to think the
same way. I thought that success just is a thing
that happens. There's like the success fairy
that comes, shows up one day and knocks you over
the head. And after college, I figured that I
would graduate. I'd get my fancy degree. And
right out the gate, get a six -figure job. I
thought that good old Ranger Keelak, after barely
scraping by in college, getting a managerial
economics degree from UC Davis, would walk out
and employers would be banging down my door to
give me over $100 ,000. Now, you might be thinking
to yourself, oh, I know where this is going.
And you may be right. Because what happened instead
is I worked minimum wage. at a pet store for
six months. And it felt like I had failed. Like
I hadn't been living up to my potential, that
this was just another string, another notch in
the bedpost of things gone wrong. But the truth
was, I wasn't behind. I just hadn't learned the
value of actual consistent effort over time.
I was trying to leap over a mountain that could
only be crossed one step at a time. It was like
I was trying to get the outcome without putting
in the inputs and waiting the appropriate amount
of time. Nowadays, when I coach clients who feel
like they're stuck or like they're not doing
enough, I remind them you're not behind. You're
just in the middle. It's easy to compare your
snapshot to someone else's highlight reel without
realizing you're just at different parts of the
movie. It's not about being perfect. It's not
about doing everything. It's about showing up
again and again and again and again. And again.
There's that old homage, that old saying, Rome
wasn't built in a day. And I feel like that is
something that is so cliche now that we forget
about it. But it's true. Let's break it down
to more so instead of an entire ancient city,
just what it looks like today in the real world.
It's writing 200 words a day, not a novel. It's
making the uncomfortable phone call. It's drinking
water instead of another cup of coffee. Calling
myself out there. Saying no to something that
drains you. It's showing up to your coaching
calls. It's asking for help. None of these things
are going to change your life in one day. But
when done consistently, they stack, they build
momentum, and they shape your character and create
the life that you end up living. It's win, win,
win, win, win, win, any way that you possibly
can every single day. And one day, you'll look
up and realize, that you've come a lot further
than you ever thought possible. So to really
wrap up what we've just discussed, today we've
talked about what it really means to stay consistent
with your goals. We've let go of the idea that
success has to come fast. We've reframed big
ideas as connections of small actions. And we
learned that mountains, no matter how tall, are
made of pebbles. So if you're feeling stuck,
overwhelmed, Just remember, you don't need a
giant breakthrough. You just need a repeatable
rhythm. Now, if you're sitting on a dream that
feels far away, a business relationship, a sense
of self, and you're not sure how to move forward,
let's talk. I offer free 15 -minute coaching
calls, no pressure, just a real conversation.
And together, we'll help you identify your mountain,
name your next pebble, and find a way to move
forward. without burning out. If you're interested,
just hit the Calendly link in the show notes
to book your call. And if you want to hear more
about the story in Fort Smith or get inspired
by Austin Coates' own journey of sobriety, check
out our episode together. I'll link that for
you down in the show notes. Now remember that
the best is yet to come as long as you are willing
to make the decision every single day to never
settle, never quit, and never peak. I'll see
you guys in the next one.