Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everybody. Welcome to today's episode of the Never Peak Project Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Ranger. I walked across America in 2024, and now I take all those lessons that I learned on my journey, and I help entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and just high achievers get what they want by getting past their internal and external barriers so that you can create real results
in your life. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking about a very important concept, one of the key... secrets that I use on my walk across America to get from South Carolina, from Myrtle Beach, all the way to Los Angeles over in California. And that simple tool is to pretend that I am a frog in a pond. I know this sounds a little bit silly, but when it comes to different metaphors or ways to kind of break down these big goals, it really works for me. And I hope that this
concept works for you as well. Now, before I really dive into the frog in a pond explanation, I'll give you a little bit of a story of how I came to discover this concept. So it was about six months before I started my walk across the country. I was sitting in the lunch area with one of my coworkers over at the county that I worked in, and she could tell that I was physically, visibly stressed. And she was like, hey, like, what's going on? Like, does it have to do with
your walk? I was like, yeah, dude, like. I've been ready to do this thing for like two years now. We're six months out from my first steps. And I have no idea what I'm going to do for my route. I've tried making different plans. I've tried doing day by days. I've talked to other people that said that there's not even a point in doing that. I just feel super overwhelmed on how I'm going to get from one point to the other. And she was like kind of talking me through
it a little bit. And at one point in our discussion,
I looked at her. uh little what is it the the contigo cup thing the the whatever it's called that a lot of people have and she had a sticker of a frog on it and i said you know what it feels like it feels like i am a little frog and there's this huge pond in front of me and i'm trying to just jump from one side to the other and i have no idea how to make that happen and she kind of just paused for a second and she said well What if you didn't have to do it all in
one leap? What if you found like lily pads to get from one side to the other? And in that moment, I just felt like this like wave of clarity, like these weights off my shoulders. Have you ever felt like that where it's like, oh my God, I just figured this out. We just cracked this case wide open. Well, in that moment, I realized that you don't need to figure out every single step in between where you are and where you want to
be. Sometimes you just need those big waypoints, those lily pads in between to get from one spot to the next. But you do need to be clear on where you're starting and where you're going. Those are really the only pieces that you need. When I was on the walk itself, I was able to figure out what those lily pads for me day by day. When I first started, my lily pads were super close. I was like every single day, I was like, okay, I'm starting here. I'm ending up in this general
area. Where do I need to stop? And then I would plan out the next day and the next day and the next day. But a few weeks in, I was able to start expanding out those lily pads to where they were further and further and further away. Typically, my lily pads were either hotels that I knew I could stay at. Again, I stayed at a lot of Marriott properties during my walk. They were host families that I knew for sure I hadn't nailed down. And
they were the waypoints. So before I even knew I was going to stop in Amarillo, that was one of them. Same thing with Oklahoma City. Same thing with a few other spots throughout the country. But what I did was I had those as the general, this is where I'm trying to land. And then in between, I wouldn't always have, you know, hosts or an understanding of where I was actually going to stay. And I kind of had to put myself in the spot of that frog again, right? Like, okay, there's
this big pond. I'm trying to get from, well, the east side to the west side, Kerploth. But how am I going to get from, like, those lily pads to the next lily pad? Some were close enough that I could just kind of jump and hop from each one. But as I got better at figuring out where the pads were and I got further into the walk, they got further and further away. I kind of thought, OK, well, shoot, like if a frog can't jump from one lily pad to the next, like what
would it do? In that moment, I was like, well, shoot, dude, like it would swim. It would just get in the water and swim. And that was powerful for me because a frog is able to swim very naturally. It's something that just it just works for them. So then I have to figure out, OK, well, what is so natural for me that even when I can't get
from lily pad to lily pad. i can reframe it in a way that i was confident in my abilities and i knew that i was confident in my abilities to just figure things out i had the tools to just sleep on the side of the road if i ever needed to but i also had things like technology i posted a lot on facebook i had the support of the various communities that i was going through i was able to find you know local facebook groups local um you know police stations firefighting houses
etc etc like i had these resources just like a frog has its legs to figure out how i was going to get from pad to pad now this is something that has come up in various coaching clients that i've had pre during and post law but the idea here is when you're striving for a goal you're really trying to get from one spot to another from your current state in your current state to a more ideal situation it can feel super overwhelming like you're that frog that needs
to get to the other side of the pond in one go that's not the case now this is is a method methodology a tool called chunking down you take your big goal and you find the smaller pieces that you need to do in order to make that goal possible For me, it was, OK, instead of looking at it from South Carolina to California, can I look at this from Myrtle Beach to halfway across South Carolina? Can I make this from the Georgia border
to the Alabama border? Can I do a state or two at a time so that it's less overwhelming in the moment? And as I get my sea legs or my walking legs, I can really understand what those next steps and what those next few days or weeks are going to look like. So one of the easiest examples is I want to start a business. Well, that state from being a nine to five or being a W -2 and not having your own business to having a thriving, let's say, $100 ,000 a year company, that's a
huge jump. But if you kind of chunk it down, you say, OK, what is the most important next step? Your MINS, M -I -N -S. Most important next step. I learned this on the BiggerPockets podcast. They're about real estate investing, but the same thing, right? Like, what is that most important next step I need to take? What is that first leap? It's probably figuring out, well, what is the type of business I want to start? Do I want to do service? Do I want to do products?
Then after that, what kind of licensing would I need? Do I need a bank account? Do I need to fill all this paperwork? Those are those first lily pads. And they're very close to each other. Just like my first few days on my walk were very close, you know, instead of being, you know, 100, 120, 250, whatever miles out, it was 10, 15, 20, like pretty close, like day by day. And as time goes on, those lily pads do get further
and further apart. Once you have your business, you know, you have the name, your fictitious business name statement, you know, all these county, state, et cetera, paperwork filled out. The next thing is get your first customer. Then it's get 10 customers on retainer, then this, then marketing and sales. And it feels like these lily pads get further and further and further out as you try to make your way to 100 ,000.
But in that case, from my beliefs and where I stand, the way that you swim in that situation is to show up every day, do something of marketable value while working on your business, whether it is Work on advertising or sales or cold calling or reaching out to your network, showing up to your BNI meetings or different referral networks.
It's just that day -to -day work. And if you can develop those skills of networking, having good conversations, eventually that will lead you to the next lily pad and then the next one and the next one. Same thing with your relationship. Maybe you want to go from single to married. First of all, you need to figure out what you want in a partner. What is important to you? Am I going to get in the dating apps? Am I going to get out in person and try to meet people?
What does that actually look like? But then those lily pads get further and further apart. You know, you find a partner, eventually you get engaged, then you plan the wedding, then you have kids, then you do this. Like those pads get further and further apart, time -wise, distance -wise. But there's soft skills in between, like good communication skills, being able to express what you need, setting boundaries. That is the
swimming. So... Really, the takeaway that I want you to have from today is in order to get where you need to go, the first step is knowing where you are and where you want to go. Be very clear on that vision for yourself. Whether you're starting in South Carolina and you want to get to Los Angeles, be clear on the destination, the waypoint on your map. And then start filling in the lily pads in between. Literally, I got a piece of paper and I drew a pond. And on the right side,
I put start. On the left side, I put end. And then I kind of just started making little dots on the map of where I wanted to go. Same thing with my business. Same thing with my relationship. Do that. Start filling in what those little destination points are for you. On the other side, write down swimming. And then put in those soft skills that need to come naturally to you. The day -to -day activities. Just like walking is something you need to do to get from one lily pad to the
other. What is the smallest, most important next step you need to take in order to make yourself go from the right side of the map to the left side? And if you would like some help and support figuring out what your, you know, what your waypoint is, where you're starting from, where you're going, figuring out what the lily pads are or what that walking in between each step that swimming looks like for you on a day to day basis. I'd be more than happy to support you in that journey.
In the description is a link to my channel to schedule a free 15 -minute consultation in which we'll go over where you are, where you're going, and what you need to do in order to make it a reality. Completely free. Just go ahead and sign up for a time, and I will speak to you then. As always, remember that the best is yet to come as long as you are willing to make the decision to never settle, never quit, and never peak. I'll see you guys in the next one.