Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Never Peak Project Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Ranger, mindset coach, storyteller, and the guy who walked across America with nothing but a backpack and a belief that we're meant to grow, not plateau. This podcast is for purpose -driven achievers who are tired of settling, so if you're building something meaningful in your business, your relationships,
or just in yourself, this space is for you. Today, we're diving into one of the most subtle but dangerous forces that hold us back. It's that quiet inner critic that whispers, but that's not for people like you. Maybe it says things like, you're too old, too late, too average, you don't have what it takes. I mean, you've probably heard it. But here's the thing. That voice, it might sound like you, but it's not you. It's a story, and stories can be rewritten.
So let's talk about what I call the sabotaging voice, where it comes from, how it shows up, and how to finally take your power back. Now, when I first heard about the idea, the concept of somebody walking across America and realized it might be something I want to do, I wasn't met with this extreme panic. I wasn't screaming, right? It was this resistance. It didn't shout. It shrugged. It said things like, eh, that's not really for people like you. Now, I didn't
have a dramatic breakdown, no spiral. I just accepted that inner voice like it was fact. Now, it was easy to do because the person that I had seen that walked across the country had everything that I didn't, all the resources. And that voice reminded me of it constantly. It whispered things to me like, you don't have the money. You'll probably quit. You're not that kind of person. He just has something that you don't. Don't. But here's what made it dangerous. That voice
sounded reasonable. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't putting on a show. It wore logic like an armor. It made me feel like I was wearing a tutu. No, not T -U -T -U. I mean T -O -O dash T -O -O. I was too broke, too normal, too behind. too late, and so many other things. I didn't feel like I was quitting, like I was just quietly shelving the dream, because that voice convinced me it was never mine to begin with. But everything started to change once I realized that voice
may not be correct. I found evidence to the contrary, and that was in the form of the stories of two other guys. Mark Dudek and Andrew Kivett. They were both two guys that walked across the country around 2021 -2022. Now, they weren't ultra marathon athletes. They weren't celebrities like Mike Posner was, the man that I originally had seen that walked across the country. They were just normal dudes. Now, up to this point, I had told myself that I was too normal to do something
like this. And then in that moment, when I finally saw that Mark and Andrew had walked across, and I kind of stalked them on social media a little bit, I did a little bit of internet sleuthing to figure out who they were, and I realized, wait a second. If they can do it, why can't I do it? Now, that question cracked something open in me. That was the moment that I decided to start. Not because I silenced the voice. but because I was tired of letting it dictate and
decide my life. And at that moment, I knew that I was going to step into the Atlantic Ocean, step out of it, and take 5 .5 million more across the entire country to get to the Pacific Ocean. I became the guy that could. I wasn't waiting to be ready anymore. I wasn't... looking for some kind of story or looking for somebody else give me permission, I was doing it. And once I started doing it, each step became evidence that that voice was wrong. I moved not without
the voice, but despite the voice. And the more I moved, the further I got west, the quieter that voice got. Now, here's the truth that I want you to walk away with today. That voice in your head, the one that tells you that you're not good enough, it's not you. It's fear. It's protection. It's protection wrapped in fear, fear wrapped in protection. It's old wiring dressed as your voice. Now, there's a gentleman named Michael Singer who wrote a book called The Untethered
Soul. And in the book, he said, there is a voice in your head, but it is not you. You are just the one. Who hears it? And when I finally understood that, something really clicked for me. I started using what I now call the flashlight of awareness. Whenever that voice pops up and I feel like I'm clouded in darkness and it feels like TV static, it gets so loud and so dark that I don't know which way is left, right, let alone west, south, east, north. It just feels overwhelming. I turn
away from what I want to do. So when I use the flashlight, I ask, what is this really trying to protect me from? Is it the truth or is it just familiar fear? Because here's what I've learned. You don't have to silence the voice to move. You just have to stop believing it. There's an entrepreneur named Alex Hermosi who said something that stuck with me. You only need three things. to succeed. The guts to start, the brain to learn, and the heart to never give
up. That's it. Those are the only things you need. You be willing to start, able to learn, and remember to never give up. You already have all three. So to really wrap this up, there's three main steps that you can take today to start quieting that voice. The very first one is to name the voice. Literally give it a name, personify it, describe what it looks like, what it sounds like. Is it a worried parent, a judgmental boss,
TV static? I've worked with a few clients where they have given me a plethora of different examples of what that voice looks like, and we'll get to that in a second. But the idea behind this is by externalizing the voice, it helps you realize that it is not you. It helps separate it from who you actually are. The second step is to challenge it. Ask, is what it's saying true? Or is it just familiar? What proof is it using? And is that proof even real? The third step is to move away.
Do something, anything really, that contradicts the voice. The greatest thing you can do to quiet the voice is to move. Send the pitch. Make the call. Ask the girl. Speak your truth. You don't have to walk across the country. You just have to walk into the next moment. Don't focus on the end. Focus on what's next. Every single step you take is a rebuttal against the voice. And
every action is a page. and a better story. Now, to really put all this into perspective, I'm going to tell you two stories of different women that I coach. One is a entrepreneur. The other is an estate planning attorney. Now, when it came to the entrepreneur, one of her goals was to start and run her own Etsy shop. She's always wanted to do her own thing. She's always worked for someone else, but this was her opportunity to really take a dive into the world of running
your own business. Just a small creative shop, nothing groundbreaking per se, but for her it meant everything. Now we worked together for about four or five weeks working on the goal of the shop. What was we really going to put in it? What was the purpose behind it? But when it came to hit submit, fear took over. The declaration that she'd made to me between week five and six was I'm going to start the shop. Week six came along. I asked her, how did launch day go? Crickets.
She hadn't pushed the button yet. She had told me that she felt terrified, that it felt like every insecurity in her life came up in that moment before she hit click on that landing page. Now, we dug a little bit deeper, tried to really understand what that fear was coming from. And I walked through the sabotaging voice practice with her. The very first step is to name it, identify it, and personify it as something outside
of yourself. By the end of about the 10 -15 minute conversation that we had at that point, we realized that that voice for her was the evil mother -in -law. It was demanding. It was telling her that she would never be good enough no matter what she did. It had all of these judgments on her that if she didn't get it perfect, if everything wasn't up to snuff and up to code, whatever that means in an Etsy shop, then there was no point
in ever starting. Now that was great because she was able to pull herself out of that conversation and realize that that is not what she wanted to listen to, what not what she wanted to be. I then asked her, who do you want to be? And without skipping a beat, she said, I want to be a horse. Now that kind of took me aback a little bit because I was expecting a person, like a more in line with her sabotaging voice creation, another person, another thing, like
a knight in shining armor or something. But I asked her, why a horse? And she said, because I want to be strong, I want to be free, and I want to just be confident in who I am. And I said, great. How are we going to channel the horse between this and next week when it comes to your Etsy shop? What does the horse version of you want to do? She said, it wants to post the store, it wants to put three items in the shop, and it wants to make a post about it on
Facebook. I said, how will you remind yourself that the horse is there? She said, I have a horse figurine in my closet. I'm going to put it on my desk. I said, fantastic. We'd love an anchor. She did that and come next week. She did the work. The horse version of herself showed up. She was confident. She was ready. She was strong. The three items were up. The posts were on her story. And her storefront was officially launched.
And I thought that that was such a fantastic example of being able to step into a new identity once you realize that your old identity and voice is no longer serving you. Another example with the estate planning attorney. She had just began her own practice. Her name up on the window, up on the suite, got her lease signed, everything else. But she still felt like something was wrong. She still felt like a fraud. She had over two
decades of experience in the field. She learned from the best, went to one of the top universities, graduated damn near near the top of her class. But she still felt like no matter what she did, it was never going to be good enough. Now, we met for a 90 -minute sabotaging voice work session. And during that time, we really honed in on why she is feeling that way. What inside of her is causing her to feel like she's never enough?
And she said that she thought about it a little before the call, looked over the material that I sent her, and she just said, it feels like if everything isn't perfect, there's no point in doing it. And I said, great. Why? We dug a little bit deeper and eventually she said, I think my sabotaging voice is this like blob -like amoeba creature that wears a crown and it's Mr. and Mrs. Perfect. And I said, what do you mean it's Mr. and Mrs.? Because typically it's one
thing or one being. And she said, I feel like it's this amoeba that... On one side, it's Mr. Perfect. And he's very logical. He's very focused on the numbers. And if everything isn't perfect, he doesn't like it. And then if it's something a little bit more creative, the wife turns around and she's there. And Mrs. Perfect says things like, you should be doing more flourish. It should look more like this. It should be this. So it was really hitting the creative and logical side
of her brain. And she said that having that as the... scapegoat, essentially, like as that being that is telling her these things really helped her focus in on what was most important. And really, the most important thing here is to remember that once you name it, and you begin to challenge it, you need to move and start doing something
to the contrary. And what she did was actively start making moves on her business, not just working in the weeds of it, trying to make sure everything was perfect, but doing the work outside of it to actually learn and grow. So I just want to give you those two examples of actual clients that I've worked with and how they've used sabotaging work in their life. So let me ask you this. What's one sentence your inner critic keeps repeating? Is it, I'm too old? That's not for people like
me? I'll never be ready. If you had more money, you'd be able to do what you want to do. Now, I want you to write it down, cross it out, and write the truth next to it, the real truth, not the comfortable lies. And if you want to talk through it with someone who's been there, I got you. Let's hop on a free 15 -minute call, no pitch, no pressure, just a conversation about what your next step could look like and how I can help walk through it with you. That link
is going to be in the show notes. And until next time, remember that the best is yet to come as long as you make the decision every single day to never settle, never quit, and never peak. I'll see you all in the next one.