Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1194: Expand Your Possible Revisited with Steve Cannon

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Ep. 1194: Expand Your Possible Revisited with Steve Cannon · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.
0:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello everyone and welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast, this is Caleb and today's Revisited episode, Mason interviews Steve Cannon.
0:28
[SPEAKER_02]: The Steve is one of those people who does a little bit of everything.
0:32
[SPEAKER_02]: He runs fat bikes, kayaks, and skis, but he wouldn't necessarily call himself a runner-up biker kayaker or skier.
0:41
[SPEAKER_02]: He would definitely refer to himself as an adventure, though.
0:45
[SPEAKER_02]: and he has spent a large portion of his life doing crazy adventures like running nearly hundred marathons or competing in eight gravel world championships in Nebraska or being the second person to run the 292 miles across his home state of Iowa in just 11 days.
1:08
[SPEAKER_02]: and the list goes on, if anything, Steve's stories will get you pumped for your next adventure.
1:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you enjoyed this episode.
1:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's Mason.
1:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited about this conversation.
1:21
[SPEAKER_03]: We talked a little bit before and I just feel that it's going to be a good conversation, good adventure, a good, honest motivation to live, to live an incredibly authentic live, Steve, not
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Not Stephen Michael can and which makes me snap my neck around because I know I've done something wrong and my mother's after me.
1:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, man.
1:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
1:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, well, I don't think I don't think you've done anything wrong.
1:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe you might be in trouble.
1:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, but.
1:51
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, we were talking a little bit before but I want the listeners to hear where where are you coming from today.
1:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so we ought to give away like a goopack or something if somebody actually knows where cliff dwellers Arizona is.
2:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know where it was until.
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yesterday, and it's not too far from Canab.
2:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know if I'm pronounced in that, right?
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to bone up on all of these things as I'm traveling.
2:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but I think some of your listeners certainly, as you did, you know, the Canab area, and we're excited to, today's really our first day to set out and explore here.
2:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you know from when we were talking just a little earlier, there's no shortage of stuff around here that's gonna blow your mind, and I'm excited to see it.
2:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's a world class area just for adventure for just a quote can have I think that's proud you pronounce that's how I've always pronounced it Good awesome little town man awesome old town and everything around there just so so gorgeous I love it out there and
2:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Sounds like a pretty nice day and you're in your van, but I know this is kind of your most, your bus, rather, you're on your most recent adventure, but I kind of want to draw it all back.
3:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I take it, you didn't grow up in that area.
3:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Where did you grow up and where was home for you coming up?
3:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, man.
3:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You hit the nail on the head there with a lot of explorers
3:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Shackleton or whatever the case and or they have really adventurous parents and they're kind of set on on that path.
3:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I you know this is uh this is so far from where I came from I'm a small town.
3:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a kid maybe it may have had a huge girl spirit lately and went from like
3:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, you know, when I was in high school, they still didn't have their first stoplight yet.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's uh, I'm a I'm a late bloomer.
3:57
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll call it that better late than never.
4:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Meady, a mediaapolis mediaapolis.
4:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never heard of that.
4:04
[SPEAKER_03]: It's literally media polis.
4:07
[SPEAKER_03]: That's it.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
4:09
[SPEAKER_03]: That's exactly how it's anything recognizable.
4:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
4:12
[SPEAKER_03]: There we are.
4:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
4:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
4:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll probably find you'll probably find the first thing they'll pop up is probably girls back.
4:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Askable they were legendary in the in the 70s and 80s, which as a guy playing basketball didn't make me really happy, but that's that's their claim to fame and what they're known from it's a real agricultural area and, you know, it's a it was a great place to grow up but can happen in all that either.
4:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And I want to just, the closest I've been to that area was a cross country by trip this summer with my, by the coming hour for it.
4:49
[SPEAKER_03]: We went through Muscatine, Grand View, and Columbus Junction.
4:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I just ignored the question.
4:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you were, you were in the, yeah, I mean, you were another, I mean, you were within like 20, 30 miles.
5:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We played Columbus Junction in sports in high school, Muscatine's near and dear to my heart.
5:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, man, we'll get into big, small.
5:10
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just words, but one of my first big adventures was a marathon a day, run to raise money for cancer that crossed the state of Iowa 290 miles and 11 days and ended up in Muscatine.
5:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So as you know, there's not a, it's a river town and a bit aged, but it's near and dear to my heart.
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That's for sure.
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we've definitely laid our feet on some of the same dirt, man.
5:36
[SPEAKER_03]: That's too cool.
5:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I always loved it just, you know, at the world so small, it did despite how big it is.
5:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, as soon as you said, I'm like, I got to look up because we, I've kind of been all over Iowa on a bike at least.
5:47
[SPEAKER_03]: So, that's pretty cool.
5:49
[SPEAKER_03]: So, coming from, you know, that small town, small area, not probably not a ton of adventure influences.
5:56
[SPEAKER_03]: What got you into adventure or what was kind of the, yeah, the, the thing that led you into this lifestyle.
6:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I backed into it, man.
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I was one drink away from probably pissing this whole life away.
6:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I made a lot of bad choices late in high school, early college, and then for a few years after that, ended up getting a couple drunk drivings was just completely lost to myself and everybody else ended up in jail for a while.
6:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So what ended up happening was eventually,
6:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this is it you either got to get your head on straight or you're going to, you know, you're going to end up six feet under or you're going to end up in a jail.
6:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So the rest of your life.
6:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the first real big adventure, man was just was just getting my head on straight was just getting sober.
6:49
[SPEAKER_01]: There were no thoughts about adventure or all of that, but fortunately for me once once that happened, you know, doors started to open the universe starts to see where you want to go and and you start to have thoughts.
7:04
[SPEAKER_01]: dreams clear headed of, you know, getting out a little bit.
7:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And the buddy took me to a rock climbing wall and I was city at the University of Iowa.
7:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I fell in love with it.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We started twice a week driving an hour, you know, one way to get to an inside climbing gym that actually had some vertical and some caves.
7:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, we were all in on it, man.
7:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And that led to, you know, at 26, I think, with hardly enough money between
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Eldorado Canyon, so we could be in the place where climbing really happened and reading books about you know, Lyn Hill and all the great climbers and all of that and so that's where it started for me man getting out to Colorado and all of a sudden seeing this different type of lifestyle and meeting people that were, you know, yeah, this is what we do.
7:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, what do you mean this is what you do?
7:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't we, you know,
7:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We figured out money wise, but, you know, we climb.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We adventure, we go to Patagonia, we go here.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just, I mean, my mind was blown to shreds.
8:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, what?
8:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'd never even heard about these kind of things.
8:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And that led to me moving to Colorado for a while, which then, you know, you're hearing about guys and women running up the incline or people doing, you know, 10 mile runs, 30 mile runs.
8:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And apparently there was a seed in me.
8:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe that seeds in everybody, man.
8:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we all at heart.
8:27
[SPEAKER_01]: want to adventure.
8:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to get out.
8:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to see what we're capable of.
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But that sequence of events led me to where I am now, which, I mean, so many things between that moment and this moment that I would have maybe not even thought I wanted.
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, that's how it started.
8:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it's been full gas ever since because you realize you get a late start, even with an
8:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube and steal as much time as much as I can now.
9:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you feel like you got a late start because of just making the poor choices and kind of reversing that?
9:09
[SPEAKER_03]: You said you were back into this.
9:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you mind asking how late it was for you to get started in this world?
9:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so, you know, I guess to really back it all the way up, there's
9:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some early influences that you don't really pay.
9:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to.
9:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I had an uncle, you know, when I was 14 years old, take me to Silver Dollar City.
9:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think really, my stepdad, I owe a lot to, he took me out hunting, introduced me to the outdoors, which eventually became a really big part of my life later in there.
9:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So, probably planned the seeds there.
9:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But that first moved to Colorado.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in my late 20s.
9:52
[SPEAKER_03]: It's awesome.
9:53
[SPEAKER_03]: That ain't too late of a starman.
9:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I was thinking you were like 40 or something when all this was happening.
9:57
[SPEAKER_03]: So you went out there, you experienced all this.
10:02
[SPEAKER_03]: You saw these people living so radically different than what you knew in Iowa.
10:08
[SPEAKER_03]: What then began to change in you?
10:10
[SPEAKER_03]: What sort of things were on your list of, I want to accomplish this or I want to do this?
10:18
[SPEAKER_03]: How did your adventure life grow from there?
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: The rock climbing thing was just such a big part of my life.
10:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, I was just bouldering and climbing and bouldering and climbing in it.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, after a few months, I'm just like, having a little bit of conversation would be nice.
10:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the boulders are good listeners, but they don't talk much.
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, and so, everybody ran and I had run.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: ran from the cops maybe 10 years before, you know, but, but everybody ran.
10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, okay, you know, maybe I could meet some, maybe I could meet some chicks by going and doing a 5k.
11:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean that disrespectful meeting, some ladies meeting some females, you know, but that was just my mindset that, you know, it's conversation.
11:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So I ran a 5k on St. Patty's Day in Manitou Springs in Colorado.
11:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got to tell you, man, if it hadn't been
11:21
[SPEAKER_01]: for the fact that there were people along the course, you know, and I couldn't have quit without, you know, being made.
11:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'd mild too.
11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have been like, girls be damned.
11:31
[SPEAKER_01]: This sucks.
11:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I want out.
11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: This feels horrible.
11:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But, but I couldn't, you know, my, my pride and ego, whatever you want to say was like, you know, dude, you got to get to the finish line.
11:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, then, you know, we'll, we'll check this off the box, call it a bad experiment and we'll never do it again.
11:51
[SPEAKER_01]: As the runners that might be listening can relate, you know, 20 minutes or 30 minutes after getting done and swearing on everything holy I've never run again.
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I'm feeling a little weird like I'm feeling a little happy here little you for you here like what's going on and so you know that's my first introduction to the runners high so that's that's how it started.
12:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And that continued, that opened up the box, you know, a few more five keys for just, and giggles, and then, and then I had this thought, like, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wonder what it'd be like to do a 10K.
12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's how it started.
12:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, fast forwarding and maybe we'll get into it, maybe we won't, you know, eventually doing these marathons across Iowa and stacking up 40 of them around Lake Michigan.
12:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you would have told me that at that time,
12:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That sounds horrible too, I don't even, I mean, that's a moonshot, that might as well be Mars.
12:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not interested, but as you know, leading an adventurous life and those people listen into us, that's how it happens.
12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We aspire to become the best version of ourselves and that may be, for me, it was taking one step out of jail and deciding I wanted to get sober and that leads to the next goal
13:15
[SPEAKER_01]: try 10k and then maybe we'll try the 10 mile or in garden of the gods and each became more inspiring and each gave me an opportunity to see more of what I could be.
13:27
[SPEAKER_03]: starts with one goal, you know, getting sober and Iowa, or wherever you were at the time, and you don't realize just focusing on those next steps where they can lead when you're one, wholly focused on that step, too, you know, keeping your eyes open for opportunity, just the turns and twist your life and make it incredible.
13:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And so far, you know, speaking of that,
13:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I was told about your I did a rod trail invitational in 2018 your your bike packing kind of ultra bike packing race and that's what I was looking into and so far you've only mentioned climbing and running so it sounds like there's even more steps in between the introduced you to to the cycling events can you explain where you know all right you were doing these five caves which sucked apparently the first one
14:16
[SPEAKER_03]: that I wrote it to like a 10k and something else, when did it lead to these just bonker ideas of doing something huge?
14:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And we haven't even talked a little bit about that.
14:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Those enormous adventures that you're known for now, how did it grow into those?
14:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it just that same kind of just next thing, next thing?
14:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me make it bigger and better the next time?
14:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's exactly that.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And you hit it on the head, Mason.
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the beauty of it now, and when I'm fortunate to be asked to speak with a small group large group, whatever the case may be, or in a situation like this, you know, I really tried to do everything I can to just, you know, the huge card can be so debilitating.
15:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I can remember early on running five k's and things like that thinking, you know, having these mental situations where I'm like,
15:11
[SPEAKER_01]: man, these people are running five minute miles.
15:13
[SPEAKER_01]: These people are running seven minute miles.
15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: These people are running nine minute miles.
15:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I even a runner?
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it took me 31 minutes to run my first five K. And so there can be, you know, you think, well, it's not worth getting off the callative.
15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to do something air quotes big.
15:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And to your point, there's such huge value in taking on your own big.
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And for some people, that's the idea to run.
15:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, nobody started off climbing K2.
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that person started off climbing a little dirt hill and they're background or whatever the case may be.
15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that recognition that it all starts with one step and then another step and then another step and then you realize the goal, you sit back, you save for the goal, give yourself some time to enjoy what you've accomplished.
16:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And then sometimes you just sit there, you know, and you let the next adventure come to you,
16:10
[SPEAKER_01]: in a lot of mind, but running led to a marathon, which for a marathon for me, that was the first real big thing where I felt like in crossing that finish line in five some hours.
16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: When I can remember doing my first half marathon and looking back and going, you know, if you offered me a million bucks, I wouldn't turn around.
16:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't turn around and you
16:37
[SPEAKER_01]: even tried to go back to the start line, it was just such a bridge so far.
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So to finish that first marathon was this opportunity to look back and it was the first real empowering opportunity where I thought, you know what, if I set my mind to it, if anybody sets their mind to it, we can accomplish anything that we set our mind to.
16:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was the first thing, but cycling
17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: got the idea to try and do multiple marathons and that led to the universe put me in a place where I was listening to a guy that had run all over the world and he was the first person to run across Iowa and I sat there and I thought, man, I wonder if I could do that.
17:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and after running one marathon and a couple others after that to think about stacking them was just such a stretch and I was just terrified of it.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But at that time, Lance Armstrong was kicking
17:36
[SPEAKER_01]: He was doing all of this stuff with Livestrong and I thought, maybe I could do something that would grow me personally, grow me from an adventurous standpoint and I could do some good for others.
17:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that ended up really becoming the thing that has continued to this day.
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We've raised about $750,000 for cancer charities, but it all started with that first run
18:06
[SPEAKER_01]: which got me into cycling and following the tour.
18:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, at that point, Mason, I didn't even know there was a bike race across Alaska.
18:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, you're in the moment, you're just tackling one thing at a time, but when you finish it, as you know, as the people listen, they know, it doesn't work as human beings, you don't go backwards, you don't, you don't do something that grows you and then get inspired to do something that's easier than that.
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's,
18:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, as best I can describe that's that's how eventually you know the run across I was I guess what I would call the first really big bite, but each step along the way is a big bite right you just keep growing you keep you keep striving and and see just what you might actually be able to be come.
18:55
[SPEAKER_03]: What I'm struck by is you're talking about these steps that feel so far away from the next one.
19:05
[SPEAKER_03]: You're talking about a 5K and I know that we're not, we're, we're not, we're someone of your caliber has done so much.
19:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I do apologize to everyone that who is, who is, uh,
19:15
[SPEAKER_03]: kind of eight year level who've done so many events we really don't have a focus on one for the episode because it's like how do you even choose it's it's you're done a million things but i'm struck by like got a five k was so difficult and then a marathon is such a crazy challenge and then turning that into well that sucks so bad let's do it eleven times in a row then forty times in a row and then it's like
19:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, where is that, how do you jump so far each time to where it's like, you know, you probably feel at some point like, where is my limit?
19:49
[SPEAKER_03]: What is my limit?
19:50
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you how do you start to process that next huge jump and going from doing something one time to doing it multiple times in a in a short amount of time?
20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm outside here, as you know where I am, there's like one car an hour and it just happens to come all we're chatting.
20:12
[SPEAKER_03]: But we'll get calls from all over the world, man.
20:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's where, here's where the switch happened for me, which was the sixth day running across Iowa.
20:27
[SPEAKER_01]: About halfway through the day, I just started balling.
20:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, sobbing.
20:36
[SPEAKER_01]: to this day.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
20:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why.
20:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I think I had just taken myself to a physical level to where there were personal things from a kid growing up in a broken home or just all of the things I had done as a drunken high school and college that I just covered up forever.
21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'd gotten to a level where I just peeled enough layers off of the onion where some
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: and afterwards there was just this incredible piece that came over me and for the next five days until I hit Muscatine, I just access this quiet place, this place where the mind just let's go where things get incredibly quiet, there's no emails, there's no phone calls and
21:34
[SPEAKER_01]: There was just this connection to whatever you want to call it.
21:37
[SPEAKER_01]: God, a source.
21:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I think pretty much anybody that you speak to that does these things where they get away for a long time.
21:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And even in a very, very small amounts, somewhere in that first 5K, you're going to find just a little bit of a rhythm.
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you go to these 10Ks and further and further,
22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: is you access that space in these larger, longer adventures where you connect to something that is more and more in this world that is so dominated by emails and text messages and Facebook and just everything that we're bombarded with all of this instant gratification that is so very fleeting.
22:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And so now it's become this incredibly selfish pursuit of finding out
22:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And the longer I stay out, the more quiet I get and the more that I have to face that person.
22:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more that really on a solar, probably making up a word there, on a solar-learn level where you really kind of become one with everything.
22:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's so the bigger the journey,
23:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, running around Lake Michigan, same kind of thing.
23:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, man, I wonder when the breakdown's coming.
23:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And when it comes, you know, you just maybe not break down.
23:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's more break through.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you just have to hold on for everything that you're worth.
23:17
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know on the other side, there's some really juicy stuff there.
23:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what keeps you going on all these adventures just trying the next thing and doing the next one is what it sounds like it is it is to the point where it's the greatest meditation those kind of things are a huge part of my life it and different teachers and things like that I was always struck by one of.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: a guy that I follow guy named Sudguru and he doesn't, he said, said at one point, I don't do yoga, I am yoga and yoga can, it's very best mean, union and so the challenge is now, can you take that piece and that tranquility amongst the incredibly taxing physical side and can you bring it back?
24:12
[SPEAKER_01]: can you bring it back into this world so you can still function and talk to people like this or in the business situation and still keep that focus and that peace and that love for all things and that connectivity and so really it's these events become the absolute perfect laboratory.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You become your own guinea pig.
24:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I love it.
24:40
[SPEAKER_03]: So out of all the things you've done, everything from ragbries to gravel riding to running across states, cycling across Alaska, and it's just, you know, kayak adventures, world-longest kayak race, is there any adventure to you that really sticks out as maybe something pivotal or something that comes at the front of your mind when you think about the most impact it's had on you, and also why.
25:08
[SPEAKER_01]: The greatest adventure of my life was sobriety.
25:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the scariest thing I've ever done.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to at least from my experience, if you're going to do it and you're really in it, you're really in deep and you've lost control of the situation, you have to buy into a hundred percent, which we could go on forever about 12 steps and all of those kind of things.
25:38
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, it, everything was on the line, you know, if I don't, if I don't make it to the finish of the I did rod, am I going to be really disappointed?
25:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I backed out of it last year, safety concerns, moves, all kinds of things, terribly disappointing, crushing to back out of it.
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But if I don't get it right when I got myself to the place I got to, I mean, I'm going to pay the ultimate price.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to kill somebody else.
26:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to end up in a jail cell.
26:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But beyond that,
26:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It taught me the value of one step and what that allows us to accomplish.
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're here and not far from the Grand Canyon.
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, is there any place in the whole world that's more a perfect example of one step?
26:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, one drop of water, one drop of water, one drop of water.
26:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Over a long enough time, you create one of the greatest natural things.
26:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So, sobriety was, was that thing that taught me really at the end of it, no matter what the challenge.
26:42
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can focus on one step, the necessary at this particular moment, keep your mind out of the way, because it's going to try to jump to step five, step 20, can remember running around like Michigan.
26:57
[SPEAKER_01]: After we put a few things in place, making sure we had a vehicle, making sure we had a cook, making sure we had a very few basic things.
27:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Then not choke the adventure, which at the same time allowed your mind to not have any ammo to try and screw you out of the deal by just paralyzing you like what you got to do this you got to do this what about this what if you don't do this what if you don't do this and so if you can if you can focus on step one same thing like with Lake Michigan we're like really the only rule is we're not talking about day 40 until it's day 40 you talk about mile 26 when you're at mile one of the marathon you might just implode so.
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: The value of one step was the biggest thing.
27:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, sobriety was the biggest adventure because everything was on the line.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But as you know, man, I mean, we were talking before you did a bike trip across the entire country and I'm sure a lot more amazing things beyond that.
27:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You can really trip yourself up and planning these kind of things if you get crazy into the preparation and the planning and I mean, we've all done it.
28:03
[SPEAKER_01]: focused on so much planning that eventually it loses all its momentum and we don't even try.
28:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
28:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Just it's just too big, you know, too big.
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's just and and that can be again, you know, I haven't done anything for five years.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't even imagine going out and walking a mile around the block.
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that even that perfect example right there, you can take the lessons there where you're like, look, I'm not going to walk.
28:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to walk
28:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So you complete that and now you're at step two and you say, you know what, I'm still not going to go walk a mile, but I am going to put my shoes on and I am going to lay some up and now we're going to go to step three and I'm still not going to, I'm still not going to do it, I'm disarming my mind every way, but the value of one step and completing that and just focusing on that now I'm out the door now I might as well walk to the end of the block right and those lessons learned you can take that very example right there.
29:03
[SPEAKER_01]: and you can take it all the way a thousand miles from Anchorage to know.
29:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Dang, that is freaking awesome.
29:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are the building blocks of it.
29:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are the legos that you have built all this with.
29:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
29:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And it works, it works for every single situation.
29:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even to the point, you know, I use it.
29:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I use it and I use it in everything that I do even when I, you know, even when the alarm goes off at 345 in the morning, it's time to do my morning meditation.
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, okay, I'm not actually, I'm not actually going to do it, but I am, I am going to get out of bed, you know, and, and then I just then I just piece it together and then you're, you know, before you know it's you're on the mat and you're like, well, you know what, I'll start and it'll work in every, it's undefeated.
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, but it's the mind's a tricky thing.
29:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And it wants to jump to step 27 and and step 24 and step 14 and you know, I'm sure somewhere in there, the mind means well and it just tries to keep us safe.
30:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, if when you just go to one step, then the mind's the mind's rendered impotent.
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It can't stop you because what danger is there and just getting off the couch.
30:22
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Steve, I'd love to ask you specifically about the I did it right if you don't mind.
30:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You were, you were the first island to complete the thousand mile I did a rod trail invitational.
30:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you explain to people what is so difficult about that and why that's so, why that's so maybe not, you might, you know, be humble about it.
30:48
[SPEAKER_03]: But why that, why that is such a
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, one of the things that endeared me to it was, and no disrespect to Everest or anybody that has ever done it because it's a huge feat.
31:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But using that as an example, and there's other events that are the same.
31:10
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've got the checkbook, you can hire your way into Everest to where you can at least take a shot at, right?
31:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't mean you're gonna get there, but you can take a shot at it.
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that I love about the I did or I trail invitation was it's a, it's a three or four cook year commitment to just get to the finish line.
31:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to do multiple 100 mile races in the lower 48 which there's some phenomenal ones to arrowhead 135.
31:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Jay Petterberry does a thing called the fat pursuit up in the mountains of Idaho and West Yellowstone that's a 200 mile or absolutely brutal.
31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: one in Wisconsin called Descobia, but you have to complete these just to get to the many I did or I'd trail invitational, if you will, which is the first 350 miles of the trail, which goes from Anchorage to McGrath.
32:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, and to get into any of those hundred miles, you've had to have to, you have to, you know, ride a nice little letter that pleads your
32:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I've done this and I've done this.
32:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that there's a good chance I, you know, won't lose my toes or somebody will have to come rescue me if it's minus 30 and Northern Wisconsin in January.
32:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the process of it before you even get to the, you know, the logistics of it and the fact that it's, it's been done so few times and that doesn't make me super-afflated just means it's, you know, not for everybody probably, but I think Marshall Ulrich, I love it.
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: There would be plenty of people who know he as he's a legend.
32:51
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, and this wasn't a world record, but he said many of them, he said, setting world records isn't hard.
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Just do something.
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So stupid.
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody else has ever tried to do it.
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a, you know, I can claim to be the first I went and I am the first I went to do it, but I don't know if any other I want to ever try to do it.
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But, but then once you, once you actually accomplish that,
33:18
[SPEAKER_01]: going across as inhospitable a land as there is in the middle of winter, temperatures, you know, we got the year I did the race, we got caught in a ground blizzard going up over rainy pass, when shows were probably 50, 60 below.
33:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just the biggest fistfight I've ever been in my life to to where you were just win was in your face.
33:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You couldn't see five feet in front of you.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you're just following this little black line on your GPS and, you know, you take like four or five steps and then you have to, you know, turn your back to the wind so you could pull your face back down so you could catch your breath.
33:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You couldn't pull your face mask down looking into the wind because it was so cold, it, you know, it just frees my bears shadow, you know, just and you know, you had to do that for six or seven miles before you were actually going to get over the pass and get a respite from it.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're, you're in this incredibly inhospitable place, but at the same time.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't know how you could ever feel more alive than when you're put into an environment like that.
34:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the same time, we talked about your guests that was doing all of the glaciers and what an incredible podcast that was.
34:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And these wide open places are so great for putting us in our place and realizing just how insignificant we are.
34:47
[SPEAKER_01]: things in place kind of way, you know, it's so easy in this world to think like you were saying, the house project and all of that and we can turn ourselves inside out and you know, but if you're really able to stand in the middle of a place like Alaska or stand in the middle of your own, I did ride house building a challenge that you're in right now and you can take just a second, you can really go, wow, this is, this is only a big deal in my mind, you know,
35:17
[SPEAKER_01]: fantastic for that.
35:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You're able to put your foot down and go.
35:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a spec.
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I might not even be a spec, you know, and so it's a great adventure.
35:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you have to do itself supported.
35:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to mail your food two weeks in advance to these little villages and it just sits in a box there and, you know, you get there at two o'clock in the morning and you hope and pray that, you know, the mail got there.
35:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it gets flowing in and there could be a storm and the planes don't fly and maybe you're making better time than you planned and it's going to be there in two days or you know, there's just all of these things and you know, or you're just knackered and you're just going to you got to bivvy right here right now and it's 25 below and you're getting into your bag and you're making food but you have all the skills and so you're sitting there and maybe you get the northern lights and and you've got this incredibly intimate setting with yourself and
36:13
[SPEAKER_01]: environment and so it's it all pays off but at the same time you know there's incredible lows incredible highs and getting back to what we talked about before there's you know there's those times where it gets reduced to the moment because that's all you're capable of.
36:33
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you plan your next adventures?
36:37
[SPEAKER_03]: You've got such a varied adventure resume of different sizes, different sports.
36:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you wait for it to inspire you or are you always thinking like this?
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: See, man, here's how you know when you're talking to somebody else that's done some adventures because you know, by the way, you just answered, ask me the question, you know that sometimes the adventure picks you.
37:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And running across Iowa, you know, I'm sitting in this little room in Polk County, back in Iowa, I put on this little event and here's this guy talking about all of his runs and then he'd run across Iowa.
37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in some way it felt like maybe I planned that, you could even say then the adventure brought me to that place.
37:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But for running around Lake Michigan, for example,
37:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, some friends that sent me to Indiana dunes.
37:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, there's this crazy place with these giant sand dunes.
37:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You're silly for all of this, massacistic stuff, go run up those hills for like three hours and get back to me and tell me what that felt like.
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is this incredible amazing place and it just kicked my ass, you know, I didn't make three hours.
37:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I probably made it up the hill and back down like two or three times.
37:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was sitting there looking across towards Chicago and I'm like, my god, this lake just dwarfs Chicago.
38:01
[SPEAKER_01]: and then the adventure picked me.
38:02
[SPEAKER_01]: The adventure was like, well, maybe you should try and run around it, you know, and you kind of look around yourself.
38:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, where did that come from?
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's, you know, but you go home and get on the computer.
38:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's 1,040 miles.
38:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You divide that by 26 and you're like, that's 40 marathon in 40 days.
38:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, how can you turn that down?
38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to take a swing at that, you know?
38:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't that I did a marathon every single day.
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, some days it was a little less, some days it was a little more.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That's ended up, what the average ended up to be.
38:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, you sit there and you're like, well, I've done 11, this is 40, but you're kind of like, you know, you've done 11, could you do 12?
38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: The mine signed up for that.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you did 12, could you do 13?
38:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and as so many people listening have experienced and if you haven't, then take this to heart.
38:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you decide that you're gonna get your ass off the couch and you're gonna go around the block,
38:59
[SPEAKER_01]: do your first 5k or you're going to get sober or you're going to like you did I think it was maybe last year your bike ride across the once you decide you really really decide then the universe is like this amazing waiter the universe goes all right we got a wild one here let's do everything we can this person is dedicated they're going to make it happen let's start opening
39:30
[SPEAKER_01]: is the thing that these adventures have taught me more than any other, that this plan, that this universe, it's here to support us.
39:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything we want, all we have to do is tell the waiter.
39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And the waiter will go back to the kitchen and he'll go, hey, here's the order, let's make this happen.
39:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Because anybody who's done anything put any adventure in there, there will be something that happened
40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: that they cannot chalk up to anything other than blind lock, or if you believe as I do, the universe supports all of us who dare to strike out and take on a challenge.
40:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the most empowering thing that any of these adventures have taught me, which is if you really commit to it, if you set your feet firmly in the ground and go, if you're out there listening,
40:30
[SPEAKER_01]: and I'm open to any help you bring me.
40:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It will show up.
40:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Steve, you're so right.
40:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Like 100% the idea for my very first trip, folks have heard a lot about it, 10 years ago now.
40:45
[SPEAKER_03]: On that trip, we went through a little town.
40:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I was a bike, we rode bikes my best friend and I from Alaska to Florida.
40:52
[SPEAKER_03]: We went through this little town we had never heard of called Banff.
40:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And we pull in on the day, this entire group was leaving on what's called the tour divide.
41:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And we both looked at each other and said, we have to do that one day.
41:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And two years later, we were on the tour divide.
41:09
[SPEAKER_03]: That eventually led to something.
41:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, just kind of grows from there.
41:13
[SPEAKER_03]: You keep crossing past with these people and with these ideas.
41:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And it just flows like a river.
41:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It really does.
41:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I have this, I have this visionation and it's these trail angels, it's these adventure angels that find people like you and others that have been guessed on your show and they're just out there in the ether somewhere and I just see this, you know, I just see them dancing
41:51
[SPEAKER_01]: watch what Mason does when we give him a free bike, you know, like they just when when we open up as human beings and become what we can and we're on this journey, I just think the universe just takes this huge pleasure in it and it and it and it and it delights in the opportunity to put the tour divide in front of you and be like, you know, he's not going to see this one
42:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and then you're on the tour divide and then, you know, because of the tour divide boom this happens, you know, or you meet somebody on those events and and it's just it's just the kind of thing it's it's like pull fix it for it's the movie when the bullets go all around jewels and and you know eventually they're sitting down and and he's like you can't just blow that off jewels like you know you can't if it happens enough you can no longer just be like.
42:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that was lucky.
42:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there are things that play when you really, when you really start to go for it.
42:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a beautiful thing.
42:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And what you just described me at my face hurts, I'm smiling so hard, cause that's just how it happens.
43:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I, you know, I've got to tell you this.
43:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Then what really sold me on that first trip was had no idea.
43:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I was, I'm from a small town of 3000 in Florida.
43:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And my, my best friend and I said, we've got to go to Alaska, fly to Alaska one way, get bikes and bike back home to this small town.
43:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And we just got to do it.
43:21
[SPEAKER_03]: We were both in college.
43:23
[SPEAKER_03]: No bikes, no no experience.
43:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And I didn't know what to do.
43:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was home for spring break.
43:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And we were leaving in May.
43:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it was two months out.
43:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me maybe a little less.
43:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, I was telling my dad, he's a house painter now.
43:36
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was helping him paint, paint houses on the side.
43:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Get some money.
43:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And he goes, and I'm like, Dad, I don't know what the heck we're going to do.
43:45
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, what are we going to do?
43:46
[SPEAKER_03]: We're just going to fly up there, get on our bikes, and just go, you know, we don't have any money, we're in college, we're broke, and he's like, man, if it's meant to happen, it's going to happen.
43:55
[SPEAKER_03]: And then, within about two days of that, it was during spring break, gosh, man, we went over to his friend's house, who had a neighbor who was in town from Alaska.
44:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's like, hey, man, I hear you going on this trip.
44:07
[SPEAKER_03]: You should come over and talk to my neighbor.
44:08
[SPEAKER_03]: They're leaving tomorrow back to Alaska come to come talk to him.
44:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And dude, go over there to his house the next morning.
44:17
[SPEAKER_03]: They're like 85-year-old couple.
44:19
[SPEAKER_03]: They were military background.
44:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Just lots of adventures around the world.
44:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And they both lived in Fairbanks, right?
44:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Where we were flying into.
44:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, my God, that was a fairbanks.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the last three winters.
44:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, okay.
44:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You've been there the last three winners.
44:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Holy cow.
44:33
[SPEAKER_03]: That's incredible people.
44:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Gosh, they live like three miles from the airport.
44:40
[SPEAKER_03]: They said, yeah, you got your flying in and we'll pick you up.
44:42
[SPEAKER_03]: So I said, and you might know this place.
44:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I said, you know, do you, uh, do you know any bike shops or anywhere we can get bikes in in Fairbanks?
44:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And they said, oh, yeah, we actually are the co-founders of the big bike shop in Fairbanks.
44:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Be resports.
44:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And they said, and I said, are you kidding me?
45:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we're still part owners.
45:01
[SPEAKER_03]: We know the guy that runs it.
45:02
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll just, you know, we'll just have him put together some pipe of your bikes for you.
45:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was just literally right a quarter mile from my dad's house in this town of 3000 in Florida.
45:12
[SPEAKER_03]: It's where all this happened.
45:13
[SPEAKER_03]: The most perfect connections that retired had all the time in the world.
45:17
[SPEAKER_03]: They had driven the Alaskan Highway back and forth from Florida, the same exact route we were taking.
45:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Every summer and winter it for the last 40 years they had done that just you know visiting family down in that on central Florida And it was just the most perfect contact we could have ever met and it just came from Talking about it, you know just just from making it happen.
45:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I kind of you know put together a better connection in that But that's that's meant to prove your point That's it, you know, I mean that's that's that's it
45:52
[SPEAKER_01]: In all you have to do is just tell that story and anybody that wants to accomplish anything can dissect the steps that you just shared in that story.
46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you firmly come to trust that, tell me, Mason, what's beyond any of us?
46:11
[SPEAKER_01]: What is outside of our grasp if we truly believe that the universe supports us?
46:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it makes our existence limitless.
46:22
[SPEAKER_01]: only bound by ourselves.
46:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the stuff to just turns me on beyond, you know.
46:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, nothing, and it's why you see what you see about people that have accomplished great things that have come from small town in Florida.
46:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It really has virtually nothing to do with who we are or where we come from.
46:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And even those folks born with disabilities and things like that, there's, you know, books fall of those people who have also led extraordinary lives, even if they would have had all of their limbs or all of their faculties.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I truly believe at the end of it, it's because all of them have realized what you just shared, which is, it's all set up for us to succeed.
47:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I typically just say, you know, I don't go into stories like that when interviewing folks because the show's about you guys not me.
47:26
[SPEAKER_03]: But I just had to share that it's such a confirmation, and I would say it was that experience that sent me over the edge of confidence of saying,
47:35
[SPEAKER_03]: This is supposed to happen and this is the direction to go because up until then you have one of these ideas you're staying in Chicago looking at Lake Michigan saying I'm going to run around this and you're I don't know I'm a little bit hesitant on like is this what I should really do in my time and then things like that start happening it's like
47:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely, because I want to experience more of those serendipitous moments, more of those confirmations, to know that I'm living the life that maybe I'm meant to.
48:04
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really, I don't know, I don't have any absolutes with it, but that's the that's the that's the sensation.
48:09
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the treasure hunt you're kind of on.
48:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, the treasure hunt that you're on.
48:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And in your story is such a perfect example of that because
48:22
[SPEAKER_01]: we would be led to believe as socialized creatures that to take a trip from Alaska to Florida, you have to have incredible bike packing experience.
48:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to have trained for months, if not years.
48:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You've had to have done this, you've had to have done, and this gets back to, right?
48:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all of those things I just said is where most of us, somewhere low along the line, trip up, and then it just gets put
48:50
[SPEAKER_01]: into a drawer and it never happens because I've got to do this.
48:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got to do this, I've got to do this, I've got to do this, I've got to do this.
48:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I screw it.
48:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But what you did is you just bought the ticket, you know, somebody, somebody says, somebody says, I want to go to wherever.
49:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You pull out your phone and you go, you know what?
49:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been there.
49:12
[SPEAKER_01]: That's by this ticket right now.
49:14
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no.
49:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not ready to do it right now.
49:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, when are you ready to do it?
49:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You're ready to do it a year from once.
49:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Just winged by the ticket right now and just set it for a year from now.
49:23
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no.
49:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And at some point you go, you don't wanna do it.
49:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You gotta buy the ticket, doesn't mean, and that's just a metaphor for, but in your case in your story, it's not a metaphor.
49:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You bought the ticket and once you bought the ticket, I mean, once you got there, you probably know your story is so very similar.
49:48
[SPEAKER_01]: uh, I think that's his name, but he, you know, great.
49:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, at whatever as a very young person and his early 20s, whatever, same to like you, he's like, I think I want to ride my bike around the world.
49:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Never, didn't even have a bike, right?
50:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and didn't know, but he just, and, and he said, the lesson I learned more than anything, you probably shared this and said it more, it much more like what money the need, but he said, what I realized is,
50:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Man, it really does.
50:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and, and that's exactly, I mean, your story, his story, same thing.
50:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's people if you went to a bike shop or whenever, and you're like, I'd like to bike around the world.
50:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what do you think I need to do?
50:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably 99 out of 100 of them would give you this giant laundry list.
50:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And they'd be like, well, you need to do this, you need to do this.
50:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And granted, there's a little bit of, there's a little bit of that, but doesn't your story just perfectly,
50:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, which one of the bike stops is gonna go, what you really need to do, brother?
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to buy a ticket to Alaska.
50:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you get to Alaska, there's only one way to get home, and that's the buy a bicycle, put some shit on it, and start figuring it out.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you start pedaling down the road, man, you know, or somebody at the bike stop will be like, hey, did you think about this?
51:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you think about this?
51:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, those trail angels, that magic will start to happen, but you got to buy the ticket.
51:13
[SPEAKER_01]: What it does is, it takes that kind of story.
51:19
[SPEAKER_01]: the ability for any of us to procrastinate off the shelf.
51:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I can't punch a hole in your story.
51:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't go well, you know, you had all this money.
51:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was easy for you to buy a ticket.
51:34
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
51:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You had all this experience.
51:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was easy for you to go there and just, no, no, that doesn't work.
51:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You had, no, actually there's no thing that you had.
51:48
[SPEAKER_01]: that would lead anybody to believe that you would have made that happen.
51:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing other than your belief buying the ticket and then everything else played out.
52:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And now you know that you're capable of everything and anything because you went straight from zero to 60 man.
52:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I mean, I ran a five-day, then I ran a 10k, then I ran a half marathon.
52:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do truly believe
52:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I do believe now and it's the great thing that you realize it's the mind that's holding us back.
52:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe I could have shown up in Chicago and with the gun to my head, I would have figured out a way to walk crawl, do whatever I had to do to make those 1,000 37 miles in 40 days.
52:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe it with all my heart.
52:35
[SPEAKER_01]: What I have suffered like a pig, absolutely.
52:37
[SPEAKER_01]: What I have had all of these incredible moments is it better to be in better shape and all of that.
52:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
52:42
[SPEAKER_01]: There's an argument to be said for that.
52:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You've almost won the battle.
52:49
[SPEAKER_03]: So awesome.
52:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Steve, you know, I know we went off the rails a little bit.
52:55
[SPEAKER_03]: That's okay, you know, that's adventure for you.
52:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But hey, that's what we were talking about.
53:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just turn on the record button.
53:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see where it goes, where you guys don't need to drive it.
53:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll just see where it goes when two adventurous souls start jamming, man.
53:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm goose bumping all over and it's just from the vibe that you're putting off.
53:13
[SPEAKER_03]: man, that's awesome.
53:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Same here, man.
53:15
[SPEAKER_03]: This has been a very unique interview.
53:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell us now where has this mindset and where has this lifestyle led you to?
53:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And what Venturi are you currently on as well as like what's in the future for you?
53:28
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you have kind of that you know is going to happen?
53:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's that's great.
53:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know it's right now.
53:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm another adventure picked me.
53:38
[SPEAKER_01]: When I got back
53:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, wonderless is just part of my DNA now.
53:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I realize I'm going to be an absolute failure in seeing the entire world and everything that's in it.
53:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just going to swing as hard as I can and get as much of it as I can.
53:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So I sold my, I sold most of my stuff, put the rest in storage, bought a bus, and I've been on the road for 10 months now.
54:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And just as we said before, I just thought,
54:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't really have much beyond that.
54:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And after a few national parks, I was like, I can't just, I can't just do this for my own memory.
54:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I've got to, it's just so beautiful.
54:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanna share and hopefully inspire people to get out and see things.
54:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a climate change guy.
54:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the Earth and real trouble.
54:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the more that we can get outside as human beings, then the more value we will place
54:43
[SPEAKER_01]: much harder for us to use plastics or whatever the case may be.
54:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm kind of a zero sum guy on that.
54:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're either doing things to make the planet better because just by existing on the planet, we're making it worse.
54:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So you gotta do something to balance the scale.
55:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I picked up a camera.
55:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm completely addicted to learning how to become as good a photographers I can.
55:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm working on,
55:11
[SPEAKER_01]: photographing all 74 of the national parks and putting together a book which hopefully along the way through Instagram and things like that, people will be inspired to buy the ticket.
55:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they'll say that's it.
55:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've been wanting to see the grand canyon forever.
55:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never done it.
55:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to buy the ticket.
55:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That place is too beautiful.
55:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go.
55:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe, you know, because of that, they'll be inspired by, you know, the drive in there and the garbage that's along the roads and they'll be like, maybe I'm...
55:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I need to do something here, maybe I need to, you know, pick up a few cans or whatever the case may be.
55:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's the project now.
55:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm, I'm, I'm 24 parks and it's funny.
55:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it would take me a year.
55:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm 11 months along and I've always seen 24 of them.
55:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But as you know, you, you come into a place, like, can I've been, you're like, well, my God.
56:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's 15 different things.
56:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to drive by him, answer of course is no.
56:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So who knows?
56:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to take me probably two or three years.
56:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been fortunate that the universe has allowed me to make choices that I have the freedoms to be out here.
56:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've produced a couple documentaries and written a couple books.
56:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's it.
56:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll keep sharing and much like your story, man.
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You end up in Yosem, many, and or Yellowstone,
56:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this person ends up being like, oh, yeah, I live just outside of Acadia.
56:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you get there, we'll put you up, we'll put you up for the week.
56:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, there's a few really cool things to photograph.
56:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's these three other things that only the locals know.
56:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, now you're, you're making these trail friends and you realize that, you know, mediaplis Iowa, the home is where the heart is, but now homes become the planet.
57:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of the journeys, I now have a friend named Mason in Florida.
57:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have a friend named Judy and Akkadia.
57:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have a friend named Ronda and Yosemite that shows me a couple things.
57:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, that's the journey and I get a little emotional.
57:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a far cry from taking a step out of a jail cell.
57:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm incredibly blessed.
57:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, we all get what we set our minds to.
57:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Steve, I love what you're doing.
57:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Dude, I, you know, this has been awesome.
57:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Is the best place for people to find you Instagram or your website, expand your possible?
57:42
[SPEAKER_03]: What, where would your point folks?
57:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you can't go wrong either way.
57:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's expandyourpossible.com for the website.
57:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And we just launched a video series there, which,
57:56
[SPEAKER_01]: gets a little deeper dive into all of the things that we talked about from there early to where we are now and the I did not know that and expand your possible, but it's spelled a little weird.
58:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just XPA and D. You are possible for the Instagram handle, but I'll be easy to find there, but that's where we're putting pictures and videos and all of that good stuff.
58:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So
58:26
[SPEAKER_01]: anything like that, you know, once we get done, I'm going to make sure I've got your information, because once I get to, once I get to the southeast and Florida, then you and I are going to have to get out, man, you're a, you're a kind of spirit brother.
58:44
[SPEAKER_03]: First of all, thank you so much for listening and means the world to us that you choose to listen to this show.
58:49
[SPEAKER_03]: If you'd like to help us further, you can leave a review on iTunes, share us with your friends or family, it goes a long way to grow in the show.
58:57
[SPEAKER_03]: You can also support us financially through patreon.com slash adventure sports podcast, link is in the show notes.
59:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And also, if you have an idea of who could be a good guest for the show, we're always looking for people to tell their story about the outdoors or adventure.
59:13
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you know someone, please reach out, email us at infoedadventuresportspodcast.com and until then, get out there and have some fun.