A Path Is Made by Walking: How I Stopped Waiting to Feel Ready-Part 1

Your travels have brought you to the Surfing

Your Edge podcast, where we explore what it

takes to create the bigger, bolder, badass life

you know you were born for.

Not a life that simply looks good on

paper, and not another spin on the self

-help hamster wheel.

If you're ready for more joy, more peace,

and more contribution, you're in the right place.

I'm Kristine Goad, the Surfing Your Edge coach.

Let's get surfing.

Hello, and welcome to Surfing Your Edge.

I'm Kristine.

I'm so happy you're here.

And today, I thought I would bore you

with the little story of how I became

the Surfing Your Edge coach.

So let's start.

Um, let's see.

I was 29 years old and still trying

to figure out what to do with my

life.

I'd basically gotten two college degrees, lived in

three different states at that point.

Is that true?

Yes, that's true.

And had been trying out different jobs in

the adult world, and was just finding that

it was hard to figure out where I

fit in.

And I have a lot of passions, a

lot of interests.

I thought I was going to get a

PhD until I realized that to be a

PhD, you need to be a specialist, right?

You've got to want to go really deep

into one area.

And that is just not me.

I want to know a little bit about

everything.

And so I was not PhD material.

I was not MD material.

I was just not material for specialization.

And because I had so many different interests,

it was really hard for me to figure

out if I should be a journalist.

I got my master's in professional writing just

as the first wave of newspapers were shutting

down and firing everybody.

So that kind of cut journalism out.

And then it was like, well, maybe I

should be a scientist.

I'm crazy about the environment.

I love marine environments.

Maybe I should be a marine biologist.

And I just went a writer.

Anyway, I was all over the place trying

out different things.

And what I really hoped was that somebody

somewhere knew where all of these passions and

ideas and skills could make the biggest difference.

So when I was 29, my husband found

a two-page article in the newspaper inviting

people to go on a cross-country bike

trip from Seattle, Washington, to Washington, D.C.

It was 3,200 and some odd miles.

And it was a fundraiser for the American

Lung Association.

And at the time, I had pretty strong

asthma.

I was overweight, quite overweight.

I didn't own a bike.

And yet, I thought, oh, sure, let me

just join this fundraiser for the American Lung

Association, travel across the country on a bike,

and somewhere in the middle of the Badlands

or on some mountain peak somewhere, the universe

will whisper in my ear, when you get

off of this ride, you go home and

you do this.

You find this kind of company, apply for

this kind of job, and all of your

skills and passions and all of you can

come to the table, right?

And I thought, okay, this is the thing.

I'm going to get quiet.

The universe is going to speak.

It's going to be amazing.

And what do you think happened?

I went on an amazing trip.

I learned a lot about myself.

I became, actually, even now, I was 29

at the time.

I'm 57 today.

And I still think that I probably was

the fullest expression of who I was at

that time, of any time I've ever, of

any time in my life, right?

That I was most me then.

I might be a different version of me

now, but I was me.

I was willing to say what I thought

and feel comfortable no matter where I was.

And even if people were challenging me, and

they did, because of my asthma and because

of the fact that I was a novice

cyclist who didn't know what she was getting

herself into, there were days when I did

not ride.

And I did not ride on the cross

-country bike trip.

And I was on a support and gear

vehicle instead.

And there were cyclists on that trip who

thought that unless all 720 of us were

riding every single mile, every single day, somehow,

those of us who weren't participating that fully

were diminishing the accomplishment of those people who

were able and willing to go every, we

called them every friggin' inchers, EFI.

And so there were some tense moments where

people were like, you're bringing us down.

And I was like, no, I'm contributing from

whatever part of the community I'm in.

I'm either having some uplifting conversation on a

bus, or I'm helping put up tents, or

I'm doing something.

Anyway, that was a digression.

But the point of the story is that

I went on this amazing trip and did

not hear the whisper in my ear what

I should do when I got off the

ride.

I had quit my job.

I had no job to go back to.

I had to figure out what I was

going to do.

And I had no clue.

I was asking, what box do I fit

in?

I think you've probably heard me say this

before.

I was asking, what box do I fit

in?

And the answer I was getting, BU.

And that did not make any sense to

me.

So I got off that ride, and I

sank into the biggest depression of my life.

And that's saying a lot, because I had

already gone through a major depression in my

early 20s when I was considering suicide.

So to say that I spent another two

years deeply depressed was very, very painful.

And people would ask me, how was your

ride?

And it was like, I almost didn't want

to tell them, because I felt like a

failure.

Because not only because I didn't ride every

mile, but because my goal of figuring out

who I was was not accomplished.

So I came home, and I just kept

struggling, right?

I wrote a memoir about the cross-country

bike trip.

I got married.

I, or, yeah, well, I was already married,

but I had my wedding.

I tried a couple of different jobs, and

I just kept going.

And for the next, oh, wow, 15 years

or so, I just kept feeling like there

was more.

There had to be more.

I could do more.

I was helping one person put her ideas

into the world, a very talented artist.

And I wanted to help more people be

able to put their ideas into the world.

I wanted more people to feel empowered and

to have the support that I could offer

in figuring out what was next for them

and what was possible.

So around the year, I don't know, somewhere

around the year 2005, I started learning about

becoming a nomadic solopreneur.

And I thought, oh, this is it, right?

This is going to be me.

I love travel.

I love adventure.

And I started researching.

I hired a coach to help me figure

out what my business would be.

I read every book, read every podcast, and

just spent a good solid 10 years learning,

right, learning about how to build a business,

learning about how to be a nomad.

And yet I felt like I was not

prepared to take the step to get moving

on that path because I wasn't ready, right?

I wasn't ready.

There was so much more I needed to

learn and have in place and, you know,

finances figured out and all kinds of things.

So I spent 10 years circling and going

into a job that on many levels was

helping me become the person I wanted to

be.

I was learning and growing and becoming more

confident and learning solid marketing skills and business

skills.

And yet I was sick to my stomach

almost every morning because I knew I was

meant to be doing something else and I

didn't have the courage to do it.

And it just built and built and built.

And I started doing this thing where I

would say, okay, when I get these three

projects completed for my employer, I will give

my notice and I will start my job,

my business, right?

And I put that on the refrigerator and

I'd look at it every day.

And the little, you know, the deadline would

come and go.

I would have finished those three projects and

yet there would be three more projects that

will have popped up in the meantime.

So then that piece of paper comes down

and three new projects go up because, you

know, I'm a person who does what she

says she's going to do and I'm going

to fulfill my commitments and I'm going to

help my employer get these things into the

world.

And I also am scared and don't know

what I'm doing and don't know where I'd

start.

So let's just keep rolling.

And I rolled that commitment to myself forward

and forward and forward.

And I lost more and more confidence that

I could fulfill a commitment that I made

to myself.

I was great at fulfilling commitments to other

people.

I could not fulfill a commitment to myself.

So I started doing crazy things like signing

up for a hundred mile bike trips, or

actually I signed up for one that was

200 miles.

It was a Saturday and Sunday where you

rode a hundred miles each day.

And I'm like, you know, if I can

do that, then I can prove to myself

that I can follow through on a commitment

that I make to myself.

And so I would just go out and

do insane things like beating my body up

to prove to myself that I could follow

through.

And that was great and fun and gave

me something to talk about and cool stories,

but it didn't help me quit my job.

It didn't help me start a business.

It didn't help me even know where to

start.

And somewhere along the line, I heard the

phrase, a path is made by walking.

And I realized that I had been trying

to figure out how to get from where

I wanted to go from where I was

to where I wanted to go.

And I wanted to have a complete pathway.

I didn't want to waste money or time.

I didn't want to risk failure in front

of other people.

I wanted to just make my decision and

follow my path and get there and succeed

and jump through all the hoops and show

that, hey, you're a talented, smart woman.

You can figure this out.

You can do it.

That's what I wanted.

And instead, what I saw was this black

wall in front of me.

I couldn't figure out.

I wasn't even sure what was on the

other side of it.

What was it exactly that I was driving

toward?

I just knew there was more.

There was something else out there.

So that was the first story.

Second story, there was a person who I

think is very much like me, who I

found online, who had gone all the way

through and gotten her PhD in research, scientific

research.

And then in the middle of getting her

PhD, realized she hated research and did not

want to be a scientific researcher for the

rest of her life.

And so her blog was all about figuring

out what she was going to do instead.

And she likened herself to a lichen growing

on a rock, right, where every day you

wake up and you feel for the sun.

Where's the sun?

Let's grow toward the sun today.

And that is how she figured out how

she was going to be in the world.

She got up every day, leaned into the

sun.

So those two things were kind of the

pebble that got kicked down the mountain that

got me moving.

The other thing that got me moving was

the universe got tired of me waiting and

said, OK, fine, we are going to move

you out of this situation and you're going

to have to start over.

My husband changed jobs and we had to

move from our one state to another.

And if I was going to continue to

be married, I had to quit my job

and move and start over.

So that's how I really got going.

But even then, there was more to grow,

right?

I started out with the idea that I

would help older people, 40s and 50s, who

had had a dream and had to put

it on a shelf because they got busy

with life and they had families and they

had a career and they had things that

they had to do in order to keep

the lights on and food on the table.

And yet this so this dream was in

the background.

And I had this idea that I could

help these people look at who they are

now, look at the resources that they've developed

and re-envision what that dream might look

like from their current position in life.

And so that's how I started out helping

people.

And what I found was that there were,

it was a rare individual who was willing

to look at that dream and bring it

forward again.

Most people were pretty content with the fact

that no, too late for that.

And they put it on the shelf and

they were happy to leave it there.

So my business continued to evolve.

And on the 20th, the 20th anniversary of

that cross-country bike trip was coming up

and I was 49 years old now.

Yes.

And I wanted to do something exciting and

scary to commemorate that 20th, that cross-country

bike trip.

And obviously I didn't have the resources or

the time to jump on a bike and

go on a cross-country bike trip again.

So I needed to figure out what the

next step was.

Turns out the next step was, I looked

around at the thing that scared me the

most and I had been afraid of open

water my entire life.

I was a strong swimmer and yet open

water terrified me.

And I had been doing cross-country, or

not cross-country, I'd been doing sprint distance

triathlons since the end of the bike ride,

the big ride.

Kind of as a way to help me

get over that, but it hadn't quite worked.

I would still get into open water and

panic and have to overcome the panic in

order to finish the race.

So I was looking around and I said

to a colleague at the time, I had

taken a remote position, joined an amazing team

of people.

And I looked at a colleague and I

said, you know, I'd really like to do

something like take people to learn to surf

because that scares me.

And then we do this scary thing, we

get out of our comfort zone, we learn

about ourselves, and then we come home.

And I coached them after the trip to

actually put into place the vision that they

had while they were out there learning about

themselves on the surfing trip.

But it can't be surfing.

And they're like, well, why can't it be

surfing?

And I'm like, because I would be terrified

and I can't be a leader and be

terrified.

And he said, why not?

And so that is how the Surfing Your

Edge brand was born.

I had one brave client sign up to

go with me to Panama to learn to

surf.

It was an eight-day adventure.

And then we had a six-month adventure

after that where we continued to work together

to help her bring her new vision to

life in her life.

And this has already been quite a story,

quite a long story.

And if you're still with me, thank you.

And if you would like to hear what

happened in Panama when I went to learn

to surf in the ocean during a lightning

storm, join me for my next episode where

we will continue the story and I will

tell you a little bit more about the

whole idea of what Surfing Your Edge really

means to me and how it has transformed

the lives of some of the people that

I love most in the world.