Guest: Jason Berry, Premier Business Coach

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:37Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs powered by Action Coach Growth Partners. You likely went into business to have more freedom and flexibility so that you could spend more time with your family, do more things or travel or enjoy your hobbies or whatever it is that you like to do in your spare time. We're here to help you find better ways to make more money, build better teams and get that time back so that you can have that freedom and flexibility. We'll help you simplify things and make sense of business, investing, and wealth building so that you can be epic and achieve all your dreams and goals.

1:10And now, enjoy the show. Hey, I'm Jason Barry. I am a business coach with Action Coach Business Growth Partners and I work with Bill and the rest of our awesome team. And I'm excited to join in the podcast today with Bill. Yeah, thanks, Jason. So today, we want to talk about being epic. And one of the most epic things that I know that people do is to hike the Appalachian Trail. And a few years ago, you hiked the Appalachian Trail. And I did a little research on the Appalachian Trail. It turns out I think it's the longest continuous footpath in the world. And so how long is it? Well, with trail updates from year to year, it's a little different.

1:57But when I hiked it, it was 2 ,173 miles. Right, right. Yeah, that's awesome. So just under 2 ,200 miles. And I'm sure you took some detours, which probably made it well over 2 ,200 miles. So specifically, I want to get at the kind of planning, the kind of preparation that it takes to do something epic. So let's talk about that. Sure. Yeah, so when it comes to planning for something like this, I mean, it's obviously a big deal to wrap your head around. And there's a lot of stuff to consider. So, I mean, the first thing is, I mean, you got to have the passion to go that extra mile and figure this out.

2:47There's a lot of people that talk about this kind of thing, and it never happens. so you got to have the eye in epic you got to have the inspiration to even do the planning you gotta yeah so my inspiration came from a buddy of mine from freshman year in college we went camping on the Appalachian Trail near Roan Mountain Tennessee and this was October of probably 99, I think. And nice fall weather, campfire. And I said, hey, Spencer, we should think about actually hiking the whole Appalachian Trail. What do you think about that? And we started talking about it and thinking about it and getting more excited about it.

3:38And I'm the kind of person who jumps on an idea. and like I like spur of the moment travel ideas and adventure and he is a spur of the moment kind of guy that way too so like it was kind of grooving on that level I've got several friends I would say something like that that's great but I've got this and this and this going on you know would have gotten in the way of that conversation so I mean it takes uh takes people that are open minded to the idea to even talk through it but we were sitting at that campfire and that's where the seed was really planted on the Appalachian Trail, I think that's important too.

4:16Put yourself in that space, put yourself in that environment, and you can taste, feel, and experience like what a night in the life of the AT would be like, right? So there's some value to that I hadn't really thought about until we're talking now. So we started talking about, well, when would this be possible? And like, well, we've got this going on and that going on. And like, why don't we target the spring of 2001. And we can get enough ducks in a row to the both of us figure out making that happen then. Now, a lot of life happened and a lot of different things that we didn't expect happened.

4:53He ended up transferring universities and different things. And so did I. And he went to NC state and I went to ASU. And we were hanging out September of 2000. and it popped back in my mind, hey, Spencer, you remember that time when we were camping last year, and we were talking about next spring actually doing this thing? It's like, are you in? It's like, yeah, I'm in. Are you in? They just kind of feeling each other out a little bit. It's like, yeah, and it's like, well, man, we got to figure this out. So it's like coming. This date's coming. And so the first thing was blocking out the calendar.

5:41We were both still in school. And I had kind of told my parents, or I shortly after told my parents, hey, Spencer and I are planning on hiking the AT in the spring this coming year. And they're like, oh, that's great, son. It's kind of like where that went at the moment. And it became a reality to them when they asked me later in the semester, so what classes did you sign up for? for spring semester. And I'm like, I didn't, I didn't sign up for any classes. And they're like, Oh, Oh, okay. So they were very supportive, but you know, that was when the reality set in like, Oh, Jason's actually going to do this.

6:20That's cool. Yeah. This is, this is cool. Like, like the song behind you has got it right. Dreams times goals, times learn times plan times action. So it started with a dream. Yeah. And then it became a goal. With the timeline. Yeah. Yeah. with the timeline yeah that's great okay so we've run the dreams now we're working on the goals all right cool got it that's right yeah that's exactly right and uh yeah so then it became okay man we got to get serious about this stuff and he was living in raleigh and i was living in banner elk north carolina so uh we'd talk on the phone you know zoom wasn't around then we talked on the phone and he'd come up and visit from time to time we do some shakedown kind of hikes and stuff and got our equipment acquired, you know, kind of figured out what we needed for equipment.

7:06So there was planning for equipment. Well, there was learning too. You had to learn what you needed, right? So part of the learning, I put myself in the environment to where I could learn as much as possible in a short amount of time as possible. So I worked part-time at an outdoor outfitter in Boone, which I ended up purchasing years later after I got back from the trail. But I learned in six months, 12 months time, what probably would take somebody four or five years to learn. So I condensed my learning by really focusing down and put like immersing myself in that environment, learned what kind of gear selection there was out there and made choices on that.

7:50So there's planning and learning for gear. There's learning about, okay, how many miles can a person hike in a day and in a week and in a month and not injure themselves and not still be on pace? You know, like what's a normal pace? How many miles do you hike during the daylight? How many miles do you hike at night? You know, how many miles do you hike before 12 o 'clock or lunchtime? What time do you wake up in the morning? What time do you try to get asleep at night? I mean, it's like all this learning because it's a life I've never experienced before. You know, this is carrying your shelter on your back.

8:32I mean, all the things that come to mind, right? It's like I got to figure out cooking and eating and water and clothing that I need and shelter. And are Spencer and I going to share gear or are we going to be independent gear wise? So that like if he ends up 10 miles ahead of me, like I'm not put out and I don't have the food bag in my pack, you know, like stuff like that. It's there's a whole lot of different dimensions to figure out. And I think there's a lot of right ways to do it. But you do have to think through and come up with what your approach is going to be. And let's see. So there's food planning.

9:12There's gear planning. There's water consumption. There's how many miles per day. How many miles can I hike, do I think, physically in the first month versus the second month versus later on when I'm really in shape and used to it? How many nights am I going to stay in a shelter versus pitch a tent somewhere? All these kind of different things. And then people talk about, of course, my parents or my mom primarily. it's like what about the bears and all this kind of thing so i'm like well i need to have some kind of a plan for that so i had oc10 bear spray and all these things you got to think about that aren't part of normal life for people and uh it's a it's a a lot of different plans that need to come together to create an experience that's intentional i guess is really what it comes down to yeah so about how long would you say you spent planning this thing i would say i spent really six months planning it and how long does it take to hike the trail five or six months so so the planning at least needs to be as long as the actual action and in some yeah I, you know, yeah, I reflected on that a little bit.

10:47I hadn't thought about that before you asked that. So I'd say we planned it in about three months time, actually, two to three months time. But we reviewed it and reviewed it and reviewed it over and over before to make sure we hadn't missed anything. So that's a little different than what I said before. It didn't take six months to plan. It probably took about two months to plan it, but it took a while to feel confident in it. If you went with the 80-20 and said about 20 % of the time you should be planning an 80 % action, my guess is, I mean, you didn't spend all day every day. That's about right.

11:23For six months planning. So it kind of makes sense. Like if you're planning a business, you should probably 20-80, 20 % of your time planning, 80 % of your time executing. That's what it ended up being. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing how often that 20-80 rule comes into effect. The Pareto principle comes into effect in life and business. So what detail level would you say that you did with your planning? I was very detailed knowing that it wasn't going to stick exactly to that plan. I think that's important. I knew I wasn't going to be exactly on that plan, and I wanted to plan every mile every day so that I could follow a forecast of what it might look like if it were done the way that I had in mind.

12:21and I ended up being pretty close to plan, but, but there were, this stuff happens, right? So, you know, some days I'm just not feeling it and I'll hike a shorter day. Some days I'm feeling it. Like my longest day was about a 34 or 35 mile day that I hiked just because I was in the groove and feeling good. Now my, my feet were barking at me the next couple of days after that, you know, your body can handle it, but your feet can't. It's kind of what you figure out out there. but um i think you know in relating that to business it's uh hey some members of the team can handle handle growth at a certain rate but at some point you got to let the systems catch up and uh give yourself a little bit of reprieve right so there's a lesson in that from the at um yeah you can push hard but you got to allow yourself to recover and catch things up along the way too so there's got to be there's got to be town days where we call them zero days where we go into town and we hike zero miles uh so that we can recover and you know get some calories you know you can't carry enough calories you're burning seven eight thousand calories a day there's no way to carry that much food and um yeah it's interesting there's a lot of dynamics there right yeah so when it came to what well let me ask the question a different way what in your opinion could you completed the the the appalachian trail without a plan do people do that people do that and i believe you know everybody's got their own experience in mind that they're happy with in life.

14:06So I'm not speaking for other people's experience. However, I wanted to, if I'm taking a half a year of my life to invest in something, I am going to be serious about it and treat it with the weight that it deserves, I guess is the way I think about it. This is a major chunk of my life. I have decided to be away from friends, away from family, in the middle of the woods for half a year straight sweating getting bitten by mosquitoes jumping over snakes like whatever you know you want to imagine like yeah all that stuff happens and what's that all for and I had a specific I had some specific goals in mind you know it's to challenge myself to see something through for the long term but I had specific goals on what I wanted that to mean for myself in my life.

15:03And I was serious enough to plan. You know, there are a lot of people, I don't know if a lot of people is the right way to say that, but there are people that don't take it very seriously and want it to just be a whatever happens, go with the flow. And I think they get different results out of that experience is my perspective on that. Yeah, if you're serious about achieving something, it makes sense to have a plan. It makes sense to have done some thinking ahead of time, even if the plan changes. So what kind of changes did you see in your plan? Let's see. Let's see what kind of changes. So there's something I hadn't mentioned with planning is food drops in U.S.

15:51Postal Service, you know, post offices and stuff. And who's going to send me food? and how are they going to know what to send me? You know, the internet and cell phones then weren't what they are now. So the communication on all that, so that was a whole other spectrum of the planning process was my support structure at home. So I can dig into that if there's value there for our discussion, but that's a whole aspect we haven't talked about is just the food prep and all. Let's see. What was your question again you were asking about? Well, I mean, we were talking about the level of detail, but even with the level of detail, there had to be some changes in the plan.

16:36You have to be flexible with your plan. Absolutely. So one thing that comes to mind is my, she was my girlfriend. We've been married shortly after that since then. But my girlfriend of the time, Edith, her grandmother passed away unexpectedly while I was on the trail in Virginia. And all of a sudden we had to figure out me getting back to Winston-Salem is where her grandmother lived to be able to support her and be a part of that. so that was not part of my plan originally is to be off the trail for three or four days to uh to take care of that something else that wasn't part of the plan is uh right after i got into virginia my dad had a heart attack now they called it a mild heart attack i don't know what that means exactly i think it's kind of contradictory but a mild heart attack he got to the hospital.

17:40They took care of him, put stint in and these kind of things, and he was fine. However, that was the one time that I was the closest to coming home and packing it in because I was in Damascus, Virginia, about two and a half hours, I think it is, from Hickory, North Carolina, where he was. And I'm out here, and this is kind of like my thinking, I'm out here dicking around in the woods all day and my dad's in the hospital. You know, and I'm like, I'm coming home, I'm coming home. And he got on the phone a couple of different times and said, Jason, I'm fine. You're never going to have an experience, an opportunity like this ever again in your life.

18:24Likely stay out there. I want you to stay out there. I'm fine. And that was the closest I came to coming off the trail. And it wasn't the cost of the trail experience. It's because of what I was leaving behind, because to say yes to something, you got to say no to other things. And part of the no is being around friends and family. That was a struggle that was unexpected. And I stayed in Damascus an extra couple of days while I was out there. Just a lot of emotional and psychological stuff going on there to work through. And and then, gosh, when I got to Delaware Water Gap, I remember. it's uh one of the state borders or close to the state border my grandmother passed away now we saw that coming but still it happened on the trail versus when i had gotten back home so uh there were a couple of days where that was some travel i needed to figure out again you know so yeah stuff happens and i remember spencer who i learned on the trail is highly allergic to poison ivy so i didn't realize how bad he got it but up north not not up north but in shenandoah kind of middle of the trail shenandoah he got poison ivy and he ended up in the hospital having to have all kinds of treatment for it and that took an extra couple of days so yeah there's all kinds of stuff that comes and just part of life right yeah well i think there's a rule that anytime you that we try to accomplish something big that there that the universe is going to put up a bunch of obstacles and say hey are you serious about this how serious are you about this yeah how serious are you about overcoming these obstacles what you know what are you going to do to to try to work around it so yeah i mean i i just think the the level of but the but the planning was there so you you had plans to check in so often to make sure everything was all right.

20:24You had plans so that when things did happen, you were able to adjust your plan and stop for a couple of days and come back and take care of the family things that you needed to do. So there's time management, there's resource management, there's communication structure, there's systems for food, and it's all the same things as business planning. It is. Yeah, and you really can't do it without a team because you had to have people to ship food to you. You had to have backup. You had to have people that helped you along the way. You had to have plans to, like you said, where you were going to restock your food supplies, all that.

21:09And that's all people that are out there to help you. So it really has everything to do. And that was part of the plan. Something that's not necessarily like on paper part of the plan is you get to a road. and you're planning to get into town, how do you do that so you hitch a ride? So part of it is being resourceful along the way. Like you plan your resources along the way, but you've also got to be resourceful. And there were times where it's like it took a while to, you know, you got two scraggly, smelly guys on the side of the road with a backpack on. Don't look, honey. You know, you can see, you just like see people drive by that didn't want to make eye contact.

21:55But, you know, you got to rely on the nature and goodwill of the human race. And you've got to be resourceful to get to where you need to go. And if you don't know where to go in town, you got to ask questions because, again, the Internet and cell phones weren't what they are now. and so like it's not you got guidebooks and the guidebooks can get you so far but you got to be resourceful beyond that yeah yeah so bottom line is people if you want to hike the Appalachian Trail you need a great plan if you want to build a business you need a great plan no doubt so um yeah and we're that's what we're all about we're all about helping you get a plan and executing in that plan.

22:45This has been cool. This has been enlightening. I was chatting with Jason about, I was like, well, Dernie, he hiked the Appalachian Trail. That is epic. That's what we're all about is epic. Absolutely. You can see how having the dream, setting the goals, learning what you need to load, planning, and then executing will lead to success, which is essentially what you've got behind you. I can just say real quick, dream goal, learn, plan. If you don't take the dream goal, learn, and plan seriously, you can't be nearly as confident in the action. You're just, there's just so much, there's so, so much less confidence in what the outcome is going to be, which is why the other four are so important.

23:36That's the 80-20 as well, you know, again. Yeah, yeah, no, it's awesome. Well, this has been cool. Thanks for sharing, Jason. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And until next time, all the best. Thanks for joining us for this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. Here's four things you can do. First, you can listen every week on Biz Radio, Mondays at one. Second, you can subscribe to the podcast. Hey, you get it. The more subscribers we have, the more cool things we can offer you. Three, you can also go out and give us a five-star rating everywhere. And number four, if you'd like a free copy of my book, The Coach Approach, Five Principles to Build an Epic Business, just go to giftfrombuild.com.

24:16It's your roadmap to building your epic business. That's giftfrombuild.com. Until next time, all the best. Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com.

25:02Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.