Life Off the Map

Ever find yourself in a funk? Nothing is necessarily falling apart, but you're discouraged, stuck in your head, or just going through the motions. You know something needs to change, but you're not quite sure where to start.

After a month away from the podcast, we're back with a few stories from an unexpected season of adventure, creativity, and rediscovering some things we'd forgotten we loved. Somewhere between climbing mountains in the Grand Tetons, a chance encounter in Jackson Hole, and a strange project in the driveway, something started waking up again.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why you can't always think your way out of a funk—and what to try instead.

• The surprising power of making a decision, especially when you don't feel motivated.

• How to stop letting yesterday's mistakes steal the life you're living today.

• What a chance encounter outside a restaurant bathroom in Jackson, Wyoming with a famous Western artist had to do with any of this.

• Why anyone would spend two weeks building a nine-foot-tall cowboy in their driveway—and what happened along the way.

Recorded on an iPhone during a walk around the lake, this one's a little raw, a little windy, and a personal conversation about getting unstuck, finding your way back to yourself, and learning to enjoy the life that's right in front of you.

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Related Episodes

• Move First: How to Stop Overthinking, Shift Your State, and Get Clear

• The Pace Problem: Why Your Life Looks Right But Feels Off — A Crew Convo with Rachel McKinzie

• Have You Outgrown What You're Chasing? Jeeps, Mountain Pickles, and 500 Feet From the Top

What if the next level of your life doesn't require more capacity, more discipline, or more hours—but a harder look at what's already getting the best of you?

After reading 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, Chad started asking some uncomfortable questions about his own calendar, work, finances, health, and even this podcast. This episode is about what happens when your life is mostly working, but the way you've been doing it may no longer fit where you're headed. How do you know what to keep, what to change, and what to stop doing altogether? And what if something can be genuinely good—and still be getting too much of you?

• Why more capacity may not be the answer—and how the 10x mindset changes the question from "How can I do more?" to "What is actually worth doing?"
• A simple look-back exercise for seeing how much you've already changed—and using your own history as evidence for what may be possible next.
• The surprising trap of becoming really good at work that may no longer deserve your best energy.
• Why Chad is moving Life Off the Map from weekly to every other week—and what he's learning about the difference between consistency and frequency.
• What 7 yards of concrete, a $100,000 check, Ferris Bueller, and Jerry Maguire somehow have to do with changing direction.
• Five practical questions to help you decide what belongs on your calendar, what may need to go, and what should get the best of you now.

Sign up for the Sunday Trail Notes for behind-the-scenes thoughts, new episodes, book updates, and simple reflections you can use on your own or talk through with someone you care about.

You'll also be the first to hear about Life Off the Map gatherings and upcoming events in the Oklahoma City area, including Waypoint, a gathering for people building meaningful things. LifeOffTheMapShow.com

Follow on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6lIQPfjw98o3y8Giu13Bw8

Follow on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-off-the-map/id1864342091

• When You Build a House but Outgrow the Blueprint: Designing a Home and Life You Actually Want to Live In
• The Pace Problem: Why Your Life Looks Right But Feels Off — A Crew Convo with Rachel McKinzie
• Have You Outgrown What You're Chasing? Jeeps, Mountain Pickles, and 500 Feet From the Top

If your body feels stiff, beat up, or unable to do what it once could, you may not be as broken as you think. Dr. Kyle Griffith is a chiropractor and movement specialist at Motus Performance Therapy who helps athletes and everyday people move better, hurt less, and return to the lives they want to live.

In this Crew Conversation, Chad and Kyle explore a different way to understand pain, rebuild physical capacity, and create a body that supports your life as you get older. Along the way, they get into a muscle magazine from the '90s, bow hunting, climbing trees, and a mistake Kyle sees former athletes make all the time.

• Feel more hopeful about what your body may still be capable of.

• Develop a healthier relationship with pain—without allowing fear to make your decisions.

• Discover why the place you feel pain may not be where the problem began.

• Learn how to start rebuilding strength and capacity without immediately overdoing it.

• Meet the "Rocky Balboa problem" that gets many former athletes into trouble.

• Hear what bow hunting, balance beams, and climbing trees have to do with staying fully alive.

Sign up for our Sunday Trail Notes and hear more about upcoming events at LifeOffTheMapShow.com.

Follow on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6lIQPfjw98o3y8Giu13Bw8

Follow on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-off-the-map/id1864342091

• Move First: How to Stop Overthinking, Shift Your State, and Get Clear

• An Avalanche, Climbing Denali, and How Far Your Average Life Can Go: A Crew Convo with Chris Codding

• When You Build a House but Outgrow the Blueprint: Designing a Home and Life You Actually Want to Live In

What happens when the life you built still looks pretty good from the street—but something inside it doesn't fit the way it used to? The career may be working. The family is moving. The calendar is full. Nothing is necessarily falling apart. And yet you can still feel tired, restless, stretched thin, or quietly aware that there has to be more than simply keeping everything running.

After more than 25 years around houses, land, families, and construction, Chad started noticing that some of the same questions that make a house work also matter when building a life—and when helping another person grow. This episode moves from dirt, blueprints, foundations, and the things hidden behind the walls into a much bigger conversation about potential, values, relationships, growth, and why a life can be highly functional and still be missing some color. It's an invitation to look honestly at what you're building without assuming you have to tear the whole thing down.

• A simple way to tell whether what you say matters most is actually showing up in the way you live.
• Why potential can sit untouched for years—and what finally begins turning it into something real.
• How to recognize when someone needs encouragement, honest feedback, a better system, or simply room to try.
• What foundations and the systems hidden "behind the walls" can teach you about problems that may have started somewhere deeper than where they show up.
• How to build more beauty, creativity, adventure, and aliveness into a life that may already work pretty well.

Sign up for the Sunday Trail Notes for behind-the-scenes thoughts, new episodes, book updates, and one simple Sunday activity or conversation prompt connected to the week's show—something you can think through on your own or bring into a conversation with your spouse, family, or a friend. To get the Sunday Trail Notes, go to LifeOffTheMapShow.com.

Follow on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6lIQPfjw98o3y8Giu13Bw8

Follow on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-off-the-map/id1864342091

• Have You Outgrown What You're Chasing? Jeeps, Mountain Pickles, and 500 Feet From the Top
• Stuck in the In-Between — Crew Convo with Kevin Penry
• An Avalanche, Climbing Denali, and How Far Your Average Life Can Go — A Crew Convo with Chris Codding

What if the most extraordinary places in life aren't reserved for extraordinary people? Chris Codding is a husband, dad, commercial lender, and the kind of unassuming guy you could know for years without realizing where he's been. He has stood on remote ridges near 20,000 feet, heard snow and ice roar like a freight train, and built entire seasons of his life around mountains most of us only see in magazines. How does a kid from Oklahoma, whose curiosity began in a high-school library, end up in places like the Andes and Denali?

This Crew Conversation follows that thread—from a photograph in an old National Geographic to a goal that became so consuming Chris could barely imagine life beyond it. He never tells these stories like a hero, which may be exactly why they connect. Beneath the mountains is a question for anyone whose life looks responsible, full, and perhaps a little too mapped out: How far might your life go if you took seriously the thing that makes you feel alive? In this episode, you'll hear:

• The unexpected connection between a National Geographic, losing 45 pounds, and joining a high-school cross-country team

• A love story involving J.Crew, a red peacoat, Panera, and a quickly closing "weather window"

• What it feels like when a massive snow-and-ice fall roars beside you on a ridge just below 20,000 feet

• Why Denali became so consuming that Chris didn't plan his life beyond the expedition—and the question waiting on the other side

• A different way to think about being "exceedingly average" in a world obsessed with being the best

• Encouragement to find the pursuit that sharpens your axe and sends you back to your work, family, and ordinary life more awake

GET THE SUNDAY TRAIL NOTES. For behind-the-scenes thoughts, new episodes, book updates, and ideas Chad is still working through, sign up for the free Sunday Trail Notes:

https://lifeoffthemapshow.com

FOLLOW LIFE OFF THE MAP

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6lIQPfjw98o3y8Giu13Bw8

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-off-the-map/id1864342091

RELATED EPISODES

• Episode 31 — Have You Outgrown What You're Chasing? Jeeps, Mountain Pickles, and 500 Feet from the Top

• Episode 30 — What If You're Not Done Yet? Hope Pass, the Leadville 100 Trail & a Few Questionable Decisions

• Episode 27 — What Most Men Are Missing: A Story from the Blue River & Feeling Like Yourself Again

Six years after first saying he wanted to start a podcast, Chad finally hit record at 47. Thirty-five episodes later, the host knows a little more about microphones—but mostly he's learned that making something can expose, stretch, and change you in ways you never planned.

This isn't a polished highlight reel or a victory lap. It's an honest look behind Season One—the conversations that got under his skin, the experiments that didn't land, the things second-guessed, and the unexpected doors that opened anyway. Even if you never want to make a podcast, this episode is for anyone who has been circling something they feel pulled to begin. In this episode:

• What happened on the Tuesdays when confidence and motivation didn't show up • Why feeling clumsy or unqualified at something new is often where people quit too soon • How one of the season's least-listened-to experiments pointed toward a better way to tell the story • What changes when a trusted friend says what encouragement alone cannot • How always being the dependable person can hide the ways you're losing touch with yourself • One practical question for seeing what receives your best energy—and what only gets the leftovers

Get the Sunday Trail Notes—weekly reflections, stories, and questions worth sitting with: https://lifeoffthemapshow.com

Follow Life Off the Map: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6lIQPfjw98o3y8Giu13Bw8 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-off-the-map/id1864342091

Related episodes:

• The Fastest Way Out of a Rut & Into Momentum — Crew Convo with Jill Donovan • You Don't Grow Alone — But You've Been Trying To — Crew Convo with Steven Van Cauwenbergh • Stuck in the In-Between — Crew Convo with Kevin Penry • The Pace Problem: Why Your Life Looks Right But Feels Off — Crew Convo with Rachel McKinzie

A cherry-red 1988 Bronco that looked great but needed a little elbow grease just to keep moving. Walter Mitty spacing out in an elevator, rescuing a dog from a burning building in his own head. And an 89-year-old widower who discovers a very unlikely new hobby while trying to find his way through grief. On the surface, these stories have almost nothing in common.

But they all point toward a question that may hit closer to home than you expect: Are you actually inside the life you're living—or have you slowly started watching it happen from the sidelines? In this episode, Chad takes an early-morning walk through distraction, exhaustion, disappointment, friendship, ambition, and the strange experience of finally getting some of the things you worked for... only to realize being there and actually being there are two very different things.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why capable, responsible people can keep showing up while quietly checking out

• The surprising Harvard research on how often our minds wander away from the moment we're actually in

• What a misfiring cherry-red Bronco can teach you about energy, attention, and who gets the leftovers

• Why disappointment can affect your ability to enjoy a life that is still genuinely good

• What an 89-year-old man reveals about having something worth getting up for

• A simple way to notice where you've been absent—and begin coming back without blowing up your life

Get Sunday Trail Notes. For behind-the-scenes thoughts, new episodes, book updates, and ideas Chad is still working through, sign up for the Sunday Trail Notes:

LifeOffTheMapShow.com

Related Episodes

• Why Does Something Still Feel Missing? When a Good Quietly Feels Fully Alive

• Move First: How to Stop Overthinking, Shift Your State, and Get Clear

• Start Again. Drop the Story — Life Audit Series Part 2

Sometimes a walk through an old neighborhood becomes a walk back through your life. Unable to sleep, Chad heads outside at 4:30 a.m. and begins walking past the neighborhoods, houses, and elementary school that quietly held fourteen years of his family's life. Along the way, he walks by a hoarder house, an angry neighbor determined to stop a construction project, the home where his daughters grew up, and the unexpected lessons hidden inside ordinary places.

This raw, story-driven episode explores what old places can help us notice about risk, resistance, creativity, family, and the seasons that quietly end while we're busy living them. Chad also reflects on an unexpected viral Instagram reel, the strange discomfort of allowing yourself to be seen, and why walking has helped writers, thinkers, and everyday people work through their lives for centuries.

In this episode:

• What hoarder houses and angry neighbors taught Chad about risk and resistance

• Why difficulty doesn't always mean you chose the wrong road

• The difference between a real barrier and a hurdle you're simply afraid to cross

• What you can learn about walking from walkers in history

• What an unexpected viral reel revealed about visibility, insecurity, and putting your work into the world

• How to look back at an earlier season without needing to return to it

If you'd like more reflections like this each week, along with behind-the-scenes stories, book recommendations, and practical encouragement, sign up for Sunday Trail Notes at:

LifeOffTheMapShow.com

Books mentioned in this episode:

• Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews

• A Ramble Through the History of Walking by Bill Laws

Related episodes:

• Move First — How to Stop Overthinking, Shift Your State & Get Clear

• When Your Life Gets Rearranged: Fishing Boats, an Art Studio, and King Kong

• Why Your Best Adventures Leave Room for Surprise — Beef Jerky, Fly Rods & a Colorado Road Trip

Have you ever looked around at a life you genuinely love and still wondered why something feels... missing? Not because your life is falling apart. Not because you're ungrateful. But because somewhere beneath the responsibilities, routines, and successes, there's a quieter question you can't quite put into words. If you've ever felt guilty for asking that question, this episode is for you.

After 32 episodes, Chad realized there has been one conversation quietly hiding underneath every mountain, every adventure, every guest, and every story. In this personal episode, he steps back to explore why so many successful, high-capacity people experience a quiet restlessness—and why that feeling may not be something to ignore or fear, but something worth paying attention to.

In this episode:

• Why good seasons can sometimes create unexpected questions

• The subtle difference between building a life and maintaining one

• A personal story that changed the way Chad thinks about growth

• The hidden cost of living by someone else's definition of success

• What quiet restlessness may actually be trying to tell you

• Why paying attention might be more important than making a five-year plan

• One question that could reshape the next season of your life

Related Episodes

• Episode 31: Have You Outgrown What You're Chasing? — Jeeps, Mountain Pickles, and 500 Feet from the Top

• Episode 30: What If You're Not Done Yet? — Hope Pass, the Leadville 100 Trail, and a Few Questionable Decisions

• Episode 25: The Summer Edit: Less Busy. More Alive. More You.

If this episode encouraged you, would you take a minute to leave a rating or review? It helps more people discover the show and means more than you know.

For more episodes, behind-the-scenes updates, and the free Sunday Trail Notes email, visit LifeOffTheMapShow.com. We'd love to stay connected and keep exploring what it means to build a life that feels fully alive.

Most of us like the idea of adventure—we just don't like the parts we didn't plan. Whether it's a diagnosis, a closed door, a relationship that changed, a business that isn't going the way you expected, or simply realizing life looks different than the picture you had in your head, disappointment has a way of making us wonder if the story is over.

Recorded from Copper Mountain, Colorado, this episode is an invitation to slow down and explore one of the most compelling outdoor stories in Scripture: the Road to Emmaus. Through one ancient hike—and a few stories from the mountains—you'll discover why unexpected seasons may hold more hope than we realize, and why the thing you're searching for may be closer than you think.

In this episode:

• Why some of our greatest memories begin with a surprise we never wanted
• Three words from scripture that still capture what so many of us feel today
• The tension between adventure… and our need to stay in control
• What two discouraged travelers almost missed on a seven-mile walk
• One simple question that could change the way you experience this week
• Why the story may not be over—even if it feels like it is

Whether you're navigating disappointment, asking deeper questions about faith, or simply trying to make sense of an unexpected season, this conversation is an invitation to slow down, pay attention, and keep walking. Sometimes the greatest breakthrough isn't finding a new direction—it's recognizing what has been with you all along.

If this episode encourages you, consider sharing it with someone who could use a little hope this week. And if you're enjoying Life Off the Map, following the show and leaving a review helps more people discover these conversations about faith, adventure, leadership, and building a life that's fully alive.

Grab the Sunday Trail Notes at lifeoffthemapshow.com.

Related Episodes:

• Episode 31: Have You Outgrown What You're Chasing? Jeeps, Mountain Pickles, and 500 Feet From the Top
• Episode 29: Why Your Best Adventures Leave Room for Surprise: Beef Jerky, Fly Rods, and a Colorado Road Trip
• Crew Convo: Stuck in the In-Between – Kevin Penry