This Tree and Me

You can change the city, the job, the routine, and the life around you — and still quietly rebuild the same world.

In this episode of This Tree and Me, Cory explores what happens when the things that helped us grow become the things we are comfortable hiding inside. He looks at the difference between following and running, when a good routine becomes maintenance, why “different” may matter more than “more,” and the gap between knowing what we need to do and actually doing it.

The deeper question is not only what needs to change.

It is what we may have to let go of — identity, control, comfort, or the story we have been protecting — before our life can truly become different.

Hosted by Cory J Riggs.

One year after the first episode of This Tree and Me, Cory goes back to where it started.

Using clips from that original recording, he revisits the things he was already wrestling with: starting before he was ready, consistency, fear, vulnerability, following his own life, his relationship with the tree, and not knowing what any of this would become.

The language has evolved. The understanding has deepened. But much of the foundation was already there.

This isn’t just a look back at what changed. It’s a conversation between who Cory was then and who he is now—and a reminder that sometimes growth doesn’t mean abandoning what you believed. Sometimes it means finally understanding it.

This Tree and Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs

How big does something have to be before you're allowed to be afraid of it?

We tend to assume the biggest version of something is the part we're afraid of—the bigger opportunity, the bigger stage, the bigger change. But sometimes the smaller thing directly in front of us can bring up the same fear.

In this episode, I explore what actually changes as the opportunity gets bigger and what might stay remarkably familiar. The stakes can change. The reach can change. The consequences can change. But the fear may still come from the same territory.

And sometimes the bigger picture we're carrying in our heads can make the first step harder than it needs to be.

This isn't about deciding that all fear is the same or telling someone else that they're making something bigger than it is. It's about looking at our own fear, what's actually in front of us, and what we've attached to it.

This Tree and Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs

What happens when you finally have some momentum—and then you stop?

Not because you quit.

You simply chose to put something down because something else in your life deserved your presence.

But when you have a history of starting strong and eventually fading, taking a break can bring up an uncomfortable question:

Am I doing it again?

In this episode of This Tree and Me, Cory J Riggs explores the difference between avoiding the work and intentionally stepping away from it, what it means to let life interrupt the plan without abandoning the plan, and why trusting ourselves to return comes from evidence—not simply telling ourselves that we will.

Sustaining something doesn't mean performing at our highest level every single day.

Sometimes part of sustaining it is learning how to stop without quitting.

Chapters

00:00 — Can You Stop Without Quitting?

01:41 — Here I Go Again

06:16 — I Chose to Put It Down

13:11 — Let Life Be Life

17:46 — The Evidence Builds the Trust

27:09 — Truth

31:45 — Reflection

This Tree and Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs

Listen. Allow. Follow.

There comes a point where you know.

You know what you want. You know where you're going. You probably even know a lot of what you need to do.

Then comes the harder part: doing it.

In this episode of This Tree and Me, Cory J Riggs explores the difference between knowing the path and actually walking it—the pressure that shows up when something is sitting right in front of us, the muscle of sustaining what we start, and why the big things are built through small, consistent action.

What happens when you stop waiting for every answer and simply take the next step?

Because sometimes we already know enough. And when we don't know the next step, we can get curious, ask questions, learn—and find out.

Chapters

00:00 — What Happens After You Know?

00:59 — I Know the Path

02:58 — That's What I Am Building

07:12 — Just Do Something

15:50 — When It's in Front of You

20:31 — Take the Step

27:49 — Truth

30:31 — Reflection

Then do it.

This Tree and Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs

Have you ever said something out loud and known it was true before you'd thought it?

I was driving someone home from a live reading, explaining why I wasn't ready to date. And I'm leaving Tulsa came out of my mouth before the thought had formed. I hadn't decided it. It just came out — and then I had to decide whether I'd follow it.

I followed it. The resignation came in June, the departure in July, and I landed in Cane Beds, Arizona on August 1 — four years to the day from another decision that had arrived exactly the same way.

Then the old patterns showed up in the new place. The road didn't remove them. What it gave me instead is the part of this episode I didn't see coming, and what came out the other side was simpler than I expected.

This is also the first episode recorded without a script. That change arrived the same way everything else in this story did.

Some decisions need planning. But planning can't always tell you what's yours.

Cory J Riggs — Self-Leadership Coach • Storyteller • Creator of the LAF Method

CoryJRiggs.com

Everyone talks about the calm before the storm. Nobody talks about the other one.

Not the calm from going around it, or over it, or under it — the calm that comes from walking straight through. That one is different, and it carries something the avoidance keeps you from receiving.

The storm is not the problem. The avoiding of it is. Walking through it is usually simpler than you think — it's returning to the simplest available act and doing it. And what comes out the other side isn't a grand vision. It's two instructions.

Let go of what does not serve you. Do what feeds where you want to go. Both. Every day.

The credential is not the storm. It's what you did inside it.

Cory J Riggs — Self-leadership Coach • Storyteller • Creator of the LAF Method

CoryJRiggs.com

How much energy are you spending explaining yourself — not to other people, but to yourself?

Building the case for why what you are doing makes sense. Finding the practical justification. Making sure the reason sounds acceptable enough to act on.

And underneath all of that explaining, there is something simpler. Something that does not need a case built around it. What you were made for.

This episode covers the justification trap and why attaching a practical reason to the work that chose you eventually makes it feel like a transaction, why the foundation is never the money or the audience or the strategy, why the need to keep justifying something to yourself is a signal that permission has not been fully given, and what happens in the space when you stop explaining and start following.

The work does not need your defense. It needs your follow.

This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.

Everyone has a car they have not gotten into yet.

Not a literal car. The thing. The decision. The step that has been sitting there waiting for you to feel ready. And here is what I know — you are never going to feel ready. The nerves are going to be there regardless. The not-knowing is going to be there regardless. The only variable is whether you get in.

This episode is about every threshold feeling the same from the inside — and the muscle that gets built every time you cross one anyway. What the actual departure looked like. What August 1st meant four years apart. And why the clarity you are waiting for does not come from the driveway. It comes from being on the road.

Get in the car. The rest follows from that.

This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.

What are you holding onto that you do not actually need?

Not what you have lost. The things you are choosing to carry past the point where they were serving you. The version of yourself you outgrew but still perform. The safety net you never use but refuse to put down. The story about why things didn't work that you keep updated and ready.

You cannot grow into what you are meant to be while carrying what you are done with.

This episode is about the growth that starts with subtraction — why letting go is not a loss but the most underrated form of growth available. Why you do not have to know where you are going to know what you are done with. And what grows in the space when you finally put it down.

Shed before you grow. That is where this episode lives.

This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.