Walk And Talk Coaching In The Mountains

Coaching can feel mysterious until you hear it framed like sports practice for adulthood: clear goals, honest feedback, and small tweaks that compound. We talk with Adam Knapp of Knapp Creative Coaching about transformational coaching, how his decades in teaching shaped the way he listens, and why so many capable people still get stuck wrestling with worthiness and self-perception. If you’ve ever wondered why you “know what to do” but can’t seem to do it, this conversation gives you a practical way to think about change.

One of the most memorable parts is Adam’s walk-and-talk approach. We dig into why walking side by side can make hard questions easier to answer, how nature lowers stress and invites presence, and what it looks like to stay on track when we try to distract ourselves. We also get into Adam’s love of cycling and hiking around Western North Carolina, including favorite routes, safer trail options like Bent Creek, and simple habits that keep riders more protected.

From there, the story opens up into community and leadership. Adam shares how being raised overseas, finding Warren Wilson College, and building relationships in Black Mountain shaped his commitment to service. We connect volunteering, local festivals, and everyday “directing traffic” moments to the kind of caring leadership that helps towns and teams thrive. Finally, Adam previews what’s next: working with small businesses and mid-sized organizations on mission, vision, and long-term goals so people feel supported and aligned.

If you enjoy conversations about personal growth, leadership development, mindset, and coaching that actually works, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. What’s one small change you could make this week that would move your life forward?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Adam Knapp.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Here I am.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

I'm glad you're here.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

I'm right here.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I know. I'm glad you're here. You and I met in the Black Mountain Business Club long before it was part of the chamber.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yes, we did.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

We did. And you are part of, or no, you are Knapp Creative.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah, Nap Creative Coaching.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

There you go. And when I first met you, it was when I was brand new to the area and I really didn't know very many people. And I didn't know any much. So I didn't know anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah. Yeah. You're a steep learning curve.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

It was a really steep, fast learning curve. But my first thought was, what the heck is coaching? I mean, what are you going to do? Like, I know what coaching is. I played sports all the way through college. So I coached till I was 55 years old. I know coaching, but what the heck is coaching for grown-ups?

SPEAKER_00 1:19

It's the same thing. So it's the same thing. It's the cool thing about coaching in sports is you have a pretty finite goal. You have a start of the game, let's say, and a finish of the game. But all the coaching that really happens in a sport is at practice, right? And so it's the small tweaks that a coach has because of observing the execution of a play, execution of mindset, execution of team development, execution of showing up on time, simple stuff. So from a coaching perspective in human development and transformational coaching, like I do, the bedrock of what I do is from the 30 years of human development experience I have from teaching. My teaching career started right after college and started with little little people.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Teeny tiny people.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Teeny tiny kindergartner first graders.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

I can't imagine having you as a kindergarten teacher for my kids. You would have been great.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

It was fun. I I I I was given a gift. I was called to teaching, although it runs in the family. I mean, my great-great-grandfather and my grand-great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, my mother, my aunts, my uncles, brothers. Yes. Everyone's a lot of teachers. But for me, I came through sport actually into teaching because my first life was competitive bike racer.

unknown 2:43

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

And I was I was a mechanic, a salesman, and a bike racer, and I spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours on a bicycle.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

And uh I had coaches, I had teammates, I had goals, I had objectives, I had you know, cross-training, I had objects you know maintaining nutrition, maintaining, you know, weight workouts and all the things.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

All the things.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

So when I discovered that I was a capable person and I was worthy, because that was a big thing, I think worthiness is something that people struggle with. I realized that I wanted to go to college. I wanted to go and l be more of an impact in the world, like my folks have been.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Where'd you go to college?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

I came here to the Swannanoa Valley and went to Warren Wilson College.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Really? That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Warren Wilson and studied literature and creative writing. Worked on the farm. Well, worked on the farm for the holidays, but I worked on the garden. I worked on the library crew, did a lot of different uh service projects. At the time, we were required to do a hundred hours of service uh to graduate and 15 hours of work every week while we did our academics and studying literature and writing was a pretty reading heavy sort of situation. But all those circumstances from cycling and excelling at the sport and having goals to be, you know, professional academics and wanting to be, you know, capable at writing and capable at serving humanity, and then starting the teaching practice and working with little people and working with now uh you know bigger people in those kind of those years, there's some common threads that arrive in in people seeking to become their best self. And it doesn't matter who the person is, male, female, you know, old, young, smart, motivated, resistant. A coaching is showing up for somebody at a deep level, listening to what they want to achieve, and helping them problem solve towards the solutions that will fit the vision that they have for their life.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

You're really, really good at that. My favorite part of what you do is that uh you go and walk on walk and talk.

Teaching Roots And Cycling Discipline

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Walk and talks is, you know, what's really cool about uh my family is we like to go on walks. And it goes all the way back to my dad and us as kids. We would always travel uh because my folks were history teachers and professors, and so we went to we went to culture, we went to uh historical locations, but we always seemed to find the furthest parking lot from the place we were going. And so it was a kind of a habit for our family, and it became a passion for me. And uh, once I got into bicycles, that was my passion. But the distance on the ride became I kind of transferred it once I got to western North Carolina and got into the Swantanoa Valley and go in this area. There's so much hiking going on that I, you know, started learning where the trails were, started learning how to hike and learning what hiking was and learning what backpacking was and long trips and such. And now with this business and you know, working on this business for you know seven years since I left the classroom, I noticed that I'm able to get into a really sensitive and important location with a person in conversation when we're on a walk.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

You know what, you know what it as a as a client of yours, yeah. I was your client. Yeah, I guess, is that what you call us? Sure. Clients. Clients, yeah. Okay. And when I was your client, what I I mean, I'm a girl who's like, look the person in the eye and talk to them.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

But yeah, there are times when I don't want to look you in the eye when you're asking me the hard questions and you're making it so the walk and talk was good for me because I didn't have to look at you. Yeah. I mean, I could and I could be easily distracted and we could talk about a tree instead of talking about whatever you just asked me. Right. What you're really good at is remembering what you just asked me when I try to distract you, you can bring it back. So you're really good at that.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Well, nature is nature is connected to spirit and God, right? And so when we are walking through the the natural world, we're stepping into a space that's bigger than we are. And when we are comforted by what's bigger than we are, we can approach softly and gently and intentionally the things that are difficult. And I believe that the beauty of that kind of truth, in my opinion, is we can break down our anxiety around facing ourselves. And one of the biggest obstacles for human growth and development is overcoming our self-perception.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Okay, you're getting deep. We don't do deep on here. So calm down, calm down. So this is You're way over my head. I don't even know what you're talking about. So yeah, walk and talks. Walk and talks. Love them. They're great. They're great. And it keeps you fit. That's right. Well, yeah, sure. I think I needed to do more walk and talks, perhaps. But of course. Yeah. So so we're a cyclist. Do we still do we still ride?

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Yeah, I ride. I ride.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

That was not convincing at all. When was the last time you rode?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Last year.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Okay, that's not I still ride. That's I rode last year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

But I, you know, psych I'm I this is funny and it it's uh kind of a pun. It it's a cyclical thing for me.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

If I'm really heavy into my hiking, I'll you know, spend time and energy to go to a trail to hike, but I do vacillate and I do sometimes, you know, put my time back on the bike. And I've got I've got a really nice bike that I love and it's super light and super beautiful, and I love to ride it. And you know, as having you know, so many years where I've spent time on bicycles, I was 30 before I had my own my first car. So I literally have spent a lot of time on a bike. It's it's an intimate place for me for sure. So I I like going on bikes.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

And are we on roads or are we in the mountains or are we on trails?

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Well, I had a gravel bike, so I can I also ride on some trails here and there, but I do love riding on them on the roads. Route nine is a really favorite route route for me to come up.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

It sounds scary to me.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

It it can be scary.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Maybe I'll pay attention better when I'm driving on nine.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

It can be scary, yeah. But I do kind of force myself onto the road where people have to downshift their transmission and slow down to get around me rather than trying to squeeze by. It's the drivers who try and squeeze by you that are the dangerous ones. Without slowing down.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

I'll slow down. I'm pretty slow on nine anyway.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah. But it's a hard ride because you gotta go up over nine, and then to get over to Fairview, you gotta get up over 74 or 64. You want to go down to Hendersonville or whatever, but it's just dependent upon how long I want to be on the saddle.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

So is is my number in your phone and do you take your phone with you? I would get to the end and be like, okay, I need to ride back.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

I take a phone, I have a I have a device on my computer, on my bike, a little computer, and I let people know when I go out for rides.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

That's thank you. I appreciate that. We need you here.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

I don't want to be bumped off the road and be languishing in a gully somewhere.

Walk And Talk Coaching Outdoors

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, that's gross. No, thank you. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

All right. So where where where so I guess you're a road guy? I need help with like trails. I've spent a lot of time. Where do you ride that grival gravel bike?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Bent Creek.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

What?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Where's that?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

That's uh down by North Carolina Arboretum off the parkway.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Down right near French Broad River.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Okay. Well, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

I could do that. I could do that. It's close enough.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

The cool thing about the Bent Creek trails is they have variety. You can go there and you can be in a safe space and no car traffic and have a flat route where it's kind of a nice, you know, 30 minutes out, 30 minutes back, or 20 minutes out, 20 minutes back, or you can vary it and get a little bit of ups and downs. Okay. So you can dictate your trail that you want. There's some other cool places I've heard, and I haven't done this because I don't go to the Biltmore often, but the Biltmore estate, uh, if you have a pass, you can actually get in before the day opens and do a bike ride. They have a bunch of trails also. However, I don't know what's the result after you know You still can.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

You still can. I know I know about that. My child, my child is unique, and he is he thinks outside the box more than I I ever have. And he's he's amazing. But he said, I said, what do you he was here before I was here and he said something about I'm going to the gym. And I said, Do you go to the gym? I didn't I didn't know you were a gym guy. He goes, Yeah, it's this big, beautiful estate. It's like thousands of acres. And you can walk anywhere, you can ride a bike, you can run, you can do whatever. I was like, What? And he explained the whole thing to me without saying Biltmore. If he just said it's Biltmore, I would have gotten it. But he was like, it's the same price as a gym membership for me to have smart. And he lived really close. So that's what he would do.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

So I like that idea. I'm about to cancel my gym membership. Maybe go ahead and transfer it over to the Biltmore state.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, who knows?

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yeah. So you also you said that you moved here to go to college. Where'd you move from?

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Interesting story. So I am actually uh I'm an American citizen. I was born underneath the American flag, but I was born on a US military base in Brussels, Belgium.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

And I was raised in Heidelberg, Germany.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

I did know that. I forgot. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

So my dad and my mom worked for the Department of Defense. And myself, my older brother, and my younger brother were all raised in Heidelberg. And we traveled around. That's how we got into some really cool uh culture and into historic sites that you know uh all the European countries basically. And uh when I was a young boy, I wanted to live with my mom. My mom and my dad got divorced when I was young, and my mom moved back to the States. Gotcha. And she moved to Virginia, and so after I was kind of like, well, her my stepdad was stationed at a base in Virginia, and that's kind of where they landed and still are to this day. Okay. So when I was young adolescent, I moved to uh Virginia to hang out with my mom and get to know her more. And uh so I moved from Virginia to Swannonoa, but I was there for nine years before I moved here. I didn't I didn't start school until I was twenty three.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

So it was and you went to school for nine years?

SPEAKER_00 13:58

I no.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Okay, I missed that.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

I moved to Virginia and finished my high school years.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

That was the nine years.

Riding Again And Staying Safe

SPEAKER_00 14:05

A Vanguin didn't I didn't do what my other brothers did right after college. I didn't go to college right away or right after high school. I I I s started the cycling life when I was in high school, and it was attractive. I was getting better at it, and uh I was committed to that, and so when I became more skilled at the cycling experience, and I got stronger and stronger, and it was getting better and better, and accept you know rising in the ranks of skill. That was also the time when I was uh deepening my understanding that I could do anything I wanted to. And once I realized I could do anything I put my mind to, that's the time when I decided I want to go to college. And there was a woman at my church who said there's this really cool school in the mountains of western North Carolina that she thought I would enjoy. And she knew me pretty well because her husband was my piano teacher, and so they, Linda and David, they were really wonderful people, still are. And she said, Yeah, you should check it out. That was back in the day when there was no computers, so I was kind of flipping through the book in the library at the I think it was Barron's college guide or something. Funny. And I just looked and saw the phone number, called the phone number. Wow, and the woman who answered the phone is now still in my circle of friends. Well, that's cool. Because her son works for my best friend who I met at Warren Wilson, who we maintain our friendships. And so it's been a really wonderful experience moving to Western North Carolina and experiencing, you know, deep relationships with with people, with community. Uh, you know, I've really I've enjoyed, you know, being here in Black Mountain and living here and still committed to Warren Wilson in various ways as an active member of the alumni community. And I see the results of working very hard at learning how to read well and learning how to write well in the kind of the, you know, the scholarly level. But I think those skill sets were certainly deepened by learning how to teach, you know, five and six-year-olds literally how to read.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

How to how to put together language, words, letters, phonetics, that kind of relationship, then teaching high schoolers, you know, Shakespeare, and then teaching teachers how to teach better when I was working for the deep North Carolina DPI, a department of public instruction. Those those sequences of events from Heidelberg, where I was raised, to Virginia, where I became a cyclist and became confident and strong to school to learn a skill and then stay around. You know, met my ex-wife. We had a beautiful family. Our son is gorgeous and wonderful. His his wife is wonderful, and they have a brand new baby.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

So saying they have what?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

They have a brand new baby. What's her name? Little Rosa Lee.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Rosalie.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

She'll be three months old in three days.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

I've only seen 67 pictures of her.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

She's fabulous. She is the most adorable human being on the planet.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

This is the first time you've actually smiled the whole time we were interviewing. So you know, just so you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Well, she's she's got my heart absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

And so it's interesting, right? Because one of the the bedrocks of helping individuals transform from the person that they are to the person that they want to be is I get the privilege of pushing myself in new directions also.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Because I don't see myself as a valuable coach if I'm not picking up what I'm putting down. And I've learned that, you know, working with with people about, you know, where do people feel the most love and how much more love do they want to have in their life and how do they want to shine.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

That's right.

Europe Childhood And Finding College

SPEAKER_00 17:57

And I think having the privilege of helping people, like going on walk and talks or sitting over coffee or tea, or just listening to where they want to be.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

In a gazebo.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

In a gazebo, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

We had a gazebo that was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah, it was. I I live on a community down in Montreat area, Black Mountain off of Montreat Road. It's called Quietude. And uh the Garzarellis are wonderful people who have a great idea about bringing w wellness and health and and resilience to the community. Before September 24, there was a cool gazebo, uh, a screen-in gazebo right near where my office is in that space. And uh yeah, I would meet clients there and we would sit and uh go over uh goals and objectives and and next steps and action items.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

I still have little post-it notes all over my mirror in my bathroom. When I moved, I moved from one apartment to another one. Yeah, I was like, ooh, I need to keep these in the same order. And I and I put them, yeah. Anyway, they're in the new apartment.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

I I number my sticky notes sometimes just to keep them in order.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I just took a picture and then we redid it.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

So I've I and that's one of the beautiful things about living in Black Mountain and being a part of the Black Mountain Chamber and Black Mountain community is living in this community and working in this community and being embedded in the community. And you know, I had the privilege of being able to go to the rotary. Black Mountain Rotary is a really important mover and shaker in town and making some you know impact and you know creating you know support for important and valuable some of your Warren Wilson buddies are in great some of my and you didn't know that until annual dinner, I think.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

That's when y'all connected again.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just you know, Andrew and Forrest and some other folks. Uh so it's it's there's something that happens when we can settle into the community of where we live. And I've really been kind of opening my heart up to that more and learning how to provide more service and more care. You know, like last year working with the Sourwood Festival and standing on the corner and you know, directing traffic. Directing traffic, you know, there was a I saw the direct result of helping people go in the correct direction with their vehicles and the safety of the people who were setting up their their tents. And so that direct correlation of just small little adjustments created safety for people who were trying to quickly unpack their gear and set up their tents so they can make money at this festival. And, you know, it's the drivers coming in, they got their objective. So it's interesting because when you stand at an intersection of two things with the knowledge of what the what's really needing to happen, there's a safety element that occurs, you know, and you're thinking safety first, you know, that that m mantra or that that that staying that people have, it really makes sense because it it says you know what needs to be happening and you're aware of the next steps, and you can directly and you know sometimes you know delicately delicately, you know, direct them delicately shove them suggest driver to go in a particular direction. It's a interesting example, but uh it's also metaphoric to a lot of change that comes into community, is I that's where leadership comes in. You know, that's where being a leader and being a competent leader, caring leader is about knowing your community.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yep. And that you have great news. You can go ahead and sign up to be a volunteer this year. You'll get your same job. Definitely you sign up early, you get to get to yeah. We're trying to do things a little more with software a little bit. So it's it's we're trying to get to where we are. You know, in the 20th century, 21st century, maybe even. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

We don't want to push it, but well, there's a learning edge to everything, right? Right. So if we do one thing and we do it enough, we should be learning while we're doing that thing. Right.

unknown 22:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

That and that's being attuned, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

And attunement is is subtle.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Sure. Tell me what kept you here after college.

Community Service And Local Leadership

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Uh grey beard, Seven Sisters. You know, look out. You know, the trails, the Swano Noah. The French prod, the the people, the just the dedication that I witnessed people have for their farms, small farmers. The I was really attracted to rural Appalachian folk art and woodworking and chair making and I don't do those crafts, but I enjoy being in a community where people are playing with natural fibers and natural elements to create a living. And it was pretty neat to me. And I I studied Appalachian culture also in this in in school and not deeply, but enough. And it was super super attractive.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Okay, so you have to do a TED talk and what is your TED talk gonna be about that's not coaching, that's not anything you do for a living. What's your TED talk about?

SPEAKER_00 23:30

TED Talk about that's a hard question.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

I know. That's why I asked you, because you always ask hard questions, so you deserve to get some right back at you. Well So Forrest was for I asked this at Business Club one week, and Forrest was blacksmithing and he learned it at Warren Wilson. And I was like, what?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

That's really cool. So that's where that question came from.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Uh well, you know, it'd be interesting. I think, all right, if we're gonna take that tact, I would say double digging in their garden and doing double digging.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Well, it's uh it's preparing your garden beds for the most nutrition-based food growth and flower growth that you can do by really preparing the nutrients in the beds. So you you go deeper than the roots and you you you mix in mulch and you mix in nutrients and you mix in nitrogens, fixing elements, and you mix that in, and then you plant your seeds and you plant your starters, and you have a a very sustainable uh food product producing strategy for the garden now or no? Not as much as I used to when I we're in the woods where you live.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

There's really not any sun back there, really.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

No, there's not. But uh, we had a garden when I was when we were family, my ex-wife and I, and had a garden before then. I've gardened since uh in different places I've lived. Just right now, my garden is more in the business world. Yep, and helping people grow.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Because ultimately, and it's har so that's why it's difficult for me to kind of stay away from the workplace because double digging and you know that type of gardening comes from a you know a a German scholar named Rudolf Steiner, and he he's the guy who created Rudy.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

I know Rudy.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah, he created Waldorf schools.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

And cool. So in biodynamic farming.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Do you know David Carter Florence yet?

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Nope.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

You need to meet him.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

You need to meet him. He's uh he's over at the Presbyterian Church, but he was a I don't think he was a teacher. I think he ran a Waldorf school in Georgia. Oh, cool. Before he came here.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Anyway, sorry, you need to meet him.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

And you would like him too. He's super fun.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

So so it's a metaphor for life, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Sorry. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

So the way we the way we plant a seed. Yep. I mean, it's how life grows.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

You always manage to bring things back to work, but it's not work, it's it's life. It's life. And you do a really good job of that. And so even if I tell you a crazy story, you're like, oh, let me tell you how that's gonna change your world. And I'm like, it was just a story. But then two days later, I'm like, oh, it wasn't just a story. So you're really good at that. That's one of your gifts and talents.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

I appreciate that. I appreciate that witnessing. It's something that's you know, there's when we're living our life and we're paying attention to the present moment, the the lessons and the learning and the gifts of life are right where we're sitting, or right where we're walking, right where we're working. It's the distractions that keep us from being present.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

I'm really good at distractions. I'm trying to distract you and I can't seem to do it. I'm impressed.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I'm super distracted.

Gardening Metaphors And Visitor Tips

SPEAKER_01 26:49

What do I do? What can I say? What kind of question can I ask you to get you off of that? Come on.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Well, I mean it it I love I love how things are entwined, Cheryl.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

I know. I know, and that's what you're good at.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

So that's why you're that's why you do what you do. That's kind of how my mind works and my heart works.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

So how do how often do you run into a visitor to town? Not with work necessarily, but but what would you tell a visitor that you ran into just walking down the street or whatever? Um, what would you tell them to be sure that they didn't miss while they were here?

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Oh wow. You know, I really like directing people down to Cherry Street and I See, I thought you'd send them to the trails and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

I was like, this time we're not gonna talk about stores and restaurants, we're gonna talk about trails, but that's okay. Keep going.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Well, what's cool on Cherry Street and it attracts my attention pretty quickly because I do have a sugar tooth is I like going to IHOP and getting the hop. Not our sorry, sorry, my bad.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

It's okay, I'm teasing you.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

The hop. I know yeah, they've been around for a long time. But you know, chocolate and strawberry cup of ice cream and take that. But as far as, you know, if you know, obviously if someone shows up to town and they're looking like they're wanting to be in town, I'll direct them to somewhere in town, you know, go to the Perry Social House to get a a cup of tea or coffee or a glass of wine or something, a beautiful place to sit and talk.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Have you ever watched the sunset on their front porch? Oh my goodness. I have.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

I like to I like to direct people if they want a good meal to any one of the places. I I really do like, you know, the bush. It's yep, like sitting out there and having, you know, a nice, you know, meal there.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Just like being outside there. You feel like you're outside, but you're not, but you are, but you feel like you are. Yeah. I mean you can be, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Sure. And but then, you know, it's like if they're here for a longer stay, if they're here for a weekend or so, you know, definitely send them up to the trails and the Montreal area. You know, go to Lake Susan. If they have young kids, definitely to the park. It's below you know Lake Susan where you can kind of toddle around. My son was raised in that park. That's the best part. Yes. It's the best part. I have vivid memories of him like finding cool things in the water with his little crocs on to protect his feet.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

That's so cute.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

And uh so, you know, any of those trails, there's the you know, some of the trails have been, you know, damaged, of course, but there's some that are still coming back walkable. And there's what's really cool too is up at the trailhead up to the left by the pond, uh, when you head up towards Greybeard and such, there's a little uh education gazebo that has a labyrinth painted onto the floor of it.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

And so it's really Is that like before the dam? Is that what you're talking about? At the at the ranger station?

SPEAKER_00 29:43

You've gone further now. Further up. I've gone all the way up to the trailhead to uh Greybeard Falls and Okay, and so the parking lot, a really skinny parking lot along the Flat Creek. Okay at the where before the those sparsely planted homes are way up, way up past the campground and everything. But once you park in that spot and before you cross over the bridge to get to the trails, on the left, there's a pond.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Oh, that pond. Yeah, I've been there. I've I've been there. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

And that pond, there's an environmental gotcha. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

I have been there. I didn't know about the labyrinth.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

That is part of Montreal College that they'd bring their environmental leadership team to and paint it on the floor is a labyrinth. So it's a very spiritual place.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

So uh I can direct people to a lot of different places, is my point.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

So what day what day did you want to work in the visitor center? Um, which day of the week is your four hours. That'd be great. Okay. We'll we'll sign you up back.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Or you'd be great at you would be great at that.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

I'll be glad to do that.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

You were my first timber member too. First member to join when I became the director. Uh you were the first person to to I was like, oh, that's kind of that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Kind of made my day. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, you know, we definitely are able to grow when we help others grow.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Well, you did that for me. And and I've I've heard of other people you've done that for, and I appreciate that.

Vision And Mission Work For Teams

SPEAKER_00 31:08

For sure. Yeah. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Is there anything I forgot to ask you or should have asked you or you wish I had?

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Well, I think what's next for me is I have been growing my business and getting it to the place where I can sit with small teams and small corporations and work in visioning and missioning, kind of like really clarifying mission vision and get everybody on the same kind of idea. And that's been a real joy for me because there's something cool about that in the sense that it's similar to being in a teaching environment where constantly moving, you know, people through you know, a curriculum through ideas and then finding and having discoveries. Because one of the things I've discovered about working with small businesses and mid-sized businesses, anywhere from you know five to a hundred employees, is ultimately the businesses that are doing well and they are growing, most everybody in the business really enjoys what they're doing and they're treated well, they're being taken care of, and they give their all. Yep. And in that kind of environment of working with people who are treated well and and working in an environment where they are feeling supported, the clarity that they can find around some external guidance around their mission vision and kind of their long-term projected goals is really cool.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Very cool. So you like that's your new next thing is working towards more corporations and businesses.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

For sure. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Very cool. Well, thank you very much for coming today, Adam. I appreciate you and I appreciate your time today.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Appreciate you too, Cheryl.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Thank you. Thanks for joining us on Exploring the Valley. Until next time, keep celebrating the pride of our community and discovering the magic of the mountains. In the meantime, you're free to move about the valley.