A friend asked the question from the front row at my book launch event, right as we were wrapping up the program and closing Q&A. Her words hung in the air like a challenge. What would come after publishing a book—an accomplishment many dream of but few ever reach?
It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked something like that. After I finished my solo 3,288-mile run across America, people wondered the same thing: What now? “You’ve achieved something monumental at only twenty-five years old,” an older gentleman told me. “What could you possibly do next that measures up?”
Big achievements tend to stand like mountains along the trajectory of life—massive mounds of uphill effort leading to an apex. And once you get to the top, you look around and may wonder: Now what?
I’m reminded of a scene from my book, when I was running up Loveland Pass in Colorado—the tallest point in the entire event:
My lungs ached. My muscles throbbed. My whole body pleaded with me to stop.
I refused.
Running a switchback, I looked out at a stretch of stunning mountain peaks that went on for miles, far beyond what I could see. The raw beauty of the range at this height was powerful; it stilled me in my place.
What a dazzling place, this earth, I heard from within.
I marveled at the truth. I could not disagree.
Nearing a peak doesn’t show you the end of the journey—it reveals all the other peaks still waiting. From that height, “What’s next?” isn’t just logical; it’s inevitable.
But as my book launch approached, what I focused on most wasn’t the next mountain. It was the fundamentals—the practices that carried me to this summit in the first place.
