What's Next?
Building A Life That Can Carry The Climb
“What’s next for you?”
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.
I stocked our kitchen with groceries and prepared fresh food. I learned that lesson the hard way the day I launched my author website and then got sucked into a vortex of social media messages and congratulations. Hours passed before I realized I hadn’t eaten or even paused for a moment. The headache was bad and my stomach grumbled audibly — it took hours to rectify and valuable time away from my family.
I cleared my work calendar for the day after the launch event. I didn’t want to pack my schedule or talk about the book nonstop. Instead, I wanted to wake up without an alarm, exercise, meditate, and sit by the fireplace reading a fictional book with peppermint tea in hand. I wanted to stare out the window and watch nature be nature.
I reminded myself—intentionally—that I am more than this book and more than my work at MS Run the US. That may sound obvious, but I’ve also seen and experienced how easy it is to believe that we must keep incessantly moving, doing, and creating without pausing or all will be lost.
These practices held me as the unavoidable let-down approached. Because it would come, of course, and the severity and duration depended on my ability to detach from the thing I had achieved and focus on the mundane, every day tasks I trained myself to feel good about.
And I did—weathering the storm like a cute little summer sprinkle. (Oh, dear ego. You think this one thing defines me? Come at me, bro!)
So what’s next?
Honestly… quite a lot. That’s why my alarm is still set for 5:35 a.m. It’s why my workouts and quiet morning rituals remain the anchors of my day. It’s why I celebrate in ways people sometimes find unusual—extra workouts, quiet moments with books and birds, quick naps under cozy blankets. These habits are what steady me across both peaks and valleys. They’re the bedrock I return to as I begin climbing towards what’s next.
I could tell you what projects I’m lining up, but instead I want to leave you with this:
Build a foundation you can stand on no matter what rises up in front of you. Because what I should have said to my friend that night was this:
What’s next is a workout and a nap—so I can begin again, rested, ready, and blazing with my LFG energy, fire emojis included.