521 Rick's Riffs- Campfires, Trail Dust & Kern River Lessons: My Outdoor Origin Story

 The first time I realized the outdoors could be more than just a place, it could be a calling, was somewhere between a nervous 11-year-old with a skinned knee and a whitewater rapid called Satan's Cesspool.

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Show Notes

I didn’t plan on building a life around the outdoors.

Then it happened.

A shy kid — the kind who barely muttered a word for two days — tugged my sleeve and asked if I could show him how to identify tracks on the trail.

We knelt in the dirt like two mini wildlife detectives, tracking a raccoon through pine needles like it was a national treasure. The look on his face when he figured it out? Lit. Up.

That moment rewired something in me.

Suddenly, the outdoors wasn’t just a place. It was a pulse. A calling. That same summer I found myself guiding rafts down the Kern River, soaking up adrenaline and humility in equal measure — because rivers don’t care if you think you’re cool. They’ll throw you out of the raft just to prove a point.

I went from teaching ghost stories around the campfire to cooking steaks by river eddies and sleeping under a galaxy-thick sky that made me feel both tiny and infinite.

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Principle:
Sometimes your calling doesn’t shout — it whispers through pine needles, screams from a rapid, or nudges you with a quiet “Hey, can you show me how?”

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Transition:
A lot of people wait for some grand sign to show them what to do next. But what if the answer is already in motion — just disguised as curiosity, community, or one unforgettable outdoor moment?

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That’s why:
That’s why I shared this story on the latest episode — not to tell you how to find your purpose, but to show you that it might already be hiding in the things that light you up when no one’s watching.

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Call to Action:
If you’ve been feeling stuck or unsure about what’s next, don’t wait for clarity to knock — go listen to this episode. It might just reconnect you with the spark you didn’t know you lost. 🎧