#23 The Fellowship: The Art of Walking Past Security

Hello my people!

This week's themes (lots of reminders!):

• I AM a coach

• The act of adventuring is the real success

• I absolutely love Nature

• Live Lovingly, especially when things don’t go as planned

If you’re new, welcome! I'm Ben! By 2030, my goal is to help 1 million young adults to better understand themselves.​​​​​​

This newsletter is all about my journey of understanding myself and sharing the things that most energize, challenge, and inform my life.

👉 Learn more here

Missed past editions? I recommend checking out A Weird Thursday Experience and My Declaration

There are two ways to arrive somewhere new.

Option One: You know why you are going, what you are going to do, where you are going to stay.

Option Two: Buy a flight to Bozeman, Montana without a place to stay, no concrete plans, and only an intention to be in nature.

(There is an option three which is a balance of both, but for the sake of my point haha)

I chose option two.

Which is how I ended up watching a rodeo accidentally from the front row—but we'll get to that.

A Kick In The Butt

Let me be honest: this week has been tough. It’s kicked my butt.

I’ve had many moments questioning my decision to come.

The living situations have not been ideal, the uncertainty was constant, and half the time when I wanted to be in nature, I was behind the computer trying to figure out where I would sleep next.

But here's what I learned about holding uncertainty. A skill I’ve come to intimately know in the last few years:

I show up for life, but life sometimes shows up differently than expected.

The magic isn't in me controlling my experience here. It's in how I respond when my plans implode :)

I realized that by being here, fully with the discomfort, I was actually doing the thing! Living fully, making decisions with imperfect information, then adapting as I go.

This week, I found myself needing to double down on self-love. Deep breaths. Good food. Movement. Sleep (not always easy, as you’ll read on). The basics that keep me grounded when the ground keeps shifting.

My Favorite Travel Hack

Want to know a city quickly? Run through it.

My morning runs have shown me hidden corners of Bozeman I never would've discovered otherwise.

Yesterday I found a nice quaint trail that brought me so much joy!

Movement + exploration = instant local knowledge.

Bye Bye Hostel

Thursday: I arrived in Bozeman with no transportation, no place to stay, and nearly lost my bag en route.

I pulled out my computer and found the only reasonable place.

A 3-bed room in Bozeman’s only hostel.

I arrived at the hostel and walked down a flight of stairs that led me down a long hallway. I saw the only natural light shrink as I got further from the street entrance.

I checked into the main office and above me heard a loud noise and several footsteps.

“What’s that?” I asked

“Oh, that’s the bar above us.”

"Here's some earplugs," the desk clerk said, handing me foam plugs like they were complimentary mints.

I arrived in my room where each bed had a personal fan. I plugged mine in…broken.

I’m sure the fans not that big of a deal, I thought.

A few hours later it was time for bed. We turn the lights off and an hour later I wake up to a furnace of a room. Now I understood what the fan was for.

I laid awake that night thinking, Well, at least you readers will get a good story out of this.

The highlight? My alarm going off signaling the start of a new day!

Note: I’ve often had good experiences in international hostels. This was my first not so great experience. Overall, I recommend the hostel experience to many young people (most of the time).

The Art of Walking Past Security

After checking into the hostel, I decided to take a walk.

Fifteen minutes in, I heard a faint voice over a loudspeaker, music drifting through the evening air.

Curiosity kicked in. I followed the sound.

For twenty minutes I walked through tiny country neighborhoods, the voice getting louder with each step.

A line of cars were streaming toward something big.

Then I heard it clearly:

"Welcome folks, to the greatest rodeo in all of Montana!"

The stadium was packed. Bleachers full of cheering people, horses everywhere, bulls rattling in their pens waiting to launch cowboys into orbit.

The stadium was all fenced in and the entrance had a line spanning a hundred yards in the opposite direction.

Everyone with their cowboy hats, boots, and jeans.

Me with the clothes I got off of the plane with and my backpack.

I rushed to the ticket booth.

SOLD OUT.

I was a far distance from the hostel and instead of leaving I decided to see if I could find a spot along the fence to watch from afar.

There were two sets of fences. One for the stadium and one for the animals and trailers to go in.

I walked left along the fence, and found an opening into the second level of fences that housed all the empty horse trailers.

I found myself in the far left corner of the stadium and was led to take a right turn.

As I turned, I passed them massive horses and their handlers. Two security guards in vests appeared ahead.

This is where I turn back, I thought.

But as I walked towards them one guard started petting a horse. The other waved at me.

I waved back and kept walking.

Now I was in the riders main area.

I passed bull after bull, cowboy after cowboy preparing for their rides.

One cowboy rode past me on his behemoth of a horse. It felt like David an Goliath.

At the far end, I spotted two porta-potties with entrances for both fans and riders.

I walked to them and as I passed them, I realized I was now inside.

I'd accidentally walked the entire perimeter and ended up inside the arena.

I walked over to the bleachers. Every seat was taken.

Directly in front of me were two seats being saved with sweatshirts. I asked the people holding the spots if they could squeeze one more.

They said yes.

I was now sitting in the front row of this rodeo.

I got to know the two young gentleman next to me.

They’d spent their entires lives in Montana and grew up working on their family ranches.

They also warned me about rodeo girls. I wonder if either of them had a past experience with one :)

It was a reminder: hold space for possibility and life to unfold.

This thing called life keeps teaching me that the act of adventuring is the success. Showing up, staying open, and adapting.

Not everything will go as imagined. Thank God for that.

P.S. - Share this with someone who needs permission to take their own leap into uncertainty. Sometimes the best adventures start with the worst accommodations :)

Book I am reading: Stairway to Heaven, Tara Springett

Living Lovingly,

Ben