Thomas Curran on Walking Across America, Becoming a Renown Chef, Leadership, and Transformation
Welcome to Resiliency the Podcast, the place for stories, strategies and inspiration on how you can embrace change, overcome challenges, and redefine resilience in today's ever evolving world. If resilience is a topic of interest for you, we hope you will subscribe to our YouTube channel or give us a like wherever you may be listening today. I am Jenn Quader. I'm your host. I'm a strategic communicator and also the head of a firm called The Smart Agency.
Jenn Quader:Please welcome our doctor of resiliency, doctor Kelly Culver. Today, we are also joined by, an additional cohost. Our executive producer, Asef Quater, heard that there was a chef on today's show, and he really only thinks with his stomach. So he had to join the fun. So, Asef, welcome to the game.
Jenn Quader:We are honored today to introduce a really special guest. This is someone who I've known for many, many years and who has an amazing story to tell of resilience, you guys. So today's guest has been called the most interesting man in Orange County, California. I tend to agree. He is a chef, an incredible chef, you guys.
Jenn Quader:Absolutely amazing. He's an author of a book that is wonderful called Death, Discovery, and Carne Asada. He's an entrepreneur. He's a philanthropist. He's an artist, a beautiful artist, and he's an aspiring cooking show host.
Jenn Quader:The list really goes on and on, you guys. This is a creative individual with amazing, amazing energy. And more than all of these things, in 2019, he completed something absolutely amazing. He walked across the entire United States from North Carolina to California to raise money for pediatric cancer research. His walk took him across 14 states over 3,235 miles.
Jenn Quader:And for you step counters out there, that's 7,680,000 steps. This is absolutely incredible. Guys, I I can't wait for you to hear him, meet him, learn more about his story. Please welcome the great Thomas Curran. Wow.
Jenn Quader:Cheer, cheer, cheer.
Thomas Curran:I've never heard that before. Hey. I am interested to know if it was my mom who told you that I was a nice and decent person. I've never heard that before.
Jenn Quader:Look. We we gotta shout out.
Thomas Curran:Put that in my next book.
Jenn Quader:It's got that that'll be the that'll we'll we'll put that in the press for your next book, Thomas. That's what we'll do. Actually, that statement was said by a a a great wonderful, journalist and and influencer here in Orange County, Greer Wilder of Greer's OC. She's well known in lifestyle, and she calls you the most interesting man in Orange County. And so does resiliency the podcast.
Jenn Quader:So
Thomas Curran:I know. Here we are together. I'm with, two very old friends of mine, one new friend of mine and this face eating microphone. I feel like that's a
Thomas Curran:nice mic, man. You get it.
Thomas Curran:Do I sound interesting?
Dr. Kelly Culver:Tom, welcome to the podcast. We're we're really, really thrilled to have you on. And, you know, it's it's gonna be cool for me because I'm just getting to, to know you. So this will be a fun session. I've got a question for you, though.
Dr. Kelly Culver:We tend to start our podcast with the same question that we ask everybody, and it's a it's a really big one. What does resiliency mean to you?
Thomas Curran:Well, I was queued up on that a little bit, so I've had a lot of time to talk. You know, through my life, it had meant different things. It has, to me, it's always been about being motivated, believing in success, planning, but with very loose guardrails and room for flexibility, all with the end goal of, of getting to the end, making it, and hopefully with enough sanity to enjoy a glass of wine at the end. Sometimes resiliency to me has been in my chef world where if you're not resilient, you're out. And then when I was alone for eight months walking across the country, all the way to this morning when I showed up and almost had to set this little studio up in a bathroom, because someone's out there making a lot of noise.
Thomas Curran:So just, you know, resiliency presents itself every day and it's whether you decide to, to, to tackle it or not. And in my profession, you have no choice, but to be resilient. And, and then of course in my walk, which we'll talk about more, survival depended on. And so it's kind of the story of my life, my life has never been still. I've never had a still life.
Thomas Curran:And my movement has always been wrapped in either sweat and stress of a kitchen or pain and patience from walking 20 miles a day for eight months. So there's those
Asef Quader:Thomas, do you think that, do you think that because you like that lifestyle, you are more adherent to being resilient?
Thomas Curran:Yeah. Well oh, does one trigger one or does one trigger the other? Yeah. I I do think that life my lifestyle requires that. And but I think I've always been that way.
Thomas Curran:Yeah. I think I've been that way since I was a kid. I've always I've always been told that I'm very adaptable to any situation. So perhaps that is resilience built in.
Jenn Quader:Oh, I wanna dig on that though because I I think, you know, resilience is something and and you spoke to it really nicely in your definition, which is is something you choose. It's it's that belief in success. It it's something you face every day. And so I I think while there are always characteristics that are maybe inborn in us, there could be personality traits and things like that. I want to make sure we're looking at kind of the concept of resilience because you know no one no one made you walk across the country and no one makes you work in a hot kitchen.
Jenn Quader:I mean, I can be honest, when I watch those iron chefs and things like that, I'm like, you couldn't pay me enough money to do that, you know? So so talk so talk to me for a minute because you said, you know, being a chef, it requires resilience. Like you, you, there's, there's no, there's no question for not having it. Talk to us just for a moment about the resilience of being a chef and what does that mean, within your busy moving life?
Thomas Curran:That's that that's actually a really good point. You're right. It is a choice. I hadn't thought about it before. I did choose to become a chef.
Thomas Curran:I did choose to walk. Resilience in a kitchen is about individual resilience, but also as a leader in a kitchen, if you're the chef or the owner, you're, you re you're required to build team resilience because you don't have extra bodies floating around the kitchen to fill in if somebody breaks down. Everyone has to win together. And at the end of the night you win. If one person fails, then there's a pretty good chance that the whole team is going to fail that night.
Thomas Curran:So building team resilience is important because a service never happens without something bad happening, a dish coming back or an unhappy guest, or, you know, dropping that piece of meat on the floor when the entire tables tickets are already up in the window. And now what do you do? You've got one person without food. I mean, these things happen every single shift in every single restaurant. And if you are not resilient, if you don't figure out how to quickly bounce back from that, boy, things go sideways real quick because those tickets keep coming out of the printer and, and the guests don't care what your problem is.
Thomas Curran:So you better figure it out. Decide that maybe that's not the right career for you. It's, and you know, it's not for everyone. Being in the weeds is what we say, and I'm sure you've heard that on TV and stuff, but it's it's getting in the weeds, which happens every day. It's more how you get out of the weeds and either individually or collectively as a team.
Thomas Curran:It's critical.
Asef Quader:So you were you were doing this for thirty years. You stopped Yes. And you decided to walk across the country. What inspired this?
Thomas Curran:It came pretty quickly, actually. I was, I, I owned a restaurant in Orange County. I had a business partner and, it was a tough gig. I mean, we both loved the restaurant very much, but it was, it was, it was tough to make money there. And it took a big strain on our relationship.
Thomas Curran:And, we got to a point where, we were, we were needing to make some decisions professionally. He wanted to go one way. I wanted to go another. It just so happens that previous to that six months prior, I'd read this book, written by a man named Tyler Colson called By Men Are By The Earth. And he had walked across America.
Thomas Curran:He was an attorney in Chicago, just disillusioned with life. He got a dog and walked across America. And he's also an amazing author. And he wrote this book that basically, the title of his book was, If I Have to Die by Man or by the Earth, I Want the Earth to Do It. And that was where he was in life.
Thomas Curran:And I'm like, oh, well, that is interesting. That sounds like something I'd like to do someday. And six months later, my business partner and I had a meeting and decided it's time to break up as a couple, as a business couple. And I said, okay, you get it. I'm, I'm going to go on a walk.
Thomas Curran:And, and so I did. I, I, I trained for a few months. I got a dog because Tyler did and my friends encouraged me to. And, I learned how to have a dog, because I didn't know how to do that. And I learned how to camp and strike camp and I had to learn all of that.
Thomas Curran:I'm not a camper, or I am now, but I wasn't then. I'd spent a life in kitchens, not a life on the road. I certainly didn't, I wasn't a runner. I wasn't an athlete. So I just decided to go for it and flew to the East Coast to hang out with my son and did it.
Thomas Curran:That's how I made that decision.
Jenn Quader:I wanna dig in for just a minute because I, you know, all of us are gonna have a million questions about your walk, who does not want to hear about your 7,680,000 steps and what you encountered, and we will get into that. But I want to linger for just a moment on this big thing that you just told us, which is like, look, I I I and let's see if I'm say if I say it right, Thomas. Like, I I'm I'm a chef. I have a successful career as a chef. You're you're owning this amazing restaurant, which I happen to go to and and enjoyed very much.
Jenn Quader:And it wasn't just the service. It was the environment. Like, you you you get the real estate and you create everything and you create this experience and you're working in this day in, day out with your partner in this resilient business. And then you decide, you make a decision. Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna take this break.
Jenn Quader:And so what I wanna do is I wanna open this to a little bit of a talk about resilience because from some perspective, people would say, well, you quit. You know what I mean? Like, your business, your partnership changed. You know, you you you left this restaurant. And and I really before I have you even speak to that, Thomas, I'd like Doctor.
Jenn Quader:Kelly Culver to speak to this because this is someone who studied resilience from a strategic standpoint and has worked within governments and communities with business owners. So, Doctor. Kelly, what do you see in Thomas's story by way of resilience? And let's talk about kind of this this, let's let's call it the the counterculture of a way to have resilience. You know, what is it?
Jenn Quader:No action is action Or or tell me more about what you think in in this, decision that Thomas made.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Well, you know, it's interesting me listening to how Thomas describes resilience because because because here on the podcast, we talk quite about about resilience is three things at the same time. It's persistence, it's adaptation, and it's transformation. And Thomas has described those three things in his definition of resilience. So, Thomas, I think that's really cool. And the other thing that you said is that you're a person who keeps moving, and and action is very important, and and being able to confidently take decisions so that you can keep moving ahead and acting.
Dr. Kelly Culver:But what I see in in in the story that you've told us so far in getting to know you a little bit better is that you decided that you were going to be comfortable in the silence. And the silence of stopping for a few minutes or silence of stopping for eight months, however long it took you to walk across walk across America and meet new people and do those kinds of things. But you said to yourself, I need to reframe. And when we are learning to use resilience in a more strategic way, we have to learn how to trust ourselves and listen to the inner voice. If we tune out the inner voice, then we're not building resilience in ourselves as a capacity or a capability.
Dr. Kelly Culver:And you took that decision. You just like that, snap, and said, okay. This is what I need to do in order to reframe how I see my vision of the future, how I navigate towards the horizon. That's what I'm hearing.
Thomas Curran:Yeah. That's an interesting perspective. Both of, two things that you both said, Jen. I had never really thought like, oh, yeah. That's kind of the opposite of resilience if I quit.
Thomas Curran:I mean, there's, there was more to the breakup than that. But, what you just said, Doctor. Kelly, is that, and I have spoken to this more, is that prior to my walk, I had a lot of fear of being alone. I, I, I never not, I never didn't have a girlfriend. For example, I always had to have a girlfriend in my life.
Thomas Curran:I, I had a bar and a restaurant and I spent most of my time in the bar part where all my friends were every night. And I, I lived on that. I mean, it's just the life of a chef. And I forced myself not only into being alone and that's different than loneliness. But also into a lifestyle.
Thomas Curran:I mean, kind of homelessness, to be honest, I was walking with a cart full of stuff for eight months and subjected myself to a lifestyle that, I was actually fearful of. Not homelessness, but loneliness. And, and I, that actually excited me. You know, some friends think that maybe I had a little midlife crisis and that's possible. I turned 50 that year.
Thomas Curran:My son had graduated college that year and I'm always a what's next kind of person. So maybe that triggered a little bit as well, unknowingly, but it is interesting to think of it as, the way you just said it, Doctor. Kelly is, is a shift transformation from really from one extreme to another, and they are pretty extreme for most people. The life of our chef.
Asef Quader:Speaking of the extreme, I know you have some fantastic stories of of doing this walk. One of which includes having a gun pulled on you and then running from a tornado right after the gun was pulled on you.
Thomas Curran:I'm the same guy.
Asef Quader:Can you tell us the story?
Thomas Curran:Yeah. I can. So I have a friend named Lindsay, and she, a couple of years prior to my walk, she walked across America and then rode a bike back. She'd used an electric bike in my back. And we met on a forum, a private forum on Facebook.
Thomas Curran:And, she's just this crazy bar owner in Boston. She she took a very similar route than I did, so she became a lot of help for me. When I got into bad situations, she would call some people she knew in that area, and maybe they'd come help me. Well, she decided to come walk in, Oklahoma for a couple of days with me. And one day we were on this lonely little road and, I was on the inside, which is kind of an important thing, in this story.
Thomas Curran:And, she was more closer to the road. And in the distance, we saw this very large truck coming towards us. And, you could tell when you're a walker, you pick up what we call the gap. And the gap is from the edge of the road to the wheel of the car coming. And you could see it if that gap gets smaller or bigger right away as soon as you see the car.
Thomas Curran:And if the gap starts getting smaller, you need to make some decisions to not get hit. Most of the time, they get bigger. People see you. They move out of the way. But this did not, and this truck was closing the gap slowly, slowly, slowly, and it was not slowing down.
Thomas Curran:So Lindsay starts doing this. Slow down. Slow down. And the truck flew by us and and just missed us. Well, me, I'm gonna let that go.
Thomas Curran:Lindsey, not so much. She turns around and double flips the bird to this guy in the middle of Oklahoma. Truck hits his brakes, throws a Jeepers, comes back towards us. And this man who I'm I'm guessing is maybe in his seventies, so Lindsay pulls her phone out, and she's recording the whole video. Right?
Thomas Curran:And he gets out, and he's looked like he just left church. And a guy pulls a gun from his hip, and he points it at her. And he and he says, girl, you just made the biggest mistake of your life. And my hands are up. I'm like the pacifist.
Thomas Curran:Right? I'm like, no. No. No. We're good.
Thomas Curran:We're good. And she says, is this a family show? Can I say what she really said? You can say what she said. Buddy.
Thomas Curran:Do what you need to do.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Yeah. It's okay.
Thomas Curran:What do you need to do? Fucking shoot me? And he goes, I might. I'm like, no. And I'm screaming.
Thomas Curran:We're having this back and forth. Like, please don't do this. And he put his gun away, got his truck, and drove off. And, Lindsay looked at me, and she goes, man, I am so sorry. She goes, where I come from, I flip you off, you flip me off, we drink a beer.
Thomas Curran:He goes, that's why she said, that's why they call us mass holes. And so we kept
Speaker 3:walking for the day.
Thomas Curran:And that same day, we we got to the town where she had some friends and a tornado went straight through that town, and we were in their bunker and that night. So it was a it was a wild day. That was a wild day.
Jenn Quader:Oh my gosh. That's a
Thomas Curran:good story. It was a fun day. The funny thing is that, I was writing my book while I was doing this, and I asked I said, Lindsay, you know, this is gonna be in the book, of course. And because she told me, please don't tell my mom I just did that. And I said,
Speaker 3:well, I have to tell you what.
Thomas Curran:My book is a murder mystery based on my walk, and I said, you get to choose. Do you wanna live or die in the book? And, I'm not gonna tell you what she said. You'll just have to read the book.
Jenn Quader:Good teaser.
Thomas Curran:So our
Jenn Quader:listeners will put a link where you can buy the book and find out. Did Lindsay live or die? What did she pick? Please look in the show notes for that.
Asef Quader:And I And let's talk about the book. Her mother
Thomas Curran:did read the book, and her mother now knows
Speaker 3:what she did.
Asef Quader:I would hope so since you're telling this
Thomas Curran:on a podcast right now.
Asef Quader:So talk about your book. This is this is not a book necessarily about your walk. It's inspired by,
Thomas Curran:Well, it is the walk, actually.
Asef Quader:Tell us about it.
Thomas Curran:I mean, it it is. My goal was to write a memoir about my walk, but I don't really love memoirs that much, and I probably wouldn't write a very good one. So I decided to write a murder mystery based on my walk. So, actually, everything in my book really happened except the dead people. And, so it is the story of my walk start to finish, but I had to create a murder mystery prior to leaving on my walk.
Thomas Curran:The basic story is about a 50 year old single chef who's got a restaurant and life is great. And one of his line cooks kills another line cook in the restaurant. Brutal murder. And she gets away.
Asef Quader:So a Hallmark movie.
Thomas Curran:Yes. And because of that, I lose the the character, which is has my name as well, loses everything, the restaurant, everything, and decides to walk across America to figure out his life and hunt that bitch down. And so and in turn, he himself becomes a murderer. So, I didn't tell you anything that you don't know from the back cover, but that is the story. But everything in the middle happened.
Thomas Curran:Like, it's my walk. And the people that are on the walk Hold on. I'm sorry?
Dr. Kelly Culver:It's very rosy. I love this picture you're
Thomas Curran:painting for me.
Speaker 3:But there's a little bit of
Thomas Curran:revenge writing in it. Like, the people that, do succumb to unnatural causes in the book, are people that I met on my walk that had I been a violent person may have
Speaker 3:may have
Thomas Curran:had an issue with in real life, but I'm not. So, you know, I didn't meet all the nicest people
Speaker 3:in the world
Thomas Curran:Thomas. On my walk.
Jenn Quader:Thomas and Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Thomas Curran:Little bit of revenge writing in there.
Asef Quader:So, Thomas, you you killed me off in the book, didn't you?
Thomas Curran:Well, Asif, you'll have to read that part again.
Jenn Quader:Thomas, I wanna ask because oh, go ahead.
Thomas Curran:I will say that my friend, Sean, who was an integral part of my walk because he filmed the the the short film that we, put out about it. I didn't really ask him if he wanted to be in the book. I just decided to put him in there, and I made him one of the worst characters in the book. And he was not happy about that.
Speaker 3:Oh. But
Thomas Curran:he loves it, man.
Jenn Quader:Well, I I think it's it's it's part of why we asked you to be on resiliency to podcast, you know, Thomas, because your story is so interesting beyond just what you've done, beyond the success as a chef, beyond the walking across the country and these cool stories. But, like, your ability to kinda take on anything, you know, meet all these people and then write stories about them. It's, you know, it it speaks to kind of your artistry. It speaks to to who you are as we're meeting you. So I really wanna ask you as you look back at that and and thinking about what we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, which is you were already predetermined to be a fast mover and to go through these things.
Jenn Quader:But through that walk, what did you learn about yourself?
Thomas Curran:Oh, that's that's one of my favorite questions because I learned that, I actually really like being alone, and I never had before. And now I kind of seek it out and find that time. When I got home, I bought a Sprinter van, and it took me a couple of years to build it out into a living environment. And my plan was to live in the van, and just kinda do that van life thing that everyone's doing these days. I ended up meeting, the love of my life while I was getting the van, and we're married.
Thomas Curran:And and I'm a stepfather now, so we can talk about resilience there as well.
Jenn Quader:Plenty of stories.
Speaker 3:Living in the van.
Thomas Curran:So I'm not living in the van naturally, but it's but but we go out in a lot, and I spend a lot of alone time with with Bob. The name of my van is Bob. And, yeah. So I actually
Dr. Kelly Culver:What happened to the dog? What happened to the dog? Wink.
Jenn Quader:What tell us about wink.
Dr. Kelly Culver:The dog.
Thomas Curran:Oh, wink is wonderful. Wink made it 1,400 miles, and then I ate him.
Jenn Quader:Oh, gosh. Thomas.
Thomas Curran:It was either him or me. We were both angry. Get it. He he made it to Oklahoma City. And He
Dr. Kelly Culver:made it to Springfield, Ohio.
Thomas Curran:Alright. How appropriate for right now. Right?
Speaker 3:Sorry. I couldn't help myself.
Dr. Kelly Culver:You guys are just it's weird.
Thomas Curran:It is. It is. And I love that word right now. It got too hot for him, so he had to come home. And, so he made it 1,400 miles, and now he's fat and happy.
Thomas Curran:He's like, I don't walk anymore. Cool. But he loved it. He was fantastic.
Jenn Quader:Well, I was I was gonna ask you about that, Thomas, because, you know, I I I struck me in the beginning when you said I was never still that, like, that just struck me, you know, as as like, because because I I find stillness to be such an important part of resilience. And then when you were talking about how you took on this journey because frankly you kind of realized you had a fear of loneliness and you were like I'm gonna face that fear head on which is a really cool way to be resilient. But I remember watching your social media posts when you were walking across and when you announced that Wync had to go home. And I, I remember feeling this, Tom's gonna be a little Thomas. Sorry.
Jenn Quader:He's going to be alone. You know, like, he's gonna be like, so tell me, did you figure it out when Wync left? Like, when did you find out like, Hey, I like this. I'm good at being alone.
Thomas Curran:Yeah. That was a that was a tough time because he it it was it was somewhat sudden that he that the decision for him to leave, and it changed everything about the walk. First of all, he was my protector. He could hear things in the tent at night that I couldn't hear. He I felt safer with him, of course.
Thomas Curran:And he's a big dog with a great growl, so people didn't mess with me.
Speaker 3:But
Thomas Curran:on the other side, I couldn't just walk into a bar and have a beer on the side of the road if I had a dog. So things shifted. I had to be a little more self reliant in my safety. But I got to do things that I wasn't able to do with him, but it was it was pretty quick. I mean, I was in Oklahoma when he went home, and I went from Oklahoma City all the way, I mean, through some pretty desolate land, without him.
Thomas Curran:And it was pretty lonely. You know? He was he was my cuddle bug, in in the tent every night. So, that was good. I mean, he he needed to go home.
Thomas Curran:And you know what? It it it it changed how I felt about the walk as well. And so I got to experience both sides of that, which was important.
Jenn Quader:I wanna ask you one more thing while you're in that moment, just thinking about, you know, Winka has gone home. Here you are in Oklahoma. I don't know if this is before or after the gun has been pulled and your friend has told the guy to fuck off, but I'm interested in knowing like what you mentioned that for you. I heard in the beginning that for you. It's like you said planning with light guardrails and then always focused on the end, the end result, the end result.
Jenn Quader:What was the end result? What was the carrot for you when you're there in Oklahoma and it's it's hot and it's sticky and you're probably getting eaten by mosquitoes? What what kept you going to the end?
Thomas Curran:Well, I never I mean, after about a week and a half, I never really had, except for one day, a moment where I thought I would quit. And I think it was to be a part of something that is so small that I mean, people don't do it. I I have a tattoo on my arm. It's one fourteen. See it right there, maybe.
Thomas Curran:And according to the ledger of people who have done it that they've tracked since the 1900 early nineteen hundreds, and the hundred and fourteenth person that's done it. Now there's probably more, but, you know, five or six people a year walk coast to coast. So I think that there was that wanting to be a part of that ex somewhat exclusive club, but also, I I think internally, I knew that I would figure out my whole life by the time I hit the Pacific Ocean. Naturally, that did not happen.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I was just gonna say, really? Really?
Thomas Curran:I think I'd hope so.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I don't think so.
Thomas Curran:I thought that was gonna happen. Why wouldn't it? You know? Agreed. I'm gonna read a billboard 15 times walking towards it at three miles an hour.
Thomas Curran:I should be able to figure out my whole life in eight months alone. That didn't happen. But I think that kept me going. And also I just couldn't imagine even getting halfway and not touching that water. Like, that would have been horrible for me to get even two weeks in.
Thomas Curran:I mean, most people quit within the first week. And so, yeah, I just can't imagine not hitting that ending. You know, it's interesting that you talk about the loose guardrails. That's the difference between the restaurant resiliency and and the walking. In the restaurant, there is no loose guardrails.
Thomas Curran:You're you're they're tight guardrails when you're a chef. Very tight. But on the road, they have to be loose. I mean, my route changed every day, and life changed daily. So the the guardrails loosened up after the restaurant world.
Thomas Curran:But they just had to happen.
Jenn Quader:And now I wanna know where they landed. Beautiful. No. It's it's beautiful. That's exactly the I mean, because that that's really the the the story you're telling.
Jenn Quader:You know, you had you've always lived a resilient life, but you lived one that was very, very, stringent and and busy and sweaty and difficult, and you left it for another one that was sweaty and difficult, but in a in a much more free and and less stringent way for that walk. And now I wanna ask, you know, where are those guardrails now? You know, you've come back. You you've met the love of your life. You're married.
Jenn Quader:You're the owner of Hood Kitchen, and the co owner of Hood Kitchen in Irvine, California. What talk to us about that transition from that walk into the Pacific Ocean, which I got to see online. And if you follow Thomas Curran, look it up. It's a really cool video where he walks into the ocean at the end of his walk. But tell us about that journey from the walking into the Pacific Ocean into who you are now and kind of how was it returning to normal life and what did that look like?
Jenn Quader:What did you redefine for yourself in this new life, after the walk?
Thomas Curran:Yeah. To really answer that the best way, I'm gonna go back to Lindsay, because we sat on a bridge and talked about this. She had done it, so she knew. And we were sitting on a Bridge in in Oklahoma, and she asked me, she goes, so you wanna do it again? I said, Lindsay, I'm only halfway through.
Thomas Curran:I don't even know how to do this walk. And I said, I don't know how I'm gonna feel when I get home. And she said, and I put this in the book, and I I said it so many times. She said, when you were home, all those years living there, you were just a piece of that puzzle and everything's so snug and happy. And when you get home, your piece is gonna have shifted, and you're not gonna fit back in that little hole that you used to.
Thomas Curran:And you need to be ready for that. And she couldn't have said it more perfectly because that's exactly how I felt. I still feel that way a little bit, but that first year back was tough. I felt like a tourist even in my own hometown. All my friends, I love them.
Thomas Curran:It has nothing to do with that. It's just it's a I experienced so much in my heart and in my head that and and just in life that nobody can understand, and I can't expect them to because how could I? No one's ever done that with me. And so to reminisce even is hard because who do I reminisce with about anything on my walk? Wait.
Thomas Curran:I guess my dog. We can talk, I guess. So that coming back to normal life, you know, it took me a long time just to unpack my house. I'm like, oh, I don't know. I lived out of a cart for eight months.
Thomas Curran:What do I really need? So it was tough. And, I dated a few people, like, right when I got back, and that didn't go so well, just because I wasn't quite ready for togetherness yet. And but, you know, you get back in a groove, and life is fairly normal now. It's it's a different normal now that I'm married with step kids, and, and it's wonderful.
Thomas Curran:And I wouldn't have it any other way. And and that walk brought
Asef Quader:How bad do you how bad do you wanna do the walk again?
Thomas Curran:Very. I have, I actually have my next route planned. Do you? I would say there's a better than I would say there's a better than fifty fifty chance that I'll do it again in 2026.
Jenn Quader:Wow.
Thomas Curran:Completely different route. My wife is on board. She it saddens her a little bit. She's like, I just got you, and you're gonna leave? I'm like, oh, no.
Thomas Curran:It's not don't take it like that.
Asef Quader:My wife would be so happy if I went away for six months. I mean
Speaker 3:Do you wanna come with me?
Jenn Quader:Yes. Asif, do you wanna
Dr. Kelly Culver:She nodded her head.
Jenn Quader:I'm not gonna say saw it. Asif, if you'd like to walk across the country, I'll be happy to support you from afar. The problem, Thomas, is we have a piano in our house, and I like to play it and Asif would rather I didn't.
Speaker 3:Oh,
Jenn Quader:man. What
Thomas Curran:Yeah. I I I do I want to? %. Every day, I miss that road. Despite how much I love my life right now, I miss the road.
Thomas Curran:I can't help it. I drive down the road and some people see a beautiful mountain, some people see the sea, and I'm like, wow. That's a really nice shoulder. I could walk that. And I drive around.
Thomas Curran:I could sleep behind that billboard. Like, that would be a good billboard to sleep behind.
Dr. Kelly Culver:See, you've got new eyes, and that's the thing, you know, with with resilience. A lot of people say, oh, resilience means I wanna return to normal. And I just smile at them because it's like, it's never normal. You can't return to normal because something always has changed when you've gone through an episode or event or you've had a crisis or whatever. The normal looks different.
Dr. Kelly Culver:So your eyes are completely different to how you see the world, and you have to have the patience to allow people to catch up with where you're at, looking at the world through your eyes. So, you know, you you've really described for us this concept of resilience fits a context in which you find yourself. That is what resilience is.
Thomas Curran:Thank you. Can I give you one more quick road story? I was in Northern California, which California was the hardest part of my walk. No doubt. I came all the way down from Oregon.
Thomas Curran:It was it was the worst part of my walk, my worst state to walk. And I was up near Red Bluff. I had just come through Mount Shasta, and it was really, really hot. It was August, and Red Bluff is one of the hottest places on Earth in in August. Yeah, or excuse me, in California.
Thomas Curran:And I took a wrong turn one day. I was I was going parallel to the five, I thought. And my mom called me on my phone. I had a GPS tracker, by the way. That was the rule of my parents.
Thomas Curran:They had to be able to know where I was. My mom called me and she said, I think you're going the wrong way. And I said, what? And I'm like, mom, there's one road I can't possibly be going the wrong way. So I pulled up my mask.
Thomas Curran:And, yeah, if I had taken a turn somewhere that I didn't even know I turned, and I was pretty far out. And, I was like, I was kinda stressed. So I worked my way back, and I started to run out of water. And it was incredibly hot in there. And it was in the middle of nowhere.
Thomas Curran:There were no houses or anything. And, I was several, several miles from the next town and down to about a pint of water. I just planned poorly and got lost. So I'm came around this thing and, and, you know, my God, there was a house. And not only was it a house, there was a car in the driveway with two 20 year old guys staying next to the car.
Thomas Curran:So I rolled my card up there and I'm like, guys, can I please fill my water cans up? And they said, no. And I said, no, I don't, I don't ask them for anything. I just, you have a hose. Can I just fill my water up?
Thomas Curran:And they were get off our property. And I'm like, are you serious? And they wouldn't give me any water. And so I, I walked a little while longer and I'm talking hot, over a hundred degrees hot. And I finally sat down under the street and I had like this much water left in my bottle and I was miles from my next town.
Thomas Curran:I was on Google maps. There were no other houses around, and I sincerely thought maybe I was gonna die that day under that tree. And a few minutes no, not a few minutes, maybe an hour later, I saw dirt coming up on the road. I'm like, oh, car's coming. Yeah.
Thomas Curran:It was a dirt path. And sure enough, I weighed this car down and this guy in the car stopped, and he was on his way to a kid's soccer match. And in his back seat, he had a cooler of water bottles. And so he gives me a couple of water bottles, and I was like, wow. What are the odds of that?
Thomas Curran:And so I took the water bottles. I made it to my hotel. I I booked a a motel that night, and I I was still dehydrated. I sweated it out. I'm I'm I was fine.
Thomas Curran:The next day, I was on that same road, and and and I'm coming into more farmland and and ranch land. And, I have coming towards me in the distance, a guy on a bicycle. And as he gets closer and closer, we're on the same side of the road. As he gets closer and closer, I notice he had this giant bag around his neck, which was kind of odd, and it looked heavy, like it was holding him down, weighing him down. And as he gets closer, I noticed it was kind of waving like this.
Thomas Curran:And so I immediately put my hands on my weapons, which I had a couple of knives on my cart for safety, no guns or anything like that, just in case I was alone, no wink. And as he's getting closer to me and I'm getting more and more nervous, he reached into his bag with his right hand and he pulled out a peach. And he as he rode by, he held it out at arm's length, and I just took that peach and he kept going. We never even made eye contact. And I sat there and I ate that peach, and I was like, wow.
Thomas Curran:Like, there's humanity restored from the two assholes the day before who almost killed me. This guy will never know how much that peach meant to me. To the I I wish I could find him and tell him how important that was. And, and then I'm like, okay. I I can keep going.
Thomas Curran:I got this. And, and I and I That's great. I actually get a little choked up a little bit time every time I tell that story because it was, a little bit of yeah.
Jenn Quader:It's it's magic. It's it's it's it's the power of interconnectivity. You know what I mean? Like, that's really the story you just told because, yeah, we as humans are connected. It's basic humanity.
Jenn Quader:And I can't believe the people said no, but but the universe delivered, you know, because you kept going. So I I think that what an incredible story to to to really reflect, you know, the fact that even when what do they say? And I think about this a lot in resilience. There's I can't remember if it's a book or a saying, but they say that it's, like, usually, if if someone's on a journey in the desert, they they may give up and die right as the as the oasis appears. You know, like, it's you always feel just before the end, you feel like it's over, you know, and you really felt that.
Jenn Quader:And then the universe swooped in with some water and a peach and said, hey, good job. You kept going. And that's to me, that is the power of resilience because whether whatever it is that you believe that does that, I'm a God person. I believe it's a it's god, but I think it's the universe. It's the energy.
Jenn Quader:It's the infinite intelligence, whatever it is that drives us as people, you know, that that magic happens. That magic happens everywhere. And so to know that it happens on the side of the road, in Northern California when it's that hot is is really inspiring, Thomas. It really is. It gives me gives me new faith.
Speaker 3:Good. And
Asef Quader:the importance of community. The importance of people helping each other out.
Jenn Quader:Amen. Yeah.
Thomas Curran:Yeah. I mean, this guy this guy just wanted me to eat a peach that he probably just picked or something. I don't I'm not sure, but it it meant a lot. The funny thing is that as I walked, I did pin drops in Google Maps. So I'd remember houses I stayed at and things like that.
Thomas Curran:And just this, like, three days ago, we were up in Central California, and I was on my Google Maps, and I was looking at all my little pin drop hearts. And I was touching him to remember where I was, and I I touched one and it said asshole. I
Speaker 3:showed I
Thomas Curran:showed Julian my friends. I'm like, oh, look. I pin dropped that guy. I don't remember doing it, but I must have done it right there where I was. I'm like, I'm gonna come back for him.
Thomas Curran:Oh,
Jenn Quader:god. I bet that guy's I bet that guy's brutally murdered in the book.
Thomas Curran:Yeah. Yeah. They're in there.
Asef Quader:Yeah. Did you murder him in the book?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Thomas Curran:Oh, my word.
Speaker 3:I don't
Asef Quader:I don't think there's a better segue than this to get into the rapid fire
Thomas Curran:questions. Doctor Kelly.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, man. That yeah. That's a whole different sense of community, that one. Community, double edged sword. Well, Thomas, tell us.
Dr. Kelly Culver:We're really curious. This has been a really, really interesting conversation, and and we like to end Resiliency the Podcast with some rapid fire questions so that people can get to know you a little bit better outside
Speaker 3:that's a
Thomas Curran:tough one for me, honestly. I I I I that's a tough one for me, honestly. I I I I sometimes think of if if I see that somebody else, has, like, maybe a super difficult life or they're just a really horrible person or maybe they're just honoring or something that I'm like, oh, well, that's my life's pretty darn good compared to this. And, you know, I it's may sound dumb or whatever, but I always felt that way when I watched, Seinfeld. Like, I thought I loved them so much, but they were so pathetic that it always made me feel better about whatever I was doing in my life that time because I was not as such a horrible person as they were.
Thomas Curran:I don't know. Is that do people come up with more meaningful things than that?
Dr. Kelly Culver:No. No. No. No. No.
Dr. Kelly Culver:It's all relative. It's all relative. Yeah. So you
Thomas Curran:just I'm just gonna say to explain. Because that movie does something to me too and I can't quite define it, but it does do something to me. But, but if I really think about that, yeah, Seinfeld always made me feel better about myself as a human being.
Jenn Quader:Is that comparative resilience? Is that a thing, doctor Gelli?
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, it is. He's measuring. It's like he's got his resilience index.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Right? And he's up here and they're
Speaker 3:down there. Let's do it.
Thomas Curran:I don't know that. I don't know if that's resilience.
Speaker 3:Sure it is.
Thomas Curran:Sure it
Dr. Kelly Culver:is. Well, what about your favorite song that makes you feel resilient?
Thomas Curran:Well, I started my walk every day with a I had a playlist that my son made for me. And every morning, I hit that playlist, and the there were three songs on it every morning. And they were sweet disposition by the temper trap, my silver lining by first aid kit, and oddly enough, kick start my heart by Motley Crue. And those three songs got me going every day. And, and it's funny because if I if Wink is with me, like, in the car or wherever, and I start sweet disposition, which is the first song on my playlist, he knows.
Thomas Curran:He he yeah. For four months, he heard that song every morning, which meant 20 miles.
Speaker 3:And so he the trucker's here.
Thomas Curran:Oh, that's true. But happen like that walking room with that song.
Asef Quader:So he just runs back into the house after hearing that song?
Speaker 3:I'm not out.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Yeah. Because he's not
Asef Quader:walking anymore. Somewhere? Is that playlist somewhere?
Thomas Curran:I still have it on I still listen to it. It's funny if you listen
Speaker 3:Do you have
Asef Quader:it up somewhere? Is it on Spotify? Can we can we listen to it?
Thomas Curran:Sure. Sure. I will I will I will share it with you. My my my top songs of 2019 are are my walk, basically. It's all I listen to.
Thomas Curran:And those are Yeah. Nice. That's a good question. I like that one.
Dr. Kelly Culver:What's the last thing that made you laugh out loud?
Thomas Curran:Honestly, my wife makes me laugh every day. She is so funny about things, and and we laugh every day. She does she has these silly little things she does that maybe they're a little bit intimate faces or whatever that are only between us. But when she does them, I crack up because I know what it means to us. And, also, she does it at the just the most appropriate times.
Thomas Curran:And she also has them on video, like, little memes she's created or whatever. And so if she knows I'm having a rough time, she'll just shoot that over to me, and it and it makes me laugh. And so, absolutely, she's the last person that made me laugh. And to really, like, joyfully smile was when I found out that my son was safe in the hurricanes. He's in Nashville.
Thomas Curran:And, so he's he is safe there and and doing well.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Good. Good. Good.
Speaker 3:Good. Very good.
Jenn Quader:Yeah. Really? Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Culver:What's a question that you would like to leave a future guest?
Thomas Curran:I was supposed to think one of those, wasn't I?
Jenn Quader:Off the top of your head is even better.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Yep.
Jenn Quader:What okay. Failing. What what question would you ask? You need a trigger. Yeah.
Jenn Quader:Yeah. I'm gonna give you a trigger. What what is the,
Thomas Curran:Thank you.
Jenn Quader:Okay. You're someone who's walked across the world. You've owned businesses. You've done all of these things, and you have a son you love. You listen to his playlist every day.
Jenn Quader:What is a question that you would want him to ask himself every day?
Thomas Curran:Well, boy, in a in a matter of this, what what would I want Holden to ask himself every day? If what he is doing right now in life is successful as he's become in doing what he's doing, if it is truly feeding his soul, And in his business and his relationship, that's something always a parent always wonders is is what you're doing feeding your soul? And if not, can you can you do something different?
Jenn Quader:Spoken like yeah. So brilliant. And spoken like a true chef and caring parent. And it actually leads beautifully into our last question for you. So we have a question that was let left by a past guest, and it feeds right into, feeding your soul.
Jenn Quader:Because the question is, tell us in your life, what has been your most nourishing moment?
Thomas Curran:I mean, I would have to say the birth of my son. I I I remember how that felt and what it did for me as a man and as a human. I think because I never really thought I wanted a kid before he came around, and that changed me and made me a better better person. So I I would have to say that that was my most nourishing moment was when he was born. I know that probably is cliche, but it is true.
Jenn Quader:Well, you your cliche has has made me tear up, so that's good. No. It's it's it's so tender and so sweet and just so who you are, Thomas. And I again, I've known you for a while, and, Doctor. Kelly's just getting to know you and our listeners are are going to know you and love you through this.
Jenn Quader:But you really you have such a connection, to life, you know, and such a cool way of approaching things. And, but you said earlier, you said, you know, my my friend said maybe it was a midlife crisis. You know, I'm I'm 50. I was after I was turned 50 and everything was changing. And I have a really strong feeling about that.
Jenn Quader:I absolutely believe that as a nation, as a society, as a world, we should rebrand that to our midlife growth spurt. Because I really think
Thomas Curran:Okay.
Jenn Quader:That you growth spurted. And through that, you're you know, you took all the pieces of your heart, your son, Holden, your businesses, even those partnerships that were that were ending, you still hold them in your heart. You speak of them with that respect. And so I think that it's just been a really an honor for you to tell us how you wove all of that together and how resilience has been that through line for you. So I just I wanna just say thank you and ask if there's anything else that we haven't asked that you would want to make sure that the listeners of resiliency the podcast should know.
Thomas Curran:Well, since I failed somewhat on the providing a question quickly off the top of my head, came in a minute, I will give some advice. Please. I accomplished something that I never thought I could. I didn't even know that I could when I started it. And I will tell you that I bet 90% of the people that watch me take those first steps did not think I was going to finish.
Thomas Curran:And so I would say that if there is something that you want to do in life, big or small, walk across the country or figure out how to make pizza dough, you can do it. Like, if it's here, you can do it physically. If your body can hold up to it, I, I do believe that anything is possible if, if you're physically able. And, because the emotional part, I think you can get past for most situations. I don't know that for a %, but I think that in most situations you can.
Thomas Curran:So do it or do a part of it or do something.
Jenn Quader:Wise, wise words, extremely well said, Thomas, thank you again for being a guest on resiliency, the podcast, please tell our listeners, where can they find the great Thomas Curran and where can they buy your book?
Thomas Curran:Instagram, at author Thomas Curran. You can find the book, which has 4.8 stars by the way on Amazon. On Amazon. And I am just going to start doing an audio book version of it. Never done it.
Thomas Curran:People are asking. It'll be there Sunday.
Jenn Quader:Well, you have the right mic for it. So I'm I'm excited to hear that. And, guys, just just saying once more that that book is called Death, Discovery, and Carne Asada by Thomas Curran. Please find him. And then, Thomas, tell us if we wanna eat any good food.
Jenn Quader:Is there anywhere we should go in Irvine?
Thomas Curran:Oh, well, I mean, Costa Mesa is is kinda where I I hailed forever. And, you know, I'm I'm one of the old restaurant guys, so I love Havana and Memphis and eat chow and Oak and Cole's one of my faves. So but I live in LA now, so I'm experiencing all of LA.
Jenn Quader:It'll it'll be interesting. I so once you do your next walk, which you have teased first here on Resiliency the podcast, we will bring you back and maybe you'll be the most interesting man in Los Angeles by then. So we'll we'll see how that turns out. In the meantime to
Thomas Curran:career after this.
Speaker 3:In the
Jenn Quader:meantime to all of our listeners, we want to say thank you. Thank you so much for listening, for being on this journey with us. Community is very important to us. Please follow us like us. You can find us at resiliencythepodcast.com or on any of the places that you listen to podcasts.
Jenn Quader:You can find me online at jenquater on all of the social medias or at jenquater.com or at my company, thesmartagency.com. Our illustrious and wonderful host, doctor Kelly Culver, you can find her at theculvergroup.ca. That is .ca for Canada. And you can also find her at doctor kelly culver on LinkedIn and Instagram. For all of the coolest food trends, you'd think I was gonna plug our guests, but I'm not.
Jenn Quader:It's our producer, Asif Quater. You can find him at Asif Quater, a s e f, Quater, on Instagram and Facebook and all the socials. And and there's a lot of wine involved, folks. And again, for all of us at Resiliency the podcast, we thank you. We, this episode has been a beautiful one about enjoying life and about really being resilient through it.
Jenn Quader:We wish you that in every part of your lives, and we look forward to seeing you back here next week for another story of resilient people. Until then, be well and take good care.
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