Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 282: The Passion Paradox and Peak Performance with Brad Stulberg

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Ep. 282: The Passion Paradox and Peak Performance with Brad Stulberg · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:12
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:17
Speaker 1: your host Mark Kenyan. In this episode number two eight
0:20
Speaker 1: two in today we are chatting with author Brad Staalberg
0:24
Speaker 1: about his studies into peak performance, the power and potential
0:28
Speaker 1: downsides of passion, and how all of this can make
0:31
Speaker 1: you a better hunter. All right, welcome to another episode
0:37
Speaker 1: of the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
0:41
Speaker 1: Onyx and today, I want to start by telling you
0:45
Speaker 1: a story. When I was three or four years old,
0:49
Speaker 1: I remember that first time I headed into the woods
0:52
Speaker 1: with my dad for a deer hunt. We didn't see
0:54
Speaker 1: anything at all, but I do remember it was something
0:57
Speaker 1: that I almost right away fell love with. And as
1:01
Speaker 1: the years rolled by and I continue to go up
1:03
Speaker 1: to deer Camp, I just became more and more infatuated
1:06
Speaker 1: with the experience. I remember these truck rides headed up north,
1:10
Speaker 1: sitting in the backseat listening to my grandpa and my
1:12
Speaker 1: uncle's and dad debate current events. I remember getting to
1:16
Speaker 1: deer Camp and at night, after we turned off the
1:18
Speaker 1: lanterns here in the crackle of the fireplace in the cabin,
1:21
Speaker 1: and then the next morning, those long walks through the
1:24
Speaker 1: swamp out to our blind, looking around, and then finally
1:27
Speaker 1: you get to your blind, you're sitting down in that
1:29
Speaker 1: quiet stillness of snow falling over the forest landscape, and
1:33
Speaker 1: then that rush of excitement when you see that first deer.
1:37
Speaker 1: That experience just captivated me, and my love for that
1:42
Speaker 1: continued to grow over the years. You know, it was
1:45
Speaker 1: eight or nine years old. I remember getting on the
1:47
Speaker 1: bus after school and just being like, Oh my gosh,
1:49
Speaker 1: tomorrow's November. We're going hunting. I cannot wait. And then
1:53
Speaker 1: I remember being in high school and reading deer hunting
1:55
Speaker 1: magazines in the back of class while people are talking
1:58
Speaker 1: about math. This love of the experience just grew and
2:02
Speaker 1: grew and grew, and eventually a new layer developed for
2:05
Speaker 1: me within my relationship with hunting, and which now is
2:08
Speaker 1: forming this this new intense drive to learn more about
2:12
Speaker 1: hunting and to get tangibly better at it. And now,
2:15
Speaker 1: for a whole lot of years, and still to this day,
2:18
Speaker 1: I've spent an inordinate amount of my life working towards
2:21
Speaker 1: those goals. You know, hunting has shifted from just something
2:24
Speaker 1: fun to do, just an exciting experience, is shifted from
2:28
Speaker 1: that to now a pursuit that I'm always working towards
2:31
Speaker 1: has grown into almost almost a mission of sorts. It's
2:35
Speaker 1: it's the thing that my life revolves around in a
2:38
Speaker 1: lot of ways. And I think it's it's a pretty
2:40
Speaker 1: natural thing for a lot of people when they find
2:42
Speaker 1: an activity they're passionate about, especially something like hunting that's
2:45
Speaker 1: that's so deep and so involved and so rewarding. It's
2:49
Speaker 1: powerful to have something like this that you can constantly
2:52
Speaker 1: be challenged by and constantly work towards. I think there's
2:56
Speaker 1: a drive inside of a lot of us to to
2:57
Speaker 1: work towards some challenge or some goal like that's an
3:00
Speaker 1: innate human thing, um, and it's it's I think it's
3:04
Speaker 1: awesome to have something that in your life, this kind
3:07
Speaker 1: of this kind of purpose, this kind of anchor. I
3:10
Speaker 1: guess it's like an anchoring pursuit that drives me. It's
3:12
Speaker 1: a big part of why I love hunting so much.
3:14
Speaker 1: So you certainly don't need to have this kind of
3:17
Speaker 1: relationship with hunting. There's nothing wrong with just going out
3:21
Speaker 1: there on occasion having some fun. I know, there's a
3:24
Speaker 1: lot to enjoy about hunting when experience just as a
3:26
Speaker 1: casual pastime, and I'm glad there's people out there who
3:29
Speaker 1: engage in it in just that way. But for some
3:32
Speaker 1: of us, it's it's more than that, and it's this
3:35
Speaker 1: pursuit of excellence that really fascinates me. And that's that's
3:38
Speaker 1: why I've been doing this podcast for so many years now,
3:41
Speaker 1: That's why I've been studying the best hunters in the
3:43
Speaker 1: world over the last decade, and that's why recently here
3:46
Speaker 1: on the podcast, I've been kind of unofficially kicking off
3:50
Speaker 1: this series of sorts in which I've been trying to
3:52
Speaker 1: explore lessons learned from high performers outside of the hunting
3:57
Speaker 1: world to see what can be applied into our world
4:00
Speaker 1: in pursuit of hunting. So you probably heard an episode
4:03
Speaker 1: two eight as Dan and I discussed what I've recently
4:06
Speaker 1: been learning about the power of habits. And in episode
4:09
Speaker 1: one we discussed training and mental toughness and a whole
4:13
Speaker 1: lot more with the Olympic gold medal winning free skier
4:17
Speaker 1: and bow hunter David Wise. And now today I want
4:21
Speaker 1: to continue that discussion with Brad Stahlberg, a calumnist for
4:25
Speaker 1: Outside magazine and the author of several books related to
4:29
Speaker 1: this topic, the first of which is titled Peak Performance,
4:33
Speaker 1: Elevate your Game, Avoid burnout, and thrive with a New
4:37
Speaker 1: Science of Success. And this book and the first Person
4:42
Speaker 1: the first portion of my chat with Brad today is
4:46
Speaker 1: all about what he's learned in his studies of the
4:49
Speaker 1: best of the best across the world and the science
4:51
Speaker 1: being done to understand these high performers, whether that be
4:55
Speaker 1: athletes or artists or businessmen and so so we look
4:58
Speaker 1: at all that and how all these kinds of concepts
5:01
Speaker 1: and skills can be translated to our pursuit of hunting.
5:05
Speaker 1: So this goes back to that mission, that that passion,
5:07
Speaker 1: that drive that I have and I know that many
5:09
Speaker 1: of you have, which is how can I become the
5:11
Speaker 1: very best version of myself and as a hunter. So
5:14
Speaker 1: that's part one of our conversation. But the flip side
5:19
Speaker 1: of this coin the other side of having this deep
5:22
Speaker 1: drive and this passion for hunting or passion for anything, really,
5:25
Speaker 1: the flip side to that is the potential negative effects
5:29
Speaker 1: that are obsession and are all consuming drive can lead to.
5:33
Speaker 1: You know, passion can be a very powerful thing for good.
5:36
Speaker 1: But it can also be a powerful negative force too,
5:40
Speaker 1: resulting in burnout, results in ruined marriages, or lost friendships,
5:44
Speaker 1: or depression, all sorts of other bad kinds of outcomes.
5:47
Speaker 1: And that's where Brad's second book comes into play, titled
5:51
Speaker 1: The Passion Paradox, A Guide to going all in, finding
5:54
Speaker 1: success and discovering the benefits of an unbalanced life. So
5:58
Speaker 1: in this book and in the second portion of our chat,
6:01
Speaker 1: we dive into this power of passion and how it
6:04
Speaker 1: can be harnessed for good, and how if it's uncontrolled,
6:08
Speaker 1: how it can lead to some disastrous things in your life.
6:11
Speaker 1: And if you're at all like me and have the
6:13
Speaker 1: same kind of passion dry for hunting as I do,
6:16
Speaker 1: I I just know you're gonna be able to relate
6:18
Speaker 1: to this stuff. I mean, how many times in the
6:20
Speaker 1: podcast have we talked about this? How many times have
6:22
Speaker 1: you thought about this? Probably you know, has my passion
6:25
Speaker 1: gone too far? How do I balance my love of
6:28
Speaker 1: hunting with family or with work or other obligations. So
6:33
Speaker 1: that's the kind of stuff we talked about today. How
6:35
Speaker 1: do you tell when your passion is disastrous? How do
6:38
Speaker 1: you achieve balance? Should you try to achieve balance. How
6:41
Speaker 1: can you channel your passion in a controlled, positive way,
6:44
Speaker 1: but how can you also have enough self awareness to
6:47
Speaker 1: know when to pull out of it when you're going
6:48
Speaker 1: too far. That's where we're gonna end our conversation today,
6:52
Speaker 1: and I think these are some of the most important
6:54
Speaker 1: ideas maybe that we've ever discussed on the Wire Dune podcast.
6:59
Speaker 1: Um So, I'm just I'm just so excited for you
7:01
Speaker 1: to listen to this one. It's very different than our
7:03
Speaker 1: usual episodes, that's for sure. But as you'll hear about soon,
7:07
Speaker 1: you know, there's value in putting yourself in new situations
7:10
Speaker 1: or pushing yourself to try new things, to to stress
7:13
Speaker 1: yourself because these challenges, these new ideas, these new experiences
7:19
Speaker 1: they are would lead to growth. And I think conversations
7:22
Speaker 1: like this are there exactly at least for me, what
7:25
Speaker 1: I believe can help myself and all of us grow
7:27
Speaker 1: as hunters and as people. And that is a pretty
7:31
Speaker 1: exciting thing. And now let's get to our conversation with Brad.
7:38
Speaker 1: All right with me now on the line is Brad Stallberg.
7:42
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Brad, Hey, Mark, thanks so much
7:45
Speaker 1: for having me. Really looking forward to uh to this
7:48
Speaker 1: conversation with me too. It's it's a little bit um
7:51
Speaker 1: different than our usual chats we have on this podcast.
7:55
Speaker 1: But I've been kicking off this series over the last
7:57
Speaker 1: couple of weeks where we're trying to exam m in
8:00
Speaker 1: and learn about different practices and ideas that are helping
8:05
Speaker 1: peak performers across all sorts of different fields and finding
8:08
Speaker 1: how they can be applied to what what I do
8:11
Speaker 1: and what my community does, which is hunt and participate
8:13
Speaker 1: in all these different outdoor activities. And when I ran
8:16
Speaker 1: across your most recent book and then another that you
8:19
Speaker 1: wrote a little while back, I just had this great
8:22
Speaker 1: big flashing lights that are like, hey, you gotta get
8:24
Speaker 1: ahold of Brad. You've gotta figure out some way to
8:26
Speaker 1: have him on the show to share what he's learned. Um.
8:29
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited and happy that I was able
8:32
Speaker 1: to do that. So thanks for being so responsive via email. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
8:36
Speaker 1: let's um, let's roll. I'm looking forward to learning from you,
8:39
Speaker 1: which I'm sure i'll do throughout this conversation. So so,
8:41
Speaker 1: in addition to you're writing for Outside magazine and stuff
8:45
Speaker 1: like that, I know you're into the outdoors, but it
8:47
Speaker 1: seems like you have this passion for studying high performers,
8:51
Speaker 1: studying how people get stuff done, how they can reach
8:54
Speaker 1: their their potential. And you wrote two books, the first
8:57
Speaker 1: being or co wrote, I shouldn't say, Peak Performance, the
9:00
Speaker 1: most recent being The Passion Paradox. My first question is
9:04
Speaker 1: is why did you write these books? Why these topics?
9:07
Speaker 1: And then why you Why were you the person to
9:10
Speaker 1: dive into these so um, yeah, those are good questions,
9:14
Speaker 1: and I'll answer them in order. Uh. So, so why
9:16
Speaker 1: these books? So? The first book, which is called Peak Performance,
9:21
Speaker 1: uh came to be because I had experienced a fair
9:26
Speaker 1: bit of burnout early on in my career. I left
9:29
Speaker 1: graduate school and went to a pretty illustrious international consulting
9:34
Speaker 1: firm where very quickly I was doing um, pretty serious
9:38
Speaker 1: work in the boardroom with sea level people at age four,
9:43
Speaker 1: and I absolutely love the work, but I couldn't turn
9:45
Speaker 1: it off. Uh So, for about six to nine months,
9:48
Speaker 1: I performed really well. I was quite happy, and then
9:53
Speaker 1: about a year year and a half into that gig,
9:55
Speaker 1: I just started feeling extremely burnt out. Uh. Physically, I
9:58
Speaker 1: didn't feel well. Psychologically, I was kind of apathetic to
10:01
Speaker 1: the work. Uh, and I didn't know what I was
10:04
Speaker 1: experiencing at the time, but in hindsight, I learned that,
10:07
Speaker 1: you know, those are telltale signs of burnout UM which
10:09
Speaker 1: doesn't always happen just from working too many hours, but
10:12
Speaker 1: it's often when you're going about your work the wrong way.
10:16
Speaker 1: And another misconception about burnout that I learned later on
10:18
Speaker 1: is burnout doesn't mean you dislike what you're doing. It
10:20
Speaker 1: often happens when you love what you're doing so much
10:22
Speaker 1: that you lose the ability to turn it off. So
10:25
Speaker 1: after that experience, UM, I started to get pretty pretty
10:30
Speaker 1: interested in what went wrong, and I also became fascinated by, well,
10:33
Speaker 1: how do people sustain that level of performance and that
10:36
Speaker 1: level of drive without burning out? UM? So I did
10:39
Speaker 1: a fair amount of just self exploration and self study.
10:43
Speaker 1: I also went back to graduate school and studied public health,
10:45
Speaker 1: and I was particularly interested in in well being. And
10:50
Speaker 1: I started to notice this really interesting trend, which is
10:52
Speaker 1: that so many of the principles that apply to athletes
10:57
Speaker 1: also apply in the corporate world. And what applies in
11:00
Speaker 1: the corporate world also applies to creatives an artist, let's say.
11:04
Speaker 1: And there was so much work done on this topic
11:07
Speaker 1: of performance, but it was all very siloed. So there
11:09
Speaker 1: might be a book about performance in sport, or performance
11:13
Speaker 1: in business, or performance in hunting or performance in triathlon,
11:16
Speaker 1: but none of these different fields were talking to each other.
11:20
Speaker 1: And when I stepped back and I took a broad
11:22
Speaker 1: view across fields, I noticed all these patterns. And it's
11:25
Speaker 1: a very scientific thinker. If you see patterns, you can
11:28
Speaker 1: become more likely that the excuse me, you can become
11:30
Speaker 1: more sure that something is true. So I started to
11:33
Speaker 1: see these patterns pointing to the truth of what it
11:35
Speaker 1: takes to be a peak performer, showing up in all fields.
11:38
Speaker 1: Granted they were talked about a little bit differently, but
11:40
Speaker 1: they're saying more or less the same things. And I
11:43
Speaker 1: became fascinated by this notion of, well, what if there
11:45
Speaker 1: are a few underlying principles of performance that cut across
11:49
Speaker 1: all fields and all domains, and if you can identify those,
11:52
Speaker 1: we can be pretty confident that they're actually true and
11:55
Speaker 1: that they'll hold up in that the work and then
11:57
Speaker 1: the second book, and finished the first book, my first
12:00
Speaker 1: book with a major publishing house, had sent it into
12:03
Speaker 1: the editor uh and heard back from the editor that
12:06
Speaker 1: he was running behind, and I had set aside about
12:09
Speaker 1: two weeks to go through edits um instead of kind
12:13
Speaker 1: of celebrating the fact that the manuscript was accepted and
12:16
Speaker 1: I was going to have this book and and the
12:17
Speaker 1: editor said that all looked well. I did that for
12:20
Speaker 1: about a half an hour, and then I got really antsy,
12:22
Speaker 1: and I started thinking, well, what am I going to
12:24
Speaker 1: do next? And then I stepped back and I said, well,
12:26
Speaker 1: wait a minute, why can't I just be content? Like
12:30
Speaker 1: where does this drive come from? And is this drive
12:32
Speaker 1: a good thing? And is the bad thing? And is
12:34
Speaker 1: it both? And and I realized that I have a
12:36
Speaker 1: pretty obsessive personality. Um can also be called passionate. Passionate
12:41
Speaker 1: has a much more positive connotation. But I'm kind of
12:44
Speaker 1: wired to just keep on pushing, and when I want
12:47
Speaker 1: to go for something, I want to go all in.
12:50
Speaker 1: And at times that can work out really well for me,
12:53
Speaker 1: but at other times it can lead to all sorts
12:54
Speaker 1: of problems. So I became fascinated by the idea of passion.
12:59
Speaker 1: And much like the first book, I'd assume that someone
13:01
Speaker 1: had explored passion. But what I learned is that outside
13:04
Speaker 1: of the kind of cliche, trite self help books, you know,
13:07
Speaker 1: Find your Passion, Follow your Passion um, which I'm sure
13:11
Speaker 1: we'll get into most of that's just bullshit, but um,
13:13
Speaker 1: no one had really done a good deep dive on
13:17
Speaker 1: passion UM. So much like the first book, I kind
13:19
Speaker 1: of did it to help myself because these are issues
13:22
Speaker 1: that I work through and I still work through UM.
13:25
Speaker 1: And I tried to figure it out on the page.
13:26
Speaker 1: And it turns out that thousands and thousands of readers
13:29
Speaker 1: are going through the same stuff now to to come
13:32
Speaker 1: to the conclusions that you guys did eventually in these books.
13:34
Speaker 1: You and your co author Steve Magnus, did you guys
13:37
Speaker 1: just sit at a coffee shop and and BS and
13:39
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I think it's a B and C
13:41
Speaker 1: are the are the keys to peak performance? And I
13:43
Speaker 1: think that this thing, this thing and this thing are
13:45
Speaker 1: what are going to lead us to understand passion or
13:48
Speaker 1: you know, help me understand, help folks understand. How you
13:51
Speaker 1: research this how you I know you dove into a
13:54
Speaker 1: lot of the science and the findings and that was
13:56
Speaker 1: really fascinating. Yeah. So it's it's it's funny that the
14:01
Speaker 1: thing I'm probably most proud of with both these books
14:04
Speaker 1: is a lot of the books that are in this
14:07
Speaker 1: performance genre are what I like to call bro science,
14:13
Speaker 1: in in bro science is not real science. Bro science
14:16
Speaker 1: is these are ten hacks that are going to make
14:19
Speaker 1: you superman or superwoman, or you know, drink this magical
14:22
Speaker 1: tea and suddenly you're going to be a better hunter.
14:25
Speaker 1: All that stuff is crap. It sells, but it's not true.
14:28
Speaker 1: It's not based on any real evidence. So my co
14:30
Speaker 1: author and I were you know, we both have very
14:32
Speaker 1: scientific minds and we want to write a very different
14:35
Speaker 1: kind of book. So we spent for each book over
14:38
Speaker 1: a year looking at all the various areas of research,
14:41
Speaker 1: so that included psychology, physiology, biology, anthropology, We looked at
14:47
Speaker 1: the life sciences, we looked at creative sciences, and again
14:50
Speaker 1: our goal was to try to identify patterns that came
14:53
Speaker 1: up everywhere. And then in addition to looking at the science,
14:57
Speaker 1: we interviewed hundreds of performers in the in in the
15:00
Speaker 1: same diverse fields. So we talked to world class artists,
15:04
Speaker 1: world class outdoorsmen, world class adventure athletes, world class business people, entrepreneurs,
15:11
Speaker 1: and much like we did with the research, we weren't
15:13
Speaker 1: so much interested in the anecdotes that each individual told
15:17
Speaker 1: as so much and trying to identify these common themes
15:19
Speaker 1: and patterns, and in both books where we wind up
15:23
Speaker 1: are on these few core patterns, these few core insights
15:26
Speaker 1: that again came up in all different areas of research
15:30
Speaker 1: and also in all different areas of practice, which leads
15:33
Speaker 1: me to think that they are most likely true. And
15:36
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense. And it's it's interesting
15:39
Speaker 1: even within the microcosm of of our little community, the
15:43
Speaker 1: however many fifteen million hunters or whatever it is out there.
15:46
Speaker 1: As I've gone through my years of studying high performance
15:49
Speaker 1: within our community, you see, you know, there's there's ump team,
15:53
Speaker 1: different million ways to you know, to skin the cat right,
15:56
Speaker 1: to to actually fill a hunting license and have success
16:00
Speaker 1: in the field. But there are always these core truths
16:04
Speaker 1: that that seemed to be consistent across those best of
16:07
Speaker 1: the best. You know, there's gonna be those those different
16:10
Speaker 1: little tweaks here and there, but at the base level,
16:13
Speaker 1: it's well, they're always doing this kind of thing, or
16:15
Speaker 1: they have these practices, or they have these routines, or
16:18
Speaker 1: they have this certain kind of mindset um. And I
16:21
Speaker 1: think as I study this both within the hunting world
16:24
Speaker 1: and outside of it. There's a lot of overlap there
16:27
Speaker 1: um and one of the things, and and there's in
16:30
Speaker 1: in in and you know, it's interesting because, like I
16:33
Speaker 1: was saying earlier, like I'm not a hunter, So your
16:35
Speaker 1: audience might be like, well, what's this brad guy gonna
16:37
Speaker 1: tell me about a sport that he doesn't participate in?
16:40
Speaker 1: And what I would say is nothing, Like, I'm not
16:41
Speaker 1: an expert in hunting. I'm an expert on these principles.
16:44
Speaker 1: And I think it is so powerful to actually get
16:47
Speaker 1: outside of your small little microcosm and see what other
16:50
Speaker 1: people are doing, because that's where true breakthrough happens, is
16:53
Speaker 1: when you can realize that, hey, there's this thing that
16:55
Speaker 1: works everywhere, well, yeah, it's gonna work in hunting because performances,
16:59
Speaker 1: performance ash and is passion, whether you're in a boardroom,
17:02
Speaker 1: whether you're hunting, whether you're on the start line of
17:05
Speaker 1: a marathon. Like, beneath all the noise and all the
17:09
Speaker 1: sales people trying to sell you hacks, there are these
17:11
Speaker 1: timeless principles that if you stick to, you will make
17:14
Speaker 1: you better at whatever you do. Uh, And That's what
17:17
Speaker 1: I'm really interested and me too, and I feel like
17:19
Speaker 1: we're a little bit like just um self critiquing our
17:24
Speaker 1: little community a little bit. We we are a little
17:26
Speaker 1: bit insular. Sometimes I think we're not. We're sometimes in
17:29
Speaker 1: an echo chamber, I guess, And probably each different little
17:32
Speaker 1: community out there of this type of athlete and this
17:35
Speaker 1: kind of business person, this kind of artist, like everyone
17:38
Speaker 1: kind of lives within their own worlds, especially today with
17:40
Speaker 1: how social media is and all of our very customized media.
17:43
Speaker 1: You know, you can kind of fine tune what you
17:45
Speaker 1: want to hear in the perspectives you want to hear,
17:47
Speaker 1: but it's really easy to just hear from people just
17:49
Speaker 1: like you. And all the new ideas you ever get
17:52
Speaker 1: are just from people just like you and people doing
17:54
Speaker 1: just the exact same thing as you. And that maybe
17:57
Speaker 1: feels good in the short term because there's a lot
17:59
Speaker 1: of amen, but I think it's not a recipe for growth,
18:03
Speaker 1: um which is why I'm particularly interested in hearing from you,
18:06
Speaker 1: because I think you do bring these different perspectives for us,
18:09
Speaker 1: and and I guess on that topic of growth, one
18:12
Speaker 1: of the first principles in your book peak performance, that
18:15
Speaker 1: you guys identified as one of these core consistent truths
18:18
Speaker 1: across high performers. Was this, uh, this concept you guys
18:22
Speaker 1: called the growth equation? Can you describe what what that is?
18:27
Speaker 1: How that applies to peak performance? Because I think taking
18:30
Speaker 1: one step back before I let your own with that
18:33
Speaker 1: one of the top goals of most people within our
18:36
Speaker 1: world of hunting, like everyone's trying to and anything, I guess,
18:39
Speaker 1: but trying to figure out how to grow, how to
18:41
Speaker 1: get better. This is like any kind of hunting, whether
18:43
Speaker 1: you're hunting elk in the mountains or deer in the Midwest. Um,
18:48
Speaker 1: it can be very physically demanding, it's very mentally demanding,
18:51
Speaker 1: and more and more you get into it, the greater
18:54
Speaker 1: the challenge can become. You can find a lot of
18:56
Speaker 1: ways to just dive wholeheartedly into this thing, and a
18:58
Speaker 1: lot of people kind of find of lives and maybe
19:01
Speaker 1: originally they just wanted to find a way to put
19:04
Speaker 1: some meat on the table and eventually find oh wow,
19:06
Speaker 1: it's this whole consuming lifestyle that you can really dive really,
19:09
Speaker 1: really really deep into, and so people end up just
19:13
Speaker 1: just I mean I've used the word before, it consumed
19:15
Speaker 1: with it. How do I grow? How do I get
19:18
Speaker 1: better in this? How do I learn more? How can
19:19
Speaker 1: I improve my chances? So there's there's a whole lot
19:22
Speaker 1: of interest in these how to or how to improve.
19:25
Speaker 1: So I think though this growth equation kind of a
19:28
Speaker 1: really good starting point for people to think about that process. Yeah,
19:33
Speaker 1: for sure, this is this is one of the favorite
19:35
Speaker 1: principle post that I've uncovered. Um, So you're right. We
19:38
Speaker 1: call it the growth equation, and the growth equation is
19:43
Speaker 1: stress plus rest equals growth. And this is universal to
19:48
Speaker 1: all pursuits. So I'll start by explaining it in terms
19:51
Speaker 1: of how you make a muscle bigger, because I think
19:53
Speaker 1: that that's the easiest way to understand the concept, and
19:56
Speaker 1: then we'll spill over into how this would apply to hunting,
19:58
Speaker 1: or at least how I think it. So, if you're
20:01
Speaker 1: in the weight room and you want to grow your
20:02
Speaker 1: biceps muscle, the muscle in your upper arm, you pick
20:05
Speaker 1: up way too heavy of weight and you try to
20:07
Speaker 1: curl it, and two things are gonna happen. You're gonna
20:09
Speaker 1: injure yourself. You're gonna throw out your back, or you're
20:12
Speaker 1: gonna not even be able to pick it up, and
20:13
Speaker 1: you're gonna say, screw this, I can't do this. I'm
20:15
Speaker 1: done If you go to the weight room and you
20:18
Speaker 1: pick up a one pound weight, you could sit there
20:20
Speaker 1: and curl it all day and nothing's gonna happen. So
20:23
Speaker 1: the first part about making a muscle bigger is you
20:25
Speaker 1: have to find the right dose of stress the right weight. Now,
20:29
Speaker 1: even if you find that right weight, if you sit
20:32
Speaker 1: there and curl all day, every day without resting in between,
20:36
Speaker 1: eventually your muscle is physically gonna fatigue. It's gonna physically
20:39
Speaker 1: burn out. So what you have to do is you
20:41
Speaker 1: have to stress the muscle at the right dose, the
20:44
Speaker 1: right weight, and then allow it to rest and recover.
20:47
Speaker 1: And it's actually during the rest and recovery period that
20:49
Speaker 1: the muscle gets stronger, not during the work, but during
20:53
Speaker 1: the recovery. And then when the muscle gets stronger, you
20:56
Speaker 1: can stress it a little bit more again at the
20:59
Speaker 1: right dose, allow it to rest and recover, and then
21:01
Speaker 1: you get growth. So very easy to understand in a
21:05
Speaker 1: weight room and very easy to modulate the stress level.
21:07
Speaker 1: Right you go from a twenty pound weight to a
21:09
Speaker 1: twenty five pound weight to a thirty pound weight. It's
21:11
Speaker 1: a little bit harder out in the real world, but
21:13
Speaker 1: that same principle applies. So when you take on a challenge,
21:17
Speaker 1: you want to get just outside of your comfort zone.
21:20
Speaker 1: If you take on too big of a challenge, too
21:22
Speaker 1: big of a stressor you're going to be overwhelmed with anxiety.
21:25
Speaker 1: That's not going to lead to growth. But if you
21:27
Speaker 1: stay complacent and comfortable and just go through the same
21:30
Speaker 1: emotions that you've always done, you're also not going to grow.
21:33
Speaker 1: So you've got to figure out what's the equivalent of
21:35
Speaker 1: picking up that weight that really pushes you almost to
21:39
Speaker 1: the point of failure, but not so hard that you're
21:41
Speaker 1: going to get injured, and not so hard that you're
21:43
Speaker 1: never going to be able to do it. And then
21:46
Speaker 1: after you take on those challenges, you've got to allow
21:48
Speaker 1: for rest, recovery, and reflection, because if you're just constantly
21:51
Speaker 1: pushing ahead, physically, you're gonna fatigue, and psychologically you're not
21:55
Speaker 1: going to give yourself the space to actually learn from
21:58
Speaker 1: the experiences that you've had. So a trap that a
22:01
Speaker 1: lot of type A driven pushers fall into, and I
22:03
Speaker 1: don't care if you're a hunter or runner or a
22:05
Speaker 1: corporate executive, is you just want to go, go, go,
22:07
Speaker 1: go go. So we're really good at the stress part
22:10
Speaker 1: of the equation, but we often neglect the rest part.
22:14
Speaker 1: And what happens is, again, physically, we can work ourselves
22:17
Speaker 1: into fatigue and perform suboptimally, and just as important, mentally,
22:22
Speaker 1: we skimp out on the reflection. So we're not actually
22:25
Speaker 1: learning as much as we could because we're so focused
22:27
Speaker 1: on immediately going to the next thing. Um So, not
22:31
Speaker 1: only does this apply to performance pursuits, but it also
22:34
Speaker 1: applies to relationships. Um whether it's a friendship or romantic relationship.
22:39
Speaker 1: The way a relationship deepens is you face a challenge together.
22:43
Speaker 1: You have to step back after that challenge, reflect, rest, recover,
22:47
Speaker 1: and then you grow out of it stronger. But if
22:49
Speaker 1: you take on way too many challenges in a relationship
22:51
Speaker 1: or too great of challenges too soon, the relationship falls apart.
22:54
Speaker 1: And if you never have that time to rest and
22:56
Speaker 1: reflect same thing, the relationship falls apart. But if you're
23:00
Speaker 1: constantly challenging yourself together allowing that space to recover and
23:03
Speaker 1: reflect been the relationship strengthens. Um So again, this is
23:07
Speaker 1: this is quite a universal equation. Uh, you've got to
23:10
Speaker 1: stress the system, challenge it in a way that's the
23:13
Speaker 1: appropriate dose, not too much but not too little and
23:16
Speaker 1: then make sure that you build in a little time
23:18
Speaker 1: to rest and recover to grow, and then you can
23:20
Speaker 1: take on a greater challenge. Yeah, that that makes a
23:23
Speaker 1: lot of sense. And it's something that that I've always
23:26
Speaker 1: tried to try to do in certain ways within within
23:29
Speaker 1: most things I do. But I feel like in the
23:31
Speaker 1: hunting world, one way that I've always tried to do
23:33
Speaker 1: this one way to kind of apply stress to what
23:35
Speaker 1: I do is by forcing myself into new situations. So
23:39
Speaker 1: it's really easy, um to just hunt in the same
23:43
Speaker 1: place all the time, or just to use the same
23:45
Speaker 1: basic strategy of what you're gonna do, how you're gonna
23:48
Speaker 1: do it, when you're gonna do it. Like, there's definitely
23:50
Speaker 1: a trend out there where people kind of find the
23:51
Speaker 1: one thing that works for them and they just do that.
23:54
Speaker 1: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But maybe you had
23:57
Speaker 1: that one great experience doing we'll just say strategy A,
24:01
Speaker 1: and if it works at one time, then you kind
24:03
Speaker 1: of live off the glory of that memory for ten years,
24:05
Speaker 1: twenty years, and then people kind of, you know, the
24:08
Speaker 1: common definition and saying to do the same thing over
24:10
Speaker 1: and over and regardless of results. Sometimes people fall into
24:13
Speaker 1: that rut. I've always tried to force myself out of
24:16
Speaker 1: that by going to this new state, going to this
24:19
Speaker 1: new piece of public land, trying this completely off the
24:22
Speaker 1: wall idea, just because it might not work the first time,
24:26
Speaker 1: but I guarantee him going to learn something from it
24:27
Speaker 1: and grow from it. So I think that's probably a
24:30
Speaker 1: good example of the stress part of your equation, right,
24:32
Speaker 1: just putting yourself in a brand new situation and seeing
24:35
Speaker 1: what can come of it, right, Yeah, that's a big
24:38
Speaker 1: part of it, um for sure. I think the other
24:40
Speaker 1: thing that is a helpful framework to think about this
24:43
Speaker 1: is if you look at yourself today as a hunter,
24:46
Speaker 1: and then you look at where do you want to
24:48
Speaker 1: be five years from now, what's the goal, what's the endpoint?
24:52
Speaker 1: And then you just step back and you ask yourself, well,
24:55
Speaker 1: what's the next logical step to get there? That's a
24:59
Speaker 1: pretty accurate way of figuring out what's the next challenge,
25:02
Speaker 1: what's the next stressor you want to take on. This
25:05
Speaker 1: is something we talked about last week with a guy
25:09
Speaker 1: named David Wise. He's a gold medal winning free skier,
25:12
Speaker 1: and he talked about how he has some really specific
25:16
Speaker 1: ways of setting goals to kind of achieve something like
25:19
Speaker 1: you just described. Um, throughout your research for either one
25:22
Speaker 1: of these books, did you kind of uncover anything around
25:26
Speaker 1: that goal setting process? Um, that might be helpful for people?
25:29
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, totally the biggest thing. And this is
25:33
Speaker 1: definitely a topic that came up in the Passion book,
25:35
Speaker 1: and these books are interrelated. But but with Passion, uh,
25:38
Speaker 1: I'm I'm assuming if you're thinking about hunting and stress
25:41
Speaker 1: plus rest equals growth and you want to get better,
25:43
Speaker 1: you're probably pretty passionate about this pursuit. And what can
25:47
Speaker 1: happen in a passionate pursue is you can become so
25:49
Speaker 1: focused on achieving the end goal that you make yourself crazy.
25:53
Speaker 1: And there are often things that you can't control that
25:55
Speaker 1: might affect that end goal. So in hunting, it could
25:57
Speaker 1: be things like whether it could be who else is
25:59
Speaker 1: out there that day, um, whole number of factors. So, well,
26:03
Speaker 1: it's good to set goals, it's really important to focus
26:06
Speaker 1: on the process that's going to give you the best
26:09
Speaker 1: chance to achieve that goal and judge yourself on the
26:12
Speaker 1: process because you you don't have full control of outcomes,
26:15
Speaker 1: but you have control of the process. So again, you know,
26:18
Speaker 1: I don't know hunting well, but I know traathlon. So
26:20
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna traathlon race, I might want to run,
26:22
Speaker 1: uh do a sub five bike, get the hundred twelve
26:25
Speaker 1: mile bike right done under five hours. If I measure
26:28
Speaker 1: myself just on that goal and it thunderstorms that day,
26:32
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna go slower, or if it's really windy,
26:34
Speaker 1: same thing, and then I'm gonna be piste off and
26:36
Speaker 1: achieve the goal. If I set up a process, I'm
26:40
Speaker 1: gonna take care of my nutrition, I'm going to ride
26:42
Speaker 1: at the right power. I'm going to make sure that
26:44
Speaker 1: I that I stay in the aerodynamic position. Then I
26:47
Speaker 1: can really like control all those things and as a result,
26:50
Speaker 1: judge myself based on those things. Um And if you're
26:53
Speaker 1: in it for the long haul to make long term progress,
26:56
Speaker 1: I'm a big, big believer in focusing more on the
26:59
Speaker 1: process than the outcome, because again, outcomes are so often
27:02
Speaker 1: influenced by things outside of our control, and they can
27:05
Speaker 1: create emotional roller coasters of ups and downs, whereas the
27:08
Speaker 1: process is always in your control. UM. So set those goals,
27:13
Speaker 1: but then figure out what are the processed steps that
27:15
Speaker 1: you can control, and then nail those steps. And judge
27:18
Speaker 1: yourself on those steps. So the goal might be to
27:22
Speaker 1: you know, rain in an elk that is x pounds
27:24
Speaker 1: bigger than previous but there are a lot of factors
27:27
Speaker 1: that are going to control whether or not you can
27:29
Speaker 1: do that. So what you need to do is figure out, well,
27:31
Speaker 1: then what are the processed steps it's going to give
27:33
Speaker 1: you the best chance, and then you go out and
27:35
Speaker 1: you repeat that process over and over again. So so
27:38
Speaker 1: this makes like I totally understand this, and I always
27:41
Speaker 1: tell myself this each fall I'm out there, and I'm
27:43
Speaker 1: always trying to remember to enjoy the journey, to enjoy
27:46
Speaker 1: the process, to not get too hung up on the
27:48
Speaker 1: end outcome because all those things you just said are
27:50
Speaker 1: one true, so many things outside of your control that
27:54
Speaker 1: can lead to those high highs and very very low lows.
27:57
Speaker 1: But it's always one of those concepts, at least for me,
28:00
Speaker 1: is so much easier said than done totally, So how
28:05
Speaker 1: do you is there any way to actually make a
28:09
Speaker 1: practice of that? I mean, like when you describe, like
28:11
Speaker 1: think about the different steps in the process, would it
28:13
Speaker 1: be helpful to actually write them down? Yeah? Yeah them
28:18
Speaker 1: write them down? And uh, you know, immerse yourself in
28:23
Speaker 1: a community. Um, whether those are those are partners that
28:26
Speaker 1: you go out hunting with or just you know, you're
28:28
Speaker 1: the hunting community. However, you would define that as an
28:31
Speaker 1: individual listener and hold each other accountable on those process measures. Uh.
28:37
Speaker 1: And if someone starts to get like really upset about
28:41
Speaker 1: missing an outcome, then remind yourself that, hey, like I
28:43
Speaker 1: nailed the process and you should feel good about that. Now.
28:47
Speaker 1: If you keep on nailing the process and you're still
28:50
Speaker 1: not achieving your outcome, then that probably tells you that
28:53
Speaker 1: you ought to change the process. But I I keep
28:56
Speaker 1: on coming back to what are the things that you
28:58
Speaker 1: can control? Rite those things down, nail those over and
29:02
Speaker 1: over and over again, and give it at least I
29:05
Speaker 1: don't know, eight or ten times of nailing that before
29:07
Speaker 1: you start changing things. Because such a common trap is
29:11
Speaker 1: people have an outcome goal, they go after it, they
29:13
Speaker 1: don't get it because of some external factor, and then
29:15
Speaker 1: they change their process, and then you get into this
29:18
Speaker 1: loop where you're constantly changing your process and you're never
29:21
Speaker 1: really refining it to the point that it's actually gonna work. Yeah,
29:24
Speaker 1: I get that. I imagine Another way to think of
29:27
Speaker 1: it is like think of yourself as a crafts person.
29:29
Speaker 1: I love that analogy, right, Like a crafts person they
29:32
Speaker 1: come into the shop every day, they pound the stone,
29:35
Speaker 1: they show up, they do the work. It's not always easy,
29:39
Speaker 1: doesn't always lead to the result that they want, but
29:41
Speaker 1: they hone their craft over months and years. Um, there's
29:44
Speaker 1: not a lot of wild roller coaster ride in the
29:47
Speaker 1: mindset of a craftsperson. Yeah, yeah, I like that, And
29:50
Speaker 1: I think you know, when it comes to writing those
29:52
Speaker 1: things down, it's it's almost like all those processed steps
29:55
Speaker 1: are all the little um like another way to look
29:59
Speaker 1: at as someone. I can't remember where I was reading this,
30:01
Speaker 1: but just you've got your big high level objectives. And
30:04
Speaker 1: then even even in my previous life, my old job,
30:06
Speaker 1: we used to have these things called okay ours, And
30:08
Speaker 1: I was talking about this couple weeks ago. We had
30:10
Speaker 1: we had to set these objectives which are like your
30:12
Speaker 1: big high picture, your high level goals, and then you
30:16
Speaker 1: had to have these key results, which in many cases
30:18
Speaker 1: were specific micro goals and metrics that you could look
30:22
Speaker 1: at and say, Okay, my big picture goal was to
30:25
Speaker 1: increase sales by or whatever it might be, and then
30:28
Speaker 1: I was going to achieve that by doing a B
30:30
Speaker 1: and C, which was going to have so many more
30:32
Speaker 1: calls with my with my client's gonna have so many
30:35
Speaker 1: more Um, I don't know what it would have been
30:37
Speaker 1: back in that day, but all these different specific, quantifiable steps,
30:41
Speaker 1: and I feel like within our world, the hunting world,
30:43
Speaker 1: you know, maybe your goal is to get your first
30:45
Speaker 1: elk this year, to get your first buck. Um, it's
30:49
Speaker 1: really easy to have that goal. But then what are
30:51
Speaker 1: the three or four steps along the way that you
30:55
Speaker 1: can keep track of that you can quantify and that
30:57
Speaker 1: would lead you to that goal. So maybe it would
30:59
Speaker 1: be step one would be I'm going to scout ten
31:02
Speaker 1: new properties this year. Maybe step two is going to
31:04
Speaker 1: be I'm going to practice with my bow weekly to
31:08
Speaker 1: make sure I'm as accurate as I possibly can be.
31:11
Speaker 1: Step number three is gonna be I'm gonna plan on
31:13
Speaker 1: spending a minimum of four weekends this year out in
31:17
Speaker 1: the field trying to accomplish that goal. Um, I'm thinking
31:20
Speaker 1: those kinds of things are ways to quantify that, yes,
31:23
Speaker 1: I'm doing the things along the way that would lead
31:25
Speaker 1: to that goal. Is that totally and if you and
31:28
Speaker 1: if you're confident in that process, then you can trust
31:32
Speaker 1: it like you trust your training, you trust the process.
31:35
Speaker 1: Over time, it's like the outcome takes care of itself.
31:38
Speaker 1: So it's this really um ironic uh and kind of
31:42
Speaker 1: like paradoxical thing is that the more that you're focused
31:46
Speaker 1: on an end goal of a less likely you are
31:48
Speaker 1: to achieve it. The more that you're focused on the process,
31:51
Speaker 1: the more likely the angle just takes care of it.
31:53
Speaker 1: And it's almost it's almost probably because you're freeing yourself
31:57
Speaker 1: of a certain amount of pressure. That is that a
32:00
Speaker 1: totally yep, because you're not You're not going out there
32:02
Speaker 1: with this with this weight on your shoulder that Oh,
32:05
Speaker 1: if I don't get you know, if I don't get
32:06
Speaker 1: the kill, what are I co Like what are my
32:08
Speaker 1: friends going to think of me? Or am I a failure?
32:11
Speaker 1: Or I've spent all this time away from my family
32:14
Speaker 1: and I still can't get it. Like that's that's a
32:16
Speaker 1: lot of weight on your shoulders again, especially because like
32:18
Speaker 1: the weather might be shitty that day. I don't know, maybe,
32:21
Speaker 1: I mean again, I don't know much about hunting, but
32:22
Speaker 1: like where I hike, there are a lot of deer,
32:24
Speaker 1: but they're also mountain lions, and mountain lions are out
32:26
Speaker 1: that day, there aren't gonna be out. So like, there's
32:29
Speaker 1: all these things that you can't control, but what you
32:31
Speaker 1: can't control is that process. And there have been so
32:34
Speaker 1: many times in my life where I've fallen shore on
32:36
Speaker 1: an outcome, but I've nailed the process and I've really
32:39
Speaker 1: and it's hard. Again, it's easier to say than to do,
32:42
Speaker 1: but I've held myself to the process. I've had friends
32:44
Speaker 1: helped hold me to the process. Um, and then you
32:48
Speaker 1: just pick it back up and you start executing on
32:50
Speaker 1: your process again. So so on the topic of the
32:54
Speaker 1: process a little bit and going back to the growth
32:56
Speaker 1: equation and how this all kind of comes together. The
32:58
Speaker 1: second part, Like we've talked a little how to apply
33:00
Speaker 1: stress to your to your usual stuff, So try some
33:03
Speaker 1: new things, maybe go new places, add new challenges. But
33:06
Speaker 1: the second part of the equation is the rest or
33:08
Speaker 1: reflection time. And I'm wondering if you can help us
33:13
Speaker 1: understand a little bit of what that might look like. Um,
33:16
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's literal ways that we could insert
33:19
Speaker 1: rest into our training regiment. Maybe we are physically trying
33:22
Speaker 1: to train for a back country hunt where we're gonna
33:24
Speaker 1: be hiking in fifteen miles into the mountains, and Canna
33:26
Speaker 1: have to hike out fifteen more miles and we're gonna
33:28
Speaker 1: gain ten thousand feet of elevation, We're gonna be packing
33:30
Speaker 1: out two hundred pounds of meat. That kind of thing,
33:33
Speaker 1: like training for that kind of physical activity. It's really
33:36
Speaker 1: easy to understand how I'm gonna stress myself, and then
33:38
Speaker 1: adding maybe it's rest days or rest weeks or things
33:41
Speaker 1: like that. But I think the trickier one is where
33:44
Speaker 1: we are trying to when we're talking more like the
33:47
Speaker 1: conceptual level or like the mental side of things, where
33:50
Speaker 1: I'm trying to learn from hunting experiences. And then one
33:57
Speaker 1: of the big things that happens last times when we're
33:59
Speaker 1: out there hunting is stuff goes wrong. Just like you said,
34:01
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things out of your control. Also,
34:03
Speaker 1: you make a lot of mistakes out there. So I
34:05
Speaker 1: find myself so many times something goes wrong, I blow
34:07
Speaker 1: an opportunity, or all this work went into this outcome,
34:10
Speaker 1: then the last second, something goes wrong, and then always
34:14
Speaker 1: say something and we all say that, well, you know,
34:16
Speaker 1: I'm gonna learn from that. But many times I feel
34:20
Speaker 1: like we say we're gonna learn from that, and then
34:23
Speaker 1: we just then go on with our daily lives, just
34:24
Speaker 1: go on. And I don't know if we ever actually
34:27
Speaker 1: do learn from that in any or at least I
34:29
Speaker 1: don't have a practice for really reflecting on it. So
34:32
Speaker 1: this is my long rambling way of trying to say,
34:35
Speaker 1: did you find anything as far as a practice or
34:38
Speaker 1: an idea of how we can better mentally reflect or
34:42
Speaker 1: mentally rest after a challenge a stress, and how do
34:46
Speaker 1: we grow in that kind of way? Does that make sense? Yeah?
34:49
Speaker 1: I think that you. I think that you have to
34:51
Speaker 1: you have to realize what you just said and be
34:53
Speaker 1: aware of the propensity to just immediately move on to
34:56
Speaker 1: the next thing and expect you to feel that way
34:59
Speaker 1: and then know that it's coming and still choose to
35:02
Speaker 1: not just move on and set aside some time. Uh.
35:05
Speaker 1: And then this can be really simple, this can be
35:08
Speaker 1: These are the things that went well that I want
35:10
Speaker 1: to repeat, These are the things that didn't go well
35:12
Speaker 1: that I want to change. And here's what I like
35:15
Speaker 1: to I use the word habit energy, which is just
35:17
Speaker 1: like that, the energy of habit. And here's all the
35:19
Speaker 1: habit energies that are going to get in the way
35:21
Speaker 1: of me making those changes, and just being aware of
35:25
Speaker 1: the resistance that you're going to face helps you face
35:28
Speaker 1: it so much better because then when it comes, you
35:30
Speaker 1: can say, oh, high habit energy, like, I know you're
35:33
Speaker 1: trying to, you know, make me do things the old way,
35:35
Speaker 1: but even though you're here, I'm gonna go do the
35:37
Speaker 1: new things. And this often comes up with fear. Fears
35:39
Speaker 1: a really strong habit energy. And it's not just visceral
35:42
Speaker 1: fear of one's life, but it could be fear of
35:43
Speaker 1: messing up, uh, fear of fear of you know, getting
35:46
Speaker 1: out of your comfort zone, doing something the wrong way.
35:49
Speaker 1: So oftentimes what will happen is people people will be
35:52
Speaker 1: reflecting in the they'll realize that the real reason that
35:54
Speaker 1: they did something wrong is because they had fear, and
35:56
Speaker 1: they could have acted differently in the midst of fear,
35:59
Speaker 1: but they didn't. So then the practice is next time
36:01
Speaker 1: when fear happens, not to resist it, but just to
36:04
Speaker 1: realize it acknowledged that, oh, fear is here, and I'm
36:07
Speaker 1: still going to go ahead and do this thing that
36:09
Speaker 1: my rational brain knows gives me the better chance of
36:12
Speaker 1: accomplishing what I want to. So it's it's really about
36:15
Speaker 1: being able to step outside of yourself a little bit
36:17
Speaker 1: and identify what's going on inside your head this little
36:21
Speaker 1: I think you've referred to as self distancing a little bit.
36:24
Speaker 1: Will that be kind of what we're talking about here? Yeah, exactly.
36:26
Speaker 1: It's to get outside of get outside of the ongoing
36:30
Speaker 1: chatter in your head some of those fears, be able
36:32
Speaker 1: to see them from a little bit more of a
36:35
Speaker 1: broader perspective, uh, and in and create some space between
36:40
Speaker 1: that ongoing narrative and then your ability to make a
36:42
Speaker 1: wise decision amidst it. And I think reflection is really
36:46
Speaker 1: helpful it doing. Speaking of decision making and dealing with
36:50
Speaker 1: stress and things like that, there's a lot of really
36:52
Speaker 1: high pressure situations in in a hunt, a lot of
36:55
Speaker 1: different things that might be going on where there's a
36:57
Speaker 1: lot resting on the next decision you make. It might
37:00
Speaker 1: be a physical thing, it might be just making a
37:02
Speaker 1: shot which is as high pressure and intense of the
37:05
Speaker 1: situation as there is out there, or simply a fork
37:08
Speaker 1: in the road where I need to do A or
37:09
Speaker 1: B and I need to make that decision right now,
37:12
Speaker 1: and if I make the wrong decision, ten months worth
37:15
Speaker 1: of worker's shot. Um I I remember reading a bit
37:18
Speaker 1: about some of the things you guys have learned about
37:21
Speaker 1: the importance of mindset and and and attitude and things
37:25
Speaker 1: like that, and how that can help with some of
37:26
Speaker 1: these things. Is there anything you can speak to on
37:28
Speaker 1: that front. So I think I think a big I
37:33
Speaker 1: think a big thing is that, well, there's two In
37:36
Speaker 1: high pressure situations, a lot of people call that emotion
37:43
Speaker 1: being nervous or anxious, and then they freak out about
37:46
Speaker 1: the fact that they're nervous or anxious, which just makes
37:49
Speaker 1: it worse. The research shows, as well as interviews with
37:53
Speaker 1: great performers, that better than that is to actually let
37:57
Speaker 1: yourself feel that physiological or cousl instead of labeling anxiety
38:03
Speaker 1: or nervousness, label excitement and tell yourself the story that
38:09
Speaker 1: oh ship like it's go time. Like my heart rate
38:12
Speaker 1: is up, my body temperatures up, I've got butterflies in
38:15
Speaker 1: my stomach. That's not a problem. That is that is
38:18
Speaker 1: thousands of years of evolution preparing my body to be
38:22
Speaker 1: a on it For this situation, I'm gonna go crush,
38:26
Speaker 1: which is so different than I need to take thirty
38:30
Speaker 1: mindful breaths. I need to try to calm down How
38:32
Speaker 1: am I nervous in this situation? Why do I always
38:35
Speaker 1: get anxious? Um? Because our body, like our mind body system,
38:38
Speaker 1: is a lot smarter than our brain. Right. We try
38:40
Speaker 1: to force these mindsets on ourselves, but the body knows
38:43
Speaker 1: really well. In the minute we call something anxiety, it
38:46
Speaker 1: takes on a negative connotation and it's gonna mess with us.
38:50
Speaker 1: But if we don't give it that label, and we
38:52
Speaker 1: just say, WHOA, I'm aroused, you can actually channel that. Uh.
38:56
Speaker 1: Free solo climbers do a really good job of this,
39:00
Speaker 1: all the free solo climbers that I've gotten to speak to,
39:02
Speaker 1: and including guys like Alex Hanald so I'm talking to
39:04
Speaker 1: like the best to have ever live. He told me
39:06
Speaker 1: that he feels tons of fear. He doesn't not feel fear.
39:10
Speaker 1: The difference is when he feels fear, he doesn't freak
39:12
Speaker 1: out about it and try to make it go away
39:14
Speaker 1: or calm down. He he, he names it and he says,
39:17
Speaker 1: this is my body getting ready to go. Because when
39:20
Speaker 1: we're in a state of arousal or fear, our perceptions
39:23
Speaker 1: are actually more heightened than ever. I mean, I can
39:26
Speaker 1: tell you there have been two times in my life
39:28
Speaker 1: when I've never been more alive, and when when when
39:30
Speaker 1: my perceptions have been the highest, And that's when I
39:32
Speaker 1: found myself ten and twenty ft from a mountain, lion
39:35
Speaker 1: and a bear, respectively. And it was scary, for sure,
39:39
Speaker 1: but my vision was crystal clear. Time slowed down, uh,
39:44
Speaker 1: and I didn't I didn't say, oh, I'm freaking out.
39:46
Speaker 1: I was just in the moment. Boom, You have no choice.
39:49
Speaker 1: I think the problem is when you're on a hunt,
39:51
Speaker 1: maybe you have a little bit more time, even if
39:53
Speaker 1: it's just a few seconds, and then your mind starts
39:56
Speaker 1: thinking and starts saying, oh, you're feeling nervous. This is
39:58
Speaker 1: a problem. So it's really about trying to get your
40:00
Speaker 1: mind out of the way and just going, yeah, that's
40:04
Speaker 1: that's one of the greatest you know, speaking of of
40:08
Speaker 1: of climbers, right, you talk about the crux of a route,
40:10
Speaker 1: I feel like the crux of many hunts is that
40:12
Speaker 1: final minutes. Sometimes it can be minutes, or it might
40:16
Speaker 1: be seconds when you have to have to make that
40:18
Speaker 1: shot and yeah, that exact scenario you just described, where Okay,
40:23
Speaker 1: this thing is happening, and then you start your heartbeat
40:25
Speaker 1: starts increasing, and you start sweating, you get nervous, maybe
40:28
Speaker 1: start shaking. Um. In in the hunting world, people will
40:31
Speaker 1: refer to this as buck fever, and it's this kind
40:34
Speaker 1: of dreaded thing that happens to almost everybody where you
40:38
Speaker 1: kind of have a physical and sometimes mental breakdown as
40:41
Speaker 1: you prepare for this, this final culmination of everything that's
40:44
Speaker 1: been happening in the previous months. And um and yeah,
40:48
Speaker 1: I feel like the conventional wisdom and recommendation is too deeper.
40:54
Speaker 1: Take deep breath, to steady, calm down, act like it's normal.
40:59
Speaker 1: Um And And if you've practiced doing that, like if
41:02
Speaker 1: you've gone on silent meditation retreat and you've trained yourself
41:05
Speaker 1: to do that, then that's a great strategy. But the
41:08
Speaker 1: thing is most people haven't trained themselves to do that.
41:11
Speaker 1: And if you haven't trained yourself to do that, what
41:14
Speaker 1: ends up happening is you try to force yourself to
41:16
Speaker 1: calm down, and you don't calm down because it's really
41:18
Speaker 1: freaking hard to calm down in those situations. And now
41:21
Speaker 1: not only are you nervous, but you're nervous that you
41:23
Speaker 1: can't calm down. So like you've just taken a situation
41:27
Speaker 1: and made it worse versus instead, with the research shows
41:30
Speaker 1: really clearly is just changing your mindset and learning to
41:33
Speaker 1: label those physical sensations is arousal versus anxiety and say
41:38
Speaker 1: I'm aroused. This is thousands of years of evolution that
41:41
Speaker 1: has programmed the human body to feel this way in
41:43
Speaker 1: high pressure situations. I'm going to channel it and use it.
41:47
Speaker 1: And just that level of self talk can totally totally
41:51
Speaker 1: change your perception of what's kind of crazy. How powerful
41:54
Speaker 1: self talk is just like being able to recognize what's
41:56
Speaker 1: happening in your head and kind of talk yourself through
41:59
Speaker 1: these things. I feel like when you say these things
42:03
Speaker 1: just a normal conversation, it kind of sounds like you're
42:05
Speaker 1: a crazy person. But there's so much power there, isn't there? Oh? Yeah,
42:10
Speaker 1: for sure. Um, I'm I'm a big fan of um
42:13
Speaker 1: of just having a few mantras to go do, because again,
42:16
Speaker 1: it can be hard, like in the midst of that situation,
42:20
Speaker 1: you don't want to like have to come up with
42:21
Speaker 1: a dialogue that's going to be helpful. Uh So, just
42:24
Speaker 1: a few pointers. So for me, something that I use
42:26
Speaker 1: in in in high intensity situations across all aspects of
42:29
Speaker 1: my life is I just say, this is what's happening
42:32
Speaker 1: right now. Like those couple of words just bring me
42:36
Speaker 1: into the present moment, gets me out of the fear,
42:39
Speaker 1: out of the I'm feeling anxious, I'm tight. It's just
42:41
Speaker 1: this is what's happening right now. UM. Don't don't lay
42:44
Speaker 1: any kind of concept onto it. Just this is what's happening.
42:48
Speaker 1: And and and I'm not saying that that should be
42:49
Speaker 1: the mantra that listeners use, but coming up with a
42:52
Speaker 1: thing or two, if it's just gonna bring you back
42:54
Speaker 1: into the present moment and remind you that like you've
42:57
Speaker 1: trained and you're there for it, and you can trust
42:59
Speaker 1: your training, that can be so helpful. And one of
43:02
Speaker 1: the one of the ways I think this applies really
43:05
Speaker 1: really nicely to what we're doing a lot of times
43:08
Speaker 1: is archery. And you mentioned the mantra that you use.
43:11
Speaker 1: That concept is actually something that some people in the
43:14
Speaker 1: archery field talk about, how you can have this this
43:17
Speaker 1: phrase or series of phrases that can help just center you,
43:21
Speaker 1: get you into your routine, um avoids some of the
43:24
Speaker 1: fears and negative self talk that might be there. UM
43:28
Speaker 1: and and on that topic of archery, then it brings
43:30
Speaker 1: me to another concept that you talked about in the book,
43:33
Speaker 1: which was around practice. So for hunters, whether you're trying
43:38
Speaker 1: to practice with a with a firearm or a bow,
43:41
Speaker 1: it takes it takes a lot of time, a lot
43:43
Speaker 1: of uh, routine building. Have the building I guess to
43:48
Speaker 1: become proficient with something like that. Um, but lots of
43:52
Speaker 1: times you see people just practicing with their bow and
43:55
Speaker 1: they just kind of go through the motions. You guys
43:57
Speaker 1: write about a concept called deliberate practice. I've heard about
44:00
Speaker 1: this from from various folks and it seems really powerful.
44:03
Speaker 1: Can you talk about what that is and why that's important?
44:07
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. So practice you've probably heard this, But practice
44:11
Speaker 1: doesn't make perfect perfect practice makes perfect, and deliberate practice
44:17
Speaker 1: is a notion that when you go out to practice,
44:20
Speaker 1: you should have clear goals and objectives before the session,
44:24
Speaker 1: you should have steps to execute on that, and you
44:27
Speaker 1: should break down what you're trying to do into small
44:31
Speaker 1: parts and then focus on each of those individuals small parts. Uh.
44:35
Speaker 1: Deliberate practice is not always fun. Uh. There's some really
44:39
Speaker 1: interesting research in the book around how when world class
44:42
Speaker 1: athletes and world class musicians when they describe practice, they
44:46
Speaker 1: describe it is really challenging and kind of something to
44:49
Speaker 1: get through, and when scientists hook up physiological monitors on them,
44:56
Speaker 1: they're actually showing a stress response throughout practice. Whereas matures,
45:00
Speaker 1: they tend to really enjoy practice and they say that
45:03
Speaker 1: they have fun when they're practicing. So really good practice
45:07
Speaker 1: shouldn't necessarily be fun. It should be a vigorous challenge,
45:11
Speaker 1: both mentally and in some fields physically. Um So, I
45:16
Speaker 1: think it's okay to go out there and have fun, Yes,
45:18
Speaker 1: you want to do that, but for your key practice sessions,
45:21
Speaker 1: they shouldn't feel fun. They should feel like it's a
45:23
Speaker 1: fully demanding challenge of of both mind and body. Uh.
45:27
Speaker 1: And that's a big shift for a lot of people,
45:29
Speaker 1: and it's hard to do that day in and day out.
45:31
Speaker 1: The best athletes they tend to only do three hard
45:33
Speaker 1: workouts a week and the rest of their stuff is
45:36
Speaker 1: easier and more fun. Um But I think it's really
45:39
Speaker 1: important to identify these two or three practice sessions where
45:42
Speaker 1: you might not have fun, it's going to be really
45:45
Speaker 1: really demanding, but you bring a hundred percent presents to
45:47
Speaker 1: the session. You break down what you're trying to do
45:50
Speaker 1: into very small parts, and you really work on fine
45:53
Speaker 1: tuning specific parts. I mean, I relate this to like
45:56
Speaker 1: a golfer again, like I you know, I want to
45:59
Speaker 1: cav at this, like I'm not a hunter, so I
46:01
Speaker 1: don't know. But I think that can also be valuable
46:03
Speaker 1: that I don't know because I have like this broad
46:05
Speaker 1: perspective is I've gotten to coach and spend time with golfers.
46:09
Speaker 1: And there's a big difference between going out to the
46:10
Speaker 1: driving range and hitting fifty balls with each club versus
46:15
Speaker 1: going out there and saying, I'm really gonna work on
46:18
Speaker 1: my for iron and I'm particularly gonna work on my
46:21
Speaker 1: follow through and for an hour just focusing on that
46:24
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you what, like that is not fun.
46:26
Speaker 1: That's how you get better. Yeah, I think that's a perfect,
46:29
Speaker 1: a perfect analogy for the same thing. And be with
46:31
Speaker 1: with practicing your archery, it's uh, that's don't and yeah,
46:35
Speaker 1: and don't try to do that every day of the
46:36
Speaker 1: week because you'll it's like back to stress plus rest.
46:38
Speaker 1: Like that's too much stress. You'll burn out, you'll start
46:40
Speaker 1: hating hating the sport. So it's like, identify two to
46:43
Speaker 1: three key practice sessions in and it can just be
46:47
Speaker 1: two by two hours a week, and if you haven't
46:49
Speaker 1: been practicing in that way, just inserting four hours or
46:53
Speaker 1: or two sessions of that kind of deliberate practice goes
46:56
Speaker 1: such a long way to make you better. So another
47:00
Speaker 1: another tie into that, I guess, right, if we're talking
47:03
Speaker 1: about trying to bring some deliberate practice into our lives,
47:06
Speaker 1: if we're talking about trying to find ways to insert
47:08
Speaker 1: stress and rest into our lives to to combet at
47:11
Speaker 1: our pursuits like hunting in this case, UM, lots of
47:15
Speaker 1: times it's hard to build that into your routine and
47:20
Speaker 1: or can be if if right, we're all busy, there's
47:22
Speaker 1: always too much on a lot of our plates, or
47:24
Speaker 1: run around like chickens with their heads cut off. It
47:26
Speaker 1: feels like all the time, UM, Which brings me to
47:29
Speaker 1: a little bit of what you guys talked about within
47:30
Speaker 1: another section of that book, which is around priming, building
47:34
Speaker 1: habits and routines and different things like that that can
47:37
Speaker 1: can help you grow too. UM. Can you speak a
47:41
Speaker 1: little bit about what you guys mean by priming and
47:44
Speaker 1: why having these types of processes in your life are important.
47:47
Speaker 1: This is something I've kind of been talking about the
47:49
Speaker 1: last two weeks in particularly. We talked with David Wise
47:51
Speaker 1: about this the week before. I share some of my
47:53
Speaker 1: own habits and routines I'm trying to get better at
47:55
Speaker 1: building into my life. Um, how does that fit into
47:58
Speaker 1: this peak performer research you guys have done. So I
48:02
Speaker 1: you know, I don't need to go into the weeds
48:04
Speaker 1: on this because I think it's pretty well accepted that
48:06
Speaker 1: routines are really helpful. I'll say two things. The first
48:11
Speaker 1: is that there are a lot of people out there
48:13
Speaker 1: and what I mentioned earlier the bro science community that
48:16
Speaker 1: try to sell their routine is the be all and
48:18
Speaker 1: end all, the only routine, and they're generally selling you
48:21
Speaker 1: some kind of product with that, right, So you drink
48:24
Speaker 1: this coffee or you drink this tea and and then
48:26
Speaker 1: you're gonna do better, and you have to do this
48:28
Speaker 1: in the morning and this at night. The research shows
48:31
Speaker 1: that none of that's true. While routine itself is really important,
48:34
Speaker 1: there's no single routine, so there's a lot of self experimentation.
48:38
Speaker 1: So it's right routine for the right person at the
48:41
Speaker 1: right time of their life, and i'd even say for
48:44
Speaker 1: the right activity. So your routine for hunting could look
48:46
Speaker 1: very different than your routine for whatever you're doing in
48:49
Speaker 1: your nine to five job. Of course it's going to
48:53
Speaker 1: so no, right, like, routine is important, But anyone that
48:55
Speaker 1: tells you that they've got the magical routine, it might
48:58
Speaker 1: be magical for them, but it doesn't mean it's magical
49:00
Speaker 1: for you. You've got to figure that out. Why this
49:02
Speaker 1: kind of routine is so important, though, is um I
49:07
Speaker 1: think the easiest way to describe it is this. If
49:10
Speaker 1: if you show a baby a chair and use technology
49:14
Speaker 1: to look inside a baby's brain, nothing special happens. If
49:19
Speaker 1: you show an adult a chair and use technology to
49:22
Speaker 1: look inside an adult's brain, The part of their brain
49:24
Speaker 1: called the motor cortex that is associated with the sitting
49:28
Speaker 1: motion starts to fire just by showing them a chair.
49:32
Speaker 1: So you might be thinking, well, what the hell does
49:34
Speaker 1: this have to do with routine? And I'd say it
49:35
Speaker 1: has everything to do with routine, because once you get
49:38
Speaker 1: into a routine, before you're even consciously able to think
49:41
Speaker 1: about what you're doing, your brain is primed to do
49:44
Speaker 1: that thing. So the reason the baby's brain doesn't fire
49:46
Speaker 1: when they see a chair is because they haven't lived
49:48
Speaker 1: a whole life associating chairs with sitting but once you
49:51
Speaker 1: associate chairs with sitting, your brain is going to be
49:54
Speaker 1: primed to sit in the minute that you see that chair.
49:57
Speaker 1: And that's basically what routine does for you. You ease
49:59
Speaker 1: into your routine in your brain is operating. Your subconscious
50:04
Speaker 1: brain is operating faster than your conscious mind. So it's
50:06
Speaker 1: a step of head leading you in the direction that
50:08
Speaker 1: you want. And having those routines helps you helps hard
50:12
Speaker 1: decisions become a little bit easier. Right, There's this concept
50:15
Speaker 1: that that I've read a lot about, and I know
50:17
Speaker 1: you guys discussed too, called decision fatigue. So like the
50:20
Speaker 1: all the different little micro decisions you have to make
50:23
Speaker 1: during a day that maybe yeah, they add up. And
50:27
Speaker 1: so in the hunting world, I've always thought this a huge, huge,
50:30
Speaker 1: huge thing because a lot, especially within on the mental
50:34
Speaker 1: side of things, you're you're forced to make a lot
50:36
Speaker 1: of decisions. Let's say, before you go out for the day,
50:38
Speaker 1: you need to decide, Okay, what what section or property
50:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to, how am I going to access
50:46
Speaker 1: this piece of woods, which is the proper tree stand
50:49
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to? How what time should be in there?
50:51
Speaker 1: What what where do I think that they are going
50:53
Speaker 1: to be. Where do I think that they are going,
50:54
Speaker 1: How do I think the direction of the wind is
50:56
Speaker 1: going to influence that? What do I think about the
50:57
Speaker 1: time of year versus the weather factors versus the own phase?
51:00
Speaker 1: All these I mean, there's a million different variables you
51:03
Speaker 1: have to think about before heading in for a day.
51:06
Speaker 1: And I've always thought if there's any kind of habit
51:10
Speaker 1: or process I can have in place to eliminate as
51:14
Speaker 1: many of the easy decisions or have to get go,
51:16
Speaker 1: the more I can do that, the more mental energy
51:20
Speaker 1: I can put towards those couple tough decisions. So I
51:23
Speaker 1: try to make sure I've got a plan for are
51:24
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna have these four pieces of clothing
51:26
Speaker 1: out and ready to go first thing in the morning.
51:28
Speaker 1: I don't need to think about what I'm gonna grab
51:29
Speaker 1: to wear. I'm gonna have my lunch and dinner that
51:32
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pack in with me and have that already
51:34
Speaker 1: made the night before, so in the morning I can
51:36
Speaker 1: just grab that bag and I don't need to worry
51:38
Speaker 1: about choosing what I'm gonna bring. Um, just little things
51:41
Speaker 1: like that, I think kind of fall into this idea
51:45
Speaker 1: of maybe not you're not priming yourself, but you're at
51:47
Speaker 1: least addressing the decision fatigue side of things. Right, Yeah,
51:50
Speaker 1: and that's that's the time I was. You know, you
51:52
Speaker 1: beat me to it. Man, we're on the same page.
51:53
Speaker 1: That's like the second part of routines, the second big benefits.
51:56
Speaker 1: So the first is the priming notion, like getting your
51:59
Speaker 1: subconscious geared up to to do the thing before you're
52:02
Speaker 1: even there. And then the second part is the more
52:05
Speaker 1: that you can automate things, the more you free up
52:08
Speaker 1: the capacity to be fully present and have the energy
52:11
Speaker 1: both physical, emotional and mental for those tough decisions that
52:16
Speaker 1: you can't automate. Uh. Some of my favorite studies are
52:19
Speaker 1: and this isn't just in the research, This isn't a
52:21
Speaker 1: lot of high performers. Uh. If you eat the same
52:24
Speaker 1: food every day and you wear the same clothes, you
52:26
Speaker 1: make better decisions on everything else. Uh. With athletes, if
52:31
Speaker 1: if they have to figure out what they want to
52:33
Speaker 1: wear before a hard workout and what they're going to
52:35
Speaker 1: use as their fuel, they squat less weight than if
52:38
Speaker 1: they've already decided that at a time. So seemingly unrelated things,
52:42
Speaker 1: because both your ability to make decisions and your willpower
52:46
Speaker 1: gets so much better when you only have to worry
52:49
Speaker 1: about the hard thing. So, if I'm going in to
52:52
Speaker 1: to front squad a max effort, I don't want to
52:55
Speaker 1: be thinking about anything. I want to know who's spotting
52:58
Speaker 1: me ahead of time. I want to know what barbell
53:00
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be on, what kind of clamp I'm going
53:02
Speaker 1: to use, I want to I don't want to be
53:03
Speaker 1: thinking about what kind of protein shake I'm gonna have after.
53:05
Speaker 1: I want all that to be automated, so all my energy,
53:09
Speaker 1: all my willpower, can go towards the task at hand.
53:12
Speaker 1: So if you're on in a hunt, figure out what
53:14
Speaker 1: are the most important things that you really need your
53:17
Speaker 1: willpower and your decision making for, and automate everything else.
53:21
Speaker 1: I think that's that's such a powerful idea that that
53:25
Speaker 1: probably speaking from. If if I were to just depend
53:30
Speaker 1: on like my base um mental qualities, like if I
53:33
Speaker 1: if I just kind of went with what the easiest
53:35
Speaker 1: thing to be, would for me would be to be
53:36
Speaker 1: kind of unorganized chaos and procrastination UM and I would
53:41
Speaker 1: constantly figuring out all these things at the last minute.
53:43
Speaker 1: What am I gonna bring and what do I need
53:44
Speaker 1: to grab what am I gonna wear? And I mean
53:46
Speaker 1: it'd be a mess. I have to force myself into
53:50
Speaker 1: preparing ahead of time and trying to develop some of
53:52
Speaker 1: these systems UM because I just know it's it's so
53:55
Speaker 1: easy to fall into the messy procrastinator route that I
53:59
Speaker 1: just need to put these things in place. So there's
54:02
Speaker 1: a lot of ways that can apply UM slight pivot
54:07
Speaker 1: on that, because as I'm thinking about the mental side
54:10
Speaker 1: of hunting and trying to plan for things and trying
54:13
Speaker 1: to develop practices around you know, actually practicing or preparing
54:17
Speaker 1: for hunts and shooting, archery and whatnot. UM. Another key
54:22
Speaker 1: thing that I've always pointed to that's kind of intangible UM,
54:26
Speaker 1: but I've always thought has been something that gave UM.
54:29
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that I try to embody this,
54:31
Speaker 1: but definitely other UM high performers within the hunting world
54:35
Speaker 1: that I've studied and talked to, a key consistent trade
54:38
Speaker 1: across them is always just this mental toughness or you
54:42
Speaker 1: might call it grit, just the ability like it's gonna
54:45
Speaker 1: get done. Like the first thing might not work, but
54:47
Speaker 1: we'll try option bet, and then we'll try option see,
54:50
Speaker 1: and you're push through the challenges and like failure isn't
54:53
Speaker 1: an option in many ways for a lot of these people.
54:57
Speaker 1: And you kind of a little bit passing towards the
55:00
Speaker 1: end of the book, I think I remember seeing a
55:02
Speaker 1: little bit about um this idea of grit and Angela
55:05
Speaker 1: Duckworth's book, which I've read and found really interesting. Whether
55:08
Speaker 1: it be in the research for this book or through
55:11
Speaker 1: maybe some of your other conversations for your outside columns
55:13
Speaker 1: and things like that, can you just speak to anything
55:15
Speaker 1: you've learned about grit how we might be able to
55:18
Speaker 1: develop that, because it seems like sometimes like such an intangible,
55:21
Speaker 1: maybe even inherited traite like us. Some people are just
55:24
Speaker 1: gritty and tough and some people aren't. But I gotta
55:27
Speaker 1: believe that's not the case. We can probably foster that, right,
55:30
Speaker 1: So it's totally not the case. So there's no there's
55:34
Speaker 1: no grit gene, or at least if there is a
55:36
Speaker 1: great gene like DNA, no, no one's yet identified that. Uh.
55:40
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing here that a lot of
55:42
Speaker 1: other people in this field don't seem to be talking
55:45
Speaker 1: about a lot. And it's the drum that I'm trying
55:47
Speaker 1: to beat because I actually think it's the most important
55:50
Speaker 1: is to surround yourself wisely with other people that are
55:53
Speaker 1: going to push you. Particularly in America in the west's
55:57
Speaker 1: a very individualistic culture. We like to think that we
55:59
Speaker 1: have to be gritty, and we have to have the willpower,
56:01
Speaker 1: and we have to show up. All that stuff is
56:04
Speaker 1: so much easier if you're in a community of other
56:06
Speaker 1: people pushing you to do it. Um. So, I think
56:09
Speaker 1: the most important thing for grit is to surround yourself
56:13
Speaker 1: with people that are gonna push you and hold you accountable,
56:15
Speaker 1: and that on your really good days are going to
56:18
Speaker 1: bring you back down to earth, and on your really
56:19
Speaker 1: bad days are going to push you to show up. Uh, Because,
56:23
Speaker 1: like grit is really just about showing up. Showing up
56:26
Speaker 1: is a very inspirational motivational phrase. But but it stops there.
56:30
Speaker 1: But if you've got three to five people that you
56:32
Speaker 1: care about and care about you making sure you show up,
56:35
Speaker 1: then suddenly showing up becomes an action that you're gonna take.
56:38
Speaker 1: And I heard I heard you once talking about this
56:41
Speaker 1: maybe it was a rich, rich role um about the
56:43
Speaker 1: fact that when you're thinking about who you surround yourself with,
56:48
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily that the people around you all have
56:50
Speaker 1: to be like the very best performers, um, like you,
56:54
Speaker 1: You're They're not gonna be maybe the very best at
56:56
Speaker 1: in this case, all the greatest hunters in the world.
56:59
Speaker 1: But if they are at least all positive like people
57:02
Speaker 1: that will push you and have the right positive mindset
57:04
Speaker 1: around around what you're trying to pursue, that's the most
57:07
Speaker 1: powerful aspect. Does that is that right to interpret that? Right? Totally?
57:11
Speaker 1: It's because you can be you can surround yourself with
57:13
Speaker 1: great performers, but if they're negative and not trying to
57:17
Speaker 1: get better and sulking, it doesn't matter how good their
57:19
Speaker 1: skills are. So I'm glad you clarified this is not
57:21
Speaker 1: about skill. It's much more about attitude and mindset. So
57:25
Speaker 1: they might be great, greatly skilled, but they might be novices.
57:28
Speaker 1: And it actually might be that what you need is
57:30
Speaker 1: the energy and enthusiasm of a novice if if you're
57:32
Speaker 1: kind of stuck in a rot to kind of reignite
57:35
Speaker 1: you and relight the passion, relight the fire. Um. But
57:38
Speaker 1: I just think that like there's such a there's such
57:40
Speaker 1: a cultural ethos around individualism and going at it on
57:43
Speaker 1: your own, and I think the power of a tribe
57:46
Speaker 1: and the power of community, um across all of evolution
57:50
Speaker 1: for our species has just been super important. And I
57:53
Speaker 1: think that's that's if you ask me, the key determinati
57:56
Speaker 1: of grit is community. So this this perfectly then, And
58:02
Speaker 1: that's obviously your two books are very connected because these
58:05
Speaker 1: topics are really kind of one and the same. They
58:08
Speaker 1: meld and mold right into each other. When you talk
58:10
Speaker 1: about people that are wanting to surround themselves with other
58:14
Speaker 1: people that will push them to their to be their
58:16
Speaker 1: best lots of times, it's because, right they're really passionate
58:19
Speaker 1: about whatever it is that they're pursuing. And UM, I've
58:22
Speaker 1: had this recent question that I've kind of talked about
58:24
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks that I've thought about myself
58:27
Speaker 1: as i've you know, um explored my personal goals to
58:32
Speaker 1: get better um at certain things and and weighed that
58:36
Speaker 1: against my my personal tendency to get really excited about
58:41
Speaker 1: all sorts of different things. So what I mean specifically
58:43
Speaker 1: is that like the number one thing that I do
58:46
Speaker 1: is I hunt dear. That's like my number one passion,
58:50
Speaker 1: That's what I spend the most time on. That's what
58:52
Speaker 1: my audience is interested in the very most Um, that's
58:55
Speaker 1: the like eight percent of the hunters in America or
58:58
Speaker 1: deer hunters. Um. So that's what my number one passion.
59:01
Speaker 1: And someone told me, and I've brought this up over
59:02
Speaker 1: and over again, but someone told me once that you
59:04
Speaker 1: couldn't be really great at deer hunting if you let
59:06
Speaker 1: yourself have other passions. And I've kind of wondered about that, Like,
59:10
Speaker 1: am I am I missing it out on potential because
59:14
Speaker 1: I'm getting distracted by fly fishing or backpacking or whatever
59:18
Speaker 1: it might be. Uh, you had I can't remember who
59:21
Speaker 1: it was, but someone in the book you guys quoted,
59:23
Speaker 1: I believe, said that in order to be a maximalist,
59:26
Speaker 1: you need to be a minimalist. I'm wondering what you
59:30
Speaker 1: think about that, given that that was within the Peak
59:32
Speaker 1: Performance book, And I think that this person was speaking
59:35
Speaker 1: to the fact that you do need to try to
59:37
Speaker 1: find ways to trim the facts you can focus on
59:39
Speaker 1: your your number one goal. But at the same time,
59:42
Speaker 1: within the passion paradox, it sounds like sometimes that can
59:45
Speaker 1: be a danger too. Can you just speak to that
59:48
Speaker 1: what your thoughts are now on that? Oh, now we're
59:49
Speaker 1: getting philosophical So I love this topic. I mean, this
59:52
Speaker 1: is why I wrote the second book, UM, which I
59:56
Speaker 1: actually think is the more And I told you this offline,
59:59
Speaker 1: and no, I think it's probably the more important book
1:00:01
Speaker 1: of the two UM, particularly for your audience, just because
1:00:04
Speaker 1: it's a passionate group of people who can fall in
1:00:07
Speaker 1: love with this sport and that love can be the
1:00:11
Speaker 1: best thing in your life and the most energizing source,
1:00:14
Speaker 1: and then it can turn destructive and you can be like, well,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: how the hell did this happen? Uh? And that's not
1:00:19
Speaker 1: just hunting. That is every single pursuit that people get
1:00:22
Speaker 1: passionate about UM. And the crux of it is this
1:00:26
Speaker 1: being passionate is I would argue, like, what makes life
1:00:31
Speaker 1: worth living. There is nothing like feeling totally energized, revved
1:00:36
Speaker 1: up on something tunnel vision. It's the only thing that
1:00:39
Speaker 1: you can think about. You are just committed to it.
1:00:41
Speaker 1: It excites you, it makes you tick. Uh. There's a
1:00:44
Speaker 1: reason that passion and love are intimately connected words because
1:00:47
Speaker 1: the passion is very very similar neurochemically to love. So
1:00:51
Speaker 1: when you're falling in love, the only thing on your
1:00:53
Speaker 1: mind is the object of your attraction that can be
1:00:56
Speaker 1: true if you're falling in love with hunting, like it's
1:00:58
Speaker 1: not just love for another person. And when I was
1:01:01
Speaker 1: doing the research for this book, I asked people while
1:01:04
Speaker 1: when in life where they're the happiest. No one described
1:01:07
Speaker 1: times of their life when they were perfectly balanced. People said,
1:01:10
Speaker 1: it was when I was training for my first marathon.
1:01:12
Speaker 1: It's it's when I was you know, out on out
1:01:15
Speaker 1: on a safari, uh, climbing Mount Everest, starting a business,
1:01:19
Speaker 1: training to make it to the Olympics. Like, these are
1:01:21
Speaker 1: times of life when you're completely unbalanced, that are the
1:01:24
Speaker 1: happiest times of your life. Now, the issue is if
1:01:28
Speaker 1: you live that way in perpetuity, what can end up
1:01:31
Speaker 1: happening is your identity gets so fused to that one
1:01:34
Speaker 1: thing that you forget about everything else for months, and
1:01:38
Speaker 1: then for years, and then for decades, and suddenly you
1:01:41
Speaker 1: look back and you're like, holy sh it, like what
1:01:43
Speaker 1: did I just do? Or you get injured and you
1:01:46
Speaker 1: can no longer hunt, and then you're like, well, if
1:01:48
Speaker 1: I can't hunt, then who am I? Or your marriage
1:01:50
Speaker 1: falls apart, Like these are real, real consequences. So the
1:01:54
Speaker 1: book is called The Passion Paradox because this is a paradox,
1:01:58
Speaker 1: and I think it's so important, and it's shocked me
1:02:00
Speaker 1: no one's talking about this, that being super passionate, obsessive,
1:02:04
Speaker 1: driven about something is both the greatest blessing and also
1:02:08
Speaker 1: the greatest curse, and it can be both those things
1:02:10
Speaker 1: at the same time. So if you're passionate, to me,
1:02:14
Speaker 1: it's not about being balanced or passionate, those two things
1:02:16
Speaker 1: that you can't be both. It's about walking this fine
1:02:19
Speaker 1: line of being super passionate about your pursuit, being able
1:02:23
Speaker 1: to go all in, but maintaining just enough self awareness
1:02:28
Speaker 1: to objectively evaluate what you're giving up as a result,
1:02:32
Speaker 1: and to try to make sure that that's in alignment
1:02:34
Speaker 1: with your values. And that's really really hard to do.
1:02:36
Speaker 1: And that's often the difference between a phenomenal, happy, high
1:02:40
Speaker 1: performing life and burnout, depression, anxiety. Yeah, there's lots of
1:02:44
Speaker 1: unpackaged there. Um. And you're right, this is this is
1:02:48
Speaker 1: probably the most important topic within within our little micro
1:02:52
Speaker 1: world here of hunting, but it's it's almost never talked about.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: It's talked about in generalities. I guess lots of times
1:02:57
Speaker 1: will discuss um like a very common quandary that will
1:03:03
Speaker 1: have chats with folks about is how do you balance
1:03:06
Speaker 1: hunting with family life and other obligations and the challenges
1:03:09
Speaker 1: of doing that, and you know, sometimes how do you
1:03:12
Speaker 1: help your significant other understand why this matters so much
1:03:14
Speaker 1: to you? Or how do you put enough time in
1:03:16
Speaker 1: other parts of your life so you can spend so
1:03:18
Speaker 1: much time doing this other thing. Um. The point being
1:03:22
Speaker 1: that that hunting is definitely just like you said, as
1:03:25
Speaker 1: many other pursuits are. It's something that people can fall deeply, deeply,
1:03:28
Speaker 1: deeply kind of in love with. There's so much you
1:03:31
Speaker 1: can get into, it can consume your life, you can
1:03:33
Speaker 1: so much, I mean, three hundred sixty five days a year.
1:03:35
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about something related to this pursuit. But to
1:03:39
Speaker 1: your point, um, which which can be pretty awesome like that, Yeah,
1:03:43
Speaker 1: like exactly like yeah, and that and that's what makes
1:03:45
Speaker 1: it hard to step away. Yeah, yeah, sorry, go on,
1:03:47
Speaker 1: Oh no, I mean you're exactly right. I mean, it's
1:03:49
Speaker 1: really easy to point out the positives of passion, you know, like,
1:03:53
Speaker 1: there's so I mean, it's it's a great feeling, you
1:03:55
Speaker 1: get excited it. It probably propels you to to higher
1:03:59
Speaker 1: heights because you're about something and I'm kind of lucky,
1:04:02
Speaker 1: and a lot of people listening to this podcast are
1:04:03
Speaker 1: lucky because we have a passion. Right. There's probably a
1:04:06
Speaker 1: lot of people out there that you know here folks say, oh, well,
1:04:10
Speaker 1: passion is a great thing. Find your passion, and they're thinking, well,
1:04:12
Speaker 1: I don't know what I really like to do. I like,
1:04:14
Speaker 1: I go to work and I just kind of get
1:04:16
Speaker 1: through it, and then I go home and I watch
1:04:17
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones, and you know, I try to get
1:04:19
Speaker 1: a paycheck and try to you know, provide for my family,
1:04:21
Speaker 1: but they don't have that driving force or this other
1:04:25
Speaker 1: thing that gets them out of bed and gets them excited.
1:04:27
Speaker 1: I feel pretty lucky to have found my passion something
1:04:30
Speaker 1: that really does energize me, and that my my year
1:04:34
Speaker 1: kind of pivots around the seasons of this passion um
1:04:37
Speaker 1: But as you mentioned, it has this kind of dark
1:04:41
Speaker 1: side to it, and within our world, you kind of
1:04:45
Speaker 1: spoke to a couple of these things, like I know
1:04:46
Speaker 1: people whose marriages have fallen apart because they get so
1:04:49
Speaker 1: obsessed with this. I know people who have lost or
1:04:52
Speaker 1: ruined great friendships because of this. I know people not personally,
1:04:56
Speaker 1: but I've certainly read about and heard about lots of
1:04:58
Speaker 1: people have become so obsessed where the end outcomes related
1:05:01
Speaker 1: to hunting that they've bent the rules or broke the
1:05:04
Speaker 1: rules and done illegal things just because they want to
1:05:07
Speaker 1: stroke their ego and say, oh, I got this buck
1:05:09
Speaker 1: or I did this thing. Um, there's a whole lot
1:05:11
Speaker 1: of that happening, especially in today's kind of instagram age.
1:05:16
Speaker 1: I bad, it's hunting. I know in other sports it
1:05:19
Speaker 1: is like even even in weight training, like you've got
1:05:21
Speaker 1: guys doping and using steroids so they can take a
1:05:23
Speaker 1: video of themselves back squatting eight hundred pounds. Yes, it
1:05:26
Speaker 1: is exactly that. I mean, it's a huge, huge, huge
1:05:29
Speaker 1: thing going on. So so there is this whole side
1:05:32
Speaker 1: of that that we're not really examining. A whole lot. Um.
1:05:36
Speaker 1: I guess let's start there. What have you learned about
1:05:40
Speaker 1: the negative power of passion? I know, one of the
1:05:44
Speaker 1: things you labels obsessive passion. Yeah, that's a good place
1:05:47
Speaker 1: to start. So and and and this is, um, this
1:05:50
Speaker 1: is so important for people to understand. And it's something
1:05:52
Speaker 1: that I didn't realize until I started writing this book
1:05:55
Speaker 1: and learning about this topic in a meaningful way. So
1:05:58
Speaker 1: there are two kinds of passions. One is what's called
1:06:01
Speaker 1: harmonious passion. The other is obsessive passion. Harmonious passion is
1:06:06
Speaker 1: when you are passionate about the activity itself. So in
1:06:10
Speaker 1: the case of hunting, this is when you are passionate
1:06:12
Speaker 1: about hunting because you love hunting. Obsessive passion is when
1:06:17
Speaker 1: you are passionate about the activity because of the external
1:06:20
Speaker 1: validation you get from it. So this is when you
1:06:23
Speaker 1: are passionate about hunting because you like telling your friends
1:06:26
Speaker 1: that you're a hunter, and you like the comments on
1:06:29
Speaker 1: Instagram when you post you know, when you post your outcomes.
1:06:34
Speaker 1: People with harmonious passion they have they have great life satisfaction, happiness,
1:06:39
Speaker 1: and lasting performance. People with obsessive passion driven more by
1:06:43
Speaker 1: that external stuff that is associated with depression, anxiety, burnout,
1:06:47
Speaker 1: and cheating. Some of the greatest cheaters in history score
1:06:51
Speaker 1: off the charts on obsessive passion. So Lance Armstrong crazy
1:06:56
Speaker 1: obsessive passion. Elizabeth Holmes, the woman behind Pharaonus that by
1:07:00
Speaker 1: tech company that was a huge fraud, crazy obsessive passion,
1:07:03
Speaker 1: Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez crazy obsessive passion. So they
1:07:08
Speaker 1: got so so wed to their results, and they became
1:07:11
Speaker 1: so so passionate about being the man or the woman
1:07:14
Speaker 1: about stroking their ego of results. You literally do anything,
1:07:18
Speaker 1: even if it's cheating or fraud, to get those results.
1:07:21
Speaker 1: And if you don't get those results, then your identity suffers,
1:07:25
Speaker 1: your self worth suffers, and that's a very very very
1:07:28
Speaker 1: quick route to depression and anxiety and burnout. Now, no
1:07:31
Speaker 1: one starts out wanting to be obsessively passionate, but no
1:07:35
Speaker 1: one teaches you about this stuff. So it just kind
1:07:36
Speaker 1: of happens, like very common trajectory. As you start out
1:07:39
Speaker 1: harmoniously passionate. You love hunting, you fall in love with
1:07:42
Speaker 1: the sport, and then suddenly you start to get good results,
1:07:46
Speaker 1: and then you start to post those good results on
1:07:48
Speaker 1: Instagram or share those good results with the community, and
1:07:51
Speaker 1: the next thing, you know, because humans crave social status.
1:07:53
Speaker 1: This is just how our species is hardwired. You become
1:07:56
Speaker 1: more attached to those external results than to the love
1:07:59
Speaker 1: of the thing itself, and that that can be a
1:08:02
Speaker 1: precarious spot to be in. Now, I think it's also
1:08:05
Speaker 1: important to say no one exists solely in one end
1:08:09
Speaker 1: of the spectrum or the other. Right, Like this is
1:08:11
Speaker 1: on a continuum. So where where I come out and
1:08:14
Speaker 1: what the book the research in the book taught me.
1:08:16
Speaker 1: So long as the majority of your passion is harmonious,
1:08:19
Speaker 1: most of the time you're in you're in good shape.
1:08:22
Speaker 1: The problem is when you start to get into these
1:08:24
Speaker 1: obsessive routs that then you can start to latch onto
1:08:28
Speaker 1: carrying so much and craving the outcome and the external validation.
1:08:32
Speaker 1: That's when you get kind of on this on this
1:08:34
Speaker 1: negative trajectory. I face this in writing all the time.
1:08:37
Speaker 1: I like to use myself an example because, like I
1:08:39
Speaker 1: said earlier, like I don't have all this stuff figured out.
1:08:41
Speaker 1: I'm working on figuring it out. That's why I write
1:08:43
Speaker 1: about it. When I publish a book or have an
1:08:45
Speaker 1: essay go viral, there is such an inclination for me
1:08:49
Speaker 1: to sit there and refresh my sales rank, or to
1:08:52
Speaker 1: sit there and look at Twitter because because for writing,
1:08:54
Speaker 1: Twitter is kind of the medium I assume for hunting
1:08:56
Speaker 1: its Instagram. I could be wrong, but to sit there
1:08:58
Speaker 1: and like refresh and watch the comments come in because
1:09:01
Speaker 1: I'm a human. The issue is when that force becomes
1:09:05
Speaker 1: so powerful of it, then you start getting upset when
1:09:07
Speaker 1: the comments don't come in, or you start being willing
1:09:10
Speaker 1: to do some shady things to have an external success.
1:09:14
Speaker 1: And it's so important to just be aware of when
1:09:16
Speaker 1: that's happening so you can nip it in the bud
1:09:19
Speaker 1: and stop those roots from growing too deep. Yeah, something
1:09:22
Speaker 1: I found really interesting was what you guys dove into
1:09:25
Speaker 1: related to the science of passion, like kind of like
1:09:28
Speaker 1: the neuro chemistry of of of how passion becomes almost addictive.
1:09:32
Speaker 1: Um can you can you expand it a little bit
1:09:34
Speaker 1: on that just I think people would be find pretty
1:09:36
Speaker 1: interesting to understand how and why we get so so,
1:09:42
Speaker 1: I don't know, consumed by the stuff. Yeah. So there's
1:09:44
Speaker 1: a neurochemical called dopamine, and dopamine is the neurochemical um
1:09:49
Speaker 1: involved of striving. So dopamine isn't about feeling good once
1:09:55
Speaker 1: you've achieved something. It's about the excitement and feeling excited
1:09:58
Speaker 1: and good about the chase. And our species evolved for
1:10:03
Speaker 1: dopamine to be a very strong neurochemical. And that's because
1:10:08
Speaker 1: way back when, when when we were evolving, if you
1:10:11
Speaker 1: had to kill, you wouldn't want to be content, because
1:10:14
Speaker 1: if you were content and then there was famine, you
1:10:17
Speaker 1: would die. So the part of our species that that
1:10:20
Speaker 1: got selected and turned into modern day humans were those
1:10:24
Speaker 1: that were really like that that needed dopamine, right, because
1:10:27
Speaker 1: it's the dopamine that fueled them to never be content
1:10:30
Speaker 1: to keep on going. Now, dopamine never be content to
1:10:34
Speaker 1: keep on going. As you can imagine, that's the same neurochemical.
1:10:37
Speaker 1: I it's implicated an addiction because such a part of
1:10:40
Speaker 1: addiction is chasing that next high. Can't be content, Gotta
1:10:44
Speaker 1: get my fix. There's fascinating research that shows that what
1:10:47
Speaker 1: addicts are actually addicted to isn't so much the feel
1:10:50
Speaker 1: good of the high, but it's the chase. It's getting
1:10:53
Speaker 1: their score, getting their fix. And I think anyone that's
1:10:56
Speaker 1: a passionate person can can probably empathize with that, because
1:11:02
Speaker 1: for me, the passion isn't the feeling of having your
1:11:05
Speaker 1: book being a best seller. Passion is like writing the
1:11:08
Speaker 1: book and promoting it. It's like the whole process. It's
1:11:10
Speaker 1: the chase. If anything, when my book was named the
1:11:12
Speaker 1: best seller was kind of a letdown because it's kind
1:11:14
Speaker 1: of like, now, what, um, So what ends up happening
1:11:18
Speaker 1: is much like an addiction. The stakes keep on getting
1:11:21
Speaker 1: higher and you kind of keep on having to chase, chase, Chase, chase, Chase. Now,
1:11:25
Speaker 1: the minute that this chase gets pointed in an unproductive direction,
1:11:29
Speaker 1: it can totally go haywire. Uh So that's what I
1:11:32
Speaker 1: was saying again. This, this is this is why the
1:11:34
Speaker 1: book is called the Passion Paradox. One of the many
1:11:36
Speaker 1: paradoxes of passion is on the one hand, this chase
1:11:40
Speaker 1: is associated with well being, peak performance, life satisfaction, so
1:11:45
Speaker 1: long as it's kind of kept in chuck. On the
1:11:47
Speaker 1: other hand, it's associated with depression, anxiety, burnout, and passion
1:11:51
Speaker 1: and addiction are really two sides of the same coin. Um,
1:11:54
Speaker 1: you know, I like to nerd out. I could talk
1:11:56
Speaker 1: about this forever, but perhaps the simplest way to think
1:11:58
Speaker 1: about this is that the definition of passion is the
1:12:01
Speaker 1: relentless pursuit of something with productive consequences. The definition of
1:12:06
Speaker 1: addiction is the relentless pursuit of something despite negative consequences.
1:12:12
Speaker 1: So the only difference is what you're getting at the end.
1:12:16
Speaker 1: And that's why what starts as a productive passion can
1:12:18
Speaker 1: become a destructive addiction if you're not careful. Yeah, it's
1:12:22
Speaker 1: interesting because obsession passion and obsession within the hunting world
1:12:28
Speaker 1: are are kind of glorified. Especially it's it's kind of funny.
1:12:32
Speaker 1: There's a there's a really large hunting brand that their slogan,
1:12:36
Speaker 1: I don't know if it still is now, but at
1:12:37
Speaker 1: least for some period of time, the big slogan was
1:12:41
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not a passion, it's an obsession.
1:12:44
Speaker 1: So there exactly. Um So, I mean this is definitely
1:12:50
Speaker 1: something within our world, like like hunters are self admittedly
1:12:54
Speaker 1: and glorifying being obsessed, and like you're going all in
1:12:58
Speaker 1: and you're this is what you're doing all the time.
1:13:01
Speaker 1: But to your point that the rub is knowing when
1:13:05
Speaker 1: the outcomes are negative versus pausitive, what that passion energy
1:13:09
Speaker 1: is going towards. Yeah, And again this is the philosophical
1:13:12
Speaker 1: stuff that's never talked about, but it's so important and
1:13:15
Speaker 1: and I want listeners to like pause and really reflect
1:13:18
Speaker 1: on this. Are you doing it out of love or
1:13:22
Speaker 1: are you doing it out of ego and the need
1:13:24
Speaker 1: to be relevant? And and it can be both, and
1:13:29
Speaker 1: at times it is both, but the majority of the time,
1:13:32
Speaker 1: what is it about? And if it's about ego and
1:13:35
Speaker 1: being relevant, that is a warning sign that hey, I
1:13:38
Speaker 1: better rein this in and we can get into it.
1:13:40
Speaker 1: There are ways to rein it in. If it's about love,
1:13:43
Speaker 1: then that's great. So same behavior, same amount of time
1:13:46
Speaker 1: spent hunting, it could be the same anything. But if
1:13:49
Speaker 1: the if the deep motivation is love, it is freeing,
1:13:52
Speaker 1: it's expansive, it's it's incredible. If the motivation is ego
1:13:57
Speaker 1: or needing to be relevant, then that can lead to anxiety.
1:14:01
Speaker 1: Is that the main way to identify if your passion
1:14:04
Speaker 1: has gone too far, if your obsessive passionate or is
1:14:07
Speaker 1: there some other way to like, like, how do I
1:14:09
Speaker 1: how do I know if I fall into that camp?
1:14:12
Speaker 1: So I think that a big way to do it
1:14:14
Speaker 1: in in fields where there are pretty clear outcomes. So
1:14:17
Speaker 1: writing I'm super familiar with, there's very clear outcomes. You know,
1:14:21
Speaker 1: how many people read your essay, how many people bought
1:14:23
Speaker 1: your book? Hunting? I imagine the outcome like you can
1:14:25
Speaker 1: freaking way the outcome. It's pretty clear. If you spend
1:14:28
Speaker 1: more time stressing about those outcomes and sharing those outcomes
1:14:33
Speaker 1: and focusing on those outcomes than the love of the
1:14:35
Speaker 1: actual pursuit, that to me is a telltale sign that
1:14:39
Speaker 1: I need to course correct and the way that you
1:14:42
Speaker 1: course correct is simply by getting back to the work. Um,
1:14:45
Speaker 1: so I'll let you translate to hunting. I'll tell you
1:14:47
Speaker 1: how this shakes out in writing. So I write a
1:14:49
Speaker 1: book or I write an article. If it does really well,
1:14:52
Speaker 1: and I start to spend a lot of time refreshing Twitter,
1:14:54
Speaker 1: looking at my sales rank, reading reviews about the book,
1:14:58
Speaker 1: and it's like ego candy. It feels really good to
1:15:01
Speaker 1: eat in the short term. But if all I do
1:15:03
Speaker 1: is spend a week thinking about that stuff, I start
1:15:06
Speaker 1: to feel kind of gross by the end of the week.
1:15:08
Speaker 1: So what I've learned to do is that when I
1:15:10
Speaker 1: catch myself kind of starting to obsess over that ego,
1:15:14
Speaker 1: over that relevance, the the external validation, I literally and
1:15:18
Speaker 1: it feels like I'm forcing myself. I force myself to
1:15:20
Speaker 1: get back to doing the work itself. So for me,
1:15:24
Speaker 1: that means I start researching my next piece, or I
1:15:27
Speaker 1: start writing my newsletter, even if I'm ten newsletters ahead,
1:15:29
Speaker 1: I just start writing because that it sends a very visceral,
1:15:34
Speaker 1: embodied reminder that what I actually like is writing. Not
1:15:39
Speaker 1: all the validation. The validation stuff that's a nice byproduct,
1:15:42
Speaker 1: but the true love is writing. But the more time
1:15:45
Speaker 1: you spend obsessing about that external stuff, the stronger those
1:15:49
Speaker 1: roots get and the more you're going to come to
1:15:51
Speaker 1: create it. Is there any value too, because because the
1:15:54
Speaker 1: scenari you just outlined is is so spot on for
1:15:58
Speaker 1: folks in the hunting world, I know that there's a
1:16:00
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of whether you want to admit it or not,
1:16:02
Speaker 1: there's a tremendous amount of ego attached to the outcome
1:16:06
Speaker 1: of hunts. It's just it's just like many things. You
1:16:09
Speaker 1: you win a gold medal in the Olympics, you win
1:16:11
Speaker 1: a basketball game. I don't like the idea of of
1:16:16
Speaker 1: labeling the outcome of a hunt, which is a very
1:16:19
Speaker 1: serious thing, right, killing an animal. I don't like to
1:16:21
Speaker 1: label that as a trophy, but that is kind of
1:16:23
Speaker 1: terminology that's used a lot um. But but whatever you
1:16:27
Speaker 1: call it, it is this thing that is very tangible
1:16:30
Speaker 1: and that other people can see and that other people
1:16:32
Speaker 1: assigned value too. So if you were to kill a
1:16:35
Speaker 1: big deer, um, that is a thing that people in
1:16:38
Speaker 1: our community assigned value too. And we'll give you accolades
1:16:41
Speaker 1: for and we'll like your Instagram picture a lot and
1:16:43
Speaker 1: we'll think that you are, you know, skilled in some
1:16:46
Speaker 1: way and all those things, right, whether we want admit
1:16:49
Speaker 1: or not, those are things that feel good strokes that ego. Um.
1:16:52
Speaker 1: And so yeah, there's a ton of this going on
1:16:54
Speaker 1: within our world and it's it's rampant, but it's hard
1:17:00
Speaker 1: to to get outside of it. I mean when it
1:17:03
Speaker 1: comes to like, do you is there what am I
1:17:06
Speaker 1: trying to say here? Is there any value to going
1:17:10
Speaker 1: cold turkey on the outside validation side of things? So,
1:17:13
Speaker 1: for example, if this is something that I feel like,
1:17:16
Speaker 1: if I'm if I'm hearing you saying this, and I'm like, oh, wow,
1:17:19
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't want to say it. I
1:17:20
Speaker 1: hate that this is true, but I do find myself
1:17:23
Speaker 1: thinking about these things. Is there any value to pulling
1:17:26
Speaker 1: the plug and saying, you know what, I'm just gonna
1:17:28
Speaker 1: stop posting my dear pictures on Instagram and I'm gonna
1:17:32
Speaker 1: see if you know what that does, if that kind
1:17:34
Speaker 1: of helps rain things in. Is that kind of cold
1:17:37
Speaker 1: turkey approach helpful or is that not? I think it
1:17:41
Speaker 1: depends on the situation. Um, I think it can be. Uh.
1:17:48
Speaker 1: And then when you kind of go back, you can
1:17:50
Speaker 1: kind of go like you know, head over heels back
1:17:53
Speaker 1: into it. I think that there's like a uh maybe
1:17:56
Speaker 1: a less extreme approach, which should be let's say that
1:17:59
Speaker 1: you're an Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, you pick one of those,
1:18:03
Speaker 1: you only use one, and then you only check it
1:18:06
Speaker 1: once a day. Um, so just having some rigid boundaries. Um,
1:18:11
Speaker 1: for me, that meant taking all social media and internet
1:18:16
Speaker 1: off my phone. So now the only time I can
1:18:18
Speaker 1: check that stuff is when I'm at my actual computer.
1:18:21
Speaker 1: So it's just like less accessible. Uh and again, like
1:18:24
Speaker 1: I'm a freaking like expert on this stuff in my
1:18:27
Speaker 1: willpower is not enough because it's like telling someone with
1:18:29
Speaker 1: a gambling addiction to like hold a casino in their pocket,
1:18:33
Speaker 1: which like if you carry a phone with Instagram and
1:18:35
Speaker 1: you posted a picture like you have a casino in
1:18:37
Speaker 1: your pocket, you know it's so So what about though,
1:18:41
Speaker 1: the passion? What about because the scenarre of the a
1:18:46
Speaker 1: lot of folks deal with in our world? Wait wait
1:18:48
Speaker 1: wait real quick, real quick, Mark, just to wrap that
1:18:49
Speaker 1: thought up, sorry, because I do think, like I think,
1:18:51
Speaker 1: less than eliminating this stuff is just realizing, like when
1:18:54
Speaker 1: they're urged to check it is coming up and up
1:18:56
Speaker 1: and up it again and again and using that as
1:18:58
Speaker 1: a cute to get back to something about the actual
1:19:01
Speaker 1: thing that you love, like not the validation, but the activity.
1:19:06
Speaker 1: So granted, like if you're checking this stuff at eight
1:19:08
Speaker 1: pm at night, maybe you like can't go outside and
1:19:10
Speaker 1: start hunting from your front yard, but like start researching
1:19:14
Speaker 1: you know, the next thing, like start outlining your next
1:19:16
Speaker 1: training plan, Like do something that is driven towards improvement
1:19:20
Speaker 1: in the craft, not external validation. Yeah, that makes sense.
1:19:24
Speaker 1: Now what if, though, you're what if your passion or
1:19:28
Speaker 1: obsession manifests itself not just in you being obsessed with
1:19:33
Speaker 1: the validation of your outcome, but what if it simply
1:19:38
Speaker 1: leads to you making decisions that are negative to other
1:19:42
Speaker 1: parts of your life. So I'm thinking of examples such as,
1:19:46
Speaker 1: I'm so obsessed with hunting that I spend every for
1:19:50
Speaker 1: a week and I have out in the field, and
1:19:51
Speaker 1: I take weeks and weeks off of time, and instead
1:19:53
Speaker 1: of taking vacation time with my wife and son, I
1:19:56
Speaker 1: use my vacation time to hunt, and I'm neglecting family
1:20:00
Speaker 1: duties Because you're just so all consumed with this drive
1:20:04
Speaker 1: and you don't have control of that drive and your
1:20:06
Speaker 1: your relationship with your wife falls apart, of your husband
1:20:09
Speaker 1: falls apart, and your your children suffer because of it. Um,
1:20:13
Speaker 1: that's the thing that happens to I'm sure it happens
1:20:14
Speaker 1: in a lot of supports and other things. What about
1:20:17
Speaker 1: that kind of situation, So this is tough man. In
1:20:21
Speaker 1: My approach is to be very values neutral on this. Um.
1:20:27
Speaker 1: What I mean by that is, I don't label that
1:20:30
Speaker 1: a I don't label that a bad thing or a
1:20:33
Speaker 1: good thing. It just is, like the force of passion
1:20:36
Speaker 1: just is. The bad thing is when the inertia and
1:20:41
Speaker 1: the momentum of the passion stops you from thinking clearly.
1:20:45
Speaker 1: So if you are thinking clearly and you realize that
1:20:49
Speaker 1: your passion for hunting is stronger than your passion for
1:20:54
Speaker 1: your marriage or whatever it might be, and you make
1:20:57
Speaker 1: a conscious decision to prioritize is hunting over that. That
1:21:01
Speaker 1: is not a good decision or a bad decision. That's
1:21:04
Speaker 1: your decision, and you made it consciously, so you should
1:21:08
Speaker 1: be okay with it. Um if that decision is kind
1:21:13
Speaker 1: of like not really conscious because there's like this craving
1:21:16
Speaker 1: to keep hunting and there's so much momentum that you
1:21:19
Speaker 1: can't possibly see outside of it. Then that's the kind
1:21:22
Speaker 1: of decision that you often regret. What's interesting is and
1:21:25
Speaker 1: really passionate people, the people that make decisions to put
1:21:29
Speaker 1: their pursuit above all else, including things like marriage, If
1:21:33
Speaker 1: they feel like they made that decision from a conscious,
1:21:36
Speaker 1: wholehearted place, they're actually like pretty happy and fine and
1:21:40
Speaker 1: they don't have regrets. The issue is when you make
1:21:43
Speaker 1: that decision from being kind of swept up inside of
1:21:45
Speaker 1: the storm of your passion, and then the storm kind
1:21:48
Speaker 1: of passes a couple of years later, that's when you
1:21:50
Speaker 1: get filled with regrets. Uh. So it's really hard to
1:21:53
Speaker 1: see outside of that inertia. It's like if you're addicted
1:21:56
Speaker 1: to something, it's very hard to make any kind of
1:21:58
Speaker 1: rational decision. Passion not too dissimilar. Um, But it's about
1:22:02
Speaker 1: trying to get some distance, some self awareness to make
1:22:05
Speaker 1: that decision. Um. It is true that some of the
1:22:08
Speaker 1: most passionate people, like they're single, they don't have marriages
1:22:11
Speaker 1: because they just put their pursuit above all else. And
1:22:13
Speaker 1: and again like I'm not here to judge people that
1:22:15
Speaker 1: change the world and in science often are divorced because
1:22:19
Speaker 1: their research came above all else. And I wouldn't want
1:22:22
Speaker 1: to be married to that person. But I'm really glad
1:22:24
Speaker 1: that they figured out the polio vaccine. Um. So it's
1:22:27
Speaker 1: like this is a value's neutral thing. I think the
1:22:29
Speaker 1: main thing is just really bringing full awareness to it.
1:22:33
Speaker 1: And it's also to say that most people can be
1:22:36
Speaker 1: passionate about two or three things at the same time.
1:22:39
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of people that are world
1:22:41
Speaker 1: class at what they do that also have good loving
1:22:43
Speaker 1: marriages and are good parents, but they probably don't have
1:22:47
Speaker 1: a lot of friends and and they're probably not the
1:22:49
Speaker 1: person caring for their parents when their parents get sick,
1:22:51
Speaker 1: and they're probably not going to church every Sunday, and
1:22:54
Speaker 1: they're probably not watching Game of Thrones, right, So, like
1:22:56
Speaker 1: it's this kind of fine line about figuring out what
1:22:58
Speaker 1: really matters to you and then being self aware enough
1:23:02
Speaker 1: to prioritize between those things. Yeah, this, this concept of
1:23:06
Speaker 1: self awareness seems to be such an important one, um
1:23:09
Speaker 1: because because you guys talk about this idea of the
1:23:12
Speaker 1: unbalanced life and how that's actually okay. Um, how there's
1:23:16
Speaker 1: so much in society put people saying you gotta have balance,
1:23:19
Speaker 1: gonna have balance. But to your point, if you know,
1:23:22
Speaker 1: if Elon Musk had balanced in his life, we wouldn't
1:23:25
Speaker 1: have SpaceX, we wouldn't have Tesla, we wouldn't have the
1:23:28
Speaker 1: PayPal account that I'm using to pay for something on
1:23:30
Speaker 1: the online. Um. So there's good things that come out
1:23:32
Speaker 1: of passionate people that maybe sometimes don't have that balance.
1:23:35
Speaker 1: Um can you can you expand a little bit on
1:23:38
Speaker 1: what you mean by the unbalanced life and and how
1:23:42
Speaker 1: you maybe yourself or remember I remember hearing Steve on
1:23:46
Speaker 1: a podcast talk about this where he he talked about,
1:23:48
Speaker 1: you know, at times having an unbalanced life and going
1:23:52
Speaker 1: all in on something but having the self awareness to
1:23:54
Speaker 1: know when to go in and out of that phase.
1:23:56
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that? Yeah, for sure. So so
1:23:59
Speaker 1: I'm a big believe in an unbalanced life because I'm
1:24:02
Speaker 1: a passionate person. I feel very fortunate that I cared
1:24:05
Speaker 1: deeply about certain things and they make me tick. And
1:24:08
Speaker 1: I think that that's like a privilege to to be
1:24:10
Speaker 1: able to find things that make you feel that way.
1:24:13
Speaker 1: So for me to try to be balanced would be
1:24:16
Speaker 1: so frustrating because most people here balance in the self
1:24:19
Speaker 1: help world and they say, you know, be balanced, and
1:24:21
Speaker 1: that means like equal things and equal proportions so you
1:24:24
Speaker 1: mentioned this earlier, like I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna
1:24:26
Speaker 1: take the kids to school, I'm gonna exercise for half
1:24:28
Speaker 1: an hour, I'm gonna work at nine to five, I'm
1:24:30
Speaker 1: gonna come home, i'm gonna have a beer, i'm gonna
1:24:31
Speaker 1: watch Game of Thrones, and i'm gonna go to bed.
1:24:35
Speaker 1: And then I'm gonna repeat that the next day and
1:24:37
Speaker 1: just do that in perpetuity. Um again, values neutral. If
1:24:42
Speaker 1: some people are content with that, all the power to them.
1:24:44
Speaker 1: I can't be content doing that. So I'm all about unbalanced,
1:24:49
Speaker 1: which for me is like finding what are these things
1:24:51
Speaker 1: I really care about and then giving myself permission to
1:24:54
Speaker 1: go all in on them, but with enough self awareness
1:24:57
Speaker 1: to know what I'm giving up as a result. In
1:25:00
Speaker 1: so long as I maintain that self awareness, what tends
1:25:03
Speaker 1: to happen in my life is I have some seat,
1:25:05
Speaker 1: like some seasonality, and there's a season where I'm putting
1:25:08
Speaker 1: writing above just about everything else. I mean, I'm a
1:25:12
Speaker 1: new parent. I have a fifteen month old, so now
1:25:13
Speaker 1: he comes above everything else. But right there with that,
1:25:17
Speaker 1: like like um, you know, like and even now like
1:25:19
Speaker 1: there are times when I'm making a choice where it's like, wow,
1:25:21
Speaker 1: like I should probably be playing with my kid, but
1:25:23
Speaker 1: like I really am in a writing groove. I'm gonna
1:25:26
Speaker 1: finish this essay, but then tomorrow I'm gonna shift and
1:25:29
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go all in. I'm being there for my
1:25:31
Speaker 1: kid and I'm not going to be thinking about writing
1:25:33
Speaker 1: at all. Um. So the unbalanced life with self awareness
1:25:37
Speaker 1: instead is about identifying what are the things that really
1:25:40
Speaker 1: matter to me, and then how can I make the
1:25:43
Speaker 1: trade offs between those things, um day to day, week
1:25:47
Speaker 1: to week, month to month, and then over the course
1:25:49
Speaker 1: of a year. Uh, A lot of really passionate people
1:25:52
Speaker 1: talk about they have seasons over the course of a year.
1:25:54
Speaker 1: So there's a season for getting promoted or launching a business,
1:25:58
Speaker 1: or you know, really focusing on hunting or running a
1:26:02
Speaker 1: pr in the marathon, and then there's another season that
1:26:05
Speaker 1: year where you put your professional pursuits in your hobbies
1:26:09
Speaker 1: behind that if your wife or your kids, and then
1:26:10
Speaker 1: it's like that, then the season is being a great
1:26:12
Speaker 1: family member. But it's very different than trying to do
1:26:15
Speaker 1: all things great at the same time, because I think
1:26:17
Speaker 1: that's impossible. Yeah, and this this is perfectly literally applicable
1:26:22
Speaker 1: to hunting. As there are federally mandated seasons when you
1:26:26
Speaker 1: can and can that hunt. So there's really easy boundaries
1:26:29
Speaker 1: to to help you with some of this in in
1:26:31
Speaker 1: our hunting you know, pursuit. But but yeah, it's it's
1:26:36
Speaker 1: oftentimes comes back to the ability to identify when you're
1:26:42
Speaker 1: doing it. That's self awareness. And there's something you talked about,
1:26:46
Speaker 1: um you guys labeled as self distancing UM as a
1:26:49
Speaker 1: way to help foster that self awareness to know when
1:26:52
Speaker 1: am I going all in and when it's okay? And
1:26:54
Speaker 1: when when do I need to be able to say,
1:26:56
Speaker 1: you know what, mark this is what time you gotta
1:26:58
Speaker 1: pull back and be the only man right now or
1:27:01
Speaker 1: whatever might be. Can you talk about what you meant
1:27:03
Speaker 1: by that and how to you know, develop that or
1:27:06
Speaker 1: foster that self awareness for sure. So so when you're
1:27:09
Speaker 1: really passionate about something, you tend to lose self awareness UM.
1:27:14
Speaker 1: And the best way to get it back is like ironically,
1:27:17
Speaker 1: to get far outside of yourself. Uh. There's some fascinating
1:27:21
Speaker 1: research that we cover in in the book in the
1:27:23
Speaker 1: Passion Paradox on the linkage between really passionate people and
1:27:28
Speaker 1: people suffering from eating disorders. So you might think like,
1:27:31
Speaker 1: what the heck do these two things have in common?
1:27:33
Speaker 1: It turns out a lot. When someone with an eating
1:27:36
Speaker 1: disorder looks in the mirror, they don't see somebody that
1:27:40
Speaker 1: is like gaunt and skinny, they see someone that is fat.
1:27:44
Speaker 1: When someone that is in the throes of a passion
1:27:46
Speaker 1: evaluates their life, they don't see everything else that they're sacrificing.
1:27:52
Speaker 1: They only see that they're not putting enough into their passion.
1:27:57
Speaker 1: So when you're caught up in that storm, you've got
1:28:00
Speaker 1: to be able to step outside of it. And that's
1:28:02
Speaker 1: what we mean by self distancing. It's about getting outside
1:28:05
Speaker 1: of the inertia in the momentum of your passion, so
1:28:08
Speaker 1: that you know, rather than being in the horror movie,
1:28:11
Speaker 1: you're watching the horror movie, and when you're in the
1:28:13
Speaker 1: horror movie, you're just like there's no time to evaluate,
1:28:17
Speaker 1: like you're just in it, Whereas when you're in the
1:28:19
Speaker 1: movie theater, you might be watching a slow moving train wreck.
1:28:21
Speaker 1: But then you can realize it's a slow moving train wreck.
1:28:24
Speaker 1: So then the question is, well, how do you create
1:28:26
Speaker 1: this distance? Uh, there are a few ways that are
1:28:29
Speaker 1: that are proven in the research that really help with
1:28:31
Speaker 1: this um. One way is a mindfulness meditation practice. So
1:28:36
Speaker 1: just to sit for ten to thirty minutes a day
1:28:39
Speaker 1: and meditate, And the goal of meditation is not to
1:28:43
Speaker 1: feel relaxed or enter like this woo woo feel good land.
1:28:47
Speaker 1: Meditation actually often sucks because what happens is the stuff
1:28:50
Speaker 1: that you're oppressing comes up over and over again. And
1:28:53
Speaker 1: if when you meditate, what's coming up over and over
1:28:56
Speaker 1: again is Wow, I should be spending more time with
1:28:58
Speaker 1: my family, or wow, like I'm letting my career go
1:29:02
Speaker 1: because of this hobby, then that that's probably a pretty
1:29:05
Speaker 1: good sign to pay attention to to that and like,
1:29:08
Speaker 1: maybe that will help give you some of that self
1:29:11
Speaker 1: awareness to to to make different choices. Another great way
1:29:15
Speaker 1: to get self awareness is to spend a day in
1:29:17
Speaker 1: nature with no goal. So don't don't spend a day
1:29:20
Speaker 1: in nature hunting, just go on a day hike all
1:29:22
Speaker 1: alone and just taking the beauty of nature. Uh. There's
1:29:26
Speaker 1: something about being in the natural world that gives us
1:29:28
Speaker 1: perspective and reminds us how small our lives are, and
1:29:33
Speaker 1: um kind of puts that back in perspective and then
1:29:36
Speaker 1: helps us see our lives outside of the inertia of
1:29:38
Speaker 1: that passion. And then my favorite way to do this
1:29:41
Speaker 1: is I think the hardest, and that is uh to
1:29:44
Speaker 1: read memoirs or watched like movies about people that are
1:29:48
Speaker 1: dying or have died, um, reflecting on death and mortality.
1:29:54
Speaker 1: It's kind of shitty and hard, but nothing helps you
1:29:58
Speaker 1: realize what actually matters to you and what you want
1:30:00
Speaker 1: to spend your time on. Most then reflecting on death
1:30:04
Speaker 1: and mortality. I've never met someone that read a beautiful
1:30:08
Speaker 1: memoir of someone describing the dying process and then said
1:30:12
Speaker 1: I need to spend more time on social media and
1:30:14
Speaker 1: need to spend more time on message boards, like it
1:30:17
Speaker 1: never happens. But if we don't expose ourselves to that,
1:30:20
Speaker 1: it's really easy to get sucked into the momentum and
1:30:23
Speaker 1: inertia and spend tons of times on message boards, especially
1:30:26
Speaker 1: if the message board is something we're passionate about. Yeah,
1:30:30
Speaker 1: that's a very good point. Um. You know another one
1:30:33
Speaker 1: that you guys had mentioned in there, which I found
1:30:37
Speaker 1: could work for me. I thought was the idea of
1:30:40
Speaker 1: of pretend like you are giving a friend advice. So yeah,
1:30:45
Speaker 1: that's a good one. So I can see this working
1:30:47
Speaker 1: from me, because you know it'll be the middle hunting season,
1:30:50
Speaker 1: and I'm always struggling with this um inner dialogue where
1:30:55
Speaker 1: I'm like, gosh, I have this goal. I'm trying to
1:30:57
Speaker 1: get a deer, and I have you know, it's gonna take,
1:31:01
Speaker 1: you know, so many days of effort, so many different hunts.
1:31:03
Speaker 1: There's all this work I've put into it all through
1:31:05
Speaker 1: the winter and the spring and the summer. Now it's fall.
1:31:08
Speaker 1: I've got so much invested, um, and this is the
1:31:12
Speaker 1: weekend to do it. There's great weather, there's great conditions.
1:31:14
Speaker 1: I should be out there. Um. But then I'm also thinking,
1:31:17
Speaker 1: but you hunted all the last four or five days,
1:31:21
Speaker 1: and your your son, You're I have a fifteen month
1:31:23
Speaker 1: or say I think sixteen month old son, how to um?
1:31:26
Speaker 1: And he, you know, he's being really tough. And your
1:31:29
Speaker 1: wife's struggling because she hasn't really getting work done, and
1:31:31
Speaker 1: like all these different things, and I'm thinking, well, what
1:31:34
Speaker 1: do I what should I be doing now? Should I
1:31:36
Speaker 1: keep pushing towards this thing? Or do I need to
1:31:38
Speaker 1: take the weekend off and just be a good dad? Um?
1:31:42
Speaker 1: And sometimes maybe that that exact scenario, but various scenarios
1:31:47
Speaker 1: I'll find myself giving into the inertia of the passion,
1:31:51
Speaker 1: and right, I want to do this thing. It's I
1:31:54
Speaker 1: enjoy it so much. The goal is so important to
1:31:56
Speaker 1: me that I'm just gonna go do it. Um. But
1:32:00
Speaker 1: if a friend told me that exact same scenares said, Hey,
1:32:03
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about going home in this weekend, but I
1:32:05
Speaker 1: was going the last five days and so on and
1:32:07
Speaker 1: so forth, I probably would very quickly say, you know what, man,
1:32:10
Speaker 1: you probably need to give your wife and sons sometime.
1:32:13
Speaker 1: It's so much easier when you pretend like you're giving
1:32:16
Speaker 1: advice to your friend. And but I would have never
1:32:19
Speaker 1: maybe been able to say that about myself. Right, Yeah,
1:32:21
Speaker 1: that's like that's the self distancing for sure, because you
1:32:24
Speaker 1: you get outside of yourself. Um. And it's not just
1:32:27
Speaker 1: like about these big things like family. An example for me,
1:32:30
Speaker 1: and maybe this is applicable in your world, Maybe not
1:32:33
Speaker 1: is Um. I do a lot of strength and conditioning training,
1:32:36
Speaker 1: and I'll often try to train through injuries that I
1:32:40
Speaker 1: shouldn't and I'll literally be like on the way out
1:32:44
Speaker 1: the door to the gym, hobbling on like a strained
1:32:46
Speaker 1: quadrisap and I'm like, if any of my training buddies
1:32:50
Speaker 1: told me that they've got a badly strained quadrisap and
1:32:53
Speaker 1: they're gonna just get that get that day of front
1:32:55
Speaker 1: squats in. I'd be like, dude, like, nothing's gonna happen
1:32:59
Speaker 1: if you don't train to like rest one day now
1:33:01
Speaker 1: so you're not injured for one month later and then
1:33:04
Speaker 1: I turn around and go home. But if I don't
1:33:06
Speaker 1: give that advice to a friend, I'm gonna go to
1:33:08
Speaker 1: the gym and I'm gonna like mess up my leg
1:33:10
Speaker 1: even more. Um. So it can be helpful and even
1:33:13
Speaker 1: smaller scale decision making. Yeah, it's And I feel that
1:33:16
Speaker 1: this is a universal principle, right, Like I think many
1:33:19
Speaker 1: times we are really good at pointing out flaws and
1:33:22
Speaker 1: other people, but the same flaw we might have, and
1:33:24
Speaker 1: it's it's it's invisible to us. Like self awareness is
1:33:27
Speaker 1: not something that I think comes easily to a lot
1:33:29
Speaker 1: of folks. Um. It almost requires a thoughtful development of it,
1:33:35
Speaker 1: Like we have to we have to choose to say,
1:33:37
Speaker 1: you know what, I want to try to become a
1:33:39
Speaker 1: little bit better at this because it's an important thing. Um. Otherwise,
1:33:42
Speaker 1: like all these other things going on in our mind
1:33:44
Speaker 1: make it really easy to try to kind of plaster
1:33:47
Speaker 1: over the flaws and plaster over the cognitive dissonance that
1:33:50
Speaker 1: makes us not feel so good because it's it's a
1:33:52
Speaker 1: lot easier to ignore it, right Yeah, yep, yep, I mean,
1:33:55
Speaker 1: and that's the crux of it, Like this is this
1:33:56
Speaker 1: is the book that um And like again, I wrote
1:34:01
Speaker 1: this book for myself, not because I have this figured out,
1:34:03
Speaker 1: but to to to figure things out. It's a pretty
1:34:07
Speaker 1: It was uncomfortable writing because I saw a lot of
1:34:09
Speaker 1: myself in this and and I've gotten feedback from readers
1:34:12
Speaker 1: that it's like a very uncomfortable read because it makes
1:34:15
Speaker 1: you look in the mirror and like realize some parts
1:34:17
Speaker 1: of yourself that aren't so pretty. But it's so freaking
1:34:20
Speaker 1: important because if you just repress that or you just
1:34:23
Speaker 1: ignore it, then that cognitive dissonance builds and builds until
1:34:26
Speaker 1: it blows up in your face. Versus if you can
1:34:29
Speaker 1: confront that stuff and not judge yourself and be like, yeah,
1:34:32
Speaker 1: I have an ego because I'm a human and like, yeah,
1:34:34
Speaker 1: there are some days I'd rather hunt than be a parent,
1:34:36
Speaker 1: not because I'm a terrible parent, but because I'm passionate
1:34:39
Speaker 1: and kind of look at these things non judgmentally, but
1:34:41
Speaker 1: then really dive into them, uh and do some of
1:34:44
Speaker 1: that like self exploration and work. I think, like again,
1:34:47
Speaker 1: it's the difference of walking that fine line of being
1:34:50
Speaker 1: passionate and having it be super productive and energizing versus
1:34:54
Speaker 1: getting into a spot where it blows up on you
1:34:56
Speaker 1: later on. Yeah. Yeah, very true, which is probably pretty
1:34:59
Speaker 1: easy to do. Um, what what have we missed? Like?
1:35:04
Speaker 1: Are there any other foundational principles or major takeaways that
1:35:08
Speaker 1: you know now that you've heard a little bit from
1:35:10
Speaker 1: me as far as the things that that I deal
1:35:13
Speaker 1: with and other hunters might be dealing with along these lines.
1:35:16
Speaker 1: Is there any other concept or idea that we haven't
1:35:18
Speaker 1: touched on yet that you'd want to make sure that
1:35:20
Speaker 1: we we left folks with. I think the the only
1:35:23
Speaker 1: other one is um And this has been such a good, far,
1:35:26
Speaker 1: far ranging conversation. UM, So I think we've covered a lot.
1:35:29
Speaker 1: I think the only other thing worth mentioning is around
1:35:33
Speaker 1: transitioning and retirement and how hard that can be. UM
1:35:38
Speaker 1: In retirement can be forced sometimes by injury or by age. Uh.
1:35:44
Speaker 1: And if it's not retirement, just declining performance. So I
1:35:47
Speaker 1: assume hunting is like other sports where at a certain
1:35:51
Speaker 1: age it's going to be really hard physically to keep
1:35:54
Speaker 1: on having new like new prs, new breakthrough performances. So
1:35:58
Speaker 1: how do you cope with declining and eventually not being
1:36:02
Speaker 1: able to do the thing that you love? Uh and
1:36:06
Speaker 1: and that's super hard again, It's one of these paradoxes
1:36:09
Speaker 1: of passion is the more passionate you are about something,
1:36:12
Speaker 1: the more likely you are to have depression when it
1:36:14
Speaker 1: becomes time to move on. Um And, I think the
1:36:18
Speaker 1: biggest takeaway there is when you are in one of
1:36:20
Speaker 1: those transition or or age related declined periods, is to
1:36:26
Speaker 1: surround yourself with other people they have been through that
1:36:29
Speaker 1: before and use them as a support system and then
1:36:32
Speaker 1: find other ways in other ways to stay involved in
1:36:35
Speaker 1: the sport. So maybe physically you can no longer go
1:36:38
Speaker 1: out and spend you know, weekends or weeks on backpacking
1:36:40
Speaker 1: trips or get onto the back country, but maybe now
1:36:43
Speaker 1: you mentor people, or maybe you write for a hunting
1:36:46
Speaker 1: publication or you start a blog. Um. So like, just
1:36:51
Speaker 1: find other ways to stay involved in the sport and
1:36:54
Speaker 1: in the community. Because so many people they think that
1:36:56
Speaker 1: what they love is hunting, but what they actually love
1:36:59
Speaker 1: is the community. Yeah, that's interesting to bring that up
1:37:02
Speaker 1: because there's this kind of idea and this probably applies
1:37:05
Speaker 1: to a lot of things, but I know that in
1:37:07
Speaker 1: the hunting world there's and I'm gonna I'm gonna forget
1:37:10
Speaker 1: a step here, but people often talk about these like
1:37:13
Speaker 1: five phases of a hunting life. Like when you first
1:37:17
Speaker 1: get into it, you're just like trying to figure it out.
1:37:20
Speaker 1: You're just trying to figure out how to get your
1:37:22
Speaker 1: first deer or whatever. And then in your next stage,
1:37:24
Speaker 1: you you figure it out, and then usually it's just
1:37:27
Speaker 1: wanting to have, you know, a lot of success. So
1:37:29
Speaker 1: people want to go out hunt a bunch and have
1:37:31
Speaker 1: a lot of success with it. And then there's this
1:37:33
Speaker 1: next phase where they figured out how to have a
1:37:36
Speaker 1: lot of success, and now it's trying to add a
1:37:38
Speaker 1: different layer of challenge. So instead of trying to go
1:37:41
Speaker 1: out there and you know, get a bunch of ducks
1:37:44
Speaker 1: or whatever, get you know, numerous deer, it's I'm gonna
1:37:47
Speaker 1: hold out for the oldest, most rare um you know,
1:37:52
Speaker 1: old elk or whatever it might be, because that's the
1:37:54
Speaker 1: greatest challenge. Will push me as far as I could
1:37:56
Speaker 1: possibly be pushed to be the best hunter possibly could be,
1:37:58
Speaker 1: but then eventually kind of come to realize what you
1:38:02
Speaker 1: just said that very you know, all these things maybe
1:38:05
Speaker 1: aren't what really mattered in the in the first place,
1:38:07
Speaker 1: and they start realizing that they just want to mentor
1:38:10
Speaker 1: a new hunter helps someone get into it, helps someone
1:38:12
Speaker 1: else experience what they've come to enjoy so much, and
1:38:15
Speaker 1: eventually they don't even they just want to be out
1:38:17
Speaker 1: in nature with the people that they love. Um. So
1:38:21
Speaker 1: it's this kind of trajectory kind of similar to that
1:38:23
Speaker 1: that you described in which you you go through these
1:38:26
Speaker 1: different levels of passion and you come to find that
1:38:29
Speaker 1: it was not the outcome, but the process in the
1:38:32
Speaker 1: end that was what mattered most. And I guess that
1:38:34
Speaker 1: study of mortality that you talked about a second ago,
1:38:38
Speaker 1: that's a good way to kind of fast forward that
1:38:41
Speaker 1: mindset to remember that what happens if you're going to
1:38:44
Speaker 1: die tomorrow, Do you care about getting that buck, do
1:38:47
Speaker 1: you care about somebody in that mountain? Or what what
1:38:50
Speaker 1: really matters maybe is spending time with your son outside
1:38:53
Speaker 1: doing it. You know, yep, And that's going to change
1:38:56
Speaker 1: at different points in your life, like when you're a
1:38:58
Speaker 1: young gun and you're twenty four just getting into it,
1:39:00
Speaker 1: Like the answer might be summoning that mountain, and then
1:39:03
Speaker 1: when you're thirty five with a kid, it might be
1:39:05
Speaker 1: taking your kid out there, and then when you're sixty
1:39:08
Speaker 1: it might actually be like sipping on bourbon, just having
1:39:10
Speaker 1: a good time. So, like I mean, these things, these
1:39:13
Speaker 1: things change over the course of a life. So I
1:39:15
Speaker 1: think the key thing is to just keep on forcing
1:39:17
Speaker 1: that that self awareness and that honest reflection. Yeah, I think, uh,
1:39:21
Speaker 1: I think that's so important. And it's easy to just
1:39:23
Speaker 1: getting caught in the inertia. It's so easy just to
1:39:26
Speaker 1: do the thing you do, um, to do what feels good,
1:39:29
Speaker 1: and we can very quickly lose sight of of what
1:39:32
Speaker 1: we've actually done. So I think having conversations like this
1:39:35
Speaker 1: and reading books like The Passion paradox Um just really, really,
1:39:40
Speaker 1: really important. So I appreciate you taking the time to
1:39:43
Speaker 1: write these books, to share these ideas and and to
1:39:46
Speaker 1: chat with me about it. So thank you, Bred, Thank
1:39:49
Speaker 1: you Mark. I really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, And for
1:39:52
Speaker 1: people that want to learn more about all these ideas, um,
1:39:56
Speaker 1: can you can you just give us quick rundown where
1:39:58
Speaker 1: they can learn more about the books you're self where
1:40:00
Speaker 1: they can connect with you. Yeah, for sure. So the
1:40:02
Speaker 1: easiest place is probably just my website, which is www
1:40:06
Speaker 1: dot Brad Stallberg dot com uh or Twitter where I'm
1:40:10
Speaker 1: at b Stallberg And um, the books are on Amazon
1:40:15
Speaker 1: in bookstores. I mean, if you just google my name
1:40:17
Speaker 1: in the books, you can get them pretty much anywhere
1:40:19
Speaker 1: you can get books. Perfect, and you you write a
1:40:22
Speaker 1: pretty pretty frequent column for Outside too, right, Yeah, so
1:40:26
Speaker 1: I've I've got a twice a month column for Outside.
1:40:29
Speaker 1: Uh that's titled do it Better? And I joke that
1:40:33
Speaker 1: as long as as long as it's a little bit
1:40:35
Speaker 1: better versus do it worse than I'm on I'm on brand,
1:40:37
Speaker 1: but I got I got a poke fund it myself.
1:40:40
Speaker 1: But yeah, so I write about performance and well being
1:40:43
Speaker 1: for Outside. Awesome. Well, everything I've read from you so
1:40:46
Speaker 1: far has just been really helpful. These concepts are are
1:40:50
Speaker 1: fascinating and uh and I appreciate sharing. So thanks Brad,
1:40:54
Speaker 1: and uh, let's chet again someday soon. All right? Sounds good?
1:40:57
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mark? All right, and that is a rap.
1:41:02
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
1:41:05
Speaker 1: Um ma'am. I'm just digging these concepts, these different ways
1:41:09
Speaker 1: we can apply lessons from outside the hunting world into
1:41:12
Speaker 1: what we do. I think there's a lot a lot
1:41:15
Speaker 1: to be learned from these other fields and my plans
1:41:18
Speaker 1: to continue doing it. So hopefully we're gonna have some
1:41:20
Speaker 1: more episodes like this in the future. I hope you
1:41:21
Speaker 1: will tune in for those. If you enjoyed this, definitely
1:41:25
Speaker 1: check out Brad's books. Highly recommend them. They're they're easy
1:41:28
Speaker 1: to read. I like the way they have it organized.
1:41:30
Speaker 1: They've got little call outs of key quotes and key
1:41:33
Speaker 1: concepts to make it make it easy to to harness
1:41:36
Speaker 1: and to focus on the very most important takeaways and uh,
1:41:40
Speaker 1: as you heard in the conversation, there's a lot to
1:41:41
Speaker 1: dive into, So check those out on Amazon or wherever
1:41:44
Speaker 1: you want to head to and otherwise. I'm hoping that
1:41:47
Speaker 1: you have a great week a great weekend, hopefully enjoy
1:41:50
Speaker 1: some time outside and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.