Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 984: 10 Steps to Becoming a Happier Hunter This Season with Eric Clark and Derek Malcore

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Ep. 984: 10 Steps to Becoming a Happier Hunter This Season with Eric Clark and Derek Malcore · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the white Tail Woods presented by first Light, creating proven
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt podcast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: This week on the show, I'm joined by Eric Clark
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: and Derek Melcorp of the Okayist Hunter podcast to discuss
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: ten simple steps to follow to become a happier and
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: more satisfied deer hunter. All right, welcome back to the
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: their Camo for Conservation initiative, and today we are talking
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: through the ten simple steps or the ten commandments to
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: follow to become a happier deer hunter. I think this
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: is the perfect conversation to have right now, with just
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: about one third of our hunting season left ahead of us.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: If you are disappointed with how your season has been
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: going so far, if you have not had the success
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: you wanted, if you have not had the fun you
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: hoped for, if you have not been as satisfied and
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: full of joy and fun as you were hoping this
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: season would be today's chap, I think will be exactly
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: what you need, because this conversation is all about recentering ourselves,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: getting back to understanding the why behind our hunting. Why
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: are we out there, why do we come to this,
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Why did we fall in love with hunting? And are
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: we thinking about that when we go out there.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: In the woods.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: That's what I want us to consider today, because I
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: do think in our twenty first century, modern day deer
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: hunting culture, it's very easy to get sucked into these
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: other things, to become obsessed with somebody else's goals or expectations.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: I think that we have to do what everybody else
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: is doing, or that we need to kill a big,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: giant bucker, that we need to kill this deer because
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: if we don't, we'll be a failure, or whatever that
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: version might be for yourself. There's many ways that deer
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: hunting today can lose the fun. It can become something
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: that was not what you originally came to when you
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: first became a deer hunter. That's a story that I've
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: told many of you over the years as I have
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: kind of seen this happen in my own life. And
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: today I want to chat with two guys that have
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: done a great job of speaking about this on their
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: own platform, the okayst Hunter Podcast, which is all about
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: kind of trying to recenter hunters on.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Sharing the hunt.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: With the people you care about, not judging other people
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: hunting your own hunt, doing this because it's fun, having
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: fun with it, enjoying it with those people you care about.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: All the stuff that I think is what brought so
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: many of us to the table.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: All that is what I.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Think is what ultimately was why we all got into
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: deer hunting in the first place, before we lost sight
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: of that maybe amidst social media and TV and YouTube
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: and inches of antler and whatever else it might be.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: So today Derek and Eric are going to help me
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: follow up a conversation that we started three years ago.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: We first had these guys in the show three years
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: ago to start talking through this journey that we've all
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: been on, and today I wanted to revisit it, explore
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: maybe where we are as a culture now. Have things
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: changed it all since twenty twenty two? Are things getting better?
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Are things getting worse?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Also? Then with that said, what does that mean for
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: the future? What can we do now to make the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: best of the twenty twenty five season or whatever? Year
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: it is that you're listening to this.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: If you are in a kind of a bad state
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: of affairs, if you're bummed out about your season, this
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: conversation I think should help you flip the switch. Remember
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: why we got into this, remember what's actually important, and
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: these ten steps that Derek and Eric are going to
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: walk us through, I think can help you become a
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: happier and more satisfied hunter without a doubt this season.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Before it's all said.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Done so, without any further ado, let's get to my
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: chat with Eric and Derek.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Hope you enjoy it all right with me?
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: Now on the line is Eric Clark and Derek melcor
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to the show.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Guys.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: Thanks thanks for welcoming us back.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: It's my pleasure.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: As we were talking about before we started recording, this
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: conversation that we had three years ago, I guess now
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: was one that in the years since, I've realized has
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: been more and more important.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: I think when we had that chat, I was just
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: kind of in the early stages of a little bit
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: of a you know, self, a period of self reflection.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I think about why I.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Hunt and how I hunt and what it means to
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: me and I'd been going over that over a couple
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: of years leading into that chat we had, and in
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: the three years since that transformation of so has continued.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: And so it seemed like three years since that point
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: now after we had this really good chat about maybe
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: this different side of deer hunting, that this mission that
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: you guys have been pushing forward with the okayist hunter,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: I want to revisit it. And I wanted to see,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: you know, what you guys think about where we are now,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: about how maybe your own thoughts have changed, about how
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: maybe the culture of hunting has possibly changed in those years.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: And then I wanted to review what we had kind
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: of stumbled on at the end of that chat, which
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: was the ten commandments of being an okay ast Hunter.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: And I've kind of thought about that this could almost
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: stand as like the ten commandments of being a fun hunter, almost,
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: or a deer hunter that has a fun season.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Something like that.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: You could you could zoom out a little bit and
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: have it apply to it to a lot of people.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: So all that said, I'm glad you're here.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: I'm doing that thing where I ramble, but I'm gonna
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: read you one more thing, and I'm gonna let you
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: guys talk. Your stated mission on your website says, our
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: mission is to put an end to deer and buck
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: shaming and make it okay to hunt, how you hunt,
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: and for whatever you hunt for. It's not about the
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: most miles hiked, the biggest buck, or the latest gear.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: We believe hunting is about having fun and making everlasting memories.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Hunt for fun, not trophies, make everlasting mad make everlasting memories,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: and make the best use of what you have. Does
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: that mission still stand now? Do you guys still feel
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: like that is the most important thing for you guys
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: to be pushing forward and what gets you up and
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: on the podcast and chatting online and doing all the
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: different things you do. Does that still because I know
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: you wrote that and started this whole thing years and
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: years ago, does all that still ring true to you today?
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean I don't have to think of it at all.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: It does, which is mean I'm not going to my
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: own hornet's. The point is the fact that that is
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: still standing is impressive to even me that that's what
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: we are continuing to do. I'm like a little surprised actually,
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: and we haven't had to change our logo we've done
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: no branding updates, Like it just reminds me of the
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Dress Blues and Marine Corps. They're the only ones in
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: all of the DoD the Armed Services that haven't changed
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: their uniform and everyone else is going through rebranding every
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: four years. Like, we're doing what we said we're going
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: to do and we're staying the course. And that's hard
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: to do when your counterculture brand in the market might
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: not respond right away. It makes you wonder, like, are
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: we making a difference? Is it for the better? We
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: are rubbing people the wrong way at times? Should we
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: be listening to them? Reading Ryan Holliday's latest book, Wisdom
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Takes Work, I'm like, boy, I hope that I'm in
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: the right line here and that I'm taking feedback in
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: a way that opens my mind to the holistic thing.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: And I hope we don't have a negative impact, we
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: have a positive one. And I think the messages that
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: we get, the emails, the dms, the comments, the reviews,
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: it's all pointing to that north star. So it tells
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: me we're in the right track here.
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: I think about it, It's almost like maybe we're in
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: a little bit slower lane of like the you know,
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: popular culture of hunting and whatnot, and you talk about
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: like not having a brand and whatever, like I feel
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: like to keep doing the coolest, most hardcore thing. Like
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: he's constantly, constantly, constantly updating. It's hard to stay at
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: the forefront of that. But doing the right thing is
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: like the slow and steady lane. And I think that's
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: what the mission that you described all those years ago
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: is getting at, is like doing the right thing by
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: yourself and by others. And I think when you do
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: something like that, that principle stands the ground and stands
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: through time. And I think that's what we're seeing now
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: is more and more people who are like, dude, you
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: guys around something like that's that's what it should be.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: Then you have to say something several times, several different ways,
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: Like every day we post on the internet, like I'm
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: just saying the same stuff. And you know, for someone
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: who's followed Gary Vaynerchuck for his career, it's like he's
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: saying the same stuff, Ramsey saying the same stuff. You
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: find these people are brands that say the same thing,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: but it's continuously relevant and sometimes as humans we need
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: to hear it. A couple different ways or several different
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: times to finally like seep in and go oh yeah,
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: wow they are saying that, Or you check back in
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: years right after falling off and you're like, oh, they're
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: still saying the same stuff. That's great. They're staying true,
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: you know, so I think that's interesting.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: So, I know we talked about this back in twenty
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: twenty two, but for people who didn't hear that conversation,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: I want to at least kind of set the groundwork
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: a little bit of what you guys kind of stand for.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Can you paint a picture for me, Eric of what
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: led you to want to share this counterculture message of sorts,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Like what what's the diagnosis of the problem that led
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: you to wanting to do this thing?
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Can you kind of restate that for us?
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I would now put that problem into
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: the umbrella of ego sleep. However, I didn't know that
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: that's what I was fighting against initially. But it all
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: started when I tagged a small dough. It was like
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: a dophon. It was my first boat kill ever, right
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: when my daughter was born in twenty seventeen, and this
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: idea had been flowing around my head for a while
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: in fact, I was just in the archives of my
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: photos looking for something, and I can see all the
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: other iterations of naming, concepts, logo ideation that had gone
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: into this before we landed on Okay as hunter and
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: like kind of went forth. But it was that it
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: was like I posted a photo that I was really
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: proud of because to me, it was a big deal
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: and it was from the ground. It was like ten
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: yard shot. It was exciting for me. It was my
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: dad was there. That's always a moniker for me and
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: hunting if he's there, and it was I'm a girl
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: man who just had his first kid and my dad's there,
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: and I immediately felt like that twelve year old boil
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: over again over the kill of this little dophon And
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: in no world did my dad shame me for that,
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Like he's like, you did it. You got your first
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: boat kill. You should be proud. This is exciting, luckily
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: and small, and you can drag it out really easily
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: because we can walk back. And I was like, okay,
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: so like we can. We're not snowflakes. We can take
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: banter and like you know, all of that stuff in
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: good fun humor. It's when it happens for people that
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: don't know you and don't have the context and start
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: to say things that are like actually mean and degrading
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: and dehumanizing in some ways, it's like, we don't need that,
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: or I thought we were on the same team. I
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: thought this was a brotherhood. We have enough problems outside
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: of our space that we should really not be the
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: neck biting and the head off. So that's kind of
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: how it started. And then when we kick things off.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: The big deal for me was when we had people
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: sharing all their photos with us that had never been
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: posted publicly, and so we created a space that felt
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: like I can share with you guys, and I'm not
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: going to have judgment, and now I can talk about
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: this hunt that was the last one of my grandpa,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: the first one of my kid, my first out of state,
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: my first ever as adult on set, and the story
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: is just poured in. So that was the like we
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: had a bit of a fire starter, and then that
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: was the thing that really fanned the that made it
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: just kind of come alive on its own. No, it's
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: kind of feed it logs and it just rolls. We
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: kind of know what to do here.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And since then, like you said, you guys have
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: have not only created a safe space I think for
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: people to be excited about whatever their hunt is. But
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: I do feel like you guys have been sharing this
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: message of and correct me if I'm correct me if
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: I'm wrong here putting words in your mouth. But it
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: seems like a lot of your guys's message is framed
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: around hunting. I guess I'll put my own words into
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: your mouth. That's something I've said a lot, which is
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: like hunt your own hunt, like hunt for your own reasons.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Do what makes you happy, do what satisfies you, enjoy
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: it for your own reasons. Don't let anybody else's opinion,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: anybody else's goals, anybody else's version of success, influence you,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: or make you feel bad about your thing, or add
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: stress or pressure or anxiety, or or take anything away
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: from your version of it. Am I interpreting like the
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: large overarching why of your thing? Is?
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: That?
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Is that a correct interpretation?
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, run your own race is kind of where that
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: came from. Like would you run out if you're going
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: to do a marathon? Like maybe maybe you're competing for first,
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: but some people are just gonna do a marathon. It's
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: on their bucket list and they might ever do one once,
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: they just want to complete it. And so like you
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: could compare yourself to people along the along the race,
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: but what's the sense in that, Like people at different ages, physiques, gender,
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: physical fitness, Like there's so many components. And then I
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: think about hunting, and it's a very intimate thing. It's
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: it and it's more than a race because there's ethics
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: involved in taking an animal's life. But then there's also
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: managing a resource. And as long as we're trusting to
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: some degree of following the law that's been put in
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: place by public officials to manage a resource, we have
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: been given tags to go handle that resource by filling
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: tags if it's in the confines of that I have
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: one buck tag for archery, one buck take for gun
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: in Wisconsin, and several dough takes if they've already done
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: all the forecasting to sell all those licenses. It's a
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: very small percentage of the total population of deer in
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: contrast to the number of hunters.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: By the way, shoot what.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: You're gonna shoot, because inside of that hunt, as we're
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: what do we gen X? I think I'm thirty nine,
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: what are you? Thirty eight? Thirty nine you're millennial. I think, okay, millennial.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: So we have parents that are aging out and we
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: have kids that are coming in. So we're in this
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: spot where I'm appreciating the hunting lens in a very
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: unique way. My younger twenties is I was a lot
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: of ego, piss and vinegar and trying to test myself
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: against limits. And then having kids, I want them to
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: experience this. And my dad's starting to age out, and
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: so like now I'm starting to not take care of
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: things for him. But he's not going to drag a
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: deer on his own anymore. We shouldn't. He probably shouldn't.
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: He's pokey, he's not getting up there early in the morning,
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: and where he's forgetting things, he's like picking easy spots.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: I'm like, wow, this is the guy that was like
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: pushing me all the time. And now look at the
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: tables trending. So I'm valuing the hunt in a very
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: different sense. I still have my little insulated bow hunt
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: where I can be the Johnny badass that I think
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: I am, but I also want to bring my kids
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: with me more so I'm trying to figure that out.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: That's a tricky one for me because I have three
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: of them, like, oh, if I go up my dad,
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: it just yeah, So hunt your own hunt because in
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: the hunter's journey there's so many variables. Different states managed
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: to her. Population is differently with different regulations. Some people
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: can't even shoot those in their in their region. Deer
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: size is very different, whether terrain age, There's too many
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: things to judge someone else's hunt based on how you
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: would judge a hunt.
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: So I just I'll just chime in with a smaller
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: piece of that because I think your tag you're hunt
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: like I'm nervous. That's a huge part of the mission,
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: and just letting people be excited and enjoy their moment
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: with casting whatever a little bit of shade or shame
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: that your successes may you think may afford you to
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: cast like that. That's the huge part. But something that
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: I've heard over and over again and have really kind
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: of related to is people people have mentioned to us
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: that like hearing about your mishaps and like the mess,
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: the mess relieving the okayest moments, Like hearing that from
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: others was like relieving in itself, because man, I've talked
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: to a bunch of people who are like relatively new hunters,
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: and not like just young ones, but like adult onset hunters,
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: And it's a lot of freaking pressure to a step
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: into this door of like crazy outdoor world all this year?
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: What do I do? How do I do it? Do
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: I have a hunter? But then like to know you're
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: going to be judged like this this crazy big buck
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: like mantra that everyone marches by, and then all of
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: a sudden, like you're trying to learn this and you
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: can't feel like you relax, And I can just feel
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: the anxiety in these younger newer hunters. They're like, oh man, like,
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: not only do I have to know how to do
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: all this I speak about it, I have to like
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: now figure out how to kill a big year I've
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: never even like drawn and go on. Like I could
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: feel that, And talking to a number of like newer
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: hunters and a lot of people have said, man, just
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: hearing like the okat moments you guys have and like
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: the crap that you have done and like said like
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: helped me feel like, oh man, I'm not like really
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: doing that bad like most people are going through this
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: crow because when you only hear the good stuff and
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: how great everything was in your scouting trip and you
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: left out that you forgot your sticks and climbed your
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: true with you know, just your legs and scratch the
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: crap all your like. It makes it more welcoming and
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: just way more relatable content. And I'd say what some
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: of the other things are.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So so let's let's content aside. Just speaking about
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: this message that you guys as a group and as
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: individuals have kind of been evangelizing. Do you think it's
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: being heard?
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: Like?
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I don't mean like, actually, you know, tangibly like X
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: thousands of people have heard me. But I mean like,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: do you feel like the culture our community are we
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: going in the right direction or are we going the
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: wrong direction? How do you feel about like the trend
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: line right now?
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: As far as like.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm afraid it's getting a little bit. I don't
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: want to be someone that's creating a fraction, but I
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: feel like it's getting a little bit fraction. So I
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: think I'm seeing and paying attention to others in my
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: age class. I see Dan Johnson starting to say what
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: we say because he's experiencing it. I hear you reaching
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: out to us to come back to talk about it
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: because you're kind of getting down that path. I saw
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: Josh Talker talking about this. I've heard Dan Infult now
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: go on to record and talk about how there's regret
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: from being so motivated towards it, and so is it
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: being heard. I think it's being heard, it's being felt.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: I'm curious who's going to come up and fill in
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: the void and continue this like line of thought around
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: big Bucks, big Bucks, big Bucks, mature, mature, mature, and
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: I I value QTMA. But that's different because it's talking
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: about private land. I would love to talk about that.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: I just don't because I don't talk about things I
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: don't know, and I don't have private land, so I
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: don't have a voice there. So my voice lives in
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: the public land space. And public land is really hard,
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: it's really pressured in there is the challenge that I
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: thoroughly enjoy as much as all piss and moment at
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: times in certain moments, but I do enjoy it. But
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: it's in those moments that like there's a badge of
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: honor that comes with that stuff that I don't need
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: validation or judgment for doing something that I found to
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: be fun and challenging and intrinsically rewarding, whether I'm with
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: my kid, my dad, or doing it on my own.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: So I hope it's being heard. It seems like it
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: is because we're getting a lot of feedback in a
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: lot of digital places. But we also do physical things too.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: We host an archery event. We had eighty people at
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: it last year. It's grown by twenty every year since
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: we've done it. And we get people physically literally telling
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: us this stuff. And then we host an event here
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: at our new podcast studio and similar like people came
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: here and hung out with us and shared relatable stories,
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: putting us at the center of it a little bit like, dude,
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: we're not special. Like what special is the fact that
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: we're having this conversation and that we're all sharing these
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: experiences together. And a word or a phrase that I've
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: been trying to infuse more and is that hunting is
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: a shared experience or it ought to be. Much like
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: Christopher mckndall's aka Alex Supertramp with Oh Into the Wild
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: written by John Krackhauer at the end of the whole
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: thing spoiler which if you haven't read the book or
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: saw the movie by now like tough stuff, but his
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: dying thoughts and his diary were like this life was
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: meant to be shared and experienced together. And I really
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: believe that about deer hunting. It's way more of a
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: bright spot in the memories when they're shared. Much like parenting.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: My wife's gone for some reason for doing something or
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: working whatever, and I'm doing something like kid and usually
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: she's there. I'm like, look what they're doing. We're sharing
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: this moment together. When she's gone. It still happens and
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: it's nice, but it's always better when I can share
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: it with her. Hunting is not that uniquely different than that,
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: So I think to answer your question, I don't, Derek,
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: if you have anything else, But it seems like it's resonating.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, we notice it more because it's what we
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: were here about. Possibly, But I would say overall, I
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: think things are slowly starting to trend in a positive
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: direction of just kindness and people being a little bit
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: more understanding and maybe being able to bite their tongue
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: a little bit more. But it's hard to say because
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: you have a lot on the other side of the
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: fence too that you see a lot of the other also.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: Well, Mark, I have a question for you because my
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: concern is like I'm not trying to create this Kumbaya
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: moment where we're just sheltering people and making it all
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: kumbay ah positivity.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Rara.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: I do think it's hard to make positivity louder than
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: negativity because though the negative is like one percent or less,
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: it's what sticks out, and it's what sticks in your
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: mind and memory. When you have that, you can have
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: twenty five people say congratulations, good job, great, great buck,
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: the one person that said something crappy, that's the one
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: damn thing that you remember, ye, And so then that
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: becomes this like really loud voice in your head, and
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: that's frustrating. So we're just kind of drown that out
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: as much as we possibly can and not doing it
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: in such a way that we are becoming like this
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: like ooh, you can't say naughty things here. That's not
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: the point. There's a sensibility, a sensibility to it, and.
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: Another thing that so you can speak to this more.
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: But like with the logo and everything, like what you've
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: been preaching is not like some people see the logo
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: the little ailer like oh man, these guys just want
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: you to shoot little bucks, Like just okay to shoot
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: little bucks, but like that's not what your mission was.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: Your mission ones just like hunt your hunt. And if
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: this is what's the trophy to you, that's fine. Other
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: people don't have to open their mouth about it.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, the logo is meant to be the memories
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: are greater than the inches, Like it's a small logo
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: because the hunt means more than that, and it said really,
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: I think they're to piece together. But the question for you,
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: Mark is like you're deeply embedded in the industry, working
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: with some of the largest brands, and you're part of
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: one of the largest brands, So I don't I wonder
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: what you're hearing about this kind of undertone, undercurrent of
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: like we're getting tired of it, you know, of the
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: ego of the.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: So I'm I'm six one way, half dozen the other.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Because on one hand, I definitely see and feel what
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: you guys are talking about, what I'm talking about, what
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: I'm hearing from more and more of my friends. But
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: there is a little bit of that like bias of
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: like that is the phase of life we're in, So
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: how much of this is just like, Hey, we're all
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: becoming young parents, we're all having this perspective shift. We're
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: all kind of realizing there's things more important than a
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: big giant buck, because we have kids, because we're reaching
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: middle age. So is my sample sized bias. Because of that,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: one part of me thinks like, hey, I'm hearing this
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: a lot, and maybe it's a growing trend. People are
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: finally realizing that we don't have to be a holes.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: We don't all have to kill giant bucks. It's not
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: the end all, be all, et cetera. But on the
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: flip side, social media can sometimes act as a lens
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: of how we believe the world to be. And when
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: I look at social media, if I were to answer
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: this question based on that, I would say it's getting worse.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: And I think that's in many ways because social media
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: rewards the worst of all these things, right. Social media
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: rewards it rewards sensationalism, it rewards trolling, It rewards you know, me,
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: me me me me you suck or me me me
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: me me right. And so you see more and more
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: people I feel like, whether they are willing to admit
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: it or not, a lot of their a lot of
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: their hunting is influenced by what other people are going
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: to think about how big a deer I kill, or
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: whether or not I killed to do this year, or
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: how many pictures I post this year, this thing or
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: that thing, or trying to get more likes or more
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: subscribers or more whatever. Everybody is their own personal brand.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Everybody has something they're trying to sell or get you
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: And I say all.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: This obviously hypocritically, because I am doing that too, by
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: asking people to follow my stuff and watch my content
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: all of that stuff. But if that's taken too far,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: and if that's taken to where everyone's trying to do that,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: then it becomes this, this this mess of people doing
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: things for the wrong reasons and then ultimately being miserable
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: because of it, and everyone trying to like performatively make
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: it look like they're having the time of their lives
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: when deep down inside of them it's hollow.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: I think that's happening. I certainly had that experience.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: Feel so the movie Groundhog's Day or in the beginning,
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: Bill Murray just starts to do all of the dumbest, funnest,
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: craziest stuff and then eventually tires them out. And I
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: think about that, like, if I could just kill and
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: hunt big Bucks all day, every day, all the time
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: for the next twenty years. At some point am I
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: gonna am I gonna be satiated from that? I mean
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: maybe like maybe the oh man, let's describe someone's dream,
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: you know, But at some point it's like, isn't there
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: more to this? Isn't there more about the camaraderie, the
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: shared experience, the memory, the dragging out together, the joking,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: the the you know, the mishaps, Like, isn't there more
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: the meat, the food around the table, the gathering like
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: and none of that comes from big antlers. I just
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: don't know that. I'm gonna remember the backstrapped for the
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: antlers come my deathbed. That's just that all is gonna
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: get stripped away, and I'm gonna remember what's gonna stand
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: out when it all gets eroded or distilled. Is gonna
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: be the people like Derek or Greg or my dad
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: or my kids. Like That's what I think is important.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: So I have a really really tough time lately with
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: people just trying to dog us on stuff like that.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: I'm like, man, I feel like you're not he seen
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: the forest or the trees or that. I always get
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: that one backwards. But I think you get the idea.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there, you get it.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: So I had a friend called me the other day,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: good friend who is all ate up with deer hunting.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: He's been a longtime friend and you know, listens to
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: all the podcasts and reads all the articles, and for
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: years and years and years now he's tried to be
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: a better deer hunter, tries to be a great deer hunter.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: And he texted me the other day, say, hey, Mark,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: do you have Do you have a couple of minutes
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: to chat. I'm having a little bit of a crisis
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: and I just got to run and by you.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: So I give him a call.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And he starts laying out for fifteen minutes, discussed all
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: the ways his deer hunting season went wrong, how the
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: neighbors did this, how this thing went wrong, how he
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: doesn't have enough property, how he doesn't understand he had
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: six different mature bucks and this thing and that thing,
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: and how X, Y and Z all had you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: made him not have success this year, and he didn't
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: know where to go or what to do, or why
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: can't I kill mature buck? And why haven't I been
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: able to do this? And what am I doing wrong?
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: And so on and so forth. And finally I stopped him.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: I said, buddy, I don't think this is what you
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: want to hear. But my answer is not going to
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: be anything tactical. It's not going to be anything about
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: where you should sit or how you should change your strategy.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: I think you need to really take some time and
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: reflect about why you are hunting and what you are
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: trying to get out of this and why you came
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: to it in the beginning. And so I asked him
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: some questions, like why did you start to hunt?
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: What brings you joy?
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Now what you just described to me the last few
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: weeks of hunting, did that bring you joy?
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Did that bring you happiness? Did that satisfy you?
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: And what it came down to is is the more
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: I think about this, and this is what I shared
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: with him, the more I realized that this whole hunting
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: thing is incredibly stupid. It's incredibly meaningless and selfish and
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: unimportant to the rest of the world unless it is
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: bringing you joy, satisfaction, connecting you to your family members
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: and friends, bringing something good into this world. But whether
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: or not you kill one hundred and seven inch buck
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: or not does not matter. It does not make the
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: world a better place, if it's taking you away from
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: your friends and family, if it's taking you away from
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: things that are core to what does truly matter, and
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: if it's all of those things also making you miserable
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: and stressing you out and keeping you from being able
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: to sleep at night, and you're doing all of this
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: because you feel you have to prove yourself to somebody else.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: If that's what's happening, this is a horrible waste of
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: your time, and you got to rethink about how to
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: actually make this a worthwhile part of your life. And
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: what it came down to is that you'd lost sight
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: of all that, and I had too over the years, right,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: And I think there's a lot of other people out there,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: And so that's why, in a long, rambling kind of
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: roundabout way, I wanted to talk about this right now
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: here at the beginning of December, because we're, you know,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: for most people, we're probably about two thirds of the
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: way through the hunting season, right we're in that back
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: half or the back quarter or the back third of
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: the year. We're quickly running on time to make something
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: out of this hunting season for a lot of people.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: And I gotta believe there's some folks out there who
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: didn't kill their big buck, or who have been totally
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: stressed out, or who are still obsessed in trying to
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: figure out some way to salvage the season and have
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: that big one for Instagram or whatever.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: There's people out.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: There who are thinking, like, man, this season sucked or
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: this season was stressful, or how come I don't feel
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: good about this? Or why aren't I having fun anymore?
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: Why is this not what it used to be? Or
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: when I wish I could go back to the way
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: it was when I was eighteen and going in the
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: woods and so excited every time I went, And now
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: I feel obligated to go out there, and then the
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: whole time I'm just bitching and moaning about how there's
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: another spike or there's another four kyn, there's no big
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: deer here, and you know, et cetera, et cetera. So
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: what I want to do, what I want to ask
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: you guys to help me with, is to lay out
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: some simple steps for how people can like save their
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: season and not save their season, Like how you know
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: the tactics you need to kill a big giant buck,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: but how to reclaim the satisfaction and the joy and
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: the the real reason we hunt, which I think is
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: kind of what we achieved when I when we've talked
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: a couple of years ago about the ten commandments of
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: this side of hunting. So, would you guys be game
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: to talk through the ten commandments or the eleven commandments?
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: I think is what you guys settled on. The eleven
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: commandments of you know, being a quote unquote okayst hunter,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: or eleven commandments of having a fun deer hunting season,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: so that you know, this last month of the season
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: or five weeks or six weeks or whatever it is
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: you have, folks can try to make these types of changes.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Does that sound like a plan that we could walk through.
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think it's a worthwhile plan. And
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: I before we go into that plan, I don't want
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: to discourage anyone from achieving their goals either, Like, oh,
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: for sure, it is important if you do have a
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: goal to see it through because it's not always gonna
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: be candy bars and lightpops, and it's gonna feel frustrating,
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: and that is kind of part of it. And I
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: will say even like chopping it up with a buddy,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: like your buddy had reached out to you, like talking
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: about all the strategy and he's kind of looking for
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: something very different when you'd offered but that didn't have itself.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: That like the number of times I called Derek and
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: hunting season is exponentially greater than when it's not hunting
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: season because he's my go to guy and I enjoy
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: that banter. It's less as much as it's about the
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: deer at some point that conversationally matters so much because
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: I get in the ground, I always mess it up anyways.
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: It's more about the chopping it up sparring that happens
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: that I thoroughly enjoy. It's that time of year when
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: it I think we need atle bit closer. But I
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: do want to say, like, don't be afraid to move
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: backwards as much as you want to hit your goals.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: And I recently talked about this, but any good boxing
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: movie with like Rocky as an example, there's always somebody
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: that beats the piss out of him and he gets
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: his world. His world crumbles because his identity is so
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: wrapped up in being the champ that if he's not
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: the champ, then who is he? And then there's the
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: Rocky moment did it and he like comes back And
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: sometimes you got to get knocked down to appreciate the
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: journey back, and you'll come back even stronger. So this
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: might be the season you're getting knocked down right now.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: But just like Ricky Bobby, you know, got in a
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: car crash and eventually ran on the track in his
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: underwear screaming help me. Whoever it was, Oprah, I don't know,
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: Tom Cruise, Like, you can have your help meet Tom
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: Cruise moment in your underwear freaking out in the marsh.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: But at some point you might get back in the
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: car with the cougar and and find yourself again. Like,
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: but your identity doesn't have to be wrapped up in
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: being the big buck killer getting a big one every year,
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: or bigger one every year. They're being this guy. It's
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: okay to move backwards a little bit, to find your
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: footing so you can go fast.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and to your point, like, there's nothing inherently wrong
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: with trying to chase one of these goals and going
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: hard on it, right, That's that's not the point I'm
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: trying to make either. It's it's if you if doing
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: that is sucking the life and the joy out of it.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: If you're doing it and every day you are sighted
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: and you're like this is what fills me up, Like
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: this is it?
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Then go for it, buddy.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: But I think it's the people who are doing it
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: and then in the back of their mind are hating
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: it though.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I think the back of their mind feeling go ahead, Derek.
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, those same that same mentality that you're talking about now.
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: Like if you if you've been out the last ten
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: mornings and you're so fixated on your end goal like
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: killing this buck, killing this buck that you've like forgot
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: to sit and like look at the sunrise and be like,
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: holy shit, I am lucky for being out here. Yeah,
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: if you haven't been able to do that on the
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: last couple, like you just need to reset your mind, right,
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: Like what what you're doing out there? Exactly what Mark
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: said before, Like what are you trying to get out
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: of this? If you enjoy your time? Are you trying
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: to be stressed? As how? With one goal and that's
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: the end all, be all? And and Eric knows me,
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: and like I set goals and I have things that
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: I like to do in the deal, but man, I
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: enjoy every step of it. And like that's that's the
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: first step is like, don't take your tough self too seriously.
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: Enjoy the moment you have and like, those are moments
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: away from your responsibilities for some of us are families
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: like you better enjoy them. You're freaking coming back more
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: pissed off than you were when you left you. That's
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: not good for anybody.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: No, no, that's lose lose. So so you you mentioned
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: commandment number one. Number one you mentioned was don't take
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: yourself too seriously. Can you expand a little bit on that?
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Why that's important? What you guys mean by that? You
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: know what what that might look like in a hunting season.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: I think you's had to be a human you can
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: take the hunt seriously, then you should do. You have
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: to respect the animal in the game, and there's ethics
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: involved in that, and I'm kind of mention that, but
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: I don't know. You gotta be able to laugh at
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: yourself and like I mean, I'll literally laugh out loud
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: when something gets tripped. I had to jump out of
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: a tree this year. Not great, not a good moment.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: What was funny is I have to be unknown, unknown
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: to me because I messed up with Derek said classic
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: his trail camels right below me. So I'm like, dude,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: when you pull that footage, you're gonna see some guy
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: falling out of the sky. And I laughed, thinking that
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: that's going to be something that comes to life.
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: How that happens. I think that's something that probably other
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: people happened.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: And I got up at three in the morning. I
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: drove this horrendous I drove the spot, went through this
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: horrendous marsh. I put waiters on, cross some nasty stuff.
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: Took the waiters off, and I crossed the nasty stuff.
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: I had boots around my neck. I put my boots on.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: I get all the way out into this Dude, it
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: is just disgusting. And this is the spot that Derek
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: told me to go to. So I'm like, all right, Derek,
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: I'm a badass too. I can do it. And I
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: get out there. I climb this tree. I get uncomfortably
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: high in this tree. I'm like four and a half
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: five sticks high, and uh, it's skinny and it's windy,
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: and I'm like, my god, I'm gonna get sea sickness
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: up here. But as I'm towing my bow up it
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: and it got stuck on the bottom two sticks, and
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I really have to climb down and deal
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: with this, like I do get so much, it's worse.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I can get it. I can get it.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: Watch me like break some back. No, I came loose, Okay,
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: I just kept trying to reset it. I got my
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: bow up there, and I'm like, well, those two sticks
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: are screwed. We'll solve that problem later because there's no choice.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: There's only one way to go. We'll cross that bridge later.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: We'll step on those sticks later. I get down, those
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: two sticks are not reachable no matter what I do.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Now there it's an eight or and a stick and
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: a stick. So I'm like probably ten feet My feet
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: are ten feet off the ground, and I'm like, okay,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: I have my linemen velt on. I'm like, I don't
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: not tether, but at my line, I'm like, this isn't
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: gonna work. I don't have like spikes on my shoes.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: I'm just gonna slide down and bash my face and
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: scrape my stomach. Like what's gonna happen here. I'm just
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: trying to think this through in this moment, and I'm like,
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: I think I gotta jump, so I position my feet
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: on my last possible stick. I unhook my tether and
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: I push back and I jump and I fall bom
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: hit the ground. It's soft because it's marshy and nasty,
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: and I I literally get up and I just started laughing.
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: Dude, you're gonna have some funny pres on that.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, See, like the hunt was pretty serious. Situation could
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: have been dire, Like it wasn't good I handled it.
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: I think the best I could have. Someone can tell
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: me otherwise. Of course I're gonna have a better answer.
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: But uh, in that moment, I was really trying to
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: take myself too seriously. Like, boy, if my wife hears this,
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: she's gonna tell me I'm grounded. Literally, I'm not allowed
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: to hunt out of trees anymore. So, uh, here we are. Yeah,
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: don't take yourself too seriously.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah great, great?
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: Uh point there just to not forget to laugh at yourself,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: because there's so many times when things go wrong, right,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: ninety nine percent of the time, things don't go the
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: way we want them to. And if you are constantly
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: berating yourself for that, if you're constantly stressing about that, uh,
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: it's it's not gonna be an enjoyable experience. You just
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: have to just chuckle like, oh, well, you know that's
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: all goes you spook a deer, the deer goes running off,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: or something else goes wrong. Man, being able to smile,
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: laugh about it and just say, oh it is what
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: it is, that is a superpower for sure.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And on the same hunt again, laughing a spike
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: pretty much pegged me out of the gate and I
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: was like, okay, well there's no chance that mature book
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: isn't going to find me. Now, I'm like the stupid
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: done for what am I even doing out here? Again?
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: Laughing at myself?
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: You know, in along those same lines, being able to
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: laugh at yourself, I think is one of the easiest
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: ways to mentally pivot and allow you to get back
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: on track. So not only will it help you enjoy
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: yourself more and enjoy the hunt more, but I actually
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: think it will make you a more effective hunter too,
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: because if you are all upset about something that went
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: wrong or how your weak of rutcation has been horrible
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: or whatever it is. If you're doing that, your head's
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: not in a good place. You're not making good decisions,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: you're not focused on what is important in that moment.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: But if you can chuckle about the stupid thing you did,
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: laugh it off, brush it off, and then you're able
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: to move on, then all of a sudden, your head
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: is clear, your decisions are good, your focus is on point.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: You are hunting, and that's that's a huge thing too,
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: just from an effective standpoint, right.
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: That's that's a giant And I'm not trying to reminate
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: too much on one here about what you just said.
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: Mark hit me, because if you've ever gotten upset or
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: even just like startled or pissed at yourself over something,
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: you can't think straight for a period of time, at
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: least I can't, or I make a good choice. Like
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: Mark just mentioned, I was in Illinois this this past
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: November hunting some public and I was taking my time,
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: really trying to do a good job scouting my way
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: in and being aware of everything real slow. And I
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: got right about where I was like starting to look
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: for trees, and I spotted a guy who was like
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: setting up his stand right, and I'm like, okay, yep,
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: and like I wasn't mad, but like I was startled,
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: and I was like, I'm going to back out of
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: here real quick, and like I just gotten a little
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: bit of a tizzy, a little bit frazzle because I
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: didn't know quite what to do. So I went back
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty yards to this opposite side of
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: this soul spot, and I just started setting up in
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: this tree and I got two sticks up, and I
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: thought to myself, why am I Why am I climbing
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: this tree? Is this because this is a good spot?
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: Or am I just like hunting here? Because it was
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: like close to the spot that I originally looked at.
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: I was like, get down and look at your map,
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: and like I got down, looked at my map, played
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: the window, and I was like I'm taking it down,
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: and I took it all down and like made a
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: better decision. But it took me like twenty minutes to
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: be able to like really think about what I was
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: doing and why I was doing it, because I was
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: just like, yeah, frazzled, and like when you get mad
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: at yourself or pissed at yourself for forgetting something or
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: doing something stupid that time, just I feel like for
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: me longer untill I can make a smart decision. So
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: as far as Effectius goes, you are absolutely.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so true.
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Commandment number two. Remember where you started? What do you
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: mean by that?
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: Okay, so this is fun because Derek, I'm gonna ask
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: you to jog your memory. What did I say to
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: you when we were hanging cell cams this past late summer?
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: Do you remember when we were under the oak tree?
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: It was a very romantic moment. I'm just kidding them.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: Nice h O.
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: Do you have any context of like what being a kid? Oh? Yeah,
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: we were climbing a tree with no climbing sticks, no nothing,
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: and climbed up the tree and we were like, dude,
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: you and you need to stand for this, and you're like, man,
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: any time I climb a tree just brings me back
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: to being a kid in like childhood. Is that where
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: you're going to?
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Yees?
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah? So I hunting is the only thing that brings
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: the child like spirit alive in me. When I grew up,
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: I spent a lot of time in the woods starting
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: fires I probably shouldn't been starting I have the fire
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: department called me a few times building forts, uh, you know,
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: just running around tracking? Do you even though I wasn't
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: hunting them? Because I was watching hunting shows at a
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: young age and just being obsessed about like the woods.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: When I go to the woods is a full grown
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: adult male, I still feel like a kid running through
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: the woods. That grounds me. Remember where you started, and
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: to me, that's like it, like that's enough to satisfy
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: my soul in any given hunting season, as frustrated as
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: I might get, or as many mistakes that might happen.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: Rooting myself and why I started and when I got
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: my started, actually hunting in the nickel A that like
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: just pristine wilderness is what really encapsulated me more than deer.
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: When I saw deer, everything beyond just being out there
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: was bonus. Seeing a deer as bonus, have an opportunity
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: a DearS bonus. Getting one was like the ultimate. But
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: bonus is a hard word to define. Everything above and
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: beyond just hunting is bonus to me. So for me,
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: like remember why I started. I started so I could
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: have these experiences, and then I you know, we talked
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: about the shared experience. So for me, that's how I
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: kind of think about it. I'll feel anything different.
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: Now, Yeah, mine is a little bit different, but extends
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: up to the nickel A. Growing up hunting in the
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: Nicola National Forest, scarce density was low and my dad
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: always would say, hey, we we saw it here today,
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: like that's a damn good day, like that we were
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: blessed today. And I still think about that every time
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: I climb out of the stand. It's like, man, I
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: got to see the deer today. To me, you like
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: that's a win. I've taken that with us, even know
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: there's way more to your down here, like man, here
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: one see one have an experience with one that is
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: a huge, huge win, and like it's not quite as
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: like down on Earth is like taking it back to
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: a kid, but man, I chalk it up to his
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: wind every single time, or if I learned something, that's
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: a huge point. So taking it back to the days
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: when just seeing what he was magical.
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: When you're pretty dense, so learning something's gonna be really hard.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: It's it's it's good to to.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: Remember those things when you're out there in the moment
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: and reset yourself. But sometimes it's hard to do, right.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: I think I'll just speak for myself when I'm going
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: out there, and for many years I was you're so
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: focused on what you need to be doing and what
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: you know and what you think you know and what
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: you think is going to happen. Next, and where they're
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: going to go and what's going to happen and where
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: you should be and YadA, YadA, YadA YadA. It's really
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: hard to see and experience a hunt the way we
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: used to when we started, simply because we just are
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: who we are now, we know what we know now,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: and we have these different goals. But there's one little
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: cheek code that I found that will take me back
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: to that that will take me back to when I started,
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: will take me back to being young.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Or to being a new hunter. And that's bringing a
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: new person.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: Hunting a good point. You see, you're seeing it through
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: fresh eyes all over again.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, taking my kids, taking a new hunter. All of
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: a sudden, you see and experience the hunt through fresh eyes.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: All the little things are exciting again. They are experiencing
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: things that are brand new and fresh and you know,
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: fascinating to them. And it's like this flip that switches
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: in you and allows you to enjoy and experience and
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: see those things all over again yourself. And so that's
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: been like a huge thing for me, and I've just
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: continued to lean into that more and more. It makes
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: it so much fun. You're sharing it all, you know,
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: We'll get to this later. But it also just makes
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: it a great experience for you for so many other
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: reasons too. But that is a great way just to
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: reset and recenter.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: I think it.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: I'll even help you on future hunts when you're not
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: with your kids or the new hunter. I think it
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: like puts this new set of glasses on you that
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: you can keep on for a while, is what I'm
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: trying to say.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Metaphorical.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: No, I agree with that. I've brought a number of
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: people into hunting, and you're spot on. It's a great
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: way to experience it.
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: The longer you keep those glasses on, the better for
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: every too, the better for yourself.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so true, all right.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: Number four a shooter buck is in the eye of
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: the beholder kind of self explanatory.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: But expand on it for me.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know if we pass on three
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: or not, which is funny because it's never passed on
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: making memories.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: You're right, we did. That's pretty funny. Talk to me
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: about number three and then we'll get to number four.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: I don't know how you are in time, but so
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: if you need to press the sun a little, but
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: I can go quicker on some of these but.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well we'll say we'll speak a little.
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: It's a it's a way to be a little bit
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: like uh contract or like it's a word I'm looking
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: for your like contradictive to in a harsh kind of way,
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: like a start contradiction to you should let them go,
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: you should let them walk, You should have passed, you
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: should have you should have passed on that one, And
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: I passed on this one. And it was just a
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: way to like really stand out there. And and then
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: once we got people's attention with that, it's then time
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: to take it a step further, which is well, no, no, no,
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: just never pass on making memories. And and the point
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: of that is like, yeah, I don't shoot whatever you
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: want to do, but don't pass on making a memory
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: right now. And if that moment got you going, if
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: that got the heart pounding, you got your pee hot,
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: whatever the saying is, then then don't pass in that
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: moment or soak it up however you want to. But
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: it's really to try to ground you. I'm like, what's
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: happening in front of you right now.
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: I think one way that I've taken that too is
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: outside of like the actual hunt is I've tried really hard. Man.
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: I I'm an only child, so I'm pretty like self
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: serving and like I you know, you tell yourself like,
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: oh man, I'm busy. I can't you know, like go
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: do this or somebody asked me to do that. But
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: I've like really tried to like never to not pass
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: on the moments where people like invite your order their
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: deer camp or like like help on a drag, like
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: those are actually the things that I enjoy absolutely the most.
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: Like if you call me and say that you shot
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: at the ear and you need help, like unless there's
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: a serious emergency, I'll be like, dude, I'm gonna be there,
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: Like I will go and help you, because I'd really
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: come to like love those moments and enjoy those. So
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: I think that's one way that I kind of took
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: that is outside of like never passing on a deer,
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: like if somebody's asking me to do something, or someone
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: needs help, or someone wants to go to the after
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: the shop, and just look like take those moments they're
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: gonna be. They're maybe like short term, you might think
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: that they're like messing your system up or they're taking
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: away from what you wanted to do by long term,
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: those are going to be huge building blocks for something
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: much greater.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: Great take Yeah, that that resonates so much. That's that's
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: that's how I interpreted that one and exactly how I feel.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: And that also can apply to a little bit of
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: what we just talked about, which is also you know,
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: if if someone new is like, hey, I'd love to
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: go hunting with you sometimes, or when my son after
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: school says, hey, can I go hunting with you today?
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: Dad?
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: And I had plans to.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Go somewhere else, deep in the you know, deep in
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: the property and do a big swing to try to
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: kill my target buck, and then instead my seven year
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: olds hey day, can I go? I'm realizing now that
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: you know, that's the kind of memory I would rather have.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: That's the kind of thing that's actually really important.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: And someday, you know, as the song says, I'll be
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: hunting by myself someday and I won't have that opportunity.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: So you got to take those chances to actually build
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: those core memories with people. The matter over just another
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: deer on the wall, which isn't always as important as
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: we sometimes make it out to be. So that's a
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: perfect transition, though to the actual next one now, which
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: is a shooter buck is in the eye of the beholder.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: Uh sorry, I skip that one.
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: Eric, That's all good. Now tell me a little more
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: somewhere in the shooter buck hat today it happens to be. Yeah, look,
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: it's different for everybody. And we talk about adult onset
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: hunters or kids or grandpa's or ourselves. It really is.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: A shooter is different to everybody. I now you hear
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: you know in every hunting show where vibe it's a shooter?
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: Is he a shooter? You have to shooter? Like means
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: it's big enough that you want to shoot it. It's
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: just relative. It's relative to you on your journey and
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: not just hunting way you're in life too. Liked someone
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: messages I think it was last year. I don't remember
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: the details, and I won't go into it now because
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to be quick. But it was like they
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: had cancer and they're like, I'm just not able to
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: hunt the way that I used to hunt now, and
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: it's sad for me. But like, you wouldn't believe what
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: a spike buck would do for me now because I'm
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: not even sure that I can go hunt versus before this. Yeah,
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: I was after you know, one hundred and sixty inch deer,
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: and like, I'm not sad that I can't do anymore.
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: I just want to have the opportunity to go hunt. So,
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: like a shooter has changed, and that's the context that
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: people are like stripping from this stuff and shaming, and
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: it's it really is in the inferior. Probably if you're
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: a full drive and then it's a shooter. It's as
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: simple as that for me.
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: I think everybody realizes that for themselves and like what
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: it's good for them, But I think what we're really
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: wanting people to realize is that context that they don't
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: have is so important for so many other people. So like,
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: just because it wasn't a shooter for you, please don't
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: arm your warrior that guy with a spike who you
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: didn't know maybe had cancer, Like this was the absol
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: my biggest triumphant he's had in a year or two.
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: Like that. That's the reminder is like the shooter buck
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: isn't for you. You didn't have to use your take
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: on it, So don't worry about what it was to them,
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: Say a good job at them on the back, and
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: move on.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so important.
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: Which I think is is naturally segueing us into number
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: five on our game you really did, which is congratulate
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: people you don't know. I think it's a great message
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: of you know, just transitioning from let's not judge people's bucks,
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: let's not judge people's decisions on how they hunt or
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: what they choose to target, and let's take it one
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: step further, which is, actually, let's be happy for other people.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Let's not be.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: Jealous, let's not demean let's not you know, crap on
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: someone for what they're trying to do. Let's actually support
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: it and celebrate with them.
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: I love that you guys include that.
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think reference right and Holiday Earlier and the
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: Wisdom Book. But I think I just looked up a
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: quote really quick because I can't remember he said it
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: for It was one of the stoics that he's like
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: talking about, But it was like, don't go out of
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: your way to make life harder for someone else. Life's
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: already hard enough by the one who lightens the load,
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: not only the one who adds to it. So like,
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: you don't know if someone's going through It's like it's
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: like the road rage stuff almost, you know, you put
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: a label on every single car driving like had a
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: midlife crisis, just had a baby, has to go to
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: the bathroom really bad. Like there's a million reasons people
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: are doing what they're doing behind the wheel, but we
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: don't treat them as humans. We treat them as an
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: inanimate object that we're really pissed at because they cut
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: us off or something, or they're driving slow or they whatever.
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: You don't know that anyone's story behind this stuff, so
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: like just say congratulations. If you have an opinion, you
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: don't always have to share it. And why go out
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: of your way to make someone else's life hard for
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: no reason at all? Like let them enjoy their moment.
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: And obviously there was in both levels like social media,
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: it's easy to say great job. That's the man that
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: the in persons where you meet someone in public who
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: just took a dear, I don't care what the deer is.
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: You have the opportunity to make that night amazing for
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: them by like hyping them up there just being like, dude, dragon,
• 54:09
  Speaker 5: like great work, you know how far was the shot?
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: Just ask them some questions and just get into it
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: with them, especially if they're by themselves. We just talked
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: about sharing the hunt is such an important part of it.
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: Sharing it with a stranger can be pretty awesome too,
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: if that stranger's nice and kind and asking, and like,
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: we have the opportunity to be that stranger every time
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: we're in the woods.
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: So like, that's such a simple, Well, who's mark, who's
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: the first person you call when you tag a deer?
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: Like maybe maybe the first one to three people, Like
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: who do you typically reach out to you right away?
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: It's gonna be my wife and kids, and then my
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: my hunting buddy group text, which is like seven hunting
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: buddies all.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: Once in the history of your hunting career. I'm willing
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: to stake not my life, but a very large sum
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: of money that none of them have ever like fired
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: back out of that first caller text, why'd you shoot
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: that one? Yeah, no chance, you're I've ever done anything
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: other than hype you up, be there with you, be excited,
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: and if anything, you're the one that's hard on yourself.
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: Well it wasn't big, And they're like that doesn't matter.
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: You know, you got one. You know, Like, how is
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: that not the reaction we should have for everybody?
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah? So true, so true. Command number six, bring a buddy.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: You talked about that. We kind of touch on that already,
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Like that's a good way to see the hunting, like
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: hunting through the lens of renewal and.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: Just and just it it brings a different level of just.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, sharing these things with people we care about
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: makes it so fun. It changes the dynamic, it changes
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: your focus. I talked about this a couple of weeks ago,
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: but on this Iowa trip that I had a couple,
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: you know, earlier in November, I shared a bunch of
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: hunts with my friends out there who were just tagging it,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: like just literally out there to sit with me, just
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: to have fun. And we sat in the blind and
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: they didn't go hunting on their own. They instead just
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: sat in the blind with me to shoot some bull,
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: shoot the bowl and you know, see what happens and
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: maybe be there for a cool encounter, maybe filming on
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: the cell phone.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: Just we have that and we just had a riot.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: One did not help my chances of killing a big deer,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: having another person in the tree, having extra sound in
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: scent and all that kind of stuff, but it made
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: it so fun. It was such a great change of
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: pace from you know, so many solo hunts when you're
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: just out there doing everything you possibly kind of kill
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: a deer, and instead doing a hunt where it's slightly
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: less serious but a whole lot of fun like that
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: is a great way just to rejuvenate yourself, refresh your season,
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: refresh the week, whatever it is. That's another cheat code
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: for just instantly changing. If you're feeling.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Down about your season, do that, and.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: I almost guarantee it things will be better after that.
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: I think that goes across the board too. It's not
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: even just hunting. Like my buddy Mike, who comments into
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: our podcast all the time, he shot a really nice
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: block up by credits, which is they don't have a
• 57:07
  Speaker 5: ton of pigture and shout the biggest deer they've ever
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: shot shout off their property thirty years seven point really nice.
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: He brought it home, it's been sitting there for a
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: few days. We called and talked about the story and
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: he's like, Dude, I'm stressing. I don't know what to
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: do with this. I kind of want like a cool
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: thing with the antlers. It's the biggest one I've ever got,
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: but I don't know what to do. And I was like, WHOA,
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: what do you like? Are you working tomorrow? And he
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: was like, WHOA, not really, like all my bosses are
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: office right before thanks getting He's like, I can take
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: the day off. I was like, I'm off, bring a
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: deer to my house. Let's process it. He's never processed
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: a deer, never cutting up. I was like, we'll do
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: your euro. We'll process it tomorrow. I got the kids home,
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: we'll all be a part of it. I come and
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: see the process. I don't know he'll ever want to
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: do it again. But he was like, dude, I respect
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: how much like work this is Because he's like this
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: is more than I thought. Yeah, And I was like, dude,
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: but do you see how like breaking down like just this,
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: like he said, due, I learned so much just taking
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: that deer apart. So like even that, like even those
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: little things like you might think might not be a
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: big thing. I did it chew up a bunch of
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: my day. Yeah, but it was so worth it, like
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: hearing ask questions and like doing it all together, and
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: my son's running the vacuum seat, learn my daughter's like
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: off take It was a great day. Yeah, So include
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: friends if you always much as you can.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, number seven, Always be learning and love the process.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: You're speaking my language.
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, you can't not be learning when you're doing
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: this stuff. It's just constant learning, and usually almost always
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: the hard way. Like I'm going to be very conscious
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: about where I set my boat when I'm climbing my
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: tree because I never want that to happen ever again.
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: And you know, as much as I am the okase hunter,
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: I really do tend to learn things the first time
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: time I make the mistake, I won't probably make that
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: mistake again. If I do, then like, oh my gosh,
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: then it's a really funny story. I'm laughing at myself.
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: But you gotta love the whole process, like like I
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: think it's Derek you said, like if you're just folks
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: on the endgame of killing a baby boy, killing by whatever,
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: like you're not you're missing kind of like the journey there.
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: So if you don't love the process and the journey,
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: the outcome isn't going to do it for either. At
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: some point it's not going to be enough. So yeah,
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: that's kind of the I think we all love it.
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: We're we're deer hunting. I will say, I think there
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: are people that hunt for the grip and grin, and
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: I think they probably don't enjoy the process as much
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: as the rest of us. And that's a little sad
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: for me. And I'm not sure that all of them
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: stay in that zone. I think some of them could
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: graduate into being true hunters, but the folks that are
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: in it for that, they're going to have a pret
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: route awakening.
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: Because deer hunting is freaking hard well, and I think
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: people can start in the right place and slip into that. Right.
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: The other direction is a good point, right.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Like, you started just loving it, and then you got
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: to a point where you felt like you had to
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: kill the big deer, or you put these pressures on yourself,
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: or you set these goals and then all of a sudden,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: it was that thing that mattered more than anything, and
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: then you started losing that. I mean, that's my story, right,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: My story was that I became so goal oriented, so
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: focused on achieving these missions or whatever it was, that
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: I started to lose the joy in the process, and
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: I was beating myself up because if I didn't reach
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: that end goal, which even the very best guys out
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: there don't nine times out of ten, right, and I
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: had to I had to learn and recenter and remember
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: that man, enjoy the little things, learn from the mistakes, right.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: I think a simple little trick is like kind of
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: back to what we talked about earlier.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: When you screw up or.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: When something goes wrong, or when the cards aren't in
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: your favor, rather than getting pissed, rather than beating yourself up,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: laugh it off, and then recognize like, all right, hey,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: I learned something. You know, there's there's a learning opportunity.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be a little bit better next time,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: or I'm not going to make that same mistake next time,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: or I'll know better a little bit next time, because
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: that's what every single one of those stupid mistakes is.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: That is actually a step towards being a little bit
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: different next time around. So that's a good thing. You
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: just learned something, You just stumbled on some new crazy
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: way to screw it up that hopefully you won't be
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: the next time. We'll really do slightly differently. And so
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: you got you got to learn to love those little
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: scrubs and learn and to love those challenges and then
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: also just learn to love the daily little bits and.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: Pieces of it, because that's what it is.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: Ninety nine percent of the time, right, the big buck
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: happens once. You know, for most people, it's once every
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: handful of years, so you better enjoy all the in between.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: So true, one last little piece out throwing their mark,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: And I guess it almost goes with some of the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: other stuff you're talking about, like they're bringing buddy, but
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: like learning that you can or sorry, yeah, figuring out
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: that you can learn from everyone and not just the
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: most seasoned of the season, and like roping those newer
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: hunters into the conversation when everyone's standing around, it's really
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: intimidating because everyone's talking about, well, they're whold did this
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 5: and blah blah blah, and they don't know what the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: hell's going on, but asking them what they said how
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: it went, because you, I mean, I learned a lot
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: from talking to newer hunters and what they were thinking
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: and what they were doing, and I think being open
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: to that, like truly being able to learn from and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: roping them in is just helpful.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Commandment number eight. If you don't have anything nice
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: to say, keep it to yourself.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we kind of tip we hit on that one
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: already too, which is good, and we were kind of
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: like makes it pretty obvious here. Yeah, I mean really, but.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: A great explicit reminder, a special in our social media
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: digital world that we all live in nowadays. Yeah, and never,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: it's never understood it. I'm just I have a a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: really hard time understanding why people are compelled to say negative,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: nasty things to other people online.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: Like, I don't get it.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: I don't either, man.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: It can't make them feel it can't. There's no way
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: that somehow it does something.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: They're going through their own thing and they there must
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: be out it's spilling over. There are people that are
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: trolls that are just funny, like they'll say things but
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: you know that there's a sense of humor to it,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: and I'll just laugh at that. Like it's always the
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: guys that are like, well, yeah, you gotta get a spotlight.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, well that's not what we do, but okay,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: it's funny. I can pick up on your humor here,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: you know. But no, the guys that just say nasty stuff,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: it's just like, gosh, I don't I don't even have
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: any stake in what you're saying anymore, because I know
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: you're in a pretty bad place.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, yeah, for sure, and then I think for
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: those people on the receiving end of it, it's it's
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: hard to do this in practice, but you just gotta
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: try to recognize what you just said, Eric, which is like,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: they're the one with the problem. If someone is saying
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: this like they're in a bad place, they're going through something,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: you know, just try to feel sorry for them and
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: not feel sorry for yourself, because that's you know, you
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: just can't let that negativity in.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: And again, very hard to do, very hard to ignore that.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: Like you said earlier, you might have a hundred congratulations
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: than one nasty comment. It's that nasty comment that sticks
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: with you. Man, Life's life's too short to dwell on.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: What's some idiot from ten states away thinks about your
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: deer or your hunt, or your goals or anything like that.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: Does he see in the movie Green Street Hooligans, Mark
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: oh Man, that's it. No, it is a classic, which
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: who's the main Elijah Wood, which you would never think
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: would be and the guy from the Sense of Anarchy,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: the British dude. Anyway, he's like he calls his best
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: friends having a problem with this new person that's entered
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: their group, and he's like, just would wouldn't let it go,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: and he goes, mate, you got a problem with me,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: it's your problem. That's like one of the best lines.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: That's a good loan.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: So commandment number nine is kind of a natural build
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: off of some of the other things we talked about,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: which was being mindful, be mindful of the hunting journey,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: and however one is different. So this is probably just
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: another way of saying hunt your own hunt, or your
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: tag your hunt, or like what you mentioned about how
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: you know that spike might have been meant the world
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: to someone, So why are we trying to impose our.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: Thoughts on it?
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: But is there anything else you would add to that?
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: As we kind of have our last thought on this
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: kind of theme.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: Now, I mean that there are stages too, Like I
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: think they're not in priority, they're not in like chronological
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: order per se. Then the stages of one hundreds, like
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: what is it tagging out shooting you're basically shooting everything
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: right and you figure, you know, I'm gonna shoot every
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: year that walks like cause I'm trying to get it
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: figured out. Then there's like what the trophy stage sportsmen,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: there's the method, and then Sportsmen was like the last one.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: So there's five of these stages. Like we talked about
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: the guy that had cancer, Like you can go backwards
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: in the stage, you can jump ahead, like it doesn't
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: happen in order. But everyone's at a different place in
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: the journey, and so typically the judgment that happens can
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: end up being that everyone's assuming that everyone's at your stage,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: like not everyone's at the the trophy stage right now
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: or the method stage. They might be at the limiting
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: out stage and you're bashing them, but they haven't realized
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: that there's four other stages that go through yet, you know,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: so just be mindful.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: Of that and the house stages, Chamber Mark, that's you're
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: a great example for this, Like anyone who's followed your
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: content for a dozen years watched you go through the
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: progression of like all the tactics and like you did
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: so much intense learning about mature Box and then your
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: goal was to set out and you have these cool
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: adventure hunts and you would do it. And now you're
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: slowly shifting years like now that you don't appreciate it
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: as much, the Mature Deer Chase. You're realizing there's other things.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: So like people are moving constantly and like what makes
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: them happy, And I think that's the best thing. You're
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: not moving, that's where guys get stuck. You get stuck
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: in the trophy stage. And also you're pissing in a
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: moving about everyone who hunts around you. Everyone's doing it wrong.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: It's good to ebb and flow within that and just
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: keep in mindful of like what maybe impacting other people's situations.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: By the way, there's no way also ready to do
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: it right either. For that matter, you're not going to
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: please the internet. You're just not going to please the internet.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: So like it well.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: And that's that's kind of exactly what I was going
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: to say, which is, don't let anybody else's stage of
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: the journey make you feel bad about where you naturally
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: are either, right, So if if you like, we can't
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: let somebody else's expectations or somebody else's success or somebody
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: else's set of goals, you know, make us feel bad
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: about the fact that actually the thing that is bringing
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: me joy right now or where I am in my
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: life is that, Yeah, I just want to I do
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: want to hold out for a big giant buck. And
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: all my friends say I'm crazy because I'm passing on
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: all these other deer, and but that's what I want
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: to do. That's where I'm at, or vice versa. Maybe
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: is hate that three pointer comes by and I'm so
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: stoked and I want to do that, But all my
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: other buddies are these big buck killers and they only
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: you know, hold out for five year olds, and I
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: better not shoot that dink because that's not what we do.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: It's it's it all kind of dials back.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: It all goes back to having your We have to
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: almost like silo this experience, like hunting. You said this, Eric,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: it's such an intimate and personal thing. It's it really
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: isn't meant to be shared at scale with all these
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: people who don't have the context. You don't know, you
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: don't have real relationships, right. It used to be this
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: is something we Yeah, we used to share this just
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: with our closest friends and family members for thousands of years.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: That's what humanity did.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: This, this core thing to being a human, this most intimate, personal,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: meaningful thing of taking another life and hunting and feeding
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: your family, this very powerful thing. All of a sudden,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: now we are removing all of that depth from the
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: experience and putting just the surface level image of it
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: to the rest of the world and letting people's reactions
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: to that surface level image metaphorically speaking, then influence why
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: we do what we do or how we feel what
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: we do. It's just not it doesn't make sense that
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: would ever work out that way.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: You know, it's.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: And I'll add on and that if you put this
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: in like the fitness realm lens, if you have a
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: guy that was three hundred pounds that worked his way
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: into being you know, peak fitness level, he's never gonna
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: judge the guy that's three hundred pounds coming into the
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: gym because he's been there. Anyone that's been there and
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: at a high level of success isn't going to judge you.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: It's the people that haven't been there that seem to
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: cast the most judgment, which I find to be interesting.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: So like typically the people that throw in the shade,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: like the guys that are respectable and have done good
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: and done well and have had success, I think by
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: and large aren't going to be the ones casting those
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: stones like they're just not You're not gonna hear Derek
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: melcoor poop pooing someone. You're gonna hear mar Kenyan poo
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: pooing someone, You're gonna hear Tony Peterson pooh pooing someone
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: unless they're like poaching or doing something unethical. They're not
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: going to come at someone for like where they're at
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: in their journey of hunting. So keep that in mind, folks.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very good point.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: The last two commandments, i'll for the sake of time,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: since I kept you guys late here tonight, we'll read
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: these two real quick here, comandm Number ten is sort
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: of something similar to what we've been circling around, which
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: is never passing up time outdoors and hunting with family
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: or friends, right, and then number eleven celebrating failure, which
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: I think goes back to our you know, laughing at
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: yourself and always be learning. But with those two things said,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: and I feel like we've done a really good job
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: now of kind of circling all around this general theme
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: of hunting your own hunt and really thinking about the
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: why and removing everybody else's thoughts and you expectations of
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: you from it. What's the last thing you would want
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: someone to hear today before they set off for this
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: last part of their hunting season. What's the final thing
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: that somebody should carry with them as they turn this
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: off and they move on to hunting the late season
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: and hopefully closing out their year with some fun with
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: some family and maybe with some more deer meat in
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: the freezer.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: I'm a pretty pretty strong believe and this whole, the
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: whole conversation tonight, everything kind of centered around doing the
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: right thing and trying to model what we would like
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: others to do to us. I'm a really big believer
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 5: in like the you know, the car mane, that you
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: get out of it what you put into it. And
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: I've had many seasons like this, and this season was
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: no different. I've been really blessed behind everything good that
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 5: happened to be this season was something good that I
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 5: got to help someone else with and whether that was
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 5: a track or drag stopping over to enjoy something everything
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: that we talked about, like, the more you really buy
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 5: into that and just try to have fun and make
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: other people's experiences fun, the more fun you're going to have,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: the more success you're going to find. Because your mindset's
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: going to be clear. Like Mark mentioned before, You're not
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 5: going to be so caught up in the anxiety of
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: which scrape line. Do I hunt tonight? What is my
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: cell camera?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: Just relax, have fun, enjoy your time doing what we do.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 5: Because it only comes once a year. That would be
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 5: my last bit.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like my cousin Jeremy said on the strade with you,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: he's like November first when it comes once a year.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: So like, soak it up, enjoy it for the right reasons.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: Don't get you down on yourself. I always seem to
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: like quotes a lot learning this about myself. Success and
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: failure aren't opposites. They're two sides of the same coin,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: but they both have the same output that like it.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: It just signifies that the results of the same thing,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: which is trying. So like if you had failure the
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: season or you had success, they're both the result of trying.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: So they're on a spectrum. They're not opposite of each other.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: So if you're failing this year, that means you tried
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: and that's a big deal, and it means you probably
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: learned a lot. If you succeeded, that means you tried
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: and you just got the different side of the coin
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: flip this year. Because it's dear honey, so have fun
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: out there. Shared the experience as much as you can,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: and don't be yourself up too hard. I know we
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: all can because you can kind of get especially in
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: social media, you just get the phoonmo hitting real hard
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: sometimes so but be ensure the moment it does happen
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: to and if if you get it done, soak it
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: up because it's not gonna happen again from maybe a
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: couple you never know.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: Well, guys, I think this is uh, this was a
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: great conversation. It's it's what I think probably a lot
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: of people need is a little bit of a reset
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: and in a reminder to really soak up these last
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: few weeks or days or or month or so of
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: the season and get back to the important stuff. So
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: I appreciate you guys taking time to help us do that.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having us. Yeah, but a pleasure, Mark, thank you.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: Before I let you go, very briefly, can you give
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: me a quick rundown of where folks can find your
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: podcast or content anything else they should know?
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: Oh just okays Hunter dot com. Okay a y E
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: s T. Hunter dot com. I'll take care everywhere you
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: need to go. I wouldn't find what you find your journey.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: See what speaks to you.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: Thank you guys, all right, and that's going to do
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: it for our show today. Thank you for tuning in,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: thanks for being with us, and please, until next time,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: have fun out there.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: Follow these rules, follow these.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: Commandments, these ideas, these steps that we can all take
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: to re discover the joy to become happier, more satisfied,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: more helpful, kind, joyful hunters to all of those around us,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: because that's what's all about. Let's enjoy this thing, Let's
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: have a great time out there. Let's end this hunting
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: season in style, and until next
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: Time, stay wired to Hunt.