Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 281: Mental Toughness and Hunting with Olympic Gold Medalist David Wise

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Ep. 281: Mental Toughness and Hunting with Olympic Gold Medalist David Wise · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number two
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  Speaker 1: hundred in eighty one, and today in the show, I'm
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  Speaker 1: joined by Olympic gold medal winning skier David Wise to
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  Speaker 1: discuss how the mental toughness, habits and training that helped
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  Speaker 1: him succeed as a professional skier also translates to hunting.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
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  Speaker 1: to you by on X, and today we've got David
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  Speaker 1: Wise joining me here shortly, and I want to have
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  Speaker 1: David on the show to help us continue this conversation
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  Speaker 1: we started last week in the last episode you might
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  Speaker 1: remember we began having this discussion around the power of
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  Speaker 1: habits and other processes in your life to help you
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: become a more effective hunter. You know. Throughout that conversation
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: me and Dan had we talked about a number of
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  Speaker 1: different ideas and systems that I've been learning about through
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  Speaker 1: various books and interviews that I've listened to in my
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: pursuit of I guess studying high achievers I'm just fascinated
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  Speaker 1: by people who have reached the highest levels of excellence
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  Speaker 1: in their various fields. I'm always curious about how the
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  Speaker 1: things you can learn from those people, how those habits,
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  Speaker 1: how those behaviors and systems, how they might all be
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  Speaker 1: applicable to hunting. You know, can we learn from, you know,
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  Speaker 1: an elite businessman or an elite athlete and take something
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  Speaker 1: from from their lessons learned and from their life and
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  Speaker 1: apply it to what we do when we're trying to be,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the best version of ourselves out in the
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  Speaker 1: woods or the fields of the mountains, wherever it might be.
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  Speaker 1: So that is this this thing that's been kind of
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  Speaker 1: percolating in my mind. And we began to explore that
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  Speaker 1: last week with some examples from my own life and
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  Speaker 1: dance too. But today I wanted to take things to
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  Speaker 1: the next level and really test that theory by actually
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  Speaker 1: talking to and learning from an elite performer in some
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  Speaker 1: other world and see if there's something that translates to
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  Speaker 1: what we're doing as hunters. And it seemed to be
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  Speaker 1: that David Wise would be the perfect guy to help
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  Speaker 1: us do this, because not only is he an elite athlete,
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  Speaker 1: you know, he's a two time Olympic gold medalist freestyle skier,
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  Speaker 1: he's a four time X Game gold medal winner. Not
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  Speaker 1: only is he doing these incredible things with his skis,
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  Speaker 1: but he is also a hunter, so he knows exactly
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  Speaker 1: how some of these things might cross over to these
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  Speaker 1: two parts of his life. So here in a minute,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to discuss with him the habits and the
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  Speaker 1: training regimens and the mental processes that have helped him
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  Speaker 1: achieve excellence as both a skier and a hunter. And
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna explore how he handles high pressure situations, how
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: he deals with failure, how he overcomes obstacles, how you know,
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  Speaker 1: how we can get better at training towards the goal,
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  Speaker 1: and all sorts of things like that that I think
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  Speaker 1: are are just fascinating as in life and generally, as
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, and then of course when we're approaching things
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  Speaker 1: as hunters, I think these topics, um, are very very helpful.
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  Speaker 1: All right with me? Now on the line is David Wise.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to show. David Hey, thanks for having man. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I really appreciate you taking the time. I know, uh,
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  Speaker 1: you're busy guy, and um, it's not it's not always
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: at the top of the to do list to hop
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: on a phone call or something, so so appreciate what
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: going to happen. I'm ever so slightly less busy right
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  Speaker 1: now because I have a broken leg, so, um, I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: certainly am taking a mandatory break, if you will, but
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: but I'm always happy to jump on it. And the
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  Speaker 1: easiest thing for me to talk about is honey, So
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  Speaker 1: I'm still well, that's I'm not happy about your injury,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm happy that at least you were able to
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  Speaker 1: have a good excuse to chat now. And and I
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: don't want to get to the broken leg too early,
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  Speaker 1: because that's something we are gonna have to touch on
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  Speaker 1: at some point, but of course, but I do want
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  Speaker 1: to to dive into a whole slew of different things because,
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  Speaker 1: as we were just talking about before we start recording,
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  Speaker 1: there's this really interesting crossover I think, UM, that we
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  Speaker 1: can apply between high achievers in different fields. Right. I
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  Speaker 1: think I'm guessing you're probably the same as I am,
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  Speaker 1: and that I'm constantly searching for ways to improve, to grow,
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  Speaker 1: to evolve, and as part of that, I'm studying other people,
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  Speaker 1: other people that have achieved excellence, other people that UM
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  Speaker 1: are at the highest pinnacle of whatever field, and I've
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  Speaker 1: been might be, and I'm always inspired by folks like that,
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  Speaker 1: and I want to learn how they did it and
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and and learn from their mistakes sometimes two and all
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: those things. So with that goal in mind, yeah, we
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  Speaker 1: we start a conversation last week on the podcast where
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  Speaker 1: my coast and I started just kind of chatting about
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  Speaker 1: the power of habits and different structures and systems within
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  Speaker 1: our lives that can help us become you know, maybe
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  Speaker 1: more efficient or effective, um, whether it be just in
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: daily life or as hunters, Like, how can we apply
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  Speaker 1: these ideas that are talked a lot in business and um,
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  Speaker 1: sports and whatever might be. There's a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: talking about these I don't want to say, like self
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  Speaker 1: improvement ideas, but if you want to really really generically
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  Speaker 1: and shallowly lump them into a category and maybe we'll
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  Speaker 1: throw it there. Um, but how do you apply some
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  Speaker 1: of that stuff too, you know, the passion in pursuit
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  Speaker 1: of hunting. So we just kind of dabbled on the surface.
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  Speaker 1: When I look at you though, as someone who is
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  Speaker 1: a professional skier, your Olympic gold medal um gold medalists,
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  Speaker 1: I guess would be the appropriate way to say, you've
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  Speaker 1: done these things, you've reached a pinnacle in that world.
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  Speaker 1: But I know you're also a hunter, and I gotta
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  Speaker 1: believe you also are chasing, um some kind of goals
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  Speaker 1: and objectives on that front. I just see and I
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  Speaker 1: gotta imagine there's a lot of cross over there. Like
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  Speaker 1: that's my theory when I thought to reach out to you,
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  Speaker 1: is like there has to be some really interesting things
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  Speaker 1: that transfer across both sides of that boarder, And that's
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  Speaker 1: what I'm hoping we can talk about. So is that
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  Speaker 1: a game plan that you're interested in? Yeah, let's go alright, good,
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  Speaker 1: So we we do need to get just a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of foundation, a little bit of you know, background
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  Speaker 1: on you. Um so in like the shortest well, maybe
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  Speaker 1: we'll maybe we'll do this. You can give me like
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  Speaker 1: a little cliff notes, like, hey, this is what I do.
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  Speaker 1: But we'll kind of cover that already in the introduction.
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  Speaker 1: But what I'm most interested in if you could look
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  Speaker 1: back on your life lie up to this point, if
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  Speaker 1: you had like a is there a specific moment or
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  Speaker 1: a circumstance or something maybe even uniquely just about you
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  Speaker 1: that led you to being where you are now as
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  Speaker 1: a professional skier and as a gold medalist, you know,
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  Speaker 1: at least on that side of your life, the skiing
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  Speaker 1: set your life. Is there something you can point to
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  Speaker 1: and say, yeah, this is why it happened. Absolutely, that's
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  Speaker 1: a that's first of all, that's a good question. I like.
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  Speaker 1: I like the out of the box questions because everybody
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  Speaker 1: wants to know about the Olympics or the Olympic village,
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  Speaker 1: or what's it like standing on the podium and hearing
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  Speaker 1: the national anthem? Those things are those things are fun
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  Speaker 1: to talk about. But um, I like your question because
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  Speaker 1: it's unique for me. Actually, I grew up wanting to
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  Speaker 1: be a professional athlete. Um, I didn't necessarily specifically want
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  Speaker 1: to be a professional skier. Skiing was just what we
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  Speaker 1: did as a family, um, you know, every weekend. And
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  Speaker 1: I was super into skiing. I'm not going to pretend
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  Speaker 1: like I was more into any other sport than I
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  Speaker 1: was into skiing. But I always just looked at it
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  Speaker 1: as I looked at life as an opportunity to be outside.
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  Speaker 1: I was like, what what things can I do? And
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  Speaker 1: how many more things can I do that get me
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  Speaker 1: out of doors? So I played football, and baseball growing up,
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  Speaker 1: and um a little bit of soccer, and sort of
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  Speaker 1: at the start of high school time, UM, it came
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  Speaker 1: down to those three sports for me, football, baseball, and soccer.
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  Speaker 1: I mean football, baseball, skiing. Soccer, football, baseball skiing where
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  Speaker 1: my three sports. So I would do skiing in the winter, um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, baseball in the spring and football in the fall.
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  Speaker 1: And UM, as I sort of entered high school, everybody
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  Speaker 1: else hit puberty and I didn't like I was just
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  Speaker 1: a late bloomer. So I went from being sort of exceptional.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I was never the best. I was never
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  Speaker 1: the most talented kid out there, but I was. I
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  Speaker 1: was mid to hot, you know, I was. I was
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  Speaker 1: dependable on on all these uh sports teams I played on.
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  Speaker 1: I went from being the dependable mid to high guy
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  Speaker 1: to the smallest, weakest kid on the team. And I
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  Speaker 1: mean it was just it was kind of it was
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  Speaker 1: almost a surprise to me because I had been I
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  Speaker 1: had sort of gotten used to maybe I had gotten
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  Speaker 1: complacent about being one of the faster kids on the team,
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  Speaker 1: being one of the stronger kids on the team because
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  Speaker 1: I was naturally, um physiologically, I was always talented. UM
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  Speaker 1: and I always had a strong build for my age.
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  Speaker 1: But then when everybody else hit puberty and got their
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  Speaker 1: man strength and I didn't, all of a sudden, I
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  Speaker 1: was getting out classed majorly. So I was the smallest
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  Speaker 1: kid on the football team. I was the smallest kid
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  Speaker 1: on the baseball team. Uh looking back on it now,
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  Speaker 1: I'm six one and I struggle to stay under a
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  Speaker 1: hundred ninety pounds. I grew eventually, I just didn't grow early.
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  Speaker 1: So that is probably the moment that really pushed me
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  Speaker 1: towards skiing. In in in the grand scheme of things,
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  Speaker 1: it's because skiing is a completely a finesse sport. It's
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  Speaker 1: an agility sport. Has nothing to do with how hard
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  Speaker 1: you can hit the other guy. Uh. So I was
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  Speaker 1: still strong for my size. I just happened to be
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  Speaker 1: size small and um so I really started focusing on
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  Speaker 1: this agility sport and and and then that's when I
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  Speaker 1: fell in love with the art of skiing. I realized,
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  Speaker 1: what's what's most beautiful to me about free skiing is
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  Speaker 1: that there's no there's no set way that you have
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: to do it. There's no structured way that is absolutely right.
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  Speaker 1: If you can do it and make it look good.
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  Speaker 1: Then the sport respects and your peers were respected. So
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  Speaker 1: I sort of fell in love with at that time
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  Speaker 1: in my life, fifteen sixteen, seventeen years old, with this
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  Speaker 1: idea of of creating art on a pair of skis
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  Speaker 1: and uh. About midway through high school, I realized I
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: can either because I had started traveling at that point
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  Speaker 1: for skiing. I realized I could either pass school and
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: get decent grades and ski, or I could past school,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: get decent grades and play football baseball. But I couldn't
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  Speaker 1: do all three. So that's when I kind of had
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: to shut it down on the football and baseball front.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I still play whenever, whenever friends of mine invite me
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: if they have a team that they want me to
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: show up and and uh play on the weekends. But
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: ever since then it's been skiing has been my my
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  Speaker 1: main goal athletically. That brings up an interesting question that
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I've kind of contemplated myself. I remember, gosh, this was
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: years ago, off speaking, It was probably right in the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: early years of the podcast. I was chatting with a
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  Speaker 1: guy who's who's a great hunter, and he had a
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: belief that you can't be great. He was talking specifically
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: about white tail hunting, but we could just apply this
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  Speaker 1: to any pursuit, any kind of activity. He said, you
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  Speaker 1: couldn't be excellent, You couldn't be you know, top one
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  Speaker 1: percent unless you gave it your all. You know, if
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: if you also like to go voting, you also would
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: go fishing, and if you also want to do this
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  Speaker 1: thing and that thing, you would never be great. You
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: would never reach the top of your potential um And
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I kind of didn't like that because even though I
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: definitely have a focus, like anyone who's listening to this
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: podcast knows that above all other things, like I really
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: spend the most time in my heart is most into
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: the white tailed world. Jeez, there's a whole lot of
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: other things I get pretty obsessed about and really excited about.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And I've fallen hard for fly fishing, and I love
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: backpacking and camping, and I love all these other things too.
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  Speaker 1: Um So I always kind of the back of my mind,
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  Speaker 1: I wondered, am I doing myself a disservice? Am I
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  Speaker 1: not going to be able to, you know, reach whatever
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: potential there might be because I'm spreading myself too thin?
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  Speaker 1: Or should shut these other things down and just stick
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: to one. What do you think about that? Can you
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: have too many passions? Or how does that look in
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  Speaker 1: your world? Yeah? I think, um that's a why I
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: have to respectfully disagree with your friend, because, um, I
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: would say that my career has been characterized by balance.
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  Speaker 1: Um where. And I do know a lot of athletes
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  Speaker 1: who focus on their being. They wake up, they eat,
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  Speaker 1: sleep and dream about their sport and their craft and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: being the best that they can be in that and
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  Speaker 1: that certainly is effective for some people. But speaking for myself,
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  Speaker 1: there was a time in my life when I did
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: look at skiing that way. When I turned eighteen, I
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: told my dad, Listen to Dad, I'm not truly a
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: professional skier unless you're not paying for anything. So I'm
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: not taking any more UH funds from you. I'm gonna
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: try to make it. I'm either going to make it
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: as a professional skier or I'm gonna quit skiing and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: go to college for one two or three years ago,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: however long this experiment lasts, I'm gonna go give this
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  Speaker 1: my hundred percent effort. So for that, at that time
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  Speaker 1: of my life, I poured my heart into day in,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: day out, every every decision that I made my litmus
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: test for it was and is this going to make
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: me a better skier? And if the answer was no,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: then I would not do it. I'd cut it out.
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  Speaker 1: And so I cut so many things out of my
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: life and man, the skills that I was able to
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: add to my repertoire of skiing, we're unmatched. I mean
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  Speaker 1: I was getting better so quickly, but um, it actually
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: kind of crippled me on the mental side because I
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: was so focused on this skiing thing and pursuing excellence
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and skiing that when it came down the competition time,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I could land ten and runs out of ten in
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: practice and crashed twice in the contest because I was
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: over pressuring myself because that was all I was. If
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: if at the end of the day you cut my
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: legs off, I was nothing because I was so caught
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: up in being just a skier. So it actually took
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: my first injury, my first major knee injury, and for me,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: it was a long process. Uh. Getting married and having
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a kid obviously changed that drastically for me, But it
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: wasn't until I found balance in my life that I
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: became a truly excellent sportsman. Until that I became a
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: truly proficient competitor because I was naturally militant. I've always
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: been naturally uh intense. I've always taken skiing seriously. I've
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  Speaker 1: always taken it. I've always seen it as a as
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: sort of a job, as a job, and it's fun.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I'm gonna do
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: everything I can to be the best at it that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I can be. But it wasn't until I found balance
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: in my life that I was able to take the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: pressure off my own shoulders and just enjoy the ride.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Because at the end of the day, if you're pressuring
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: yourself too much, it takes away from your performance. UM. So,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I I disagree with your friend and the fact that
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think you have to pour yourself into one thing. Uh.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: I also don't think that the jack of all trades
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: master of none is necessarily a good formula either. I
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: think you should have some focus in your life, but
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: it's all about finding the balance between focus and over
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: intensity or over pressuring yourself. And um. For me, bow
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: hunting has become that that balancing passion. I've noticed just
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in fascinating conversations I've had with people who excel in
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: other realms than what I do. That they that a
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: lot of them have a balancing passion. Some guys like
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to play the guitar, some guys love to fly fish. Um.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: But all these very passionate and um sort of the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: top one percent kind of people all have something else
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: that they do that they're super passionate about, but it
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: kind of takes away from that intensity so that they're
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: not over pressuring themselves when they're in their element. And
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: for me, that's been that's become bow hunting for sure.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: So where or how do then you look at hunting?
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  Speaker 1: You know, do you apply to that same militant um
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: drive move over into the hunting world and you have
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: that same behind everything you do in the in some
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: level of pressure. Or do you look at hunting as
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the exact opposite of your usual daily life and that's
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: when you unplug, you relax. This is your chance not
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: to be stressed. Oh how does that work for you? Yeah,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a tough balance for me to find
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: because I think excellence is universal. Um, Guys I know
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: who are really really good at things, they don't do
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: anything halfway. They either don't do something at all, or
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: they give their heart and soul to it. And that's
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: kind of how I am. That's how I am with
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: with hunting. I can't show up and say this is
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: my vacation. I'm just going to enjoy this and no pressure.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, what's the task we're here to do today? Oh,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: that's right, We're looking for a big old buck and
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: we're gonna try to sneak and stick an arrow in them.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: It's it's there's I can't turn that off in the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: same way, dude, you get me out on the Beer
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: League softball field and I will give it a percent.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: People like, Dave, why are you trying so hard? I'm like,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: what else? What other option do I have? I'm here,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: are like, are we trying to beat the other team?
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Where we try not to beat the other team? Because
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm here for you. And so that's definitely
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: a balance that I that I do struggle to find
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: sometimes in hunting, where I actually catch myself starting to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: over pressure myself to be successful in hunting, the same
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: way I over pressured myself as a young skier. And
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: so it's actually a good thing for me to go
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: through every year. It's almost like it's like a recurring
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: It's like a recurring nightmare. Like I get there, I
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: over pressure myself, I'm not enjoying myself, and then I
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: have to take a moment, relax, take a couple of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: deep reasts, remind myself, Okay, you're out here for a task,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: but if you're not enjoying the ride, it's pointless. Even
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: if you succeed, if you didn't manage to enjoy the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: ride along the way, the satisfaction isn't going to be there.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: So that's a good way for me to start ski
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: season because I come straight out of hunting season and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: right into ski season and I have this like clarity
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: of mind. I go into skiing and I'm like, well,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: there's no pressure. You know, the freezer is full. If
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: nothing else, the free just looking good. Yeah, that's a
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: good feeling. Um, it's funny you mentioned that that recurring nightmare.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: I go through the same thing. I don't have the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the other side of me like you do with skiing,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: but I definitely find myself every year when hunting season
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: comes around, I I'm I'm so obsessed, I'm so driven,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I'm so goal oriented that inevitably, even though every single year,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I have the same conversation with myself and and and
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: at some point during the year, I have like the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what you call it, to come to
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Jesus moment. I'm like, Okay, Mark, you gotta relax, Like
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: you said, I gotta take a deep breath. You have
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: to enjoy the process. But I always get too deep
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: into it. Um, it's it's you know, I think it's
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: part of certain people's DNA to be like that. And
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and to your point, there's there's got to be a
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: level at some point you realize that you need that balance. Um,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: it would be it would be remiss of me to
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: not though, if we're talking about balance. And this isn't
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: where I was originally gonna go with this. But you've
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: got a family, and I have a new family now.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I've got a son who's fifteen months old. I think
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: it is now fifteen or sixteen months old. Yeah, thank you.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: So that you know, the last year and a half
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: of my life has been completely different, and so I'm
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: dealing with this new challenge of being credibly driven and
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: just go, go, go, go go. And for me, it's
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the hunting and business side of things. Um, trying to
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: find a new way to balance all that and meet
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: all my obligations and be a good father and husband
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: while also still giving, you know, as much as I
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: possibly can to these things that I'm passionate about. On
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: top of that, you, I gotta believe you got that
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: to an even greater degree. How do you think about that?
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: How do you handle that? Um? This is something that
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: so many hunters, I think, deal with as well. Yeah,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I mean it's it's super challenging, especially if you look
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: at it from my wife's perspective, because here she is,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: she married a skier, and she knew what she was
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: getting into when she married. And so it's no surprise
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: when I leave in the winter. And then I started
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: getting real into this bow and this this happened, Um,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: it actually happened. I grew up as a hunter. I
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: was always I was a hunter for basically as long
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: as I can remember. But I was always kind of
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: you know, your your weekend warrior, recreational hunter. Um. But
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: after the Olympics, in my buddy Remy kind of noticed
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: that I was stressed out. He's like, Dave, you got
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: like too much on your play? Are you doing too much?
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And and ironically it was. It was all of the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: sort of success and fame and glory that came along
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: with winning a gold medal that stressed me out because
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I'm naturally an introvert, so um, I feel most at
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: peace in the wilderness by myself or with a with
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: a small core group of people. And so I was
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: getting hit up by so many people and talking to
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: so many people, and I was constantly getting lost in
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: just this like pressure of of society, pressure of being
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: a public figure now. And so Remy said, hey, Dave,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I really think that you would enjoy this archery thing.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I think it would be a cool way for you
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: to almost um meditate because you have to slow your
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: heart right down. But it's it's still like a very
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: focused it's a very focused sport, if you will. But
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: um part of the focus of it is slowing down
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and um executing and doing things, you know, establishing a pattern.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: And so Remy gave me a bow. I tried it out,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and I fell in love. And that's when I debt
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: was really deep into hunting, because like I said before,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that I was a recreational hunter. So if you look
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: at in long answer to your short question, if you
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: look at it. From my wife's perspective, She's like, she
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: looks at my season all year long skiing, and then
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: she's like, and now you've added this other extremely time
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: consuming how uh you know? Bow hunting is first of all,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: it's the hardest way to hunt, and that's why part
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: of why you and I love it so much, but
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: definitely takes up a lot of time. I'm constantly out
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: there shooting my bow. I'm constantly out there, um, scouting
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: and sending trail cameras and looking for new places to hunt,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: making contacts in different states, all this stuff, and it's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: just super time consuming. So um for me, it yeah,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: having a family and having these two super time consuming
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: passions is very challenging. UM. But it all comes down
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: to the balance thing for me where um, I feel
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: like the bow hunting balance is the skiing for me,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and the family balances both both passions. Where UM, if
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I'm honest with myself and I have that kind of
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Jesus moment, I have to remind myself that my family
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: is most important. If I put my if I ranked
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: my family first, um, then it really takes the pressure
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: off of all these other things that I do. It
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: takes a pressure off of needing to perform while and skiing.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: It takes a pressure off of needing to uh bring
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: home the biggest buck of my life every time I
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: go out it. Um it creates a balance. So as
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: long as um, my wife and I are communicating well
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and she's aware of what's coming down the pipeline, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I take enough time uh out of those other passions
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that I have to make her feel allowed to make
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: sure that the kids get enough of my time and attention,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: then it's actually a great combination. I mean, the upside
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: of being a professional skier is that I have plenty
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: of freedom in the summer my schedule even though I'm
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: still training always and I still have that militant approach
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: to improving skiing my skiing ability in the off season
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: as much as the on season. UM, I have a
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: little bit more freedom, Like I can strain it on
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the road, I can we can go for family trips,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: we can go for you random adventures. Where do you
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: want to go to day? Let's take an eight hour
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: drive to a hot spring and camp out as a
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: family and really spend quality time together. Because I am
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: gone all winter long. Uh, So I have to balance
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that time away from them with time with them. Um.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: And the same thing applies to hunting. It's not like I,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I honestly don't hunt nearly as much as I would
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: like to, but I certainly make enough time to do
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: it every year because it's good for my soul and
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: it's good for our it's good for our bellies. Um.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: For me, nutrition is a huge part of hunting and
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: one of the one of the many reasons besides how
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: much I love it that I got into bow hunting
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: was just that I had way more opportunity when it
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: came to, uh, drawing tags and being able to hunt
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: more locations and things like that. So my goal is
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: to eat no red meat that you are you know,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: limited ready, and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: no to a stake at a restaurant or a burger
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: or whatever when I'm traveling. But my goal, my my
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: season goal is always to provide for the professional athlete
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: grind almost exclusively with game meat. That's awesome. That's uh
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: something very I mean a hundred percent. Can relate to
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: several of things you talked about there. For with the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: different hobbies, Like you talked about how your wife signed
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: up for the whole skiing thing, but maybe not the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: hunting deal. Same with my wife, and that she knew
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I was obsessed with hunting, and she knew I liked
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: to fish and be outdoors and everything. But then when
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I got really heavy into fly fishing, and then when
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I recently said, hey, I really think I want to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: learn how to climb, she was like, you know what,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: we should put a time out on that for now
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: with your other twelve different obsessions and maybe maybe take
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a little time out of that. So I struggle with
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the same with the same things. But I noticed that
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: something you've done recently. I saw you took your wife
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: on her first deer hunt. I watched your your video
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: over there and why is Off the Grid series there
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: on your YouTube channel, and I thought that was very
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: cool to see how you were getting your family involved
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: in one of these passions of yours. And it's definitely
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: something I'm trying to do too. Do you foresee that,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: you know, continuing growing, developing is as part of that
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: balancing act. Yeah, thanks for tacking that up. That I was.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I was originally heading there and then I went down
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: a rabbit trail. Um. Yeah, So in terms of the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: balancing the family thing, my kids, Uh, you know, some
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: of my favorite memories, my absolute favorite memories. My dad
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: was super supportive in my ski career, my whole life.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: But if I'm honest with myself, my favorite memories with
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: him are hunting or fishing, And ironically, I'm not even
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: that in fishing anymore because we're you just mentioned the
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: lack of time thing. Um, I am a professional skier
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and I'm constantly training, so I really only have time
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to either be really into fly fishing or really into
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: bow hunting. And I choose bow hunting because it's way
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: more exciting. Um. I do love fly fishing, and any
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: time I get a chance to go out, I'll go out.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: But um, all of my favorite memories as a kid
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: come down to those times I spend in the outdoors
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: with my dad. So that's absolutely where I want my
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: family to go. That's our trajectory, and that was why
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I was. I was motivated to get my wife out there,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: and um, for me, it wasn't a pressure thing. I
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: didn't want to pressure her to be on her I
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: didn't even really want to pressure her to enjoy it,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: but I just wanted her to understand it, and so
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I mentioned that to her. I've been mentioning it to
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: her casually since we um started dating. I mean, when
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: we first started dating, she was a vegetarian, and I said, okay,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I respect that I have some moral I have some
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: moral uh stances about the food we too. What if
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I cooked you some game meat that I harvested ethically
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: and and took very good care of And she was like, okay,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: we would be willing to try that. So that's how
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: we started. That was our platform of our first of
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: our relationship, right at the start, and ever since that
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: moment when I fed her games you know, red fedter
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: some deer burgers and she enjoyed them. Um, I kind
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: of put the bugget ringer. I was like, you know,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: if you just go and get this under safety done,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: then I can put you in for a tag and
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: we can go we can go out together. It's something
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: we could do together. And I think, Um, when my
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: time started getting more and more limited and I and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: simultaneously I started hunting a little bit more, she realized,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: this is actually a good idea because he can't say
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: no to it. He can't like he has to spend
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: time with me if I give my hunting license. So
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: she did it all on her own. So one day
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I came home and she surprised me with her She
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: showed me, there, look at my hunting license. I got this. So, UM,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: in Nevada, drawing tags with her rifle is kind of tricky.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: So she actually got her hunting license. And then, UM,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: it took her a couple of years to draw a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: tag in an area that I could hunt, during the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: time of year that I could hunt. So it was
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: actually a good thing because then she developed this anticipation,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: this excitement about okay, did I draw to tag this here? Oh?
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: She finally drew one, and then you know, it was
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: like there was so much preparation that went into it. It
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: It was like a two or three year process that
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: when we got out there. UM, I think she was
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: more excited to hunt than she would have been had
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: it been easy, had you know, she just drew got
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: her hunting license and we went out and hunted. Um,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I think that the experience would have been slightly different.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: And and even even with the way that the hunt win, UM,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the first day, we didn't see a single deer, and
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: that was perfect. I was I was honestly excited. I
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: was like, this is great, this is perfect. It's not
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: like I did it on purpose, because, like I said,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I don't have the ability to be like, oh, I'm
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: just gonna take you over here so we don't see
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: any deer, Like if I'm out there to hunt, I'm
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: gonna go give up my all and try to find
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: something to shoot. Um. But we literally didn't see a
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: single deer. And so by the second day she was aunty.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: She was like, Okay, where are we going? Where? What
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: are we Like, are we gonna have more opportunities today
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: than we had yesterday? Because yetually it was kind of
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: a duck and so uh, the moment came when we
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: had we were in range of something, and um, I
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: was setting up the camera and I went to go,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: you know, check on her. I thought, you know, I'd
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: have to talk her through it. The deer was betted,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: so we had all the time in the world. And UM,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I look over and I'm like walking down to her
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to help talk her through it, and she's already got
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: safety ops, She's ready to go. I was like, Okay,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: this is this is this is for real. So um,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: that experience for her, I mean then she shot the
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: deer and cried, and I was like, oh no, I
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: might traumatized her forever, Like that's the last thing I
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: want to do. I want. I wanted this to be
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: a good, positive experience, and I was really adamant about
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: not putting fresh around her throughout the process. I was never, um,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I never. I pretty much told her right from the start,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, we're going out for a date like
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: this is a four day backpacking camping experience. We're just
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: gonna happen to have a rifle along with us, and
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: if we get a chance to shoot a deer and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: you want to great, if we get a chance to
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: shoot a deer and you don't want to totally find
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: by me too. Um. But then on once she shot
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: one and cried, I was like, oh no, Like, is
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: that the last year she's ever gonna shoot? So I waited,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I waited like an hour to ask her if she
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: want it to go again, and her her answer was
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: instantaneous yes. And so that was a really I mean,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: that was a really cool that that was probably a
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: life changing experience for me, as I was like, took
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: somebody who didn't understand hunting, didn't believe in hunting, didn't
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: know about hunting, and UM did it the right way.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Taught her how to do her the right way, and
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: she got to eat the tender alliance of a deer
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: she shot that night and now you know, cooked it
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: over the campfire. It was amazing. And that's the experience
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: that I want to have with my kids. Uh. Sorry
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: for going down another rabbit trail there, but that's what
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to with my kids because I remember
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: my first year with my dad and we really didn't
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: know what we were doing. We was out there kind
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: of bumbling around and we got lucky and we got one.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: But it was such a cool experience. So I look
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: forward to that with my kids. And both of my
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: kids are actually pretty fired up about that too. We're
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: fortunate to live outside the city and we have deer
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and bears uh sort of roaming through the neighborhood here
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: and there, so um, they're there there. Experiences with wildlife
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: are maybe a little bit more intimate than your typical
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: city kids, so it's pretty fun. That's that's incredible. That's
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: that's awesome to hear your wife has such a good experience.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to be able to do something like
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: that with my son. UM looking forward to that very
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: very much. That point, that final end result when you
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: have to pull the trigger, that is kind of the
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: top of the mountain that each one of us has
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: to climb up all season, right, each one of us
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: that hunts. You have this goal of filling some tag,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: there's some animal you're after, You're you're trying to put
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: meat in the freezer, and there's a whole lot of
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: stuff that leads up to that. And for every different
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: person there's a different level of of of time and
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: energy that goes into it. Some people just grab the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: gun of the bow on Friday and head out and
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: they hunt for the weekend and that's their season. Um.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: But then there's other people. UM, I think you're probably
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: in this category, and I certainly am where I'm thinking
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: about this almost every day of the year. I'm doing
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: things leading up to the season, during the season to
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: try to make sure I'm as prepared as I possibly
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: can be, to make sure that everything is in order
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: to make sure that you know achieving that goal is
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: is going to happen, or at least that I did
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: every single possibly thing I could to achieve that goal um,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: And when you look at a lot of folks out
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: there who who are really goal oriented or these high achievers,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: one of the things that seems to be pretty consistent.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's it's all the time, but something
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I hear about a lot is the importance of a
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: morning routine. A lot of folks within various fields talk
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: about the power of having like a good start to
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: your day, and that's something I've been trying to to
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: build into my life, and I've I've kind of wondered, like,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: is there something there that could help hunters too. Maybe
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: it's just you know, a good start to the day
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: all throughout your year is going to be helpful and
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: just like getting all these different things, or maybe that's
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: even applicable actually during the season. I'm not sure. I'm
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: just starting to kind of think about this, but I'm
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: just kind of curious, do you have any kind of
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: morning routine or any kind of way that kick starts
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you to make sure you're as effective as possible? Um,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: whether that be off season, um, in the season of hunting,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: or maybe within your skiing world. I don't know, Like,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: when I say this, where's your mind go? Yeah? I
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: think um. One of the parallels for me between UH
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: skiing and hunting has always been that UM. For me
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: on the skiing side, it's getting ready to drop into
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the half by at any big at any high level
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: of competition. Maybe it's X Games, maybe it's World Championships,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: maybe it's the Olympics. It's always the same. It's like
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I'm standing at the top, the half is empty, somebody
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: calls up on the radio, judges are ready, and the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: and the starter says, go ahead, let her buck and UM,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, all of the preparation of a year,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: or if you're talking Olympics, four years of preparation comes
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: down to one moment. And I love to talk about
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the fact that half I've run last thirty five seconds,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: So four years of preparation will come down to thirty
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: five seconds, and how well are you gonna execute in
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: those thirty five seconds? And in bow hunting it really
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: comes down to about five to ten seconds. From I mean,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: obviously there's there's the there's the physical preparation, there's the
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: hunting preparation, there's the shooting preparation. If you're talking about
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: bow hunting, you know you gotta you gotta make sure
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: your pins are dialed. You gotta make sure that your
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: broadheads are flying as straight and as and as true
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: as they possibly can. You gotta know that the arrow
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: is gonna hit behind the pin that you're using. You
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: gotta make You gotta know that your pins are are
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: You gotta know which pin is gonna hit at what
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: at which range, etcetera, etcetera. Then you gotta do There's like,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: so there's the long term preparation. There's the habitual drawback
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: anchor settle your feet, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull until
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: it goes off. There's that kind of preparation. Um. And
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: then there's the fitness aspect being fit enough to be
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: able to get out there. Uh. For me, in terms
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: of Western hunting, a lot of a lot of success
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: is based on how far in you can get or
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: how or how fast you can get there. Most of
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the time for me, it's like, oh, there's one and
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I have half an hour to get there? Can I
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: make it two miles and a half hour? And um,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: So the fitness plays it, you'd aspect into it. And
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: then there's the more acute stuff like can you stay cool, calm, collected,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: and if the wind switches while you're on your way in,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: can you make the right decision and and and take
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a little bit of extra time or possibly even move
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: faster or whatever it is. And so then you get
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: in range of this critter and then it all comes
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: down to that five seconds of draw the bow, back
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: anchor settle, level the bow, and pull till it goes off.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: You know, It's it's so that there's so much similarities
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: for me in that way. I'm constantly training, I'm constantly
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: improving my skills. Um, But it doesn't matter if I
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: landed ten runs out of ten in practice, in the
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: same way that it doesn't matter if you hit the
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: dot ten times out of ten shooting at the target
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: in camp before you went went out and blast the hillsides. Uh,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: comes down to that one arrow that you get to
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: release when you're in range. And um, that's so fascinated me.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I love that. I love the pressure. That's part of
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: what has drawn me to skiing over time. It's like
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of different aspects of skiing that
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I could could have pursued, but half five competition appealed
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: to me the most because of that pressure. In the
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: same way that bow hunting appeels to me the most
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: because of that pressure. I love. I love developing habits
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: that do encourage you to be successful in that moment.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: So um, in terms of habits, Uh, you brought up
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: a fascinating concept to about a morning ritual, and um,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I would say that that's actually twofold and one of
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the things that gets ignored potentially is actually the evening ritual.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: So um, I've done some studies with different companies that
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: I work with, and um with some of my trainers
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: with the ski team and my trainer here at home,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: and we found out that, UM, well, I mean, I
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: think this is kind of a popular topic in in
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: athletics right now. Quality of sleep is way more important
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: than quantity of sleep. And um, so I've done some
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I wore an e KG for a week and tried
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: some different habits and saw which ones. You know, it's
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: it's not about necessarily that you're that you're just asleep.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: It's about the fact that you're asleep and your heart
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: is um is settled and it's steady. When your heart
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: rate is extremely uh rhythmic and slow and steady, that's
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: when you're getting the most rest. That's when you're getting
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: the most recovery. UM. So I have both a morning
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: routine and an evening routine, and that for me is
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: is actually the greatest basically creates the greatest quality of sleep.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: And that's something that I started to apply to my
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: unting last year because, like I said, we were talking
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: about earlier in the podcast, where you get out in
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: the field and you've been waiting all year and you're
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: so excited to hunt again and you kind of get
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: off your rhythm and all of a sudden you're making
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: bad decisions. You're like, why am I mentally off today? Well,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I've been sleeping at such and such equality for the
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: last six months, and all of a sudden, I'm out here,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I'm sleeping poorly, I'm waking up at the weird times
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: as I want to get out there in glass, and
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: of course I'm mentally off my game. So I started
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: actually applying these things that I had that I had
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: learned and put in practice for skiing for hunting as well.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: And so for me, the evening routine is just something
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: that settles my heart rightdown, um. Because if you spend
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: your time right before you fall asleep, which a lot
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: of us do, and I have a tendency to fall
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: back into it as well, reading emails on your phone
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: or flipping through Instagram on your phone or staring at
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: a screen. Um, that's the last thing that your consciousness
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: reflects on, right, but for you fall asleep and it
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: inevitably plays into the quality of sleep. So before I
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: go to bed, I try to whether it's just a
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: ten minute stretching routine or maybe it's a little jog
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: around the block. I'm not trying to spike my heart rate,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: so I'm not going for a sprint or going for
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: a long run, but just something active that gets my
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: heart rate slightly elevated. And then I'll read a book
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: or something calming before I go to bed. That drastically
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: increased my quality of sleep. UM, you talked about family
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: and the balance of family. For me, one of the
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: things we discovered I did this, UM, I did this
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: e KG study. I was talking about one of the
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: things they discovered. The scientists who looked at the data
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: were like, Man, every time you skiped your family before
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you went to bed or FaceTime or whatever, you slept
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: way better. So maybe you should introduce that into your routine. UM,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: so you know, and it calls it all comes down
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: to each individual person. I'm not saying that there is
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: a formula first success in that way, but there is
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: certainly each person has their own formula, and mine happens
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: to be, um, settling myself down drastically before I go
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: to bed, and then like you said, yeah, waking up
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and doing um, not necessarily exactly the same things, but
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: having certain benchmark things that start your day out in
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: the same way, so that you you feel like, no
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: matter where you are, you have a rhythm. Uh. As humans,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: part of the reason we like dance and we like
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: music so much is because we're rhythmic beings. And so
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: if you can develop that rhythm from the start of
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: your day, your day, it will go better. And so um, yeah,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: whatever whatever happens to be, if you have to even
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: if you have to adjust your schedule at home so
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: that your schedule and when you're in the field can
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: match it a little bit better, maybe that's gonna be
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: a good thing for you in the long run. Because Yeah,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: one of the hardest things on a long hunt is
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: is finding that rhythm again, because it is it is
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: way different for me. Most of the hunting I do
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: is in late August early September, and so first light
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: in August is that like five thirty in the morning.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: I don't I'm not. I mean, I'm kind of a
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: morning person, but I don't love getting up at four
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: thirty in the morning. Like six thirty spine, but four
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: thirty man, that's his struggle. So of course it's gonna
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: throw you off the rhythms. So if you can find
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: certain things, uh, for me, it's coffee. It's like I
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: always have a hot cup of coffee or sometimes sometimes
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: if I feel like I've been drinking too much caffeine
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: lady lately, I'll do tea, just something hot to start with.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: UM and not allowing myself to just stare at my
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: phone first thing in the morning is really important. So
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: whether I'm going to read read the Good Word for
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the to start my morning or UM, or just take
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: some time to be solid, to be silent and and
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: have some solitude before the day. It's important for me
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: not to look at my computer screen or my phone
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: the first thing in the morning, because like I said,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: that just sends me up, and the same thing before
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: where I go to bed. Yeah, the nights that I
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: stare at my phone right before I fall asleep. I
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: sleep poorly. The nights that I, uh take time to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: read a book or listen to a podcast or something
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: like that, I do much better. Yeah, it's a really
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: interesting point something that I've struggled with two and um
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: it makes me think of when we talked about the
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: whole sleeping thing. Definitely thinks like in the white tail world.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: For me, it's when you have like the heat of
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: the white tail rut and you're hunting maybe seven or
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: fourteen days straight all day every day. You're waking up
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: at the you know, well before the break of dawn,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: and you're out there in the woods in a tree
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: all the way until after dark, and just it really
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: it's one of those rhythm things. It really throws you
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: off your rhythm from regular life and it's just so exhausting.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Or if you're in the Western world, you know, your
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: big seven to ten day trip out in the mountains
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: like very physically and mentally grueling. So sleep so great
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: point in the quality of sleep. That's something that I
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: that I'm not thinking about as much. I've tried to
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: get better at quantity and inconsistency. I've heard that having
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: consistent times can be helpful. Um, but you brought up coffee,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and I'm curious. This is something I've been working on
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: two specifically, when I go on these trips during the rut,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: when you're doing like for me this like two weeks
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: or three week just marathon um during November. For us
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: here in the White Tail Woods of the Midwest. For
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: many years, I was horrible when it came to how
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I ate during those days because it was like, Wow,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I'm just I'm not thinking, I don't have time to
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: really you know, think through healthy meal. So I would
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: just buy all sorts of snacks and junk food and
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I would grab something more and throw in the backpack,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: and my my meals for the day would be, you know,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: a Snickers, a bag of chips, uh ho ho, peanut butter,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: jelly sandwich, can of pepsi, and like all sorts of
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. It was just like binge eating junk
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: food for twelve hours during the day, sitting in tree
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: standar or something. And the last couple of years I've
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: noticed that's not that's not helping me. It's not helping
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: me keep you know, high energy throughout the day. Staying
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: folk us throughout the day. Um, in a whole lot
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: of ways, I'm imagining that's that's probably not a good thing.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: So I've I've started to shift. Um, whether it be
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: that kind of situation or Western trip. I gotta believe
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: that what you're eating and drinking plays a factor and
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: how effective you can be as a hunter. Um. I'm
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: guessing that's something you think about. Two. Do you have
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: any thoughts on that. I'm sure it's a big part
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: of your the other side of your life in the skiing,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: So I'm guessing where's your head on all those things? Yeah, absolutely,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: It's it's funny like we I think we all, especially
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: people who are really into hunting, uh, inevitably get really
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: into nutrition. Are not really into it, but we but
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: we have. We take an interest in nutrition. There's a
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: reason that we like to eat game meat is because
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: it's better for us. And then all of a sudden
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: we suspend that when we go out in the field,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: as if it doesn't even matter and where eating jump
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: with it. I've been guilty of the same thing. I'm like,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to take. Here's swelve Snickers ball
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and you know, like I'll just snack on those throughout
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: the day, and then I expect the same quality of
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: performance out of myself as if I had been eating
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: the same you know, high quality complex carbohydrates, HI high
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: protein diet that I normally am used to, and then
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised when I when I'm under performing, and um
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: for me at the discovery came, I mentioned my wife
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: is super supportive. She's very supportive of my skiing career,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: which she's actually uh sort of drink accoolate with me,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: and she's super supportive of both my love of bow
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: hunting and my level of archery in general. And it
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: was she was the first one who pointed out to
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: me that um, I was underperforming on the archery side,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: because I had been doing a couple of shoots archery
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: tournaments and she's like, well, what are you eating during
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: the day, And I was like, oh man, it's an
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: archery shoot. You know. We we McDonald's breakfast on the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: way there, because you've gotta be at the gotta be
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: at the range at like, you know, six thirty in
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: the morning, that we don't have time to cook a
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: nice meal for ourselves. And then she's like, Okay, what
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: do you eat during the day. Oh, well, you know,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: they got like a snack jack midway through on on
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: shot number eighteen or shot number twelve where you can
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: buy a burger. And she's like, that is not the
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: quality of food that you're used to eating, so of
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: course you're underperforming, and she just kind of like opened
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: my eyes and I was like, wow, I don't know
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: how I didn't recognize that myself. So then I started
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: making preparing myself healthy snacks throughout the day, whether it
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: was avocado in a zip block bag with lime juice
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: squirted in there so that the avocado didn't didn't spoil
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: and it also had that that little tang of lime.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I'm eating that. And then I had smoked salmon in
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: my in my archery backpack, and uh, you know, just
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: some higher quality food. And all of a sudden, my
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: performance was what I expected it to be. I wasn't
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: suddenly a professional archer. I wasn't shooting better than my practice,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: but I was at least shooting as good as my practice.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: And so that I learned that on the target archery
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: side and applied it last year to the hunting side
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: because I realized, wow, I do I hunting food. Even
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: even those back country meals, the rehydrated stuff is usually
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: not the best quality. You know, it's quantity, and we
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: all think that we need this quantity, but the reality
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: is it's it's just like sleep, Quantity doesn't really matter
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: if the quality is terrible. So even though you're fueling
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: the machine, you're not feeling the machine in the right
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: way if you're eating this jump. So um. Yeah, it
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: does take a lot more prep on the preparation side,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: but that's one of the things that you can be doing,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: uh during the off season and being getting ready for
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: There's there's all kinds of um. As I've gotten more
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and more into it, there's all kinds of information out
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: there for how to make your own back country meals
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: that are awesome, or how to prepare for um, how
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to prepare for the grind outside outside of of of
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: just you know, running to the supermarket right before your trip.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: And one of the things this is just that this
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: is a random life hack because I know guys that
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: utee your show like to like to listen not lighthecks. Um.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: I got really into cold brew coffee, uh, just because um,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: I felt like the quality was better for what it
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: just tastes the best to me if I take the
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: French press, I have just a normal French press in
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: my house and put the coffee grounds in the night
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: before and leave it in the refrigerator overnight with water
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: and let it brew overnight and then press it in
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the morning. To me, that's the best cup of coffee
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: I can drink. So I looked into, Okay, how can
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I have this out in the field, because this is
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: obviously the best. I'm not about to bring a French
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: press out into the field and do cold press coffee
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: cold brew coffee overnight, but you can dehydrate. You can
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: cold brew and dehydrate coffee down to like a shot size.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: So essentially you either um put it in the fridge
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: and let it let it evaporate off itself, or leave
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: it out in a back grde off your yourself itself,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: or you just boil it down to just the sort
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: of the dregs of the coffee and you put that
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: in shop form. You can just add it to a
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: couple of water and there you got. You got your
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: cold brew coffee first thing in the morning. So that's
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: what I did when I was sent last year. That's
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: what I like it so speaking of of life hacks
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: and things like that, and you kind of talked about
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: a couple UM activities that I think would fall within this.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: You mentioned, you know, the need to be staying fit
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: leading up to hunting, or you mentioned shooting your bow
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: leading up to the hunting season. Um. A lot of
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: these things can become a part of your life if
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: you have a thoughtful approach to him and and for
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, that thoughtful approach hopefully usually leads
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: to habits. This is something that seems to be pretty
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: darn't consistent across a lot of different fields. High achievers
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: usually have really good habits around important things in their life.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: What are those good habits for you? Um? Or how
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: or how I guess, how does this work for you
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: within your life of of skiing and or hunting um,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: whether it be creating good habits or breaking bad ones? Yeah. UM.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: I stumbled upon this concept luckily for me early on
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: in my career, where rather than just training what was
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: easy or what was comfortable for me, UM, I started
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: training what I call training the fringe, and that means
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: preparing for UM, preparing for the worst case scenario or
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: preparing for the hardest thing that you're going to do,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: rather than just preparing for the easiest thing that you're
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: gonna do. I think people have a tendency, especially when
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: it comes to hunting preparation, to um go out set
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: of targeting up flat at thirty to forty yards and
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: if they can shoot the dot uh five times in
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: a row, they feel good about it, like there there
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: it is, I'm ready. But um, anybody who has ever
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: been out in the field knows that moment when you
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: have a deer in range never feels that in You're
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: never nearly as calm as you were when you were
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: shooting at that dot. So um, there's a there. It's
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: a good practice to practice things in as hard of
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: a way as possible because and I'm not saying you should,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: um practice things that are like super challenging and then
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: try them in the field. But if you practice, if
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: you practice the ultimate extreme of what you're capable of,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: then when you have something that's less than that, it's
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: gonna seem easy. So um. For if we're talking about
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: life hacks, one of one of the things I do
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: before both season, UM, Western hunting is a little longer
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: range than white tail hunting, I think in some ways
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: because we're open country spot in stock, so, um, I
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: would like to be I like to be effective where
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: I'm willing and comfortable taking a shot out to sixty
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: sixty five yards at a deer. So if I'm said
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: telling myself, okay, I want to be effective, I want
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: to be able to hit a you know, I want
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: to be able to hit an orange ten times out
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: of ten at sixty five yards even when my heart
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: raise up. Then I have to practice at an even
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: greater range with an elevated heart rate. So I'll usually
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: practice at a hundred maybe a hundred and ten yards,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: and I'll do a wind sprint first. So what I
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: do is I take two arrows, and I shoot both arrows,
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: and then I sprint to the target and sprint back,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: so that's two yard win sprint, and then I throw
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: the arrow on almost as soon as I get back,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: so that the first shot is super super elevated heart rate,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: and then the second shot is sort of a mid
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: to high heart rate. And if I can get consistent
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: putting both of those arrows in the effective zone, uh
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: and putting them in similar spots, then I know, you know,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: if I get a shot at sixty sixty five yards,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: I can handle it, and you know, then I'll then
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: I'll practice off my knees. Or if you're a white
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: tail hunter, you should practice that extreme angles. You should
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: practice shooting basically directly under your feet, because what happens
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: if the deer is literally right below you. You know,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: practice the extremes because it's gonna make you just that
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: much more effective, uh, conversion rate, like you're I think
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: for bow hunting, the most important thing is your conversion rate.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: The reality is, if you spend enough time in the field,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get an opportunity or two or five. But
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: how often you convert that opportunity to a harvest really
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: comes down to your preparation. So when I'm preparing for skiing,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: I'm always training. When I'm in the gym, I'm training
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: essentially more strength and I'll actually need physically, like I
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: want to be stronger than I need to be. I
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: want to be more agile than I need to be
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: just to pull off my sport. And um, there's sort
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: of this attitude and skiing that I was the anomaly
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: for a long time, but now people are starting to
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: embrace the training aspect, because most people would say free
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: skiing is kind of a it's an action sport, it's
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: a it's a it's a were the rebels of the
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: of the athletic world, and so they say, oh, you
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: don't need to go to the gym to ski, you
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: just need to ski a lot. But the reality for
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: me when I just skied a lot was that my
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: muscles were only ever being trained to meet what was
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: required of them. So they only were ever being trained
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: to meet how much power I needed for a certain
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: takeoff on a certain trick, but they were never being
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: trained to exceed that. Whereas when I went to the gym,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: I could train one specific muscle in one or or
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: set of muscles in one way, and I could actually
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: be stronger than I needed to be to pull off
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: that specific trick. And it was a huge asset because
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: the reality is no run is ever that I ever
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: do in skiing is is perfect. It's just how quickly
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: can I react to those imperfections and make them look seamless.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: In the same way that no stock is ever perfect.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Something's always going to go wrong. That's what's that's what's
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: so exciting about bow hunting, you know, the wind swirls
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: and you gotta make the shot quicker than you thought
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: you were going to, or you know, you at the
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: last second you crunch leave the leaf that you didn't see,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: and the deer's all of said more alert. And those
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: things are never going to go perfect. I mean occasionally
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: they do and it's great and you're like, wow, I
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know how that went so perfect,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: but it did. But I would say most of the
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: time it doesn't. So you have to you have to
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: be prepared for those for the ways that things can
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: go wrong with the way I think, things that can
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: go different than you expected. So yeah, that's that's in
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: terms of preparation and habits um I I habitually practice
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: in harder ways than I would do than shots I
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: would take in the field. I'm never gonna take a
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: hundred ten yard shot in the field. I'm just not
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: they're gonna take a hundred yard shot in the field.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't practice at a
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: hundred yards and be able to hit a candle, you know,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: nine times out of ten or ten times out of ten.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: That's that's always a goal for me. Before bow hunting,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: season starts. Yeah, makes makes the real deal at fifty
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: or sixties so much more just just almost easy second
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: nature at that point because it's nothing compared to a
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: hundred ten. So yeah, you're able to stay calm because
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, that's just right there, I can I
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: can do this. So what about this though? What about
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: simply the act of doing the training at all? That
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: even is a challenge for some people I know, and
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: myself included. Sometimes when I I get out of the
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: habit of shooting my bow as often as I should,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: and I'm so caught up in work, and it's so
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: busy with work, work, work, working. As soon as I'm
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: done with work, that I had to be helping around
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: the house and getting dinner around and then I'm spending
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: a couple of hours of my son before he goes
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: to bed, and then it's nine o'clock and I'm tired,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: and I do one more thing and work, and then
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: it's ten o'clock and I want to read, and that's
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: your day's gone. Right. So I feel like a lot
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: of people have, in their own little way, struggle to
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: fit in these things that they know are important. Um,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: but sometimes they slip through the cracks. I'm guilty of this.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm constantly battling and trying to find ways to
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: to take something that I know I should be doing
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: and and get it into my routine so it doesn't
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: fall through those cracks. Something like shooting your bow or
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: or your gun, or physically fit whatever it might be. Like.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: Take for shooting for example, Um, how do you or
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: do you have a habit around shooting your boat or
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: do you just when you have free time you shoot it?
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Or is it something that's every day or every week
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: or some kind of routine that it's going to happen.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: How does that work for you? Yeah, I don't even
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: know if you feel I don't even know if you
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: should feel guilty about that, because life happens, man. And
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: we talked earlier about how my first priority personally is
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: my family and if if hunting ever comes between me
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: and my quality uh and the quality of my fatherhood
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: or the quality of being of my husband nous, I
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's even a word, um, then then
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I need to put it on the sideline, um, because
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: I really do think that those things are the most important.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: The relationships we have in our life are the most
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: important things that we're going to do. Of course we're
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: passionate about our howies were passionate about um our livelihoods.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, the relationships are
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: most important. So it's really easy to get out of
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: the rim. It's really easy to to let things go
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: and not do them. Um. So habits do help in
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: that in that way where um, maybe it's maybe it's
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: getting up a little bit earlier for me. That's That's
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: kind of what it comes down to, is the things
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: that I prioritize. I'm like you as soon as I'm
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: done training. So I mean a typical day of training
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: for skiing for me, it takes five to six hours,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: and then you add two to three hours of emails
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: and correspondence with my sponsors and uh stuff on top
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: of that. All of a sudden, I have a full
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: full day of work done. When that's over, I want
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: to come and come home and hang out with my family.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: I want to come hang out with my wife and
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: spend some time with the kids, maybe do something quote
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: with them or whatever. So all of a sudden, that
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: time that I could have spent shooting my bow or
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: going for a run to get fit and ready to
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: hammer the hills looking for elk goes away. So UM,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: if I want those things, I have to get up
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: a little earlier and do it, and just do them
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: first thing. So UM, when when our three season starts
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: getting closer, if I start to feel aunty like I
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: haven't shot enough late, I'll get up early into or
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: I'll get up early and go for a run and
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: then I'll shoot twenty arrows and when I get back
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: from the run or something like that. So those habits
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: are certainly helpful. But another life hack for you and
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: for for anyone listening. UM. One of the most underrated
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: skills is the power to visualize. Um. It's certainly a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: buzzword nowadays and people are getting more and more into it.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: But UM, one of the things that I do in
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: my sport is I was talking earlier about training the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: fringe or preparing for worst case scenario. I spend a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: lot of time visualizing the worst case scenario. So that
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: goes from everything to poor conditions in the half pipe.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a blizzard, Maybe it's you know, thirty mile
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: an hour across wind. Maybe the pipe is poorly cut,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: so I have to pop extra horror to try to
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: stay in the pipe without landing on top of the
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: landing on the coping or whatever it is. I'll train.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: I'll visualize myself executing in those difficult circumstances, so that
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: if that happens in my life, I feel like I've
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: been there. And that's something that I've applied to my
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: hunting life as well, where I'll visualize certain things. I mean,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: I'm obsessed. I think you can hear it in my voice,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: but I talked about it. I'm obsessed with honey. So
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: I've watched a lot of videos and I've seen what
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: other dudes have done wrong and how things went wrong.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: So whenever I watch another video, whether it's you or Steve,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: or it's Rammy Warren or somebody I look up to
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: and I watched them blow it, I take note of
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: that almost more than the times that they're successful, because
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, they blew that or that opportunity went
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: south for a certain reason. Then I'll actually take that
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: into my repertoire of things I visualized, and I visualized
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: how I could have how they could have been more effective,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: and I'll visualize doing that, executing that more effectively and UM.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: So then if happens to me, I feel like I've
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: been there. UM. And in the same way for skiing,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I'll i'll actually visualize crashing, and I don't do it
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: a lot. I visualize landing. I would say, I have
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: to certainly visualize landing just as much as I have
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: to visualize crashing. But the reality is, at some point
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: I'm going to make a mistake, and so I have
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: to visualize what I do once I've made that mistake
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: just as much as I do. I have to have
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: to visualize what I do when when I haven't made
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: a mistake, you know, like the perfect takeoff, perfect landing
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: is what I'm shooting for. But what about a bad takeoff?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Can I still fix that? Or maybe I am going
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: to land on the deck and you know it's either
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: going to be a catastrophic injury, or if I stay cool,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: calm and collect and UM sort of mitigate the force
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: of impact and spread it out between multiple body parts
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: rather than just one, I might actually not get injured,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: and another person who hadn't been prepared for that situation
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: would have. So that's another thing that you can prepare for. UH.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Visualization wise, UM is looking at Okay, what could go wrong?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: What would I do? What would I do in a
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: perfect world? Uh? Steve talks a lot. Steve Bornella talks
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: a lot about when how there's no way to train.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: You always say there's no way to train for that
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: moment when you get to make the shot, and I disagree.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: I think that you can prepare for it. You can
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: see it in your head a thousand times. I'm not
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: saying it's perfect, but it's better than not doing. If
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: you visualize that moment over and over and over again,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: then when it actually happens, it feels like you've already
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: been there and you your chances of executing well are
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: way higher. I mean, I didn't execute my first shot
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: at a deer well. My second shot certainly went a
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: lot better than my first, and that that was an
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: experience thing. But the power of visualization is that you
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: can develop this familiarity with something that you do. I
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: was about to ask, you actually do it when you
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: do that visual visual excuse me visualization, because for me,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: I think this is such a great point to bring up.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: I do this exact thing and I don't even know
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: if I've talked about it before, but I do think
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: it helps so much when I get and so when
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: I'm on a white tail hunt, I climb up into
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: the tree and in my tree stand, I get my
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: bow hung up, all my stuff settled. Usually one of
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: the first things I do once I'm set is I
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: grabbed my bow and I visualize exactly what each different
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: possible scenario might be. So I literally think about seeing
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: a deer emerged from this patch of brush and he's
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: walking this way, and I think, Okay, where am I
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: gonna look at the shot? And I picked the shooting lane,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: and in my head I'm envisioning him walking into it.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Then I draw my boat or kind of fake drow
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: my bow without actually pulling it back. But I make
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: sure that I can go through that physical motion. I
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: think through the whole thing, and I try to do
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: that in each different possible shooting lane or or section
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: of the tree where I might possibly have that shot.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: And just going through that in my mind, playing out
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: those scenarios, both physically and mentally, I think makes a huge,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: huge difference. I really do think it in some small
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: way better prepares you for that moment um. So is
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: that the main time when you're visualizing things in relation
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: to hunting, or are there other times within your training,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: within the months or weeks leading up to things when
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: you do this kind of worst case scenario um thinking through, Yeah,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: the only the reality is the only person who knows
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: that you're doing this or are really benefits from this
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: is you. So I mean, you can do it. You
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: can do it as much or as little as you want.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: I personally am a proponent for doing it a lot
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: because I really do believe and I believe it works. Um.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: But that's a great example most especially if you're in
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: a white tail or not just white tail, but if
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: you're in a tree stand hunting or a tree saddle
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: hunting environment. Um, Once you're out there and you're set up,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: you still have a lot of time. You know, things
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: don't happen right away. They almost never do, So you
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: have a lot of time that rather than sitting there
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: and reading a book on your phone or flipping through
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Facebook waiting for something to come in, you could be
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: preparing yourself for whatever situation you could have in that
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: location right in front of you and the world. You know,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be kicking yourself if something comes in from
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: a direction you didn't expect and you don't know what
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: to do when it does. So I think that's a
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: perfect time to apply this visualization thing. Is, once you
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: get up in your tree and you're settled, look at
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: every single shooting lane you could possibly have, even look
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: at the weird ones, look at the ones that I
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: would be totally unexpected. Yeah. Sure, you you understand the
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: patterns of deer. You know exactly where you think they're
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: going to come in from. But the reality is, dear autonomous,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: they they sometimes do whatever the heck they want to do,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: and then it's a totally different from what you expected.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: So plan, plan for anything and everything. And then if
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: you've if you've seen those experiences a couple of times
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: over in your head, then when it actually happens, like
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: I said, it will actually help you stay cool, cool, calm,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: and collect more than if you had just waited and
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: and trusted yourself. I know I'll have this when it happens.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: And then how many times after the fact you're like, well,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: I wasn't ready for that to happen. Um, So I
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: visualize a lot while I'm practicing, because first of all,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: you know, I like to make practicing fun. In the
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: same way that when I'm at the gym training for skiing,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: I try to make that fun as and enjoyable as
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: well as effective. So my trainer Max and I we
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: do a lot of stuff that's balanced oriented or eyes closed,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: one legged or um. He likes to create super balanced,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: challenging surfaces because he knows that skiing, I'm constantly skiing
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: on an unstable surface. So he'll literally put soap. He'll
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: put like a slippery block with soap under it and
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: tell me to land on it without falling, without the
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: things slipping off from under me, or on a balance
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: board or things like that. So I'm constantly challenging myself
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: in a balance oriented way, wow strengthening, and that makes
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: it fun, It makes it interesting, It makes it it's
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: something that I, uh, I can get excited about even
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: though I'm just essentially in the gym grinding again, you know,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: it takes the drudgery out of it. So that's what
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: I do when I'm practicing shooting, as well as I
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: put myself in the most exciting scenario as I can.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's actually a really powerful
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: tool to be able to use your imagination and be
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: like Okay, I'm on this location. Can I imagine this
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: being a hunting like scenario? Okay, maybe I would shoot
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: off my knee, maybe I shoot off my butt. Uh,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: perfect example. UM, I have never hunted antelope with the
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: boat before, or I had never hunted the handlop with
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: the boat before. Um, but somebody casually mentioned that they
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: had shot off of their butt, and UM, I was like, really,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: in what situation would I ever shoot off my butt?
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: For a Western hunter, that's unheard of. Sure, shoot off
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: your knee, you know, shoot leaning back, you know, shoot
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: on unstable surfaces. But like, in my mind, I could
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: never picture a situation where I would be sitting on
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: my butt shooting a bow. But because this guy's mentioned that,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I'm gonna try that. So
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: I literally sat down on the ground flat like you know,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Indian style, with my legs splaid out, and practice shooting.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: And my first couple of shots were awful, but I
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: got to the point where I could still get my
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: bow level and steady and shoot decently well. UM, So
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: then I drew a teg. I drew an antelope tag
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: into the sixteen and went out and hunted it, and UM, Actually,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: this is one of the episodes I'm gonna be releasing
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: on the Wise Off the Grid channel on YouTube soon,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: so you guys can go do a little flashback and
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: watch this after having listened to this. Um And I
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: was a little underprepared. I had had a busy summer,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: so I had a couple of spots set up. But
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I went in and checked those spots and there was nothing.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: So I was like, okay, I'm gonna have to go
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: find this. I had a couple more options. I had
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: done enough preparation that I knew I could go elsewhere,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: but I didn't have a blind set up on these
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: other locations. So um, I went in to check this
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: new location. Uh. And I was looking, I was like, okay,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: actually this is a great spot. There's playing an antelope
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: sign here. I hadn't had a camera on there, so
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't know if there had been anything coming in
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: coming and going. But I could tell they had been
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: antelope there just because of the tracks. So I was like, man,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: I'm this might be my spot. I'm gonna set up
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: a blind right here. And I was kind of like
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: crawling through the brush seeing where I might be able
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: to set up the camera, etcetera, etcetera. This is a
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: solo and I was completely alone, and I look up
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: and here's an antelope coming in. While I'm setting the
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: blind up. I'm like building a blind and there's an
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: antelope coming in, and I'm like, oh crap. Obviously I'm
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: not in the blind. There isn't one. So what do
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: I do now? So I just tucked in to the bushes.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: I actually had to crawl back, you know, thirty or
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: forty yards uphill to get my bow, which is a
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: terrible mistake. Obviously, you don't do that if it's if
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: it's hunting season and the season is open, you should
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: always have your weapons somewhere nearby, because you never know
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: what's gonna happen. Rookie mistake. Crawled up to crawl up
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: through the bushes, got my bow, crawled back down to
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: where I had been planning to set up my blind,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: and I go to draw. I go to pop up
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: and draw my bow back, and I realized I'm gonna
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: be way too exposed if I shoot from my knees.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: So I sat down on my butt, drew the bow back,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: and shot the sandal. And if I had never practiced that,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: but shot. I just did it. I did it on
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: a whim. It was a complete whim. But if I
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: had never practiced that, I wouldn't have been able to
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: I would have probably wouldn't been able to capitalize on
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: that opportunity. So, um, you know, just random things like that.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: You know, just practice anything and everything, and and visualize
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: while you're practicing because it makes it more interesting. And then,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: like I said, once you get out in field, um,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: every terrain is different. Every every time I draw a
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: new tag or hunt a new location, I'm like, oh man,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: this terrain. You know, maybe I'm hunting aspen used to
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: hunting aspen forests or aspen groves or juniper forest or whatever,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm in like a full on pine forest. That's
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: obviously different terrain. Uh. So then you then you have
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: to go through the different options in your head. Okay,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: what would it be like to encounter a deer here?
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: And how would I act? And how would I shoot?
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: Things like that. Just think through those things ahead of
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: time so that when you do get the opportunity, you're ready.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else you do to train mentally, whether
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: it be skiing and or hunting. I think I think
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: the mental side of things, any kind of high pressure
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: UM situation. It could be athletics, it could be hunting,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: anything that takes a lot of work that leads up
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: to a single moment. There's a lot of mental stuff
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: going on. There was sometimes gloss over. We like to
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: talk about the the weight training, or we like to
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: talk about all the work you're doing in the field
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: to prepare for a deer hunting season order you know,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: hike in fifteen miles and get in the back country.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of time to spend about what's happening
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: between the years other than visualization, like we just discussed.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: Are there any other things that you do to train
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: that muscle, whether it be to handle the moment of
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: truth or anything else. Yeah. Um, And that's one of
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: the things there's no formula for. And a part of
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: probably why that gets ignored is because that is the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: hardest thing to quantify. That's the hardest thing to teach
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: people is how to be mentally strong mental toughness, uh,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: the ability to execute under pressure. There is no easy
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: way to do that, as part of it comes from experience, um,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: but certainly you can do certain things to to prepare
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: for it. And one of the most important things for
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: me is sort of getting my heart right. It's uh
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: reminding myself that no matter what happens at the end
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: of the day, this isn't the most important thing I'm
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: ever going to do in my life, you know, um,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: whether I'm competing in the Olympics or I'm drawing back
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: on the biggest buck I've ever seen, even if I
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: messed that up. You know, in pyeong Chang last year,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: I had I crashed on my first two runs. My
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: ski came off on both of my first two out
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: of three runs, and people ask me, how did you
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: manage after all that adversity, how did you manage to
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: land that third run? And part of it was because
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: I wasn't defining success on if I landed that run
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: or not. I already knew that I was successful and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: blessed and fortunate to be alive, and I was just
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: gonna go out there and enjoy it. So that's where
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: my for my mental fortitude in that moment came from,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: was just that I didn't I didn't. It's not that
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to land that run, but I knew
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: I wasn't saying if I don't land this run. It's
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: the worst thing in the world, and I think that
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: that's something that can certainly help people keep their heart
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: rate lower, feel less stressed in the moment. Is no
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: matter what opportunity you have in front of you, remember
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: the long game. This, even though it seems like it's
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: the only opportunity you're ever gonna have, you are going
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: to have another opportunity. So take a deep breath, stay calm,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: be cool, execute the shot in the same way that
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: you always do, and um, take that pressure off yourself.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: That's that's I mean, like I said, there's no real
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: way to to train people to be mentally tough other
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: than putting them through situations over and over and over again.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: But obviously you know not already has time to sit
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: down with a mental mental coach and do that. So UM,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: I think the visualization thing is huge, um, as well
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: as just sort of taking stop. One of the other
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: things I was thinking about as we as you're talking
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: through that though, is is right there, There's only so
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: much you can do to train yourself for those moments,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: you know, going through it, getting you know, getting your
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: head right, in your attitude right about what's really at
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: stake here. But I'm curious if there are any physical
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: because because as I've been studying habits, some of the
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: things that I've been reading about how you establish a
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: good habit is having a queue. The first thing is
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: there's that queue, there's something that triggers the habit. And
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: I wonder if this applies to things like shooting your
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: bow or dropping into the half pipe. Do you have
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: a queue or a trigger that you consistently apply right
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: before that moment to make sure that the next few
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: seconds go as right as I possibly can so you
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: can execute on that game plan. Um. What does that
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: look like for you that a couple of moments before
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: you get into it? Yep, Um, yeah, I always have.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: I stumbled upon this somewhere along the way. Um. I
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: always have a man truck for the year that I
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: write on my sleeve. And so right before I drop in,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: you know, whether it's a local competition or to the
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: first competition of the year or the last competition of
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: the year, I try to remind myself to look down,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: read to sleep, uh, and apply whatever is written there
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: to what I'm about to do. The first one I
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: ever came across was embraced the opportunity UM, and I
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: would just read that to remind myself that, UM, what
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: the judges thought of me, what my competitors were doing,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: what everyone else thought of me, none of that really
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: added to how well I was going to ski. In
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: that moment. All I needed to focus on was the
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: fact that I had an opportunity to go do what
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: I felt like I was made to do and enjoy it.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: So I would look down, remind myself to embrace the opportunity,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: and then I would go ski uh this this past
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: one UH for peeong Chang and all of the two
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: thousand eighteen season, I wrote you cannot fail because it's
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: not your victory, And that for me was a reminder
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: to myself that, UM, no amount of success in terms
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: of gold medals or anything else was gonna make me
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: anymore content or happy. I had already achieved those things
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: and found out that none of those things actually really
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: added to my happiness as much as UM quality time
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: with my family or seeing my kids go through milestones
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: of their own. So I was just reminding myself, that's right,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: this is just an opportunity, and even in failure, you
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: can still be a shining example of of of a
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: human being so, Um, you cannot fail. Literally, you can't
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: fail because even if you crash, that might be exactly
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: what somebody out there who's watching needed to see, and
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: you can smile about it, and them seeing you crash
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: and then smile about it might be just the ammunition
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: they needed to get over something in their life. Um.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: So that's where I was going earlier when I fully
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: brain farted. Was that. Um, In my opinion, my personal opinion,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: you really can't fail. All we have is a long
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: list of obstacles and things to overcome, and each one
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: that you overcome, each one, each thing that you survive,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: becomes part of your quiver, you know. And um, So
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: obviously as a bow hunter, I'm trying to and I'm
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: trying to set myself up for as much success as
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: I possibly can. But rather than being bitter or frustrated
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: when something goes wrong, just take stock of what went
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: wrong and add that to your add that to your
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: your quiver. Say Okay, this happened that time and I
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: reacted this way and that didn't work out. So next time,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: this is how I would This is how I would
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: do things differently. And instead of taking a reactive approach
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: to life. You end up starting to take more of
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: a proactive approach to life, because I think a lot
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: of people are reactive and and the easiest way to
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: add to UM react to hard times this bitterness. Right,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: if you have something, you know, maybe you got laid
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: off from work, or you were in an accident that
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: was somebody else's fault, or you had something unfair happened
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: to you, the easiest thing to do is be bitter
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: about it because you're like, this is not fair. We
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: all have this like sense of justice that and when
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: things go don't go our way, our sense of justice
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: is UM is offended at that. And I've just realized
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: that things things aren't always going to be just, things
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: aren't always gonna be fair. So rather than getting caught
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: up in the bitterness of it, I just embraced it.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, this this situation may in fact, I'm
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: not going to pretend it doesn't suck, but while it's sucking,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try to learn something from it and
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: use that moving forward. Yeah, man, that there are there
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: are a few things in life that are more i
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: don't know, more universal than that. I'm whether it's skiing
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: or hunting, or work or family, like, there are going
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: to be challenges, They're going to be significant bumps on
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: the road. And I've always tried to take an approach
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: similar to what you just describe there. It's like, what
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: if you just look at things from a very practical
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: standpoint and you have something that just happened, and what
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: possible good can like that, you can't change what happened.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: It's water under the bridge, So you can either choose
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: to be negative about it, and you can you can
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: dwell on it, and you can cry woe is me,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: and you can get cranky and want to give up
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: and all these things. And maybe that's the the thing
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: that you're body and your motions you know, instinctively instinctively
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: want to do right. That's like the easy thing that
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: feels kind of good in the moment to be piste
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: or to get upset. But but what in a practical
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: sense of the of the thing, what does that achieve?
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: Like if your goal is if you still have a
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: goal out there, how is that going to help you
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: take the next step towards it? And so I've always
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: tried to really quick really move on from whatever it's
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: gone bad, Like what's next? Like, Okay, this thing happened,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: understand Like it's a like for whatever reason, it's like
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: a counting term always stuck with me. It's a sunk cost.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Like it's a thing that happened. That's the reality. How
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: do you move on from that? How do you what's
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: the next thing? There's no point in dwelling on further. Um.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: It's so applicable in the hunting world. I mean, so
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: many things go wrong. You you screw up a stock,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: or you you've been in a tree stand for fourteen
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: days straight and you sat there for twelve hours every
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: day and you've froze your butt off, and then you
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: can see the buck of your life and you miss
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: the shot um or or or even worse, you you
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: hit a deer and you can't find it and you
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: wounded it and used to live with that. Um. I
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: mean those are There's so many possible low points where
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: you go from the highest highest to the lowest of
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: lows and it can just send you into a tailspin. Um. Yeah,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: I mean I feel like this is one of those
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: things that is not discussed enough in the hunting world,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: like how to deal with those mental challenges throughout, whether
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: it be failing or whether it being something that's thrown
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: in your way. Um, and you describe a couple, you describe,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: you know, crashing on in the Olympics, right, you've got
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: some incredible opportunity and you and you bifoit to the
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: first two runs. Or I know, just recently you broke
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: your femur right, and that's got to be just an
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: unbelievably demoralizing, challenging thing too, that's completely thrown your plans
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: out of whack. That's not just physically damaging, but I'm
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: sure mentally challenging. To Um, what are things that you've
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: And you've described a couple here, but I'm curious if
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: there's other things you've done too to to build up
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: your defenses to deal with this inevitable challenge that's gonna come. Right,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: we know something's gonna happen. The only thing I can
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: guarantee everybody listening is that you're gonna have some kind
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: of thing like this pop up in your life or
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: your next hunting season. Are there any other things that
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: you do to to mentally armor yourself heading into the future,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: heading into a hunting season, or any other things that
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: you do to help deal with this kind of a
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: net will obstacles and challenges that that hit us every year,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: every week in some kind of way or type. Yeah,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: I think you brought up a good point. It's not
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: a it's not a question of if adversity is going
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: to strike. It's just a question of when. And Um,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: sometimes when you're riding the high point, you get used
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: to it and you learn to expect it. You're like, man,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: things have been good so long, They're going to continue
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: to be good forever. And so the preparation in terms
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: of preparing for hardship is just as important in the
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: good times as it is in the bad times. Um.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: You know, basically coming off of uh winning the Olympics
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: and sociate in two thousand and fourteen, UM, I had
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: been riding away. It started with the started with the
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: X Games in two thousand eleven to let's yet or
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve. Yeah, won the X Games two
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: thousand twelve, thirteen fourteen, right into my first and right
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: into the sports first Olympics, and I was the guy
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: fortunate enough to bring home the gold medal. So I
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: was riding a high and all of a sudden, I
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: went from the highest time of my life to some
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: of the lowest times of my life. UM My wife's
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: dad died, my sister lost her leg. We were just
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: surrounded by deaths in the family and deaths among friends,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: and it was just a really heavy time, really difficult time.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: And um, I realized that I can't expect things to
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: to continue to going good in the same way that
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: you can't expect things to continue going bad. You have
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: to have during the hard times, you have to have optimism,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: but during the good times you also have to have
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: a certain amount of reservation. You have you have to
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: appreciate them for where what they are, you know, but
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: you also have to realize, Okay, these this is good,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: this is this is as good as things can go.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: And I can't learn to expect this or else I'm
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: certainly going to be distraught when they start going poorly. Um. Ironically,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: while I was having three of the least successful seasons
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: of my career in skiing, I was having the best
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: years of my life as a hunter. Uh you know.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: I I got into this bow hunting thing and was
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: immediately successful. Um. You know, in a in a period
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: of three years, I think I uh filled every single
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: tag that I purchased. I was like, you know, I
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: drew drew an about a deer tag filled it, and
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: then I was like, well, that's fun. Maybe I'll go
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: buy over the counter tag filled that one. And then
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: I bought a nelk tag filled that one, and it
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: was just like, man, I could everything I touched in
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: the hunting in terms of hunting turned to gold. So
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: I was struggling on the skiing side and being successful
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: on the hunting side, and then last year was almost
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: a flip flop. I went from you know, I had
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: an amazingly successful year in skiing and a really very
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: a really difficult year hunting. UM still was able to
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: manage to semi filled the freezer, so it wasn't all bad, UM,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: but it was definitely challenging. So yeah, preparing for those
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: those rough times, UM, reminding yourself what is important. I
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: talked about balance earlier, where UM, I think it's really
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: important to have things that balance you h and make
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: you can that that that you can be content with
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: outside of the things that you're passionate about. So UM,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: I got into writing when I had one of my
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: first injuries, my first knee injury, and I realized, okay,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: if I ever have a career ending injury, there's something
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: that I can do that still occupies occupies my entire
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: mind and soul that's not skiing. So that takes a
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: little bit of pressure off. So when I have a
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: crash and skiing, or have a situation like I'm in
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: right now sitting here with my leg up because I
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: was broken femur um, I have something else to pour
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: who I am into and or I think we were made.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: I believe we were created, uh to create like we were.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: We were created by God, to do things with our lives,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: to do to to make new things or make new
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: pass or um the innovators in some in one way
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: or another. And so having having those balancing aspects of
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: your life, I think it is a huge tool to
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: h to weathering those hard times. Like you said, in
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: hunting especially, it's having enough grit to get through the
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: hard times and still make the shot when things turn around.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: Is the hardest. It's the hardest aspect of hunting. Um.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: Like you said, sitting in a tree stand twelve hours
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: a day for ten days in a row and still
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: making that shot out after sitting there for eleven hours,
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: freezing your ass off is hard? Is it really hard?
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: But um, if you can find your way outside of
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: making that shot, um, I think it will really add
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: to your ability to make that shot. If you're like, Okay,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: I'm here, this is an opportunity, I'm I'm I'm here
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: because I love the art of bow hunting, and if
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: I get an opportunity, I'm sure as hell going to
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: make the most of it. But if I don't get
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: an opportunity, this time was still well spent. This time
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: was still worth it to me. If you can find
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: that place, uh, I think that'll be a huge asset
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: to move forward. Like I said, these are all just
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: my opinions, so you know, take it really Yeah, And
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: we've we've covered some really interesting things here. I I'm
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: realizing now that I had about seven hours worth of
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: things I would have liked to talk to you about it.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: It's my fault. I've been long winded. Ah my, No,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: I'm loving the tendency to rabbit trail. That's that's the
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: kind of conversation i'd like. Um. So we kind of
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: talked about a lot of things on the mental side,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: being mentally tough, how to visualize, how to move on
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: from failures, how to prepare your self both both physically
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: and mentally, how to balance things, how to develop good habits.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: A lot of ground has been covered. Um, But but
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: you're a person that I that I think and I'm
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming that you are surrounded by a lot of
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: by virtual simply of of what you do professionally and
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: maybe otherwise to just the types of people that you're
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: interested in surrounding yourself with. I envisioned that you are
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: with a lot of these these elite performers in whatever
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: might be, whether it be business, sports, whatever, And and
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: that might be a tip right there, which is I've
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: always heard that you know, you are the sum of
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: the five people you spend the most time with. I'm
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: curious maybe that's partially true for you if you try
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: to surround yourself with people that that that forced you
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: to grow and involve and become a better version of yourself.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: But put them the backburner, because my my main question is,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: of all these people you're around, what's one more trait
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: or quality or or habit or process or anything. What's
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: one more life half or something that you see consistently
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: across those high achievers, those people that have have figured
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: it out. Those people have done the very best they
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: can possibly do in their space. Is there anything that
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: you see consistently or that stands out to you as
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: admirable or important that that we should leave this conversation with, UM, Yeah,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: maybe you always You always answer questions with a bias,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: So of course I'm gonna answer this question with a bias.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: But one of the things that I noticed about high
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: performance more than anything else is their ability to um B.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say easy going because I don't
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: want it to be I don't want to sound like
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, there's no big deal that it doesn't
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. But one thing I noticed about really
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: affected people is that no matter how hard things get,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: they react the same way. They are consistent across the board,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: whether it's things are going exactly right where things are
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: going exactly wrong. They execute their tasks in the same
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: way with the same mentality. And maybe that comes down
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: to have it. Maybe that comes down to programming or
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: ritual or whatever it is. But I've noticed that, um
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: they don't freak out and worry or anxiety. I think
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: have has a tendency. First of all, it's a natural
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: it's it's a natural reaction to difficult circumstances, like, man,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: this is hard, I don't know what's gonna happen. And
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: you get uncertain and then you start, your heart rate
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: goes up, you get stressed out, and all of a sudden,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: your actions are not optimal. They're they're not as good
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: as they would have been if you had stayed cool commonplex.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: That's one thing I noticed about really affective people is
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: that they h they're really task oriented. So rather than
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: rather than stare at the problem so that arises, they
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: stare at the task that they have to do to
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: come to combat that problem. Whatever the situation is, whether
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: you know your business is tanking or um, you're failing
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: on the stock of a lifetime um. Rather than saying, oh,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: the stock is falling apart, the deer is blah blah blah,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: say where am I in this space and what can
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: I do next? And just really focusing on the next step,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: saying in the moment, because it's really easy to live
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: your life. Uh. And it's either it's it's easy to
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: live your life either in the future or in the past. Uh.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: And you can spend too much time beating yourself up
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: for your past mistakes, or you can spend too much
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: time dreaming about the future and fantasizing and saying, oh, man,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: when I get in on that deer, this stock, when
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: this stock goes perfectly and I get it on that
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: deer and I shoot it, that's gonna be the biggest
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: buck I've ever shot. All of a sudden, you're not
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: acting in the moment. You're not you're not you're not focused,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: you're not you're not living where you are. So um,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: that's one thing that I know is about really really
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: a to people like like you said in All Realms
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: is um that they are really good at staying very
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: present here I am what do I do next? And
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: they're still dreamers. I'm not discouraging dreaming. Trust me, I'm
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: a dreamer, man. I I set lofty goals and I
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: essentially try to shoot for the stars and everything that
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: I do because I figured that way, I won't be disappointed.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Uh if I if I tried something that was too
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: hard and I don't make it, I won't be nearly
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: as disappointed as if I didn't try enough. Um. So
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not discouraging dreaming, but I also think
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: it's super important to stay tied at the moment and
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: and what can I do next in this next moment? Yeah,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you another question what something you
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: just said, But I feel like I should try to
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: wrap this up, so don't keep you too well. I
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: feel I feel to blame for this, So if you
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: want to ask me another question, I'm all for it. Okay, Well,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask two questions then to what you just
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: said about goals. That's something that I was just recently
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: talking about, and I really I think about goals a
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: lot when it comes to each hunting season. And again,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: this might just be because of how goal oriented am.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: Some people maybe go into a hunting season and just
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: like hey, I want a good time and that's fine. Um,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: but for those that all that are more goal oriented, Um,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: how do you and you you alluded to this a
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: little bit, but can you share this a little bit
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: about how you go through the goal setting process, whether
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: it be skiing or hunting, and any advice to those
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: of us for how to either better set goals or
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: better execute on them, because that's a big thing, right.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: We all have these New Year's resolutions or these yearly goals.
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: And then for a lot of folks and I'm guilty
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: of this sometimes too, it's a lot of stuff falls
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: by the wayside. So how do you make sure that
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: you're checking in on it, that you're actually executing on it. Yeah,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: oh man, that's a that's an excellent question that I
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: would love to answer because it's something I feel like
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: I can I can speak to from personal experience. So, um,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: I have a really simple, but I feel elegant system
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: of setting goals. And I can't take credit for it.
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't come up with somebody else did, but I
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: heard it and I was like, yep, I'm gonna do that. So, um,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: I set goals in three stages. I have my lofty goals,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: I have mid range goals, and then I have daily goals,
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: and um there, I mean there's a there's a million
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: stages in between. But if I'm just trying to give
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: you a good way to visualize it, it's, yeah, the
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: long term goals, you know, the future goals, the mid
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: range goals, and then what are you gonna do tomorrow
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: to get there? And I think that that's a really
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: effective way to go about achieving your goals, because um,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: everybody has, like you said, new Year's resolutions. I want
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: to be twenty pounds skinnier by the summer, or whatever
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: it is, by by bow hunting season. I want to
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: be you know, I want to be able to run
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: an eight minute mile or whatever it is. And um,
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: that's great to have that goal. That's a great starting place.
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: So for me, it starts with the lofty goals. And
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: I said, it was where do I want to be
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: in the future, whether it's a year from now or
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: ten years from now. I tell myself where do I
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: want to be in the future, and then I try
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: to pick a midpoint that I feel like fits that trajectory. So, UM,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: I think I feel like it's it's better to speak
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: through examples. So I'll use a personal example. And and
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: this is gonna sound cocky to some people, Soviet. Um.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: I have a long term goal of competing in the
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: summer Olympic Games. So I've been to two Olympics uh
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: in the winter obviously had a pretty good run at it.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going for another one in Beijing. In Beijing. In um,
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: those are those are all part of my my skiing goals.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: But as a super long term goal, I want to
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: shoot archery in the Olympic Games. That's first of all,
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: it's obviously it's super locked goal. Like I said, it
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: sounds cocky for me to even say that out loud.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: I n percent admit that. But why not shoot for
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: the stars? So that's a ten year goal. Say I
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: call it a ten year goal, twelve year goal, whatever
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: it is. It's it's a long it's a long term goal.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: And so but I'm fascinated with this, this um sort
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: of the this ability that I've stumbled upon to take
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: the mental toughness that I've developed for skiing and applied
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: to being the best skier that can be in being
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: the most effective competitor I can be in skiing and
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: applying it to a different sport. So I personally think
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: this is maybeing cocky Again, I personally think that the
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: skills that I've developed in skiing will actually apply to archery. Uh.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: If I can learn the technique on the archery side,
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: then I already possess the mental fortitude to compete well.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: So um, so there's a long the long term goal
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: compete in the summer games in the Olympics. Now, I'll
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: pick a mid range goal for that, and my mid
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: range goal for that would be to be able to
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: shoot professionally. Uh, shoot a boat professionally. So if we're
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: talking Olympics, it has to be traditional, a traditional style bow.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: You can't use a release mechanism. Um. You can. You
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: can put stabilizers in sights, but there's there's a lot.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: It's a different type of different style of archery than
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: what I currently do with the amount of time that
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: I have. So right now, I shoot compound bow. Um,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: I'll shoot two or three tournaments a year. I feel
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: like most of the time I'm just shooting the tournaments
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: because I'm trying to get ready for boss for hunting.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: But my mid range goal and then you know, to
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: to combat or to to line me up for this
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: long term goal is can I make a little bit
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: of money shooting a boat? So that for me is
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: a compound boat goal. It's like, can I take my
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: compound bow and make a little money shooting tournaments? Um,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: So that's the mid range goal. And then the daily
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: goal is obviously my daily practice and it and then
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: it comes down to and then like I said, there's
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: a million goals in between. So obviously I know if
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: I want to be a be a quote unquote professional archer,
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: I have to practice quite a bit, so daily goal
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: is to practice. But surrounding myself with guys who are
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: really good at shooting bows and know a lot more
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: about technique than I do is obviously a really good
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: stepping stone towards those two longer lofty goals. So, um,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: there's the short term goals, the mid range goals, and
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: then the lofty goals. That's that's if if if you
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: call it, you want to call it a life hack,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: that's what I've stumbled into for skiing, and so that's
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: to make it relatable to my skiing goals. Um, I
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: will set like I'll make say we're timeing with the
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: Olympics in I'll set a a run that I want
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: to do. I want to be able to do this
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: this many rotations in this number of tricks by two
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, alright, And so then I'll say, okay, what's
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: the mid range point there? Okay, so maybe the X
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: Games two years before that or a year and a
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: half before that or whatever, and I'll say, okay, in
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: order to be able to do this run by then,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: I need to be able to do a run that's
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: at least uh you know of that by you know one.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: So there's my mid range bowl and then I break
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: it all down into dai legals. Okay, I need to
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: start working towards this trick. I need to get my
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: I need to get my takeoffs better on that trick,
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: because if I want to add a rotation to that,
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: I'm getting away with a with a mediocre takeoff now,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: but if I want to do that with an extra rotation,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: I gotta really tune that that take off up and
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: get it to be almost flawless. So um, yeah, there
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: we go. Another long way to answer, a long way
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: to answer to a short question. It's fascinating, um. And
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: it's something I've been thinking about a lot myself, and
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: the challenge being I do something kind of similar to this,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: but inevitably I find that, you know you either what
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: am I trying to stay here? It's easy to lose
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: track of some of that in between stuff like you
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: might have this big lofty thing you know you want
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: to do, but and maybe the daily things really easy.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: But then you get like life happens, right, stuff happens,
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: All sorts of things come up, and it seems like
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: the crux for me at least is the the assessment
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: of goals, like how do you check in on or
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: how do you stay accountable to them? And so I've
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: been like thinking about trying to trying to find like
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: an accountability partner or something like somebody who can you know,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: call me out on this stuff or that that I
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: have to be accountable to and talk about my progress.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: So far, my wife and I've kind of done this
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit, like on an annual basis, but with
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: like my career and and hunting related things, I've thought
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: about maybe I need a I don't want to call
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: it coach, but just like someone who who who can
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: be kind of aware of what I'm trying to do
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: and and check me on it. Um, do you do
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: anything like that or how do you think about assessing
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: and tracking your goal process? Yeah? I mean obviously I
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: have I'm fortunate enough to have more tools than other
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: people do because I'm on I'm on the US Free
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: Scheme team, So I have a couple of people. I
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: have a sports psychologists I chat with once in a while. Obviously,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: my my main coach, Andy h He and I are
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: constantly checking in about strategy and I'm like, oh, what
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: do you think about this strategy? You think that's a
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: good way way to go? Or am I dreaming too much?
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: Am I dreaming too little? And so I'm constantly checking
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: that assessment with him, and then I'm constantly I try
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: to constantly check in with him about am I getting
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: closer to this goal at the right rate? Because I
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: don't want to get there actually too fast? Ironically, Uh,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: part of skiing is strategy for me. It's like, I
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: don't want to get there too quickly because if I
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: reached this apex too soon, everybody else is going to
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: have a chance to match it. So I want to
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: reach it just at the right time. So we have
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: to strategically plan these long term goals, and that's what
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: makes it fun. That's what Andy and I enjoy doing.
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, what where are we going next? Are
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: we getting there at the right rate? How are we
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: going to overcome this? This challenge is setback. Obviously, I'm
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: supposed to be down not I'm supposed to be not
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: sitting here with the broken femur training right now, So
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: how are we gonna overcome that? So personally I am
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: visualizing I have these tricks that I want to work towards,
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: and since I can't ski right now, I'm visualizing that
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: over and over and over again. And part of this
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: mandatory break that I'm taking, I'm using as an opportunity
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: to dream. I'm like, Okay, that dream that I had,
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: maybe it is, maybe it's cool, maybe it's not enough,
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: or maybe by the time I get there it will
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: have changed. Um, So why not taking an opportunity to
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: dream up some new things or some different things or
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: each see different runs in my head? And um I
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: think that that that ability to adapt is important too,
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: because I'm probably never gotten to a lofty goal in
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: terms of my goal setting structure. I just talked about,
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: I've never gotten to a lofty goal in the way
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: that I anticipated game. A lot of times I have
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: gotten there, but it was totally different than I expected.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: So being able to adapt your method while retaining the
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: same goal is important. And I think I think an
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: accountability of partners is super key for that. Finding somebody
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: who understands what you want to do and just checking
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: in with them once in a while is super super effective. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: I think that mcent agree with you, and definitely trying
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: to find some ways to incorporate that into my life,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: both hunting in non hunting related. I think that would
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: be very beneficial. And if you can't, I'll just throw
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: into not everybody's sportsnate enough to have a buddy who
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: they can have as an accountability partner. But the reality
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: is we all own the paper. And if you start
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: a goal journal and you write down those journals, you
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: write down those goals, lofty goals, midrange goals, daily goals,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: you just write them down. All of a sudden, you
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: have something to check two weeks from now, or a
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: month from now, or a year from now, and you
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: can go back and say, Okay, what was my goal
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: a year ago? It maybe has changed and I need
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: to I need to adapt it. But um, that's that's
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: another super effective range tool. That's something that I do.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: That's something I do on top of all the other
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: things I described, is I have a goal setting journal
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: and I'm constantly just reading my own words. What did
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: I think I wanted to do by this time last year?
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: And I'll oftentimes laugh at what I wanted to do
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: by this time last year. Um, and other times I'll
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: be like, dang man, I thought I was gonna be
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: wait further long. How often do you update that or
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: going there and create new goals or write this stuff?
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: Is that like an annual practice or how often are
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: you are you going on that dream journal? It depends
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: on the time of year. Um, that's like that. My
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: goal journal and my competition journal are kind of the
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: same for me. So during the ski season it's weekly. Um,
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: during the off season it's more probably monthly, but I
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: wouldn't ever I wouldn't say it's ever less than monthly
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: because it needs to be part of your practice, an
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: easy part of your habits for it to be really effective. Yeah,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense. Well, this, uh, this
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: has been one of my favorite conversations. Like, I've really
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: enjoyed this. It's got me excited to try to do
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: more of this. This is so interesting to see how
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: different people's ways of of excelling in life and other
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: areas can be applied to what we do as hunters. Um,
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: it's it just fascinates me. And um, you had so
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: much to share, David. So I'm bummed that I've talked
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: so much because I wanted to hear from you more.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like we just scratched the service, so maybe
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: I can maybe I can convince you to come back
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: for her own two sometimes soon? Yeah? Why not? Man,
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Yeah, one last thing, I want
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: to make sure to let folks know about what you've
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: got going on out there and how they can fall
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: along with what you're up to. I have been watching
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: a number of YouTube videos leading them to this conversation
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: and really enjoying them. Um, can you give folks just
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: a quick heads up on on what you're doing and
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: where they can find it? Yeah? In terms of um,
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: the best way currently to follow my journey is is
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: through YouTube. So UM, I have my Mr David Wise channel,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: which is just my lifestyle as a skier and as
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: a family man, a little bit of everything. And then
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: we have a subchannel on there called Wise Off the
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: Grid and why is off the grid as us embracing
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: my My wife and I both have this dream of
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: being off the grid completely. That means eating game, me,
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: growing our own food, and um, you know, doing solar
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: power and as much as much as we can while
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: remaining practical and being part of this world we live in.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: So we're not going to just completely check out and
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: turn our cell phones off and not have the Internet,
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: but we do want to work towards this tenure goal
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: of being off the grid. So why is off the
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: grid is where you can watch all of my hunting
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: endeavors or our hunting endeavors, I should say, because the
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: only hunt that's up on there right now is actually
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: my wife's hunt. But I have some content that I
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: have been sitting on for a really long time. Uh,
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: I've been basically solo filming all of my hunts from
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: about two thousand fifteen on and I was actually going
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: to use that content for another show that fell through.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: So now I have all this banger content that I'm
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: excited to share with the world. So you guys can
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: keep you guys can tune into that and you'll be
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: seeing some of my old hunts, some of my some
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: of my favorite hunts, and uh, moving forward, some of
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: the new hunts. So that's the best way to follow
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: my hunting stuff is through YouTube, my instagram personally my
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: skiing Instagram page Mr Davil Wise and then we have
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: a Wise off the grade wise Wise at wise o
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: t G is our Instagram page that goes along with Wise,
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: not the grid. So those are the easiest ways to
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: follow me very cool. Well, like I said, really have
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: enjoyed everything I've seen on there so far and highly
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: recommend everyone check it out. So, David, thank you so much.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks man, Let's talk again soon. Yeah, and that is
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: the end. Like I just said, this was a very
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: very fun conversation for me and it inspired me to
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: maybe see if we can do more episodes like this.
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: I'd be curious to hear what you think. This is
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: definitely not like our average show or we just dive
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: deep with one hunter about how he hunts. This is
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: a lot more high level, but man, I think it
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: can be just as useful, if not more so, then
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: the typical show we have. So let me think what
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: you Let me know what you think by sending me
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: a message or a comment on Instagram or over at
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: the wire done face foot page, or hit me up
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: on Twitter. Would love to get your feedback. And with that,
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: I will just leave you with a big thank you
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: for spending your time with me here today and until
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: next time, stay Wired to Hunt.