Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1004: Excellence and the Hunting Life with Brad Stulberg

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Ep. 1004: Excellence and the Hunting Life with Brad Stulberg · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week, in
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the show, I am joined by author Brad Stalberg to
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: chat about the routines, habits, goal setting, practices, and philosophies
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  Speaker 1: that peak performers across the world use to achieve excellence
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  Speaker 1: and success in their world, and how we can take
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  Speaker 1: lessons from those and apply them to our own pursuits
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  Speaker 1: of hunting, archery, marksmanship, or much more. All right, welcome
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: by First Light. Today we have got another one of
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: these unique kind of outside of the box episodes. We
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: did one a couple weeks ago with Michael Easter. We've
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: got one more here today in which I am trying
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  Speaker 1: to look outside of our hunting world for new ideas
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  Speaker 1: and strategies and practices that can be applied inside of
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  Speaker 1: our world and can be applied to our pursuits of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: trying to become better deer hunters, or better Western hunters,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: or better archers, marksmen, whatever that pursuit might be. There's
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a whole lot outside of our little, tiny hunting and
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: fishing world that we can probably learn from, and so
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  Speaker 1: I've been seeking out those experts who have studied this
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  Speaker 1: as a career and who I think can teach us
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  Speaker 1: a lot, and our guest here today is just one
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  Speaker 1: of those people. Brad Staalberg is the author of many
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  Speaker 1: different books and many articles and podcasts and different pieces
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  Speaker 1: of content that circle all around this. How do you
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  Speaker 1: pursue a goal? How do you achieve excellence or success
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: or mastery in something you care a lot about? Right?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: That's something that we're trying to do. That's why you're
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: listening to this podcast as you've been trying to figure
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: out how to get better at hunting, or how to
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: get better at some version of this hunting set of
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  Speaker 1: pursuits that we chase. So Brad is going to take
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  Speaker 1: some of the ideas that we add actually talked about
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: with him several many years ago. Actually I spoke with
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  Speaker 1: him on episode two hundred and eighty two about a
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  Speaker 1: couple of his books, one being The Passion Paradox and
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: one being a Peak Performance, And we're going to take
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  Speaker 1: some of those ideas and advance them forward. He's written
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  Speaker 1: several other best selling books since then, including Master of Change,
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  Speaker 1: and now most recently, it's launching either right when you're
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: hearing this or very soon after The Way of Excellence,
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  Speaker 1: and this book, I think, really ties a nice bow
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  Speaker 1: on a lot of the ideas that he has explored
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: across all of his books and all of his articles
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  Speaker 1: and content. And really what it does and what we're
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  Speaker 1: going to be talking about here today is how we
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  Speaker 1: can think about pursuing excellence in anything. And he cites
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: examples from the world of professional sports, from the worlds
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  Speaker 1: of health and fitness, and business and entrepreneurship and science
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  Speaker 1: and all these different things. How can the lessons learn
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: from those fields be applied to what you and I
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  Speaker 1: care about? How can can we learn more about how
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  Speaker 1: to do what we do better and enjoy it more
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  Speaker 1: and find more satisfaction in it and grow more. That's
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: the conversation today. It's a really unique one, and that's
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  Speaker 1: why I think it's particularly important and hopefully useful. Certainly
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  Speaker 1: for me it has been, and I hope it will
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  Speaker 1: be for you too. So, without any further ado by
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  Speaker 1: chat with author Brad Stellberg. All right, joining me now
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  Speaker 1: on the line is Brad Stellberg. Welcome to the show,
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  Speaker 1: Brad Mark.
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  Speaker 2: It's great to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's just welcome back because you were on
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  Speaker 1: the show, and I went back and looked in our
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: archives and that was back in the early two hundreds
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of the show, and now we're over a thousand episodes,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: which is pretty crazy. So it's well, it's well pastime
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  Speaker 1: that we chat again and circle back. And you have
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: been very busy in the intro years. I think you've
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: published three books since we last chatted, maybe maybe four.
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  Speaker 1: Uh So, how how are you holding up underneath that
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  Speaker 1: incredible workload in the year since.
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing well. I don't know any other way to live.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm just doing my thing, and I'm fortunate that
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  Speaker 3: the you know, the the creative gods are are still
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  Speaker 3: in my favor and the books keep coming.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a good thing. When when fate shines
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  Speaker 1: on you like that, you do seem to be putting
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  Speaker 1: your work into action. You know, all of your books,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's about you know, this practice of groundness or
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  Speaker 1: you know, mastering change or in this case, you know,
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  Speaker 1: finding and articulating what excellence is in your life seems
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  Speaker 1: to be from afar, something you're putting into play. But
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  Speaker 1: but that's where I want to start is with this
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  Speaker 1: word excellence, because I think every single person when they
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: hear that word, they think of something probably a little
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  Speaker 1: bit different. There's a different definition for every one of us.
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  Speaker 1: When I think of it in the context of this
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  Speaker 1: podcast and in my audience, I'm thinking more about, you know,
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  Speaker 1: how do we pursue excellence in our pursuit? Maybe that's
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  Speaker 1: how do I become a better archer, or how do
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  Speaker 1: I become a better marksman with a rifle, or how
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  Speaker 1: do I train some ready for a big backcountry hunt,
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  Speaker 1: or just become a better you deer hunter? Understanding wildlife
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  Speaker 1: behavior and habitat and all those kinds of things. There's
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of people that spend a big chunk of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: their lives chasing those kinds of goals. That's what maybe
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the listeners are thinking of right now when they think
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  Speaker 1: of excellence. What are you thinking of when you say excellence?
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  Speaker 3: I define excellence really simply. It is involved engagement and
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  Speaker 3: caring deeply about a pursuit that you find worthwhile, that
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  Speaker 3: aligns with your values and goals, and it is giving
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  Speaker 3: something your all in. It is realizing that in the process,
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  Speaker 3: the goal that you're working toward is also shaping you
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  Speaker 3: as a person.
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  Speaker 2: So, yes, you want to achieve a goal.
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  Speaker 3: You might want to become a better archer, or a
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  Speaker 3: better overall hunter, or a better outdoors person, or gain
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  Speaker 3: fitness to go on a big back country and that
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  Speaker 3: is the goal that you're working toward. But that goal
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  Speaker 3: is also shaping you as a person. It's working on
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  Speaker 3: you as teaching you about resilience and being uncomfortable and
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  Speaker 3: overcoming challenges and frustration and building community and all of
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  Speaker 3: these things.
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  Speaker 2: And what I found in.
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  Speaker 3: The research and reporting for this book, what I've found
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  Speaker 3: in my own life, is that when we have these
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  Speaker 3: big goals and we pursue them with integrity, it gives
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  Speaker 3: us a sense of a liveness and satisfaction that is
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  Speaker 3: increasingly hard to find in the modern world.
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  Speaker 2: And that's why I think it's so important.
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  Speaker 1: You've done some writing, and I've seen this on social
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  Speaker 1: in your Guys's newsletter, and you've kind of explored I
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  Speaker 1: don't want to say toxic because toxics becoming like a
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  Speaker 1: loaded word, but almost like the double edged sword of
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  Speaker 1: this pursuit maybe, And I've heard you. I think you've
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  Speaker 1: kind of explored that the performative side of excellence or
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  Speaker 1: different things like that, and that's certainly been something that
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  Speaker 1: seems amplified by social media and our world today. Can
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  Speaker 1: you talk about that other side of this pursuit of
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  Speaker 1: excellence a little bit and what risks might be that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I call it pseudo excellence or like hustle culture greatness,
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  Speaker 3: which essentially says, and I'm painting in broad strokes, that
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  Speaker 3: you've got to wake up at four am, have a
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  Speaker 3: fifty six step routine, optimize every part of your day,
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  Speaker 3: do six cold plunges, count every single calorie, be on
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  Speaker 3: a super restrictive diet, measure your sleep, your heart.
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  Speaker 2: Rate, on and on and on.
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  Speaker 3: In there's nothing wrong with that per se, but what
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  Speaker 3: often happens is that we lose sight of the main thing,
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  Speaker 3: which is like, what's your goal? What do you care about?
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  Speaker 3: And are you living in alignment with that? And I
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  Speaker 3: think that what often happens, especially on the Internet, is
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  Speaker 3: you get the performance of greatness or the performance of
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  Speaker 3: excellence and not the real thing, because generally speaking, people
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  Speaker 3: who are doing the real thing, they don't have time
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  Speaker 3: for all that elaborate kabuki like they're so focused on
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  Speaker 3: the fundamentals of their craft and on gaining skill and
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  Speaker 3: mastery and competence that they don't mess around with any
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  Speaker 3: of these in shiny objects or you know, cyclical trends.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that that's a distinction that's important to
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  Speaker 3: make because what happens is people hear excellence and they
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  Speaker 3: have these two very common misconceptions. One is what I
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  Speaker 3: just said. They're like, oh, that's all the bros on
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  Speaker 3: the internet, Like, that's not for me. I don't have
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  Speaker 3: time for that. That I can't deal with that. The other, though,
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  Speaker 3: is that excellence is only for the elite few, or
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  Speaker 3: people with impeccable genetics, or it's this standard that they're
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  Speaker 3: never going to attain. And I don't think that's accurate.
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  Speaker 3: I think that you go back to all the ancient
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  Speaker 3: wisdom traditions, starting with the ancient Greeks, excellence is actually
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  Speaker 3: not a standard. It's a process of becoming, and it's
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  Speaker 3: available to all of us, and its benefits are available
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  Speaker 3: to all of us.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's this there's a similar thing going on within
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  Speaker 1: the hunting and fishing world around. I don't know if
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  Speaker 1: it's hero worship or trophy worship or or whatever it is.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's worshiping the outcome. It's this adoration
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  Speaker 1: and sensationalization of the big buck, the huge fish having
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  Speaker 1: more of this kind of quote unquote success, and it
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  Speaker 1: seems to have all sorts of ripple effects because of that,
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  Speaker 1: it's changing how people feel about their pursuit. Maybe they
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  Speaker 1: start doing things for different reasons, or they're feeling bad
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  Speaker 1: about their version of this pursuit because it's not like
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  Speaker 1: the person they see online. There's all this kind of
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  Speaker 1: comparison culture stuff. How do you break out of that?
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  Speaker 1: How have you found how do you be someone who
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  Speaker 1: cares about pursuing growth and getting better at your thing
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  Speaker 1: without falling into that trap?
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  Speaker 3: I think you need to have a finely tuned bullshit
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: detector to be quite frank, And I think that I
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  Speaker 3: make the assumption that if someone or some group of
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: people is like really just posting NonStop on the internet
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  Speaker 3: about something that seems extreme, I just make an assumption
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  Speaker 3: that they're not serious people and maybe they did it,
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  Speaker 3: and maybe they did it without integrity, or maybe they're
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: just this crazy outlier and about them. But like, either way,
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  Speaker 3: if it's not if it's not useful, if it's not
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  Speaker 3: a good motivating force, then I'm just going to ignore it.
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  Speaker 3: Who do I compare myself to who do I draw
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  Speaker 3: inspiration from, Like actual people who I know and I
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  Speaker 3: know their work and I know how they pursue it,
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  Speaker 3: and I know it's real, And those are the people
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  Speaker 3: that are better than me, that inspire me, that I
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: want to learn from and grow. But it's much more
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: local because like I actually know these people and I
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: know their work. I think it's just going to get
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  Speaker 3: worse with AI. It's already happening. I mean, I'm sure
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  Speaker 3: that if you want it to be a tremendous outdoors
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  Speaker 3: men or outdoors woman influencer, you could, with a couple
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  Speaker 3: hundred bucks in a couple of basic training courses in
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  Speaker 3: AI create all kinds of stuff that is completely fake
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  Speaker 3: that would gain you a massive following on the internet.
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  Speaker 3: So I just think, like we have to be very
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: careful about when we compare ourselves to people. Do we
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  Speaker 3: actually know the person, do we actually know their process?
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  Speaker 3: And and if not, then I think it's largely just
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  Speaker 3: like ignore.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is another side of this too in this
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  Speaker 1: context that I'm curious about. When you hear about whether
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: it's self development or peak performance or you know, trying
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  Speaker 1: to pursue excellence, many times these ideas are explored in
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  Speaker 1: the context of your profession. You know, it's something you're
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: trying to do to become better at your job, or
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: to become a better entrepreneur, to become a world class athlete,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: or anything like that, and so there seems to be
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  Speaker 1: like a tangible outcome that you are dependent on in
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  Speaker 1: one way or another. While with a pursuit like hunting
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: or fishing, or just like a recreational pursuit of anything,
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  Speaker 1: I'm curious if the pursuit of excellence and what you've
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: learned about it is or should be considered differently. When
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: it's you know, it's supposed to be your recreation, right,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: this is something usually whether it's playing basketball or running
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: or anything. A lot of people got into it because, hey,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: this is like a fun thing I liked. But then
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: at some point they start pursuing more and more and more.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: What have you found about the unique aspect of this
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: when it's just supposed to be your your fun time,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: your spare time, your weekend, but it becomes more.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: It's a great question. I like to think of it
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  Speaker 3: as a craft or a practice. So I think that
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  Speaker 3: a lot of people experience this on their journey. They
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: start just because they're interested in something, and it's like
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: a hobby, and then you do it more and you
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: get better at it, and you get more into it,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: and then it becomes a craft or a practice. And
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  Speaker 3: I think that's actually a really beautiful thing because unlike
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  Speaker 3: a job, where you have all of these external pressures
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  Speaker 3: and you know you have to maybe do things that
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: you don't want to do because you're in an organization
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: and so on and so forth, with a craft or
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  Speaker 3: a practice, or even if it's just a hobby, you
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: have so much agency and freedom to shape how you're
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: going to pursue it. So you get to take this
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: container of something like hunting or archery, and you get
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  Speaker 3: to say, here's the ways that I want to pursue it.
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  Speaker 3: Here are the goals that I want to work towards,
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  Speaker 3: Here are the values that I have as a person,
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  Speaker 3: And here's how I think pursuing this this craft is
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: going to help me not only become a better archer
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: a better hunter, but become a better person. And I
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  Speaker 3: actually think that's in I think too often we think
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  Speaker 3: that excellence is only in the domain of what you're
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: doing for a living. But I actually think I've learned
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: this in reporting on the book a lot of people
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  Speaker 3: that the pursuit of excellence is maybe more profound and
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: more satisfying when it's not what you do professionally, because
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: you have so much more agency to shape it exactly
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: how you want.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like for a lot of people, they
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  Speaker 1: just fall into this by accident somehow, and they don't
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: really give a lot of thought to it. They kind
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: of fall in love with it, as you described, Like
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  Speaker 1: they get into something and then they realize they want more,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: and they go deeper and deeper, and then all of
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: a sudden, five years later or twenty years later, they
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: realize they've been pursuing this thing. They've been trying to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: become great at it, to develop you know, excellence or
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: whatever might be. If you were to start from ground zero,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: or if you were to restart that process today and
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: you said, hey, I've been trying to learn to become
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: a better archer. I've been doing it kind of on
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: in a Willy Nilli fashion for the last ten years. Today,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I'm going to start with a new structure in place,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to try to take Brad Stellber's approach
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  Speaker 1: to pursuing this. What's your first step in creating a
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: more structured, thoughtful approach to pursuing excellence in a pursuit.
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  Speaker 1: Let's just use archery for this example. I think that
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: kind of lends itself well to this. What's that first
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: step in doing this in a more thoughtful way? First step,
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  Speaker 1: I think is what's the goal?
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  Speaker 2: So?
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Is the goal to become a better marksman or marxwoman?
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Is the goal to compete at tournaments?
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Is the goal?
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  Speaker 3: To become an archer that actually hunts? Is the goal
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: to hunt in a way where it is sport? Is
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: the goal to hunt in a way where you're no
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: longer purchasing me except what you kill. I mean, there's
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: so many different ways to think about becoming a better
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Marx person. So I would start with defining, really clearly
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: what's the goal. And I wouldn't define that based on
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: what Mark is doing, or what Brad's doing, or whatever
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: social media influencer is doing.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't just mimic them.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: I would step back and say that for each of
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: these possible goals in the sport, what's the process that
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: I'm going to most enjoy and find most satisfying pursuing.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: So how do I actually want to train? How much
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: time do I have to train? How big of a
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: part of my life do I want this to be?
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Do I want to have to be outside all the time?
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: Do I want to join an archery club where there's
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: other people in, there's community. So I'd step back and
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: I'd say, I've gotten pretty good at this thing. I've
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: been doing it, you know, willy nilly, As you said,
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  Speaker 3: now I want to get more serious. So let me
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: think about all the different goals I could pursue, and
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: then let me envision what pursuing that goal would look like,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: and let me pick the right one. It's essentially a
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: dilemma that every single alpinis climber faces. There's all these
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: mountains to climb. Well, it's really important to pick the
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: right mountain to climb. It's also really helpful to have
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: a mountain to climb, because if don't have a mountain
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: of climb, you're just kind of aimlessly wandering.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what are the most significant goal setting pitfalls that
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: you've come across. I think there's a lot of ways
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: we can probably set goals the wrong way. What are
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: a few that stand out to you?
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: The biggest is just wrote mimicry.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: So this person killed that size buck, and therefore I
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: want to kill that size buck.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Well do you? Maybe you do, but like you need a.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Better reason than I saw that person do it and
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: it got my dopamine firing. That's the biggest trap. Another
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: trap is UH doing too much too soon, too early.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: So like using the inspiration and the motivation of having
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: this enormous goal that gets you really fired up when
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: you're telling your friends about it, or you're journaling about it,
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: or you're thinking about it, but then when you actually
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: start the process of working toward it, it's so overwhelming
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: and so outside of your capabilities that you're just going
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: to flame out and be frustrated all the time. And
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: then I think that there's this nuance that is a
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: third thing that at first is very helpful but then
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: becomes a trap. And this is one of the most
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: popular goal setting frameworks. They're called smart goals.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: In smarkles are specific, measurable, attainable, relatable, and timely. So
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: for me, a smart goal would be I'm going to
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: lift five hundred and fifty pounds by the end of
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, and that would actually be a terrible goal,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: because I'm far enough along the path of mastery where
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: it's not very predictable what's going to happen to my
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: deadlift next. But if I was an amateur and my
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: goal is I want to deadlift three hundred and fifteen
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: pounds by the end of the year, that would be
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: a great goal. So what often happens is we get
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: this in reverse. So beginners that could benefit from smart goals,
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: from having that accountability and that specificity and that really
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: good closed reward circuit where you're measuring something, they're too loose.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: They're just like, I just want to be a better hunter.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: What the hell does that mean? Like be a better hunter? No,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Like you need to set a goal that you could
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: actually fail at, like hold yourself accountable. But then what
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: happens is once you've gotten pretty good, and once you've
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: nailed a couple of smart goals, progress becomes much less linear.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: And if you tell yourself, hey, you.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Know, my goal is to go from from P to
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Q in the alphabet, Well that might take a year,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: but but that might take three years once you get
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: really good at something. So smart goals work until they
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: get in the way and I think too often more
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: advanced people try to use smart goles when they'd be
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: better off. Just like the goal is to get as
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: good as I can, Like you've already done the early work,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: the games are going to be much less predictable in
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: more novices and intermediate folks can actually benefit from that
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: tight structure around smart goles. And in the final trap
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: that everyone runs into is the arrival fallacy, and just
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: this notion that if I set a goal and achieve it,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: then I'm going to be content, you know. So if
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I just get that size buck, then I'm going to
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: be able to call myself a hunter and I'm going
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: to sleep.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Easy for the rest of my life.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Well, what ends up happening is you get that size buck,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: You're happy that night, You wake up the next morning
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: and you're you know, you're hungry for more.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: So what about goals, Brad, where the outcome is significantly
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: outside of your control, where there's just ninety percent of
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the variables are beyond you, and in many cases depending
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: on this would be a hunting related goal. But let's
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: say if your goal is to kill your first buck
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: or whatever it might be, you could do everything right
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and still because so much is outside of your hands
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: when it comes to something like a wild animal and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a wild place, you may not succeed. So in that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: kind of situation where many hunters or anglers or even
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you know sports, you know folks playing competitive sports, right,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that's outside of your oalm
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: of control too. How do you handle both setting goals
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and then judging your success on those goals when so
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: much is seemingly outside of your hands.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I think that the way to do this is to
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: put yourself in a position to win. And if you
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: put yourself in a position to win, then that success
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: success isn't winning because like you said, whether or not
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: you get that buck, it's it's outside of your control.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: But if you put yourself in a position to get
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: that buck, and at the start of the hunt you say, hey,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: I've prepared, I've executed my process. I'm in a position
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: to win, and now you know it's up to fate,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: well then that's great because if you don't get a
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: buck that time, but you go out next hunting season
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: and you execute that process like eventually you're going to win.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: And I think, like this is such a misconception, is
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: that the like the goal is to win, which is true,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: but you can't control whether or not you win, especially
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: in something like hunting. If we're going to define win
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: is like getting the killer or whatever. Yeah, But what
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: you can control is are you in a position to
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: do that? And what any intermedia or advanced hunter is
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: going to tell you is that if you put yourself
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: in a position to win enough times, eventually you're going
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: to get some wins and you start to get a
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: feel for what it's like to be in a position
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: to win. And then the goal, over the course of
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: a hunting season is just to be in that position
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: to win over and over and over again, and maybe
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: you win sixty percent of the time and that's a
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: great season.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I've wrestled with this a lot myself over
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the years as I've pursued, you know, competence in hunting
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and archery and all these different things. And something that
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: you write about in this book and you've talked about
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and other people have talked about over the years that's
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: helped me a lot has been this idea of what
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: you call process over outcomes mindset. Can you expand on
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that a little bit, because I think that's a really
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: helpful way to think about this.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Outcomes are generally outside of our control. Whether or not
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: we're going to win or lose the race is going
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: to depend on who else shows up. Whether or not
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: we're going to get the kill is going to depend
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: on the weather, the wind, and so many factors that
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: we probably can't even imagine. So we can't control outcomes,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: but we can't control our process. So our process is
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: our preparation, our training, our study, the individuals that we
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: go on the journey with, how we carry ourselves when
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: we're out there, how we compete, our mindsets, our habits,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: all those things, and too often we spend a lot
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: of time thinking about the outcome, dreaming about the buck
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: and how we're going to feel when we kill it,
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: and reading about other people that did it, when that's
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: just wasted time because it's out of our control. What
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: we can't control is our process. So do we take
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: good care of our equipment, did we train appropriately, did
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: we study appropriately? Do we come to the hunt with
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: the right attitudes and mindset? And if we execute on
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: our process, that's just how you put yourself in a
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: position to win. So it's not that outcomes don't matter
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: like they do matter. It's a thrill to succeed and
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: to have a goal, and sometimes if you're actually competing,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: like it matters. You know, if you're an angler and
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: you're at one of these weekends where like they're going
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: to weigh then the fish that you caught or how
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: many you caught, like you want to win, it matters,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: But you.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Can't control that. All you can control is your process.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: So the more that you can stay rooted in your process,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: the more fulfilling you're going to find the pursuit in
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: the craft, and paradoxically, the better chance you give yourself
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: of attaining your outcomes. The times when I've had the
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: best outcomes as an athlete have been the times when
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: I'm least focused on achieving the outcome and I'm just.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Completely lost in the process.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: The times when I've struggled as an athlete is when
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I spend too much time thinking about whether or not
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: I'm going to hit the lift, I inevitably fail.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: So let's take this one stuff. Let's say, for the
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: sake of an example, that I want to become a
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: better bow hunter, and one way that I'm going to
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: try to pursue that goal is I'm going to set
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: a you know, sort of a smart goal that would
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: force me to get better at my accuracy. So I'm
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: thinking out loud here, but let's say maybe my goal
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: is that by this coming October I will be able
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to accurately hit a bullseye, you know, nine times out
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of ten at one hundred yards, which is a really,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: really far shot. So that would really really stretch my
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: skills as an archer. Therefore, when I'm actually hunting at
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: forty yards, it feels like a slam dunk. Maybe that's
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: my goal. And with that goal in mind, how would
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: you go about setting up a process or a system
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of you know, training and preparing to reach that goal
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: so we can actually do that in a smart way.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's I think James clear someone said something
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: on the lines of like, we don't rise to the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: level of our goals, we fall to the level of
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: our systems, something along those lines, And I'm curious how
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: you would build a system that we could fall back
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: on that would help us reach that big goal.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is like this is training one
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: on one and I love it because to me, where
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: my background is really in athletics, this is so second nature,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: But I think for outdoors people like, maybe it's not
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: so second nature, because there's like a wildness to your
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: sport that sometimes I think is like very mystical and
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: magical and incredible, and that's why it's so addictive. But
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: I think there's a kind of rigor that you could
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: bring to it too that is perhaps helpful, and that's
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: what you're getting out. So what I would say is like,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: all right, well, how are you going to do that?
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: So how many days a week are you going to
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: go to the range, or if you're fortunate and you
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: can do this at home because you've got a lot
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: of land, Like how are you going to set up
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: target practice? And then you can't just sit from one
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: hundred yards away and start shooting. You need to start
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: at fifteen yards or twenty yards. And you probably need
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: to have some over distance days too, where you're shooting
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: from one hundred and forty yards, And you need to
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: have some days where you're shooting really quick and you're
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: trying to get ten shots off in forty seconds or
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: whatever it is, because you're stressed the system that way.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: You probably want.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Other days where you're only taking ten shots and you're
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: putting six minutes between each shot because you're really trying
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: to replicate being on a hunt where you have to
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: find your target, calm yourself, take that deep breath. You
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: might actually break it down. You might say a huge
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: part of this is being steady and breathing. So you
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: might have a day where you're not even holding your
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: bow and you're just doing breath work. So is something
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: as simple is hitting a target from one hundred miles away.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Excuse me, that'd be really hard from one hundred yards away.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Something as simple as hitting a target from one hundred
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: yards away, It really is as simple and as hard
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: as that. But then you have to break it down
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: into all the component parts and then find ways to
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: work those parts. And I can't tell you what any
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: individual's training program is going to be like, but I
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: can assure you it's not just going to be firing
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: at a target from one hundred yards over and over again.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: They'll be over distance, they'll be under distance, they'll be
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: breath work, they'll be speed work, they'll be patience, so
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: on and so forth.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: So related to this, then you write about this kind
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: of juxtaposition between consistency and intensity in your book, and
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I'd love for you to expand a little bit on
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: that and how you think about those two parts of
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: any kind of training regimen or or you know, growth
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: towards some type of excellence. How do you what's more
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: important or how do you know, have both of those
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: within your life?
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: So intensity are those those training days or those competition
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: days where you're just going to the well? I call
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: it like you go see God. You know, it's a
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: mystical experience because you are just giving everything that you have.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: You can't do that very frequently because you just burn
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: yourself out, like the system can only tolerate so many
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: days of going to the well. And I think what
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: often happens is that we mistake intensity as the driver
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: of excellence when it's actually consistency. It's how you show
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: up day in and day out, and not necessarily what
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: you do on your magical great days, but what you
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: do on your average days, and even what you do
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: on your bad days, because you're making these small deposits
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: in the bank that compound over time. And what's fascinating
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: is that the more consistent you are, the better you
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: get a consistency, the higher you're ceiling for intensity becomes
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: so if you're brand new to hunting and you try
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: to go out on a thirty day backpacking, you know hunt,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: you're never going to be able to do that, Like
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: you're going to crash and burn and have a miserable experience.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: But if you've built up to that consistently over five
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: years or a decade, your capacity to tolerate that intensity
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: is so much higher. So too often people start with
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: intensity because it's the bright and shiny object and it's
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: the heroic day that they want to write home and
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: tell their friends about one. What we need to do
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: is we need to start with insistency. We need to
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: build brick by brick by brick, and then that allows
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: us to have the intense days. And that's true in training,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: and that's that's true in performance time.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I've got a little sticky note here in my
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: computer monitor and it says you'll appreciate appreciate this. It
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: says writing a page a day doesn't sound like much,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: but if you do it every day, you'll write a
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: book a year. That's the key consistency. People who do
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: great things don't get a lot done every day. They
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: get something done rather than nothing truer words have not
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: been spoken. I don't think right there, I love that.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, the goal isn't to be hero of the
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: day or hero of the week. The goal is to
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: have a heroic decade. And those two things look very different.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: And the challenge is we're very myopic creatures. We're very
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: short terms. So we see the thrill of writing the
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: manuscript in one day or the you know, ten days
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: to a new year program, whatever the equivalent might be
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: in in hunting or archery, and we just cycle from
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: again from intense fad to intense fad instead of just
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: like becoming known for our consistency. I mean, if you
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: take one thing away from this this this conversation as
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: a listener, like become known for your consistency. And if
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: you become known for your consistency, people are going to
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: respect you and you're going to get very damn good
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: at whatever it is that you do.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now I'm gonna throw a curveball at you though,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: because you throw a little bit of a curveball at
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the reader. As you're exploring this topic, we hear about
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the importance of consistency, But then right after that you
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: tell us that you know this myth or this idea
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: of like trying to get just one percent better every day,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: which sounds a whole lot like consistency to me. You
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: say that, maybe that's a little bit of a myth,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: or maybe we're thinking about things the wrong way. If
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: we're trying to do that just a little bit one
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: percent better day, one percent better to day. Why why
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: is that or why is the one percent a day thing?
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe a little bit misleading?
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: It's great as a mindset because it's a mindset. It's
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: exactly what you said. It's like, it's consistency. You don't
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: have to hit home runs right, just show up and
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: put the ball in play. And it's great when you're
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: a beginner or even when you're intermediate, because when you're
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: a beginner or you're intermediate, you actually do get one
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: percent better every day. You might get one hundred percent
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: better every day if you're brand new at something, But
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: once you get pretty good, once you've been doing something
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: for a year or a couple of years or a decade,
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: you don't get one percent better every day. I mean,
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: you mark, if you got one percent better every day
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: as a hunter, you'd probably at this point be the
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: best hunter to ever live.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: That motivation has to switch.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: And if you get addicted to those tangible performance gains,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: you're going to get to about seventy or eighty percent
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: of as good as you could be, and then you're
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: going to flame out. To me, all the interesting stuff
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: happens when you stop getting one percent better every day,
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: because that's when you're really good. And this is another
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: core component of the book and hopefully this conversation is
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: that when you're new to something, the motivation to come
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: back is very much driven by those concrete incremental progress gains,
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: and they're great and you should strive for them. Once
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: you get good at something, it's got to switch. The
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: drive has to be more about curiosity and love for
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: the pursuit and intimacy and how it feels in the
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: community that you do it with and what you're learning
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: about yourself. Because I'll take micraft, when I was brand
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: new to powerlifting, I got ten percent better every week.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: I went from deadlifting one hundred thirty five pounds to
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: two hundred and twenty five pounds and three months you
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: do the math, that's a lot percent better.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Every day.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: I pulled five hundred twenty pounds a year and a
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: half ago, and since then, I've pulled five hundred thirty
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: pounds once. That's a lot less than one percent better
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: every day. That's like a tenth of a percent better
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: every day. So if I was still addicted to those
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: early performance gains, I wouldn't be training anymore because they're
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: just not going to happen.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: I'm too good.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: But now when I go to the gym, I'm actually
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: not driven by those incremental gains. What I'm driven by
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: is a love for the sport, how the bar feels
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: when I take tension out of it, how I can
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: make these small subtle changes to how I brace and
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: the impact that has, And that's where the motivation comes from.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure the same thing is true as an
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: outdoors men and outdoors women. As a hunter is early
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: on when you're brand new to the sport, like it's
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: thrilling because you are getting so much better, and then
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: you get really good, like you got.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: To find a different, a different source of motivation.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: So that's my qualm with the get one percent better
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: every day, It's just not true because if it was,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: everyone would be world class at everything within ten years.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: And it's not how it works.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Now what does that mean for someone who's in that
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: situation though, Because there's what you describe, which is, you know,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: fy for love of the game, right, you find your
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: love of the game and the process and all that.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: But that sounds from one perspective, it sounds like settling
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: to be stuck at that plateau. So what if someone's like, well,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be stuck at that plateau? How
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: do I break through that plateau to some other next level?
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: What do you say to that person?
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to have the mindset of one percent
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: better every day without being addicted to the observable gains
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: because the actual observable gains often trail the effort that
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: you put in, and once you get really good, it
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: gets less predictable and more magical. So you don't know
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: when the breakthrough is going to occur. But if you
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: keeping the stone and you have a good process and
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: you do it with integrity, odds are there are breakthroughs
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: that are going to happen. You just can't predict when,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: and they're not going to be linear. So the mindset
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: of consistency in getting one percent better every day and
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: showing up and doing the work that holds. But the
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: motivation to keep showing up, it's got to come from
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: the intrinsic reward of how how you feel doing the
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: thing versus the tangible results that you get. The example
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: in the book I gave is from Lane Norton, who
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: is a world champion powerlifter, and it took him ten
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: years to move his deadlift from seven hundred ten pounds
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: to seven hundred and twenty three pounds, ten years to
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: gain thirteen pounds. Now, if he was addicted to getting
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: one percent better every day, he would ac quit.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: But he showed up.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: He was consistent is you know, and disciplined as all
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: can be. But what kept him coming back to the
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: pursuit was like the mystery.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Of it all.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: In every great crafts person, whether you're an athlete, whether
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: you're a surgeon, whether you're a marksman, every great crist person,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: at some point in their journey, it's got to be
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: about curiosity, in discovery, in the satisfaction and fulfillment that
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: you get from just going deeper and deeper and deeper,
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: and then the results they just take care of themselves.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: And sometimes it takes a year, sometimes it takes a decade,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: but it doesn't really matter, because what's driving you to
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: come back is the love of the game.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, now, one thing that does seem to help structure.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I guess some of that if you have the love
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of the game, that gives you some of the motivation
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: to keep going. But then there's you mentioned that a
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: second ago, there's like the discipline or the routines that
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: you can build that keeped you on that track. You
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: quoted Venus Williams saying, you know something along the lines of,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: you know, discipline is freedom, and I know Jocko Willing
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: says something pretty similar to that, discipline equals freedom, I
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: think is his version. Can you expand a little bit
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: on what that looks like on how someone could put
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: that into practice in pursuit of something like this and why,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: you know, dicipline and or routines, which I think are
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: just kind of like systematizing discipline, how that can help us,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: you know, get better, and how that tangibly you know,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: could be done. I know you've looked into this a lot,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: You've talked to many different people that have figured out
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: kind of the science of building routines and habits. What
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: stands out to on that front.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: I love this topic so much, so let's start with
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: a little philosophy lesson. So philosophers talk about two kinds
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: of freedom, negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative freedom is
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: freedom from constraints, so I'm free from going to bad
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: at a certain time. I'm free from eating a certain way.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: I'm free from having to make a specific choice, so
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: I can just do whatever I want, anything goes. Those
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: are negative freedoms. They also talk about positive freedom. In
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: positive freedom is freedom to become your best self to
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: do something. And in order to have positive freedom, in
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: order to have the freedom to become the best outdoors
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: person you can be, you often have to sacrific I
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: some negative freedoms. You have to put some constraints on yourself.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Those constraints could be I'm going to drink less during
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: the week. I'm going to go to bed at nine
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: thirty a pm so that I can wake up at
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: five am to get a practice session in or to train.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I'm going to limit the AI digital slot that I
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: consume because it really makes me impatient and I lose focus,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: and then that actually affects me as a hunter because
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: I'm antsy all the time.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: So in order to be disciplined.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: We often have to put self imposed rules and constraints
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: on ourselves, so we're sacrificing negative freedoms.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm not free to go to bed whenever
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: I want.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: I'm not free from constraints on needing a certain way
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: for the positive freedom to be the best writer I
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: can be, the best athlete I can be, in the
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: case of a listener, the best hunter you can be.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: So that's the first thing i'd say.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: The second thing that I would say is that discipline
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: is not something that is temperamental. I firmly believe we're
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: not born with discipline or without it. It's a muscle,
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: and it really also is contingent on the systems.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: And routines around us.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: And the example that I want to give here because
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's such a great one is a professional athlete.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: So we often look at professional athletes and we say,
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: my god, are they discipline? And to some extent, they are,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: But they're also in a system where everything is structured
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: every meal, every recovery session, every practice, every bedtime, every game,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: every warm up, So they're in a system that supports
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: that discipline. And what ends up happening when you take
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: so many of these athletes outside of the system is
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: they blow up their lives. And that just shows that
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: it's not that they have this intrinsic discipline within them,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: it's that they had a system around them that allowed
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: them to be disciplined.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: So most listeners here aren't professional athletes.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: But what we can take from that is in our
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: own lives, we can build those systems, those routines, those rituals,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: those constraints that then allow us to be disciplined. And
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: I think good places to start are just around like
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: the fundamentals. So what are your self imposed rules on
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: your nutrition? I am not a big believer in super
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: rigid diets, but I also think that just existing in
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: the modern food environment is going to make you sick
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: because the modern food environment is so obesigenic it's not
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: good for you. So I've yet to meet a healthy
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: high performer that doesn't have some kind of system for
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: how they eat what. Those systems are completely different based
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: on the person, but like some.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Kind of constraints.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, I live in Western Carolina, Okay, if I
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: didn't have constraints, I would be very unhealthy because I
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: can't drive half a mile without two barbecues and four Bojangles.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: So my rule is I only eat that stuff once
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: a week. Like, that's a constraint. Constraints around sleep, you know,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: are you going to go to bed when you feel tired?
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Are you going to push to keep watching Netflix? That's
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: a constraint. Constraints around training. Like a self imposed rule
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: is that I'm going to show up to train regardless
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: of how i feel unless I'm really sick, and I'm
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: going to at least get started, and if after ten
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: minutes I still feel like shit, I'm going to shut
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: it down.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: But like, that's a rule.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: So I think, without becoming too rigid of a person,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: have some constraints, have some rules. That's really what discipline is.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Discipline is not this chest thumping Look how tough I am.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I need a hype speech every morning. Discipline is just
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: having a goal and saying here of the things I
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: need to do to accomplish that goal, and I'm going
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: to put the constraints and systems in my life to
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: allow me to do that.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: How about habits, like trying to create This is very
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: adjacent to what you're describing, But what if I'm trying
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: to develop one of these systems, and we'll call it
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: a habit to do one of these positive things that
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: will lead me towards my goal. So we'll just say
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I want to because of my one hundred yard goal.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Right With archery, maybe the thing is like, Okay, I
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: need to shoot every single day. I want to develop
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: a daily archery habit. But for years I've been saying that,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: and I never have time. I get busy, and this
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: thing happens, and that thing happens, and I've just never
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: stuck to it. What are some of the things that
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: you've found, Brad, that have actually helped you develop and
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: stick to habits that last. Then make a difference.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: All Right, the first thing is I'm going to I'm
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: gonna add some nuance to what I just said. I
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: just talked about rules. But the first thing I'd say
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: is flexibility. So there's research that shows that if you
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: have a habit like I'm going to shoot every day,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: you're much less likely to stick to it. Then if
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: you say I'm going to shoot five to seven days
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: a week, because five to seven days a week allows
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: for the messiness of life to get in the way,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: whereas if you're all or nothing and the messiness of
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: life happens. Then you just quit and you're like, ah, crap,
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: you know, didn't get my seven days.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: What the hell? I guess this isn't going to be
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: the year.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: So have a really high ceiling or really high standard,
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: but also have a floor that allows for some flexibility.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: That's the first thing i'd say.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: The second thing I'd say is be realistic with when
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: in the day or when in the week it actually
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: makes sense for you to do it. If you've got
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: you know, young kids at home, in a loving relationship
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: with your wife or your husband, in your time to
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: practice is in the evening, It's probably not going to
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: work out because like you're going to have your kids
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: that are gonna have activities and they're going to want you,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: and your your wife or husband's gonna want to eat
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: dinner with you. So like, maybe you actually need to
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: shoot earlier in the morning. And if you're gonna shoot
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: earlier in the morning, then maybe you gotta get upstream
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: of that and actually not have those two beers the
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: night before so that you.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Can wake up to shoot earlier in the morning.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: So I think, like we often think about the thing
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: we want to do, and we don't think about the
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: environment or the ecosystem around us. And I think when
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: it comes to developing a habit, having some flexibility, and
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: then developing the ecosystem around us, that kind of pulls
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: us in the direction of that habit goes a long way.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: And then just starting really small. So if you want
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: to shoot every day, that's great, but maybe it's every
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: day for ten minutes, and then once you stick to that, well,
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: then going from ten to fifteen minutes as it much
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: not Once you're doing fifteen minutes, fifteen to twenty five
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: is not much, and before you know it, you're doing
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: a forty five minute session every day.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: So starting really small.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: And then I would also say just like removing friction
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: as much as possible. So if there's a way to
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: find a range that's on the way to your work
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: so you don't have to drive out of the way,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: great do that. If there's a way to do it
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: in your backyard, maybe that removes friction. But actually maybe
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: that causes friction because then you're isolated, you're doing it alone,
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: and maybe the accountability of going to a range and
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: seeing the same familiar faces that show up at the
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: same time as you is actually the thing that makes
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: sense that's going to be individual but getting really clear
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: on like all the inputs that lead to that desired
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: behavior and trying to remove friction away from those inputs.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: So if I were to continue down this path further
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: and I'm pursuing this goal of getting better at this thing,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: pursuing excellence and archery, will say or whatever, I'm going
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: to build these routines, I'm gonna build these habits, I'm
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: gonna have some discipline, I'm going to have these goals.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: There seems to be an inevitable point that we all
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: reach in whatever our pursuit is where the shiny object
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: effect comes into play. Where you hear about this new
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: supplement or this new bow or there's this fancy new
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: mud water ag one creating whatever that's going to all
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, you know, twenty x your performance. You
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: call this complexity. I think, you know, kind of simplifying
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about here, the way that there's all
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: these different fancy strategies or whizbang theories or gizmos or
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: gadgets that people want to say will lead to excellence
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: or success. You mentioned you call this complexity, and you
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: wrote here that complexity is a way to avoid facing
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the reality that what really matters for progress and most
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: endeavors is simply showing up and doing the work. And
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: then a little bit later you say, people love bright
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: and shiny objects. But the truth is that the way
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: you improve in anything is by eliminating distractions, prioritizing the fundamentals,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and executing them with ruthless efficiency. Can you expand on
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: how we can do that ourselves? Because there's all of
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: these different people sing in, you know, the praises of
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: this product or this new fad or this new idea
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: that's going to fix it all for us. How do
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: we deal with that when we are just barraged by
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: this all day every day.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: The secret is there is no secret.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: You got to just do the fucking work, man or
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: woman like that's it. And I think that okay, So
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: here's my general heuristic for this, all right, When you
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: look at a program to get good at.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Anything, So we're going to keep using this archery example.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: Ninety percent of the programs out there on the internet
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: are are just absolute garbage being peddled by grifters and charlatans.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Ten percent are probably great. Within those ten percent.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: There's probably multiple variations of ways to do it, and
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: you just got to pick one. You got to pick
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: the one that makes the most sense for you, that
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: you're most interested in it, that's going to fit your lifestyle.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: And then once you've picked that program, your job is
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: to put blinders on and to execute on your program
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: and to ignore the bright and shiny objects. And if
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: anyone tells you they've got the one thing, that is
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: like the ultimate sign to run the opposite direction.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Now I am not. I don't want to be like.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: Such a purist where people are like this guy's a
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: curmudgety old person, because I'm only forty, so I'm not
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: even that old to be this curmudgeony. There's nothing wrong
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: with getting the new bow, you know, if that's going
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: to excite you and light you up and it's actually
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: got like some cool carbon fiber or whatever the technology is, like,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: that's great. But just because you got the new bow
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean that you've got to stop showing up at
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: six am to the range to work it out, you know,
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: getting a new pair of shoes or getting the new
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: special deadlift bar. Like that stuff's great, Like it's fun,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: it's interesting. If you can afford it, by all means
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: do it. But if you're getting a new thing every
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: month or every quarter, then you're probably majoring in the
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: minors and you're looking for this solution to your problem
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: that is outside of just like the work that you
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: have to do.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: So I don't know if I.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: Think about my reporting and like how the role of
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: like these new brighton shiny aptes come in. I think
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: if you fuck around with those kinds of things like
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: once or twice a year, that's fine. But if it's
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: any more of that, then I think it's just becoming
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: a distraction.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: There's another I keep on having these these like temptations
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: when you're on this kind of path, I feel that
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: there's there's typical common temptations that you that arise. And
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: another one of those is, and I again have experienced
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: this in my own life, is obsession is taking this
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: pursuit of excellence and taking it really, really, really far.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: You know, we talked about this a little bit years
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: ago when we discussed the passion paradox and some of
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the things you wrote about in those first two books
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: of yours. I've continued to talk to other people about
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: this because of course, you know, anything, you can become
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: obsessed with hunting, fishing, all these outdoor pursuits. They absolutely
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: that happens within our world too. There's a whole lot
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: of dopamine people are chasing, There's a whole lot of
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: comparison culture go that people can kind of mistakenly chase.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: That all of these things can lead you to just
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: going very very very deep sometimes in the in, you know,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: to the to the destruction of other things on the
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: on the edges of that collateral damage. So I'm curious
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: about how you think now about this idea of of
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: single minded pursuit for something all the way deep, deep, deep,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: deep versus range. You know, there has been some research
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people talking about maybe there's there's
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: something to be said about having some range and diversity
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: within what you pursue. Too. Where's your head at these
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: days when it comes to those that kind of echotomy
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: there all right.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: Where my head is at is to think about having
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: your identity be like a house. And I'll explain what
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: I mean. If you have a house that only has
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: one room in it, and that one room catches fire
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: or floods, it's going to be very disorienting. You're gonna
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: have to move out of your house. Okay, you're not
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: gonna know what to do next. You might be homeless
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: for a period of time. If you've got a house
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: that has multiple rooms in it, in one room catches
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: fire or floods, you can go seek refuge in the
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: other rooms while you work out the fire of the flood,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: while you repair the damage. And we should think about
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: our identities the same way. So we want to build
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: an identity house that has more than one room. So
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: maybe the biggest room in your identity house is an
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: angler or an outdoorsman.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: But if that's the only room.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: In your identity house, then it actually makes you really
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: fragile because when things don't go your way in the sport,
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: when you go through a rough patch, you're not going
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: to know who you are. So you want to have
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: other rooms in your identity house. What are some other rooms? Husband, wife, dad, mom, coach, athlete,
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: creative reader, person who loves coffee, German shepherd, enthusiast. Doesn't
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: matter what the rooms are. You just want to make
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: sure that you have more than one. And I'm not
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: arguing for balance. I think balance is bullshit. At least
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: this is popular conceived. I think if you want to
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: be excellent, like my definition of excellence, right, it's like
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: carrying deeply and giving something you're all. You can't do
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: that and be balanced. So it's not to say that
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: you have to spend the same amount of time and
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: energy in each room in the house. It's not to
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: say that the rooms have to be the same size.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: You just have to have more than one and you
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: want to make sure that none of the important rooms
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: get moldy. So maybe you're in a season where you're
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: going all in to be a competitive archer. Well you
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: want to ask yourself, what's the minimum effective dose that
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: I need to spend in my marriage room to make
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: sure that room doesn't get moldy and I don't blow
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: up my marriage. What's the minimum effective dose of community
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: involvement so I can stay in touch with the actual
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: people around me and not start to feel isolated and lonely.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: What's the minimum effective dose for my health? Because I
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: can imagine that you get like so into this thing,
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: you let your health go to shit. Well that's not good.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: That's not going to actually help you in the long
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: term be a better archer. So think of what are
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: the core rooms in your identity house, and then what
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: are the minimum effective doses that each of those rooms need,
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: not so that you're always emphasizing everything, but just so
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: that they're there for you when you need them while
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: you pursue the main thing.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: And also there's a seasonality to life.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: In the reporting on this book, I found time and
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: time again that when you look at the really like successful,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: high performing people who are highly filled and satisfied too,
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: so they're not miserable. What I found is that when
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: you zoom in on any one moment of their life,
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: they don't look very balanced. They're like all in on
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: one or two things. But when you zoom out and
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: you look across their whole life, they actually do look
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: pretty balanced. So they have different seasons for emphasizing different things.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: And what they've gotten really good about is even when
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: they're emphasizing one thing, they make sure that they spend
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: just enough time in those other rooms in the house
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: so that in other seasons of life those rooms are
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: still available to them.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: So I feel like, right next door to this idea
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: is another I guess one of these pitfalls on the journey,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: which is you know is you go down this line
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: and you navigate balance and obsession and all of this,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: there can be this point where, and especially if you're
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: really focused on outcomes with those goals tied to these things.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of folks in pursuit of
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: greatness or mastery or excellence of some kind of pursuit
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: eventually can get to the point where you start losing
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: the fun of it, you start losing the joy in it.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I talked to your buddy Steve about this in his
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: book that came out last year about this. I certainly
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: have experienced this with you know, twenty years ago, I said, Hey,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: I'm going to really figure out this deer hunting thing.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: And then I went deeper and deeper and deeper and
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: deeper until I became obsessed with it. And all that
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: mattered was am I going to, you know, have this
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: level success on this you know, consistent basis, et cetera.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: And it got to the point where I was out
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: there doing the thing that supposedly dreamed of doing and
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: being miserable doing it. And so over the last two
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: to four or five years, I've been resetting what my
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: relationship is with hunting and how I measure success and
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and all
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: of that. And you wrote about this in your book.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: You've got a whole chapter devoted to joy, and I
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: love the fact that that was in there, and it's
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: in the towards the end too, which I thought was
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the appropriate place to kind of start wrapping this whole
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: topic up. So I'd love for you to expand on
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: that a little bit from your perspective and why that's
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: so important. Why is joy important to excellence and getting
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: good at something.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: Because having fun is like the greatest competitive advantage there is.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: If you're not having fun, you're not going to last
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: very long and you're not going to get the best
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: out of yourself. So I think this is a real
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: misnomer that is important to address. It's why I addressed
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: it as in a whole chapter in the book, and
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: we'll address it in brief here. I think what happens
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: is people hear about excellence or greatness, and we talk
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: about discipline, and we talk about consistency, and then we
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: talk about some like a David Goggins character who is
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: a badass to the core and who's very much fueled
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: by like anger, chip on your shoulder doesn't appear to
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: have a lot of joy in the pursuit, and people
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: think that, like, that's what it takes to be great.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: You just have to be angry all the time, and
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: you got to be so obsessed. And what I found
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: in the reporting on that book is that people who
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: are world class at what they do, not world class
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: motivational speakers on the Internet, but actually world class at
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: what they do, they're not angry at all. They love
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: what they do. They have so much fun. They laugh,
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: they smile. Look at Steph Curry just slay everyone in
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: the NBA at age thirty seven with a.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: Smile on his face.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: Michael Jordan, the player who is known for having the
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: most fierce, ferocious intensity, would stick his tongue out this primal,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: joyous act when he was dunking a basketball. So I'm
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: not here to bad mouth David Goggins and say that
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: it's not important to have intensity. What I'm here to
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: say is the intensity and joy they're not opposites, right,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: They can coexist. You can be that fiercely disciplined, driven
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: Goggins badass and have a great time while you do
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: the thing. And I think that the pursuit of excellence
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: requires that, because if you don't have a great time,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: eventually you're going to burn out. I mean, goggins is
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: an alien right, but most people they can't just be
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: angry all the time. Eventually you're going to burn out.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: So what I have found is that the way to
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: take something all the way is to do it in
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: a way where you're serious, and you are working hard,
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: and you are pushing yourself and you are making yourself
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable and you're doing hard things, and if you can't
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: smile while you're doing it, then you probably need to
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: adjust your process to be able to smile. And oftentimes
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: that comes down to the people you have around you,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: the goals that you set, and those two things go
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: like such a long way.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: And we all go through it. I mean I've gone
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: through it.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: Like when when the craft loses its joy, that's not
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: a problem with the craft.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: That's a problem with how I'm approaching it. I'm not naive.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: This isn't let's all hold hands in sing Kumbaya and
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: live in a utopia.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: There are days that are really freaking tedious. There are
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: months that are tedious, But the totality of the pursuits,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: the totality of the path ought to give you some
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: deep joy and some deep satisfaction, and if not, then
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: you better evaluate how you're doing it lest you won't
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: last very long.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, are there any I don't want to I don't
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: want to say this. I was gonna say, are there
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: any tricks? And the whole point of your book is
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: really there are no tricks. But are there any specific,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: other tangible ways to foster joy in your pursuit of excellence?
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I guess you mentioned one that being like surround yourself
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: with people, but is there any Are there any other
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: tangible ways we can put that into action kind of
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: proactively so that it's not that we reach and hit
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: this hard wall and like, oh my god, I've lost
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: the joy and now it's an emergency, but instead build
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: it in now.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: I think that take the work seriously. But be able
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: to laugh at yourself.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: So when you have airs or a shitty training session,
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: or a bad hunt or a bad day at the range,
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: like you got to be able to laugh at yourself,
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: like make fun of yourself. It goes such a long
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: way to make fun of yourself, be around young people
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: to the extent that you can. I know this is
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: something that you've written about a little bit on the
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: innerwebs that like when you go hunting with your kids,
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: seems like I'm saying this from Afar, like that rekindles
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: some joy because like you're experiencing it like through their
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: eyes who are doing this for the first time, and
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: the excitement and the exhilaration and the thrill.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: Well, guess what.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: The people that I studied for this book that are
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: a little bit older in their pursuit, they're always training
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: with people that are younger than them because like there's
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: this youthful energy you can't help but have that be contagious.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: I think it's also really important to identify the things
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: that kill joy. I call them like joy vampires, and
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: to try to eliminate them. So if you've gotten really
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: good at hunting and now you're guiding all these trips
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: and suddenly you're spending your whole day in your inbox
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: because people are canceling and people are saying that they
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: have this dietary restriction and all this stuff before your trip,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: and you're not enjoying it anymore, Maybe you need to
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: scale down your business and instead of leading forty eight
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: hunts a year, you only should lead fifteen. I don't
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: know what the answer is, but like identify the joykillers
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: because every pursuit has them, and then try to eliminate them.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: Those would be some concrete ways to help.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are great. Idea is I've got one other
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: joy killer which might seem wildly out of left field
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: to most people listening to this podcast and ostensibly coming
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: here to learn about how to become a better hunter
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: or archer or something like that, but it's a set
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: of issues that I think kind of hangs over everything
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: we do today, whether you're talking about hunting or weightlifting,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: or training or working or having relationships or anything. It's
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: been something that's been on my mind a lot over
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: the last three to six months, as I've been more
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: longer in that, as I've been wrestling with this. It's
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: something that you call I love the way you coin this,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: you call it Internet brain or you've also discussed kind
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: of an offshoot of that, being like algorithmic mass distraction.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I would love for you to share with me a
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: little bit of your thoughts on how all of today's
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: technology and social media and everything that comes along with
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: that is skewering the way we see the world, the
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: way our attention is focused, the way we have relationships
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: with people. I know this seems kind of out of
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: left field on a podcast like this, but I do
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: feel like it is impacting our joy and our satisfaction
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: and how we engage with these pursuits. I'd love to
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: get your take on that, because I think you've got
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: some really worthwhile thoughts on it.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: Thanks Mark.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: I like this topic because it's an important one. It
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: affects all of us. Internet brain is essentially what happens
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: when you spend too much time on the Internet and
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: you start to feel impatient and restless and frustrated and grumpy,
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: and you're a little bit more angry, you're quicker to snap.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: You start to see the worst and everything and everyone.
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: And this happens to everyone when they spend too much
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: time on the Internet, especially social media, because the modern
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: Internet is essentially a rage machine, because all sorts of
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: research shows that rage hooks our attention more than joy,
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: more than satisfaction. If we're pissed off at someone or
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: about something, we're going to lean in and we're gonna
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: read and we're going to feel our blood boil, and
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: we're going to comment, and we're going to go, go, go,
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: go go, and then we're going to end that session.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: We're gonna be all fired up and our nervous system
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: is going to be aroused, and we're going to sleep
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: like shit, and then we're gonna do it again the
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: next day, and eventually we're just gonna tire ourselves out.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: Our brain's going to turn to mush, We're not going
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: to be able to focus, We're not going to find
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: much joy in life.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: Is going to be worse than it was before.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: So I think it's really important back to discipline and constraints,
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: to have some constraints about how you use these digital technologies.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Lest we're all going to have Internet brain.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: And this is before AI takes over the Internet, which
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: is going to happen probably in the next few years.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: So I think that all of us are going to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: have to decide at some point whether we're content to
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: turn ourselves into angry, numbed out slaves to the Internet,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: or if we're going to touch grass and challenge ourselves
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: and create and contribute and be an actual community and
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: do cool shit and like contribute and love. And that's
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: a choice that we still have some agency to make,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: and I think it's the most important choice that any
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: of us can make.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: So it's not to say.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: Log off completely. I mean this podcast is recorded over
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: the Internet. The Internet is an incredible freaking tool and
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: it has so many benefits. There are certain parts of
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: the Internet and there are certain ways that we use
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: it which come with a lot of negative consequences, and
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: we should be aware of them and should we should
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: minimize them. And I think this is especially true on
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: social media. So I am a big believer in curating
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: your feed. I block people extremely quickly because I don't
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: know these people from Adam. And if there's someone who
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: I respect that says something that I disagree with or
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: that I find bizarre, I reach out to that person
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: and I get on the phone with them, or if
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: I can't, I meet them in person because I want
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: to learn from them, not just get pissed off at someone.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: Because life is way too short to just get pissed
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: off at everyone about everything. But when you realize that
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: the way that these platforms make money is by making
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: us all pissed off at each other about everything, it's.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: A real conundrum and the only way around.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: It is to get off the platforms increasingly and to
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: get out in the real world and to have real
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: conversations with people, and to realize that, yes, there are
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: some evil, shitty people, but most people are doing the
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: best they can with what they have.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've talked a lot about building systems or constraints
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: or structures, sometimes to enforce good things, but also maybe
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes to suppress less good things. How have you built
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: some kind of structure around how you use social media
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: or your phone to keep it from getting overwhelming and
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: taking over your time and attention. This is something that
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I've been wrestling with myself, and I you know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: one of the main antidotes to this a lot of
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: people prescribe is getting outside and engaging outdoors and all that,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: which definitely is something that hunters and anglers understand and
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: can relate to. But even those of us who do
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: that stuff all the time are finding ourselves still being
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: hijacked by these things. Heck, even being hijacked by them
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: while we are outside hunting or fishing and then getting
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: sucked into that wormhole. How have you battled that yourself.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: I was just gonna say, like, when you're doing your craft,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: you should not be you should not have your phone
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: on you. So if you're on Instagram during the hunt
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: that you've been training for for the last three months
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: because you want to be totally present during that hunt, Like,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: that's a bad use of Instagram. I'm sorry, man Like,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: and if take take the app off your phone, if
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: you need the wayfinder whatever on your phone, great, But
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: I'd argue, like go analog, like buy a compass. And
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe there's other things you use your
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: phone for, but generally speaking, like a good compass, a
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: good watch, a good knife, and a good notebook, and
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: then like an emergency device for contact, Like do you
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: really need your.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: iPhone so you can scroll Instagram?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: Probably not, I think also being really honest with yourself
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: about which of the platforms like gets you. So for me,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: it's Twitter or X Like I just there's something about
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: the textual and the very political nature of it where
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: when I'm on Twitter, I'm just pissed off at everyone.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: So I don't have Twitter on my phone, like I
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: use it professionally. I log onto the computer, I put
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: something out, and I close it and I don't come
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: on until the next day.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: Instagram is not as bad. I don't know.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: I think it's probably because I'm such a textual person,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: so I get more sucked into reading text on Twitter,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: so I can have Instagram on my phone.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: It doesn't destroy my life. It's fine.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: Something else that I do is I took a digital
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: sabbath where one day a week I don't use any
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: of my Internet connected devices.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: Well that's actually not true.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: I watch like sports, and I guess now those are streamers,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: But I don't use my email or social media, and
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: I don't go to the New York Times or the
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal or whatever. So I turn off news,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: and I turn off social media, and I turn off email.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: And I do this by having my wife hide my
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: phone in my computer, because if I know where they are,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: I'm going to check, or the temptation to check is
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: going to be so strong it's going to distract me
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: from what I'm trying to do. So I take one
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: day a week where I'm essentially offline, and like, that
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: is such a great reset for my brain and just
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: my being and my soul. But that's a constraint, right,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: Like that gets back to that is a constraint I'm
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: The constraint is I'm constraining myself from being able to
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: log onto the internet whenever I want, But that allows
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: me to be the best writer, the best parent, the
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: best husband, the best athlete that.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: I can be.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think those are really smart ideas and constraints
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: to put into place, and unfortunately we need to go
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: to extreme lengths now to develop.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, fire and let me let me interjact real quick, Mark,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: because here's the thing, and this is like inside baseball
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: for your audience. So maybe people find this interesting, maybe not.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at you, I'm reading your body language. I
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: think part of the re and that you struggle is
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: like you're a good guy that's doing it right with
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: integrity and with genuine care about your craft. In so
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: many of the biggest, most popular accounts that suck all
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: the attention on the internet are charlatan grifters that don't
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: know what they're talking about, that are preying on people's insecurities,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: that don't actually give a shit about the craft. They
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: just want to be famous. And it is really because
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: I face that all the time. Like the biggest names
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: and like performance and excellence and I'm not going to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: name names, I've met these people they're clowns. They're phenomenal
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: digital marketers, but they're clowns. They're not good at anything,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: and the things that they're good at, they cheat. They
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: look jacked because they take steroids, and then they don't
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: disclose that they're taking steroids. So like it's really frustrating
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: and it's kind of despairing. And what I found is, like,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: screw it, I don't care. I would rather have a
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: niche readership, in a niche community of people who are
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: actually committed to excellence, who are doing it the right way,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: with integrity and with with like heartfelt, genuine nature, and
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: be a million times smaller than the biggest freaking influencers
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: who are clowns. And I think once you get to
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: meet some of these influencers and pull the curtain back
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: and you see what clowns they are, and how miserable
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: their marriages are, and what shitty parents they are, and
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: how fucked up their lives are, you.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't want to be one.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: And yet every time I log onto Instagram and I
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: see someone with a gazillion followers, I get a little
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: bit frustrated, and I've just kind of accepted, like that's it.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: But That's why I'm talking to you, because like you're
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: real and I think the more that you can surround
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: yourself with real people who are going about it the
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: right way, the more joy that we all get.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that is very very not just good
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: but profound advice. It's simple but really impactful. And that's
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: something that a lot of your writing and your social
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: media posts and everything that you put out there, your newsletter,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: all of it is is grounded. I guess going back
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: to one of your books, it's grounded in a sense
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: of humanity. Maybe that really resonates with me and I've
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: really appreciated. So I thank you for that, Brad, And
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: I want to make sure we give folks a chance
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: to learn a little bit more about where they can
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: connect with you, connect with all the different things you've
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: got going out into the world and see this latest
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: book and all the rest. Can you give us a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: quick scoop on where to find all those things?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: Thanks Mark.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: So the book is called The Way of Excellence. My
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: name is Brad Stalberg. The book is available from wherever
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: you get books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble Bookshop dot Org.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: In the spirit of Internet Brain. If you want to
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: go deep. I would actually encourage you not to check
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: out my social media, but to like buy the book
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: or audible the book and listen to it. Read the book,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: spend some time with it, take notes in it, and
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: then apply it to your craft, apply it to being
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: a better outdoorsman or outdoors woman. If you've done that
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: and you are on social media, the place where I
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: am most active is Instagram.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: My handle is just my name at Brad Stalberg.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: I co host the podcast called Excellence actually, and I
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: have a substack that is also just my name Brad Stealberg.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: It's all great work. Appreciate you doing all that. I
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: appreciate you being here, and let's make sure to do
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: it again.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks Mark, keep fighting the good fight.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: I will, all right, and that's going to do it
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: for us today. I appreciate you tuning in. Hopefully this
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: was a nice change of pace. Hopefully this gave you
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: some new ideas to think about as you head into
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: this new season. As we're speaking right now, it's twenty
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: twenty six, I know a lot of you are reflecting
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: on the season that just wrapped up. Maybe you're already
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: planning and thinking through some ideas for the new year,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: so hopefully this one can help set you on the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: right path as we pursue excellence as deer hunters, or
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: bow hunters or outdoors people of all different kinds. There's
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: a lot that we can take from this one. I
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: hope you did too, and thank you for being here.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: Until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.