Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the.
Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on the show, I'm
Speaker 2: joined by Clay Newcomb to discuss failure in the whitetail
Speaker 2: Woods and beyond and the greatest lessons he's learned from
Speaker 2: each and every one of those moments. All right, welcome
Speaker 2: back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
Speaker 2: by Moultrie. And today we're continuing the theme of failure
Speaker 2: this month, and my guest is someone who I'm sure
Speaker 2: almost all of you know. It's mister Clay Newcomb, my
Speaker 2: good friend and colleague at Meat Eater, the host of
Speaker 2: the Bear Grease podcast, and a dang good whitetail hunter
Speaker 2: in his own right. And today I want to ask
Speaker 2: him about failure as we did or the last you know,
Speaker 2: a couple weeks ago with me and Tony. I wanted
Speaker 2: to bring this question to Clay to help me understand
Speaker 2: really how he has dealt with failure, how he defines failure,
Speaker 2: how he's become a better deer hunter because of failure.
Speaker 2: Those are the questions I intended to bring to Clay,
Speaker 2: and I can tell you now after having that conversation
Speaker 2: with him, that he took things in a different direction,
Speaker 2: an interesting direction. We do talk about failure in the
Speaker 2: whitetail woods, but I think the more important thing we
Speaker 2: ended up discussing was how failure and how we maybe
Speaker 2: experience it and learn about it, possibly in the whitetail
Speaker 2: woods or in hunting and fishing or whatever outdoor pursuit
Speaker 2: it is that you have, how that might be applied
Speaker 2: through the rest of your life, and how this can
Speaker 2: inform who you are as a person. So I think
Speaker 2: I'm going to leave it at that. It's a very
Speaker 2: interesting conversation. Clay is always has a has a tremendous
Speaker 2: amount of wisdom to share, and I've always appreciated that
Speaker 2: about him. So today an interesting, a potentially surprising conversation
Speaker 2: with Clay Nucombe about failure and what that means and
Speaker 2: what it might mean for all of us as hunters,
Speaker 2: outdoors people, and maybe more generally just as humans. All right,
Speaker 2: joining me on the line is the one and only
Speaker 2: the legendary Clay Newcomb. Thanks for being everybody. Hey Mark,
Speaker 2: good Yeah, I'm so glad that we get a chance
Speaker 2: to chat here. And this theme we've got this month
Speaker 2: seemed like a perfect fit for you, Clay, because I
Speaker 2: know you've had so much failure over the years, and
Speaker 2: the white Tail's coming.
Speaker 3: The one time, the one time Mark wants me on
Speaker 3: the podcast is all about failure.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, yeah, count me in. I'm in. I'm
Speaker 4: your man.
Speaker 2: Well, in all seriousness, it's more that I know you
Speaker 2: are wives, Clay. You are wives, and I think I
Speaker 2: think wisdom, you're generous. I think wisdom is helpful in
Speaker 2: dealing with failure. But I want to jump right into
Speaker 2: it with you. And the thing that I think would
Speaker 2: be most interesting to me right out the gate is
Speaker 2: how you define failure, you know, in the in kind
Speaker 2: of the context of deer hunting. When I like, when
Speaker 2: I reached out to you the other day and said, hey,
Speaker 2: we're talking about failure, what comes to mind, m.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean when you think about the typical
Speaker 3: idea of of failure at the most base level would
Speaker 3: be you have an objective to go hunting and to
Speaker 3: kill a deer and you don't like that, that would
Speaker 3: be the first idea that comes to mind. But if
Speaker 3: you think like a single second longer and a step further,
Speaker 3: you realize, and anybody that's hunted very much at all,
Speaker 3: even someone who's maybe just beginning, you realize that most
Speaker 3: of a person's career inside of hunting and time in
Speaker 3: the woods, if the definition of failure is that you're
Speaker 3: going to fail a whole lot and not have a
Speaker 3: lot of fun, not enjoy it. So I mean, to me,
Speaker 3: there's this big blurred picture of a whole lot of
Speaker 3: times in the woods that would you your success at
Speaker 3: the end would ultimately be this big connection of a
Speaker 3: bunch of individual mistakes that you had made things.
Speaker 4: Maybe you didn't make a mistake, but you didn't kill
Speaker 4: a deer.
Speaker 3: And so it's I actually struggled a little bit when
Speaker 3: you told me what we're going to talk about, not
Speaker 3: because I've not made mistakes. I mean I've made innumerable mistakes,
Speaker 3: but they all they all seem one and the same.
Speaker 4: I mean, the mistakes and the success, it's it's all
Speaker 4: like one event. It's like one game.
Speaker 3: It's like a basketball game that you know, the first
Speaker 3: quarter second quarter, third quarter, and you you ultimately come
Speaker 3: away with with a victory, which that victory could be
Speaker 3: a big buck on the wall. That victory could also
Speaker 3: be just a meaningful time in the natural world. And
Speaker 3: so I mean success ultimately starts with what's the definition?
Speaker 4: They're like, what are you after?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: And and the timescale of it.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, sometimes I go hunting and I
Speaker 3: don't even want to kill a deer.
Speaker 4: That's rare.
Speaker 3: But I mean sometimes you go out an afternoon and
Speaker 3: you're just like, man, if I kill a deer, if
Speaker 3: I don't, it's not really consequential.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just want to be out there.
Speaker 4: But most times I go to the woods, the goal
Speaker 4: is to kill a deer.
Speaker 2: Do you think that you're thinking on this has changed
Speaker 2: it all from maybe when you were sixteen or twenty
Speaker 2: to where you are now. Do you think that back
Speaker 2: then would would young adult Clay Newcomb have had a
Speaker 2: different answer one?
Speaker 3: You know, when I was young, I used to read
Speaker 3: about the stages of the hunter, you know, like you
Speaker 3: when you're when early on the focus is on the kill,
Speaker 3: and then as you progress, the focus becomes on the process,
Speaker 3: and later the focus comes on helping others, and I
Speaker 3: had this sense that I would fight that, that I
Speaker 3: would that I would fight that, and that I would
Speaker 3: never because it when you hear that narrative, it sounds
Speaker 3: like you lose drive and focus. And as a twenty
Speaker 3: year old, that chronology felt like drift from kind of
Speaker 3: what was fun about hunting. But now that I am
Speaker 3: definitely in the middle of life, should I live a
Speaker 3: normal lifespan, Uh, I'm less interested in fighting that because
Speaker 3: you just change over time and it's good. Like today,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm still very focused on mission orientation inside of hunting.
Speaker 3: Like there's times and places and seasons where I'm like
Speaker 3: hyper fixated on killing a big deer, just like I
Speaker 3: was when I was twenty, But that's not That's not
Speaker 3: the way it is every time I sit in the woods.
Speaker 3: There's times when I'm not focused like that at all.
Speaker 3: And I'm much more comfortable with with with changing mentalities
Speaker 3: about hunting because now I actually feel more diversified than ever.
Speaker 3: Like last year when I was hunting in Oklahoma, I
Speaker 3: had one goal and that was to kill a big
Speaker 3: old buck with my bow, like cared about nothing else,
Speaker 3: really didn't even care about the method, really didn't even
Speaker 3: care about having a great deer camp with people with me.
Speaker 3: But this this was like this short window. So I
Speaker 3: can go from that hyper fixated, driven person but also
Speaker 3: go to a family deer camp with a relaxed setting
Speaker 3: and no no pressure from the outside. So age, I
Speaker 3: feel like has helped me be I can I can
Speaker 3: be in first gear, I can be in second gear,
Speaker 3: I can be in sixth gear, and I get to pick.
Speaker 4: I mean I'm more in control.
Speaker 2: Okay, you give me hope for my for my middle
Speaker 2: age as well, which I've am. Well, I'm not rapidly
Speaker 2: I'm there too, but maybe in denial. But I want
Speaker 2: to unpack this idea a little bit more of these
Speaker 2: different gears and and maybe if we were to talk
Speaker 2: about failure, it's like throwing a wrench into those different gears. Right, So,
Speaker 2: what's the most recent example of failure that you can
Speaker 2: that comes to mind for you related to deer hunting,
Speaker 2: Like the first thing you think about, however you want
Speaker 2: to define it. I know you just mentioned there's a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of different ways to define it, but give
Speaker 2: me just unpack for me the most recent example you
Speaker 2: can think of of failure for you as a deer hunter.
Speaker 2: And then I want to kind of explore that example.
Speaker 3: Well, if I'm if I'm being honest with you, just
Speaker 3: as you said, Clay, what's a failure, I would go
Speaker 3: back to.
Speaker 4: And I'm just going to tell you just what popped
Speaker 4: in my mind. Last year. I shot a two year
Speaker 4: old deer.
Speaker 3: When I shot, thought that I was shooting at least
Speaker 3: a three year old deer, and when I walked up
Speaker 3: to it, it was just way younger than I thought.
Speaker 3: And that felt like failure to me, not because of
Speaker 3: antler size. It really I really wasn't that concerned about that,
Speaker 3: but I would in you know, six gear mode where
Speaker 3: I was trying to kill a nice deer and it
Speaker 3: was hunting a good place, and uh, basically just got
Speaker 3: excited and shot a deer that inside of this, you know,
Speaker 3: the mind frame I was in at the second seemed
Speaker 3: like a failure.
Speaker 4: That's one example of failure.
Speaker 3: If you want to talk about that, we can, or
Speaker 3: you know, it could give other examples, and.
Speaker 2: Let's let's let's examine that one. Did you do any
Speaker 2: kind of self assessment afterwards or thinking like how did
Speaker 2: that happen? How'd I mess that up. What did I
Speaker 2: do wrong? How would you answer that in retrospect?
Speaker 4: Just I think I was pressured by time.
Speaker 3: You know, it was the we'd been we'd been we
Speaker 3: were we were filming a but we'd been setting for
Speaker 3: four days and basically we had five days, and it
Speaker 3: was the biggest buck that I had seen on the trip.
Speaker 3: And just the second that I saw the deer from
Speaker 3: sixty seventy yards away, I was just like, I'm shooting
Speaker 3: that deer, and never really when he got up closer,
Speaker 3: I knew better. I was like, this deer's not as
Speaker 3: big as I think.
Speaker 2: He is, but.
Speaker 3: I'm going to shoot this deer. And then after I did,
Speaker 3: I was like, I wish I hadn't shot the deer.
Speaker 2: Do you ever have that experience in moments like that
Speaker 2: where you know, Tony and I were talking about this
Speaker 2: the other day, it kind of feels like you're a
Speaker 2: boulder rolling down the hill, and once that boulder starts rolling,
Speaker 2: there's no stopping it. Did you find yourself in that
Speaker 2: kind of moment where there's a brief second where you see,
Speaker 2: like you just mentioned, like you see the roadblock, You're like, ah,
Speaker 2: I'm approaching mistake. But it's it's too late to steer
Speaker 2: off course. Is that kind of yeah?
Speaker 4: Maybe?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 3: And then after I recognized that I was disappointed, I
Speaker 3: was double disappointed in myself because I was like, why
Speaker 3: I got excited about the deer? When I saw it,
Speaker 3: my heart skipped a beat. It was beautiful, you know,
Speaker 3: I'd found this little pinch point in a place I'd
Speaker 3: never hunted, just put up a stand that afternoon. It
Speaker 3: was like November sixth. It was just like the perfect situation.
Speaker 3: I mean, climbed up in the tree, been there an
Speaker 3: hour and a half and this.
Speaker 4: Buck walks by.
Speaker 3: I mean it was perfect, and that's part of the
Speaker 3: reason I wanted to shoot it. And so then when
Speaker 3: I realized that it was probably a two and a
Speaker 3: half year old deer, I was like, why can't I
Speaker 3: just enjoy this? I mean it worked, like, found this
Speaker 3: cool pinch point, climbed up a tree, killed a deer.
Speaker 4: So I was a little double conflicted.
Speaker 3: You know, And I'm not ready to just throw out
Speaker 3: all constraints with antler size when I hunt.
Speaker 4: I'm just not ready to do that.
Speaker 3: I hear guys talk about that, you know, just like, man,
Speaker 3: just be happy, shoot the deer you want to shoot.
Speaker 3: I'm just not quite there yet because I enjoy, I
Speaker 3: do enjoy killing the big deer, and if you're gonna
Speaker 3: kill a big deer, you gotta let some little deer
Speaker 3: walk past you.
Speaker 4: Sure you know.
Speaker 3: So, I'm I'm I'm I'm trying to excuse me, trying
Speaker 3: to play multiple fields inside the deer hunting world where
Speaker 3: you just really enjoy deer hunting but also like to
Speaker 3: kill a big buck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I'm there with you too. But it's not
Speaker 2: an easy I don't know if it's an adjustment, but
Speaker 2: but it's a fine line to try to walk in
Speaker 2: the middle where you try to have some of both.
Speaker 2: And in every different instance, in every different place, every hunt,
Speaker 2: every season, it's it's always gonna be a little bit different.
Speaker 2: But that navigating that terrain is tricky.
Speaker 3: It is, and it's the answer has got to be
Speaker 3: inside of a person's ability to block out the noise
Speaker 3: of every voice in deer hunting around them and recognize
Speaker 3: the unique situation that they're inside of. And for instance,
Speaker 3: maybe this will make sense. On this hunt we were
Speaker 3: I was hunting. It was a piece of private land,
Speaker 3: big piece of private land, that I hadn't been on
Speaker 3: the entire year, just showed up on November the fourth,
Speaker 3: started hunting, didn't have a trail camera out, didn't have anything,
Speaker 3: had five days, so there was a lot of there's
Speaker 3: challenge in that, there was some excitement in that didn't
Speaker 3: really know it was on this place. And I killed
Speaker 3: this two and a half year old deer on day four,
Speaker 3: coming through this pinch point, middle of the day cruise
Speaker 3: and just doing what he's supposed to do. And on
Speaker 3: that same piece of property two months later is a
Speaker 3: state two buck state. I was drilled into wanting to
Speaker 3: kill a big buck and I killed I did kill
Speaker 3: a big buck. I killed a really big buck on
Speaker 3: January fourth over bait over polybate legally in the state.
Speaker 4: And I mean some people, if.
Speaker 3: They really knew my whole hunting regimen, there might be
Speaker 3: some people that were like, well, killing that deer without
Speaker 3: trail cameras, just using natural train features in pinch points
Speaker 3: with a bow on November the fourth, that is more honorable,
Speaker 3: more noble, shows more woodsmanship than killing the deer over
Speaker 3: a polybate on January fourth, and I it was way
Speaker 3: harder killing the big buck way harder, took way more.
Speaker 4: Strategy. And this is not defensive bait.
Speaker 3: My point is how complex that hunting can be when
Speaker 3: someone's actually trying to get better, learn about deer and
Speaker 3: enjoy deer hunting. And that same person could be me
Speaker 3: in the same place on November the fourth and on
Speaker 3: January the fourth, and and like if I described that
Speaker 3: to somebody, like there were a lot of people that
Speaker 3: would be like, oh, yeah, I killed that big deer
Speaker 3: over bait. Anybody could do that, And oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: it was. It was an incredible hunt, absolutely incredible hunt.
Speaker 3: I learned so much about deer. I mean, I could
Speaker 3: tell you that story. But it's contrasted with me by
Speaker 3: this killing a two year old and a pinch point
Speaker 3: on November the fourth.
Speaker 2: So you just mentioned these two different examples in how
Speaker 2: one may or may not be more noble than the other,
Speaker 2: or one may or may not have been harder than
Speaker 2: the other. But what about this, which do you learn
Speaker 2: more from? You know, I think sometimes we want to
Speaker 2: assume that when we succeed, when we win, when we
Speaker 2: get the big buck whatever, that that's what we want,
Speaker 2: and that's when we're going to learn something. And that's
Speaker 2: when we grow. But then others might say, actually, it's
Speaker 2: the failure that teaches the most, the ones that got
Speaker 2: away or the time you screwed it all up. Do
Speaker 2: you think you learn more from that quote unquote failure
Speaker 2: earlier or the latter hunt.
Speaker 3: It's a good question. I mean, it just depends on
Speaker 3: what we're talking about. In terms of engagement with deer.
Speaker 3: I had way more engagement with deer through hunting over
Speaker 3: the bait. I mean I saw exponentially more deer, watched them,
Speaker 3: got to see how they came into a situation where
Speaker 3: they were nervous, saw how they handled unique variations of
Speaker 3: pressure from wild hogs that were trying to come into
Speaker 3: my bait, as well to daytime temperatures being really high
Speaker 3: for that time of year two. I mean, it was
Speaker 3: pretty fascinating watching how these deer engaged with this hunting.
Speaker 3: The four days that it took me to kill the
Speaker 3: deer back in November, I learned a lot. I probably
Speaker 3: learned more hunting seeing all the deer, though, to be
Speaker 3: honest with you, I saw way less deer, you know,
Speaker 3: just natural train features and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's let's let's zoom off in a little
Speaker 2: bit and make this a little bit more generically, if
Speaker 2: you had to look back on your whole lifetime of
Speaker 2: deer hunting, would you say the greatest lessons learned have
Speaker 2: come from the failures or the wins? Which of those
Speaker 2: would you take? If we if we kind of zoomed
Speaker 2: out further.
Speaker 3: Well, I once again go back to this idea that
Speaker 3: really they're all one and the same, because a success
Speaker 3: is not killing a big deer is not just a
Speaker 3: one time moment. It's a culmination of a bunch of
Speaker 3: experience that leads to this moment.
Speaker 4: But I can say that killing a big deer does
Speaker 4: does give you a data point.
Speaker 3: Of success that in an inspiration that's hard to erase. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like I mean, I think I think people that, well,
Speaker 3: any any successful hunter at any level, when you are
Speaker 3: successful in taking an animal, there's there's something I think
Speaker 3: at the DNA level inside of you that's like success bingo.
Speaker 4: I can replicate that. And and man, it's it's hard.
Speaker 3: To say that that's not extremely powerful because it gives
Speaker 3: you inspiration just to go just to go and hunt.
Speaker 3: It gives you inspiration to take off the next year.
Speaker 3: It gives you inspiration to save up money to.
Speaker 4: Be able to take off.
Speaker 3: I mean all these limiting factors really that I think
Speaker 3: are more important than where you put your tree stands
Speaker 3: just going.
Speaker 4: I mean, so there's a.
Speaker 3: Mark this, Wow, this is going to get like you
Speaker 3: may be like Clay, were way too in the weeds.
Speaker 4: But I'm there's kind of.
Speaker 3: A theme in my life right now on a much
Speaker 3: broader level than just hunting, but about how light and
Speaker 3: darkness inside of a person's life ultimately are the same.
Speaker 3: By light and darkness, I mean the good and the bad,
Speaker 3: the bad things that happen in your life and the
Speaker 3: good things that happen in your life. It's easy to
Speaker 3: segregate them into categories of this was bad and this
Speaker 3: was good. And what I'm seeing is that really they're
Speaker 3: all connected. And I believe that ultimately the bad stuff
Speaker 3: leads to the good stuff, and so you know, they're
Speaker 3: really all connected. I viewed deer hunting that way. I mean,
Speaker 3: all the times I got winded, all the times I
Speaker 3: made bad mistakes are connected to the ultimate victory at
Speaker 3: the end.
Speaker 2: Is there any one deer hunt over your recent lifetime
Speaker 2: that you can think of that illustrates that concept? The
Speaker 2: best that illustrates this idea that the good and the
Speaker 2: bad are one and the same, that the dark in
Speaker 2: the light can lead to this same place in the end.
Speaker 2: Is there any failure or situation that first felt like failure,
Speaker 2: seemed like it that ultimately you're like, oh wow, actually
Speaker 2: it was this.
Speaker 4: Does anything come to mind?
Speaker 3: M You know, I don't have a real poignant story
Speaker 3: on that mark. I mean, I just think, how often
Speaker 3: do you kill a.
Speaker 4: Big deer that you're like, I knew that was going
Speaker 4: to happen.
Speaker 3: Most of the time you're like, man, I can't believe
Speaker 3: that just happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know so.
Speaker 3: I mean, I just think about the big deer that
Speaker 3: I killed this year. I really didn't think it was
Speaker 3: going to happen. I got pictures of this deer. It
Speaker 3: was coming in at night, it was very sporadic, and
Speaker 3: it was just like, man, this guy's going to be
Speaker 3: hard to hunt. And then when I finally did kill him,
Speaker 3: I just almost couldn't believe it.
Speaker 4: No, I don't have a great story.
Speaker 3: I don't, man, I wish I did, all right, I
Speaker 3: haven't put it together yet if I do, But that's okay.
Speaker 2: Let me let me throw another Let me throw something
Speaker 2: else at you then and just dig you in even deeper.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about pain, the most painful moment in your
Speaker 2: deer hunting life where you screwed something up, or you
Speaker 2: made a bad choice, or things went the complete opposite
Speaker 2: of the way you wanted it to, or where you
Speaker 2: felt the most guilty or the most inadequate or the like.
Speaker 2: I don't know like any one of those things. Does
Speaker 2: any one moment fit that criteria, because that's something I'm
Speaker 2: interested in exploring too, And I recognize that a lot
Speaker 2: of those moments where you feel that way in that
Speaker 2: moment can change to later feeling differently, And maybe we
Speaker 2: can talk about that. But give me an example like that,
Speaker 2: where in that moment you thought, man, your deer hunting
Speaker 2: world was crumbling down.
Speaker 3: Well, if I can tell a story that I told
Speaker 3: last week in front of about three hundred people that
Speaker 3: happened on a deer hunt, it really doesn't have to
Speaker 3: do with tactical things. I'll try to make it brief.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a it's a hunting it is a
Speaker 3: hunting story, and it's very much this idea of light
Speaker 3: and darkness being the same. Mark when when I first
Speaker 3: started publishing, having a few articles published about deer hunting
Speaker 3: in like around two thousand and eight two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: just began to tiptoe into outdoor media. Had no never
Speaker 3: envisioned being in it all the way. That wasn't my ambition.
Speaker 3: Just started tiptoeing in, just writing a few articles, end
Speaker 3: up starting a regional magazine two years into that. And
Speaker 3: in honestly, I honestly don't remember the exact date. I
Speaker 3: was in my late twenties and I was bow hunting
Speaker 3: in the Howard County Wildlife Management Area in Arkansas. I'm
Speaker 3: not spot burning because it's a terrible place to deer hunt,
Speaker 3: and noted.
Speaker 4: I was. I've been scouting walking saw a gray squirrel
Speaker 4: on the ground I been hunting.
Speaker 3: I had my bow with me just in case I
Speaker 3: saw a deer or a hog or something. The middle
Speaker 3: of the day, hot Columbus stay weekend. I draw my
Speaker 3: bow back, I shoot the squirrel with my bow, walk
Speaker 3: up to the squirrel, and I did something that I
Speaker 3: honestly don't think that I had done up until that point,
Speaker 3: and I certainly knew better. But I'd shot the squirrel
Speaker 3: right through the hips and I left the squirrel there,
Speaker 3: I didn't take it out. I walk back to the truck,
Speaker 3: and my truck is parked at the end of a
Speaker 3: dead end road in this little management area. And as
Speaker 3: I'm coming through this thick timber, I see kind of
Speaker 3: light coming through. I know the roads right up there,
Speaker 3: and I hear the gravel popping on the road, and
Speaker 3: I can see through the trees. I see a gray
Speaker 3: truck pass by, and the truck is headed towards my
Speaker 3: truck at a culver sac and I kind of rushed
Speaker 3: to the road and jump out into the road and
Speaker 3: see that it is a game Ordens truck headed towards
Speaker 3: my truck and Mark at this point in my life,
Speaker 3: my father was a serial law abider, and I was too.
Speaker 4: I'd never broke the law on purpose.
Speaker 3: Raised a bunch of amidst a bunch of outlaws down
Speaker 3: in Mena, Arkansas. I love those guys, yes, And somehow
Speaker 3: the culture of our home was strong enough that I
Speaker 3: truly never purposely broke the law.
Speaker 4: Gary Nucan built that into me.
Speaker 3: But I was sloppy, just not mature, didn't really take
Speaker 3: care of business on the details, and a lot of
Speaker 3: my life as evidenced by me knowing better but just
Speaker 3: being like, man.
Speaker 4: I shot it. Why did I shoot?
Speaker 3: I regretted shooting the squirrel immediately, just say why did
Speaker 3: I do this? And did something that honestly I cannot
Speaker 3: recall ever doing before left the squirrel. Step out into
Speaker 3: the road. There's a game warden driving towards my truck.
Speaker 3: He's not seen me, Mark, he's not seen me. All
Speaker 3: I had to do was step back into the timber
Speaker 3: and let him turn around and come back out.
Speaker 4: And when I was standing in that road.
Speaker 3: I knew that I could not step out of that
Speaker 3: road like I had. It was not a voice, but
Speaker 3: it was a sensation that I was familiar with at
Speaker 3: this point in my life that I recognized as God
Speaker 3: was do not step out of that road, walk straight
Speaker 3: back to your truck and talk to this man. I
Speaker 3: didn't have intentions of admitting it to him. I mean
Speaker 3: I honestly didn't. I just knew what I had to do,
Speaker 3: but I knew that it was going to come up.
Speaker 3: I walked back to the truck, game Warden standing there,
Speaker 3: He's like, how you doing, son?
Speaker 4: What you been doing? Talk to him? Within like two
Speaker 4: minutes of talking to me.
Speaker 3: His countenance changes, his voice change, and he says, what's
Speaker 3: that on your boot?
Speaker 4: And he sees a.
Speaker 3: Speck of blood on my boot like half the size
Speaker 3: of a pee. And I say, that is squirrel blood.
Speaker 4: Oh it is. Where's the squirrel? I left the squirrel
Speaker 4: in the woods. Oh you did.
Speaker 3: Well, that's a problem. And I said, I know it is.
Speaker 3: And he said, well, let's go find the squirrel. We
Speaker 3: go find the squirrel. We barely found it. I mean,
Speaker 3: I was so far back in there. He proceeds to
Speaker 3: write me a ticket for wanton waste. Ticket was two
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy five dollars, and I was absolutely devastated, devastated.
Speaker 3: There's not a human on planet Earth that could have
Speaker 3: got that ticket that would have been more upset about
Speaker 3: it than me.
Speaker 4: That prepared me for what was coming in my life.
Speaker 3: About diligence, there's a scripture that's set in Proverbs that
Speaker 3: says a lazy man doesn't even roast the game that
Speaker 3: he kills, but diligence is a man's precious POSI. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of variations of the scripture, but essentially I
Speaker 3: knew exactly what I had to do and what I
Speaker 3: had to get cleaned up in my life, which was
Speaker 3: far more consequential than hunting.
Speaker 4: I mean, I really did, like I knew.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was like a just a moment when
Speaker 3: I knew that I had to do a bunch of
Speaker 3: stuff different, and I did. From that day to this day,
Speaker 3: I'm still on a track of becoming diligent and just
Speaker 3: and I mean and specifically in this case with wildlife law.
Speaker 3: And and that wasn't even the main part that I
Speaker 3: became diligent in. And I'm not claiming to be there today,
Speaker 3: but it's something that was permanently implanted in me.
Speaker 4: Of clay.
Speaker 3: You have a tendency to get off the rails. You
Speaker 3: have to be diligent inside of everything you do. Just
Speaker 3: pay attention, you know, dot the i's crossed the tee
Speaker 3: And and what I'm what I know is that people
Speaker 3: have different strengths.
Speaker 4: And my that was not my strength. My strength was
Speaker 4: in other stuff.
Speaker 3: And I felt like that I was being prepared for
Speaker 3: where I was going to stand years later.
Speaker 4: Today. I'm I'm where I'm at today.
Speaker 3: I feel like, not not like in because I working
Speaker 3: outdoor media, but just as a man. A lot of
Speaker 3: it came from that moment that was like a touchdown moment.
Speaker 3: That was a major mistake that ultimately in the time
Speaker 3: I actually thought it was going to crush my little
Speaker 3: bitty baby career in outdoor media. I actually thought I'm
Speaker 3: done and ended up writing about it in a regional
Speaker 3: article pretty pretty soon after that. The game warden told
Speaker 3: me that he was like, you should write about this.
Speaker 3: He's like, this is he said, You'll be fine. He said,
Speaker 3: this is not a big deal. Really cool guy. And
Speaker 3: uh so there's there's there's my uh light and darkness
Speaker 3: are the same story.
Speaker 2: It's a great example. And it's funny though you mentioned
Speaker 2: earlier how success can be such a touchstone and it
Speaker 2: can inspire you and it can be this important data point.
Speaker 2: But I do feel like there's something unique about pain
Speaker 2: or mistakes or failure in which it's it's it's searing, right.
Speaker 2: I mean what you described that was like a slap
Speaker 2: to the face that all of a sudden made you
Speaker 2: notice things in your life that you otherwise wouldn't have.
Speaker 2: And I think sometimes when everything's going well, we can
Speaker 2: be fooled by randomness. Sometimes, like if stuff's going well,
Speaker 2: we might just assume, like, oh, things are going well
Speaker 2: because I'm doing everything right, when sometimes that might not
Speaker 2: not actually be the case, but you're just enjoying some
Speaker 2: good fortune in the moment or or whatever. But when
Speaker 2: something goes wrong in a really noticeable, painful way that
Speaker 2: like shocks the system all of a sudden, like your
Speaker 2: eyes have to be opened in a different kind of
Speaker 2: way like yours was. And I think that's the power
Speaker 2: in interpreting failure in that way. I guess is like
Speaker 2: lots of times when something goes wrong, it's easy to say, oh,
Speaker 2: this is the end of the world, or this is
Speaker 2: the end of my dream, or this is the end
Speaker 2: of my goal. But if you look at it instead as, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a pivot, this is a inflection point. This
Speaker 2: is a moment that I can really learn from or
Speaker 2: change because of you know, in your case being a
Speaker 2: perfect example. But all that's easier said than done. I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: and I know this is something that probably you know,
Speaker 2: maybe you haven't even thought directly about. But has there
Speaker 2: been anything in your life that's helped you actually do
Speaker 2: that to take like that leap between making a mistake
Speaker 2: such as that you did, to actually following through on
Speaker 2: learning from it, whether that's you know, the specific example
Speaker 2: you just gave or something else entirely. But how do
Speaker 2: we go from like, oh I screwed up to okay,
Speaker 2: now this is how I grow from it, or this
Speaker 2: is how I change, or this is what I'm going
Speaker 2: to do next. A lot of people don't take that
Speaker 2: next step. How have you done that?
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 3: your your perception and kind of really the worldview that
Speaker 3: you have. And ultimately I would say that I have
Speaker 3: a worldview that would would say that the human life
Speaker 3: is a chrenology of getting better, stronger, more whole, having
Speaker 3: more integrity. It's a it's a redemptive journey. And I
Speaker 3: mean that's really powerful because if you take any moment individually,
Speaker 3: it can it could wreck you, crush you. But if
Speaker 3: if all these moments are connected to something bigger, then
Speaker 3: they become these granular moments that you know, are adding
Speaker 3: up to something more. And it could sound really generic
Speaker 3: to say that, but probably the undeniable theme of anybody
Speaker 3: that's been successful will be that it was the crisis
Speaker 3: in their life. It was the difficult things that made
Speaker 3: them who they are. There's no matter what picture of
Speaker 3: someone you have, that may just be all success.
Speaker 4: I mean that's.
Speaker 3: The challenge of today's world. World when we see social
Speaker 3: media and stuff, it's like, I don't I mean I
Speaker 3: didn't post. I didn't have social media at that time,
Speaker 3: but I would not have posted a ticket of that
Speaker 3: wanton waste on my social media. I don't think I
Speaker 3: would have. You know, you wouldn't. You wouldn't see that.
Speaker 3: You just see all these like success points in people's lives,
Speaker 3: and that's just not true. I mean you kind of
Speaker 3: have to calibrate that in that like your perception of
Speaker 3: other people's lives is probably not accurate. People struggle, people
Speaker 3: have challenges. And that's the best answer I've got, Mark,
Speaker 3: is that it's all about your your perception of of
Speaker 3: where this thing in your life is going, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 2: Related to that and take this where you will. But
Speaker 2: how does forgiveness factor into something like this, or or grace,
Speaker 2: you know, being a man of faith as you are,
Speaker 2: how does how is any of this related to being
Speaker 2: able to forgive yourself for mistakes or being willing to
Speaker 2: accept yourself as an imperfect vessel. Right, We're going in
Speaker 2: a wildly different direction than I thought with this conversation.
Speaker 2: But talk to me about that a little bit, because
Speaker 2: I think that you probably have some thoughts on that,
Speaker 2: and I think that that's actually something that's awfully relevant
Speaker 2: to our journeys as outdoors men and women and hunters.
Speaker 2: I'm curious to think about or hear about that well.
Speaker 2: I think the most powerful component of my faith is forgiveness,
Speaker 2: but also being able to forgive, having a muscle inside
Speaker 2: of you that is able to extend forgiveness to others,
Speaker 2: because I mean, the biggest human problem that we have
Speaker 2: is other people hurting us and doing us wrong. I
Speaker 2: mean really, I mean all the way down to like
Speaker 2: your boys, Mark that probably daily almost have conflict. I'm
Speaker 2: just guessing if you're like every other family in the world,
Speaker 2: and the ability to forgive a sibling, to forgive people
Speaker 2: that would do you wrong is powerful because it's so
Speaker 2: non intuitive in some way.
Speaker 4: We have a tendency to harbor.
Speaker 3: Ill will towards someone their bitterness that's wronged us. And
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the most powerful thing that my faith
Speaker 3: gives me, is the ability to forgive other to forgive others.
Speaker 3: But that only comes when you understand how much you
Speaker 3: yourself have been forgiven.
Speaker 4: When you have this awareness, we.
Speaker 3: Have a very unique view of ourselves in the world
Speaker 3: that's unique to the world. Like and when we have
Speaker 3: an awareness that you know, what I have done other
Speaker 3: people wrong, I have made so many mistakes, and forgiveness
Speaker 3: just becomes this like thing that flows through your blood
Speaker 3: that you extend to others, but also you know it has
Speaker 3: been extended to you. And obviously inside of the Christian faith,
Speaker 3: I think we see in scripture where God offers something
Speaker 3: to us that I don't think any other of.
Speaker 4: The major faith really deal.
Speaker 3: With quite like Christianity does, where where the premise of
Speaker 3: the faith is that we are forgiven because of what
Speaker 3: Jesus did.
Speaker 4: And that's powerful.
Speaker 3: I mean, it sounds like religious talk, but really it's
Speaker 3: very fundamental to human existence.
Speaker 4: I feel like being able to.
Speaker 3: Not have this this guilt of wrongdoing, you know, and
Speaker 3: I think that also translates into in a very different scale,
Speaker 3: but it's got to start at this epicenter of.
Speaker 4: You know, being able to forgive yourself for.
Speaker 3: Make mistakes and not I'm not eating with guilt about that.
Speaker 3: That's the reason I can talk about it and not
Speaker 3: have shame or not have fear. I'm not worried about
Speaker 3: what you think about me, because I dealt with all
Speaker 3: that and it was very hard, and I think today
Speaker 3: I would I would deal with it even more efficiently
Speaker 3: because I have no illusions of my own perfection.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, And you're right
Speaker 2: like it. It seems a little bit trivial to relate
Speaker 2: this to hunting after speaking about the broader life side
Speaker 2: of this as you did, but I think it does apply.
Speaker 2: And I think that for a lot of people hunting
Speaker 2: or whatever outdoor thing it is for them, those accomplishments
Speaker 2: that can be their identity. For a lot of people,
Speaker 2: that can be what you know, your whole life in
Speaker 2: some cases can feel like it's wrapped up in and
Speaker 2: then when you screw it up or when you quote
Speaker 2: unquote fail, that can be really damaging to people who
Speaker 2: don't have that other thing to center themselves or have
Speaker 2: worked that muscle like you talked about, to be able
Speaker 2: to give themselves permission to not be perfect, to forgive
Speaker 2: themselves for screwing up, to forgive themselves for not being
Speaker 2: great at everything, for not living up to the expectation
Speaker 2: of everybody else. That's a hard thing to get to.
Speaker 2: It's a process that probably all of us have to
Speaker 2: go through in our own way. But it's really interesting
Speaker 2: to hear about how some of those core tenants of
Speaker 2: your life outside of the outdoors relate to and strengthen
Speaker 2: your ability to do that in the outdoors. And I
Speaker 2: guess that's one of the interesting virtues of hunting is
Speaker 2: that it can go both ways too, right. You can
Speaker 2: if you are a hunter and you get outside do
Speaker 2: these things, you can work that muscle the reverse way.
Speaker 2: You tell me if you agree with this or not.
Speaker 2: But I think, like by screwing up in the white
Speaker 2: Tail woods a lot, making mistakes and then forcing myself
Speaker 2: to like, look those mistakes head on, learn from them,
Speaker 2: get better because of it, forgive myself for making those mistakes.
Speaker 2: I think that works a muscle that builds something in
Speaker 2: my character that allows me to do that throughout the
Speaker 2: rest of my life too. Forgiving other people, or learning
Speaker 2: from other mistakes, or being able to more easily recover
Speaker 2: from mistakes along the way, whether that's in my professional
Speaker 2: life or my personal life or whatever.
Speaker 4: I think that.
Speaker 2: Stuff translates across and that's that's one of the great
Speaker 2: things I think about the outdoors is tremendous canvas for
Speaker 2: learning these things and building those those those patterns.
Speaker 4: M h, you know you agree. I do agree because
Speaker 4: I think that.
Speaker 3: We display our humanness in every single sector of our
Speaker 3: life in basically identical ways. Like you are, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 3: What does that mean? You are essentially a set of ideas, worldviews, motivations, doctrines.
Speaker 3: You are you, you, you, your your character, just your personality.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like this really complex thing. And I
Speaker 3: mean you're the same Mark at home as a husband
Speaker 3: and father as you are in the deer woods. You're
Speaker 3: doing the exact same thing. You are expressing your humanness
Speaker 3: and exercising your character, your judgment, your temperament, your view
Speaker 3: on life.
Speaker 4: In every way.
Speaker 3: I mean it, You're you are the same everywhere you go.
Speaker 3: If you were if you were a competition cyclist, you
Speaker 3: would have the exact same struggles that you do with
Speaker 3: that that you have.
Speaker 4: In deer hunting, because that's what you're focused on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean it's different applications, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: So so yeah, is the outdoors a place where we
Speaker 3: can see ourselves in a unique way and have experienced
Speaker 3: growth that's going to help us in our life. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: Is it unique? I don't really think so. I don't
Speaker 3: know that it is. I think it's just a place
Speaker 3: that we express ourselves with a lot of passion and
Speaker 3: energy and it really comes through. And I mean a
Speaker 3: perfect example is my wanton waste story. I just why
Speaker 3: did I shoot that squirrel? I mean, I was bored.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to see if I could hit it.
Speaker 3: I was interested in my precision and archery, like it
Speaker 3: was a long shot.
Speaker 4: Just like I mean, there was a whole lot of.
Speaker 3: Dumb things, and I was making similar mistakes as a parent,
Speaker 3: as a husband, as an I didn't have a boss
Speaker 3: at the time, I was self employed, but as an
Speaker 3: entrepreneur I was doing the same stuff. Like if you
Speaker 3: could look at my life, you would have seen dumb
Speaker 3: stuff like that happening in other areas.
Speaker 2: But well, I wonder if if the outdoors and I
Speaker 2: don't I don't disagree with you that this is true
Speaker 2: across all aspects of our lives, but I do wonder
Speaker 2: if the outdoors gives us just enough distance from the
Speaker 2: rest of our lives and puts us through just enough
Speaker 2: adversity to make those lessons pop out a little bit more.
Speaker 2: They're they're they're separate enough from the rest of our
Speaker 2: lives that they seem different and unique enough to be
Speaker 2: able to like see and hold in our hand and
Speaker 2: make oh, yes, this is a thing. And then if
Speaker 2: we're patient enough or wise enough, or or or whatever
Speaker 2: to then recognize how that applies to everything else, then
Speaker 2: we're then we're golden. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: Here's an example.
Speaker 2: Mark.
Speaker 3: Think about the way that you deer hunt, and I've
Speaker 3: hunted with you some and like you would be highly analytical.
Speaker 3: You would wait until the conditions were perfect. In ninety
Speaker 3: percent of the times, you would wait till the conditions
Speaker 3: were almost perfect. You'd rather sit out a hunt than
Speaker 3: go hunt another place. You're going to scrutinize the thing
Speaker 3: to a t, and the success that you have is
Speaker 3: going to be really clean and feel like a result
Speaker 3: of kind of this strategy, which I think you really enjoy.
Speaker 4: That's your story.
Speaker 3: Every single place in your life. I would, And that's
Speaker 3: a compliment. I mean, I'm just saying I'm trying to
Speaker 3: paint this picture.
Speaker 4: I would.
Speaker 3: I would probably be a little bit more of a gambler.
Speaker 3: I would probably be like there's a thirty percent chance
Speaker 3: the win is gonna be wrong, seventy it's going to
Speaker 3: be right. I've got other places to hunt. I'm gonna gamble,
Speaker 3: roll the dice and go. And there's been times when
Speaker 3: that you'll win that one, but then also times that
Speaker 3: you lose it. And I'm now becoming more and more
Speaker 3: conservative in the way that I hunt, and I'm also
Speaker 3: becoming more conservative in the way that I think about life.
Speaker 3: And there's pros and cons to all these things, but
Speaker 3: I just yeah, just think about who you are as
Speaker 3: a in your career. You're the exact same person everywhere
Speaker 3: you go. So if you could, if you could analyze
Speaker 3: and not to just like turn this into like some
Speaker 3: big intellectual conversation, it's really not.
Speaker 4: It's really pretty functional. It's really pretty it is.
Speaker 2: And then also the wonderful thing though, is that you
Speaker 2: can also change, you can also evolve, right, you can
Speaker 2: also grow, and that's that's an exciting concept too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I want to I gotta wrap this up, Clay, but
Speaker 2: I want to give you one last question to to
Speaker 2: just give me your quick one off thought on on
Speaker 2: this topic of failure. What is the one thing that
Speaker 2: you would want your children to understand more than anything else.
Speaker 2: And you know, at least I know, like you've got
Speaker 2: one of your one of your kids, Bear who spends
Speaker 2: a whole lot of time hunting. What might be a
Speaker 2: let's just take him for example, what might be one
Speaker 2: thing around this theme of failure that you'd want to
Speaker 2: make sure that he understood, whether that be applied to
Speaker 2: his hunts or otherwise.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Just that success is the culmination of a lot of failure,
Speaker 3: and so you can't disconnect it from the success.
Speaker 4: You know, It's just it's this, it's this one.
Speaker 3: Linear line that because it could be you could view
Speaker 3: it as fail fail fail fail fail fail success.
Speaker 4: What did I do right?
Speaker 3: I would view the whole thing if you get your
Speaker 3: success as a success. And I realize that's kind of
Speaker 3: splitting hairs a little bit, but but.
Speaker 4: You know that's my best answer. Mark.
Speaker 2: I like it, Clay, and I like that you took
Speaker 2: this in a different direction than I was expecting. I
Speaker 2: always know that when I talk to you, Clay, you're
Speaker 2: gonna get me thinking, You're going to get me outside
Speaker 2: of the box. And I appreciate that a bunch you.
Speaker 2: So thanks for doing this well.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. Mark appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Man, we could have talked about sink control and all
Speaker 3: the mistakes that we've both made in sink control.
Speaker 2: That's next time, next time, Thanks Gleat. All right, and
Speaker 2: that's gonna do it for us today. Thanks for joining me,
Speaker 2: thanks for being here for this episode, and until next week,
Speaker 2: stay wired to Hunt.