Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by Steve Magnus, a world renowned
Speaker 2: performance coach and author, to discuss the research backed best
Speaker 2: practices for setting healthy goals for our pursuits, performing under pressure,
Speaker 2: and dealing with failure. All right, welcome back to the
Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light
Speaker 2: and their Camel for Conservation Initiative. And I'm excited here
Speaker 2: today because we've got an absolute banger for you. We
Speaker 2: are wrapping up our kind of prepping for the New
Speaker 2: Year series. I hate to say new Year Knew You
Speaker 2: because that's kind of cliche stupid, but it's kind of
Speaker 2: the only packaged phrase that I know of that kind
Speaker 2: of explains what we've been trying to do here the
Speaker 2: last few weeks, kind of getting ourselves ready for this
Speaker 2: next twelve month window, resetting things, recentering ourselves and making
Speaker 2: sure that we're moving forward in the right way. And
Speaker 2: our episode today I think is a perfect way to
Speaker 2: wrap it up, because it, in my mind is a
Speaker 2: terrific kind of callback to where this all started. At
Speaker 2: the very end of twenty twenty four, Tony and I
Speaker 2: did an episode in which we kind of reflected back
Speaker 2: on the last year and thought through, you know, what
Speaker 2: were the good things, what were the bad things, What
Speaker 2: brought us joy, what brought us fulfillment, what led to success?
Speaker 2: And however you define that, and then how can that
Speaker 2: inform us to plan this next year ahead? And what
Speaker 2: we kind of stumbled on, I guess, and it's something
Speaker 2: we have talked over the years, talked about over the years,
Speaker 2: but one of the things we stumbled on was the
Speaker 2: fact that, you know, when we layer all these different
Speaker 2: expectations and outcome focused goals and how we compare to
Speaker 2: other people. When we started caring about that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: it led to, you know, poor hunting success, not a
Speaker 2: lot of excitement and fun and a lot of stress.
Speaker 2: And so how do we still try to become better
Speaker 2: deer hunters? How do we still try to fill tags
Speaker 2: and have success, but do it in a way that
Speaker 2: you know, brings us that enjoyment, fun and satisfaction that
Speaker 2: we're looking for that got us into this in the
Speaker 2: first place, and it's something that I know is not
Speaker 2: unique just to us. I've heard from countless numbers of
Speaker 2: you guys who are experiencing the same things. I've got
Speaker 2: a handwritten letter right here from someone who has been
Speaker 2: experiencing this very same thing. So I want to continue
Speaker 2: to find ways to address it and help us all
Speaker 2: so we can kind of work through this stuff and
Speaker 2: get the very most positive aspects out of our hunting
Speaker 2: journeys and leave this baggage behind. Because when we when
Speaker 2: we obsess too much about filling a tag or killing
Speaker 2: the mature buck, or having a big buck to show
Speaker 2: our friends on Instagram, whatever it is, when we add
Speaker 2: this self induced pressure and we fall for this kind
Speaker 2: of comparison culture, when we do that stuff, it's it's
Speaker 2: not it's not why we do this in the first place.
Speaker 2: It takes away from what is an incredible pursuit and experience.
Speaker 2: And so the question then is what's the alternative, what
Speaker 2: is the better way? How can we do all this
Speaker 2: that is going to leave us in a better, happier
Speaker 2: and more successful place. And the answers or at least
Speaker 2: some of the answers I think can be found with
Speaker 2: our guest today on the podcast. Our guest is Steve Magnus.
Speaker 2: He is a former track and field coach and now
Speaker 2: a world renowned expert on peak performance. He has been
Speaker 2: a performance coach for Olympic athletes, professional athletes, business leaders,
Speaker 2: military service member. He's the author of a number of
Speaker 2: different books which I've enjoyed. I've read a bunch of
Speaker 2: his books, including The Passion, Paradox, Peak Performance, Do Hard Things,
Speaker 2: and most recently, his brand new book that's coming out
Speaker 2: here in a week or two is called Win the
Speaker 2: Inside Game. And this book, you know, I think it
Speaker 2: it was almost as if he wrote this book just
Speaker 2: for us. Like the things he discussed are so perfectly
Speaker 2: parallel to what Tony and I have been kind of
Speaker 2: riffing on here in recent weeks. It's it's uncanny how
Speaker 2: spot on it is. We discuss how to set goals
Speaker 2: that are healthy, we discuss how to handle high pressure moments.
Speaker 2: We discuss how to you know, specialize in an area
Speaker 2: that you care about and continue to grow and get
Speaker 2: better and achieve you know, new things, but do it
Speaker 2: in a do it in a healthy way, doing in
Speaker 2: a way that that's not going to get you over
Speaker 2: stressed out, that's not going to make you feel worse
Speaker 2: about it, that's not going to make killing a deer
Speaker 2: a relief instead of something that you're just really excited about.
Speaker 2: And the experience itself is really great too. So we
Speaker 2: discuss all that we discussed. Like I mentioned performing under pressure,
Speaker 2: we talk about choking, how to you know, not choke,
Speaker 2: how to deal with failure when it does come, and
Speaker 2: much much more. This is a chat that's filled with
Speaker 2: insights that are backed up by research and science. Steve
Speaker 2: has a tremendous wealth of experience personally and has also
Speaker 2: then dug through the literature and talked through the experts
Speaker 2: on all these things. So this is something that you
Speaker 2: know is applicable to world class athletes, top of the world,
Speaker 2: business leaders, and even US deer hunters. So I am
Speaker 2: very excited for our chat today. So I think we
Speaker 2: just get right to it. Here's my conversation with Steve Magnus.
Speaker 2: All right here with me on the line now is
Speaker 2: Steve Magnus. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Steve, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited for
Speaker 3: this me too.
Speaker 2: You know, like I mentioned just a second ago off air,
Speaker 2: I've been reading your work for a lot of years now.
Speaker 2: You and Brad have I think, spoken to so many
Speaker 2: different things I've dealt with. Whether it's been you know,
Speaker 2: physical fitness and sport related things, whether it's been kind
Speaker 2: of the mental side of peak performance. I've always been
Speaker 2: someone who has, you know, been pushing and striving. I'm
Speaker 2: very achievement oriented. I'm what some people I think call
Speaker 2: these days an insecure overachiever. Has been like the trendy
Speaker 2: buzzword these days that I've heard them like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: that sounds like me. But You've got this new book
Speaker 2: that is coming out right around the same time that
Speaker 2: this podcast will be airing, called Win the Inside Game.
Speaker 2: And as I read it, it felt like you were
Speaker 2: writing to an audience of one just me. It was
Speaker 2: as if you had somehow infiltrated my mind over the
Speaker 2: last year or so and read all of my thoughts,
Speaker 2: saw what I've gone through over the last year or two,
Speaker 2: and thought, I need to write a book for Mark.
Speaker 2: Here I go, and you did it so so I
Speaker 2: want to I want to paint a picture for you
Speaker 2: of a hypothetical scenario a person a stand in will say,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious if this sounds familiar at all, if
Speaker 2: you've heard of anyone going through this. Let's imagine someone
Speaker 2: we'll call him Bill. And Bill grew up as a
Speaker 2: young kid, you know, following his dad and grandfather and
Speaker 2: friends out into the outdoors hunting and fishing. And he would,
Speaker 2: you know, get an absolute thrill joining the men out
Speaker 2: there at the cabin, maybe hearing the stories, spending time outside.
Speaker 2: You know, it was it was always an adventure. It
Speaker 2: was a surprise. There was camaraderie. It was terrific. He
Speaker 2: fell in love with it. As he though got older,
Speaker 2: he then found himself wanting to get better at these things.
Speaker 2: So he started reading the articles, reading the books. He
Speaker 2: continued down that road. He started having some success. Now
Speaker 2: he's watching the YouTube videos telling him exactly how to
Speaker 2: get better at this and this training regimen and this
Speaker 2: particular protocol. Now he's listening to all the podcasts, drilling
Speaker 2: into how the best in the world are doing this
Speaker 2: and how he can have that same kind of success.
Speaker 2: Now he's obsessing over going out there into the field
Speaker 2: and being as successful as a hunter as he possibly can,
Speaker 2: pushing himself three hundred and sixty five days a year
Speaker 2: to be the best he possibly can be. He's following
Speaker 2: all of his favorite professional hunters or outdoorsmen on Instagram
Speaker 2: and YouTube and seeing all their successes, and when he
Speaker 2: does have success, he's posting it there and feeling better
Speaker 2: and better with every single new like he sees popping up,
Speaker 2: kind of validating his success. But as this trend continues
Speaker 2: and he gets deeper and deeper and deeper into it,
Speaker 2: he starts finding himself out there, going into the field
Speaker 2: to go for a hunt, and not necessarily feeling that
Speaker 2: pure joy and excitement, but instead stressing about am I
Speaker 2: going to get a deer? Or not worried about? Am
Speaker 2: I working hard enough? Am I doing the right things?
Speaker 2: Am I putting in enough time? Is somebody better than I?
Speaker 3: Do?
Speaker 2: Other people think I'm a lousy hunter. When he or
Speaker 2: she sees his friends or the people he follows on
Speaker 2: social media having success, he's maybe not excited for them.
Speaker 2: He's feeling bad about himself. Does any of this sound familiar? Familiar?
Speaker 3: You might as well be talking. You could be talking
Speaker 3: about running, you could be talking about writing, You could
Speaker 3: be talking about any any sort of pursuit, and I'd
Speaker 3: be nodding my head along to say, this is the
Speaker 3: path that a lot of a lot of people, And
Speaker 3: I would say a lot of people inclined to strive
Speaker 3: go down. It's the same path that I went down
Speaker 3: on a hunting but in my chosen sport of running.
Speaker 3: And I think it's the same path that people go down.
Speaker 3: When you look at even business success is that it
Speaker 3: follows this pattern of like we we get captured, we
Speaker 3: fall in love with something. It is a magical, joyful
Speaker 3: exploration of the thing that pushes us from interest to passion.
Speaker 3: As we get passionate, we kind of cement and narrow
Speaker 3: around the thing. We're getting better, We're getting better. But
Speaker 3: at some point, the thing that has driven us, that
Speaker 3: has gotten to this point, almost starts to get in
Speaker 3: the way. Where the success, the striving, the achievement, the
Speaker 3: working harder than everybody, the watching all the videos, following
Speaker 3: all the things like starts to be the thing that
Speaker 3: creates the pressure, the anxiety and takes away the thing
Speaker 3: that initially drew us to it, which is that joy,
Speaker 3: that camaraderie, that exploration, And all of a sudden we
Speaker 3: find ourselves in a place where we used to want
Speaker 3: to do the thing, and now it almost feels like
Speaker 3: we have this burden of have to and that is
Speaker 3: the battle of I would say most high performers everywhere.
Speaker 2: Is this new or was this as true? Was this
Speaker 2: as true fifty years ago? Or is this a phenomena
Speaker 2: of the twenty first century? And in the the many
Speaker 2: different strange coinciding things we have going on with media
Speaker 2: and culture and whatnot.
Speaker 3: We've always had this to a degree, but what I
Speaker 3: would say is the twenty first century has like put
Speaker 3: it on steroids. We've exacerbated so much because think about
Speaker 3: it now, that comparison that how do I measure up
Speaker 3: against people is you know, one hundredfold. It used to
Speaker 3: be you know, I don't know how it works in hunting,
Speaker 3: but you could, you know, at the highest levels you
Speaker 3: could kind of compare each other. You go to competitions,
Speaker 3: you have whatever, you have some comparison point. But nowadays
Speaker 3: it doesn't even take you know, any of that. You
Speaker 3: literally go on in scram or TikTok or YouTube or
Speaker 3: what have you, and you can find a thousand different
Speaker 3: comparison points. So our comparison has kind of gone from
Speaker 3: local to global and at an earlier stage, and that
Speaker 3: has made this again ten times worse and harder. The
Speaker 3: story I tell in the book is of my own journey,
Speaker 3: which is, you know, back in the day, I'll put
Speaker 3: it this way. Back in the day, I was very good.
Speaker 3: I was a very good runner, and I kind of
Speaker 3: fell in love with the sport because it was fun
Speaker 3: and enjoyable and I was pretty good at But my
Speaker 3: pretty good at it was comparison comparing against like, you know,
Speaker 3: the kids in my class at school, right, which is
Speaker 3: you know, thirty kids, maybe in the whole school one
Speaker 3: hundred kids. Right. But now, if I think about it,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't be that. It would be, oh, I ran
Speaker 3: this mild time. Let me go look online and compare
Speaker 3: that to all the other twelve year olds in the world.
Speaker 3: And guess what. Instead of feeling energized that I'm pretty
Speaker 3: good at this thing, I would compare to everyone and
Speaker 3: be like, oh my gosh, I am minute slower than everybody.
Speaker 3: I am slower than In my case, I would have
Speaker 3: been slower than many, you know, girls of the comparable age.
Speaker 3: Why would I do this sport? I'm not good at it?
Speaker 3: And that would again that would take away some of
Speaker 3: the things that we do. So I guess long story
Speaker 3: short is, I think, especially on the comparison piece, it
Speaker 3: is so much bigger and harder now because we can
Speaker 3: we can compare to anybody that instead of motivating us,
Speaker 3: that puts us into this like why try protective anxiety
Speaker 3: pressure mode that so many of us feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, I feel like you have done a
Speaker 2: lot of work that's been adjacent to this over the years.
Speaker 2: You've explored a lot of kind of tangential topics. But
Speaker 2: why did it feel like now was the time to
Speaker 2: tackle this various specific thing head on? Why this book
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 3: I think we always write the books that we need
Speaker 3: and similar to your journey, like my journey was from
Speaker 3: like you know, go all in, really successful, try and
Speaker 3: get better to now you know, I just turned forty
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago, is thank you, and I
Speaker 3: have two young kids and you start to see the
Speaker 3: world through a different lens and you start say, okay,
Speaker 3: like I better rethink this because maybe I'm going to
Speaker 3: go down this path I have, like this fork in
Speaker 3: the road, I can go down this path that is
Speaker 3: chasing externalized feel that pressure, lose that joy, or I
Speaker 3: could go down this other path, and I've tried to
Speaker 3: go down that path towards joy exploration. But the other
Speaker 3: part of it that I kept seeing is I spend
Speaker 3: a lot of my time coaching, and at first that
Speaker 3: was just in running, but now I help out high
Speaker 3: performers with all lenses. And the problem I increasingly saw
Speaker 3: is that all of these people had incredible potential. Talent
Speaker 3: was through the roof, the work, ethic was through the roof,
Speaker 3: but if you look at the objective measures, they weren't
Speaker 3: getting where they were capable of getting. And at the
Speaker 3: heart of it almost always came down to what we're
Speaker 3: talking about right here, is they wanted it so bad?
Speaker 3: Did all of a sudden that want, that desire often
Speaker 3: cut from the external, was getting in the way. And
Speaker 3: from athletes I was seeing I was working with or
Speaker 3: talking to you, or like researching about is I kept
Speaker 3: seeing that like they all hit this moment where they
Speaker 3: had to essentially say, Okay, I got to change something up.
Speaker 3: I got to free myself up by almost doing the
Speaker 3: opposite and letting go a little bit, and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, like their enjoyment would come back, and more importantly,
Speaker 3: somehow the performance would increase and improve because like that
Speaker 3: that pressure, that anxiety, that all that stuff like just
Speaker 3: got alleviated just a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, it seems like there's there's like two different curves
Speaker 2: that you might see happen. There might be like a
Speaker 2: bell curve where you see someone who's slowly improving, slowly improving,
Speaker 2: and they're going down this path and then they're seeing
Speaker 2: significant improvements and at some point stuff starts to plateau
Speaker 2: and level out a little bit when these types of
Speaker 2: challenges start hitting and then I think for a lot
Speaker 2: of people, you might then start dropping down the other
Speaker 2: side when the anxiety, the pressure, the stress, all of
Speaker 2: it takes the fun out of it for you and
Speaker 2: you lose the motivation to do it, or you you know,
Speaker 2: crash and burn in one of so many different ways,
Speaker 2: and you see your not only your performance, but your
Speaker 2: interest in the pursuit at all crash. But I think
Speaker 2: then there's probably other people that somehow navigate this differently
Speaker 2: and crash and through that plateau and then continue to evolve, grow,
Speaker 2: perform and enjoy that thing. In reading your book, you
Speaker 2: put words to many things that I have been figuring
Speaker 2: out and maybe didn't have this specific language that you
Speaker 2: put down here for it. But many of the things
Speaker 2: that I've been gravitating towards and recognizing as having truth
Speaker 2: and validated to it. And one of those things that
Speaker 2: you call out in here is the importance of kind
Speaker 2: of our motivations being either external or internal, and the
Speaker 2: importance of that you reference to study towards the beginning
Speaker 2: of your book called a meta analysis of the Dark
Speaker 2: Side of the American Dream, and I'll just quote this
Speaker 2: a little bit here from it. You said they found
Speaker 2: that when individuals extrinsic aspirations dominated their intrigues intrinsic ones,
Speaker 2: it was universally detrimental to their well being. It's not
Speaker 2: that we need to have solely intrinsic motives, it's the
Speaker 2: balance that matters. When we tip too far to the external,
Speaker 2: we languish instead of thrive. When winning is all that matter.
Speaker 2: It might work in the short term, but over the
Speaker 2: long haul we increasingly play out of a place of
Speaker 2: fear and perform worse. Can you expand on that for
Speaker 2: us what you mean by, you know, extrinsic aspirations versus
Speaker 2: internal and kind of why that maybe is a keystone
Speaker 2: understanding for this whole thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, So extrinsic are the achievements that accolades the rewards,
Speaker 3: the tangible things that you get out of achieving the goal.
Speaker 3: It's the bonuses you get at work, right, The intrinsic
Speaker 3: is different. So it's that that piece of joy, the exploration,
Speaker 3: the almost play that we experience. The way I like
Speaker 3: to conceptualize this delineation between the two is, remember when
Speaker 3: you started the thing, you told you know, Bill's story
Speaker 3: about going on the hunt, you know, being outdoors with
Speaker 3: you know, family, and just the sheer excitement of that adventure. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that is the intrinsic. You're not going on that hunt
Speaker 3: to say, okay, okay, how many you know, how many
Speaker 3: buck can we kill? Right? How good can we be
Speaker 3: in this? Oh? You're on that because you're part of this,
Speaker 3: where you belong. You feel that joy. You say, like,
Speaker 3: this is an adventure, let's go. And as we age
Speaker 3: and as we get into adults, we often lose a
Speaker 3: little bit of that and as we get better at things,
Speaker 3: we kind of forget that that interest in it, ner
Speaker 3: joy that got us interested in the thing and turned
Speaker 3: it into passion. And the first point and That's what
Speaker 3: the whole thing is about. Is it's not that we
Speaker 3: shouldn't you know, care about winning or shouldn't care about
Speaker 3: the end result to achievements. We're humans, we're going to
Speaker 3: we're competitors, we're strivers, we're pushers. You and I are
Speaker 3: to care about the outcome. And that's totally fine. But
Speaker 3: the problem comes when we mess up that balance too much.
Speaker 3: If the outcome is all that matters, if winning or
Speaker 3: losing is self defining, then we are kind of screwed
Speaker 3: because what research tells us is that when winning is
Speaker 3: all that matters, or the outcome, we're too much towards
Speaker 3: that extrinsic we activate our motivation styles we have. Essentially
Speaker 3: you can sum it up into two styles. We either
Speaker 3: approach the thing or avoid the thing, meaning in sports term,
Speaker 3: we play to win or we play not to loose.
Speaker 3: And what research tells us is that heavily on the
Speaker 3: extrinsic side, we start shifting from that approach to the avoidance,
Speaker 3: and the bigger the achievements or accolades matter to us,
Speaker 3: the more we go to avoidance. Now, why would that be?
Speaker 3: For simple reason, because we've told our brain that like
Speaker 3: hitting this. You know, this outcome is so important that
Speaker 3: our brain goes like, well, if it's that important, then
Speaker 3: I'm going to protect you from the downside, which means
Speaker 3: we start avoiding the thing a little bit. And you
Speaker 3: can see this in different aspects of your life. Right,
Speaker 3: it's the athlete who maybe comes up with all the
Speaker 3: excuses for why they're not going to performed, right you
Speaker 3: say like, oh, I I haven't backed off for this race, right,
Speaker 3: I'm a little tired going in, so if I don't perform,
Speaker 3: Or it's it's the student who says, you know what,
Speaker 3: you know, I could have studied more, but I'm not
Speaker 3: going to. And then afterwards you do that because you
Speaker 3: could have said, well I got a C or B,
Speaker 3: but if I would have studied, I got it, I
Speaker 3: would have gotten in A. That's the avoidance speaking, that's
Speaker 3: that protective you know, mindset. On the flip side, if
Speaker 3: our motivations are more tilted a little bit more towards
Speaker 3: the intrinsic we approach the thing. Why because we're in
Speaker 3: that exploration mode because if we win or lose, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it might sting. If we don't you know, get our
Speaker 3: outcome we want want, it might sting a little bit,
Speaker 3: but it's not self defining because that intrinsic is pushing
Speaker 3: us to understand that, like, part of the reason we're
Speaker 3: doing this is the journey itself to experience the experience
Speaker 3: to go on the hunt and be out there for
Speaker 3: hours and hours and see, you know, with our friends
Speaker 3: and see what it's all about. Yeah, and that's where
Speaker 3: it all comes. You know, I'm simplifying here, but modern
Speaker 3: world has pushed us too much out of balance with
Speaker 3: thats ex forensic dominates and we forgot about the thing
Speaker 3: that got us interested in in the pursuit in the
Speaker 3: first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So much of it seems to be tied to
Speaker 2: expectations and like the expectations that we bring to the pursuit.
Speaker 2: And one of the ways that you described this is
Speaker 2: discussing and maybe one of the ways to break out
Speaker 2: of this is to have a or to shift from
Speaker 2: an outcome orientation to a process orientation. Can you expand
Speaker 2: on that a little bit as as how I know
Speaker 2: it's similar to this, you know, shifting from avoidance to
Speaker 2: to the other alternative, But can you talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about that. And it's been something that I have
Speaker 2: you know, been really working on myself because in our
Speaker 2: world you can't get very tied to, you know, the
Speaker 2: specific goal of man this year, I'm going to hunt
Speaker 2: in and harvest this specific mature buck, where like, this
Speaker 2: is my goal to have this caliber of success, and
Speaker 2: you will work your tail off all year for it,
Speaker 2: and it almost becomes to feel like a life or
Speaker 2: death issue for you, when in fact, you then because
Speaker 2: of that, have stressed, have worried, have made it almost
Speaker 2: a military mission to get there, and then even if
Speaker 2: you do get there, you hardly enjoyed the process at
Speaker 2: all because you were so focused on the obsession with
Speaker 2: the goal and beating yourself up all on the way
Speaker 2: because it's not going the way it's supposed to. And
Speaker 2: then God forbid, if you don't achieve that outcome, then
Speaker 2: you are kicking yourself and beating yourself up for how
Speaker 2: horrible you are and how you didn't do enough, or
Speaker 2: how you made the wrong decisions or you know, nine
Speaker 2: thousand other possible things. Can you speak to that shift
Speaker 2: from outcome orientation to process orientation and a why is
Speaker 2: that healthier? And be how?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Absolutely so think of it like this, what's the purpose
Speaker 3: of goals? You can simplify it into this is there
Speaker 3: to motivate and to tell us what's important.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right. If we are totally outcome focused or outcome orientated
Speaker 3: with their goals, what happens is at first they might
Speaker 3: be a little motivational. You might say, Okay, I want
Speaker 3: to achieve this, I want to run this fast, I
Speaker 3: want to achieve this, get this many you know bucks,
Speaker 3: whatever it is. Okay, at first, that might be a
Speaker 3: little motivational. But what happens over time is it and
Speaker 3: you described it right there, is it shifts from motivating
Speaker 3: you forward to it becomes this like signal where it's
Speaker 3: like still hadn't got it? Not you you're not maybe
Speaker 3: you're not close, maybe you're not going to get there,
Speaker 3: And that little thought in the back of your minds like
Speaker 3: starts to build that anxiety, that pressure, that worry, and
Speaker 3: instead of motivating us forward, it motivates us to kind
Speaker 3: of like go into that protective mode. If we look out,
Speaker 3: what does an outcome orientation do to our focus? It
Speaker 3: largely blinds us from everything else, so we only see
Speaker 3: the outcome. And what we know from both sport and
Speaker 3: life and even some research on hunting is that shows
Speaker 3: us is that when we become blinded to everything else
Speaker 3: but this, you know, achieving X, Y and z, it
Speaker 3: makes us where we miss opportunities, right, We miss opportunities
Speaker 3: to go down a different path, maybe to try something different,
Speaker 3: to try a different process orientation towards maybe achieving that outcome,
Speaker 3: and we get in our own way. If we look
Speaker 3: at process orientation, what does that mean is it means
Speaker 3: a couple of different things. It means taking us away
Speaker 3: from that outcome and saying, Okay, what are the steps
Speaker 3: or the journey that I want to go on that
Speaker 3: puts me in the best position to do this, So
Speaker 3: that maybe that's something as simple as you know, well
Speaker 3: I need to train you know, X number of days
Speaker 3: to get this done, or I need to The process
Speaker 3: is like to give myself a shot here literally I'm
Speaker 3: figuratively in this case, you know, is to like, you know,
Speaker 3: go hunting at this time with this people with this
Speaker 3: you know process behind it, meaning like these are the
Speaker 3: steps that I get there. And that shift is subtle,
Speaker 3: but it's important because it takes you away from it
Speaker 3: through a zero sum lens of like did I win
Speaker 3: or lose? Did I achieve or not? And it makes
Speaker 3: you reflect on did I do the process to give
Speaker 3: myself the best opportunity? And if we can reflect in
Speaker 3: that way, it takes it away from that threat mode.
Speaker 3: It takes us into this kind of like learning, growth
Speaker 3: and understanding mode, because whether you got the thing or not,
Speaker 3: what matters is did you execute your process. This is
Speaker 3: why in sports, like every football coach in the world
Speaker 3: says focus on the process. Why because simply they know
Speaker 3: that the win or loss is sometimes out of your
Speaker 3: control and like dependent on factors that might be a
Speaker 3: little bit of luck. Right, you can't control how many
Speaker 3: years show up right in the situation.
Speaker 2: Control the weather, I can't control what other people do.
Speaker 2: I can't control so much.
Speaker 3: You can't control so much. So well, you know, you
Speaker 3: could have a horrible process and still succeed. But what
Speaker 3: that means is next time you're going to go still
Speaker 3: do that horrible process and probably not have any success
Speaker 3: because you haven't learned and grown from the thing. If
Speaker 3: instead you focus on the process, what are the steps
Speaker 3: that I need? That's what matters. And the other part
Speaker 3: that I'll say as well is that when we look
Speaker 3: at process orientation, it is often shifting from achieving the
Speaker 3: outcome to what is the experience that I want? So
Speaker 3: what do I want this to feel? Like? What is
Speaker 3: the point of like the journey that I'm going on, Like,
Speaker 3: what's the point of the hunt? Is it just to
Speaker 3: achieve this outcome? Or am I going you know, to
Speaker 3: explore my potential? Maybe? And this am I going to
Speaker 3: test a new way of you know, tracking, taking downs,
Speaker 3: like using new equipment. Whatever it is, Like, that's the
Speaker 3: experience and if you can focus on that a little
Speaker 3: bit better again, it allows us to come out of
Speaker 3: it with a new way to judge kind of you know,
Speaker 3: our success or failure versus the kind of black or
Speaker 3: white zero some way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, it's it's a little bit tricky
Speaker 2: to do this sometimes because I think we're surrounded by
Speaker 2: an alternative framework for how we should set our goals, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, in most any other place, how is success judged?
Speaker 2: In basketball? Well, how many rings does Lebron have versus
Speaker 2: Michael Jordan? Or what was the marathon time or what
Speaker 2: was your minute time? As a hunter, where you know,
Speaker 2: we are taught to you know, did you did you
Speaker 2: kill a deer? Did you do you kill a mature deer,
Speaker 2: how many dear did you kill? How much meats in
Speaker 2: the freezer? Whatever your goal might be. And one of
Speaker 2: the things I've tried to do is, as I've learned
Speaker 2: more and more but this process orientation is better, I've
Speaker 2: tried to try to almost zoom out and try to
Speaker 2: maybe understand, like what does success look like beyond that,
Speaker 2: almost like what are the values that are important to me?
Speaker 2: Or as you said, what are the experiences that are
Speaker 2: important to me? And then work backwards from that and
Speaker 2: so understand, Okay, so high level, what are the things
Speaker 2: that have really mattered to me? Or what brought me
Speaker 2: the most joy? Well it was it was actually all
Speaker 2: the times with my family and friends and those stories
Speaker 2: and that camaraderie and those shared experiences. Okay, that's the thing,
Speaker 2: you know. Maybe actually those best memories, those those stories
Speaker 2: that stick with me, the experiences that I've never forgotten,
Speaker 2: Well that was because I tried something new, where I
Speaker 2: was in a landscape that was spectacular and awe inspiring.
Speaker 2: Or maybe it was because I was teaching somebody something,
Speaker 2: I was sharing my love of this with someone who
Speaker 2: is new. So I've tried to identifying these different, bigger
Speaker 2: picture things that then allow me to say, Okay, well
Speaker 2: I identified that, you know, being inspired, being an awe,
Speaker 2: inspiring landscapes, trying new things, all of that has brought
Speaker 2: me a loud joy and satisfaction and fulfillment. Okay, how
Speaker 2: do I know solve for that? Then with my future goals,
Speaker 2: how do I have these experience related goals or process
Speaker 2: related goals that aren't did I kill a deer? But
Speaker 2: are more so, Hey, go and explore a new landscape
Speaker 2: and try this thing with a friend or family member
Speaker 2: that you care about. So this is me rambling on
Speaker 2: what I really want to get to though, is I'm
Speaker 2: curious how do you do this? What is your goal
Speaker 2: setting protocol or how do you execute a process orientation
Speaker 2: as you're trying to achieve things in writing or running
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. I'm curious to get a framework
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 3: But first off, I love that from you. I think
Speaker 3: that's spot on, and I think it gets on something
Speaker 3: that is really important in before giving you my process,
Speaker 3: I'll just highlighted is that by doing that, what you've
Speaker 3: done is you've gone from narrow to broad because like
Speaker 3: the outcome, achievement narrows us right and it blinds us often,
Speaker 3: and you wouldn't if you just wanted to achieve, you'd
Speaker 3: keep going back to the places where you know you
Speaker 3: could get the end result. Because going to new place,
Speaker 3: the new and onspiring places is risky because you don't
Speaker 3: know it as well. You might not be able, you
Speaker 3: might come away with nothing. But by reframing it, you
Speaker 3: give yourself a chance to and in the end result
Speaker 3: is you might have a better experience and like it
Speaker 3: rejuvenates those intrinsic motivators. So for my process, whether it's
Speaker 3: running or writing, is very similar. Is look, I start
Speaker 3: with what is the point? How am I defining success
Speaker 3: around this? And to me, I could say, with writing it,
Speaker 3: you could say, well I need to sell this many
Speaker 3: books that I can you know, achieve this list or
Speaker 3: what have you. But that will drive you nuts. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it'll drive you nuts. It'll make it a miserable process.
Speaker 3: So I start with why am I writing this book?
Speaker 3: And who am I writing this book for?
Speaker 2: Did you write Mark? Did you write Mark Kenyon? Down
Speaker 2: as that you know?
Speaker 3: That was it? That was the one person?
Speaker 2: Mark?
Speaker 3: This is for you, this is it. But now in
Speaker 3: reality it's the things that we talked about like this
Speaker 3: book is for why, It's because something I've struggled with
Speaker 3: and I've seen other people struggle with, and I think
Speaker 3: modernity has made it ten times worse. So let's put
Speaker 3: it out there. Why. Because I want to help people
Speaker 3: like you and I, who are strivers pushers to be
Speaker 3: able to stay in the things that we enjoy and
Speaker 3: love for a longer period of time. So that is
Speaker 3: front and center in my mind. Okay, if that's why
Speaker 3: I'm writing it, then I work back from that and say, okay,
Speaker 3: what sort of this is allow me to do that best?
Speaker 3: And in the writing world, what does that mean? It
Speaker 3: means I want to go broad with exploring these ideas
Speaker 3: in a variety of places, because if I just go
Speaker 3: narrow and I talk about running or writing, the two
Speaker 3: things that I know best, it might reach runners and writers.
Speaker 3: But I know, again, my end goal is to help
Speaker 3: as many people as I can. I know, people from
Speaker 3: hunters to business executives to entrepreneurs based the same thing.
Speaker 3: So I need to go broad in my research, broad
Speaker 3: in my interviews, broad in my interests, and that puts
Speaker 3: me down this path of Okay, go broad, explore the
Speaker 3: topic and then as I narrow towards the writing process.
Speaker 3: Then it goes, Okay, from those broad stories, what do
Speaker 3: I think are a going to be most impactful for people?
Speaker 3: And then b give them enough evidence to convince them
Speaker 3: that this Steve guy is actually giving them stuff that works,
Speaker 3: just making that up and that shapes the kind of
Speaker 3: narrative flow or the evidence behind the book, and then
Speaker 3: you just kind of go from there. But it's it's
Speaker 3: a simple process from like broad exploration to to narrow
Speaker 3: how do I how do I turn this into a book?
Speaker 3: And and it's all shaped by that that not how
Speaker 3: many books can I sell? But at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, I look back and I say, Okay, given
Speaker 3: everything I've written, do I think this is going to
Speaker 3: help a lot of people? And hopefully I can answer yes.
Speaker 3: And guess what If I answer yes, then that motivates
Speaker 3: me to do things like your podcast or other podcasts
Speaker 3: or other shows, or write articles that hopefully go wide
Speaker 3: enough to to pique someone's interest and say, hey, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna I'm gonna go check out that book. When the
Speaker 3: inside game and a byproduct is yeah, hopefully I sell
Speaker 3: enough books to you know, feed my family. But it's
Speaker 3: not the it's not the result. And because of that,
Speaker 3: I don't feel that anxiety stress of oh I need
Speaker 3: to sell this many books. No, I'm going to have
Speaker 3: a great conversation with Mark who gets it, because like,
Speaker 3: this is an important topic and hopefully it will help
Speaker 3: people who are listening to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's funny. In my hunting life, I'm not
Speaker 2: as good at this, but I am better at this
Speaker 2: in my outside the rest of my career side of life,
Speaker 2: like writing. So I'm an author as well, and I
Speaker 2: end up being in that world. For ninety seven percent
Speaker 2: of us, you don't write a book to get rich, right,
Speaker 2: It's it's not a slam dunk financial proposition for the
Speaker 2: vast majority of us. That said, when I have looked
Speaker 2: at whether or not I'm going to write a book,
Speaker 2: I've looked at it as not am I going to
Speaker 2: write this book to make X number of dollars or
Speaker 2: sell X number of copies, but rather will the process
Speaker 2: that I will go through writing that book bring me
Speaker 2: fulfillment and joy and meaning right, And that for me
Speaker 2: has checked a million boxes because I know I'm working
Speaker 2: on as you describe. I know that the process of
Speaker 2: writing a book is going to mean that I'm going
Speaker 2: to spend in my case, my kind of books means
Speaker 2: I'm going to spend a lot of time reading and
Speaker 2: researching topics about wildlife and conservation, the history of our
Speaker 2: natural resources and wildlife and public lands. I'm going to
Speaker 2: learn about something I'm fascinated by. I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to talk to experts in these fields to learn more, again,
Speaker 2: connecting with like minded folks that inspire me and they
Speaker 2: can teach me. I know that I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to go in the field to study and experience these
Speaker 2: things on my own. I know that to promote this book,
Speaker 2: when it's all said and done, I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to go out there and speak with this community and
Speaker 2: share my experiences with the community and hopefully inspire and
Speaker 2: educate this audience. So all of those things, all the
Speaker 2: process that leads to writing a book, the actual steps
Speaker 2: I have to take on a day to day basis,
Speaker 2: will bring me joy fulfillment and meaning that right there
Speaker 2: there's my success, regardless of whether or not I sell
Speaker 2: one copy. So that makes it a very easy win
Speaker 2: for me when I know it, and even if this
Speaker 2: thing doesn't make a dime, all of that is a
Speaker 2: huge win. It's much harder for me to somehow translate
Speaker 2: that to the hunting side of my world or to
Speaker 2: running or something like that. And I'm not sure why
Speaker 2: that is.
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty simple. Did you come do you
Speaker 3: see yourself as a writer first?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question,
Speaker 2: but probably not.
Speaker 3: So same with me. Yeah, I came to writing kind
Speaker 3: of secondarily of like it's an avenue to share these things. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: so I think there it's like it's not quite as intertwined,
Speaker 3: so it's easier to do that. And hunting, you know,
Speaker 3: early and often is part of who you are. It's
Speaker 3: like intertwined with you, same with me on running, so
Speaker 3: it's a little harder to do that, even though I
Speaker 3: bet if we zoomed out and said, like, think of
Speaker 3: the same things, right, maybe it's not interviewing people, but
Speaker 3: it's going on hunts with different people or for me,
Speaker 3: like experiencing different races in different places with different groups
Speaker 3: and training with different people. That that process is the
Speaker 3: same that joy I get from it is probably the
Speaker 3: same same as you. But because we're like intertwined a
Speaker 3: little bit more with with the thing or the pursuit.
Speaker 3: I think that's where it becomes, you know, more difficult,
Speaker 3: and and that's where I think, you know, we have
Speaker 3: to almost be more aware of that poll because it's
Speaker 3: easier in those things that we're intertwined with to kind
Speaker 3: of forget this other world that we we kind of
Speaker 3: take for granted in something that yeah, we care about,
Speaker 3: but maybe it wasn't always front and center and who
Speaker 3: we are.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when when within the book, as you were
Speaker 2: discussing some alternatives to this mindset, one of the approaches
Speaker 2: you discussed was a mastery approach. And I think you
Speaker 2: were discussing this kind of an educational framework, but I
Speaker 2: but I found this idea of a mastery of being
Speaker 2: something that would be really relevant to my world and
Speaker 2: what we do. Is that something you could speak about
Speaker 2: a little bit what that mastery approaches or what that
Speaker 2: or how we might be able to apply something like
Speaker 2: that to a pursuit of any kind.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, So the best way to think a mastery
Speaker 3: is to think of a craftsman, right, could be any
Speaker 3: sort of craft, but the old school craftsman who is
Speaker 3: spending their time like creating the thing and what we
Speaker 3: know by thinking about like creating or crafting. The thing
Speaker 3: is like, is what is important not of it is
Speaker 3: they want to master that subject. Their goal isn't, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm going to create the perfect widget or whatever and
Speaker 3: to sell it. It's this is my craft, like I'm
Speaker 3: going to be a craftsman. Let's explore it. And when
Speaker 3: it comes to the educational standpoint, there's some great research
Speaker 3: that shows essentially this is if your goal is to
Speaker 3: you know, get a A on the test or score
Speaker 3: a certain you know, score on the SAT or whatever
Speaker 3: have you as standardized tests, is that might motivate you
Speaker 3: a little bit. But coming back to what we tied
Speaker 3: it talked about earlier, with the outcome orientation, it brings
Speaker 3: a lot of fear and anxiety with it. If your goal,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, is to understand the subject, meaning
Speaker 3: just like you talked about when you're saying I'm gonna
Speaker 3: write and I'm gonna have to go understand a lot
Speaker 3: about outdoor conservation, that means I'm gonna have to read
Speaker 3: a lot of new things and talk to a lot
Speaker 3: of new people. That is mastery because your goal isn't
Speaker 3: you know, I'm gonna go get a PhD. And conservation
Speaker 3: so that I can, you know, become the world expert
Speaker 3: and get paid this much to do so. No, it's
Speaker 3: the understanding that is driving the thing. So when we
Speaker 3: look at mastery, whether it's our I almost frame it
Speaker 3: as like an understand and exploration. And when we frame
Speaker 3: that and look at it, it tends to motivate us
Speaker 3: more internally and like tends to build more resilience over
Speaker 3: the long haul. So again it's hard in our own domains,
Speaker 3: but I always come back to that. And in my
Speaker 3: own world of running, I've had to shift my viewpoint
Speaker 3: more away from the outcome to what is the what
Speaker 3: is the point of running now? And I think when
Speaker 3: I go on runs and I challenge myself with hard workouts,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm just going on exploration to see how
Speaker 3: how do I navigate this pain and fatigue, because like,
Speaker 3: who cares if I'm running five minute miles or six
Speaker 3: minute miles or whatever have you. The experience if I'm
Speaker 3: working hard is the same. And if I can work
Speaker 3: on how am I going to get better at navigating
Speaker 3: of dealing with those like inner doubts of that voice
Speaker 3: in my head that's telling me like hey man, stop,
Speaker 3: Like this is painful, stop doing it. Like mastery is
Speaker 3: about not the end result of the how fast I ran,
Speaker 3: but it's like how did I do at like navigating
Speaker 3: and exploring my limits on that hard race or hard run.
Speaker 3: And I think we can apply that to basically anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of continuing down this path. One of the
Speaker 2: natural things that I think happens, and we've danced around
Speaker 2: this a little bit, but one of the natural things
Speaker 2: that happens when you fall in love with a thing
Speaker 2: and you get good at it is that there is
Speaker 2: a there's a very natural tendency to start specializing in
Speaker 2: that thing. When you find your thing, you tend to
Speaker 2: want to specialize and get better and better at that.
Speaker 2: And at first, maybe it happens by just happenstance that
Speaker 2: you're in love with this thing so much that you
Speaker 2: just can't stop thinking about it. But then also at
Speaker 2: some point there tends to be maybe a sense of
Speaker 2: obligation that comes about, because like, hey, if you want
Speaker 2: to be the best basketball player you possibly can be,
Speaker 2: you don't you can't have time to go and play bass,
Speaker 2: but you can't do baseball anymore because that should be
Speaker 2: when you're doing club ball. That's when you should be doing,
Speaker 2: you know, work in the gym. You if you want
Speaker 2: to be the best possible white tailed deer hunter you
Speaker 2: possibly can be. You know, I've had there are people
Speaker 2: in my world who say this, Hey, you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: You shouldn't go fishing, you shouldn't go hiking, you shouldn't
Speaker 2: go camping, you shouldn't do other things. If you want
Speaker 2: to be as good as you should be at this
Speaker 2: every day of the year, you should be doing something
Speaker 2: to become a better deer hunter. And when that happens,
Speaker 2: which has happened to me and many other people. You
Speaker 2: talk about in your book about this risk of going
Speaker 2: narrow and cementing is the word that you use, which
Speaker 2: I thought was really interesting. Can you can you discuss
Speaker 2: a little bit more and again we've we've talked about
Speaker 2: this a little bit, but can you speak to it
Speaker 2: a little bit more with that particular vocabulary or what
Speaker 2: that means, what that looks like, and and why you
Speaker 2: know why that tends to lead us more and more
Speaker 2: towards these negative things we've mentioned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So here's how I look at it. When you
Speaker 3: cement yourself thing meaning you are the you know, white
Speaker 3: tailed deer Hunter. What we've done is narrowed ourselves so
Speaker 3: much and told our brain, and our brain internalizes it
Speaker 3: as this is all that matters. This defines who I am,
Speaker 3: whether I achieve my goals or not, you know, reflects
Speaker 3: on me as a person because this is my entire world.
Speaker 3: And what do you think happens when we tell our
Speaker 3: brain like this is our entire world? It goes into
Speaker 3: like do or die mode? And we might sure, you know,
Speaker 3: we might think like, oh, do or die? When my
Speaker 3: back is against to all, that's when I perform the best. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm sad to say that even if you look at
Speaker 3: research on world class athletes, the vast, vast majority of
Speaker 3: people do not. We default towards fear, running away, avoidance, fleeing.
Speaker 3: We do not go towards taking on the challenge. And
Speaker 3: what research overwhelmingly shows is that, yeah, at some point
Speaker 3: we have to specialize a little bit, but if we
Speaker 3: go too far towards that cementation, it often backfires. This
Speaker 3: is why I love the research on There was a
Speaker 3: study a couple of years ago that looked at Nobel
Speaker 3: Prize winning scientists. So you think, like these guys are geniuses,
Speaker 3: like they're in the lab all the time, probably to
Speaker 3: get their breakthrough that won them a freaking Nobel. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but if you look at the research, Nobel prize winning
Speaker 3: scientists were more likely to have a regular hobby or
Speaker 3: other pursuit than those scientists who were still really good
Speaker 3: but a rung or two below. And if you look
Speaker 3: at psychology, what it tells us from sport to scientists
Speaker 3: to i'd guess hunting, but basically everything is. What it
Speaker 3: does is when we have some diversity to ourself, meaning
Speaker 3: there's other hobbies, other interests, is it makes it a
Speaker 3: little bit more resilient because if we don't achieve the thing,
Speaker 3: we still have something to fall back on. And I
Speaker 3: want to tell you a story real quick on something
Speaker 3: that's not in the book because I forgot about it
Speaker 3: until the book was done. But when I was a
Speaker 3: young runner, Okay, I was four oh one miler in
Speaker 3: high school and then I hit this spot where I
Speaker 3: just didn't improve and it drove me nuts and I
Speaker 3: was like so narrow and so all in on running.
Speaker 3: And I met with this sports psychologist in college who
Speaker 3: was world class, okay, and he's telling me this story
Speaker 3: and he says, hey, Steve, do you know such and
Speaker 3: such runner And I'm like, yeah, they were one of
Speaker 3: the best in the world. Okay, olympian, one of the best,
Speaker 3: fighting for medals, fighting for Olympic gold. And he said, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, she went through a really hard spot and
Speaker 3: transitioning from college to pro as well. And I said, okay.
Speaker 3: He goes, do you know you know what helped her
Speaker 3: make that jump finally to like this, competing for Olympic medals?
Speaker 3: No idea. He looks me dead in the eye and says, knitting.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, knitting, are you kidding me? You know,
Speaker 3: twenty year old Steve. He said, Look, she used to
Speaker 3: go do all her workouts, lift the weights, go all in,
Speaker 3: and then come home and she was worried about lifting
Speaker 3: the weights, doing the workout, what the next race was.
Speaker 3: And she just all day when she was sitting on
Speaker 3: the couch or watching TV or on the computer, like
Speaker 3: her mind wouldn't let go of it. And that created
Speaker 3: such overwhelming anxiety where she never got out of like
Speaker 3: the stress mode into the recover repair mode, which was
Speaker 3: where we adapt and grow. And for whatever reason, taking
Speaker 3: up knitting and joining a group of knitting friends gave
Speaker 3: her that space where body and mind were on something else.
Speaker 3: Of course, twenty year old Steve didn't listen to that
Speaker 3: because he was like, what are you talking about. I'll
Speaker 3: just keep going all in and do Yeah, it didn't work.
Speaker 3: I should have I should have taken up knitting or
Speaker 3: another hobby. But the point is that's what the research
Speaker 3: literally says. Now, it doesn't have to be knitting, right,
Speaker 3: It could be in your case, as you mentioned, like fishing,
Speaker 3: you know, another type of hunting. Maybe maybe you take
Speaker 3: up you know, bow hunting in addition to you know whatever.
Speaker 3: And what that does is it diversifies your sense of
Speaker 3: self a little bit. And there's research on this tying
Speaker 3: it to hormones. So briefly, I'll I'll give you some
Speaker 3: some sciences. What if we lose and it's literally all
Speaker 3: in on this thing. What happens is our body goes
Speaker 3: through a stress hormone release where it just jacks up
Speaker 3: our cortisol, which is not good for us. Okay, it
Speaker 3: puts us in this like panic, stressed anxiety state. If
Speaker 3: we lose and we have other things that other pursuits
Speaker 3: in our life that matter, we we don't get that
Speaker 3: big cortisol release. It's small, and instead we often get
Speaker 3: a testosterone release, which often people think test austin is
Speaker 3: tied to aggression, but it's actually tied to status. And
Speaker 3: we get that testosterone release because our brain realizes, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it sucks to lose at this thing. Guess what I'm
Speaker 3: going to go fishing tomorrow instead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm more than just this thing, bingo.
Speaker 3: And that's it makes us resilient and able to perform
Speaker 3: in the main thing better than if we're just, you know,
Speaker 3: solely focused solely on in Yeah.
Speaker 2: So if you were too right the Steve Magnus rules
Speaker 2: for pursuing excellence in your pursuit, whatever it is, And
Speaker 2: if you had to throw out a handful of these
Speaker 2: guiding principles, what would the first handful of those be
Speaker 2: that come top of mind? If if I want to
Speaker 2: be great at my thing, but I want to avoid
Speaker 2: these traps. So you're discussing what should be on my
Speaker 2: list of top commandments, Well.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of things we mentioned. Diversifying your interests,
Speaker 3: your pursuits, your meaning. Okay, it will help, I think
Speaker 3: understanding accepting that like winning, outcomes matter, but you better
Speaker 3: have some sort of process or mastery approach underlying it,
Speaker 3: I think other things that really matter that are often
Speaker 3: not talked about enough are things like surrounding yourself or
Speaker 3: creating an environment that allows you to potentially fulfill that
Speaker 3: potential to strive for that. So everything from our friends,
Speaker 3: our colleagues, our hunting buddies, our training partners, to the
Speaker 3: environment we train in all impact us so much, so much,
Speaker 3: and if we neglect those things, we're going to be
Speaker 3: in a bad state. So I think environment as well.
Speaker 3: I think the other things that come to mind are
Speaker 3: being able to zoom out and have perspective. So the
Speaker 3: reason I think this is really important is because, and
Speaker 3: I'm talking to folks like you and I right now,
Speaker 3: is generally the striving or chasing comes naturally and going
Speaker 3: in the other direction does not.
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 3: And when it comes to performance, a general rule of
Speaker 3: thumb I have is the thing that makes us great
Speaker 3: will eventually be the thing that gets in our way.
Speaker 3: So we need to go the other direction, meaning we
Speaker 3: need to have things that zoom us out and give
Speaker 3: us perspective. Maybe someone else listening to this podcast is
Speaker 3: really good at zooming out and taking perspective and saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's not life or death. If I, you know, I
Speaker 3: get this hunt in great, then you might need to
Speaker 3: go the direction and figure out how to stoke that
Speaker 3: caring a little bit more right and feeling a little
Speaker 3: bit maybe more consequences. That's totally fine, But I think
Speaker 3: understanding that the thing that makes you great is going
Speaker 3: to get your way and how to set your life
Speaker 3: up so you have skills on the opposite side is
Speaker 3: really really important. And then, uh yeah, other than that,
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure I could come up with a
Speaker 3: lot more, but we'll start with there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's perfect, And I want to I guess there's
Speaker 2: something related to this which I found really interesting that
Speaker 2: that takes up a massive amount of mind space within
Speaker 2: the hunting community, which is performance under pressure and performance
Speaker 2: in the clutch, right, And I think the argument you
Speaker 2: make in this book is that all of these things
Speaker 2: we just discussed leads to poorer performance in high pressure situations,
Speaker 2: It leads to choking, it leads to all of these
Speaker 2: things happening. And so you explored this idea of performance
Speaker 2: under pressure kind of a unique roundabout way compared to
Speaker 2: many other folks I've seen do this. But I also
Speaker 2: know you've explored this in some of your other work.
Speaker 2: I think you guys talked about some in peak performance,
Speaker 2: but you know, when it comes to hunting, it's a
Speaker 2: very clear, obvious, you know, high pressure moment. There is
Speaker 2: literally a shot that needs to be taken, like a
Speaker 2: free throw in a basketball game or a putt in golf.
Speaker 2: In this case, you are literally taking a shot, but
Speaker 2: in the most serious situation that you could ever imagine,
Speaker 2: in that your trigger pull or pulling through on the bow.
Speaker 2: You are making a lifeboard decision, life or death decision actually,
Speaker 2: and the implications of whether or not you do this
Speaker 2: as well as you possibly can. Either leads to a quick, ethical,
Speaker 2: precise kill of an animal that you do as best
Speaker 2: as you possibly can so it is done the right way,
Speaker 2: or it could lead to all sorts of horrible outcomes
Speaker 2: which no hunter wants to have happened, a miss and
Speaker 2: or wounding an animal that you don't recover, which is
Speaker 2: the absolute worst case scenario. So this is something that
Speaker 2: weighs on hunters tremendously. There's a ton of time and
Speaker 2: energy spent on making sure we can perform in those
Speaker 2: moments and not choke. What does the research show, first
Speaker 2: and foremost about why people choke.
Speaker 3: All right, So here's what it gets at is the
Speaker 3: combination of psychology and biology, which essentially says all of
Speaker 3: those things that you talked about lead to that feeling
Speaker 3: and experience of pressure that we all know. Right, it's
Speaker 3: when we see the deer the buck and it's like
Speaker 3: that our heart jumps right and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: what felt smooth is now kind of jittery and and
Speaker 3: hard and spastic.
Speaker 2: Almost. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So what happens here is there's two key concepts that
Speaker 3: I think are important here. Is our brain is predictive,
Speaker 3: meaning in the scenario, it's sitting there before it even happens.
Speaker 3: It's like, what are we going to do if we
Speaker 3: see a deer? What are we going to do if
Speaker 3: we're standing on the free throw line or standing you know,
Speaker 3: about to shoot a penalty kick, and soccer, it's predicting.
Speaker 3: What it's trying to do is make sure that you survive.
Speaker 3: It's not trying to make sure that you win or
Speaker 3: achieve the thing. It's that you survive. So what that
Speaker 3: means is it has all these different paths and colloquially
Speaker 3: we know them like fight or flight, but the reality
Speaker 3: is we have, you know, a dozen different paths, and
Speaker 3: with each path comes a different cognitive ability meaning focus.
Speaker 3: And then also like biology in terms of like hormones.
Speaker 3: So earlier I talked about cortisol stress hormones. Generally, we
Speaker 3: get more cortisol when we're in a situation that feels
Speaker 3: like a threat. When we're in a situation what feels
Speaker 3: like a challenge, we get less cordisol. We get more
Speaker 3: testosterone and more adrenaline, so it feels like we're a
Speaker 3: little bit more excited with a tinge of anxiety instead
Speaker 3: of anxiety with not a lot of excitement. Which way
Speaker 3: we go depends on our brain's predictions. Now, what does
Speaker 3: that come down to a couple of different things is
Speaker 3: can we meet the demands of the task before us?
Speaker 3: Meaning have you put in the training, have you been
Speaker 3: in the situation? Does your brain? Can your brain say, hey,
Speaker 3: if we do act y and Z, we're likely going
Speaker 3: to get you know why result If we haven't, then
Speaker 3: it's going to tend to default towards threat mode. Okay,
Speaker 3: because why would it put yourself in that position?
Speaker 2: All that it's making an accurate prediction of the fact
Speaker 2: that you are not prepared for this moment.
Speaker 3: Right, and you got to think, like the way it's
Speaker 3: thinking of is not I'm going to make you screw
Speaker 3: up the shot. The way to think of it is
Speaker 3: your brand's all essentially going, I'm going to create so
Speaker 3: much anxiety that you don't even want to take the shot,
Speaker 3: and so they you just escape, you know the other
Speaker 3: part of it. So the last part of it is
Speaker 3: it's also when it comes to that threat or challenge,
Speaker 3: it's it comes back to like how important is this thing?
Speaker 3: And self defining is this thing? Which we've talked about
Speaker 3: a lot. But if it literally feels like if I
Speaker 3: make this shot, I'm the man, or I lose it,
Speaker 3: everybody's going to know I'm a failure, then you're more
Speaker 3: likely just to fault towards that threat mode because again,
Speaker 3: your brain's going to go like, well why take the shot,
Speaker 3: Like I don't want everyone to think I'm a failure,
Speaker 3: Like this is not the juice is not worth the squeeze. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So that combination determines like where our brain kind of
Speaker 3: sends us. So what does that mean when we look
Speaker 3: at like choking and underperformance and that is a we
Speaker 3: want to give it the best evidence that we can
Speaker 3: that we are prepared. That means an accurate appraisal of
Speaker 3: what we're capable of, what we've trained to do, and
Speaker 3: then also an accurate appraisal of the demands of the task.
Speaker 3: So not fooling us again, I know nothing about hunting,
Speaker 3: so sorry if I get this wrong, but not fooling
Speaker 3: us that you know, we normally make a shot at
Speaker 3: you know, fifty meters and this one's one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty meters and being like, ah, we got it, you know,
Speaker 3: no problem right, No, Oh, you need to know what
Speaker 3: your capabilities are, both personally and with the equipment you have,
Speaker 3: and the accurate appraisal is more likely to put us
Speaker 3: in the challenge than bsing ourselves thro'ugh, this like fake
Speaker 3: macho stuff. So all of that sets the stage. Now.
Speaker 3: The good thing is this is there are tools and
Speaker 3: tips that allow us to kind of nudge towards that
Speaker 3: threat or sorry, nudge towards that challenge response. One of
Speaker 3: the ways, and I'm sure you guys are familiar with this,
Speaker 3: is that if you set yourself up with a routine,
Speaker 3: what does that do? Your brain goes, oh, okay, we've
Speaker 3: been here before.
Speaker 2: Like this.
Speaker 3: These are the same steps that I'm doing right to
Speaker 3: get us There other tools that work well as well
Speaker 3: as like all of your psychology and cognition are all intertwined. So,
Speaker 3: for instance, with our focus, what happens when we're really stressed.
Speaker 3: Instead of you know, being able to like just focus
Speaker 3: on the things that we need to, our brain often
Speaker 3: jumps around. It's thinking like, well, what about I just
Speaker 3: felt a little breeze, what about the wind here?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: What was this sound over here? Maybe I should be
Speaker 3: focusing on this instead of that Our brain jumps around
Speaker 3: with stress because it's just like looking for stuff. Right.
Speaker 3: We can control that two degree based on how and
Speaker 3: what we focus on. So for instance, there's research and
Speaker 3: there's actually I looked it up, there's someone hunting and
Speaker 3: shooting on this. In addition to sport, interesting is generally
Speaker 3: for successful shots or successful kicks of the penalty kick.
Speaker 3: You can tell, because athletes are individual shooting will have
Speaker 3: what they call a quiet eye moment, meaning right before
Speaker 3: their shot, there's this calmness and focus of the eye
Speaker 3: where it just kind of locks on to where it
Speaker 3: needs to be locked on and it's not darting around,
Speaker 3: you know, doing its secade thing where it's it's very So.
Speaker 2: This isn't like a metaphorical quiet eye or like, oh
Speaker 2: I felt like I was quiet. This is literally a
Speaker 2: physiological They're they're measuring the eye.
Speaker 3: They are literally measuring. They have glasses on that are
Speaker 3: staring at your pupil and measuring the movements of the eye.
Speaker 3: And it will literally in those who are successful, it
Speaker 3: will be a longer period of time where there's this
Speaker 3: quiet eye moment. Versus those who are not, it's generally
Speaker 3: a shorter period.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And the good thing is like, this is to a
Speaker 3: degree trained, how do we get there? That routine matters,
Speaker 3: But it's also in practice when you are like shooting
Speaker 3: or like working on that penalty kick, like understanding what
Speaker 3: are the things that I'm supposed to be focused on.
Speaker 3: For instance, I don't know the hunting research well, but
Speaker 3: in soccer, when you take a penalty kick, if you
Speaker 3: are darting between where you want to shoot it, the
Speaker 3: ball and the goalkeeper, you are less likely to make
Speaker 3: the shot. If you know that, you know what my
Speaker 3: process is. I'm gonna look at the goalie to see
Speaker 3: where he is, and then I'm gonna, you know, focus
Speaker 3: on a spot and then kick it there. You're more
Speaker 3: likely to do it because you've you've essentially said these
Speaker 3: are the things that are important here. Same with in
Speaker 3: kicking field goals. They found that if athletes feel like
Speaker 3: they're choking, one of the best things they can do
Speaker 3: is like look at kind of just beyond where you
Speaker 3: want to kick it, and just like focus on that
Speaker 3: thing and just like all your attention there because it
Speaker 3: will like quiet the rest of your brain because your
Speaker 3: brain's getting the idea that this is what matters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so simplifying the process almost like dumbing it
Speaker 2: down almost to a few simple focus points.
Speaker 3: That's it. That's what you're doing, because again, what is
Speaker 3: your vision doing. It's telling your brain what do I
Speaker 3: need to pay attention to in this moment When your
Speaker 3: brain is saying like, oh, this is stress mode, I'm
Speaker 3: going to look around and try and find everything that
Speaker 3: I can. The same works if you look at we
Speaker 3: could go a million different ways. But the same goes
Speaker 3: with your breathing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Why do we say hey, slow, you're breathing down, Because
Speaker 3: what you're doing there taking deep, longer breaths is you're
Speaker 3: telling your brain to send the message that we're not anxious,
Speaker 3: we're calm, right, and when we take deep breasts, our
Speaker 3: brain goes, oh, forget the stress mode, like activate, like
Speaker 3: the quiet, restorative mode. The same goes with our self talk,
Speaker 3: right if it's jumping all over the place and on
Speaker 3: like the negative stuff. What works for self talk when
Speaker 3: you're in those moments literally latching onto a mantra or
Speaker 3: a couple key things and just repeating those and saying like,
Speaker 3: this is what matters, this is what I'm focused on.
Speaker 2: And you know, I've heard a lot of these things,
Speaker 2: like the reframing idea, the idea of like talking yourself
Speaker 2: through the fact that oh this anxiety and excitement and
Speaker 2: these nerves and my heartbeat going one thousand miles an hour,
Speaker 2: that's not nerves. That's not being nervous. That is me
Speaker 2: being excited for this moment because there's a wonderful opportunity
Speaker 2: ahead of me. I've heard people say this and it
Speaker 2: all sounds great, But I wondered to myself, min, does
Speaker 2: that actually work in real life? Is there research behind
Speaker 2: something like that? Has that been to some degree quantified?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So the reframing works, but it tends to work
Speaker 3: on what i'd call moderately challenging things and not super challenging. Okay,
Speaker 3: so reframing works when it's like I can handle this.
Speaker 3: I'm feeling a little pressure in anxiety, but I can
Speaker 3: handle this. If it is literally if you are on
Speaker 3: the free thrower line and whether you make it or not,
Speaker 3: win's the NBA Championship. Reframing's not going to work because
Speaker 3: your brain's not dumb. It's not going to be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is excitement. No, this is a bit of anxiety.
Speaker 3: So in those sits situations, like what happens is instead
Speaker 3: of trying to reframe it, you accept it. You say, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is some ex anxiety I should be feeling this way.
Speaker 3: That matters. I'm not going to get rid of it.
Speaker 3: It's part of It's just part of it. So what
Speaker 3: are the things that I should be focused on then
Speaker 3: this moment that still allows me to perform? And that's
Speaker 3: where it comes back to, like, literally, what is your
Speaker 3: vision on, what is your thought process on? What are
Speaker 3: your routines that you're going through the Other thing that
Speaker 3: really matters here that we often neglect is also like
Speaker 3: who's around us? If in those moments, if we're with
Speaker 3: teammates who like we really feel connected to, or if
Speaker 3: you're on a hunt with people who truly support you,
Speaker 3: that will allow you to perform in those clutch situations
Speaker 3: a lot better than if it's you alone or if
Speaker 3: like you're surrounded behind people who you know don't support
Speaker 3: you win or lose. So it's also like the environment
Speaker 3: around us that will impact our ability to perform in
Speaker 3: these situations under pressure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I liked something you wrote. You said that clutch
Speaker 2: is a state, not a trait. I think that rings
Speaker 2: really true. And I think a state of mind is
Speaker 2: something you can cultivate. It's not something you're born with,
Speaker 2: it's not something you just get. It's something that you steward,
Speaker 2: that you foster. And that seems like something that any
Speaker 2: one of us can develop, right versus just like, ah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know Steve's clutch, Mark's not.
Speaker 3: So this is brilliant. And I talked to some your
Speaker 3: spot on. I talked to some people high up in
Speaker 3: the NBA who studied this, because you always hear these
Speaker 3: things like you know, Michael Jordan, he's clutch or whoever
Speaker 3: is clutch and whoever's not, And they studied us with
Speaker 3: all the data and the analytics, and they found that
Speaker 3: basically no one is consistently clutch, meaning no one has
Speaker 3: the clutch gene and just like generally comes through when
Speaker 3: it matters in the research, acts up. Which is why
Speaker 3: I said clutch is a state, not a trade. Is
Speaker 3: sometimes you can get in that state and sometimes you don't.
Speaker 3: But I think what it tells us is that, like
Speaker 3: we all are capable of like cultivating those things right
Speaker 3: and those ingredients that are more likely to push us there.
Speaker 3: It just takes practice and experience, and it takes experience
Speaker 3: as well not not messing up and internalizing that like
Speaker 3: we messed up, because that's going to get in our
Speaker 3: way of getting in that that state in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the unfortunate but simple truth of the matter
Speaker 2: is that no matter what we're pursuing, whether it's hunting
Speaker 2: or a run or shooting a free throw in the
Speaker 2: NBA finals, we are sometimes going to fail, right, And
Speaker 2: that is something that I think ties back to a
Speaker 2: lot that we discussed at the beginning, like decoupling your
Speaker 2: identity from your outcomes. So in this case, you know
Speaker 2: how I think I guess where I want to kind
Speaker 2: of wrap this up is around this idea of failure
Speaker 2: when you don't achieve your goals, when you miss the
Speaker 2: buck or you missed the free throw. You wrote about
Speaker 2: this in the book about four different components you specifically
Speaker 2: called out for bouncing back from failure. I thought we're
Speaker 2: something that would be very relevant to someone in a
Speaker 2: hunting scenario when you either just for whatever reason, don't
Speaker 2: achieve your hunting goal, or you straight up missed the shot,
Speaker 2: whatever it is. Can you can you speak about those
Speaker 2: four key components that being I don't know if you
Speaker 2: have those right in front of you reading for you,
Speaker 2: just in case you don't. One is shift out of
Speaker 2: protect and defend. One's keeping it informational not personal. One
Speaker 2: is reframing, which we just discussed, and one is revising.
Speaker 2: So could you speak to anyone all four of those
Speaker 2: or any one of them or any other thoughts you
Speaker 2: have on just dealing with failure in such a way
Speaker 2: that it doesn't destroy you and your future success.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. I think this is really important. We
Speaker 3: often give platitudes to failure, say hey, we've got to,
Speaker 3: you know, learn from it, But what really matters is
Speaker 3: how we internalize and how we handle it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: A couple of strategies that you mentioned there that I
Speaker 3: think are really important is generally, when we lose at something,
Speaker 3: it sends our body into this kind of protection stress mode.
Speaker 3: And the longer we stay in that, the more we ruminate,
Speaker 3: we catastrophize, and our brain uses that information for its
Speaker 3: future predictions as like, no, this sucks, and Steve's gonna
Speaker 3: if he's in this spot again, he's going to fail again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, vicious cycles it creates.
Speaker 3: It's the vicious cycle. So what we have to do
Speaker 3: step one is get out of that stressed mode. So
Speaker 3: the easiest way to do this, and we've kind of
Speaker 3: danced around it, is in the research backs is up
Speaker 3: is do things with friends that are fun and interesting
Speaker 3: because it literally like the antidote to failure and stress
Speaker 3: is socializing with friends because it shifts our hormones. So
Speaker 3: when we socialize with friends, we get more oxytocin, which
Speaker 3: guess what, that decreases cortisol and increases, you know, the
Speaker 3: good things that allow us to perform again. So socializing
Speaker 3: with friends, being around others, and sometimes even trying to
Speaker 3: make sense of the thing with those who are supportive.
Speaker 3: So there was this wonderful study on rugby professional rugby
Speaker 3: players that showed that after a game, after a tough loss,
Speaker 3: when they went over what went wrong with people who
Speaker 3: supported them versus strangers when they were a strain, Like
Speaker 3: all the stress hormones go through the roof and they
Speaker 3: perform wor it's you know, a week down the line
Speaker 3: at their next game. When they did it with friends
Speaker 3: or teammates who supported them or coaches who support them,
Speaker 3: you got the opposite. Good stress hormones put them in
Speaker 3: a recovery state, performed well later. It's the same with us.
Speaker 3: So what's your process in dealing with with failure? Hang
Speaker 3: out with friends, have some way to make sense of it.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean by like informational and not personal
Speaker 3: is have some process, just like a you know, athlete
Speaker 3: reviews the film, to do it in a non threatening
Speaker 3: way where it's like, Okay, how do I learn from
Speaker 3: this and grow from this? And then the last one
Speaker 3: we talked about reframing. But I think the revising is
Speaker 3: really important and it gets at what we've talked all
Speaker 3: about a lot is when it comes to failure or
Speaker 3: even success, the story we tell about it is what
Speaker 3: our brain will use in the future. So how And
Speaker 3: the nice thing is we are in charge of the
Speaker 3: stories we tell. So how are you going to tell
Speaker 3: this story? Are you going to tell it with learning
Speaker 3: and growth and like understanding, or are you gonna tell
Speaker 3: this like super negative cautionary story of like, oh, I'm
Speaker 3: never going to go back to that place again, because
Speaker 3: like how you internalize it will impact your behavior in
Speaker 3: the future.
Speaker 2: And when you say tell your story, I mean you're
Speaker 2: you're not telling about You're not saying how you tell
Speaker 2: the story to your friends. You're saying how you tell
Speaker 2: the story to yourself self? Right? This is like some
Speaker 2: some self compassion here a little bit maybe, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, there's self compassion on it. And we've all
Speaker 3: been tho, Like, here's how I like to think of
Speaker 3: it is, we've all had those experience where internally it
Speaker 3: just gnaws at us. And the way we tell the
Speaker 3: story is like this annoyance, this gnawing feeling, and often
Speaker 3: that puts us in like this negative state. Right, we
Speaker 3: don't have great memories about it, right, yeah, and that
Speaker 3: puts us in that avoidance. So when I say tell
Speaker 3: your story, is like, internally, how are you going to
Speaker 3: do that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: When you're practicing. When you go back out and practice,
Speaker 3: or you go out on your next hunt and your
Speaker 3: mind goes back to the last one where you came
Speaker 3: up a little bit short. How are you telling yourself that?
Speaker 3: Is it one where you learn, grow, develop or maybe
Speaker 3: even you know, laugh at the outcome? Sucked, But like
Speaker 3: the journey and the Camaradi camaraderie at a big positive effect. Right,
Speaker 3: that's fine too, But it can't be this big negative
Speaker 3: thing weighing us down, because that's going to put you
Speaker 3: in a state of like fear and threat when you
Speaker 3: come in similar situations in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's so much to unpack here and so
Speaker 2: much relevance to our world that I'm very glad that
Speaker 2: this this conversation came together. Steve, I can't recommend the
Speaker 2: book enough to folks. If you haven't yet, definitely need
Speaker 2: to pick up a copy of When the Inside Game
Speaker 2: and when this podcast drops. Initially it's going to be
Speaker 2: just before the book releases, So folks can pre order
Speaker 2: the book where anywhere I'd assume is there a place
Speaker 2: you prefer them to?
Speaker 3: Nope, anywhere books are sold, Get it wherever you want.
Speaker 2: All right, and then can you give us a rundown
Speaker 2: of any other content you want folks to know about
Speaker 2: the books they might be interested in picking up an
Speaker 2: addition to this one, you guys have a great newsletter,
Speaker 2: anything else you want people to know about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the best place to find us is
Speaker 3: at our newsletter. It's the Growth Equation Newsletter. You can
Speaker 3: find the links at my website, Steve Magnus dot com.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm on social media YouTube, Twitter, or x, Instagram,
Speaker 3: all of them at Steve Magnus. That's pretty interesting. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I just appreciate the conversation. And I love having these
Speaker 3: conversations with high performers like yourself, and especially in those
Speaker 3: domains that that aren't my niche, because I think it's
Speaker 3: so cool to see that regardless of our pursuit, performances,
Speaker 3: performance and the ideas translate across.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they absolutely do. Steve, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: the time. I really enjoyed this and I'm excited to
Speaker 2: continue to, you know, put these ideas into action and
Speaker 2: continue to see what but you guys share list in
Speaker 2: the future. All right, thank you all for being here.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed that one as much as I did.
Speaker 2: Definitely recommend you go and check out Steve's books. They
Speaker 2: are first class and I found them really helpful. And
Speaker 2: with that, I'll let you guys get to your rest
Speaker 2: of your days. I appreciate you, and until next time,
Speaker 2: stay wired to Hunt.