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 my buddy Tony Peterson to
Speaker 2: discuss how lateral thinking and the fostering of diverse new
Speaker 2: skills and pursuits, and maybe even learning how to play
Speaker 2: the guitar can help you become a better deer hunter.
Speaker 2: Hey guys, I got to interrupt the podcast here real
Speaker 2: quick for an update about a special opportunity that I
Speaker 2: think some of you might be interested in. Here's the deal.
Speaker 2: Have you ever wanted to have a sit down or
Speaker 2: discussion with myself and Tony Peterson to answer your very
Speaker 2: own hunting questions. Did you ever wish that you could
Speaker 2: send us a map of your hunting property and have
Speaker 2: us pinpoint the spots that we think would be good.
Speaker 2: Have us talk through our ideas on how you might
Speaker 2: be able to access your property or your hunting locations,
Speaker 2: or maybe where to put food plots or all sorts
Speaker 2: of stuff like that. Well, guess what that chance is
Speaker 2: available now as a part of meat Eater's auction House
Speaker 2: of Oddities, we are auctioning off a one hour private
Speaker 2: digital consultation. I guess it's an hour long zoom call
Speaker 2: with me and Tony to talk through whatever you want
Speaker 2: to talk about when it comes to white tails. We
Speaker 2: will review your maps, take a look at your property,
Speaker 2: answer any questions, spitball, strategize, We'll do it all. And
Speaker 2: as a part of this thing, As a part of
Speaker 2: this auction, this item which you can bid on, or
Speaker 2: many others that are out there as well, like some
Speaker 2: guided fishing trips, hunting trips, all sorts of different bizarre
Speaker 2: things like a I don't know, like a fur covered
Speaker 2: buyo harness, I think the beaver fur pillows. All sorts
Speaker 2: of stuff over at the auction House of Oddities. But
Speaker 2: this auction house is benefiting Meat Eater's Land Access initiative,
Speaker 2: and this time around, the land Access Initiative is supporting
Speaker 2: the ongoing legal fees. So the funds from these auctions
Speaker 2: will go to help fund the ongoing legal fees of
Speaker 2: the Wyoming Corner Crossing case and the outcome of this
Speaker 2: case in Wyoming can be applied to twenty seven thousand
Speaker 2: plus corner crossings across eleven Western states. So that means
Speaker 2: if this thing finally gets finalized in our favor, it
Speaker 2: could open up eight million acres of public land that
Speaker 2: would finally clearly be legal for you and me to access.
Speaker 2: So that's what we're doing here with this auction. If
Speaker 2: you go over to Auctionhouseofodities dot com or just go
Speaker 2: to the meat eater dot com and then you'll be
Speaker 2: a find links there heading over to the auction house,
Speaker 2: bid on this digital hunting consultation with me and Tony
Speaker 2: or any of the other items, and help support this
Speaker 2: Wyoming corner crossing case and let's open up eight million
Speaker 2: acres of new public land for you and me. And
Speaker 2: just a heads up on timing. The auction house is
Speaker 2: open from now until April ninth, twenty twenty four. Now
Speaker 2: back to the show. All right, Welcome back to another
Speaker 2: episode of the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you
Speaker 2: by First Light and their Camo for Conservation initiative. This
Speaker 2: whole initiative means that a portion of every sale of
Speaker 2: first Light Spectr cameo pattern, which is the white Tail
Speaker 2: pattern that Tony and I wear out there all season long.
Speaker 2: If you buy anything with that pattern on it, a
Speaker 2: portion of that sale is going to go to the
Speaker 2: National Dear Association, which I'm a fan of. Now today
Speaker 2: we've got a different kind of episode for you. I've
Speaker 2: got my buddy Tony Peterson with me to help with this.
Speaker 2: And here's the idea. I kind of want to set
Speaker 2: the stage for the conversation we're going to have here,
Speaker 2: kind of lay out my pitch I suppose for you,
Speaker 2: and then and then we'll see where it goes. But
Speaker 2: here's the idea, the pitch I have. The concept I
Speaker 2: want to consider today is this idea, This idea that
Speaker 2: if you want to be the best possible deer hunter
Speaker 2: you can be, you need to do other things than
Speaker 2: deer hunting. If you want to have specialist level success
Speaker 2: as a deer hunter, you know what we assume a
Speaker 2: specialist has, which is like the very most deer hunting
Speaker 2: success you could get. If you want to have that
Speaker 2: kind of success, you actually need to be more of
Speaker 2: a generalist. So this is kind of a backwards thought here,
Speaker 2: But this is this argument that I have something that
Speaker 2: Tony and I have kind of dabbled around the edges
Speaker 2: and past conversations, but today I really want to focus
Speaker 2: on this idea that to get better deer hunting, to
Speaker 2: have more success, to have more satisfaction with this thing
Speaker 2: that we talk about every week, actually want to and
Speaker 2: should diversify our activities and our year. We actually should
Speaker 2: think about adding in more seasonality to what we're doing.
Speaker 2: We should actually consider some changes in pace. We need
Speaker 2: to invest in different kind of activities that kind of
Speaker 2: spark our mind in different ways, that challenge us in
Speaker 2: different ways, and all of this kind of stuff. By
Speaker 2: stepping away from your standard way of thinking about deer hunting,
Speaker 2: the standard deer hunting things we do, it will actually
Speaker 2: come back around and help us. That's the pitch. That's
Speaker 2: the idea that I want to consider here, Tony. Before
Speaker 2: I lay into like some of my inspiration for this,
Speaker 2: the first thing I want to know from you is
Speaker 2: does any of this resonate like, does this seem like
Speaker 2: something that makes sense to you? Or do I sound
Speaker 2: like I'm off my rocker?
Speaker 3: No? Man, I've been pushing this message more and more
Speaker 3: probably the last four or five years, as I just
Speaker 3: realized it about myself that you know, I like a
Speaker 3: lot of people who are listening to this, and I
Speaker 3: know you have. It's easy to go real deep on
Speaker 3: wanting to be the best white tail hunter ever. And
Speaker 3: I'm only going to scout white tales. I'm only gonna
Speaker 3: think about white tails. I'm only gonna hunt white tails.
Speaker 3: And I don't think it makes I don't think that's
Speaker 3: the recipe to make a good hunter in a lot
Speaker 3: for a lot of people. And I think that being
Speaker 3: a generalist and being interested in other stuff, not just
Speaker 3: outdoor activities, not just we're not just talking fishing or
Speaker 3: fast at hunting or whatever, but just having things that
Speaker 3: challenge you, that keep you working toward goals and kind
Speaker 3: of that that intermittent progress. I just I think it's
Speaker 3: as I age, that becomes so much more evident to
Speaker 3: me how important that is. You know, it's just a
Speaker 3: long game thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think something that will probably come back around to,
Speaker 2: but that I've been thinking a lot about, is this
Speaker 2: just idea of having like my white tail mind always
Speaker 2: on in the background while doing different things and so
Speaker 2: engaging in a lot of different activities, but having that
Speaker 2: white tail whisper in the back of my mind that's
Speaker 2: whispering like, hey, this would actually work really good when
Speaker 2: you're making decisions as a deer hunter, or Hey, this
Speaker 2: kind of skills that you're building is going to be
Speaker 2: very useful come October or November, whatever it is. And
Speaker 2: like just kind of having that awareness on at all times,
Speaker 2: even outside of deer hunting season, even when I'm doing
Speaker 2: something completely unrelated to deer hunting. I think it's important
Speaker 2: to kind of just have that awareness boiling in the
Speaker 2: back of your subconscious so you can pick and grab
Speaker 2: and choose and remember these different things or jump on
Speaker 2: these little opportunities when they arise. I think all of
Speaker 2: that stuff helps build this next level deer hunting ability.
Speaker 2: I guess here's one thing that I've thought about. There's
Speaker 2: like different levels or stages of growth as a deer
Speaker 2: hunter that I think I've experienced at least, and I
Speaker 2: imagine most people have this. You've got that first stage
Speaker 2: where you're just trying to figure out, like what the
Speaker 2: hell am I doing right where you just need like
Speaker 2: a foundation of what is this stuff I'm looking at?
Speaker 2: What are these things I'm trying to do? Where do
Speaker 2: these things live? How do they operate? Like you have
Speaker 2: to have a base level amount of knowledge, right, And
Speaker 2: then there's like the second tier, which is like a
Speaker 2: big one where like how do I become good at
Speaker 2: this stuff? Like how do I really understand the nuance?
Speaker 2: How do I really get to the two oh one
Speaker 2: three oh one level? Stuff like this is that stage
Speaker 2: where people go from just killing deer to like how
Speaker 2: do I consistently kill you know, older deer? Right? And
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people maybe stop there. But
Speaker 2: then there's this next level that I think there's probably
Speaker 2: two ways to go about getting there. I think there's
Speaker 2: one level where there's the person who just wants to
Speaker 2: be the specialist, the guy or girl who says, I'm
Speaker 2: doing nothing else but deer hunting. I'm gonna spend ten
Speaker 2: thousand hours becoming an expert in this thing and this
Speaker 2: is the only thing, and that that might be one
Speaker 2: way to do it, Like I can I can point
Speaker 2: to some examples of that, But I guess what I
Speaker 2: want to talk about today is a different way to
Speaker 2: get there, which is this this way of pulling in
Speaker 2: from the outside world that will then help you on
Speaker 2: this inside whitetail world become better. And so part of
Speaker 2: this this is a long, roundabout way of getting to
Speaker 2: what I want to say here, Tony. But there's a
Speaker 2: book I've been reading. It's called Range by David Epstein.
Speaker 2: You've ever heard of that. So the book here is
Speaker 2: I mean, it's right about what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2: The book's called Range Why generalists triumph in a specialized world?
Speaker 2: And the general thesis here is that there's if we
Speaker 2: were to oversimplify, there's kind of two different ways or
Speaker 2: environments within this world that we live in that you
Speaker 2: could break things up. There's something that they refer to
Speaker 2: some studies that point to kind learning environments, and kind
Speaker 2: learning environments are kind learning activities are the kinds of
Speaker 2: things where you know, there are clear rules, there are
Speaker 2: clear patterns, there's very immediate and clear feedback, and you
Speaker 2: can then, you know, operate in an environment like that
Speaker 2: or in an activity like that and very clearly understand, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is what you're supposed to do. I do the thing,
Speaker 2: it worked or it didn't work, and then I adjust.
Speaker 2: This would be stuff like chess, This would be stuff
Speaker 2: like solving math problems. This is stuff like golf, I
Speaker 2: don't know, different activities like that. And then there's what
Speaker 2: you know. Epstein makes the argument in his book there's
Speaker 2: a different kind of a learning environment, which is where
Speaker 2: the world is trending more and more now. He originally
Speaker 2: speaks to the fact that kind of the old world
Speaker 2: was more of like that kind learning environment, like working
Speaker 2: in a factory. It's like you take this thing, you
Speaker 2: put it in this hole, and you move it down
Speaker 2: the line. Right, It's like, just do this, do this,
Speaker 2: do this, move it down. And now we're moving into
Speaker 2: a new kind of world, which is what they call
Speaker 2: a wicked learning environment and a wicked learning environment. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to read you the quote here. A wicked
Speaker 2: and learning environment are these activities where patterns are harder
Speaker 2: to discern, and feedback is delayed or inaccurate. Information is
Speaker 2: hidden even when it isn't. Feedback may be delayed, it
Speaker 2: might be infrequent, it may be non existent. It may
Speaker 2: be partly accurate or inaccurate. So sometimes in wicked learning environments,
Speaker 2: the wrong types of behavior are reinforced. What is that
Speaker 2: soundly to you? That sounds like deer hunting, right.
Speaker 3: Well, it kind of sounds like war, but it also
Speaker 3: sounds like deer hunting.
Speaker 2: Yes, kind of sounds like war. But like if we're
Speaker 2: if we're saying that which one of these two buckets
Speaker 2: does deer hunting fit into? Man, it is not chess
Speaker 2: like I know we like to say, like, oh, deer
Speaker 2: hunting is a chess game, but it's not at all. Right.
Speaker 2: We don't get to see all the pieces on the table.
Speaker 2: We don't get We try something and we don't know
Speaker 2: if this is the right thing, right. How many times
Speaker 2: have we talked about asking why and we try to
Speaker 2: figure out the why something happened, but we never really know, right,
Speaker 2: there's no clear feedback, there's no accurate feedback. All the time,
Speaker 2: we're dealing with a tremendous amount of uncertainty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we say something, the rules change all the time,
Speaker 3: and we don't know until it's way too late.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And so the argument in this book is
Speaker 2: that wicked learning environments favor a generalist approach. It favors
Speaker 2: not a specialized, narrow field of knowledge and expertise, but
Speaker 2: a broader base of knowledge to pull from because it
Speaker 2: allows something called lateral thinking. So the simplified version of
Speaker 2: what lateral thinking is just like being able to connect
Speaker 2: disparate ideas, being able to take an idea from one
Speaker 2: world and apply it to another, taking a concept from
Speaker 2: one realm and pulling into your world, like combining different
Speaker 2: things in creative ways problem solving, right, And that I
Speaker 2: think is what we're kind of trying to get at today.
Speaker 2: I think that.
Speaker 3: Does this make you think? Because immediately what this makes
Speaker 3: me think of is guys like Andy May and Zach
Speaker 3: Farrinbau who've hunted white tails in so many different environments
Speaker 3: where that you know, maybe on paper don't seem like
Speaker 3: they'd be all that connected, but because of the experience
Speaker 3: doing it over and over in different places, it just
Speaker 3: becomes easier everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think a lot of what this does
Speaker 2: the studies that I'm reading about in this book and
Speaker 2: some others, it puts language to and validation to some
Speaker 2: ideas that we've kind of thought, we believed. Like we've
Speaker 2: talked about this a lot, right, You and I have
Speaker 2: talked about the importance of hunting new places, doing new things,
Speaker 2: you know, trying new approaches, and how all of that,
Speaker 2: you know, can make you a better deer hunter. And
Speaker 2: I think this is pointing to man, there's like higher
Speaker 2: level studies and higher level stuff going on here that
Speaker 2: points to, yeah, that being true, whether it be diversity
Speaker 2: in your deer hunting or diversity in everything you're doing.
Speaker 2: And again, like being able to pull from all of
Speaker 2: those different places, being able to pull from all those
Speaker 2: different activities, strengthening these different muscles hype like metaphorical muscles,
Speaker 2: mental and physical in some case, and how all that
Speaker 2: comes back and helps you as a deer hunter. Like
Speaker 2: the thing is if you just do the same thing
Speaker 2: over and over and over again, if you just hunt
Speaker 2: the same way over and over and over to a degree,
Speaker 2: you'll get better at that thing for a while. But
Speaker 2: there's that plateauing, right, And we don't live in a
Speaker 2: static deer hunting world, right. Things are always changing around.
Speaker 2: It's the habitat is changing, hunting pressures changing, There's all
Speaker 2: sorts of things that can go haywire. If you're not
Speaker 2: able to stay up on that, if you're not too
Speaker 2: able to adjust with the times, if you're not able
Speaker 2: to be just as dynamic as the wild world is,
Speaker 2: you're never going to enjoy the success that you probably
Speaker 2: could have otherwise.
Speaker 3: And I want to say something on that, because I
Speaker 3: think you're making a really good point I think this
Speaker 3: ties to what you said way at the beginning, where
Speaker 3: you talked about having no matter what you're doing, having
Speaker 3: this kind of background noise of white tail thought going
Speaker 3: because I just randomly, like two nights ago, I was
Speaker 3: laying in bed, just about to start reading, and I
Speaker 3: started thinking about small mouth, like we're what what are
Speaker 3: the best doing right now? And it kind of like
Speaker 3: my wife walked in and I was like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to ask my wife if she ever thinks about small
Speaker 3: mouth any other time than when I'm like we should
Speaker 3: go because right like she fishes with us, you know,
Speaker 3: and like we we go up to the lake a lot.
Speaker 3: And so I'm like, does she does it ever occur
Speaker 3: to her to think about small mouth in March or
Speaker 3: you know, April or whatever. So I asked her, I
Speaker 3: was like, in any given month when we're not like
Speaker 3: going to the lake, do you ever think about what
Speaker 3: those small mouths are doing in our lake? And she
Speaker 3: looked at me and she was like no, like why
Speaker 3: why would I? And it just it kind of like
Speaker 3: it made me think about how often you talk to
Speaker 3: somebody who's a deer hunter, you know, like and I'm
Speaker 3: kind of stereotyping here. But you know, maybe there's somebody
Speaker 3: who goes up for the rifle opener and the you know,
Speaker 3: up in the up at the cabin or whatever for
Speaker 3: three days, and that's their hunt. They're probably not thinking
Speaker 3: about white tails, like what what what are the deer
Speaker 3: doing up there in march? And I think that so
Speaker 3: when you talk about, you know, learning in this wicked
Speaker 3: environment that we're going to get into here and and
Speaker 3: becoming a generalist, I think one of the easiest things
Speaker 3: for you to do is to start thinking about this
Speaker 3: stuff more like just start just put some mental horsepower
Speaker 3: to it. You can't always go out and scout. You
Speaker 3: can't always be a part of it in that world,
Speaker 3: but you can not even not even necessarily eat scouting.
Speaker 3: You can be thinking about this more like why do
Speaker 3: the deer do this? Or why do they do that?
Speaker 3: Like I'll give you a quick example here before we
Speaker 3: move on. I took one of my daughters out scout
Speaker 3: turkeys just like a week ago, and we went and
Speaker 3: sat and on this property we I have permission on
Speaker 3: and that the owner has one redneck blind on this
Speaker 3: food plot. It's a great it's great set up to
Speaker 3: glass turkeys just it just is right. So we went
Speaker 3: in there and sat and we watched a dough in
Speaker 3: a fawn and then three bucks come out. Three shed
Speaker 3: bucks come out, And what they did was they're at
Speaker 3: that blind the whole time and feed in the corner
Speaker 3: of the food plot and kind of move off and
Speaker 3: browse and come back out. And then it got dark
Speaker 3: and they went past, but they I was like, they're
Speaker 3: still avoiding this blind, and like it kind of struck
Speaker 3: me as like you know, when you hunt there, like
Speaker 3: I hunted their Muzzloder season and of course the deer
Speaker 3: is super kGy because they've been hunted out of their
Speaker 3: whole bunch. But in my brain that sort of shut
Speaker 3: off once the season ended, like I just assumed they
Speaker 3: would get real comfortable again. But we were talking almost
Speaker 3: you know, almost four well three and a half months
Speaker 3: out from the gun season or the end of the
Speaker 3: bow season, and those deer are still like that's the
Speaker 3: danger spot. And it kind of made me realize, like
Speaker 3: I wasn't thinking about that correctly, but they are like
Speaker 3: they're still like we don't want to get close to there,
Speaker 3: even though we haven't had any negative interactions with that
Speaker 3: in months, it's still ingrained in there, and it kind
Speaker 3: of it was kind of an eye opener to me.
Speaker 2: Well, there's this kind of this thing that happens when
Speaker 2: you put yourself in a different environment. In this case,
Speaker 2: you were kind of in the same environment, but a
Speaker 2: different kind of year or a different time of year. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like if you allow yourself to go into a
Speaker 2: different place in a different set of circumstances and then
Speaker 2: kind of circle back to deer hunting while you're in
Speaker 2: that different place, it like makes new things fire, It
Speaker 2: makes new ideas pop out. I mean, this is like
Speaker 2: a thing in writing, I'm sure in like all sorts
Speaker 2: of creative and creative endeavors, right when people have like
Speaker 2: writer's block, or people are struggling to write something new
Speaker 2: or paint a new picture or whatever. It is like
Speaker 2: a common practice is to you got to shake things up.
Speaker 2: You've got to put yourself into a new environment. You
Speaker 2: need to you know, create something new in your environment
Speaker 2: mentally or physically to then you know, get your body
Speaker 2: and brain thinking differently. And so I think that same
Speaker 2: thing applies. So it's like in your case, scouting turkey's
Speaker 2: hunting turkeys, whatever you had this pseudo epiphany because you
Speaker 2: were in the deer hunting world but in a different time.
Speaker 2: I think similar things might happen, Like when you're out
Speaker 2: small mall fishing. I bet you when you're out small
Speaker 2: mall fishing, there will be moments when you're out there
Speaker 2: fishing and then all of a sudden you're like, man,
Speaker 2: this is a lot like what deer do. And it's
Speaker 2: kind of funny because I realized that small mothor we
Speaker 2: you know, adjusting to this rock pile in a certain way,
Speaker 2: and that's just how a buck's going to use structure
Speaker 2: when he's traveling or I don't know what it is,
Speaker 2: but like there's probably these different, like analogous things that
Speaker 2: we can see or understand more clearly from our deer
Speaker 2: hunting world when we look at them through the lens
Speaker 2: of something different. And that's I think that's like the
Speaker 2: whole thing that I'm hoping we can get at here
Speaker 2: today is like how we can do that a little
Speaker 2: bit better or examples of how we've done that at least,
Speaker 2: and maybe that's useful for other folks.
Speaker 3: Well, can we can we go down that little, small
Speaker 3: old rabbit hole for a second, Yeah, because I think
Speaker 3: one of the things that I've learned after fishing. You know,
Speaker 3: I fished all over, but I fish one like a lot,
Speaker 3: and you know when they school up in the summer
Speaker 3: where the schools are. But you know, like in my head,
Speaker 3: I go to this rock pile and if they're there,
Speaker 3: we catch them. If not, I move on to the
Speaker 3: next one, and they'll be there. And when you start
Speaker 3: to break it down, you go, Okay, they live in
Speaker 3: this I don't know how big of an area. It's
Speaker 3: not like a huge area at least from spring through fall.
Speaker 3: But they're not necessarily on that rock pile, you know,
Speaker 3: postponed to the you know, getting their feedbags on in
Speaker 3: the fall. You'll find them on there. Sometimes sometimes they're
Speaker 3: just not there. They're over on that sand drop, and
Speaker 3: it's you know, because a mental hatch or the crayfish
Speaker 3: or molting or something. And I always think about that
Speaker 3: with white tails, because we talk about them like that
Speaker 3: buck beds in that swamp and he feeds in that field,
Speaker 3: and it's like, yeah, two out of every seven days
Speaker 3: he probably does that. But there are so many things
Speaker 3: going on that where that might have been affected by
Speaker 3: a predator, might have been affected by hunters, or it
Speaker 3: just could be that they felt like going the other
Speaker 3: way and browsing or whatever. And we kind of try
Speaker 3: to boil this down to like there's a simple solution
Speaker 3: to this, right he here's his bed. I know he
Speaker 3: uses this, I know he feeds in that alfalfa simple
Speaker 3: but they don't follow that, like they that pattern is
Speaker 3: not like a day to day thing, especially if you
Speaker 3: get outside of that summer pattern bleeding into the fall season.
Speaker 3: You know, like if you get in past the first
Speaker 3: couple of weeks of the September season, you know, if
Speaker 3: you can hunt that, those patterns start to die real quick.
Speaker 3: Those deer didn't probably move, but they're not they're not
Speaker 3: following what we think is like an A to B
Speaker 3: thing all the time. It's like so much more dynamic
Speaker 3: than that.
Speaker 2: So so can you you kind of said this, but
Speaker 2: give me a little more detail. What what do you
Speaker 2: do when you go to that first rock pile and
Speaker 2: they're not there the way you were hoping they're going
Speaker 2: to be? What do you do after that?
Speaker 3: Go to the next most likely? So you always break
Speaker 3: it down like we're we're looking for something quick, give me,
Speaker 3: give me some kind of look right. So we're throwing
Speaker 3: a top water, we're throwing a swim bait. We're not
Speaker 3: We're not flipping jigs, dragging two tubes. It's like, fast,
Speaker 3: give me a clue, what's going on? You throw it
Speaker 3: over that rock pile fifty times and you don't get
Speaker 3: a blow up and nobody picks anything up. Then you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: now we need to change. Are they here and they're
Speaker 3: just not looking up? So we need to flip it.
Speaker 3: Go through there again. Now you don't get bit and
Speaker 3: you're like, they're probably not here because they should be biting.
Speaker 3: The sun isn't up yet, the conditions are right, then
Speaker 3: it's time to move. Or you know, like it's it's
Speaker 3: always I know you see this a lot, but it's
Speaker 3: always like you have this idea. You're like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to go out and do this. They're going to eat
Speaker 3: this way, or I'm going to catch them this way,
Speaker 3: or I'm going to shoot a deer this way, and
Speaker 3: then you get out there and it's just never quite
Speaker 3: what you expect. You're out, you're making a million little
Speaker 3: decisions to just because it's just it just doesn't work
Speaker 3: that way. Like as much as we try to set
Speaker 3: it up to be like they always come into the
Speaker 3: food plot. Now always kill them on Halloween, Like okay, well,
Speaker 3: now you have an east wind and it's eighty five
Speaker 3: degrees or whatever, like, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how useful would it be for someone to take
Speaker 2: that same approach you took when fishing for small moth
Speaker 2: when they're not where they are or the way where
Speaker 2: you wanted them to be in the first place. Take
Speaker 2: that same approach and apply that to deer hunting. There's
Speaker 2: probably a lot of folks that go and sit that
Speaker 2: same rock pile and then just sit it again and
Speaker 2: then set it again and don't know why am I
Speaker 2: not seeing my deer here at the rock pile? Right?
Speaker 2: But take what you just learned about what works in
Speaker 2: small moth fishing, going to the next spot, testing a
Speaker 2: couple different things. If you don't see what you're looking
Speaker 2: for after those couple different tests, which might be a
Speaker 2: couple sits, or looking for certain amounts of sign in
Speaker 2: these areas or whatever it is, the way you're testing
Speaker 2: the theory like you're talking about, and then moving to
Speaker 2: the next metaphorical rock pile. That's a perfect example of
Speaker 2: doing a non deer hunting thing and being able to recognize, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a thing that could be applied to deer hunting.
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense when think about it
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 3: I'll do you one better on that, because this has
Speaker 3: really been hitting home for me the last couple of years.
Speaker 3: So if you if you think about what probably holds
Speaker 3: back most deer hunters, it's that you know, probably this
Speaker 3: is like the wird to hunt audience is probably a
Speaker 3: weird does it doesn't entirely apply to them, but general
Speaker 3: deer hunters want the hunt to happen where they want
Speaker 3: it to happen. So they go to the stands they like,
Speaker 3: They go to the spots they like, and they cross
Speaker 3: their fingers and hope the hunt happens there. And when
Speaker 3: it doesn't, they try it again, and they hope the
Speaker 3: weather brings them in, or the seasonal timing or whatever.
Speaker 3: I see so many parallels when I'm out bass fishing
Speaker 3: to walleye fishermen that way, where it's like early season,
Speaker 3: if you've got some current or something, you know like
Speaker 3: they're gonna be they're going to be coming back from
Speaker 3: where they spawn and stopping at this point, in this
Speaker 3: point before they get into their summer pattern out on
Speaker 3: the lakes, and you know then they're going to be
Speaker 3: on a mud flat or a drop off or some
Speaker 3: kind of reef or something. And so most of the
Speaker 3: walleye fishermen I see, they come out for three or
Speaker 3: four months and go to the same spots and they're
Speaker 3: like they're either biting or they're not. So they're either
Speaker 3: eating the worms I'm dragging or the minneros on a
Speaker 3: jig or whatever, or they're not eating. Well, what I
Speaker 3: started noticing the last couple of years is this like
Speaker 3: shiner hatch going on in August. And what happened is
Speaker 3: if I could find a bait ball, It's just like
Speaker 3: fishing in the ocean. Walleyes northern is in Smallmouth are
Speaker 3: just following them around, and oftentimes they're pretty shallow and
Speaker 3: blown up on a wind blown island or shore or whatever.
Speaker 3: So what's happening is walleye fishermen are going. The walleyes
Speaker 3: are out here. They're either in ten feet of water,
Speaker 3: twenty feet of water or whatever. And if I if
Speaker 3: I'm catching them, they're here. If not, they're here, but
Speaker 3: they're not biting. And I'm in a situation where I'm
Speaker 3: not looking for them. You know, it's bright sun, it's August,
Speaker 3: it's hot. They're in three feet of water, just gorging
Speaker 3: on this you know here today, gone to morraw food source.
Speaker 3: So all it is is like when you when you're
Speaker 3: a white tail hunter and you're like, I've got three stands,
Speaker 3: I hunt this farm and you go out there over
Speaker 3: and over again, and you're like, once every ten years,
Speaker 3: I get a shot at a big one and it's like,
Speaker 3: the big ones are there. You got a Montreal camera.
Speaker 3: You know they're there. So what's wrong. You're not going
Speaker 3: to find them. You're you're only You're you're hoping that
Speaker 3: it happens the way you want it to happen. But
Speaker 3: that's not how it works because they know that they
Speaker 3: know you want it to happen there because that's where
Speaker 3: you always go. And I think we don't think about that,
Speaker 3: so we go, all right, well I didn't kill him
Speaker 3: on the opener. I'm gonna I'm gonna lay low during October.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna come back in and he's gonna he's gonna
Speaker 3: follow a dough in during the run. And yeah, sometimes
Speaker 3: that happens, but to really be in the game. You
Speaker 3: have to look at it and go, if it's not
Speaker 3: happening for me, it's not because they're not here, you know,
Speaker 3: like it's it's because they're avoiding me, or they're doing
Speaker 3: something different. What is that? Like? How can you solve
Speaker 3: that problem? And that's the parallel to all this stuff
Speaker 3: we're talking about, is it's just like a series of
Speaker 3: proper problem solving over and over and over again, you know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so there's there's certain activities that we can
Speaker 2: do outside of deer hunting that will have that very
Speaker 2: direct crossover. Like any kind of phishing I think is
Speaker 2: very applicable. Any different type of hunting is very applicable.
Speaker 2: I think there's like a heck, I don't know, any
Speaker 2: kind of decision making based activity anything that like really
Speaker 2: puts stress on you to make decisions under pressure analyzing data.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know we said chess isn't a good comparison,
Speaker 2: but to what degree it is. There's like a certain
Speaker 2: amount of like predicting moves and strategic decision making like
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. I think flex is a muscle
Speaker 2: that helps you make better decisions as a deer hunter.
Speaker 2: There's another kind of line of activities that are not
Speaker 2: deer hunting related but really help with a lot of
Speaker 2: deer hunting things. And it's something both you and I've
Speaker 2: talked about some of the past. We're both pretty active
Speaker 2: and now and that's just like running or physical fitness,
Speaker 2: different stuff like that, right, And we've we've dabbled in
Speaker 2: this a little bit. But I think I find myself
Speaker 2: going deeper and deeper and deeper into this world and
Speaker 2: finding that A I'm getting like more enjoyment out of it,
Speaker 2: and B I'm seeing how it's translating into the deer
Speaker 2: hunting world. The more I like allow myself to do that,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Yeah, So I think the
Speaker 2: last time we talked, I told you that I had
Speaker 2: signed up for that Mountain Trail run thirty k right,
Speaker 2: mm hm. So I've been training for that, and then
Speaker 2: in training for that, I realized, like, oh man, that
Speaker 2: thing's gonna kill me. I need to have like a
Speaker 2: training race leading up to that. So now I'm signed
Speaker 2: up for another trail half marathon that's like middle of
Speaker 2: the road elevation game, but still a lot harder than
Speaker 2: anything I've done in the past. So that's coming up
Speaker 2: in a month and I'm actually like realizing that something
Speaker 2: crazy happened. I don't know if you do this or not, Tony,
Speaker 2: but for years I've just been like a road runner,
Speaker 2: and then now I'm doing more and more trail running
Speaker 2: and now I'm actually like really enjoying it. Like before
Speaker 2: it was the thing I knew I should do, and
Speaker 2: I did it and I liked it, but I kind
Speaker 2: of didn't like where I was at. But now I'm
Speaker 2: finding places where I can like just be out in
Speaker 2: the woods, out in the hills or whatever, and that's
Speaker 2: just like fun just being out there and noticing things.
Speaker 2: And I've actually been trail running in some places that
Speaker 2: I can deer hunt the public Liane, I can deer runt,
Speaker 2: and I've been noticing like, oh, man, like look at that,
Speaker 2: or I'm bumping deer off a little knowle. I'm like, huh,
Speaker 2: interesting how they're betting here. And so it's another interesting
Speaker 2: example of something that you know, I know, you preach
Speaker 2: all the time, which just finding excuses to be in
Speaker 2: the woods, finding any kind of excuse to be out there,
Speaker 2: and you don't have to be dead set focused on deer,
Speaker 2: but just being out there you have the opportunity to
Speaker 2: have these little aha moments. You have the opportunity to
Speaker 2: have these little discoveries, and that's been popping up my
Speaker 2: deer in my running now more than I originally expected.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, look what you did there. Though, if
Speaker 3: you want to talk about problem solving again, the first
Speaker 3: problem you have is just how do I become a runner,
Speaker 3: which is a hard one for most people to solve.
Speaker 3: And then you start that and you run on a
Speaker 3: treadmill or you run on the road, and you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: I've gotten past the part where I'm of not being
Speaker 3: a runner to being a runner, and then but you
Speaker 3: still struggle, like it's still not like every day you're
Speaker 3: like I cannot wait to go running. I mean, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of times you're like this, I have to
Speaker 3: solve for this daily to find this motivation or more
Speaker 3: likely the discipline. And then you're like, okay, how do
Speaker 3: I hold myself accountable If I sign up for this,
Speaker 3: I'm not backing out. And then you discover along the
Speaker 3: way you're like, well, it's actually a hell of a
Speaker 3: lot more enjoyable to run through the woods than it
Speaker 3: is on the road, and that's a hell of a
Speaker 3: lot more enjoyable than running on a treadmill. And so again,
Speaker 3: it's like, do something that challenges you at an incremental level,
Speaker 3: that forces you to hold yourself accountable and it feeds
Speaker 3: into everything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's and that's exactly where I'm at now.
Speaker 2: I'm the thing you just spelled out was exactly my trajectory,
Speaker 2: like that I had, Like it was a struggle to
Speaker 2: get like motivated to put on the running shoes and
Speaker 2: go out for the run and do that stuff years ago,
Speaker 2: and now like I am legitimately excited about it every time,
Speaker 2: Like I'm looking forward to my next run. I'm looking
Speaker 2: forward to a nine mile run with a bunch of
Speaker 2: elevation gain, something I thought I never would want to do.
Speaker 2: But that sounds like, man, that's gonna be great. That's
Speaker 2: the best part of my day. And that just took,
Speaker 2: like that incremental work. It took finding goals along the way,
Speaker 2: it took challenging myself to do these things, and it
Speaker 2: took like how do I find the version of this
Speaker 2: that's enjoyable for me? And like you said, that's a process.
Speaker 3: So you've actually gotten to a point because I I
Speaker 3: feel like I don't know. With my running. I'm I'm
Speaker 3: kind of at a I'm at a weird spot with it.
Speaker 3: I'm running quite a bit, and but I'm like, I
Speaker 3: do it because it makes me feel good when i'm done.
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not doing it because like during my
Speaker 3: runs and like I'm not super happy, like it's okay,
Speaker 3: Like I'm I'm not. I don't hate it obviously, but
Speaker 3: it seems like you found you're at a better place
Speaker 3: with it because not only are you you're anticipating it,
Speaker 3: You're you're enjoying the process. And I'm sure it makes
Speaker 3: you feel pretty good, you know, knocking another good run
Speaker 3: out at the end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I'm actually yeah, now, I'm actually like in
Speaker 2: the moment just enjoying it. And I think there's two
Speaker 2: things going on there. One is like it's been years
Speaker 2: of building like a base. It kind of is back
Speaker 2: to the deer hunting trajector, right, like you have to
Speaker 2: have a long time of building that foundation to where
Speaker 2: you just get it right enough to now be creative
Speaker 2: with it. And so in this case, like the analogy
Speaker 2: of running, for me, it's like just building a running
Speaker 2: foundation so that doesn't hurt when you're running right, so
Speaker 2: you can just like comfortably do it without it being miserable.
Speaker 2: Like I'm I'm, I'm enough of a runner now that
Speaker 2: it's not miserable to run. And then like the secret
Speaker 2: sauce more recently has been like this is like so obvious,
Speaker 2: but like go in a pretty place where there's not
Speaker 2: a bunch of people and you don't need to worry
Speaker 2: about getting hit by car. What on aha moment that
Speaker 2: is and all of a sudden, like my run is
Speaker 2: looking around like, man, this is beautiful. I like to
Speaker 2: go hiking. I like to be outside hunting, Like this
Speaker 2: is just being outside and getting a better workout. That's
Speaker 2: like an easy win when you can make it enjoyable,
Speaker 2: make it good for you, and also like you are
Speaker 2: still building good habits that help you in so many
Speaker 2: other things too, right, discipline.
Speaker 3: Well for sure, And I don't I don't know do
Speaker 3: you listen to podcasts when you run or do you
Speaker 3: listen to music or what?
Speaker 2: So I would say fifty percent of the time I
Speaker 2: listen to a podcast or audiobook. I'm trying to do
Speaker 2: more just no sound and just like thinking, so I'm
Speaker 2: trying to I'd say it's a fifty to fifty now,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to encourage myself to do more no
Speaker 2: listening so that I can have that like open space
Speaker 2: to like think and you know, have those like free
Speaker 2: association type moments happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just curious because I when I left, I
Speaker 3: love to listen to music, but I hate listening to podcasts.
Speaker 3: When I run, I like listening to podcasts, but I
Speaker 3: just if I listen to music, I tend to just
Speaker 3: go in my head, like I can't zone out and
Speaker 3: kind of take in the story or whatever. But I've
Speaker 3: also found there's been times where, for whatever reason, I don't,
Speaker 3: you know, my headphones are dead or whatever, but I'm
Speaker 3: going running and I'll do that, and I'll be like, man,
Speaker 3: I'm actually really enjoying this, just being able to think
Speaker 3: through and kind of disassociate a little bit. And I
Speaker 3: read something a long time ago when I was kind
Speaker 3: of getting into this about how one of the biggest
Speaker 3: mistakes people make when they try to like become a
Speaker 3: runner or go to the gym and use the elliptical
Speaker 3: or whatever, it is like it takes them too long
Speaker 3: to settle into their routine on a daily basis. So
Speaker 3: you know, you get there, it's like, oh, am I
Speaker 3: going to log in a Netflix and watch a show?
Speaker 3: Or am I going to try to find a podcast
Speaker 3: now or something? And like, so what you find when
Speaker 3: you when you sort of get into this habit is
Speaker 3: like you're managing it. Like if I have a podcast
Speaker 3: I really want to listen to, it makes me want
Speaker 3: to run more. Like it was just dumb, but it's true.
Speaker 3: And so you end up again you're you're solving for
Speaker 3: a problem you anticipate. In case, my motivation isn't there
Speaker 3: to just be like what can I do to make
Speaker 3: this a little easier? You know, I look at this
Speaker 3: like I've been doing a lot of work in the
Speaker 3: white Tail Woods this winter because we've had such a
Speaker 3: mild winter, and it makes me feel so good because
Speaker 3: I'm I'm way ahead of where I knew. I had
Speaker 3: a list of things I'm just gonna do, whether I
Speaker 3: do them in May, June, July, or December, January, February, whatever,
Speaker 3: and just getting to the point where I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: I feel so set up for my little girls already
Speaker 3: in Wisconsin on a lot of stuff and some of
Speaker 3: the things I want to do and just those like
Speaker 3: getting through those things, it helps you so much to
Speaker 3: get to the next one and the next one and
Speaker 3: understand what that process is, just for thinking about it
Speaker 3: and planning around it and looking for that motivation.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you brought up a couple of things that
Speaker 2: I try to do in a lot of my deer
Speaker 2: hunting world, and a lot of it stems from this
Speaker 2: book called Atomic Habits. I know I've talked about. Have
Speaker 2: you read that one? Yeah, so you know, in that one,
Speaker 2: he just such a great job of pinpointing some of
Speaker 2: those key ways to help you, you know, establish a
Speaker 2: good habit or break a bad habit. And two of
Speaker 2: the things you mentioned, make it obvious, make it easy,
Speaker 2: make it rewarding. Like if you can do those things,
Speaker 2: that really makes it more achievable, and it's going to
Speaker 2: help you consistently do the thing you want to do.
Speaker 2: So whether it's scouting, or whether it's shooting your bow
Speaker 2: more often, or whether it's getting up in the morning
Speaker 2: and going to the tree stand, like anything you can
Speaker 2: do ahead of time, to make it obvious, to make
Speaker 2: it rewarding, to make it easier. So like in the
Speaker 2: case of going on to shoot, like I wrote, about
Speaker 2: this in the Wired Dunt newsletter the other day. I
Speaker 2: want to shoot more consistently. If you want to shoot
Speaker 2: more consistently, ways you can do that are okay, Well,
Speaker 2: you need to trigger something that reminds you, oh I
Speaker 2: gotta go shoot. So okay, how about I hang the
Speaker 2: bow right by the door and the back door, so
Speaker 2: every time I walk it in out of the house,
Speaker 2: I'm reminded, oh shit, I got to shoot today, and
Speaker 2: then make it easy. Okay, so how about let's make
Speaker 2: sure that you've got target right out the back door
Speaker 2: close so that you don't even need to like, not
Speaker 2: everybody can do this, but this is just an example.
Speaker 2: Let's say there's a target right at the back door,
Speaker 2: so you can see that trigger. Okay, there's the bow
Speaker 2: I got to shoot today. All right, Well, I got
Speaker 2: the target right there. I've got my arrows leaned up
Speaker 2: here in the corner. Let me just grab them. I'll
Speaker 2: get four arrows right now and just check that box.
Speaker 2: At least get a little bit of a little bit
Speaker 2: of a session in right now, and then make it rewarding.
Speaker 2: So there's got to be some way, you know, to
Speaker 2: reward yourself after that. So maybe man if as long
Speaker 2: as I get my shots in today, I'm allowed to
Speaker 2: do X or I don't know what it would be
Speaker 2: in the case you made a good example, like when
Speaker 2: you go run, you're allowed to listen to the podcast
Speaker 2: you want to get caught up on. Like there's different
Speaker 2: little tricks that we can incorporate to do the things
Speaker 2: we know we should do, but sometimes they're easy to
Speaker 2: slack on or easy to procrastinate on or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: And I think that it's funny we came to this
Speaker 2: because of running, right, And I think that's why there's
Speaker 2: like the whole this ties back into what I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: Like we can learn how to get better at these things,
Speaker 2: whether it being building good habits or being disciplined or
Speaker 2: whatever it is, in something like running or some other
Speaker 2: sport you might be doing. And oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: that's all going to help you as a deer hunter.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean this this probably sounds like BS, but
Speaker 3: I firmly believe it. It's like we are masters of
Speaker 3: lying to ourselves, you know, and like we're masters of
Speaker 3: believing it, you know. But once once you know, you
Speaker 3: get an injury and you can't do something or you
Speaker 3: lose this spot to hunt or whatever, like you realize
Speaker 3: like it's kind of just on you, like that. There's
Speaker 3: so much in life that you know, there's kind of
Speaker 3: this mentality out there a lot of times where it's
Speaker 3: like I gotta blame the boomer generation or I gotta
Speaker 3: I gotta like somebody else. It's somebody else's fault that
Speaker 3: I am where I am at, right, But when you
Speaker 3: talk about and you see this, I mean you see
Speaker 3: a lot of shitty stuff in the white tail world too,
Speaker 3: where it's like, well, if I had that guy's place,
Speaker 3: or you know, like if I had those opportunities, it's
Speaker 3: like you don't. And it's easy to sort of get
Speaker 3: into that mentality, but really you just have to work
Speaker 3: with what you have. And if you're holding yourself accountable
Speaker 3: and not believing the lies that you want to tell
Speaker 3: yourself to make life easier, I think good things happen
Speaker 3: and it you know, we're so conditioned to want sort
Speaker 3: of instant gratification and we're so conditioned to want like
Speaker 3: that shortcut. But when you do something that there is
Speaker 3: no way around it, Like if you're going to run
Speaker 3: a thirty k in the mountains, there's no way around it,
Speaker 3: like I don't care who your parents are, Like I
Speaker 3: don't care what genes you're drawing off of, Like you're
Speaker 3: just you don't start. You don't go from zero to
Speaker 3: that quickly. That is a year line. It's like retirement
Speaker 3: or anything else. Like, it's when you learn to hold
Speaker 3: your self accountable and appreciate these like baby steps and
Speaker 3: building up some discipline, it goes a long way. And
Speaker 3: of course it feeds hunting like that's like, that's like
Speaker 3: a foundational skill that you have to have to be
Speaker 3: good at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is there anything else on the fitness or running
Speaker 2: side of things in your world that has translated into
Speaker 2: you having a aha moment as a hunter or that
Speaker 2: has particularly helped you as a hunter that we haven't covered.
Speaker 3: Man, I'll tell you what. So I started working out
Speaker 3: like ten years ago, right when I quit drinking, just
Speaker 3: because I knew I needed something. I was terrible at it.
Speaker 3: I was in terrible shape. And what I started doing
Speaker 3: just just purely I didn't have any reason for it.
Speaker 3: I started doing cardio and I started lifting weights. And
Speaker 3: what I have found is I still there are times
Speaker 3: where I'm like you, where I'm like I can't wait
Speaker 3: to go run tonight, like it's the right weather and
Speaker 3: I'm just feeling it. There's a lot of times like
Speaker 3: I had this last night where I lifted in the
Speaker 3: morning and I was like, I had a window where
Speaker 3: I could do a run before I had to go
Speaker 3: get my girls, and I did not want to do it.
Speaker 3: I was like, I just and I forced myself to go,
Speaker 3: and the first mile was torture, and after that I
Speaker 3: felt great and I felt so good doing it. But
Speaker 3: where I'm going with this is becoming a runner was
Speaker 3: really hard. Becoming somebody who lifts weights consistently was pretty hard.
Speaker 3: But what it feels like now is a freaking vacation
Speaker 3: compared to my cardio days. And so this thing that
Speaker 3: at one point in my life was was very hard
Speaker 3: to do. You know. It's like it's humiliating going into
Speaker 3: a gym where you don't know anybody and you've never lifted,
Speaker 3: and you're you're super weak, and it's like you're you're
Speaker 3: hyper aware that you're not like a lot of other people.
Speaker 3: And so now like now when I look back on that,
Speaker 3: like how far that I've come, Like, I'm like, that's
Speaker 3: like a that is not even it doesn't even feel
Speaker 3: like a workout the same way going for a six
Speaker 3: or eight mile run does. And I'm like that, I
Speaker 3: feel so lucky to get into a spot like that
Speaker 3: in my life where just to get through that part
Speaker 3: and now enjoy it so much because I'll tell you what, dude,
Speaker 3: when I go hang stands or I'm working in the woods,
Speaker 3: like I've been cutting down trees like crazy that time
Speaker 3: in the gym, and you know, it directly translates to
Speaker 3: like elk hunting really well, but white tails. You can
Speaker 3: do a lot of physical labor out there, and just
Speaker 3: the difference on uh, you know how I feel on
Speaker 3: like a traveling hunt where I have to set up
Speaker 3: a camp and carry stands in you know, we're often
Speaker 3: setting up for camera guys and stuff. So it's like
Speaker 3: that that is so beneficial to white tail hunting that
Speaker 3: I didn't I didn't do it because of that, and
Speaker 3: I didn't think it would matter at all. And I
Speaker 3: tell you, like, I feel it all the time where
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm glad I go do that because it
Speaker 3: makes this white tail work so much more tolerable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what do you think is the I don't
Speaker 2: know if I want to said prescription, But for lack
Speaker 2: of a better term, what's the prescription here? Is the
Speaker 2: thing like having a non hunting physical activity of some
Speaker 2: kind that that pushes you, and that you can have
Speaker 2: that you have to build some discipline around and that
Speaker 2: in some way challenges you. Like is that if we
Speaker 2: had to distill it down to a simplified thing, is
Speaker 2: that the takeaway here? Like for us it's running and
Speaker 2: you lifting, Is that kind of like the thing that
Speaker 2: we've found has been like one of those outside spheres
Speaker 2: of influence that's really helped us.
Speaker 3: I mean when you when you just look at the
Speaker 3: direction of a lot of white tail hunting, you know
Speaker 3: there's side by sides and four wheelers and the easy paths,
Speaker 3: and we were there is a there is a way
Speaker 3: to make white tail hunting not very physically demanding, and
Speaker 3: it just is and it's just a part of it.
Speaker 3: And we we tend to kind of lean into that
Speaker 3: and showcase that a lot. There's a lot of money
Speaker 3: in that, you know, like advertising that. But for a
Speaker 3: lot of people listening to this who are like I
Speaker 3: would like to draw that iouad tag once or I'd
Speaker 3: like to travel to Ohio or from Pennsylvania to wherever.
Speaker 3: Just alone of even if you did twenty minutes a
Speaker 3: day or thirty minutes a day of something is going
Speaker 3: to make you more successful out there. And what it
Speaker 3: does for you is it directly translates to being able
Speaker 3: to do things better, like more efficiently, quieter, all that stuff.
Speaker 3: But you're just more willing to do stuff, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like you're more willing to like you know,
Speaker 3: I think about it this way. When you go on
Speaker 3: a public land white tail hunt somewhere and you've never
Speaker 3: been there, or you haven't been there in four years.
Speaker 3: Usually you get there and you're like, I got a
Speaker 3: way point here, I got a way point here, I
Speaker 3: got a wait point here, and you're like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to go in speed scout, speed scout, speed scout, figure
Speaker 3: something out. And by the time you're like two or
Speaker 3: three deep, like do I want to settle or do
Speaker 3: I want to keep looking for that thing that's just
Speaker 3: like this is it? And what I found for myself
Speaker 3: is I just don't want to settle anymore. And it's
Speaker 3: just easier. The better shape I'm in, the easier it
Speaker 3: is for me to just walk into a spot that's
Speaker 3: a mile off the road and go I don't like it.
Speaker 3: You know, there's cattle in here or whatever, the ponds dry.
Speaker 3: It's just it's not right. And just keep going till
Speaker 3: you find it. That stuff's important.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Another facet of this pivoting a little bit, and this
Speaker 2: is this is a little bit of like a yes
Speaker 2: and a lot of these things we've talked about. I
Speaker 2: used to not allow myself or or thought I should
Speaker 2: not give myself the time to do some of these
Speaker 2: things because it was taking away from the deer stuff
Speaker 2: I should do. Right, Like, there's a certain set of
Speaker 2: folks who would tell you, like, if you're not spending
Speaker 2: all your time on deer, you're not dedicated enough, you're
Speaker 2: not going to be as good as I am, quote
Speaker 2: unquote right. And I found the opposite. I think one
Speaker 2: of the things, in addition to having some kind of
Speaker 2: physical habit that does the things we just talked about,
Speaker 2: I think another suggestion I would offer people within this
Speaker 2: world is to allow yourself the freedom to chase curiosities,
Speaker 2: to run down rabbit holes, and if it's going to
Speaker 2: take you away from deer hunting for a little while,
Speaker 2: if it's a thing that happens in the fall and
Speaker 2: maybe will take some of your time, I would argue,
Speaker 2: do it. I think that chasing curiosities, chasing new ideas,
Speaker 2: trying new things, even if in the short term it
Speaker 2: might take away from your deer focus or your dear
Speaker 2: time or something, I think in the long run that
Speaker 2: can help both tangibly and I think intangibly with your
Speaker 2: satisfaction too. You know, there's this idea. There's another book
Speaker 2: I've been reading called Slow Productivity that Kell Newport, and
Speaker 2: one of the big things he talks about is this
Speaker 2: importance of seasonality in your life. And his argument has
Speaker 2: basically been, you know, for thousands and thousands of years,
Speaker 2: human beings evolved with a certain seasonality to how we live.
Speaker 2: Right when, for you know, tens of thousands of years,
Speaker 2: we were hunters and gatherers across the board, and there
Speaker 2: was you know, there was an up and down. There's
Speaker 2: an ebbing to the seasons in which there's times and
Speaker 2: you were doing a lot, and there's times you weren't
Speaker 2: doing so much, and there's times you did this kind
Speaker 2: of thing, and then there are times that you did
Speaker 2: this different kind of thing. And that was what we
Speaker 2: evolved to do. And then even within the last ten
Speaker 2: thousand years when the agricultural revolution happened, there was still
Speaker 2: a certain seasonality for many, many, many many years as
Speaker 2: we all lived with the ebbs and flows of that
Speaker 2: agricultural up and down harvest, planting, et cetera. Winter. But
Speaker 2: now last one hundred two hundred years since the industrial Revolution,
Speaker 2: now it's like, you know, there's none of that for
Speaker 2: most of us. It's cranking out every little unit of
Speaker 2: productivity for as many hours as you can get away with.
Speaker 2: And that doesn't just apply to work. That applies to
Speaker 2: our hunting too. I think, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: times we look at our deer hunting as if we
Speaker 2: are a factory trying to pump out filled deer tags. Right, So,
Speaker 2: let me read a quote from this book about this
Speaker 2: idea of seasonality, and kind of it's talking about work,
Speaker 2: but sub in deer hunting. So he says the problem
Speaker 2: with the virtual factory, and he's talking about knowledge workers
Speaker 2: like people walking working in offices twenty four to seven.
Speaker 2: The problem with the virtual factory, however, goes beyond the
Speaker 2: fact that it makes us unhappy. It's also ineffective the
Speaker 2: process of producing value with human brain, the foundational activity
Speaker 2: of many knowledge sector roles can't be forced into a regular,
Speaker 2: unvarying schedule. Intense periods of cognition must be followed by
Speaker 2: quieter periods of mental rejuvenation. Energized creative breakthroughs must be
Speaker 2: supported by the slower incubation of new ideas. So what
Speaker 2: he's getting at here is, if you want to be
Speaker 2: able to have your best ideas, if you want to
Speaker 2: be your most creative self, if you want to be
Speaker 2: your best version of yourself as a deer hunter, someone
Speaker 2: who's able to be effective, who's able to make those decisions,
Speaker 2: who's able to problem solve. Having these periods of slow down,
Speaker 2: having these periods where you try new things, having these
Speaker 2: periods where you step away from the usual, all of
Speaker 2: that creates an environment where you do have this space
Speaker 2: to all of a sudden think of these new things,
Speaker 2: or the space to come back to deer hunting and
Speaker 2: be rejuvenated and ready to dig that next step or
Speaker 2: to do that next hard thing, or to you know,
Speaker 2: if you came off of learning how to do X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z, all of a sudden, you come back
Speaker 2: to deer hunting next week and you're like, Hey, there's
Speaker 2: this thing I learned while I was learning to surf
Speaker 2: that actually has a whole lot of applicability here in
Speaker 2: the deer hunting world. So I think that that's another
Speaker 2: concept I kind of want to throw out there for
Speaker 2: us to think about, kind of related to that whole
Speaker 2: idea of like chasing different ideas and carry out curiosities.
Speaker 2: You know, my son is really getting into climbing, like
Speaker 2: early stages, but he's like really geeking out on like
Speaker 2: rock climbing. We were just in Joshua Tree National Park
Speaker 2: and we kind of went there because he's like really
Speaker 2: fixated on this kind of thing. He's constantly wanting to
Speaker 2: pretend like he's climbing the walls and stuff. And so
Speaker 2: we're there in the park and climbing boulders and do
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff, and I realized, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to have to learn to do all this
Speaker 2: stuff because like I just need to make sure he's safe.
Speaker 2: Like I need to make sure that I know enough
Speaker 2: to hang with him enough to help him safely navigate
Speaker 2: this until he's like old enough. So I'm going to
Speaker 2: be picking up a new hobby and figuring out and
Speaker 2: taking lessons and doing all that. And I used to
Speaker 2: say I would use in the past, I say like,
Speaker 2: oh man, you can't have more hobbies, you can't have
Speaker 2: new things you're learning. But I think now like it's
Speaker 2: going to be a net benefit. It's going to push
Speaker 2: me in new ways. I'm going to learn new things.
Speaker 2: It's going to challenge me mentally and physically in different ways.
Speaker 2: And it might take me a couple of weekends away
Speaker 2: from the woods or something. But my argument to you,
Speaker 2: Tony is that I think that's actually going to circle
Speaker 2: back and be good.
Speaker 3: Just for a second here, So you're telling me and
Speaker 3: all of the listeners that you're about to become a
Speaker 3: rock climber.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I would call myself a rock climber,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to learn how to rock climb and
Speaker 2: attempt it. Yeah, all right, buddy, what do you think
Speaker 2: about that?
Speaker 3: You see, Well, I'm I have a weird thing with heights.
Speaker 3: I used to be super scared of heights and then
Speaker 3: climbing into trees over and over and over again. I'm
Speaker 3: not you know, treacy and heights don't bother me at all,
Speaker 3: you know, like being up on the roof of a house,
Speaker 3: you know, cleaning the gutters whatever, don't bother me at all.
Speaker 3: But I have a window where I hit a certain height,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, this is not for me. Everything in
Speaker 3: my being is like you just you're not supposed to
Speaker 3: be here. So it's it's curious for me to hear
Speaker 3: somebody who's like, ah, my little boys wants a rock climb,
Speaker 3: so I'm going to just do that. I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: more power to you, buddy. I think I mean, it
Speaker 3: looks amazing, Like I think it's I think that's an
Speaker 3: amazing activity to get into if you're wired for it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm just it is not what that'd be like if
Speaker 3: you were like, hey, I'm going to just go take
Speaker 3: a bath with a bunch of spiders, I'd be like,
Speaker 3: that's exactly the opposite of anything I want to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're all gonna have some limits. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: there's certainly gonna be a max. Like we're out there
Speaker 2: in the parks where we were in Joshua Tree for
Speaker 2: half a week and then Red Rock Canyon for half
Speaker 2: a week there in Nevada, and there's people climbing all
Speaker 2: over the place, and like, I'm watching there's like some
Speaker 2: people on some of these walls. They're like hundreds of
Speaker 2: feet tall, like they're way up there, and a couple
Speaker 2: of times I'm like, Okay, that's more than I could
Speaker 2: ever see myself doing. But like there's people doing something,
Speaker 2: you know, don't know, climbing up there, fifty sixty seventy
Speaker 2: yards up, you know, one hundred feet up, one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty feet up, Like I think I could do that,
Speaker 2: and I can. Like it's something I've seen from Afar
Speaker 2: from a long time, like just being active in like
Speaker 2: the outdoor recreation world, and like I've always admired that
Speaker 2: and thought like that looks really cool. But I'm you know,
Speaker 2: a little bit nervous about it and just knew like
Speaker 2: it's a little bit intimidating, not just like the height stuff,
Speaker 2: but I mean, like there's all this gear you gotta get,
Speaker 2: got to learn how to do all this stuff, gotta
Speaker 2: learn the techniques and then physical different kind of physical
Speaker 2: challenge than anything I've done. But I guess having my son,
Speaker 2: who's like really getting into it now has been like
Speaker 2: just that little extra nudge. And now I think I'm
Speaker 2: just at a place where I'm I guess I'm just
Speaker 2: recognizing how much value taking on these new things is
Speaker 2: giving me. Like I can now look back and see,
Speaker 2: like what the running thing and now the trail running
Speaker 2: things done in my world is like added so much,
Speaker 2: and like before that was like the fly fishing thing
Speaker 2: coming into my world. And I think all these things
Speaker 2: like I know it's all going to circle back and
Speaker 2: help with my number one. And so that's why I
Speaker 2: guess I'm more willing to push outside of the norm
Speaker 2: because I see like it's it's it's it's filling the
Speaker 2: cup that then gives me more fuel for the rest
Speaker 2: of it, If that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Dude, I wholeheartedly endorse you doing as much dangerous stuff
Speaker 3: as possible. All I see is just my chance to
Speaker 3: move up the totem pole at me just a little
Speaker 3: bit more.
Speaker 2: I wrote you into my will Tony. Don't worry, the
Speaker 2: keys are all yours.
Speaker 3: But no, I love it, buddy, It's just not for me.
Speaker 3: There's some dangerous things that I would love to do.
Speaker 3: That's not one of them.
Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't have to be like the curiosity or
Speaker 2: the new thing doesn't have to be something dangerous, right,
Speaker 2: you did A foundation's podcast recently about Goblin Mode, about
Speaker 2: your Goblin shelfs. I know you thought nobody would see this, Tony,
Speaker 2: but I did. Can you elaborate on what this is
Speaker 2: and it's relevance to our conversation?
Speaker 3: So where this came from is and I feel so
Speaker 3: stupid for kind of not recognizing this and myself or
Speaker 3: specifically one of my daughters. Both of them do this,
Speaker 3: but one of them is really into this. So when
Speaker 3: I was last fall, when I was hunt with Steve
Speaker 3: down in Oklahoma where we were hunting every you know,
Speaker 3: like every once in a while you'd find like a
Speaker 3: turtle shell in the woods, you know, obviously from a
Speaker 3: time when it flooded and this pain turtle died or whatever.
Speaker 3: And he was picking them up for his kids, and
Speaker 3: I was picking them up for my kids, not even
Speaker 3: you know, you just see it. You're like, that's cool,
Speaker 3: put it in your pack, bring it home. Yeah. And
Speaker 3: then I, you know, I found a shed antler when
Speaker 3: we were blood trailing his buck. And what I realized
Speaker 3: is I gave them to my daughter and she's like, oh,
Speaker 3: these are so cool. And then we did this Meet
Speaker 3: Eater Live event, you know, in December and Kevin Murphy
Speaker 3: brought us swamp rabbit skulls, you know, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't as one does, right Anyway, I throw that
Speaker 3: in my pack and I bring it home and I'm like,
Speaker 3: my daughter thought it was so cool. So then we
Speaker 3: were looking up swamp rabbits and just you know whatever,
Speaker 3: we went down the like rabbit hole. So it got
Speaker 3: me thinking when I went into her room for something,
Speaker 3: and I was like, man, she has a lot of
Speaker 3: like just stuff from us being out in the outdoors
Speaker 3: that I didn't know she picked up or agots or
Speaker 3: fossils or you name it. And I read about it
Speaker 3: just random on something and it was like, oh, that's
Speaker 3: a goblin shelf. And I was like that is like
Speaker 3: it's such a cool concept because we don't think about it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm looking in your like you've got a
Speaker 3: bunch of shed antlers, and you're like we all kind
Speaker 3: of have this. Most of us have this version of
Speaker 3: ourselves where we like just find cool stuff and keep it.
Speaker 3: And when you think about that, that not only is
Speaker 3: that sort of the spice of hunting that you don't
Speaker 3: think about that makes it really cool, right, or fishing
Speaker 3: or whatever, like just being outdoors is like just the unknown,
Speaker 3: Like you might find something that just whatever works for you.
Speaker 3: You know, you're on the beach and you find a
Speaker 3: shark's tooth or whatever. But then I started thinking about
Speaker 3: the times we're out there and how how easy it
Speaker 3: is when I'm with my daughters for us to get
Speaker 3: distracted from the mission and you know, walk up that
Speaker 3: ravine on the hillside and look for fossils, and then
Speaker 3: when you're doing that, you're like, oh, here's a deer
Speaker 3: crossing I never knew was here. And so it kind
Speaker 3: of just got me thinking, I'm like, man, if you
Speaker 3: if you kind of open yourself up to the curiosity
Speaker 3: of just not being like I have to go skull
Speaker 3: so this, this, this and this, and that's my day
Speaker 3: done or my weekend done. But if you're like, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna just go explore, Like I'm just gonna go, like
Speaker 3: maybe maybe twenty percent of my mission is just to
Speaker 3: see this area I might deer hunt, but being real
Speaker 3: open to just whatever kind of trips my trigger and
Speaker 3: keeps me out there. And I think that that is
Speaker 3: like an intangible to a lot of really good hunters.
Speaker 3: Is they just they're just looking at the world out
Speaker 3: there a little bit different than like, you know it
Speaker 3: take take like an over the counter elk hunt. A
Speaker 3: lot of people go out there and they're like, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna blow this bugle on every ridge I can until
Speaker 3: one sounds off. And you might do that the entire
Speaker 3: ten days you're there and not get a single response.
Speaker 3: And so you're like, that's a failure because I went
Speaker 3: out with this plan and it didn't work. But if
Speaker 3: you go out there and you're like, I never get
Speaker 3: to be in the mountains, you know, like I you know,
Speaker 3: you know how it is. I'm like, I spend maybe
Speaker 3: ten days a year in the mountains, and I find
Speaker 3: so much cool stuff, just like plants and you know,
Speaker 3: bear claw markings on the trees and whatever. And when
Speaker 3: you kind of go into it that way, and you're
Speaker 3: like you become a part of that environment in a
Speaker 3: way that's just like a little bit different than just
Speaker 3: like I gotta get in here killing el can get
Speaker 3: out and it leads to good stuff, like just looking
Speaker 3: for rocks leads to good stuff. And so I think
Speaker 3: going goblin mode is it's a good idea. That's why
Speaker 3: I wrote about it.
Speaker 2: Love I love it and I love that it's it's
Speaker 2: it's uh super nerdy first off, and the fact that
Speaker 2: you call it Goblin mode and that you talked about
Speaker 2: it in that podcast. You even reference something about Lord
Speaker 2: of the Rings and Gollum in there, which I loved,
Speaker 2: and it really added to your sci fi fantasy persona
Speaker 2: that you're developing here within the Mediator universe. You're becoming
Speaker 2: like the Gandolf of the Mediator Crew, which is kind
Speaker 2: of interesting.
Speaker 3: Dude, I'll take it. Hey, I learned a term for
Speaker 3: flat earthers the other day. You know what it is?
Speaker 3: A furf?
Speaker 2: That's great? Like that, Yeah, another part of you that
Speaker 2: people don't know as much about that I'm kind of
Speaker 2: interested in unpacking here. In addition to Spaceman Gandolf sci
Speaker 2: fi fantasy, Tony is guitar Tony, music man, Tony. What's that?
Speaker 2: What's that about for you? What role does that play?
Speaker 2: How is that in any kind of way relevant to
Speaker 2: you as a hunter.
Speaker 3: It's challenging, man, I am. I am not a natural
Speaker 3: musician at all. I can't play by ear. I mean
Speaker 3: I could a little bit now, but like a real
Speaker 3: bass level like I music for me. I love music
Speaker 3: so much but playing music. Writing music is like a
Speaker 3: it is so hard for me. It does not come natural.
Speaker 3: And so so, just as an example, my one daughter
Speaker 3: who really goes hard on the goblin shelf thing. She's
Speaker 3: I'm teaching her guitar right now, and she picks it
Speaker 3: up so much faster than I did, and I just
Speaker 3: look at it and like it's it's not effortless. She's trying,
Speaker 3: but it's just she's just more naturally inclined to it.
Speaker 3: And so for me, just loving music and loving the
Speaker 3: idea of playing guitar, it's it's one of those things
Speaker 3: that I can do any I do it almost every
Speaker 3: day in my life to some extent, playing acoustic or whatever.
Speaker 3: But it is just kicks my ass consistently, Like it
Speaker 3: is just hard for me. And I love that because
Speaker 3: I know, you know, it's just like if you look
Speaker 3: at going out on public land and killing a big buck,
Speaker 3: you know how hard that is. Like I don't care
Speaker 3: what state you're in, you know, it's it's just generally
Speaker 3: not that easy. But there are people who can do
Speaker 3: it consistently, and they can they can take different paths
Speaker 3: to get there. And I always look at that and
Speaker 3: I go if if why not me? Right, Like, why
Speaker 3: not me? Like when I see an eight year old
Speaker 3: on YouTube who can play guitar better than me, I'm like,
Speaker 3: why not me? And it just it forces me to
Speaker 3: just keep keep working at it. And I think again,
Speaker 3: I think that you know, and you alluded to this earlier.
Speaker 3: We have pretty easy lives a lot of us, Like
Speaker 3: if we if we have the free time to hunt
Speaker 3: white tails a lot, and you can listen to a
Speaker 3: podcast a lot, like your life is probably better than
Speaker 3: a lot of people in the world, you know, but
Speaker 3: without some level of challenge, like without without us being
Speaker 3: like I'm going to put myself in an uncomfortable situation
Speaker 3: and just like try to advance myself somehow, you just atrophy.
Speaker 3: I just believe that. And so, like guitar has been
Speaker 3: one of the most frustrating things for me ever. I
Speaker 3: mean it literally is like when I first started bow hunting,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I don't know if I'm ever
Speaker 3: going to kill one. And then you know, when I
Speaker 3: finally started doing that, it was like, You're never going
Speaker 3: to kill a big one, you know, Like it it
Speaker 3: was like an almost almost unattainable thing. And so for
Speaker 3: a guitar. For me, I'm like, if I hear a
Speaker 3: you know, a song by tool or something like that
Speaker 3: sounds so amazing, I'll never be able to play it.
Speaker 3: But sometimes if you sit down and you work at it,
Speaker 3: like over time, and you build like the parts of
Speaker 3: it real slow, it becomes something that you can actually do.
Speaker 3: And I love that about music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can see. I can see that being
Speaker 2: both a way to challenge yourself and also a way
Speaker 2: to lose yourself in something which I think has a
Speaker 2: lot of value, Like activities in which you are forced
Speaker 2: not to think about anything else. Is that the case
Speaker 2: with guitar for you?
Speaker 3: One hundred percent? I mean, if if you set out
Speaker 3: to learn something new, it is a very specific kind
Speaker 3: of task, right if you like if I if I
Speaker 3: have a big writing day where I have some deadlines
Speaker 3: or something, and I will hit a wall with writing.
Speaker 3: I've learned this about myself where I have X amount
Speaker 3: of words that I can get out and then I
Speaker 3: got to do something else, And a lot of times
Speaker 3: I'll go, you know, turn on my electric or I'll
Speaker 3: go upstairs and play one of my acoustics for just
Speaker 3: like twenty minutes and I won't I won't think about
Speaker 3: I'm not learning anything new, I'm playing something I know
Speaker 3: or just messing around, and it is a mindless It's
Speaker 3: sort of like at certain points during a run where
Speaker 3: you don't think about the run at all. You're just
Speaker 3: kind of in your head like your flow state. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're you're out somewhere else. And for me, I can
Speaker 3: come back to the computer and write again, and it's
Speaker 3: just like it's just like a reset moment, and it
Speaker 3: is very important for me because there are times where
Speaker 3: I'll try to push it and it just does not work.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I absolutely have the same kind of thing.
Speaker 3: For me.
Speaker 2: It's like when I find myself in that kind of
Speaker 2: spot where I'm blocked or just kind of hitting a wall,
Speaker 2: it's always like you got to shake it up physically,
Speaker 2: change your body, it changes your mind, and so it
Speaker 2: might be go for the run or just go out.
Speaker 2: Like yesterday, I just same thing I was writing and
Speaker 2: just needed to like get outside and shake myself out,
Speaker 2: and so I just went out in the backyard and
Speaker 2: shot hoops for fifteen minutes, just like a kid. There's
Speaker 2: like a little kid like shooting hoops and like running
Speaker 2: around like by myself. I thought to myself, like anyone
Speaker 2: who's watching this grown adult at like one in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: and my hoop is lower because my kids are like
Speaker 2: my son's like trying to get better basketball, So it's
Speaker 2: like a lower hoop. There's a grown man at one
Speaker 2: o'clock in the afternoon run around the court shooting like
Speaker 2: it might be a little weird, but it was just
Speaker 2: what I needed to kind of reset the gears, and
Speaker 2: I was able to sit back down the desk and
Speaker 2: do the thing.
Speaker 3: I love that I love thinking about you doing.
Speaker 2: That back to learning something new, though I wish that
Speaker 2: I could remember the exact details, but I know. I
Speaker 2: read about some studies that it pointed to the value
Speaker 2: of being a beginner at something again and how a
Speaker 2: lot of folks don't do that, Like they they's become
Speaker 2: adults and they learn their thing and they learn their job,
Speaker 2: and they just do the same thing forever. And they
Speaker 2: talked about how that really causes you to stagnate in
Speaker 2: so many ways. But if you can foster a beginner's
Speaker 2: mindset again, and if you can flex and exercise those
Speaker 2: like beginner learning muscles, it helps with everything else. So
Speaker 2: without remembering the specifics the basic gist of these studies,
Speaker 2: and the argument is like, by consistently tackling new things,
Speaker 2: like this year, I'm going to learn to climb, Next year,
Speaker 2: I'm going to learn the piano. Three years from now,
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to learn how to scuba dive.
Speaker 2: Like by doing that kind of stuff, it like helps
Speaker 2: your synapses fire and connect differently. It makes future learning,
Speaker 2: It makes whatever other tasks you're trying to do cognitively,
Speaker 2: it makes it easier to do those things because there's
Speaker 2: something special going on in your mind when you're learning
Speaker 2: something new, and if you're working those muscles, and the
Speaker 2: only way you can work those muscles is by doing
Speaker 2: the new thing, that then translates to everything else. I
Speaker 2: think I should have found these studies to be'll speak
Speaker 2: to because that perfectly proves the kind of idea we're
Speaker 2: discussing here, which is like man adding in these new things,
Speaker 2: learning a new hobby, whatever, it's going to come back
Speaker 2: and make you mentally or physically more prepared to do.
Speaker 2: In this case, the number one deer hunting focus for
Speaker 2: a lot of us.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, dude, on that point, really, how many
Speaker 3: people have you talked to when you're like, oh, I'm
Speaker 3: going to X state or Y state to hunt and
Speaker 3: people are like, why you have white tails right here? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean that happens all the time, or you know.
Speaker 3: I mean that's a message we've been preaching a long time.
Speaker 3: When you when you go somewhere new, when you leave
Speaker 3: the home farm, that's when you grow. Like that's that
Speaker 3: and it does something for you that you're just not
Speaker 3: going to get from that place. You've hunted a lot,
Speaker 3: and we so often look at it as only a
Speaker 3: means to go kill something bigger and not be in
Speaker 3: a different environment and not get better at this, And
Speaker 3: I think that's a huge mistake, Like I think, and
Speaker 3: I don't know how again, Like I don't know how
Speaker 3: you get people to understand that without just like go
Speaker 3: do it, Like just go see what that's like and
Speaker 3: you'll realize. But you can't. You can explain that to somebody,
Speaker 3: but they're not going to understand it, Like why if
Speaker 3: I can kill one hundred and sixties at home, Like,
Speaker 3: why would I go somewhere and hunt one hundred inched
Speaker 3: to year? Like doesn't make any sense? And it's like
Speaker 3: because that's not what it's about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's all about But number one, that's not
Speaker 2: what it's about. But number two, my argument to that person,
Speaker 2: if they want to stay with that mindset, is that
Speaker 2: it will still help you kill your one sixties more
Speaker 2: effectively in the future.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, back to that idea, like lateral thinking, like the
Speaker 2: only way you can get new wells of knowledge to
Speaker 2: pull from to help you in your original thing. The
Speaker 2: only way to do that is to put yourself into
Speaker 2: new situations, new environments, so you can pull these disparate
Speaker 2: ideas together. The stuff you learn the big Woods maybe
Speaker 2: will help you in Iowa. The stuff that you learn
Speaker 2: in the swamps of Florida very well, my hub help
Speaker 2: you in northern Michigan. I mean we both experienced that.
Speaker 2: I've I've experienced that, like that year I did the
Speaker 2: deer country thing, like really pushing what I tried, Like man,
Speaker 2: so many of those things have translated back to my
Speaker 2: usual in ways I never would have expected. There's there's
Speaker 2: a whole lot that can be learned by putting yourself
Speaker 2: into these new worlds.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and that's totally true. And it's also it
Speaker 3: sort of highlights some of our blind spots too, Like
Speaker 3: what we think we know, like, I know that you're
Speaker 3: heading down to fish down in the ocean here next month.
Speaker 3: I am too. And the first time that I ever
Speaker 3: fish was in the ocean was down in the Keys
Speaker 3: and my wife and I went on a little vacation
Speaker 3: and I wasn't going to fish. And when we got there,
Speaker 3: there was a fishing pier. We walked out on it.
Speaker 3: There was fish everywhere, and she's like, just go to
Speaker 3: the tackle shop. Just do what you gotta do, because
Speaker 3: I know what's coming.
Speaker 2: She could see.
Speaker 3: Dude. I drove down to that tackle shop and just
Speaker 3: bought like a cheap combo whatever. And I and the
Speaker 3: guy working there, he said, well, where are you staying?
Speaker 3: And I told him and he was like, buy these
Speaker 3: jigs by some shrimp. Drop them to the bottom. You'll
Speaker 3: catch fish all day long. I'm like, dude, I know
Speaker 3: how to fish. Don't worry. But I bought the stuff anyway,
Speaker 3: just whatever. So I go out there and I walk
Speaker 3: out on that pier and I'm like, I know how
Speaker 3: to catch fish, and so I do what I do
Speaker 3: and I cast and I caught a barracuda on the
Speaker 3: first cast, and I was like, see, like I know
Speaker 3: what I don't and then dude, I could not catch
Speaker 3: a fish. Just it was like that one barracuda who
Speaker 3: was waiting there to make me look like I knew
Speaker 3: what I was doing. And then finally I'm like, I
Speaker 3: don't know. So I did exactly what he said and
Speaker 3: it was non stop fish after that, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: there's plenty to learn in this stuff that, you know,
Speaker 3: like we think we think we know, Like you know
Speaker 3: how it is. You talk to people who have a
Speaker 3: good place to hunt and they kill big deer and
Speaker 3: they're like experts, I can do it anywhere, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I bet you can't. You know. I sat in a
Speaker 3: tree stand one time filming a show when I was
Speaker 3: at bow Hunter and the camera guy we were talking
Speaker 3: about public land whitetail hunting. I was it was, you know,
Speaker 3: this was like ten years ago and I was on
Speaker 3: like a good run and a bunch of states, and
Speaker 3: he was like, yeah, I could do that if I
Speaker 3: had the time, and I was like, and I didn't
Speaker 3: know that much about him. So as we kind of
Speaker 3: got to know each other, at one point he called
Speaker 3: his dad, who had they hunt in southwestern Wisconsin, and
Speaker 3: at that point you could bait. And he was telling
Speaker 3: his dad to go put out corn by his stands,
Speaker 3: and I was like, well, do you, like, do you
Speaker 3: hunt anywhere else? He's like, well, no, we just hunt
Speaker 3: down there on the farm. And I was like, I
Speaker 3: don't think you know what you're talking about that, buddy, Like,
Speaker 3: but it's you know, in your head, you're like, well,
Speaker 3: I killed deer here, so I'm I'm a good deer hunter.
Speaker 3: And man, you know what it's like when you get
Speaker 3: out of your comfort zone, it's real easy to suck
Speaker 3: so much like, it's real easy to be so bad
Speaker 3: at it. But that's part of the.
Speaker 2: Process Exhibit A and B right here. Mostly you know
Speaker 2: in the screen, in the screen, you're A just so
Speaker 2: you know so.
Speaker 3: In my head that you're AI B until you fall
Speaker 3: off a cliff then I become here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So with that in mind, let's uh, well, I
Speaker 2: guess do you have anything else major within this world
Speaker 2: of topics that you want to cover that we have
Speaker 2: and yet or should we like wrap a.
Speaker 3: Ball in this? We can wrap her up, buddy.
Speaker 2: All right? So I feel like I'm going to try
Speaker 2: to list like the big takeaways I'm remembering here like
Speaker 2: I think number one, it's the big theme here is
Speaker 2: give yourself permission to do new things, to try new things,
Speaker 2: to let yourself out of the white tail only box
Speaker 2: or the white tail the way you always have box.
Speaker 2: I think be tackling new challenges physically and mentally. Both
Speaker 2: can push you in new ways, can help you build
Speaker 2: discipline or strengthen physical or mental muscles that are going
Speaker 2: to help you as a deer hunter. I think number
Speaker 2: three it's always keeping white tail mode kind of active
Speaker 2: in the back of your mind though, when you're doing
Speaker 2: these things as much as possible, so that you're open
Speaker 2: to these new ideas, so that you have the opportunity
Speaker 2: to have these like lateral thinking moments like I talked about,
Speaker 2: where you can connect the dots between what you're doing
Speaker 2: is on your small moll fishing trip, or what you're
Speaker 2: doing when you're playing chess with your buddy, or what
Speaker 2: you're doing when you're playing the guitar, and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden you have this aha, like, oh man, this
Speaker 2: is the kind of thing that's actually gonna help me
Speaker 2: as a deer hunter. This is this is the way
Speaker 2: to solve that problem more. Man, that's a different way
Speaker 2: to approach the my access problem or whatever it might be, Like,
Speaker 2: You've got to put yourself into new environments, both literally
Speaker 2: and figuratively to grow to get better. We need change,
Speaker 2: we need diversity, we need seasonality in our year, even
Speaker 2: to allow yourself like the mental space to come back
Speaker 2: to deer hunting, cot contrott and ready to go. I
Speaker 2: think those are like my big takeaways from this, and
Speaker 2: hopefully like my thought with all this was that through
Speaker 2: some of these examples of our own lives, it would
Speaker 2: either inspire folks to try some new things or help
Speaker 2: them realize, like, oh, this other stuff I've got it
Speaker 2: is pretty valuable. I should do more of that. Or
Speaker 2: I can challenge myself in new ways, or I can
Speaker 2: convince my wife or husband that this is an okay
Speaker 2: to keep doing because it's helping in this kind of way.
Speaker 2: That's what I think we're trying to get here. Did
Speaker 2: I miss anything? What else did you add?
Speaker 3: The only thing I would say is any anything like
Speaker 3: this just understanding how important baby I know it's cliched,
Speaker 3: but baby steps matter. Like you, you're just not going
Speaker 3: to jump the line man like on anything that's worthwhile
Speaker 3: to do. It just takes. It takes a lot of repetition,
Speaker 3: Like you have to understand that, like whether it's you know,
Speaker 3: stacking up white tail seasons until you finally start getting
Speaker 3: things right, which is a multi year deal running whatever,
Speaker 3: just just the act of doing it, like committing to
Speaker 3: it daily, weekly, whatever. It doesn't have to be you know,
Speaker 3: forty hours a week, like twenty minutes a day matters
Speaker 3: a lot to a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very true. All right, buddy, Well, thanks for
Speaker 2: joining me for this winding surprising. I don't know what
Speaker 2: else you would say to describe this conversation, but we
Speaker 2: we established that you like you have to pleate guitar.
Speaker 2: You're into the Lord of the rings. You were throwing
Speaker 2: out Lord of the rings references. You had this whole thing.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure you're pegged now. Anyways, we're gonna wrap
Speaker 2: it up before you can dispute that any further. Thank
Speaker 2: you for joining us.
Speaker 4: Everyone.
Speaker 2: We appreciate you tuning in. Take this permission slip to
Speaker 2: go try new things, to explore new areas, to bring
Speaker 2: in new ideas back to your white tail world. Take
Speaker 2: advantage of that, get out there, get outside, challenge yourself
Speaker 2: and until next time, stay wired Ton