00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three eight two and todate. I am joined by New York Times best selling author Ryan Holliday to discuss the mental side of hunting in a series of time tested philosophies and principles that can help us improve. All right, welcome to the Wired Hunt Podcast, brought to you by on X Today. We have got a very unique episode for you. For one, we've never had a New York Times best selling author on the show before, and uh, I'm not sure any deer hunting podcasts ever has before, So check that one off the list, I guess um put more wortantly. Number two, we've never had an episode one dedicated to the part of deer hunting and hunting in general that goes on just between the ears, that mental side of things, of course, understanding dear biology and behavior, how to read maps, and how to shoot a bow, and how to play the way, and how does set up good rust stands. All that stuff matters, and it's obviously a huge part of the equation for hunting success. But there's this whole other side of the game that influences everything, and that's what's going on in your head. How do you make decisions, how do you learn from your mistakes, how do you learn from success? How do you deal with challenges? How do you handle failure? How do you deal with all these things? How we deal with all these things, and and much more. It all depends on the tools we have at our disposal and our mental fitness, And just like physical fitness, you know, this is something that can be improved or strengthened with some proactive work. And so that's what today's show was all about. Now, admittedly, this episode is very different than usual. Um humor me here, guys, play along for a minute, listen with an open mind, and I'm betting you're gonna find some ideas that are gonna help you this season, maybe just as much or or more than any rut tactics or scouting ideas we've covered in previous conversations. So Ryan Holliday, our guest, He's written this series of books that explores how to improve our mental fitness and our day to day lives and how we handle adversity and how we accomplish our goals and all that kind of stuff by way of studying the philosophies and principles of a group of ancient thinkers, writers, and teachers, and these people come to known as these Stoics. These books include The Obstacles, the Way, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, and most recently, Lives of the Stoics. Now, these folks, the Stoics, way back in the heyday of Rome and Greece. We're talking a long time ago. The people spent a lot of time thinking about some of the core principles for success in life and achieving goals and handling tough times and all that kind of stuff, and they wrote it down, and it's been passed down. These words have been passed down through the ages and time and time again. People working on important things or during important times have turned to these old words of wisdom. You know, whether it be George Washington or Winston Churchill or the New England Patriots from two hundred years ago to two weeks ago, these ideas are still relevant and they're helping people. Ryan's books about these foundational ideas they sold millions of copies, and they become kind of a cult hit across a lot of different parts of the professional sports world. Interestingly, Sports Illustrated called one of his books the book That's taken the NFL by storm. So professional athletes like Chris Bosh and Manage Nobly, from the NBA and C. G. McCullum to uh Lance Lance Armstrong even they swear by it. Eaders such as Nick Saban, General Stanley McCrystal and Senator Ben Says they endorse it. All this is to say that a lot of people achieving big important things are finding these ideas helpful. So why couldn't we two that. That's it. That's my pitch. I know some of you might be hearing words like ancient and philosophy and New England Patriots, and you might be thinking, no, this, this is not for me. I want to listen about deer hunting. I want to hear about how to kill a buck during the rut, uh, etcetera, etcetera. I get it. But if you're willing to stick with me here for a bit, stick around, I think you're gonna be surprised by how useful some of these simple ideas can be I can tell you personally, these books, these ideas have really helped me to develop my own mental toughness and the mindset that I think is necessary to have consistent success as a hunter. And if you listen to show you know that something I'm always trying to work on is is is sharpening that ax, fine tuning what I'm doing out there, whether it be how I read a map, or whether it be how I handle, you know, missing a deer and getting back in the saddle right afterwards. How to handle all these different things really separates, you know, the week from the chief, I guess, is what they say. So I do think that you're probably going to hear some things today that you will recognize because I've brought them up in past episodes. And I never said that, oh, this is an idea I learned from a book about the stoics. I didn't say that kind of thing. But there's some things in here that you're like, oh, yeah, Mars preached about this before, and that's because it helps me and I think it will help you too. So there it is. There's the plan. That's a long window way of saying. This one is different but interesting give it a listen, think about it. If the stuff is intriguing, I highly recommend his books, in particular The Obstacles the Way. Um. Basically, the books go through and they take this kind of old timing wisdom, and then he applies it to people in more recent times who are using these things to be successful. Uh. Really good stuff. So there it is. Tune in, enjoy, let's get after it all right Here with me on the line is Ryan Holiday. Ryan, thank you so much for making the time to do this. Yeah, it's good too, good to chat with you again. I mean, I thought we were going to get to go hunting in April. We're going to be Turkey. But obviously that I felt by the wayside for good reason. Yeah. We we've had a few plans like that that keep on getting pushed to later dates. I do hope that eventually this thing clears up and maybe next year or someday down the line, we can we can finally do that. But it's it's really cool to be able to connect in this way where we're not talking about a future hunt, but actually talking about how your day job might apply to hunting, which is my day job and for a lot of other people, it's something they're really passionate about and they love. So I want to get into how these philosophies and ideas you've been writing about could be applicable and really relevant to a pursuit like hunting deer or turkeys or whatever it might be. But before that, we really do need to quickly touch on what you just mentioned, which is that you have yourself been exploring hunting really quick. What's that experience been like for yourself far? It seems like you're it seems like you are getting into it a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't sort of fancy myself particularly good at it. But I moved to Texas guess seven eight years ago now, and and that was sort of my first experience hunting and went hog hunting. I've I've really enjoyed that I've been deer hunting and rabbit hunting and stuff like that. Um, I've always been sort of an outdoors person. I grew up my dad was a police officer, so so I was familiar with guns. Um. But but being in California and northern California, it wasn't there wasn't sort of like a hunting culture that we were a part of, and and certainly, uh, like we fished and and and spend time outdoors, but there was never really any of that. Like I grew up going to Lake Tahoe and that's just not really a place that people do a lot of hunting. Um, So it wasn't It wasn't until later in life that I moved out here that I got to sort of mess around with it. And then when we bought our we bought about forty acres outside of Austin that we spend most of our time on. Hunting became more than just like a thing you might do occasionally for fun, but almost you know, with the case of boars and hogs, like actually part of the management of the land, because if I don't go out there on a regular basis, uh, you know, they're going to be out there on a regular basis and they'll they'll mess up the land. So it's it's been a it's been an eye opening experience because it's not just the thing you do and hey, this is where your food comes from, but it actually becomes like sort of in the case of like you know, an invasive species, almost like a moral obligation it's not your problem. You didn't create the problem, but if you don't do anything about it, you will be stuck with the consequences of that problem. It is interesting how mother nature can pull you into that cycle and you quickly realize that um that we we do and can and sometimes have to have an influence to to write the ship on occasion where an invasive species is brought in by you know, our predecessors, and your left to pick up the pieces now. But I imagine a lot of good protein comes out of that. So it's not all bad, right, No, No, it's great, And like what I like to do is all And I think I got this from from Steve, which is like, uh, I'll shoot the hogs on my property and then I'll pay to have it. You know, although I've done it myself. I've processed it once myself as a paint and as I sent it to Hudson Meats in Austin, and then I just give that. I just give like the sausage out, you know. And it's like a nice neighborly sort of thing to connect over because I mean, frankly, the hogs are eating on all of our properties and uh and actually, so I go for this long walk with my kids each morning and and I'll often see them and then I'll sort of text to one of my neighbors and well, please take care of it. So it's it's it's weirdly been kind of a thing that's been a source of connection between me and the neighbors, because I think that's that's another point where um, it's a it's a problem that affects everyone. And and because there there isn't, you know, a sort of a strong governmental program to deal with it, everyone in the neighborhood has to come together and sort of decide what we're gonna do about it. Interesting way to bring your your local community together, I guess, yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, I'm glad that you've been able to have that this insight in this experience of hunting, and you're able to feed your family now with that and and see what it is that you know that a lot of folks across the country are finding a lot of value in and I'm glad you are too, And that that is why I thought that you would be a particularly interesting person to bring on this show, because this podcast is about hunting, but what you talk about and right about is a way of of living life and making decisions and judging right and wrong, and and a lot of different things that are on this higher plane. But as I followed along and read your books over the years, I continually find myself coming back and saying, Oh, this is so applicable to what I do in the woods or what I do in the mountains. This is so applicable to this challenge. This is exactly what I need to be thinking when I face this obstacle. So over and over and over again, I'm pointing back to things you've written, or things that the the philosophers or thinkers or teachers that you cite are talking about. And I I'm finding and I've seen and I've heard that that's not a unique thing for me. There are professional athletes, There are professional sports team coaches. There are business people and other high performers all across every realm of the world out there who are becoming both fans and advocates of your books, but also of applying stoic philosophy or other ancient ideas to their pursuit of excellence or or whatever. Why do you think it is that what you're writing about in these philosophies, Why is it resonating with with people like this, with athletes, with people striving to achieve something? What's there that's making this all relevant and applicable thousands of years later, um, thousands of years after this stuff was written and done originally, we have this idea that philosophy is sort of abstract or theoretical, like it's, uh, it's just for the mind. But in reality and engine world, philosophy was this sort of a way of living. It was sort of a guide to light for people who were active and busy and quite frankly much more connected to nature, uh and the sort of realities of the human existence than than we are today. So the the virtues of Stoicism, forriences of four virtues of Stoicism are the same virtues of christian of Christianity, courage, self discipline, justice, and wisdom. We could see how you know, even an activity uh like hunting, but the same as playing professional football, and you know, being in the Special forces or you know, trading stocks at a high level requires those for traits in some form or another. You know, maybe in some cases more than others, but um, you know, let's say somethings like self discipline. When you're sitting there waiting for hours for the dear to show up, that's a test of one's sort of patience and self control. Um, you know justice, Are you gonna do this sort of ethically uh compassionately you know, um as as unwtefully as possible, you know sort of wisdom that can you learn how to do this thing? Can you understand it? Can you do the research? Can you you know, get you know, get your head around it and encourage I mean obviously, you know, hunting rabbits is probably different than hunting uh grizzly bear or something. But but you know, the getting out there, sort of pitting yourself against nature in some way is the other. The other sort of translation of courage when they sort of render these virtues is fortitude. So I think we can all see how hunting demands a certain fortitude out of a human being. And so whether you're hunting or you know, playing sports or you know, you know, laying bricks like whatever it is that you're doing, demands that you use those virtues, or at the very least is an opportunity to use those virtues. Yeah, I really like how You put it at the end of your newest book, which is The Lives of the Stoics. Uh. Towards the conclusion, you wrote kind of synthesis of what stoicism is, that it being a playbook for how to how to become better or how to how to progress their life. And I'll just quote this bit here and and and this just really clearly articulates why I find what you're doing so relevant to what I'm doing. You wrote a quote, as Epitus wrote, is it possible to be free from air? Not by any means, but it is possible to be a person stretching to avoid air. That's what stoicism is. It's stretching. It's training to be better, to get better, to avoid one more mistake, to take one step closer towards that ideal, not perfection, but progress, and that that idea right there, those couple of lines, That is what I preach every week on this podcast when we're trying to teach people how to hunt, how to get better, how to perfect what we're doing, how to take the next step in your growth. Um. And this is something that a lot of people are really really passionate about and spend a large part of their year focusing on, like like a marathon runner, a mountain climb er, how to perfect this craft. Um. I feel like the principles of stoicism and what these ancients taught perfectly provide a playbook for how we can do that still today. So totally agree. I think I think any activity, um, well, just about any activity can function as a kind of metaphor or training ground for those virtues. So I'm forgetting the author's name, but there's that great book shop Classes soul Craft, and he's talking about how, uh, you know, he builds motorcycles, and how what he learns putting together motorcycles and and working on you know, sort of cars and bikes sort of teaches him philosophically. And I think, you know, the practice of hunting just as the practice of fishing, um it is a way to do that. A lot of people don't know. Herbert Hoover wrote a book after he was president called um uh it's called fishing, and then it's in Fishing for Fun, and then it's in parentheses. Uh. The subtitle is or how to Wash Your Soul. And I love the idea of like getting out and getting in the water as as a as a means of sort of examining oneself, flushing out toxic things from the self. You know, like if you're sitting there in the river for hours by yourself, it's just you and the silence, this is a chance to get in touch with yourself, to explore things, to think, and yet at the same time you're also forced to be present and focused on what you're doing, and it kind of gives you a distance from what's happening. So I just I just love uh, hunting and fishing and all crafts. Right, Winston Churchill was a painter um and and I love what craft can teach you philosophically. Yeah, So to to really pull this into the realm of of what the listeners are doing on a day to day basis, I thought I could present you with a scenario that someone might experience out there as a hunter, and then I'd love to hear from you how you think the stoics or Stoic philosophy, how we might apply these philosophies to this situation, whether that be with examples from the ancient writers, or whether it be modern practitioners that you've written about as well. I'd love to see what types of tools or thought processes we could apply to these real life scenarios that could happen to any one of us tomorrow or next week. So I'm gonna lay them out and then walking. I had one, I was going to run by you. I was curious to get your thoughts, and I am I allowed to do that. You certainly did you see the video of this guy. I was watching it last night, the guy he was running in Utah and that he's being charged by that mountain lion. Yeah, I just saw it this morning. Oh man, it's incredible. I mean, one, you just see what it sort of a magnificent animal, that is um. But I thought that was such a good example of stoicism and that this guy is his life is flashing before his eyes, which is itself sort of a stoic practice, the idea of sort of meditating on one's mortality. But I just I just thought it was incredible, the sort of the self discipline that this guy, I mean, every part of his body and he's literally wearing running shoes. He wants nothing more than to run as fast as you can in the other direction, and that's probably what his mind is screaming at him to do, and yet he knows enough that that's like the worst thing you could do. And you sort of watch him, uh, sort of extricate himself from the situation. You see him sort of reassert and calm over and over again, with the panic though too that he then controls again, and he's verbalizing all the ways you're you're feeling it along with him, yes, yes, and and you know there's this moment he goes, where's my gun? Right because obviously doesn't have when he's running, But like he's also just sort of like making I think a very stoke ideas like, Okay, this is the situation that I'm in. No amount of wishing that were otherwise, no amount of complaining, no amount of screaming, no amount of crying. It's going to get you out of it. All you can do is sort of what you can do. And I thought there was a you know, there's also a moment where he goes like, you know, I don't want to die today. But I think the stokes will go like, there's not really something you have much of it. If your number comes up, your number comes up, you know, So there's just I just thought it was a very illustrative moment. Obviously, it's a moment nobody hopes to find themselves in. But as far as like being a stoke goes like this guy could not have done a better job, and your point about like there are moments of panic. The Stokes were not like superheroes, right, Like Seneca talks about how if you throw cold water on someone, they're gonna shiver. If you jump out and scare them, they're gonna be taken aback. What matters is not that immediate action, but it's it's how quickly, as you said that, you managed to reassert yourself over that primal impulse. That's what the philosophy is actually about. Yeah, and you brought it up just a moment ago, that being the idea of recognizing that this is the hand I've been dealt, This is the situation, and there's nothing I can do about what led up to this. All I can do is is make a choice about how I proceed from here. That concept just comes back to me over and over and over again throughout my hunting pursuits. There's so many things that get thrown in your way. There's so many surprises and so many failures, and so many. I mean, you're dealing with mother nature and other people and uh so many outside factors that you could bitch and moan about and you can get disheartened about and you could let drag you down. But I continue to go back to and I think again it was it was a Petitus who in this out. And so there's there's only two things in life. There's the externals that you can't control, and there's those which you can control. And and really you only have a sale over that last part. So what are you gonna do? What's what's next? What's that next move you're gonna make? That is if there's anything I've taken from all of your work and all of these writings and philosophies that just seems to be so foundational. You miss a deer, you can complain about it, and you can let it ruin your day, in your season, you can quit, or you can say, Okay, what happened happened. I can't control that. Now. All I can control is what am I gonna do tomorrow? How am I going to change this? How do I make sure that what happens next is better? Um? Can you just expand a little bit on that, because that seems to be something that comes up over and over again in so many examples you've written about. I was reading Theodore Roosevelt's book I Forget what the modern library has one that's like the sort of big game book, and then his Ranch his Ranch book, it's combined. I was reading that maybe a year or so ago, and there's this great scene where, you know, you get off the train and meets like his guide and they were late, and then it was getting dark and then it was raining, and you know, uh, tr says something like I would rather this not be uh you know how this goes, and like his guide, who's you know, sort of some you know, hard boiled hunting guide from you know, Montana or something, he says, well, we're not having our rathers on this trip, are we. And I thought that was just such a good way to express it, like, um, life doesn't care about the way you'd rather things be. Life just is what things are in that moment, you know. And for the Stoics, they have this idea of ascent, so not like ascent up the mountain, but a S S E N T. Or it's another way of the word acceptance. And so the discipline of ascent for the Stoics was the discipline of accepting and enduring and persevering through um. And I think that's kind of an underrated quality today. You know, you have a lot of people who have opinions about reality, and then because reality doesn't match their opinions, they been they spend a lot of time arguing with or against or indicting reality. Instead of saying, Okay, I don't control what's happened, but I control how I respond to what's happening. That's been what I've tried to take, for instance, in this pandemic is like, it is what it is, But what I do with this time, What I do with this unusual, you know, moment of my life that is up to me, and I can choose to use it well and productively and and happily. So so let's say something that's happened, Like let's say the scenario if if the one I just brought up is what we're in focus on here, Let's say you've some of these people listening right now, or myself. I've been in this these shoes before. We've worked all springing summer to practice with our ba is. We've cultivated the land, We've scouted public land. We've been out there for days and days and weeks. We've saved up our money. Now we're going for a ten day trip out of state. We've sunk all of our vacation time into this. This is what we've looked forward to all year. We've been away from our family to prepare for it, and so they're sacrificing for us to A lot is built up into this. We get out there and we missed the deer. The thing we've been working towards the mountaintop, we've been climbing towards. Now we've we've failed in that way. And I think the first the first place I go after something like that is what we just discussed. Okay, that happened. Now what I can't control the past, only the future. But how how would how a stoic or any one of these people you've been studying, how would they deal with the next step, which learning from that failure or or moving on. I read somewhere, and I think in your most recent book or one of them, about a live time versus dead time, which I thought was an interesting concept relevant to this um. But but what would you what would you share when it comes to those next steps after the miss. So I've got a bunch of thoughts on a lifetime deadtime. I think one of the things that I would point about point out about that situation that you just mentioned is that part of the disappointment is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding both of hunting and of life. Right, Like, the purpose of hunting is not to get the deer, it's to go hunting right. And so you were successful and that you did all of those things right, and all of that was in your control. But fundamentally, you know, does the bullet or the arrow land where it's supposed to land? You know, does the does the deer get away to some freak you know, incident interrupt what was otherwise a perfectly planned moment that's not inner control. And so I think one of the things that stoics want to do is re to find what success is. So like, even this book, right, the book came out and uh it debuted, it at number one on the best seller list, Does that mean it was a successful, fruitful book? I mean sure in one sense if if all you care about our external results, But what if what if it had hit number one. But I knew that actually I'd phoned the book in, or that it was riddled with inaccuracies, or that you know, I actually was only doing it for financial reasons. Like I don't think I don't think that would be I don't think many people would go, oh, that was a huge success, you know what I mean. I certainly wouldn't. I wouldn't say like, oh, this thing was a huge success because the external results were what they were. You know that the success was I wrote the best possible book that I was capable of writing. I poured my are and sole into it. I did what I wanted to do, and I, for the most part where it was possible, enjoyed that process, right, Like, that's what made it a success. That the arrow hit the bull's eye is is a bonus on top of it, right, And and I remember in the Ranchman book there's a similar moment where he's like, you can Roosevelt saying, you can easily miss that the purpose of hunting was to be outside, was to be out nate, out in nature. Was to challenge yourself, was to get active. It's getting the moose is the extra. So I think if we start by defining there. It allows us to always be happy with what happened. You mentioned a lifetime deadtime. I think the pandemic is a great example of that. How do you use the time apporticularly when you know you're sitting away? So like a great example, Let's say you know you're sitting in the blind in the morning, and you make a mistake and you scare the deer for something, and now, you know, should I have to sit here now for twelve plus hours until it gets dark again and there's a chance that they come back. You know, you're now faced with twelve hours? How are you going to spend those twelve hours? Is that gonna be twelve hours you spent moping? Is that going to be twelve hours you spend drinking? Uh? You know, is that going to be twelve hours you spend glue to your phone? Or is that going to be twelve hours that you spend reading, enjoying nature, learning from your mistakes, you know, drinking in the moment that you're in, um, you know, connecting with your son or your brother or your wife or whoever is with you. Um. You know, these are all choices that we have to productively use our time. As opposed to throwing up our hands and writing off time. Yeah, that's a that's a great point. Do do you find any examples in history of different ways that we can't examine a failure or examine a mistake ache Um. Again, it comes down to something you brought up, which is this differentiation between being results focused versus process focused. And I've been doing a lot of studying, studying of decision making, and in poker, there's this idea of resulting where a cognitive bias of sorts that often times we will judge ourselves or judge our decisions based off of just the result. But there's so many as we've been talking about, there's so many things that can be outside of our control. Sometimes we might get the result we want, but it was actually pure luck. Or on the flip side, we could do everything right and get a result we don't want. And if we look at that and judge ourselves as as if we had made a mistake, we're actually missing out in the fact that we did have everything right and it was a fluke. Is there anything you can pull back or or point to that might help us better understand how to do that, how to really accurately assess our our performance or our decisions, because that's that's a huge part of hunting, is being able to look at Okay, I did this because of this, this and this, and it didn't work out. What can I learn from that? How do I do things differently next time, or or not differently. I had a shock Is Smart on my podcast a couple of months ago. He's the head basketball coach in the Texas and he was saying one of the things he's taken from stoicism and I in turn taking it back from him, is he goes like, as a coach, I can't get I don't get mad at my players for missing a shot. I will because they don't control that. I only get upset or happy if it was a good shot to take. So if they take an open three and miss it, um, he's not going to get upset because you know, even the best three point shooter in the league is probably only going to shoot you know or thereabouts right, So a certain number of times they're just gonna miss. That's just the reality of it. So you can't get upset that they missed the shot. Now, if they force a three pointer because they abandoned the scheme they practiced for weeks and weeks because they were, you know, being egotistical if they if they missed the shot, because they forced it, and meanwhile, a teammate was wide open and they neglected the opportunity to pass them the ball. That's something he's gonna get upset about. And he's gonna get upset about it even if they make the shot, because again, the results don't change whether it was a good decision or a bad decision. I remember in the playoffs a couple of years ago, Uh, Damian Lillard drained a shot in Chris Paul's face, like way back from the three point line and and it it it ended the series against Oklahoma, and you know, Chris Paul was like a man, you know, that was a one in a million shot. You know, I don't feel bad about it. But the reality is Damian Lillard like hits that shot like fort of the time, and he knew that when he took the shot. And the point was Chris Paul was rationalizing why you know, his playoffs hopes were dashed, and Damian Lillard was confident when he took that shot because he'd practiced that thousands of times and he knew that there was at least, you know, a non reckless chance that he could pull it off, and that was his only option. So I think, really evaluate, you know, it's like you take a shot at a deer and then you know, uh, you know, you know, after pulling the trigger, it reveals that there was you know, a better deer just behind the tree and you didn't know. Now the question is is not like should you kick yourself, it's you know, did you have any idea? And had you been more patient, would that you know have revealed itself. So I think it's looking at, you know, what's the information that I had at the time, and did I make the right decision with the information that I had at the time. That's how I think his stoic would think about it. So it's really this is one of those things that's easy to talk about and say, oh, this is what you should do um, but in the moment it's I think particularly difficult to be objective when judging ourselves. I think this is something I honestly I can't remember where I've heard about this or read about It's probably multiple places, but there's this idea that it's when judging a situation or a decision. It's often easier to pretend that you are judging a friend's decision or their problem, um, and then applying that and saying, Okay, if this is my friends problem or my friend's mistake, what should he do? It's it's some for some reason, easier for us to look at it objectively if it's our friend or a family member, much easier than it is to look at our own failings or process. Um. So so all has to say, all this is easier said than done. Any recommendation or things we can look to to help us with the actual act of this reflecting on our process and decisions in an objective way. I know, journaling something that some people have done, Marcus really is for example, any other examples like that, or actual steps we can take to become better at judging ourselves in an objective way, to to get better down the road. Well, look, I think it is all easier said than done. But that's the point is that. I mean, look, obviously you do this professionally, but for the vast majority of us who are hobbyists, this is where we are practicing it. Right. What am I getting better at through practicing it while hunting. Right. So, like we think about I mentioned Churchill as a painter. Um, he'd spent his whole life very ambitious, very unartistic, aside from his love of the written word. When he gets introduced to painting, it forces him to use all these different parts of his brain. It forces him to be present, It forces him to observe beauty. It forces him to be bad at something and then get good at it. Right. Um. It forces him to take instruction, It forces him to see the world differently. So I think one of the ways to think about this is just actually it's in like like again, like you know, you're you're you're you're sitting in the blind, or you're you're walking through the woods, and then you hear the rustling and you get that, you know, your heart just starts pumping, right. Um. This is a you know, this is obviously a very primal experience thing you have that like boxers and police officers and soldiers have a lot of experience dealing with but the rest of us is regular people don't have. I think one of the reasons we are hunting is to practice that. Okay, I'm experiencing this. How do I call myself down. How do I not rush what I need to do because it's demanding something of me that can't be rushed. And so I often see hunting as as precisely the kind of practicing ground, uh that that we're talking about, that then better prepares you for the rest of life too, right, Yeah, exactly. It's like it's like, Okay, you're sitting there and you're you're literally choosing your shot right, and you're having to calm yourself down, control your breathing, not be rushed, not let the adrenaline lead you astray. Well, okay, you know, flash forward two years later and you now have two competing job offers from two firms, and they tell you that they one of them needs an answer by tonight and the other needs an answer by tomorrow. You know, that is an analogous situation that if you are not familiar with making you know, sort of high stakes, you know, high pressure situation decisions, if you're not good at you know, dealing with the rush of adrenaline, if you know, making a slightly uninformed call, or you know what, if you're not familiar with that, you're gonna bungle it. And the and the cost of that is going to be, you know, much higher than you know not coming home with you know, a backpack full of meat. So what would the Stokes say to someone in that situation? Uh, Today, someone who has faced without adrenaline, rush with that shot, with the challenge of calming their nerves, refocusing, handling the next few moments as as best as possible. I know you've written about some things related to this in your book. Stillness is the key, Um, what what can we take for that kind of situation? I mean, I think what we're talking about in that situation is presence, right, It's sort of calming the mind down. It's breathing in and out. It's really focusing on what's in front of you, um, and and and and focusing on what you're training has prepared you to do it. Like when I look at most of mine is like, let's say I'm fishing and you get something on the line, It's it's when you jerk the pullback or you run away too fast, right, or it's when you excitedly, you know, excitedly shout I've got something, and you you make everyone rushing. Look, that's when you bungle it, right. And so so it's it's the I think for the Stokes, it was it was realizing that it's often in rushing to do the thing that we we get in our own way or rip over ourselves. Is there any way you know of to to recenter yourself in that moment and become present, Um, any little tricks over the years you've learned that help you attain that state of mind? I mean, weirdly, I think that the Zen teachers are probably more explicit and better about this than the stoics. Um. You know, like Zen and the art of archery, it's sort of like pulling back and then letting it fall from you, not forcing it. You know. It's sort of the focus on the breath is obviously, you know, sort of super important. So as as I'm firing a show, I'm what I'm I'm focusing on nothing but my aim and and the and the breath that's coming in and out of me. And I find that that sort of zeroes me in and and it just immediately calms me down. And I do always try to remind myself. It's it's like this tricky thing right where it's like you're like, it's there if I don't take this shot, I won't get another one. And the reality is that may be true, right, there's a chance said that's true. But you know, if you shoot and miss, you will definitely not see anything again because you will have scared them all off. So I think also just the balance of the sort of rational mind against the emotional sort of fear of missing out mind is kind of attention that you have to balance. Yeah, yeah, you can never take a shot back, but you can you can always have another shot if you hold on. So but that that whole battle between the rational mind and the emotional self is something that obviously impacts everything in day to day life. But again, hunting is a great, uh analog for that, where you have all these different moments where things happen, and again looking at someone who's putting so much time and effort and money and vacation and and personal sacrifice to to get this trip or this experience or whatever, and maybe what happened like we described the missed or maybe they're just faced with a tougher situation than they expected and everything's going wrong, and you have this this mix of things um that seems to again go to the biggest thing. The stoics seem to offer us is how to remove yourself from that emotion. Um if if if Seneca or Marcus Aurelius was on attendee hunting trip and everything seemed to be going wrong, and they're out there, and they're tired, and there's austin, they're cold. Other than what we've described already, are there any other things that they'd be sitting at the campfire at night telling you or telling themselves to try to keep them going for the next four days of the hunt. I mean, one thing I try to think about. You know, economist talk about the idea of sunk costs and that, like, so we have these biases, right, We're like, well, I just spent all this time, all this money, and then so that makes us even more result focused, right, because we think that somehow we're owed a result, we're more important. We think that, uh, the only way to get something, to get paid back for the effort, is to get the result. But the reality is the past is dead. The money you've spent is already lost. Right, the time you've spent has already been spent. No amount of future spending can can make it worthwhile. You have to Again, I think the Stokes are. The Stokes are trying not to ever regret the past and then not also be anxious about the future. And so where does that leave you? It leaves you right here in the present moment, which is a wonderful place to be, you know what I mean. It's it's it's you outside in the trees with a friend, with you know, by yourself, whatever it is you're You're in a wonderful moment. So appreciate that as opposed to, you know, stressing about all the all the what ifs, or the could have ends or the uh you know, how unfair this or that happens to be. Yeah, another one of those things that is it's hard to do, but when you do it, it is almost instantaneously recentering if you can step outside of the situation and remember why in the first place. Um, but that perspective is really important, right, So it's like, okay, yeah, you did you You got up at four am and you got out there, and you you not only when you're not successful, you didn't even see anything, right, It's perfectly reasonable, I think to have a tinge of disappointment or uh, regret their right And and the Stokes are saying like you're a human being. That's what That's what's going to happen, right, that's the emotion you're gonna have. But like when now, like I've been hunting in several months, uh, just as I've been busy and and uh and and you know I haven't been able to But I don't think back to any of those experiences and regret them. I don't even remember like what dates I was successful in which dates I wasn't successful, you know what I mean? Like it's all blurred together as as positive experiences. And so one of the things I think a stoic once the stoics want you to realize is like, well, if I'm going to think about this positively in the future as time goes by, why am I going to beat this ship out of myself now? You know what I mean. It's like, it's like, think back to all the times you've broken up, all the times you've gotten bad news, all the times you've failed, all the times you've embarrassed yourself, so and so forth. You you see them now is having contributed positively to where you are in life? You're not like, oh man, I wish I hadn't gotten dumped by my high school girlfriend, like my whole life is a disappointment because of that. You understand that if that hadn't happened, you wouldn't be where you are now. So the I think again the idea of the rational mind against the emotional mind being able to go, oh okay, well, here's logically how this is going be integrated into my life in the future. I'm gonna go ahead and give myself the benefit of that feeling now because I deserve it and I'm not going to be miserable if I don't need to be. Yeah, that's a great point. Um, Is there any I know that you have, you know, certain sayings or quotes that are particularly impactful for you and and for me, There've been there have been a handful of things that continue just pop up where I encounter a situation and this one line will be something that will kind of center me back on to kind of remove you from the emotional place and put you back in the rational place. Is there anything that stands out to you that would help you in a situation like this where you had some kind of failure and you're you're trying to do what you just described. Um, any one liner or any thing that folks listening can can try to add to their lives so that next time something goes really bad in the woods or something isn't a planned, that this thing they can be like that. Okay, I'm back, And it's it's important that we don't think of stoicism just as a philosophy for like insulating against failure, because it cuts both ways. Right. So there's this great quote from Market's relay. He says to accept it without arrogance and to let it go with indifference, meaning you accept the failure with indifference or you shrug it off. But then you also have to accept the success with a certain kind of indifference. Like as an example, so I went, I went deer hunting on the Uh, I guess it was. It was Thanksgiving the day before Thanksgiving whatever, the day in Texas last year, um, the antlerless deer day. And so I was in the deer blind of my property. Uh and uh, you know, a deer, a big sort of like seven eight deer show up. And there was one that was really dark, but I couldn't tell it was still pretty dark. Uh. And there was one that was really dark, and so I was like, oh, that's the one I'm gonna aim at. And I shot that one and it was a decent shot, sort of right through the heart, and you decently proud of myself. I didn't know. I'm again not being an expert like herself. I didn't know that much about deer hunting. This is maybe the second or third time i'd really ever gone. So I you know, we skinned the deer. We took it to uh the tax Germans down the street. Um forgetting that. I wish i'd know the name. I'd give him a shout out. Oh, Ryan Reinholder, Ryan Lander Reinholder. It's it's off A twelve right outside Austin. Anyway, I took it there and you know, he sent it to the tannery and then I called back, Uh, you know, it's like, hey, is this done? This is maybe in April and he said, oh, you mean the melanistic deer And I was like what's that? And he's like, you shot a melanistic deer and he was I was like, what does that mean. He's like, look it up. So I look it up and it's like I don't know, like one in a million something some crazy number to get basically a black white tail, and so all of a sudden, this thing that was I just thought was like, hey, I successfully got a deer. I did what I did suddenly changed because the information that I was given change. So, you know, this could suddenly be like this proud story that I tell everyone, and and I, you know, I shave off the details and give myself more credit for it than I But but it's like the point of stoicism is that stuff just kind of is what it is, and that like, you know, what what mattered is that I did what I set out to do, that I happened to get a one in a million bonus on top of it. You know, you can't let that go to your head. You can't let it really even change your perception of whether that was a success or not. Like it was a success because I went out, I had fun. Uh, you know, I learned something from the experience, We got the meat out of it, and then months later, you know, you get the extra bonus of of sort of knowing and now I have you know, I have the skin on on my couch as a blanket and it's cool. But again, I think the what the purpose of these aphorisms is is it's to protect you from both extremes, like kicking yourself but then also patting yourself on the back too hard. Yeah, avoiding the highs and the lows and finding a center ground. Yeah. And like you know, how many times, uh do you take a shot and the result turns out to be great, But if if you could somehow break it down on film, it was actually that you got lucky rather than you were skilled. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's lots of examples of that, whether it be a shot, or whether it be that you sat somewhere and just by chance the big giant buck comes walking by. But you really had no idea that was going to happen, or you hadn't planned it. Um. And like you said, it's really easy afterwards to be you know, high falutin and take all the credit and claim that you are this masterful hunter. Um. But yeah, to your point, what good does that do? Uh? You're you're you're you're cheating yourself. You're lying to yourself in a certain way, and I think it will make you a worse hunter, right because now you've you've attributed yourself to yourself a certain unearned confidence. So like let's say you take a shot and you know it's the perfect shot, but you know, if you actually broke down you recited your rifle, it's like, hey, actually you were aiming like three inches this way and you got lucky. You know, like, um, now you may take your your next shot with a certain amount of uh, either you rush it or you take it with a certain amount of certainty that's frankly undeserved, and you're actually going to be worse at it. And this is definitely true in business right, or trading stocks right. You buy a stock low, you sell it high. Now you think you're a genius, and so the next time you have a random impulse, you take a bigger bet on it than you should and lo and behold. It turns out you got lucky the time before, and this time you got unlucky, and because you were overconfident, you bet too much, and now you've wiped out your your your winnings. And then something, Yeah, so what does we've talked about what the stoke would do after failure? What would the stoke do after success to ensure that what you described doesn't happen? Well, I think it's first that that the extra and results don't change anything about you or what happened. Um, you know, I think I think one of the things I take from hunting as exhilarating and challenging and rewarding as it can be, just also like I've never once shot something and I didn't also immediately feel not a pang of regret. But there's the life and deafness of us, right and and there's I think a kind of a humility inherent in that. And so I think I from what I know of the Stokes who hunted, I've got to suspect that feeling was something that they they they dwelled on for a second, you know, like that they didn't just rush through. Because it is meaningful and it does put you in the right perspective. Yeah, Yeah, it's nothing more serious than life and death, and and hunting has a really profound way of reminding you at and and bringing you back to to earth in that in that kind of way. Totally totally tell me, tell me a little bit about what we can take from these philosophers when it comes to perseverance, because that's so much of hunting is just weathering the storm, going back out there for another day. Leah, literally in some cases, or some days it's okay, Can I go out for the twelve day and a row be up at three thirty am? Again? I told myself I was gonna do this. I did everything to do this. Now can I actually execute on this plant, put in place and and persevere day after day after day after day. UM. Is there anything that stands out to you, whether it be from from the ancient philosophers or the more modern UM practitioners. I suppose that you've studied anything that stands out that we can keep in mind when it comes to persevering through trying times. I don't know. I mean for me, like, so I I run or swim or bike every day. I started biking and swimming, you know, in the last few years. But I've been a runner, uh, my whole life. And so a lot of times when people here that you run, they go like, oh, are you training for a marathon? Or like, oh, do you do races or something? And I always sort of laugh at this because to me, the marathon is the lifelong pursuit of the sport or the activity, right, So the marathon is not like, Oh, on one Saturday, I'm gonna go run twenty six miles. It's that I run and I do my exercise every day, rain or shine, you know, tired or hungry, you know, whatever it is, I I do it even if I don't want to do it. And so I think that you know your point about like the twelfth day in a row, it's just sort of realizing like, hey, that this is the thing I'm doing for a lifetime. So one one unpleasant day is not a you know, a big deal in the midst of all of that, but that it's it's actually it's the it's the the kind of the putting in the hours, like seeing yourself as like every time I'm doing doing this, I'm getting a little stronger, getting a little more experience, I'm getting a little wiser. And I think in the case of hunting, it's also like I'm putting myself in a position to get lucky, right, Like it's like if you do it, you know, you hear someone You're like, oh, I've lived in you know, uh, Montana for twenty six years and I've seen one mountain lion or something. Right, It's like, oh, these things are rare, and you gotta you gotta, you gotta take a lot of shots before you, and literally and figuratively before you. You know, you get that one in a million thing like that morning that I saw the melanistic deer. That that only happened because I got out of bed that morning. So I think realizing that's like, hey, the longer you're in this, the greater your chances of getting lucky. Is maybe one way I think about it. Yeah, yeah, I was who who? Where was I? I was listening to something right along these lines. And and the simple truth of it is that life is in certain ways, and hunting in certain ways too. It's it's a game of chance, and you can certainly put things in your favor as much as possible, but eventually, when it comes down to it, you simply need to play the game enough and be out there enough for good luck to find you. And if you do it long enough, bad luck will find you too. But but good luck will eventually as well, and you simply need to be out there to take advantage of it. Um and and and there's something to be said that you can make all the right decisions, you can do all the right things, you can have all the right gear and and work your tail off, but you do need to simply be out there, put in the work of the time, persevere and and sometimes accept the gifts that that nature gives. Um. Yeah, that's that's the truth. Is there any final final thought that anything that stood out to you when you've talked to you, know, whether it be NFL teams or athletes or marathon runners. Are these folks that are pursuing excellence in some kind of pursuit like this? Is there anything that has stood out to you as is this most impactful concept of everything we've talked about or something else? I know for me that just the idea that the obstacle is the way the title of one of your books, has been something that I always keep in mind that whenever I'm facing adversity, that's as always the obstacles the way this is a thing that I can I can turn around into a positive. So that for me has been a foundational um reminder of sorts or concept. Is there anything that you would leave our listeners with? I I absolutely love hearing Man, and I have that praise tattooed on my arm for reason because I am trying to remind myself of it. I have on my other arm. I have ego as the enemy, and then I have stillness is the key to sort of each book and the title, because I think those are sort of mantras I try to repeat to myself. I was just struck, and I think maybe your listeners might like us. But as I was researching the life of Marcus Surrealius, Marcus Surrealius is an incredible figure because he becomes the Emperor of Rome, but his father was not emperor. He was just as a relatively ordinary, uh, sort of upper class Roman who is selected for the throne by the Emperor Hadrian. Hadrian sees something and Marcus he adopts an older man in exchange for that man adopting Marcus, and that puts him in a position to become emperor. But one of the things that they bond over, Marcus and Hadrian is hunting. Uh. They went boar hunting, and I I just obviously part of this is speculation, but I just suspect that what he sees in this young kid, and they tended to hunt boars either on foot or on horseback in Rome with spears, and then there was usually nets involved, so they like they would have slaves follow them with nets, or they'd set up nets in the forest and they would sort of charge the boars at them, uh and and then maybe they'd get off and dispatch them on foot. But I just I just make up that that mark that that Hadrian begins to see in Marcus some of the virtues that are going to be necessary to be a great king in how he handles himself in the thrill in the chase of of a hunt. And so again, if we go back to this idea that what we're doing is training for the really essential things in life. That's not to say that hunting isn't essential. And if it's you know, maybe what you do for a living, and it may be how you feed your family, uh, you know again literally or or because that's what you do for a living. But again, choosing to see it and everything we do as a kind of metaphor as a as a as a chance to practice these virtues, to me is just really beneficial. There's that great saying how you do anything, that's how you do everything. You know, Hunting for me is just an opportunity to practice skills that are important in the rest of my life. And so if we can see it that way, then then I think we're always going to have a successful trip, you know, regardless of what the external results happened to be. Yeah, well, Ryan, I know you've got a busy schedule. I don't want to keep you much longer. I appreciate everything you've shared through your books and podcasts and and all that. It certainly helped me a lot. Um. I'll certainly talk about this a little bit in my own conclusion, But is there anything that you would like to say, specifically to those listening about your newest book that they should be thinking about and thinking, uh when they're trying to stay if this is a good fit for them to pick up and give a reading. Yeah. Look, the premise of the new book is that philosophy is not about what one says, but it's about what what one does. So I was really interested in who these philosophers were and how did they live up to what they believe. So if someone's things like, look, I don't have time for these big philosophical ideas, I would say, like, I agree, and I totally relate to that. So I wanted to see, like who these guys and and and gals were as human beings, because I, frankly I think we learn more from studying the lives of people and then we ever do from studying the words of those people. Yeah, lots to learn from the book. I really enjoyed it. I've enjoyed every one of them. Ryan, So I'm gonna let you move on to the next adventure of your day. I hope you do get out and do some honey this fall, and uh keep me posted. Yeah, thanks man, We'll have to do it in person soon. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, let's make it happen. Ryan, Thank you so much for the time doing this. Alright, Peace up later. So there you go. For those of you who tuned into this one and listen to the end, thank you. I hope some of these things can be helpful to you. And I want to leave you with with two of the most important concepts that we discussed here and that I've kind of taken from some of these books and things that Ryan has has shared over the years that have been most applicable in the hunting world to me. Two concepts. I've brought these up in the past, most recently I talked about them in Ten Steps to Your Best Hunting Season Ever. But they they're just little reminders that I always need to keep in my head because time and time again, I find myself out there in the woods frustrated about something, or confused about something, or you know, struggling with something, and I come back to this Number one, Control what you can, let go of what you can't. There's so many things that happened out there in the woods that we can't ultimately control. But we can get all wrapped up about it and upset about it and frustrated by it, or we can choose to say, Okay, this thing happened, I can't change it now. I just have the decision about what to do next. This is a concept that we talked about today that came from, you know, some of these ancient writings. This is one of those foundational principles they talked about time and time again, and man, it is it is just it comes. It hits home to me so many times in the tree. Number two, this idea that we talked about in the title of one of his books, that the obstacle is the way, which basically means that oftentimes the challenge, the bumping the road, the adversity you're facing, that is oftentimes the catalyst. It is oftentimes the thing that leads to your success if you're willing to push through it. So when you miss that buck, or when you show up on public land and hunt five days straight and see zero deer because there's too many hunters, if you can push through that wall, if you can look at it as not this thing's going to bring you down, but instead an opportunity and you can grow from it. That's the way to get where you're trying to go, Not by avoiding the obstacle, not by seeing the obstacle and turn around and giving up and going home. It's by pushing right on through it. That's the way to get to where we want to go. So think about that this fall, think about that during the rud when the ships hitting the fan, the obstacles the way push through it. That's gonna get you where you want to get to. And that's all I got today. Thank you all, best of luck out there hunting, and until next time, stay wired to hum

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