The Peter Attia Drive - #109 - John Dudley： The beauty in archery, the love of practice, and a model system for life

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome to the drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. This podcast,

00:00:15.480 my website and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity

00:00:19.800 into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health

00:00:24.600 and wellness full stop. And we've assembled a great team of analysts to make this happen.

00:00:28.880 If you enjoy this podcast, we've created a membership program that brings you far more

00:00:33.280 in-depth content. If you want to take your knowledge of the space to the next level at

00:00:37.320 the end of this episode, I'll explain what those benefits are. Or if you want to learn more now,

00:00:41.740 head over to peteratiyahmd.com forward slash subscribe. Now, without further delay, here's

00:00:48.080 today's episode. I guess this week is John Dudley. Before I tell you a little bit about who John is,

00:00:54.900 because I suspect many of you won't recognize his name, maybe a little reminder about one of my

00:00:58.960 obsessions being archery. Probably talked about it quite a bit on the podcast to get a better sense

00:01:04.200 of why I love archery so much and why I think it's kind of an amazing model system for life. I think

00:01:10.420 you'll enjoy this podcast. Now, John is someone who from the day I got involved in archery, I was

00:01:16.540 very fortunate to be introduced to in terms of his work would be another couple of years before I would

00:01:21.840 meet him. He is a professional archer. He's the host of what I consider hands down, no ifs,

00:01:28.080 ands, or buts, the absolute best content on all of archery, including podcasting, TV, etc. So the

00:01:35.380 knock-on TV station on YouTube, the knock-on podcast, his ability to teach archery and do archery

00:01:45.120 provide the rarest and smallest eclipse I've ever seen in performance, which is to say,

00:01:50.640 it's very rare that someone who is the top 0.01% of a performance is also at the top 0.01% of the

00:02:01.060 ability to teach, distill, and communicate that. And somehow John manages to do that. Now, I could

00:02:06.780 pour you to tears with all of his accolades. He represented the U.S. archery team for many years.

00:02:12.460 He's won more medals than I can count representing Team USA. He was the rookie of the year as a

00:02:17.920 professional national champion, multiple-time national champion, European Grand Prix, gold

00:02:22.520 medalist, British national indoor champion, etc. Honestly, it's just, I'll turn most of you off by

00:02:27.140 reading this because this introduction will be even longer than it probably is already slated to be.

00:02:32.500 I was introduced to John through Joe Rogan. When I was on Joe Rogan's podcast a couple of years ago,

00:02:38.580 I let Joe know just how much of a huge fan I was, and Joe was just kind enough to introduce us.

00:02:43.600 And I had the real privilege of getting to spend a bunch of time in person with John. So in this

00:02:49.520 episode, we don't go too deep into how I got started in archery and how I fell in love with it

00:02:53.920 and how, even though when I started, I had absolutely zero intention of hunting and how

00:02:59.420 over time that changed. And now I view hunting and archery as the two beautiful bookends of this

00:03:06.280 incredible continuum. John had already interviewed me for his podcast. And so we'll simply link to

00:03:13.060 some of the highlights from his podcast, interviewing me, where I get into a lot of that

00:03:17.180 stuff. Obviously I wanted to focus on John and his story. And so in this episode, we talk a lot about

00:03:24.740 John and his athletic background and how he made what can only be described as one of the craziest

00:03:30.800 decisions in the history of a collegiate athlete, which is to turn down a division one football

00:03:36.820 scholarship one week into school and go and work at an archery store for $4 and 10 cents an hour

00:03:42.220 building arrows. And that's exactly what he did. We talk a lot about life in a sense as well, because

00:03:48.200 a lot of John's personality comes across in this and you get a sense of sort of his philosophy on

00:03:52.940 life, which, you know, frankly, I just find wonderful. I love being around John, his family,

00:03:57.100 and we can go back and forth between talking about these things in life and then talking about

00:04:01.920 these things in archery and how amazingly they seem to converge. So what it is that we're talking

00:04:06.640 about in terms of technically improving something seems to then converge on, you know, what the

00:04:11.780 application is in life. So the last thing I'll say is we asked John to help us curate a list of content

00:04:19.320 from his unbelievable curriculum, such that if any of you listen to this and come away thinking,

00:04:24.920 you know, gosh, to listen to these two coconuts talking about archery for so long, I at least

00:04:29.940 want to give this thing a try. You will get all you need from John's content, but we thought

00:04:34.220 we'd simplify it a little bit by curating a step-by-step set of videos that he's put together

00:04:39.940 that will make it easier than trying to probably navigate from all of his content. So without further

00:04:45.780 delay, please enjoy my conversation with John Dudley.

00:04:53.580 Well, John, it's a little bittersweet that we are at the end of our archery camp here together.

00:04:59.680 I know that bonfire you have over there is big enough to either burn Darth Vader or start the

00:05:05.560 new Braveheart movie. I mean, seriously, if the listener is wondering what the context is here,

00:05:13.640 when John interviewed me, he spent, I don't know, at least a full minute griping about the fact that I

00:05:19.540 reneged on my offer to light a fire. So tonight I was like, well, I'm not going to be outdone. So

00:05:25.440 there is a fire burning that you can maybe hear through this mic. It's a little hotter than I plan on.

00:05:34.520 Yeah. If on August 8th, you hear that there's a wildfire lighting across Southern California,

00:05:39.980 there's a good chance it started behind this big fire pit of Peter's in his backyard.

00:05:48.620 Well, look, man, it is a real pleasure to be kind of sitting here talking with you. And I've been,

00:05:52.560 we talked about this over dinner the other day that I've been thinking so much about how to convey to

00:05:58.240 an audience that is obviously very interested in performance and health and longevity, how two of

00:06:04.400 the biggest interests in my life kind of come to this intersection with one of them being archery.

00:06:09.340 And there's probably nobody that's listened to this podcast that hasn't figured out by this point,

00:06:12.780 how much I love archery. Certainly anybody who's ever taken the time to follow me on social media

00:06:17.880 will notice that probably maybe a quarter of the things I post are photos that have something to

00:06:22.740 do with that. So in the introduction briefly, I already kind of explained a little bit about who

00:06:27.220 you are, but that just doesn't do it justice. And I try to keep the intro relatively short so that

00:06:32.940 the listener can hear in sort of your own words, what it is, but take me back to kind of

00:06:37.680 maybe some basics, right? So what does it mean to be a professional archer? I think most people

00:06:42.320 understand what it means to be a professional baseball player because you turn on TV and you

00:06:46.380 see people playing baseball, but what does it mean to say John Dudley turned pro as an archer in this

00:06:53.200 year and for the next X years did A, B, and C?

00:06:55.900 In the big picture, it means nothing. That's the reality. I realize I'm fortunate that there's

00:07:03.820 light being shed on archery right now because this was this small thing that if, what was it,

00:07:10.200 ESPN the Ocho, like in dodgeball, archery would probably be on that if that was real. But I started

00:07:17.200 out learning to bow hunt from family and it was just part of the culture coming from the deep south.

00:07:23.960 You grew up in Mississippi, right?

00:07:25.480 Yeah. I was born on Fort Bragg, grew up in Mississippi for a while, then moved up to the

00:07:30.140 Midwest. And I learned archery, I think when I was nine. First bow hunt was when I was 10.

00:07:36.860 And I don't know, looking back, there's been a lot of times where I've tried to

00:07:41.400 decide why I really liked it. And a good friend of mine who is a former Navy SEAL, retired Andy Stump,

00:07:49.200 there was this time someone was asking me the same question. And sometimes I struggle with

00:07:54.020 why I really loved bow hunting and archery. And he just looked at me and goes, have you not figured

00:08:00.260 it out by now? He's like, it's all over your personality. And I said, no, why? And he goes,

00:08:04.500 because it's hard. He goes, that is why you do it. Because there's days where you're good at it and

00:08:09.480 there's days when you're not. And he's right. There are several different points in my career

00:08:15.200 where I took different steps. Because in my career, started out learning to shoot a bow,

00:08:22.760 bow hunting, not being good at it, wanting to be better at it, deciding to start shooting some

00:08:28.080 target archery because I wanted to be a better bow hunter, realizing I sucked as a target archer,

00:08:33.700 wanting to be better at that, becoming better at that, then becoming a better bow hunter,

00:08:37.980 then kind of getting a little bit bored in the one aspect of competitive archery I was in.

00:08:44.280 So I jumped into another field that was a different types of targets, different distances,

00:08:49.820 different type of competition, did that until I kind of got complacent again. And then kind of,

00:08:55.860 I just, every time, I don't know, I like to jump into something that challenges me. And archery is one

00:09:01.760 of those things where I think golfers understand that there's days where you go out and you play

00:09:08.320 and you feel like you feel like you had the perfect game. You feel like the next day,

00:09:13.920 if you go out and play another nine, you're going to do the same thing. But then all of a sudden you

00:09:17.880 realize, no, if everything's not clicking, I can't just do this continually. So I just have made a career

00:09:26.600 career out of being poor at a certain aspect of it and making it a mission to become good at that.

00:09:33.960 And then over the course of 33 years, I've got to the point where now I feel like I have a very good

00:09:43.380 understanding of the game. And I've learned a lot from a lot of mistakes. I mean, that's kind of the

00:09:50.300 truth of it.

00:09:50.860 Well, we're going to come back to kind of a lot of the things you've learned and more importantly,

00:09:55.220 how you've figured out a way to teach them. But you've glossed over some things that I know a lot

00:09:59.660 of detail about. And I think for listeners, it will be interesting to understand that. So

00:10:03.240 this is the first time I've ever recorded a podcast outside and is that just me or is there like some

00:10:07.520 loud airplane that's kind of...

00:10:08.660 Yeah, there's an airplane, man. We're outside.

00:10:10.200 I know, but normally I don't hear them that loud in my backyard. I don't know. I guess

00:10:13.260 I don't have the microphone normally.

00:10:14.780 Yeah. It's called a microphone. It amplifies sound.

00:10:20.860 Apparently.

00:10:21.460 We're podcasting, but we're thoroughly enjoying each other's friendship. We're out here.

00:10:25.760 We're drinking a protein shake that hopefully your monitor gives you some kind of data that

00:10:31.100 you can satisfy your listeners with. Meanwhile, I've also got wine on the backup. So this is real.

00:10:38.860 We're drinking Jocko's Mulk and Clio wine. And everybody always wants to ask me what my favorite

00:10:43.320 wine is. And this is 2012 bottle of Clio.

00:10:46.340 Yeah, I was familiar with it.

00:10:47.360 So you were an All-American and you lettered in 12 sports. I mean, some of the athletic stories

00:10:53.300 that when you were in high school, and you're a big guy. So for listeners that maybe don't know,

00:10:56.980 you look like you're six foot five, kind of a wall of muscle. You told me a story about a high school

00:11:02.280 combine that just blew my mind where... Tell a story of what the coach said to all of you prospecting

00:11:08.700 quarterbacks that were trying to get division one scholarships.

00:11:11.400 Yeah, I was at U of I. I was at a camp there that the fighting line I were putting on. And I went

00:11:18.040 there by myself. My team wasn't with me. It was a kind of a thing where there's quite a few recruits

00:11:24.740 that were all brought in there. And I remember Greg Landry was there as the quarterback coach.

00:11:30.540 And during that first day, there was a ton of people down. I think we were either on the five

00:11:37.680 yard line or somewhere in there. And it was the first day of camp. And obviously, the first day

00:11:44.000 of camp, a lot of guys are jacking around as it starts. And the coaches kind of gathered everybody

00:11:48.740 up. And he goes into this serious moment where he's saying, we're here to look at all you. We're

00:11:54.120 here to teach you, but you're here to learn. But you're also here to put on your best in front of

00:11:58.820 some big coaches. And he said, a lot of these coaches are only going to look at you one time.

00:12:05.560 And just like in any big game, sometimes you only have one time to shine. And what you do with that

00:12:11.060 one moment is going to define what you get out of this camp. It's kind of that type of thing. And he

00:12:16.560 was talking about it and everything. And I was paying attention and sitting on the, I think I took one

00:12:22.540 knee. I actually have a picture, but it's on a little microfiche. I should try to get it and see if we can

00:12:27.840 blow it up. I'm pretty sure I had like a play band on my wrist. And he just kind of looked over at me

00:12:35.360 randomly and he grabbed the ball and he just threw it underhand. And he's like, you, what are you going

00:12:40.120 to do with your moment? And so I did all I knew how to do, which was a huck of football. So I just

00:12:45.680 stood up and took about two or three steps and just heaved this ball from, was about from the nine

00:12:52.480 yard line and landed it in the end zone on the other side. And I just said, I throw footballs.

00:12:57.440 And he's just like, that was perfect. Sit down. And he just looked over at the other guys like,

00:13:03.440 what are you going to do with yours? And then later on, they came up to me and they said,

00:13:07.520 what else can you do? And you know, you got quite an arm. How do you throw like that? And

00:13:11.360 I always had insomnia. I've always had that. I've struggled to sleep. I've always really enjoyed

00:13:17.540 training. And if I can't sleep to me, I don't know. It feels like I've given myself a reason

00:13:24.400 to get out of bed if I go and do something. So, and it's been that way with archery. A lot of times,

00:13:29.040 if you watch my bow builds, I'm building it crazy times in the morning because I can't sleep. So I get

00:13:35.780 up and I'll just start, put a record on and I'll just start building a custom bow for someone and I'll

00:13:41.740 do that. But back then my coach had gave me a key to get into the gym and I would pull the laundry

00:13:48.760 baskets out of the washer room and I would put laundry baskets in the opposite ends of the gym

00:13:53.680 and I would just throw footballs. I had a bag of footballs. When I was a junior, my coach gave me a

00:13:59.900 whole bag of footballs and I had them in the trunk of my car all the time. And I would just do three

00:14:04.820 step drops, throw it in the laundry basket, three steps. And then when that laundry basket had all the

00:14:09.440 balls, I'd go over and do the other one. And then outside, it was always, they're called black

00:14:14.180 routes, but it was a black right route was like in my, when I'd be under the center, if I ever

00:14:20.720 called an audible, if I ever called black, it would be a 73 pattern, which is just pretty much a flare

00:14:26.180 pattern. So it was a quick three-step drop to outside shoulder. So I would always go to the 20 yard

00:14:33.700 line, put the garbage cans from the football field in the corner, and I would go out there and just

00:14:39.420 throw footballs, do three-step drops, throw footballs in garbage cans. That's just what I

00:14:43.480 did. So all that stuff led up to that moment of, he's like, here's your moment. What are you going

00:14:50.680 to do with it? I'm going to throw a football. And so fast forwarding a little bit, you end up

00:14:54.320 getting a division one scholarship to play football, which is, I'm sure your parents are just over the

00:15:00.500 moon, overjoyed. It was a little bit different. I remember the first school that recruited me was

00:15:06.620 Ball State and me and my mom went there. My parents were divorced at that time. My mom was,

00:15:12.940 I think I was a sophomore and I really had no idea what the heck we were even doing. We went to Ball

00:15:18.860 State and then a lot of different things came in, but I decided that I really wanted to go to a

00:15:26.320 Carolina school because my dad was from Fort Bragg. My uncle was a pilot at the time. He was in

00:15:33.080 Greenville, Spartanburg. Most of the Dudleys were all from that part of the area. So I really wanted

00:15:39.200 to go there. And honestly, I really liked Western Carolina. Their offense was really, really similar.

00:15:46.240 I had choices, but that was really where I wanted to go. And I think if you would have asked any of

00:15:52.680 my family members what I was going to do, they were going to tell you I was going to play football.

00:15:56.380 I didn't care anything about school other than the fact it allowed me to play sports. And I played

00:16:02.220 sports all the time. I mean, every single semester in school, I was in a sport. It didn't matter. I ran

00:16:10.360 track, did basketball, did football, played tennis. It didn't matter. All I wanted to do is I just

00:16:18.380 wanted to play. I loved it. I loved camps too. When my parents got divorced, my mom traveled a lot. She

00:16:24.360 worked for Baxter Healthcare. I told you that. And she traveled a lot because she was overseeing

00:16:30.060 plants in Malaysia and Singapore and Puerto Rico. So she traveled a ton. So she just left an open

00:16:36.800 checkbook in her house. And she just said, if I'm not home, just don't get in trouble. Do something

00:16:41.700 productive. So I just took that checkbook and signed up for every single football camp I could. And I was

00:16:47.400 traveling to football camps without my teams. I was just going, going and being a guy without a team,

00:16:52.280 just sitting there. And I loved having coaches around me. Honestly, I performed. I liked having

00:16:59.700 people yell at me. I liked having a very specific purpose. You're getting up. We're doing this from

00:17:07.760 seven to nine. Then you get a breakfast. Then we're going to go out and we're going to freaking

00:17:12.320 run for two hours. I just loved that. It was awesome. And so the archery thing just blindsided me

00:17:21.180 because during this whole time, during all this high school sport part of my life, which

00:17:27.360 when I first went into high school, I had no business thinking I was going to be a good athlete

00:17:32.960 because I was very skinny. I was tall. My dad told me, I was like, he goes, when you ran up and down the

00:17:38.640 basketball court, I always was afraid of you tripping because I thought it'd be like a chandelier

00:17:43.500 hitting the ground. I was skin and bones. I worked hard and I grew into it. But during that time,

00:17:49.760 I didn't get to shoot archery very much. I liked it. I was fairly good at it. I would make gas money

00:17:56.900 going to parties and shooting. I would put eggs on the top of two liter pop bottles and I would

00:18:02.320 shoot them off these pop bottles at 40 yards. And I'd just, I'd be like, you think I can hit that?

00:18:07.720 And people would be like, you can't hit that. And then I'd bet me five bucks and I would make gas

00:18:11.820 money at parties. I didn't drink. I drank one time when I was 10 or 11 and then I got really sick

00:18:18.240 off of it and just said, I'm never going to drink again. And I didn't drink until my twenties. So I

00:18:23.220 would go to the parties because I loved, and I would have parties, but I just, I wouldn't be the

00:18:27.900 partier. I would be there and I'd kind of take money off my drunk friends. And that's sort of fun.

00:18:34.080 I got the first time in my life I ever got drunk. I was 12 or 13 working at my dad's restaurant on a

00:18:40.160 New Year's Eve. And it was me and my best friend, Mike Douglas. We were bussing tables and washing

00:18:45.060 dishes. And the whole night we're sneaking in drinks here and there. Like we're sneaking behind

00:18:49.300 the bar and taking a drink of this and a drink of that. And this is the ultimate low is at the end

00:18:53.000 of the night when everybody's gone, it's like three in the morning or whatever. And we're cleaning up.

00:18:56.740 We drank every bit of remaining alcohol that was left on the table. And sometimes you'd finish a

00:19:02.140 drink and there'd be a cigarette butt in there and you'd be like, oops. And you'd pitch the cigarette

00:19:05.700 butt and just keep drinking. So we had this cocktail of booze in us and my mom, she came to pick us

00:19:11.080 up to take us home. She saw that we were just hammered and she was so pissed at my dad. She's

00:19:16.320 like, how could you let these two knuckleheads do this? So she drives us back home. And I just think

00:19:24.420 it's one of those, it's amazing that I could still remember something so vividly from so long ago

00:19:28.100 because of 13, 12, whatever. I remember being in the back of the car and sort of understanding

00:19:33.060 why all those don't drink and drive commercials existed. Because I was like, oh my God.

00:19:38.620 I was like out of my mind. And then we got home and then she had to do what I knew she

00:19:44.280 didn't want to do, which was leave us there to go drive the babysitter home. Because there's

00:19:48.520 a babysitter babysitting my younger brother. And so now there's these two drunk 12 year olds

00:19:52.580 and beyond drunk. And she has to leave for 20 minutes, which is what it's going to take

00:19:56.240 to drive this babysitter home. And we managed to find, I don't know, a bottle of beer or wine

00:20:00.560 or something in the house and took it in the back, drank it and started playing catch with

00:20:05.000 it, which of course resulted in it breaking and smashing all over the place. And then

00:20:09.140 we puked all over the kitchen. And she came home to that, had to clean that up. It was a

00:20:15.120 disaster. Point being, I didn't have a sip of alcohol again until I was probably 22.

00:20:23.160 That might be me. Mine was a blessing. It was one of these things where I got convinced that

00:20:28.340 we needed to get drunk. I went to one of my neighbors, I had 20 bucks, went to one of my

00:20:34.900 neighbors who I remember he had a big red, like a Firebird or Trans Am or something, a red one with

00:20:42.180 T-tops. He looked like he just got out of a Warrant concert. You know, he had like a white leather

00:20:48.820 jacket with fringe down it, long blonde hair. And I went over and I'm like, hey dude, me and my

00:20:54.880 buddies want some booze. And he goes, he said, house takes 50%. And I go, I don't care. Just get

00:21:01.820 me as much as I can get a whatever with this. And he came back with a big jug of off-brand

00:21:08.680 peppermint schnapps. And I remember this. And then on top of that, like everyone was supposed to bring

00:21:16.280 something to get bombed to this event with me and a couple of my buddies that were just thinking we're

00:21:22.260 cool. And one of my buddies brought some snuff and I had never smoked a cig or nothing, but he's

00:21:29.040 like, just sniff it. So the first time I ever got intoxicated was on peppermint schnapps and snuff.

00:21:37.440 And I don't remember most of the night. I just remember waking up and praying that God, if I make

00:21:43.660 it through this, I will never do this again. And that was it. I was like upchucking just

00:21:50.940 peppermint schnapps that was black from the snuff. And, and that was like, that was it. So I did not

00:21:59.020 party. That's the moral of the story. I didn't party. I went and I shot archery a little bit on

00:22:04.300 Thanksgiving. Every year we went down to Mississippi for a family Thanksgiving and I would bow hunt down

00:22:10.440 there. That was my time to be a hunter. I love doing it. And I would, I would shoot my bow. I'd bow fish

00:22:16.200 some in the summertime because at that time we lived in Illinois and my focus was football. This is

00:22:22.440 totally my focus. Well, during my senior summer, I'm scheduled to go to school. I actually moved.

00:22:29.940 I think I went to Carolina one time and then I ended up hurting my right knee, this knee right here.

00:22:36.680 I hurt this knee. And, and it was mainly because my growth spurt was so severe that my ligaments

00:22:42.880 didn't grow with the rest of my body. So they, we kind of came up with the plan for me to red shirt

00:22:48.140 at a JC school that ran a very similar, I think the coaches were somehow affiliated, but they're,

00:22:55.380 they said, this is your opportunity to learn the entire playbook. You're going to rehab there.

00:23:00.340 We've got some stuff there. So I was like, okay, this is all cool. So as this is going down,

00:23:04.840 this is in the middle of summer, I've got my bow in my truck because like I said, sometimes I would

00:23:12.220 just randomly get out and shoot carp. If I saw a carp, I grew up on the Fox river in Northern Illinois.

00:23:20.820 And so I driving down this road and I see this sign that says archery shoot. So I thought,

00:23:26.180 Oh, what's that? So I went down, I turned down this road. If you went there now, it almost would be

00:23:31.440 like a weird way to lure someone in because you're turning down these cornfield roads,

00:23:36.100 like going into this place. And all of a sudden I pop in, there's a bunch of cars there. And I walk

00:23:41.860 up, I'm like, Hey, what's up with this archery shoot? And they go, yeah, we're having a 3d shoot.

00:23:45.100 And I said, what's that? And they're like, well, 3d targets with scoring rings. I'm like, Oh,

00:23:49.200 I haven't really seen those. And it was three dimensional deer targets, which now you have,

00:23:54.160 and there's molded rings molded into the foam. So the smaller ring is a certain score and the

00:24:01.680 bigger rings. Obviously the more outside of the kill zone you get, the poorer your score. And if

00:24:07.740 you miss it's a zero. So I go out with this scorecard, get with this group of three guys.

00:24:12.680 I don't even know. And I start shooting and you have to guess the distance of the target. You have

00:24:17.200 to know where the scoring ring is. I didn't have any binoculars. I don't even know if range finders

00:24:22.660 were around. So all this is going on. Well, needless to say, after halfway through this

00:24:29.260 course, I'm out of arrows and because you've missed so I've literally missed practically

00:24:36.520 everything. Didn't know the distance. I grew up hunting with, if you can shoot a paper plate at

00:24:41.600 20 yards, you can hunt. That was our thing. And meanwhile, hitting a paper plate meant go out and

00:24:48.720 shoot 10 arrows if you can kind of hit it some. So I'd got better than that. And I could have very

00:24:56.540 specific pins to shoot exact numbers, but the in-between stuff, like I hadn't filled the gaps.

00:25:02.800 Right. So I went out and just was terrible. Lost all my arrows, blanked a bunch of targets.

00:25:10.260 The people I was shooting with was looking at me like, wow, this is sad. And I said, sorry,

00:25:16.860 I got to go. I'm out of arrows. I'll be back. And I left. And I remember just driving up to

00:25:24.040 Wilmot, Wisconsin from this Illinois shoot. The only shop I knew of was in Wilmot, Wisconsin,

00:25:29.280 which is where my dad had taken me to get some of my first bows and drove up to this Gander Mountain.

00:25:35.260 And I was pissed off the whole way. I'm like, I am never going to suck this bad again at anything.

00:25:41.920 And I drove up there, bought another dozen arrows, drove back and picked up where I left off,

00:25:49.060 shot the course. And by then they were already handing out trophies. I was like last in and they

00:25:54.000 were already handing out trophies. And the guys that were on the podium had polo shirts on with

00:25:58.580 embroidery of what shop they were shooting out of. And I remember the two top guys had these bright

00:26:05.740 yellow shirts on. It said Gat Guns, Dundee, Illinois. So this was on a Saturday or a Sunday,

00:26:14.480 Monday morning. I'm in Gat Guns. I'm in there. They opened at one o'clock. I was there by 11.

00:26:20.640 I just sat around in my car for a few hours. And then when they opened, I came in and I was like,

00:26:25.460 hey, I went to this 3D shoot. There are a couple of guys that won. I want to ask them about their

00:26:30.120 equipment and what they're doing. And they're kind of like, oh yeah, it's probably so-and-so.

00:26:33.760 They normally shoot at night. So I just lurked around there until people started to show up to

00:26:40.160 shoot league. And then I was just this kid with all these questions of, why do you have a colored

00:26:45.920 bow? Why does your sight have a lens in it? Why are your fletching shorter? Just all these questions

00:26:53.140 and went on a few days. And all of a sudden the guy at the shop, the manager, his name was Mike

00:27:00.920 Donovan. He grabbed me and said, hey kid, are you doing anything? And I said, well, yeah, I'm asking

00:27:05.320 these guys questions. He said, no, are you doing anything? And I said, well, and I go, why? And he

00:27:10.980 goes, I need your help. And he pulled me in the back room and he said, hey, I forgot to do these

00:27:15.500 guys' arrows. Do you know how to fletch arrows? And I said, no, I don't know how to do any of this

00:27:18.860 stuff. And he said, okay, I'm going to show you how. So he handed me some feathers, gave me a fletching

00:27:24.020 jig, told me to put the feather in here, put glue down it, clamp it on the arrow, set the timer,

00:27:31.320 do the next six in line. And then when the timer went off, take the clamp off, turn this little

00:27:37.160 dial so that it rotates the arrow 120 degrees to the next position, put another feather in,

00:27:44.280 put glue on, right? Repeat that three times. You got three fletchings on your arrow. And he's like,

00:27:49.840 when these dozen are done, come out and get me. So I did that. And two hours later, I came out and

00:27:54.280 I said, hey, these are done. He's like, okay. And I was like, all right. And he goes, okay, do those.

00:27:59.200 And he pointed over in the corner and there was just this, like a hundred tubes of them with orders

00:28:03.860 wrapped up and kind of in there on what colors they got and everything. So this went on for weeks

00:28:10.840 of me, just, I would show up at 12 o'clock. I'd jump in that little room and just start fletching

00:28:16.840 arrows for this guy. And then all of a sudden he kind of told me like, hey, we got to replace

00:28:21.000 this bowstring. And I'm like, well, how do you do that? At some point has he said, by the way,

00:28:24.580 you work here now? No, no. This is all just pure apprentice mode? Yeah. So this is kind of where

00:28:29.820 it gets good. So I think it got good about five minutes ago, by the way. I love this story.

00:28:34.840 So meanwhile, my dad is saying, hey, what are you doing for work? Which I was pouring concrete in the

00:28:42.240 morning for an archer buddy. One of the guys that I was more or less stalking in this range,

00:28:48.220 his name was Mike West. He had West concrete. While I was talking to him, he's like, hey,

00:28:53.580 what are you doing for job? I'm like, I don't know. He goes, well, I need help with my concrete

00:28:58.640 company. You want to come? I'm like, he goes, we start early kid. And I'm like, yeah, that's fine.

00:29:02.980 And I said, I just want to be in here by night. And he's like, okay, we start early. So I was just

00:29:08.380 running wheelbarrows full of freaking concrete every morning. And then when it hit 1130, I'd be

00:29:14.140 like, I got to get to get guns. And I would leave and go there and just fletch these arrows for free.

00:29:19.300 And meanwhile, several weeks went by where I watched Mike hand out checks to other employees.

00:29:24.940 So finally I told Mike, I said, hey, when am I going to get my paycheck? I remember he just looked

00:29:31.200 at me with this look of surprise and he just, he goes, you want to get paid? And I go, yeah,

00:29:37.860 I've been here for a month from 12 to eight o'clock every day. And he just said, you can't

00:29:45.960 put a price on what I'm teaching you right now. And he was like cold serious. And I said, that's

00:29:53.880 cool, man, but I've got to put gas in my car. So he's just like, all right. He goes, let me think

00:30:01.560 about it. And then he came back and he goes, I'm going to give you 410 an hour. And he goes,

00:30:07.860 you'll have to work from 12 to eight every day. And I said, sounds awesome. And I went after about

00:30:15.300 a week, I went back to my dad and I said, Hey, I've got, I think I want to change what I'm going

00:30:19.920 to be doing. And he said, what do you mean? And I go, I've got this job at this archery shop and

00:30:26.000 it's just the best. I love it. And meanwhile, everyone's teaching me better shooting techniques,

00:30:32.640 right. They're teaching me a shooting. I'm meeting sales reps from arrow companies, sales reps from

00:30:38.620 bow companies. I'm in full dork mode. So I tell my dad, yeah, this is what I want to do. And my dad

00:30:45.800 said, I assume they're paying you a lot. And I said, I'm getting 410 an hour. And I remember my dad,

00:30:54.580 because he's a psychologist. So he's looking at me as if he's kind of wanting to say, I really want

00:31:02.160 you to make the right decision right now. You're 18. I don't want to tell you your decision. And so

00:31:09.360 he kind of just said, I think that's a terrible decision. And like most 18 year olds, I just

00:31:17.300 decided to freaking run with it.

00:31:19.320 I mean, is it safe to say that part of this is you're pretty good at a lot of things up until

00:31:24.440 that point in your life, athletically, how much of this is you getting bit by this bug of a month

00:31:30.180 earlier, you're at this 3d challenge, you're the worst guy there. And there's like a lack of

00:31:35.360 familiarity with being so bad at something. I mean, is that part of, let me rephrase the question. I

00:31:39.620 suspect that is part of it. Is that a small part of it or a large part of it?

00:31:44.640 I don't know, man. I think that same sort of things in you. I think that same sort of things

00:31:49.160 in a lot of our friends. I think a lot of our friends are very similar in the fact of if you

00:31:56.580 give us something athletic to do, we won't necessarily be awesome at it, but we're definitely

00:32:01.900 going to be above average at it really fast. Or if we're not, we will make sure we at least

00:32:08.260 get above average at it before we say, yeah, that was cool. I'm going to move on other things.

00:32:14.900 I don't think I've ever done anything where I just totally suck at it. Maybe there's a few,

00:32:19.160 if someone got me into competitive limbo, I would probably be like, yeah, okay, I freaking

00:32:24.240 suck at this. And I would maybe take a few lessons and I'd be like, you know what? I'm 6'5". I'm not

00:32:28.540 meant to limbo. So I gave it a try. But for the most part, I think that stuff's just in competitive

00:32:35.720 people. Like people with drive, they have drive all the time, right? I think.

00:32:41.300 Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look, my hope is by the end of this interview, I want to understand this

00:32:45.580 better because as much as you and I have spoken about this stuff over meals and such,

00:32:50.660 I find your story remarkable. I mean, I interview some really amazing people on this podcast and

00:32:56.460 they're amazing in their field of a particular science or something, you know, lots of different

00:33:02.360 things. And I have friends who are among the best in the world at something. So you're in pretty

00:33:07.340 rarefied air. Like I can't compare to that, right?

00:33:09.500 I feel like I shouldn't even be here.

00:33:11.200 No, no, no. I mean, I'm saying the opposite actually. Like I can't relate. I've never been

00:33:16.260 exceptional at anything. I've never been as good at anything as you are at Archie. Let's put it that

00:33:21.360 way. But I'm not exceptional. I've just, I've made it a lifetime passion to give everything I have to

00:33:29.320 master it. I'm not, there's prodigies. I feel like I was born with a talent to do it because as many

00:33:35.400 times as I've kind of been burnt out by it and walk away from it, all of a sudden for some reason

00:33:41.200 I come back to it and then I do it and I realize, man, there's a lot of people that work tirelessly

00:33:49.520 to try to achieve this result. And I really didn't have to put that in and I'm getting it. So

00:33:56.040 I feel like this is what I'm meant to do, but I don't know. I feel like, I feel like you're cutting

00:34:02.620 yourself short, not saying that you're a hundred percent that way. You're just that way in a

00:34:06.940 different light, just that way with a projectile. I mean, well, look, we could split hairs on it.

00:34:12.820 I would still argue that you at your best were better at your craft than I've ever been at my

00:34:19.500 craft or ever will be at anything that will be my craft. And that's okay. I just mean that it's,

00:34:23.800 I'm always interested in understanding how people, what kind of passion people bring to their craft.

00:34:28.460 Now, backing up for a moment, you've spoken only once that I've ever heard very briefly about

00:34:34.100 something that I was sort of, this was a couple of years ago. I think it was on Rogan. You talked

00:34:37.900 very briefly about something in your childhood that you guys didn't spend a lot of time dwelling

00:34:41.500 on it, but it really kind of gripped me, which was what happened to you when you were about nine

00:34:45.520 years old with your house. We've never spoken about that. Are you comfortable talking about that at

00:34:50.940 all? Yeah, I'll talk about it. I mean, it haunts me. It haunts me in the fact that, so just like most

00:34:56.580 kids and this, everything happens for a reason. I'm happy that happened. I've talked to Joe in

00:35:02.080 depth about things that are super close to me. So sometimes he's going to know how far we should

00:35:09.920 go down a rabbit hole. This rabbit hole doesn't really, it doesn't matter. It's part of my past.

00:35:14.220 And it's honestly something that allows me to, when I'm around friends that have kids that are bad,

00:35:20.820 not bad in the fact that they act up, but bad. Just rambunctious. Yeah. I tell them, I'm like,

00:35:26.580 hey, I was way worse than that. And I said, you got to just give them a chance. Something will happen

00:35:32.160 to where they'll change their direction. And a lot of people have looked at me and they're like,

00:35:37.060 oh yeah, easy for you to say. And I'm like, no man, let me tell you. Yeah, right. Because at the

00:35:42.460 surface, they would say easy for you to say because your son who's 20 is, he's like. Well,

00:35:47.280 even looking at me, like them knowing me now or knowing me for the last 20 something or 30

00:35:52.680 something years, they would never realize that me growing up, I grew up on skateboards. I grew up

00:36:00.140 on BMX bikes. I grew up taking money from my mom's wallet so I could go buy like fireworks. And I mean,

00:36:07.220 I was Beavis and Butthead. Like that's what I was. I was Beavis and Butthead. And yeah, I played with

00:36:13.780 fire when I was nine years old, called myself in sick from school, was at home while my mom was in,

00:36:21.140 I think, Puerto Rico, visiting a factory. My dad was at work. And yeah, I started playing with matches,

00:36:29.000 ended up catching something on fire in the house, panicked. And honestly, I tried to use the fire

00:36:35.200 extinguisher, didn't work. Guess why? Because I had been playing with firecrackers I wasn't supposed to

00:36:41.100 have months before that in the garage and almost burned the house down. So I put them out with this

00:36:46.400 fire extinguisher and just stuck it back up in the house without telling anyone I had completely used

00:36:51.720 it. So then fast forward, playing around with fire, whatever, primal, say what you say. We got

00:36:58.380 the fire going over here. Looks cool. Yeah. House started on fire, started in the bedroom and I called

00:37:04.860 my dad. He was on the other side of town, middle of a session with the patient, told him there's a fire in

00:37:10.960 the house. It's pretty bad. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Blah, blah, blah. And he just said,

00:37:16.380 what's it like in the house? I said, it's just black. It's black everywhere. I put it out. There's

00:37:20.420 black smoke everywhere. And he just said, get the smoke out of the house, get the smoke out of the

00:37:24.220 house. So I opened the windows and then opened the front door and just like let the air blow through.

00:37:31.040 And I was just kind of crying frantically running around the house, like trying to kind of prepare

00:37:38.240 myself for when my dad was getting ready to come home to this thing. And then by the time I went

00:37:42.780 back in the bedroom, it was even smokier than it was that time. And then I remember I was just like

00:37:50.100 opening the window even wider and ripping the screen out. And keep in mind, I was a punk kid.

00:37:57.660 I was like super, I still like heavy metal, but I was into heavy metal. I was a skater. I was a

00:38:03.160 troublemaker. That's what I was. And I wasn't into sports. Didn't like sports. My dad was an athletic

00:38:09.840 prodigy pretty much. And I know that that's probably what was in my genes. That wasn't what

00:38:16.760 I wanted to do. So all of a sudden I look in that room, I'm in there and I'm trying to get the smoke

00:38:24.300 out. And then I look up and through the smoke, I can see there's just flames all the way around the

00:38:29.260 entire ceiling. And that like fell down kind of right in front of my legs. Luckily I was able to

00:38:35.560 get out of the house and yeah, the whole house burned down. The only thing that we had was what

00:38:40.700 was in my mom's car at O'Hare airport and what was in my dad's, my dad's car that was at work.

00:38:47.240 That was it. So yeah, I mean, I, I dealt with this. You have an older sister, right? Yeah. My sister

00:38:54.780 was at college. So I mean, yeah. Considerably older. Yeah. Dealing with all of her stuff being

00:38:59.620 lost. And my little brother did this and I was dealing with all this stuff. And my parents were

00:39:04.660 really good about, I've never asked them what their conversation was, but they never really,

00:39:10.160 they never really rubbed it in. I remember my dad telling me I was, I was struggling dealing with it.

00:39:17.800 Honestly, we were living in an apartment and my dad told me that, you know, Hey, you should,

00:39:21.740 you know, try to get involved with school. And I think he said something like, isn't there a dance

00:39:26.920 coming up this weekend or something? And I said, yeah. And he goes, you should go out there,

00:39:31.320 go see your friends and stuff. So I remember going to this dance and then one of the kids in the school

00:39:37.780 ended up like making a request to play burning down the house. And so I ended up kind of raging out

00:39:44.300 on this kid. I was never really a fighter, but I went a little nuts on this kid. And then I think my

00:39:49.380 parents just realized we need to get them out of this town. So we moved to a completely different

00:39:54.940 town. And once we got there, I told myself, I'm like, I got to make my dad proud. And I knew the

00:40:02.780 only way I was going to really do that was basketball, football, or golf. And so that was

00:40:08.180 totally my passion was jumping in there and becoming as good as I can. And I remember when I

00:40:15.680 first started basketball, I wasn't like, I had the size, but I wasn't natural at it. And I remember

00:40:22.940 my sixth or seventh grade basketball coach, even though I was the tallest or the second tallest,

00:40:29.000 I remember seeing them like kind of crack jokes that I was uncoordinated and stuff like that. I

00:40:33.340 kind of remember that. And then all of a sudden, fast forward three or four years later when I was in

00:40:38.800 high school and I was the starting quarterback for our varsity team already. I remember going back to

00:40:44.900 the junior high for something. And I remember running into that, or maybe I ran into that coach

00:40:49.900 somewhere in town. And I remember he's like, well, what are you doing with yourself nowadays,

00:40:53.940 Dudley? And I just said, well, I'm coaching varsity with the high school. And I remember him laughing

00:40:58.940 at it. He's like, yeah, right. And so like all those little things kind of, they just fueled me.

00:41:06.640 So at first I just, I wanted to do something to pay my parents back for being that kid that burnt the

00:41:13.540 house down literally. And then I don't know, just, I think it began this drive to just be fully

00:41:24.300 committed to honestly, fully committed to training because I never had raw talent. I just had size to

00:41:32.980 start with. So then it just, I realized like, if I knew every person's positions, every single person,

00:41:40.580 if I knew what they needed to do every play, I would be a leader. I could look at them. Do you

00:41:45.340 know what you need to do? No. Okay. You're going to pull, you're going to come across, you're going

00:41:49.720 to pick up the first defense event. Like I knew every X and every O on the playbooks. And so that was,

00:41:58.220 I don't know. I think some of that looking back, thinking about it now, some of that probably rolls

00:42:03.800 over into just what molded my personality of going deep into this stuff.

00:42:09.680 Do you ever talk to your dad about your mom for that matter, but maybe your dad, just because he's

00:42:14.080 a psychologist by training about kind of the wisdom they had to that. Cause I know I've heard you talk

00:42:18.880 about this a little bit in the past and it sounds like your parents handled this as well as any parents

00:42:24.480 could have. I mean, I have to think that if a hundred parents had a hundred nine year old boys in that

00:42:31.320 situation, like 99 of those can end up a lot worse where that kid never recovers from that.

00:42:39.220 For example, like if one of my kids burned down the house, I'm just not, I don't know. I don't know

00:42:44.460 how I'd handle that. It's hard. It's hard to think about. Yeah. Yeah. What's hard is not having my dad

00:42:51.120 losing all of his stuff from, from his military, not having any baby photos, everything your parents

00:42:59.400 had, like all that stuff's haunting. It is like, no one could tell me anything that wouldn't make me

00:43:05.240 feel bad about that. Because in the end, I know that they never had to tell me that. My dad's never

00:43:11.540 said, oh man, all my. Well, that's the part that amazes me, right? It's sort of like that your dad.

00:43:16.460 It never did. Yeah. That your parents had the understanding that you were going to beat yourself

00:43:21.140 up in eternity over that, that they never needed to vent their frustration to you. That to me is,

00:43:27.260 that's remarkable. And it's a, it's kind of an amazing testament to them. And I'm sure they

00:43:30.580 weren't perfect. No parent is, but that may be their single most exceptional parenting moment

00:43:35.440 or event. Yeah, for sure. And it's another one of those, another one of those perfect examples of

00:43:43.520 when negative things happen, it's an opportunity to, to really change full direction or make something

00:43:51.980 out of it. If something blows up, there's new pieces there. You can build it in a new way

00:43:56.360 because the pieces wouldn't be there if that wouldn't have happened, right? It would still be

00:44:00.700 kind of a solid object that wouldn't have anything. So I've just, I've kind of taken that and

00:44:08.980 dedicated myself to just really want to make my dad proud in that aspect. And then kind of rolled it

00:44:16.740 into, for whatever reason, this archery thing was all of a sudden, this was the same sort of thing

00:44:24.200 from the training, from the dedication, the competition was still there. I wasn't good at it,

00:44:32.680 but more importantly, the archery was for me. I think that was the first thing that was really

00:44:40.240 for me again, because that was what I loved, not what I think I was worried about my dad really loving.

00:44:46.240 And I don't know, it was in a small way. It was also when I knew people thought it was a bad idea.

00:44:53.020 It was a lot like when that coach said, you're never going to be a varsity player

00:44:56.780 because that same sort of thing happened with archery. People told me, they're like,

00:45:01.160 I asked about what's these national events or world championships. You're never going to be that good.

00:45:07.060 That's what I was told. I was told that. And then a year later, I was already at my first

00:45:12.700 triple crown as an amateur. Two years later, I was already at a world championship as an amateur.

00:45:19.820 Three and a half years later, I was already in the pro class. And by the fourth year from that day,

00:45:26.900 within four years of that day, I was a rookie of the year in the pro class.

00:45:31.120 So I want to just pause for a moment and make sure people understand some of the nuts and bolts about

00:45:36.180 this. Because if we were talking about football, people would understand what the sport is and what

00:45:40.540 the quarterback does and what a wide receiver does and what a touchdown is and all those things.

00:45:45.560 I think in archery, I mean, even it's sort of funny, like how many hours a day do I do this?

00:45:50.460 And my wife still doesn't actually know anything about archery. We were kind of laughing about it

00:45:54.660 the other day at dinner, right? No, every day at dinner, you're like, let me put this in this

00:45:58.700 perspective every day. And God bless her. It's not from a lack of interest. It's just the reality of it is

00:46:05.820 if you're not out there behind a bow, looking at something at a distance and knowing what those

00:46:10.080 distances are. I don't think a normal person walks through the world thinking about what is the

00:46:13.820 difference between 50 yards and 60 yards and 100 yards and 20 yards. So can you explain how the

00:46:20.240 competition works? What is the actual event? What does an actual event look like? There are several

00:46:24.960 events, but- Yeah, there's so many. I've shot on probably four or five different types of pro tours

00:46:30.560 over the years, and all of them have different rules. The one thing that's consistent about football

00:46:37.680 is you're always on the same field. You always have four downs. You always have four quarters.

00:46:43.300 With archery, each event has a certain number of arrows that you shoot. And once that score happens,

00:46:50.400 some events, when it's done, top three, that's it. Some, once the top five scores at the end of the

00:46:56.920 ranking round or qualification round, then the top five will go in. They'll shoot down to a winner.

00:47:01.680 Some have more like an Olympic style round where you shoot a ranking round. They rank everybody.

00:47:08.180 They rank one to 64. And then number one will shoot against number 64. Number two shoots against

00:47:14.520 63 type thing. And you'll have brackets and you shoot all the way down into a gold medal match.

00:47:21.660 And depending on the event, some events are multiple distance through multiple days. Some events are

00:47:28.660 fixed distances. The maximum is up to 90 meters. So back, they've actually canceled this round

00:47:36.340 here recently. But back when I competed, a full feeder round was 30 meters, 50 meters, 70 meters,

00:47:43.880 90 meters.

00:47:44.440 FEDA stands for?

00:47:45.680 Back then it was.

00:47:46.860 Like Federation International.

00:47:48.940 Yeah, it was French. I don't even know what it was. Now it's called World Archery. They made it

00:47:53.640 much simpler. But yeah, you would shoot rounds at 30, 50, 70, 90 meters. And then once the quals were

00:48:02.640 done, the head-to-heads would all be shot at 70 meters, which is 77 yards. That was for that type

00:48:09.700 of event. My favorite event was the field archery formats, which is multiple size bullseyes proportioned

00:48:17.860 depending on the distance that you're shooting, anywhere from 20 meters out to about 80. And you

00:48:24.860 would shoot one round that had marked distance, one round that was unmarked distance. And then you'd go

00:48:31.480 into qualifications that were half and half.

00:48:34.700 So let's put some specs to this so people understand what we're talking about. So most people know how long

00:48:40.300 a football field is. That's just a touch over 90 meters.

00:48:44.100 Yeah, put it on the one yard line. Honestly, this almost goes back to like me hooking that

00:48:49.040 football, right?

00:48:49.800 Right. So you're on the one yard line of football field. The other end zone is 99 yards away,

00:48:56.260 which is 90 meters.

00:48:57.460 Yep.

00:48:57.900 Okay. So a professional archer, one of the top professional archers can hit with their bow at

00:49:05.920 that distance. If they took 10 shots, what size diameter would they be able to land 10 shots inside

00:49:12.840 of?

00:49:13.120 This Jocko coffee cup right here is about the size of the 10.

00:49:16.320 So the 10 ring there is about, that's about two and a half to three inches?

00:49:20.000 No, that'd be wider than that. Dude.

00:49:23.100 Looks like about four inches max, right? That's three inches.

00:49:26.260 Yeah.

00:49:26.800 Yeah.

00:49:26.960 We could look up the exact diameter, but yeah.

00:49:29.300 It's pretty small. So take your coffee. The Jocko coffee mug is a slightly big coffee mug.

00:49:33.520 Yeah. It's a larger coffee mug, but if they shot 10 shots, most, I would say most pro archers are

00:49:42.380 going to hit that eight out of 10.

00:49:44.040 Okay. Let's pause for one more moment here and now explain another distinction, which we have yet to

00:49:48.460 explain to the listener, which is we talk interchangeably about bows, but if anyone ever

00:49:53.320 turns on the Olympics, they're watching one type of bow, but most of what you shoot and all of what

00:50:00.420 I shoot is a different type of bow. Can you explain that difference?

00:50:03.520 So if you're watching the Olympic games, they shoot recurves. So those bows are very long and

00:50:09.980 it's a handle with wooden limbs, which are the parts that bend and there's a string. That's a

00:50:18.040 recurve bow. So what we're shooting is what's called a compound, which is a bow that has round

00:50:25.960 wheels on it that essentially store energy. So as you pull it back, the limbs of the bow flex,

00:50:33.920 but they also have this cam system that's, I guess for layman's turn, imagine like gears on a bike

00:50:43.000 where as you're going through those gears, you have the ability to make it easier at some point.

00:50:48.600 So as you pull this back, the cam rolls over into kind of a different position to where it gets

00:50:55.660 easier as you get closer to your fully extended position. That's probably the easiest way to say

00:51:02.240 it, right? And it's a little bit easier to hold it at full draw, but because of that, you're also able

00:51:10.100 to shoot much more poundage at the beginning of that pull cycle. So in other words, in the Olympics,

00:51:17.240 a heavy recurve shooter would be shooting about 50 pounds because as he pulls that bow back,

00:51:24.220 every inch he pulls it back further, that weight continually increases as he pulls it back. So once

00:51:30.080 he gets the full draw, that in no way gets easier. Whereas ours, we could shoot a 70 pound bow. And as we

00:51:36.860 start to pull it, it'll peak at 70 pounds fairly soon. And then it gets easier and easier and easier

00:51:42.680 and kind of it drops back. You can be much more accurate with the compound bow and you can also

00:51:49.580 achieve much longer distances because the energy stored is greater. So the typical speed, so your

00:51:56.120 bow or my bow, my bow, I just know this because it's my bow is 292 feet per second is what I would

00:52:01.640 call the muzzle velocity. Close to a hundred miles an hour. Yeah. Which the way I'd describe it to

00:52:05.740 Olivia when she's watching me shoot is if I shoot 50 yards, it's taken about half a second to get

00:52:11.160 there. What's the speed on a recurve on an Olympian's bow? Way less, like way, way less. And in the

00:52:17.080 Olympics, they shoot what distance? 70 meters. Which I've only ever fired a recurve at 20. I don't even

00:52:23.800 understand how those guys fire recurves at 77 yards. Yeah. It's impressive. They use the same type of

00:52:29.840 process that I teach just with a different system. And actually our, our U S guy, he's a close,

00:52:37.560 I can't say he's a close friend because I've known him since he was a kid. I liked his dad a lot. His

00:52:44.100 dad was a very well-respected person. And I gave Brady his first recurve bow. He was shooting a

00:52:52.240 compound, but he wanted to get into shooting Olympic style archery. So I gave him his first recurve bow

00:52:57.480 and he just set a new world record with it. He's won, I think medals the last two. He's

00:53:04.800 phenomenal. He's an amazing archer, but he just set a new world record this morning.

00:53:09.380 Wow. Explain what the world record means. I think he shot a 701 out of 720. So that's the exact same

00:53:14.800 scoring ring I just talked about. So out of 720 points, he shot 701 in this coffee cup with that

00:53:21.740 recurve bow. So that means you get 72 shots?

00:53:25.060 That's 72 shots. 72 shots. Every time you're in that exact 10 ring, which is the inside of a coffee

00:53:30.520 cup, 77 yards away, you'd get a 10. So that means presumably he got nine nines and the rest were tens

00:53:39.060 or some combination thereof. Yeah. I mean, and what's impressive about it too, is a lot of times

00:53:43.500 when you're off with the recurve, like if you make a really poor shot with the recurve, it's really poor.

00:53:48.860 So it's possible one of those was a one and then probably not with him, but yeah, it would have

00:53:55.140 been easy to do on a 72 arrows, which is why those scores, even though people might have the pace to

00:54:01.280 do that, the reality is because they're shooting with fingers too. They're not allowed to shoot a

00:54:05.900 mechanical release. So it's pretty phenomenal. It's amazing to watch it. But as amazing as that is,

00:54:14.360 that was never a pursuit of mine because these guys train for four years for one event. And although

00:54:22.560 there are world champs and world cups in between, sad part about archery is the money pays out a lot

00:54:31.220 more in the compound pro class than in the recurve class. And there's more people there. The cost of

00:54:36.960 getting it in is higher too. So although that's the Olympic sport, the Olympians, their paydays are

00:54:45.040 when they win medals. And that payday is really only every four years. Now they'll, I'm sure they're

00:54:51.860 getting compensated to shoot, but like for me, for example, my rookie year, if I won a pro event,

00:54:58.980 the guaranteed payout was 10,000. By the time you got some of your contingency checks, you were making

00:55:05.020 15 grand a weekend on a win. World champs were 30,000. Shooter of the years were 50,000.

00:55:11.500 If you win the Vegas indoor tournament, which is every February, that pays about 50,000.

00:55:18.080 Whereas with the recurve, they may make five or 10. I don't know.

00:55:23.000 Does anybody hunt with recurve?

00:55:25.200 Oh yeah.

00:55:25.800 There are guys that'll still hunt with the recurve. Yeah.

00:55:27.960 I was wondering if that was also part of the reason you favored compound, which was you started as

00:55:32.500 a hunter. Then became an archer. The two go hand in hand. I mean, they feed off each other.

00:55:37.380 Yeah. Yeah. I always said, and you and I talked about this and you told me, you said,

00:55:42.220 now that I'm doing this and I've kind of became a target archer, I went to Lanai, I hunted Axis.

00:55:49.860 You said, I understand that saying that you have, which what I tell people is I'm a target archer in

00:55:56.760 order to be a better bow hunter. And I'm a better bow hunter because I'm a target archer. I feel like

00:56:01.680 there's a very, very important puzzle piece to being ethical that involves you giving everything

00:56:12.740 you have to be in the absolute best archer you can be and being able to know your limitations

00:56:19.840 on shots. And the reality is we talked about like when Sharon was going to run that half marathon,

00:56:25.660 she prepped for it. I just, I just decided to do it. I didn't know my limitations. I just went and did

00:56:33.160 it. Did I do it? Yeah, I did it. But in a hunting situation, guys that just know how to shoot a bow and

00:56:39.440 then go out and then just take those shots at animals. I feel like morally there's going to come

00:56:47.580 a point where if their shot doesn't connect where they want, that's going to be hard to deal with.

00:56:52.800 So I've always felt like ethically, I need to know my limitations because when that moment happens,

00:57:01.600 I'm going to be able to make, ideally make a perfect shot. Or the more I've done it in practicing

00:57:09.280 weird conditions, the more you realize this might not be a shot I should even take, even though I know

00:57:15.980 I can technically shoot this far, which you learned from me.

00:57:22.240 The list of things I've learned from you, John, is unbelievable. And you know, we'll link in this

00:57:26.820 podcast to the interview where I was on your podcast. And of course, I don't want to chew up

00:57:32.700 any of our time here retelling stuff I talked about there, which was sort of how this all spoke to me

00:57:38.320 and what this all, why what you're saying resonated so much. And that's something that to this day,

00:57:42.960 I still can't answer. You know, you asked me that question, I gave you the best answer I had.

00:57:47.280 And in the end, I still don't know. I just think there are some people for whom that degree of

00:57:53.380 perfection is so blissful. There's such an amazing state. And you know, my wife said something to me

00:57:59.560 about six months ago, which she's never said about any of my obsessions, because she's known me for

00:58:06.440 19 years now. And she's been through many seasons of obsession. We were talking about

00:58:11.200 the anastomosing and surgery and swimming and cycling and archery and race car driving and all

00:58:16.700 these things, both past and present that are my obsessions. And she said, you get so pissed off

00:58:23.340 when you're having a bad day in your given sport. I used to call her every morning after swim practice

00:58:29.680 on my way to work. I'd go early swim masters, and then I'd drive into work and she'd be heading to

00:58:34.620 work and probably just call and say, Hey, and she's like, I could tell from your voice how the

00:58:39.260 practice went. And you have to understand something here. We're talking about masters swimming, like

00:58:44.700 nobody cares. Okay. Not on the national team, right? I don't have a Wheaties contract, like nobody cares.

00:58:54.700 In fact, nobody else in the pool can tell if I was one second off per hundred that day. Like it's just

00:59:01.880 not at that level. But I mean, my day would rise or fall as a function of that. And the same thing,

00:59:08.940 like if I'm in the simulator for two hours and I come in and I'm surly and pissy, she knows like

00:59:14.720 you just didn't drive well. And she's like, I don't know what it is about archery, but she's like

00:59:19.740 this. I've only seen you twice pissed off for shooting bad. Usually even when you, if you come in

00:59:26.100 and I say, how'd you do, you'd be like, I sucked, but you're not pissed. It's almost like there's a

00:59:31.300 benefit to archery for my psyche that goes beyond the performance. There's something about the act

00:59:39.560 of doing it that is in and of itself beautiful, even if I don't meet the objective. So the journey

00:59:47.480 seems to matter as much as the destination in archery is anything I've ever done. Do you feel

00:59:55.440 that way? Or because you have done it at such a high level, do you struggle more with those days

01:00:01.660 or those seasons, which I'm sure there've been seasons or months or whatever, when you've been

01:00:06.480 off your form?

01:00:07.840 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's certainly times that there's been times where, where I have felt it,

01:00:16.640 but there's also times where I quickly realized that when I do that in archery, it makes it worse

01:00:21.960 really fast. The thing with archery is it really is a sport of Zen and clarity. You shoot better

01:00:31.380 when you're trying less. So when you get mad, you only get worse at it. And so this was something

01:00:39.260 that I talked about a lot in my training is I was really fortunate to have a coach walk by me one

01:00:46.360 time. And he was a coach. He was a well-known coach that worked with some athletes, but he wasn't

01:00:53.320 one that was kind of sanctioned. I don't even know how he got with some of the athletes that he was

01:00:59.380 with, but he was with a few really high level athletes and he worked with maybe two or three

01:01:04.900 in the archery world. But he was there watching one of his guys shoot. And he kind of saw me make

01:01:13.660 a bad shot on a target. And I came unglued, which I've talked about this in football. If I threw an

01:01:19.800 interception, I could just run after the guy. And if I couldn't get to him, I could just hit someone.

01:01:25.180 And then, especially in high school, guess what? I played offense, defense, kicker, punter. I could

01:01:34.360 just hit someone. I could get it out somehow. There was release, whereas with archery, there wasn't. So

01:01:40.340 my release would be snapping an arrow over my leg or breaking a stabilizer or when the shoot's all over

01:01:48.900 and I know I'm not making the shoot off round, like wait until everyone's walking in and freaking

01:01:54.300 hammer tossing my bow through the woods and walking away from it. I mean, I had those moments where

01:02:00.120 I was young. Sometimes I wasn't even 20. I want to go back to that for a moment, because

01:02:04.600 if you're 20, that means you're only one or two years post making this crazy decision to forego

01:02:11.060 a football scholarship, to work for 410 an hour to try to become an archer. And so when you're

01:02:16.200 breaking an arrow, snapping your stabilizer and throwing your bow into the woods, are there moments

01:02:21.700 of doubt where you're saying, I could be the starting quarterback in Carolina? Like, were you ever

01:02:26.380 looking back saying, no? What was your self-talk in that moment of anger?

01:02:31.180 Something defeated me that day and it wasn't going to do it tomorrow. That's what it was like. I wasn't

01:02:36.880 looking back. I was always right there. What's happening now is what I'm focused on. And this coach

01:02:44.520 told me, he said, you're never going to be any different than you are right now until you realize

01:02:51.180 that the only arrows you have control on are those ones that are in your quiver. And I kind of looked

01:02:57.620 at him and he goes, do you know how to get that arrow back that's down there in that five ring?

01:03:02.260 And I kind of like looked at him again and he goes, do you know anyone that can pull that arrow back

01:03:08.780 to this shooting line from that target? And I just said, no. And he goes, and you never will.

01:03:15.920 He goes, the only thing you have control on is what you haven't shot yet. And he goes, you got to let

01:03:21.620 that go. It's the past. And that like was so changing for me because it got to the point where I

01:03:29.660 started just, I was talking to arrows in my quiver. One would shoot, I'd make a bad shot and

01:03:35.400 think, well, okay, shit. I shot a five. Now I'm going to need at least three 12s to dig out of that

01:03:41.560 hole. So I'd look into my quiver and be like, which one of you son of bitches want to shoot a 12?

01:03:46.860 Cause we got some work to make up for your asshole down there. So, and I just be like, are you the one?

01:03:53.160 And I'd grab it. And I just started doing that and things started to change. But

01:03:57.360 what I learned about archery and what I liked about it, and the reason why I

01:04:02.040 went into a lot of different techniques or form of archery is because I really liked the training

01:04:10.820 aspect. I loved it. I like prepping. I really like to prep. So I think that's a big reason why I like

01:04:18.040 to cook. I love to eat at the end, but I also like when you say, Hey, let's cook. I kind of just

01:04:23.600 let me prep. So by the way, have I at all been successful this week in convincing you to

01:04:29.100 create a sub channel on your YouTube channel for cooking? Maybe.

01:04:35.860 I'll just interject for a moment. Those of you, obviously you've heard this in the intro, but

01:04:40.740 school of knock, knock on TV on YouTube. Unbelievable. Knock on archery on YouTube.

01:04:46.480 Is it knock on archery? I just click on the link. I don't even know what it's called.

01:04:49.200 If you just go to YouTube and put knock on, it shows up. Yeah. And it's not, don't put a K at

01:04:54.140 the beginning. It's N-O-C-K, just like an arrow knock, not like you and your boxing.

01:04:59.100 We need to be clear. We need to be clear. We might not have the whole, but your cooking is,

01:05:03.920 it actually reminds me so much of my father. So, you know, I grew up in a restaurant.

01:05:07.420 People always say to me, like, I like to cook as well. And people always ask me for recipes.

01:05:10.980 Like they'll come over and have like that salmon that we had the other day and they'll be like.

01:05:14.720 Which was the bomb.

01:05:15.960 Thank you. I appreciate that.

01:05:16.760 And people always say like, Hey man, can you give me that recipe? And I actually finally

01:05:22.260 one day wrote up the recipe for that. But I know that whatever I wrote is not actually what I

01:05:26.880 normally make because I'm always just doing it by a pinch of this, a pinch of that. If you ask me

01:05:32.280 like what temperature I'm cooking it at or how long, I don't know. I just watch it. I just,

01:05:36.220 like my dad, I remember him literally telling me like, once the salmon starts to sweat, it's done.

01:05:41.300 And I remember trying to explain that to somebody once and they're like,

01:05:43.420 what the hell are you talking about? And I was like, it just made sense to me.

01:05:46.700 The oil bubbles, bro.

01:05:47.780 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, and so you're a lot like my dad when my dad's here and he's cooking. It is

01:05:53.540 so enjoyable because it's just, I call it street style cooking. Like it's just a little bit,

01:06:00.320 what do you got? Just show me what you got. I'll make it work. And you are awesome, man. We have,

01:06:04.820 that's what we've done.

01:06:05.660 We have consumed, we've eaten really well this week. By the way, I've lost four pounds since you've

01:06:10.540 been here. Which is crazy given how much I've eaten. But it's because like, part of it is I've

01:06:17.360 eaten so well. Well, we fast a lot during the day. We're probably fasting a little bit longer than

01:06:21.220 normal, but it's like our dinners are super clean. And a lot of times if the entree is not that great,

01:06:27.380 I'll end up nibbling on my kids' leftovers and crap like their mac and cheese or whatever

01:06:31.200 junk food they're eating. But like, there's been none of that this week. So it's just like,

01:06:35.740 yeah, it's anyway, you do have a gift for cooking. I mean, I'm not just saying that it's

01:06:39.680 really, really been a pleasure to watch the way you interact and think about stuff. Like even last

01:06:45.100 night, you just had that idea out of the blue, which was, oh my God, like if you put this sugar-free

01:06:50.340 maple syrup into this type of mustard and glaze it on the salmon, like, boom, we got to try that.

01:06:56.240 Oh, I've gone further than that. I woke up thinking if we infuse that, if we smoke that syrup

01:07:02.660 and then infuse it into like some frozen whiskey balls, imagine the old fashions we can make.

01:07:09.200 Dude, I woke up thinking about that.

01:07:11.960 You have got to pursue this. This is a non-negotiable. Back to the more serious stuff.

01:07:17.240 So-

01:07:17.420 Well, yeah, because I'm trying to get to like, so all those processes that I was talking about,

01:07:24.320 I just started to realize that I was very task-driven. Like all this stuff has always been

01:07:29.980 about, it's always been about tasks. Now it's hard. I will say it's hard for me to, I can't,

01:07:37.120 I shouldn't say I can't, but it's hard for me to be at my absolute best as a performer during practice

01:07:45.560 because I do perform better when I, as soon as I turn around and I see people putting cameras on me,

01:07:52.300 that's a drive for me that I can perform better than. I need that push. But I did do a lot of

01:07:59.900 research and I kind of started, I read a book, I've read a book called Mind Gym and I don't read a lot

01:08:08.400 because I don't have a lot of time.

01:08:10.160 Gym, G-Y-M?

01:08:11.620 Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because I was really trying to figure out, so this is something that's been

01:08:16.420 interesting to me for a long time because I really struggle with ADD and I've been clinically tested.

01:08:23.480 I went through a psychological full evaluation for my ADD and my LD, which was a full day going

01:08:32.460 through.

01:08:32.980 As a teenager, as an adult?

01:08:35.140 Yeah. Yeah. Because I struggled. Part of the problem was once I was working at that archery shop,

01:08:40.080 I did want to still go to college, but I realized really quick, it was, I realized I'd never really

01:08:45.440 taken a book home. I just always got passed in classes because I was excelling as an athlete.

01:08:51.060 And so I really, really struggled with that. And I struggled with attention. I struggled with

01:08:57.440 certain things. There's a lot of things that were distracting. So my dad's like, I'm going to take

01:09:02.240 you to one of my friends. We're going to really test you for this. So I have a pretty severe case

01:09:07.920 of ADD and I have an LD as well. And so I started realizing that-

01:09:14.880 What is the particular LD? Did they define it clearly?

01:09:18.060 Probably, but I would not know unless I gave you my eval. It's kind of a thick eval and I probably

01:09:24.280 have it somewhere. So what I learned was in archery, I kind of zone out in archery. I really

01:09:32.080 feel like that's a big part of why I'm good at it. And I'm the same when I weight lift. Like I can

01:09:37.320 do something repetitive so many times that I almost get into a trance in it. And it takes someone to

01:09:43.660 like snap me out of that. And in competition, it's been that way too, where I've been competing.

01:09:49.520 And for example, like a cameraman or a videographer says, Hey man, sorry for bumping you during that

01:09:55.700 shot. And I'm like, when? And he's like, uh, I bumped your elbow. And I'm completely oblivious to it

01:10:03.100 because to me, I'm so zoned out on that. So I really started diving into this. I really wanted

01:10:12.580 to find out some of these people that write sports psychology books. I was really curious if there's

01:10:19.240 some type of connection between high level athletes that have ADD. In other words, they're hyper-focused.

01:10:28.540 They're hyper-focused just kind of by makeup. And there's certainly times where if a lot's going

01:10:35.760 on, I can be distracted. But during those same times, I can be having a conversation with you

01:10:41.800 and people can be trying to get my attention. And equally, I don't get it. So I was kind of diving

01:10:48.780 down this road of, is this ADD making me better? Me getting into my own zone, because I also got to

01:10:55.360 the point where during certain practices, when I would practice with certain music,

01:11:00.400 there were times where I could get into flow states that were honestly that most people don't

01:11:05.720 believe. I mean, I've had times where I shot 99 shots one time into the same arrow hole without

01:11:13.100 stretching it. It took an hour and a half of doing it. But I remember I had, I had like kind of a

01:11:19.100 meditative type album playing. It was just, I didn't even know it, but it was on repeat. Like it was on

01:11:24.920 repeat on my playlist. So the same song had been playing for an hour and a half and I never knew

01:11:30.460 it. And then I would just get into these flow states like that. So I started looking up,

01:11:35.820 is there a connection between people that have these types of hyper-focusing and are these people

01:11:43.740 also people that get into a flow state better? Because then at that point, I was almost at the

01:11:49.800 point of retirement and this stuff was starting to become clear to me. And I'm thinking as a coach,

01:11:55.060 if I get to the point where I'm coaching national teams, I'm going to be looking for this. I want to

01:12:00.700 be able to find this. And so then at that same time, I started going into these books and I started to see

01:12:06.820 the difference in personality types between ego-driven and task-driven personality types.

01:12:13.800 So, and then clearly I am a task-driven mentality. I looked at a lot of times the task-driven

01:12:23.420 personality type athletes are normally the ones that kind of go down at their peak levels for the

01:12:31.020 longest period of time. They might not peak as high as the ego-driven, but as fast as the ego-driven

01:12:37.020 can peak, they can also decel. So when people are looking at, do you want the superstar? The ego-driven

01:12:43.480 is like your route. Do you want the task-driven? The task-driven is what you build a team off of.

01:12:48.800 Yeah, it was pretty interesting to go down those. Have you looked into that stuff? Have you ever

01:12:52.440 dove down those roads?

01:12:53.800 I have. And there's other things that I think I think about when I hear people like you

01:12:57.700 talk about things that shape them. So you said already a couple of things that I think are really

01:13:03.160 relevant to my observation of exceptional performers. One of them, you said, you just said it

01:13:08.480 outright, but a lot of people don't articulate it as directly. You love to practice.

01:13:12.680 I have yet to meet a world-class exceptional performer who didn't love to practice.

01:13:19.460 So when you talk to Lance Armstrong or his teammates, Lance's teammates will, you know,

01:13:25.740 spoken to at least one of them, they'll tell stories about how it just didn't matter. Like

01:13:29.880 when it was early season training and the ride was supposed to be a six hour grueling ride at the

01:13:35.160 end of six hours, Lance wanted two more. Sometimes he would just go do it by himself. And again,

01:13:39.420 it's so funny to me. It just, nothing makes me sort of more annoyed that people simply want to dismiss

01:13:45.300 a natural talent of these cyclists because they also happen to use performance enhancing drugs.

01:13:51.140 You know, I've interviewed Apollo Ono on this podcast as well. And his appetite for training

01:13:56.620 was just unbelievable. I've worked out with Apollo and it's just so much fun to work out with him,

01:14:02.920 even as a, he's 10 years post his Olympian life, but he just still like has this complete

01:14:09.680 love for training, even though he's not at that same level. And so this is, it's this love for

01:14:17.460 practice and it's this ability to practice deliberately and to practice correctly and to

01:14:22.860 appreciate that. And I just don't think you can get to an exceptional level without that. Of course,

01:14:27.400 my other favorite example of that is Zayar Tonsena, greatest driver in the history of motorsport. And

01:14:32.780 when you talk to people who were around him, who I've spoken with many people, I've obviously never

01:14:37.660 knew him or speak to him, but people who are around him, they all say the same thing, which is just his

01:14:42.520 attention to detail was second to none. When every other driver had left, he was still there. He'd spend

01:14:48.740 the night in the garage talking to the mechanics. He knew as much about the car as they knew more than any

01:14:54.800 other driver could know about the car. So the two feet off each other, I don't know which one's the

01:15:00.520 chicken and which one's the egg truthfully. In other words, I don't know if the best of the best

01:15:04.980 are the best because they do those things or if because they're doing those things because of

01:15:09.120 something else that is making them the best. Again, for me personally, it's just, I've never been at

01:15:14.900 that level. So, but I feel grateful that, especially when it comes to something like archery,

01:15:19.460 like I enjoy the process. I think I was saying to JR, we were talking yesterday, we were out there

01:15:23.860 shooting when you were working with Josh. And I was like, I've never once stopped practice,

01:15:30.280 shooting practice out of boredom. There's only two reasons I've ever stopped shooting in the past

01:15:35.360 two and a half years. And it's either I just have a time constraint, like I have a phone call I got to

01:15:39.700 get on or something, or I physically just break down. Like I can't hold the bow any longer and my

01:15:44.780 form is deteriorating so rapidly. And I never thought of that until like the other day. And I was like,

01:15:50.060 man, that is, that's really fun. Like that's so cool that there is something I can be that you

01:15:55.140 can love that much. Cause I can't say that about a lot of things. Most things. Yeah. Most things like

01:16:00.320 you can get bored of, you can only watch so much YouTube before you're like, I'm kind of done with

01:16:04.720 this. I can't watch one more Jimmy Kimmel video or whatever it is. I got to go do something else.

01:16:10.100 I think those attributes are so important to just lifestyle. I mean, we're talking right now about

01:16:16.700 sport, but there's times, luckily I've got to the point where I work independently. We have a

01:16:22.840 business that me and my wife, I kind of do the educational side. And then there's a product side

01:16:29.100 that she runs our e-commerce, but I still work independently for a lot of people as a consultant

01:16:35.320 and having something to do and being active in that stuff. Like that is part of a personality type

01:16:44.120 and it's part of a personality type. I believe of someone that gets successful in not just one

01:16:50.940 thing, but a magnitude of things, because there's a lot of people out there that want to be a

01:16:56.180 successful business person, or they want to have a successful business. And there's times where people

01:17:02.120 will come forward and say, Hey, if you do consulting or if you do brand representation, what do you

01:17:08.520 normally charge? And we'll talk about that. And then all of a sudden they come forward. And then

01:17:12.980 I realized really quick, wait a minute, this is like being on a team where the coach doesn't know

01:17:19.120 what we're doing for practice. No one knows when to get here. And I just tell them really fast, like,

01:17:26.080 Hey, this isn't the right team for me. I'm here to, it's like having that person that wants to lift

01:17:32.920 with you, but they never show up. If you're someone that has drive, you just, that's not part of your

01:17:39.800 equation. That's a disruption. And it's amazing to me how many people that have really good

01:17:47.840 concepts have really good investors, and then they come forward. And it's almost like, if I look at it

01:17:56.860 as a sport, there's no task, the task portion or the work portion of this thing, which a lot of times

01:18:06.840 having a product reveal is that's like being at the world champs, but not having all the preparation

01:18:15.060 going into that really in the time that goes into that and start to see that bloom. And essentially

01:18:21.680 you see the fruit of that. If you don't have it, it's just, I don't know, it's not my DNA to want to

01:18:27.780 be part of that. And the amount of people that I know that fail because they are really good about

01:18:36.340 the start and they're really good about wanting to know how they want to finish, but they kind of

01:18:40.420 lack the in-between. It's just a destructive path. And it's unfortunate because I've seen good

01:18:46.580 business concepts. I've seen good people and I've seen good investors fail. And I normally see it

01:18:53.440 pretty quick where I'm like, Hey, I'm out. There's another thing you've done that one can never

01:18:58.360 fully project this or convey this to people without them knowing you. But I do think there's

01:19:05.320 still an ability to convey it somewhat. And that is your podcast, even in your opening line to the

01:19:11.200 podcast says, this is a podcast for all archers of all interest skill levels, independent of the

01:19:17.040 equipment you use this out of the other thing. And I want to come back and sort of sing the praises of

01:19:21.400 why your podcast is sort of one of the most important podcasts for me. But there's something

01:19:26.680 that you do that I know a lot of people aspire to be able to do, which is you are someone who can

01:19:32.320 sell something honestly. And that's not to say you're the same. I aspire to it. I don't know if

01:19:37.580 truthfully I convey as much of it as you do, but I know, like, I just know anytime I see something on

01:19:43.760 your site, I can just buy it. Like, I don't have to say, I wonder if Dudley's just selling this because

01:19:48.280 he's getting a kickback on it that's bigger than if he was. I think that's rare. That's just hard

01:19:54.120 to do. It's hard to do that because we're humans. And I know we're even subconsciously, we can be

01:20:00.560 motivated by things we don't see. But do you spend a lot of time thinking about the choices you make?

01:20:07.060 Because I mean, I even told you this a while ago, but when I was buying a target bow a year ago, I mean,

01:20:12.660 I was torn between two companies and I tried both of the bows out and I spent a lot of time and a lot

01:20:19.300 of reps on each bow. And I mean, in the end, you reviewed them and there was the one that you went

01:20:27.260 with is the one I went with. I mean, in the end, it was just going to come down to that. So it was

01:20:30.740 that leap of faith. I probably even paid more for the bow. And that's the type of leap of faith I think

01:20:35.980 you take when you trust what somebody has to say about something. And of course, in my world,

01:20:40.000 there's different types of products. Oh yeah. Yours is a million times worse than mine.

01:20:45.020 Yeah. There's more snake oil in my world than yours for sure. I guess what I'm getting at in

01:20:49.460 a long-winded way is your credibility is enormous. There's always people out. I know there's a lot

01:20:54.640 of people that just, they're incredibly jealous of the success that you've had because your success

01:20:59.740 has really been as a teacher, something we haven't even talked about yet, but we're going to.

01:21:03.600 But the reality of it is anybody who I've ever spoken with, who's got even a half

01:21:07.940 decent head on their shoulders and who's honest, they can say, look, I don't agree with everything

01:21:12.660 Dudley says, but he's the real deal and he is on it. I mean, he is, he's credible. You can take what

01:21:17.520 he says to the bank. How deliberate is that for you to cultivate that?

01:21:21.720 Well, it's super important. I mean, it's really, really important. I was really lucky that when I was

01:21:30.060 18 and about to turn pro, I went to an archery trade show and I walked by a company that I had

01:21:39.000 just kind of started working with, but I really wasn't working with them, but I walked by and I

01:21:43.380 saw them in the process of building their booth and I could tell they were late and this is at a

01:21:49.260 trade show. So if you've ever gone to any type of trade show, you know, you go in one or two days

01:21:54.500 before people build this thing. So I walked in and it was Matthews, it was Matthews archery. And I

01:21:59.940 could tell that they were late and that they were building this new booth and it was a brand new one.

01:22:04.720 They couldn't quite figure out how it all went together. So I walked up and I said, Hey, do you

01:22:10.420 guys need help? And they said, yeah. So I jumped in there and I helped and ended up building this booth

01:22:15.580 up. And then the next day I was in there and just started talking about product to different people

01:22:21.600 and expressing my opinion. And then when that trade show was over, since I was already there,

01:22:27.040 I'm like, well, Hey, I'll help you guys get out of here. And I helped tear it down. That was just

01:22:30.980 kind of what you do, right? That's just part of personality types, especially the ones I like.

01:22:36.540 And the next, I think it was on the Monday, I got a call from the president of the company and he just

01:22:42.660 said, Hey, I'd love to hire you as a sales rep. You were had unbelievable people skills and,

01:22:49.580 and so-and-so. And eventually I went to work for that archery company at 18 and a half or 19 years

01:22:57.360 old, which was very small, very few employees. Fast forward 10 years, Inc 500 business twice,

01:23:06.640 massive company. We recruited the largest ambassador team in the history of archery,

01:23:13.380 had the largest payouts in tournament archery of anybody. And because I was internal in that

01:23:22.100 company, I saw a lot of our people that we were paying to represent us make really poor judgment

01:23:30.120 calls that not only, not only made themselves look bad, but also at times made the company look bad.

01:23:38.300 And then also forced the company to make, to make quick decisions on them to where looking back,

01:23:45.940 we were like, man, did we really need to cut this guy loose? Maybe we didn't, but at the time for him

01:23:53.400 to release confidential information, yeah, it wasn't good. Or so because I was young and saw people

01:24:03.220 making mistakes that we were essentially hiring as pro staffers. And I was a pro staffer as well.

01:24:10.600 And then also because I was a pro staffer that worked for the company. So I was directly employed

01:24:16.480 by this company that employed this massive pro staff. So when I would go to an event, I had rules

01:24:22.920 on me that were 10 times everyone else's. Like if I made a poor call on someone's arrow, there was like

01:24:30.840 a pro calling in saying like, Hey, what the heck you guys are my sponsor. And Dudley called my arrow

01:24:36.360 out this weekend. I thought it was in. So I kind of started to have to deal with that stuff. And

01:24:42.000 because I dealt with all those little things, it just really started to mold me on looking dot in my

01:24:50.480 eyes, crossing my T's, understanding that your integrity is the archery world is very small. And

01:24:58.760 these bridges, there's only a few bridges. And when you burn them, they're burned. That's it. So

01:25:04.200 the company I work for now, Hoyt, they were our biggest competitor. And when I worked at Matthews

01:25:09.920 and I had lots of opportunities at sales conferences or product reveals or trade shows

01:25:16.460 to talk poorly about the product, even though they had a good product, I could have easily talked bad

01:25:22.360 about them. I could have talked bad about the employees because I really didn't know them.

01:25:25.280 But in the end, I always told them, I'm like, Hey, this is a small world. There's only a few

01:25:30.160 archery companies. I said, one day we might be working together. Maybe, who knows? And honestly,

01:25:37.140 the day that I left Matthews, the first company that called me was our biggest competitor. They're

01:25:42.300 like, is it true you're not with Matthews? Yes, it is. We would like to talk. And that was very

01:25:49.960 clear to me that me being straightforward and truthful all the time, especially owning up to

01:25:56.860 when I make mistakes and publicly telling everybody about when I make a mistake about

01:26:02.120 this or that. I think it's just critical. And I don't work with products I don't like 100%.

01:26:09.320 How do you handle it when, let's say you're at Matthews or you're now at Hoyt and there's a

01:26:13.960 product that comes along and you don't like a piece of it? I mean, I guess maybe now it's different

01:26:17.940 because of who you are. You alone are a force of nature within the archery world. But before you

01:26:23.440 were the John Dudley, how did you sort of handle that gap between this is something I'm not happy

01:26:31.860 with guys. Like I can't go out and sell this product and them say, Hey man, like do your job.

01:26:37.220 Well, there's two things to that. One is if I really didn't like it, I can always shot what I

01:26:42.780 shot last year. The good thing is they've all trusted me enough to where I'm normally shooting

01:26:48.280 stuff three to six months before anyone else anyway. And I normally know about it a year before

01:26:53.220 and you're putting feedback into it. Oh yeah. No question. But the other thing is when stuff comes

01:27:00.280 out, there's times where competitors have brought out products that are definitely inferior to ones

01:27:06.780 that I like. The bottom line is you don't talk about what other people do bad. You don't talk

01:27:11.960 about what you do bad. You talk about what you do right, or you talk about what you do better.

01:27:16.340 And that's how it always was. When I would go up and have these PR press releases in front of the media,

01:27:25.220 I would be going up and talking about what we had at Matthews that was better than anybody else.

01:27:32.880 I didn't have to say these guys are five feet slower per second. These guys have a one inch

01:27:38.500 shorter brace height. This bow has 7% more vibration in it. What I would do is be like,

01:27:44.720 we have 7% less vibration than some of the models on the market. We've got a more generous brace height.

01:27:51.540 We come in at five feet per second faster. This bow shoots a lot smoother in the hand.

01:27:56.640 For me, I always feel like if you focus on either what you're doing right, what your company's doing

01:28:03.980 right, or what you want to do right, you're just going down a super shady road to pick on the things

01:28:11.900 that people might not be doing right at that time. And if it's a product that I feel isn't right,

01:28:18.280 you're just not going to see me do a review about it. I'm not going to do a review to say it's poor.

01:28:22.900 All I'm going to do is find another product to distract your attention to something that is

01:28:28.700 a better option for you. Well, it's great because again, now you are at the point where you have the

01:28:34.760 gravitas that you can just sort of curate what is the best. And then that makes life a lot easier for

01:28:41.060 people like me. And I talk about this a lot on your podcast, but there's 10 different turns of

01:28:47.420 complete luck that just allowed me to, from the day I got my first bow to be sort of plugged in

01:28:54.800 straight from JR right into your YouTube channel and all of your videos. And by extension, then the

01:29:01.740 methodology, which sort of leads me to my next question. When did it become clear to you that

01:29:07.020 you had a knack for teaching, which a lot of people who are exceptional at the craft are actually

01:29:13.220 not the best teachers at it. So there's a very rare overlap between people who are in say the top

01:29:20.440 1% of doing something. And then the top 1% of teaching, that's not a huge overlap.

01:29:27.140 I don't really know how that came to be. I think some of its personality, I mean, I'm a good PR person.

01:29:35.160 I like communicating with people. I think I'm easy to engage with.

01:29:39.220 So I think that naturally helps any teacher or any coach.

01:29:44.940 Even donkeys. I mean, I've seen you interact with standing donkeys.

01:29:49.180 I was debating whether you're going to release that to your followers, but...

01:29:54.880 I'm hoping by the time this podcast has come out, the donkey video is already out and we will just

01:29:59.820 be linking to it through this podcast.

01:30:01.820 Okay. It might be. But I've also been really fortunate to be around really good coaches too.

01:30:09.220 That did a great job of leading by example of teaching. And like I said, I've always thrived

01:30:19.300 to learn how to do stuff better. It was that way, even about weightlifting. Like earlier today,

01:30:24.220 I was at Frank Zane's house. He's a former Mr. Olympia. And Frank and I have been friends a long time.

01:30:32.900 We met because he loved archery and him and Arnold shot archery as their R&R during their

01:30:38.900 kind of golden era bodybuilding, right? And so we met at an Arnold Classic and him and I hit it off

01:30:46.940 and he kind of asked for archery lessons. And I said, yeah, sure. And what was funny is he said,

01:30:51.560 well, I'm doing a bodybuilding or I'm doing a training seminar up at a gym in Minneapolis. So he said,

01:30:58.240 what I might do is rent a car. And I said, actually, if I can sit in your class, I'd love to drive up.

01:31:03.460 So I went up and sat into his class and I saw how he delivered. And I'm like, man, I said,

01:31:09.260 you have such a really cool presentation technique. And then he just said, well, up until the last three

01:31:15.980 years of my bodybuilding career, I had to have a job as a teacher. He's like, that's what I do.

01:31:20.240 And he was perfect at it. So he gave me pointers about delivery and how to put things in front of

01:31:28.420 people to where they can see it and understand it, or you can express it and understand it. Or

01:31:34.000 also how you can, if you're really good at what you're talking about, you can find a way pretty

01:31:41.840 fast to relate it to something that you know the person you're coaching also likes. So I didn't know

01:31:49.020 a lot about you. I knew a few details. I knew you're into F1. I knew that. I knew you're into

01:31:55.840 swimming, biking. Obviously, when I worked with Jocko, I knew Jocko's background as a SEAL. So

01:32:02.800 when I explain certain things, I might not be the best at relating it exactly of how you do it within

01:32:09.980 your field, but I can give you just enough to where all of a sudden, hopefully you grasp what it is I'm

01:32:16.500 saying, just in case I'm talking on a level that's like outside of your world. When we talked about

01:32:22.580 the speed of your shot execution, I told you, I said, you're making a great shot, but you're making

01:32:31.280 your shot at a very accelerated pace. And so I told you, it's a lot like if you have a group of people

01:32:38.980 in a car and I say, hey, let's go a hundred miles an hour, but I don't want anyone in the car to know

01:32:45.140 that you did it. I said, you would throttle at a pace to where you were continual and gradual and

01:32:52.500 you would be there, but you wouldn't be there with snapping everyone's necks backwards. And I said,

01:32:58.000 right now with your release, you're putting your finger on the trigger and you're wanting this shot

01:33:03.500 to happen so fast, even though you're executing it properly, you're executing it too aggressively.

01:33:10.640 So I said, I want you to make this happen without letting anyone know that it's happening. And then

01:33:16.920 the next shot, I'm like, dude, that's it. And then right away I thought, oh, okay. I said, how much did

01:33:22.880 that relate to you and your car simulator? And you're like, oh, instantly it clicked.

01:33:28.520 Well, not only that, I think what was the very, very first thing, the very first insight was about

01:33:35.540 the elbow position. We talked about this quite a bit on your podcast and you put a video together

01:33:40.400 that's really nice that explains this. And I know that many people listening to this aren't,

01:33:44.220 a lot of stuff won't make sense, but the example, the point you were making was look right now here

01:33:49.480 with your hand that's in the back, your release hand, the elbow is probably about five to eight

01:33:56.800 degrees off where it need to be rotational degrees. So very little grossly looks like it's in the right

01:34:02.760 spot. But at that angle, your lats and deltoids and biceps are doing the work when you have to

01:34:11.040 release the shot. And you said, I want you to put your elbow here. And that felt like a very

01:34:17.120 unnatural position to me, even though it was only five, seven degrees back.

01:34:21.020 It was like two inches. Like looking from the back, it was like two inches.

01:34:24.940 It's so subtle. But you said, now I'm putting you in this position and I want you to notice all of a

01:34:30.240 sudden your bicep is totally relaxed. Your lats totally relaxed. And now all of the stress of

01:34:36.040 holding that bow and that release is on your rhomboids, which is a tiny little muscle.

01:34:40.680 And now you're going to release this arrow, just contracting those rhomboids, which by the way,

01:34:47.720 were partially being contracted before, but it was being dwarfed by the larger muscles. And you said,

01:34:53.580 and this was what really amazed me was you said, think about how, if you are driving a car,

01:34:59.780 you can easily use your quads, glutes, and hamstrings to move between the throttle and

01:35:06.680 the brake. But wouldn't it be more effective if you could just sort of use the heel and the toe

01:35:12.520 going back and forth and the intrinsic muscles of the foot and maybe a little bit of the calf

01:35:16.620 and the anterior compartment of the leg, which of course is exactly how you drive. You drive with

01:35:22.640 finesse. You drive using the smallest muscles possible and not stomping in a binary fashion where

01:35:29.760 it's all or none, but having that gradation of the difference between a 10 pedal and a seven pedal.

01:35:36.220 And there's a big difference between a 10 brake and a seven brake. Yeah. I think that just impressed

01:35:40.580 me. And I, one, I got it immediately. I mean, it just spoke to me, but two, I was like, you don't

01:35:46.780 even know anything about driving. Like you're not obsessive about race car driving. It was very

01:35:50.840 interesting to me that you picked that up. And I guess I never realized that you've been thinking

01:35:56.560 about this so much because I know you've done the same with Jocko. Like Jocko has talked to me about

01:36:01.020 first time you told him how to shoot, like you immediately related it to a rifle because you know

01:36:07.040 he's got more experience shooting a rifle than virtually anybody. And you could immediately put

01:36:11.800 something in those terms. And within minutes, Jocko's like getting something that he just probably

01:36:17.380 wouldn't have got for a longer period of time if you weren't able to connect it to him. And I don't

01:36:21.440 know. I think I've just always been impressed by that. And I think your generosity when it comes

01:36:26.440 to teaching is really amazing. I think, look, I think everybody, I mean, to me, archery is a

01:36:32.160 beautiful sport. It's one of those sports like tennis where you can do it for a long time. It's

01:36:36.980 not like football. You know, the reality of it is if you'd gone to college and you'd played football,

01:36:42.260 you wouldn't be playing football today. In fact, you might not be doing anything today.

01:36:46.020 Archery in archery today. Yeah. Yeah. And I really hope that my kids get into it because

01:36:51.620 everything you said about it, this Zen idea, this flow state, all of these things are beautiful.

01:36:56.980 You never want to hunt an animal in your life, which was, I certainly had no intention of hunting

01:37:01.020 when I started. It teaches you a lot about yourself and it is a beautiful metaphor for life in so many

01:37:06.960 ways. This ability to understand that the only arrow you have control over is the one that's still in

01:37:13.220 your quiver. You can't turn back time. That's such an explicit thing. Your ability to teach this sport

01:37:18.740 is, I think somebody could literally study your videos and get 60 to 70% of the total theoretical

01:37:25.140 benefit that one could get having a great coach standing over their shoulder, which is hard to

01:37:30.520 believe when you consider how nuanced the sport is. I mean, the list goes on and on, but the number of

01:37:37.120 students that I have that I've worked with less than a dozen times that are shooting at a level that

01:37:44.080 back when I competed, there were such a small percentage of shooters that were even at that

01:37:50.200 level. You get someone like Jocko, worked with them for a day, coach a little bit through the phone,

01:37:57.240 gave him a little bit of practice. He showed up here, I wouldn't guess a lot, maybe a few times,

01:38:01.620 and then took him to his first tournament style event in July. We went to Big Sky and I let him

01:38:08.860 set up a course with me. I actually built a course that some of our followers were shooting.

01:38:14.360 And I asked Jocko, I said, do you want to come out and set this course? Because I said, I'll teach you

01:38:18.280 why I'm building the course this way and what you'll learn from every shot. And he's like,

01:38:24.000 absolutely. So we went out, I talked to him, told him all about different techniques,

01:38:28.980 what you do, what people that lay a course out do to trick you and so forth like that.

01:38:34.460 And he went out there and the day before the real shoot started, I went up with Jocko and another

01:38:41.760 seal buddy of ours, Trevor and Sharon, my wife. And I said, let's go up and shoot. We won't shoot from

01:38:49.800 like the competition stake. We'll move closer. And I said, cause I just want to talk you through

01:38:55.100 something. So after we did that, we shot probably 20 or 30 targets shooting pretty close. Then also

01:39:02.180 in a little bit further back, then further back. Then I'm like, Hey, this one isn't bad. You want

01:39:06.400 to try this one from the stake? And he's like, yeah, no problem. And then the next day we show up and I

01:39:12.840 had a private event where people had booked private shooting times to shoot with me and some of my VIP

01:39:19.380 friends that I had there. And so my intention was to shoot four or five targets with each of those

01:39:24.920 groups. So the very first group that I shot with was Jocko and another mutual friend of ours, Andy,

01:39:32.600 and the people that had signed up. So I shot five targets with them. Jocko was hitting all the targets

01:39:38.900 and he was shooting them from the proper stake, which was that course that I laid out averaged 71 yards.

01:39:47.280 It was super technical, super hard. And I told people the stake is the hardest shot here. You're

01:39:55.780 always welcome to walk closer. There's no scorecards here. This is kind of a learning event. And I got to

01:40:03.900 the end and I remember asking Jocko, I'm like, how'd you do? He's like, I missed one target. And he knew

01:40:08.900 exactly why he knew exactly why. And I said, dude, that is unbelievable for you to be

01:40:16.140 shooting at best. If he was adding up his arrows to what I would do in a day training. When I was

01:40:24.300 serious about it, he might've shot three of my training days, right? And to be able to learn

01:40:31.520 the techniques and the basics and be set up that perfectly with your equipment. And then to have

01:40:37.400 the understanding of what you need to do. It's amazing, but I really feel like it's a necessity,

01:40:43.900 not only to archery, but to any sport for people to recognize the fact that the fundamentals is what

01:40:53.600 makes people good at things. And when people are good at things, they stay involved. So I've always

01:41:00.900 said like my boy here, he had some video games and stuff that he played in high school. And normally for

01:41:06.420 Christmas, he'd asked for video games. And I noticed really quick that the video games that

01:41:12.980 he played all the time were the ones that he was good at. The ones that he didn't win and the ones

01:41:20.260 that were like failed, those ones just went back in the drawer and they never got played again. And

01:41:25.880 it's the same way. And as parents, especially now, I look at any kids and I'm like, what you need to do

01:41:34.040 is you need to make this fun and you need to make sure that they're doing well at it a lot so that

01:41:40.360 they stay involved with it. But that wasn't necessarily the case for you. I mean, that to

01:41:44.220 me is where... But I was also older. You got to remember. So do you think that that's sort of what

01:41:49.660 you're just describing is what's necessary when you're dealing with kids that are in their early

01:41:55.200 teens or pre-teens? Pre-teens for sure. Yeah. Like yourself, you're nerded out right now with

01:42:00.000 archery, right? And you really want your kids to maybe be involved. So if they said, hey, I want

01:42:04.200 to shoot, it's highly likely that you would probably be a little bit more intense with that

01:42:10.300 practice than what I would say is get the biggest bullseye possible, put one target that's 10 yards

01:42:18.500 away, even if you're shooting at 70 or 80, and let them shoot at 10 yards all the time and just say,

01:42:28.900 okay, you shoot for the gold and I'm going to shoot for the gold. And then they're going to hit

01:42:34.680 nine out of 10 and they're always going to be beating dad, right? And they're going to like

01:42:39.920 that. When I started archery, part of the reason why I did it and liked it, but also didn't get super

01:42:46.300 serious about it is because my arrows were all the ones that my dad had lost, bent, or picked up in

01:42:54.220 the lost and found bucket at the archery range. So I was just shooting a smorgasbord of arrows and

01:43:01.020 getting a smorgasbord of results down on the paper. So it's amazing to me that I really stuck with it

01:43:06.940 because I probably would have been more infatuated with it. And honestly, I probably looking back

01:43:13.980 because naturally, I think you said it the other day, I went out and you made a shot and it was super

01:43:20.120 peaceful in the morning and you made this shot and it was like, and you go, do you think there's

01:43:26.380 something primal about that sound? And I said, yeah, absolutely. Like that is a primal sound.

01:43:33.240 And you were excited about that. You had that excitement. I feel like there could easily have

01:43:39.840 been a good chance that me turning into this punk kid, it might not have ever happened if I would have

01:43:46.980 really got into like going to an archery range with my dad. If I would have been good at it,

01:43:52.820 really liked it, like that could have been my thing. So I don't really know, but I think that's

01:43:57.920 important for, especially for me working with kids now. And I'm pretty limited on who I work with,

01:44:05.020 like yourself. But when I do work with people, I tell parents all the time, I'm like, you can't

01:44:11.460 acclimate your kid to, as soon as he shoots, looking at you for you to tell him what the score

01:44:18.340 is. I'm like, that is a really bad training thing for you to do. Cause I'm like, you're imprinting

01:44:26.400 your result, him immediately wanting your feedback for whether he hit or missed or she. And I just think

01:44:35.720 it can't be about that. I tell the parents, regardless of what your kids score, watch them

01:44:42.100 on the shooting line and tell them when they're shooting good or tell them when they might need

01:44:46.080 to make technique changes. If they're, if maybe they're not executing properly, I think finding

01:44:52.000 that balance, I think it really helps not only the kid, but I think it helps the sport, all sports,

01:44:58.640 because I think people will be involved in it more when they are that way.

01:45:02.040 Let's pivot a little bit to hunting because it's hard to talk about archery without talking

01:45:07.220 about this extension of archery, which is hunting using the tools of archery. And as I talked about

01:45:13.760 in some length, I guess on your podcast, when I got into archery, it was purely for the desire to

01:45:19.740 shoot paper targets and learn a new skill that would meet the Peter Aitia criteria of you could spend

01:45:26.580 your entire life trying to get the last 20% of value. That'll be so incremental. No one will notice,

01:45:31.060 but you, which gave you a huge kick. But eventually I did decide to go out and hunt and it has changed

01:45:38.220 my relationship with archery for reasons you've already somewhat alluded to. First of all,

01:45:43.820 the stakes are much higher now. So now every time I miss a shot on a paper target,

01:45:48.180 it hurts a little more. I imagine for a moment, any one of these shots I take could be a shot in the

01:45:53.420 field against an animal. And if I miss that shot and I injure that animal non-fatally or injure that

01:46:01.540 animal or cause that animal to suffer, I've made a mistake. And that of course is exactly what got me

01:46:05.860 interested in the sport in the first place was that concept, even though I never wanted to apply

01:46:10.800 it to hunting, if that makes sense. You've spoken a lot. In fact, I think that when you and

01:46:15.320 Joe Rogan have spoken about hunting on his podcast, which you've probably been on Rogan like

01:46:21.160 five times or something, I've heard every one of those podcasts. They're super enjoyable.

01:46:25.480 I think you and Joe have some of the best back and forth on this because I mean, one, I just,

01:46:31.740 I think Joe is a really smart human being and he's always good at seeing sort of both sides of every

01:46:37.300 discussion. So it's not what a lot of people might expect, which is two knucklehead bros talking about

01:46:43.580 how hunting is the best thing in the world. And anybody who doesn't like hunting is a hippie or

01:46:47.520 something, it's not at all like that, right? It's a very nuanced discussion. So one of the things that

01:46:52.400 you've often alluded to is the yin and the yang of this sort of tension that exists. So I've been

01:46:59.960 thinking about how to talk about this and there's so much in my mind around this, but I'll start with

01:47:05.060 just maybe explain to someone who's listening to this, who's never hunted, who's never thought much

01:47:10.800 about it one way or the other, which is effectively where I was two years ago. I'd never really given it a

01:47:15.160 thought. How does hunting fit into conservation? Like what does it mean to hunt and who decides

01:47:21.400 what animals get to be hunted and when and in what quantity? Like, is it the wild west where can

01:47:26.340 anyone just go shoot anything they want? How does this whole thing work?

01:47:29.020 No. So each state has department of natural resources or department of game and fish. They do a lot of

01:47:38.360 studies on where that species is at and what the population numbers are at. And with that,

01:47:44.720 they also decide how many need to be taken to keep that herd in proper management. And then with that,

01:47:53.220 they sell those tags and non-residents often pay a multiplier more than the residents. And those

01:48:03.460 funds end up going back into conservation to a magnitude of programs. I mean, if you look at

01:48:11.820 national parks that you have, or if you go into a lot of the public wildlife areas that we have in

01:48:19.100 Iowa, you'll see sunflowers planted, CRP grasses, you'll see row crop that's planted in there in certain

01:48:28.240 times. Obviously there's waterways with fish and so forth in there. And the monies from fishing

01:48:38.040 licenses, that's what pays to restock those ponds or dredge those out or put them in those wetland

01:48:44.720 programs. The sunflowers and stuff that I talked about, that's probably an allocation that came from

01:48:50.520 the pheasant tags or the upland game tags. So a lot of that stuff that they get, it's to put back in and

01:48:57.820 to also be able to employ those game wardens to be out there policing that and checking people's tags

01:49:05.820 and making sure they're not overtaking their quotas and et cetera, et cetera. So there really is a check

01:49:12.540 and balance system that's out there. And I totally get it when earlier today, I was down on the beach

01:49:20.280 cruising around on a scooter that I was renting for whatever it is, a dollar every 10 minutes or

01:49:27.120 whatever. And cruising around down there on the beach, I might've seen one person's cat and a

01:49:34.980 seagull. Well, I saw a lot of seagulls. So it would be totally understandable for me to see that person's

01:49:41.960 side of the story to say, why do you need to shoot a deer? Why do you need to shoot an elk? The difference

01:49:48.160 is you go to a place like Iowa, for example, where I'm at, where every year, well, Wisconsin, I knew

01:49:58.580 when I lived in Wisconsin, I knew that. So every year, I think there was about 750,000 deer that were

01:50:04.140 shot, but that was every year and it had to be, but there was still millions and millions of dollars

01:50:12.120 paid out every year for insurance claims for deer collisions with vehicles and six deaths a year

01:50:22.540 on average, oftentimes more. I think it's hundreds of deaths nationwide a year for animal collisions.

01:50:30.420 And this is- We will put together in our show notes, the exact numbers, but my recollection is

01:50:35.380 it's a little over a million collisions a year between deer- Nationally.

01:50:40.280 Nationally. Yeah, yeah. Between deer and automobile in the United States,

01:50:43.920 about a million too. If my memory serves correctly, it's about 100,000 collisions a month between deer

01:50:48.680 and automobiles nationwide. And the dollar amount of that is about four or five billion.

01:50:55.160 Was it? I could be wrong. We'll put the numbers in here, but it's- Yeah, that would be great.

01:50:58.500 It's higher than I recall. It's sort of higher than I would have guessed.

01:51:02.580 And my wife, she's from England. She's from just north of Liverpool. And when we met,

01:51:09.300 we kind of talked a little bit about hunting and she was awesome with the fact that I told her,

01:51:14.140 I'm like, hey, I get it. Over here, when I'm in Europe, I wouldn't hunt deer over here. There

01:51:18.540 aren't any. I'm a hunter. And all I would say is we need to find a way to get your numbers up. Like,

01:51:25.440 let's get your numbers up. As a hunter, I would love to get the numbers healthier so that, yeah,

01:51:30.600 maybe there is an opportunity to regulate down the road. I don't want them to go away. I don't want

01:51:36.240 them to decline. That's really not what we want. When we look at the numbers of white-tailed deer,

01:51:42.800 wild turkeys, elk, all those things, these are based on programs that have been-

01:51:48.300 Probably the boar and the wild pigs might be some of the most destructive animals.

01:51:51.780 Oh, they are the most. Yeah. They're definitely, you can't keep up with their numbers. Their numbers

01:51:56.440 are staggering. If you look at the life cycle of one female pig and how many pigs she could be a

01:52:04.120 multiplier of, it will blow your mind and you can't keep up with it.

01:52:08.580 Right. Very short gestation cycle. Very quick.

01:52:10.980 With the high litter count.

01:52:12.280 And with a high survival of litter.

01:52:13.880 Yeah. And then they're also, her foal are already breeding within six months. Once they're born,

01:52:19.000 they could potentially breed again in six months, right? So, yeah, it's different. And I told her,

01:52:24.480 I said, when you come to the stage, you might see things a little different, which,

01:52:27.740 yeah, once she came to the stage, she realized there's 20 deer a night in our garden. We can't

01:52:36.080 grow food fast enough to eat because the deer are eating it every night.

01:52:39.900 I don't know if you were here when she was talking about it. When we were having dinner tonight,

01:52:42.540 we were getting a bunch of stuff right in. She was saying to your son, she's like, God, like,

01:52:46.120 what a dream it would be to actually be able to grow all of our own vegetables. But it's like,

01:52:50.960 you just can't do it where you live because the deer are going to smoke them.

01:52:54.480 Yeah, they would. So, I get it. But I also feel like

01:52:57.740 we fill two freezers a year with animals that I've trained for all year, buy a tag,

01:53:07.280 put money back into the natural resources, shoot this deer, process it, put it in my freezer,

01:53:14.120 and I know everything about it. I didn't provide and, I guess, support commercial farming. I didn't

01:53:22.560 do that, which I feel pretty good about. I know exactly where it came from. I know who touched

01:53:27.380 it start to finish. And also, it just, I don't know, it means more to me. Part of the reason why

01:53:34.980 I'm passionate about cooking is because I'm passionate about, I'm passionate about taking

01:53:40.400 something that I've put a lot of work into and finishing it by serving it to people that are

01:53:46.240 important to me. And if we waste it and throw it away, to me, there's a lot of hard work that went

01:53:53.060 in that. If I get an elk, that means I've lifted weights all year prepping for that time. I've shot

01:54:00.180 my bow. I've worked on my equipment. I've probably bought equipment. So, I've invested. I went out and

01:54:06.340 then I put on the miles. Like last year, I think, I think when we shot our first elk, I had hunted with

01:54:13.020 my buddy Andy, who I talked about earlier. We started hunting, I think, August 24th. And then

01:54:18.960 we shot his bull on 9-11. And I think at that time, between the two of us, we had put, I think it was

01:54:28.240 somewhere around 200 to 250 miles on the ground on our GPSs before we got that shot. And I mean,

01:54:35.920 it was such a reward. And then to break this whole thing down, package it all up, pack it out,

01:54:44.580 three mile pack out. How many trips? It took three of us, two trips.

01:54:49.000 Well, how many pounds of meat? Heck if I know, a lot. I mean, easily 500, right?

01:54:54.660 Yeah. Yeah. Quite a bit. And then through that, we've used it. And then I shot a bull a few days

01:55:00.600 later. I took my bull, took the prime cuts, took them home, have used those on my family,

01:55:06.460 took all the trim, actually ground it into burger because I knew I was going to be having that event

01:55:11.180 in Big Sky where I was going to be at that big archery tournament. And we really wanted to have a

01:55:16.860 community thank you to the people that follow us. So I think Sharon packed and cooked over the course

01:55:25.520 of a few days, close to 500 elk burgers at that place that we gave out to people for free. And

01:55:32.280 every person that was like, that's the best burger I've ever eaten. I thought every freaking mile

01:55:37.760 that we packed that sucker out of there was, it was totally worth it.

01:55:41.800 That's a very remarkable and special experience, which we talked about a little bit on your show

01:55:46.700 when I was in Hawaii and the axis deer, which are very invasive there. Axis deer, just for you folks

01:55:52.620 listening to this, are a beautiful, beautiful deer. Probably when you think of a deer, I mean,

01:55:57.420 at least when I always thought of Bambi, it was really an axis deer. It's a brown deer with the

01:56:01.100 white spots and they're, I mean, they're simply gorgeous, actually. I've never seen a prettier animal

01:56:05.720 in nature, but they're not native to the United States. They evolved in India and they

01:56:11.720 evolved with only one natural predator, which was the tiger. And there's few things that will

01:56:17.200 sharpen your skills of evading than a tiger. So these animals evolved to have remarkable vision,

01:56:26.640 not color vision, but remarkable vision. They can basically see things in frames per second. We

01:56:31.800 can't. Their sense of smell is preternatural and their hearing is from another planet.

01:56:36.080 And their muscle twitches. Imagine being able to recruit any type of cornerback or wingback or a

01:56:43.660 halfback with that kind of muscle twitch factor. Yeah. They're a muscle, they're an animal that

01:56:48.780 twitches so much that even long after it's dead, it's still twitching like crazy. Yeah. They're so fast.

01:56:55.100 And then it was brought to the United States or at least brought to Hawaii, maybe 120, 150 years ago,

01:57:01.580 which is a speck of time in terms of evolution. So as far as it's concerned, the tiger is still what

01:57:07.080 it is built to evade. And then you've got clowns like us trying to track it down and such. And in

01:57:13.120 the process, because it has no predator in the entire state, it has multiplied at a rate that on

01:57:20.340 the three islands in which it's present, it outnumbers people by anywhere from two to one to

01:57:25.180 10 to one. And it's basically destroyed the land such that now the livestock don't have what they have.

01:57:31.060 So the government of Hawaii has basically said, look, we've got to get rid of this animal entirely.

01:57:35.840 And so the compromise is to allow it to be hunted in an ethical way rather than just a wholesale

01:57:42.940 slaughter, which is some really interesting stories about that, which may be for another time. But

01:57:47.360 point I wanted to make was the people of Hawaii know this. Everybody I spoke with who worked at the

01:57:53.460 hotel or elsewhere in the city, they understood that this is a problem. This animal's a pest.

01:57:58.880 And when I remember the first day I went hunting there and I brought back a deer and I took it to

01:58:05.840 the restaurant there and I met with the chef and we became friends and she cooked it up for

01:58:10.260 our family and for the restaurant staff. And she said, this is the first time I've ever been able

01:58:14.640 to cook an Axis deer. She's from Hawaii. She lives there, but she'd never cooked it before. She'd never

01:58:18.820 had someone bring her. Mind blowing.

01:58:20.620 Yeah, it's mind. Well, cause it's not commercially available, right? Like if you don't know somebody who's

01:58:24.200 hunting it, you're not going to get it. You can't go to a store and buy it. And then fast forward a

01:58:29.000 couple of days, we got a much larger animal and it was enough to be able to feed all the staff of the

01:58:34.320 restaurant. This is a smaller scale version of what you were talking about, but what a really special

01:58:39.000 feeling to be able to say, this is a circle of life here. This is a beautiful animal, but it's now out of

01:58:46.080 balance with our environment. And this is a little part that we can do to bring it back into balance.

01:58:51.740 And in the process that those amino acids, that carbon, that nitrogen is going to come back

01:58:56.320 into the people who live here, who have lived here and who are not working here. So I just don't think

01:59:02.260 I would have ever understood that. If someone tried to explain this to me five years ago, I think I could

01:59:06.360 have intellectually understood it, but I don't think I could have viscerally or emotionally understood

01:59:09.740 it. And maybe someone listening to this now who hasn't done it will feel the same way, but.

01:59:13.940 I'm certain they will. It's an impossible thing. You can try your best to talk about it in a way

01:59:22.440 where people will at least embrace the idea of it and they'll be curious about it. I don't know if

01:59:30.060 I've ever been with someone that decided to pursue it and see what it was really about. And then they

01:59:35.760 did it and then said, I didn't like anything about that. Most people, it triggers something to where

01:59:41.560 they just end up saying it was so much different. I feel so much differently about food that I'm

01:59:48.180 buying in a store. I kind of want to ask them like what it came from, what it was like. And you just

01:59:54.540 realize you're missing out on this huge, huge piece of what's weird is think of the rappers we read,

02:00:03.020 especially you. But I walked in, everything we're eating, we're label readers, which you should be.

02:00:10.100 You should be. But people don't read, they don't read that on red meat or chicken. I mean,

02:00:16.360 they might be like, well, I want organic chickens. I don't want any type of steroid in my turkeys or

02:00:23.020 whatever. But other than that, there's not a lot more questions asked besides that.

02:00:28.500 You know, it's funny. I actually had the privilege, I guess, to go and actually see

02:00:32.040 a place where the cattle were slaughtered. And this is considered about one of the most humane

02:00:37.340 places it can be done. I don't want to tell necessarily where, because this is such a

02:00:41.240 polarizing topic, I understand. And it's true. As far as cows being commercially raised and allowed

02:00:48.320 to eat grass and not given hormones and not given antibiotics, it's about as healthy as it gets.

02:00:54.900 But you couldn't help but be struck with the stress that the animals were under when it came

02:00:59.940 time to be slaughtered. Cows might not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but they know that

02:01:04.220 something's wrong. When they're walking through this sort of steel barricade that's funneling them

02:01:10.040 and getting narrower and narrower and narrower to a point where they're being slaughtered,

02:01:13.740 one, you know they're not truly wild animals still. They haven't really lived. We could debate the

02:01:19.060 consciousness of animals all day long, but even absent consciousness, I still think an animal has,

02:01:23.960 there's different qualities of life that can be given. That experience coupled with actually seeing

02:01:29.880 what a wild animal looks like and watching how, if you can be an exceptional archer or hunter,

02:01:37.340 if you're using a gun, if you can end that animal's life without its suffering, and it's basically lived

02:01:43.360 for four years in perfect nature, eating exactly what it's supposed to be eating, behaving and moving

02:01:49.660 exactly what it was supposed to move. And then in a moment, its life ended. It just strikes me as the

02:01:54.340 single most ethical and healthy way you can consume that. And what you said a moment ago really

02:02:00.640 resonates. When I got back from my very first hunting trip, I simply, I didn't know what to

02:02:05.860 eat when I was at restaurants. Like when I went out and didn't have control over what kind of meat was

02:02:11.360 being served, it was very difficult for me to eat, to just order a steak off the menu. In fact,

02:02:17.400 I really lost my taste for it because I was like, ah, you can just sort of, maybe of course it was maybe

02:02:22.800 all in my mind, but I could almost just taste the unhealthiness of like what that animal lived like.

02:02:29.180 So paradoxically, and it was a long-winded way of saying this, paradoxically, it gave me a greater

02:02:34.280 appreciation for the people who oppose the consumption of meat based on the ethical treatment

02:02:39.960 of the animal, which is odd, right? You wouldn't think that hunting would make you more compassionate

02:02:44.540 and more considerate of how the animal is treated. But for me, it has done that. And for many people,

02:02:49.680 I know it's the same for you. I know it's the same for many of my other friends in this

02:02:52.660 in this world. That's exactly the effect it's had. Yeah. There's so many things that hunting

02:02:58.220 has showed me in nature that I would have never, ever got to experience just timeless things. I

02:03:06.120 mean, it's kind of like when you watch Forrest Gump and he was making that, that run back and forth

02:03:12.540 across the U S and they kept showing these parts of America that were just breathtakingly beautiful.

02:03:19.500 And a lot of people just take for granted some of that scenery, some of that nature and how amazing

02:03:27.720 it was. But being an outdoors person, I see that stuff a lot and I don't take it for granted. It's

02:03:35.480 something to where I want to go back every day. I want to see it all the time. And, and more importantly

02:03:42.400 for me now is I see that first moment when someone goes out and actually bow hunts for the first time

02:03:51.460 and makes a shot and kind of sees it and watches the breakdown and puts in the effort to get it out

02:03:57.580 of there. And then you kind of grill their first piece. It's like, as soon as you see them take it,

02:04:03.540 you can see in their face, wow, this is the most meaningful meal that I've ever done. That is

02:04:11.140 what Thanksgiving should really be. That's kind of what it was is when everyone came together with

02:04:17.340 this group effort to have this big feast. And that's kind of what digs out of you primarily when

02:04:24.340 you go out and, and have your first hunt experience with people that are close. And then all of a sudden

02:04:30.400 you cook it for the first time and give it to your family and explain to your kids where it came

02:04:36.820 from and all those little aspects that you were telling me you did. I think all that just plays

02:04:41.940 into being more meaningful. Yeah. I, we talked about this a lot on your podcast, so I won't repeat it

02:04:47.600 and we'll link to that so people can go back and hear it. Cause I think we had a lot to say about it.

02:04:52.380 And I don't think I said this on the podcast, which is why I'll repeat it now. One of our guides in

02:04:56.860 Hawaii, Uka, who's all of those guys are like, they're magical. They're like sorcerers to me,

02:05:01.540 you know, they definitely have a sense that the rest of us that certainly I don't have.

02:05:06.460 When my daughter was there, when I shot that buck, he was amazing. Like he was amazing the way he

02:05:12.780 talked to her. My knowledge, Uka doesn't have kids. I don't know that he spent that much time

02:05:16.380 around 10 year old girls, let alone, right. I, in fact, I'm pretty sure he didn't because at one

02:05:22.120 point when Mike and I went off to hike, Uka and Olivia went off and he let her drive the

02:05:25.900 Polaris, like up and down the Hills. I was like, Oh my God, how do they not die? But I remember him

02:05:31.680 saying to her, he's like, he looked at her really seriously and he goes, you know, this is in your

02:05:35.440 blood. Right. And she was like, kind of looked at him like, what do you mean? And he goes like,

02:05:38.720 he said, you are a hunter. You wouldn't be here, Olivia, if this wasn't a part of who you are.

02:05:45.420 And she really got that. He really said it in such a profound way. I knew what he meant

02:05:50.240 immediately. And I think it took her one more repetition to do so, but then she got it. She

02:05:55.400 got it, which was, yeah, there was a day when you didn't go to the grocery store. Like there was a

02:06:00.640 day and it was tens of thousands of years ago or even thousands of years ago when this was the only

02:06:05.480 way you had to be able to do this on some level. And the pride with which he was able to speak about

02:06:11.740 that to her and share it with her. I just thought it was delighted she was there and couldn't imagine

02:06:17.500 waiting to do it again. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, if you look back to how long ago was it

02:06:23.360 really when on that Island where you could go to a grocery store and buy food, I mean, if you go back.

02:06:30.560 There are people that are still there now, especially on islands like they're less populated where.

02:06:35.200 They may never have. I know people there that subside exclusively on what they hunt and fish.

02:06:39.500 Exactly. Yeah. Well, I get it. I get when people don't understand it.

02:06:43.840 Have you ever been confronted harshly? Have you ever find yourself in a situation where there's

02:06:48.120 been a really harsh confrontation when someone is really just sort of aggressively saying,

02:06:52.500 John, how dare you do this? This is an awful thing that you do.

02:06:56.800 Yeah, I've had a few people that have been pretty disgruntled, mainly in Europe. But sometimes I feel

02:07:02.960 like it would be like me trying to talk with Jocko deeply about what happens in war. Even if I have

02:07:10.680 an agreeance or disagreeance with it, we're not even on the same field for that. I don't feel like

02:07:16.520 I really would have a right to. And he probably, with me being a friend, maybe he would go a little

02:07:22.500 bit into detail. But all I can do is just say, I see your point. You're somewhere where it just isn't

02:07:28.220 going to be clear to you. And I think that's the best way really to address it. I tell the hunting

02:07:33.880 community a lot. We don't really want to provoke. You kind of don't want to poke the sleeping bear,

02:07:39.660 so to speak, because there's a lot of people that will never hear a podcast like this. There's a lot

02:07:45.460 of people that will never understand the necessity behind it. We talked earlier about Frank Zane.

02:07:51.260 Frank's a zen of a dude as you could ever get. He's totally zen. But I remember we were talking one

02:07:59.280 time because he's really into meditation. They love animals. They rescue animals. And we were

02:08:05.800 kind of talking about the hunting. And he just said, yeah, yeah. He goes, they hunted a lot. And

02:08:11.500 I don't know. I just, he's like, I'm okay with it. But I just, however he said it, he was being

02:08:17.660 cordial. But I could tell he would have no interest in doing it. And he kind of deep down, he didn't like

02:08:23.800 what could easily be portrayed as like cruelty to animals shooting them. And what's crazy is the

02:08:30.960 night that we drove home from Minneapolis to my house, we freaking smoked a deer. I was driving

02:08:39.780 like a Hyundai Accent and I smacked this deer and it bounced off the hood and off the windshield.

02:08:46.180 And he was like, holy shit. How's the deer? Is it okay? And I'm like, are you okay? Are we okay?

02:08:55.920 And so he was like, oh my God. And I just said, yeah, it's really bad. I said that it's really bad

02:09:01.600 around here this time of year. And then I turned on the lights and we might've seen another two or

02:09:06.720 three before we got back to my house. And he was just like, I can't believe we hit a deer. I can't

02:09:13.620 believe there's so many deer. And so I told him like, hey man, when I tell you we need to shoot

02:09:18.700 deer or I went out and shot a deer, this is, it's something that needs to happen. And, and he told

02:09:25.680 me, he's like, yeah, he goes, honestly, he goes, that was crazy. He said, obviously there's too many.

02:09:31.720 So he had a, a very visual wake up call. Some people will never have that. And as a hunting community,

02:09:40.540 the best thing we can do is realize that we need to speak positively when we have an opportunity

02:09:46.560 and kind of going back to what I said before, the easy route is to talk negative and to talk

02:09:52.780 bad about what the opposing people have, whether, and what we should be doing is just talking positive

02:09:59.140 about what we have. And we have a very sustainable and in my opinion, ethical way of feeding ourselves.

02:10:10.100 And we welcome people to it. I know it's not for everybody, but I think the people that do come

02:10:16.240 here, I think they find a different meaning to eating and it's made me eat cleaner. It's honestly

02:10:22.020 made me eat less junk and it makes me more focused on supporting what our environment puts in front of

02:10:31.180 us more so than what some type of refinery does or a chemical does. Yeah. I would agree with all of

02:10:38.340 that, John. And as we kind of wrap up here, I just, I want to thank you very much for the incredible work

02:10:45.540 you've done almost single-handedly. You have a team with you and you couldn't do what you do without

02:10:50.520 them. I know that, but you really are kind of changing, I think forever, the way this sport is taught.

02:10:58.600 And I feel so blessed to be in this point where I can be in this complete sync, this back and forth

02:11:05.080 balance between the pursuit of excellence within the sport of archery and how it feeds into this

02:11:14.300 completely separate thing called hunting, which by the way is about 1% taking a shot and 90%

02:11:20.500 9% all of the other stuff that we didn't even talk about today, but we've talked about it a lot on your

02:11:25.140 podcast, spotting animals, stalking animals, all of the strategy that goes into it, all the physically,

02:11:31.380 the grueling physical stuff, depending on the terrain that you choose. I just don't think this sport for

02:11:36.860 me personally would be nearly as enjoyable if it didn't have the educational component that you've

02:11:41.520 single-handedly provided. So I feel like if I'd had someone like you that could have taught me

02:11:48.400 the equivalent of what you're teaching me in archery in any of the other things I'd done,

02:11:52.880 I can't imagine how good I could have been in those things. So I thank you on behalf of a lot

02:11:58.600 of people. And my hope is that if even one person listening to this, and I suspect there'll be a heck

02:12:03.000 of a lot more than one, but if even one person listening to this considers this the opportunity to

02:12:08.280 go down to their local bow shop, check out a bow, take an archery class, maybe buy a bow,

02:12:13.360 start watching School of Knock and all of your stuff on, is it Knock, it's Knock on Archery then?

02:12:18.960 For the YouTube channel.

02:12:19.840 For the YouTube channel, yeah.

02:12:20.680 On Instagram, it's Knock on TV. And on the Instagram, if you go to my IGTV,

02:12:28.120 the Knock on TV IGTV, I have the School of Knock, the 12-week sessions. Most of those are all under 15

02:12:36.740 minutes, I think.

02:12:37.820 Yeah, you can do that whole thing in almost two hours, right?

02:12:40.920 Yeah, and it'll pave the way for you to have really good fundamentals and basics. It's actually

02:12:49.240 beyond basics.

02:12:50.240 We're going to link to this so much. In fact, what we'll probably do, John, is even before we put up

02:12:55.200 the show notes, we'll send it to you to look over and make sure you like the order in which we've laid

02:13:00.280 it out so that anybody who says, hey, I want to get started, we will curate every link in order that

02:13:07.200 you would suggest people go to. And I mean, I'm already looking forward to School of Knock again

02:13:14.240 in January. It's an unbelievable curriculum you've put together. And I think you're only at the

02:13:18.800 beginning of what you're the potential of. I mean, again, we've talked about cooking, we've talked

02:13:22.820 about all of the stuff we could do around exercise and conditioning with respect to this stuff. So

02:13:27.020 anyway, man, thank you for everything, both on a personal level, but also just on behalf of

02:13:32.540 all those of us that benefit so greatly from your wisdom and generosity.

02:13:36.660 Oh, yeah, man. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me too. For sure.

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The Peter Attia Drive - May 04, 2020

#109 - John Dudley： The beauty in archery, the love of practice, and a model system for life

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