110 Target Panic: How To Overcome Fear Of Success

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Hey,

What's going on?

Mr.

Dean.

Actually,

I wanted to tell you before we jump into anything.

We were exchanging voice notes and I said something about how I haven't really ever done archery.

I've been trying to hit a target with a 24 pound bow and I've been trying to hunt pigeons that keep missing.

Finally killed one.

The next day after I sent that,

I finally hit a pigeon.

The pigeons have gotten sneakier though in eating my chicken food.

As soon as I walk out,

Before they would let me get a shot off and then they would fly away.

Now,

As soon as I touch the bow,

They're all gone.

So they've become harder to eat.

I mean,

Harder to hit.

Sorry.

Well,

You're kind of accomplishing your objective there anyway.

Well,

They still eat the chicken food.

They're just in and out faster.

So they've actually upgraded their skills.

Oh,

Yeah.

So anyway.

You're like a scarecrow with a bow.

Yeah.

During the archery.

Yeah.

So have you been shooting much lately?

Yeah.

Nearly every day I go.

At least five days a week,

I go to the range.

I was just there right before I started this deal.

So,

We kind of got on this thread because you messaged me about target panic,

Like a John Dudley thing.

Can you say that?

Or could you explain that again?

That was really interesting.

Yeah.

We just having trouble like being consistent shooting consistently.

And I got to shoot really good for a while.

Like I did a tournament a couple weekends ago.

And it's like decent the first day.

And then the next day,

I just kind of like,

I just phoned it in.

It just went terrible.

Not terrible,

Terrible.

But I missed like I just it was a 3d shoot.

So I don't know if you've ever seen like the animals that are foam,

Big foam targets shaped like animals.

And I just completely missed two of them.

Like it went low on two of them.

They're just like rookie mistakes,

You know,

That I made because I wasn't like focused to me.

Like the first one I missed because I shot off the wrong pan on my site and just missed it.

And then that put me in like a shitty headspace.

And I just missed the other one because I was just like,

I got target pain.

Target panic is like when you draw and you're aiming and then you're just like mine is racing about just get like this anxiety back before talking your mind about whether or not you're going to hit like what the right thing to do is like you second guess all the ways that you're pulling your release,

Letting the bow go and like everything in your mind is racist.

And then you just of course you miss you know,

We do that.

So I was like,

Well,

I need to shoot really good at times,

But I'm not as consistent as I want to be.

I just saw a video by John Dudley,

Which he's an archer.

He's really pretty well known guy.

He's a hunter and he's been on Joe Rogan's podcast.

He's like buddy Joe Rogan.

And he did a video about target panic and like how to cure it.

And the video is about how to like just have consistency basically in your release.

I shoot a compound bow,

Which you don't shoot off your fingers.

You shoot off like a mechanical release and I use a thumb release.

It's like a device that hooks onto your string.

And then there's a like a trigger which has activated by your thumb.

And that lets the string go because it's like it's working system using your fingers.

And there's this phenomenon called called punching where when you draw back,

You will like just punch the trigger in like a panicky sort of way.

Like,

Because when you when you're holding on a target,

You'll kind of like be moving around a little bit.

You're never just like totally still.

It's like you move around and you just like think you're gonna it's you kind of guess and it's like this half ass sort of way of just like guessing and trying to like punch the button when you get over the middle of the site.

And it's a really inconsistent way to shoot.

And it's like,

It's not a good deal.

So he was he was talking in the video about just getting toward your processes for one like the same all the time.

Every time you pull the bow back,

Do the exact same way.

Like hit the same sequence,

You know,

Every time and then your release has got to come not by punching the button where you kind of like put your hand on your trigger,

Squeeze and hold it tight and then you pull hold your arm like back behind you through the shot.

And as you pull your thumb will press that button.

And the night you're using like your whole upper back arm,

The shoulders to pull his button and it's a lot smoother and it's a lot more consistent.

So he had an exercise set up where you took the take the site off your bow and you just get like right in front of the target.

And all you do is just work on just doing this,

Getting this like release down consistently.

And the thing that I thought was interesting is like you're kind of guaranteeing yourself to hit the bullseye because you're so close.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Because the whole thing you're kind of making a metaphor with this like to like hitting targets in life,

Right?

That's the right.

Yeah.

At that point,

You're not really even concerned about even bullseye,

You just want to get close so you can hit the bale.

So you don't like,

You know,

You just want to have your arrows like hit the bale.

It's not really about hitting the bullseye because you're like,

I take my sight off.

So I'm not even aiming.

It's like you're doing something so basic that you're taking out,

Like a part of the reason behind target panic is that you think about all these different like layers,

Like when you draw back and all these different thoughts come into your head about what you're supposed to be doing,

How you're supposed to be doing it.

And then you're trying to like juggle all these in this like panicky sort of way.

And then you can't and you fail.

So the idea behind just taking the site off and just using your releases,

You're doing nothing but thinking about this motion of like drawing your shoulder blades together,

Pulling your elbow back behind you,

Holding your hand like firmly and then just you want you want the bow to go to like go off by surprise so that you don't know the exact moment.

You're just holding steady,

Holding steady,

Pulling through and then it goes off.

So the idea of taking the site off is that where you're not thinking about aiming at all,

You're just doing this motion over and over again.

Just getting to where that's like memorized and natural and just like where you don't think about your release and how to release anymore.

So that like when you do start shooting a target,

Like your focus is only on the target and not on how to like execute these subtle things.

And you find that like as you do this,

I did this drill every day I went and shoot.

There's a couple days I went and shot and I just didn't shoot a target at all.

All I did was just shoot.

I shot like 100 arrows just like this.

And it frees your mind up and lets you when you get to where this motion is just natural and second nature,

Then it's like it lets you relax and lets your mind ease up.

There's less that you have to think about and you can just and you're like,

You know,

You're like conscious,

Ego centered focus,

Like you should say,

Is only focused on you can just concentrate on like looking down range of the site and then like this process in your body is just kind of like it does itself.

So that's kind of the idea behind it.

And since I started doing this exercise,

Like my shooting has gotten way better and just way more consistent.

Like I because I would get a lot of good shots and then I have lots of like flyers here and there.

But this way,

It's just like every time it's just pretty,

It's pretty good.

Yeah,

This is interesting,

You know,

Because we're not really talking about I mean,

We're talking about archery,

But that thing that had you bring it up to me before was like,

This is like an interesting kind of detail,

More detailed metaphor than I expected,

Actually,

Of like when when you're too focused on a certain objective,

That in itself can kind of cause you to cause a person to overthink things and like,

I guess it's kind of like fear of success.

I guess what the context and how you brought it up initially,

Right?

Yeah,

He said,

John Dudley in that video said that what you're like worried about,

What you're afraid of is not missing.

It's like it's hitting the center of the tenuring,

The bullseye.

Like that's what you're afraid of.

And when my urns say that,

I'm like,

Man,

That's like,

That's real talk.

That's why,

That's for sure.

Like there's something much bigger about that as well.

Yeah.

So how have you seen this,

Like you were speaking about your goals at the time,

Like this is maybe a week ago,

You sent me this idea.

Have you seen anything in like,

Is there,

Is there a version of like this target or this non target exercise,

Like taking the sites off with like a life goal,

For instance?

I can't say that I've developed some,

Some big life goal that I'm chasing after now,

You know,

In this week,

But I feel like I've seen some kind of,

Like I've developed some kind of different feel and just how I feel generally,

Like just a more of a calmness or like a single mindedness in my thinking,

Like lots of things that I was thinking about,

I just noticed how they now can just like,

They just kind of like drop out of the,

Out of the way they're like in the periphery and they don't,

They don't count it like my focus,

But they just like,

They fall away,

You know,

Recognize what it's like,

What's the distraction,

What's not important.

Yeah.

I've been reading this book.

It's actually kind of a little bit about trading,

But it's also this guy,

The guy who wrote it did all these experiments on how testosterone levels affect your success when you're trading securities or something among other things,

But he's going with this whole thing on the nervous system and how our muscles react like five times faster than our conscious mind and even faster than our emotions.

It's like when you,

When you describe this whole like John Dudley practice,

I'm thinking like it's basically getting,

You can't really trust your conscious mind to do things right under pressure.

Like you,

I guess this is the point of drilling,

Like drilling anything.

It's like your muscles react fast enough.

And cause when you brought this idea up,

I was thinking about like the goals that I have that when I fixate on them,

I kind of distract myself.

Like I've been,

You know,

If I,

If I share like what I've been most frustrated about with myself,

Like I've been working on this book for like eight years and like,

I keep getting closer and then not finishing it.

And when you brought this up,

I was like,

Is it something about this pressure of completing the book that's making me overthink it and then miss the arrow or lose the thread I'm on?

And I don't know.

I've been thinking about what is,

What is the version of like,

I guess it's just like getting up and writing at the same time every day or something would be like just pulling the string back or whatever.

Yeah,

I think so.

I think,

You know,

I practiced Zen for a long time and in Zen meditation,

Kind of like the question to everybody's like answer about things is always just like,

We'll just,

Just sit with it.

It's like,

You want to ask all these,

Like you want to give them these like debates and stuff and the teacher is just kind of like,

They should just sit with it,

You know?

And there's a difficulty in just sitting and doing nothing,

You know,

We're just doing something very simple.

I could notice that like,

This is kind of more metaphorical again,

But like if I'm shooting and I'm not,

I'm not hitting the bullseye or I'm not,

I don't have my sight on and I'm just doing the exercise.

I can be like,

Damn,

Like I'm just doing this practice.

Like I don't know if I'm getting better.

I'm not testing myself.

Like how do I know if I'm going to hit the target?

Because I'm just shooting the fucking bail at 10 yards away and I don't have a sight on or anything.

It's like,

I don't know.

Like,

And then you can get your mind in this whole thing where you're like,

Like,

I don't know if this is going to work or not.

And if it doesn't,

Then I've just wasted these three days when I could have been shooting with a sight on at 70 yards or whatever.

I think that there's an element of that constant testing.

You want to always be like testing yourself and measuring yourself and like seeing if you're making it or not,

That can be pretty,

A pretty bad deal.

Yeah.

You and I have spoken about kettlebells a bit.

It's like,

It's making me think,

You may have heard this on Joe Rogan with Feras Sahabi,

Like the difference between Russian style training and American style,

Like American philosophy is like,

Always go to failure.

Like all I keep progressively overloading and stuff.

Whereas like traditional Russian strength training is like you get your kettlebell and that's your kettlebell and you just train with this weight until it becomes like stupid light,

But you might be on the same weight for a long ass time.

And you don't know if you're actually getting stronger because you're swinging the same weight.

Like maybe you're getting a sense of like,

It's only subjective,

Right?

There's no external metric of I got stronger for using the same kettlebell,

But that seems to give better gains.

It seems to keep things more playful and light and easy.

And it kind of,

I guess requires faith,

Right?

Cause if you're not testing,

I mean the whole need to test yourself is like this insecurity of like,

I don't know if I'm actually getting better or not.

I don't know if this thing that I'm working on is actually making me more,

More zen or more strong or more wise or whatever.

Yeah.

It's like,

You want to have,

It's like you want to have some kind of external result that you can like hold up and say like,

Here it is,

Like I've done it.

But like the feel of doing it comes from just doing these very simple things.

You know,

It's like an addiction to outcome,

You know,

That constant testing yourself.

If you're hitting bullseyes all the time,

You're really doing it.

I mean,

John Dudley,

I heard another,

Another video talking about how he sees,

You'll see like kids practicing and their parents are like standing behind with the body binoculars and every shot the kid takes,

They look back at the parents to be like,

Where was it?

You know,

He's like,

That's so bad.

He's like,

That's so,

So bad for your archery game.

Cause like,

That's something I haven't worried too much about.

Like I'll shoot and shoot and shoot.

And I,

And when you shoot like far,

If you shoot like 70 or 80 yards,

You can't see where your arrow is on the target down there.

Sometimes you can,

But not real well.

I see guys out there with like binoculars and they look every time and I'm just like,

I don't understand what,

What that does for you.

It's like,

It really doesn't do anything for you unless you're like trying to sight in a bow and you want to know where your arrow is hitting,

Like then you need to know what.

If you're just shooting,

Like your,

Your objective is the same,

Hit the center.

And if you're holding where you need to,

Then like nothing's going to change if you know,

If you know whether or not you know where it's,

You know,

Hitting down.

That's something I've wondered about actually,

Because like with really,

Like I saw,

I saw this video where Joe Rogan hits a buck in the heart from like some,

Some distance where like you can't possibly see it.

Like,

I've wondered how without like a scope,

How do you actually see like what you're hitting?

I guess it really just like an intuitive thing essentially.

Well,

The compound bow,

You have a sight and yeah,

There's no magnification or anything on a hunting bow.

I mean,

You couldn't hit and like,

I remember that.

I think I know that video you're talking about.

He was with John Dudley and he shot an elk at someone say like 60 something yards.

Yeah.

So 60 yards you can,

You have like the way of sight on a compound bow works is that when you pull back,

Right,

You have your string kind of coming down this way across your face.

And there's like a little peak was just like a little metal circle.

And then on the bow,

There's an actual site that has different pins for different yardages,

Or sometimes they have one pin and it's adjustable.

So that pin is pretty small and has like a little fiber fiber optic like glow type site.

And you can get like at 60 yards,

You can,

I don't know what the,

What that maybe like two or three inches that that pin kind of like magnifies out to 60 yards.

So you can be pretty accurate,

You know,

If you're a good shot,

But like,

Yeah,

To kill something and make a good shot at 60 something yards is like,

That's high.

That's a high skill level of archery.

Yeah.

I've been trying to kill these pigeons at maybe 15 yards,

Not even maybe close.

Yeah,

Maybe like 10 to 15 yards with no sight and I keep missing pretty bad,

Except for this one.

Yeah.

I mean,

Man,

Shooting,

Shooting trad bows,

Which is like,

Trad is like a non compound bow with no sight,

And there's only like 25 pounds or something like that.

It's hard to be very accurate.

Yeah,

You know,

I felt really bad.

I mean,

I've killed two animals so far.

Both of them were not clean kills.

And I feel pretty shitty about it.

Like,

Like it took like five arrows to kill this pigeon,

Even the last couple were like almost at point blank range.

And if I had known I probably would have really taken my time with the headshot.

I thought,

Oh,

An arrow is like,

You know,

Pigeons like this.

Was the pigeon like flapping?

Well,

After the first two shots,

It stopped moving.

So I thought it was dead for sure.

I had two arrows through through it clean.

And then I went to go get like gloves like dispose of it.

But it was a good flapping around when I came back.

And I mean,

It was really gross.

I won't describe it.

I mean,

The people but like,

It was like a horror scene.

It's like,

Oh my god,

I can't believe it was still alive.

Like I felt I ended up having to chop its head off because I wasn't I wasn't sure if the arrows were gonna kill it or not.

Yeah,

I mean,

They'll die.

You know,

Sometimes it takes a few seconds.

But we're always the hunt.

I used to have in Texas death hunting is like a popular thing.

You just sit by like a big water tank and the shotguns and those fly by and everybody shoots does and you have like a big cookout afterwards is all dead meat.

But I mean,

Often you shoot them with a shotgun.

They'd always just like die right away.

They hit the ground and then they might flop.

So we just grab them and just twist your head off.

Gotcha.

So you feel them?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

You see if you can get a hand on it,

Just grab it.

Probably set off.

That's like my killer bird.

Gotcha.

I mean,

It's like a chicken or something,

You know,

They cut their heads off.

Yeah,

I told you the one chicken I slaughtered.

It wasn't a clean kill either,

Unfortunately.

Anyway,

I'm learning.

Yeah,

Yeah,

You gotta I think you gotta I've never killed the chicken.

But I've seen people do and they just cut their head totally off.

Yeah,

I saw this video of this chicken on one of these Alaska shows.

And they have this set up that was like a it was a column with a hole in the bottom.

Once you kill chickens,

You stick their head in there and cut their head off.

Yeah,

That's what my buddy said I should set up to do but I didn't I didn't bother.

It's funny,

I had eight chickens back then.

Went on vacation because there's pollution around here in February.

So six of my chickens or five of them died.

And I only have two left and like now they really feel like pets like before they're like livestock,

They're all anonymous.

But now there's only two of them.

And I feel like there's sentimental attachment to them.

Because now I can identify them.

I don't know,

It's weird.

It's like how they kind of transition in my mind.

Because they're rare.

Anyway,

Actually,

Have you read the book,

The Inner Game of Tennis?

No.

Well,

It's like some of the stuff you're describing with the target panic is very similar.

Like his whole thing using tennis as a metaphor is like,

When you remember all the things you're supposed to do in tennis,

I don't know what they are,

But like,

Plant your feet or not plant your feet or whatever you're supposed to do with your feet,

And then your racket,

Whatever.

People always hit the ball weird.

But if they stop thinking about the action and just focus on something like the seams of the ball,

They usually end up having perfect form or something like that.

And that's something I've thought about a lot.

And you know,

It's like,

It's like,

With all of this stuff,

Where it's easy to choke,

Whether it's like shooting a bow or creative process or whatever.

It's like,

A lot of it seems to be figuring out what the right thing to focus on is because the wrong thing just makes you mess up.

It'd be cool to come up with like a maxim or like a set of rules for this in life.

But I guess,

You know,

If it was that easy,

We would not choke.

I was thinking about that.

And I think what I think what big thing I've been learning about,

About shooting with his bow is,

It's just a matter of like isolating elements,

So that you don't have any option but to just think about one thing,

Like,

When I shoot my bow,

I just take the site off.

And it's not like I could be like,

I'm not going to think about this site.

But the site is there and my attention is going to be drawn to it.

So I just take it off.

So it's not even an option.

So where I can't even try to aim if I wanted to,

All I can do is work on this one thing.

And then because I feel like your conscious intention can really only be focused on like one thing.

Or maybe maybe a can or a can't,

But it's optimal for it to be only focused on one thing.

Yeah.

And you need to be able to have it only focused on one thing by having a foundation of other things kind of in place where they do themselves automatically.

So they like,

If you wanted to play tennis,

And you didn't want to think about how to fight your feet,

Maybe you do some drills to,

To like,

Learn how to feel a good base with your feet,

And you wouldn't even like,

Hold the racket or something.

Yeah,

Like I like to,

I like the Olympic weight lift.

So like,

Those moves could be like,

Kind of complex.

And the essentially the processes of training is like to snatch and clean and jerk is like to break down the different elements of these,

These lifts.

So like,

If you want to work on your jerk,

And you're new start now,

You might work on like a split jerk without even without a bar or anything in your hands,

Not even like a PVC and just learn how to place your feet right away.

And if you do a bunch of those drills,

You know how to place your feet the right way.

Now you've got a pretty good foundations like to build upon then you can start when you're hitting your marks and you're like I did a drill,

I would do a drill where I would make a chalk mark where it was my middle point where I started from feet square.

And then like a little mark in front of my front foot went and another one behind my back foot and just try to hit those marks every time and just do that and then you get to where you can do that without like thinking about it or consciously.

That's just where your feet go when you split.

Then you can start learning how to like,

Take a PVC and put it up above head.

So you just like isolate these little elements and and just like build upon.

But it's difficult because it's not fun.

It's not cool.

It's not like,

Sexy,

You know,

Just like to just like shoot a bow 100 times without looking at target and not get to see your arrow hit a bullseye,

You know,

And like at the range,

Nobody else larger range I go to would do this.

Yeah,

So they're like,

Man,

I look like a dummy.

Like,

Why is he shooting the fucking 10 yard bail with a compound bow,

But he took his sight off.

When you say that,

And maybe because I haven't really done archery,

I'm like that actually,

I mean,

If I think of like in child mind,

Almost like,

What does a kid want to do if he gets a bow or like a kid want to do if he like is given a hammer by his dad is like,

He doesn't actually care to build something.

It's just something about like,

I remember being a kid and like having a little like toy ish hammer and like,

I just wanted to hammer like the bumper of my dad's car.

I didn't care about nails or like what I was building.

Like there's something about the action that's fun.

And so when you say that,

I'm like,

Well,

If I really,

I mean,

Personally,

Like I didn't care about hitting stuff in my like little boy brain,

Like just pulling the bow back and doing that probably would be fun.

Like a kid would love to just shoot a hey bail at point blank range and like,

Maybe it's getting into that kind of head space.

Yeah,

I think so.

It's like a beginner's mind.

You got to keep,

You know,

To do stuff like that.

Yeah.

And you will get to where I will get to where I enjoy it.

Because then when you start getting,

It's like when you do stuff like that,

You start developing this like subtle feel and it feels really good.

And to where you just like this motion,

Just like it just feels good.

Because when you first started doing it,

You're like,

Okay,

This is going to be,

Maybe this is going to be boring where I just pop back my,

But then as you start doing it,

It's like these like levels of subtlety start kind of coming out and how you want to do it.

So it's like the squeeze,

How hard do I squeeze in my hand?

Should I have like,

How deep should I grab the thumb button with my thumb?

Should I touch it right here?

Should I touch it right here?

Like do I want to pull with my focus on pulling with my back or should I focus on driving my elbow up and back?

These like little subtle things change how you do it a lot.

It changes your feel of it a lot.

And so now you're like,

You feel like the feel of it is getting like that much tighter and tighter.

So instead of focusing on being downfield and having like a group that hits like that or whatever,

Or having,

You know,

On seeing a result and then being like,

I can claim that to now you,

That result is like something that you just like inherently feel.

It's kind of like you're training your nervous system,

Not only to get good at it,

But to enjoy the action.

Like,

Again,

I'm thinking weightlifting.

Like if you're looking at the number or like I have to get to a certain number of reps,

It's tempting to cheat on your form just to squeeze out that extra rep,

But then you're messing yourself up in the long run.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was thinking about when I heard Pavel Tatsoulin one time,

He said this idea of like the having to test or like having to have the outcome that like the top power lifters in the world peak like once or maybe twice a year.

So it's like,

They're only really like testing themselves and seeing what kind of numbers they're putting up once or twice an entire year.

And the rest of the time,

They're just like,

That's what they're doing is they're just like training,

Going through these motions every day.

Yeah.

It was like the strongest guys.

That's what they do.

Like if you want to be really good,

That's what you do.

You know,

You just kind of go through these simple motions.

Yeah.

And I was to think about that,

Like what that means in the bigger context of your life.

Like if you have a major goal,

I think what happens is if your major goal is like analogous to hitting the bullseye down the field,

You can get this panicky thing where you worry about if you're not going to,

If you can do it or not.

You know,

John Dudley talked,

He talked about like,

You didn't want,

It's like a fear of hitting the target.

So it's like,

There's this fear of hitting the thing because then all these like distractions that are like kind of surrounding you will fall away.

And I think I was thinking about that,

Like you need to give these things up to hit that thing,

But I think you need to give those things up necessarily to hit that thing.

It's more just like regaining like a focus,

Like to stay on that thing.

And those things will just kind of like fall away,

You know,

Cause like that,

If you have like some kind of habit,

Like you want to lose weight and you want to,

And you get stronger and you're like lifting weights and you want to get in shape and you are like,

If your mind is occupied by like giving away food,

Cause like,

That's something I've had a lot of trouble with.

I'm a big eater.

Man,

It's not getting real,

Real fat.

Cause I like,

I'm real active and stuff too.

If I wasn't,

I'd be like 400 pounds.

I mean,

I can,

Yeah.

But like,

If you're real concentrated on like,

Then you just have constant like negation and it just feels fucking terrible.

It's just like,

Give yourself up.

Do you mind talking about that a little bit more?

Like,

Cause like recently you kind of slipped up and you gained a bunch of weight and then you lost it again.

Like could you,

Could you share like,

So if we bring this target panic analogy to like say this and then how you've,

You know,

Like what is the shift?

Cause I think that's like a really relatable thing with,

With health and all that stuff.

Like,

So it just to,

Just to bring this into your analogy,

It's like your target was to be a certain way in your body to lose a certain amount of weight.

You've known how to do that.

You know,

You've,

You've been fit before,

But then something about the fear of that is what makes you,

Let's say target panic,

Which in effect is like eat too much when you know you don't mean to or something.

Yeah.

It's almost like,

Uh,

On a long-term goal,

You can't have it like right now.

Like I'm not going to be at whatever weight it was that you're shooting for.

I think it was like 205.

I wanted to get it at like 205.

You're not going to be at that weight right now.

And it's like being in that weight is a,

That's an outcome.

It's like,

It's like hitting the bullseye and being in that weight is not necessarily anything that you're going to experience.

Like it's representational,

Something you experience.

Whereas like hitting the bullseye is it's representational of excellence,

Precision,

And calmness in your like shooting technique.

Cause you're doing this,

We hit the bullseye and you just do this consistently.

So I think that the way I thought about losing weight is like,

It's just like,

It's kind of a straining sort of energy and it kind of just like that straining kind of anxious energy about like,

Am I going to hit this target?

Am I going to hit this target and like hoping it's like,

There's like a hoping or not even a hoping,

Like a wishing that you're going to hit that target without having like the physical,

Like palpable tools with which to hit that target.

And in the context of like,

I guess losing weight,

I I've just like,

I've taken the practice at first of just like forgetting about like this constant life,

Like forcing myself to not eat this,

Not eat that.

And I found that I'm not,

That I've lost some weight since doing that and not crazy amounts because I've done like,

I've done,

You know,

One month or a couple of months periods and I've lost a lot of weight real quick or I can like,

I can fast.

I've gone like three days,

You know,

That I did a 72 hour fast,

But it doesn't seem to be sustainable.

Not that there's anything wrong with doing this stuff.

I think it's good.

Definitely do more.

But in my like day to day life,

I just was like,

And it's just like a drag,

You know,

It's a constant like drag on myself to always be worrying about.

So what is my goal?

My goal?

I could have a number in mind that I would like to hit and maybe,

But what is my,

I like,

Why do I want to be in shape?

Well,

Cause I just would,

Cause it would feel better.

I might have a lot of thoughts,

But like,

Well,

I might get laid more in better shape.

You know,

I might look better.

The reality of that is though,

Like the women I've dated,

They couldn't have given a fuck less if I was a thinner.

Like,

And there's a lot of them really liked me and kind of like a dead bot and I'm like muscular.

I got my word lift weights.

I got like big muscles and stress.

So that the reality probably that's not really stopping me from getting laid,

But I want to be,

Cause when I've been thinner,

I just felt better.

Like my life,

I felt better life,

You know,

Like it's a,

It's a drag to be kind of like overweight.

Yeah.

So like the,

I think the thing to think about is that is the feeling,

Not,

Not the,

Not the result.

Cause like we get so attached to what,

What it is,

What it was my thing looked like,

Was my life looked like,

What are my results look like?

But like,

Well,

You need to know is like,

What does it feel to be,

What does it feel like to be thin?

Like what does it feel like to be a guy who knows when he draws back,

Like he's hidden already.

He wants to do so.

Yeah.

It's just kind of like fine tuning.

Yeah.

Fine.

Like training the feeling like you're training.

You're fine tuning that with every rep you pull the bowstring back.

Like you said,

Like you're kind of calibrating.

What's the perfect feeling so that even before you release,

You know,

It's,

It just feels great.

So like with this example,

It's like,

Instead of straining to not eat junk food,

For instance,

Can you practice enjoying eating healthy?

It's like almost like you're practicing a different emotional reaction.

Yeah.

Cause like eating that junkie food,

Doesn't the feel of it is not good.

It doesn't feel good.

Nobody ever eats that stuff.

Like you eat that shit like raw.

Yeah.

I remember at Zen Center one time there was a guy who was we had this like a group and he'd give every,

Every week like somebody from the group would give a different talk about what just whatever they felt like.

And then we would kind of like expand on that,

Have a short meditation.

And he was a chef and he was talking about mindful eating.

And it was like,

I remember he said one time I got a Big Mac from McDonald's and I just like ate it very mindfully and it was disgusting.

So like nobody,

It's not the kind of thing that you,

If you were like in this kind of like feel state,

You just wouldn't want that.

So I think the biggest thing is like to cultivate this kind of like feel state.

Yeah.

Or you'd recognize like,

So I have a friend who she's super skinny.

She used to own a bakery.

So she'd be around cakes all day and she's like super thin and people always be like,

How the hell are you like so skinny when you are literally making cakes and like tasting them all day.

And she's just like,

I love cake,

But I get full really fast.

Like as soon as she's full,

She just stops.

And like,

I was thinking about that with like other addictive behaviors,

Like porn or like certain substances is like,

There's something about it.

Like you're saying,

Like,

No one does it mindfully.

No one's like,

Ah,

I'm going to be a connoisseur of this Big Mac or this pornography video and appreciate the art of it.

You know,

You know.

Yeah.

It's like,

Yeah,

It's like,

But maybe,

You know,

If you did do that,

Maybe you could enjoy heroin in a,

In a responsible way.

Like really being,

I don't know if that's true,

But with certain things.

Yeah.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I heard,

Do you know what Carl Hart is?

Yeah.

I was thinking of him.

Like I imagined he probably doesn't binge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Maybe he could.

Yeah.

To just like,

You know,

Just be a connoisseur of every,

Like be a snob of like every vice,

Like a snob of,

Actually probably wouldn't drink cheap beer if you're really a beer snob.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I guess like in fancy restaurants,

The portions are always really small.

People are just trying to taste them.

Yeah,

That's true.

I remember I went someplace here in Anchorage.

I live in Alaska.

My dad and my mom were up here and we went to this pretty nice restaurant to eat and they got like,

They got salmon or halibut or I think they each got like salmon or halibut and they brought them this like tiny piece of fish.

And I was like,

Damn,

That's all you get?

Shit.

Cause I just got a,

Just got a root bite.

I was like,

That's what,

You know,

That's a rare thing.

I spent a summer with the first summer I moved up here.

I spent commercial fishing,

Catching Kings and so like we ate Kings and I get like a petty like fucking,

You know,

Two pound like Kings salmon for all the time for dinner.

I was just like,

I thought that this seemed normal.

So yeah,

For them it was like a huge treat to get this super fresh.

I'm sure Kings salmon that was like delicious and expertly cooked by excellent chefs and stuff too.

Yeah.

Although I do wonder sometimes like with,

With certain snobby things,

I've been debating this with my buddy who's like kind of turned me into a coffee snob.

I used to just be able to drink any coffee,

But like he's been introducing me to good coffees like,

Which basically means I don't appreciate most coffee now.

I'm most thinking like how much of that is real,

You know,

Like the whole thing of even wine experts can't really tell when wine is good.

It's just that it's expensive.

They think it's good.

I don't know.

That's the whole thing.

Yeah.

There might,

But there's like,

That's,

I'm sure that there's like,

There's the levels right too.

But like at what point is it kind of bullshit?

Cause like I like good coffee.

I don't drink.

Like I get an espresso.

You know,

I like to drink good espresso.

I'm like,

I can tell that the espresso from like the local Collati brothers in Anchorage is better than Starbucks.

I mean,

It tastes a lot better to me and it sure as fuck is better than like some drip ass fucking Folgers shit.

Like I wouldn't even just like,

I would just like not drink coffee if that's all there was somebody who was just like enemy,

A big cup of drip coffee from a bun machine.

I'd be like,

That's,

I don't want that.

You know,

It's just like,

It wouldn't be good.

Yeah.

Oh,

Actually one thing I wanted to bring up from before,

Cause this book I've been reading,

It's called the hour between wolf and dog.

It was saying how,

At least one theory is,

Like I said,

Your muscles react to stimuli before your mind,

But also before your emotion.

Then there's a theory that your emotions actually respond to what your muscles are doing and then your brain processes it.

So it's like you see a predator,

Your muscles tends to run away.

A few milliseconds later,

Your hormones release certain things that give you an emotion in response to what your muscles did.

Like if you could somehow train your muscles to not contract,

You actually wouldn't feel fear.

It's kind of like the,

It's like your physical posture tells your feelings what to feel kind of like the power poses thing.

Like you put your hand,

Whatever.

I mean,

It's not silly,

But like put your hands on your hips.

You feel confident and yeah,

I just want to,

You know,

I kind of want to just boil home,

Like whatever the lessons are of this,

This target panic metaphor that I really liked that you brought up.

Something about training your emotions.

I just find really interesting.

I guess in that like space of that very subtle and simple practice,

There's like an emotionality that you can,

Cause when you're just focused on this,

It's like very simple thing to do.

It's,

I don't know,

Maybe you can hear emotions like don't get the better of you,

You know,

These moments and then you can just like stay calm,

Let them come and go as they,

As they need to.

And then recognize like what it is that you need to recognize when you need to follow them or not.

Like,

Yeah.

Well,

Cause it's also like,

Even with this,

The snobby being snobby on coffee or whatever we're saying,

Like some,

It's not like maybe it's total bullshit,

But like there's something that can be trained,

Right?

Like you can kind of,

You could,

I mean,

A good marketer could probably convince someone like the whole butter coffee thing.

I don't know if you're,

You're into that,

But like a marketer kind of came up with that.

Maybe it's got the health benefits,

But you have all these people like loving the idea and loving the taste all of a sudden kind of cause they were convinced of it.

It's like someone got in their head to make them love the taste of like oil at the top of their coffee.

And it's like,

Okay,

Whether it's bullshit or not,

Can you actively train yourself to love going to the gym or love writing in the morning when you have resistance?

Like,

Can you,

Or like just love pulling the string back so you don't care about what happens and like,

It becomes more of an intrinsic thing.

Like it's almost like well anyway,

I was thinking about a weird thought,

But like training yourself to love certain things,

You know,

Are good for you.

I guess that's where the feel comes in.

So you learn to love it because you learn how you,

When you start focusing more about how you feel instead of how you think about things,

You realize and learn to love those things when you just like calm down and let yourself feel how good they are.

Just simple things like pulling a bow back or getting a nice snatch or like doing a kettle bench in the Turkish ghetto.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's how you learn to love those things.

And also in the context of like a bigger goal,

You can recognize how they're serving that bigger goal.

Like how these small things that you're doing are driving you forward towards that goal.

Yeah.

For some reason,

It just popped in my head,

Like Mike Tyson,

I forget who he was speaking to,

But like,

I'm going to F you until you love me.

I don't know why that came to mind.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that,

But like something about like,

Yeah,

If you do something with the right attitude,

You can love it somehow,

Even if it sucks.

Yeah.

Anyway.

I was kind of into butter coffee also for a minute because I had a girlfriend that was really into,

She drank a butter coffee every morning.

So I tried to be ketogenic,

But she wasn't,

She like ate whatever the fuck she wanted the rest of the day.

Yeah.

It is.

I also thought like,

Don't we already put like,

You just put cream in your coffee.

That's pretty much all fat anyways.

And then if you're just not having any calories,

You're going to be ketogenic anyways.

Yeah.

I really liked,

You know,

I'll just say like,

So Dave Asprey is the guy who made it popular.

I saw him speak,

It's not a knock on him by any means,

But like I saw him speak at a convention and he kept talking about,

And he was like pitching and like revealing his whole special coffee line.

And like,

He kept bringing up all these stats and like all these ideas that were,

I knew they were unprovable,

But the benefits he shared seemed so amazing.

They were like everything that I wanted to experience.

So even though like my brain was like,

Come on,

Like not all of this could be true.

So part of me was like,

If only half of what he's claiming is true,

This is amazing.

And then I ended up spending,

I ended up spending like 200 bucks while being skeptical on all of his products.

I bought his protein,

His collagen,

His coffee,

Because I was like,

This is probably bullshit.

But if it's even half true or 10% true,

It's worth it and he got me to buy all this shit.

And then for a long time,

I was doing the butter coffee thing,

Thinking like trying to convince myself to love it.

Like other people would criticize me for it.

Like,

Oh,

That's so gross.

Like,

No,

No,

Here's all the benefits,

Keto,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Butters of food.

But now I look back and it's like,

Yeah,

It's just kind of gross to drink coffee and have like grease all over your face from the butter.

Cause it all flows to the top.

Anyway.

I personally,

I really liked the taste of butter coffee.

I think it's pretty delicious.

Did you really,

Or were you just convinced?

Were you just convinced?

No,

I did.

I really did.

No,

I didn't think too much about the benefits.

I liked it.

I thought it tasted really good.

If you use some good butter,

I liked it a lot.

I stopped doing it cause I just don't ever make coffee at home anymore.

I just use it to just go get espresso or whatever.

Cause I like espresso is the best.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm happy with cream.

I'm happy with getting my fat elsewhere.

Yeah.

Cool,

Man.

So anything else going on in your world you want to share?

Alison was thinking about,

Have you read the book,

Siddhartha?

Oh yeah.

Twice.

You know,

There's a,

Oh man,

I read that.

That's like,

I think that's my favorite.

No.

I mean,

I think for men,

Like this is like the,

This is like the hero's journey,

Distilling the basic elements.

But there's a part in the book where he goes,

When he first goes to work for Kamaswami,

He's like,

Well,

What,

Why should I hire you?

You're just like this sadhu from the woods.

Like you can't do anything.

He's like,

You can,

You know how to read a little bit,

But which is valuable at that time.

It's like,

What can you do?

Like you can't do anything.

And he's like,

I can think I can fast.

I can wait.

Those two things are of the utmost importance,

I think.

Cause like when you can do those things,

So you can do anything.

Cause like when you can think and like,

I think,

I mean,

Like not think where you're just like contemplating,

But like to think critically about things and like honestly,

And that in a reactive way,

Because like so many of our thoughts are just like things that we just like bounce around back and forth and fast to fast is like to do without external stimuli,

Whether it be food or whatever name,

Name your like vices you want to take in media,

Music,

Whatever.

And then if you can wait to not have to like pounce on whatever is like right in front of you,

It's just like,

Can you do without things and like be all right where you're at right now.

And I think that's an important that comes into this like target panic idea where you can do those three things and you can be unreactive and like let yourself stay in this situation of being,

Of doing something really,

Really simple and really straightforward and not have to worry about what else,

What else is going on.

You can just sit and do this over and over and over again and not have to worry about,

Am I going to hit the target?

Like,

Is this getting better?

Is this what I should be doing to hit the target?

Like,

Am I wasting my time?

And I think it's just important to be able to do simple things like that.

It's like everything,

Whatever it is you do is just like,

Is these like,

It's like your thoughts,

You can make big decisions with your thoughts about large changes in your life,

But in your like day to day feel of how you want to execute and achieve those things,

You just have to do lots of small things.

So if you want to like,

I'm looking to become a pilot.

If I want to become a pilot,

Like it can be easy to get panicky and things like,

Because me being like a pilot where I'm working and earning a living is a ways away.

Like it's,

It's far away from me right now.

It can be boring to do the things I need to do to get to that point where I can say,

I'm a pilot and I can just like get on a plane and go fly around or get hired and fly around and like have a good time doing it.

But like to go take the time,

Go to the doctor,

Get my medical certificate is like boring.

It's like,

You don't want to do it because you're like,

Well,

I can do it later.

It's not,

I don't have to do it right now because I'm not going to start flying.

So I don't have to do it right now,

But it's like,

I have,

I'm off work early this afternoon.

Okay.

This is the time to just like go do something mundane and boring like that and get my medical certificate.

And I found that like doing things like that feels incredibly rewarding.

For a lot of years,

I kind of lived this,

Not where I wouldn't say like how long,

Because I wasn't criminal,

But I just like didn't keep up on official things that I had to do.

Like I had,

I went five years with an expired driver's license because I was like living out in the country and like it was kind of an issue sometimes.

Like I would have needed,

You know,

But I got by without it and I was like,

I don't want to fuck with it.

I don't want to do it.

And then I had to like do it again.

I had to like retake my driver's desk when I was like 25.

Yeah.

Cause it's been expired so long when I got it back.

But like keeping up with things like that feels really,

Feels really good.

And now it's like,

I got that little thing.

Now I can take the next step.

Now I'm like,

It's,

It feels like you have,

It's just like,

It's just like having that feel of doing this.

It's like,

I have that.

It's something I feel that I have and I know that it's like palpable that is like in my favor.

And that is like,

It gives me freedom to do something more.

Yeah.

It's like,

Yeah,

On the material level,

It's like kind of like compounding interest.

Like this one day doesn't seem like a big deal,

But you keep doing it.

It's like,

You know,

It's a huge difference.

I think with that thing,

I'm glad you brought that up.

It's like,

That's the first thing I thought of when you wrote up Siddhartha and it just like the weight part has been the hardest part for me.

Like I really,

You know,

I would have taken,

I probably would have been a lot closer to certain goals if I was able to think in really long-term timeframes,

Which I just wasn't able to,

I just didn't do when I was younger for whatever reason,

Like this idea of like,

I don't need X by X date.

I just need to do today's work.

I mean,

It sounds so cliche,

But like,

You know,

That's kind of just like getting the reps in and enjoying the process and trusting that it's hitting the mark has been personally hard for me actually,

But I'm gonna try to not try.

I'm gonna remember to do this a little better with my I'm remember to do this better with my,

With my writing,

For instance.

Yeah,

I've had trouble.

I think the biggest ones that are trouble for me,

I don't know,

Is fasting for sure.

I'm pretty just externally focused about a lot of stuff.

For one,

The big,

I mean,

My Zen practice has been a huge,

Has really taught me how to think fast and wait for sure.

That's essentially what the practice is.

Yeah,

When I was younger,

I didn't do it either.

And I remember now I live in Alaska now.

I moved here about three years ago.

When I was 18,

I left home,

I graduated high school when I was 17.

Actually,

I turned 18 shortly after I went on left home like right away,

The day after I went away,

I went out last and I worked.

I went to this guide school,

I wanted to be a hunting guide.

I wasn't sure where I go.

I was like,

I kind of like a lot as peers like road and you're in the hunting,

Then like,

Just like this mystical thing,

You know,

And this guy that ran this guide school would like if you wanted to go work afterwards,

He would hook you up with a job with some of his like outfit or body.

He's like,

Guys are in short supply,

It's not an easy job to do,

Doesn't pay shit.

And like,

They always need people to do it.

And most of the people that went to that thing were like my age now.

They were just kind of like,

It was a like a hobby thing or adventure thing.

So I was the only one,

The only ones and a job came up in Alaska.

Like he's like,

There's a thing in Alaska,

You can go to Alaska.

In Alaska,

It's tougher to become a guide here than it is in western states.

In the western states,

You just like you get hired by an outfitter,

You get a guy's license right away.

And you're a guy in Alaska,

You had to work for three years,

As like a,

As like a helper basically,

Just like packing fucking meat and shit on your back,

You know,

Just like really guesswork.

Or be like a fishing guide or like,

Whatever.

So it's a little bit of a time where you can be like a hunting guide.

And at the time,

I was like,

Man,

I don't want to wait three fucking years before I got hunters,

You know,

Like at 18,

It just like seemed like forever.

I was like,

There's no fucking way I want to do that.

And then I didn't go,

I didn't come to Alaska,

And I stayed and worked in the west.

But if I had,

It's like,

It's that building,

It's like a simple thing,

Doing these simple things.

And that would have set a real strong foundation that I could have just kept building and building up.

Yeah.

And you can,

You can do that by just like doing it without.

It's like I needed,

I was like,

I need that.

I don't want that.

I want that feeling like I've arrived and I'm doing it,

You know,

But you can't get that to you,

Like just do the simple things.

You can't like,

You can't hit that target consistently with precision over and over again,

Because you just know you can without doing the same.

It's doing this simple like thing.

And if you,

If you're trying to,

You're just kind of like hoping and wishing and you're thrown here and marries,

You know,

Here and there and just like fixated on that end result.

I think that kind of sums up what I was thinking of.

Yeah.

This target.

Yeah,

Cool,

Man.

It's been fun speaking.

I really like this analogy.

And like,

This is one of these conversations is going to have me really rethink my setting.

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's just like,

You know,

Because like,

You know,

I've been,

I when you first brought up this idea,

It's like,

It's been like a week and a half or something or whatever,

Two weeks,

I have been,

You know,

Little things have been popping up like,

Man,

I've been working on this history show for like five months.

It's still still not done working on my book for forever.

And it makes me want to be like,

Fuck it,

Like,

And just not touch it,

Which I guess is like the equivalent of binge eating,

For instance,

Right?

It's just like,

Fuck it.

It's too far away.

But it's like,

Oh,

Yeah,

I mean,

This is this is just the process.

I mean,

It's like,

Retraining your feelings getting like,

In love with the process,

Really enjoying it.

And by that you hit the target,

You know,

So yeah.

I think to go back to this is just one more time is like feeling of the fear.

It's like,

Why do you if you're thinking about what it is that you want to be?

Like what is it about that that you admire so much?

Like if you want to be like,

If I want to be a pilot,

Like why do I think being a pilot is cool?

Because for one,

It's courageous thing to be like a bush pilot in Alaska.

And like to do it,

You have to be you have to be extremely organized.

You can't be concentrated for people might think you can't be like a fucking.

It's not about being like a wild bastard and just like taking chances is actually the opposite.

You can be extremely calculated and organized and very,

Very good like managing risk and knowing what to do and what to do and how to be like really,

Really decisive.

It's like what is that?

What is that pilot's mindset like?

What does that guy like?

Is he like somebody who just like is like nervous and yeah,

Does he put off his medical results?

Does he put off his medical appointment?

Does he not take care of these simple things?

Is he like not check to make sure that the fuel cap is on tight?

You know,

Does he not make sure that the people that are coming with are like are bringing the correct weight into their baggage?

They're supposed to like,

Is he putting off these little simple things like he's probably not if he's going to be any good at it,

He's not going to be doing that stuff.

And you're not going to get to that level if you're not,

You know,

If you're not doing that stuff.

And the reason you will think that is cool because it feels good to be like that.

Like it feels good to be that way.

That's not like some kind of hard thing that you got to give up and sacrificing and discipline yourself for.

I mean,

You do,

You have to do all those things,

But it's not like a negation.

It's not like living in this like negative space where you're just like kind of beating yourself up,

Stripping away aggressively,

Like taking away bad habits.

It's just a,

It's a choosing of simple and like excellent feeling and habits.

And it's integrity.

That's basically what it is.

Whatever it is you think that you really want to do,

If you think about how that,

How people who do that are,

What does it feel like to be them?

And then you want to just like,

You want to build that feel.

I think that's something for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause those qualities are accessible now,

Even if the material result isn't.

Yeah.

Cool,

Man.

I think that's a great place to end.

Yeah.

Thanks.

This is a great conversation and we ought to go hunting at some point.

At some point I'll make it somewhere with a real bow.

Yeah.

You gotta get a real bow.

Yeah.

Did you say she built the archery range at your house?

No,

I was starting to build one.

I mean,

Build one out of like old carpets and stuff,

But I'm kind of afraid of shooting over my fence and hitting my neighbor.

Cause I don't have that much space.

So not really.

I might,

I might put up something at some point somewhere,

But right now I'm just trying to kill pigeons.

We can talk about our chain.

I'll help you get into one of those and you need to get,

You gotta get.

Yeah.

I'll hit you up about equipment and stuff.

Okay.

Well,

Yeah.

Thanks for having me on here.

This was fun.

I'll see you guys later.

Bye.

See ya later!