Bear Grease - Ep. 415: The Thing About Mule Skinners

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

In this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, host Clay Newcomb dives deep into the world of mules, mule skinners, and the quiet kind of backcountry wisdom you only earn from miles in the saddle. Alongside legendary Arizona cowboy and Bear Grease Hall of Famer, Warner Glen, and mule trainer and clinician, Ty Evans, Clay explores why serious mountain hunters trust mules over horses, and how their self preservation instinct can be a virtue. They also discuss what these tough, insightful animals can teach us about grit, leadership, and self-control.   Thank you to our sponsor, Tecovas. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. This episode is something that I'm passionate about. Mules and mule riders, or mule skinners, as they're called. We'll talk about why that we use mules, how they compare to horses,

and how they rise and fall to the experience of their rider. And we're going to have a couple of very unique people talking to us about this. We're going to hear again from trainer and clinician, Ty Evans, about mulemanship, but you're in for a treat because we'll also hear from legendary Arizona cowboy Warner Glenn. That's right, Bear Greas Hall of Famer,

Warner Glenn. Once again, I think you're going to be surprised by what we're going to learn as we listen to these guys talk about mules. I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one. A lot of the old timers say, Warner, why do you ride mules all the time hunting rather than horses?

And I said, well, to tell you the truth, I just don't feel as sorry for a mule as I do a horse. Can I figure that mule's going to take him and me both or she and me? By and large, most of the mountain line hunters in our area use mules now, most of the time. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.

Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Thank you, Lord, for this food. And thank you, Lord, for the guidance and safety of us today. And please watch over through the night and give us all the good night's rest. Amen. You guys, I'm kidding. What is that?

most unique and impacting experiences of my life has been the time that I've spent with Warner Glenn. Warner is now 90 years old. And in 2022, I was able to ride mules and lion hunt with him near his home in Douglas, Arizona. The southern border of his ranch is the U.S. Mexican border. Warner is a cattle rancher and a dry ground lion hunter. He's a true cowboy. Now, Claire, we'll try a little Jesse Poker. Bird the super puncher Dale Brisby harassed me about my mule. You might get the impression that cowboys don't like mules, and some don't. I've learned that a lot of rodeo cowboys don't like them,

but the cowboy hunters that I know love them. And I just did something out of the ordinary. I asked chat GPT, that's right, chat GPT, if there were any common themes among mule owners, and it quickly spit out seven things, and I'd like to read you the list that it said. Number one, mule owners value function over flash. Number two, mule owners are comfortable with earned trust, trust that's negotiated, not demanded. Number three, mule riders have a high tolerance for stubbornness and like animals that

assess risk. Number four, they have a strong rural, working, backcountry connection that mule riders do. Number five, mule riders are skeptical of hype and authority. Number six, mule riders tend to be loyal once convinced, but mule owners may be slow to adopt new ideas, but once they believe in something, they stick with it, defend it passionately, evangelize it quietly through results. This mirrors how mules themselves operate. Number seven, the last one that chat GPT spit out. Mule riders are often experienced animal people.

In summary, it says, mule owners tend to be pragmatic, independent, patient people who value intelligence, self-preservation, and earned partnership over obedience and appearance. That was a wild trip. Based on what I know of Warner Glenn and Ty Evans, these things sound about right. I want to talk with Warner. This interview is from 2021 when I was down in Douglas, Arizona, and I want to ask him about his history with mules.

In cattle work here on the ranch, we like to use horses. They're a little more responsive than that type of thing. Although we use mules a lot of times, we don't have the horses up if we have to work. cattle, but in hunting, but Dad and I used a lot of horses when we first started hunting. In the 40s and early, 50s and 60s, we were horseback most of the time even hunting because we were raising all those horses in the mountains, and we were breaking them ourselves, so they were good mountain horses. It's kind of hard to find a good mountain horse now, but we went to use mules.

We use mules all together now when we're hunting. They take care of theirself in that rough, rugged country. They hardly ever get crippled. hardly ever get hurt. If they do happen to fall with you, and I'm not saying a mule won't fall with you, they will. I've had them fall with me. But usually when they get in a real bad place and fall or get in a tight situation, they'll kind of relax and wait a minute. They don't panic. Where a horse will usually panic and go to lunging or kicking and get frantic. Well, you might find one occasionally that would, but most mules will settle down and take it kind of ease out of

a tough situation and in doing that they allow you time to step out of the middle of the trouble too they're not they're not lunging and fighting and i tell you when you get it when they go down with if there's a pause you better take advantage of it better get out of the way i'm going to remember that yeah you told me a statement today you said uh you said we've had some good mountain horses but i sure felt sorry for oh yeah well a lot of the old timers rather than water why do you riding mules all the time hunting rather than horses and i said well to tell you the truth i just you know i just don't feel as sorry for a mule as i do a horse can i figure that mule's going to take uh him and me both and she'lled me i'm not saying

there's not some good mountain horses still around some of the hunters still use horses quite a bit but by and large most of the the mountain line hunters in our area use mules Meals. Most of the time. Tell me about your mule machomo. Well, I tell you. Yeah, and he came out of Mexico. At that time, this would have been like 56, 57, 58, 19, 56, 5756.

We were doing a lot of hunting in the northern part of Sonora in these mountains you can see from here in South of us. And they had a mule called Motomo down there that one of the wranglers down there was riding. So when we came out of there, the rancher was. making Armando Varela, he was making some really good horses. He had bought some real fancy studs. And he said, for payment for catching some of the lions down there, he said, where I want to give you one of these good horses? And I said, man, Armando, I said,

I would really rather have that babe mule called Bochon. And he said, you want? And I said, yeah, so he gave me the mule. That's where he came from. And he's one of the best mules of ever written. Really? He was a little wild and rank at first. He kicked me a time or two really bad, but he got over that when he got about 18, 19 years old.

It took a while. Took a while. What was your favorite mule of all time? Well, I tell you, I've had a lot of them. But of all the time, if I had my pick for one to stay with, I had a white meal called Snowy River. And he would do anything you wanted to do it, and he would do it good. and he was willing he never balked i mean he was good and rough country you could go ahead a cow on him i mean carry a lion we're doing it just a good all around you but i got he'd carry a lion too

oh yeah yeah he'd carry a line yeah yeah some most of our i tell you they're not afraid of a lion as much they are bear as it seems like our mules here of course they don't we don't bear hot much it's just very rare that they're even random. I've had, I'm riding, you'll see her in the morning, Vidian, she's one of those rid. How big a mule do you like? I don't

like them too big. I like a mule that weighs probably 1050 to 1250. These are pretty big meals you've got though. Some of them are? Sixteen hands probably. Are they that tall? A couple of them probably are. But you're a big guy. They're a little bigger.

Those are good mules of ones we got. Now, but I'd rather have a little smaller one. I'd rather have one. Snoy River was probably, he'd probably wait 10.50. Okay. Something like that. Yeah. Drawn down in good condition.

October would have been, too. Yeah. It's clear that Warner knows a thing or two about mules, and he's probably put as many miles in the saddle of a mule as any living person. Warner is a rancher, a practitioner, and a man of function. Though I have no doubt he could train a mule, he's not necessarily a mule trainer. That's not where he's focused. Ty Evans is less than half of Warner's age and has spent inordinate amounts of time training mules.

His expertise comes from a slightly different angle. Ty is a methodical student of the mule. And in the last episode, we learned about Ty's transformation as a trainer, going from the cowboy way of bucking a mule out and demanding it. submission and allegiance, using the principles of natural horsemanship, where trust is earned and freely given rather than taken using the herd mentality and leaning into the way a mule thinks to gain its trust kind of inside its natural order. But I want to get back to the basics with Ty Evans.

So a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey, a female horse. and a male donkey, a jack. Okay. And that makes them a hybrid. We're crossing these species here. That hybrid makes all kinds of advantages for performance animals. It just makes them double tough. It makes a lot of unique things.

Mules shine the best in rough country. The rougher it is, the more they shine. Now, that doesn't mean you can't use meals for all the gentle stuff too. And you might not be riding rough country. You might be riding something pretty mild. You might be just riding in the arena. Maybe you want to just do some dressage. Maybe you want to just do some arena events.

That's okay. And they do good there too. The diversity is awesome. But I tell you what, the mule shined in the mountains. It shines in the rough country. It shines in using them day after day, year after. year, the longevity they have. And, you know, that's why historically they have been beasts of burden, too. You know, people have used them historically. The horse gets all the credit

for the West, but the mules made the west. They really did. There's, you know, mules were very valuable to pioneers. And I come from pioneer heritage on, you know, multiple sides. And they came over with mules. And they made this country with mules. They plowed the fields with mules. They mined Meals. Meals made the West. And pretty cool. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use.

I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut.

I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good. turkey noises and getting action.

I have so much respect for the mule. I've seen what they can do. From the, some of the, I'll admit, some of the dumb situations I have put a mule in. I have seen what they can do and how they can get me out of those situations and they can reverse those choices I made. You know, I've put my mules into situations that are very challenging, technically, in the mountains, in the Red Rock Country, Utah, and I owe so much to them. I also love the mule because of their unique and dynamic personalities.

A lot of people will describe them as kind of dog-like. And I could agree with that. You know, they do kind of have more of a dog-like personality. More than a horse. Yeah. And I've had some horses with great personalities. Don't get me wrong. But the mule is just more so.

And that was one of Tom Dorrance's saying. He said, the mule is just like the horse, only more so. And so it just seemed like if you got a really friendly mule, they're really friendly. You know, and I love that about them. I love how forgiving they are. And that's actually a myth that a lot of people have is that they're not forgiving. Oh, come on, everybody. You know they're forgiving.

All the stuff that, all of them. All the stuff that the mule has put up with me and forgiven me for, I make mistakes every time I ride. Every time I ride, I rode today, rode 20 miles a day, I made all kinds of mistakes. And that mule is going to forgive me, and I'm going to fix it, I'll be better tomorrow. And I love that about the animal. They like to feel comfortable. So you might have messed up big time, and if you can just help them feel comfortable, get yourself right, and you help them get comfortable, they're good to go. The hybrid vigor is top-notch.

That is what makes the mule, the hybrid vigor. It's not for everybody. That's probably why I like the meal too. It's because not everybody likes the meal. And that's okay. That's all right. But that hybrid vigor, oh my gosh, that's what makes them so durable and so tough. And they can go.

And then not only can they go today, but they can go tomorrow. And I love that. I really love that in them. There's nothing better than riding a mule and just going up a crazy steep side hill of a mountain, scratching through rocks, and that thing is just powering up it. It's just so cool. You just feel that under you. And you're thinking that they might get tired, and then they give you more.

You know, you take a lunch break and just let them relax a little while, and then they're charged up for the afternoon. And I really appreciate that. Also, the diversity of the meal, oh, man, you can do everything with them. Like, I can go, my meals, I can go trail ride with them, I can go packing, I can go hunt, I can go rope, but work cows.

My daughter likes to barrel race. She'll take the meal with the barrel race. She might not be winning. You know, if you're going to ask me, what should I get for barrel racing? Probably get a horse. I'm not going to suggest a meal for bell racing. But she has fun on that meal, and that meal takes good care of her in that barrel race. So the diversity is one of my favorite things about it, too.

Right, right. A little one this morning called Rosa Lee. That's the name of the mule you're putting me on? Yeah. Rosalie. How old is this meal? That's the only problem with it. She's about 17. 17. Yeah, and it's too bad.

You hate to see a meal like you. You know. So this is your go-to meal. This is, what's this meal's name? Yeah, Vivian. How old is she? I tell you, Vivian's got to be about 15 years old. This is the one you go to when you've got to.

Well, usually I ride this, at least every other day. I've got three I'll ride a person regularly. Bridger and Vivian and Breer. Yeah. So, and Kelly, she's got Rosalie and. Pete and some of those others. When does a mule get just right in eight? It depends on the mule.

It depends on long. But I tell you what, as far as being gentle and trustworthy and everything, I would say like six or seven. Really? To where you could trust them with anybody. Yeah. And you can ride them two or three, but you better be ready for a little wreck if it should have. because they're just not used to everything. Yeah.

And also, these mountains, I tell you, they're hard to hold you. Yeah, yeah. Warner's knowledge of animals comes from time in the saddle, evaluating how they navigate backcountry, and he's been in a lot of bad wrecks. As a matter of fact, he's been life-flighted out of the back country once after a very bad wreck, and so has his daughter Kelly.

He's been in some hairy spots. He told me once about a mule rolling over and flipping over it, him, but he didn't get hurt. I had one experience with Warner that I'll never tire of telling. Once I was following him in Arizona, and the dogs went over the top of a high mountain. Warner basically turned and said to me, follow me, Clay, and he sent the rest of our crew around the mountain, but I was supposed to follow him. We proceeded up the steepest, roughest, half-mile mule scramble that I had ever been on at the time.

Warner was pony and a pack mule. that means he was leading a pack mule. Mules were slipping and sliding and scrambling, and we were getting raked by limbs, and mules were jumping boulders, and he never once looked back to see if I was there. Once we got to the top, he never acknowledged that it was a hard stretch.

I kind of expected him to turn around and be like, wow, Clay, are you okay, good job, but he never did, which then made me wonder if that was, in fact, a hard ride for him because I knew it was for me. So that night at the dinner table, I cautiously asked him. I said, Warner, if you had to rank that hill that we climbed today on a scale of one to ten, and a one was walking your mule down a gravel road,

and a ten was that you were dead. What do we do today? I waited in anticipation as he paused and thought for a minute, and I kind of thought he might say, Oh, Clay, that was about a three or four or five. But then he said, Clay, I'd say that was about an eight. He said, if it'd been much rougher than that, you couldn't have done it. And I smiled and had a little sigh of relief and went on to eat dinner with him.

I'll never forget that. Here's Ty Evans. The mule will rise or fall to their humans level of experience and understanding understanding. So for example, at this point in my career, I feel pretty confident that I could take a meal that's pretty scared or worried or what somebody else might call a problem. And I could help that meal. I could add value to that meal's life. And I could bring it up to my level. However, on the other hand, if somebody is very inexperienced or doesn't have a lot of understanding or or the abilities, capabilities, all these things, and they get a meal like that,

well, this is bad news. There's the saying green on green is black and blue. Well, that's not too far off from the truth. On the other hand, too, I suppose, that person with not a lot of experience, they might buy a meal that is really awesome. And they think it's a, you know, a turnkey operation, right? this meal's ready to go. But if that person doesn't continue to get better and to grow,

that mule will, that mule and that person will meet in the middle at some point. That mule is going to come down. The mule doesn't get to keep that level of training, that level of skill. You can think of it kind of like a knife. Like if you just, you might have the sharpest knife in the world, the best knife you've ever had,

and you just leave it out. You don't take care of that knife. You don't do anything to keep that knife sharp. Even though you're not using that knife, that knife is going to dull. Just from being, just sitting outside, it's going to go downhill. Well, that's what happens to meals too. They got a meal. They bought a nice meal.

It's awesome. But it's just sitting outside. You've got to keep that thing sharp. You've got to get yourself sharp to keep that sharp. And that's something in life I've learned with anything, any type of knowledge in life, any skill in life. If you're not getting better at whatever it is you do, whether it's mulemanship or hunting or playing a guitar, if you're not getting better, you're actually getting worse. We don't, in this whole life, we don't get to just stay the same. We're different now at the end of the, toward the end of this conversation, than we were at the beginning of the conversation.

We know more. We've learned. We've chatted. We've talked. And things have changed. You know, they really have. You don't get to be the same person you. We won't be the same person tomorrow as we are today. It's the same thing with the mule. They're changing, so we better keep up. I hope this conversation has given us insight into the world of the mule, because as with many things in life, principles in one area often work in another.

Master one thing, and you can master another. We've learned that a core principle of natural horsemanship is also core to being a good leader anywhere in life. A leader can't ask the people that follow him or her to be something that he or she is not. Again, it may sound like voodoo, but it's the furthest thing from impractical. It's the law of the universe. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker.

I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag and there was a pool of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses. No cameras.

Just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to ask Ty about what he does in his mule clinics.

When people ask me what my job is, it can be hard to explain. explain. But basically my job is this. I use mules and horses to teach people leadership skills. So the mule is the vessel through which we teach and explain and demonstrate this leadership. One of my favorite sayings is mulemanship is lifemanship. Mulemanship is lifemanship, meaning how you how you, how you, how you, you work with your meal is how you should work with yourself and everything in life. I think we can be better parents if we just use the skills that work so good on meals. Apply that to being a good parent to your child.

There's all kinds of principles that we teach in that. One of them is taking ownership of your actions. Jocka Willing calls it extreme ownership. He wrote a book about it. I think everybody that, everybody should read that because it's a great leadership book. But this, this idea of extreme ownership is basically, it's my fault. It's on me. In a good way, it's not a poor, oh, boo-hoo, poor me way.

It's, hey, this is on me. I'm going to take ownership with this. I'm going to fix it. So like with the mule, when the mule gets scared, I don't say, oh, geez, this, this meal's so scared. What's wrong with you? or if the meal does something that I'm not happy about. What's wrong with you? What are you doing?

No, I say, okay, how can I help you? What can I do to change this? It's on me. I don't blame the animal. I'm the one that brought the mule into my life. In real life, it's the same thing. I can't get mad at my kid. One of my daughters for doing something

that I didn't explain well. Maybe I, and I'm definitely, I'm definitely guilty of this, you know, tell them to go do something, but don't give all the directions that you really should because you're in a hurry. Well, that's on me. You know, I can't get mad at it because I didn't explain it well. You know, another thing is, and we've talked about a little bit, but like being flat in your emotions, working with these animals and controlling your emotions and being present and getting quiet, you know, take that into your life.

Take that into the work into your office, whatever you do for your living. Take it to the shop. Take it to out in the field. You know, something goes wrong. It's all right. It's okay. No big deal. We got this.

You reset and you go again. You don't need to get upset about it. It doesn't help anything to get upset. I figured that out a long time ago with meals and horse. horses, getting upset solves nothing. Nothing. It doesn't help me. So controlling those emotions is so important in every example of life. When you talk about going flat, I think there's a lot of application there with the way that we deal with people. Because I think we all the time go into a relationship, whether it's with your spouse or with your boss or with your kids or with

your neighbor, we go into some kind of engagement with a completely filled in graph of how this person is going to respond. And it influences the way that I even talk to them and deal with them. And oftentimes it could be negative. And if you came into the situation, just thinking the best of someone, giving them the opportunity to make the right choice. And, and, and, not preloading the thing with your, I know they're about to say something stupid, or I know they're about to do this wrong. And I think people would read our, we'll read our confidence, they'll read our intent. I mean, because humans are the same way.

Like a mule can pick up your energy from 40 feet away. He sees you. It's the same way with your spouse, with your boss. And so I really like that, kind of go flat. It doesn't mean die to your emotions. I mean, like, emotions are okay if they're used right, but it means don't come preloaded thinking how someone was going to respond. The science behind this being able to control your emotions and be flat like we're talking

about or be neutral is learning to self-regulate, learning how to have coping skills. And that's what you're asking a mule to do too. That's exactly it. I want the mule to learn coping skills, to learn how self-regulate. So when I'm trying to get a mule to be, you know, good in maybe a scary situation. Right. Crossing a big, deep river. Yeah, anything.

Just that might scare them. Well, I learned that they're scared of that not because they just want to be wimpy. They don't know. It's just like, think back when you learned how to drive pickup. My dad taught us how to drive. I was probably, I don't know, probably 12, 13 years old. We just drive around out back in our little side pasture we had. He just let us drive the trucks around.

Boy, I was pretty nervous, you know. I was pretty scared to drive in that little circle of the pasture, you know. Well, now I drive across the country in a couple days. I mean, don't even blink an eye at it. It doesn't even faze me to drive, you know. But I learned how to deal with those situations a little out of time. With the mules, it's the same way. I'm not just going to throw them in the deep end.

I'm not going to just totally saturate them with something that's scary. I do a little out of time and controlled and do, you know, engage you a little stimulus. Maybe they're scared of some dogs. Maybe they're scared of, you know, anything. Walmart bag. That'll always get them Walmart bags. Whatever it is, we just do a little out of time. And we'll expose them to the stress a little bit and then we back off the stress.

And we wait and let them totally. self-regulate and come down off of that small amount of stress before we add more. That way we don't trigger stack. I don't want to pile this stuff on the mule. Because you might trigger stack, trigger stack, trigger stack, trigger stack. And then that's where you hear people say, wow, the clear blue, my meal blew up. No, it didn't. It's been stacking on the stress.

It's just like us getting stressed about something, something dumb. You get mad at your kids or your wife over something really petty. Well, it wasn't that little thing that your kid did that blew your top. It was all the stuff all day that you didn't deal with. So when you go work with the mule, you have to let all that baggage out yourself. You've got to get rid of all that stuff that you're packing in there. You've got to set it aside so that you can come in neutral and flat because that's exactly how we want our animals to be.

And that includes like expectations. I'm just working my meal from where it's at right now today. I'm not thinking about all the things I hope it can do forever. And that kind of gets confusing because we teach begin with the end in mind. But that doesn't mean I have to focus on the end result. I focus on the process. If I focus on the process, I know the result will take care of itself. This idea of being flat of self-regulation is a powerful idea.

I'd like to challenge you to do a little exercise. sometime in the next couple of days. Pick out a stressful moment where emotions and tension have historically been high. Think about like when you order for your family at a fast food drive-through. That's stressful for me. Or when you walk into a crowded room at work. Or maybe when you catch your hard-to-catch mule in your pasture. Or maybe it's a hard conversation with a family member.

But when that happens, take a deep breath, deep, deep breath. hold it for several seconds, then do an elongated exhale. Then consciously drop the tension from your face, your shoulders, your hands, like release the tension in your muscles, and you can almost feel the energy dropped to your feet like water pouring out of a bucket with a hole in it. I'm not asking you to have some out-of-body experience. This is a combination of physical and mental discipline.

When I do this, I feel like my blood pressure, pressure drops. Mentally, I then step into a space where I'm not concerned with outcomes, I'm not defensive, I'm not aggressive, I'm not being pushed, I'm just flat. You'll be surprised what you'll be able to accomplish in that state of mind. To me, it's about governing your spirit. To work with a mule or a horse, you've got to be able to be flat. Sometimes to work with people you've got to be flat. Proverbs says that he who rules his spirit is better than one who takes a city. Secondly, extreme ownership like Ty was just talking about is something that I see exemplified in Warner Glenn. And Ty for that matter, I found Warner to be fair, confident, calm, but energetic

and productive. And I found his mules to reflect that exactly. A lot of times people will kind of not understand what I do for living, like teaching these clinics and doing these leadership trainings and stuff. And I tell folks, it's kind of like working with a dog. Like you can send your dog to the trainer, and it has all these cool tricks and things that can do. But if you don't know how to ask for those tricks or ask for those, you know, those commands or those things, It don't matter what the dog knows. It doesn't matter.

It only matters what you know. So that's what these clinics do, is it helps us build the skills that we need. And the cool thing is, is all these same exact skills that we work on with meals. It's just life. It's just so much life. And in fact, you have to work on this stuff all day long

to be proficient with the meals. In fact, Do you have to practice all this stuff so that when you finally get to your meal, you're good to go. The mule, there's no such thing as practice to the meal. It's the real thing every single time. When you throw your leg over, then you catch them. When you're around them, it's not practice. You don't practice being around the mule.

You're around them. So if you want to practice, you've got to do it all the rest of life. Then pretty soon you get to thinking there's actually no such things to practice. It's always real life. it's always real life for me. Something that I like to work on a lot. And my coach, I mentioned Louisfield. He was a great coach to me.

He taught me so much. One of my favorite things he taught me was visualization. Like, picture it, see it. See it in your mind's eye. And so if I'm going to go ride my mule this afternoon and work on some things, well, I'm sitting back thinking and visualizing. not necessarily all the maneuvers and the training and that I'm going to do this and this and

this. It's not like that. I'm picturing what I want that interaction to be like. I want to feel it. I want to feel what that ride's going to be like. If we're going to go riding the mountains of Utah and follow some hound dogs on lion hunt, I want to, what is that going to feel like? What's my meal going to be like. I would visualize it having a lot of energy, a lot of go, because it's going to need the energy to cover these mountains. I'm going to envision what it's going to be like being around dogs and what's it going to be like riding through those trees and what's it smell like. What do the pine trees smell like? All this stuff, I think about it. And you know what? That stuff comes to pass. I'm so glad that my coach, Louisville, taught me how to visual.

And he was very much a proponent of it. He had us think about it all the time. And it worked for riding Bronx back then in rodeo. And it works for riding mules. And it works for relationships. You know, like, and it's not just thinking about what you want the mule to be. What are you going to be to the mule? And that's the same thing with the application to life.

how do I want my mule to perceive me? And if I'm coming to meet you, how do I want you to perceive me? How do I want you to feel around me? That's important to me. And there's a similarity to how you make people feel, how you're going to make a mule feel, how you're going to make a dog feel? It's all the same. It's all the same in life.

And that's important to me. I worked hard at that. And I try to share that with my students, anybody I get to. chance with is to think about that. That's pretty deep water, Ty, and I don't think that he's being mystical, but I find this to be very practical. There's definitely components of biblical faith inside of this functional discipline of what he's calling visualization. I think it could be described as having an active faith about how something is going to go. I view true biblical faith as more practical than I've seen it portrayed in society, and frankly, as I've seen it

portrayed in much of the Christian church. The statement I've just made is like an iceberg, and that's the 10% of that iceberg that's sticking above the water. There's 90% below it. That it didn't really fit for me to share in this silly podcast and this format. It's far too personal. It's stuff that's not meant to be broadcast across the airwaves. It's the stuff you've got to fight for that's really got to be real inside of you.

But I will add one layer to this idea of visual. visualization as well, showing a little bit more of the iceberg. And that's to add to that visualization declarative prayer. I think humans have a very unique thing inside of us where we can reach out to the creator. The words we say with our mouth are powerful, as well as the thoughts that we think. Whether you believe in God or not, you will generally become what you think and say about yourself. So think and say accurate things. Don't be deceived about your capabilities.

Be humble and say noble and powerful things. Think these things. Not from a place of ambition, but from a desire to be a whole functional human. In closing, and on a very practical note, if you're interested in mules, I'd suggest going to one of the big mule sales across the country. But don't go there to buy.

mule go there to talk to the people there about mules because they're there and you'd learn a ton very quickly just by talking to some folks there are mule cells all over the country but there are some big ones in ada oklahoma in the spring and fall the crom in the canyon mule sale and bryce canyon utah is a really good one the salmon select sale and salmon idaho is a big one the reese brother's mule sale in lebanon tennessee is huge the jake clark sale in Ralston, Wyoming, the horses and hounds mule sail in New Mexico, the Boone County draft horse and mule sail in Sedalia, Missouri. I mean, there are hundreds of horse and mule sails, but these are some of the big ones. And there are countless others that I've left out, so please forgive me,

mule folks. But there's a pretty big learning curve when you get into equines, and it just takes some dedication, but I could have never done it without the help of just people talking to me. Thank you guys so much for listening to Bear Greas. I hope that you've enjoyed this episode. Thank you for listening to Brent and this country life podcast and for Lake in the Backwoods University. And please go follow my friend Ty Evans at TS Mules on Instagram and check out his podcast. And keep the wild places wild because that's where the Bears live. First Lights Fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens,

long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.com.

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