Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Giving It All Back Before the Clock Runs Out | John Dudley | Ep. 443

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

John Dudley is a decorated professional archer, two-time IBO National Champion, World Field Championship medalist, and the founder of Nock On Archery. He's spent close to 30 years inside the archery industry — competing at the highest levels across multiple continents, working with elite manufacturers, coaching everyone from beginners to national team athletes, and building one of the most comprehensive free archery education platforms on the internet through his School of Nock. He's also the host of the Nock On Podcast and turns 50 this June. This conversation covers a lot of ground. We get into the physics and engineering limits of compound bows, why the industry is essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul at this point, and what it would take for someone with an outsider's mind to actually push the technology forward. Dudley talks about the trifecta of archery — mechanical, physical, and mental — and why the kids who aren't standout athletes are often the ones who thrive. We talk about the value of saying no, the cost of too much travel on your family, what Frank Zane taught him about longevity in fitness, and why his long-term goal is to pour every piece of knowledge he has back into the archery community before he steps away. We also get into reaching out to friends when you're struggling, the gap between knowing help exists and actually using it, and the transparency it takes to put your faults on paper. And haircuts. A lot about haircuts.  NockOnArchery: https://nockonarchery.com/ Pick up your copy of Drownproof here:  https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/book  

Okay, got to red smoke. Oh, west of the smoke. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, one minute, baby. You're about ready for another haircut. Are you going to go back to the previous? His haircut was, it was like Edward Cisorhands, but the person was blind.

It was incredible. You would have to agree. Like, I am not overstating this. It was incredible how inaccurate. it was to the picture I showed him. You could see on his face. Yeah. Then it disturbed him, which to me, as you know, deeply warms my heart.

Yep. And gives me things to talk about. No, I'm so traumatized that I'm afraid to go back and get another haircut. Yeah. It's time, though. It is getting about time. It's getting like almost mullet like, which I don't really like. If I pay for it, will you get a perm?

No. Actually, he would suit a perm. He would. With that stash. How long is a perm? last. Not long. Not long.

I mean, maybe, maybe, maybe like five days. Like, it would go away if you did it. Interesting. We could do it too. I remember the perm smell. Did your mom ever do firms or like your grandma? My mom and my grandma had like times on weekends where they did perms. And like that ammonia smell, I still can like, it's distinct.

It's very distinct. I would say a medium. curl. Not like a super tight J.C., right? But like medium, I think he'd have some volumes. You know what I deeply want to do is I want to grow bangs. That's what I've been thinking about a lot recently. Just bangs? No, you know, like the, it was like He-Man's haircut. I think that's amazing. I don't know what to call it other than it looks like the head of a dick. Yeah. But it comes down and it curls under and then the bangs. So like, will you pull up a picture of He-Man, please? Not the new movie, which I feel like is going to be dog shit, by the way.

cartoon. He man cartoon. If you've done too deep in the he man cartoon, you're just like, man, how was I missing all this? Yeah, it's questionable. Yes, look at that is what I want. We needed to go get you a make like that for the podcast. Yeah, I need a little bit more curve on the bottom. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Like, what was the wrestling show? Was Zach in it? And the guy from the bear What was that? Was it iron?

Iron claw. Pull up that. Pull up Zach's haircut and iron claw. I think this is what Andy's looking for. I mean, the he-man one kind of nails it. Huh? The he-man one kind of nails it. That's it.

I think he'd look good. There we go. I want more volume. Are you sure? Michael, put in 1970s men's haircut that looks like a bell. Just put it in there.

I feel like this is going to net what I'm looking for. We need to do a hunt where you're in that, in that. A bangs hunt? Yeah, a bangs. What are you bringing to the table, though? Are you going to go bangs too? Bangs and bears? Is this kind of a bear?

Dude, look at that lamb chop. That's like a low rider. The one on the right there is that. That's Denver. That's John Denver. It's got to scroll down, Michael. Oh, dude. Have you ever seen, see the Beegeys right there?

Yeah. Michael's not going to know. No, so Dusty and Jeremy think that I look like that. Yeah. They're like, dude, that is you in the eyes. They've swapped your face on that. They did. They did a few times.

We laughed hysterically hard at that. Some of those are pretty close, Michael. I'll find the example, though, because it's really. There's a pretty good one. See, that's what you would look like, dude. If we gave you that perm, you could totally go Bradley Cooper. Michael, add UK to the, I'm just curious here. Just, yeah, just add space UK.

Relatively the same. I like those flicks, though, those Wolverine-like looks. Powerful. That would be a good. That's the last face you see before that dude eats your ass. Isn't that right where your head went? You're telling me that. Oh, God, I forgot I'm on your podcast.

Or before he skins you and makes a belt out of your skin. where I was going. Yeah. Where is you like a leotard? Yeah. Look, what do you, what do you estimate the, what do we got there? A four inch collard? Look at that thing popping off.

That'd be pretty sweet. If you pop that, you'd have so much coverage. Michael, did we miss out by not being alive during this? Like, what do you feel like? Do you feel like you missed out at all? By not being alive in the, yeah. I was born in 76. I think, I think 68 to 69 would have been the perfect birth year because I wish I could have

more participation in the 70s. I wanted to be like on my bike in the neighborhood in the 70s and like getting my first taste of music. But then I wanted to be in high school in the 80s. I don't think we'd be here if we either one of us with our personalities. No, no. Scroll down a little bit more, Michael. That guy has crazy eyes on the right.

Just for clarity. Absolutely. Ooh. Michael. Not the bottom row. One up and one in. This is a class. This is a combo spock move here.

and I am feeling this very deeply. That'd be a good one. What I love about all of this is this would utterly mortify Leah. Because she got bangs haircut and I had mentioned in my intrusive thoughts about bangs recently. And she told me that I'm not allowed to do it. But then she came back with a fresh haircut and she has bangs right now. And I said, what is it? Bangs for thee, but not for me.

Yeah. And she just was. Michael, save that picture. It would have been nice if you had a palette to work with because we could have arranged that on the way home or I could have done it. Honestly, it's just a wig. We need to go for a wig.

Michael, save that picture. That is the new standard. That's the spock bangs. Look at that. So you can hear well because the bottom of the ear is exposed, right? Of course. But also you have enough party in the back, a dagger in the middle.

And I feel like we could round the front a little bit and have it swoop back in. That is the standard. And I feel like he could play bass. Yep. With that. Oh, God. Yes. Dude. Dude. Keep going down. So many off. Yep. Oh, there. That looks like a mug shot, though. Pitcher's claiming that. Yeah. Arrested, found guilty of being awesome. Oh, my. Powerful chops. Why is the lower ear hanging out? What did we miss about this phase? So you could put an earring in. I guess. Keep going. Look. Look at the choker necklace on that. That guy.

That guy looks like Trevor. That guy fucks. For sure. Did it not? I guess. This is amazing. This is the best part about the internet. No, it's too serious.

He's like a professor. This is exactly what I make myself not do is ever type in something that, oh, whoa. Werewolves in London. Yeah, he's just waiting for a full. He's actually making that face seeing a full moon on the horizon. Yeah, you can't hide the fact you're Asian. We see it behind the sunglasses.

Nice ascot, though, by the way. Look, he's got a jacket, huge collared shirt. That's like a four-inch collar and an ascot. I'm here for it. Keep going, Michael. This is amazing. Hmm. Yeah.

Okay. That's just kind of a classic. I feel like he's got a lot of feelings. Not a single woman in this picture. What's going on with? Man. Do you think? those pictures are still up like in their house. God, I hope so. Like, look at that one. You have to

own it, right? That looks like he's got extensions underneath. No, it's feathered. Feathered on top, but with extensions underneath the flip. Wow, that's, man. And then there's me and you just high and tight. I think you can pull that off, though. Those are impressive chops. Very. That's more Michael's style right there. That's actually very close to what I have right now. Except for it's substantially longer. Yeah, for sure. And his hair isn't curly.

Oh, God. What are we talking about? What are we even doing? I'm on your podcast now, dude. How are you not sick of archery yet? I think I would, I think I probably would have had my fill if it weren't for the education portion. I just, it's like the further I get down my path, the more I'm able, luckily, the more we're able to do the things that we like. And there's a lot of time to reflect on what I actually enjoy.

So I just, I love teaching. And fortunately, I feel like I've paid a lot of dues in our industry to where now people are more interested in just letting me have the free reign of what I'm passionate about talking about. at that point, which for me is a lot like your book. I feel like I progress through archery or I enjoy the challenges of like overcoming a problem that I have. And then I can instantly just tell people what I'm doing wrong and then it helps other people. And I don't know. I just love that.

And I love the fact that our community is very organic. So we have a, you know, people can send in Q&A's. DMs are good, but then when I go to like public places like an event, I'm not there for me to shoot the event. I'm really there for those people to be able to ask me questions because that's just like fuel on my fire when I'm working with people. It's problem solving. So I just really enjoy. I think everything about what I like when it comes to working with brands is if there's a problem to a product, I like finding the solution to it. or, oh, this is really awesome, but why wouldn't you just do this little thing to it?

And then it, you know, and then it'll be a little different. So I think that's why I'm not crash and burned with it, because there's still an ability for new questions. And if I was only looking for the rewards in myself, I feel like I would probably be out of options because it's like I've hunted a lot of great places. You know, I've enjoyed some really good experiences, competed, you know, went down the road to like, you know, metals or materials or monetary. And then, you know, as that kind of eventually gets old, you realize like, oh, I have a new trophy,

but all the old ones are black and tarnished, you know, and no one even remembers who won what last year. So it's just kind of like this repeating thing. But when it comes to teaching and seeing someone find joy in something that I really feel like I was put here to do. That's what keeps me going. And luckily our platform is like, and the more we solidify who we are, the more we're focusing more and more on education. And it's just not nice, not having the outside pressure of, you know, you have to do these numbers or I have to partner with this brand in order to pay for this. Like all those chains are off now.

So it's just like I'm going to work with the companies I want to work with. I'm going to have on guests that I want to have on, even if they're not like the best target archer in the world or, you know, or not, you know, I can just focus on what I feel like I'm getting satisfaction of at that moment. So it's been really nice. You do a lot of work with the brands on the bow side. How much, how much better can Bose actually get?

Like, what's the next break in technology going to be? because obviously they're messing around with composite materials. Yeah. They've played around with the strings. The cam system seems to be relatively evolved. Like, what is left? Well, mathematically not much because all the lead engineers, which I'm, I feel like I'm an unschooled engineer. Like all my engineering has been through the degree of seeing so many prototype phases through my career.

but mathematically you're essentially pulling something back, which is energy that you're putting in. And then that system can only give so much of that percentage back. So at this point, they're looking at the efficiency of archery, and they're pretty much saying like right now we're there. Because there's, you know, like hysteresis or system friction eats up some of like of what you're putting in there. So like with bow strings, there's strings in the cams. There's strings moving through the cables.

You know, there's like bearings on wheels. So all that is like system loss. But most of the lead engineers are pretty much saying, like at this point, we're only Robin Peter to pay Paul. Like we're either making a brace height shorter to get more speed because the arrow is on the string longer. Or if someone wants a bow that might feel better, we can give them the brace height back, but it won't have near the speed. So we're just, we're literally like all the buckets.

have the mathematical things in there and it's just a matter of where the people shuffle something so that that year there's something new. I've said like what I really like about some like high scientific people or high thinkers coming into archery because I know there's you know there's a lot of there's a lot of people that are trying to remain silent in the fact that they're involved with like archery or the bow hunting community, some higher profile people. From the backlash or social. Yeah, yeah. They're worried about that.

Gatekeeping, if you will. But there's some very, very fascinating minds that are inquiring about, you know, the sustainment of getting your own food and what that's all about. And I've said when those people, like, if an Elon Musk comes in, how is he not going to like, if he actually sits down and looks at a compound bow, how is he not going to say, well, why are we doing it like that? But do you think he could even make those changes? I don't know.

I think if there's anybody that could, it's, and I'm not saying Elon's the guy, but I'm saying. Somebody who thinks like that. Yeah, someone who's going to come into the industry with a complete outside perspective on that type of, you know, on like different materials that are available or different lubricants or, you know, a different cam system. And a lot of our like small changes that have happened are usually like, some of these engineers that are coming into the industry that are newer, that are kind of

asking the why, have we always done it that way? So, you know, there's kind of like the old guard has an old way of thinking. So a new way of thinking is definitely the thing that I think will help propel it because the old thinkers that we have, you know, there's only so much that you can think up where, you know, you've kind of just used up all your band with for your knowledge. They've tweaked all the tweaks. Yeah. We've, we've robbed Peter to pay Paul a lot in the archery industry.

It's already at that spot. Yeah, you're just fighting for like feet per second, you know, a few feet per second from one year versus an X. And it's getting to the point now where everybody, there used to be like one or two bo brands that were definitely the leaders. And then there was someone in third. And then there was a lot of people further down. Now there's probably like six companies.

that are all, they all make bows that I could have competed in one with during, like if I would have had that equipment, it really wouldn't have mattered the brand. But, you know, there's certainly brands that put a better product out to the consumer in the end because they've refined their manufacturing process. So it's just like, I just think the, what you take out of a box, is closer to what a pro would use versus, which I think in the firearm industry, that's that way a lot too. Like so many of these. At a baseline like chassis level, yeah, they would be hard to distinguish.

Now you could totally nerd out and start taking it apart and remove and upgrade internal components that only like a grandmaster or Ipsic level type shooter would notice. Like your average shooter, like if you take a trigger on a pistol and move it down to about a pound, that's actually not going to be optimal. for most people. Yeah.

Because they're going to take their pistol and shoot themselves with it. Yeah. Which is not what you're looking for. But at that level, yeah, I mean, they look largely the same and a lot of the stuff internally is different, though. But that's only for that pure competition setting.

And then that competition gun, you wouldn't want to take that thing into like a gunfight or an environment where, oh, hey, by the way, it's going to be wet or you're going to be crawling in the mud or you might drop this thing and you don't want it to either egg. go off or B fall apart. Yeah. So you sacrifice, I would say, the durability of it for the precision specifically for

that one narrow focus of competition. The big positive on that happening from a mechanical point of view, because like with archery, there's a mechanical perspective. There's a physical perspective that's, you know, your training and your technique. And then there's a mental perspective. But and I used to do seminars where I talked about like the trifecta and how you have to at least have two pieces of those pie like very solid because there's always going to be a time where you're leaning on one of those three pillars. So if if you have two mediocre pillars, like if mentally you've

never worked on that and physically you don't practice, you can have the best bow in the world. Yeah, you're cooked. But the weight of that will crush the other two. You know, versus if you have super strong discipline for technique and practice and you focus on the middle game, you can have the crappiest piece of a gear that you have and you're still going to outperform people that have way better stuff. But the good thing about the equipment being so good right now in the archery industry is anybody can come in and be good regardless of, you know, where you're at in health, where you're at an age, which is really awesome because like there's a, there's a program called the National Archery and the School program, which started, um,

when I was working at my first bow company. And, you know, we just had this vision of getting archery back into the schools because it seemed like you would meet people and they would say, oh, I did archery one time at Boy Scouts and loved it. Or some people said, we did archery in PE class. And I loved it, but I never did it since. So this National Archery in the School program is a program where they teach, like everybody has the exact same equipment.

They have the exact same target. So it's not like one student can have the cream of the crop. They all have to follow the exact same curriculum. So there's a level playing field when it comes to equipment and the training. But what the numbers that were like really eye-opening was during the first part of that process, how many like PE teachers, a lot of PE teachers were the first instructors to get certified for the NASP. How many of those people would come back and say, are PE teachers? attendance is 12% higher than it's ever been because there were so many kids that would have a

note not to play dodge ball or whatever, you know what I mean? Whereas with that, there were kids that, you know, maybe they were overweight, maybe they weren't coordinated, you know, maybe they didn't have like a family life that could take them to practices and all that stuff. But like they could get good at archery with basic fundamentals. They would be on a level playing field with people. and if they practiced during the same amount of time at school when that equipment would come off, the people that you would, that weren't necessarily stand out athletes or stand out like physically,

they would stand out with that and they felt so much reward from it that like school attendance went up, you know, how much they were actually coming to school, the fact that they went on their first field trip with other students and, interacted socially because they traveled like they were good enough to make it to the state meet. So like those aspects are cool that the equipment has got to that level to where if you're willing to just apply the basic fundamentals, you can be good at archery like at any age.

Is it still catching on with the younger generation? Yeah, I think so. There's there's certainly like a movement with, you know, I would say like the 18 to 28. there's a pretty big movement there because there's a lot of new people that are, you know, on social media that are active. And, you know, it's a, it's definitely a different lens to the bow hunting community and the archery community than what I was brought up through. Because I was brought up a lot through like, you know, maintaining the integrity of the industry, you know, just like loyalty to brand, you know, wasn't about if this person gave me, you know, this free can today, I'm going to all of a sudden

start drinking this, whereas, you know, just yesterday I was using this because this guy gave me a free can. That, like, that wasn't happening. So there's a lot of more, there's, in the younger generation, there's a lot more switching around, which is a little bit different from my perspective, but there, at least there is a newer crowd coming in, you know. You're in that demographic, young Michael. Do you have you ever shot a bow? Yeah, I think we had that program you're talking about at my elementary school. See? Yeah.

Do you have any friends or bow hunters or interested in bow hunting? I think he's right in the sweet spot of what you're talking about. Let's see. I have a few friends that are, that bow hunt, my cousin is really big into it. Okay. But overall, not a lot, I would say. You want to get into it? I would be down.

I know, that sounds very fun. I probably help you get a bow. and teach you. Yeah. I would have to practice a lot, obviously, because it's been forever since I shot it. You don't even need it. It's like just make sure you know where your releases

and go out in the field and just point and shoot basically. Yeah, exactly. It's exactly what it's like. Results are phenomenal when you do that. Well, the good thing is now, now I think with equipment being more dependable because like there were certainly times as our industry chased higher speeds

because there's definitely benefits to higher speeds with bows. Yeah. Because you're, you know, it's not like a bullet like you know you've got cast. I mean there's drawback to that though too, right? Like you say in pay, yeah, too fast. Yeah, too fast.

If you get too much speed because you've made the bow unforgiving, like in other words, you've brought the string really close to the grip so that it has more thrust on the arrow. That just gets technically harder to shoot because it's just, it's less forgiving. You know, I don't know how an easier way to say it. But there's also setups right now that are just so,

bulletproof like the string material's better like there was certainly a time where like you needed to have a bow shop close because you know your string would continually stretch and you'd have to go in and get your string rotated so your peep site was coming back correctly and maybe your cam position was changing whereas like the newer cam system um the top wheel and bottom wheel are like tied together differently in the cam system to where it's like imagine you know imagine having like a motorcycle where both wheels had an independent motor hard pass like yeah so if that you know if they get out of time you're going over the bars yeah it's it's kind of you know you just your accuracy isn't there but now they're like tied together a lot better so you don't have to worry about the everyday maintenance it's a lot

more of a plug and play sport. What about people who do live where there's no great bow shop? Is it at a place where you could probably order everything you need online and like figure it out yourself? Yeah. The hardest part about that is like you have to put the bow in a press to put a peep sign in it. That's the one thing that separates like a consumer being able to just buy a bow that's perfectly set up for them. The strings don't come in with the peep site or is it just at an average height? Well, if you change the position because the strings twist, it like if I moved it down it's going to continually just spiral around so you have to have it you know perfectly straight so you're able to you know it's essentially a peephole like in a hotel

door or something like you need to be able to look through the rear side it's your rear side aperture yeah like imagine over there on that baby if you hold MP5 not a big deal yeah so imagine on the MP5 if all the sudden that rear thing just started to like turn on you and you couldn't re-center it so that you could see your front site properly that's the main disconnect but between someone being 100% self-efficient with being able to work on their archery gear. But there's so much good. Is that solvable? Because, again, it's based off of your mechanics of the framework that you have as the archer.

You're going to have to be able to move that to fit your body. Man, that's kind of an important piece. It is. How come we're talking more about archery on your podcast than we did on mine? I don't know. We don't have to talk about archer. We can talk more about Michael and his generation and how I think we're fucked. because of them.

We've done so good as our generation. The world is in such a good spot right now, Dudley. This is the environment I have to endure. All we can do is lead by example. I think he got a pretty good job over there. He's just drawing pictures. Go ahead, hold it up. Hold up your notebook.

Actually, not that many. Do you have any examples of things I've added to your pictures? Dudley would appreciate it. Oh, let me fine. Well, he draws a lot of hands. Oh, dick fingers, I'm sure. No, it's like a Lego grip. So I feel in the, I feel like he's taunting me to fill in the negative space.

I got to go back. You haven't messed with my notebook in a while. Yes, because I'm a respectful employer. Even though you underperform consistently, I'm respectful. Well, yeah, of course. So I'm not trying to hurt you because your generation is so much more sensitive. Yeah, very weak, weak-minded. Yeah.

I'm really trying here. Unbelievable. Yeah. I've had some really good ones. He wasn't prepared. He never is. Well, it was one of your faves. I was just like a really

Vaney triumphant bastard He had good Really good features Like some of the creases on the knuckles And so I appropriately added all the additional details Because they didn't want it to like Yeah You didn't want it to jar anybody

You know I don't think I've ever been on a trip with you Where there wasn't a dick drawn There always should be I think you can make NFTs out of those Michael Probably Is that still? Did you ever get into that? What?

The NFTs non-fungible token, I believe. It's the pictures that people were selling. Uh-uh. No, but I saw. I still to this day, did you ever get into that, Michael? No. I don't understand what they are, but I do believe that the market on that is completely augured, which is what I suspected it would do. Yeah. Not that I'm a financial advisor in any way, but I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah. Like, it's the picture that only I'll have. I'm like, I just took a screenshot of that, so now I have it too. But it's not real. Like, on my phone, it's real. Yeah. It looks pretty good to me. So, I'm not going to carry you this thing around

all the time. So I might as well just show people the one on my phone. Yeah. What, uh, we don't have to talk about archery. You're like the best archer that I know though, so it's easier to, uh, to talk about that. What are you still fired up about? Like what do you got? Do you set goals for yourself, like three year, five year, 10 year? Yeah. Yep. Um, I remember specifically in my 30s. Um, at that time, I don't know if it was actually in my 30s or if it was in my late 20s. I think it was in my early 30s. The Arnold Classic had archery at it for two years.

And the first ones, I think they invited like the top 20 or 40 pros to go. So I competed in the first Arnold Classic and I remember seeing Frank Zane and Arnold were both there watching. and I always really admired like Frank Zane from a bodybuilding perspective. And he ended up coming up to me and was asking me a lot of questions about archery where it became obvious that he shot archery. And he ended up telling me Arnold and I used to shoot for like our R&R.

We'd go to Santa Monica High School and we'd shoot archery. And he said that... We hit the poundage was on their bows like 280? No, like back then. I've got some, I've got some pictures. I've got like a signed black and white. Just getting a lat workout in just, just go. Oh yeah. You should see, you should see Arnold's tricep is crazy. Horshoe. It looks like a ham hanging off his thing. But Frank ended up saying, yeah, Arnold and I were just talking. And next year we want to have a competition, like a friendly competition again. And he said, of course, I want to beat him. So he goes, you know, do you do any coaching? And I just said, yeah, I love doing coaching. So Frank and I ended up trading archery lessons for like fitness lessons. And so Frank came to my house and it was just an awesome experience because we went through the grocery store. There it is. I have that. I have that original picture signed. Are they holding the string with their fingers? Yeah.

Yeah. They didn't have releases back then. Look at Arnold with his hips cock forward. have that original sign. Why does Arnold, first off, look at that. Over extended left arm. You don't need that thing on your forearm. You're sash shaying your hip forward. You have no. Dude, there's your haircut you want.

Yes. We're going full circle. What do we got? He doesn't even have an anchor point. Look at that. No. No. He's, uh, elbows super low. Yeah.

You don't need one if you're Arnold though. Yeah, I could, I could fight a laser pointer. I could just totally break all that technique down. And I only know all those things because that's when I, when I started, you're like, you look like shit. That would be right there. The hip cock forward is so ridiculously common. Yeah.

And the shoulder packing. Pitching. If you really want to be at apex level archer, what you have to do with all these things is hold your breath. I mean, that technique right there would actually be like, if you did that, it would be kind of what not to do right now. Yeah, but it's Arnold. So it's like, you know, he does what he wants.

Well, you can tell he's muscling through it. And so that's one of the things about archery. that's if you rely on your anatomy. So if you're structurally set up, which Frank isn't at full draw, but Frank actually has a better technique in that picture. His elbow's a little low, which his elbow's still low now.

I think it was like rotator issues. But when archery, when you're the most accurate with archery is when it's really easy. And what I tell people is bad shots are the hardest to make. Good shots are the easiest to make, meaning technique-wise, when a shot goes off like really quick and you're almost not expecting it because you haven't put a lot of effort in, that's when everything was done correctly. But when all of a sudden you look like Arnold there and, you know, you've got like, you can

see his front hips forward, his front shoulder is driven back. His rear elbow is super low. So, I mean, everything he's doing there is using muscle. He's not using any anatomy. But if his feet, knees, hips, and shoulders were all in the same plane, and if his front wrist, elbow, shoulders, and then if the rear elbow was up about 10 inches higher to where the rear arm was parallel to the front, but above it,

you wouldn't have to rely on all the muscle, which is why I was saying, like, when kids learn proper technique, even if they're not super athletic, it's you're utilizing your your skeletal anatomy to support this bow not muscle like you can power through times but like the amount of tension that's in his whatever that meat is right there in the elbow like that's that's like tennis elbow ready to rupture right there um that's the place where you get IVs and he is so yoke that that spot has its own muscle they could put a garden hose in that Yeah. Have you seen the Hunger Games photo with Catnus Everdeen with her bow at full draw?

Which one? Like the spoof one where it's incorrect? No, that was the actual. That's what I was going to pull up. Yeah, that's the actual poster for the movie. Let me see it. It's been so long. But she got, she got coached by a decent archer, though. Yeah, but the decent archer isn't the person who did the art for the movie. Yeah. That's, that's the biggest problem. Like, um, yeah, The arrows on the wrong side of the bow. Well, like, you know, that's the hard thing. If you're into archery, it's kind of like your tactical assholes. Go let me see here.

Far left. Hold on. That's actually not her. It's one of these. Go to the one, two, three, four, five, six over. This one more. That's five. Carry the one.

I mean, that's a cartoon. That's a cartoon. Yeah. There's like the official. movie poster and yeah the arrow is on the wrong side of the actual bow itself yeah that's super common and the other thing that's common too when whenever any photographer that isn't an archer the thing they love to do is get an archer in the moment of drawing to where it looks like it's hard yeah the moment it's the moment it's the point yeah and it's the worst moment in time to like show

what your technique is. It's like, you know, I don't know. Oh, finger over the arrow. Nice. Yeah. That helps, right? That helps get the fletchings lined up. Yeah, especially when the photographer's like, hold, hold, hold.

And she's trying to not shoot someone. Yeah, standing there. Shaking like a dog shit and razor blades. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you could easily do like a tactical asshole segment on archery. Because I know, like, in the first Thor, it really bugged me when Hawkeye was in the crane.

Yeah. And they like pan back to show him. Like one, he's got a, he's got like the worst arrow rest you could possibly have to be using in Hollywood. And I don't think, and the arrow wasn't on the rest either. Sweet. And yeah. And he's just sitting there holding and it's like. Oh, he was holding it full draw?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Of course. He's ready. Yeah. Didn't you say in the Rambo movie they used a tent pole for the arrow, that had the explosive tip. Well, so the explosive tip...

It was like a carrying case for the Broadhead, right? Yeah. Google, Google Thunderhead 100 Broadhead. Also, spectacular marketing name. Like, I'll take several of the Thunderhead 100s, please. They were a monumental piece in archery. Okay. Michael has some of those, and we're not even talking archery.

Go to images and let's see if they show any in like they're in their case. Is this the actual, the correct broadhead though? Yeah, but it was back in time. So there's new packaging now. Or no, actually it was called a, I think it, look up, I think it was called a razor cap. Yeah, type in.

Or you could just do Rambo explosive arrow. Do razor cap 100. A razor cap. Yeah. Or maybe it was a razor back. Razor back. God, this was 30 years ago. do razor back.

That's where you're back. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, wow. We're getting out. We got scopes. Razor back. It's been so long since that.

Yeah. Just do Rambo arrow. Yeah, do Rambo explosive arrow. So anyway, on these. Was he shooting a compound or a recurve? Yeah, he was shooting a Hoyt. Okay, so there's the packs, actually, right there. But those broadheads, so the broadheads.

So the broadheads. So you didn't slice your fingers open. Well, yeah. When you got the box, there was a plastic cap over them. Oh, yeah. You can totally see it is the shipping cap. Go to the second row, one image over. Yeah, it was like the shipping.

One image over, Michael. And so they literally like spray painted the protective sleeve that was over it to look like the explosive. He has a very extreme. Yeah, that was the Hoyt Rambo, dude. He has a really. There's a new one coming out. Extreme list to his bow.

The top side is really. that's Richard Ryan probably replicating it. Yeah. Why is every avenge of him shooting? Why does he have the bow essentially at a 45? That does not help with accuracy. Well, so back then there wasn't like the rest that we have now like this. Yeah.

It was just a side plunger. So if you can'ted the bow, it was like it would keep it on the shelf better. Well, and you know why. And a lot of people like, so these are like some of the first, these are like some of the first kind of compounds. So a lot of. of the technique previously came from traditional archery where people shot recurves, so they can'ted the bows a lot. You know what else that helps with?

What? Showing the actor's face. Yeah. Otherwise, it would be hidden behind the, uh, the bow itself. Yeah. Because if you look at that, those are all really good shots of the Stallone's face, totally natural, by the way, too. Even go up more, Michael.

Yeah. Those would be horrible pictures of the bow is actually shot correctly. Yeah. And like that grip position wouldn't be. preferred at this point, like the full reach around? Dude, that looked like Nicholas Cage. Have you ever worn a headband? Was that a practice archery?

Huh? Have you ever worn a headband while practicing archery? No. I've worn a visor, which is, I think, the closest step to a headband. Did you ever wear like a set of those glasses, like the crazy shooters that block out everything and you're like looking? Because you get, oh, you guys had lenses, though, in your peep sites, right? Yeah, yeah.

Just, and in your front site, you'd have a lens, too. I don't even know how we got on this. Well, because we're with you. You go deep down the rabbit holes, deep down. Rambo is an awesome movie. Well, you're asking me about, like, my goals. Yeah. And so.

Only because I'm looking for some of my own. So when I met Frank, one of the things that he taught me, which was really helpful, was he taught me that it wasn't, it wasn't about how heavy the weight was that. that you were moving, it was about how heavy you made the weight feel. So he told me a story about- It wasn't about how heavy the weight was that you were moving. It's about how heavy the weight you made it feel. Okay. So like, and he really enforced like slow negatives. Like the negative count was higher than the positive count.

So it wasn't like- To make it feel heavier in- Exactly. And so he like told me a story about, um, he was a teacher, but he said he used to try, like when he was first working out and bodybuilding, he would travel with like a set of weights in a pillowcase. So he'd have like the old like screw on. Yeah. So he'd have a pillowcase with like one handle and then all the stacks. And then he would work out like with that singular piece.

So he said, you know, a lot of times I didn't have a ton of weight that I was having all the time. So he said I had to learn how to make the weight feel heavier. So he was slowing down the mood. movements. And he told me that one of the things he wished he would have known was that when he was younger, he wished he would have known that he could have developed, I don't know if as much as he said that he had, but he just said, I could have made lower weight feel heavier and it would have been better for my longevity. So one of the goals that he gave me is he said, you really need to focus on being in, if you can focus on being in better shape at 40, and I think I was 32 or 33 because he said,

don't try to be in the best shape of your life when you see me next summer. Don't try to be, you know, if we meet next year at the Arnold, don't let that be your only goal because he said, if you look at the long term, fitness is going to be a whole different type of mindset for you. So he's like, I want you to just constantly have a long term goal of being in better shape at 40 than you were at 30.

And that was a big one for me. And my shoulder got done when I was 39, which was, you know, and luckily I, like, was able to recap and have nine months to actually complete that goal, which I was. But that was a big one, was like, that was the first time where I had a longevity goal. Now what I'm doing is I really, I'm really trying to, my long-term goal, at least for what I'm doing with our archery community and like our knock-on platform

is I'm really focused on putting every piece of educational content that I've ever created in a current palatable form so that people are able to like go to the website, type in, can I pull up the website? Yeah, whatever you want. I mean, I don't want to turn into a sales pitch, but just N-O-C-O-N, Archery. knock on our tree.

You see how little he cares about love for this? What the heck? Yeah. I wonder he's not paid at all. He's paid too much. Okay. So like... Because if he's paid at all, that's too much.

What's cool about our website right now is if you go in here, like if you just scroll down, there's obviously going to be products and stuff because we do have products that we sell. But then again, scroll back up to the top. So like up here at the top, you can see if you go to scroll down, of knock right there so if you yeah just click on that um so what i've been really focused on doing is every single piece of filmed content i've ever created which is terabytes by the way oh yeah yeah thousands and thousands and thousands they're all getting broken down and rewritten into palatable forms so now what you can do and you can see

see like, you know, everything on the left is mindset. Everything in the center here is all like bow terminology definitioning. And then everything on the right is like school of knock practice. Oh, that's what you mentioned, the hysteresis. That's what you're talking about with the bo-tech. Yeah, exactly. So, but if you scroll up now that you're in this section, you could go to like the search bar and you could type in like, so what's cool about our website is there's actually paralleling. We have Shopify, Shopify or WordPress or Shopify and all that for the store side. But then our website parallels a WordPress side to where there is a ridiculous amount.

Like we are reinvesting everything our company's making. We're reinvesting into free education for the archery community. So like if you put in here like how to shoot a bow. You know, every single thing is being properly tagged and everything to where, you know, like, you know, just, you know, it's just all in there. You can, you can just type it in and it's all in there. And then all these are in blog format. So you can, you know, you can just dive into, yeah, setting up a bow for a mouth tab. But so we're, we're, I'm focused right now.

My short term goal is to build the best education. education platform as a give back to my industry that, you know, it's pretty cool that I'm going to be 50 in June. And it's arguable whether I'm at like the apex of my trajectory through our entire community, which most athletes can't say that. You know, most athletes, you know, hit their peak in their mid-30s or 40s and then they're trying to find a path. Whereas now I'm on the position of All I want to do is I just want to put everything that archery is ever given to me. I want to put it back out there for people to have. And we certainly have products that make the tools helpful.

But I just want to give back as much as I can while I'm motivated to do it too. Because I don't want to be the guy that's 80 years old and still trying to be relevant in the archery community. You know, my short-term goal is to build everything that we can to really support the archery industry in a very positive light. But then I also really want to focus the second part of my timeline on making sure that I will be there for, like, grandkids, hopefully, or like even now that our son, you know, he gets married next July. You know, I missed a lot of things that I regret to, like, build the career that I built. and I don't want to like force that for a past where I feel like it needs to go naturally. So I'm just trying right now to utilize what I've boiled down is like some of my best partners, people that just really see this and appreciate it.

Like, you know, MKC, for example, you know, they were like, hey, we really want to bring forward, you know, an archery type thing. would you be interested in, you know, devoting time for like a full series for us to be able to break this down? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Whereas 10 years ago, there's no way I could have committed to that project because, you know, and I think you and I were both on this same thing of you realize there's a fine line between travel and like a healthy family life. Oh, yeah. And so like, you know, I was tipping that scale in an opposite direction for a long time, which, you know,

It's hard to know whether or not you'd be where you are if you didn't do that. But I think if there's one thing that I would have done differently was I would have said no more often, like, than what I did. It's tough when you're in the grind. It is. Did you talk about, well, you talked about like minimizing things in the book, which I really like. I talked specifically about saying no. I feel uncomfortable looking at myself for this amount of time. Well, it doesn't mean that the audience.

Michael, go back to the next. Can you do like chat GPT on? He can. Yes. Okay. But hold on. First go back one page because I'm going to show you the archery item that scares me the most out of all archery items. Scroll down.

There it is. The hinge release. I hate that fucking thing. I've seen so many videos of people punching themselves in the face. First off, I've never attempted to use one of these things because it scares me so badly. I actually have a few videos of like some archers that when I competed, there were some guys that I didn't really jive with at the time. You know, obviously age changes a lot of those mindsets.

But I have like some vintage video of people, those guys punching themselves in the face at an event. Like, you know, like misfiring. Can misfire that? Sometimes I look at it. You should. But if a pro archer can misfire that in a tournament, I have no business. being around that in my backyard.

It's actually scary to me how many people like practice in their backyard without any, it's almost like with archery people don't think it's a gun where it can go far. Arrows can go far. What's the worst thing could happen? You put an arrow like in the neighbor's roof about like, yeah, the face would be bad. I remember, well, my dad had a bow like Rambos, but I couldn't pull it. and all I had was a little red fiberglass bow. And I wanted to shoot my dad's because look how cool it looked.

Obviously. But when he was gone, what I realized is I could pull it with my feet. So I would sit on my butt and I would pull it back and shoot it into the thing in the backyard. And then of course, it gravitated. I'm sure that's great for a bow. Yeah. And then it turned into like a friend saying like, I wonder how high it would go. you know, which it goes really high and then it lands directly in the top of a roof of a house,

like four houses down. And like every day I came out and would like look and see that arrow over there. I'm just like, when does someone get a notice that thing? I have a memory of when I was younger. I don't think we had a bow, but we had an arrow. And we would throw it up in the air as hard as we could and then not look at it. And we would just run around as it would come down. The thing is, it just we'd.

it out so many random dumb people like when we would do that stuff. I'm still sitting here, you know, so yeah, it didn't weed out that many. But yeah, really shooting a bow with your feet, that I haven't thought about that. Well, solves a problem though. It did. Yeah. If you're not strong enough, it squats. Yeah. Well, we're gonna chat GBT. Oh, so do a chat, GBT. Just ask, um, ask chat to send a picture of Andy and just say, can you put the best 70s bang, bowl cut, haircut on him. Do one of Andy and then do...

Hold on, Michael. I got the picture. I'll send it to you right now. Do one of Andy and then one of me and we'll, like, let's see what this thing dishes up. That'll be excellent. I'm sending you, Michael. Actually, uh, guy, this never really works.

I'm just going to text it to you. You have your phone, Michael? Yeah. I'm just going to text it to you. So one of the questions, or I shouldn't say one of the questions, But one of the things that I kind of hope happens with your book is there's a really needed message in there about people that are struggling to, like, reach out to friends. Not the easiest thing to do. Yeah.

Yeah. But like from your community, I feel like that's one of the messages that you need. to make sure people understand is in there because I feel like that's going to that could potentially help more people from a major problem than getting the classic hilarious Andy Stumpf. You know, a lot of people want to go to the chapters where you've either did a military mission. Sorry, there's none of those in the book. Well, I mean, there's a singular skydiving story, which I've talked about on the podcast, but that's it. Well, I don't know.

You talk some about like, you know, when you got shot, you talked a little bit about that. Yeah, I was like, hey, got shot laying on the ground, end of war story. There's not a whole out there. I mean, it wasn't some crazy ass. Yeah, it's definitely not, it's definitely not a war story. But I feel like some of the discussions about like when you're in a dark place mentally. Yeah. I feel like that's a really important part of this book to come forward for people that are in that same position.

I would like to say that I think it helps, but I don't know if it does. Like, I'm not the first person from that community to talk to other community members and say, hey, man, like, I'm here for you. You're not alone. And I know you're not either. But the battle you're fighting with is the person's internal monologue with themselves. And they probably would tell you, this is the most common thing that I think happens. If you said, hey, do you have somebody that you could reach out to?

they'll say, yes, I think I do. Well, why don't you do that? Why don't want to be a burden for them? That's the thing that they put in front of themselves. So they know that there are people out there that care for them, but they convinced them that even though the people care for them, if they were to take them up on what they have readily offered to them multiple times, that it would somehow be a burden or that they didn't really mean that.

They were just saying that. Yeah. So it's, I mean, there's a natural. National Suicide Hotline and suicide has talked about pretty openly in the military now in the in the military communities. And it's not, you know what I mean? It's not having as much of an impact as I think that it should. I mean, those, maybe those just aren't the right tools, but people do know that there are tools out there. Yeah. Like if you go online and I've, not that I've ever Googled suicide online, but I've looked at statistics and things like that, if you even throw in a rough Google search and most AI, platforms or into Google specifically that is even proximal to that, one of the first things it spits out is the anti or the suicide hotline. Yeah. Like it's like, hey, buddy, like we'll give you the answer you're looking for, but also,

you're not alone. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's getting people to use those tools. I don't know how you do that. My hope is that by me talking about my own experiences, I've never been suicidal, by the way. I'm not trying to say that that's in the book.

But dealing with my own experiences and the impact and benefit of I have had. And I talk about it openly on the show all the time of talking with counselors and therapists at times in my life, not consistently, but at times I needed to. The impact that I had, I hope that that lets people have the internal conversation with themselves. Like, well, maybe if this person is doing it, then I'm not the only person that feels this way. Yeah. Because most people know that there are tools out there. I just, there's some gap between knowing the tool exists and taking the effort to actually utilize the tool and reach out. I don't know what that secret sauce is.

Yeah. I think, I personally think, because there's times where, like, we've talked about our circles getting smaller. I think, you know, I think you start to realize, especially when you have something to offer, you have a platform, there's a lot of people that come with their hands out, you know, rather than like hugs come in. You know, there's like a lot of hands out. And then once you start to encounter that a lot, you know, you feel like it's not a two-way street. You know, there's more giving than getting. So at some point you have to like make a decision of like, is this positive for both people? And if not, you cut it off.

And sometimes when you're making those decisions, especially when you care for people or you like people and like them as a person, but they're just not positive for the direction you're having to go with your bandwidth. at the time. When you cut them off, sometimes, you know, that leads to sadness because you're, you know, in a way, it's like, am I backing out on a relationship? But, you know, you also have to do what's best for like your longevity of time. So for me, when I read the book and got to hear about someone else's feelings that way and how you digested them, it was a nudge. Like it was just a nudge to say like, hey, maybe it's okay to open up a little bit more to a friend. Yeah.

You know, and sometimes, which, you know, for you, like, as I was reading the book, it was sad for me because I was remembering, like, I remember those times for you. And I remember at times as a friend, I felt like I was reaching out. But then like I started to question like, did I reach out enough? To answer that for you. Yeah, like 100%. You actually reached out probably more than anybody else other than direct family. But also a lot of people didn't know what was going on in my life.

And I'm not trying to be obscure about this. We're talking about when I was going through my divorce. No, it's some people aren't close enough to know because obviously you're not going to, you know, you don't feel like you need to lay that stuff on. Yeah. Right. Even if you're part of your life is existing on social media. I am a fan and supportive of showing your good days and your bads.

But also sometimes you just need to work through some shit before you. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need to like, hey guys, just going live real quick, walking into a divorce proceeding. You know, deuces. Like live your life if you want to like that. But maybe also sometimes put the work in to get the thing done. And you know, not everything has to be shared.

Right. And so a lot of it, I think, was. it was more me taking a step back. Like, I don't know if you could have reached out anymore. Yeah. You ended up showing up in Montana one time. You guys tried to surprise me. But of course, I saw your reflection in the mirror because you can't sneak up on me.

Actually, it was a window, not even a mirror. Yeah. It's basically Jason board. It's not a big deal. But, yeah, man, it's, it's interesting getting older. I think it's, I think your social circle is supposed to change. Yeah. I'm not the same person I am.

now getting closer to 50 than 40 than I was in my 30s or my 20s or my teens. I'm just lucky to survive that area if I'm being totally honest. Actually, probably up until my 40s, I'm lucky to have survived. But if you're into different stuff and doing different stuff, how could you not expect to have a little bit of drift, especially as you find your way into new endeavors, that you then you end up liking a lot. So then you spend a lot of time. Does that mean that you value those other people less? No. Yeah. It probably means that your life has gone in a different direction. And most people's lives are going in different directions as well, too. I don't think there's any, like, you're not trying to hurt anybody's feelings. Yeah. That's why I was telling you,

before we started, I always remind myself, you know, don't, don't apply malice where incompetence is probably the better answer. And I don't mean incompetence from your friends. It just means they're probably not trying to hurt your feelings. They probably just have their own stuff going. Yeah. Which is a tough one, though, when it's hurting your feelings to remind yourself of that. Yeah, but it's complex, man. No is the most powerful word I have in my vocabulary right now, though. What? No.

Oh, yeah. I just, I don't have, well, I have the same amount of time, right? We all have the same 24 hours, even though I did see an Instagram video. And I bet you Michael could pull this one up. I live my first day in eight hours, then boom. I'm on to my second eight hours. And then boom. And I live three days in a day.

And I'm like, listen, I'm not a math genius. But I do know how. It's three. It's 24, but that's still, oh, God. Michael's the best. Hit play on this shit. He's compressed. It's time. I've bent it. My day is 6 a.m. to noon and I'm not crazy. You're crazy thinking it takes 24 hours, just like some dude in a cave did 300 years ago. My second day starts at noon and it goes till 6 p.m. That's day two. And I'm the next day is 6 p.m. to midnight. What I've done now is I have changed a manipulated time. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month. I'm going to kick your butt. Stuck it up over a year, your toast. Stuck it up over five years.

My entire life is different than it would have been otherwise. So I measure time. I've compressed. So a few things. One, 300 years ago would be the 1700s. Not a lot of people were living in caves, right? So let's maybe let's, because you used math farther on into this video, maybe we should, we should counter that a little bit and maybe make sure our reference is accurate.

But this person is psychologically insane. Yeah, that's a very different way to look at things. You know what wasn't mentioned in any of those three days that he lives? Sleep. So I guess he just is awake. I mean, I get it. I'm glad that he's enthusiastic. And I bet you this guy sells a multi-thousand-dollar course online where you can learn

how to bend and manipulate time as well. I know nothing about this person. I'm not, well, I am talking a little bit of shit, but it's not, it's good-hearted. It's medium-hearted in nature. Yeah. I definitely think there's real credibility to having, understanding the best parts of your day where you're the most efficient at decision making the mornings or or tackling tasks yeah and then when you realize you start to fizzle off i think if you

realize what those you know those sections of time are if you're trying to do something that that needs a lot of bandwidth or decision making during a time where you're really not at your peak you're not you're going to take much longer to make decisions or you're you're you're going to come up with ideas instead of solutions, which I'm the master of. Like, I see every task is like how to problem solve versus just like making the decision of solving the problem right then, you know. But there's definitely different times of the day where you're in or out of those states more or less. So I think you could benefit from realizing what is the most productive, you know, six or

eight hours of my day and that's the times where I need to schedule the most important meeting. Well, reducing distractions in your life by saying no to things too that maybe interest to you, but they don't serve where you're at in your life at that time gives you more time and bandwidth to devote to those things. Yeah. I just, again, we all have the same 24 hours regardless of the video that we just watched, which he just took the same 24 hours and divided it by three. So, congrats on that one.

With no sleep. Not that I, there was no food in that either. So by day four, does he sleep for day four? four, five, and six. And then he goes back into the next to answer that. Yeah. It's pretty crazy, though. You know, if you have 100 things that you need to put your bandwidth towards,

that's pretty tough to perform at a high level against all of them. Yeah. If I can reduce that to 10 that are really important, I can probably get that done pretty effectively. Yeah. And honestly, at this point of my life, man, I just want to have, to me, the quality of life for me has shifted a lot towards just experiences with people that I care about, far less on the things, which I think I was maybe enamored with more when I was younger.

The whatever, maybe like, oh, I got to get fill in the blank. I wanted to have fill in the blank. And now it's like, if I had a choice between spending something on something or doing something with people, I'm going with the experience 100% of the time. I started writing more stuff down. Like I do a to-do list every day. and like if I'm in the kitchen it might be on the chalkboard if I'm in there and Sharon's like hey you got a the guys need you to do this this and this I'll like write it on the chalkboard and for me it's

satisfying to see myself cross something off and then if someone happens to call me and ask me to do something like when you're able to physically look and say like I can't do that today yeah when you don't have a, you know, an actual physical list to look at. It's harder for me to like remember every single thing that's according to priority. But it also lets you, it lets you physically cross off the things or at least like even if they're not written in order, you might look at it of like, oh crap, if I don't do this by two o'clock, like that person's not even going to be at his desk anymore. Like I have to do that now. And yeah, for me, the list has been huge. Yeah. I never really got into the list thing, probably would be beneficial.

Writing it down for me helps me remember. And like I said, the biggest thing is when someone else asked me to do something. You got more going on than I do, though. Like you're running like a massive business. You and Sharon are still like on the steering wheel on that thing. Well, Sharon's on the steering wheel. I'm like, I'm on the pegs. Yeah.

You know, because I still do like the things that I do for our brand, I still do for some other companies as well. So, you know, I have to make content for the benefit of knock on archery. And that's where a lot of my content goes. But then I also do content for other people who have been, you know, partners of mine or people that, you know, that I enjoy working with. I have to deal with that as well. But the list for me has been a big one is actually like writing it down. And that's why I have chalkboards.

everywhere, well, you know, like every single one of my rooms. Oh, for sure. There's a chalkboard to where I can, like, see it. And if I have it on my phone, I can write it in there. And it just helps me, it helps me know when to say yes and when to say no. What are you going to do after archery? Like, what are you going to find fulfillment with? Guitar, I think.

I like, um, do you think you'll hunt until you're physically not able to? I don't know. Um, I don't know because I really, really enjoy hunting and I don't want to say that I'm never not going to hunt. But I also like, I'm also getting to the point where, and I think I've been to a point where I'm not hunting for trophy purposes. You know, I'm hunting for, you know, I just feel like that's a part of my DNA. And it's something that lets me clear my mind. Like, you know, during deer season, for example, most people would not think sit in 13.

hours a day for three to four weeks in a tree would would be fun. I only know actually one person that thinks that way, but. Okay. But like that's that's the one time where I know every year I can have time to think about writing and it's like the like we talked about white noise. Like if I can get rid of the noise to where there's just, you know, I can hear like waves. You know, I really like, I really like the beach. We had gone, you know, I think it was like 45 years before I had ever gone in a, like, before I had ever traveled on a vacation without a bow case, you know, because like at one point, Sharon's like, we can't, you can't go for archery.

But then they give us a cool three days off and you see that as a family trip. Like, we need to just go somewhere. Those are very different things. You know, and so, you know, I did that. And I realized like, holy crap, like to be able to just turn my phone off, tell everybody I'm gone to just like, you know, go there and sit on a beach. And, you know, I normally find it hard to be unwind to unwind when you get into that environment. Or can you slide it? The first, the first few times, yeah, because I was always like, I was always like so go, you know, like when I started out traveling.

You know, I think I'd gone through like three passports by the time I was 37. And I told people I've been everywhere in the world but seen none of it. You know, and it's like a lot of the world looks the same if you're just like popping up at a destination. And all of a sudden I'm like, hey, I'm in Calispell, but I'm doing this. And then you're going to take me to an airplane. And then tomorrow I might be in, you know, Australia. Hotel, airport, rental car, archery range. Yeah, you're going to, like you said, you'll travel the world and have seen none of it.

Yeah. Because all that shit is so similar. It doesn't even matter where you are. So I think that was ingrained in me a lot like how you say, you know, you were molded like during your team days of like, you know, you just, you couldn't quit. You know, you didn't complain about nothing. You just like, you're so programmed that way to where I was programmed for like archery is like travel, work, bang this out. another one tomorrow. Travel work, bang this out, travel work, bang this out. Or, you know, it'd be like, go to work. I got, you know, four 12s, I got to bang out so I can, so I can get on a

plane, be in another country tomorrow, compete for due days, get back here, be on the phone for four hours for, you know, four days for 12 hours, get back on the plane Thursday, travel to another event. Like, you just get to the point where it's like, if you cross something off the list, you just know that like, where's the next thing? So you're never like, you're never looking to breathe. You're looking to execute. And so it probably took like two vacations before I realized how to change that. And now it's to the point where like when I do a vacation now, I almost want to purposely disconnect harder. It's if you've never done it, you know, if you're someone that's just driving, especially if you have someone in your family that's telling you, like, we need to have

family time. Force yourself into, like, trying to do it once because once you do it a few times, you're going to actually realize how much you need that disconnection and how much you need that reset. Like, I, for me, guitar is the one thing that I really regret not learning when my brain was spongier because like right now I love I love drilling and like I have a Taylor guitar that I travel with all the time like on all of our I've taken it to I've taken it to every vacation I've ever gone on like I just I have it in my bowcase so I like open that up I've got like a GS mini in there and flip flops and and swimming trunks packed all around it and like two nights worth of decent clothes.

But like that's what I travel with. And I just love the fact of like that thing tells me when I forgot about archery, just like, you know, what we talked about. It's like if I'm sitting there trying to do basic things with the guitar and I'm fumbling around and it's just like, you know, hidey, like I don't want anyone around me to listen. It's apparent that I haven't detached and I'm not really in like vacay mode yet. But then all of a sudden when I realize like we're out there on a beach and, you know, Sharon's talking to me and, you know, we're having just like fun in the sun. And all of a sudden I'm like playing.

I'm like, dude, you're like here. You're in this moment right now. The only problem is like, I think with me being older, my brain doesn't soak in what I learn. So I almost spend more time like, you know, if I learn a song, that's awesome. If I practice it constantly. I can almost like play the song without like having to like read it in tabs. But then as soon as I learned the next song for like one or two weeks, I'm like, how, like, what was the even the rhythm or strumming pattern to that previous one? So now it's like so much of my brain is either absorbed with archery and I can't flush it out. But it's like I have this really small cash for learning something new. and it doesn't have the ability, like I'm just not absorbing a lot of it, which I, you know,

I regret that part because I feel like I'm getting to the point now or as I see, you know, 50 and 60, I want archery to remain fun, but it also, like, I know deep down I've got to pull the throttle back on it, you know, I want to do the things that I enjoy doing, but I can't do it all the time. And for me, that next thing is like family time. I really enjoy. enjoy the beach. Like I've enjoyed like we went to Sedona. Sharon and I and like hiked a bunch of the vortexes and stuff. Really, really like that. She's on your call through your list. She is. Shockingly enough, my sister and daughter. And my daughter, by the way, shares my location with me on Life 360. She knows where I am.

She blasts through on two out of three podcasts. if I call her back what's going on oh I just wanted to see what you were doing like you see I'm in the podcast studio exactly where I swear she's just messing with me I think the key to staying young mentally is though learning those new things yeah it's imagine how non-existent your cash would be if you had never picked up the guitar yeah and had never tried to expand that volume yeah it's it's again archery to me Jiu-jitsu aviation

you can't master those things so it's like this lifelong journey of learning and there's always like not that I've ever done any recurve stuff but if you're like okay you know what like the compound thing what I'm the best of them ever going to be go pick up a recurve boat guess what you're starting over you know what I mean so there's these little offshoot

aviation is kind of the same way like rotary wing okay cool like I'm flying this helicopter I understand this oh let's put long line on the bottom of this thing and see if we can move stuff with any level of accuracy and precision. Like you want to talk about a totally new thing that you have to learn. Yeah. And the aircraft is going to fly differently and your power settings and temperature and

all those stuff. Like to me, that's fascinating. Not that I would ever, like I'm never going to go start a business trying to long line stuff. And I actually haven't done any longlining stuff in the helicopter. But these are things in the back of my mind. Like maybe in a year or two, I will go do that. Not because I want to do that professionally. It's just a challenge.

Yeah, I just want to learn. Yeah. And learning something that is like tangential to something that you already do, oftentimes you highlight stuff that you didn't even know you didn't know about the core thing, and then you can make that even better. Yeah. And I love that. And those are the things that interest me the most.

The stuff that seems to be simple, not that I could give you an example of anything in my life that has been simple, but it just doesn't interest me. Yeah. The complexity is actually what I enjoy. Well, and learning to recognize the different layers. to things, you know, which that's kind of an art in itself, too. Like, you have to, you have to explore enough levels of things to realize there's levels above levels.

And then that's when you start to get so embedded and deep into it. Like, I'm fortunate because there's a lot of musicians that really like archery and bow hunting. So. Like country ones? Also, well, the person that got me into guitar was Mark from kicks. You know, he's actually the bassist. So Mark came to learn archery, came to the house. He was actually in like that 101 thing.

I did a three-part series with him because he had never learned archery, so it was like teach archery. But he asked me, he's like, is there anything that you regret? And I'm like, you know, I love acoustic guitar. I just really regret like never doing it. And Mark actually sent me a black tailor and said, you're always going to have a regret until you just freaking do it. Totally.

You know, he's like just, just start doing it. So that's what I did. And then, you know, I kind of built that into my routine of when I know I want to turn off archery, I'll do that. Or if I get up in the morning and I'm thinking too much about like if I feel overwhelmed with what I have for the day, I'll normally like turn on an app and just take like a 30 minute, you know, lesson or something with my guitar. But like, and I've got way more guitars than I should have with my ability to play.

But I look at it as those are actually like reminders to me. When I can see something that is something I haven't completed as a task, that really motivates me to like want to do it. So I have like guitars in most of my places too. and it's like I have end goals of like, I know what that particular guitar sounds like from this artist and I want to learn at least that song with that guitar because it gives me something to like continue to strive for

and it's also like at least for me it's a constant reminder of why not to stop doing it because it's like you haven't even really cracked the surface of it. it. So I like that. I like the physical reminder. And then, you know, every single one of those songs just has one little nuance that one of your hands doesn't know how to do, you know, and you recognize, like, as you do it, you recognize like, you know, like a hammer on on a string. It's like, oh, that gives a whole new detail to a chord. And then you start to recognize, like, how much this artist actually does that. And then the real eye opener is, like, our buddy

West, you know, loves S. That's right. If I got any of those guitars. Yeah, loves SRV. And he's a brand. No, Stevie Ravon. That's a brand. Yeah, it is actually. Okay. But like, West can freaking jam, but I didn't realize, like, how quick he can move until I see him play now that I'm learning to play. And then when you see a song where you're like, oh, I've heard this Metallica song forever and it seems like it's pretty simple and then you start to move through it and you're like holy shit this is like yeah this is in a different stratosphere than where I'm at even though I learned the basics if you can play a guitar does that kind of broadly apply to other guitars as long as they

have the same number of strings yeah I would yeah okay yeah for sure but you realize there's like different ways to play it yeah for sure like with archery there's you can have different technique but, you know, it's a stringed mechanic that, you know, you can't really, you kind of have to do the same thing, which is what's cool about it is when you learn to shoot in the same freaking hole, you just realize like, holy crap. At this point, I am a robot, you know. Michael's a musician. prefers more of the wind instruments, though.

Oh, skin flute? Yeah. First year, I do actually play guitar as well. Yeah. Nice. Did you play instruments growing up? Yeah. Obviously the recorder, hot cross buns.

Of course, yes. Were they still doing that shit when you went to school? No, no. Do you know the song Hot Cross Buns? Yeah. I feel like I could still crush that on a recorder. Probably. Let's be honest.

It's not that complicated of a song. You need to get a recorder and actually just say, like after this podcast, be like, I'm going to try to do this. How many of those recorders do you think we've made? Because I feel like it's going to sound like you on that elk call that time. First off, I have an instructional video out if people want to learn. What fucked me up is that you were making me laugh before I was executing the perfect elk call,

which that just unhinged the entire thing. But I think you were laughing because of my previous attempt. Yeah, yeah, I knew what was coming. Did chat get this? Oh, yeah. Kind of. It didn't quite... Chat, the AI stuff is kind of good.

That's not even necessarily. See, that's weird. Like, that's not the heck. It made you like incredibly handsome. Yeah, dude, you look like a chis. You look, dude, you look like a chiseled out Chris Pratt slash. I was going to say, Chris Pratt and Jim Miller. Yeah.

Like, this is obviously not what Andy looks like. 100%. I couldn't grow that mustache if I try it. Yeah, I feel like I need to be the one to be tackling this. Scroll down, Michael. What are those pictures of? Oh, that was from forever. I was trying to do thumbnails for some videos and it just wasn't giving me what I wanted, really.

Hold on. Let's have a little chat about this. What thumbnail were you trying to create there? This one? This was with, Let's have a little talk about what you were up to. I'm forgetting his name, but when he climbed up to the water tower.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Dr. Dice. Yes. Yeah. Well, that's what you do when you're on meth is you climb to the water tower with your barbecue. Scroll down some more.

Let's see what else you got. Now I'm fascinated. I think the ones, I don't think there's much before this. Oh, I did that one. Yeah, that was you. Yeah. But.

Cool. I was trying to see if, I don't know if I have a picture of you without a hat on. Probably not. What is the, in all of your time in archery, what's the wildest successful archery shot you've ever seen,

either hunting or in a comp where you're like, no fucking way that just happened? Like one of mine? Just the craziest shit you've ever seen. Like the wildest you would have never bet on something happening happening. I honestly, The shot that I can think of was I had a guy over from Denmark. He was a hell of a competitor, but we were friends.

And he was actually one of my accounts when I was in charge of like international sales. And he had never hunted in the U.S. So we invited him to come hunting. And we had antelope tags. So we went out and we were like just scouting for antelope. and we had came in the week after another group of hunters. Well, we ended up, like, coming around this corner, and there was an antelope there that was, like, lame.

You know, he was not in good shape, and it was one of those things where, you know, a lot of people think hunters are just, like, ruthless, bloodthirsty assassins, but, like, you don't like to see things suffer either. And it was one of those moments, were like, even though it wasn't like a trophy antelope or anything, everybody's like, we need to, like, we owe it to.

That's the one. We're going to go ahead and do the right. Yeah. We need to do this. So anyway, I get out and I'm like, you know, ask this guy, do you want to do it? And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it. So we ended up like stalking this thing for a while. And then it goes in this, it goes in this canyon like between two big, like, you know, it's

like in this saddle and there's literally one pine tree and it goes down and it's like just standing under this one pine tree and there's no way to like approach it it's an antelope it can see good and everything and i and i just said he's like i wish i could just you know we just need to like put that thing out of its misery and i go like take a shot because if you know if we put an arrow in it like that's going to be it. It will accelerate the process. Yeah, yeah. And I said at this point, like, this is kind of hit or miss. And we discussed it for a while. And it was one of those deals were like, I looked at a site, you know, I like looked at the gap and like we position ourselves to where there was like no wind or anything. We positioned ourselves where that thing

was like right under the tree of the trunk of the tree. And I kind of like plumbed. Bob De Niro, and like, we sat there for probably like 45 minutes talking about like just doing redneck math. Yeah. And we literally like on this huge pine tree ended up picking this one pine cone. I'm like, dude, I think if you like that could be it. And he's just like, all right. And I mean, and this is like a world class archer too.

And so he draws back. And I mean, you know, he's like. at like 40 degrees or whatever and sending it into orbit. Sends it. And it came straight down through the top of that thing. Like literally straight down. And I had it in the spotting scope, but it like went through it.

And the arrow like sticks in its ground. And like as it like drops, like the arrow came back like up through it. But it was like down instantly. And just the pure like, shock of like holy crap that was like a one and 10,000 thing not something I would you know it's not a story I'd promote but this was a situation where it was like we were all focused on like let's just you know let's do what's right here so that was one of them then there was don't forget our

antelope hunting the only time I've ever gotten one with the boat was with you yes not the same type of story. We'll leave that one off air. Yeah. And I remember there was, there was, there's been a few people that have been with me on random times where I've just like had some miraculous shots. This one guy had actually been there for like three times where I did this, where I had like made just kind of a crazy shot. And I ended up going to California for an event and we were in a van. There's a bunch of us and we get out. And the parking lot is like across the canyon from where the archery targets are. And there's an archery target called a birdie, which is like about the, it's the size of a

quarter. It's about that big. I'm sorry, that's a target? Yeah. They're called birdie shots. And they're for like 20 meters or less. Like you shoot them from 10 to 10 to 10. 20 meters. So they're, they're just small targets, like the size of a quarter. And we get out and and this guy's like, all right, 100 bucks. He's like, he's like, okay, target two over there is like the birdie shot. And he's like, and he's like, I'm going to put a hundred bucks on Dudley. He's like, I've seen him pull the craziest shit off. And so like we all take our best guess at the distance and it was still one of those things where like, you know, you're kind of like plum bobbing and you're kind of thinking about the calibration of how much your site is growing to get to 100 yards

and now how do I double that or whatever. And then how do you aim into the sky? Yeah. And then you're like picking something on the horizon, you know, to like aim at. If there is one or a cloud slowly. Or you're like holding someone hold the plum bob at a very specific place to where you can like aim on the edge of a feather. And anyway, like, I literally, I don't know how I did it, but there was four of these birdies on this target. And I said, well, which one?

And he's like, hell, I don't know. Let's go bottom left. And I freaking put an arrow right in that thing. How far do you think it was shot? It was like, it was between 100 and 200 yards. I don't remember the exact distance. But it was just like a one in a million shot. Chris Pratt and Jim Miller

We're going to have to I'll get a haircut done up for you When we promote the podcast I support that Do you think Jim Miller's gonna keep fighting? Yeah, I think he's got one coming up He's such a cool dude I love Jim

He's awesome Yeah he's got one coming up I wanted to think it was Coming up this Maybe in May or something He talked to me May 9th Jared Gordon.

Who? Jared Gordon, May 9th. Jared. I was right. Okay. He's coming up. Yeah, such a savage. Yeah.

I love Jimbo. That's definitely his chin right there. He needs to take credit for that. The top left one looks basically like Jim. You think that? That one looks like Jim. The top left one, I think so, yeah. I think middle.

Or bottom right. Bottom right. But the top left, the eyes to me look more like Chris Pratt's looking at me. Like if it's just the eyes. surprisingly tall. He's taller than I thought he would be. Pratt? Just momentarily at a UFC event.

Oh, yeah. He was very, very tall. I mean, not to me, but... No, well, nobody is tall to you. I mean, I'm six foot tall. You're six four, right? Or six six six. He's more athletic than I thought he would be.

You agree with that? I've never done anything athletic with him, so I have no idea. Yeah, he has a very athletic frame. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, seems to be a nice guy. I don't know. He hunted for...

I remember that one year they took him up to, the wild, what is it, wild country, wild river, whatever they prefer to be called. Did he ever hunt after that or was that a one and done? Or is he just quiet about it? Yeah, he's quiet about it for sure. That sucks that people. He loves the outdoors. He loves fishing.

Yeah, loves the outdoors, you know, really likes all that stuff. But yeah, that's a bummer. Yeah, that we live in such a judgmental society that, I mean, he, obviously, the optic on him is ridiculous. I don't think anybody could survive that level of scrutiny for clarity. Yeah. But I enjoy the fact. I can put up success. and failures and largely just about everything that I'm doing.

And I just like, hey, this is who I am. Yeah. Well, the more transparent you get, I feel like the bigger, the bigger your platforms got to. Because I remember, like, when we first met, you were, I felt like you were, like, intentionally avoiding topics of your former career. You know, it's like you, if we were in environments where people wanted to hear, like, seal stories or if they wanted to, you know. Oh, I'm still like that.

They can go hear those from somebody else. Yeah, you were, you're very about like, I don't, like, I don't want to do that, like that. I don't want that to define who I am. And I think the more you've been transparent on the stuff like who you actually are, it's like people are actually getting to realize who you are. And that was, that's what I took away from this book is I felt like it was pretty courageous for you to put faults like that out there. and then be, you know, you were super straightforward and honest about it. Because I know who you are and there's things in there that if someone would have said,

like, you know, what does Andy do wrong or, you know, what's an issue with Andy? Like, that's nothing I would have. How much time you got? Yeah, but I would never, like, these are things that I would never, like, say. So the fact that you, like, put it all out there. And like you said, it's not like this is a hero, you know. It's more like a water slide? Yeah, yeah.

just like keep going deeper and deeper and you're kind of leaving a room for for coming out the top. But who knows, you may just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper in the next one, which I didn't feel like there was any other way to write it other than that. I mean, there's no value in BSing about what's your favorite story out of this? Like, what's your favorite lesson? I mean, the most impactful one for me is the chunking your goals. That honestly has been like the most impactful. The one that I learned later in life, the value of was... You meant impactful for like actually getting positive results from an action. Achieving whatever it is that you want to achieve life, like actually accomplishing your goals.

The one that I learned probably the most recently in my life was the value of saying no. And then paying attention to people when you do say no to them. Yeah. And see, I really do believe that that's when the real person comes out. It's not when everything is going their way. But favorite story in there? I have a love-hate relationship with that tandem story. I meant, yeah, I meant like, I meant topic more than like the particular story.

I don't have a favorite topic, man. It's, uh, I don't feel courageous about anything I wrote in that book whatsoever. To me, like I said, it's the only way I think I could have actually put it, uh, I was going to say pen to paper, but that's 100% not how it happened. It happened on Microsoft word. Yeah. God, it would be hard to write a book pen to paper because I don't know how to spell for shit. I really rely on that squiggly red line that's underneath it. Is there anything now that it's been out?

Is there anything that you wish you would have added in it? No, I think I could have edited it until it. Yeah. You know what I mean? At some point, I was wondering that at what point do you just say like... I think at the point you don't remember what the original thing said. Yeah.

And you realize that if you keep editing this, it's probably, you will probably go on this journey from suggested edit, whether it's grammatical or content, and then you make the edit, and then you comes around for again and you make another one. And then the next thing, you know, you've edited it back to the original edition.

Yeah. I think you have to stop that cycle before it gets a whole circle. And so that, I mean, that was one thing with the publisher. It went through three editorial reviews. Two of those were for grammatical. Let me tell you, I don't know how to fucking use a semicolon. Yeah. That's one of the things that I learned. Also, pluralizing some words, I didn't know that they were supposed to be pluralized. So thank you for this. Meese. Mises. Mises or Mese plural of Moose. Mousai is another one that I've, you know, messed around a little bit. I don't, nobody knows what the red answer. is. And then, and these were like just professional people, though. And again, there are, there is a typo in there. It's not a typo. It's a, it were two. Yeah, two. And it's, is, is it a typo or is it correctly spelled word that's applied in the wrong spot, right? So it's not necessarily a typo, but it is what it is. I found them in many other books and it, it is. And it was many eyes that got on it. In addition to mine, it happens. Yeah. I tell people, they should expect a typo for me every post. I'm like, listen, I'm not, if I make a post, I'm blurting out what my mind's thinking.

And there's going to be at least one to two grammatical mistakes in a post. So like, learn to expect it. You know, the best part about it is being done with it and getting to a place where I felt comfortable. I was actually sitting here. I finished the last words that I put in and like the little final period. that I was sitting in this chair. I remember thinking, I think that's it.

And then fired it off to the editor and that everything became a revision off of that. Yeah. That was the coolest part. Not like, oh, thank God, I'm done with this. But yeah, this is reflective of who I am and what I believe. Yeah. Much like podcasting, man, I hit upload on these episodes. I don't know where they're going to go.

Yeah. I get some crazy emails from people that found the podcast at a time in their life for like a Friday episode where somebody's asking. and the question and I'll give them an answer. And I've almost always, like, listen, this is just my experience. I'll answer your question because you asked me, but like also solicit for other advice. For this, I don't know where this is going to end up. You know, I don't know.

To me, the metric of success has nothing to do with sales and everything to do with getting emails like, hey, man, like, I actually found your book and I listened to what you said and I tried it and it worked. Yeah. And my life is different now. Like, that's, that will be the coolest part of it. There's undoubtedly several things in here to where if anyone is in that frame of mind where they're kind of looking for a piece of motivation or sometimes just not necessarily

looking for motivation, but like having it revealed that you're not alone in certain thoughts that you're, you know, that you're kind of embarrassed or don't want to burden people about talking about. There's several of those situations in this book to where you immediately give a remedy to help them through that. So I feel like you're going to have an influx of that from this book. I was, I hope so. I wanted to give you a hug when I finished it. I remember, I remember sending you a message from like, you know, 30,000 feet or something that just said like, hey, man, really proud of you. Um, very touching. And, you know, I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that you've put this, this forward like this.

And then I think I said, like, I hope I was there enough for you too. Because, like, you know, it's hard to see that. But that transparency is why this is going to do well, because you're not like you're being very vulnerable in the book. I can appreciate it. I just feel like I'm being myself. I don't have the energy for some alternate personality. Yeah.

The coffee shop is interesting. I will run into people. And I'm in and out often, but I'll always sit and talk with people if I have the time. and almost always are like, man, I didn't know what is it going to be like when I met you, but you're just like a totally normal person like you are on the show. I'm like, yeah, dude. I'm just living my life for a couple hours every once in a while. I sit down in a chair and I'm just still the same person.

Yeah. You know, not anything different. Yeah. All right. Yeah, we're going to go pre-flight the old heli so we can get down to MKC. And then I think Leo wanted to go to Open Matt and choke some bitches for about an hour. So I brought my G-2. basically I just might make sure that like people are behaving and I'm like I get the next role

so fucking dead well you enjoy that I'm going to have some coffee sweet all right dude yeah