0:00

Gents, before we get started with today's

0:02

awesome guest and incredible podcast, I want

0:04

to share with you guys something

0:06

that we are doing in the

0:08

month of April in the Data Alliance Mastermind

0:10

community. I'm going to start with a question.

0:13

The question is this, are you ready to redefine

0:15

what it means to be a man? It's

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time to unleash your full potential and evolve

0:20

into the 2.0 version of yourself.

0:23

Introducing what we're doing in April,

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redefining manhood evolving to the version

0:27

2.0 of you. Join

0:30

us this April for a transformative journey designed

0:32

specifically for men who are ready to level

0:34

up in every area of your life. Through

0:37

this five weeks of April, we're going to

0:39

guide you through a powerful process of self-assessment,

0:42

personal enhancement, and actionable steps

0:44

towards your goals. Led

0:46

by top experts in personal development

0:48

like, uh, Darren Hardy,

0:51

who wrote the compound effect, Todd

0:53

Herman, who wrote the alter ego,

0:55

Wes Watson, who wrote non-negotiable, and

0:57

Corey Gregory for the mindset manual.

0:59

This program in April, what we're

1:01

doing is we are helping you

1:03

unlock the best version of yourself

1:05

from the inside out, starting with

1:07

creating the right mindset, establishing habits

1:09

that move your lives forward to

1:11

even elevating our physical performance

1:14

and health. So are you

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ready to step into greatness? You don't have

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to wait any longer. Go ahead and apply

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now in March to secure

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your spot for April. Head on

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over to the dad edge.com/mastermind, fill

1:27

out an application, book a

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call with our team and join us in

1:31

April, where we are redefining manhood and we

1:33

are helping our guys become the 2.0 version

1:36

of themselves. Your journey

1:38

starts now. Welcome

1:41

to the dad edge podcast. The

1:43

dad edge movement creates leaders of

1:45

men, leaders of families

1:48

and leaders of communities. We

1:50

will not only impact this generation of

1:52

fathers, but the next generation as well.

1:55

The kids we are raising will have better chances

1:57

and odds stacked in their favor because of the

1:59

amazing. example that their fathers emulated

2:01

for them. We

2:04

are here to change the world. We

2:06

are here to change relationships. We

2:08

are here to positively disrupt this generation

2:10

of fathers so no man goes to

2:12

their grave with a friend.

2:14

We disrupt the drift of busyness and

2:17

replace it with razor focused intention, passion,

2:20

purpose, and direction. We

2:23

are the bad edge. So we're here to

2:25

change the world. Hey,

2:41

what's up gentlemen? Welcome to the Dad Edge

2:43

Podcast. I'm Larry Hagner, your host and founder

2:46

of this podcast show and

2:48

movement. For all my outdoor enthusiasts out

2:50

there, for all my hunters, for all

2:52

my fishermen, for

2:54

all you guys who like to cook wild game,

2:57

this show today is

2:59

for you, my friends. Today I'm

3:01

interviewing the one, the only, Steve

3:03

Ranella. He is an

3:06

American outdoorsman, conservationist. He's a writer.

3:08

He's a television personality. He is

3:11

most known for his show, Man Eater,

3:13

which originally aired on the Sportsman channel

3:15

and then later moved to Netflix. But

3:18

in this series, he shares

3:20

his hunting and fishing adventures across

3:22

various locations that include Montana, Alaska,

3:25

Mexico, New Zealand, and many,

3:27

many more. Not only is

3:29

he a TV personality, but he is

3:32

an accomplished author with several books to

3:34

his name, like The Scavenger's Guide to

3:36

Hot Cuisine, American

3:38

Buffalo, Meat Eater, The Complete

3:41

Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and

3:43

Cooking Wild Game, The

3:45

Meat Eater Fish and Game Cookbook, The

3:48

Meat Eater Guide to Wilderness Skills and

3:50

Survival. What we talk about on today's

3:52

podcast, most of all, is outdoor kids

3:54

in an inside world, getting

3:56

your family out of the house and radically

3:59

engaged into nature. We also

4:01

talk about his latest book, which is

4:03

Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars. Fun

4:06

projects, skills and adventures for outdoor

4:08

kids in 2023. He

4:11

is also the host of the Meat Eater

4:13

podcast, which always ranks in the top 10

4:16

for sports podcasts. And he is a frequent

4:18

guest on the very, very small Joe Rogan

4:20

podcast. I know many of you guys don't

4:22

know who Joe Rogan is. I'm totally kidding.

4:24

Obviously everyone knows who Joe Rogan is. But

4:27

you can usually find him and Cameron

4:29

Haynes on

4:33

that podcast, sometimes even together. So

4:35

today's podcast, he's gonna share all kinds of amazing things.

4:37

Like I said, he's gonna go through his book a

4:39

little bit, outdoor kids in an inside world. He's

4:42

gonna tell a story about hunting lions

4:45

with his kids. He's also

4:47

gonna talk about the importance of being a dad

4:49

and having something that you love to anchor you.

4:52

He likes to also put his

4:54

kids in the arena of consequences

4:56

and situations that pay back quickly.

4:58

He's gonna explain that one. He's

5:00

also gonna share very authentically and

5:02

very imperfectly how he approaches marriages,

5:04

his marriage and why

5:06

we can never be lazy in our

5:08

marriage. So this show today,

5:11

man, is packed for you guys. I had a lot of

5:13

fun with Steve. He is just a cool

5:15

dude to talk to. And I actually got a

5:17

chance to interview him one day before

5:19

his 50th birthday. So if you really want

5:22

to, if you're feeling it, if you're a

5:24

big fan, let him know. Just shoot him

5:26

a DM. Wish him a happy belated birthday,

5:29

even though it was a few weeks ago.

5:31

Let him know you heard him on the

5:33

Dad Edge podcast and let him know that

5:35

you just loved his message. So without further

5:37

ado, we're gonna get right to it. Steve,

5:39

what's up, man? Welcome to the Dad Edge, my

5:41

friend. Thank you for having me

5:43

on. I appreciate it. Yeah, I don't know if we should ask

5:46

for recording this, if we should welcome you into

5:48

the show in song since it's

5:50

like one day before your

5:53

50th birthday, man. So happy early

5:55

birthday. Well, my

5:57

life is throwing me a big... I'm

6:00

going to be doing a 50th birthday party in a

6:03

few days. So

6:05

I think I'll get all the singing I need. So

6:09

I'll let you off the hook. Okay, you

6:11

know what? You'd probably hang up. To be

6:13

honest, like I'm just not good at this.

6:18

So what do you think,

6:20

what are you looking forward to as

6:22

far as your 50th goes? Is there

6:24

anything special this year that you're doing with

6:26

your family? No,

6:29

I guess, no, that's a great question. I mean, having a

6:31

big, like I said, my wife's selling me a big birthday

6:34

party, which is a lot of fun. I think the last

6:36

time I had any kind of birthday party was when I

6:38

turned 40. And

6:41

this might be my last big one, because I don't think

6:44

people do anything real big when you turn 60. So

6:46

this, I might be wrapping up my birthday parties. So,

6:49

no, that's special. And

6:53

I got a lot of friends coming from out of

6:55

town. It's really turned into quite a thing. And it's

6:57

really flattering. And then my

7:00

wife has put an enormous amount of work into

7:02

this too. So that's pretty special for me. Super

7:05

cool, man. Good for you. I

7:08

know you grew up, I wanna start with your

7:10

childhood as we just dive right in. I know

7:12

you grew up with two older brothers. You grew

7:15

up with this amazing father yourself who taught you

7:17

guys how to hunt and fish. And tell us

7:19

about your childhood as far as your relationship with

7:21

your older brothers and your dad learning these things

7:23

growing up. Yeah, that's

7:26

a really complicated question around

7:30

my dad. I

7:32

go back and forth on it. He,

7:38

man, it's hard. He was

7:40

the worst dad and the best

7:42

dad. You

7:45

know, like a really, just

7:47

a really conflicted,

7:52

I have super conflicted feelings about it. Now

7:55

that I have, well, let me just try to give you a little, so

7:57

you're not wondering what I'm getting at. Just a...

8:00

Like a hard, at

8:04

times unapproachable, really

8:07

volatile person

8:10

capable of just

8:14

outlandish bursts of anger and

8:17

unpredictability. On

8:19

the other hand, really

8:25

dedicated to giving his

8:29

kids great experiences. And

8:36

in hindsight, had a pretty masterful

8:39

way of nudging

8:41

you in the right direction

8:44

of avoiding big costly

8:46

mistakes. So

8:50

all the stuff, these things that were good, these things

8:52

were bad. He had a rough go growing

8:55

up, didn't

8:58

ever have parenting modeled to

9:00

him. I don't think he was raised

9:03

by his grandparents. I

9:07

don't fully understand it, but his parents just didn't take

9:09

care of him. His

9:11

grandparents that raised them were Italian immigrants,

9:14

very poor. Thought

9:19

World War II, which was very hard on him. He

9:24

would use the term that he was shell shocked, which

9:27

we now know is something

9:30

different, PTSD or whatever, but he would

9:32

talk about being shell shocked and being

9:37

damaged from that. And

9:40

at times I was mad, just

9:42

like mad and would do anything to get away

9:45

from him. And then you enter into this period

9:47

of nostalgia and people around me

9:49

would correct me about the nostalgia. And

9:52

they'd be like, you're being

9:55

nostalgic, dude. Like he

9:57

wasn't what you think. He

10:00

was a tough dude. And

10:02

then now I think I just have, I think I just landed

10:04

at where I'm at now. Just,

10:09

he did things as a parent that I would

10:11

never do to my kids, man, ever, right?

10:14

Yeah. But parts of what I

10:16

learned that I, there's parts of what I

10:18

learned that I absolutely bring to

10:20

my kids. And that's a, I

10:23

don't wanna go on and on, but I'll just add a detail to

10:25

this. I have friends

10:28

I've met over the years that

10:31

had that same kind of rugged, that

10:35

rugged parenting from people who really

10:37

fought to come to America, and

10:40

came from nothing and fought hard to

10:43

push their kids up. And I've

10:45

got friends that just totally

10:48

revolted from that and went in a completely

10:51

different direction. I

10:53

got friends that emulate that. And

10:55

it's a hard thing to sort out. Yeah,

11:00

it's a tough thing to sort out. It

11:02

is, thanks for sharing that, man. You

11:04

mind if I share something with you? No, please

11:06

go ahead. Yeah, so you and I are now far

11:08

off in age. I turned

11:10

49 this year, and my dad is gonna be 76. The

11:14

reason I'm doing this podcast, and I have for almost

11:16

10 years now, is because I

11:18

too grew up with a, just a really mixed

11:21

bag of tricks, I guess you could say.

11:23

My biological father and mother were married very

11:25

young, and then they had me, and

11:27

then a few years later, they got divorced,

11:29

and he was gone. And I have no

11:32

recollection of my biological father. My

11:34

mom got remarried when I was four, and

11:36

then got divorced from him when I was 10. And

11:39

that guy was a lot like the

11:41

man you're describing. Like he had a really, you know, he

11:43

taught me a lot about manners, taught

11:45

me how to fix things, but also was very hard

11:48

on me at times. I would

11:50

say too hard, if you know what I mean. Sounds

11:52

like maybe your upbringing was the same. And

11:55

my stepdad, the same as yours, went to

11:58

war and was military. and my

12:01

mom went on to, after that divorce, went

12:03

on to date a variety of just

12:05

losers and got married again. And

12:08

anyway, I didn't actually

12:10

formulate a relationship with my

12:12

biological father until I was 30 years old, and that

12:14

was by mistake. So

12:16

we, over the past almost 19 years now, we've

12:19

had a relationship, which is good. He's been married to

12:21

the same woman for the past 45 years. And

12:24

I've two younger half brothers.

12:27

And we've got a good relationship now, but it really,

12:29

he left actually not once, but

12:33

twice out of my life, once when I was one. And

12:36

then I had a brief relationship with him when

12:38

I was 12, and we parted ways again, and

12:40

that sucked. But here's what I'll

12:42

tell you. I think you

12:44

and I, we were raised by,

12:47

I think, one of the

12:49

toughest generation of dads,

12:52

I think, that there's been. And let me explain. So

12:55

our grandparents, like you and I, our grandpa's

12:57

right. I mean, these guys were just

13:00

unbelievably tough. They grew

13:02

up during the Depression through

13:04

war, and then they were the father

13:06

of our dads, and that wasn't always pretty, right? It

13:08

was tough for them. It was just like, I think

13:10

my dad had a really

13:13

challenging upbringing, like horribly challenging, and so

13:15

did my stepdad. And

13:17

they brought those things to the

13:19

relationship I had. I mean, it was

13:21

not uncommon to be hit or

13:25

to be spoken to in

13:28

such a way, borderline verbally abused and

13:30

all that. But at the same time,

13:32

there are also good things there too. So it's, I

13:34

think, our generation, me and you, we

13:37

really did grow up with that experience, where

13:39

it was like, wow, this

13:41

is cool to some degree, but

13:43

it's also, there's serious challenges. But I

13:45

think, my kids tell me

13:47

this all the time. I know you have two boys and

13:49

a girl, I have four boys. My two

13:51

older boys will tell me, they're like, you're a really

13:54

good dad. And I joke with,

13:56

I laugh about that. I'm like, oh, don't you worry.

13:58

Like you're gonna grow up with your own. as soon as you're

14:00

a dad, you're gonna look back on the stuff I

14:03

did and be like, what the hell? I'm

14:05

not doing that. And I'm like,

14:07

and you know what? If it doesn't

14:09

serve you, you shouldn't because I'm gonna

14:11

make so many mistakes and guess what,

14:13

so are you. But the goal is

14:15

that each generation really makes less mistakes.

14:17

And it's really picking apart, okay, here's

14:19

some of the good things that

14:22

I'm gonna repeat. Here's some of the bad

14:24

things. I'm gonna stay the hell away from. But

14:27

for you, what were some of the good things

14:30

that you've kept and you're

14:33

giving to your own kids? I

14:40

like to do stuff. I like to be outdoors.

14:43

I like to hunt and fish and trap and

14:46

look for mushrooms and explore

14:49

around. Anything,

14:52

I like anything, almost anything

14:54

outdoors. When

14:57

I say that, I mean like in more of a

14:59

traditional sense, like with the hunting and fishing kind of

15:01

outdoors. When

15:05

I was a kid, it would, well,

15:07

let me go on to say that I

15:10

recognize, like I'm a subject matter

15:12

expert on how hard it is

15:14

to bring kids outside, especially

15:17

three kids in

15:21

terms of keeping everybody

15:23

comfortable. Just,

15:26

I mean, the food and drink

15:28

aspect of it, to keep everybody

15:30

in gear and in clothes. When

15:33

you get into extreme circumstances around

15:35

weather, it's hard to keep everybody

15:38

warm. You get around water

15:41

and boats and little boats and big water,

15:43

it's hard to keep everybody safe, okay?

15:46

It's just hard, like every aspect of it's hard.

15:49

So I recognize how hard that is. Looking

15:54

back on being brought up, I'm

15:57

kind of surprised, pleasantly.

16:00

surprised, impressed that

16:02

someone with my dad's temperament and lack

16:04

of patience was

16:07

so committed to bringing his three

16:09

kids out

16:15

on outings. It would

16:17

be laughable. It's a laughable

16:21

notion that you would not

16:24

have been welcomed when I was

16:26

a kid, you would not have been welcomed going out with the old

16:28

man. He never,

16:32

ever ditched his kids in

16:36

favor of hanging out with his buddies. Ever.

16:40

Right? Didn't

16:42

go to bars. So if

16:46

he was going fishing on Saturday with a bunch of

16:48

other veteran dudes and they were all going to go

16:50

to the VFW afterwards or whatever, it would be like,

16:52

we would go with them. We'd

16:55

go to the VFW after we ice fished and

16:57

we could just play pool. But like

16:59

you were invited. Right? And

17:01

that is pretty remarkable. And

17:05

I didn't recognize it then, but I recognize it

17:07

now only through the lens of just how hard

17:09

that is. Yeah. You know, it's

17:11

like it's hard. And I got buddies, man, I got

17:14

buddies that love to death that

17:18

have a real hard time, like, like have

17:21

a real hard time getting their kids involved in

17:24

what they love. And they'll put

17:26

it off in their head. They'll put it off

17:28

that like, Oh, they're not interested. They're not

17:30

interested. And I don't,

17:32

man, this is a kind of another subject.

17:35

I don't ask, I don't ask my

17:37

kids a lot on a lot of stuff, but lots

17:39

of we're just going. We don't

17:41

talk about it. You know, if we're going to camp next

17:43

weekend, my wife and me, we're just

17:45

like, that's what's happening. We're not looking for opinions

17:47

about it. You know, that's

17:50

kind of how it was in those real little. And

17:53

then later it's just, you

17:56

were welcome. Now, because of

18:01

you were welcome to go but because of some

18:03

of just some of the the attitude and outburst

18:08

I later got to where I wanted to go do that so we

18:10

didn't want to do it with him like

18:12

it caught fire you know it caught fire in

18:14

me like those the things he loved to do

18:18

but I just love the activities more

18:20

than than the

18:22

teacher you follow me

18:24

like I never I never burned out

18:26

on I never like I never went

18:28

in a different direction you know and

18:32

then you you you're now giving this to

18:34

your kids as well because because I know

18:36

you take take your kids on

18:39

those kind of how do they how

18:41

do they respond and just so the

18:43

audience knows to just give the ages of your kids

18:45

as well as where they're at right now yeah um

18:49

we got 10 no we got 9 11 and 13 right

18:52

now a lot of birthdays happening right

18:58

now everybody's that I always

19:00

got to ask my grave they're injured but uh got

19:04

those three one my

19:06

older boy is just like obsessed

19:09

with hunting and fishing the

19:12

other two it's kind of like

19:14

in descending level of interest but they

19:16

just know when we go we're going you know I mean we're

19:20

out last last weekend you

19:22

know we went out my buddy and his girls who

19:24

my kids are all friends with and we went out

19:29

on lions you know with the lion out my

19:31

buddy's lying out and I don't ask anybody what

19:33

they think about it but

19:35

because I know here's the thing I know as

19:39

much as they might gripe and complain that they

19:41

got to cancel their plans or they can't go

19:43

skiing or whatever to hell they

19:45

always have a good time right

19:48

they're always glad they went and

19:50

so I still feel pretty comfortable forcing

19:53

it on them and to be honest with you like

19:55

they're gonna be with my program

19:58

in terms of those kind of of activities

20:00

until they split. When they split, they can

20:02

go away. But for now, like

20:05

I am not afraid of exercising my

20:07

authority when it comes to planning

20:10

time together with a family. Because

20:12

if you just let it go, it's just

20:18

going to unravel earlier than I feel

20:21

it's going to unravel quicker than you'd

20:23

like. Yeah. You know,

20:25

I mean, if you if you created

20:27

an atmosphere where weekends are just like

20:29

during the week, they can just figure

20:31

out the weekend plan. Okay. It's

20:34

going to be like one's over here for

20:36

sleepover. One's doing this one's doing

20:39

that. Like one's just going over

20:41

to a buddies with like no particular plan

20:43

in mind. And I

20:45

like group that. I

20:47

like shut a lot of that down on

20:50

occasion and group everybody together.

20:53

And we do stuff together as a

20:55

unit. And

20:58

I impose that like in a friendly way.

21:01

But I impose that because I can already see

21:03

that if I didn't, it would we would already

21:05

be scattershot, there would be like a dissolution of

21:08

the family around free time.

21:12

The same thing we do at dinner time, like family dinner,

21:14

like, you know, I travel for work when

21:16

I'm home, when I'm not home, everybody

21:18

else does family dinner. When I'm home, we

21:20

do family dinner. If we didn't impose that,

21:22

it's like, it's at this point at these

21:25

ages, if we didn't impose that, that would

21:27

not happen anymore. Yeah.

21:29

So there is an extra,

21:32

I believe there is an exercising of authority. It's just

21:34

how do you do it in such a way that

21:36

you don't do it like your dad did it? Which

21:40

has too much, there's so much like collateral

21:43

damage to the approach, you know, right, right.

21:46

I think how do you find a more

21:49

just like a, I don't know, like

21:52

a calmer, gentler

21:54

way of exercising some level

21:56

of magnetic pull to

21:58

hold your family. together

22:01

for a while, you know?

22:05

I think a lot of it has to do with your

22:08

leadership style, which is how

22:10

do I attract versus overpower, and

22:14

be more of a dictator, right? I've

22:17

noticed with other podcast guests, especially parenting

22:19

experts, one of the ways to attract

22:21

the kids is to

22:23

put them into situations where

22:26

they're gonna win, where they're gonna grow

22:28

confidence, where they're gonna learn something new,

22:31

or even teach something new, right? So

22:33

like, for instance, my seven-year-old, Ari

22:35

actually has eight as of this past weekend, he

22:37

just started playing basketball. And

22:40

instead of us going out and be like,

22:42

hey man, we're gonna go practice basketball, you

22:44

know, one of my approaches with him is like,

22:46

hey, can you teach me how to dribble today?

22:50

So putting him in that teaching position,

22:52

and the kids, it almost

22:54

seems like when we approach it like

22:57

that, like it's a collaborative approach, and

22:59

you're bringing the best out of them, it's also like, I could

23:03

care less if he teaches me how to dribble right, right? What

23:05

I really want is for him to go out there

23:07

and be super excited about showing me what he's learned

23:10

so he can relearn it himself, so he

23:12

can step into a leadership role himself, teach

23:16

me something that he's learned, and that

23:18

excites him, right? And the other

23:20

thing too is I have to imagine with

23:22

your kids, right, with your two boys and your daughter, that,

23:25

you know, yes, it's like you wanna lead them,

23:27

I think kids really, especially at those ages, you

23:30

know, 13, 11, and nine, they

23:32

appreciate leadership and they appreciate structure

23:35

in such a way of like, hey, you know,

23:37

we get to go do this this weekend. We

23:39

get to go do all these things versus like, we're

23:41

doing this, you're not gonna bring your iPad, you're not

23:43

gonna do this, you're not gonna do that, and it's

23:46

more of this dictator role, but I don't foresee you,

23:48

that's not your approach at all. No,

23:50

like I said, man, it's like, I'm

23:57

gonna, there's some stuff I'm just gonna drive

23:59

toward making it. happened. Yeah. You know and

24:02

and and and thankfully I haven't I don't

24:04

get thankfully I haven't gotten pushed

24:06

to the point where I have to rethink

24:08

my objective. Do you

24:11

know what I mean? We just we've been lucky. Lucky

24:15

or or accidentally skillful. I don't

24:17

know what we're gonna call it and

24:20

sort of keeping this thing going.

24:23

When I say this thing like

24:25

family activities in

24:27

an arena where I think there's a lot to learn.

24:29

I think there's a lot to gain. I always

24:32

like to point out when having this conversation

24:34

about pursuing what you love. So this

24:37

is applicable if you're if you love or if you're

24:39

a dad and you love organized

24:41

sports. If you're a dad and you

24:43

love theater. If you're a dad and

24:45

you love golf. If you're a dad

24:48

and you love hunting and fishing. Okay

24:50

whatever. The key

24:53

element is there's like the you're a dad

24:55

with something that you love. Okay. If

24:58

you're a dad and there's nothing

25:00

you love. We have to have

25:02

a different conversation because I agree. You

25:04

need to figure that out right. If

25:06

your dad was something that you love presumably

25:09

I'm gonna trust that you

25:11

love it because something you find some value in.

25:14

You love it because you thought it through and

25:16

it's like a justifiable thing that you're into. Right.

25:19

There's things that you draw from

25:21

it that you appreciate. It's an

25:23

arena you want to play in.

25:26

It's a break from work. It's

25:28

a place where you can demonstrate

25:30

enthusiasm. Demonstrate maybe some level of

25:32

expertise. You know demonstrate some

25:34

level of love. There's

25:38

nothing in my view there's nothing

25:40

selfish about having that

25:43

drive your

25:47

family activities because

25:49

at least you're showing love

25:53

and enthusiasm for something. Like if it's

25:55

just like if everything if you're just

25:58

apathetic about everything. I

26:00

don't understand what you're demonstrating, you know? So

26:03

I like to go do stuff outside. My

26:05

kids have a whole life ahead of them

26:07

to not be outside. But. While

26:09

they're young for now. I.

26:12

Am most eager. To.

26:15

Get them to engage. Where.

26:17

I want to be. Part. Of it's selfish

26:19

I want to be their part of it's the

26:21

that there's some altruism built to do. His part

26:24

of it is I've identified as as a place.

26:26

That. Has lessons of tremendous value,

26:30

You. Know so like yes, I bring them into

26:33

doing what I love, but I don't love

26:35

it like on a whim. It's

26:37

a very thought out. Thing that

26:39

I'm into and is a lot a great lessons

26:41

to pull from it and again. They.

26:44

Go away when a leave this house and they go

26:46

away. Oh Lovely Death. But.

26:48

They never step foot outside again. They'll need

26:50

the hot they'll need the first go to

26:53

to prove anything the me. But for now

26:55

when they're young like we're going to participate

26:57

in those things where I see real value

26:59

because I don't have a. Play.

27:01

And Be and I don't shut everything

27:03

out. This Not that. You

27:06

know, but it's like. That's wrong

27:08

and ago because that's where I'm at my

27:11

bass. Is. In I'd that

27:13

in I'm not suggesting that that honey fishing

27:15

with do this. Like I said earlier, there's

27:17

a lot of ways to demonstrate to the

27:19

as on the demonstrate excitement. Know.

27:23

But you gotta find it because.

27:26

I can't picture grow and are adding

27:28

grow up in one idol, live in

27:30

one just like an apathetic household. With.

27:33

No thing that everyone's x nothing to

27:35

be excited about. I will one live

27:38

their life. I think

27:40

that's really, really important, You know?

27:42

Growing. up the way i did i wasn't

27:45

like so my grandfather he weighs a fisherman

27:47

so i learned how a bass trout you

27:49

know all these different types of fishing what

27:51

i love the for our i couldn't get

27:54

enough of it when i was younger i

27:56

just remember him into that world was awesome

27:58

and so my best memory are

28:01

standing in a spring with

28:03

waiters on as we fly fish for a trout.

28:05

You know, just one of my greatest memories. For

28:08

us, you know, bringing our kids, it's something really

28:10

fascinating now that I have a 17 year old

28:13

and a 16 year old. One

28:15

of the things that my wife and I have

28:17

always brought the boys into is physical fitness. So

28:19

my wife and I are both very physically active.

28:21

We work out all the time. And

28:23

we used to bring the boys into like our garage

28:26

and do like family workouts, right? And the, you know,

28:28

it's not like I'm gonna have like a nine year

28:30

old doing deadlifts, right? My goal

28:32

was to get them smiling, get them

28:34

excited, you know, build that team camaraderie, have

28:36

good conversations and all those good things, teach,

28:38

you know, resilience and life. And hey, when

28:41

you think you can't do two more reps,

28:43

you can actually do two more reps, you

28:45

know, things like that. And I think there's

28:47

incredible life lessons into that, bringing them into

28:49

our world. For you, I would

28:52

love for you to just share some

28:54

of the life lessons

28:57

that you get to teach your

28:59

kids through being outdoors. Because I

29:01

think for the audience to

29:04

really understand, because we have a lot of guys I

29:06

think in the audience probably that aren't

29:09

outdoorsmen, right? But they also have, it

29:11

also attracts them to some degree, but maybe they didn't grow

29:13

up that way. And for

29:16

some of these guys, they're like, man, if I wanna

29:18

do outdoors and do it right, like where do I

29:20

even start? And what are some really cool things I

29:22

could teach? So it's really a two part question where,

29:25

where can men start? But for you, like what

29:27

have you seen are the most impactful lessons you've

29:29

been able to teach your kids through, through outdoors?

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31:51

you. doing

32:01

dumb stuff uh

32:04

pays back fast okay

32:06

i like that yeah well

32:09

you know we have a running joke where like

32:13

we like i like to take them out doing stuff in

32:15

the winter time um and we live in the northern rockies

32:17

it gets cold in the winter so

32:19

even going out ice fishing you know you

32:22

dip your mittens in

32:24

the flush you

32:28

know that's how you get there you've

32:30

got cold fingers dude yeah so little stuff

32:32

like that is like to like be in

32:34

those environments and i like to i've

32:37

always appreciated cool-headed people

32:40

like not excitable don't be excitable and

32:42

don't be panicky and so

32:46

you find a lot of circumstances like that

32:49

in the outdoors we have a fish shack

32:51

in southeast alaska and uh you're

32:55

in some dice you're in dicey water you

32:57

know and

32:59

i like them to be around a situation

33:02

where they come to appreciate that

33:04

like maybe not one

33:06

little mistake but a couple little mistakes

33:08

it would be very costly right

33:12

and there's a way that you there's

33:14

a way that you handle that right

33:16

there's a way you handle that with being very

33:19

mindful of tide cycles very

33:21

mindful of weather very mindful

33:24

of gear checklists very

33:26

mindful of safety equipment very

33:28

mindful of phd pfds uh

33:30

life jackets very mindful of

33:33

watching changing conditions around you

33:36

okay it's like it's an arena of

33:38

consequence yeah i like to

33:40

immerse them that there today i mentioned going out

33:43

my body to with

33:45

my body his two daughters and my three kids

33:47

we took our snowmobiles out hunt lions and

33:49

uh we had

33:51

a little emergency with the dog and

33:54

had to leave all the kids for a while and

33:57

told them all listen you stay at the snowmobiles

34:01

We will be back. Okay. And

34:06

was gone. I don't know, maybe an hour. And

34:09

I climbed back up to where they're at and

34:12

they had gone in. Made

34:14

a little campfire. You know,

34:16

the oldest is 13. They had a

34:18

little campfire going. They're hanging out, warming up.

34:21

And I was like, man, that's great, man. You guys kicked ass, you

34:23

know. Excellent job. Just

34:27

thinking about that. Calm-headed. The

34:29

dads are gone. Oh, they went that way. I don't

34:31

know. When they're gone back, they said they'd be back.

34:34

Trusting that we'd be back. Got

34:36

some food out. Got some water out. Made a fire.

34:40

I just like to see that. And in a

34:42

sense of holding together more. You

34:44

know. And that's

34:47

just one of many things. But like

34:49

being in that landscape. Some

34:52

people look at it and think it's reckless. I've

34:55

been accused of that. I've been accused

34:57

of endangering my kids. I've been accused

34:59

of being reckless. Sometimes my

35:02

wife has expressed a level of uneasiness with some

35:04

of the things we do. But.

35:14

I don't want to say I don't care.

35:16

I'm just comfortable courting that small amount. I'm

35:19

comfortable courting that small amount of danger

35:21

for a greater good because let me

35:24

also let's be honest. Everything

35:27

I do that someone might think is questionable

35:29

behavior. I'll tell you what.

35:31

Ain't as bad as driving on the highway. Like

35:34

that's risky. Right.

35:37

Just go look at like swimming

35:39

pools and driving on the highway

35:41

is risky for kids. So

35:44

statistically it's not that it just

35:47

it seems maybe

35:49

outrageous. Not outrageous. It seems maybe a

35:51

little bit too reckless. Right.

35:54

Or negligent. But I don't

35:56

believe that it is. I don't believe that it is.

36:00

It is a little bit dangerous. It

36:03

makes up for it that I'm

36:05

going to have, hopefully, have kids that

36:08

can be in a somewhat stressful situation

36:11

and just learn that level of calmness

36:15

and that level of problem solving and

36:18

not be excitable. Yeah. I'll

36:22

tell you, there's different forms of being reckless.

36:25

I got a phone call on

36:28

my phone from this eight-year-old

36:30

that my eight-year-old goes to school

36:32

with. He's like, hey, is

36:35

Colton there? I'm like, no. I was like, I'm

36:37

actually at the gym right now. He's

36:40

actually at a basketball game. I

36:43

was at the gym doing some training with my older

36:45

son and this kid calls me while my other son's

36:47

at this basketball game. My wife had him at. I

36:49

was like, I'll have him call you back as soon as

36:52

we get back home. We all

36:54

meet back home after my son's basketball game and

36:56

after my training session with my older son. This

37:00

kid calls back and he's on speaker phone. His

37:02

kid's eight years old. The

37:05

phone that he was calling me on was his.

37:09

His kid's in second grade. I'm like, are

37:11

you serious? His kid has a phone? Then

37:13

the first question he asked my

37:16

son is, can I add

37:18

you on Fortnite? I'm playing right now. He's

37:20

on his phone playing Fortnite,

37:23

asking to add, and we don't have Fortnite. My

37:26

son's like, I don't play Fortnite. Our

37:30

thing is, listen, you can play some video games,

37:32

but there's always going to be a very hard

37:34

stop on your time limit. Usually it's an hour.

37:37

No more than an hour. Just

37:40

by talking to this kid, hours

37:43

a day and week playing Fortnite. God

37:45

only knows what he's doing on his phone. I

37:48

personally think there are different definitions

37:50

of quote unquote reckless. If

37:53

you have your kid in front of an iPad or

37:55

a screen for more than an hour a

37:57

day and they're just doing whatever. and

38:00

scrolling whatever, or TikTok, or whatever

38:02

else, to me, that's more

38:04

reckless because you're training the

38:07

brain to be more of a consumer and

38:09

not a producer. The fact that you could

38:11

be like, hey, I'll be back in an hour, go

38:14

ahead and take care of yourselves, you come back,

38:16

there's water out, there's a fire,

38:18

and there's food out, and that kid's

38:21

13 years old, and he's leading those other

38:23

kids, there's something to be said for a

38:26

kid who's, because I imagine myself at 13

38:28

years old, and you just

38:30

look around at the snowy surrounding

38:33

or wherever you're at, and you're like, man, this

38:35

could be a little uncomfortable, right? But

38:37

the fact that staying calm, cool, resilient,

38:39

hey, here's what we're gonna do, right?

38:42

Boom, boom, boom, you come back, like to me,

38:45

you're putting them in situations, I've had, I

38:47

think, gosh, 35, I

38:50

think, Navy SEALs on this podcast, and one of

38:52

them came on years ago and talked about how

38:55

to build a growth mindset and how to build confidence

38:58

in your kids. And the way

39:00

you do that is exactly what you just laid

39:02

out, which is I'm gonna put you in a

39:05

safe, yet really uncomfortable situation

39:08

that you have to navigate through. And

39:11

failure doesn't mean death, but failure

39:13

will mean consequences, right? And

39:15

it's okay if you actually feel those

39:17

consequences because I want you to

39:19

fail here with me or in this environment where

39:22

I can either help you or

39:24

it's somewhat controlled versus the other

39:26

way around where

39:28

you're just on an iPad and you never

39:30

taught these life lessons, right? So

39:32

putting them in positions where it's uncomfortable

39:35

and they can calmly think their way through it, what

39:37

you're doing is you're building a critical

39:40

thinker with resilience. And

39:42

I don't really believe that that's quite reckless. Now,

39:44

if you were brand new to this,

39:47

you were never in the outdoors and you're the dad who's like,

39:49

I'm gonna take my kids out in the snowmobile in the middle

39:51

of nowhere, they don't really have any life skills,

39:53

I'm gonna leave them for an hour to see how they do. Yeah,

39:56

maybe that's a little reckless, but this situation

39:58

not so much. Yeah, and

40:00

that that comes to from what I was talking about of or

40:07

What you're saying is part of us talking about of an

40:10

area where you're able to demonstrate Expertise

40:14

and passion. Yeah, you

40:17

know, yeah I

40:19

got a Neighbors just a

40:21

real dedicated, you know, just a real

40:23

dedicated dad and nice family and and

40:26

um, They're a hockey family man. They

40:28

go out and make a giant rink in their yard

40:31

and the winter stuff Like it doesn't need like it's

40:33

like I said, this is not a conversation about hunting

40:35

and fishing and stuff This is a conversation about just

40:38

having Creating like things

40:41

man, you know things

40:43

to do and things to figure out right and

40:47

just Buying, you know just

40:49

something to rally around right like something for the

40:51

family to rally around something that like I said

40:54

like you a little bit of magnetic

40:56

pull To keep

40:58

everybody tight. It just so happens that

41:01

personally I like that Learning

41:03

how to problem-solving the outdoors and keep a cool

41:05

head in the outdoors And

41:08

it's not a total long game. Like I'll

41:10

sometimes joke with kids, you know, like some

41:12

kid He'd be like, oh,

41:14

I want to play soccer I'm like you really gonna be

41:16

a soccer player your whole life Like you should learn

41:19

how to fish because you're fish your whole life and I'm joking with

41:21

them, you know, um But

41:24

all these lessons like I said if it wound

41:26

up being that my daughter

41:28

one of my boys leaves home,

41:32

you know to go to school and and They

41:35

never get into the stuff. I'm into like I won't be

41:37

like well, that was a waste of time. It's just not

41:39

home I'd

41:43

be like great. You're gonna go forward into

41:45

what you love armed with Like

41:50

armed with a mental resiliency and ability to solve

41:52

problems it's applicable anywhere man. Yeah. Yeah It's

41:57

not it's not like It's

42:00

not pursuing a, it's

42:04

not pursuing a sort of doctrine

42:06

of what one does with one's

42:09

free time. It's pursuing a, how

42:11

does one approach time? And

42:16

how delivered are you about your time and how you

42:19

spend your time? Yeah, I

42:21

agree. And I think

42:23

there's a lot to be said. I mean, like even with, take

42:26

even sports, right? You mentioned soccer. Some

42:29

people think, like my kids,

42:31

all of them have wrestled or done martial

42:33

arts, right? And I think that

42:35

that's really important. Like as far

42:38

as, put them, wrestling is a

42:40

sport that will put you in a situation

42:43

where you have to be resilient. You have

42:45

to be calm under chaos. You

42:47

have to learn how to make quick decisions,

42:50

right? And follow through. And when

42:52

you're up against the wall and you think you had

42:54

nothing left in the tank, you go all in, you

42:56

go harder, right? So

42:58

I think that there are different modalities, right?

43:00

Where we can teach these things. But I

43:03

think if you wanted to hit like this

43:05

amazing one-two punch as a father, it's take

43:07

them outside. Take

43:09

them fishing. Like some of my best

43:11

conversations and memories with my kids were

43:15

camping in the Rocky Mountains. And

43:18

we like literally go and we catch our own trout

43:20

that day and we cook it up on the campfire.

43:22

Like my kids have loved that. And some

43:25

of the best conversations I've had with them is

43:27

when we're at the gun range, you know, we're

43:29

shooting guns and we get to experience that together

43:31

and then we go out to eat and we

43:33

have a better connection because we got to do

43:35

something really, really cool together or learn something new,

43:38

right? Or fire a new firearm in some

43:40

degree. You know, as far as,

43:42

I know we've really talked about the kids and

43:45

we've talked about creating memories. You know, you're

43:47

married to Catherine. You guys have been married for

43:50

quite some time. And I

43:52

would love to just know how do you go

43:54

about, you know,

43:56

making sure that your marriage and connection with

43:58

her is a good thing. always what you want

44:00

it to be what you guys want it to be. Oh man

44:04

that's hard. That's a hard one. It's

44:12

so hard to pull a level of advice. I got a

44:14

friend whose marriage

44:19

advice is funny. His marriage advice is

44:24

seek peace not

44:26

justice. All

44:33

that stuff of wow show you you'll

44:35

regret everything. What's

44:41

funny for me is I

44:44

shouldn't say what's funny for me. One

44:47

of the things I liked about getting

44:49

married and one of the things I liked, just

44:52

primarily just getting married. You know

44:54

when if you're just in a relationship,

44:56

so if I think back to just the two

44:58

years I spent in a relationship with my wife before

45:00

we got married. If someone

45:03

you know if you got mad you got pissed

45:06

off about something in

45:08

the back of your head was just like

45:10

oh yeah I'll show you. I'll take

45:12

off and you'll never hear from me again. You

45:14

like entertain this sort of like little

45:17

game in your head of these scenarios where

45:19

you're just going to make someone pay for

45:21

having dared call

45:24

into questions. Whatever you know it's just like this

45:26

thing in your head. You could always

45:29

just leave. You always just break up. For

45:34

whatever reason I guess I have

45:36

like an instinctively traditional

45:42

view of it where once I

45:44

got married I never

45:47

and still have never. I don't occupy

45:49

a world where it's I

45:51

don't occupy a world where it's optional.

45:55

Do you follow me? Like I like I it's

45:57

just it's it's it's what we did.

46:00

we further solidified

46:02

it by having

46:04

children and I

46:08

don't think

46:10

about entertain the

46:14

like options it's almost like it's not even

46:16

strategic it's not like a strategic decision I

46:18

made just something I've noticed about myself is

46:21

this is who we are

46:23

this is what we've done we've

46:26

brought people into this world we

46:30

recognize that I'm not

46:33

speaking about I'm not saying

46:35

it's universally we recognize that

46:39

for our children and the

46:41

way they are temperamentally emotionally

46:44

um it

46:46

would be damaging to them to have

46:48

our relationship crumble it's not something we

46:50

want anyways but it's just like not

46:54

how we are okay

46:56

and so you

47:00

can I think just

47:02

pulling from my own observations and

47:04

experiments and thinking like you

47:08

could over rely on that and

47:11

create a pretty untenable situation being well we're

47:13

not going to do that but we'll just

47:15

let everything go to hell and it'll be

47:17

miserable but by God we're going to stand

47:19

by it but that's not

47:21

a great option you know you need

47:23

this like you can have that bedrock where you

47:25

know that it's

47:27

solid and it's solid for

47:30

real reasons because of decisions you made right

47:33

within that bedrock like there's obvious stuff

47:35

that needs to be right

47:37

but my wife puts way more

47:41

thought and energy into checking

47:44

in with me improving things creating

47:46

a situation where we can talk

47:49

about what needs to improve what

47:51

needs to change I

47:53

go way more autopilot and she's

47:55

the force in our relationship that

47:58

that that my it

48:00

ters the relationship and

48:02

it's like a I

48:05

don't know why I like that you know

48:07

I'm so thoughtful and purposeful I feel someone

48:10

might argue like no I don't think

48:12

they would I'm very thoughtful and purposeful

48:14

about my kids but I get lazy about

48:20

lazy about my marriage in a

48:22

way that I just like it just coast

48:25

or I would allow it to coast if

48:27

it wasn't for having a partner that just

48:29

wasn't satisfied with letting it coast

48:31

and that's been super valuable right

48:34

so that that's the pride the area where

48:36

I'm like that's

48:38

that'd be the area in my family sphere

48:41

where I'm weakest is

48:43

letting some like relying on someone

48:46

else to really do all that

48:49

mental work at times

48:51

emotional work of of

48:53

leaving room for feedback creating

48:56

room for improvement and not just falling

48:58

into it just like peer have it

49:00

all the time you know yeah not

49:02

just like trusting the bedrock right even

49:04

though the bedrock's real man yeah I

49:08

think that I mean that's really common

49:10

that there's there's always gonna be one

49:12

or both parties that you

49:15

know just they're out

49:17

there doing everything else right we as

49:19

human beings it's hard to it's between

49:22

work kids our

49:24

own self-care our own mental health you know everything

49:26

that we're balancing it can feel like you know

49:29

just plates spinning on swords and you're just trying

49:31

to spin each one as best you can without

49:33

one of them falling right and

49:35

it's very easy I think just for men and

49:38

women in general to view our relationship

49:40

our marriage is like well

49:42

that that's always gonna be there so we'll be

49:44

good let me take care of these other things

49:46

that are that feel maybe more urgent I'm

49:50

I think I mean if you look at the

49:52

statistics you know many couples do fall

49:54

into that that here's here's some interesting statistics for

49:56

you so we all know the divorce rates in

49:59

between 50 to 51%. The

50:02

thing that we don't talk about very often

50:04

is the couples that actually stay together and

50:06

what camp they live in. John Gottman did

50:08

a study years ago and John Gottman's like

50:11

the pioneer with marriage. He's been doing it

50:13

for 40 years. He's a psychologist. He

50:15

has studied thousands of married couples and he

50:17

knows what success is and what isn't. But

50:21

he did a study, a poll, on

50:23

couples that stay together. They're

50:26

actually divided up into three camps equally,

50:28

which is very interesting. So like a

50:30

third of couples that stay together can

50:32

actually identify their relationship as working. Like,

50:34

hey, it's awesome. I wouldn't really change

50:37

much. I'm very happy. So she, you

50:39

know, everything's good. Communication is on point.

50:42

Camp number two is, well, we're just sort of

50:45

existing. You know, we're not getting

50:47

a divorce, but it's not like the best thing in the

50:49

world and we're aligned on parenting

50:51

and roles and we have high level

50:53

conversations, not necessarily deep conversations, but we're

50:55

just sort of there. Right. And

50:58

then the last camp is like both parties

51:00

are completely checked out. They have their

51:02

own individual lives. Like literally they are two

51:04

ships passing the night under the same roof

51:06

and they don't even hardly communicate. Right. So

51:09

that's, that's a snapshot of the couples

51:12

that stay together. But I'm really curious.

51:15

Perhaps we can even learn something for your wife because maybe

51:17

I would love to be better about this myself, which

51:20

is she's the one who probably has more

51:22

her radar on this. Right. And it sounds

51:24

like what she does in your relationship is

51:26

she's maybe like more than nudger, right? The

51:28

one who's like, Hey, can we talk about

51:30

this or can we refine this or do this

51:32

or do that? Or I'm curious, what is, what

51:34

is her approach or like, what does she do?

51:37

Is it something that she does on a regular

51:39

basis or is it something like she just says,

51:41

Hey, can we talk about this, that, or this?

51:45

It would go like, you know,

51:49

you talk about plates spinning on swords, you know,

51:52

all the

51:54

time, man. Yeah.

51:58

I sometimes feel that, uh, Yeah,

52:01

we're like doing that

52:04

and I imagine some future where a couple

52:07

of plates get taken off. Yeah.

52:10

You know, it's because whatever, I don't know, someone's going

52:12

to come along and remove some of the plates and

52:14

it's going to get real simple and then there'll be

52:16

like this big refocus. But

52:18

it'll just be that it would be like

52:20

this. Maybe

52:23

like drift in some way or there'd

52:26

be some argument in

52:28

some way. And then we'll

52:31

carry on for a day or two, you know,

52:33

but you just like it's in the air. No

52:35

one's talking or I'm not talking about it, but

52:37

it's like in the air that we're not

52:40

happy with each other. To

52:42

be honest with you, like a problem

52:44

with me is that I

52:48

would let that run for quite a

52:52

long time. Right? Because

52:55

in my mind, I'm like, I'm just

52:57

going to let it slowly, it'll slowly

52:59

dissipate and then

53:01

somehow we'll land back to like in a

53:03

great spot. She'll

53:05

let that go a little bit, you know, whatever

53:08

a little bit she's like, can you come in here? Because

53:11

we're in the dark, you

53:14

know, and you can't do

53:16

the like, well, what? I didn't know there's anything

53:18

wrong. Like she knows it. I

53:20

know it. And she's like, okay,

53:24

I'm not, we're not, this isn't going to be a thing

53:26

now for three days. Like,

53:29

hear me out.

53:31

I'll hear

53:34

you. I'm not going to like what you're telling me, but this is

53:36

not going to be a thing. It's

53:38

just going to simmer. She

53:41

pulls the, she pulls the

53:43

cord on that real

53:46

quick. And I would probably

53:48

because of certain things from just how things

53:50

got coped with when I was little and

53:52

stuff, man. Like, you know, like for instance,

53:54

you know, you're talking about my

53:56

old man, like my old man was never in a million

53:59

years going to come around. and tell someone he

54:01

was sorry about something. It just wasn't going to

54:03

happen. The

54:07

closest he could come to an apology is saying like,

54:09

well, I'm sorry that that made you feel that way.

54:11

Yeah. Yeah. But

54:14

somewhere you think about it, you're sorry

54:16

that that made

54:18

me feel that way, not I'm

54:21

sorry. Right. So

54:24

that is probably

54:27

like the biggest

54:31

thing that I could learn from her would

54:34

be when something is amiss, just

54:39

being like, okay, let's not

54:41

act like, let's not

54:43

do the passive aggressive thing where you

54:45

sort of act like nothing's wrong, but

54:48

you're definitely pissed. Yeah, right. Right.

54:52

What's wrong? Nothing? Nothing? Nothing. You

54:55

don't get anywhere with nothing, right? It's

54:57

just that just doesn't work over time.

54:59

So but no, you

55:01

know, it's really cool is, you know, I

55:03

think there always has to be one person in the relationship or

55:05

both, you know, that's doing that. Right. But

55:08

here's the interesting thing. You have to have somebody else. So

55:10

your wife is that person that is more

55:12

like nudges those conversations, right? We also have

55:14

somebody you have to have somebody who's receptive

55:17

to it, which it sounds like you're receptive

55:19

to it almost like, yeah, if she says,

55:21

hey, we need to sit down and talk

55:23

about something like we're going to sit down

55:25

and talk about something. I'm relieved when she

55:27

brings it up. For some reason, like I

55:29

can't bring it up. Yeah. I

55:32

don't know why it's weird to sing. I

55:34

just don't. I'd let it go. I

55:36

feel that I would eventually come around,

55:39

but I just I'm so

55:41

relieved when maybe

55:44

I've been trained to wait.

55:46

You know, I'm just relieved

55:48

when she's like, okay, like,

55:52

come in the closet. If

55:54

the kids are like, what in the world, you

55:56

know, oh, thank God. We're going to pay her

55:58

out. and this will

56:00

be over now. But I just don't, I

56:02

don't know what it is. There's

56:05

something to be said about people identify

56:08

with some of their roles in the

56:10

relationship. My wife and

56:12

I have a similar role

56:14

with that. So for

56:17

instance, I'm more of the, I

56:19

actually am more of the nudger of my wife. And

56:21

I think that might be because, let

56:25

me take that back. It's probably actually

56:27

more equal ground, but I would say when

56:29

it comes to nudging the relationship or conversations

56:31

like that, we each

56:33

have our topics that we

56:35

nudge the other person about. So there

56:38

are certain things, I don't

56:40

really feel a reason to go talk to her about certain things,

56:43

but she'll come and talk to me about them and be

56:45

like, hey, we need to talk about this. I'm like, okay,

56:47

it might've been on my radar, might not have been. And

56:49

then the same goes for her. And that's

56:51

just our roles. I

56:54

think what's really cool though, and what I think

56:56

differentiates a successful relationship, whether you

56:58

have those roles or not, is you have to

57:00

have somebody who's gonna do that, who's gonna be

57:02

the catalyst for that. But you also have

57:04

somebody who's gotta be like, yeah, let's talk about that. There

57:06

has to be an agreement, which you are. So

57:10

no matter what the roles are or who

57:12

actually starts the conversation, the fact that the

57:14

conversation is being had is the

57:16

most important thing. Because most people, a

57:19

lot of couples that are in that third camp

57:21

that we were talking about, they just keep sweeping

57:23

things into the carpet and they

57:25

never talk about it. And it

57:27

just builds up over time. And then suddenly there are

57:29

just two strangers living under the same roof that haven't

57:32

had a deep conversation in quite some time. You

57:35

know, one thing we did not

57:37

too terribly long ago, is

57:42

you know what do you want? You

57:46

know what was like a saying, a thing can come

57:48

out in a relationship where it's like, there's just an

57:50

annoying detail. And it's like,

57:53

it just comes up and it's like a little nag or

57:55

a little nudge. So it just starts up approximating

57:57

the kingdom. So it didn't stay the nuts. some

58:00

couples that I've known for a long time. I

58:02

watched, they got the same little nags and nudges

58:06

that never go away, right?

58:09

Like, I don't know, you screw, like

58:11

you make a, someone makes a,

58:14

buys a vacation spot

58:17

and then it winds up, they never go there, right?

58:20

Or I'm just pulling this out of the thin air, just

58:22

some things I've heard people gripe about. And they

58:24

gotta pay for it the rest of their life. Do

58:27

you know what I mean? Like to screw up. Or

58:30

whatever. You know, I told

58:32

them not to buy that kind of car and

58:35

you know, it's been a lemon and they

58:37

gotta be reminded of that every day. We

58:41

actually made like, one time we were

58:43

just talking about areas of friction and

58:47

we made a list of just stuff like, I

58:49

get it. I don't wanna

58:51

hear about it anymore, you know? And

58:54

just talk about it and just wind up like,

58:56

making these sort of things that just like, kinda

58:59

like remove this

59:03

from the list of stuff you gotta suffer

59:06

and live with, you know? There's

59:08

some things I would never put on that list. I

59:10

have two times, maybe three times, forgot my wife's birthday,

59:12

dude. Listen,

59:15

till late in the afternoon. I would

59:17

never go like, that's so bad and so

59:19

inexcusable. I would never put it on my

59:22

list of stuff I don't wanna hear about

59:24

anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But other

59:26

stuff, like my wife has this sauna and I

59:28

would tease her about this sauna, you know, that

59:30

she got, cause like, of course,

59:33

like a lot of stuff like that. Seems like a good

59:35

idea, no one ever uses it. There's like infrared sauna, dude.

59:37

Yeah, right, right, yeah. You have to watch, it's like, dude,

59:41

you have to shut up about the sauna. The

59:44

sauna's there, it's there. We're

59:47

not giving it away, we're not selling

59:49

it. I don't wanna hear about it.

59:51

When I wanna use it, I'm gonna use it. Stop talking

59:53

about the sauna. All right,

59:55

I'll talk about the sauna. Yeah.

59:57

I'll think of something different. Yeah, I don't

59:59

think it's. I'm a little bit different, that's the best. And

1:00:02

I'm like, okay, and you could, he

1:00:04

didn't mean to talk about that song. Yeah. No,

1:00:08

I hear you, man. Like one of the rules that,

1:00:10

I think a lot of couples get tripped up in

1:00:12

that, man, is Jessica and I, my

1:00:14

wife and I, have been married for 20 years now,

1:00:16

and I've known her for 27. And

1:00:20

one of our rules is

1:00:23

we never are allowed to bring

1:00:25

up past transgressions that we've overcome

1:00:27

and forgiven up again. Because

1:00:30

it's just such a waste of time. That's

1:00:33

a better way of putting what I'm saying, but

1:00:37

we even throw in, not even transgression,

1:00:39

some people would hear that and they

1:00:41

would think infidelity, transgression being dumb things.

1:00:45

And in the fine print, there's saunas

1:00:48

right there. So yeah, it's almost like,

1:00:53

when someone brings it up, you're like, God, why

1:00:55

do, you know, why

1:00:59

would you feel the need to just like

1:01:01

dig at yourself?

1:01:03

There's so much like weird little kid

1:01:08

things that go on in a marriage, you

1:01:10

know, like weird naggy little,

1:01:12

almost like sibling type rivalries and

1:01:18

naginess, oh, just when

1:01:20

you catch yourself doing it, it just makes you feel

1:01:22

kind of sick, man, you know? It

1:01:24

does. And I think a lot of people view

1:01:27

their marriage as like, well, it's, you

1:01:29

know, we're good, we're, you know,

1:01:31

she's safe, he's safe. So I can kind

1:01:33

of like let loose and, you know,

1:01:36

act how I want and the

1:01:38

other person will be fine with it. And I

1:01:41

think there's a lot of danger in that, right?

1:01:43

I mean, yeah, I always

1:01:45

tell the boys, because like one thing I'll say,

1:01:47

I mean, I have done so many face plants

1:01:50

as a father and a husband, but

1:01:52

one thing I try to do well is love

1:01:55

the boys' mom well in front

1:01:57

of them, right? And when

1:01:59

they're the same way. with me and

1:02:02

my boys are always like, man, you're

1:02:04

always so affectionate with mom.

1:02:06

And I was like, well, that wasn't always so.

1:02:10

There was a time where I wasn't great. I

1:02:13

was like, but I'm a true believer in that if

1:02:15

you treat the relationship how you did in the beginning,

1:02:19

you'll do well for the long haul, right? So

1:02:22

one of the filters that I had to learn

1:02:24

early on in our relationship, and

1:02:26

I was a total dumbass for like

1:02:28

the first half of our relationship not doing

1:02:30

these things is I'll

1:02:34

think about something, a way I wanna

1:02:36

operate with my wife or a way I wanna talk to

1:02:38

her, right? And I'll run it through

1:02:40

a filter of if I knew her for one month, how

1:02:43

would I approach this? And

1:02:45

when we're in that like that dating

1:02:47

and courting phase with our spouses, we

1:02:50

operate very differently, right? We don't operate as comfortable,

1:02:52

lazy, that kind of thing. We

1:02:57

operate like, hey, this

1:03:00

chick's new to me, man. And I wanna make

1:03:02

sure that this relationship goes somewhere. So I'm gonna

1:03:04

give some effort, right? But

1:03:07

I also think you go through seasons like that

1:03:09

too. Like there are seasons still where I get

1:03:11

lazy and I'll

1:03:14

either be reminded of that from, even my kids are

1:03:17

old enough now to where they'll even point out to

1:03:19

me like, dad, when was the last time you took mom on a

1:03:21

date? I was like, oh, it's been a minute.

1:03:23

You should probably take her out. You know what

1:03:25

I mean? I'm like, I appreciate that. Well, as

1:03:27

we wrap up here, man, you've got so

1:03:30

many exciting things, man. You've got all

1:03:33

these different books you've created, the Meat Eater

1:03:35

Outdoor Cookbook, the Meat Eater Fish and Game

1:03:38

Cookbook, you've got the American Buffalo. My

1:03:40

two favorites obviously are Outdoor Kids and

1:03:44

Inside World and Catch a Crayfish, Count

1:03:46

the Stars. But you've

1:03:49

got these two incredible resources books for

1:03:51

dads out there to pick up and read and

1:03:54

go have a blast with their kids. But I'm

1:03:57

curious, what can we

1:03:59

expect? coming in

1:04:01

your world and to the rest of us

1:04:03

in the next year or so? Well,

1:04:07

I'll tell you a couple things, but yeah, just

1:04:09

to touch on how those two

1:04:11

books sit really quickly, if you don't mind. Yeah,

1:04:14

please. There are kids in an inside world I

1:04:16

viewed as being... That's

1:04:20

a book for parents and caregivers, right? I

1:04:23

hear from so many people and know so

1:04:25

many people who really want

1:04:28

to find a way to bring

1:04:30

the outdoor lifestyle they love and

1:04:33

translate it to a family situation or who

1:04:35

are never been outdoorsmen but would like to

1:04:37

be and want to take kids down that

1:04:39

path. So it's kind of a

1:04:42

rallying cry, right, about getting kids outside and how

1:04:44

to think about it. Catch a

1:04:46

crayfish count the stars, I imagine

1:04:48

it being a sort of a compendium

1:04:50

title and that's the one for kids,

1:04:52

right? So there's one for caregivers,

1:04:54

parents, and Catch a Crayfish Count

1:04:57

the Stars is a book that you do with

1:04:59

your kids, like that's the book that lives in

1:05:01

your kid's bedroom, lives under your kid's

1:05:03

bookshelf. Outdoor kids in

1:05:05

an inside world is the

1:05:07

parents bookshelf, right?

1:05:10

We're going to be launching a kids podcast which

1:05:12

will be on the Meat Eater Podcast Network. It'll

1:05:15

be like a very short, tight

1:05:17

three act podcast for outdoor kids.

1:05:22

Working on that and then still

1:05:25

doing audio originals and then this

1:05:27

spring we're we

1:05:30

did this audio original series called Meat Eaters

1:05:32

American History and

1:05:35

this spring launching our outdoor

1:05:38

cookbook which is everything

1:05:40

from throwing backyard

1:05:43

parties to backcountry cooking with

1:05:46

everything from like the

1:05:48

cooking methods of Ice Age hunters

1:05:50

up into how to make specialty

1:05:53

cocktails in the outdoors, right? Awesome,

1:05:55

man. Full on book,

1:05:57

yeah, so I hope people check that out and appreciate

1:05:59

it. Heck yeah, man Where

1:06:01

are the best place? So where can we drive the audience as

1:06:03

far as the best way to connect with you and

1:06:06

to look for these these new things? Coming out this year.

1:06:08

Oh Man, you know, I

1:06:10

you know, I'm on I'm on Instagram

1:06:12

at Steven Ronella Go

1:06:15

to the meat eater YouTube channel on YouTube

1:06:19

and go to Download

1:06:21

the meat eater podcast or go to the

1:06:23

meat eater podcast feed And

1:06:27

Of course go to the meat eater comm for all

1:06:29

kinds of articles You said that's the whole world right

1:06:31

there. Like you can find anything within our world at

1:06:33

the meat eater comm Got it, man.

1:06:35

Well not not to worry guys. We're gonna have all the

1:06:37

links in the show notes for you It's

1:06:40

been phenomenal talking

1:06:43

to you Steve. I'm a huge fan of yours and have

1:06:45

been for quite some time Guys,

1:06:47

you can head on over to the

1:06:49

data edge comm/four six four for this

1:06:51

show We're gonna have Steve's

1:06:54

Instagram in there his books

1:06:56

in there as well the meat eater YouTube channel

1:06:58

We'll have the meat eater podcast and also the

1:07:00

meat eater comm where you guys can catch up

1:07:02

and grab all the Steve's resources

1:07:04

and Steve man, this

1:07:06

has been awesome really enjoyed having you on

1:07:09

and I again want to wish you a Happy

1:07:12

one day early birthday man. Happy shift.

1:07:14

Yes you man. Thanks man. Appreciate it

1:07:16

You bet keep keep doing these things

1:07:19

man because it's like it's keeping you

1:07:21

young and creating memories and it gives

1:07:23

gives us Dads out there who are

1:07:26

getting our own feet wet with getting our kids outdoors and

1:07:28

our resources. So thank you for all you're doing that Well,

1:07:31

hopefully I got another 10 20 years in these so

1:07:33

thank you. I appreciate the encouragement. I'm sure you do

1:07:35

man I'm sure you do Gentlemen

1:07:37

go out live legendary

1:07:48

You