← Legends of the Wild, A Field And Stream Production | Hunting, Fishing and the Outdoors
Legends of the Wild, A Field And Stream Production | Hunting, Fishing and the Outdoors
Episode 20 - Ben O’Brien on Reinventing Hunting Media and Telling Better Stories
01:29:16
What happens when hunting media stops playing it safe and starts telling the truth?
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- [00:02]
Sam Soholt
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- [00:32]
Ben O'Brien
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- [01:02]
Sam Soholt
This is Legends of the Wild, presented by Field and Stream. Let's get into it. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Legends of the Wild. I'm your host, Sam Soholt, and today this one's been a long time coming. I've got Ben o' Brien on the podcast with me, and I have been a guest on Ben's podcast in the past many times. We co host a podcast together called the Roost show. And so we've done I don't know how many episodes now where we've been on the same podcast. Probably close to a hundred at this point.
- [02:20]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah.
- [02:20]
Sam Soholt
And. But I've never been the one interviewing you, so I'm excited about this. Welcome to the show.
- [02:25]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, my, the tables have turned, Sam. The tables have turned. I like it. And I also will say you've done an awesome job of this show, listening to the episodes, knowing, you know, talking to you about the numbers and number of people that are listening in the comments. You've, you have done very well with this, this here program. And it's appropriate to have me on after all the wonderful people you've had on, like Donnie Vincent and some of the, the greats in the outdoor space. I do belong after those, those folks, so this is appropriate in my mind.
- [02:55]
Sam Soholt
Well, I appreciate the kind words and I'm just pumped to have you on because we've, you know, we'll get into all this stuff, but we've kind of, we've both been in this industry for a long time and in one way or another, starting back in like 2003, 14, like, our kind of careers have constantly just been kind of this weaving path back and forth where we've done a lot of cool stuff Together. So I'm. I'm excited to dive into everything you've done in the space and all of the crazy things that have happened in 20 years of, you know, trying to make a career in the hunting industry.
- [03:28]
Ben O'Brien
I will say one of the things we talked about this the other day. One of the things that's funny is my memory of something and your memory of something and how it. How they're like, they're. They're related because we were both there. We have different. Different, like, views of. Of things that we were. That we've done together from our own perspectives. And so it's fun to just relive those stories. Yeah. You and I are getting. We're getting older now. That's okay. We're not that old. We're not one rocking chair or nothing. But we're. We've. We've been doing this a little bit, so reflecting on those times is fun always. And I have a. Outside my office here, I have one of those aura frames that flips the photos. And I just put. I've been uploading every outdoor just for. Just for hunting, basically, and. And stuff that I've done with my kids. And then just me and it. It's just. I could see it from where I'm sitting, and it just has so many samso photos. Well, either photos you took or photos of you and me. And now my. My family started to take part in that too. So it's. It's pretty cool to have that rich of experience, let alone some of the stuff we've done together.
- [04:37]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [04:38]
Ben O'Brien
So the.
- [04:38]
Sam Soholt
I mean, the original thought for doing this podcast together, we were going to do it in person at turkey camp for your son's youth hunt. And then I just. We ended up hunting the whole time as we. We ran out of. Ran out of time to. To sit down and record this.
- [04:53]
Ben O'Brien
But I'm.
- [04:54]
Sam Soholt
I'm pumped that we're were on and doing it now. So I'm trying to. I want you to start, like, go way back. Like, how did. I mean, you're from the east coast, right? So how does a kid from the east coast end up, like, launching himself into the hunting space? Cause that's not where you started.
- [05:12]
Ben O'Brien
No, no. I certainly probably told this story a lot, but I. Reflecting on, like, how you get started in this, and I. And now that I have my own kids, um, I reflect on that quite a bit because they're going through the things that I went through. You know, just this weekend, we got to see my kids go through some things. That. That I went through at that same age. And so you try to go back and think of like, what were the most formative things in that. And I will say my dad was a. Was an outdoorsman. He. And I didn't appreciate this at the time. He knew every single bird when he got in the woods. He. He was like, that's a. I used to make fun of him. I used to be like, oh, that's a. A nut breasted crow. And he like, no, that's a. We would. But he. He had qualities that I didn't appreciate till. Until way later on. He. He knew every plant, he knew every bird. He was a. A relic hunter. He. We lived close to the Antietam battlefield and. And he had relationships with all these farmers and things on the outskirts of the actual. The battlefield itself, which. Or he would go relic hunt and find bullets and cannonballs and old belt buckles. And like, he just had this really multifaceted for being just a small business owner, family man, a very multifaceted, like, understanding of. Of just going outside and all the things you could do. Hunting certainly was something that he picked up on his own. His. His dad didn't do it. His dad's dad didn't do it. He picked it up on his own. Started hunting squirrels and then pheasants and then deer and upland birds and things that were around western Maryland at the time that aren't there now. And so he just had these qualities, I think, that were. Were passed along to me. And he. But he like, like so many gave up hunting when he had kids because he didn't have time. And his kids were in practices and his kids were in ski lessons or whatever we were doing at the time. He didn't have time to go hunting. And then he returned to it when I discovered it when I was about 10 say. So then he returned to it and then we just rediscovered it together. And that's how I. How I came to it. That was the first. First thing that I ever did. I remember being on my neighbor's garage floor. It was super cold out, and they were trying to figure out which rifle was light enough for me to hold up at the agent tank. Actually, be accurate with. I remember that as like, that's my first memory of being interested. And then I just remember from there, the first hunt I went on with him, he shot. Shot this buck, which I. Which I thought at the time was a giant buck. Now it's hanging above my door here. It's the tiniest little basket rack,
- [07:52]
Sam Soholt
isn't it incredible though? Like when you, when you see stuff from like your childhood, you're like, oh, I remember that being bigger.
- [07:59]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah. It's both like a really wonderful understanding of what it is to be a kid and also just funny. Look at that, look at that. You know that thing has a 11 inch spread on it.
- [08:14]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [08:14]
Ben O'Brien
It's an eight point, as we would say back in the East Coast. So, yeah, that was, that was it. And, and I think my, like, outdoor life was pretty normal then. We would, we would hunt opening. We would hunt muzzleloader. You know, one of the things that was probably a little bit abnormal is that I grew up hunting passion. Round ball muzzleloader. I had a hawk and pippen cow. I had a Kentucky long. We'd go to turkey shoots, you know, go shoot paper, try to win frozen turkeys. We were pretty redneck, which I didn't realize till later on. And so I, you know, that was, that was, it was a pretty suburban, like, hunt the weekends for deer, hunt the weekends for turkeys every once in a while, hunt for geese every once in a while. We weren't nearly as what, what I do now. And yeah, it was pretty normal, but it was something that I was, was really interested in and read a lot about and along with sports was like the two interests that I had. I just didn't really know that, that a fella could have a career in it really.
- [09:12]
Sam Soholt
Right.
- [09:13]
Ben O'Brien
Going in, I wrote a letter. There was a guy, I don't remember his name now, but there was a guy who had a outdoor writing school in Canada. And he, I was maybe 12, and he had write, you know, like a writing contest for young outdoorsmen. And I wrote him this thing and it was very. I was trying to be, I was 12 and I was trying to be so poetic, like the trees and the birds and the. And he wrote me back and he just said, great writing, but write it how it is and you'll be fine. Yeah, some version of that response. And so that stuck with me, but I still didn't, you know, until I actually got into the industry, didn't really think it could be a career. I thought I was going to be a sports writer for a long time and that's what I was going to do. So I didn't really fall. I just kind of fell into it, to be honest.
- [09:59]
Sam Soholt
So how did you, like, because you started in sports writing, you know, you were covering baseball and doing all sorts of stuff. But like, how did that, how did you end up going into the hunting space from that.
- [10:09]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, well, I, I, I was pretty. During that time we, you and I talked about this before. During that time, I was a go getter. I had, yeah, 12 college credits. I was working basically full time at UPS as a sort supervisor loading trailers full of packages. I was a supervisor managing teamsters as like a 20 year old, 19 year old. Imagine that.
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Sam Soholt
It's not intimidating at all.
- [10:34]
Ben O'Brien
Who thought that was a good idea? United Parcel Service. You should be ashamed of yourself for hiring me to do that when I was 19. But I did. I was a supervisor at the local sort of. And Frederick, MD at UPS. And that was, it was supposed to be part time, but boy, it was, it was basically full time running a team of people loading boxes into trailers. I don't, I look back on that. I'm like, my brain was not fully formed who, no one was counting for
- [11:00]
Sam Soholt
anything but in the moment, you know, like you did.
- [11:02]
Ben O'Brien
I think I did all right. Yeah, I did fine. So I ran a local sort there as a supervisor. I had a full course load of credits as a journalism student. And then I was doing two or three internships on top of that at the time. And so one of those internships was a magazine called Press Box Magazine down in Baltimore, close to where I went to school. And they had an opening to go and actually cover the Baltimore Orioles baseball team and the Ravens football team at the time. And this is what I wanted to do. I mean, I, Dude, I had a little radio on the wall. I don't know if anybody else had like a little. We had a radio in the kitchen that, that went to all the speakers in the individual rooms back then. We also had a rotary dial phone back then too. But I had a little speaker in like a radio speaker in my room. And I would, it's like an intercom. I could talk to my brother and make fart noises or I could listen to Orioles games as you would, or I could listen to Orioles games on there. Chuck Thompson, Fred man, for a bunch of like, you know, classic radio voices. So I would go to bed to Orioles games most times. And so that I had this like incredible passion for that. And then, and then I'm 20 or so and I get this internship and all of a sudden they're like, would you like to go cover the team? And I was like, like in the dugout. They're like, yeah, you go in the dugout, you interview the players. You. Next thing I know, I'm sitting in the press box, I'm going in the dugout, I'm in the locker room with the players. I'm on the field with a little recorder, asking people questions. It was like living the dream. I have to meet Cal Ripken. They. When they named the street outside of Camden Yards Cal Ripken Way. I was there at the press conference, like, with my little recorder, you know, I was 20 and got to do that a few times and really feel what that was like. It was so cool for about the first four or five times that I did it. Yeah. And then after that, it was like, man, this is not as cool as I thought it was. It's kind of demeaning and weird, and it's causing me not to really like sports or baseball. I won't go into all the reasons why, but, I mean, I just didn't. It just wasn't what I thought it was. And it was like, a little deeper of a crisis in me than I probably would have given credit for at the time. But I was still working at ups. I was still. I had another internship at the Washington Post at. At their sports desk at the time. So I was getting a sense that I could work in that world. And then I graduated college. After all these internships were over, I was trying to figure out what to do. I met a buddy. A buddy of mine. I was actually at my grandfather's funeral. It was, like, at the bar prior to the funeral, talking to a friend of a friend who said, I work at the National Rifle Association. And he was showing me pictures of himself in. On his phone. And I was like, what. What is this?
- [14:06]
Sam Soholt
How do you end up over there?
- [14:07]
Ben O'Brien
He was like, I got paid for this. I was like, what? For what? It was like, I. I work for a magazine called American Rifleman. And I went. I went to Africa, and I wrote about hunting in Africa. I just remember being, like, floored by this. I was like. So he said at the time, he's like, man, I'm gonna go work at Under Armour. I'm leaving the magazine position. You should try to apply for it. Maybe you'll get it. Okay. So I applied immediately. I think probably got denied because I had no experience. And this was a pretty. This was being like, you know, the deputy editor of American Rifleman magazine at the National Rifle Association. Pretty big deal at the time. And so couple. You know, I'm being a college kid. Weeks go by, and, you know, I get a phone call from the nra, and they said, hey, we have a digital editor position open. Since you have this experience, we would love to talk to you. I interviewed a Couple weeks later, get the job and that. Like, I remember talking to my dad and be like, dad, I got this job. And we were like, he couldn't. Couldn't understand what it was and was more excited than I was. And I think his excitement got me to be like, I think this might be something. I think I might have just landed like a. And then I will say, shout out to the HR lady at the National Rifle association who did say, hey, we're going to hire you, but you should look at your MySpace page and there's a couple photos you're going to want to take down. It's like, thanks, thanks, HR lady. I'll do.
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Sam Soholt
That's good looking out.
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Ben O'Brien
Yeah, you're going to work here. You can't have, you know, kickstand photos on your.
- [15:47]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, I suppose that makes sense.
- [15:49]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, that probably dates this. This experience a little bit. So that was it. And I was in at that point. It was a suit and tie job. I had one tie. They were paying me like 36 grand a year living in the most expensive county in America. And it was a struggle and I was not ready for it. I didn't know what I needed to know. I look back on that and I just laugh at, like what I tried to do and what I didn't know now, but I was. Yeah, that was probably 20, 21 or so.
- [16:22]
Sam Soholt
Right early at that point in time. You talk about being a digital editor. Like, now everyone looks at all the digital content. Like that's a pretty simple. Not a simple task, but like it's so readily available to. Like whether you're managing people to send in content or creating content on your own. It's like just. That's just fluid now. Right. But back then that was a. That was a new frontier for every company and every magazine and every newspaper and everything. Everyone that was putting out content. That was a brand new thing.
- [16:49]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, it was. It was. We built the first website for. For the National Rifle association or one of the first ones, like the first real website. I remember designing the first blogs that they ever had. The first social media posts. How do we cover shot show? What is a deer hunting blog look like? Or what does a hunting blog look like? What does this digital content look like? And I also remember many of the print editors hating me or hating the idea of me.
- [17:18]
Sam Soholt
There were something like they feel like they were. You were going to eventually push them out of their role kind of thing. Or what was the. What was the animosity?
- [17:27]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, that was the paradigm at the time. It was when I was at Washington Post just as an intern, there was Washington post, Newsweek Interactive, WP&I. And then there was Washington Post, like across. I think it was a building across the street. So there was this, like, new group of digital editors, digital news desk kind of. That was just really the time of like, Drudge Report. And just that was, you know, this is a time when, before Instagram, really, when we were trying to figure it out, what's the website have to do? What's. What's this content have to do? And print was king and. And it was like, we don't, you know, we don't need this digital thing. And so that was it. I. Not everybody felt that way. A lot of people were encouraging, but it was definitely like I was the pipsqueak web kid for sure as well. I probably should have been.
- [18:14]
Sam Soholt
Well, that's okay. I think that's a good spot to be. Even though uncomfortable at the time. Right. Makes you have pretty thick skin immediately as you're trying to push that job forward. So, you know, like, you look back on it and you just, like in the moment, some of that stuff really sucks. And then when you go forward from there, you're like, oh, I needed that actually to, like, form who I was going to be. Oh, yeah, in the long run, yeah,
- [18:38]
Ben O'Brien
you need to run up against those roadblocks. You need to run up against, like, the way it is. And. And I have always been for good and certainly for bad, like somebody who just. I can't stand it. I can't stand the status quo. I don't. I don't walk into something and go, how would you like me to do this, sir? I walk into it and go, hey, this is why we do it. Here's how we ought to do it. And during that time, I certainly got some wins. I had a feature, a couple features in American Rifleman magazine that, that the web editor probably shouldn't have gotten because I just really wanted it thought for it. I did a feature on Ian Harrison, who won Top Shot, which was a reality show back then, just for. Just because I wanted to do it and I pushed for it. And so I was a go getter, man. I really did want it to work, you know, and then thinking about, like, wearing my dad's camo and stuff, to the first industry hunt I ever went on. And never being on an industry hunt, never having been out west, never having been anywhere, you know, and I want to say It'd be like 20, 2010 or so, just, just going out and hunting in like my, the same clothes. I would have hunted with my buddies. And they're not being, you know, we were hunting with CVA back then. A guy named Chad Shearer, who's still around, is a wonderful, wonderful guy. And another outdoor writer named Bob Rob, which is another dude I hung out with during my younger years a lot as a. As alto writer and then getting to meet these guys, have been doing it for years and seeing what they do and their stories about traveling around the world and just being like, this is it, dude. This is it. This is what I want to do.
- [20:12]
Sam Soholt
Yep.
- [20:13]
Ben O'Brien
I don't know what it is, but that's what I want to do. And so, yeah, for, for to look back now as time has passed, that was a formative time to step into that world. I mean, to step into that world at that time when it was transitioning to digital. I was lucky to kind of step into that zone because it was. I was for a long time arguing with 55 year old print editors about what we ought to do. Yep. Yeah. Or debating health. A healthy debate.
- [20:41]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, healthy debate. Yeah. Arguing is fine. You know, there was her. Yeah, there was. There's times where a good argument is necessary so you can, you know, both sides can get their thoughts out and then move forward from there. So. So then from the nra, like, how do you. Like, so we met when you were at Peterson's. How do you end up from the NRA going to Peterson's Hunting magazine?
- [21:03]
Ben O'Brien
Well, it's much the same way as I was describing. I was on a lot of hunts, writer hunts, as you might say. And I met a guy named Mike Scoby on a turkey hunt in Louisiana. And we just had a ball, had a party, had a great time. I don't believe I killed a turkey. I don't think I did. I might have missed a turkey, maybe. That sounds right.
- [21:27]
Sam Soholt
Well, Louisiana, not an easy state.
- [21:29]
Ben O'Brien
They're terrible, these turkeys down there. I haven't. I haven't been back for years and years, but I don't know if I've ever shot one down there. I can remember. I've definitely not shot one. I know that. But, yeah, I mean, that was. So I met him and I remember he just gave and I had never. I was. Man, I was pretty confident back then. Like, I had a sense about the. The confidence of youth, as they say. I had a sense about me that I had something to offer. And so he came to me and said, look, I run Peterson Honey magazine, but there's this company called Intermediate Outdoors, our websites are terrible. Like where I think they had like a server meltdown and lost all of their content and all their websites and everything. It was a mess. And they were like, hey, could. If we would want to bring you in to be digital editor in chief, you could run, you know, Guns and Ammo magazine, Peterson's Hunting magazine, a bunch of, you know, like, for me, a pretty big opportunity to be in charge of something. Yeah. Being I was about three years in at this point to, to the nra. And so I, you know, I kind of got my feet under me to the extent that I could at that point, and I felt like I could run, run that operation. So it was, you know, moved to Peoria, Illinois, build a team and build this. Build these websites, put them together. And it was Pearson's Hunting, North American Whitetail Guns and Ammo Rifle shooter. I mean, there's a lot of. It was all the hunting and shooting websites that were under that conglomerate at the time.
- [22:55]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [22:56]
Ben O'Brien
And so it didn't take me long to say yes to that. And I remember sitting with. And this is this. Everything comes back around. Sitting with the head of NRA Publishing and him telling me, you're not ready for this. Where I was like, well, they're offering me more money, more to do. He was like, you need to stay here in season and like, you're not ready for this. And I, I didn't even let that word get out of his mouth. Like, I'm out. Like, there's no, I'm not going to sit around and have. No, I'm not. That was just, that's just who I. I'm less that now, obviously, but a big part of my personality then was just, I'm going to charge through this breach out. You know, I was not going. Yeah. Not going to sit around and wait for you to think I'm okay to
- [23:42]
Sam Soholt
get a run in and figure it out.
- [23:44]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah. So you just go. And so I did. I just moved to Peoria, Illinois, site unseen, got an apartment and. And hired three or four guys with almost no money and no understanding of how it was going to go. And we build a bunch of websites and we had a ton of success right off the bat. I mean, back then, traffic was relatively easy to get and there wasn't a whole lot of competition. And we built guns and ammo.com specifically into a pretty big deal. And I just, you know, from there it just went deeper. That's when, you know, when I met Steven Rinella, during those days, he did a little Bit of writing for me at Peterson's and part of, like, getting the attention of the guys at Peterson's is they knew Steve and I knew Steve and they were impressed that I had done my research and knew, you know, guys like Rinella, who was very early into his career then too. It was just kind of like I knew the players on the field and I think that was exciting across the board. So. So yeah, that was, that was that part where I was able to really run a. Run a thing and be in charge of something and, and see how I did. And again, I don't. I look back on that like that was another formative time when no kids, you know, no family running around and, and growing up, just literally growing up in the industry. Growing up with. Yeah, just industry friends for a while and traveling the world with, with really great people, learning a lot and being a, A, a dummy, most of it.
- [25:20]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, but everybody needs that, right? You need to, you need to go and do all those things without really, like, you don't know what you don't know. And boy, you learn quick when you're out there doing dumb stuff that you think is the right choice. And then, you know, whether that comes back to smacking the back of head or not, like, it's stuff you got to do to learn to go forward and like, kind of again, just become who you're trying to get to become eventually.
- [25:44]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, that's a bit of. Yeah, there's like a proponent to it where. Component to it where for me, I knew, I knew I wanted, I wanted to be different. I just knew that. And I, it was like an innate. It wasn't like I sat around and like wrote how I was going to be different. It was just me saying, there's a different way to do this. There's a different way to do this, there's a different way to do this. And that. That drove me. I mean, it drove me to meeting you because I was not. You know, I will go to one of the more important points in my life, career wise. I have it somewhere here. I have it framed. There's a. I have to look and see what the. It's April, May 2014 edition of Peterson's Hunting Magazine. At the time I transitioned from the web to print because that was what I just, I just wanted to keep on going. And they gave me. Mike Scobie specifically gave me the chance to design and put together the April edition of Peterson's hunting magazine in 2014. And if you'll find the COVID of that it's pretty different.
- [26:51]
Sam Soholt
Yeah. In relation to other hunting magazine covers, it's definitely different.
- [26:56]
Ben O'Brien
And it was me in a nutshell, just pushing buttons, just hitting, you know, trying to win Mortal Kombat by hitting all the buttons and seeing what kicks would come out. Um, and that, you know, this was my understanding of a few things. And I think this maybe would be interesting to folks. And it. Because it's, it's. It is interesting to me because it's a very. It's a. It's a moment that we could not play back. I. When I came into the N. It's a very institutional place. Right. It's, it's. This is the way we do things. Like you stay here five years, you get to go to Africa, you do this, you get to go. Like there was just rules to it and structures to it that were fine enough. But not for me at the time. They weren't fine enough for me. And I felt that there was more to hunting specifically than just what they presented. And I felt that structure of gun reviews and talk about how the hunting I did or back page columns, like just the way that that magazine and the website were structured. I just felt like there was something missing and there was something missing. I think it was recognized by what happened after that. And so that April, May 2014 edition of Peterson's Hunting, it was called the Mediator Revolution. That's the thing that's on there. This is the media revolution. I think it was Georgia Pellegrini, Steve Rinello and a few other folks that we called out as like people who were talking about eating the animals that we're killing. Yeah, this is a. This is something that we weren't really. I mean, we were, but we weren't. And to my mind, we weren't doing it enough. We weren't talking about this idea that eating these animals was. Was a bigger part than anything else or as big a part as anything else. The example of that is pretty much every Peterson's hunting cover before that was either a big dead thing or a big thing that was about to be dead. It was a big elk. And then Mike Scobie, to his credit, started putting hunters with packing out elk. He started doing. They did a big redesign prior to me getting there. And the COVID started to be different elements of it. And you know, famous photographer Lee Chos. Lee Chos was kind of the creative mind behind the execution of this different view of hunting. Um. Cause Lee's that way and Mike's that way, and I certainly was that way. That. Like, this ain't it, man. We gotta do something different. Let's do it different. Let's not just put giant bucks on every cover because it sells better at Newsstand. Let's try to do something different, see what happens. Yep. And so that cover is a big old hand. Lee chose shot. We went in. In studio with Lee in Minnesota, I believe it's a big old bloody hand with a knife with a piece of backstrap stuck into it. And there's blood and hair and there's a piece of, like, some blood dripping off there. And honestly, looking back at that, Lee is. Lee is. Lee is a powerhouse of a human being.
- [30:02]
Sam Soholt
Oh, yeah.
- [30:02]
Ben O'Brien
Let alone. Yep. Let alone just a. Just a guy.
- [30:06]
Sam Soholt
He's gonna. He's gonna be a guest on this podcast. I just haven't made it down to his farm yet to record it. But he's. What. He's one of the people that I first looked up to when it came to, like, photographers, creative minds in the. In the space.
- [30:19]
Ben O'Brien
I'd be interested if you ask him about that. About that.
- [30:22]
Sam Soholt
I will.
- [30:22]
Ben O'Brien
Specific cover. That'd be cool.
- [30:24]
Sam Soholt
Follow up.
- [30:25]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah.
- [30:25]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [30:26]
Ben O'Brien
I. I don't know what he would say about it. He might be like, Ben o' Brien came in, like, he didn't know what he was doing. He was just making me shoot. Because the COVID is striking. It was meant to be striking the way that I meant it. At least how I remember it is, because it's been 12 years now. The way that I remember it was kind of like a middle finger a little bit.
- [30:45]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [30:47]
Ben O'Brien
And. And, man, I'm from the East Coast. This is how we roll. Like, I just. Dude, I just remember thinking, like, no, you guys are going to look at this and really look at this, and you're going to look at it the way that it is, and you're not going to look at it in some like. Because we got a lot of letters back then. Letters were a big thing. Got a lot of letters from our older readers that hated this cover. Why is there hair on the meat? Why is there blood on the meat? Why did you show it perfectly cooked? And my point was the. We were doing the opposite of the thing that you expected us to do on purpose. And I hope you're mad about it. You know, it's probably not a magazine editor, but I hope. I hope that you're mad about it.
- [31:28]
Sam Soholt
Well, it did as exactly. Wasn't as intended. Right. It was to get people talking about that part of it all. And, you know, like, we're going to talk about this too, but, like, I saw some negative comments and stuff about those covers. Like, well, we've always eaten the meat, you know, like, that's always been part of it. And that. That wasn't really what you were going after. It was the media side of things, like you said, was not covering that aspect of it nearly enough. And it's become like, that's definitely part of it. But back then, like, I mean, this is not that long ago. Twelve years ago, the way that hunting and fishing, like, was being portrayed in the media and all the years prior, there was very little of the, like, pushing that part of it.
- [32:12]
Ben O'Brien
There was. Yeah, I was kind of brought up in, like, we don't really, you know, fry up the back strap. And that's what it was. Yep. And I just felt like I use the word revolution, I think, on that cover on very purposefully because I felt like one was needed. I didn't. As somebody who was raised in this, like I said, I was raised in a redneck environment, man. We fried up backstrap and we shot deer. And it was not. We did not do the things that I do with my kids now. We just didn't. But as I entered into it professionally, I just felt like it wasn't represented the way I wanted it to be represented. And I, you know, luckily had people that trusted me enough to let me do this kind of stuff and explicitly have time. But this cover was the precur. Was like the precursor to what I wish would still be going on at these magazines, but it was just like, why? Why not push the buttons? Why not say what need what we think needs to be said and see what comes back. Why not? You know, why? Yeah, why not? But let's not be sensationalist, but let's also get people's attention and say that here's a conversation that we're not having that we need to have. And as a magazine editor, it's part of your job to be able to read those tea leaves and be able to say, like, I think we should do this, and here's why. And luckily the folks over there trusted me to do it. So that was. That was like the first time where I really felt like, oh, I'm able to get people's reaction and see, because I feel like this needs to be different. Maybe I'm the only one, but maybe there's a lot of people like me. And I think, you know, the. The reaction to that cover was, as you might expect, a lot of people were like, man, What a bold statement. Great job. A lot of people are like, leave, Leave now, though. I mean, this was what it was. The rest of my career would show you that I'm, for lack of a better word, I just wanted to do things differently. And sometimes that's been. Been lauded and sometimes not
- [34:16]
Sam Soholt
as, you know, you just keep taking big swings, Sometimes you strike out, sometimes you hit a home run. That's just. But it's better to always be swinging. That's my mindset is just constantly take big swings because if you don't, man, you just feel like you're on the sideline all the time.
- [34:31]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, I guess that's how it came for me. I never really thought much about it. I'm sure people, you could, you know, chat with people that were around me at the time and they could give you their. Their take on it. But I do just, you know, I think the product, if you would look at that cover, you would see like, this is not. We're. We're really trying to say something here. And we're trying to say it as drastically as possible. You know, lucky I found guys like Lee Chos and Mike Scobie to help me do that. And they didn't tell me I was stupid and to go take a nap like, hey, kid, give it a shot. See what happens.
- [35:04]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [35:05]
Ben O'Brien
And, you know, it must have worked because where you and I met was the follow up to that with the second edition of that media revolution kind of content or. Or theme for. For that. For that publication. Yeah.
- [35:22]
Sam Soholt
I mean, just a year later, like, that's how our paths crossed first. Like, I had. I had met Scoby same way, like, you know, on a writer's hunt. You know, I was doing photography for Remington Firearms at the time at a new product seminar in West Virginia. And, you know, you were talking about looking back and. And thinking about all, like, being a dummy and all the things you didn't know. Like, I showed up to that shoot in West Virginia with my portfolio, but big quotation marks around that. I'd been on like three shoots prior to that, so I'd taken the best photos that I had from those, and they were not good. And I had sent over this PDF to Scoby after that hunt, and at least, you know, he thought it was good enough. We had talked quite a bit at that event, just about, you know, different stuff. I think he had pitched me this most ridiculous show he was gonna. Sounds right. I'm going to tell the story. He pitched me this show. It was going to be Called Hunting for Love. He's like, you married? And at the time, I wasn't married. He's like, he's like, I want you. He's like, I want you to show called Hunting for Love. And I was like, what? And. And he wanted me to move north and marry somebody that was like, moved to Alaska.
- [36:29]
Ben O'Brien
Oh, yeah.
- [36:30]
Sam Soholt
And marry somebody.
- [36:31]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah.
- [36:31]
Sam Soholt
That was from Alaska or an Alaska native. And so that way you could hunt everything up there and then get an annulment after the show was done. And it was a bold pitch. I was like, I'm out.
- [36:42]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, he's coming to you. After he. After I turned down the concept,
- [36:47]
Sam Soholt
so. Although, you know, like. But we had a good time, like, getting to know each other at that event. And it wasn't like a week later that had a phone call from you and Mike. I was like, hey, we've got. We're doing a cover shoot. And that was my first, like, actual chance. I don't know why you guys thought I would be a good, you know, person to take up to. You were issue a cover shoot.
- [37:06]
Ben O'Brien
You were cheap. That was cheap, right? I didn't know you, dude. I. You know, I didn't know what I know now. Yeah, I. I was like, we. You know, for me, I had. We wrote a sidebar on Joe Rogan in this. In that other issue, you know, we had, like, feature on Steve and Georgia Pellegrini and Andrew Zimmern. And then just to, you know, as I was talking to Ronella for this piece, I said, who do you know that, like, just eats meat? You know, just hunts to eat meat, or is, like, going through that process and doing it for that reason? He said, well, Joe Rogan. I was like, what, feel Fear Factory guy, Joe Rogan? And he said, yeah. So I. He gave me Joe's number. I called Joe. We had a three hour conversation about wolves, and the next thing you know, he's like, I want to go on a moose hunt. And I pitched it to everybody that he could be a cover model. And I had an idea about how to kind of back up the. The first issue that we did the year prior. And they said, sure, but we're not going to give you any money for that.
- [38:09]
Sam Soholt
Oh.
- [38:10]
Ben O'Brien
Oh, Craig's cool. Appreciate you. I was like, you're not gonna pay for travel? They're like, no. Not gonna pay for, like, an outfitted hunt or something? No. All right. So we big barred and stole our way to that moment. You know, Mike Cockridge was our. Was our alpha up in British Columbia. And he helped us pull the hunt off and, and did it for next to nothing. And I think you probably took next to nothing to participate.
- [38:38]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, it was. I was running very lean at that point, so I had to, you know, I bought my own flights that I think I got reimbursed for. But I, I'm not 100% sure they
- [38:47]
Ben O'Brien
weren't in trouble now for that. They're like.
- [38:50]
Sam Soholt
But my day, my day rate was real low at that point. So you guys got off the hook for. For were very inexpensive, I think like. But it was awesome.
- [38:57]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah. For whoever's listening to this, listen to this story where Sam just takes a flyer and I take a flyer on Sam and on myself and on Rogan because nobody even. I mean Fear Factory guy, this podcast was not popular in whatever 2014, whenever this was. And it was kind of just like looking back at it now. It's wild. But then it was, it was. Yeah. Seemingly random collection of show up in British Columbia for sure random. And then you know, the photo and article that came out of that. I think more your photo that the article with the work that came out of that, the editorial work that came out of that. The story of that hunt and how it came to be from. From this kind of my feeling of like middle finger to the, to the, the concept of the guardrails on hunting and what we could talk about, not talk about even at what would have been maybe the height of the editorial profession at that time. You know, drove a bunch of people to be in a rickety old truck in, in British Columbia killing moose. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I sure my, My kids wanted to see the video that we did with Joe and I'm like, I'm looking at that. I'm like, what am I wearing? What am I doing? What's like. Yeah, I don't know nothing about anything. It's not that long ago. So time has passed. But, but looking back on that, like it was. If I was really thinking about it and trying to analyze it, it was just this, this idea that I, I wanted it to be different and then that just kind of drove every decision for, for. For better or worse. And I was very impatient. Very, very impatient.
- [40:44]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, but like a small, A small behind the scenes thing that I don't think I've ever actually talked about openly about that trip is I. So I had, I mean I'd been shooting photos kinda, you know, but it was like those were getting published for gun riders on blogs and magazines and whatever the terrified was is an understatement of what I felt going into that hunt. We're like, they want me to have a photo good enough for a cover of a magazine. Like, I was like, well, we're gonna see if I'm ready for this. And it all turned out right. And it was this giant stepping stone, like, for my career in the photography world. But, man, I was just absolutely scared going into it all. I was like, ah, see if I can get this done.
- [41:27]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, I mean, I was, you know, for me, too, I kind of was going out on quite the limb for that, because I think. I know there was a lot of people skeptical of what I was doing, for sure, that were signing the paychecks. I'm sure they thought I was talented and figuring it out. But I'm also sure that there was people like, what is this? I know that for a fact. And so it kind of had to work. They weren't going to bet on it, but they weren't going to stop me from doing it, which I guess is a blessing in its own way. Yeah.
- [42:03]
Sam Soholt
You know, and so then it's funny how we talked about this just this past weekend during the youth turkey hunt in Texas. There's just some times when the universe just hands stuff to you and just, like, allows it to align. And that was one of those trips, man. It was just like, you know, we kind of came down to the wire on the whole thing, like, whether we were going to get a moose or not at all. It ended up, you know, both you and Joe shot one in the last, like, day and a half of hunting. And just the whole thing, just all of it. How it. How it all happened. I mean, like, the. The original photo idea that you and I were trying to make happen was not the one that they chose. It was just like a carnival. Didn't work. Yeah, that one didn't work. And we just did it. Another round of a different style photo, and that's what ended up on the COVID Yeah.
- [42:46]
Ben O'Brien
I don't know if y' all want to put that up here, but it was like a. It looks way serial killer. Y. It is.
- [42:51]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [42:52]
Ben O'Brien
The idea that we had was the backstrap from the year before was gonna be. He was gonna be holding the back strap in his hand, and it was like a knife and a back strap or something. The moose backstrap would look cool. And it ended up just looking. It was like.
- [43:07]
Sam Soholt
I looked rough.
- [43:07]
Ben O'Brien
I remember, like, we sent. Didn't. We were in that little house, and we sent some stuff back to Scoby, and Our Tim Nair, our designer. And they were like, no, no, no. That is it. So we did have some feedback live there, but. But then we were. Joe was super upset that we were. That we were not going to get me a moose. And we were taking this time to take this photo, and very like, dude, let's get out of here. You need to get a moose, dude. We need to go right now. Yeah. And very impatient, and I think we just negotiated. Let us try one more thing. Like, one more thing. And we'll just really quick. One more thing. And he threw the moose core up on the shoulder and we took those photos. I didn't. I never thought we would use those. Be in fact. In fact, same.
- [43:48]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, we did that. It was like, we got. You know, give us 20 minutes, you know, just like, go stand on this little kind of rise. And I got low so you could have the base. More of the feedback was like, hey, we need more negative space for all the words and everything around it. Like, just give us a little, you know, tree line, sky kind of thing in the background. So they gave us, like, a kind of a type of shot they were looking for. And we went and shot that in, like, 20 minutes, half hour. And that was, you know, that was the one that made it. So, yeah, thankfully, go ahead and did that.
- [44:19]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah. So that cover, you know, came out. By the time it came out, I was already at yeti. I was already gone. To go back to the impatience of it all, guy. I couldn't stay in one place. I just couldn't. Yep. And. And so, again, like, I'm. I'm very thankful for that. That time, but I would think, like, you know, if the job on any podcast or in any story is to try to come up with what to take away from it for me, like you said, there's. There's. Sometimes you have to just. The universe does something. You stumble into something, and. And how quickly you recognize what that is is how. How much success you'll glean from that, you know, serendipity or the thing that happened that you didn't really plan for. It's like, how quickly can you recognize what you're a part of or what is happening around you? And then how quickly can you put that in cement and make that a part of. Of all your efforts, you know? And I think I remember being in British Columbia, you were talking about building a bus, and I was talking about starting a podcast, and. And Joe was pushing me, do a podcast. I'll promote you. Do a podcast, I'll Promote you. I was dumb enough to be like, I've worked for a magazine dude. What's a podcast? And had I work faster to listen to him, I probably would be in a lot different place now. But it took me a couple years to figure out that I should do that. I wanted to do it. And so, you know, those. Those types of things that, that are good, bad, and different, but it just. If you're able to notice that moment that you're in and you're. And you're able to kind of really enjoy the people that you're around and really lean into that moment in time, all the better, man, because when it's. When it's over, it's over. We're not going to get that moment back in the hunting space. We're not. We're going to go back to this, like, wondering about whether we should transition from print to digital. And as we do the next generation, what are they going to do to take this into a different thing? We were, you know, we. Yo, yo around as a. As a hunting culture and things that we focus on or the trends or whatever is happening. That was a very specific thing that will never, never happen again. Just because of the advent of. That was when Instagram was first really going, getting started. And that's when all of these things were, you know, the digital environment was changing, phones were becoming, you know, smarter and smarter and smarter. And we were just kind of thrust into this world where we were getting attention, hunting was getting attention. We did have this platform to talk about it and do things that were a little bit different. And that was a period of time that we got to experience you and I got to experience it together in different ways. But that was a very specific time in the hunting space. The rise of many things happened there. Rise and fall of many things happened there. Some things that I think will be institutions for the hunting space for the next 50 years were created in that time. And so it's interesting to have been a part of that and that for me and you, I think that was when it. When it kind of really took on full form, that this. There was a culture on fire and people on fire and our general. The general sense of where the American public was about these things shifted. And Rogan and Bourdain and all these people were really driving at this new thing that was happening in our culture. And a lot of it was around, what is it that hunting really is, what is it? And what does it really mean? And we just had a different. We just were. We could say it to more people in different ways with podcasts and social media. And we got to be. Me specifically, and you too. I got to be a part of, like, I went to a. When I was in college, I think a senior in college, I went to a media symposium where the founders of Twitter gave a presentation, and we mocked them. Afterwards, we were like, twitter, but Twitter, your mom, you know, like, that's what we were doing. And so it was. It was. We just got to be a part of that. That'll never happen again. It'll happen in different ways, and it'll be iterated on for sure. But. And I don't know that I'm not saying that it's over. My part of it. That part of it is. We've moved on from that into a different thing. And so it was cool. It was really fun. And you. And I got to go on a lot of adventures. I got to meet some of the coolest people, and. And that's a special time for me.
- [48:52]
Sam Soholt
And I'm.
- [48:52]
Ben O'Brien
I'm a big proponent of, like, live the stage of life that you're in. And, man, that stage of my life was. Was so damn cool. And I. I'm very grateful for. For what I got to do.
- [49:05]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, I mean, say likewise. It's was a time where. And I've talked about this on podcasts a lot in the past, like, you know, people are like, well, how did you. You know, how did you really get into this whole thing? Or how did you, like, make a career out of it? It was like, a lot of it was the timing, right? It was this complete shift in the way content was created and cameras and platforms and all this stuff. And I just happened to be, like, really going after it at this time. So it was like both of us caught different parts of the same wave, and it just pushed us into the. This new, you know, generation of people who are doing it.
- [49:40]
Ben O'Brien
That's a great way to put it. Parts of the same wave. Same wave. We're riding in a different way, in a different place, but it's the same same wave, you know, and that's, I think, professionally that's part of it. Like, you got to notice when the wave's up, gotta get rolling, you gotta paddle hard. Gotta paddle hard, because you gotta be one of the ones willing to stand up and test it and fall,
- [50:03]
Sam Soholt
you
- [50:04]
Ben O'Brien
know, I certainly have fallen plenty of times, and I certainly look back at some things. I'm like, ooh, that's cringeworthy. A lot of things. But I think that goes with the territory of looking at your professional life that way, being able to take some risks and do some things. I do remember a specific comment that Andrew McKean, at the time the editor of Outdoor Life, made when I was leaving Peterson's Hunting to go to YETI to take a job in marketing. He said something like, I've cringed a lot at your work, but I've also been so impressed at your work, so congrats for that. And I was like, yeah, dude. And he. To me, and still to me to this day, is somebody that I look up to and think very highly of as who he was, as kind of like the touchstone editor of this mag, this Outdoor Life magazine. And I just remember carrying that with me, like, okay, like, you know, And I will say, here's the finest point I could ever put on the. The whole cover Rogan cover media revolution thing that we're talking about. When I went to yeti, I then got contacted by the same folks that ran Peterson's, and they said they took the success of the Rogan cover as that I was good at celebrity interviews, that that was what they took from it. I did not like that. But, yep, they took from it. They were like, you're the celebrity interview guy. That's what you do. And I was like, okay, fine. And they were like, hey, what other celebrity hunters would you like to put on a cover? And I said, kid Rock. I had met his girlfriend at the time in the early days of my days at yeti. And I was like, man, I've had a few text exchanges with Bob Richie, Kid Rock. And I think it'd be cool to do a similar thing that we did with Rogan with Bob Richie. And they're like, cool, that's great. Let's set it up. And I said, one of the things I think is really important is that we need to go on a hunt together so I can write about it. And I don't want to. That's important to the photography. It's important to the package. It's just. It's important. And that they were really into the spent again, spending the money or the time. I was busy. We just didn't seem reasonable to them to do it that way. And so I eventually agreed to do, like, a question by question interview with him. So just like, email him some questions. He writes the answers. And they had Lee Chos go and do a photo shoot with Kid Rock for a cover of Peters and Sonny. And it did not turn out great. It wasn't what that Other cover was.
- [53:06]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [53:07]
Ben O'Brien
And if you're out there looking to be creative and create content, I'm telling you, the experience of creating the content matters as much as the end result. It matters more than the end result. How you feel about the content as you're creating it, before you're creating it and when you're trying to bring it to life matters more. How you feel about the people, how you feel about the place, the animal, the thing, how you feel inside about those things matters in the end product so innately. And it's, it's, it's a rule. If you're just doing it to churn it out and you're clickbaiting your way through life, you'll never create something truly meaningful and you'll always miss. It'll always be a hollow shell of the thing. And that's, you know, no, no criticism to Lee or anybody that took part in that article and that cover, but it just turned out to kind of be like a hollow shell. A poor, A poor follow up rendition, you know, to.
- [53:58]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [53:58]
Ben O'Brien
Poor follow up album to the thing that we thought might have been a hit with Rogan.
- [54:02]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [54:03]
Ben O'Brien
And so in the same way that we were part of this thing, this serendipitous thing, there were other things I was part of that didn't catch that lighting in a bottle. It was the same. We were like trying to make a wave and we just didn't. Yeah. And it falls flat. So. So, yeah, I mean, you go through both things. You go through all the, all of those ups and downs, you know, in your career. And for me, that was this guy. Like, everybody's going to typecast you off something like that that gets you noticed or that, you know, and it's just sometimes that works for your benefit, sometimes not. Not necessarily.
- [54:38]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [54:39]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah.
- [54:39]
Sam Soholt
I mean, and then, yeah, it's, it's a struggle sometimes, like, to figure out what to do with that. Right. Like you. Like and, and moving forward, when people try to put you into this, like, pigeonhole you into this certain thing that you're, you know, quote unquote good at, even though it's just like one of the things that you happen to be good at. So I think that's the hardest part of navigating, like you said, like, trying to follow up with something that.
- [55:02]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah.
- [55:02]
Sam Soholt
You know, behind something that was so impactful can be a struggle.
- [55:07]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, that's, that's what I mean. Any artist, not that I'm an artist, but any, any artist that's popular goes through that. Right. Like, they Go through this like, oh, every show you gotta play the hits. You know, you were talking about going to a Bert Kreischer show and he took his shirt off and told the machine story. I was like, well, he's trapped in there now. He's kind of trapped in that. And so that's just normal. It's just normal. So, yeah, I think that's, for me, that was a very specific turn in my life and career. And I got to be a part of a lot of really cool stuff. And it moved fast, really fast. And I got to. All of a sudden I was doing things I never thought I could do. And all of a sudden I was in rooms with people I never thought I'd meet. And all of a sudden I was able to turn down opportunities I never thought I'd have. And things move fast and it was, it was fun. We had a fun run. There you and I were for a while there. We were hitting, hitting the high notes on the travel and running around to Hawaii and New Zealand and places that you and I probably never thought we'd get to go. And you're doing that pretty regularly.
- [56:09]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, it was awesome because it was. We, like again, different parts of the same wave. Right. Like, so you go from Petersons to something that was relatively brand new at yeti. And the funny thing is we had been on that trip, done the moose hunt at Shot show in January. We ran into each other and I was like, hey, I just got a job with yeti. And you're like, me too. So at the same time, like within the same month, like you went to work for YETI as a community marketing manager, which was like a new thing. Right, like that, that position, that type of marketing was kind of, especially in the hunting and outdoor space was a new thing. Like.
- [56:50]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, they were pulling off like Red Bull and other places that had done it. Right. But yeah, but we didn't.
- [56:54]
Sam Soholt
They weren't the first.
- [56:55]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, yeah, we didn't have like a hunting industry example necessarily. Yeah, some other brands were doing it. Sitka and some other folks were doing it. Yeah, but it wasn't as formalized as it was when we did there. Yeah, for sure.
- [57:07]
Sam Soholt
Yeah. So you had taken that role and then I had taken a role with a company called Field Scout and I was managing a team, doing all of the consumer facing stuff for yeti. So I was traveling around talking about coolers for a year and a half. But yeah, but through that, like, like you said, we got to travel the world and do some pretty cool stuff. Like on Yeti's dime. That was pretty spectacular. Yeah, I just, I just keep looking at this little black box that I carry around and shoot photos and video clips with it. I'm like, this is, this is magic. Like this little thing because I learned how to turn some buttons on, it has taken me to places that I would have never ever been able to travel to without that.
- [57:48]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah. So I now I don't want to fast forward too far if we want to go through the whole shebang. But now I have normalized. I've been able to normalize things for my life and for my children that aren't normal for everyone. And I realized that like what you and I just did with my two kids running down. We ran down to Texas on like a weekend trip, basically like three days and had a 1700 acre ranch to ourselves and a side by side and all the turkeys that we could hunt and guns and it was awesome. And I didn't get to do any of that until in my mid-20s. And yeah, we do that all the time. I live a life right now with my children that I so love and so adore. It makes me emotional. That was provided, like the perspective for that was provided by this time that we're talking about, like it changed what I thought my life needed to be. You know, like what, what kind of adventures did I need to live? And then how could I apply all the, all the things I learned, the places I went, the people I met, to my family, when I had a family. And, and so now I'm getting to do that for them. They're getting to meet you and meet Doug Duran and meet all these people, meet Jesse Griffiths and meet all these people I gotta meet along the way and go to the places that help shape me. And it's like this, it's this wonderful symmetry that, that wouldn't have happened if, if I wouldn't have been able to go on that awesome run and, and, and travel the world and meet all these people. And so it is impacted my life, but I've been able to help it, you know, shape their lives. I think that is if, if nothing else would have come from that time, that's all I would have needed.
- [59:46]
Sam Soholt
That was worth it.
- [59:47]
Ben O'Brien
The only thing we don't need to be worth it.
- [59:49]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, I would say, I will say you're doing a good job with it because, you know, like, because I do these types of things a lot. Right. You go to a cool place, you're filming stuff, you're taking photos, you're doing the thing. Sometimes I. I get distracted from how cool the experience is in the moment. And I watched you do it more than one time, like, stopping, you know, one of your sons or the other and being like, hey, like, look around right now. Isn't this cool? Like, isn't this a cool, Like. Like having them, like, be present and like, it forced me to be like, oh, man, this is. This is pretty spectacular. Watching the sun come up over this certain part of Texas and birds goblin and all this stuff.
- [60:26]
Ben O'Brien
And it was.
- [60:28]
Sam Soholt
It kind of reminded me that in those moments, you need to be like. You need to understand, like, how you ended up there.
- [60:36]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah.
- [60:37]
Sam Soholt
And just.
- [60:37]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah.
- [60:38]
Sam Soholt
Because it's not normal.
- [60:39]
Ben O'Brien
And I do appreciate it deeply. And so, yeah, I think it's like, that's the best part of it for me when, you know, you go through a stage in your life, certainly coming up before you get married, before you have kids, and you have that stage in your life where certainly you have your profession, your industry. The thing that you're doing professionally is kind of who you are, but it's a big part of your identity. And then it's just you, right? You might live in an apartment with a roommate. You might have a girlfriend. You might live with your parents. Who knows? That time from when you go out on your own until when you settle into whatever your life is going to be in your late 30s and 40s, however it goes for somebody. But for me, there was a really distinct time from when I was 21 to when I was about. I don't know, man, like, 2017, 2018, in there where the world so opened up to me and for good, bad, and different, I was able to meet people and do things and set a precedent for how I wanted to live my life. That was a little bit different, I think, than the typical. And so now being able to roll that over into experiencing that with my kids and, you know, my children just basically living that life with me. It just feels like, at least to me personally, as a father, it was meant to be like that. That I was meant to have those experiences and meet those people. And the product that was created there was who I am. And who I am is now my main identity now my only identity is husband and father. That is all that I am. And I, you know, like, my formative years were spent doing the things we're talking about right now. And so to me, I'm a product of those years and most definitely the product of my family life and my upbringing. And like, that is that Is carried over to being. To my biggest job, which is. Which is husband and father.
- [62:45]
Sam Soholt
Yeah. You know, I just had Oliver White on, who I met through a trip with you, and he talked about kind of his, you know, like, having to go and do these things that, like, really allowed him to learn a lot about, like, him specifically about the business world, taking those things that he learned and being able to go forward and do the things that he's trying to do now. And I feel like this decade, right. Of going in and doing these things that are probably out beyond your skis, right. You're skiing stuff that you shouldn't be. But those formative years allow you to take all of those lessons forward and go, okay, like, I've seen how all this is done. I understand all this. And then you can implement that into your life, and so you can build a life for your work and be able to provide that allows you to be just a father and husband. You know, like, that's. You need that stuff to get you to where you're going. So it's. It's cool that, you know, you actually learned those things along the way because it. It's pretty.
- [63:49]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah.
- [63:50]
Sam Soholt
The stuff that you can. But it would be pretty easy to just go through it and not apply that going forward. You just kind of keep staying on the hamster wheel and figured, you know, kind of in that grind.
- [64:02]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah. For me, personally, I've really had struggled with and been worked really hard at, and it's celebrating the stage of my life that I'm in because it can be hard be like, ah, you had to leave that adventuring life behind and start a family. And now I'm worried about, like, what paint needs to go on the outside of my house and, like, what. But, you know, we talked about wanting things to be different and kind of being a force on the world and running into the world and going, let's make it different and see what happens and see him see what goes on. For me, I was like that for a long time. I'm not like that anymore. I very much want the thing that I'm doing to stay like this forever. Yeah. I want my kids to stay this age forever. I want my wife and I to have the same relationship we have right now forever. And I. And I want that because this is, like, I realize this is the product of. Of those years. Like, I wouldn't change that stage of my life for anything. And I. And I certainly wouldn't change this. So. So I think as a man, a provider, and a father you, you, you can either accept that change, like with especially, you know, especially in your life now when you got, you know, a new, a new baby. It's like you, yeah, there is a change, and I struggled with it for years. That's just like, just change that happens in you that you have to just accept, like, be where you are, like, be in that moment and celebrate that it's going to be different and it's going to look and feel different and that's going to be frustrating sometimes and you're going to have these responsibilities that are just, just weighing on your shoulders. And it feels different than the free, the freeness of running around the country and taking photos of dudes and just. It feels different. It's way different and way harder and way more weight is applied to you as a provider and a father and a leader of a family. It is way different than being an intrepid writer guy that lives in an apartment. It is way different. Supposed to be way different. So for me, I've had to just kind of fall into that and be like, this is what it is and I'm built for this. Yeah.
- [66:08]
Sam Soholt
You know, my, my older brother, he had kids long before I did. He's got an 11 year old. But like, he explained it to me pretty good before I had my kid. And it was like, it helped prepare me and I'm still not through it. Right. He's like, he's like, when I had kids, I kind of grieved the old me. Like, I had to go through a period of time where like, I was this person. I went through like a long stretch of time where like, you just don't feel as cool. You don't feel like you're, you're, you're not the. Quite the main character in your own story anymore, like, because it's not all about you. And he's like, I just had to grieve that and then like, move beyond that and become who I am now. And I was like, oh, man. Like, and I'm still going through that. I'm just trying to figure out, like, who. Who I am now, who I'm going to be, who I want to be. But it's. There's definitely days where I'm like, I, I'm not hardcore anymore. Like, I'm not the cool kid anymore. And, and that can be hard to accept. Like, but I'm. I'm happy at where I'm at. And like, you know, take a step back. It's. It's all pretty good.
- [67:11]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, it's a different set of things, right? It's a different set of challenges. It's a different place. For sure. I still, like I said, I get we just came off of an adventure like this. I get to see my kids live it. I get to see it through their eyes, and I get to discuss with them the impacts of it. I get to talk to them about the natural world and hunting and conservation. And all of the sudden, that conversation is the only one that matters. And anybody that's listening to my podcast in the past will know that I tend to be introspected more than I tend to probably over index on some of that introspection. But now, and people have asked me, you know, pretty frequently, less frequently now than in the last, you know, 18 months. It's been a while since I've had a regular podcast outside of the one we've done with the turkey show. I used to have one every week for many years and hundreds and hundreds of episodes. And I had to grieve the loss of the guy that was willing to do that. And part of that transition for me was to find my voice with my children and to focus on that conversation and figure out what that looked like and how can I find that with them. And when they're little, they don't. I mean, it's like, is Bluey on? That's all I care about. But as they got older, I realized, oh, I have to create a space, or that is the conversation that I'm thinking about, and that those are the things that I need to focus on. What they need and what they need to hear from me, and that's where I have to go. And if that means that I have to eliminate some other things that I'm doing or podcasting or some other my own personal ambitions to focus on that, it's not apples to apples, but that's what I'm going to do. And some of the choices that I made were very much like, I have to be, you know, I have to be a dad, and I have to be focused on that. And I can't. The external focus that it requires to do some of the things that we did in media or some of the things that we did across time is draining. And so for me, I had to just take a step back, you know, a couple of years ago and go, this is my time. I'm not gonna get this time back. I have to find a way to focus on my. My children, specifically in this case, but building a family, building a life that they're proud of and that I'm proud of. That's going to take all of me to do. And in the same way, you and I didn't think that we would be where we were in our professional careers in our 20s and our early 30s. You. I would have never guessed that I would be living in Bozeman, Montana, have three boys and be homeschooling them and have my own business. You. I would have.
- [70:01]
Sam Soholt
From where you.
- [70:02]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, you would.
- [70:03]
Sam Soholt
Told me where you were arrested five years ago or. Yeah, 10. 10 years ago.
- [70:07]
Ben O'Brien
You're insane, dude. That's too many kids. Yeah, but I'm doing that now. I've been doing it for a while, and. And so I, you know, and I love it. I really do. And so that's. That's. It's a nice. It's a nice moment to land. Nice place to be.
- [70:25]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [70:25]
Ben O'Brien
So I care a lot less about the news, I care a lot less about the noise, and I care a lot more about, you know, for as trade as that may sound as true to me, peace and purpose. Um. And I have both. I really do.
- [70:38]
Sam Soholt
Yeah. Well, there's a. I mean, we're already over an hour. Hour and ten at this point. Um, there's a whole lot more that, you know, we've been through all sorts of stuff. Like, I mean, you've done. Started a nonprofit, ran a podcast forever, like, trying to decide. I wanted to, like. We've talked a lot about the really good things that have happened, like, in everything that we've done, like this. The universe, laying stuff out. But there was one. There was one instance in particular where you had to go through a fairly. I just want to do one of these cancelings. I want to talk about it, because
- [71:15]
Ben O'Brien
I wanted to talk. The coins flipping.
- [71:18]
Sam Soholt
The coin flipping. So when you were at yeti, there was. And I want to, like, preface this backstory, because I got to. I was also working at YETI at the time, and the. I got to see it from the consumer standpoint, like, in what people thought was happening, but I also knew what was actually happening when the NRA decided to explode at YETI for no real apparent reason. So do you want to dive into that? Because that, to me, that's a funny story. Even though you were the focal point of it. And I just kind of. I. I got to see it from the outside.
- [71:51]
Ben O'Brien
Yeah, I. I guess I was internally kind of a linchpin, certainly, because I had worked at the NRA and I was now working at. Yeah. And they were publicly fighting it. So. Yeah, I I think I was part of that. I've come, like I will, I will say this, all of the positive things, flip the coin over and you know, it's all a trade off. Right. Every time you get more attention, negativity comes flooding in the door with the same amount of positivity that comes flooding through the door. I mean, every time that you have huge wins, just wait, something's happening that's going to be. Feel like as huge a loss or a true, a huge, a frustrating moment. And that, that is very true for me. I rode the wave of YETI to a ridiculous experience for about three and a half years. I mean an absolutely ridiculous time in my life where I was because of serendipity, because of the, the folks that had built YETI able to do a million different things that I am absolutely good for and then don't understand how they got to be. That company grew like crazy and we experienced all these kind of crazy things together. It was a fun ride watching it go from, you know, just out of the warehouse into a nice office to this, this beanie baby status for YETI ramblers to, to this like cultural movement, to YETI films, to all these things that we got to do there, which I was a part of. You know, I didn't drive much of that. I was a part of it. I worked at a company just like any other thing, but I was proud to have worked on that and my colleagues from that time in my life, we were all kind of like graduated from the same college. We have all. We were like a graduating class of, of a bunch of fun idiots. I got together and, and had a great time. So I do feel like that. But at the tail end of it there was, I don't know how much folks remember. Certainly at the time it felt like all anybody was talking about that. Yeah, there was a wonderful lady named Marion Hammer. Marion Hammer was down in Florida. You can fact check me on this later. But she was the head of the NRA Foundation. The NRA foundation is kind of the non profit arm, money raising arm of the nra. And this was at the time, this would have been 2018. This is when there was some school shootings happening and there was a lot of pressure on large brands to cut their ties with the nra. And a lot of large brands had done this. Yeah. And so any anybody that it was such a politically charged moment that for a brand like yeti, everybody was asking, what are you gonna do? Right. I remember there being REI would call up. They certainly didn't call me. But they were calling people in leadership going, like, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna keep your NRA discount? What do you, you know what's gonna happen here? I remember, like, United Airlines, Delta Airlines cut their discounts and cut their ties with the NRA very publicly. And so there's this big fight, right? And so within that, within that fight, everybody's kind of looking around for somebody to punch.
- [75:01]
Sam Soholt
Yep.
- [75:01]
Ben O'Brien
Everybody, Both sides. I mean, there's. There's fists flying all across the cultural landscape. Just nonsense. Just. Just pure, unadulterated nonsense. And in fact, none of it had anything to do with solving the problem that we. All right, wanted to solve, which was we can't have these shootings. We as a society. And we spun off into, like, we're not solving that problem. We're just punching each other over the perceived issue. And so I was turkey hunting with Fred Eichler in Colorado. He was a YETI ambassador at the time. I shot a turkey in the first 10 minutes of the hunt. And then I was hanging out the lodge and I get a phone call. Hey, need you to come back, Austin. Come back to YETI headquarters. Okay. I'm looking at my phone and I see that there's this news article about how the nra. I believe the first blow is that the NRA wrote, you know, Marian Hammer, somebody at the NRA foundation wrote this, like, article about how the. How YETI had stripped away the NRA discounts and they were anti gun. My experience was that that was not the case at all. I helped them build their conservation program. They put a lot of money into the things that you and I care about on all sides. Rmef, Sei, bha, Ducks Unlimited, nra name a letter organization, and they were in it. And I helped set that up. So I know the reality. There we were buying ads at the NRA magazines. We were. I mean, we were all over the place. There was a full discount program for the NRA there. There was like a lady in a room getting checks from NRA members and filing them for fundraising. And so that was my experience. I didn't really know the internal parts of what was actually happening. No one had asked me about those decisions. But I walked back into. When I got back into the office was a full cancellation of YETI via the nra. Yeti's anti gun YETI cut discount program for NRA foundation. That was a long standing disobedience discount program and was lumped in with all the other brands, the national brands that were doing the same thing. I came to understand that this was a bit of a, like a wild public misunderstanding where there were some discount programs cut, but there was like a bundle of discount programs cut. And it just. Yeah, correct me if I'm.
- [77:28]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, but at the time, because YETI was growing so fast, they needed to streamline, like, their internal workings. And at the time, there was a bunch of different ways people could get discounts for product for whether it be banquets or whatever, and they had canceled, basically gotten rid of one avenue for people to do that because they needed to get it all under one roof so you could actually track how much product you guys were donating.
- [77:52]
Ben O'Brien
There was like a team of people taking paper checks from. Because what would happen is, like, there's these banquets, right, and people write a paper check for, for a banquet item or whatever, and then they mail in the banquet item, paper check. And I had come to find, like, finding a different wing of the YETI facility where like, these people are really in here just doing this. Like, that's not the way. And so, you know, obviously some new guy got hired. Somebody got hired and they looked at it and they go, well, we can't continue this. We gotta find a better way to do this. And that's, to my understanding, what happened. I never had a single conversation with anybody that was related to, like, we got to get rid of this nra, right?
- [78:34]
Sam Soholt
Yeah.
- [78:35]
Ben O'Brien
And I was in a position to know. I was in charge of, of exactly that being the face, the running, the hunting and, and gun related stuff that yet he did. And, you know, that's what I would, I think I would have heard if there was a sense of it. And it doesn't mean that there wasn't pressure on YETI at the time, of course, from, from other entities that they, that they worked with on maybe the other side of the aisle. YETI was a brand that worked with every, everybody from the Nature Conservancy to REI to the nra. I mean, they were all over the place. They're a business. Yeah. Like, they started out hunting and shooting and they were expanding into surfing, expanding into climbing, expanding into ranch. And there's, there's ideologies there that align and some that don't align, as anybody would know. So, so that was definitely part of, of what happened there. But it was just such a supercharged moment that all of the sudden there was like public press release battle between the National Rifle association and YETI coolers. And I was like, in meetings every moment I was. I was like. I could not understand what we were doing. I was like, what?
- [79:47]
Sam Soholt
What?
- [79:50]
Ben O'Brien
And it got so crazy. I will say, some of the things that happened at YETI during our time felt serendipitous. We would turn on the TV and some lady would be hanging onto a YETI cooler in a hurricane. It would have saved her life. That wasn't darkening. That was just a thing that happened. It felt like it was just happening. And it was happening a lot. The positive serendipity, this felt like the other way. The wave of cultural battle just kind of washed over us. And we were standing there like, I think we're wet. I don't remember putting on my swim trunks, but were in the ocean. You smell like you just kind of. You were just. You were going to get pulled into it, and that's what it was. And once you're in it, then it was a press release battle and it was a public comment battle. And the next thing you know, you turn on NBC Nightly News with Lester hold or whomever. And people were blowing up their YETI coolers with tannerite. And people were sending me nasty emails about how I'll never work in the industry again. And people were making comments about how my career is over if I don't stand with the NRA and quit my job at yeti. And people are spitting on other young ladies that work in customer service and gas station parking lots because they have YETI stickers on their truck. And people have this, like, lost their minds. I went and gave a talk. I was asked to give a short talk about what was happening to the customer service team at YETI at the time. And people were tore up and crying and like, it was.
- [81:22]
Sam Soholt
And rightfully so. I mean, I was just an auxiliary piece shooting photos for yeti, but a lot of people knew that I did work for the brand. And the amount of people that were like, well, I'll never buy anything from them again.
- [81:33]
Ben O'Brien
Well, why?
- [81:34]
Sam Soholt
Well, like, they're anti 2A. I was like, if you can find me a company that isn't a gun manufacturer or ammo manufacturer that buys more guns, ammo and tannerite, yeti's it. Like, yeah. So it was. It was a wild time.
- [81:49]
Ben O'Brien
If. Yeah, like I said, when you step into the. For lack of a better term, like, step into the cultural conversation every once in a while, like, you're smacked. Like, if you step into. If you're relevant in the cultural conversation and you're trendy and you're trending and you're out there and everybody loves you. What do we love? We love to tear down the thing that we've built. We love to. And so the company didn't miss a beat.
- [82:17]
Sam Soholt
Right.
- [82:18]
Ben O'Brien
And I always tell people, now that I've experienced this a few times, cancel culture, the canceling, the kind of political and subcultural echo chambers we get in. I've been a part of a few of these now where the outside noise is so loud that you feel like your life is over. It's so loud that you feel so terrible when you wake up in the morning. That this is even a possibility. That we would even do this feels so terrible. And then you realize a couple months later, nothing really changed. And in fact, from the business standpoint, Yeti surged and never looked back. I had. I hadn't, you know, heard and received a bunch of feedback like, yeti's done, you're done. What are you gonna do next? You know, this is it. I've been threatened by people like, if you don't stand up for gun rights, you'll never have a career. There's a lot of nasty stuff in there. My, like I said, my most vivid memory is a young lady got spit on in a park in LA shoes. So such a wonderful person. And I like, you know, somebody just like to see in the lunchroom or whatever, you know, just somebody who really thinks nice. A nice, sweet person. And she came to my desk and was telling me how she got spit on by someone over something so ridiculous. And so, boy, you learn. You certainly learn what comes with, with the things that we're talking about, you know? Yeah, you learn what comes with putting yourself out there and being a part of something like that. Um, you just learn, like, it's not always gonna be good. Can't cancel culture. I experienced cancel culture from, from the right side of the aisle, from the gun industry way more intensely than I've ever experienced it anywhere else I know woke Cancel culture is something that we refer to often. I've never experienced that, but I've experienced cancel culture of a more intense, in my opinion, variety around gun rights and gun control. And so that's a whole another podcast, But I have experienced that. I never felt it was fair, but I also worked at the nra and I know how much good is done there for gun rights and how much good are, you know, so that everything's a trade off. Everything has. Every coin has two sides. But that I learned a lot from that particular situation in that you really can't control some of the good things that Happen that, like we were saying, you just catch a wave and sometimes the same wave comes and you're riding and you realize, oh, this is the opposite. This is, you know, this field.
- [84:55]
Sam Soholt
This is the part of the wave you just get ground into the bottom of the ocean.
- [84:59]
Ben O'Brien
And I think they're born from the same swell.
- [85:01]
Sam Soholt
Right.
- [85:02]
Ben O'Brien
They're born from the same wake. They. They are the same thing with any popularity, with any rise to fame, you know, anybody. We talk about Joe Rogan a lot on this podcast. I'm sure he would say the same thing with any rise to prominence, with any opening of the Overton window into your life. You know, opening of the window into your. Who you are there comes especially in the early days of social media, pre algorithm, you know, this uncontrollable window that you can't shut very quickly once you open it. Yeah. And you can struggle all you want to shut it if the, if the, if the cold air is coming in, but sometimes it's open and there's nothing you can do about it. And so I definitely experienced that for, for some years there.
- [85:50]
Sam Soholt
Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously came through that and have done a lot of cool things since then and just like, you know, it's been fun to like, kind of be quasi in each other's careers for, you know, over a decade at this point. So I'm excited to, you know, keep that rolling and especially this spring, we've got all sorts of stuff going on. Yeah. Just. Just want to say thanks again for hopping on and just, you know, like, just telling that story of like, one more like, cool life leading into this whole world. That's what I'm trying to do with this whole podcast is just tell those stories. So I can't, you know, done a
- [86:28]
Ben O'Brien
good job of stacking those up. Yeah. If you've done a good job of stacking those up here, where everybody has a different journey, everybody has a different thing to respect. What's fun to listen to somebody's story and take from it, you know, the commentary they have on. In the moment that they're currently in. Right. Like, that's a, that's a fun, fun part of it. I always say I've said this a lot to you personally and then just across it, if I had to go through all those negative things or have, have. I've had plenty of relationships, professional relationships and personal relationships blow up over that time. Didn't work out. You know, lost somebody over time, super close to somebody at a certain job, and then you kind of move on and you do something different and you lose them in the span of time.
- [87:08]
Sam Soholt
Yep.
- [87:08]
Ben O'Brien
I always say if I can, our relationship, the one that we've been able to have, if I, I would, I would trade a thousand of those things that didn't work out for just one cool relationship where now you and I get to spend time with each other's families and appreciate those things. Like, I, I honestly can say that for whatever thousand negative things might have happened to me or things that just didn't work out, being able to have a friend like you in this space and share those experiences is worth all of that nonsense. So that's the way I look at it, man. I've been, come through a lot and been able to come through with some really cool people and it's all one big fun story. Hopefully they'll tell it and we're gone when we're not doing any more stories anymore. But it, it's been fun and I'm, I'm, I come away from it super grateful, like I said. And I think you and I are both in a good place where we're doing our own things. We're, we're, you know, we're controlling our own lives and we've got a lot to show for that, that's for sure. So, yeah, listen to the Roost show where we just. I was gonna talk about turkey hunting.
- [88:14]
Sam Soholt
Yeah, so all about turkey hunting. So I was gonna say just thanks again for hopping on. If anybody wants to follow along the other stuff that we're doing with the Roost show, it's. We're, we have a pretty good time with it. So if you're listening, you're a turkey hunt out there and you'd like to consume a lot more turkey content. Come hang out with us at the Roost show, but we're going to cut it off there. Ben, thanks again for hopping on and we will. Yeah, we'll see you in, like, not too long. We'll be talking about turkeys.
- [88:40]
Ben O'Brien
See you in the turkey woods. Thanks, man.
- [88:46]
Sam Soholt
Hey, everybody, welcome Toogood Co. Co Coffee
- [88:49]
Ben O'Brien
Creamers are made with farm fresh cream, real milk and contain 3 grams of sugar per serving. That's 40% less than the 5 grams per serving in leading traditional coffee creamers for a rich, delicious experience. Whether you enjoy your coffee hot, cold, bold or frothy, two good coffee creamers make every sip a good one. Two good coffee creamers, real goodness in every sip. Find them at your local Kroger in the creamer aisle. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like Superheroes and Sidekicks or Auto and Home Insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply.