← Live Wild with Remi Warren
Live Wild with Remi Warren
Ep. 193 | How to not quit
01:21:54
In this episode of the LiveWild Podcast, Remi Warren and Dustin Dieffenderfer discuss the critical role of mental toughness in hunting. They explore how physical fitness and mental resilience are interconnected, the reality of quitting in challenging situations, and practical strategies to build mental toughness. The conversation emphasizes the importance of community support, setting micro-goals, and maintaining a positive mindset to overcome adversity in the backcountry. Listeners are encouraged to adopt these principles not only in hunting but in all aspects of life.
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- [00:00]
Remy Warren
Foreign.
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Dustin Diefenderfer
I'm Remy Warren and I've lived my life in the wild as a professional guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days perfecting my craft. I want to give that knowledge to you. In this podcast, we relive some of my past adventures as I give you practical hunting tips to make you more successful. Whether you're just getting started or a lifelong hunter, this podcast will bring you along on the hunt and teach you how to live wild. This podcast is brought to you by Mountain Tough and Yeti. A lot of the tactics I talk about here require you to be in top physical shape. So I partnered with Mountain Tough to help get you ready for the mountain with their science based hunter specific training app. You'll get in shape and mentally tough able to tackle any hunt. Because we really believe this will help you be more successful as a listener to this podcast, we're giving you six free weeks to get you started. Just use code livewild. Well everyone, welcome back to Live Wild podcast. Now, today we're diving into what separates those who fold under pressure from those who keep going even when it sucks. We're going to look at the mental aspect of a hunt and how to not quit. For that, I'm joined by my good friend Dustin Diefenderfer of Mountain Tough Fitness Labs. We're going to look at what quitting looks like, how physical fatigue opens the door to mental compromise, and the practical ways in and out of the field to keep your head in the game, in your boots on the mountain. Hey Dustin, thanks so much for joining me. This is one of those topics today where we're talking about mental toughness and how to prepare for a hunt. You know, we've talked about this multiple times over the years and I think it's one of those, especially as we get into the season, that's extremely important to kind of rehash and also continually think about. Because as a hunting guide or somebody that's hunting with a lot of people, I think that the biggest problem or reason for people's lack of success often in the mountain is that that mental aspect of they physically can do it or they physically are doing it, but something happens switch in their mind and they kind of go downhill from there. Maybe it's a bad experience, bad weather, not seeing elk, whatever that is, something happens and you know, it is a detriment to the hunt. So I thought you're the perfect person to bring on because I know in Mountain Tough you not only talk about physical preparation, but mental preparation as well. So I thought It'd be good. Maybe we can kind of talk about starting out here. What's the, like the reality of quitting in the backcountry? You know, like from your experience in both the gym on the mountain, what does that quitting really look like out there?
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Remy Warren
Yeah, I love this topic so much. It's been like a founding principle of Mountain Tough since the beginning. So we're Approaching Our, our 10th year of Mountain Tough. I founded it in 2016. And when I founded Mountain Tough, we for sure wanted to be the elite option for people to turn to that wanted a step by step training plan to get ready for the backcountry. But also in that founding year, our ethos and our principle was we're going to be one of the best in the world at teaching our customers to be more mentally tough. And the reason that we knew that so early on, the reason that we knew that on the founding year was, was because of watching consistently successful backcountry bow hunters in, in my lifetime. I talk about it in terms of growing up in Montana, archery, elk hunting all over the, the Rocky Mountain west. As you're like a younger, when you're a younger guy, there's always these older legends in your community. And when I first launched Mountain Tough, I really was studying these older legends in the archery hunting community and they were breaking all of the typical statistics on archery elk hunting. So they were, they were consistent, consistently successful. And so you would see these, these legendary guys that were hunting public land, some of them with compound bows, some of them with trad bows, and you'd see that they'd harvested like mature bull elk 10, 11, 12, 13 years in a row, which is completely outside of the norm of what the statistics tell you about archery hunting. And so I really started looking in to those guys early on in my journey and what I noticed immediately is that those individuals were often extremely mentally tough. They were mentally tough more than their physical toughness. Some of them were physical beasts, but some of them were not at all. But their mental toughness was trumping their physical toughness that was leading to that consistent success. Certainly there's other variables and characteristics like, you know, great location selection, great calling skills. But when I really boiled it down and looked at those individuals across the board, it was their, it was their mindset that was separating them from the pack. And then the more that I looked at that, it's definitely the thing that's going on in all sports occupations and hobbies as well. It's, it's the people that have this different mentality, this different view on mental fitness, mental toughness, their mindset that is making them more successful than others. And so when I founded Mountain Tough, I wanted that to be part of the foundation of the whole company. So certainly we're going to train people physically to get ready for the backcountry. But mentally, they have to be building that mental muscle all the time so that they don't panic, they don't bail, and they don't come off the mountain when they face adversity coming up this fall. So your question around what we typically see of someone mentally breaking down on the mountain, we see it in a variety of different ways. I think one of the things that you see is that first piece of adversity that, that hits a hunter that is not strong on their mental toughness is like a lack of motivation. And so they won't, they won't get out of their tent on day three because they haven't seen animals in three days. They'll come home early when there's a storm on the mountain. They'll come home early when, when they're cold and hungry. And then their mind starts playing tricks on them as well. So they start thinking about their family, they start thinking about being back at home in a warm bed, they start thinking about maybe there's some tasks they left undone at work and they need to get back to those. So they kind of have this split focus. They're not laser focused on the hunt. Their mind is distracted with a lot of other elements that are doing everything to attack them mentally, to pull off the mountain. And then to the question around, like the connection to the physical is really interesting. So mental toughness at the end of the day, I'm a big believer is going to trump physical toughness. But mental toughness and physical toughness are so interconnected because you don't have to rely on your mental toughness bank as much as if you are in great physical condition and if you're in really poor physical condition entering the back country, you start draining that mental toughness battery way earlier on than someone who's in good physical condition. And so a lot of like, scientific terms related to that are going to be like, can you operate in the backcountry at a suboptimal rate? And so suboptimal means that like, if, if me and you have to climb 2500 vert and we get to the top of the mountain at the exact same time, if my heart rate was in zone 4 and your heart rate was in zone 3 or 2. Even though we both climbed 2500 vert and we both got to the top of the mountain at the exact same time, my body is at such a high exertion rate that I'm really starting to pull on that mental toughness bucket to get to the top of the mountain at the same time as you. And you can only pull on that. That kind of mental toughness battery bank for so long before you're going to run on empty. And when you run on empty, that's when you're going to want to come home. And that's also when you're very exposed to those thoughts that are drawing you to come home. And so the physical mental connection is often what we see that leads people to have some mental toughness, backgrounds, breakdowns on the mountain in addition to just, like, a lot of pessimism and then just a lot of negative thought snowballs that eventually overtake them and lead them back home.
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Dustin Diefenderfer
Yeah, that's a great thing to think about, is that, like, battery drain, right? Because everybody's at a different level. And if one guy. You're doing the exact same thing, but one guy, you know, I've been. I've been on both sides of that spectrum where you're the guy that's like, this is easy. And it's easy to get into that mental trick of saying. Continuing to say it's easy when it's. It is kind of easy. But when you've given it all, you got to get there. You're like, oh, man. I mean, I got to the top, and now there's no elk, and now I got to go up more. What? Gosh darn it, that was tough. And then you're. You're. You're continually relying, like, you. You switch modes from that physical mode to that mental mode. And I. I like guiding. You get to see this play out so many times throughout the season, right? And, like, in ways where I know I've told this story a hundred times, probably it's happened multiple where you get the one guy that's sometimes where you get the guy that's, like, in really good shape, and then their dad, who's just been, like, a farmer his whole life. And, like, the. The overweight farmer is just, like, continuing to plug on, and, like, he's not getting there as fast, but the dude just never stops, right? And then there's the guy that's, like, in good shape, but as soon as it gets a little bit hard, like, that just doesn't have that mental strength to know that they can keep going. And I think that that's one of the things where it's like you see that mental game shine. But you're right if you don't have to tap into it because of that fatigue or whatever, you aren't really, you don't even have to get into the mental toughness part because hey, we haven't even hit that point in the hunt yet. You can go longer, you can stay longer, hunt harder, without even, you know, hitting that physical fatigue because it really does open up that door to that mental compromise for sure.
- [11:47]
Remy Warren
The show alone like highlights some of these mental toughness principles so well, where you'll see individuals that have these from the outside looking in. When you're watching the television series alone, you see some pretty interesting breakdowns that you would, you would never expect to happen. And it's often because that mental toughness battery is at zero and there's not much left in the tank. And so anything can set them off to make them push that button to go home. And so if you look at a loan and you have someone that's about like 40, 50 days in, those guys are complete mentally tough beasts to make it 40 or 50 days alone. So like the mentally weak people have been separated out of the show already. You're 40 or 50 days in, you have some extremely strong mentally tough people. But that, that battery bank of mental toughness is at an all time low by that time frame. And from the outside in, it's, it's fun to watch because you'll see really small, small details at that moment, get in their head and make them hit that GPS button to go home. And so, you know, someone will, will drop their like fire starter. They'll drop their fire starter, their flint on day 50 and the panic will set in and they'll hit the SOS button to come home like within, within an hour of hitting within an hour of dropping that fire starter. Which is, which is super fascinating because they, they've been out there for 50 days, they're doing pretty good. They're in the running to win the whole thing. And instead of like looking for that fire starter for four hours, eight hours looking for it the next day, a lot of times their fire's still up and running. But it's, that mental battery was so weak, it takes some really, really small things to send them home at that moment. And that's what's, that's what's happening to backcountry hunters alone gives us this really good kind of black and white view. Of it from like a 30,000 foot level. But that's what's happening to hunters. If your mental battery is at a low point, it's not going to take much to do something to send you home. It might be a snowstorm, it might be a sleet storm, it might be sleep blowing sideways, you might have forgot something. Or you might start thinking about, like, what your kids have going on for soccer practice. If that hits you when that, that mental toughness battery is really high, it's going to be no problem. But if that mental toughness battery is super low, it's going to be a major, major problem. And it might send you into that kind of instant panic and send you home. So one of the best things we can do is thinking about how can we keep that mental toughness reservoir pretty full throughout the duration of the hunt. And physical fitness is a really key component to that, because if you're not totally smoked, that mental toughness reservoir is pretty high. Nutrition is a pretty big part of that, because if you're not starving, that mental toughness reservoir is pretty high. So those are all really critical components.
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Dustin Diefenderfer
Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. I think one of the other things you mentioned kind of early on that I find interesting is you talk about seeing those guys that are like, consistently successful, right? And they have that, that high mental toughness, and they're the guys that are. You know, I always like that statistic of it's like 10% of the hunters shoot, 90% of the elk. It's like generally the same guys year after year, finding that success. And I remember growing up and, and everybody knows those is like, those guys always get it done. And the difference between those guys and the other guys is substantial because, you know, we've, we've. I've had the opportunity to hunt with both of those guys, right? The guys that, like, never kill elk and the guys that always kill elk. And the. One of the big differences too is sometimes, like, when in a hunting situation, the mental toughness and the quitting happens before it ever starts. Like, I remember growing up and hunting with guys, and we'd be like this place called the Hole, and we're like, there's elk down there across the way. You know, I would see him, I'm like a kid, like, let's go get him. And like, you don't want to pack an elk out from there. I was like, well, they don't want to or you can't. Can you pack it up? Well, yeah, you could, but, like, you wouldn't want to. You wouldn't want to do that. It's like, no, I think I want to. I want to go shoot an elk, right? And they just like, no, we don't go over there, because we don't. You don't want to pack an elk out from her. It's like, that's like. I think a lot of. In some ways, like, the hunting and when you don't, like, you can. A lot of people can quit before even starting. I'm not saying getting yourself into a situation that you can't handle, not saying doing something you can't do, doing something that you can do, but you're just like, in their head, they're like, I don't. We don't want to do that. And then year after year, time after time, it's always now. Nah, it's like the quitting before you even start. And that. That in the hunting scenario, leads to a lot of unsuccessful. Or I, you know, I have a lot of guys, friends that run outfits for sheep and other things. And, you know, there's. There's a. I would say it's like 10 to 20% of the people that book a sheep hunt, they get out there and they quit on, like, before they even get to probably 10, do that. And then maybe it's like two or three days later quit before they even get to where the sheep are going to be. It's just like, they're like, nope, not for me. Like, well, you can do it. Can you? They could do it, but they've already given up in their head there. That battery is the mental toughness aspect. Like, they've trained, they've done whatever, but they didn't think about that mental toughness. And I think that the problem that people run into is they'll. They'll maybe book a sheep hunt, go plan an elk hunt, plan a backcountry plan. It doesn't even matter. Maybe it's a pronghorn. It doesn't matter what it is. And they get out there and they think that they. They never even thought about. Because I think the thing about mental toughness is it's built. It's not born. If you. If you're like, well, I'll get out there and it'll be fine. And you have not really put in any. Like, you've done nothing in your life to kind of build that. Some people build it without knowing it, or it's not like you don't have to take a class or read a book. They've just They've always continued to do the hard things, and it's just a part of their lifestyle. But the people that haven't, they get into a hard situation and they don't realize how that battery's never even been charged. What are some of the things like that. You would say that it's in that built, not born kind of thing. Like, I, I really feel like there are some people that it's just, you know, it's a mindset in, in many ways. And, and you know, maybe I'm gonna tell. If I'm gonna tell you a funny story. This happened two days ago, like the built. But I think it's, it. It kind of revolves around your philosophy of looking at all kinds of things in your life. My, My daughter did her four year checkup a couple days ago. She's four years old. This is like, I don't know. This is. I'm gonna use this story for the rest of my life, probably because it like blew my mind, you know, but like, she's, she's been taught a certain way. I don't know if this is like, says I'm a good parent or like, maybe I'm a terrible parent, but she does her four year checkup. It's time for shots, right? The doctor's saying, okay, you're gonna have to get two shots. And she's talking to us, her legs might be sore, one in each leg, yada, yada. And my daughter asked her, she says, does it hurt? And the doctor said, yeah, it might hurt, you know, but that's okay. And it's okay if you cry. And then the doctor walked out and my daughter looks at it and she says, I'm not gonna cry. I'm like, okay, I'm not. She's like, I'm not gonna cry. I was like, all right. Like, there's no prompting on our part. She's like, I am not gonna cry. I was like, okay, you don't have to cry. Like, that's cool. So. So the doctor comes the, the nurse comes back in and, you know, she's like, who do you want to hold your hands? Daddy. She's. Daddy. She says, she said, I'm gonna laugh. And she tells the doctor I'm gonna laugh. She's like, oh, okay. So she, the doctor sticks her in the leg the first time. And my daughter's holding my hand. And you can see, you know, when you get hit in the nose and like a. Tears, her, her face gets beet red because it hits her and she just bears down you can see she's holding it back. And she goes. And I'm like, what kind of savage is this? And then the next leg, she's like, okay, next leg. And she gets her in, and my daughter just, like, looks straight in the nurse's eye and starts laughing. And I'm like, dude. And she gets up, she gets her stickers. She's like. She looks at the doctor. She's like, I didn't cry. She's like, no. She's like, she. She tells me. She's like, I have done that. She's. I. I've never seen anything like that in my life. And I'm like, I don't know where she gets that from. Like, maybe a combination of her mom and her dad or whatever, but, like, you know, just like a little challenge of getting a shot. And she's like, I'm not gonna let them see me cry. I'm like, okay, at 4 years old. But I'm just saying, like, in some ways, like, she. She's practiced. It's like a simple, simple task of getting a shot. And she's like, I'm gonna laugh through it. Like, I'm like, where do you even. I mean, I guess I know where you get it from, but I'm like, this is like, you're just next level. I just, like, I remember being probably that age and thinking shots were like, the worst thing and, you know, just being an absolute crybaby probably, you know, like. And then here she is just practicing her mental toughness on her own in. In the office, you know, of small things that she's overcoming and has something in her mind. And, like, I'm gonna do that. Like, it was. Where does this. It's just like the wildest thing I've ever seen.
- [22:12]
Remy Warren
She probably freaked that nurse out.
- [22:14]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Oh, yeah. It was just like the nurse thought. She's like, that is like the absolute greatest thing I've like, she's like. Because she's like, all day all I do is, you know, give people shots and they're crying and, like, it's just horrible. And here she's just laughing at me. Like, not a sing. Not a single tear hit her cheek, you know, and then she is, like, telling all her cousins, I didn't cry. Okay.
- [22:41]
Remy Warren
Well, I think, like, what. What I've learned a lot over studying mental toughness pretty in depthly over the last couple years is definitely. We can all get better at it. But I think, like, what you're seeing with your daughter, there are a few genetic connections and there are a few personality type connections. So really mentally tough people usually have a few very key personality traits in their personality profile. So like some people will use like the Myers Briggs test, stuff like that to identify like what personality buckets we fall into. But we definitely know that it is something that you can have a very good genetic foundation on some mindset stuff, but you also can build that in that mindset can become stronger and stronger and stronger. So like the, the built are born kind of discussion around mental toughness, it's a combination of both, but it definitely can be built. What you're seeing a lot of times with like how you articulated hunters and hunters that, that come off the mountain when they shouldn't. One of the greatest cited articulated pieces of like mental toughness literature is Viktor Frankl's book and it's Man's Search for Meaning. So Viktor Frankl was in a concentration camp and he was in a concentration camp for, for a long time. And what he started to see, and he wrote this book right after coming out of this camp is he started to see that people that said, I'm going to be out of here by Halloween. And then Halloween hit and they weren't out of there. Those individuals were actually dying. They were just straight up dying because of their, their mindset. And so they thought they were going to be out at Halloween. Halloween came and went and then they're like, man, we're still here. And they would die. They were already, they were already impoverished, they were already starving. But the mindset going negative at that moment led them to just literally die from their mindset. And then, you know, these are all his fellow soldiers, these are all his buddies. So he started, he starts witnessing that. It happens again. A bunch of guys say, we are going to be out of here before Christmas. This war is going to be over before Christmas. We're going to be out of here. Christmas hit, they're still there. A bunch of guys just fall over dead and they're following over dead at that moment, just straight up from how their mind is operating because they thought that December 25th was going to be the finish line and it wasn't the finish line. And so it's one of the greatest pieces of mental toughness literature out there because he talks about how you have to be in this mindset, that it's not over till it's over, and it's not over until the mission is accomplished or it's done. And the thesis, the, the huge slogan of the book is that we have the opportunity to, to control our own attitude regardless of the external circumstances. And really, in life, that is the only thing. It's the only thing we have complete control over. So someone can take everything away from us like you would see in a concentration camp, but no one, no one can take our attitude. And so we have control of. Over our attitude regardless of the external circumstances. And when you talk about those legends that you grew up around, and when I think about the legends that I grew up around and what I see today with consistently successful hunters, that is what is going on with those individuals. Those individuals are gonna, they are gonna control their attitude, and they are gonna hunt that elk until they get an elk. And so they, in the hunting analogy of the Victor Frankel model, like, if they aren't successful on their first trip, they're gonna go on a second trip. If they're not successful on their second trip, they're gonna go on the third trip. And like in Montana, what you see all the time with those legends is, you know, they were out there in archery season, they didn't get it done. They thought they were going to get it done. Now they're back out there in rifle season, still hunting that elk, like in their mindset, like, it's not done until it's done. And they never know when that deadline is going to be. They never know when that successful moment is going to be. They never know which day they're going to actually harvest that elk. But. But nothing is going to stop them from getting out there. Every chance they can. They're going to, they're going to hunt some mornings before work, they're going to hunt after work. They're going to sneak in all these little different trips that they possibly can to maximize that whole season. The, the legends. The only thing that's going to stop them from getting an elk, depending on what state they live in in the season, is usually the end of the season. And so they're maximizing every opportunity and they just don't know where that finish line is going to be. And, and that's what, in man's search for meaning, that's what he is articulating, is that throughout that whole process, if you take it back to a hunter, they're getting beat down, they're getting beat down, they're getting beat down, they're getting beat down, but they're controlling their attitude. They're still positive, they still think there's a chance. They know that it only takes a flip of a switch, one second difference to, to harvest an elk versus not harvesting an elk. And they know that they need to maximize every one of those opportunities to make that happen. And I think that's the mindset a hunter needs to get into, to really start increasing that consistency level where you. You have to maximize every minute, every hour while you're out there, while. While maintaining that positive attitude, knowing that you never know when the finish line is going to be. And so when you look at a lot of consistently successful backcountry hunters, that they know that it's a game of. They know it's a game of attrition. Like, a lot of people aren't going to stay out there that long, and a lot of people aren't going to keep going back, keep going back, keep going back. So what we all know is mentally tough people are consistently successful. Physically tough people are consistently successful. But when you really look at it, the. The consistently successful people just don't quit until they're successful. And so they're out there more, they're out there longer. And I think those are the things we need to start building. But to the root question, can it be built versus are you born with it? Absolutely, it can be built. And I think we have to look at it like a muscle, where it has. It has. You have to have the view that mindset and mental toughness is exactly the same as, like, training your quads or training your bicep. And if you don't train it at all, and if you've never trained it before, you're not going to be very strong, you're not going to be able to hand handle much stress or adversity. But if you're training it all the time, it's only going to get stronger.
- [30:16]
Dustin Diefenderfer
That's a great point. And I think that it's one of the things that when I was growing up into hunting and there wasn't so much information out there about backcountry hunting and whatever, and I remember reading an article, you know, maybe it was in like, Eastman's journal or something, and like, it just, like, briefly talked about. It's probably like a Cam Haynes article about the mental aspect of being in the backcountry. And, like, nobody had ever heard about that. But it's like, probably, in my opinion, one of the most important things, and I think a lot of people don't realize that it is something that you can grow into or train for. I think one of the questions that people be like, well, how do I. And how do I know? Like, I've never been on an elk hunt. How do I How do I get that, like, mental grit or know what I'm getting? My. You know, I think there's a little bit of that fear of the unknown, but I also think that there's things that you can do in your. Your daily life. Especially, like, you know, Mountain Tough has a lot of programs for this, where it tests the mind through smaller things where you're. You're continually exposed to some type of physical suffering. And in. In some ways, like, it. It depends what that is. And I. I think, like, you know, it could be, you know, the workouts. It could be, you know, a cold plunge kind of thing. It could be those, like, grind sessions. Sometimes it's just like, for me, today is when my alarm went off before I wanted it to, and I'm like, son of a. I gotta get up. You know, you're like. And that happens on the mountain. You're like, de. All you want to do is sleep. And you're like, all right, no hitting that sneeze button. I'm getting up some kind of discomfort. Because I think if. If you're every single day living in that comfortable, comfortable, comfortable, comfortable, then when something gets uncomfortable, it's just like, it becomes foreign. It just. It doesn't fit right. And you're like, well, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna fall back to what I know. Be comfortable. I think the key is, like, I've said it many times, but the comfort, it's like, learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And when you can do that, you can really. That's how you're going to prepare yourself for when things get bad, when things get hard, when things get whatever, like that delayed gratification or that, like, the importance in that consistency of just, I'm. I'm fine being not fine. And when you've got that, you really know that you can, whatever it is, kind of accomplish the task at hand. What are some of the things that you guys, you know, I mean, just through. Through the Mountain Tough program, have seen that start to build that or train that mental toughness muscle.
- [33:07]
Remy Warren
Yeah, for sure. It is definitely built by consistently doing hard things, like all. All like mental toughness. Academics, you know, preach that message now. We've seen that for sure. With the Mountain tough journey and the. The mountain tough history. There definitely is probably no better primary methodology to build mental toughness. And that's what you're seeing when you talk about guiding, like the farmers and. And ranchers, that's what you're seeing happen kind of in black and white is those guys are so mentally tough because they've been doing really hard things since they were 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. They've been out early, they've been lifting heavy things, they've been cold, they've been wet. And for them, for, like the farm and ranch community, they've been doing it not intentionally trying to build mental toughness. They've been doing it just because that's their way of life. Like, their way of life is hard. And their way of life requires them to be in a lot of unknown, be out early, be out late, like, like pulling calves in the middle of the night where it's negative 20. They've done that stuff so much that they're. They're fine, they're comfortable, being uncomfortable. And so then when they come out on a hunt, that mental toughness is, is already so high that you're not going to phase someone like that with much in a hunting scenario. And that's where we want to be. We want to be up at that kind of level. And to get at that kind of level, most of us don't work on a ranch or on a farm, so we have to, we have to artificially create adversity to get to that kind of level. And so to build mental toughness, if your life isn't extremely hard, you have to artificially create a hardship. And that's why physical training is a very convenient, effective, and good way to do that. So the difficulty of your workouts and working out every day, working out when you don't want to, pushing your body where you think your body can go, that kind of stuff in a gym setting, doing that at your house or doing that at a gym, doing that with some buddies, doing that five days a week, six days a week. That physical training is probably the easiest and most effective way to build mental toughness. But it has to be harder than you want it to be. Otherwise you're not building that. That mental toughness muscle. And so you have to make sure that you're pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. And by pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, you start building that mindset. So I think you and I have talked about this before, but the, you know, the science that went really viral last year was they actually identified this part of our brain finally. So there is a willpower part of our brain that science has identified. And it's very fascinating because what they found is they found that that part of our brain will grow as we do hard things that we don't want to do. And that part of our brain will atrophy if we don't do anything difficult. And we're always pursuing comfort. So they found that part of our brain in, like, the studies of obese populations, they found that part of the brain tiny and almost atrophied to where it was no longer existing. And then they found with, like, the, like the Tour de France community and the iron man community, they found that part of the brain to be, like, massive and really big. So it will. It'll grow and atrophy. But the really fascinating thing about that study is they looked at a bunch of people that were cold plunging. And what happens with cold plunging, it's a super good way to just build some mental toughness every day. But with cold plunging, there are people that crave it. So you crave it because it, like, it feels so good. It pulls the inflammation out of your body. Especially people that are, like, sauning and then jumping into the cold pl. Cold plunge. You, like, can't wait to get in that thing. Well, the study showed that once you start to want to cold plunge, that part, the will part, willpower, part of your brain no longer grows, which is fascinating because there are a lot of people training. There are a lot of people physically training. But if you're not physically training in a way that pushes you outside of your comfort zone, then you're not growing that will power part of your brain. That's what the cold plunge studies showed us, is that there are things that suck. But for you to actually grow in your mindset, you have to do things that suck that you really don't want to do. And so that's the key to building mental toughness is you have to be doing things outside your comfort zone all the time. And physical training is super effective. But you have to take it to that next level. You have to do some of the things you hate. You have to do some of the workouts you don't want to do. If you're. If you're great at strength and you suck at cardio, you have to push some of those cardio sessions. If you're great at cardio and you suck at strength, you have to push some of those strength sessions. And that's really when this part of our brain, the will power part of our brain, starts growing. But it's more than that. It's like, how can I do that in every area of my life? And so people will often articulate this as, you have to live under this mindset of, like, I will always lift the heavy box first. And that's kind of what you were talking about there with the alarm clock. You. You have to think about throughout my entire day, no matter where I'm at, every aspect of my life, how can I always be lifting the heavy box first? And what that means is, like, when that alarm clock goes off and you don't want to get up, you have to force yourself to get up. And forcing yourself to get up is building that mindset part of our brain. And if we can do that in every aspect, that's really when that. That mindset starts to grow.
- [39:41]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, it is that there's. There's so many different aspects of our life, not just the. The physical training, but the. The mental part of that physical training. Because I even know for me, when you said, you know, I. I started running a lot more this year, and, you know, I think I'm just like, naturally it comes easier. Like, when I first started, trying to go faster was hard. And then I was like, okay. I kind of was like, it just became easy at a point, and you're like, all right. But then, you know, switching back to a more strength training or whatever, you're like, damn, this sucks. But having done more strength training before, kind of switching to more running, it was like the strength training sucked, and it got kind of easier. And then you switch over to the endurance stuff, and then that got easier and switched back to strengthening. You're like, son of a gun. This is really hard. And then. And then you do that. And then one of the things that I. I liked the. The sandbag, the ruck workouts.
- [40:43]
Remy Warren
Yeah.
- [40:44]
Dustin Diefenderfer
I picked up one of those goruck bags or whatever, and you lift that thing, you're like, this thing's freaking heavy. You're like, I don't want to do this. Like, I don't want to, like, arm. Like, arms out, carry this big bag, and, like, switching to that, and it was like, all right. You know, just continually trying different things in my life has always been the things that I don't want to do. The one thing that, like, hits me now, and I'm kind of, like, putting it off. Like, I need to do more hold stretching, more yoga kind of stuff, because I used to do it, and I was like. And it became easy. And now, dude, just touching my toes is tough. So I'm like, stretching is the thing that I. I, like, fear the most, I think, in life. Like, just, you know, like, I don't know what it is for me, but, you know, it's like, all Right. Okay. You have to do the stretch. Sometimes it's like, okay, like, put on the timer, do the stretch. Because it's, it's the thing that I don't want to do. Whatever it is, it can be the small thing of like, you know, skipping the cool down, you know, like, I don't want to do that. It's not the hardest part of the workout, but, like, maybe it's the most boring. Maybe I want to get out of there. I don't know what it is like, the like. And then I like to identify those things and be like, okay, that's what I'm going to do. Because when you, when you aren't looking forward to it, you know, you're probably gaining a little more out of it. Whether it's hard physically, sometimes the mental things, they aren't hard physically. It's just the getting to that, getting past it, whatever it is. Like, I, and I do know that, that it's. That get comfortable being uncomfortable. And then once you've got that, you got like, once you've. You're comfortable being uncomfortable, you have to make yourself uncomfortable and get comfortable in that and continually doing that. And it's like, whatever it is, little things, big things, even in work, right? You're like, you sit down. I'm like, I don't want to do emails. I'd rather do this other cool thing, but I have to do the emails, right? Like, start. That's the heavy box. Sometimes it's like, that's the box you should lift first. The one that you're like, I don't want to do that. That's the. I like that lift the heavy box first analogy, because you can see it in so many different little aspects of your life.
- [42:48]
Remy Warren
Well, we. We've had the chance to, with Mountain Tough really kind of study a few different special operations communities and kind of work with them hand in hand on mental toughness. And it's been fascinating. Like, we, Nate and I went down and spent a week with the 375 Ranger Regiment last year, and we just went back this year, and it's. It's really kind of like a leadership manufacturing facility, but it's also like a mental toughness manufacturing facility that, like, the Ranger Regiment's really known for their culture, but they're also, they're. They're one of the younger special operations units. And so you see these very, very mentally tough individuals that are, that are young. They're, you know, there's a lot of them that are 22, 23, and they're responsible for leading 60 to 80 guys. And it blows you away every time you go down there because you're like, man, this, this is like some 23 year old responsible for the lives of 60 to 80 other men. And not only their lives, but their, their leadership. And they're, they're so squared away and they're so dialed and it's, it's very like inspirational and it leaves you coming home like feeling like really good about our country and the guys that are down there. But from a mental toughness perspective, it just blows my mind. There's so many guys down there like pushing the comfort zone in all different ways so that if they're running fast, they want to run faster. If they're lifting heavy, they want to lift heavier. And that community is really one that like, if you're not pushing the comfort zone in one way or the other, like, you're probably not going to last in that community. And so there's, there's a huge lesson there for one that is like mental toughness. It does, it does matter who you surround yourself with and it does matter who your friends are. It does matter who your co workers are. It does matter who you're like your hunting and training partners are. I think that it is, it's easier to push when everyone around you is pushing. And so I think that that's like a, you know, that's a key component of mental toughness. That's, that's often underlooked. And it also is like a direct connection to like the Victor Frankl science of how important attitude is and all this. And if, if you have three or four people and you're doing one of the most, most difficult, terrible workouts of your life, but all of your buddies are keeping a positive attitude through that, that's a lot different than you doing one of the most terrible workouts of your life. And two other people are complaining around you, letting you know how terrible it is. And so who we, who we surround ourselves with, the communities we get into, is going to be a big key component to this. And then what we see every time at the, at the regiment is one of the, one of the huge mental toughness hacks is how people are going to react under the scenario of a false finish. And so false finishes generally expose and break all mental toughness. And false finishes ironically happen all the time in hunting. But, but if a good example of a false finish is like, if I want to see if you, Remy, can pass my course, and I tell you that it's going to be an 80 pound ruck and it's going to be an unknown distance. And I'm going to tell you when you're done. If you're rucking around and you're like 10 miles in and now you're 15 miles in and you're 20 miles in and I come out on the course and you see me standing there, you're like, dude, I just rocked this 80 pound ruck. 20 miles. Like there's Dustin, there's the finish line. When you get to me, I tell you, good job, you're not done yet. That is like a false finish. Because you saw me, you thought you were done, you thought you're gonna drop that pack. But I just kind of like bursted that mental toughness bubble. And in, in the civilian world we've seen in the lab, like that'll make people cry, that'll make people like punch the wall. You see people like curl up in a ball often like in a well played false finish scenario. But in, in like the ranger community, you see people like not even blink, not even react when you tell them like, hey, you're not done. You actually have X, Y and Z. They just pick up and do X, Y and Z. And that's right back to kind of that science of like what Victor Frankl was talking about, where guys were dying at Halloween and dying at Christmas, like they thought they were done, but they weren't. And so in addition to doing hard things, pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone through physical training through a good community, you also have to be thinking about, how can I create some false finishes in my life? How can I do some things that have some unknown in them? And so you have to find these big events that kind of scare you to death. Big events that are outside of your comfort zone. So if you think you're a half marathon guy and a marathon will kill you, you have to, you have to sign up and do that marathon. You have to do something that is quite a bit more difficult than you think you're capable of because that's what creates that unknown. Like how am I going to react at mile 17? I've done 13, but I've never done 17. And that's different for every single one of us. Like if you're a 5k guy and you're scared of that 10k, you have to try it because you have to get into that unknown space. And the more that we can get into that unknown space, the, the bigger that mental toughness muscle is gonna become.
- [49:07]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Yeah, that's a great point. I think going from maybe transitioning now from building that to that, the tactical side of not quitting, like, we're in the moment. What are some of the few in the moment tactics guys can use when they want to give up? You know, you're on the hunt, you're like, okay, I've been doing this, I did. I'm fit, whatever. But. But, man, it's like everything went wrong. You had the bull, the bull's gone. What are some of the things? Like, you know, one of the first thing kind of that pops off the top of my head is just. And I think you kind of touched it. Having like many goals where you. You don't have a finish line, but you have the next thing. Make it to the next ridge doesn't. I'm not saying once I get to the. I think there's a 10, there's two ways to look at things, right? Once I get to that next ridge, I'm done. Or I'm just trying to get to that next ridge, that's the next place I'm going. It's not where I'm finishing, it's where I'm going. What are some other kind of ideas or in the moment, the tactical side of not quitting, that really help guys when they're in the field, when they've. When they've hit everything and they're like, all right, we're tired, we're whatever. What can we do to kind of. To keep our head in the game?
- [50:24]
Remy Warren
Yeah, the micro goals one is great. Like, right back to Special Forces studies. What you see all the time is like that make it to breakfast principle. And so all the time, when you ask operators or seals or anyone who's gone through, like, a really difficult selection, they'll often tell you the thing that got them through buds or hell week is that idea that I'm just gonna make it to breakfast. I'm just gonna make it to the next meal. And that's that micro goals. And that is a very, very effective, like, extremely strong on the mountain mental toughness hack is just breaking everything down and not getting overwhelmed by the future. When we're overwhelmed by the future, that's when our mind is really going to come in and just. And just hammer us. If I'm. If I say, like, dude, I'm so tired right now and it's day one, my legs are smoked. There's no way I'm going to be able to do this on day four. That's when my mind went way too far. Out in the future, and I'm going to have a big mental toughness breakdown. But if I'm like, man, my legs are smoked. This is terrible. But all I have to do is make it to that tree stump, and then I'm going to make it to the next tree stump. That is definitely a super, super effective way to boost that mindset on the mountain. The second way for sure that works in all different areas of life, is a really, really effective approach that changes the game completely, is when you're in the moment of suck is to do everything you can to encourage anyone that's hunting with you. And so, like, looking to the guy to your left and the guy to your right is a huge mental toughness principle. So if my legs are smoked and we're gaining a bunch of vert and it's really terrible, I'm dying, my lungs are on fire. Definitely. Everyone else around me probably is feeling that same way. And if I can encourage and, like, cheer up, the buddy to my left and the buddy to my right, not only is that going to help them out a ton, but there's a psychological element going on that, like, when I take my eyes off my own pain and I put that focus on someone else's pain, psychologically, my pain just, like, gets cut in half. And so psychologically, when I say, oh, man, this is terrible, you got this, you're gonna do fine. You got to just make it to this stump, and then we're gonna stop and have a snack. And I'm just focused on my buddy the whole time. All that pain I was gonna feeling, feeling like in my legs and my lungs, it just starts to get cut in half. So that's a really. That's a really easy mental toughness. And life hack or going through hard moments is just always look to that guy to your left and to your right and see how you can help them out. And once you do that, psychologically, like, your pain feels way less. I'd say the third. The third that I. That I leverage all the time on the mountain and in workouts that I learned a few years ago is really understanding that these really hard, terrible moments aren't going to last very long. And once they're over, you're going to feel really great really quickly. And so the really hard moments that make us want to quit, they. They can be really, really terrible in the moment. But as soon as we're done with that very terrible moment, it doesn't take very long to start feeling back towards a hundred percent. And I think when hunters and people in the gym start to realize that, you really see their, their mental toughness spike. And so in the gym, if someone's doing like a, a very nasty assault bike sprint, it, it's the most terrible feeling. You're like legs and arms and lungs, everything's like burning. You're full of lactic acid. But the people that know that if they have 30 or 40 seconds of recovery after that, they're going to feel at about 60%. And then five minutes after coming off that bike, they're going to feel back at 100%. Realizing that makes you really able to get through a lot of suck. But if you don't realize that, then you do get in a sense of panic during those moments of extreme stress because you feel like that pain or that turmoil is going to last forever. And it's the same thing on the mountain. Like, on the mountain, there's so many friends and buddies that we've hunted with, and I'm sure you've had the same with people that you've guided that you're taking like a heavy pack up down into some really nasty black hole and they start getting in their mind that like, this sucks so bad. This sucks. Never gonna go away. Like, if we continue this, I'm gonna die. This is gonna be terrible. But they, what they don't realize is like, once you get into that, the bottom of that black hole and you like throw off your pack, you get some water, you get some snacks, you sit in glass for a little bit, that all of a sudden you're like 100%, you're recovered, you're feeling great. And the earlier that we can realize that, that these moments of adversity are short term and it's not going to take us long to get back to that, that feeling of stabilization, the better. So that that one's helped me out a ton.
- [56:01]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Yeah. Those physical resets, I think are, are just even understanding that like you knowing how, how you reset and going there, you're so right. Like, there's so many things where you do it and then you reset and you start over and you're like, it doesn't. I like to, I like to do that in some ways of thinking, like even in sometimes time chunks where you're like, I can do anything for an hour, I can do anything for five minutes. I can do anything for one minute, whatever, however hard it is. Like, yeah, I can do that. Like it's a minute or it's two minutes, it's five minutes, it's an Hour. I can do anything for a day. I can do anything for a couple. It's a week. I can do anything for a week. Right. Because it's a finite amount of time. And when you kind of put it into that, like, break it into those chunks, it becomes more manageable in a way. It's not like you aren't worried about, you know, it like that. That kind of thought of, like, it's always like this. It's just you break it into these finite chunks of like. Yeah, I get like. It's amazing how far you can go in five minutes. If I can just go for five more minutes. I can do anything for five minutes. Think so, you know, like, tell yourself you can, because then you can. You reset and you can do anything for another. Or what. Whatever the time frame might be. A day, a week. You know, sometimes you got to make them bigger. But yeah, it's not. It's not permanent. And when it's really hard, you're right. That, like, you know, that. That kind of knowing that it just. It's not always like that. You do it and then you're done doing it and you do feel so much better afterwards. It's like, I think that that's even just breathing through it. You know, when something sucks and you just. You breathe through it a little bit. Like you're. You're creating that. That space to reset while you're doing it, you know, to take a deep breath. Yeah, like. But, yeah, I like that thought of when you're in it, knowing that that recovery, it's not always like that. And that. That is a great trick. I think probably the last thing that I would think of is, is sometimes just, you know, remembering that why. Of why you're out there, you know, Because I think that that's the. That's a big factor on the hunting side of guys that are like. And probably in maybe times where I've felt like quitting or whatever, you kind of like, why am I doing this? It got shitty. Why am I out here? I could be xyz, like you mentioned earlier, you pull up those other things of like, oh, you start. Your head starts to go in the space of, like, the other things that you could or should be doing that. That draw you away from where you're at. But if you kind of lose the why you're there, then it becomes unimportant and you have no reason to continue on. You know, in extreme situations, you know, people like you say, like, survival situation or whatever, that, like, why is. Is life or death in a hunting scene. It's very easy in something that's like a recreational whatever to let that oscillate. But if you're like, I am out here and this is what I want to do, why am I. I've been in the middle of a sheep hunt, and it just, like, seen no sheep for a week, and it's just a. It's just everything shitty about it, you know, like, if you start to think, why am I here? And you're like, I don't know why I'm here. This is pointless. Like, why would I even be doing this? What. You can go down very fast, but if you remember why you're here and. And why you're doing something that other people wouldn't be doing, you know, clearly you went on this trip for a goal or for a reason. Continue to focus on that goal or that reason and not the other things that would be surrounding it that would draw you away from it for sure.
- [59:43]
Remy Warren
I think we have to acknowledge and be aware of how big psychology is in our mindset. And when I really think about that, it's really optimism. I mean, and like, in Viktor Frankl's book, he talks about it as attitude, which is correct. But I think about it in terms of how important optimism is in mental toughness. It's probably the most important thing. And I think that there's plenty. There's a lot of examples, most of us have in our lives of people that we've seen or witnessed or heard about that have done this. And that's kind of what really solidified it for me, was that there are some extremely mentally tough individuals out there that could be, like, handicapped. They could be never able to walk again. Maybe they're, like, so disabled that they really can't get out and exercise at all. Can't move much at all. And if you think about individuals like that in your lifetime, that's. That have that positive attitude, and they're controlling their attitude regardless of the external circumstances, and they're staying optimistic through everything that life is throwing at them, those are such good examples of mental toughness. Because we all. We usually think about our mindset and we. We always connect it to, like, a physical sport. But what if I took, like, all your physicality away from you? I took all your physicality. Can you still remain optimistic? Can you, can you still control your own attitude? And the people that can do that are unstoppable. Like, they're. They are unstoppable. There's nothing you're gonna do to break that guy down. There's nothing you're gonna do to slow that guy down. And it. It's so much bigger than the mountain at that point. At that point, it's like, like, you're not gonna. You're not gonna shut this guy down with his entrepreneurship journey. You're not gonna shut this guy down with his work journey. You're not gonna shut this guy down. Marriage, family, kids, financial adversity, like, societal problems. And I think that that's where. But that's what we should strive to get to, is a real good understanding of how big the psychology is connected to mental toughness. And that's really the easiest way to think about it, I believe, is optimism. Like, how optimistic can we stay when we're just getting crushed from every direction? And if we can stay optimistic while getting crushed from every direction, then we really are comfortable being uncomfortable. And when we get to that point, there's really not much that's going to stop us from. From doing what we want to do.
- [62:43]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Yeah, that's a. That's an awesome point. I think that that's. In many ways, like, you said that that can be the biggest thing. And even when you're. It doesn't mean, like, being optimistic. And I've said this before, but being optimistic doesn't mean that you're an optimistic person. You know, it was like. Like, oh, they're always. They're always. They always see the glass half full. You know, I. I like a naturally, in some ways, naturally, a pessimistic person, but a lot of people would think of me as the most optimistic person they've ever met.
- [63:16]
Remy Warren
Yeah.
- [63:17]
Dustin Diefenderfer
You know, and, like, I feel like that's a. That's a thing that I think a lot of people don't realize is, like, I'm big on choosing thoughts, not letting thoughts choose me. So it's like you can choose to be optimistic, and it's a choice. You know, it doesn't matter if you're an optimistic person. You can choose optimism. You can choose the thoughts that you choose to focus on. You can choose the thoughts that you don't. I think a lot of people get a thought, okay. Sometimes you can't control what thoughts you get, but you can control kind of what life you give to those thoughts. So it's like, if a thought comes in of, like, this sucks. You're never going to see anything. And I'm like, yes, statistically, that's probably, you know, I start thinking about it, right? It's gonna. I'm gonna just Nose dive. But I can, I can control what thoughts and say, well I, you know, that's not what I'm gonna think about. I, I've talked about like hunts where if I, when I'm on the mountain and I'm in a hunt and I'm like, I'm getting to a new canyon. And as I approach that canyon, I tell myself that there's a 200 inch buck in that canyon. Canyon. Every time. Because my heart starts to like raise up. I have this anticipation of there's a 200 inch buck in this canyon. And now I'm looking in that canyon like I know for a fact there's a 200 inch buck. If, if we were on a hunt and I'd scouted it and knew everything about this area and I'm like, and I tell you there is the like a bull or buck of a lifetime in this canyon. You just got to get to this glassing point and find it. How are you going to hunt and look for that? You're going to tell all your buddies this bull's in this canyon, dude, we just have to keep looking. You're like, I don't see him. Yeah, but we know he's in here. We watched him come in here. He didn't come out. Where is he at? He's going to show up. Your focus and intent is going to be so much better than if I told you I've never seen a deer in this area. There actually are no mule deer in this entire unit. They all died. Wolves killed them all. You know, you're like, okay, so you're going to sit there, you're going to eat your snacks, you're going to look. It changes everything. It changes the way that you go about the hunt. And just that mindset of like, it keeps you going, it keeps you looking and it's a self fulfilling prophecy. You're gonna find more often what you're looking for because you're looking for it with that intention. And that is an absolute game changer. Like it changes the way that everything pans out.
- [65:36]
Remy Warren
That's so good, man. Yeah, that's just, you're, you're controlling your thought life. And I always tell people like I, I, I view it as, now I think I view it as like air traffic control in my brain. So if you think about like air traffic control at the Denver airport, they got all these flights coming in from like left, right, north, south, and they have to like decide who's going to land on what Runway. And I view that as something in my thought life now, like you're going to have these negative thoughts come in and you as air traffic control, you have to shut those down and like tell them to go somewhere else. And then you have to let those positive thoughts come in. If we have the opportunity and the ability to do that, we have the ability to make these choices and choose these thoughts and the, the like mind, body, spirit connection there is insane. Like you can actually tell yourself there's a 200 inch deer in this canyon and you can feel your heart rate come up.
- [66:41]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Up. Yeah.
- [66:42]
Remy Warren
Even though you told yourself that that's how powerful it is. But it's also just as powerful on the negative front. Like if you want, if you let one of those negatives come in, it can really make you bonk and come off the mountain. And so I think viewing it as like air traffic control on those thoughts has helped me out a ton.
- [67:01]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Yeah, I think that that's, it's, it's, it's something that you can do not just in the field, but you know, every day because it's, it's one of those things that it takes for some people. Maybe that's the born part. Right. It's like they're naturally like that. And there's a lot of people that aren't naturally like that. But it doesn't mean that you can't, you're like, I'm not like that. You can be like that, but you have to learn how to be, you know, you have to like discipline yourself in a way with other, you know, through whatever kind of discipline to be able to control that. So when you're on the hunt and things go sour, things suck. You know, you aren't seeing anything. Nothing's working out. Right. You missed, you. You didn't spot anything. Whatever it is, it's physically harder than you thought it was going to be. You're able to overcome that and kind of keep yourself going at that highest level that, that you can. And that's, that's huge. I mean that's like, that's. If you want a hunting secret, this is it. It's always, it's between the ears really. You know, it's like keeping your mind and head in the game because it's going to keep your body there and you're going to be, you know, you're going to be in the game longer.
- [68:08]
Remy Warren
Yeah.
- [68:08]
Dustin Diefenderfer
To where you can find success, which.
- [68:10]
Remy Warren
Is a huge part of success. Just being a game consistently out there.
- [68:15]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Yep. Oh man, I thank you so much for your time. This is One of the things that I, I just, I like talking about it, and I think that a lot of people, you know, like hearing about it and need to hear about it, because it was like, I. I always felt like, well, growing up hunting or whatever, it was just one of the topics of probably the most important hunting strategy, and yet there wasn't information about it. You know, nobody talks about it. And it really does boil down to, like, the biggest thing with my podcast is teaching people to be consistently successful. I want you to be able to continue to find that success. And this is probably one of the biggest tips and tactics that you can have because it allows you to utilize all the other knowledge and other things that you've gained while being in the field. But if you can't stay out there and implement it because something went wrong, like, Murphy, Murphy, like, shows up on the hunt, like, whatever can go wrong will go wrong. That is hunting. You're gonna. If you have one spare, you'll get two flats. You know what I mean? You're gonna have to feel, last year I got three flats. But, like, you're just gonna have to figure it out. And I think that that's all part of it. And that's. That's why in many ways, too, I love hunting because it is an adventure, because things like go wrong and you just have to adapt. And I think that that mental toughness and continuing on is a. Is a huge tactic in that.
- [69:37]
Remy Warren
Yeah. And it's cool how, I mean, it just connects to so many other areas of our life, too. I mean, if you get better at this as a hunter, you get better at how you think about your mind and your mindset, certainly it's going to help you when things go wrong on the mountain, but then. And we're going to run into so many other pieces of adversity at work or, you know, with our kids. And these same principles apply, the same exact principles make a huge difference. And so doing it consistently in training, consistently in the gym, consistently thinking about our attitude and our thoughts and how we're controlling those, it's a huge game changer for backcountry hunting success. But it's. It's just a huge game changer for everything else in life, too, which is really cool.
- [70:26]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Yeah. I think there was one thing, you know, you mentioned of, of having those. Those goals out there. And if you, if you, let's say you're a 5k guy, you do the 10k, a half marathon guy, you do the marathon. One of the things that was a lot of fun last year, and I've got. I know the pre signups went out, and I'm on group texts with all my friends and family and whatever, and the tough sheep is coming back. It was a lot of fun last year. For those that don't know the tough Sheeps, it's essentially a mountain tough kind of group workout. Wild sheep foundation convention in Reno, and you guys gave away a sheep hunt, which the guy's probably going on here, what, in three weeks or something like that?
- [71:07]
Remy Warren
Yeah, he's three weeks out.
- [71:08]
Dustin Diefenderfer
That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, so it's like you. But I mean, even just an event like that, I know a lot of people, like, even I have. Have friends that had heard about it, and they were pretty apprehensive last year because maybe they're like, I haven't done it. And I'm like, look, sign up. Like, they saw other people do it, and now they're signing up. I've got, like, three or four groups of people that I know that are like, okay, we're. We're at this level. And they're like, yeah. And they're starting now with this goal in mind. And it's like, it's. It's just a game changer because they've got. Okay. They've got this in their head of like, okay, now I can do it. I've signed up. Up. You sign up. You're, like, committing to it. And even just something like that where, you know, there's a lot of people that I know that it's kind of putting them out of their comfort zone. And I'm encouraging them to do it because it was like, not only is it a lot of fun in a way, like, you're like, yeah, it might suck for whatever, but at the end, you feel good. You're like, I did it. And you never know, you might be the one that wins the. Wins the sheep hunt. So is there still some. I know the signups. When did that open? Like, they'll open, like, two weeks ago, right?
- [72:11]
Remy Warren
Yeah. And it's crazy, man. So last year was the first year tough sheep. We're going into year two. We announced registration early, and it only takes 500 spots. Because that's part of the deal is that with 500 spots, it keeps it as the best odds in the world to win a sheep hunt. So one out of 500. Last year, that guy won a Stan Stevens McKenzie Mountain Dal sheep hunt, One of the best backpacking doll sheep hunts in the world. And we'll do the same thing this year. And so when we announced it for year two, we like immediately got 250 registrations. And so it like half of it filled up immediately because so many people did it last year and, and loved it. But then also people know it's the best odds on planet Earth probably to win a sheep hunt. And she punts are so difficult to, to get done that it, it's, it's going to sell out fast. Way faster than last year. So it's important for people that want to try it for the first time or want to come back, get registered as soon as they can. And, and we saw it last year exactly what you're talking about, Remy. We saw a bunch of people that were like, man, man, tough Sheep changed my life. And I was like, what, are you kidding me? And they're like, yeah, I was so nervous and intimidated that I trained nine weeks straight leading up to sheep show. And that's exactly what, what we need is like you gotta, you gotta register for things that are going to take you outside of your comfort zone and it is going to create a life change. And so it's been cool to watch that.
- [73:50]
Dustin Diefenderfer
That's awesome. Yeah, it's a really cool event. Where's is the sign up on the website?
- [73:55]
Remy Warren
Yep. Yeah, you'll go mountaintough.com events and then you'll see the sign up for Tough Sheep.
- [74:00]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Awesome. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. And then there's also. You guys are doing like a pro division, it looked like. So there's the sheep one and then the next day the pro division.
- [74:10]
Remy Warren
Yeah, that'll be cool. Awesome. Yeah, we got pro division. We got some industry hunting companies sponsoring different waves. So like if you want to run like your race with the Mountain Tough crew, you can. If you want to run your race with like the Onx crew, you can. So it's. But it's going to be cool.
- [74:29]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Awesome. That's cool, man. And then you know the other I liked, you know, if for those that are like, oh yeah, now's a good time to talk about it because one, there will be spots available and two, it gives you more time to prepare than the guys that are cramming. But there are people listening to this podcast, they're like, oh yeah, September is coming up. I've got an elk hunt. I'm. I've like there is, there's always the procrastination cramming no matter what you do. I even me like, I'm like, like whenever I got a hunt coming up, you're like, all right, I got to do more. I got to. Whatever. As you get closer to that finish line, you just got to ramp it up. You guys are coming out with a like a 30 day kind of limited edition daily just to get people prepped and ready for, for the season, right?
- [75:17]
Remy Warren
Yeah, it's exactly for like the people that you're talking about that need to make sure they get some great training in and crunch time. It's. So it'll be the limited edition edition mountain tough daily heavy pack series. So all they're going to need to do is train is with their heavy pack. So they can do this anytime, anywhere. And it's, it's exclusive and limited. So you'll do it for 30 days and then it's going to disappear. So you kind of have to get in there while it's there and make sure you get it done or you're going to miss it all together. And then it's going to be one of the coolest heavy pack programs we've ever released. Because every workout you're done within 30 minutes. So you're gonna have a full, efficient, effective, functional fitness backcountry workout within 30 minutes. All you need is your pack and then it's, it's fully coached. So with it being a daily in mountain tough, you just hit play, you're gonna have a mountain tough coach coaching you through it. Two mountain tough athletes to compete with and benchmark with with and kind of watch their form. And so if you just have a pack and the ability to hit play, that'll release right around August 1st. So they'll get you a great 30 days of training before season.
- [76:36]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Awesome. I like that. I, I don't know. I'm just putting my, my vote in, but I think you should bring those back throughout the year. I like that idea. That's cool, man.
- [76:46]
Remy Warren
Well, it's like the sandbag one. Everyone's like, when's that coming back?
- [76:50]
Dustin Diefenderfer
Yeah, I like that. Like, I personally like the coached ones because it's just you have to think less in a way. Like you can just go, go, go, go, go. You don't really have to even sometimes you might not watch the screen, but I just got my earbud in and I can listen. Like somebody's doing the timing, somebody's doing all the stuff. So it just makes it. It's the easiest way to kind of just stay on track and make sure that you're doing what you need to do. And then you hear like, like, then the peep. The Mountain Tough Athletes that are there, they're like, yeah, rep number five. And you're on rep three and a half. And you're like, wow, I really suck. You pick it up, let's go. You can do it. So I like that. It's cool. It's the added motivation and the timing of it, and I think the timing of that's perfect for guys that, like, have that September hunt or even guys that have later hunts. But, man, jump on it this August, you know, and start to. To get ready, because it's. It's here, man. The hunting season is upon us, so it's crazy. I'm excited.
- [77:51]
Remy Warren
It comes up fast.
- [77:53]
Dustin Diefenderfer
It does. Well, thank you, man, so much for taking the time to join us today. I know everybody always appreciates you jumping on and sharing what you know. Man, I hope you guys really enjoyed that podcast. I know it's always awesome for me to have Dustin on and just be able to talk things like mental toughness, fitness, all the things that go into the hunt that make such a big difference. And Dustin's just a wealth of information on that. So I think that we're very lucky to be able to have him on and, and talk to him about these things because they are some of the. The tips and tactics that move the needle when it comes to success in the field. Before we go here, another thing that I wanted to talk about, you know, as we get into hunting season and a lot of people may be doing some summer scouting, a lot of people looking through their gear, thinking about time to freshen up some things or, hey, maybe what's that next piece of gear that I need that's missing from my kit? A great supporter of this podcast, Vortex Optics. They've got a lot of their stuff is in stock right now, even some of the stuff that we supplied on our site, like Vortex Baby Razor. If you're in the. I'd say, in the market for a spotting scope, it's the Razer HD 13 to 39 by 56. That's back in stock. I know they were sold out almost everywhere. We've got some in stock in our store. You can find them, I mean, anywhere. Shields online, what have you. If you want, we've got a few left in our store. We also have, I think, like, all the major Vortex stuff is available. So there's a lot of great stuff in there. And you know, the thing about optics, like, we always say, buy the best glass you can afford, but let's say you're, you know, you're like, hey, I'm on a budget here, but I need a spotter. They have some really great stuff in that, what we're going to call their economy line, which is definitely better than nothing. I mean, I'm looking right here. I don't know if this is the wrong price or what, but The Vortex Crossfire HD 20 to 60 by 80 is $299.99. So 300 bucks. That's a, I mean, I have this scope. We actually keep it like, you know, just in case somebody doesn't have something and it probably gets beat up more than anything else I own. I hate to say that, like it's still not cheap, but for the price compared to the other stuff and man, it's a good piece of kit. It's like, it's a little heavier. And then there's also the Vortex Viper line in that kind of baby razor, what we like to call the baby Razor. Smaller scope. You want a backpacking scope. Vortex Viper HD 11 to 33 by 50. You know, I think that so many times we look at these highest end ones, but when it comes to spotting scopes, you know, a lot of people are like, hey, I don't know if I, I've never even hunted with a spotting scope. Is it going to be beneficial? Yeah, I definitely think that it's going to be beneficial, especially in certain situations. We talk about it all the time on this podcast. What, what hunting scenarios aid themselves to certain types of optics. But you know, I, I can't think of a hunt really where I don't include a spotting scope. There's even a crossfire version of that small spotter that just came out last year. Those are back in stock as well. We haven't had those in stock for a while. Since they came out, they sold out pretty quick. The HD Crossfire 12 to 36 by 50, awesome lightweight spotter, great for hunting, scouting. You know, lightweight in the backpack. Maybe you're in an area you didn't, you don't need that, that giant spotter, not a lot of big country or you're doing a lot of backpack hunting. That's a, that's a great piece of optic to have. So you can check those out. Got them on my website. Plus, I mean wherever, wherever Vortex optics are sold. And I'm just going to say until next week, stay tough. All right, we'll catch you guys later.
- [81:44]
Remy Warren
Sa.