Mental Coach Dawn Grant on Hypnosis, Visualization & the Zone | Trap Talk Ep. 167

Summary

Trap Talk From The Back Fence

Episode 167: Mental Coach Dawn Grant on Hypnosis, Visualization & the Zone

Date: March 13, 2026

Hosts: Zach Nannini & Richard Marshall Jr.
Guest: Dawn Grant (Mental Coach & Hypnotist)

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Episode Overview

This in-depth conversation explores the mental side of trapshooting and clay sports with renowned mental coach and hypnotist, Dawn Grant. Dawn shares her unique journey from traditional psychology into mental training and hypnosis, offers actionable tools for athletes, and debunks myths about mental performance and hypnosis. The episode is rich with practical advice, memorable stories, and hands-on exercises that benefit shooters and anyone interested in mental performance under pressure.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dawn Grant’s Journey to Mental Coaching and Hypnosis

• Background: Dawn started with a psychology degree intending to help families and children, but became disillusioned with traditional approaches like talk therapy and medication. She pivoted to self-improvement, holistic practices, and found her calling in hypnosis.
• Early Successes:
  • Professional athletes, including PGA Tour pros, sought her help.
  • Notably, helped Vijay Singh overcome a putting slump and win the FedEx Cup, attributing his success to a belief shift enabled by hypnosis.
    "He believed himself to be the best putter in the world… He had been hypnotized… I helped him change his belief system." — Dawn (05:05)
• Transition into Shooting Sports:
  • Initially assisted a clay shooter at the request of a bank president, then worked with top coaches and shooters like John Woolley and Wendell Cherry, which led to a strong reputation in the industry.

2. The Mechanics of Mind: Conscious vs. Subconscious (09:56)

• Conscious Mind (Willpower): Where habits are attempted and often broken by stress or repetition.
  • "Your conscious mind is where your willpower is… But subconscious is where the programming is at." — Dawn (09:56)
• Subconscious Mind (Autopilot): Houses habits, beliefs, and repeated actions.
  • Good or bad mechanics and beliefs sink into the subconscious.
  • Hypnosis efficiently targets these embedded beliefs for long-term change.
• Combined Approach: Dawn advocates blending mental training (conscious) with hypnosis (subconscious) for best results.

3. The Importance of Positive Self-Talk and Belief (13:09)

• The hosts share personal mantras and techniques, like reciting "see the target" before a shot, as a way to sidestep conscious interference.
  • "If you think it before it happens, you're done… If you already know, you’re walking over to one or five and you're like, 'I'm not looking forward to this.'— You're done." — Zach (08:38)
• Belief is Crucial: Repeated positive affirmations feed success, reinforcing positive habits and dampening negativity.

4. Managing Internal Conflict: Wolves, Angels, and Devils (15:39)

• Analogies abound—"feed the good wolf," fight off the "devil" (negative thoughts), nurture the "angel" (encouraging voice).
• Practical Tip: The conscious mind can only focus on one thing at a time—intentionally directing it towards productive, neutral, or positive thoughts is key.
  • "One of the concepts is your conscious mind has what's called one pointed attention. It can only focus on one thing at a time." — Dawn (18:45)

5. Visualization and Mental Rehearsal (28:08)

• The Power of Visualization: Both hosts and Dawn share stories of using visualization to achieve high scores, overcome slumps, and win events.
  • "Before you fall asleep, I want you to break 100 clay targets in your sleep." — Frank Hoppy via Ricky (27:36)
• Visualization is almost as effective as physical practice, and scientific studies support its impact.

6. Why Skepticism Exists & How to Overcome It (38:38)

• Trap shooters often quickly recognize the importance of the mental game; sporting clays competitors can be more skeptical.
• For Skeptics: Visualization exercises or small strategies, like visualizing successful moments or using positive affirmations, are suggested first steps.

7. Law of Attraction, Filtering, and Opportunity (32:35, 40:30)

• The brain filters information based on goals—what you focus on (positive or negative) shows up everywhere.
  • Examples: Wanting a Corvette and suddenly noticing them everywhere; ignoring Bitcoin's early days due to lack of focus on opportunity.
• "Whatever you filter in, you'll see evidence and proof of that subconsciously." — Dawn (29:15)
• Consciously choosing what to focus on attracts more of the same—positivity breeds positive results, negativity the opposite.

8. The Physiology of Hypnosis & The Zone (beta/alpha/theta/delta) (45:49, 64:27)

• Brainwave States:
  • Beta: Active thinking, chatter.
  • Alpha: Relaxed, focused—the "zone."
  • Theta: Deep relaxation.
  • Delta: Sleep.
• Practical Hypnosis Exercise:
  • Dawn leads a guided breathing/visualization (47:58–50:52) putting hosts into a mild hypnotic state, demonstrating in-the-moment mental training.
• The "Zone" is the alpha state—paralleled in both hypnosis and sports peak performance.
  • "Science actually ran… studies on elite athletes in that peak performance state when they're having their best performance and they were in alpha… that's what the zone state is." — Dawn (66:00)

9. Breathing Techniques & Performance Under Pressure (56:04, 74:13)

• Vital for Shooters: Controlling breath calms nerves, enhances focus, and can be trained with drills (e.g., Navy SEAL box breathing).
• "If you can't see it, you're not going to do it." — Ricky (71:32)
• Real-life examples, including stories about helping young shooters (Tyler) manage nerves via breathing.

10. Mind-Body Connection: The Science is Undeniable (71:38)

• Emotional thoughts produce physical effects (elevated heart rate, tension, sweating).
• Focusing on breath or positive stimuli can neutralize anxiety and reset the body for peak performance.

11. Building Confidence with Humility (36:30)

• The distinction between cockiness and confidence; the goal is "confidence with humility" to avoid pitfalls of ego.
  • "I teach confidence with humility. That's when your ego is tamed down…" — Dawn (36:32)

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Notable Quotes & Highlights

• On breaking through mental barriers:
  “If someone comes in my class and says, 'I can't' three or four times, I'm like, 'I can't help.' You're not here to learn, you're here to have a debate.” — Ricky (34:58)
• On the mental game’s importance in trap:
  “Trap is mental. I always say it’s about 90% mental. As long as your gun fits you and you know where it’s shooting, your head is what causes you to miss or not believe.” — Ricky (26:46)
• On hypnosis misconceptions:
  “Everybody has gone through hypnosis. It's not strange or odd or weird— they just haven't been taught about it.” — Dawn (60:35)
• On skepticism in the sport:
  “There are so many skeptics out there… but there’s a cause and effect relationship between your mind and your body.” — Dawn (71:38)

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Memorable Moments & Timestamps

• Dawn’s Origin Story & Vijay Singh Example: 00:49–06:00
• Difference Between Hypnosis & Mental Training: 09:56–13:09
• Positive Self-Talk vs. Negative Loops: 13:39–15:39
• Analogy of Wolves—Feeding the Positive: 15:39–17:02
• Visualization in Practice (Frank Hoppy’s advice): 27:36–28:23
• Dawn’s Story About Trapshooters’ Readiness for Mental Coaching: 24:31–26:46
• Guided Breathing & Visualization Exercise: 47:58–50:52
• Discussion on Law of Attraction and Filtering: 29:15–40:30
• Explaining Hypnosis, Brainwave Theory, and The Zone: 45:49–64:27
• Breathing, Stress, and Physical Effects: 56:04–58:17
• Navy SEAL Box Breathing/Science of Breathwork: 74:13–76:01
• Final Advice and Resources from Dawn: 77:41–79:57

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Resources & Where to Find More

• Dawn Grant’s Website: dawngrant.com
• Free Web Class: tinyurl.com/cswebclass
• Podcast: Clay Mastermind—Available on all major platforms
• Social Media: Search "Dawn Grant Mental Training" or "Amelia Shotgun Sports"

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Closing Takeaways

• The mental aspect of trapshooting is not just real—it’s fundamental to consistent, top-level performance.
• Combining conscious mental training with subconscious techniques like hypnosis can dramatically improve results.
• Visualization, breathing, and targeted self-talk are evidence-based methods available to every shooter.
• The "zone" is real, scientifically measurable, and accessible with the right training.
• Building belief and managing your mind isn’t just for sports—it’s peak human performance applicable everywhere.
• “If you can’t see it, you’re not going to do it.” —Ricky (71:32)

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For Listeners

Explore Dawn’s online resources, consider trying her guided exercises, and remember: Feed the good wolf. Direct your focus. Breathe. Visualize success. The rest is repetition, belief, and practice.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to season four of Trap Talk,

[B]

brought to you by Craig off the choice of champions.

[A]

Hey folks, if you're wondering where you can get your merch, head on down to shop Trap Talk podcast dot com.

[B]

Yes, folks, you can get hats, T shirts, sweatshirts. They even have a ladies tank, shooters, towels. We might have some new stuff coming out for the 2026 year. Who knows?

[A]

We got all the swag. Head on down to the website. Thank you so much for being Trap Talk supportive.

[B]

Thanks everyone.

[A]

Not much about you, Don. You know, tell us, tell the listeners kind of what you do, how you got involved and where your passions lie in the sport.

[C]

I went to school and got a degree in psychology, totally planning to help children and families and was not happy with the traditional mental health field and just kind of what would be talk therapy or medicating people, you know, for just trying to numb their problems and all that. So on my own, I, I just did a lot of self exploration and I'm really into self improvement just for myself and apparently I'm a bit obsessed with it. So, like, I'm just going to help anybody. So I ended up learning a lot about different holistic and alternative practices. And I stumbled into hypnosis. And when I read about it, I was like, that's what I want to do. I want to help people in profound ways. And I like that it happens quickly and I don't want to just do all this talk and there isn't much change and blah, blah, blah. Like it grabbed my attention and I got certified by the best in the world at the time and opened up a private practice in Amelia Island, Florida, which is northeast Florida.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And within a few years, I didn't want to just do hypnosis because living in a somewhat small town, you know, it helps somebody that have this great change. It could be like quitting smoking or losing weight or sleeping better or, or fear of flying or fear of heights, all these different things. And so I'd run into them around town and some of them would thank me and, you know, say, you saved my life. And then somebody else would say, well, it worked until, you know, it worked until. Until I got a huge argument with my husband or until I got fired from my job and I started figuring out like, what can I do to help with the until, which is ultimately our reaction to stress. Right? So, you know, so there are stressors in life and I tend to react a certain way, especially if I don't know any better. So I started doing what I called mental training and anybody that came to me at that point they were going to get a combination of mental training with hypnosis and that created more of a long term change. And within a few years after that, athletes started coming to me. So it's not like I went to school for sports psychology or anything. I went to school for regular psychology and learned how to access the subconscious mind, which you're going to see probably during this interview, how cool that is for athletes who want to perform intuitively or subconsciously or whatever. And yeah, so like professional boxers, professional basketball players, tennis players, they were just kind of coming here and there. And then I started working with PJ Tour professionals and I worked with several dozen and they were having huge improvement. Like I had a statistician crunch numbers and there was a 219 increase in earnings in their five tournaments after working with me compared to the five tournaments before. They're making millions of dollars, right? So they had a 219% increase. And I worked with Vijay Singh when he was in a huge slump for about a year and a half. And I worked with him on a Saturday, Sunday, Monday, I made him a hypnosis audio. He was in a slump for his putting specifically and hadn't won anything in 18 months. And it was encroaching on the FedEx cup championship series. This was in 2008, and I helped him win it. And not only did he win it, but he believed himself to be the best putter in the world. And he won the first event on the third playoff hole against Sergio Garcia. And he went on his putting and they asked him live, like, how do you explain this turnaround? He said, I'm the best putter in the world. He had been hypnotized like he, I'd helped him change his belief system. And, and so the second week he actually broke a course record for putting. And he won $13 million that month. And that just opened up the doors for what happened to be a local competitive clay shooter who was my bank president. And he said, you know, they. And I didn't know anything about sporting clays at the time. So this was 2008. He said, Sporting clays is golf with a shotgun. And I know you're helping these golfers and I think you can help me. And so he explained the game to me a little bit and then he said, you know, do you think you can help me? I've been trying to get in a masterclass for a while. My coach is John Woolley. And you think you can help? And I was like, sure. And within like two months he got in a masterclass and John Woolley was like, what the hell just happened? And so he told him. So then John Woolley said to me, can you help me? World fee task is in Spain in a few months. I'm flinching about a hundred times around, can you help me? I said sure. So I helped him. He went to Spain, world fee task and he won silver and he only flinched twice. So that when he came home he just started telling his students. And then the next thing after that is Wendell Cherry sent in, I call it a test dummy. He sent in one of his students to check me out and see what I was doing. And I helped that student and, and the wives conversed and the student's wife told Wendell's wife, there's something going on here. Like my husband is calmer, he's more relaxed, he's not reactionary, you know, these different things. And then I started working with Wendell and he had some of his best years during that time and, and then it just spread, it like took over my private practice. I've worked a ton with shooters after

[B]

then and working with Wendell then or no?

[C]

Yeah, now I am, he took like a break but he's back at it again recently.

[B]

I know, I mean I know who Wendell is. I mean we've talk just briefly. I mean I've been in the sporting clays world for, well first time I shot sporting clays I think was 1990

[A]

ish at the

[B]

God that was in Colorado, the Broadmoor. So years ago when we shot bunker trap at the Train Center. So yeah, I've been there in a long time. So I know a lot of the, the top shooters and have shot with a lot of them. So. But yeah, because we don't entrap, there's really not a lot of so called mental coaches that just specialize in, in mental, you know my mental side was my dad said if you want to win, if you want to shoot, you better win. I was 14 years old and had two nickels to rub together. And so I kept wanting to go to shoot. So I won.

[A]

At least they were, they were nickels, they weren't pennies. I mean you were, you were high

[C]

on the hog, baby, right?

[A]

Was talking about BJ saying he was the best putter in the world. I, I, I had a thought come to my mind. I'm like, man, they must have hypnotized Ricky Marshall at birth. I mean he would have been like, hey, he's the man. But it's true that you have to have confidence. I mean, I will say, you know, if, you know, let's just say the VJ situation, right? Like he's out there and he's in his head like, okay, I'm not putting well, I'm not doing this well. That happens in our sport. Oh, I'm not shooting well on post one. I'm not shooting well on post five. I'm, I'm kind of, you know, you get that thoughts where Ricky's always taught me, like, if you think it before it happens, like you're done. Like if you already know, you're walking over to one or you're walking over to five and you're like, oh man, I'm not looking forward to this.

[C]

You're done.

[A]

And the one thing that I can say that Ricky's really good at is he, he, you know, regardless of where he's at, slump, no slump. Shooting good, shooting bad. He thinks he's not doing bad. I mean, he's like, I'm, I'm a good single shooter. I'm a good, I'm a great handicap shooter. I'm a great double shooter. I'm a great, his, his mantra and his echo in his own mind. He has a, he has a self positive view. Talk of what he's doing. And I think that resonates because, you know, if you, if you tell yourself, yeah, I'm struggling over here, like, guess what you're going to keep doing. Struggling, you're going to keep, you know, windfalling into that, into that negative, into that negative zone. So, so Don, I want to ask you, like, you know, completely new to this, you know, we've never had a mental coach on, you know, the first one ever. You know, for all the listeners here today, you know, we're learning with you today because me and Ricky don't, you know, kind of know what you do and know the process. Do you think the hypnotized side is more important or the mental coaching is more important or it's together in tandem or kind of walk us through your thoughts on that.

[C]

Well, it kind of goes back to the story that I told you. Hypnosis can make really big changes quickly. It almost seems miraculous even, because what happens and just think you've got a conscious level of your mind, a subconscious. You also have an unconscious, but your conscious level of your mind is where your willpower is. And so whenever you're trying to do something like break a habit, a bad habit, it could be anything. It could be over drinking, eating, sugar, whatever, you know, that's at the conscious level. And they say, well, it takes 28 days to change a habit. Well, yeah, if you're freaking perfect at it every single day. And the. Ultimately, it's repetition that you need, and so it's repetition you need. This is no different than mechanics also, right? It's repetition of either words, phrases, or actions that then put it into autopilot. So willpower, though, is at that conscious level of your mind, and there's only so much you can do because subconscious is where the programming in it. So like I said, your mechanics can get repeated and then they go into autopilot. And everybody is super familiar with that. You know, driving a car, mounting your gun, riding a bike. There's so many different examples. Eating with a fork and not poking your eye out, you know, anything you've done, repeatedly drinking a beer, you know. Yeah,

[A]

whiskey and ice.

[C]

I got it. Yeah. You don't miss the cup.

[A]

Yeah, I could light a cigar in the dark, and I never miss the end.

[C]

Exactly, exactly. And that's in your subconscious. Okay? But anytime something is new you, that's when you have to think more about it, right? This is exactly why you should never change your mechanics the day of an event, the day before, or whatever, because then you're too conscious, right? So there's a lot of things related to conscious and subconscious. So your conscious mind is where your willpower is. It's how you think in the moment. Like, where is your mind? So when you're in there, when you're shooting, are you thinking about your score? Are you thinking about steak dinner? Are you thinking about the previous shot that you missed? Are you thinking about, oh, my God, this is the best I've ever done. You know, whatever. That's your conscious mind. So you have to learn how to make it do what you. What it should do, and then ideally make it do it even better. Which is like, let me think about this in a positive way. I got this shot versus, oh, I'll never pull this off. Right? Like, that's all conscious level. But subconscious is where that autopilot is things that you've already repeated. So you're like, it could be crappy mechanics, right? You know, maybe you're not fully mounting your gun. Whatever it is there. Anything that's been repeated is down here. So it's also repeated thoughts and phrases, and that becomes beliefs. So beliefs are like, repeated, like, I can't do this, I'll never make it. Or, I can do this, I'm good every time that it's time for me to go, I'm on it versus every time I start, I screw it up immediately. Right. So there's different beliefs. That's at the subconscious. So when you. To answer your question, I believe in both together because I need to train people when I call mental training for their conscious mind. And then the subconscious is where the hypnosis can go and make changes to those beliefs or the, you know, anything that's been repeated. Actions, habits stuff.

[B]

Okay. See, because I use like so I, I use it. It might be a little backwards. But I always say the. You have the devil and the angel. Yes, but I always say the angels. You're conscious because the devil is the one that your subconscious is. You're. You're not speaking it out loud. So it's that going in your head. And I always say if you say a positive thought kind of to yourself and that'll cover up that what that devil's doing. Because you're not competing against anybody else, you're competing against yourself.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

You break the targets. You know, we shoot. And no matter what discipline it is trap Skeeter sporting your highest score out of 100 is 100. So I always tell people you get beat in the shoot offs and that's usually where everything comes together and stuff. That's why. So in my deal I always use a catchphrase and it's see the target. And people go, well, why do you use that? And I said right before, as I'm mounting the gun, I tell myself, see the target. Because that takes all the good stuff. Puts it together, my mechanics. And there you go. And what do you have to do before you can break the target? You've got to see.

[C]

Well, yeah, let me just clarify a little bit with the angel and the devil because I actually use that analogy myself. But I can explain a little bit further. So part of your again, conscious mind. Well, that where your will is your willpower. My will. That's where your ego is. And the ego is very fear based. You'll never pull that off. I'm better than you. That's the wrong way. I have the right way. It shouldn't have happened that way. It should have been this way. Like that's all ego and we all have it. And that actually is more of the little devil voice. The subconscious is more of this gentle. You've got this. Put your seatbelt on, go left instead of right. That intuitive. I just knew when to pull the trigger. That into it. Like it didn't feel like me. Because you who you think is Me is your conscious mind. That's very loud and it's obnoxious and it, like I said, it tends to be fear based. So the, the subconscious mind is when you're, when you're accessing that, that's when you're in the flow, that's when you're in the zone. That's when it didn't feel like me pulling the trigger. But my conscious mind was really quiet. I wasn't analyzing it, it just happened. I just knew when to do it. And that's all. What I would call more of the angel and that's more of your subconscious.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And I think, you know, I think, you know, we, we, you know, we're shooters, right? So you know, we equate things the way we understand them and how our mind and you know, wrapping around being in top level shoot offs, going for titles, going for championships, you know, we felt it. But a lot of the times you're not sitting back and then you're breaking it down to articulate it back to somebody or to educate someone. The one that I took and I read this in a book, so it's not mine, I stole it religiously, but I do that a lot. I steal things. And, and it's, it's a matter of. It was the two, I use the analogy, the two wolves. It's the two wolves. Which wolf will win in the fight? Well, it's whatever wolf you feed so that, you know, they're both hungry. You've got the good wolf, the bad wolf, whatever one you feed is going to be the strong one. So if I've got my wolf on my shoulder saying, you know, you're gonna have a bad day or you're, you're sucking or you're not doing this or you're not doing that, and I'm feeding him, I'm believing him, you know, he's gonna win the fight. If I got the, you know, the good wolf and he's like, you got this, you're doing well, you can focus, you can, you can win today. And I'm feeding him positivity, he's gonna win. But you got two wolves fighting in you all day long. And, and, and I've always felt that I had more success if I went down the positive road and just kind of control that so to, so to take a stop since Ricky's got the angels and I got the wolves

[C]

or the devil.

[A]

That being said, when we've got that internal battle, which all of us have that internal battle, what are some good tidbits of advice that you can get give to the listeners today to actually deal with that. Like what is, what is like your, hey, do this like exercises or thoughts or where would you go with it?

[C]

Well, it's a lot easier said than done. And I could just tell you like my online course is 21 lessons and they're like an hour and a half to two hours each lesson. Okay, so what I'm going to share with you is like a tiny, tiny, tiny little aspect because it's again, it's a lot easier said than done. Things that are on autopilot like beliefs, I never, I always fall apart when it's time for the shoot off. Right. I can, I can never have more than a 50 streak or whatever. Like, you know, those are beliefs and those are subconscious. And that's a bit different than trying to. Like I said, hypnosis can access those, but repetition over a period of time, but you're fighting that. Like if you go in, somebody says, you know what? Think more positive. You got this, you're good and you go, okay, I'm going to try, I got this. I'm going to win in this shoot off. But underneath there's a haunting voice that's like, yeah, right. No, you've never done that before. And so what was your question?

[A]

To reiterate, and we can always edit things out, but to reiterate, my question is if someone's dealing with that internal

[B]

struggle,

[A]

what would you direct them to? Is it the key phrase like Ricky has, see the target is something specific in your teachings. I mean, what would, how would you guide them as a shooter?

[C]

Right. So one, you know, one thing to know. And to me I'd rather people understand the concepts because you can make any method if you understand the concept. So the, one of the concepts is your conscious mind has what's called one pointed attention. It can only focus on one thing at a time. So it's either going to focus on what's for dinner or what's what. What did I do in my last shot? Or can I really pull this off? Or who's watching me? Or you know, my score and argument I had with somebody. So it has one pointed attention. So as long as you understand that about your conscious mind, you're like, okay, so where. And then you become the manager of it. Where is my conscious mind going to? Where is it right now? And let me make sure it's in a good spot. As you've already said multiple times, you know, if I'm already thinking I can't do this, then that's your conscious mind in a very limiting place. And it's the misuse of your imagination. If you're imagining missing it. If you're imagining that, you can't do it because you've never done it before. First of all, that's all imaginary. You're making it up, right? It's not real life. Real life is what you can touch and feel and smell and taste. And so if you're creating a scenario in your mind that is negative or is, you know, less than ideal that you're. You can't do it, then it's the misuse of your imagination. And that's very powerful because your mind is very powerful. And if you learn how to use it right, and you manage it and supervise it and not only stop the crap thinking, that's one whole, like, chunk of time and practice and. And figuring it out. And where do I. Where do I tend to go with my thoughts and what triggers them and what is my beliefs around that? And, you know, so neutralizing the cruddy thinking is the first phase. And then learning how can I use my mind more productively. And so, you know, it's one thing to say it, I got this, but if you don't believe it, then there's work to be done.

[A]

You know, Rick, I just love having the peace of mind and knowing that if I'm traveling or I'm flying, something happens, I can get my winnig and my kragh off replaced quickly and easily. Without costing me a bunch of money.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. The gun and trophy insurance, it's the best out there to ensure your guns, sure. Your trophy, animals, everything.

[A]

Thank you to the whole Cushman family for supporting the show and everything they do for Trap Shooter.

[B]

Absolutely. Get a hold of Cole Cushman and he'll get you set up.

[A]

You know, Rick, the only thing looks better than these hats we're wearing right now is a bunch of gold and silver from Ron Prescott at Midstate Precious Metal. Show them the goods.

[B]

Listen, oh, I got silver right now. I won't bring the gold out for Zach.

[C]

It.

[A]

You know, I always want to get that.

[B]

Gold shotgun shells, 10 ounce bars. Folks, he could do anything for you. For all your shoot needs, give Ron Prescott a call. Midstate Precious Metals dot com.

[A]

He's a great guy. Support him. He supports all the shoots. He supports trap Talk. If you're thinking gold or silver, you need to be thinking Ron Prescott at Midstate Precious Metals. Thank you, Ron.

[B]

That's right. Thanks for all the support.

[A]

You Know, Rick, when you're riding around, your air conditioning and your nice can am and I'm walking, I'm thinking to myself, where do I get one of these things?

[B]

At Big red motorsports, that's where you get one. George or Jason Lee, they'll take care of you, Zach.

[A]

I mean, I need one. I'm tired of riding on the back of that cooler. I want to sit inside that cab and roll around in style. I mean, my face is on the back, but help me out.

[B]

Listen, I'm gonna move your face to the bumper is where it's gonna get moved for the new one, okay? All you need is a little quiche and we can take care of you. But listen, Big RedMotorsports.com thanks, Jason and George Lee and Big Red MOT Motorsports for all the support. They'll take care of you folks. And it's free delivery, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

No, and that. And I agree with that on. You have to believe in yourself. And Zach can attest this because Zach was a student of mine also, and I was taught by a gentleman by the name of Frank Hoppy, who Frank was the best at. You know, he's like, listen, go out there, do your thing, but you got to believe. You got to trust yourself. And if you don't, you're not going to, you know, finish the. The race, so to speak, you're going to fail. So as a young kid, though, I mean, my dad, like we talked earlier, you know, didn't have two nickels rubbed together. He's like, you want to go the next shoot, you better win. Okay? So I went out and that was my. And I got a little taste of that success at 13, 14 years old. And now I'm 51, and I've shot every year since. And it's one of those things that. And I tell all my students, number one, you have to believe in yourself. Okay? If you don't believe you can do it, then we got to figure out what we need to do to get you to believe that. And. And the practice. And I always revert back. And I know I've told Zach this too. A bunch is you. You can be shooting good because in. In trap versus. Have you done much trap mental stuff with many trap shooters at all?

[C]

Yeah, I have a great story with that, too.

[B]

So. So in trap versus sporting. Sporting is, you know, if there's a hundred straight in sporting, that's, you know, awesome. Phenomenal versus trap, you gotta do it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It's expected.

[B]

And that's why, you know, Zach and I have A joke. You know, that I've broke hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hundreds in trap, which I've got like 800 of them or something, so it's a little different. But yes, it's the repetition. And I always tell people if you're doing the same thing over and over correctly, you're gonna do good. But in order to do that, you have to believe in yourself. And if you're going on a long run there, where you're in no man's land, I call it.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Back to breaking it down in 25s or fives, revert back to. I've done that before. That's why I can keep doing it. So.

[C]

Yeah, builds that belief system.

[B]

Yes, exactly. So now you said who. You have a good story about what you've done.

[C]

Yeah. I was flown out to Minnesota last year for an annual women's trap shoot. And to be honest, I didn't know it was trap on the way out there. Now I'm familiar with trap because I have worked with other trap shooters and I have. I own a shotgun club that had trap for a while, but I just didn't come up and conversation. They hired me to come out for an annual event that they have. And, and I was a speaker. And so I get out there, I see that it's a trap course, you know, a club only. And there's about 50 ladies who signed up for my lecture. And at the beginning of it, I always like, you know, hey, how many of you believe in the mental game? Every one of their hands enthusiastically went up and I'm not used to that because I've been working with sporting clay shooters, majority sporting clay shooters, you know, since 2009, and they are skeptical. They don't necessarily all believe in the mental game. They, you know, of course there's misunderstandings around hypnosis, which I expect that anyways, but you know, there will be people in the room with their arms crossed, refusing to nod. And that's what I'm used to. Right. And so there's been a learning curve over all these years and fortunately people are much more open minded about it. So when every single lady raised their hand enthusiastically, I was like, what is going on? And so. And they were like that the whole time. I spoke for two hours. They loved it. They asked the right questions, they had great examples. And, and afterwards I spoke to the person in charge and I was like, how do you explain that? She's like, because everybody in trap knows, you know, because I know a lot of people know, you know, that you have to get 25 straight and then again and again. And you have to do that in the shoot off. And everybody knows they've already got the mechanics, that the mechanics are there, that it's a matter of their mental game at that point as to whether or not they're going to be able to maintain that or win it. And she's like, and, and to me, that's the difference between sporting clays and trap as far as the. Their realization. Maybe not the understanding of the mental game, but their realization that there's something going on there.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, because trap is mental. And it's. I always say it's about 90 mental. As long as your gun fits you and you know where it's shooting your. Your head is what causes you to miss or not believe. And that's where I, you know, I've got a ton of the, you know, sporting clays friends, top shooters that will joke. Traps easy. Traps easy. Like, come on out, you know, and it's one of those things that we have to be perfect. And I always used to joke with someone, I'm like, yeah, you guys are used to failure because you don't, you know, you miss, you could still win. And our game in singles and doubles, you miss, you don't win. So, yeah, that's why in. Zach can attest to this. You know, he's had some long runs in trap singles of I think almost a thousand or right at a thousand. You know, I have a couple, you know, like last year, I missed 20 targets in like 4900, you know, so it's a big thing. And it's right here. And that's what I try to get all my students. I'm like, you got to work on your belief, on your mental game if you can break targets. And Frank Copy taught me. This is. I was a young kid, I was 14 years old, traveling with them. And he said, okay, we're going to bed. I stay up late, as Zach can attest to, it's like 9, 30. Frank's like, we're going to bed. I'm like, what? And he goes, before you fall asleep, I want you to break 100 clay targets in your sleep.

[C]

Nice, Right? Right.

[B]

So I tried it like the first 10. And I'm like, God, how long? Okay, 10. And then I. And then I visualized that. Yeah, I actually did that a few times. And I was like, woke up next day, I broke 100 straight.

[C]

I love that. And there are some great studies that prove that over and over and over again. Okay, yes, I've ever been down the,

[B]

you know, study and route. I mean, it's just kind of, you know, from trial and error of my own, of shooting, you know, a lot of targets.

[A]

A lot of targets. But I, I, I wanna, I wanna circle back. You said that a lot of people in the sporting clays world, you know, had their arms crossed and, you know, kind of aggressive to the idea of mental coaching. And, and I totally get that. So to speak on that today, if we have people that are listening to the show right now that are saying, oh, that's a bunch of crap, or this, that, the other thing, you know, if you could walk us through, you know, what would be a good visualization technique or just a small strategy that you could give the listeners today that maybe someone is a little skeptical can try and work on and see if they see improvement?

[C]

Yeah, well, I think what Richard just said is a great example. And let me again, I like to explain concepts because then you can have any method around that. And so your eyeballs, when you see something, it then gets processed in the mind, right? We're just going to take away the beliefs around it because you can see something and then add, I can't do that. That's the worst shot, you know, whatever. So you see something, again, gets processed in your mind. You close your eyes, you see, you see something, it's still getting processed in the brain and it's practically identical as what studies have shown. And so, you know, whether your eyes are open, your eyes are closed, you still can see and you can still attach a belief to it, you can still get repetition. And so, you know, whatever it is that a person wants to get better at, then, you know, one of the great steps to do is to actually see themselves already successful at it, you know, because the alternative is to keep saying, I can't do it. Right. So, you know, I mentioned because most people tend to be pretty negative, our society trains us to be that way. Our conversations, our friends, you know, we're going to complain about the weather, we're going to complain about the teammates, the squad mates. That's just, it's like normal. And if you don't do that, you're kind of the black sheep, you're the outcast, you know, if you're, you're the Pollyanna or whatever. So we've kind of learned to be miserable together. And, and so that is not the best use of our mind. And it just contributes to more misery, more stress, more problems. And you just start then seeing more things, an Interesting. I don't know if you've ever heard of Law of Attraction, but to break it down into really simple concepts. For a long time, I wanted a Corvette, okay? And so, you know, there's millions of different cars on in the world. And so just think that my mind funneled everything down to, I like a Corvette. I want a Corvette one day. So that's. That's on me, right? That's a decision that I made. I funneled that information, and I came up with this one thing. And so once I do that, I basically, like, tell my mind and my body that's what I want. And so this concept of Law of Attraction or energy is that once I've funneled something in, I will see evidence and proof of that subconsciously, even now, because you can. I can go consciously shopping for a Corvette, right? I can. I can look it up on the Internet. I can call the dealer. I can drive to the deal. That's all very conscious effort. But if I'm driving down the highway at 85 or 90 miles an hour or something, and I'm talking to the passenger about the last shoot, and we're talking about the targets, we're talking about, you know, who was there, who did well, I'm engrossed in this conversation, but my subconscious mind, in my peripheral vision, will see a Corvette coming by, and I will then turn my attention to it. The same thing happens if you've ever, like, bought a car and then you start seeing it everywhere. You're not looking, you're not like, oh, who else has my car? You just start seeing it all over the place. Yeah.

[A]

Pay attention. And my first business coach and mentor, his name was Doug Barry. And you talked about the Law of Attraction. And Doug now runs a city of financial advisors in Raleigh, Carolina, and he had us read a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Talks about the mind's eye, and it talks about the. You know, and you go deeper, like the pineal gland in the brain, and it kind of looks like the Pharaoh's eye. And you get into all the different research, but. But in your mind's eye, you have to believe and see the direction that you want to go. Now, a lot of people will say, that's a bunch of hoopla, I can tell you right here on the show. I was envisioning this podcast for years before I ever did it. And there's other things in my life that I was thinking about that were in my mind that were like, okay, I really want to get this done. I really want to make the all American team. I really want to make the state team. I really want to make the 27 yard line. I envisioned breaking 100 from the 27 so many times before I actually ever did it one time and I, I was like, I am going to get there. But it was, it was the primary thought of my mind. And once that was my attention and that was my focal point, well, then I started putting the effort in the work. So I think there is a big disconnect because people say, Well, I visualized $10 million and I didn't get $10 million. Well, if you, if you visualize without putting specific effort in that direction, then the visualization in my, in my belief doesn't work. You have to not only visualize, but then once it becomes a focal point, like, okay, I'm dreaming of the Corvette. Well, how much is a Corvette? $96,000. Okay, well, how can I get $96,000? And then you start asking questions that start, you know, starting those dominoes of, okay, what can I do to get me one step closer to that Corvette? And when you start asking what can I do? Versus asking I can't do, I think the brain goes through a really magical shift of, okay, solution. So we're solution focused versus that negative focused of, well, I can't do this. There's no way. I mean, Ricky told me a thousand times, if somebody comes in his class and says, I can't do anything, he says, they say can't three or four times. He's like, I can't help.

[B]

I can't help. I give him three or four times if they tell me they can't do something. And I'm like, you're not, you're not here to, to learn. You're here to have a debate is really what you're doing.

[C]

Defend your position and keep doing what you've been doing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I correct and, and, and I think that that goes to.

[B]

With an open mind. Because if you have an open mind, then you're, you're willing to learn. And that's why for years, Don, I used to teach nothing but kids.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Because they were like a spongebob. You would tell them to jump, they'd go, how high, Mr. Marshall? And I'd say, well, my name's Rick or Richard, whatever. And they were like, okay, but. And, and Zach can attest to this. I mean, Zach was the top junior shooter in the country for three or four years at shooting. I mean, he couldn't count to seven, but he could break A clay target. He was like me as a kid, you know, I wasn't the best shooter when I was 13 years old, but I believed that I could break targets. And then my coaching mentor introduced me to some of the best shooters in the world, which is Leo Harrison iii, our greatest shooter of all time. And I shot against him and I would shoot with them occasionally.

[C]

And.

[B]

And what'd you want to do? You wanted to shoot as good as them or beat them, and it happened. And once you get that, you know, that. That little bit of success, that taste of success, confidence, then you believe in yourself, the confidence. That's why I'd say there's that fine line between being cocky.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And being confident.

[C]

Yeah. I teach confidence with humility. That's when your ego is tamed down because you can feed your ego steak dinner and it becomes cocky and arrogant. And we've seen over and over again what happens, especially with athletes, actors, actresses and all that, when that just been fed that ego with praise and glory and money and all this stuff, it can get out of control. And, you know, I think Tiger woods is a perfect example of what happens in that. There's plenty of other examples also. But, you know, to go back, Zach, to what you were saying, you know, we are all familiar with setting goals. We just never thought of it in the way that kind of. That you explained. And so when you. You could say a goal was for me to have a Corvette, or a goal could be, I want to be a doctor. I want to be on Team usa, like, whatever it is. And not only will you start taking action, but you'll be inspired to action as well. Like you'll just have that. Let me call Ricky. I remember a conversation I have with him, like 10 years ago where he did blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then at the coffee shop, next thing you know, you're standing next to somebody who's talking about the exact thing you were just thinking about, and it's like the dominoes just start falling into place. And that's only because I'd already filtered that in, because if I didn't, like, if I decide and this happened to me once, I'm like, I'd love to go to Hawaii one day. And I'm walking down the street, I'm going into the grocery store. I'm not thinking about Hawaii at this point. I'm not. I'm going grocery shopping right then there's a travel agent that I never noticed before. And I'm walking by, and in my peripheral vision I see a Huge poster of Hawaii. And I was like, what? But if I hadn't filtered that in, I wouldn't have. It wouldn't have caught my attention.

[A]

Well, that's exactly right. I think, I think you said that standing in the coffee shop, hearing a conversation and being like, oh, well, there it is. And how many times are we in the right room or around the right area, but you're not listening because you're not focally pointed. I mean, I can promise you there's people that, you know, either me, Ricky or anyone else was like, okay, this is what you need to do to succeed in whatever it is. If they're listening, well, now they've picked that up and they've implemented and they've used it. And if they're not listening, then it's just like white noise. And there's so many things that we hear in a day that are white noise that don't help us achieve our goals. But there's so many times where I promise you, we're walking by tidbits of gold, Someone mentions something in conversation or in passing, you're just like, yeah, you don't think nothing of it. And that could be a really, really, really big, big thing. And I will tell you one of them that happened in my life that I think about all the time is like. And it, it, it, it's in my brain because I remember doing it, I remember bypassing it. And, and I'm not, this is not a condone or a, a shout out to any kind of investment advice, but I had someone come up to me when I was like 16, 17, 18, like at the beginning and be like, this bitcoin thing, it's going to take off. And like, I had, you know, I'm like, with the, with the most conservative, you know, white male, gold, silver and cash guys in the world, like, ah, this is a bunch of crap like the Internet ain't gonna work. And like, I heard like, somebody's like this bitcoin, I mean, it's like a 2 cents a coin or whatever, it's a good deal. And I'm like, but I wasn't thinking about that at that point in time. And I wasn't like, I, I knew it was there, I was aware it came out, it was like on the news. It was like there. And I didn't even consider it. Right where there's other people that, you know, were thinking about technology and thinking about the future and thinking about whatever, maybe they put a thousand bucks in it. Now they've got a million or whatever that looks like. But, but you think about all the opportunities, the people that, you know, jumped on board at Netflix at the beginning or Google or Microsoft or anything. It's just like it all has to do with knowledge. Then it all has to do with forward thought. And how many opportunities have we walked by in our life that we never even know we walked by them until it was too late?

[C]

Well, and the same thing, and I want to be clear because every humans filtering in stuff, right? Like, what are you filtering? And if you're filtering, I'll never be able to hold it together during a playoff or shoot off. I'll never be able to hold it together for a shoot off. Then you will see evidence of that also. And next thing you know, you're in the clubhouse and you're talking to somebody else who's missing all the time and you guys are comparing war stories and you know, it's just building that belief system and it's just growing and growing and growing and, and then you, you approach the next time, the next time you're shooting, you, you will do things to sabotage it, like the anxiety or you try too hard or you get too careful or you become too analytical. There's all these different things that will happen because you already believe you're not going to be able to do it. And so the same, same way I filtered in a Corvette and you might have filtered in, you know, different things related to goals or people on, on the podcast, you know, they filtered in plenty of things and then they're really inspired to make that phone call and to do this and to do that and meet that person. But if you're filtering in the crap, thinking you, you're gonna, you're gonna find reinforcement for that. You're not necessarily seeking it out, but you will hear it. Somebody's complaining on something else that you believe is crappy and shouldn't have happened or is wrong. And then you will hear that and next thing you know, you're in conversation

[B]

together, you jump down the rabbit hole with them. That's what. Yeah, that's what I always say is if you are with positive people, positive things happen. You're with negative people, negative things happen. You know, like Zach talked about the bitcoin deal. I actually had a friend that used to sell some bitcoin back when it was 15 a bitcoin, $20. We're at our gun club and he's like, you anybody want any bitcoin? You know, 10 bitcoin for 200 bucks. I'm like, what is this thing? I said, is it, is it? You're giving me a coin? And they're like, no. And I'm like, I don't want to buy that. You know, of course later on I bought into it when it was a lot more money. But you know, you know, we, we don't realize opportunities sometimes at your feet. But yeah, it is the, the mental game is so extreme that, you know, a lot of my stuff was just self taught and you know, believing in myself because, you know, I was good at other sports but I was really good at shooting. And I was like, okay, I want to keep doing this. And like I said, I didn't have a ton of money growing up, so it was like, how do I do this? Well, back in, Zach can attest to he got in way, way late. But you know, back years ago there was a lot of money you could win in shooting, right? That's how I was able to continue to shoot. And then of course, you know, working in the industry, doing different things, but teaching is always what I've loved to do because I like to see people be successful, right. So if they can be successful with a little bit of help, you know, then, then I'm all for it. And it is one of the things that I know some people don't believe in the mental side or, or they're like, ah, no, you don't do this now. I've never been hypnotized that I know of.

[A]

I said it happened at birth, that'd be great.

[C]

Well, let me clear up some misconceptions about it because you're clearly not alone. Right?

[A]

I just love the way they're covering all the shoots across the country, the content, the pictures, what they're doing online, what they're doing on Facebook, Instagram, what are doing, you think?

[B]

Yeah. Traption usa, it's a great magazine. They are the official magazine of our podcast and we are the official podcast of Traption usa. So we really appreciate it.

[A]

That's really cool. And what they got is a deal right now if you put Trap Talk P in for the print version and Trap Talk D for the digital version, it's 19.99 for the print and 9.99 for the digital for one year, you're not going to find a better deal. So subscribe today, you won't regret it.

[B]

Absolutely. Thank you for all the support.

[A]

You know, Ricky, I know you used it on your barrels, but do you even know what RGS stands for?

[B]

No, Zach, what does it stand for?

[A]

Really good.

[B]

Well, that is true. It is good stuff, folks. I use it to clean my barrels and it does make them shine.

[A]

Only problem is I wear white T shirts when I clean my barrels and I get them all messy, so I got to be better at that. But it gets all the plastic, all the gunk out. Give them a try, folks. They're great.

[B]

That's right. Give RGS a try. We appreciate all the support. Hey, Zach, have you been out to 73 Pointers Ranch lately?

[A]

Know I have. Rick and Carla Burke have been great. I normally hunt pheasants and chucker down there, but now they got a brand new sporting clay facility and it is top notch. I shot it the other day, absolutely loved it. And if you guys haven't, you need to go give it a check out.

[B]

Well, I'll have to come out and do a little hunting and we'll shoot

[A]

some sporty clays then 45 minutes from St. Louis Airport. Come see it if you haven't. Guys, check them out. Rick, I really think that gunfit's probably the most important part of shooting big scores. Would you agree with that?

[B]

Absolutely. I think gunfight it is the most important thing.

[A]

I mean, most of the top all Americans are shooting custom stocks. I know when I got my custom stock, my scores went up. I broke 100 strip in the 27 within seven days. I mean, I'm sure your experience has been similar.

[B]

Yeah, I've been shooting a custom gun stock for 20 years, winning. If you want to win championships, get a win of gun stock.

[A]

Yeah, call Bobby, call Luke. I mean, we got the stock whisperer over there. Bill, give them a shot. They're great and they know what they're doing.

[B]

Absolutely. Winig.com Check them out.

[C]

The. You know, there are misconceptions like, well, I can't be hypnotized. I'll be, I'll tell all my secrets. She'll get in my mind and then she'll poke around. Or I'm, you know, I'm a secret CIA agent and I have top secret, you know, I've had that before. You can't poke around in there, you know, but hypnosis, if you think of the conscious mind and if you were on an eeg, it can measure the brainwave activity. But I want you to know that that's conscious mind brainwave activity. That's not your subconscious, your unconscious, conscious. Like am I conscious or am I unconscious? Right. So conscious mind is measured and the beta is when you're analyzing, you're thinking, you're analyzing you could be wondering, you could be worrying, you could be regretting your. Whatever you're spinning, that's the chatter. Or somebody might say the squirrels or whatever, right? So that's beta. If you start relaxing a little bit, even just gently closing your eyelids and just starting to relax a little bit, that's alpha. And it's a range. It's not like a light switch either. These are ranges right below that is theta, and theta is like, holy, I was almost asleep. Like, you're. You're out of it, but you're not asleep. Like, you can still hear what's happening in the living room, but you are deeply relaxed in the lounge chair, right? And then there's delta. And delta is what we call sleep. And again, that's a range. So if you think about what sleep is now, anybody struggling to go to sleep at night or to stay asleep, it's because of the chatter, right? They got all this chatter, but they need to relax that conscious mind in order to go through this process to go to sleep down here. Or you wake up in the middle of night, and then you keep chattering, and then you have a hard time falling back to sleep. So that's. That's that spectrum. And you're in beta right now. But if I told you to close your eyes, and if you want to, we'll. We can do this together. I know. Let's just do it, right? So close your eyes. Put your feet flat on the floor.

[A]

Problems today. I'm in.

[B]

Yeah, Zach's had a lot of problems recently.

[A]

If I. If I pass out here, I apologize. Fans. I'm tired. It's been a long day.

[C]

All right, close your eyes. Focus right now with your full attention. You got that one pointed attention, your conscious mind. Focus on your breath. And I want you to actually feel the breath as you breathe in through your nose. As you breathe in through your nose right now, you can feel, like, the temperature of the air you may feel. You feel your little nose hairs moving, but feel the temperature of your air as you're breathing it in. And then follow it down through your throat. Then as it enters your lungs, actually fill up your lungs completely. And notice what it feels like when your rib cage expands and it kind of stretches. Like, fill it up completely. And then as you exhale, bring your conscious attention to your breath again as it comes back out through your nose. And notice the difference in the temperature of that breath. And focus on those details right now. With each breath in, you feel the temperature. You notice the sensation. Fill up your lungs Completely. Your shoulders relax down. As you exhale, you feel yourself relaxing further. You may even notice that your jaw is relaxing, your face is relaxing, your eyelids are nice and relaxed. And then right now you can do some visualization. So go ahead and see yourself winning at the competition that you've always wanted to win at. See yourself in the shoot off, breaking 25 straight easily, comfortably, no problem. Very easy. It's smooth, you're in the zone, you're in the flow. It doesn't even feel like it's you pulling the trigger. It is so easy. And notice how great you feel. Notice the enthusiasm in your body because you have succeeded at doing something you've been wanting to do for a long time. And that feels so good in like every cell of your body. And breathe into that. And with every breath that you take, notice how much better you feel. You feel amazing, you feel successful. You know you can do this, you know you have done it, and you know you can do it moving forward. In any event that you choose to put your mind to, that you choose to win, and that you choose to believe in yourself as you breathe into that. It feels amazing. You know you feel good, you know who you are, you know what you've done, you know all the growth and the success that you've had, and you know what you bring to the table. You are fully capable of getting that win that you want. And then I'm going to count from one to three. When I, when I get to the number three, open your eyes. Noticing how great you feel. So 1, 2 and 3 opening up your eyes, that was super quick, obviously, but did you want to go to sleep?

[A]

Now? What I can immediately feel is I could definitely notice the temperature variance of my breath in through the nose. It was a very cool, calming, you know, know, relaxing, like a cool air conditioning, walking through a field, type of calmingness. And then on the way out, I could feel the heat of the breath. And I'm like, you know, this is leaving my body. And it almost felt like a negative energy leaving my body. And then I was pouring positive energy in with the cool because I hate hot. If anybody knows me, I sweat so than the ocean. I drink about, about 15 bottles of water a day. So like I'm always sweating. So for me, my, my happy place is like a cool ocean breeze. Like that's my, my, my, you know, my, my happy and my pizza. But you know, I, I was trying really hard to visualize, you know, winning, winning a ring at the grand. But for whatever reason,

[B]

I knew exactly What?

[A]

For whatever reason.

[C]

Nice.

[A]

For whatever reason, I actually ended up visualizing me shooting as a kid. So I don't know why my brain

[C]

was there, but it kind of went

[A]

backwards instead of forwards. But, but it's just the quiet state allowed me to see some visuals and see some stuff. It's, you know, not as no stress

[B]

when you were a kid, Zach.

[A]

Yeah, a lot of no stress.

[B]

I said no stress when you were a kid.

[C]

Yeah, I would love to have jumped on that. Yeah.

[A]

All my stress hairs are right here.

[B]

22 years old. Knox.

[A]

I look horrible for a 20 year old. Yeah, it's not great. But, but Ricky, what'd you, what'd you feel? I mean, what was your experience?

[B]

So I've done a lot of visualization, visualization in the past. I, I don't do much of it anymore just because I, I guess it's just all repetition, you know, for me and being positive. But honestly I went back to when I was younger also of visualizing those targets that Frank Hoppy, like I said, he was my coach and mentor and I mean I miss him deeply. He's been passed away now, God, 13, 14 years. And I mean every championship I ever won was because of him and, and such and, and of course my, my dad and, but my wife especially, I've been with her for 25 years and she's a past all American shooter herself. So she's the reason I get to do all this stuff pushes me and. Yeah, but it's one of those things is just visualizing targets and, and, and Don's right with that is you have to believe in yourself because if you don't believe in yourself, no one else is going to believe in you.

[C]

Yeah. And that was a combination. Go ahead.

[A]

I, I want to give you a compliment, dawn, because you've been able to do something today that nobody in any of our shows has been able to do. And that's keep me and Ricky quiet for about three minutes. So that was probably all right. You know, you're, you now hold the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest amount of time on Trap Talk where me and Ricky didn't speak. And I think the listeners are going to enjoy that thoroughly.

[B]

I was gonna say that. So we have, we have a bad deal of talking, but no, it is, it's one of those things of, you know, it, it it clear doing the, the breathing. You know, I just got back from, from hunting and I, it was the first time that I went on a, a big game style hunt in my life because I've had hundreds and hundreds of opportunities to go and do it. I just was always. I was too busy. I was this, I was that, and. And a good friend and a sponsor of our show, Cole Cushman, invited a big group of us, like, hey, let's all get together. And it was myself and Corey Cruz and Joey Charnico and Cole and Ryan Walker, which is one of Cole's buddies, and Jason Rambo from Dead Pair podcast. We all got together in southwest Texas and had a great time. But when I was, you know, trying to take an animal, which I ended up, you know, taking a black buck, which is a cool animal, and I was so thankful to do that. But the breathing came into part in it, where I'm like. Because I'm walking up 2,000ft this, that at different times, but this time it wasn't a huge elevation change. But I got there, and I could see the excitement got to me, and I kind of reverted back to when I'm shooting off. It's like, okay, you need to just go in your place.

[C]

Nice.

[B]

And I, you know, just was nice and calm, and. And it was that breathing, though. So that is a big thing that I think shooters overlook is some guys. And I've had some students, they're like, yeah, I get down to the end and. And I'm like, putting the gun up and. And I got these little stars going around. I'm like.

[A]

Because they haven't breathed, because you're not breathing. That's oxygen, homie.

[C]

And you need some oxygen in your life.

[B]

And I got a great story about that with my son Tyler, who Zach knows really well. Zach's known him. Known Tyler since he was born, since

[A]

he was a little squiglet.

[B]

Yeah, Tyler. We were at the North Dakota State shoot during COVID 2020. It was the only state shoot going on that week. Everybody else had canceled. So the North Dakota State shoot usually gets, like, say, 20 squads. That year, I think we had 60, because everybody went to Bismarck, North Dakota, and Tyler went. And we're shooting together, and we're shooting the singles championship. And he breaks 94, the first hundred. I break 100. We go the second hundred. Our whole squad is straight, except for one shooter by the name of Jack Canals. Now, Jack, at the time had broke, like, three or four, two hundreds. But Zach had missed or Jack had missed. And our. Everybody else is straight. The second trap, everybody's straight. The third trap, every straight. And I'm thinking Tyler, 75 straight. His first 75 straight ever. Gets down to the end and one of the kids had missed. So we're going, we're on a 498 out of 500 squad. Rolling right along. I get to post five. My son's on post four. He's left handed now, Don. So I look over, I can't see his face, just his back. But Jack can see him. And Jack said, tyler has asthma. He hit his inhaler like four or five times.

[C]

He was so nervous, he was chipping on that puffer.

[B]

Myself in that last post and I did, I said, I said, lord, I'll take a 0 on this post for a 195 out of 200 if my son can break 100 straight.

[C]

Oh yeah.

[B]

And I'm breaking targets. And he got down and he broke it. And I look over at him, I give him a big hug. I actually have it all on video. A shooter videoed it, didn't even know it. And pictures and everything. But I go, are you okay? And he goes, I can't breathe. I got so nervous, so. And that's where I told him. And nowadays I'm like, son, when you get in these situations, breathe, just work on controlling your breathing and you will perform better, you know?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And there's a lot to that because again, if we go back to the single, single pointed attention, your conscious mind, bring it to your breath is a heck of a lot better than I can't do this. I always screw this up. And so that's a neutral thing you can bring it to. But then on the double, like positive, is it actually help you to relax? You know, I always tell people I write in Trap Shooting USA and Clay Shooting USA and all these different magazines. I always tell people if you read in a magazine article, it tells you to take a deep breath during your pre shot routine. That's not just, you know, and then letting it out like that's not going to do nothing for you. Pull in again. You know, Zach's asked me for a few tips, like do the kind of breath that I just did with Zach and Ricky, like feel the temperature of it, go into the detail. And that right there leads to another tip. And that's why they say, see the details on the target. Because you know, a breath is like whatever, but going into the detail of my breath is occupying my conscious mind with specific information to keep it, you know, out of trouble, basically.

[A]

Hey, Rick, we got to take a second. We got to thank Outlaw Engineering and the Freston family for supporting Trap Shooting and supporting Trap Talk podcast. They've been Here for us. They're great people, you know. You know them real well, Rick.

[B]

Yeah, I. I've known Randy since 1988. R2 and. And the family. They're great supporter of the show coupe. Just won the Autumn grand handicap championship with a 97.

[A]

I know, I was there. I got to interview him. It was great. I was so proud of him. He's doing a great job. Where's Coup? He's somewhere with that big buckle. He's having fun. So you need anything engineering related, get a hold of Outlaw. They'll take great care of you. Great folks.

[B]

Thanks for all the support.

[A]

Outlaw. You know, Rick, I. I know you had a lot of involvement with them since the beginning, since they started. But I really love the way that the shot tracker, you know, catches the doubles from shot to shot with the looping. You know, tell the folks what they need to know about that system.

[B]

It's the best system out there. It's like having a coach on the end of your barrel, like we say, but going especially in doubles, from first shot to second shot. You can see it on the graph. You can see it on video.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, if you talk about that J hook with Sean Holley and all them, I mean, it'll literally show that loop. And I think that's really powerful if you're doing it. They've supported the show since the beginning. They love trap shooting. They're great people. Give them a shot, folks. They make a great product.

[B]

Take Aim technologies.

[C]

And so the same thing with the target, looking for the detail, whether it's the shadow, the light, the 4 o', clock, the 2 o', clock, like whatever it is looking for some kind of detail is intended to do the same thing that I just explained. The same as feeling the little hairs on your nose. Like it brings your conscious mind into that moment and you need to have that vision. Your subconscious is amazing and process the information and know when to pull the trigger. But you've got to give it the right data. But I want to go back because I was explaining like beta, alpha, theta, delta. And so what I did with you guys. So you got conscious level, lots of thinking. I said, close your eyelids and then start focusing on your breath. Now you're. That was at will, right? I couldn't make you do any of that. But if you participated and chose to go along with it, you would have dipped into at least alpha because it was quick. But if I kept going and I kept talking in like a monotone voice and repeating things and giving you more thoughts and Visuals and, you know, tensing and relaxing, I could have brought you down into theta. And then if you had a really long day and you're tired, you would have gone to sleep. Right? And so that's the process. But so hypnosis is anywhere in that whole alpha theta. There's light hypnosis and deep hypnosis. And so what that tells you is everybody has gone through hypnosis. It's not as strange and odd and weird as people think. They just don't understand it because they've never been taught about it. So, yeah, if you hover in this alpha theta state, your conscious mind, which, remember, that's where your willpower is. That's where your ego is. That's where. That's where your critical factor is. Like, critique. I can't do that because I believe this. It's critiques against what you already have. And so that's all that conscious level. So if you're quieting that stinker down, you're actually much more receptive to change. And that's what hypnotic suggestion is. And, Ricky, you've talked a lot about visualizations, but there's hypnosis with suggestions. You're amazing. You can do this. And I threw in a bunch of suggestions for you guys also. Like, you've got this. Look how far you've come. You're successful over all these years. You can definitely do that. So you got, like, I don't even know, 20 suggestions or something on top of that visualization. And if somebody's open and receptive and they're like, yeah, I like that, then it's coming in there, and it literally takes hold. So that's what hypnosis is. It's just that people don't understand it because they've never been taught, but it's extremely powerful.

[A]

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with trust, too, because, like, I've talked to some people about hypnosis before in sports medicine and kind of what they do and where they go with the brain, and it becomes, okay, do I really want to let someone in my brain? Do I really want to relax enough? But to go into that alpha theta state that you were talking about. I've had the most vivid dreams of my life when I'm literally on the couch watching TV and I'm tired, and somewhere between watching TV and slowly getting relaxed and then passing out, and pretty soon I'm in a spider man movie in my dream. And because that's what I, you know, it just. It just, like, I can believe that there's got to be a way that the information is processing if you're relaxing and letting it in. Because why the hell am I having these vivid visualizations and vivid dreams?

[B]

You need, you need a dream like Barney tonight.

[A]

Okay, Most of the time, most of the time it's Sopranos and I'm digging a ditch somewhere in New York and I got a sandwich cigar with Tony in. It's like, hey, this is my show. But, but it, yeah, it happens and it happens when I least expect it. If I get relaxed now, if I, if I, if I'm not relaxed, then I don't have those types of deep dreams. And, and, and those types of things never come up. But if I like slowly go into the process like you said. And yeah, over a period of time, that's where it kicks in.

[C]

People that meditate on purpose or do hypnosis. Hypnosis and meditation are the same states. You know, it's that zone anywhere from light to deep meditation, light to deep hypnosis. And you know, Alexandra Bell, Einstein, all these people had journals and they actually talk about what came to them. They solved problems because they got insight and inspiration and problem, you know, resolution at 3 o', clock, 4 o' clock in the morning when they're in the twilight zone, that half awake, half asleep. So it's a known state for getting great insight. And you know, it can be very productive if you learn how to like dip into that and kind of let your mind hover there. So not only can suggestions come in, but you can have some great insights and such that bubble up. But here's the other super cool thing. And now I've been a hypnotist since 2001 and I private practice and everything. I was seeing people all day long and I started connecting dots because I've been working with clients on, with hypnosis longer than I was working with athletes. And so when somebody would come out of hypnosis, they would say, wow, that was amazing. It felt euphoric. Time flew by. If an ambulance happened to go by or police car or whatever with their sirens on, I would ask them, did you hear that? No, I didn't hear anything. So everything disappears around them. You know, I said the time distortion, everything disappears. It feels euphoric. There's all these different things. Then I start working more and more with athletes and I start inquiring and asking athletes, how do you explain the zone? Have you ever been in the zone? Some say never. Some say, I don't know what it is. Some say Sometimes, some say all the time. Some say I've done it, but I don't know how to get back in it. Like so I, I, but I'd say, well, what, what was it like? And so I've asked thousands of athletes at this point and I started hearing the same thing. Time flew by, everything disappeared around me. It was just me and the target. It was just me and whatever. It felt amazing. It didn't even feel like it was me pulling the trigger. And it was paralleling what I kept hearing from my hypnosis clients. And so I started connecting these dots and realizing, okay, then you talk to an athlete and they say, well, I want to shoot subconsciously, I want to shoot intuitively, I want to shoot instinctively. And I'm like, I can help you do that because I know how to get to there. But like five or eight years ago, science actually ran, they actually ran some stuff, studies on elite athletes in that peak performance state when they're having their best performance and they were in alpha. So that's already proven, the zone state is the alpha state. And that's what I've been helping people to do for, you know, 20 something years. And that's why I saw the parallels. And so there are people out there, there are so called experts, high level, that will tell, you can't create the zone, you can't make it happen. And I would say they're wrong, except for it's true, you can't make it happen. That would be going, trying too hard, over analyzing, trying to force it, trying to be too. You can't make the zone happen. But if you understand your mind, you can let go of all the things that are keeping it from happening and you can train to be in the zone. Oh, you guys are quiet again.

[A]

We're learning stuff. You got two, two world records in one show.

[B]

When Zach doesn't talk like that. And I'll look at the stream, I'll look at it and I see that little gerbil running around that little marble you had.

[A]

My little, my little cages were going, they were wheeling.

[C]

I'm like, okay, I like that.

[A]

Remove the problems, make more success.

[C]

Okay, yeah. And the problems are the misuse of your conscious mind and the limiting beliefs and habits that are in your subconscious mind.

[A]

And that's powerful information. I mean, I think intuitively people might have had some of these thoughts, but I think to connect them all together and then understand them and understand, because I would never know it was the alpha state until today, I mean, but I can thoroughly tell you that I've been in the zone before where I couldn't hear cars behind me honking. I couldn't hear the wind blowing. I could only like, everything was super. Like I could hear my heartbeat.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I could. And I could see the target coming out. And I was like, okay. And I was handling everything at almost a, you know, lightning fast reflex, but it almost seemed slow. It was like.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and I'm like. And you know, when I've gotten in there, the. The only thing that's. That's helped me get there sometimes is like, I used to use molded earplugs and. Which I don't know if you probably know what they are, but. But sometimes I used to take the foamies and really stick them in deep and like they kind of. And as everything's getting really, really quiet, I just start that breathing technique where I'm just. And I'm just pushing everything down and trying to really relax and not think about a whole kinds of stuff. And, you know, that's been the most successful technique. To get into it without forcing it to happen is just the. The meditative breathing and the quietness of my quiet mind and my, you know, and my. My visual acuity of just paying attention to what's going on. I. I'd say it's being aware. Being aware of your surroundings and being aware of what's going on without focusing on any one thing. Like, I feel the wind on the back of my legs and I know the targets are going down without ever thinking the thought. Like, I feel. I feel it.

[C]

That's presence. Uhhuh.

[A]

It's presence.

[C]

And.

[A]

And that's a powerful thing.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah. You gotta. It's. It's one of those things of one. I always say you got to believe in it, and if you don't, it's. It's not going to work. And. And I've got a lot of students that, you know, when you start talking about breathing or different things that you could just see, they're just like, off, you know?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Show me how to.

[A]

Show me how to shoot the shotgun, Rick. Because if you show me how to do that, I'll hit all the targets.

[B]

Duh. Not you. You. We. Zach is a mental at times. So he used to be able to not count to seven. We fixed that. We got him to count to 5, 10, 15, then 20, then 25. Boom. He breaks 100 straight. No, but in all seriousness. So it is one of those things when you're a kid, you know, when you're Younger, you just do whatever and it's, it's easier as you get older. That's where the negative stuff starts coming in of, well, I can't do that. Like I tell people, I'm like, you know, you got to break a 200 straight. I can't do that. Why can't you? Yeah, I mean, what's stopping you? That's why I'm a big believer. I know we, we talked about it earlier just a little bit, but the goals, I set goals for every shoot. I have year end goals, I have bucket list goals, you know, because I always say we, as humans, we, we love self satisfaction, which is this. So you do something good, pat yourself on the back, move on to your next goal. It ties getting achievements, you know, to achieve. You got something to look forward to or visualize to.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's a big thing, you know, that, that I tell everybody. If you can't see it, you're not going to do it.

[C]

Well, I find it so fascinating that there are so many skeptics out there because it's like at this point, I don't see anything else. And maybe it's the whole law of attraction for me also. But there's a cause and effect relationship between your, your mind and your body. That's why right now you can think about something traumatic that happened five, 10 years ago yesterday, and it could make you cry. That thing didn't happen. It's not happening right here. You thought about it and then you had a physical reaction. You could think about the stock market, you could think about politics, you can think about what's happening, you know, up in Minnesota or whatever. You could think about whatever. And however you think about it, you can have a physical reaction to it and it can elevate your heart, your heart rate, your blood pressure. With Vijay Singh, he was shaking, he had numbness, he had heart, you know, heart racing, he was sweating. And that's all because of his thoughts. It's not like the body is just suddenly just doing that. You're having certain kinds of thoughts. So the breath, you know, for someone who thinks it's funny or goofy or woo woo, like, hey, it's just a way to calm yourself down because, you know, give yourself something to think about because there is a cause and effect relationship between your mind and your body. And you can either keep thinking crappy and keep escalating your heart rate and your blood pressure, you can figure out ways to calm it down.

[B]

Can you help Zach out with that? I mean, with sweating, is there a

[C]

Way to do that. This boy sweats, you know, quite interestingly. I did, I did. I was hired for that in my private practice with hypnosis and some. This guy, yeah, he would sweat profusely and I, and it would happen. It was funny because clearly I'm not going to give any names or anything, but with this guy, he, he, he said it only happened around his in laws. He's like. But what's odd is I love my in laws. He's like, I have no conscious thoughts about disliking them or anything.

[A]

He would not around certain people type of problem this is out in here and 20% daily. Nobody I've met no human being that can drink water. Like I drink water. I go through pictures of it and when I go to the restaurant, I'll generally let the waitress know to bring the whole picture and put it on the table. Or.

[B]

Yeah, it's like, what?

[A]

No, no, I, I love H2O. Everybody knows. I just love to drink it. And especially when I'm shooting, I'll. At the Grand, I shoot four boxes and I'll go have four boxes, four bottles of water. I'll drink all four bottles of water every event. So I just, I just, I don't know. I've loved water. I don't drink soda. Whiskey water is pretty much the only

[B]

thing I do but ruin the whiskey with water.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

So, so, so. I mean, Don, you've covered a lot of great things for the listeners today. I think this is all helpful, relevant information, you know, at whatever level they want to utilize it. I know that, you know, anybody that says that breathing is hoopla doesn't know what they're talking about because. Because the reality is, you know, there's Navy SEALs out there that I, that I've met and that. That use box breathing to lower their heart rate.

[B]

This weekend I just, I just heard that with, you know, just real quick, Corey Cruz said some friends of his that are Navy SEALs talk about doing four or five breasts and you get in this euphoric state and that's where it's so easy to squeeze that trigger.

[C]

Let's say the alpha state. Yeah, they just did what we were talking about, huh?

[B]

Yeah, I tried that. We were hunting and it actually, it was really weird. And I didn't tell Corey that before we left. But yeah, that it is thinking about that. That's it is.

[A]

But like I said, these guys that I know, they say they use this called. It's Navy SEAL box breathing. You can google it. Box breathing techniques and It's a specific drill that they use when they're either going into fire or they're in fire. And they've got to back it down because I mean your, your adrenaline's pumping. I mean you're going at a level that you're shaking.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And so, you know, this stuff is not, this is science. Now, now I, I, I think there's different levels for everyone, right? There's different levels of commitment, there's different levels of trust, there's different levels of, of insight and education on this topic. But at the bare minimum, we could all agree that breathing and lowering your heart rate is probably not a bad thing to do when you're, when you're, well, when you're under pressure or you're in that, you know, high pressure state.

[C]

There's a great book called Stealing Fire and each chapter is basically like there's a chapter about the elite military and how they entered the zone, the flow, the alpha state for, especially when they're doing group things, you know, and need to be in conjunction. They're all, they've all practiced to be in that zone athletes. But then it goes on and on. Like each chapter shows the same state. So the peak performance state is how to be your best human self. And whatever you tend to do that in, I mean it can be in relationship, it can be in work, it can be, you know, as your financial advisor, a day trader in Canada hired me recently to help him get overcome some of the beliefs that he was having that he really felt was inhibiting him. Yeah. From making the kind of trades that he knew he should be making. But he had fears and such. So, you know, peak human performance. The zone state is again just peak humor performance, period. And no matter where you apply that, that's where you're going to be your best self. So it can be military, it can be sport, it can be being intimate with your partner, anything. And that's, that's where it's at. So yeah, I do go ahead.

[A]

Well, Don, I, I think that you're a wealth of knowledge. We really appreciate having you on the show today. You know, there's probably some subsequent follow up questions that we're going to get from this episode that we might touch base back with you on. You know, but for everyone listening today, I'm sure they've got something out of this episode at some level. Is there any other shot, any other thoughts that you would like to share before we, yeah, we depart today?

[C]

First of all, I'd love to be on anytime if you get questions about the mental game. I'll be happy to come on here and answer them. People can find me on social media. So it's just Don Grant mental training. Any of the profiles. Even my shotgun club, Amelia Shotgun Sports. I have viral content like clay shooting, Mind Game Mondays, reels and such with tips. I also have clay shooting, free web classes, and the URL I wanted to share with everybody because it's free. And this is another opportunity to learn if you type in tinyurl.com and then CS for clay shooting and then web class. So tinyurl.comcswebclass and so they can learn more. It's like an hour and a half of more of my teachings and everything, and then more, you know, direction if they want to step further. Yeah. DawnGrant.com is my website. I do write in, like, Lady Lifestyle magazine, Trap Shooter Team. What else? Sporting Clays USA Trap Shooting USA and Wing and Clay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. And there are this. They are the signature sponsor affiliate with Trap Talk. So we. There are. There are magazines. So we. We're in all four of those with you. And we, we love the quality of the articles that they put out. And also we love the. The vivid pictures and the context of those magazines. I mean, they're great magazines. Anybody. Anybody that's not subscribed, make sure to get on and. And either digitally subscribe or subscribe for the actual mailed copy. Because, I mean, they're really cool and they've got a lot of cool stuff in there.

[B]

They're.

[A]

They're keeping up to date, and they've got not just singular trap shooting information, but, like, all kinds of information in each one of these magazines for our listeners, so. Well, Don, as I said, it's a pleasure. And you. You've gotten, you know, two accolades a day. You've got to shut up for a few minutes, which is. Which is a big accomplishment. I. I didn't think.

[B]

All right.

[C]

No, I'm just. The wives do talk.

[A]

You got us. You got us quiet, which was a big deal. So I know the listeners appreciated that, that moment of silence without hearing our voices. So.

[C]

Oh, there's one more. Real quick, if you don't mind. I do have my own podcast also. It's Clay Mastermind, so. And that's found on any of the podcast channels. And they can hear me interviewing and talking to people and. And talk about all the same stuff.

[A]

Well, that's good. And we love the information. We appreciate your time, and we appreciate the advice and the knowledge, and hopefully someone can take something good out of this episode and integrate it into their game and to become just a little bit better. I mean, just one degree better in the right direction. So thank you all for listening. Happy Friday. Remember, like, share, subscribe, comment, take a friend shooting. If you haven't wear your your Trap Talk merch. Ricky's looking good in the Trap Talk OG hat. John just released some polos and some slickers in our in our store, so make sure to get those if you want to be styling and profiling with us at the grand next year. So we're, we're excited for what 2026 has to offer. We got a bunch of new content coming down the pipe. We got a bunch of new interviews that we're doing. And, and we're having fun. So we appreciate you all. Thanks for tuning in. Happy Friday.

[B]

Good luck.

[C]

Thank you. Thank you.