Mastering Acceptance Without Giving Up | JR Vezain x Champion Living

In this special collab episode of the Champion Living Podcast and The Spur Your Way Out Show, JR Vezain sits down for one of his most honest conversations yet about recovery, identity, belief, and what it takes to climb out of the dark places in life.

This episode goes beyond JR’s injury story and into the mentality that shaped him long before and long after it. From early rodeo dreams and bareback riding school memories to the pressure of chasing a gold buckle, JR talks about the “reckless abandonment” it takes to truly pursue something at the highest level, and what happens when life forces you to rebuild that mindset from the ground up.

The conversation dives into identity crises, setbacks, jealousy, purpose, and the battle that happens between your ears. JR reflects on the dark hole he had to climb out of, the turning points that changed his perspective, and the moment he finally decided enough was enough.

If you’ve ever wrestled with purpose, comparison, fear, or trying to figure out how to keep going when life looks different than you planned, this episode will hit hard.

At the center of it all is a message about resilience, faith, and learning how to keep striving without giving up.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, we got some exciting news for you. If you're listening to this, we know that you're committed to upping your game in the arena. And we're teaming up with the Rodeo Now app to help you do just that. The Rodeo Now app allows you to record, upload, and catalog your rides and runs, review your performances in slow motion, and our favorite feature, if you're not familiar with your stock draw, you can search your animal by name to get all the intel you need to make your next ride a winning one. Join the Rodeo Revolution today and download the Rodeo Now app for free. It's available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Welcome back to the collect episode of Champion Living Podcast and the Spur Your Way Out Show. Spur Your Way Out Show. JR, I'm happy you're here, brother. Man, this is fun. We've been talking about this for a while, so it's cool to be here. It is, and uh, we have been talking about it for a while, and I'm just glad we're actually in person. You're at the house. We're doing the first ever episode in the studio, which is cool, which is gym garage, workshop, playground, all of the things in one.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Yeah, and for the collab, this will be the first guest for the Spirit Your Way Out show.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

I'm honored, man. I'm just gonna, this is probably a broad assumption, but I'm gonna assume majority of people that are at least listening to my show have a good idea about your story. You've been on our show before. We've talked a lot about your past, your experience in rodeo, and a little bit about what's going on in the future. But just fill us in a little bit the last couple years. What have you been what have you been working on?

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Yeah, and same for Spur Your Way Out. If you don't know the story, go back and listen because we got all the episodes out. So the rec's 2018, I'm in the eighth year of recovery. And actually, last night I was in Dillon at I had the opportunity to go share a keynote speech at the college rodeo banquet, their fundraiser. And I said the line I am in the process of mastering the art of acceptance without giving up. I'm still striving, trying to get out of the wheelchair and doing life, man. I have a boy that just went skiing for his first time yesterday with the school. Six years old, he'll be seven in May. Shelby and I, we just got back from Texas where we went and spent them six weeks down there, got into showing cow horses the past few years, doing leather work and trading cattle and just doing life, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

What don't you do?

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Yeah, honestly, what don't I do or the stuff that I don't want to do and everything else? We're trying to figure it out and get it done. Dude, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

What uh Western Montana University, is that correct? Yep. And so you got to speak with that's the banquet that like a fundraiser for their team, raise money for the whole team. Yep. What did you get to talk about during that time?

SPEAKER_03 2:48

I've done a lot of public speaking in the past few years, and most of them are have a topic, perseverance or leadership, or some of those things, or just tell the story, inspiration, encouragement, right? And last night I showed up and they said we don't want to lose interest, so keep it kind of short. So I had a poem that I wrote basically a story on my life. So I didn't get a whole bunch of the life lessons that I've learned from this, but I shared a story kind of of my whole life up until this point, and then just got to talk about really what dug me out of some of those dark holes and the importance of help and the importance of allowing people to help you, and the importance of accepting help, and the really just encouragement to don't be scared to help, be generous with your help because you never know how much that's going to impact somebody's life, is really what I tried to touch on last night.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I want to go back to the the dark hole that you had to climb up out of. What at the very, very root, we're going through an identity crisis. And you didn't just lose your job, you lost your life, is you have to live life differently. What does the process look like in the beginning? Because while my story is different than yours, I went through something very similar, which you know about. I definitely had an identity crisis during that time. And I just when after because mine happened before your injury, I believe. When your injury happened, I remember thinking back to like I had my perspective changed because of your experience, right? And I was kind of myself had been in this dark hole of all I've known as bareback riding for the last how long, dude. I was thinking back like me and you met at Clint Cannon School. Do you remember this?

SPEAKER_03 4:45

So that's what I was trying to remember. The first time we met would have been 2010 at Clint Cannon's Bearback Riding School. So you've been a friend of mine for 16 years now. And I rodeoed with your brother. We were the same era. Um not gonna lie and say that we're best friends, but we've dang sure been acquaintances and been good buddies for a long time, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

And so you broke your neck. Broke my back lumbar. And when was that? 2013.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Okay, 14. Okay, I didn't realize it was that early after that. Okay, yeah. So 2014, and then so that was you were gung-ho on Rodeo Brecker.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Prior to that, I and I don't I don't think I've ever told anybody this, but when I was younger in high school, I went to a private high school. Parents did a lot to send me there, right? I didn't experience any part of life that I thought was life or at that time, like the socialization, the you know, you watch most high school movies these days or a story about high school kids, they're going to parties, they're drinking a little bit, they're having fun. I never did any of that. When I graduated high school, I kind of went a little crazy in the sense of just what's that? And it just led me to a place where I was lost. I ended up getting arrested, going to jail for a while. That changed my whole perspective about life in general. But really, what I'd realized, and this has been a journey ups and downs from since then, but I just didn't there was no I didn't have Jesus in my life at that point in time. Yeah, I realize that now, right? We'll get to that in a bit, but end up going through all that, get cleared, and when I was coming out of that, I you know, now that we're talking about it, that was kind of like a weird identity thing as well. I didn't know who I was, but I knew who I didn't want to be. And I knew that the part of me that I really loved was all I can remember was rodeoing in high school. I loved that version of myself. I loved who I was around my friends, I loved those people that were there, and I was like, I'm gonna get back to that. And so I had to move home with my parents as a part of getting out of jail and doing all that, and they lived in the woodlands, Texas, and that's where we went to Bubba's church up branded for Christ up in Huntsville, and I got on the first horse I'd been on in dude, a long time. It'd been seven years, probably, maybe not five years, but I just fell in love with it after that, right? And so from that moment on, my goal was to make the NFR. I wanted just like I think anybody that starts this, right? You want to be a world champion. Absolutely, yep. And so it was awesome because it changed everything about what I was doing in my life at that time. But I I hadn't learned again, I'm 20 years old, all right, 19 years old, and like I hadn't learned anything about systems or the process of actually being successful in anything in life. I just worked really hard and associated that with success. No one ever drew out pictures or or the trail map, you know, for us to say, hey, this is the beginning and this is how you get to those golden bucking shoots. So I just everything I had, I just like you breathe, ate, slept, bareback riding. And so we met you at that school with Clint, and I remember Kelly came down to instruct, and he brought you with him.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

And it was like us three, really, me, you and Richie, after the first day, we're like the only ones getting on bucket horses, and I think we got on like nine head or ten head apiece that second day, dude. Yep. And they just kept rolling them in and rolling them in, and they were firing and stuff. Matt Bright was there, and I that was one of those times in my in the early part of my career where I I saw that I could actually do this, and it was Yeah, that was at a pinnacle of my my career too.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

So I was shoot, I would have been a senior in high school. The dream was real. I had started stuff had started to click, but that was a real I then ended up going to college at Vernon shortly after that, and the rest was history, right? But that was a real pivotal moment in our careers, Richmond's, yours, mine, everybody's that was involved there. There was a that was a big stepping stone for that little core group of us that was there, and shoot, what there was like 60 or so kids there, and so many kids. Okay, so this is really fun for me because as we've got into that a little bit, like I know your parents, right? Like good friends doing your parents, you know, and and I remember staying, you were renting that place in Huntsville, and we crashed there when we were rodeoing. And I was talking to another high school rodeo buddy about this. He was I asked him actually two days ago, what was the difference in us? Why did I make it and you didn't? And was that hard for you? Because it wasn't very long after that that Richmond made it big. I want to dive into that a little bit because from that moment that we were just talking about to 2014 and then 2014 to now, I've seen you kill it from a distance and some of that stuff. But I know from my experience that that didn't come easy, that doesn't come easy, and the whole just to spur your way out is not only celebrating victories, but let's get nitty and gritty and talk about some of the mentality that got you from there to where you are. Was that tough for you as a bigger older brother to watch the success?

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Yeah, it was tough in the sense of I felt like I wasn't performing at the my capabilities, so the up to my like utmost potential, right? And looking back, it was right here. A hundred percent of it was in between my ears, and watching Rich was like, dude, that was so cool for me, as I think it was for everybody, because he was doing things that that had never happened in rodeo, right? Like we were turning history book pages there, man, and we still look back now, and it's been a decade since he won that million dollars. They still talk about that story over and over. Because that was the thing, it was the first thing it was the thing, and I just I was never jealous or anything like that. I at times thought, like, why can't I like figure this out, right? Yep, but looking back at this stuff, man, like I wouldn't be here doing what I'm doing now if that all would have gone really well, I don't think, if we're in the same capacity, and I wouldn't have figured this all out the way that I had to to get where I am. And it's I was very lucky, blessed to get to come back to this and get on again seven years after uh this injury, right? Yeah, Levi loaded Jesse's girl for me, like it was the perfect scenario, but I had something in me that when after I got hurt in Estes Park, like we'll get into the the dark hole there, but I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this at this level that I knew I always could, and I never would believe that I could.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Man, that's so good because that is exactly what my buddy and I talked about the other day. I said, what was the difference? Because he was he was the greatest Wyoming high school bearback writer at the time that him and I met. And so I looked up to him and was trying to beat him, right? We we even went to a s our first year of college together and went through college rodeo together, and I excelled, and we were talking about what I asked him, I said, What was the difference? And he said, Man, I'll never forget. He said, I was a sophomore in high school and he was a senior, and he said, There was you told me something, and what you said was he said, You told me that you looked up to me, and one day you wanted me to look up to you. I wanted him to look up to me someday, and he said, You weren't kidding when you said that. He said there was something about you, and I watched you through because he saw my we all get on our first bareback horse, and we all remember our first bareback horse. Was yours great? Nobody's first is great. Richie's was. It's I it's been a long time since I sucked at something and had to start at ground zero and go through that whole process again. But so we were, I was talking to him about that, and he said, There was something about you when we went through high school, through college, all the stuff. He said, when you talked about it, you saw yourself there and you were willing to do whatever it took. And I was like, You're right. I was like, the only difference, it wasn't that I was naturally better than them. Natural talent will take you so far. We both worked at it very hard. He said, There was just you had a reckless abandonment about doing whatever it took. And I was like, You're right. I'm that's still how I face life, right? And I've struggled with finding that in my physicality, in my training, you've been my trainer for five years, sent me my workouts, all the stuff, and you've talked me off some ledges, and I've had a struggle of finding that reckless abandonment of doing whatever it takes to accomplish goals again. And that was the difference maker. And it's not that he's not successful, he owns a very successful business. It was just I was sold out on winning a gold buckle, and it wasn't ever just making the NFR to me. I was sold out, I was willing to do whatever it took, whether that was my upbringing, learning that from wrestling, whatever it was. There was just something in me that was like, I gotta do whatever it takes. Since when you got hurt, you've done some badass stuff since then, man. From the distance, I watched you go be Cody Johnson's tour manager, I watched you get into CrossFit and compete at the cross, you know, go do CrossFit game stuff and start this business that you now have that's truly changing the sport of rodeo and has impacted my life. Where at in your recovery did you decide enough's enough?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Oh, that's a good one, man. So, and I just told this story, not like in depth, but I was on someone else's show this week, and I had to face that dark hole in front of 200 of like my closest peers in college. And the reason that happened is because I never chose to talk about it at all. And I had a teacher, a professor in college, my second semester senior year, his name was Dr. Wall, super cool guy. Like, I would go to him for advice after class. But he just had us do uh an assignment about to write some write about something and give a speech about something that had changed your life, whatever that is. And for some reason, I decided I was gonna talk about my bareback riding career and no longer having it. I had never spoken it out loud until the second I got up there in front of everyone, and I got maybe like seven words into it, bro. And I mean like lose it, like hard, like sobbing. And I wanted to leave so badly, and I'll never forget because like I'm grabbing my shit and I'm about to walk out, and Dr. Wall's like, nope, you just sit there, bro, you're good. Like, we can wait. And so he just made me sit there and wait and got it together, and then end up, you know, being able to give this talk about what was going on in my life, and it was probably the best thing I ever did for me, but to see the reception from everybody else, like there were people in tears listening to me talk about it, and I was again 21, 22 years old at that time, and so a lot of these kids, we were all kids, but we're saying, Man, I thought I had some stuff going on, you know, like the stuff that these other people are working through is a lot bigger than anything that I'm going through, and just helped change their perception a little bit. After that moment, man, it was like freeing. I walked out of that classroom, I'll never forget. I was talking to my buddy Colton Kitsman. I remember walking to our bikes that day, and I'm like, I'm done with this shit. I'm not feeling sorry for myself. What else are we gonna do? And so I had been doing the CrossFit thing, and really CrossFit was a community that it didn't distract me, but it helped me get a away from just sulking. It was coming together in a place where there's a lot of different kinds of people, but we're all working towards the same goal of getting better. And I was still injured at the time, but the coach there, the owner of the gym, he was like, Man, we can scale this, we can you know make it work for you. You don't have to do these exact workouts, just come work. And I fell in love with that community, and it was awesome, man. And then I end up starting my own gym right, and working out became my entire life because I wasn't ready to stop competing, and I don't think I'm ever gonna be ready to stop competing because I still do it today, even though it looks a little bit differently. That gym was cool because I was 23 years old. I'd been working at a restaurant to make money member, and I end up running the kitchen and and being one of the like the head people there, and I just saved money and saved money and saved money, and this is like where I feel like God really started opening doors for me. I didn't know it yet, but I'm 23 years old. The owner of the gym currently is wanting to expand, and he's like, I think you'd be a great coach, man. And I'm like, Okay, I need this amount of money to start this, and we start looking at stuff, and there's this other gym that's in town, and it's across the gym. It's Huntsville, it's not that big a town, right? We so all of a sudden this guy just randomly decides he's gonna sell his gym and he calls me, and it's like, I never met the guy, tells me the number he needs. I go to my boss at the restaurant, his name's Brian. Shout out, Brian. Like, that dude has done more for me than I think he will ever know. He's a member at the gym and he's like fired up about it, and he's been like my number one fan to start this thing. He's like, I want you should do it. And he got me a meeting with the bank, and pretty much I don't think he signed anything, but I pretty much think that he said, like, I if he messes this up, like I got his back, you know what I mean? Yep, they cut me a loan that I had a check in my hand within four hours, dude. And I went and bought that gym, and at 23 years old, I just decided like we're gonna sink or swim here. I didn't know a whole lot about business, I just knew about customer service and people, yeah like people want to be taken care of, they want a good experience, they don't want to be shit on. Pretty simple, and so we made this thing, and at one point we had over 200 members of that gym, dude. It would be packed. It was the coolest, coolest thing ever. I loved doing it. I learned a ton about business. You know, you talked about I wasn't Cody's tour manager, I was a hospitality manager, okay, but worked as a part of their management team. He was one of my members at the gym for years and actually came to the gym one day and was basically said, I got a really cool position, I think you'd be really good at. What do you say? And I kind of was bro, I I own a business here. He said, Come test it out. You don't like it, I'll send you home. No problem. But I really think you should come try. It's like cool. So I I go out, about two days in, I call my business partners. I'm like, hey, I think I'm gonna do this full time, and so they ended up buying the gym out for me, paid off all the loans, everything was good there. I did that for I think it was three years with him, yeah, right all the way up until COVID. And dude, I Cody's done so much for me in my life, man. He's like one of my best buddies, but we talk about the things you were talking about, just getting out of these holes. You it takes a group of like-minded, I feel like men, to hold each other accountable and to get each other out of these times, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

But I had talked about this remote training business forever with him. We late nights on the road, man, after shows, 2 a.m. We're you know, driving down the road, we're just talking about business and stuff. And I'll never forget he calls me and he's like, Yeah, we're not going anywhere for a long time. Like the stadiums are not gonna be open for at least a year. Dude, try that. I think you should really try that business right now. All right, Bill. I think I called him three weeks later and I was like, I don't think you can afford me anymore. I'm 36 years old now. I've owned my own business since I was 23 or 24, which is wild to think about. I've been coaching that long, which is even crazier. But really, the change started happening for the rodeo part and what we're doing for the sport six years ago. It's cool to look back and think about all of the things because when you got hurt, we were on the bus home from Florida, the East Coast, somewhere. I remember Richie called me, and I'm like, Where is he at? The hospital, what hospital are you at? Because I knew you were in in Houston, and I knew bus call was at Houston. I get off the bus and we went straight to the hospital and saw you guys. And then when you called me to sign up for training, I was at Cody's house training him, and I was like, Hey, bro, I gotta take this. Like, I gotta answer this phone call. He's like, Yeah, cool, no problem. And then you're like, Hey, I need to do something. Like, we need to get moving now.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

I was at Houston for a month and then went to Sandy, Utah for seven months. And then when I got home, they that was a really hard transition for me. See, because rehab hospital was super easy. You wake up, you try to walk. When it spent three hours a day training, trying to get out of a wheelchair, go home, eat a snack, train some more, eat a snack. That was really easy for me looking back on it because the goal was to walk again. As we got closer to having the kid and we decided to go home, that was a really hard transition for me because I didn't want to. Well, one, I wanted to do whatever it took to get out of the wheelchair. And I thought I didn't want to jeopardize my recovery by going home. So we went and talked with the therapists, and they actually said, Well, you'll probably do better at home. We've seen your work ethic here. You'll here's some stuff. They gave me the tests and some workouts and stuff, said keep in touch. We can do video. That was a weird time in the world, right? Like that was 2019 leading up to 2020, up to COVID. I yeah, I can't remember how long I'd been home, but it was 2019 when I reached out to you. And the reason I reached out to you was so I grew up with wrestling coaches, and that led into college rodeo, where you have a coach, and even though my first coach was a bulldogger, he was a great facilitator and was always somebody that you could go lean on that supported you and pushed you to be better, right? And then you go rodeoing, and all you have is your pards, and your pards are pushing you, but you don't have a coach. Ten years ago, this champion live and fitness deal wasn't there wasn't anything like that. You didn't have a coach, and I like a coach, and but you get self-sufficient too, and you don't know that you need a coach, and you don't know that you need outside thoughts, and you don't know that you need that. And I just got to a spot where I was doing the best I could with what I knew how, but I was like, I need to bite the bullet and get a frickin' coach that might think a little differently than me, and one that's gonna hold me accountable to my unrealistic goals that I have.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

That's not wrong.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah, it wasn't long after we got home that I hit you up and was like, hey, what do you think? And I'll never forget, you're like, man, I'm not a physical therapist, but I am willing to do some research and get outside the box, and I am willing to push you as hard as you want to be pushed. So that's what seven years ago, man. Seven years ago.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

It does not feel like seven years ago, I'll tell you that. But let's talk about the journey a little through there because and I think we're way far off of our first question, but we're gonna get back into all that stuff. It has not been you don't just hire a coach and it's like, oh, I got it. I mean, I work out every day, uh, everything's hunky dory. It's like that's not how life goes, right? And I love that you talked about some people they just don't know that they need a coach or they don't know what they would what the experience is like and what they gain from that. And hearing you talk about you know your college rodeo coach, he wasn't even a bareback rider, he was a C wrestler. But someone with those capabilities that can facilitate, can talk to you, make you think differently about just your get out of your head, right? Is so important. And I think uh I know, man, the first three years really, majority of our work together, yeah, there was physical work and we were working out, but a lot of it was just talking through a lot of stuff and the processes and the systems we had to put into place for you that were attainable. Because, like we said in the very beginning, like your whole lifestyle had to change, your expectations had to change, right? You had to get uh used to all these new things, and we've gotten there. You're killing it right now. Like you're finally seven years. I think people see you and they you know they see the Spur Your Way Out show that just came out a couple months ago, and they're like, This guy's got it fucking figured out. There's been seven years of grinding here of like you guys haven't heard the scene, the conversations that we've had. They're not all rainbows and unicords, man. Like, there's been some real shit that we talk about, and you have to get through that and you have to find the new ways to perceive what reality really is, and then you get dude, it's like a superpower getting to relook and reframe.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

So, actually, to circle back around to that, I asked where what was that like what was the moment that enough is enough? And how old were you then? Yeah, and everybody sees champion living fitness as a successful business, everybody sees Doug Champions, Instagrams, and that's all highlight reel, right? A thousand percent. Everybody sees the highlight reel, but we often forget what it took to get to that highlight reel. So you were pretty young at your dark stages, right? What 20? Yeah. Okay. So when you were 20, 21 when you were managing the restaurant?

SPEAKER_01 27:14

I was probably 23 or 22.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

That led into so it okay. So in that, what were some of the dark holes? Was that a dark hole season for you? That's what you touched on that earlier. Learning is Doug Champion gonna be a bareback rider or is he gonna do something else, right? Like that's that time.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Okay, so what's the dark hole?

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah, finding that the realization that I wasn't gonna be a bareback rider and not knowing where to go from there. So I didn't after before I gave that talk in my class, I had no idea what I wanted to do after that talk. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just knew that I did not want to feel the way I felt anymore. I started going back to there's the things that I've done over my life of getting out of rough patches. I find something I'm passionate about. And I just knew that working out at that point in time was a passion of mine because I had done so much for myself with it, did all my own rehab after my back, my spine fusion, did so much research prior to that because the doctors took so long to even get someone that would operate on me, and it just I loved working out, and it made me realize once I got to that really competitive level in CrossFit that what I had done with myself, everyone else in rodeo needed it. And I'm still living with like Mason and you know Trey Taylor's around. Yeah, like all these guys are still around, they're still rodeo and seen them voice for a lot. Yeah, I just talked to Trey not long ago, and I just talked to Mason not long ago. Yeah, those were the days, bro. They were they and they man, but without them, they came into the gym, they trusted what I was doing. It it wasn't a thing back then. They were kind of like uh, like maybe they started seeing results, started getting better, everyone started performing better, less injuries, and it all started to just compound from there. And from there, it was much easier for me to I had I saw my passion, I saw what I was supposed to be doing in front of me. I just it's hard when you don't know what it's supposed to be, and you just take the mindset, you just have to flip your head and just start saying yes to things, even if it doesn't feel like the thing that you made up in your head. A lot of times we get to this the future of what we think it should look like, and if it doesn't look like that exactly, it messes with us bad, right? Yep, you gotta kind of drop that and go to the feelings of like what does it make you feel on the inside after you're done with that work? And for me, it wasn't riding bucking horses anymore, so not nothing's ever gonna be as exciting as that. At that time, it wasn't. Actually, coaching now is way more exciting for me than actually getting on, yeah. But you just gotta change how you look at things and change you know what your actual reality is.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

And we well, let's go okay. So let's go there for a minute. So you're rodeo on gonna be a bareback rider, gonna go make the NFR and chase gold buckles. What so where were you? Tell us about the wreck then.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, let's go there for a second. I got on, it's back when Salt River still had that rodeo. Okay, I'll never forget this. I drew this horse called Tiny Bit, properly named. It could turn around in the buck and shoot, like all the way around. Webb's working the neck rope with me. We have this thing like a dog on a leash, like leading him around in circles in the bucket just to get him back around. And Webb's looking at me like, Are you sh like what is happening? And this little she's trying to jump out of the buck and shoot. Once I got on her, she was great. It was probably making one of the best rides I ever made in my life. And I swear she just didn't like being spurred. Yeah, I cracked her once and she just rolled with me, and we went straight into the fence. And the way she hit me was just parallel with the middle of my body into the fence, and her, and I was just the sandwich. And so she broke my collarbone and oh, it's my left side, three or four of my ribs on my left side. I didn't even know my back was hurt because all the other stuff hurts so bad. And so all that heals up, and I go get on another horse at college practice is you know, probably six months later or something like that, and I get off, and my back is like not good. So it's something's wacky, and I went and got an MRI, and they're like, Oh, well, get some vertebrae that are fractured, and that must have happened, you know, when you had this accident and you just didn't recognize it. And then after that, it just never I had pain all the time. I had tingling down my legs, numbness down my legs, it ached all the time, and my quality of life was just not great. And it wasn't that I I was living, I just wasn't able to do the things that I was used to, right? I was out there mowing the lawn one time. I'm 21 years old or something like this, and I like bend down to do something on the rotors, dude. I'm talking about folds me. I'm like laying on the yard, I can't get up. I'm like, what is the point in this? Like, I'm so young, I can't do 50 more years like this. And that's when I started really diving into the surgery type stuff, realizing that orthopedic surgeons actually shouldn't be operating on spines. You need to find a neurosurgeon. Found the neurosurgeon. He literally sees me the first day and he's like, I'll fix you. I have no idea what you'll be capable of. I've never operated on anybody with this surgery less than 63 years old. Dang. He goes, I think I you will be back to regular life, no problem. He goes, I can't tell you you're gonna ride bucking horses again or do whatever, have the surgery, do my rehab, repping 550 pounds deadlift.

SPEAKER_03 32:16

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so there there is a moment though, there's a moment that's that was the shift in Doug Champion. And I know you came back and got on another one, or however many. Oh, like three more, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

But that was a for me thing, right? Yep, yeah. That was a level up for me because the mental part was such a struggle for me in all of my life when I look back at it. I never believed I was good at anything. We would be there side by side no matter what it is. I could never see myself there. Now I can see myself there, and it it's funny because I don't think TP knows this, but you remember Taylor Price? TP wins the American the year after Richie. Yep, and I didn't know this at the time, but me and him became like really good buddies a couple years after that because we lived right next door each other. He kind of went through a similar thing too with his hand, like rodeo's taken away from him. But I'll never forget, we're sitting at his his uh in his kitchen, him, his wife, a couple of our buddies are sitting there, and he starts talking about the American. And I said, How did you win? How did you know you were gonna win? And he had it was a law of attraction type thing. He had been reading some books, and he got to the point leading up to this, through the qualifiers and all this stuff, where he could see himself holding that million-dollar check, bro. And he got down to the point where he was like he was on the horse that he won on in his head, he had imagined drawing that horse, what the trip was like, yes, and how it went, and him getting off and like on every Chris Harris. Yeah, like if you're questioning everything, you said you imagine just getting off, you pumping those fists, the crowd's going nuts, and it's just happening, right? That's it, though. Like, just me chills right now thinking about it. But that's TP believed that, and dude, and he won a million dollars, yeah. It did, and like that was the moment for me where I said, I've rodeoed with TP, but me and him have been so many miles in a truck together. I'm like, he can freaking do that. I don't do that. I can think like that. Yep, I don't think I've ever told Taylor that, but like that was a major turning point for mental thing, and I said, I'd been tossing around the idea of getting back on it again. This is six or seven years after surgery, right? And I said, You think you can help me? He's like, Yep, gonna have to fucking relearn everything though. But I said, All right, let's start from zero. And we literally started marking out the spur board. I was so weak, yeah, all my riding muscles were so weak. He introduced a system to me about how to ride the spur board, and I had already been doing those systems in fitness, I just hadn't put it together that that's what was happening. You have to hit step A to get to step B, right? Yep. Tons of times in rodeo, we go step A to step D, and we wonder what the hell happened, right? Got young, potential, talented kids, they get hurt early. They don't, you know, they're not ever fulfilling that because we never we skip steps in their in their development. And so I said, my original plan was to get on in like a month. I said, that didn't happen. So we moved it out to like four months. I did nothing but get on the spurboard every single day, get on the bucket machine every single day, from level one to level four in the bucket machine. And there was, it took four months, dude. Yeah, but I'll never forget TP and Bill Tudor. They're like, hey Dougie, just do it. Stop thinking and just fucking do it. I said, okay. And I remember in my head, lift and set your feet, lift and set your feet, lift and set your feet. It had never ever been that simple for me. I said that over and over and over. Okay. So we were talking about we were talking about when I was getting on, and then the process that I had for just up the top button, it should be going. It'll go in a second. But the process I went through of getting back on Bucking Horses, I believe. The mindset of that.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

I think so. I spur your way out for me was a way that I always signed my autograph sheets. And the meaning behind that was when in doubt, spur your way out. The meaning behind that being when your back's against the wall, you gotta throw all caution to the wind, squeeze your hand, rear back and bare back. And your story, my story, everybody's story. We all have a trouble, a struggle, a trial, and there's a moment that comes where you either gotta decide enough's enough, I'm done, and I'm gonna do whatever it takes, and I'm gonna keep spurring until I spur my way out. And I think you're emulating that perfectly. You get hurt, you have quote unquote an identity crisis. Didn't end your life, it ended what Doug Champion was going to be up until that point in that chapter. And they're through the depression, through the anxiety, through the unknowns, proving to yourself of wanting to get better, there comes a moment where you gotta decide that no excuse is gonna be good enough to keep me from trying, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:26

And I I remember what we were talking about now. That but what I said earlier in this episode that I kind of mistaked the hard work meant will equal success, right? But I what I wasn't doing was working hard strategically. I wasn't working hard smart, smarter, not harder, right? There has to be a point where you get to what you're talking about where you're like, nope, this ain't it. Like I have something has to give, but it has to be organized in a sense of not just going to work hard and thinking that's gonna get you to wherever it's gonna be. You have to actually strategically plan what you want to do and like who you want to be next. You've been through that, I went through that. Let's talk about the systems that have to be put into place that you have to create. Yeah, you know, and it's not gonna look the same for everybody, but everyone's life is different on a daily basis, so it's gonna look a little differently. How do you start putting those systems into place that start making the work heart actually work for you? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 38:32

That's your question to me, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Okay, so because I know yours wasn't hasn't been structured this entire time. There was a lot of I want to go, I need to go, but I don't necessarily know what I'm going towards, right?

SPEAKER_03 38:42

I'm an all-inner. Yes. And I'm genetically designed to be a warrior, and it's very easy for me to have unrealistic goals. I always shoot for the impossible. I was a town kid with a cowboy dream and had no business being a bareback rider. I always visioned being a world champion. And prior to that, I was a wrestler from the time I was five years old. And I always visioned being an NCAA title all-American champion, right? And although I didn't get some of those, what I learned young was a bit of it was a blessing and a bit of it was a curse, but I learned that hard work will never cheat you, and that if you want to beat the best, you got to outwork the best. So I always thought that my hard work got me results and success. Well, that was really challenged with my wreck.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Well, that's because most of those things you're doing were a physical competition in that sense that the hard work, yeah, man, if you push yourself to a certain point, you will outwork everybody else and you will most likely be successful. It doesn't translate necessarily all the way to outside of the arena, outside of the sport, unless you can reframe it and take what you're already saying, like those things that you learned from those sports, right? From being a wrestler, from being a cowboy, from at this elite level of bare back riding to where we are now, you've been able to reframe how that all looks for you and create these systems based off of the success that you built in the sports, but doesn't look identical anymore.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

My whole shift was, and you've been intrigual to me finding this portion again through the working out, and we're getting ready, we'll get into that later, but getting ready to do a Spartan race and finding some of those things and getting into the cowhorse competition again, and you've walked me through some of those. I'm all in mentality, but you've watched me go all out for two months and then fall off the wagon too, and come to you going, man, it's all excuses, but I freaking I don't know. Okay. So for me, when you talk about identity crisis, that's what that was for me. Because for the first time in my entire life, I had never worked at anything harder to see very minimal results, and that tested my willpower, and that tested my mentality, and that tested who I am. And I had to, the program shift for me was surrendering and relinquishing the outcome, and that outcome being what defined me as being successful, so that now all of these systems and programs and things that I do, I do those because that's who I am, not only to get what I want. I do that because that's who I am. I had to let it shape my character, which was put into place earlier, but it was all results driven. And the results are gonna come. Why do I do that? I do that because that's who I am. It's not just about getting something, it's I'm gonna go do this strategically so that it becomes who I am, not just about what I can get from it.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

It's so fun to hear you explain all that because you literally explained a outcome goal versus a process-based goal and why what the benefits of choosing a process-based goal versus that outcome-based goal are, because you're no longer JR who is NFR bear record, right? Yeah. And like you could control all that, and you're talking about having to let go and and and trust the process, and I'm I really want to talk about some of your faith throughout all that because I know that had to be tested a bit. In my head, I'm thinking crazy things like this happen sometimes, like in order for us to see God's bigger plan for us, right? In the beginning, you're like, absolutely not. That doesn't make that no, that doesn't make any sense. Why would you do that, right? Looking at where you're at now and what all the things that have transpired, dude, like you are you are doing far bigger things than you. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 43:16

I say the same thing about you.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

I say the same thing about myself, like I know that. Yeah, I like I there's so much more joy out of that for me and helping people in this process to get there. But you talking about this, the you had to to trust that everything was going to be okay alright in the sense of like who you were and who you are, but you also have to control that narrative for yourself, and you've done that over these last however many years we've been together, but getting towards more recently, the like you going all in, you have a very David Goggins like mentality. Like, who's gonna carry the boats? Let's go. I'm in. That is an awesome, awesome quality and characteristic. And I think a lot of guys in professional rodeo, especially in in our event, are like that. But there is a small part of that that if it is not managed correctly, it will it's not gonna work out well for you because your identity is in working hard. So you have to have that same discipline that it takes to have that mentality, but use that discipline to, like you said, like doing the shit you don't want to, that's being disciplined. Doing working on the stuff that humbles you, working on the stuff that's not your strength, and trusting that if I continue to work on this process and the check marks are in the working on, not the I'm great at that the next day. You get better and better and better. We were talking about is the race and the and the new horse riding stuff that you're doing, but like the goals that you're spitting out attainable? Hell yeah. In the time frame, absolutely not, right? We had to have some really honest conversations about hey, we can accomplish that, but you are gonna set yourself up for failure, not just in this thing, but it's not gonna help you moving forward with what you want to do. Like you have to be able to slow down and work on these things and see the trajectory and stick to the plan. And when you're disciplined in that, because it's against the you it's against every fiber in your body to go slow. Yeah, yeah, 100%. But over these last I'd say six, seven, eight months, have you really, really been serious? I've watched you dive into the or switch your like lens almost from the I gotta go to the gym and just work hard to trusting it. And you're I remember us talking about pacing in the Spartan race. I was telling you, like, you're a sprinter, we're not we're gonna die. We have to figure out how we can sustain that and keep going a little bit more, keep going. What is the point you can work hard? And what's that point where you just gotta cut it off right before you're about to burn out and rest, and then you can go recharge again? You start learning those systems and processes and becoming it's so fun to see the changes when you start diving into that slow change because you're seeing the progress of sucking really bad one week, and then the next week, like, hey, I was a little bit better. I can actually do this. The horse stuff with you, like that's been a whole learning curve as well. But the riding is different, your body is different. We have we've gone through lots of ups and downs with this, but we've checked it off by progress every single month. Is are we feeling better in the saddle? Are we feeling more stable? Are the results getting better?

SPEAKER_03 46:19

Yeah, and okay, so you talked about that when you got on those after your wreck, seven years after the surgery and stuff, that was a for you thing. So you were mentally, you weren't I'm gonna go do this as a career anymore. That was to go prove to yourself that you could, okay. You put in four months of practice to go prove that to yourself. Yeah, that's what the reign and cow horse journey has been for me. I just made uh my first finals at the Celebration of Champions in the box drive, which is a step above the bottom of the totem pole where I started three years ago. It's been three years for me to be able to make a short round again. I've spent thousands and thousands of dollars to chase this dream, and I've put in the time, I've put in the effort to see little results, little successes, right? But what that has shown me was the trusting that process because my success in that competition is not what determines my success as a person, but it is that thing that scratches that itch for me to go test myself and the days when I didn't feel like working out, the days when I didn't feel like riding, the days when it was raining, the days when it was snowy and cold, and I had to inconveniently drive to the barn, the trips to Texas for a month at a time, those things, when those things start to pay off and you start to see results from that, it reminds you when you're not feeling 100% and you don't want to go do that thing, that the actions that I take today have really big repercussions. And that was the whole rodeo process, that's what that is, right? But it's easy in that sense when you're rodeoing because that is what you do. It's your job, yeah. It's not hard to get up and go, okay, I need to go jog. It's obvious, right? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

I have to go get ready for battle.

SPEAKER_03 48:36

Like that's what I do, yeah. And I had lost that is what I do because my success was on if I was gonna get out of this wheelchair or not. And when I saw very minimal results, it was easy for me to prioritize other things, keeping food on the table, convenience, not feeling like it, all of those. I'll do it tomorrow. I battle with those things, and actually, the conversation I had with you, I was okay, last fall. The conversation I had with you is I was like, man, I'm a guy that is it's very easy for me to do the extra rep. And I'm self-driven, self-motivated, self-disciplined, have been since I was a little kid, and it's easy for me to do the extra rep. And I'm at a spot where it is hard for me to do the extra rep. I'm doing the bare minimum, I'm having a hard time talking myself into it. I had to simplify my why. I had to get back to why I want to do those things. And honestly, the reason that I do some of these things is because my boy is six years old now, and he's going to start asking me if we can do things that are gonna be a challenge for us, and I want to be able to tell him, heck yeah, buddy, we can do it. I don't care what it takes. I don't want him to be able to think that because I can't, that we can't, and that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. And I might not feel 100%, but I'm at least gonna do my push-ups and my sit-ups, you know, to do that thing that is the extra rep that gets you there mentally, that gets you there to going, okay, I'm still progressing, even if it wasn't a banger killer workout. At least I did something. And I I want to touch on another thing you said though, because another thing that dug you out of some of those holes that I think as rodeo athletes we take for granted is that that buddy, that group of guys, Kojo being that for you, or whoever it was along the way, rodeo cowboys, we take it for granted. You have a dream, you bail in a rig with three other guys, and you spend a lot of time on the road, and they know everything about you because it would get boring if you didn't talk. You know? Yeah, so they know about your financial struggle, they know about your family treatment. They know the chaos going on in your life, they know your fears, they know your doubts, they know your worries, and not any of them say, I can fix that for you. They say, Hey man, I see you, I don't know how to fix your problem, but I'm I'll get in the foxhole with you. And you can't be isolated in that group, you know. I mean, you just it would get boring if you didn't talk. So so you don't have to work at being vulnerable. For me, that was a really hard thing after the wreck and life went on, and you get away from kind of some of those groups. I had to strategically go put those friendships back in my life and work at being vulnerable. I had to call Doug and say, Hey man, I freaking I'm not motivated, I'm not disciplined, I'm sucking right now. And Doug Champion go, Well, I don't know how to I'm not here to fix your problem, but I'll get in the foxhole with you. You know, figure it out. Let's grind it out, you know. Let's set up a process to make that easier. And I think that was a real intrigual part of your story that you were telling too. It's important to have that group of guys that or a mentor or a coach or a whatever that you can be vulnerable with. Because listen, we're men and we want to pull our bootstraps up and get on with it. We want to handle it ourselves, but there's a lot of weight that comes from that when you're isolated.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

It's impossible to do by yourself. And that's the the also the wild thing about rodeo is not because they want to forget or like not contact you, but like it's just busy. You get on the road, you the guys aren't there. No, it's just live. It just you slowly drift away from it, you know. And there's so many of our buddies that stopped rodeo and that are almost sour on rodeo because of that feeling that they had, like abandoned almost. It's not that they your buddies forgot about you, they're just they're out doing the rodeo thing.

SPEAKER_03 53:08

You know, they got wives, they got kids, they're still rodeoing.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Yeah, they're and so it does. It when you don't when you feel iced like that, and then you don't feel like you have someone to talk to about it, it's sucks. Absolutely, and that's where my story, like that's why I I broke down in front of everyone at my class came. And the biggest thing I think to realize here is all of this we've been talking for I don't know, an hour or something like that. Life is messy, yeah, life is super messy, there's nothing perfect about it, and so finding these systems and being able to keep them simple is the best thing a human can do, and for you it was consistency doing the things repetitively, but doing the things that were not comfortable for you because what was happening is even though it wasn't quote unquote like you're laying in a bed comfy, not focusing on walking again, like going to making money for the family. Oh, I'm cooking dinner for the family, oh, I gotta go check these cows, I gotta do this stuff. All that stuff, while like to the common eye, is not comforty. That's comfort to you. Going to do those things is is uh is you're like, Yep, I'm not gonna go do that, face that uncomfortable thing because I can go do this shit instead. Bro, I do that. I did, I still do that. I'm much more cognizant of myself going towards those places. I can stop myself, but that's kind of the the fun game that I call it a game. Yeah, because really the mental thing is a total game. Yep, they're random, you have no control of them, they just come into your head, you get to control how you act on them or receive them or just get rid of them. But those thoughts matter, like how you think about those things matter, and if you don't stop it and say that's not true, and say the reciprocal of that, what you really want to happen, it just continues in this every day is the same. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_03 54:55

You said it when you were talking about Taylor. He visioned himself, he told himself, you want to touch on faith. I this story would be would be I wouldn't be doing my story any justice if I didn't talk about my faith because it was God that I relied on. I grew up in a Christian home. We weren't every Sunday church goers, but I grew up with a healthy understanding of what a relationship with Jesus was. Now, I was a lost sheep, I was a good kid growing up, did church, did youth groups. That isn't what makes you a Christian. What makes you a Christian is relationship with Jesus Christ and making him Lord of your life. And I went down a trail of wild runaway as fast as I can, and the results were obvious. I went from third in the world, third in the average, to two years later, 15th in the world, didn't win a single dollar at the finals, ended up in jail doing all the stuff I swore I'd never do. And that was a rock bottom moment for me. That was I was I was sitting there in a jumpsuit with long hair, beard, going, I don't belong here, I don't belong here. And I looked around and I was wearing the same colored jumpsuit as all them other guys were, and I said, This is exactly where I've lived my life too. I do deserve here. And I don't remember the Bible verses that I read, but I jumped up on the bunk and I remember the prayer specifically. I said, All right, Lord, I said, I'm listening to you. You've been talking to me, you haven't left me. I've been running away from you and trying to leave you, and I'm listening now. You got my attention. I can't promise to be perfect, but I promise that if you'll get me out of this mess, that I'll do my best to do right by you. And that led into the last three years of my rodeo career. I was at a good spot spiritually when I got hurt to know that good would come from the situation, but you want to talk about faith being tested. And I have a burning desire right now to preach practical Christianity because I believe that God can make me walk. I believe in miracles, I study my word, I'm a prayed up guy, and I'm not ashamed to say that. And it was to him I relied. Now I went there, messy. I went, Lord, why am I not getting what I feel like I deserve? Lord, I am pissed, I am angry. Lord, I do not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Lord, I want to die. I went there and I never labeled it depression, but I was depressed. I contemplated suicide. I had dark thoughts, man. I I remember one, I was like, all right, I'm gonna go on my four-wheeler over to the other side of the river and jump off the cliff. I don't know, it's way up there, right? And I'm gonna jump it off the cliff, and if I make it, I make it, and if I don't, I don't. Like, that's not my mentality. Like, how did I get there? I don't even know how I got there, but I did. And I would be lying to say that God snapped his finger and pulled me out of that mess instantly. But I will go to my grave saying that as I went there, I I went praying realistically, vulnerable and honest to him. And he gave me, he would send practical things. He would, my boy would come into my into the living room and go, I want look at my cowboy shirt, Dad. I want to be just like dad. Or Diamond G Rodeo would gift me a track chair, or L'Oreal Harvard was like, Hey, we want to help you get those robotic legs, whatever it was, right? And those things gave me an or somebody randomly would message me on Instagram and go, your story has changed my life. And those came at very pivotal moments for me because they were the moments that went, okay, I'll try one more day. It wasn't a quick fix overnight, anything like that. It was a okay, I'll try one more day, and those thoughts are then what dug me out of some of those holes.

SPEAKER_01 59:10

Dude, that's L'Oreal Harvest the best, isn't she? I love her, she's great. But going back to just this whole story, man, like it's similar in the sense of like how I got to where I am in my spirituality as well. And like, dude, I've been same as you, just like lots of ups and downs with it, lots of not really understanding what it was to be a Christian. And I love that you said what'd you say? What was the practical Christianity? Practical Christianity, because so much of what I had opposed about Christianity was because someone had made it impractical in their explanation or how they were practicing it, right? And the more I read and the more I study and the more I listen, the be actually having the ears on to listen is a huge part of this, right? I'm seeing that it the biggest thing is having the relationship with him, having that conversation like he's you, your friend, like we're our buddy, your loving father. Yeah. It changes everything about I and there's really no explanation for it, but it changes everything. And you just have to practice it and you just have to do it consistently, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:27

That what 100%. That was the shift in my in my faith.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

And yeah, well, I was going back to like when you went into making the NFR, third and the average, going in number three in the world, you were very focused, you were walking the right line, right? It's so easy to get all of a sudden the thing that you had on the pedestal, God, behavior, all these things that the way that you want to act, it flipped for the gold buckle, and it happens, you don't even realize it happening, right? And I think that whether well, however you want to look at this, the enemy, Satan, whatever it is, if you believe in the Bible and all that, Satan is the ruler of the world. He puts he incredible things in front of people that are worldly, and people put those on a pedestal, right? Without even realizing that it's just so much bigger than and then we're lost, and we can't figure out why things aren't going well. And in all reality, it's because we're relying on our own self to do everything, and that is not possible. And so I just see and hear so many stories, and like my story is the same, man. I'm just like I car ramrod everything. Like, oh, the wall didn't break, let's run it into there harder. It now does not work, and a younger me did not understand that. I would just keep running, but that's the thing of getting older and getting some wisdom is work smarter, not harder. You can really start seeing what's going on and where there are just parts of life that are unexplainable that you cannot it you I don't know, but you have to do those things and accept them and be listening for them spiritually for them to take hold of like your life.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:11

And I'm not a shove it down your throat. Me either. I'm not a shove it down your throat guy. I do have a mission and an encouragement to share. I want you to have my faith because it's what has got me through some of those things, and I've seen the reality of that. And one of my favorite things is when science matches my faith. You want to talk about positive thinking book? I open up the Bible in Philippians 4 8, talks about think on things that are right, just, honorable, lovely. There's no more positive thinking than that. You talked about TP and manifestation. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. God wants those things for us. Jesus wants those things for us. The shift in my relationship with him was at the wreck. Well, actually, prior to that, I would go to 2015 when I came out of that jail cell for doing all the stuff I swore I'd never do. I looked myself in the mirror and I surrendered. And I went on a journey of cleaning my life up, and I did all the box-checking things. I did the prayer, I did the Bible reading, I did the I'm not doing that stuff anymore, right? And some days I would do really good, and some days I would utterly fail. And it was this, I'm such a striver that when I read Matthew 5.48, you are to be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. I went, All right, I can do that. And some days, Doug, I would knock it out of the ballpark as the perfect Christian, and then the next day I would utterly fail by a temptation. And I got in this tug-of-war with that. And what happened after the wreck was a I was sitting up on my up on my hill with my four-wheeler, and I was crying. And I went, All right, Lord, I believe in you. I never asked why me, but I've I did ask why am I not getting what I feel like I deserve? I've never worked at anything harder in my entire life. And the whatever you want to call it, the small still voice that was spoken to me was you gotta you gotta surrender to my timing. So it was a whole nother level of surrender that I went through. And that was eight years ago. Okay, that in and of itself has been a journey, and I have not ever one time felt like I was the perfect Christian. Okay, and it what it has shown me is the perfect Christian is a surrendered Christian, it's about our heart posture, man. Yes, he wants to meet us where we're at, and that's the self is what I didn't have before. When I was rodeoing, I always believed in God. Well, the Bible says even the demons believe God, believe in God, right? They even shudder at his name. So I think there's some people that claim to be believers that don't believe as much as the demons, man. Yeah, it's about the relationship, it's a surrendered heart posture that I know that I cannot earn this. I know that I cannot be perfect because only you are perfect. And you living inside of me is that righteousness. So I'm gonna do my best to keep my eyes on you, and the the the rest is gonna be what the rest is, man. And I got a lot of practical things that some people might call coincidences that I would call God's voice, God's hand, God's miracle in my life, but that's a conversation for another day. But my encouragement where I'm at right now is I believe that there's nothing that I can do that can save you. You have to want that more than I want it for you. And how relatable is that to a lot of things in life, especially as a coach? Like you can't want you can't want me to be more disciplined, you can't want that more for me than. And I want it for myself. I have to want it for myself. That's still you can be the horse of water thing. Right? Absolutely. I think it's no different with our faith and our spirituality. And what a lot of church hurt has made happen, and a lot of modern day Christianity has made happen is you think you have to look this certain way, be this certain thing, be ready to give some of that stuff up.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

Before they can be expected. So the opposite.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:31

That's the whole reason. The God that I serve isn't a you rinse off and then get in the shower. It's a you get in the shower and get rinsed off. And that's my encouragement for the faith side of this is when I started getting real with him, because up until then, even all my whole rodeo career, I tried to do it right and glorify the Lord, but it was a lucky rabbit's foot relationship that I had with him. Keep me safe, keep us safe, and not always so small, like Lord, if there's something else you want me to do, help me do it. And I had bigger picture stuff, but I it was a selfish game, man. It was it was for you, gold buckle or bust, man. And what I've learned since then is when I got real, when I got vulnerable, when I got honest with with the Lord, he then could transform me. So let him in.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

Yeah, just all you gotta do is be willing and accepting, right? There you go. And it's the whole that's the church hurt thing, man. That was like I haven't heard that before, but that was a hundred percent what I went through earlier in my life because that in your 20s, you're trying to figure life out. You think that these people that you're looking to for advice have all the answers, and nobody is perfect. No, no one is, right? And same sense, I took that everything so literally of what I was reading that I applied it like you have to be this. That is not what it's not what it says, first of all. Second of all, when I read the word and read the Bible, like he went and ate with the sinners. He went and ate with the people that were looked at to the other people as you know unclean or whatever, because he said that's where he could get the most movement. That's where he like his mission and his heart could be shown to them way more than ever could be to these people that think they're doing right. And the same sense of what you're talking about, just getting rid of that sense of you have to do this thing to be this thing. Everybody's no matter what you do, can be a Christian, can believe in Jesus because that's what he sent Jesus here for. Is so because he knows we're not perfect.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:52

And well, and what's your perception of perfect?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:55

That's that's the thing, bro. It's all uh it's a man-made thing in your head where people get with this the we were talking about a while ago, this future picture, and if it's not like that, they're wig out. And they don't they can't it could be the all they do is turn the the door handle, walk in, but because it didn't look like the door they imagined when they were eight years old that was on their adult home when they you know imagined buying one, they don't do it. But if they just walk through, it would be like, Hey, there's your treasure, your gold chest is right there. How simple was that? But so many people are cut off and think they aren't worthy or not, this counts them out or whatever. It's like, dude, I'm so far from the street.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:31

Once you grasp Okay, this was a big thing for me. Once you grasp for yourself that there is nothing that you can do to earn it, there's nothing that you can do to deserve it, there's nothing, there's no amount of money that I can make that can afford it, that the gift is grace, that's unmerited favor. We as humans want to earn, and he says you can't earn it. Now, the caveat to that is once I've been given that, you can give it, and there's results that come from receiving that grace. So that book isn't a book of do's and don'ts. No, there's a lot of do's and don'ts in there, they're for our benefit. You do everything without complaining or arguing. Now that's a command, right? Do you complain and argue sometimes? Yeah, 100%. Where does it lead to? Chaos. You know, right? Like it doesn't say that as if you don't do that, you're not good enough, you're not worthy enough. It's don't do that because I know your harder I know where that leads to, you know, some of those things. So once you realize, once you grasp a concept and can accept that grace, accept that mercy, accept that love, then my perfection, that's the lens that God views me as through because He put that on Jesus. And I will challenge anybody from any other religion on that concept because all the other religions are still earning. Okay you'd be a better person type spirituality where Christianity, what sets Christianity apart is none of us are ever going to be good enough. No, you can't be. So God gave us that perfection so that we could have that. We are perfect. He views us as perfect, he views us as perfect in our mess, he views us as perfect in our chaos, he views us as perfect in our storm. By what? By me surrendering to him. I can't earn it, I don't deserve it, I can't work for it, and once I accept it, now the good I do the good things because I want to. I don't do the good things because I have to.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:05

That's it. The doing the good things though, like every what you just said is so simple in the sense of God is just is love, and if you can show that in however many different ways there is to show love, you are doing what God has wanted you to do the whole time. And that in turn opens you up to receiving those things that you were talking about, right? And I think we get wrapped up in making it this big grand, it has to be this huge thing that you do daily, and it's so easy. Yeah, talk to them, stay connected, yeah. Read the book, and then show love the way that is a hard thing, it's so hard, but just that's get uncomfortable, be disciplined, do the thing, you know what I mean? But 100%. Not everybody is gonna understand. He even said that.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:54

He's like some people just will not get the mystery of the gospel, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:57

So it's open it, like just open up your ears, open up your heart a little bit to it. It really is that simple. God is love, God is good energy, God is like all these positive things that are happening in the world, and there is an opposing force, and the way you get to fight that is by giving more of the love, yeah, the good words, the good thoughts. I worked at that restaurant forever, and they're pretty much like if you've ever been around servers, they just pretty much hate everybody because you're around people all the time, and people are complaining about their food, and it basically is a uh like over-dramatized version of like them messing with people's food and all these games they play, like in it's just like very crude. But that energy is so contagious. And when I was when I was serving waiting tables, I started correlating. This is after my injury, and I started to see that if I started thinking like that throughout my shift, like these people suck, this is everything's going bad, I wouldn't make any money ever. But on days where everyone just randomly be in a good mood, I'd walk out with a hundred bucks in two or three hours and tips, no problem every time. Before I ever like really dove into the Bible, which I feel all these things are connected, the law of attraction, all of these mental energy, yeah, things that work, they work because it's how I I and this is just me how I think, but I think that it because it is that is how God works and God designed it, man. Exactly. So I started just having positive talk with myself, reframing those thoughts of like every time a bad one would come up where I'd be like, this table sucks. I'd be like, no, no, no. I'd reframe it. This table doesn't, like, you know what I mean? I'm actually just really busy right now and I'm taking out on them. That was silly. I'm gonna give them the best servers I can and I'm gonna get that money, dude. I would walk out of there with a hundred dollars and the other servers, 30, 40 bucks, pissed off, leaving, they're not happy. I'm stoked. I started realizing that that it works. You can bring all these things in, and then as I got older and really started figuring out this is all connected to it and all works together because God designed it. It just made so much sense to me when now that I've been reading and how I've viewed everything that I've been doing, how it was all connected to him in the very the whole time. That's the thing, is you have to do it, yeah. You have to do the thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:19

That's an okay, that's another I want I'll I'll go to some encouragement there too, is we all have our own journey. And my journey might not look like Doug's journey. Doug's journey might not look like the most perfect Christian's journey, whatever, dude. We all we exactly right, like we all got a story, we all got a journey, and when I okay, so here's here's one recently that I made me chuckle. Science proved that your brain cannot have anxiety and gratefulness at the same time. But so what does that look like practically? Because we have 60,000 between 12 and 60,000 thoughts a day. What do I do with those thoughts? Okay, I have intrusive thoughts, I have random thoughts. Where okay, those just come out of nowhere? I might not get to decide what thoughts I have, but I can 100% control what I do with that thought. Okay, so Romans 12, 1 and 2, do not conform to the way of the world, but be transformed by the way you what? The way you think. Yep. It's important. Yep. Okay, because we're gonna get challenged constantly, all day, every day with intrusive thoughts. So, what do I do with those thoughts? Do I not let them register and just try to handle them? Because those will dictate my habits. Or do I go, I take them captive and I make them obey Christ? Lord, I'm having this thought. I'm having a depression thought, I'm having an intrusive thought. What do you want me to do with it? That's how my conversation changed. Instead of trying to go, man, I'm such a piece of crap because I had that thought, I go, Lord, I'm being tempted. What do you want me to do with it? Lord, I'm having a bad thought, what do you want me to do with it? And I know it sounds cliche and mixing. It's too easy. It's a little weird.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:17

That's the problem, is everyone thinks the easy stuff no one wants to do. It's so simple.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:21

I think the gospel's simple. It's so simple the Lord and love your neighbor. Boom.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:26

Yeah. Like it's it really is. And that's where it's funny because fitness rodeo bearback riding is simple, dude. At its core, at its fundamental, is very easy. Like, there are not many steps that have to go down. What happens? We make it way more complicated than it needs to be. Turn it into a science. Yes, we get our head down the rabbit hole into a reality that's not real, not where we're at. That's that was the thing that changed for me. I just lift on my rigging and set my feet. There were two things I told myself over and over. But before that, dude, like, oh I'm I think this horse, he's gonna have his, he's gonna have a wiggle in there. Like, I gotta make sure I'm really like, Yeah, I'm really staring at my right foot, and then on my free hand, I'm couldn't even mark a horse out with all that. Literally, because I was thinking so much, I couldn't trust the process and have faith that it's gonna work if we just do the fundamentals perfectly. Yeah, and like how much of that is the literal same exact thing from running your hand in the bare back rig into your walk.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:26

It's and life, because that in the essence is what the saying, when in doubt, spur your way out means to me. Because we're all gonna come to a moment where the only thing that's going to work is to throw all caution to the wind and keep on spurring, right? And it's that simple, okay? Whether it's life, your walk, whatever you're not changing, you're choosing. And as you get better at stuff, as you get elite, as you get things figured out, you realize there is a very in-depth process that got you to that point. But what really got you to that point was the simple thing. It was the grit. It was the not quitting. It was the squeezing on my hands, setting my feet. It was the the basics, the basics, okay? So be careful what you're complaining about because there's somebody out there wishing that you have what you have. It does not have to be so hard. Get back to the little things that you can find joy in, the little things that you can be grateful for. That's what's going to carry you through the hard scientific things that come up in your life is staying true to the basics, trust in the process and staying true to the basics. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:48

Oh, that's it, man. It really is very simple. And uh you j easier said than done. But there's like I think there's ways to check in with yourself, and I do that daily. I journal a lot, I write a lot of things out. I am really good about getting things here, and they seem like a huge deal to me. I'm worked up about it or whatever, and then I'll write it down and I read it. Like, ooh, that wasn't I was overreacting big time. And some of the things that even just with what you were talking about previously, which the I'm not good enough, I you know, I have to come to to the Lord perfectly. There's none of that's true, right? And I've winning the battle or the battle between your the battle in your mind, or I gotta I'll I'll give you the book. I have it in inside. It is the best book I've ever read, and it's a workbook through. Yeah, but it's psychology with biblical applic application, and literally, I didn't know this, but the Bible tells you how to deal with all psychology. Absolutely word-for-word instructions, talks about depression, talks about anxiety, talks about suicide, all of the things I think that's so funny.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:58

Uh, not to cut you off, but I think that's so funny because as new baby Christians come to the faith, and I hear that, like, oh geez, that guy was an alcoholic, that guy was a drunk. There is a story that is relatable to every single walk of life in that book. If I will be open enough to receive it, and look at it. There's there's porn addiction, there's alcohol addiction, there's all of the things. And Jesus met them all where they're at and offered them a way out. The way out wasn't harder work, you need to be this certain way. The way out was come to me and I'll transform you, right? And so that was very, very instrumental in in my walk. My grandma modeled for me a relationship with Jesus. My mom guided me very well, but my grandma modeled it. My grandma would pray about everything weirdly. Like, hey, I lost my wallet, I'm gonna pray about that right now. Hey, you and your buddies are getting drunk, I'm gonna pray about that right now. Like, weirdly, just would always talk to God, and I respect her so much for it now because seriously, she talks to him like he's sitting right next door, and it's her best friend, and she just has a real relationship with him, and it showed me how to do that. That was very eye-opening to me. That book is a guidebook to life, it's not a do-or-don't do list. Sure, there's do-ers or don't do's in there, but the general consensus of that book is it's a guidebook of life pointed towards the gospel and the good news of Jesus. Yep, yeah, it's 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:44

So now that's cool, man. I love it. I think that it anyone listening, just be open to it. If something's not going right, you've been interested, like just start reading. And it doesn't have to be near as complicated as you are making it out to be. Yeah. I want to talk about some of this ri move on from this cool stuff to some really cool stuff that we have going on. Then waiting to get to this portion, yeah. Because it's really fueled the training for the last four or five months. It's litting the it's the first time I've seen you super fired up about something, about achieving a goal. And it's also the first time I'm sorry, I've seen you fired up about a lot of goals over the last few years, but this is the first time I've seen you stay hooked about them, right? Because we didn't get distracted, and it meant something to you this time. Your why was big enough to not let those other things get in the way, which is is cool. So you called me four or five months ago. We were talking about the same thing when we started this episode, like, we're in a little bit of a funk, we need to get out of it. And I said, Why do we why are we what do we want to do? Like, what is something different we can do that would fire you up? And you said, You didn't even fucking blink, bro. You said Spartan race. I said, Oh, okay, cool. He said, I've already looked it up. I've seen that like they've got adaptive versions of it, they got things I can, you know, I can go through all the stuff. He's like, I don't want to do any of this. Sorry for the language, but I don't want to be this pussy stuff and them to take away the stuff I want to go through this the obstacles of like sick, and you like had it all planned out, and you're like, I wanna, but I don't want to just do this for me. I think back then you were just getting it going. And then you and Shelby started the first episode uh a couple months ago, maybe eight weeks ago, not that long ago. And we decided we were gonna get together a group of guys. Some of them are our old friends from from rodeo days, some of them that, and I love that all of our old friends are like a lot older than us, sorry, Jamie. Uh but we've got these group of guys that are all men that have been friends, mentors, part of your journey, and have been some way, shape, or form, whether it was actually working with you or just being there and listening and talking with you, the reason that you are where you are today, and we're all gonna be in one place working hard at elevation. It's probably gonna be raining because I know Big Timber that time of year, and it's gonna be wet, and we're gonna it's gonna be awesome, but we're we're doing this not to show that like I mean you're a badass, but it's so much bigger than that, man. It's it's showing that like no matter what your situation is in life, you get a team around you, get the right people around you, and you believe in you, you can do whatever the hell you want to. Yep, and this is gonna be a blast, man. So this let's talk a little bit about the foundation you guys have created, what this first event really is. The goal is to keep growing towards, right? And what the cause of like what who you want to help.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:34

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm stoked. We're less than a month away. So yeah, when did I reach out? Shoot, it's October, November-ish. I was at a spot where I had been pretty consistent, kind of highs and lows of being consistent recently because I had qualified to the world show in the NRCHA. So I I knew I had enough drive to stay consistent, but I just was in a funk of plateauing and not doing the extra rep. And seriously, I not to go back to faith, but I've been praying about it, and I was like, Lord, why am I why is it so hard for me to do the extra rep? Because apparently there's something inside of me that is designed to do that, and I'm struggling with that. And so I have this chair, it's called the Grit Freedom Chair, and it's a wheelchair that has a two-foot leg in front of it with another wheel on it, so it's got three wheels, and then it's got handles that you push, and they're chain-driven like a bike. It's got bike tires on it. And I got that through a grant five years ago. When I got the chair, it said Spartan chair. So I Googled that and it showed me the Spartan races, and I'd seen some people in wheelchairs do it. And five years ago, I said, man, that'd be something cool to do. And I never really thought about it again since then. And I just use that chair around the place every now and then. And actually, honestly, since I got my track chair, I hardly ever even use that, use that chair. And I was just at a spot of man, I need something to drive me to do the extra rep. And I just had this thing. Why don't you go do a Spartan race? And I was unsure. I was like, I know selfishly, I know that will push me to do the extra rep because Riot had a I went and tried before I called you. Riot has it had a little play set out there and it had some monkey bars on it. I'm gonna go see if I can pull up on this thing. Yeah, so I get up there and there's 10 10 bars, but they're super close together. So I would skip one. So I did five five monkey bars across and five monkey bars back across and was spent. And I'm I thought I was in pretty good shape, you know, too. And I've been training while I was riding, and I was like, man, I got some weaknesses. So what's gonna Pushed me to do the extra rep is go do something hard. So I looked into Spartan Race.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:03

With a time limit, like a deadline. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, actually, if it was up to you, we would have done it in a month.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:10

Yeah, I said, wouldn't you do it in the next way?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:14

Four weeks.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:14

I was like, I think we need a little longer than four weeks, Jr. Oh. So I looked them up. I had seen some people in wheelchairs do it. I called Spartan and they told me they're not adaptive. They don't have adaptive races. They're all self-adaptive. So I needed a few people to go my pace that could help me with the obstacles, whatever it is we're gonna face, whether that be lift me up to the monkey bars or whatever. So I called Doug. I said, What do you think about doing a Spartan race? And it lit a fire in me because there wasn't one ounce of hesitation. You're like, I'm in. So selfishly, so I called you, I knew you were in. I called Willis and I invited him. And Willis was the same way. He was in. I was just selfishly, I knew that if I had two other people that were relying on me to show up and not be a puss, that it would push me to do the extra rep, right? And then it transpired into hey, bigger picture stuff. So Shelby and I launched Spur Your Way Out. It's a 501c3 nonprofit, and we got that launch in September. The gist behind Spur Your Way Out is there were three materialistic things that really dug me out of a dark hole in the last seven years. Okay. So when I got hurt in 2018, and we had half a million dollars worth of medical bills with Rodeo Cowboy Insurance, which is none. So the rodeo community banded together and they we they raised about$350,000 for us. That helped put me through rehab, pay the medical bills, all the stuff. That was very humbling to me, but it didn't change my life. Seems like when tragedy strikes near to your community or your family, everybody bands together and helps them out. So it humbled me, but it didn't change my life. A year, or I guess it would have been two years after the wreck, I had got hired to go judge an open bull riding over at the Bronck match in Gardner, Hells of Roar and Bronck match. And I was kind of at a spot where was a little bitter about life, and everything was kind of moving along. We were kind of okay, but was a little bitter about life, maybe. And so they didn't get any bull riders to enter the open bull riding, but the Bronck match was the next day. Well, I was super busy, was didn't want to go, and so I tried getting talking my way out of it, and they're like, Well, we already have a room, you know, you better come. So they Shelby and I decide, well, we'll go watch Sage and and we'll make a little vacation out of it, take Riot to Yellowstone, whatever. So we make a little vacation out of it, and but I'm still kind of pissed off about going over there, right? So I get over there and it's a beautiful arena, mountain background, they did a great job. And Diamond G has the rodeo there. And my whole career, I've done nothing but cuss Diamond G Rodeo as the worst contractors out there.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:26

Okay. I mean, when you're getting on, I'm not gonna lie. They did some things that I did not agree with, but nonetheless.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:32

I rodeoed with Caleb Bennett, so we went to some Utah rodeos, and I went to some Diamond G Rodeos, and I got on some of their junk, and I won on some of their junk, and I got on some of their ones that everybody else would turn out, and I won on some of theirs that everybody else would turn out, right? So I get there, they have that rodeo, and my father-in-law comes over to me and he's like, Hey, they want to give, do you want to come behind the buck and shoots? And the way they have the arena set up, they have some tents right on the side of the arena, and it it's a really good view from a wheelchair, and all my buddies are on the side. Ty Skyver, Trey Taylor was there. There's some guys that are there that I'm hanging out. I'm like, oh no, I'm good. Actually, you know, I'll see all the riders afterwards. And so he comes back another time, hey, are you sure you don't want to come back? I'm like, no, I'm good. I can really see. So he comes a third time and he's like, hey, they want to give you an award or something. And it instantly pissed me off. I was like, this isn't even a bareback riding. This is a Bronk riding, so this isn't even my event. Like, I don't want to steal Sage's limelight. He's just fresh on the scene, has made one MFR now. Like, I don't want to be, I don't want to be stealing his limelight and kind of some of the stuff. And so they wheel me back there and they wheel me out there and they start playing this video. And Steve and Cindy Gilbert bought a$30,000 track chair and they gave it to me. And I had to go up to Steve and I had to shake his hand and I had to say, I've done nothing but cush your rodeo company my whole career, and you are a good man, and I will I will never cuss you again because you don't know how much this impacted me. And so it that changed my life. That was a year or two after my wreck, and it was such a liberating tool that really gave me some independence. Okay. Then a year after that, I did a trial. My old rehab facility, they were doing a trial with the exoskeleton, and they were doing some testing and stuff, and I had seen the exoskeletons in rehab, but I had always had a back brace on and I couldn't use it. And so I went down and I trialed it. They're like a hundred thousand dollar machine. The moment I got up in it, I was like, I need this. It was to be able to get up and walk again. I was like, even if it isn't functional, just to be able to get up and send the signal, I need this. So I came home, I was gonna sell the cows and do whatever it took to be able to afford that. And L'Oreal Harvard had caught wind that we were wanting to get a set, and she went and started hosting fundraising and through the Western Sports Foundation and L'Oreal Harvard, they and then Mitch Pollock at his Bronck match, they finished it up there. And to so that was a hundred thousand dollar machine. This was two or three years after my wreck, and to see people give their hard-earned dollar to help me be able to continue chasing a dream, desire, and passion to get out of the wheelchair changed my life, man. And and then lastly was this whole cowhorse journey that I've been on. So that was always a dream of mine was to get into the to the rained cowhorse world and to have the God ordained unfolding of that. So that was spring of 2022 when that phone call came. So four years after my wreck, to have a random guy that didn't know me listen to a podcast that had happened two years prior to that, me talk about that dream and how I wanted to do that, and him have enough courage to track my phone number down and call me and say, hey, I think that we could make that dream a reality. Now, I've had to buy the horse, I had to pay for some of that stuff myself, but for him to have enough courage and gumption to be able to listen to his gut and give me a call changed my life. And those came at really pivotal moments for me that really helped me spur my way out of some of my dark holes. And honestly, man, I want to be able to do that for other people because I know what it's like to be at the bottom pits of despair. I know what it's like to be depressed, I know what it's like to have suicidal thoughts, and you never know how much you're impacting somebody's life by being able to help them out. So I want to be able to raise funds to be able to help people afford the things that they need when life has them feeling debilitated and not let their life's inevitable setbacks keep them from chasing their dreams, desires, and passions. And I I'm keeping it pretty broad right now. I don't care if that's buy them a welder so that they can continue to weld or buy them a sewing machine so that they can go do leather work or build them a gym or or set up their house or whatever it is. I just want to be able to raise funds, be able to help people afford what they need to continue chasing their dreams, desires, and passions, and not let their inevitable setbacks keep them from doing that. So we started that. This is gonna be our first fundraiser. We're gonna do the Spartan race. And part of that was the selfishness was I knew that I would reap the benefits. I knew that would be the thing that finally would maybe drive me to be consistent. And then as it transpired, we decided, well, shoot, why don't we do this for the bigger picture? So I knew there would be inspiration and encouragement because the conversation that we had, I remember saying, I said, you know what, man, I think for me to do that extra rep, I need to go do something hard. And now looking back at that, it's funny because as if life isn't hard enough in a wheelchair, right? And as if life isn't hard enough chasing a cowhorse dream from a wheelchair, you know, like life is hard enough. But as a warrior mentality and driver, like your excuses suck, man. And so go do something hard, go challenge yourself. And that was something that I was like, man, that would be a really big challenge. And then bigger pitcher, so I invited a couple of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:18

Do you think it's the challenge of actually finishing the race or the challenge of being able to stay consistent in the training to actually be able to do it when you get there?

SPEAKER_03 1:37:24

Both of them combined.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:25

Yeah, I think even more heavily. You didn't view it as that, but like for me as coach, I see that as you being the thing that was like the push for you was like, I can't not do this. So I don't have the excuses, will no longer work anymore. I have to do this.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:40

Having that deadline, having that deadline was the thing that I knew would keep me dialed in and consistent. And the mental battle, right? Like, I had enough things that I was shooting for, enough unrealistic goals that I was shooting for that hadn't kept me 100% consistent up until this point. And I knew other guys relying on me to be strong enough, fit enough to at least not show up and look like a pansy would be the thing that pushed me to do the extra rep. But also mentally would be the thing that kept me from going there mentally of well, I'll do it tomorrow. Like I there there's been days where I've missed a workout, but I haven't missed two in a row. And I got stuck in that habit over that thing because I'd been there before. But if you didn't have the hour, you wouldn't do it. But and then that turned into two days, turned into three days. There'd be three months where I wouldn't even do a workout. And the ups and downs of all right, now I'm back, I'm serious, I'm back, I'm serious. You've listened to that for seven years, you know, and this has been the thing. But the how do you change that though?

SPEAKER_01 1:38:52

How do you make it about like we it was obviously we worked on that together? Like we set up, we had some we've had so many conversations about this specific topic. Hey, dude, it doesn't matter about the hour, it matters about the checking, doing that thing that day, and that is moving you forward. You listening to Luke Combs stuff. He's got this song called Deer Today, and it's about it said like Deer Today, tomorrow here. Just just checking in, thought like it's like hope you've been well, and it's like just in case you forgot, you're the only thing that gets us to tomorrow. Like you're the that's the only thing that matters, right? And there's so much of that in just every anything in life, whether it's fitness, you want to lose weight, you want to you want to win a world title, you want to own a million-dollar business. Like, whatever it is, if you are not consistent with it and can't have grace with yourself to not be perfect every single day, but do the thing, dude, you'll never ever get to that goal. It'll always be this thing that comes up and you'll it you'll just go back to that comfort thing. You made the cognitive decision to say, I'm done with that comfort, like I'm not gonna feel that. And that for me is not going all out for an hour every single workout. It's for you the uncomfortable shit is doing 10 minutes and being okay with that. That's but that's where the perspective changes. That's where I think people like listening. I'm all hyped up right now, like yelling at this mic, but you we it's that simple. It's like that is the difference between someone that made the NFR and you maybe is that they just they just did the work, whatever that looked like for that day, they got better one way or another, whether it was 10 minutes or two hours, they did the thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:29

Yeah, 100%. No, I think that is that was the shift that I had to get over. Okay, I read a book, Atomic Habits. Oh, yeah, and it's I've read that a million times talks about the habit stacking stuff, and and I've tried, man. I've tried to get routineed, and I am not a routine guy. Your life is not routine. I think about that though. And I am I am done trying to be a routine guy because so important. Because what this has shown me is I am a routine guy. It just might not look like the same as type A routine guys, okay? I my business, my my life, my things, there might be days where it's just not symmetrical. I have to stay up till three o'clock in the morning in the leather shop to get a project done. Now my five o'clock routine is gonna get thrown out of whack. And I'd been struggling. I'd been struggling because I'd been trying to set those routines in my life, and I beat myself up when I fall off the window. Okay, and then I heard another thing in there that that you have coached me to was make the habits convenient.

unknown 1:41:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:45

Okay? Make the habits convenient. So I took bands to my house. I took 10-pound dumbbells to my house. I left all my other big stuff up in my gym, but I took stuff to my house that if m today my routine was I didn't get to work out until eight o'clock, that I was at least gonna do something. Okay, so discipline is doing the things when you don't feel like doing it. That's what that's what discipline is, right? I struggled for a long time when I didn't feel like it, I didn't feel like I could give my best, that it didn't matter. And when you told me, dude, I don't care if you only show up to this workout today at 15%, that you give your 100% of that 15%, and that being enough, and that was the shift for me that happened. Hey, a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups might be the only thing I get done today. That can be enough for today. Because tomorrow I might show up and give a freaking two and a half hour sweat burner that's gonna grow, that's gonna grow me or whatever, you know. But when you told me it's not always all about showing up a hundred percent all the time, because I had to learn this because when you're rodeoing, you are a hundred percent all the time. Like that is what you do all the time. I don't care if you're partying, you still have to you it might not be as good as it was when you're not partying, but you can party, go down that rabbit hole, da da da da. You still showed up uh a hundred percent and put a workout in, you know, like and it might that workout might have only been jog a mile because you're freaking hung over and not feeling good from all the stupid cigarettes you smoked the night before or whatever, you know, whatever dumb stuff you did. But that was enough to get you there mentally. That I showed up with the best that I had today, and once that wasn't my scene anymore, it was easy to show up a hundred percent every time because that was the priority. Yeah, okay, and I had to learn in my life because life gets busy, life gets messy, you got other priorities. All of a sudden, bills have to be paid, food has to be put on the table, you have a kid, you have a family, all of this stuff. Somebody just asked me the other day, how do you find time to work out? I said, I don't find time, I make time. Yeah, and that's what you've shown me. Like, I might not show up and do a two-hour workout every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:19

Nor do I want you to.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:20

Yeah, yeah, and and I love that. I love the two-hour grind, I love the freaking when I get done, I feel spent. I love that feeling. And I thought if I didn't feel that way, that it wasn't working, it wasn't working and it wasn't enough. So that was the real shift for me. Make it convenient and the discipline being show up if you only have 20% left in the tank, show up with 100% of that 20%. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:46

Yeah, I I heard something, it was back when I was competing in CrossFit, I got to compete with some like really high-level athletes just through some of those competitions I qualified for. And I got to talk to one of the guys who I don't think he won the games, but he got the top two, three fittest men in the world like multiple years. And this was early in my training days, and even as a coach, and it still stuck with me ever since then. It's part of our talk, it was like when you're training at that level, there comes a point in time where sports are sports are unhealthy, right? Like you push your body to this point where you don't feel good, and my thing was like who's gonna carry the boats? I would just push through it harder and harder, and then it would compound into injury usually, and I'd have to sit out for a month and rehab and do all this stuff. It was CrossFit injury, so it's not like I'm breaking bones, but little stupid shit, right? And I remember him saying that him showing up to the gym, he's like, dude, those good days like where I'm like PR in, and those get weigh less and less the further, the more elite you get because you're chasing these huge numbers of weight that to change one pound of lifting, it takes it takes a year to adjust your central nervous system. But like he said, 60% of the time I show up, I do not feel good. I do not want to be there. He said, But what I do is I listen to my body and do that max, like you were saying, of whatever I have in my tank so that tomorrow I can be refueled and do that again and be consistent at this, because you just need reps and reps and reps at doing it the correct way, and that like goes all the way back to rodeo and that's so funny you say that actually, because so I'm not very educated on fitness.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:27

Like I'm I've always been an in-shape guy, but just bust my balls all the time. That was structured from wrestling days, and in wrestling you frickin' grind, grind, have an off-season, and in the offseason you rest, you recover, you might jog a little, but that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:46

Yeah, you put on frickin' 20 pounds that you've lost, and it's unhealthy, but it's the sport and it's what you have to do. But the But that's what my structure was. I know that it's what only thing it's the only thing that you knew. That's how I was a rodeo too.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:02

Dude, that's what I'm saying. To win Calgary. It works. And then once I've won that, well, I can rest and relax a little bit, just do a little bit. If you're rodeoing these days, you can't be doing that. Exactly. And I I that man, that fires me up because then so the last three years of my rodeo career, I've watched the game change in the last 10 years. There was a handful of guys, Bobby Moat. They would go to 30 or 40 in a year, Casey Field, make it Ty Murray, some of these guys that had started the fitness phase of rodeo athletics.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:35

Ty Murray was the OG, by the way. Yeah, the OG. And I read his book when I was young. It was so good, dude. Because he talked about all the things he did as a kid, and he didn't. I think he knew that he was getting better at something, but like, as from a coaching standpoint, from an athletic development standpoint, had no idea that he was just doing the things absolutely correctly. Yep. From a young age, teaching basic eye hand coordination, walking across the arena, literally on the top bar, just walking around it. His balance, his everything. Yeah, yeah. But sorry, go back to the working out, working hard.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:05

Kelly Timberman, you know, like there was a select handful of guys that treated that treated like a sport, treated the sport as a sport. It's been preached to us forever, treat this like a business. There was a lot of guys that that treated it like a business, but there was a select few that put the fitness into that. So we were kind of that first wave of the turn where we were all working out. We were all athletes, didn't know what we're doing. We were working out absolutely freaking P90X and Infinity and whatever it was that going to the gym and like watching all man, that fires me up too. But uh so I brought my back in 2015, yeah, was out for six months, came back, and because you had went into CrossFit, I was like, man, that looks like my style of stuff. That's hardcore. So I started doing CrossFit, but I wasn't educated in any of that stuff, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:49:01

What we were looking for was something, and this is where the development of coaching, and like not to toot the champion living horn, but what we have developed and have found in the world. 100% is that we did the insanity. We tried to make our workouts mimic the arena. Dude, I would do insanity in the morning, and then a CrossFit Wad in the evening, and then eating like no calories, just not taking care of the body. And you can do that at that age. And I that's what we say to all these young guys is like, guys, you don't feel bad now, and that's awesome. You're not gonna feel bad, but I'm telling you, when you hit 25 or 26, things will change. Your body will change, and all these things. Yeah, man. It is. And I felt good about it, dude. Yeah, everyone does, and that's again, because you're young and bulletproof and invincible. But the making it look like the arena is the absolute opposite of what we want to do in the gym. Yeah, because we are actually making ourselves worse in the arena because we're training ourselves to just spaz out, especially. There's no slowing down. And actually controlling chaos when you take your training, and this is where guys they trust us now. But in the beginning, I tempo everything. And you know I tempo everything. I make you go slow because I don't give a shit how bad how fast you can lift one rep heavily. I want to see how you control that full range of motion. And when we start tying it to rodeo, you're never going to be able to train at that speed except for practice. Volume-wise, we can't handle that much practice, right? And so we have to be able to train the brain cognitively and neurologically to use opposite extremities, upper and lower extremities, because we're lifting on a bear back, Regan, and we're bringing our knees to our face. Where in regular life do we ever do that? Nowhere. And so we see athletes like yourself. You were a natural because you had already had those capabilities through wrestling. We see a lot of guys now through our OPAs that we do. Do we get a lot of kids that have zero athletic background and have zero rodeo experience? And it's like a monkey humping a football kind of a deal. Yep. Until they slow down and develop the strength of the thing. Yes. And those things, but we have to do it so opposite.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:03

Well, that's where I've always I've always respected you because you are such a go out there and get the knowledge about it. And I've watched Champion Live in Fitness unfold, and I've watched the whole wave of the rodeo game change. So there was still guys that didn't work out when I was rodeoing. And the guys that worked out were the ones that had the upper edge. Well, now, like that isn't an upper edge. Everybody has to do it. Whether it's for longevity, whether it's for putting the extra work in, whether it's for the mentality, whether it's whatever. And I'm not saying you have to go work out, but I'm saying you need to have a system, a plan. And I push towards working out because of what it does for your mentality. But okay, so claim to fame. So JB Mooney, everybody wants to point to him, or Wade Sundale. But look at what look at what they did. Dude, JB Mooney stood on balance balls. JB Mooney rode the bucket machine.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:02

Wade Sundale got on more bulls than anybody ever fathomed getting on. And that is he is elite because of that. You can't take that away from him. I know JB very well. Like we have a good relationship. We chat regularly. We don't see eye to eye on that sense in the preparation because there is a point, there is a part of you that has to have that grit. You gotta have that dog in you to be this elite level that he is, that was, it still is. Like, dude, I think he could still strap one and be a hundred points. Same thing with Wade came to Australia with me. He was my saddlebronk riding instructor. We go over there, we do an OPA there. No one will ever be Wade, and no one Jay, they are the same guy, they are the anomalies of the sport. It doesn't matter because they are that talented, because they put that much time and effort into that one thing. But Wade, dude, we I mean it's no no surprise. We teach fitness at our camp. Like these guys are coming to the gym, he's sending his Bronck Riders to us. They know damn well he ain't working out, but it's not don't do as I do, do as I say, kind of a thing. And he said, Hey, I didn't do any of this when I was going. I've got however many you know, gold buckles I've been won the American how many times? And he said, Doug knows what he's talking, and I I because I asked, dude, because I was just interested. Like, what did he say when you guys came out here? He said, He didn't do it, but we damn well need to be doing it, and like we know what we're teaching in our development. And he said, You need to be diving into that because a game isn't the same as when I was going, it's changed it's evolved. And so seeing guys like that, they don't they didn't do it, they don't know about I don't expect them to be promoting it, but to hear them say, Hey, like that might be helpful, and from the very, very bottom line, there's bareback riders out there now that are going that are really talented to make in the NFR. I don't know what they're doing now, but like there's guys I know for sure that are not on a training program, and it's because they do not like it, they don't like the having to go to the gym, and that's cool. But my question to you is if you want to be a bareback rider or elite at anything in the world, it doesn't matter how mad you want to do it, you need to go do it because you can only be in this game and be successful and not have to go get that nine to five job after rodeo, which hey, there isn't anybody really that has done that yet still. Like Casey's still working, he has his own businesses, but like people you still have to go work, there's no one leaving the sport. I'm done. Like, I'm retired. This is great. You have to be in this game a very, very long time. And if our careers, we didn't get to choose when they ended. Yep. So you really have no idea what the finish line time is. You can think you have one thing, but if that's what your eggs are all in that basket, you've built no other skills about systems and and how to have a process.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:48

Look at every other athletic big time sport there is. Yeah, these guys are athletes, man. Why not? If that gives me the extra edge, why not? Don't you want to be the best? Don't you want to win gold buckles? I'm not saying everybody needs to have the same program that I had.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:05

You don't have to go an hour, two hours, you have to go intense, but like you need to take care of your body. Every time that I'm an athlete and I go to the gym, I'm seeing my bank account go up because I'm investing in myself.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:14

But like, and whatever that is, whether it's freaking yoga, Pilates, a stretch program, whatever it is for me, I had to be doing that so that I had it here. Yes. And that's where the game is shifted. There was 10 guys that were in the top 15 that I knew I was out working, that I knew I was putting in extra effort, that I knew my time would come because I'm doing something that they're not. Everybody's doing the extra little thing. So why not? Why not give it a try? Why not? If that exponentially makes your career last longer, or that exponentially makes you that much more athletic, so that you're that much more explosive, or if that jump starts your career that much faster, why not try it? Swallow your pride and get a coach.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:07

Yeah, and just make the investment in yourself. And you know, that's the part a hard decision or a hard mindset to get into as a young rodeo athlete is the business thing. Investing giving money, I don't necessarily have right now to feed that bigger goal that will get me that money in the future.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:23

Oh, I think it's beautiful, man, what you've done with Champion Live and Fitness because it's state of the art and it's changing the game. Look at these young guys. So for me to go get access on how to get up and down the road, I had to go up and down the road with pay the entry fee and throw my gear bag next to those guys and pick their brand.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:44

So, dude, all right, let's just put this together money-wise. Your first season doing that, right? I bet you're in like 40 to 50 grand in entries, just like in entry fees. Oh, yeah. Okay, but we're gaining knowledge, but we had to put$40,000 in, and you gained a ton of life experience. OPA,$2,500, one time charge, four days with literally all the guys. Elites. Yep. The same guys that you paid to be in the you've been in the truck with. Yep. And when we started this, our whole goal was to shorten that learning curve. Like you were talking about. It took us forever to learn the things. And Bennett said he's like, if I would have had this at 18, I would have been at the NFR at 22 or 23. And we said if kids come to this school and they do the things they learn here consistently, someone will be at the NFR in three years. This was year three, Sage Allen won't rookie of the year, would have been at the NFR. Got in a car wreck, had a brain bleed, couldn't go to the NFR. Still, right on track. Kelly Wardell. Yeah, that's cool to know. Wardell like we know Kelly very well. Yep. He's believed in everything. Man, he's been one of my biggest fans since I started this. Just and one of the like the silent guys. I believe that. Like just off to the side, never like never called me, like blew me up or anything, but just like I'd always hear him was talking about us and giving us praise. And we came up with this concept, and like, well, first of all, paying for a rodeo school was just a hard thing to get through people's heads because they couldn't, yeah, it's never been like that. You come, you're a test dummy, you get on Colts. Yeah, cool. Getting on Colts, very important to the learning process. I do not think it's the best part of the learning process in the very beginning. I think that we should reverse it and put them on campaigners, things that we can build confidence, they can do the fundamentals. I know what the horse is gonna do. If something happens, he's not gonna just do a cult and just be whatever and wrecks happen, right? So we changed that. We monitored the horsepower, did all those things, and um Kelly called me and he's like, I got two boys that are gonna come that I'm sending to you for this school. Like, they need to come, it's gonna help them. I believe in you guys, dude. After those four days, it was like just the chains had been released. Like they just it they want everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:44

Okay, and two, that's really big statement there. So they were rodeoing for him? Yes, they were at CSI. That was their rodeo coach that went and said, hey, go get some more coaching. Some different coaching, yeah. Rodeo has never been a coach sport past college rodeo.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:02

And even there it's a loosely coached sport.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:04

It's loosely coached. And there's Wade Sundell's, there's JB Mooney's, there's Casey Fields, there's whatever. But but dude, Casey is different because he did have a coach. His dad exactly built in one. Yeah. But that's it's tradition. Yeah, it's tradition, you know, it's tradition. That is their coach, that is that extra knowledge, that is that wisdom, that is that outside the box thinking, that is all of those things. For 90% of rodeo athletes that go, once you get past a certain level, figure it out, figure it out. And to have access to okay, rodeo is different than a lot of those. Well, maybe not. I don't know. I've never been a professional football player, but I would venture to say that there's enough team chemistry that there's times where they don't need a coach. They can go and operate as a team on their own. Yeah, right. So there's it's more like they're a moderator at that point.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:57

Like, yeah, they're they're the coach is overseeing the game, the playing and being like being that voice that they can't see because they're so deep into what they're doing, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:00:05

There's a time at that that if you get to that elite, I'm sure you could operate without your coach. Rodeo's no different. There's a time where it's on you. You're the only one that's going to be able to carry yourself as far as you can go. Having the coach as a mediator, mentor, mentality, check, push, accountability partner, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:35

And it's such a small investment when you start talking about what you can gain, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:00:40

Especially with the money that's up in Rodeo right now, too.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:43

Our training at the top level would cost$350 a month.$3,500 plus seven.$4,200 a year. A year. Bro. I will I'll give you the statement right now. Yeah, that's you get to write that off. That's an investment in yourself. Second of all, if you're not winning$4,200 more than you did last year, I'll give you that$4,200 back. But as long as you do that thing, because I know for a fact, it will work. You just have to do the thing and you have to get you just have to trust it. You have to trust the process and be coachable. All of our athletes that do that, they see the results so fast. We get guys all the time, and I'm I love the transparency that they will tell me straight up, I don't believe this. Like, I don't think this is gonna work. That's all right. We'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:29

You've had it from me, and that's not even on the rodeo world, anyways. I go, hey man, I feel like we need to ramp it up, dude. We're gonna just trust the process. We're gonna ramp it up. And those are great checks. Like, okay, I have an infatuation with elite athletes, with with special force, armed forces. I have I've read a lot of those books, I listened to a lot of those stories, I caught, I talked to a lot of those people, and I have an infatuation with elite business people. So those three things. I have a passion and an infatuation with elites, okay? And every single one of them have a lot of the same things. Yes, very similar, very similar things to be elite. And do you want to know one thing that every single one of them have in common? What's up? They didn't get it 100% on their own. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:30

That's it, man.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:31

It takes a team. Swallow your pride, it takes a team and allow that team to be what gets you to an elite.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:38

Yep. But it really is. And I don't know, just to wrap this all up, for anyone listening, you're not gonna get through this thing on your own. You're not gonna make it on your own. And we're not getting out of this thing alive either. So amen, man. Trust your team. Go take some do some things that make you uncomfortable and show some love to people, man. Like it's so simple. And going back to like the faith thing, if you're doing what you are passionate about and called to, you're doing what God wants you to do, man. Like it's that simple, right? So just keep it simple, like trust that it is that simple, and just do the three things I just said.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:18

Beautifully said because I've had a wrestling match with that. Lord, do you want me to go move to Africa and be a missionary? Because I will, I'm willing, I'm willing. He says that's cool. I appreciate you being willing. Proverbs it says a man in his heart will make his plan and the Lord will determine his steps. Okay. So I in another life could have been a UFC fighter. I in another life could have been a Delta Force, Navy SEAL, whatever. Like, I know that I could have gone that way. Well, why didn't I? I loved being a cowboy, wanted to be a bareback rider, wanted to do exactly what I'm doing now. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:56

And he's like, Chill, here's the road.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:00

You can go left or you can go right. I don't care. Pick a direction, keep your feet moving, and I'm gonna direct your steps. So 100%, man. If if you're struggling with that, you're right where the Lord wants you to be. Keep your feet moving. Yeah. And he'll guide your steps. If he doesn't want you to go through a door, you'll know. And if he does, it'll come wide open. And there's a reason that you have those desires. So I get it a I get it all the time. It's very easy for me to chase my dreams, desires, and passions. The perspective change has been the bigger picture of me chasing those dreams, desires, and passions. Okay. This was a real intrigual part of my journey right now. So the cow horse deal started to come. And I got I had to go in my prayer closet because it was re fanning the flame inside of me that rodeo had left me that I was trying to put out. I was trying to put that flame out. And it was starting to reflame that that flame. The competition, I was starting to get those same feelings. I was starting to get those same, I'm willing to do whatever it takes. I know this is impossible, but I'm ready to shoot for the impossible. It was really bringing those same things out in me. And it scared me, Doug. It scared me in the sense of rodeo was a very selfish game for me. Okay. Yeah. That's what you're worried about. I was I was worried about, I was like, I okay, when I'm going to be that me again, essentially. Okay, I I feel very fortunate that the game got taken away from me and I didn't have to make that decision on when to walk away from the game because I don't know what that struggle would have been like. And especially if I hadn't won a gold buckle yet. I get to go sleep at night very easily, knowing that the only reason I didn't get a gold buckle was I didn't have enough trash yet. Because I was on my way to getting one, right? There might be people out there that go, yeah, right, you were never gonna beat Casey. But but I saw myself there. I was headed there. I was I literally the year I got hurt, I told Shelby, I said, maybe I should sell, maybe we should sell the cows and and slow down on our other businesses so that I can become totally consumed with this sport again because that's what Tim O'Connell and Casey are doing, and I have other priorities that are weighing in on that, some of the stuff. But so I was starting to, I was making those comments. I saw myself there, and that getting taken away from me. I can go to bed at night peacefully, going Casey won, he's the GOAT. He won six world titles, but guess how many NFRs he went to? 13. My goal was always to be better than Casey Field and break his record. And at the time he only had four when I started making that. So mine would have been seven. Guess what? I only went to six NFRs. You give me seven more, I'm freaking hitting the grand slam. I not saying that I ever would have beat Casey's record, but that's the only buckle that I didn't get that I set out to get. And if I would have had made that decision on when to give up that dream, I don't know that how I would have handled that. So that was starting to build all of that stuff back up in me because I would have I was getting to a spot in my headspace that I no kid would have held me back, no job would have held me back, I would have done whatever it took, I would have sold my left kidney to go try one more time. Like it was my addiction. And so the cowhorse thing was starting to get like that for me. I was like, man, I could see myself doing whatever it took to pay an entry fee. And I went to my prayer closet and I went, all right, Lord, is like, what do you want me to do with this? Because I don't want, I don't want this, I don't want to do this if this isn't of you, and I don't want to do this if it's gonna jeopardize my family stuff. And for the first time in my life, I doubted myself. I didn't know what was right, what was possible. I didn't know what reality looked like. I knew that I was starting at the bottom of the totem pole, I knew that I was gonna have to work ten times harder than anybody else's if the situation were normal. I knew that so I was like, okay, if I'm gonna spend freaking$30,000 on a horse and spend this much on entry fees, like this has to be a business. How can I make that pay for itself and all this stuff? I was going through all of that, and the small still voice I heard was, what was the dream before? And in 2014, when I very first saw the rain cow horse in competition, I called Shelby. We weren't even married at the time, I was dating her, and it was the first time that I'd seen any of that in competition. I said, This is the coolest thing since I spread when I'm done rodeo and this is the world I want to get in, and maybe someday compete at the world's greatest horseman. And so I told myself that was the seriously the talk going on in my head, is like, well, maybe someday compete at the world's greatest horseman. And I just heard, why is that not still the dream? Okay, so then I started challenging, well, that's not the dream because I don't want to be selfish, it's not the dream because I don't want it to overcome or overtake my kids. And what I was shown was you cannot. So rodeo to me, gold buckle was what determined my success in the rodeo arena. Okay. Young, I'm not saying that's wrong. No, I'm just saying for me, that was my identity. Gold buckle was my definition of success. Okay, I made five NFRs, I qualified to six NFRs, competed at five. And the NFR was great, the NFR was good, that was a big year-long goal that was achieved. I finished third in the world twice, third in the average twice, second in the average once. Like I was a top five guy, four out of those six years. I was one of the elites, right? And I don't say this to brag, but I say this because after the NFR, every single year, that was not a success. I didn't get a gold buckle, sure. I was I had a good finals that put a bunch of money in the bank, but let's head to Denver because I need to win a gold buckle this year.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:31

So winning a gold buckle on the back ever. Yeah, it never was good enough.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:36

I won the high school finals, I won the college finals, I won state, I won all those things, those are all great. Winning a gold buckle was my success. As rodeo as my identity, winning a gold buckle defined whether I was a successful rodeo athlete or not.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:49

Without obedience.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:51

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:51

So fast forward to right now.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:53

So to all those fears were I don't want that. And what I was shown was the outcome of that desire that you have inside of you, that impossible goal that you want to set, that striving warrior mentality that you are fanning back into flame, the outcome of that is not what determines your success as a human being. Nope. And I went, all right. Yeah, I'm freaking sure for world's greatest horseman. And if that doesn't happen, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:25

I'm trying. Yeah, I'm on my way. Yeah, and it wasn't, you know, I think people can get well, you know, that's it.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:32

Really, what I want to do is I want to inspire and encourage. And my story right now is if I can, you can. If I can find a way to not give up on chasing a dream, desire, and passion, so can you. I don't care if that's painting, I don't care if that's climbing a mountain, I don't care if that's not letting that health issue keep you from going on that camping trip with your grandkids, whatever it is, being a gold buckle holder, whatever it is. If I can figure out a way to chase a dream, desire, and passion, so can you. Oh, that's the bottom line, man. It really is. And what determines my success? What determines my success? Okay. The character that is shaped. Yes. The character that is shaped along the process. And my success might change in 20 years when I'm 55 instead of 34, you know. But my I had to view what my success as a person looked like. And I had to view my pards at my funeral, what I wanted them saying about me. And you know what it is? I simplified it to I want my pards to go. That was a good son of a buck that did the best he could with what he had, and we saw the love of Christ in him. He encouraged us, he inspired us, he did the best he could with what he had, and he loved his pards and he loved his family. If my pards will say that about me at my funeral, I'm winning.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:51

I'm winning. Yeah. Oh, that's that's like going back to what we were just talking about. That's simple. That's the simple things in life that really hold the value. And all the young people listening, you may not understand all of the things that we're talking about today, but I promise you will. Keep on living, man. Yeah, just keep on going. And I think just to wrap this up, if anyone listening needs any help, wants to talk about anything, I know that Junior and I are both open ears and are always willing to help people. Shoot us messages. Where can people follow along with you guys?

SPEAKER_03 2:13:21

So if you're gonna get a hold of me, just my name, JR Vizane on Instagram, Facebook, shoot even TikTok now. So go hit them up. We do have Spur Your Way Out also.com. SpurYourWayOut.com website, and then we have Spur Your Way Out Instagram and Facebook as well, too. You can kind of follow along. And then our my personals kind of have everything on it. But if you're gonna hit us up direct at my name, and I yeah, same to you.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:50

Champion.com. You can send messages, do pre-consultation forms, you can fill them all out there. We have an app called Hui Fit where you can go download that. It is not the same thing as our individual coaching that you and I do, but it's like an introduction to anyone that rodeos or beyond the arena that just wants workout plans with demo videos and actual program. We have every single event in rodeo there. So just like we were talking about doing the insanity doing all that stuff, we just didn't know what we were doing. We created the to know what you're doing plan as the entry level. Oh, dude.

SPEAKER_03 2:14:22

Um, this is awesome. There's been a ton of good nuggets. I can't I can't wait to listen to it to get some nuggets out of it. I feel very fortunate and honored to be able to call you a part. Same man. And I just want to give you a shout out, honestly, and to the people. So you're okay, so part of the Spartan race for me as it started to transpire, so I invited a couple people that I needed to go my pace, and then I told a handful of other people about it. They felt convicted and were like, sign me up. So we have 12 people that are gonna do this May 10th, and we have a rag tag. I got a guy that's 63 years old that's gonna do it. I have my uncle who has never worked out that's gonna do it. I have a special force, armed forces uncle that's gonna do it with us. We got a few fitness guys, we got a few non-fitness guys, and I just want to give a plug to you, man, that your program, part of the bigger picture that I've watched unfolded of this was I told you, man, I think I want to go do something hard. I want to go do something that will challenge me with a date that will keep me consistent. And we're inspiring, we are inspiring and encouraging the world to go do something hard, go challenge yourself, get out of your comfort zone. And I want to give you a plug in your for your fitness business that it isn't just for rodeo athletes. Doug will meet you at whatever level you are at, and Doug will coach you, and Doug just wants you to come as you are. And if you have a drive to be better, do better, get better, Doug's your man. So thanks for being part of my journey. And we'll have to do a recap episode after the Spartan race and talk about some of that other stuff. But thanks for being our first guest on Spur Your Way Out.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:16

Thank you guys so much, and thank you for trusting me, man. You gotta trust the guy you're working with, and you've done nothing but that. And like you said, we've had trials, tribulations, and success. And there's just we just stay consistent with each other on that, man, and communicated, and and like it just goes a long way. So I appreciate the trust, and it's the coolest thing to watch you doing everything that you're doing, man. We will be at that world's greatest horseman. Like, it will happen. I can already see it. Yep, and uh the sky's the limit. But guys, oh, real quick, shout out to our sponsors, Barstow Pro Rodeo. I know you know Barstows. I don't know. I love Barstow. Yeah, you do, but use our discount code BarstowChamp26, gonna save you some money at checkout. Check out they got everything that a rough stock rider could need. And even we had Holden Myers on yesterday, you know, wrote Myers Boy, he just won Houston. And we're talking about Barstow, he just pulls up a rigging bag, he goes, Yep, I got one too.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:04

And he's like, I love these bags. Y'all check them out. Brent and the crew, they're good, they're good folk there.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:09

Go check them out. They are barstowprodeo.com. And make sure to download the Rodeo Now app. It is available in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. That is your one-stop shop for everything rodeo, rough stock videos, bulls, horses, calves, steers. You can sell animals, all of the above. Check them out, rodeonow.com. Guys, until next time on both of these shows, we'll catch you later.