Creative Spirits Unleashed
Creative Spirits Unleashed
#72 Laurie Kaplan: Journey Through the Gaucho Derby
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My guest for this episode of the Creative Spirits Unleashed podcast is Laurie Kaplan. I reached out to Laurie to be on the podcast after hearing her talk about her experience of the Gaucho Derby on the Greg and Dan Show in Peoria Illinois. The Gaucho Derby is a 500 km adventure race through Patagonia, and it’s billed as the world’s toughest horse race. That’s an understatement. Three of my former podcast guests were involved in the Derby, Kansas Carradine, Stevie Delahunt and Warwick Schiller, so I was paying attention to their adventures as well. In this podcast, Laurie shares her epic moments. Some were high notes and there were plenty of low notes as well. As we spoke, it’s almost as if she were reliving many of the moments, which you will hear. Listen to the whole thing, because at the end, you will hear how she puts it all together, when I ask her: What would the Laurie of today tell the Laurie that decided in August 2022 to do the race. Her answer moved me to tears.
Here's what Laurie has to say about herself:
Laurie is a free spirit who seeks living at a deeper level in the many things that she pursues. Whether it is raising her 2 boys who are both successfully off at university, riding horses, caring for her farm, rocking out on her drums and guiding others to their epigenetically best life. She recently experienced the Gaucho Derby in Patagonia, Argentina and is still processing the profound expansion this is opening for her.
I hope you enjoy this podcast with Laurie Kaplan and as always, please share this episode with your colleagues and friends.
Additional Topics
· The Gaucho Derby adventure race in Patagonia with Laurie Kaplan. (0:02)
· Endurance horse race in Patagonia with challenging terrain and limited gear. (3:30)
· Carrying personal items during a horseback ride. (9:59)
· Mental preparation and overcoming obstacles in a horse race. (17:21)
· Adventure vs. competitor in horse race. (23:48)
· Horseback riding adventure with injuries and lessons learned. (29:35)
· Trust, balance, and galloping in horse riding. (35:21)
· Horseback riding adventure with highs and lows. (40:19)
· Overcoming self-criticism and focusing on progress. (46:24)
· Overcoming burnout and building mental strength. (51:43)
· Hormones, burnout, and epigenetics in a horseback riding adventure. (1:00:22)
· Outdoor adventures, hiking, and bathroom experiences. (1:08:09)
· Visualization and manifestation in a horse riding competition. (1:14:04)
· Dealing with disappointment after not completing a big goal. (1:20:09)
· Self-discovery and horse riding. (1:25:52)
· Epigenetics, genetic testing, and personalized health plans. (1:31:30)
· Epigenetics, mindset, and adventure with Laurie Kaplan. (1:38:11)
Guest Contact Info
Lynn, Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing work and life and now here's your host. Lynn Carnes,
Lynn:welcome to the creative spirits unleash Podcast. I'm Len Carnes, your host. My guest for this episode is Laurie Kaplan. I reached out to Laurie to be on the podcast after hearing her talk about her experience of the Gaucho Derby on the Greg and Dan show, which is in Peoria, Illinois. Now, the Gaucho derby is a 500 kilometer adventure race through Patagonia, and it's billed as the world's toughest horse race. I think that's an understatement. Three of my former podcast guests were involved in the derby. It was Kansas, Carradine, Stevie Delahunt and Warwick Schiller, so I was paying attention to their adventures as well, watching videos as it was going on, and looking at some of the map and the terrain and really blown away by what was happening in this particular race. So in this podcast, Laurie shares her epic moments. Now, some were high notes, and there were plenty of low notes as well as we spoke, it's almost as if she were reliving some of those moments, which you will hear as you listen. And also I would say, listen to the whole thing, because at the end, you will hear how she puts it all together. When I ask her, what would the Laurie of today tell the Laurie of August 2022 that decided to do the race, her answer just moved me to tears. So here's what Laurie has to say about herself. Laurie is a free spirit who seeks living at a deeper level in the many things that she pursues, whether it's raising her two boys, who are both successfully off at university, riding horses, caring for her farm, rocking out on her drums and guiding others to their epigenetically best life. She recently experienced the Gaucho Derby in Patagonia, Argentina, and is still processing the profound expansion this opening. This is opening for her. I hope you enjoy this podcast with Laurie Kaplan, and please do be sure to share it with your friends. Laurie, welcome to the podcast.
Laurie:Hi Lynn. Thank you. Thank you so much for having
Lynn:me. I'm thrilled that you are here, because I can actually remember where I was. What was it a couple of weeks ago when I got to listen to your conversation with the Greg and Dan show? Yeah, I was in Scottsdale, Arizona, right driving somewhere. I was visiting my sister, going to the cactus reigning classic. And I was so excited to see the hear you talk about the Gaucho Derby, and it was only 10 minutes, yeah. And I was like, we need, we need a lot more about the the Gaucho derby is. It deserves a lot more time. I have a lot more questions, and I reached out to you, and here we are. You're on the podcast to talk about the gadget Derby, so I and I'm probably going to duplicate some of their questions, but here's my first question. You have just completed the gadget derby. Could you just set some context for people listening who may not know what it is and and include in your context what made you choose to put yourself in Patagonia. Yeah, this event,
Laurie:yeah. So the Gaucho derby is organized by a group called the equestrianists, and they've been doing something called the Mongol Derby, which is in Mongolia, 1000 kilometer 10 day race. Um, they added one, I believe the first one was in 2019 in Patagonia, and they've done a couple. Covid kind of interrupted some of their plans. But the Gaucho derby is really an adventure race. 10 day 500 kilometers, you're going over Extreme Terrain, extreme weather. You're getting on up to seven different horses over the course of the race, and you're out there with a very small kit. You have 22 pounds maximum, which includes all your food gear, and you have to navigate using a Garmin and and your senses.
Lynn:So I watched a little bit of this. I had several of my prior podcast guests were there Kansas. Caraday, yeah, and Warwick Schiller were both along with you, yes, doing the race. Stevie dela hunt works with the equestrianist, and she's done the race, and she's also one of your organizers, and often for some people trainers. So I had a lot of interest. I had been watching the trackers because they put shoot live trackers on you, and we could see the dots moving on a map. Right? And if you think about Google Maps, you know, or something, if you don't put the satellite view on, it looks like a nice, flat map. She laughs. She laughs knowingly. It was a couple of days in before I had the good sense to go ahead and put the overlay on where I could see the terrain you were on, yeah, yeah. Holy cow, yeah. These is, this is not, this is not trail riding on steroids. This isn't even like cowboy riding, like in the western movies, on steroids. This is something altogether different. Yes, describe the terrain a little bit for me
Laurie:so well, each leg had different terrain. And, you know, I laughed. I thought, Oh, my God, there's no way my horses would even consider doing this. The initial few days was sort of scrubby desert with these really pricker bushes. And they looked, they looked soft, but they were kind of hard. So in effect, you were continually hopping over these things as you were galloping or walking, whatever gate you happen to be in, and up and down. Lots of rivers, gentle hills, steep hills, loose gravel. And then, then, of course, there were the bogs, which came a little while later into the race, two types of bogs, this beautiful golf course looking bog, where you just want to gallop across this flat green grass, when in fact you sink up to the Hawks in mud. Wow. Often at that point, having to hop off the horse and let them sort themselves out. And then there are the rock box, which, if you picture a lovely river flowing with a nice rocky, sandy shore, think, Oh, that looks great to walk on, when, in fact, you sink even deeper. And then the horse really panics because it's surrounded by these rocks. So as it tries to get out, the rocks are flailing. Luckily, I didn't experience this personally. One of the fellow riders, my partner, Wendy, did. And yeah, you just, you just gotta hop off and let them get out.
Lynn:And they have to get the horse has to get themselves out of a rock or the making
Laurie:part? Yeah, there's times when you do have to, I mean, you're leading them as much as you can, but you also have to get out of their way so you don't get hurt potentially,
Lynn:sure. So are, is the horse okay when they come out of a rock block? I mean, I'm picturing,
Laurie:yeah, yeah, we think of our horses, and they nothing against our horses. Our horses are lovely, but these horses live in this area. They don't live in stables like we keep most of ours. They're just out there in curds, yeah, and they're collected when they're needed. So this is their land, their masters, yeah.
Lynn:So they might have even gotten themselves in a rock blog before Rob, I'm calling it a blog, before they might have done that and got themselves out, and then they carry on
Laurie:correct for the most part, yeah, yeah. They might be a little sore, take a couple off steps, but then they usually move on just
Lynn:fine. That's just amazing to me. It is, yeah, okay, and let's talk about 22 pounds. So the 22 pounds is your tenant, yep.
Laurie:Sleeping, yeah, sleeping bed, sleeping pad. We had to, there were certain things we had to have. So we had to have a tent that could withstand the wilds and winds of Patagonia. Mine actually broke the night before the race started, but I had a repair kit, so an insulated sleeping pad, a sleeping bag that could go to really, you know, well below zero Fahrenheit, and then, ideally, a camp stove that wasn't required food and whatever else we needed, any medications, you know, personal items, changes of clothing.
Lynn:See all those things you're describing. I'm like, I don't know how you fit all that on one horse in 22 pounds.
Laurie:Well, I left a lot out.
Lynn:Yeah, so tell me about how you made those choices like it seems to me like part of the mental training for something like this. And I see this as more of a mental game, yes. And when I when I'm saying mental, I don't mean up in your head, kind of mental, right? I'm actually talking about the whole body, whole brain, whole sort of emotional fortitude that it takes to make those kind of choices that could be life and death. So tell me about when you're sitting getting ready to take off for the race. And I want to kind of talk through the race, but when you're making those choices and you're you had, what, 40 people doing this, so you had 39 other people making choices right now were both. Bound to be checking with each other, influencing each other, talking about and and I can imagine that sometimes the influence is helpful and sometimes it's not. So. Now you're having to decide who's got the best ideas, who does it all that. Tell me about that process, right?
Laurie:Well, first of all, just, you know, to comment on the group of people, amazing group of people. I I was excited before I went to meet the new people, because it's like going to camp, right? Yeah, it's all international and some really high level horse trainers, double Dan Warwick, Kansas, Elliot, many other people who were highly accomplished in the equestrian world, and so I was excited to meet them, wonderful people, all super helpful. There was definitely some you could tell who were more competitive, and that's fantastic, you know, they that's that's awesome. I was not in that group. I was there for the experience and hopefully to come out unscathed. But yeah, you lots of everybody was there to help each other. Absolutely, they all took the time, especially, I mean, really the whole time, you know, if you had a question, they were there to help.
Lynn:So, yeah, well, and I believe that their intention would be to help. It's just making that choice of which is the thing I need versus what they need, right? Yeah. So, so how did, how did you sort out what you were going
Laurie:to put Yeah, so I was overweight when we did the weigh in, which we did the day
Lynn:of the race. And how much overweight were you? I
Laurie:think I was a kilogram over, which doesn't seem like a lot, but I had to, in fact, take a lot out. I took some food out, which was fine. I shared with Wendy. So Wendy is my lifelong friend, and she was my partner. I roped her into doing this, and so we shared food, which was fine. I didn't. I dropped my Leatherman tool because she had one. You know, I knew I wasn't going to be alone, right? So, what did she have that I could use? What did I have that she could use? That kind of thing? I think I probably dropped some clothing. Pretty much wore the same thing most days, which is fine. Couple other tiny little things got dropped.
Lynn:Yeah. So how many pounds is a kilogram? The 2.2 is that right? So I could see all that, yeah, that's a lot. Two, two pounds is a lot,
Laurie:yeah, yeah, yeah, the Leatherman was really heavy. So yeah, I wish I had had a small enough, oh, and I dropped my I had to take out my headlamp, which was a bummer, but I use the the flashlight on my phone. So, you know, I like to navigation on steroids, like you're navigating so many different things, not
Lynn:just, yeah, well, that was, that's kind of what I was thinking about. I'm just putting myself in your shoes, because this is going to be the only way I ever do it. I'm not going to go do the gadget. So I'm putting myself in your shoes, though, and I'm thinking about the choices I make. And, you know, what do I want to carry with me? And there's a lot of metaphor to this, because I think about the things that we carry emotionally, that are, you know, we always talk about our baggage, it seems like a emotional baggage. Seems like, I don't know, like a cliche or something, but it's real. We carry stuff and and how do you choose what not to carry and what consequence? Like, for example, I'm thinking, Okay, how brilliant that you commit to ride with Wendy and then you're going to share things. Yeah, right. We're going to help each other carry our loads. I love that,
Laurie:yep, yeah. And we've done that through our lives, so it was really beautiful.
Lynn:Oh, that's, that's beautiful. Now, here's my big question about that Leatherman tool, because that's always been, like, in our family anyway, it seemed like at least every other Christmas, it was something that we got dad, you know, or whatever. Like, it's been a long like, I've had Leatherman tools in my life for a long time, but I don't spend that much time needing them. So I'm curious, how did you use your Leatherman out there? I'm sure you used it well.
Laurie:I mainly use the knife. We mainly use. There was at one point that one of our horses got in a wire fence at night, and the Leatherman tool was basically useless. Luckily, we were staying at a vet check where there were a couple staff members, and he had actual wire cutters. Okay, so, yeah, the leather Moon was not my favorite tool. Interesting. I would have wished I had just a knife, just
Lynn:a good knife, and maybe a set of wire cutters. I could see the wire cutters being useful, because from what I understand, you guys had to, you encountered a lot of fences, and I'm not saying you would have cut your way through a fence, but as you did, might have had to cut your horse out of a fence. So tell me about, tell me about the fences and the gates, because I know that was like, that was the difference with a lot of people in the time they were making,
Laurie:yeah, you know the real. Hard to explain. Wendy and I have a few videos of each other doing them. So we're riding on private land where there's a lot of livestock, sheep and cattle, lot of sheep, 1000s of sheep, which was cool, because I raise sheep a tiny flock, but it was really neat. So there's a lot of fences, and they will go on forever, and then occasionally there will be a gate. And to find the gate, you you try to think like a rancher, where would the livestock move through? And this is actually something that the pre race training covered, which was, um, also look for tracks, livestock tracks, although a lot of times you're on a beautiful track, and then poof, it's gone. Like, where did the animals go?
Lynn:Yeah, did they just get abducted by aliens? Like, lie up in the
Unknown:air? No, you think you've got it made. We got a trail. The trail's gone. What happened?
Laurie:And then the gates. So they're really rickety, rackety old pieces of like driftwood, almost, wow, strung together with wire. And then there was this lever system, so you'd have a horse, well, kind of a horizontal piece of wood that fit on one end of the gate. And then the solid end of the fence. Solid is not the right word.
Lynn:You're picturing them going, Oh yeah, these are not anything like I've ever seen before. No.
Laurie:And then there's there Jimmy rigged into these loops of wire. So you ride up to a gate A lot of times. We take a picture of it and think, Okay, this is I'm going to work backwards when I'm on the other side. So you open and then it like flings about. And then, if it's windy, singing. And you know, one person always gets off their horse, other people hold them. So then the group goes through, and then you stand there kind of like, Hmm, how is that again. And sometimes they would go back together nicely, and other times, you know, it'd be like, Wait, this, no, that. And then you'd have to shove your whole body into twisting this driftwood piece back into the wire. And Wendy and I are thinking, why can't you just use the Tartar gates that we have, you know, we'll ship them down to you.
Lynn:Yeah, well, I'm so I'm picturing like, I'm thinking about the kind of things, like, when you're trying to go somewhere and you're trying to close something, and, you know, you have to close it, like there's not an option, no, no, no, skate open. That's going to be a problem. But to feel like it's almost like the little evil planners are like, setting you up, you know, yeah, like, make things more difficult, like, it's like, where's the Candid Camera to watch us? Like, try to solve the puzzle of the gate.
Laurie:Absolutely, there were times when we felt like big brother was watching us and HQ was watching us, although they not, like on camera, they knew where we
Lynn:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I, you know, I, I, when I got, when I started my horse journey, which is not that long ago, just the act of saddling a horse, my fingers would be rushing and fumble fingers and trying to get to the end. And, you know, the great training I got working with all of my trainers, Bruce Anderson, particularly, because he's, he would say, slow it down one frame at a time, but trying to get to the end, you know, and I'm picturing me at a gate like that, going, how do I get this thing together? So that that had to be really a great way to build your mental tools.
Laurie:Absolutely, one of the things that I kept reminding myself the entire race was to pace myself. Mm hmm. And I had just come off a year when I did not pace myself, and that that's a whole another story where I pushed so hard I actually, you know, made myself sick. So pacing, pacing a lot of pacing myself.
Lynn:Yeah, and how, how well did that work for you? Like, did you find yourself, like, really noticing that I'm a different person than the one that made myself sick? Yes, you were out there in, oh, yeah, environment. Tell me about that.
Laurie:Yes, no, it was great. Well, there were, there were only so much you can rush. You couldn't rush those gates. And yes, they had to be closed. There were times when we had horses that were so slow they would only walk. We could not push them. So then I would just go back into that pace myself. There was a time we were up on what I call suicide ridge, and there looked to be no way down. Obviously there was, but I got off my horse and kind of scouted the cliffs. To see where we might go down, and I was counting to 10 over and over, pacing myself so I wouldn't fall into fear. I can
Lynn:imagine, like, I'm not fond of heights anyway, and I'm thinking I was actually on a ride last summer where we were up on a ridge, and I could see where we had to go down below. And this was not a cliff, but I found my I actually had to catch myself in a moment of fear, going, I don't know how we get from here to there. Like this looks like it's too much to go down on a horse, yeah. And you know, when you take it one step at a time, next thing you know, you're at the bottom right. But if you look at the whole thing, it can freaking freak you out. Yeah, so how did you find your spot? Like when you're on the cliff, you're counting, you're seeking your spot. How what happened? How did you find your spot? And kind of what happened inside of you when you suddenly realize this is the next step I want to take.
Laurie:Well, I walked sort of down and around. We could have always gone back, but that, yeah, didn't want to do that. Plus the wind was insane, and we would have gone back into the wind. Our horses were completely knackered, getting towards the end of the day, so I found a way down. Also thinking, okay, these horses can move through this. It's not something I'm used to. I'm not an endurance rider, so I'm not used to riding this. So I like, Okay, I bet the horse horses can go here. Wendy and Kayla, the other girl who was riding with us, started to come over to where I was. I'm like, Okay, guys, I think we can go this way. So we picked our way down through dicey boggish areas and some woods. We saw cattle tracks, which was always encouraging, because the cattle can move through, the horses can move through. Yeah, and then we ended up getting stuck that night again, but at least we got off the ridge, and there was a sigh of relief, and it was like,
Lynn:okay, okay, yeah. So tell me about where you got stuck again. These are the kind of things I think about is like, just, where are all the moments where things are just not going smoothly, and how do you work through them?
Laurie:Yeah. So there's, it ended up being a funny story, although it did lead to our being partly in the adventure category. I mean, that day was one of the reasons why we ended up in Adventure category. So there's competitors, and adventure if you don't get to a certain point on the race by a certain day, you're not going to finish it in time. Yeah, and you will need to get into a truck and be lugged forward. So, and it's not that just we couldn't go fast enough, a number of different things, but, but at this point, so we got off that ridge we were, took a left on a rock face, and the horses just literally wouldn't move. I've got pictures of them. They are standing. It was quarter after five. Race time ends at six. Riding hours, you get penalized, penalized after every minute?
Unknown:Yes. Day three, three, yeah. So, um, we didn't
Laurie:want a penalty. So it's quarter after five. We thought, Should we call HQ? What should we do? And we were in consensus, right. Right? Was where we came from that was no option. Left look like a thick forest that we couldn't go through. We could have and so we called HQ, and they said, good call. We've got gauchos kilometer away from you. She they just helped somebody else. So we call it our Gaucho 911, night.
Lynn:I love it. I think I would have been very happy to hear that there were Gauchos. And are you communicating on satellite phone? Because I don't get the picture that there's a lot of cell
Laurie:phone coverage yet. No, no, no. I'm just through text on our reach
Unknown:tracker. Got it? Got it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Laurie:Actually, there's a Earth mate app where you can text through, but it takes a week, because, yeah, because the satellites are not abundant,
Lynn:yeah, yeah. So you were using satellite because that's the one thing that's out there. So the gauchos come to you at after,
Laurie:yes, and it was hilarious, and we were relieved. And we have video of this, and it's beautiful. They're starting to yell, they're coming up the ridge, and they're like, Hola, and we're like, yeah. So three of them ride up Toby, one of the medics, the intrepid medics. I cannot speak highly enough about the the medics that they had amazing faku, one of the vets, and then Nico, one of the gauchos. So they wrote up, let us down to water. You had to camp every night where there was
Lynn:right. And I was thinking, that was your dilemma. Is you were sitting. You couldn't just camp where you were, because you had to have water. And from what I understand, grazing for the horses. As well, right?
Laurie:And we looked on the map, we didn't see any water. Yeah, so that's the other reason why
Lynn:we're we called Yeah, cuz you could have been like, wandering around in the wilderness, and you're going to take your penalty if you had to to get to water, but you didn't want to have to use that energy. And yeah, like that risk. And yeah, I can see that, yeah. So how far away were you from the water when the when the three rescuers came, half a
Laurie:kilometer, probably. So it was so close, yeah, but it was a tiny stream. I mean, it wasn't on the map, yeah? So, I mean, we would have just had to keep lumbering through the forest,
Lynn:yeah, wow. And so they then you, they find you the water, they set you up. And I want to, by the way, go back to the adventure versus competitor. Yeah, it really, like, all it is, is they put you in a different category. Is that, right? Like you just, you no longer can win the race because you've had some help, correct?
Laurie:Okay, yeah, it's a feeling of, I'm less than now a little bit yeah,
Lynn:for sure. Oh, yeah, yeah. And how is that? Because, I mean, a lot of us have, you know, you put that less than under the category of people call it the imposter syndrome, or am I good enough? Question, yeah. And yet, you're out there doing something that 99.999% of people on the planet can't do, won't do, would never dare do. Isn't that interesting? I don't know.
Unknown:People don't give themselves enough credit, yeah, but
Lynn:I'm sitting here telling you I wouldn't do it, you know? But so you're so you're you're sitting there, and so all of a sudden you're like, Oh, damn. We've been, like, bumped back. Is that what happens? Or, yeah, um, we
Laurie:weren't there yet. It wasn't until the end of the next day. No, the following day. It's hard to keep it. I needed to write, I need to write a timeline, um, that we were, in fact, put into adventure category. Okay, that was, that was the first step that led us to probably being put into it,
Lynn:yeah, yeah, because that slowed you were slowed down, and then the next day when you left. So I'm picturing that you're kind of between a rock and a hard place. You've got this thick forest, you've got the like, Cliff you don't want to go back to, yeah? So it's like, and so you're like, between a rock and a hard place, yeah? This is, this is the definition. How did, like, the next morning? How did you get out? Did you go through the forest? What did you do to Yeah,
Laurie:we ended up having a great night with these guys. It was so much fun. On the next day happened to be Wendy's birthday, and I brought a candle, the candle made weight, and we all sang her happy birthday, and the three of us, Kayla and Wendy and I, were having really deep discussions about, are we living the life that we want to be and that that was beautiful? And so what was hilarious is that we so we saddled up next morning, headed out, said bye to the guys, so they they typically stay back and let us sort our way. And we're, we're on the trail all happy, smiling, laughing, because we were generally that way. And they're, they're like this. They can't tell us which way to go, but they're pointing to go the other way.
Lynn:So the cat did the Gaucho and the those guys camped near you that morning.
Unknown:Yeah, yeah. We were okay, together.
Lynn:Okay, okay, okay. And so they kind of were like, No, you know, they were like, warmer,
Laurie:colder. They didn't say anything verbally. They just kind of raised their eyebrows and pointed the other way.
Lynn:So, Lord, oh man, we went
Laurie:out. We had a great ride down this lovely grassy slope. Horses were fresh, so we were not fresh, fresh, but they were awake. So, or at least we were able to trot a bit little bit of camping. And then then we hit a couple gates. But did okay. We each took turns. There was one that took us a little while. You ride up and down and up and down and up and down looking for the gate. So that's a lot of
Lynn:time. All of us don't all the right, that's what I've heard and and I remember I heard Kansas talking on she did a couple of posts, yeah, gaucho things, and she was talking about one day feeling really bad because she said, I think if we go this way, and it was the opposite way of what they should have gone. And she just said she felt so bad because she made the call, but it was a 5050, shot.
Laurie:We all did that. Each of them, I think, made calls like that. And you do feel bad, but you're Yeah, it's so hard to know.
Lynn:And isn't that life like, is it? Isn't that like, do I take the job or not take the job? Do we move or not move? Do we buy this house or not this house? Do we have a kid or not like? I mean, there's so many decisions you're making like that, and then how do you learn to live with them? I think it's such a metaphor for life. What you did?
Laurie:Oh, yeah. Yeah, it really is. So then, then this was a hilarious day, too. So the three guys we were riding on, but then we were walking horses got tired again, and they were coming up on us like a posse. It was hilarious. And they saw that we saw them, so they'd like, duck down
Lynn:under a hill. Wait, are these? Are these other competitors, the
Laurie:Gaucho, a Nico faku And, oh, I got you Okay, yeah, so they, they were riding in the same direction, Yeah, same course, yeah. And we were cracking up. It was so much fun. Yeah, so we're doing doing fine. We got through a gate. Kayla had gotten off her horse to do it. Gate was fine. She got back on and these horses spin,
Lynn:yeah, that's what I understand. You have to know how to get on a horse that's not standing still,
Laurie:yeah, yeah. And we'd all try to help hold them or box them in as much as possible with our horses. But you're also getting on, you know, with a heap of
Lynn:Yeah, you gotta swing. You're not swinging your leg over the back of a saddle. You're swinging it over
Laurie:a giant path. No. And you're wearing layers and layers of
Lynn:clothes, right? So you're not agile. No, no, no.
Laurie:So she got on her horse, spun, she came off the right side, hit her wrist and head pretty hard. And Kayla's amazing. We she's just an amazing young woman. She actually has done adventure medical training, so she knew something wasn't right. Mm, so first thing they said, If anything happens, let the medics know, communicate. Um, things go down fast out there. There's no prompt care, there's no kitchen, there's no CVS.
Lynn:So, right? And you're not like we are somewhat conditioned. I think to minimize, to gut our way through, things are going to get better, yep. And that's exactly the opposite of what you need to do when life and death is it
Laurie:stays. Yes, absolutely. So we called the medics, and obviously they were right behind us. So I galloped back and said, Hey, we really do need your help this time. And Toby evaluated Kayla and said, I think you look fine. You know, why don't you guys just walk in? So the next stop we had was the next horse station. So that would have been worse three, yeah.
Lynn:Oh, wow. So this is still really early, because from what I remember, there were a total of like, 19 stations,
Laurie:the 1930 in the finish line, right? And some,
Lynn:but you had that so you're at three, so you have many more stations yet
Laurie:to go. Yeah, we were right at the beginning, and so that, you know, we weren't going to leave her. We were sticking together. No, she's like, Heck. No, we're with you. So we walked, and then she felt a little better, and there were some lovely grassy places that we had, some nice galloping, just beautiful, still posse on our tail, which was hilarious, and it the distance was deceiving. There. You think, Okay, this isn't going to take us that long. And in fact, it takes hours to cover that you need to cover.
Lynn:Wow. And you know, I'm getting this picture of how fun it is occasionally to get to just gallop along, yeah. How did the Horse How did the horses feel when you were galloping. I mean, were they rock steady?
Laurie:I got really lucky. Nobody pulled. I was so fortunate with my horses. I did have two really slow poke snail horses, but nobody spun. Nobody tried to toss me. They taught me. I had two amazing teachers, my first and last horse, and then I had just the funnest guy in the middle with the next horse that I would get going to get on. He was number 333, which I thought was really
Lynn:cool. That's a good number, yeah.
Laurie:And he was just a blast forward, comfortable.
Lynn:So when you say the horses taught me, tell me about what you learned as you were working with the different horses.
Laurie:What did they teach? Yeah. So one of my concerns, and I had, I'd done a training at Stevie's in in November, and one of my concerns, and I talked to her about, is, I'm nervous of galloping like, yeah, balls to the wall galloping. I, you know, the past few years, or well past few decades, I've been a dressage rider, ridden lots of different ways in my life, but dressage, not a ton of galloping, right? And that's right. And so I was quite nervous of that. And so my first horse. Yes, day one we're getting on. And I mentioned this in the radio program, but he happened to be the lead the scout horse, and Kansas told me this. So we get on, and I'm thinking, I'm just going to stay back, kind of in the back, not really push anything. So I get on, and he's just going not he didn't bolt at all, no, but he wanted to go, yeah. And he was just
Lynn:like, this, well, and I saw, I saw video of this, so I just, we have to paint a picture for people listening. Because, you know, when you go to, like, a golf tournament, or, in my case, I go to water ski tournaments, they have these flags, these big, like flags, which y'all had to go through, I think, lapping flags, which, that's just a whole nother thing with horses. I was riding horses out the other day, and had to pass, it was windy, and we had to pass some of those. And believe me, all the horses, none of them got it freaked out. But all of them were like, do you see that? Yeah? So yeah, they they notice it, and you get, like, it's like, picturing, almost like a Western, like movie that you might have seen where you've got 40 horses, yeah, galloping through these flags off into the wilderness. So that's what you're in the middle of. Yes, you were one of those people I was watching. I just didn't know
Unknown:which one, yeah, yeah. So I ended up going in the lead, which just oh my gosh, blew my
Laurie:mind, because that was the last place I expected to find myself. And there was no stopping him. I mean, they really said, Just give them their head. Don't try to help them, because that's when the problems start.
Lynn:Well, and that's the thing about galloping that bothers me a little bit. Is like, okay, I'm fine if you'll go, as long as you'll stop, right? It sounds to me like you actually had to go, yes, and just be willing to go.
Laurie:Just be willing to go, yeah, yup. Lots of breath work, lots of calming. My body looking up, and I said this on the radio program too, because you look down and you want to downfall. I want to steer over the crazy mounds of spiky things. So I just looked up. We did have our hobbles. So we had hobbles, and we had them tied in the front on some D rings, so you kind of hold on to that.
Lynn:So that was when you're down. Yep. And pretty. It's like a night latch, almost, or whatever, like,
Laurie:yeah. So pretty, you know, I I didn't have a hard contact. I had contact, but I just settled into my legs looked up and thought, holy crap, I'm I'm at the front of the Gaucho Derby on day one, and this horse is to trust myself. I can ride a gallop
Lynn:and enjoy it. That's the that's the best part. Like I was teaching you to trust yourself, to trust him, Yes, and that's my, you know, this is something about trust. To me. That is the biggest distinction, is a lot of times we worry about trusting someone else, something else, and the question really is, do I trust myself to handle myself through whatever's happening here? And that's the work I want to do on myself, is how to trust myself. Because the other way is an outside in way of living. This is an inside out way of living, right, right, right,
Laurie:yeah. So he showed me I could do this, you know. I just settled into my body. I've been training, you know, and I trusted the training that I had done. And, and,
Lynn:yeah, and Steve, did Stevie take you out to Gallup to
Laurie:get ready? Did a little bit. We didn't do as much. I didn't do her actual galloping clinic.
Lynn:I just did that one, by the way. Oh, I want to do that. Yeah, really, great.
Laurie:She we talked a lot, and she's like, you're you're good. Just relax, breathe, look up.
Lynn:She's amazing. Yeah, no, she I did her galloping clinic with three other women just a month ago. And I did, I actually galloped and actually learned that I was the most balanced at the gallop. Not that I wasn't a little afraid. Might have went bounce a little bit. Yeah, you know, because that's fast, yeah, that's fast, right? Like, and we were doing short stints. We weren't doing, there was no place for us to do, like, long, extended gallops, okay? We were out in the, you know, the lava trails with the nice footing, but not any good long but what turned out is the extended trotting was what was actually requiring more balance, yes, yeah, yeah, because that that just throws you out of balance almost every step. It's like a constant recalibration. With the Gallop, you can kind of settle in and just become one with a
Unknown:horse, right, right, yeah. So, yeah. So that
Lynn:was wonderful. Yeah, I'm so impressed. I think that's so awesome. So you were out first with your scout, your scout horse, yeah, oh my gosh, I'm leading the derby. Yeah, yeah, and
Laurie:go ahead. So I'm thinking, I don't know where I'm going. I'm just following these people because who was at the front Kansas, Warwick, Dan Scott. Got Morgan, a bunch of other people who were really dialed in into what was going on, or they seemed it to me, at least, they were super impressive. And so I'm like, I'm just gonna kind of follow them. And Kansas said, look, that horse goes and searches for the wild horses, so he's just gonna do what he's gonna do. So then I they veered off, and I veered off with them, and then I ended up with another woman, Josephine, who was fantastic. And then, you know, some gates happened, and
Lynn:yeah, and in the meantime, you're having to, like, get back up with Wendy and make sure that the two of you stay together as the excitement starts and people start splitting off into their different groups,
Laurie:right? And she was way behind me, and I wasn't really worried, because we knew that this could happen, and I knew we'd catch up. So yeah,
Lynn:so, so tell me, like, especially the first night you finished writing, the writing hours are over, and it's time to set up your camp. Mm, hmm. Had you practiced? Was it no big deal when it was time to, like, figure out where to put my tent, how to hobble the horses, how to make sure the horses don't go too far. You know, all those questions that you know now it's time to settle in for the evening. Tell me a little bit about that process.
Laurie:Yeah, so the practicing is good, but it's really not real world, because the winds out there are so epic. We just helped each other, Wendy and I would, you know, one tent, and then we'd set up the other tent. We were fortunate that night, we were at vet station two. We'd hoped to get to three, but we were at vet station two, and that was a really nice place. There was a corral. We were able to put our horses in there. Oh, nice. So we could sleep at night, because when you when they were not in a corral, you needed to get up every couple hours and check on your
Lynn:horses. I heard Kansas describe that because she said they could travel as much as four miles over the night. Oh yeah, with the hobbles, and you just don't want to have to go walk four miles. That's all. That's a well over an hour of walking, yeah, to catch up with your horses,
Unknown:minimum, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So did
Lynn:you ever have that? How far did What's the furthest you ever had to go in the middle of the night to find your horse?
Laurie:Well, we didn't have to go in the middle of the night. The Gaucho 911, night, Wendy's horse broke his lead rope and took off before we had gone to bed, or were we just going to bed? Um, that was before, because it was still light and and the gauchos, it was so exciting. They left bareback on their horses and chased that horse down the valley. And all the sheep are like running out of the way.
Lynn:Oh my gosh. And did they last saw the horse? How did they get the horse back?
Laurie:Um, yeah, they got him back. He had gone far, though. They got him back. And then that night, he again, broke out, but he didn't go far. We had little lights on their halters. Mm, but we could see them. So when I did the night my night check shift, Wendy thought he was gone, and then I did my shift. And in fact, he was just further down in the woods, still hobbled,
Unknown:still eating. So you bring he was right, so you bring it back.
Laurie:No, he was happy because he broke out of his lead rope. And we think that might have been part of the issue, that he didn't want to be tied. He was actually settled with the other horses. And generally horses don't want to leave their herd right to
Unknown:other horses. Yeah, yeah. So
Laurie:he was okay, so you
Lynn:didn't have to do anything about it. Just know where he was right, right. That's good. Now, if you're leading a horse with hobbles, like, do they? Do you just walk real slow and they can or do you take the hobbles off to bring them back? How does we take the hobbles off? Yeah, yeah, I, I've never worked with hobbles, so that's just a
Unknown:no. I hadn't either, it was my first time.
Lynn:Yeah, that's just a newbie question. Well, that so when you are thinking about your whole experience, tell me about, like, what were some of the high and low moments that you had,
Laurie:yeah, so the Gaucho 911, night and the next day was definitely a high. Um, even though there were, you know, there were hard moments. It was hard to see Kayla come off and and get her, she ended up being fine. The next horses we got, we had an absolute blast. Um, I rode into that station really tired, though, never slept well, and that definitely drains me.
Lynn:Some people I was I was thinking I'd never sleep well if I was out there. I mean, camping, you just don't sleep the
Laurie:same, no, no, and you're starting to get a little drained. You know, you're not eating a whole lot and you're burning a lot of calories, so, but the night the next horse, that was my 333 horse, it was a beautiful ride. The navigation went pretty smoothly and and so that was definitely a high the new. Next day. Then we moved through forest. The next day was the day when we ended up definitely adventure category. And so day six, we spent in the truck, and that was a low. That night was rough. I was pretty down.
Lynn:So what tell me about, if you will, if you don't have to, but tell me about what led up to you having to be in the truck, and what was that all about? Because, yeah, I could see that that would be disappointing if you Yeah, ride the whole thing. Yeah.
Laurie:So we rode into core station, who's track for right before the masete, which you, if you talk to Kansas, and more work, they talked about the masseter, which is the the plateau of death? Yeah, yeah. And we were thinking, oh, man, we really don't want to do that. That sounds awful, when, in fact, we didn't do it. So we rode into that horse station right before the masseter, and Holly, one of the organizers, said, Okay, here's the deal, you guys, you can ride the masseter. You're an adventure class now. There's no way you finish on horseback. You can ride the mace day tomorrow, get up at seven or be on your horse at seven. It's a 12 hour ride. There's no medics. There's one vet check in between, and it's it's a rough go. And she said, You have to finish it in that day, and you'll still be in Adventure class at the end,
Lynn:or you can get in a truck, right and LeapFrog? Yeah, I can tell you right now. I know myself. I know exactly what I would have done. I'd have been in the truck with you. Yeah, try not to be car sick, but I'd have been in the
Laurie:truck. And so at that point, all of us agreed, yeah, no, if we had a chance to still be in competitor class, then we might have done it. But because we go through that, and then we're still on on Adventure class, and we know ourselves by now, now we're seeing, okay, what are the missed calls we're making? I want to call them mistakes, because we all made navigational errors. I guess it's just, even the people who were really died into navigation, dialed in. It's, you know, it's just that
Lynn:hard. That's part of the game. They said it. I mean, they don't set it up. They've chose to put the race in a place where it's just not
Laurie:straightforward, right, right, right? So, yeah, we got in the truck, and, you know, we thought it'd be six hours, and, I don't know, 10, but before we got we ended up having coffee. So we're in the middle of nowhere, and the there's a lot of European settlers. So, I mean, they're all Argentinian now, but we ended up having coffee in this lady's home. They're, they're there for the summers. And she owns, I don't know how many 10s of 1000s of hectares of Patagonia, and I've been there for for generations, and she invites us in for coffee. Doesn't speak English, but our whole group is there, and it was such an amazing experience to
Unknown:be in home. So lovely. Yeah. So okay, so we were in Adventure class, but we also had these other
Laurie:really amazing moments that are part of my experience, important.
Lynn:I mean, yeah, those are, those are magical. How many people were in there?
Laurie:Um, gosh, there were probably 10 of us.
Lynn:Wow, that's a lot of people to have into your home. Yeah?
Unknown:Yeah, yeah, it was
Lynn:so, so the truck takes you across the so you don't have to ride the mace Day, which I saw some video that work. And yes, has had of that, and it just looked excruciating,
Laurie:yes. And they all said it was, yeah, yeah. But in my mind, you know, I signed up to do the hard thing, and that was one of the hard one of the hard things. So I was disappointed in myself and not there was no blame. It was just what, what could have I chose differently to perhaps had a different outcome.
Lynn:Yeah, are you still thinking about that now? Are you, is there any part of you that's like, okay, now I want to go back and do the whole thing over again?
Laurie:Um, possibly, if somebody would, would fund it,
Lynn:yeah, because it's not, it's not cheap.
Unknown:No, no, no, it's yeah, a lot with all you, there's a there's an
Lynn:entry fee, and then there's all the things you have to spend to get ready and so
Laurie:forth, right, right? No, it's, it's significant. Um, you know, I was beating up on myself for a little bit for for a while, and then I just stepped back and thought and put it in more of a metaphor context. Okay, so I, I made this decision there. How is that reflecting on the rest of my life and not being so hard on myself for making certain decisions?
Lynn:You know that I've been working on that myself for a long time, because actually, to some degree, I think we are taught to beat ourselves up. I don't think it's something we do naturally, right? I think a lot of our conditioning says this is we're going to beat you up, or we're going to teach you to beat yourself up. One of my most profound moments of getting that this is true even in the highest level of sport, was reading Andre Agassi's book open, okay? And he here's the big headline for anybody that doesn't know this about him, he didn't love tennis, but his dad did, and so he was living his life through Andre, and was quite full of a temper and so forth, and so beat his son up a lot. So Andre Agassi tells about a moment on the court where he is furious with himself for missing a shot, and he said, I realized I no longer needed my dad to do this to me. I could now do it to myself. Oh, man, yeah. And one of the ways that I've been finding my way out of doing that to myself, and I mean, it's finding my way out, not found my way out for sure, but is to actually acknowledge that I've got two two parts of everything, the part that I have done, the part I haven't done, and I can focus on one or the other. I can choose what to focus on, and if I choose to claim my progress and say, Look how far I've come, yeah, then I don't lose my progress. Yeah, but what I found is, if I focus on what I don't have, not only do I not have it, I lose the progress I've already made as well, right, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's a, it's a tough one, because it feels like it's the right thing. I think we do it because we're trying to be better.
Laurie:Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's complex, and it's, it's tied in that to not enoughness, you know? And how much do we need to feel enough when we are as exactly as we are completely complete and enough and we're not broken? What if
Lynn:we could just live that way? Right? Right? We could just buy that, yeah,
Laurie:yeah, but it's generational. It you know that we're raised a certain way, and I, you know, I'm sure I made all kinds of mistakes with my kids, but I really not a trophy. You know, I don't like give them trophies for anything, but I really try to celebrate all that they do and who they
Lynn:are. You know that I was having this conversation this morning about like, not this is an animal training, especially around my dog, but something I have actually learned is that there is a place for me to praise her, but when she does something exceptionally good, if I will let her feel it for herself, rather than make it about me, yeah, it actually like that builds her mental tools and her mindset so much better, because she gets to have her own endorphin kick from having done it well and having done something difficult. Yeah, yeah. And that takes a lot of restraint on my part, because I'm over here going, yay. And there's a part of me he's like, look what I told her to do, as opposed to letting her experience, look what you learned to do. Yeah. So it's the I think this is the beautiful thing about putting ourself in difficult things like you did with the Gaucho is, look at all the things you did for yourself, yeah,
Laurie:yeah, leading up to it. I mean, I'd signed up, you know, year and a half prior to the race, so, yeah, a lot of things going on to get ready
Lynn:and getting ready, what was that? What were some of the top things you had to do? I know you went to train with Stevie, but like inside of yourself, possibly things that that would fit in the unseen world that you worked on. Or, you know, I know, Dan talked a lot about having to actually lose weight, to to, yeah,
Laurie:yeah. So I have a problem. I tried to gain weight. I'm I'm quite small, quite petite. And actually, I think was the lightest rider, so I started a plan. Well, I wanted to train harder for more of the year, and then ran into actual burnout. Sorted myself out from that, and got with a trainer, 200 grams of protein a day, seven meals a day, wow, intense training program, which I respond well, I've got some good genetics there that I can build muscle pretty quickly. Did a lot of rocking, which helped. I like that. And so that was I wanted to feel physically strong, yeah. That was one of my main goals.
Lynn:Yeah, that seems like it's an essential piece, because I just know for myself, like when I was trying to learn how to do rock climbing, there was like a before and after it. As I've worked on my mental tools, I've gotten over i. To some degree, the the debilitating fear of heights that I had, but also what I discovered is when I started water skiing, I got very strong, and me trying to learn to rock climb. When I wasn't strong, I had fear and lack of strength. And then when I was learning afterwards, I had somewhat less fear, but I also had strength, and I could count on my body. So, yeah, I think being able to really like wrecking sounds difficult to me.
Laurie:It suits me. I loved it. I mean, it's hard, yeah, and we had some huge snow storms and ice, and, you know, I just put my head down and I use those moments on the race, because there were times and I measured places on my farm. Okay, this is two miles. This is this. And so there were times on the race. I thought, okay, so this is essentially like riding to the back of my property and back to my house. So I was able to break it down, pace myself again, with a distance I had trained, and then just do it over and over and
Lynn:over, yeah, yeah. But that's our mind. If our mind knows it could do it, as opposed to it's impossible, it totally changes how you do it, yes, yeah, yeah. Good for you. Now I can't, because I work with people with burnout. I have to go back and say you ran into actual burnout. Tell me about that, if you will, if you're if you're willing, I want to hear not only how you knew you were burned out, what you did to burn out, but how you got yourself out of it. That's the
Laurie:one I think it's really important to talk about it, because we're in this society. Many of us are that you have to do more. You have to accomplish more, and not even just to purchase things, but to say I am doing all of this, so somehow I'm a better human. Or, I don't know, it's crazy,
Lynn:busyness has enoughness. It's the back. It's like, literally, okay, I might not be enough, but I'm damn sure busy. So watch this, I can work. I can outwork anyone,
Laurie:right, right? And also, for me, it's tapped in a lot of into personal fears of survival. So condensed version, divorced now four years was very comfortable way of living, but it wasn't it wasn't healthy. It was quite, quite toxic. I'm grateful for all of it now, it's good. Kids are good, he's good. I'm great, but it was rough, and I think that's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, is leaving that derby is close. So had a son home for a while. He finally left, and so this last year was when I really dug into my building my business, really trying to seek ways to support myself financially. So that was a big motivation. And I also really I like what I do. So I got into all these programs, spent all this money, doing all these projects, webinars and this and that, and training riding polo horses. I also had fortunate to be in the first sort of real relationship, yeah, after my divorce. So that was another commitment. So I was taking all these things, lots of great things, yeah, and I played a band, and I was developing my drumming
Lynn:too, so you're a drummer, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, very cool. Oh, yeah, I knew I saw that in your bio. Yeah, that's amazing, because that's of all the things people do in a band, there's usually less women drummers, so that makes you even double cool.
Laurie:Yeah, that's pretty awesome. So then I started to feel dizzy, like, you know, maybe I just need to sleep more sleep wasn't good, just having these feelings of like, something's gonna happen, and I'm in healthcare, I'm I'm a nutritionist, I'm epigenetic coach, so I, I know better, right? So I finally had some testing done. This was probably September, and i There were times I couldn't get off the couch. Wow, I could not function. I had to reschedule clients. Sorry, clients. I ended up seeing them. They're all good, you know, canceling different things. And I had emailed the derby organizers and said, I don't think I can do the race this way. Can I defer? That was September, late September, and they said, you can't. Wow. So I finally did some testing, saw that many of my hormone levels were essentially nil, even more than normal, that where I'm at in life. And I worked with a couple amazing practitioners, good friends of mine, fellow functional meta. Some docs, but and I replaced hormones and rested and refueled and cut back where I could and got my strength back enough to start training. And yeah, saw that
Lynn:I could. Yeah. You know, hormones. I mean, you, you know, I'm not an epigenetic coach, and you are, but boy, do they sit at the base of so much of our health.
Laurie:Massive, massive, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it was, it was clinical burnout. I mean, it said it on the test, your HPA access is shot, and the way to treat that is to do nothing for six to 12 months.
Lynn:Is that right? They actually don't. They actually want you to not do
Laurie:anything, do very little, nothing, to really increase adrenaline, because not going to call it adrenal burnout. But you, you do run through
Lynn:your your your stores, your
Laurie:transmitters, yeah. So yeah, do nothing, maybe light walking for six to 12 months,
Lynn:and you're like, Well, okay, so what's option B? Because I am going to the Gaucho door because they won't defer me. So I'm going to be racing across Patagonia.
Laurie:Yeah, yeah. So more pacing myself. And then my mom had health issues that was super stressful. Had to go see her in Michigan just and I kept going back to this is all training for the race. Yeah, I'm going to run into things that I have no idea how to deal with, but all these things that I'm still comfortable in my home. It's cozy, you know? I can still sort of practice here in a comfortable way. So I just tried to put it all in context of trade, race training.
Lynn:See that. I think that's brilliant, because if you had chosen to treat it all as impediments to the end goal. You would have been angry and beating yourself up and beating other people up and all of that. But instead you said, Well, I'm just going to use all these obstacles to get me ready for the race.
Laurie:Yeah, yeah. And I do, I want to shout out to some of my clients, because in helping them, they help me, and seeing their success is, is, is heartwarming. And knowing that I'm, I'm, you know, on, on doing, onto something, yeah, and so that was very encouraging and and really lovely. They probably have no idea their contribution, but I'm very grateful for them well.
Lynn:So I want to call out something that you're that's been a theme of this conversation as well, because this is especially coming from a coach where I think it's easy for us to think we're supposed to have the answers. And what I have heard throughout this conversation is that you are learning from the horses you work with the other people you're riding with your clients, like there's a huge distinction between thinking that you have to have the answers and learning how to trust yourself to get answers from all the people you can learn from and the animals. Yeah, so can I just call that out? Because I think that that to me, that validates you as a coach more than having answers. So yeah, well, you're very welcome, because I just wanted to be sure it was it was clear. And I want to also put a bookmark in asking you, what is an epigenetic coach here in a minute, because you talked about that, but I don't want to lose sight of this race. Let's talk about, tell me about at you did the 12 hours across. You're back to riding again. Tell me how that how things shook out for you as the race continued. And I'm using the term race very, yeah, loosely, because you're not racing anybody, right? You're not trying to
Laurie:win. No, no, no at this point, no. I just want to enjoy myself, learn, see the view, have fun with Wendy and everybody else, and oh, the next day was brutal. Day seven, Valentine's Day, absolutely brutal. I didn't sleep at all. Already grumpy from the car ride. And just
Lynn:Yeah, because, let's be clear, a 10 hour car ride is not fun, no, not when you're supposed to be on a horse. Well, and even if you're not supposed to be on a horse, just think about and I bet you were not on, like, an interstate. I get it guessing
Unknown:roads, no, usually like washboard roads for
Lynn:most, yeah, so that will wear on you, yeah? I mean, just 30 minutes on a road like that will really wear on you. So let's just be clear, you were 10 hours in an car that wasn't comfortable, no,
Laurie:and we were in that that truck. We had Mary, amazing. And she should be on your podcast, Wendy myself and Kayla, great women, but none of us were thrilled. We were relieved in some ways, but I know all of us were like, This is not the outcome, yeah, hoping so. We were cheering and kind of dozing, talking, and nobody was like, down and depressed, but there was the energy, you know, collectively. So next day, you know, didn't sleep well, got on a horse. By that point, once you're an adventure category, you don't have to go and catch your horse in the beginning. And so they did help us. I ended up with, I think it was three, three, threes. Brother was 220, funny. Look the same. Look like a yeah, look like a sibling, except he was another snail, sweetheart, but snail, yeah, and so we it was funny because they said, okay, just get on the road. Just follow the road that that was such a lie. There might have been a road for the while, for a while, but the road always ended and somebody made a navigational call. We wanted to cross this dry river bed. It turned out to be just total mud impasse. We ended up back tracking, back into the wind towards that horse station. Probably three hours, the wind was so brutal, I thought my eardrums were going to explode. And it felt like, you know the cartoons where the background just is the same cactus and rock and cloud, that's what it was like for hours. That's all we saw. And we we hooked up with Elliot and some other people, and that was fun. We did get some trotting in. There was some okay roads once we backtrack, got over the river, move forward, but it was just the ugliest part of the race. And I thought I paid How much for this,
Lynn:because I've seen the ugliest stuff over and over again that I've
Unknown:ever seen. Why would they make us ride through this, you know? And I got into a baby mood and just grumpy and,
Lynn:well, I'm glad to hear you're human like the rest of us, because I'm sure you're not the only one that thought that,
Laurie:oh no, I was, I was, yeah, no, I was being I was knocking anybody because my horse was so far behind. That was the other thing. Like, men, they're leaving
Lynn:me, yeah, I got the snail horse. How do you know?
Laurie:Yeah, silly, but I did see a top of a probably old volcano, and it was half of a crater, and that was really cool. And I kept looking at that, but at one point I had this deep sense that epigenetic healing, or some kind of healing, was going to occur that day. Didn't know how. And you just just put your head down and and walk on navigation at that point wasn't too bad. It was just, it was just ugly and long,
Lynn:just an ugly long, yeah, have to take it one step at a time, patience,
Laurie:yes, yes, that's true. Forever. It was hot, cold and windy all at the same time, which is hard to explain,
Lynn:Well, and so that's the you mentioned that you were covered with clothes, because I know there were chances it could be super cold, yes, but also it looked like at times it was warm, and that's actually a big problem for me. I I still heat up like a woman in, you know, menopause. I'm way past menopause, but I still like carry my own personal supper with me. So I actually fear being hot more than I fear being cold, yeah, yeah. So did you have to strip layers off? How did you Yeah,
Laurie:yeah, you do. You do and you, but you never know how. You don't want to take off too much, because then there's the wind, yeah? And which can dehydrate you, which, I think all these little things ended up to why I ended up with heat exhaustion. Now, looking back, especially, plus the burnout, I don't think my body had fully recovered, right? I'm trying.
Lynn:No, I was thinking, if you went in and it was a six to 12 months, and it's in September, and you did this in February, you were not through the burnout recovery, then you're, then you're using lots of calories under a stressful environment, eating less than you're using in a dry area where you have to it's probably hard to get water, yeah, like, how did you get your water? By the way, cuz you can't carry that much weight. Water's heavy,
Laurie:so we used a camel back, so a water bladder, okay? And it was a two liter, and we'd fill up as often as we could
Lynn:stream at a stream, and then you had filters and stuff to keep we had drops
Laurie:we'd use, yeah, okay, certain streams were fine, but there was livestock around. Oh, no, I'd be using drops for sure. Yeah, there were dead things everywhere, everywhere. Yeah, yeah.
Lynn:I'd be worried about the water that. Yep. Did anybody get sick from water?
Laurie:Um, well, nobody's digestion was great the whole trip.
Lynn:But, oh, and that's the big question. Okay, I haven't, I haven't asked this question, but I must, how hard was it to have to go to the bathroom out there? And I'm not talking about the easy stuff. I'm talking about the heart. You just do it. You just go find a place and, yeah, go, yep,
Laurie:you just do it. I mean, what else are you gonna do? You can't hold Porta Potty with
Lynn:you? No, I'm just thinking, you know, I really like my toilet paper, and I'm doubting that y'all had the ability to carry much toilet paper with you.
Laurie:So, yeah, little little bits, we did have wipes, so Stevie recommended dehydrating, like those little facial wipes. Oh, God, I had packs of those, you know, for my face and certain parts where I have the body, yeah, clean every day, and then that, yeah, that was your toilet paper.
Lynn:Okay, well, there you go. See, it's so simple. I mean, of course, Stevie had the answers because she's done this, I know, but those are the silly little questions that I carry with me. Is like, okay, if I'm out there, how do I do this? Yeah, well, it
Laurie:was funny because Wendy and I spent a week in Montana in the summer to sort of train, and that was in the issue with that are bears, you know, the bears, and there are no bears here. So that was kind of a, that was
Lynn:a that was a relief, I'm sure, because, yeah, in Montana, and they're not the black bears that I have out my door. Those are Grizzlies in Montana. I've been there. You don't want to mess with Grizzlies. They're, they're like the crocodile of the alligator world.
Laurie:That was a much scarier bathroom experience in Montana.
Lynn:Yeah, yeah. I would think so, wow. Okay, well, that, okay, that, that, that question, that so you said you said you ended up with heat exhaustion. Tell me about how that what happened at the end. So how far did you go, and what happened then?
Laurie:Yeah, so I want to talk about that horse, because you'll, you'll love this. So we ride finally into the last horse station nine on day eight. And so this is where I'd let go of snail number two, Sweetie, sweetie, snail, um, and then we drop all of our gear off. And then we went, walked across the street to the to the Estancia where we camp. And I happened to go through this corral and this adorable little buckskin. He looked like a mini lucitano. Just bumped his forehead into my shoulder gently, like he said, Hi. I'm like, well, aren't you cute? And I took note of his his halter, number 392, I'm like, maybe I get to ride you, and I, I'm comfortable riding large horses, but he was, he was smaller, like my first horse was little tank. He was awesome. And this guy was, you know, maybe he was 15 hands, if that, um, just beautiful, very kind eye, just emanating love. Oh, yeah. And Wendy saw it, yeah, she saw the connection, which was even more special. So it wasn't like, yeah, imagine. So we go in camp. Have a have a good night. That was actually a really fun night. I got to sing with Kansas,
Lynn:and that would be magical. That's one of my that's one of my dreams. Is to be sitting around campfire singing with
Unknown:Kansas someday, yeah, yeah. We're actually in talks of maybe having her come to my farm this summer, but nice, yeah, to
Laurie:do a clinic anyway. So good night. Wake up, go. I feel good. I slept well, ate well, music, doing music always makes me energized. And then you go and you, you to get your horse. You pick a number out of a bag. Okay, so Polly, the race organizer, so we, I pick a number, and she, we go over to the corral, and she's like, No, I'm not putting you on him. I didn't even know which one it was. So then I pick another number, and it happened to be the biggest, like Monster LOOKING HORSE, like a monster version of a horse. Wow. I just said, you know, Holly, I'm adventure category. It's the end of the race. Can I pick someone else? She's like, Sure. So I look at the bag and 392 is facing out. Oh, I love it. So I'm like, I'm just getting that one. She's like, there you go. Because I had asked her, Can I ride this? She's like, No, you gotta go through the regular way. Yeah. It turned out my way
Unknown:anyway. So it turned the number showed itself to you. So you got, yeah, the little bugger skin, yeah?
Laurie:So kind of numerology in here? I had some good
Lynn:Yeah, yeah. That is so awesome. You know, cancer Kansas mentioned something that she had done as a practice before she went, which was that sort of heart breathing, which we did before we started this podcast together. And I've made it a practice. Might I've been used I've been working with it for years, but since working with Kansas, I've even, like, really amped it up. And she talked about sending energy to the horses before she even knew them.
Laurie:Yeah, that we talked about that there, yeah. And I tried to send positive energy when I chose my horse. And I did a lot of visualization
Lynn:before, yeah, yeah, yep. I will say that has, I've in the few times that I've been working in different environments, because I don't have my own horses. I ride everybody else's horses. So, like, I just was up at Stevie's and went to galloping workshop. Well, I did that with them. Before I went, I didn't even know who I was sending it to, but there was a knowing with them that I had, mm hmm, because it's almost like, Well, yeah, they didn't, hadn't met me before, but they had met me, yeah, yeah, you know, because I had been doing that. So that's a and to some degree, probably you had practiced, you know, you and the buckskin had somehow connected, maybe before,
Laurie:yeah, I think we had, so, yeah, I got on him. He's a little frisky, but nothing naughty. No spinners. I had no spinners. Thank Thank
Lynn:you. Luckily for you, because there was log like on works podcast, there was a lot of talk about, you know, he talked a lot about his concern for safety, yes, with the horses that were moving. And Kansas mentioned it as well, and mentioned safety. And, you know, Kansas can address it in a way that most of us can't. She's a trick she's a trick rider. Oh, brilliant. Ordinary balance, yes. So she just had lots of ways she's not afraid of riding out of balance, right? Somebody, somebody like me that's a beginner, getting on a spinning horse would be a really huge challenge for me, especially if it was a tall one. I'm tall, but, yeah,
Laurie:you know, no, I didn't want the spinners. And I didn't get a spinner. I visualized all calm horses. So maybe I, maybe I manifested the snails,
Lynn:possibly, I mean, but yeah, I mean, you actually visualized ahead of time, and
Laurie:then I visualized calm horses. Yeah, and
Lynn:tell me about your visualizations. Were you self guided? Did you have guided visualizations? What's your method for visualization?
Laurie:So when I was working out, I was visualizing the race. I was visualizing riding galloping, wasn't wasn't visualizing camping so much, but I visualized Wendy and I riding across the finish line, galloping, holding hands, which didn't happen. However, there was another part that we did gallop holding hands that's incredible. Oh so special. Laughing. We laugh at almost everything. So it was just absolute pure joy. Middle of nowhere, Patagonia galloping on fabulous horses in this grass, and there was a herd of wild horses in front of us. I mean, come on.
Lynn:I mean, is that not worth the price of admission, right there, like, that moment? Yeah, is, you know, it's like, it had to be in just magical, yeah, it really was, yeah, that's, that's amazing,
Laurie:yeah? So, so day nine, get on this great horse riding out with an amazing group of women, Wendy. There are two Wendy's, I don't want to say the other Wendy. There were just two women, amazing women named Wendy, Kayla Stephanie and Emily and myself. Just a few legs to go. We could see the we could taste the end beautiful day. It was warm. But you know, I don't, I'm it's hot where I live in the summer, and I it didn't occur to me, Oh, this is a hot day, so we're going a good ride. Emily had suffered from heat exhaustion a couple days before, so she started to not feel good. So we were pacing ourselves, doing nice but some really nice places for gallops with Mount Fitzroy in the background, just insane. And we all noted that at one point the we were in a gully, and my horse was so smart, he knew the way to go. You could see him, he would turn and say no and no this way. So we had to jump up probably 10 foot out of this gully, almost straight up. Wow. The girls were behind me, and they said, Oh my God, that looked like something from the man from Snowy River. Yeah. They said he lept up and you just stayed right with Him. And it was a blast. And I fully trusted him. I've never done that. So then we ride into the vet station. Everybody's fine, but we're waiting for the medic for Emily, because she's not okay and she's not sure if she should go on. Um, I'm doing fine. Got my water, had a snack, sat down, and suddenly it felt like, like I just disconnected from my brain, it I didn't feel sick, I wasn't nauseated. I was I was tired, but not like passing out. And so Wendy, not not my friend, Wendy, but Wendy, she saw what she had seen in Emily, saw that I. Was going down and it, yeah, in a couple minutes I was, I was uncontrollably shaking on the ground.
Unknown:Wow, it it was like, what
Laurie:it was like? I was having an out of body experience, like, what just happened? I have no idea what's going on. My horse is standing over me with his head like his nose up near my face. This is 392
Unknown:Yeah, oh, yeah,
Laurie:no. We were deeply connected. It was amazing. So Wendy's putting getting my shirt wet, putting it on me. I'm uncontrollably shaking. And finally, the medics Come give me some electrolyte, my heart rate wasn't even that high. I think it was 99 no fever. And then my friend Wendy touched my skin, and she quickly drew her hand back, and she said, Lori, you're on fire. Wow. And that's when I knew, Okay, so something's not right here. And Toby nomadic said, You, we can't let you ride on them. Yeah? And I just, I just burst into tears,
Lynn:oh, and you still feel it, yeah? Because your soul wanted to finish, but your body said, No,
Laurie:yeah, and Wendy, we wanted to do it together, yeah, um, and I told her to go on. And we had discussed, you know, the variations of what might happen, where one would go on, and this was clearly one that she needed to ride on. And it was, you had to come that far. And then, then, yeah, I sure did go into beating up by myself.
Lynn:Well, I can imagine you're like, I could have, what could've, would've, should've, and, yeah, probably it could have been no other way.
Unknown:Yeah, yeah. And it's only taken, you know, some weeks stepping back and looking at the big picture of of
Laurie:what, like, what could have contributed to that, yeah, which takes
Lynn:stock and, and you're still taking stock, and I don't want to interrupt or or interfere with what it is that you Need to settle into there. But if someone is listening and has had this kind of disappointment and maybe still struggling and beating themselves up, you know what kind of guidance might you have for someone that hasn't completed a big goal and yet there's so many lessons that you've harvested as well, what would you say
Laurie:yourself, pace yourself. I know it sounds really, really simple, and it's so hard for us to pace ourselves because we want to have the thing already done.
Lynn:Well, that's another piece of our conditioning, isn't it? Let's just get through to the end, yeah, and not record. You know, I think about the greatest coaches, and they talk about the process, and they don't even think about like, we're trying to win the national championship of whatever, whatever it's like, we're just going to go every day and show up for practice and do this thing. And maybe one of the biggest life changing things for me in the last few years, as I've gotten on this horse journey, is, I think of it as frame by frame. Just ride the you know, just ride the next step,
Laurie:yes, the next step, yeah, yeah, and learn to trust yourself. And I think it's, I know it's through doing hard things that that trust
Unknown:comes, and only through doing hard things right. And I, I
Laurie:wanted to circle back on on Valentine's Day and my exes, because I got, I got to the end, they so we were in a truck there, and got to the end, and we had no phone service there, which was fabulous, no cell service. And then the day, there was some Wi Fi. So my phone had a little bit and I happened to bump my message tab. I wasn't wanting to see anything. But it turned out that he had sent me a text on that day and said, thank you for all that you've done, for all the growth you've done, for all the changes you You've helped us make as a family. And this was unheard of
Unknown:years prior that I would hear something like that from him, and so I'm like, there it is. There's that healing, and that's helping not only him, but our kids.
Laurie:Yeah, that's the epigenetic generation.
Lynn:How beautiful that he acknowledged that.
Laurie:Yeah, I just burst into tears. War weeks there and Warwick and Kansas, we were in the dome together. I'm like, Oh, you guys, I just had epigenetic.
Lynn:I can't even say it epigenetically. So. So once they said you can't go on. Do they just carry you to the end where everybody's meeting? Do you have to drive to there
Laurie:again? Yeah, so we drove. So Emily and I, they, they told Emily not to go on.
Lynn:I knew Emily. I could tell Emily wasn't gonna make it either.
Laurie:Yeah. So at least we had each other, and we were both in the same spiraling, you know, thoughts of, oh,
Lynn:we're, we are off. I know you're yes, you're not,
Laurie:yeah, yeah. So it was only a 45 minute truck ride from there to
Unknown:finish camp, which is a fabulous place. Oh, my God, so fun.
Laurie:And yeah. Yeah. And then, luckily, there was a band, and I got to bang on a drum that day, which, yeah. And then met some other funny musician, guys that weren't part of the race, and I hung out with them, talked about music and and that helped me settle, helped my soul settle a bit.
Lynn:You know, I It's funny that you were talking about this whole, like, what it takes to do hard things and sort of how we like, I love that you've got something that's like your music to sort of fill your cup back up when you're feeling so down on yourself, on I don't remember. I think it was Saturday on CBS, they had a story about a guy, and I don't remember his name, but his whole point of the generation of kids that we've raised is that we don't let them do hard things. And he did that, and I'll try to probably get a link to this in the show notes, since it's coming up. But he he asks parents that are kind of like, let's, let's say 50 to 65 age range, asking questions. How old were you when your parents first let you out of the house without supervision? And I can remember actually being three years old and playing in the neighborhood, in the front yard with my mom being in the house. Oh yeah. And, and at five years old. I know I went around the block in the dark, it can on Halloween, did my own trick or treating. And I might have been with an older kid, but that was maybe a seven year old, you know. But I was, I know, I did those things. And he said that, that. And then he says, How old did you let your own child out to do those things? Yeah. And he said consistently, every time he does this presentation, they say six o'clock, six years old for them, and 10 to 12 years old for their kids. And he's it's not okay. And I know I was one of those helicopter parents myself, because I've actually seen parents who had the wisdom to let their kids fall down, bump their knees, be out on their own, have other parents threaten to call social services on them. It's just right and, and they're trying to, like, rewild their children, which we all need to be re wilded, yes, and, and they're called the terrible parent, you know. So you're under this pressure. But his point was, if you want autonomous self directed adults, you must allow for autonomous self directed kids, yeah, yeah. And what I feel like is happening with things like people doing the Gaucho derby is an opportunity for us to we do that for ourselves.
Unknown:The Wild is where we find our true self. Yeah, it's just, it's where we're meant to see ourselves. We don't have all the time, but the wild is the wild is the place
Lynn:that just brings me to tears, because it
Unknown:is yeah, it is yeah. I'll only be comfy, but then you go, go back.
Lynn:Where's the back to the wild. Look at you beaming. I wish we're not going to do video, but for those of you listening, Laurie is beaming when she says those words, and so am I. And that's, you know, I actually booked myself to go back to do a three day camping book with Stevie this summer. Oh, good, yeah. For this, you can see when I can go this very reason is like, I want to be back in the wild where I can find myself to see my true self again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's so magnificent. So, any closing thoughts on the before we move to epigenetic coach, any closing thoughts on because you kind of said you had an epigenetic healing right there at the end. So they're kind of both happening at the same time. But as it relates to the race, I just you know, you may have hit it with that last statement.
Laurie:Yeah, no, that that was big. Well, I did. I did ask everybody, the staff, the vets, the medics, can I just ride that beautiful horse over the finish line the next day. Oh, beautiful. One of the vets, she rode him back through the remainder of the race, which was, in fact, the hardest part, the medicine. What was
Lynn:coming? Yeah. And actually, aren't you kind of glad you didn't do that? Because it might have been a much worse, like you might have been in the helicopter.
Laurie:Person. That's what Wendy told me. She's like, Laura, I don't think you would have made it through it given your, you know, physical condition, yeah, not that. All things equal, I would have but yeah. So no, no, it, you know, I might not be here. Who knows life is always happening for us? So they let me ride him over the finish line. I have gorgeous pictures of it, and there was a little imposter syndrome for a while, but now I just stare at those pictures. And I that horse. He looks like spirit, the horse in the movie,
Lynn:he does. I saw that picture, yeah, yeah.
Laurie:And he No, we. I wish I could bring them home.
Lynn:You know, I heard so many of I heard Kansas say that about so many other horses. Yeah, and you know what I heard between the lines again, listening to her talk about it. And this has been a philosophy that's been very hard for me to grasp because of this agenda thing that we're taught, yes, I'm supposed to have the answers. I'm supposed to train the horse I'm supposed to know. And working with Bruce has dissuaded me of that notion completely. And his perhaps biggest mantra is, let the horse tell you what to do, when to do, how to do. Yeah, be your your job is to be the conduit. Yes, yeah. And what I hear from you, and what I heard from Kansas is, and you have to yield a little bit to do that, but that you were willing to yield to who the horses were, so that you all could work in harmony.
Laurie:Well, there's so much wisdom in yielding. It's so important that we yield more, and we generally don't.
Lynn:And yet, isn't that the way of nature? Yeah. What does a tree do when the wind blows right?
Unknown:It yields, yeah, yeah.
Lynn:So if we could only remember that, because we have forgotten what that looks like, too. And I think, you know, I do a lot of corporate work with teams, and some I remember where I was sitting in New York City. I'm the middle of Manhattan, and somebody asked me, what was the key to good teamwork? And this was an investment bank where things are a lot of sharp edges, a lot of, you know, elbow throwing and BSDs, which I won't describe, but people who know what it is, they know what that means. But the but, but I said, I said, I believe it's the extent to which the team members can yield to each other for the sake of the common goal. It is the core thing to a good team. Yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of wisdom in yield, yielding.
Unknown:Yeah, yeah. That makes me think of the team that I'm lucky to be a part of right now.
Lynn:So, yeah, and is that part of your business? This epigenetic? Alright? So we're going to transition to that, okay? Because I want, before we close, I want people to understand a little bit about who you are and what is an epigenetic coach. Because I don't know I'm putting, I'm making up stories based on the little bread crumbs you've given us. So tell, tell everybody about that.
Laurie:Yeah, so I'm a dietitian. Went studied animal science, then went back to school for human nutrition, and was a dietitian for a little while. Then home kids. Then, you know, probably five or six years ago, got back into it, and I learned about, yeah, looking at your DNA, lifestyle DNA, it's not medical diagnosis to guide some decisions, because everybody's guessing right, and we have this noise. We live in screaming space of supplements and exercise and foods, and it's always something new. We hold the wisdom already in our body, in our data we
Lynn:already have.
Laurie:So the the test that I run, we look at that, and there's certain areas that have more research. We focus on that. We pair it with lab work. What's actually going on with your body? It's not guesswork. Talk to the client, what are your challenges? What are your goals? And then we look at the the genetic propensities for what might be best for them in terms of exercise, types of fat, to eat, their sleep, their sleep genetics. We have ancient clock genes. Our circadian rhythm. The more follow what they're asking for, the better our health outcomes can be. So it's looking at that and guiding them, developing a plan and then and sticking with them through the changes, so little changes made over time
Lynn:and and what kind of things are you seeing happen for your clients when you do that?
Laurie:Well, one of the best compliments I recently got from a young woman, she said there was before Lori, and now there's after Lori. So she didn't necessarily have a lot of weight to lose, but we started with her sleep, and we worked on that, and so much improved from there. And that's you know, that that doesn't take long. Looking at your DNA to do, but sometimes it does help. We made adjustments to her diet, and that was it's indicated somewhat in her DNA. So it's changing how the genes express and right by what we do epigenetically.
Lynn:Could you define epigenetic? Yeah, for
Laurie:me, it's everything above the gene, okay, genome is the DNA, or DNA within us, and then EPI is everything above, okay, food we eat, the air we breathe, privacy.
Lynn:So it's the interaction, it's the part yes, yes, because those things feed our genes, obviously
Laurie:yes, and depending on what gene variants we have, those different substances can influence the enzymatic actions to turn the genes on or off, slow them down, make them move faster and and influence the outcome, health
Lynn:outcomes. Yeah, yeah, wow. That sounds powerful. It's gotta be satisfying for you to get to see those kind of changes, both in yourself, because you've been through this path yourself, I see
Laurie:Yes, yes, and that helped me move out of a very toxic situation,
Lynn:and then, and then to see what you can do for your clients. Yeah, yeah,
Laurie:yeah. Doing my DNA helped me get to the derby
Lynn:one step at a time, right? You didn't have any idea when you started, but there it was no, yeah, yeah. So, so if you were to go back, do you remember the moment when you decided to do the derby?
Laurie:I do, yeah? I well, I read the book, comfort crisis by Michael Easter.
Unknown:Oh, I love that book. Yes, yeah, brilliant.
Laurie:And I thought, well, what would my mazagi be? And I remembered hearing Eric and
Lynn:describe, what, what the, what the mazzagi
Laurie:means. Yeah, so the mazagi is a Japanese philosophy of doing something really hard. You It's 50% chance of completion and don't die. Those are the two rules. Yeah, that's the rules. Okay, yeah. So the thing I had done most in my life was ride horses off and on. Yeah, and I'd heard about the Mongol Derby, and then I thought I looked on the website, and then I saw the Gaucho Derby, and I've always wanted to ride horses in Patagonia, I don't know. Yeah, just the thing. So, yeah,
Lynn:so, so, so you, you, you made this decision. How long ago was it? When did you make the decision?
Laurie:That would have been August of 22 so I filled out the application. Pretty simple, simple application. I thought, well, I am so out of my league here. I'm just going to take it one step at a time. There's that pacing coming in. I looked at the cost. It's like I did see that I qualified for a loan. So I took a loan out for this. I'll be, you know, paying this for a while. It's worth it. And then I got the interview with Eric, and they asked for a video of me riding, and we had a great talk. And he said, Yeah, I think you're in I like your energy. That's what he said.
Lynn:That's so cool. Yeah. So what would Laurie of today tell August 22 or August of 22 Lori that made that decision,
Unknown:that you're not an imposter, you're fully capable of doing this.
Lynn:And you met the criteria. You didn't die, right?
Laurie:I didn't die, yeah? And, you know, I completed most of it.
Lynn:Well, you had a 50% chance going in, and actually, you weren't alone. There were, wasn't it? At least 50% of the people that were in the adventure category, in the end, wasn't quite 50, but it's close, because I was looking at the list, and it was pretty remarkable
Laurie:that, yeah, and some people were definitely medically retired for very serious issues. Thank goodness ever been fine? Yeah, just anything could happen. And these people had trained, they were endurance riders, yep, you know so, and I thought I felt very under qualified, except for a lot of the mindset work I've
Lynn:done, yeah, which I believe is, is some of the hardest work to do, and it's the most powerful. But I love what you said. You're not an imposter, yeah? And you can do hard things. Look at you being because it's true. And of course, you're going to be a little sad because you did want to finish, but look what you're claiming. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty special. Yeah, yeah. And I have go ahead, I was gonna say, do you have, what do you have as a picture for something next? Do you have a next in your mind? Are you going to continue processing this for the time being,
Laurie:still process? Sing. I'm bringing a lot of what I learned into my coaching, which I'm very grateful for, into my life. I'm simplifying, I'm saying no to things that don't feel energetically Correct. Really want to focus on music right now. I definitely want to ride again, but I have some cool opportunities to play drums. More, which, which, I that's very neat. That's very neat, and looking at going back next year, not to do the race again, necessarily, unless somebody wants to pay for it. So I'll throw that right. I really want to go back to Patagonia. A lot of more, lot more travel.
Lynn:So yeah, because travel is exciting now it's probably normal. Travel is probably like, yawn, boring. So well,
Laurie:yeah, and I lived overseas, and travel foreign, you know, a fair amount, but it had been a long time, and I forgot how much I missed it. I love Buenos Aires. I love being in a foreign culture. Just love it
Lynn:that is so beautiful. Have you thought about like, writing a book, doing a TED talk? Yeah, or even doing a TED like talk?
Laurie:You know, maybe a TED like talk. I have people asking for something at the farm. What I'd like to do is maybe do like a traditional Argentinian asado, which is the grill with the lamb, mm, here at my farm, and kind of talk about it. You know, I mentioned that I'm hoping to have Kansas come and do a clinic here. Yeah, could even do a gaucho girl presentation, or, I don't know, Oh,
Lynn:I love that idea. Yeah, be sure and film that, by the way, so that the rest of us can see it. Because not everybody's going to get to come to your planet, but if you film that talk or whatever, I know, I know people would want to see that. Yeah, and we
Laurie:definitely have bands. I always have music out here, and it's a great place. So that's what I'm looking at right now. Still, still settling in my son's graduating from university in a few weeks, so I've got that forward too.
Lynn:Yeah, exciting. Yeah, this is fabulous. Well, if someone is listening and they're thinking, Okay, I need an epigenetic coach. I need to, I'd like to get rid of the noise and start focusing on the signal of what my body's telling me and get some guidance. Yeah, how do they find you? Tell us how people find you. Yeah.
Laurie:So my website is genetically nourished.com.
Lynn:Okay, and we'll have this in the show notes.
Laurie:Okay. Facebook is just Lori Kaplan, yup. Instagram is at genetically nourished. Okay, so those are the easiest
Lynn:ways, right? And those will all be on the show notes as well. If you're listening, don't, don't try to write genetically nourish while you're driving, please. Anyway, in the car. Yeah, we can put my email there too, and we'll put your email in the show notes as well. So yeah, and, and actually go ahead and give it, if you don't mind. I'm sure people would appreciate having
Laurie:it, yeah? So it's, it's horseshoe girl. 14 at J
Lynn:That's easy enough. Horseshoe girl, yeah. And then the number fourteen@gmail.com Yeah, beautiful. Well, Lori, thank you for coming and satisfying and helping me scratch my itch for a lot of questions that I knew I had that I want to know about this adventure. And for those of you listening, if you love this podcast, please share it with others. And if you want more content like this, and want to know, be the first to know about my retreats or anything else that's going on, remember, you can sign up for the coaching digest at Lynn carnes.com in the meantime, we will see you on the next podcast. And thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to the creative spirits unleash podcast. I started this podcast because I was having these great conversations, and I wanted to share them with others. I'm always learning in these conversations, and I wanted to share that kind of learning with you. Now what I need to hear from you is what you want more of and what you want less of. I really want these podcasts to be a value for the listeners. Also, if you happen to know someone who you think might love them, please share the podcast and, of course, subscribe and rate it on the different apps that you're using, because that's how others will find it. Now, I hope you go and do something very fun today. You.