Welcome to the Landscaper's Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing podcast. My name is Jack Jostes, and if you're new here, welcome to the show. This show is all about giving you ideas to increase your sales, attract better clients through marketing, increase your recruiting, and enjoy a great lifestyle. Now, while this episode is a recap of a hunting trip, if you're not into hunting, don't worry about it. There's no animals in this. It's really more of just a great outdoor adventure. I went elk hunting with my cousin, John, who is a real estate photographer who recorded some of the video and photos that you're going to see in today's episode. And it was a great time. He's a deer hunter from Minnesota, learned a ton from him.
September Elk Hunt
We camped at around 10,200 feet, hiked up to 11,680 feet, and as low as 9,218 feet. We hunted along the east troublesome fire burn scar, which was a huge fire that we had here in Colorado last year. And we saw lots of signs of life along that burn scar, including new plant growth and vegetation, and then lots of fresh rubs, scat beds and wallows from elk. I also saw three bull elk, but the timber was so thick. It was, it was just incredible. And overall had a really just great time with my wife's cousin. It was, it was so much fun. And although we didn't harvest an elk this year, which I haven't, I have once, you know, in the, I think 12 years I've gone, I've gotten one. And last year I switched to doing archery hunting, which has been this whole new thing.
I realized that, that this was a major personal accomplishment for me on this trip. And I wanted to share with you that I had a major injury that I, that I overcame as part of my training for this elk hunt. So in high school, I actually had a couple of spine injuries doing gymnastics. One was on a trampoline and I had terrible chronic neck pain for years. And I tried a lot of different things over the years to help me with it. And one of the things in the last few years that absolutely made the biggest difference was I worked with a chiropractor, Alison Bremner, who later hired me to do her branding and website, which was really cool. And she's a cervical spine specialist. So through her chiropractic help doing yoga, some major changes to my diet, I lost a lot of weight.
Overcoming Challenges (Both Mental and Physical)
And that work with the chiropractor, got me to a point where I could really start lifting weights and rucking, which is essentially hiking with weight. And that was really the thing that, that felt great on this trip was not being in terrible pain. You know, as part of my training, I, I hike with weight, sometimes over 50 pounds, and three or four years ago, I had so many problems with my pain that I'd have these, these horrible headaches that I'd have to leave work, or I couldn't help my family pack up on a trip one time it was really debilitating. And so I wanted to share that with you, that combining one, getting help from somebody like a chiropractor, making some changes in my diet, and then really focusing on leg strength was the thing that really helped me get to this point.
It just felt great to be in the woods, hiking, taking pictures, and being able to carry the weight of my pack was just a major, major thing. But tying it to an adventure around my annual elk hunt was the thing that really inspires me to, to lift weights and exercise about five days a week now is to get ready for that adventure. So you don't need to start hunting or rucking or whatever, but I just wanted to share this story with you about, you know, picking something that really inspires you as a long-term goal, and then breaking it down into what are you going to do every week? And I know some of you watching this, I have clients, I have staff who have had injuries or neck pain or things like that. And it's, it's awful. And maybe, maybe the story will inspire you to find something that can help you with that.
Right now, I'm out on a hike and I'm wearing this hat from Business Builder Camp, which is a business coaching program led by Wayne Herring. And Wayne, you win the best hat of the summer award because I haven't had any black hats like this. They're really great at hiding sweat and dirt and stuff that kind of ruined all the rest of my hats during summertime. So good job. And one of the cool things that Wayne does as part of his group coaching program, business builder camp, is he has other coaches. And this year he brought in a strength coach, Pete Kotch. Pete is a retired professional football player and professional actor. He's been in movies with Clint Eastwood, and you've got to follow him on LinkedIn because he does this short video series, "Getting Stronger 30 Seconds at a Time" where he shares exercises throughout the week.
Are You Getting Stronger Or Not?
One of the things that I learned from Pete was well, one, some really great tips about nutrition, but more of a mindset thing of challenging me to get stronger. I had shared with him, I was rucking once a week. And he's like, "Why don't you do two?" I hadn't thought of going twice a week. And he's like, "What if you had a heavy day and a light day?" And he challenged the group one day saying, "Well, are you getting stronger or not?" And at Ramblin Jackson, one of our core values is grow or die. And something I wanted to share with you from my trip was this idea of capacity that I learned from, from Pete. Pete was talking about how, when you're, when you're exercising and you're lifting and you're growing, you're building capacity to do more and you always need to be building your capacity.
And that's really what grow or die is all about is it is doing things that challenge you that are hard that expand your capacity. Now this could be your emotional capacity. Maybe you're the leader of a company, and you've got to continually expand your emotional capacity. If you're leading people. You know, I had somebody leave my team. And even though it, it went well, it ended amicably, it's still extremely stressful. But that, that experience expanded my capacity to handle that sort of thing even better next time. And, and so that's really my question for you is what are you doing to expand your capacity, your skills capacity, your fitness capacity? And hopefully this gave you some ideas of how you can do that. While I was on the mountain, I felt like I had expanded my capacity because I was energized at the end of the day.
Your Capacity Can Change Over Time
When I first went elk hunting when I moved to Colorado, 12 years ago, I was extreme. I was actually obese and I was a cigarette smoker, and I drank, and I was terribly out of shape. And I could hardly keep up with the rest of the guys who lived in Colorado, who had been doing this trip every year. And a lot has changed since then. And a lot has changed even since last year, where at the end of the day, after these long hikes, I think one day we did seven, seven miles, which isn't necessarily a lot, but with the elevation gain and hiking over fallen timber and all of these things, it was a lot, but I felt really good. And, and that was, that was just a great feeling. One of the things that I did on this trip that I hadn't done on previous trips was I downloaded some meditations to my phone, to the Headspace app.
I recently started a daily meditation practice, and I did it while I was on this trip. And my surprising favorite thing was sleeping. I got some serious rest, and it was incredible not being online, not being on social media or reading the news or watching anything on YouTube, but just like resting and going to sleep. So I think it's really easy, especially if you run a business or you have a family or whatever, we all have things going on to forget the importance of rest.
So that was really simple, but it was, man, it was great. So go to sleep. So this is my second year doing bow hunting for elk. And I still have so much to learn. I, I let a friend dry fire my bow the week before. So I had to have my bow line replaced and that threw off a lot.
There, there were a lot of little logistics and details, but one of the things that gave me some perspective was that my, that Wayne, who is also a hunter, told me that this is going to be at least a five-year project to do back-country bow hunting successfully. And that was some sage advice that, that while I was out there just, okay, here I am, year two of potentially five or more. And hunter success is only 10% anyways. So one of every 10 years, or you have a 10% chance each year you go, but it's really the adventure that makes it worth it. And in business, it reminds me, I had another coach, Al Killeen, who very early on told me that it takes 10 years to build a business. That was kind of disheartening to hear, 'cause I was in the third year and really struggling.
Continuing To 'Grow Or Die'
And it was also really great to know, okay, I've got a long way to go and here's where I'm at. So what are, what are you up to in five years, 10 years? Do you have any big projects or goals that, that you're chipping away towards and how can you build your capacity along the way? How can you get stronger? How can you continue to grow or die? Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of the Landscaper's Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing podcast. Now, if you're enjoying this show, wherever you're listening to it, give me a rating, give me a rating, help other landscapers find this podcast. And I want to invite you to come to some of our upcoming events. I'm doing a book launch at the GIE expo. We're having a party with dinner and drinks and the stump game. We've got some virtual events. We've got our second annual landscaper summit coming up. So check those all out and register. Join me this fall for at least one of those events at landscapersguide.com/events. My name is Jack Jostes, and I look forward to talking with you next week.